Winged Bull

Cover of Beauty on a Back Street

Bobby Gale tweeted about "Out Of Touch". He's got a regular routine going, Song Gem Of The Day. Follow him at: http://twitter.com/Bobby_Gale

"Out Of Touch" is off "Big Bam Boom", not a bad Hall & Oates album if you're into their later period, cut before they jumped to Arista and Clive killed their career (just ask them...) But it doesn't compare with "Winged Bull".

I visited Hall & Oates in the record store. I saw their "Abandoned Luncheonette" album. Was always interested in the band, any act produced by Todd Rundgren got my attention, but I didn't lay down my cash until "Bigger Than Both Of Us". It was "Rich Girl".

"You're a rich girl and you've gone too far 'Cause you know it don't matter anyway You can rely on the old man's money You can rely on the old man's money..."

What was so fucking great about "Rich Girl" was there was no introduction. No deejay could speak over a superfluous instrumental, Daryl Hall started singing from the VERY BEGINNING!

So intimately. Like he was sitting next to a princess on the couch, reading her the reality act. But then the guitar stuttered, the strings came in like a Barry White record and suddenly you were surfing the stratosphere, on a magic carpet that lasted another two minutes... Shit, it lasted FOREVER! Because you had to hear the song again and again and AGAIN! Some songs, some tracks are just so RIGHT that you wonder how you lived without them previously. It's like stumbling on an oasis in the desert, you sport a shiteating grin as you partake of the elixir.

I drove straight to the record store. And "Bigger Than Both Of Us" delivered. Dial up "Do What You Want, Be What You Are"...it could only be cut by denizens of Philadelphia, Hall & Oates may have been white, but they'd completely digested the black music of the metropolis, they distilled it absolutely perfectly, and like all great soul music, "Do What You Want, Be What You Are" is not dated in the least, it sounds just as fresh today as it did back in '76.

Then came "Beauty On A Back Street"... You know, the follow-up album with a wannabe hit that stiffs and takes the whole album down the toilet with it.

That wannabe hit was the opening number, entitled "Don't Change"... Whew! How to explain how much I love this number. Like stumbling into a dim basement at two in the morning and being injected with speed. You know perfect singles that are so perfect they're too good for the radio? That's "Don't Change".

And despite trying, Hall & Oates didn't break through again for years. The Hall & Oates you hate, the yacht rock band, was born years later, on another stiff album entitled "Voices" that suddenly came alive with "Kiss On My List" and "You Make My Dreams".

The band had been playing clubs. They'd even resorted to doing covers, like we needed another take of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". But "You Make My Dreams"... It was like "Rich Girl", it exploded out of the radio, from the very first note you were hooked. Instead of sounding calculated, "You Make My Dreams" seemed to be a middle finger to the business, something dashed off in an instant that made the band happy, damn the industry.

Listen to the track... What makes it so great? That incredible keyboard change, the "oohs", that incredible change two thirds of the way through or Daryl Hall's vocal...so off the cuff, so right.

Suddenly, Hall & Oates were back on the hit parade. DESERVEDLY SO!

Still, my favorite Hall & Oates number comes from further back, on that stiff album entitled "Beauty On A Back Street". "Winged Bull" is buried deep in the second side, the second to last track, but one listen was enough to stop you in your tracks.

Let's say you had a bad day. You wanted to come home and put on a record. This was 1977 not 2010, when all music is bottom-heavy and in your face. Subtlety's out the window, today you're immediately going for the balls and the tits, you want to squeeze both. But would you ever fall in love with someone who approached you this way?

Doubtful.

So, you come home from that bad day, and you want a track that soothes you, that's not wimpy, that radiates quality. An adventure, that sets your mind free.

That's "Winged Bull".

Like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Mountain if they were trying to please a girl. There's an otherworldly caterwaul, and then Daryl comes in from the wings, singing so sweetly.

But this ain't no tender trap, a nauseatingly sweet number that makes you puke, the instrumentation evidences an ethereal quality, and as the number progresses, it build in intensity. Its four minutes and thirty six seconds are a tour de force.

And it's these tours de force that made us music fanatics, had us addicted, going to the record store each and every week on a hunt for magic. And the acts knew we were looking, so they tried to satiate us. Music wasn't cheap, it wasn't lowest common denominator, anything but... The acts were shooting for the stars, and we were boarding that rocket ship without a second thought, like the earthlings boarding the spaceship in that famous "Twilight Zone" episode, "To Serve Man".

I'm not a fan of hits, I'm a fan of music.

I don't give a shit what you say about Hall & Oates' eighties outfits, their videos, you're missing the point. These are extremely talented guys who kept experimenting, and persevered so long they could throw off Top Forty hits with no effort. And for this you criticize them?

That's a talent. To create something so ear-pleasing, something so IRRESISTIBLE! You wanna know why no one is interested in your career, why you can't get any traction, why no one gives a shit? Just spin "Rich Girl" or "You Make My Dreams" or any other one of Hall & Oates' monster hits and then play one of yours...see the difference?

But I'm not talking about the hit here. I'm talking about the album track. Because it used to be the hits were the invitation, the gold atop the surface that got you to dig, to find the subterranean gems.

"Winged Bull" is a masterpiece.

The fact that few know it is irrelevant.

The best music takes you away to a special place where nothing else matters, where you feel powerful, where you feel understood.

That's "Winged Bull".

Track 8, LISTEN!: http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&albumid=8084394&friendid=192662184