Song 13:
"Action” by Sweet
Peak: 20
Year: 1976
Year end position: NA
Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/5
Chronological Songs by Artist: 4/5
Video?: No
Spotify?: Yes
One of
the great pleasures of putting together this blog is that not only do I get to
revisit songs that I had long forgotten, but I discover new songs that I never
really knew existed. Today is a great example of the
latter. I really, really like this song. The first time I
heard it, I liked it. Then I did some research on the song, and it
only made me like the song more. We’ll get to that a little bit
later.
First,
there’s a lot of good information about this song we need to get
to. As you may have noticed, this is the second consecutive song
named “Action”. This happens a lot. As of this writing,
there are 642 different song titles that have hit the top 20 more than
once. For a lot of those songs, the reason for that is because they
are re-makes of an original song. This was especially prominent in
the 1950s, when a song like “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” had four different
versions hit the top 20 in 1955. In the interest of time, and as a
writing concept, I’m probably going to consolidate those songs together into
one post. However, today is not one of those
days. “Action” by Sweet and “Action” by Freddy Cannon are totally
different songs so they get separate entries. In case you are wondering
which I decide to write about first, the first tiebreaker is peak chart
position. The version that made it higher on the charts comes
first. Since there are several songs that have had the same peak
(especially #1), the second tiebreaker is the year. Earlier songs
come first. Freddy Cannon’s “Action” hit #13 while Sweet’s version
hit #20, so Freddy Cannon’s entry comes first.
I was
marginally familiar with the band Sweet before listening to this
song. Surprisingly, they have a lot in common with Freddy Cannon
other than this one song title. Both acts managed to chart 5 songs
in the top 20. All of Sweet’s songs came within a 6 year period,
while all of Freddy’s songs came within a 7 year span. In a very
strange coincidence, if you figure out the average for the peak positions for
their respective top 20 hits, they each have the exact same 8.2
average. Both also had their best songs peak at #3 on the
charts. That’s a strange amount of synergy for two acts that seem
quite a bit different, style-wise.
For
those that recall the Freddy Cannon posts, he had a bulk of his hits in the
pre-Beatles 60s. His songs were upbeat and fun. Sweet
came along a little more than a decade after Freddy, and their sound seems
almost foreign when you listen to them back to back. Sweet was a
glam rock band from England. Glam was a style of music that was
developed largely in England in the 70s, and some of the main features of the
movement were a certain amount of outrageousness with clothes and make-up, as
well as a touch of androgyny. The movie “Velvet Goldmine” depicts
this era somewhat in case you are interested in getting a better idea about it.
The
song “Action” was Sweet’s 4th entry into the top 20 on the US
charts. It was the only one they had that didn’t make it into the
top 10. As with the Freddy Cannon “Action”, it seems impossible to
me to have a song entitled “Action” that is not fast-paced. The song
title pretty much demands it, and Sweet does not let it down. The
song is guitar-laden and fast. The best part of this song, in my
opinion, is the attitude that Sweet uses in writing and delivering the
song. The back story to this song is that it was written as a
criticism of the rock press. Sweet seem to be in total rock star
mode in this song. It’s like they have made it big enough that they
no longer feel the need to play any more games. They obviously have
huge egos and aren’t above letting everyone know it.
I
especially enjoy the lines “You’ve got to recognize my superiority” and “There
was a time when I would have walked the line / but you bled me dry with your
insatiable greed”. These don’t seem like lyrics you write because
you think the kids will like them. They read like a giant middle
finger to the press, which is what I think they were meant to
be. It’s a strange strategy to take, but if you think you are big
enough, then why not? It makes rock and roll more fun.
If you
want to see Sweet performing this song, there is a video of them playing it on
“Top of the Pops”. I loved it. It captures the time
perfectly. The outfits are perfect examples of the glam
aesthetic. My favorite part of the video is seeing all the kids in
front of Sweet. They seem totally apathetic that Sweet is playing
right behind them. It is obvious that these kids are not the biggest
Sweet fans, but yet they are there. It’s a strange dynamic and fun
to watch. Much like Sweet themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment