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๐ต๐Tune Tag #4 with Andrew Smith (Goatfury): Ambrosia, Genesis, Beatles, Jennifer Holliday, Phil Collins, Stephen Stills
It's wild! It's wooly! It's the magical musical game of Tune Tag! One song leads to another, with surprising twists and turns in style, era, and genre! Join the fun!๐ถ
FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE recently asked Andrew Smith of Substackโs โGoatfury Writes,โ to guest-post a bit of his โOld-School Punk Primerโ:

We both lived to see another day (and received glowing notices!), so we asked Andrew to return for a round of Tune Tag!
Tune Tag veterans will know that, ideally, each track Andrew and I send the other will have some tie-in with the one previously sent! Whether thematically or musically, the challenge is to pick a common element for a song to send to the other player.
Please note: The comments written by each Tune Tag player are written in real time, before each see the comments from the other! In other words, Andrew wonโt see my comments until this is published (and, I only saw his after I had written mine)!
Play along with Andrew and me, if youโd like (which song would you follow with? Leave us a comment!), and consider playing Tune Tag with a friend!
๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐
Andrewโs #1 Song Sent to Brad: Ambrosia, โHow Much I Feel,โ 1978
Andrew: This song hits me directly โin the feels,โ as the kids say. I used to sing this song to Molly when she was alive. Molly (shown above with Andrew) was our senior dachshund, and my soulmate for six years. We did everything together, and she had a way of sleeping โin my belly,โ under my hoodie. Now, the powerful longing to be with someone you canโt be with continues to speak directly to my soul today.ย
I also grew up listening to this song, and Iโm sure some of that nostalgia bleeds through to today. The lyrics and music combine to haunt me, too: itโs not a simplistic song by any stretch, and even though it fits nicely in with the Yacht Rock genre, itโs far from a trivial song. Wistfulness combines with longing and sorrow in search of happiness.

Bradโs response: Big fan of Ambrosia since their 1975 debut. I had just started as a 20-year-old DJ at Houstonโs KLOL-FM radio, Space Cityโs top โprogressive rock station.โ I distinctly remember them being promoted (and written about in the rock press) as a โprogโ band, something they quickly, and just as certainly, drifted (if not rocketed) away from.
Members: Keyboardist Christopher North, guitarist/vocalist David Pack, bassist/vocalist Joe Puerta, and drummer, Burleigh Drummond. Puerta added lyrics to a poem by Kurt Vonnegut from his Catโs Cradle, while the band composed the music for โNice, Nice, Very Nice,โ their big โprogโ hit performed live, here, from December 1976:
Bradโs #1 Song Sent to Andrew: Jennifer Holliday, โHe Ainโt Special (Heโs Just the One I Love),โ 1987
Andrewโs response: Itโs possible that I heard this song in 1987, but itโs also entirely possible that I completely missed out. Holliday sounds a lot like Taylor Dayne, but less powerful. I stronglyย suspect that this song was picked due to the lyrics above all else; that feeling I described with Ambrosia? It's right here in the lyrics:
He ainโt special
Heโs just the one I love
He ainโt special
The only one Iโm dreaming of
Clearly, we are stuck on a doom loop of wistfulness! Thatโs not really a bad thing, though. I picked my next song in direct response to the lyrics above.
Brad: Jennifer, of course, burst onto the scene with her star turn in Broadwayโs Dreamgirls, and this song (a televised performance from the late โ80s, about 6 years after I saw Jennifer and Dreamgirls on Broadway in 1982, writing about it here).
Second, the linking reason I sent Jenniferโs โHe Ainโt Special (Heโs Just the One I Love)โ to Andrew is because it was produced, arranged, and written by Ambrosia lead singer, David Pack and former Doobie Brother, Michael McDonald. Itโs from Jenniferโs 1987 Get Close to My Love album on Geffen Records.
Pack, now 71, released his debut solo album two years beforeโฆ1985โs Anywhere You Go, an album I owned on cassette, and on which I recently performed an Audio Autopsy:
Along with the title track, this oneโs a favorite, written by Pack, McDonald, and fellow pop singer, James Ingram. The melodic and harmonic dynamism (not to mention the monstrous barre chords here!) on this track is evident in the 1987 Holliday song:
Andrewโs #2: Stephen Stills, โLove the One Youโre With,โ 1970
This 1970 song has served as an excellent example of stoicism. This bit always gets me:
Turn your heartache right into joy
โCause sheโs a girl and youโre a boy
Get it together, make it nice
You ainโt gonna need any more advice.
And, the haunting tune that accompanies Stephen Stillsโ lyrics is perfect for the subject matter:
Bradโs #2: Seals & Crofts, โHummingbird,โ 1972
Andrewโs response: I think that weโre really in a wistful loop here, but never fear: weโll escape soon! Thereโs an awful lot of regret and a genuine desire to reconnect and preserve something that might be about to escape, so thereโs a similar sense of desperation.
Brad explains the link: Rita Coolidge and her sister, Priscilla Coolidge (known then as Priscilla Jones, as she was married to musician Booker T. Jones (known for co-writing his โGreen Onionsโ hit in 1962 with his Booker T. & the MGs) sang back-up on Andrewโs Stephen Stills song, โLove the One Youโre With.โ
In 1997, Priscilla became one of the founding members of Walela, a Native-American inspired trio (pictured above). Walela, in the Cherokee language, means โhummingbird.โ Hence, I landed on the โ73 hit by Seals & Crofts. A long, crafty thread, indeed, but Tune-Tag legal!
Andrewโs #3: Rudimentary Peni: โThe Gardenerโ
Bradโs response: Iโm guessing Andrew took the hummingbird, and chose a song about someone who works in and around where hummingbirds flitter, namely a gardener.
Andrew: I wanted to pick up on both the sound and the lyrics here: Rudi P has a wide range of songs, and their lead singer, Nick Blinko (in photo above, posing in front of his artwork, which adorns most of his bandโs record jackets), spent some time in a mental asylum, where a lot of his creative energy seems to stem from. The uniqueness of the band is showcased here.
When Seals & Crofts said,ย
Alas here comes the gardener; heโs come to till the flowers,
The draught of understanding; Wisdom, peace, and love is ours,
this brought me straight to Rudi Pโs garden, where the roses โhave no thornsssssss.โ Weโve taken a more mysterious, creepy turn. I like it.
[Brad: And, the sheer wonder of Tune Tag is on full display here, as there could be no more disparate musical artists as the โ70s soft-rockinโ, faithful Bahรกสผรญ followers and these โ80s British anarcho-punkers!]
Bradโs #3: Genesis โI Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe),โ 1974
Brad: Nowhere else to go with The Gardener than โover the garden wall, two little lovebirdsโฆ..โ, which is where we go with my least favorite song from my favorite prog band from my favorite Genesis era (the early-โ70s Peter Gabriel-led years), and my favorite album of theirs, Selling England by the Pound.
Andrewโs response: Brad really picked up on the โcreepyโ vibe here, and the lyrics once again pick up the โgardenโ metaphor.
Andrewโs #4: Beatles, โI Feel Fine,โ 1964
Andrew: Straight up: I heard the intro of โI Know What I Like,โ and that riff and feedback took me straight here. I grew up on The Beatles: They were the first band I really fell in love with, probably around age 11 after seeing Beatlemania: The Movie (released in summer 1981).ย
Weโve turned from wistful to downright fine, and I like it.... but of course, The Beatles arenโt merely happy even when theyโre โhappy.โย
Bradโs response: Iโve never โheardโ the feedback intro to โI Feel Fineโ when I listened to โWardrobe.โ Again, the beauty and wonder of separate lives and different musical experiences.
I love Andrewโs โI grew up on The Beatlesโ sentiment and following. Although, it wasnโt a movie that did it for me: I was 8 in February 1964 when I witnessed the pop cultural watershed moment of their live Ed Sullivan Show appearance. That story here:
Bradโs #4: Phil Collins, โSomething Happened on the Way to Heaven,โ 1990
Andrewโs response: This is almost like fast-forwarding a few years after โI Feel Fine.โ It really feels like the narrative picks right up here. Also, Iโm pretty sure I couldnโt get away from hearing this song for about 3 weeks in the spring of 1990. I sure tried!
Bradโs rationale for linking a Collins song to Andrewโs Beatles song: The only thing I can figure is that Andrew mustโve somehow known that Collins was in the audience during a concert scene for the A Hard Dayโs Night filming! I mean, WHAT?!?๐ฑ
Well, he was. Phil Collins, as a paid 13-year-old extra, was actually in the audience to see The Beatles filming a scene in A Hard Dayโs Night at the Scala Theatre in London. Shot on March 31, 1964, the scene was ultimately cut from the film!
Phil tells the story to Conan OโBrien in the โ90s:
๐ต๐Tune Tag #4 with Andrew Smith (Goatfury): Ambrosia, Genesis, Beatles, Jennifer Holliday, Phil Collins, Stephen Stills
Ha! These are great, and certainly unexpected. It's awesome to hear first-hand stories around some of the songs I grew up with, Brad. Very cool and fun!
It's also neat to see how different (but interesting) our brains are!
โLike Taylor Dane but less powerful.โ Oh Andrew. ๐คฃ