Celebrity Jukebox #80: Faron Young

I've made the argument before that certain celebrities are better known (in certain circles, at least) for the song that's named after them than for their own individual renown. I certainly discovered Faron Young through a song that took his name... though his fame (and notoriety) influenced many others, including Peanuts creator Charles Schultz who gave the name Faron to a cat in his long-running comic strip.

Iffypedia (and a number of other websites that have lifted their info straight off iffypedia) reports that: "A country song by Tex Garrison mentions Faron Young in his opening lyrics with the lines 'Got a stack of records when I was one, listened to Hank Williams and Faron Young.'" This, however, appears to be a good example of why we shouldn't believe everything we read on the interweb, since I can't find any other reference to that lyric... or the singer Tex Garrison... anywhere online. It appears to be a load of bunkum... unless you know differently.

Because country musicians love name-checking the great and good of their community, there are loads of records that do mention Faron... alongside the likes of Willie, Waylon and the rest. Here are a few examples...

Johnny Cash - Let There Be Country

Red Sovine - Freightliner Fever

Dale Watson - Nashville Rash

Tim Wilson - Acid Country

Jay Lee Webb - Tootsie's Wall

Then there's a couple than are a little more specific...

WD Miller - Barroom For A Shelter

They got a jukebox and a bar that's full of drinkers
But Faron Young's the only voice I hear
If misery loves company then why do I feel so lonely
With a broken heart as a souvenir

Summer Dean - Queen of the Clowns

The jukebox played Faron
And she started to think
If Faron Young were here
He would buy me a drink

Next, we have the Bottle Rockets, with a song all about choices...

Sometimes open sometimes closed
Sometimes young sometimes old
Sometimes begging sometimes proud

However, when they get to Faron... there doesn't appear to be any alternative.

Sometimes Faron... Faron Young.

The Bottle Rockets - Sometimes Found

But if country music isn't your thing... well, if country music isn't your thing then you're probably not reading this. Still, here's the modestly monikered One Star...

One Star - Astrolama (Faron Young Mix)

And now, the one you've all been waiting for: Paddy. But is Paddy a fan, that's the question? Well, clearly he's a country music fan, since the name "Prefab Sprout" came from mishearing the lyrics to Jackson: he really should have called his band "Peppered Sprout". But the song Faron Young isn't really about Faron. It's more about his biggest hit, Four In The Morning, and how things like that can become so ubiquitous they lose their original intent. In the song, Paddy is driving through America looking for something real, something new, something he's never experienced before... but all he finds are the clichés.

You offer infrared instead of sun
You offer bubble gum
You give me Faron Young, 
Four in the morning

Initially, Paddy had written the tune but didn't have a lyric. He asked the band's drummer, Michael Salmon, to give him a word to base the song on, and Salmon suggest "antiques". Which is why the lyric begins thus...

Antiques!
Every other sentiment's an antique
As obsolete as warships in the Baltic

Four In The Morning was a hit from 1971, yet it was still everywhere in the mid-80s... it was the first music video played on Country Music Television in 1983. So I guess it was an antique by then, and a perfect metaphor for what Paddy was saying. Perhaps Faron Young felt the same. By 1996, he felt so abandoned by the world of country music that he took his own life. 

Faron Young had the lowest chart placing of any of the singles released from Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen album. But it's still a classic.

Postscript...

In 2016, The Blazing Zoos finally gave Four In The Morning the sequel it deserves...

It's four in the morning and I'm listening to Four In The Morning
Faron Young never sung anything quite like he sung this one
Don't string her along, Don't treat her wrong
Guilt pays you back in the end

You can see I'm past caring
Please tell me, Faron
Why am I still up at five?

The Blazing Zoos - Still Up At Five

My Top Ten Price Tag Songs

80p for a bag of crisps? I remember when you could get a bag of crisps for 12p!

Back in the early 90s, I briefly considered trying to get a mortgage for a £50,000 house. I decided against it: who wants a mortgage when they're in their early 20s? That same house is worth over £200,000 now.

You'd think pop stars wouldn't worry so much about the price of things... but then again, there's very few millionaires in the list below (with the possible exception of Tom: he must be worth a bob or two).


10. Eileen Rose - $20 Shoes

$20 is about the maximum I would pay on shoes. I realise this makes me some kind of relic. But I'd rather spend money on records.

9. The Fall - The $500 Bottle Of Wine

That's all you get most of the time
For all the life in crime
The 500 bottle of wine...

8. Ruth Etting - Ten Cents A Dance

Written by Rodgers & Hart, recorded in 1930. I miss David Jacobs.

If you don't fancy dancing with Ruth, you could always spend the same amount on a pistol from The Black Keys.

7. Ezra Furman - Maraschino Red Dress $8.99 At Goodwill

From the new album, Transangelic Exodus, which is pretty good.

(You'll have to take my word for it though because I couldn't find the track online and didn't have time to upload it.)

6. Tom T. Hall - Back When Gas Was Thirty Cents A Gallon

Don't even get me started on the price of petrol these days, Tom.

5. The Bottle Rockets - Thousand Dollar Car

If you only got a thousand dollars
You outta just buy a good guitar
Learn how to play and it'll take you farther
Than any old thousand dollar car
If a thousand dollar car was truly worth a damn
Then why would anybody ever spend ten grand
Oh, why did I ever buy a thousand dollar car?

The Handsome Family do a pretty good version of this too, available here.

4. Eels - $200 Tattoo

A drunken first date deal to each get a tattoo might seem like something both parties would come to regret, but E turns this into a sweet little love song...

It hurt a little, hell, it hurt a lot
But a man who won't commit is something I'm not
A little tear rolled down her face
When it was done we went back to her place...

3. Tom Waits - Twenty-Nine Dollars

You get the feeling that Tom will make those $29 count... but they might also cost him a lot more.

2. Half Man Half Biscuit - £24.99 From Argos

Quite a bit of discussion about this song over at the Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project, including what kind of keyboard it was that Nigel Blackwell got for £24.99 from Argos (and presumably recorded this song on) and where the twiddly bits in the tune might originate.

1. Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - $1000 Wedding

A thousand dollars would be bloody cheap for a wedding these days, but I guess when Gram and Emmylou sang about it, it was pretty pricey.

Particularly if the bride doesn't show up...



Any price tags in your record collection?

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #16 - Monday (Every Time I Turn Around)

These guys are The Bottle Rockets, a band I came across on a free sampler compilation from Bloodshot Records that Charity Chic pointed me in the direction of. You can find it here.

You know when you're a kid and the older generation tell you to enjoy those endless days of youth that seen to last forever, because all too soon your time will speed up and you won't know where it's all gone? This one seems appropriate for today...

Tuesday means the weekends almost here.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday disappear.

Well Saturday means Sunday's almost in the rearview mirror.

The future's certain end is always

It goes so fast it won't slow down.

It's Monday everytime I turn around.