{"id":269,"date":"2010-02-02T20:05:19","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T03:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=269"},"modified":"2010-02-02T20:06:10","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T03:06:10","slug":"song-of-the-day-serenade-by-steve-miller-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=269","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Day &#8211; &#8220;Serenade&#8221; by Steve Miller Band"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paddington Bear fucking LOVES <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1KTRpu2E3pw\" target=\"_blank\">this song<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Paddington-Bear-431x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-270\" title=\"Paddington-Bear-431x300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Paddington-Bear-431x300-300x208.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Paddington-Bear-431x300-300x208.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Paddington-Bear-431x300.jpg 431w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>No wait&#8230; that&#8217;s MARMALADE he likes.<\/p>\n<p>Onward.<\/p>\n<p>But first&#8230; isn&#8217;t the world of Winnie the Pooh a little ridiculous?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Winnie-the-Pooh-and-friends.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-271\" title=\"Winnie the Pooh and friends\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Winnie-the-Pooh-and-friends-299x300.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Winnie-the-Pooh-and-friends-299x300.gif 299w, http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Winnie-the-Pooh-and-friends-150x150.gif 150w, http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Winnie-the-Pooh-and-friends.gif 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 299px) 100vw, 299px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThis is more like it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/PoohMurder.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-272\" title=\"PoohMurder\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/PoohMurder-285x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"285\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/PoohMurder-285x300.jpg 285w, http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/PoohMurder.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 285px) 100vw, 285px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nAnyway, this song really takes me back.\u00a0 Back in 1992, when I started listening to &#8220;Classic Rock&#8221;, Steve Miller was among the first artists to get my attention.\u00a0 Of course, everyone has heard the songs that comprise his &#8220;Greatest Hits&#8221;.\u00a0 Most of them are taken from two albums.\u00a0 Fine, fine albums.\u00a0 A little to polished sometimes, but great stuff.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/SteveMillerBandGreatestHits1974-78.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-273\" title=\"SteveMillerBandGreatestHits1974-78\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/SteveMillerBandGreatestHits1974-78-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/SteveMillerBandGreatestHits1974-78-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/SteveMillerBandGreatestHits1974-78-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/SteveMillerBandGreatestHits1974-78.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The sound he had at the time was the result of recording everything at home and being able to spend as much time as he wanted doing overdubs, re-recording things and generally perfecting his records.\u00a0 &#8220;Fly Like an Eagle&#8221; and &#8220;Book of Dreams&#8221; were the results.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my version of Stevie &#8220;Guitar&#8221; Miller&#8217;s story:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Started playing Blues-Rock around San Francisco, where he had moved from Texas.\u00a0 It was 1967, so no one gave him a hard time about it.<\/li>\n<li>Formed the &#8220;Steve Miller Blues Band&#8221;, shortly shortened to the &#8220;Steve Miller Band&#8221;.\u00a0 He was always the center of attention, even when Boz Scaggs was doing his thang in the band.<\/li>\n<li>Released not one, not two, but four amazing psychedelic blues-rock albums.<\/li>\n<li>Released a great blues-rock album while his band disintegrated.<\/li>\n<li>Watched as his record company slapped together some barely finished tracks and jams with a side of live jamming and called it an &#8220;album&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Recorded an album, and watch as his record company &#8220;finished&#8221; it for him with outside musicians so they could profit from his name.<\/li>\n<li>Came back with a big &#8220;Fuck you, here&#8217;s how it&#8217;s done&#8221; and released an amazing album.<\/li>\n<li>Got into a vehicle accident and broke 3 vertebrae.<\/li>\n<li>Moved back home to Texas to rest and recover and crafted two of the most listenable, singalongy, dancealongy albums known to man, where damn near every track was a #1 hit or at least got a hell of radio play.<\/li>\n<li>Released albums during the 80s, which were required (by law, apparently) to sound fucking terrible.<\/li>\n<li>Had one final kick at the can and released his final studio album in 1993, with out of tune vocals WAY too fucking loud and drums barely detectable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;d fix that last album if I could.\u00a0 If I had access to the master tapes, I&#8217;d get his vocals autotuned (you can do it so that it doesn&#8217;t sound artificial, just in tune.\u00a0 see: every major fucking Top-40 &#8220;singer&#8221; today) get them lower in the mix, pump up the drums, removing the reverb from them, and give it a final, cleaned up mix with everything louder than everything else.<\/p>\n<p>That last line is an inside joke.\u00a0 See: &#8220;Made in Japan&#8221; by Deep Purple.<\/p>\n<p>So if you&#8217;ve ever been interested in some Steve Miller, get the 60s and 70s stuff only.\u00a0 The 80s stuff has its moments&#8230; but my god, some of it is goddamned atrocious.\u00a0 From that time on is when he insisted on having his &#8220;past-his-peak&#8221; vocals mixed way too fucking loud on every album.\u00a0 In the 70s, he could sing.\u00a0 Especially in the late 70s, he could whip almost anyone&#8217;s ass in that department.\u00a0 I think he was just out of practice in the 80s.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when he started to go out of tune.<\/p>\n<p>Sigh.<\/p>\n<p>Those two albums I mentioned above, the ones the record company finished for him, have never been released on CD.\u00a0 As far as I know anyway.\u00a0 There might be bootlegs of them, but not officially.\u00a0 I do however have them both on CD and on my iPod.\u00a0 You see, I have a record player!\u00a0 And I have a sound card in my computer!\u00a0 And I have audio editing software that can remove all kinds of noise and make those records sound damn near CD quality.<\/p>\n<p>Some of those tunes ain&#8217;t half bad.\u00a0 They could have made one fucking HELL of a 4-song EP out of those two albums.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe 3 songs, because one of the killer tunes, the best one on either album, is kind of long.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gnnw0jkWLW8\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s an edited-down version<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So, as usual, I&#8217;m not even discussing the song.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an incredible tune.\u00a0 it just chugs along.\u00a0 I get the impression of big gear wheels slowly but inexorably turning constantly around.\u00a0 The song has everything you&#8217;d need for a pop song, and nothing else.<\/p>\n<p>Most of his singles from the late 70s are like that.\u00a0 One of them even has a whole crate of papaya.\u00a0 A whole crate!<\/p>\n<p>For some reason this song makes me think of eating BBQ steak and drinking beer.\u00a0 Ah, my youth.\u00a0 I miss both elements.\u00a0 I fucking love the taste of beer.\u00a0 but I&#8217;ve had enough.\u00a0 Bring on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=X6u1ivbKs7A\" target=\"_blank\">the steak<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paddington Bear fucking LOVES this song! No wait&#8230; that&#8217;s MARMALADE he likes. Onward. But first&#8230; isn&#8217;t the world of Winnie the Pooh a little ridiculous? This is more like it. Anyway, this song really takes me back.\u00a0 Back in 1992, when I started listening to &#8220;Classic Rock&#8221;, Steve Miller was among the first artists to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[69,101,46,163,162,161],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-day","tag-60s","tag-70s","tag-80s","tag-blues-rock","tag-record-company-malfeasance","tag-steve-miller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}