August 3, 2009
We’ve Got Magic To Do
At first I thought that putting together a playlist of songs all having the same name was near-impossible until I sorted my iTunes songs by “name.” As I scrolled through the thousands of tracks, I discovered that I had quite a number of songs with the title “Magic.” It’s as if my iTunes worked its magic! Har har har…
So, take a listen and fall under the spell of my playlist for you this month!
MAGIC by Olivia Newton-John
It shouldn’t be news to anybody that the soundtrack to “Xanadu” is one of my favorite movie soundtracks of all-time, let alone one of my favorite albums in my collection. While the movie’s merits are debatable, there’s no doubt that every track on this album is a winner. (There’s a Gene Kelly/Olivia Newton-John duet AND an Olivia Newton-John/ELO combo for crying out loud!!!) This lead track from the album deservedly took the #1 spot in 1980. The mesmerizing opening chords and slinky beat really set it apart from anything else in Olivia’s canon at the time. Her voice captures the alluring spell of her character Kira as she coaxes rebel artist Sonny into a world of roller-discodom. OK, maybe the movie’s plot was ridiculous…but c’mon…this song is hot!
MAGIC by Pilot
This is one of those one-hits by a one-hit wonder that you always hear but never know who did it. I think the first time I heard this was in a local car commercial in South Florida. It took a while before I figured out who did this song (ah, pre-Internet/pre-Google/pre-Wikipedia days!), but thanks to a Time-Life infomercial, I discovered that the song was from a Scottish group called Pilot. Further research uncovered that a couple of Pilot members were also members of the other Scottish one-hit wonders The Bay City Rollers. Go figure!
MAGIC by The Cars
Most of my fellow children of the 80s will remember this song as an MTV staple. To this day, I want to know how they made this video…this was the one where Ric Ocasek got all Jesus on a bunch of people at a posh Beverly Hills party and started walking on top of a pool. It culminated with the guests trying to walk on the water only to fail and fall in. Hilarity! Add this to my to-do list of songs for karaoke…
MAGIC by Tim Myers
The newest song on my list. This song was part of “The Good Life” EP by singer-songwriter Tim Myers. I picked up this EP on iTunes after hearing its title track in a commercial. The song has hints of Nilsson, Jellyfish, and a twinge of Brian Wilson…a combination that can never go wrong with me. And who doesn’t love a song with a splash of vibraslap?! As the song lyrics go…”it’s magic!”
MAGIC by Ben Folds Five
Probably my favorite bit of magic on this playlist. It’s the should-have-been-a-hit single for Ben Folds Five. This gorgeous ballad was from their underrated swan song “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.” Based on posters promoting the album, it seemed like there were intentions to release this as a single, but it never came to be. It’s a shame because this would have been a perfect ballad followup to “Brick.” This song was actually solely written by Darren Jessee, the band’s ace drummer. (For more Darren-penned goodness, check out his current band Hotel Lights.) Everything from the arrangement (those timpanis and strings!) to the melody to the lyrics (especially the wonderful line “trading places with an angel now”) are spot-on. As morbid as it sounds, this would be one I’d want played at my funeral…
BONUS TRACK
MAGIC by the cast of “Xanadu on Broadway”
If you didn’t get enough of the original version from the movie, here’s the song recorded by cast of the Broadway version of “Xanadu,” one of the best musicals I’ve seen on the Great White Way. The song has a bit more of a comical feel and was used perfectly in one of the stage version’s opening scenes. Alas, the show closed recently on Broadway (BOO!) but a touring version is in the works. If you’re up for a campy musical spectacular featuring roller skates, muses, and centaurs, I highly recommend checking it out if it passes through your town!
Download: Olivia Newton-John, “Magic” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)Download: Pilot, “Magic” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)Download: The Cars, “Magic” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)Download: Tim Myers, “Magic” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)Download: Ben Folds Five, “Magic” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)Download: The Cast of Xanadu on Broadway, “Magic” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)
Download all the songs in a handy ZIP file:
Download: “We’ve Got Magic To Do” (ZIP)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)
August 4th, 2009 at 5:49 am
“MAGIC by Pilot, Further research uncovered that a couple of Pilot members were also members of the other Scottish one-hit wonders The Bay City Rollers. Go figure!”
What a twat you are, what research did you do? Pilot had more than one hit and the Bay City Rollers had 432 hits worldwide, research properly you retard!
August 4th, 2009 at 7:05 am
I find no flaws in Mandel’s logic, there, “Les McKeown,” who writes more like an obsessive twat fan than the former lead singer of the Bay City Rollers. First of all, “Magic” truly is the only chart hit Pilot had outside of their native UK. “Magic” is a US #5 single that folks might recognize as the backing track from a television commercial, but nobody remembers them for anything else. As for the Bay City Rollers, I know they were a relative success at home, but the world at large will remember them as nothing but one-hit wonders for “Saturday Night,” and even then most people will have to consult Wikipedia to figure out the name of the band. That’s the complete extent of their pop-culture impact. Live with it.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I hadn’t heard the Ben Folds track before and really like the drums toward the end. (One could time fireworks to go off at those moments during your funeral…) Thanks for including it!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:00 am
Oh dear, Les - Uncle Sam appears to be boycotting Scottish bands at the moment. I would be surprised if he’s now calling The Proclaimers ‘Freedom Speckies’ or some such nonsense.
October 18th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I actually know 3 people, all living in Silicon Valley now, who visited Ric Ocasek’s mansion, and saw the pool (it was on Cape Cod; that’s where the pool scene was filmed for the video.)
They had clear Lucite blocks in the pool, standing on the pool bottom, with the tops just an inch or so below the water surface. So he walked from one clear square to the next. People would supposedly do this at parties, then miss a block, and go in. I also heard the parties were chock full of groupies and other girls, and there was more coke at those parties than water in the pool. Ah, the 80s……