More Odds and Ends in Music

1966: Jan Berry, half of the surf-rock duo Jan & Dean, is involved in a near-fatal car collision which causes career-ending brain damage. Though an urban legend arises that it happened on the same road as in his song "Dead Man's Curve", this is ultimately proven false. Berry and songwriting partner Dean Torrence had recently come to loggerheads over a Berry-written song called "The Universal Coward", meant as a pro-Vietnam War anthem which took direct aim at those who protested the war, claiming their opposition was not borne of legitimate political concerns but of a fear of being drafted. Torrence stood firm and Berry ended up releasing the record as a solo project. Berry's car crash occurred just a couple of hours after receiving his own draft notice.

1972: Electric Light Orchestra's first album is released in America. The UK release was a self-titled album, but the American edition of the record is given the name No Answer. Drummer Bev Bevan explains that the title arose from a mix-up at United Artists in America; having phoned band manager Don Arden to confirm the record's title, the company only succeeds in reaching Arden's secretary, who doesn't have an answer for the caller at the moment. "No answer" is written down in the notes from the call, and is mistakenly understood by United Artists to be the intended name of the record.

1973: British comedy troupe Monty Python releases the record The Monty Python Matching Tie And Handkerchief. The first pressings of the album are packaged with and actual tie and handkerchief, and bore a notice claiming that the record came free with their purchase. Both sides of the record are labeled "Side 2". To add to the confusion, one of the two sides features two separate grooves, causing different material to play depending on where the stylus is placed.

1979: The second album by The Dickies is released, with the title Dawn Of The Dickies, containing ten songs including "(I'm Stuck In A Pagoda With) Tricia Toyota". The song is about the singer's imagined love affair with Los Angeles newscaster Tritia Toyota, who came to prominence as one of the first American newscasters of Asian heritage. Though her name was misspelled on the record sleeve as the more conventional 'Tricia', her real name was Letritia Miyake.

1982: "I Desire", a song from DEVO's fifth studio outing, Oh No! It's DEVO, contains lyrics lifted from love poems written by John Hinckley to actress Jodie Foster. Hinckley's obsession with Foster had led to his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan one year prior. Arguments that erupt over the song's content eventually lead to the band's separation with their UK distributor Virgin Records. Some editions of the album give Hinckley partial songwriting credit for the track.

1987: Minneapolis-based band The Replacements release the song "Alex Chilton" on their album Pleased To Meet Me. The track, concerning the group's relationship with the titular musician, contains the line "Feelin' like a hundred bucks / Exchanging good lucks / Face to face". Despite seeming straightforward, this refers to a real incident where Chilton and Replacements singer Paul Westerberg exchanged hard-to-find albums by The Kinks: Face To Face and the bootleg Good Luck.