Song Of The Day 11/26/2014: Badfinger - "Take It All"

You know what we need? AM radio plug-ins. Not plug-ins that play whatever's on AM radio right now. What we need is a plug-in that simulates how AM radio sounded in the early '70s, that presents our favorite contemporary music in the staticky sound environment of AM radio. You know: tinny mid-range, shrill and vowel-centric high end except plus crackles, hardly any bass unless somebody does a thumb-slap (and I really don't like thumb-slapped bass unless Bootsy's doing it). But more than that, even: We need a virtual AM radio experience. One that simulates AM radio as being played through your father's car (or your grandfather's if you're that young), where the cigarette lighters were used for cigarette-lighting, a thin layer of ash covered the dashboard, and the preset buttons on the AM radio stuck out like silver-plated buckteeth that you had to push with full force to get within a couple of degrees of your favorite Top 40 station. That's what we need. That's exactly what we need.

Well, maybe that's not what we need. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Speaking of the golden age of Top 40, I just got the entire catalog of Badfinger. Even the late '70s stuff, which I was told wasn't nearly as exquisite as the early '70s stuff that makes all the floral-print-shirt men cry. But even Badfinger's late '70s stuff is better than most of the other late '70s stuff treading the same terrain. That said, granted, the early '70s stuff is still superior. "Take It All" from Straight Up is my favorite Badfinger song: a long wail of concession and weariness that unfortunately describes a lot about Badfinger's tragic fate, which I'll encourage you to Google about because it's too depressing to type out here. But I've felt like singing this song many times before, especially with my musician friend Scott. Any of them. I have a lot of musician friends named Scott. They'd all do.

I'm also thinking about resurrecting quadrophonic stereo. I got some plywood and chicken wire in the shack. Stranger things have happened.