Befitting the song’s origins, most covers are snippets of apparent teenagers making their best pensive faces during karaoke. I’m fond of Ariel Thomas’s, though, because she plays the track on guitar. 22/22
What. Who. Where. When. Why. How. Not journalistically, just incredulously. "Why is THIS person, saying THIS thing, in THIS venue, to THIS audience, at THIS time?" #RandomHot100 rating scale is 0.0 to 4.0, if it matters.
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Befitting the song’s origins, most covers are snippets of apparent teenagers making their best pensive faces during karaoke. I’m fond of Ariel Thomas’s, though, because she plays the track on guitar. 22/22
Collaborators Horan and O’Connell are primarily famous for their work with, respectively, One Direction and Billie Eilish, so I’ll cover them when the dice decree. 21/
Conrad is also a Berklee grad. He co-produced “Red Wine Supernova” for Chappell Roan. (Smith co-wrote Roan’s “After Midnight.”) 20/
Smith apparently attended Oklahoma City University before moving to L.A. to begin a songwriting career. 19/
Smith’s biggest songwriting credit is the Olivia Rodrigo album track “Jealousy, Jealousy,” which throws over the Disney affectations for a delightful Fiona Apple swagger. 18/
In September Ashe and O’Connell will release the debut album of their band the Favors. None of the album’s three pre-release singles charted, yet, but I’ll skip them in case the album’s release bumps any of them onto the rungs. 17/
But for Billboard to stay relevant, it’ll have to have access to data, which the platforms seem to guard fiercely. We’ll see how that shakes out. 16/
The partnership was a smart move for Billboard, and I’m curious about its dissolution. When creating these threads, I used Billboard as my source because I wanted to cover pop history. Of the platforms, only YouTube is old enough to have that kind of multigenerational development (yet). 15/
Billboard ran a dedicated TikTok chart in partnership with the platform from September 2023 to March 2025. 14/
“Moral of the Story” is Ashe’s only charting single in the United States. Despite that, in 2022 she embarked on a 39-date tour across the US and Commonwealth. (Her 1.3 million TikTok followers probably outweigh her lackluster chart performance.) 13/
Ashe and O’Connell subsequently partnered on 2021’s solastalgic “Till Forever Falls Apart.” The song is a much better version of “Moral of the Story,” and its desert-dancing video is more evidence for my Broadway/soundtrack thesis. 12/
In that video, Ashe (apparently) plays the leader of a female vengeance gang. They throw a few cement-block-bound men off a speedboat, and then set other men on fire. It has all the style and polish of a Netflix house production, and is about as memorable. 11/
Her first prominent gig was singing on Shaun Frank’s “Let You Get Away” (as in, “with murder”). It’s a nothing-special pop track, but it charted in Canada. 10/
Ashe (born Ashlynn Willson in San Jose in 1993) is a Berklee College of Music alum who grew up listening only to Christian music. 9/
What on earth happened with the chart pattern? I know it was the pandemic year, but how does a two-week bomb take a seven-month hiatus and then peek back in? 8/
The songwriting credits are confused; Wikipedia claims that O’Connell co-wrote it, but the page’s overview template includes him only as a producer, which is how I’ve credited him here. (It alleges that Billie Eilish contributed uncredited lyrics as well.) 7/
With the right vocalist, “You can think that you’re in love / When you’re really just engaged” could be a devastating lyric, but Ashe delivers it with an audible pageant smile. 6/
I can’t tell if this is the actual footage or a fan tribute, but Lana Condor lip-syncs some of the lyrics, so I’d guess it’s real. 5/
It’s less a song than soundtrack fodder, meant to be seen more than heard. And indeed, it popped due to its use in Netflix’s To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. 4/
If not Broadway, then “Moral of the Story” is Disney via Olivia Rodrigo, with the stately tempo, spare piano, and towering percussion. And like Rodrigo, Ashe throws in a profanity for the kids, rounding “fuck” down to “shit.” 3/
Ashe, just go to Broadway. There’s no reason to import its melodic complications, footlight-bright vocals, and winking artifice to pop. The real thing is right there. 2/
#RandomHot100 Ashe Featuring Niall Horan, “Moral of the Story” [Moral of the Story: Chapter 1, 2019] Rating: 2.0 Written by Ashlynn Willson, Casey Smith, Noah Conrad Produced by Noah Conrad, Finneas O’Connell Debut: #71 March 7, 2020 Peak: same 3 weeks on chart 1/
"When you're out of Schlitz..."
Brooks, Dowd, and Friedman in particular, plus the tone of the politics coverage, makes me realize that the Times sees itself primarily as an Upper West Side cocktail-party conversation. Why bring in pesky facts when you can vibe-speculate with your friends?
This version of "I'm doing my part" is exactly where I was until 2018. But Trump was such a threat that I donated and canvassed for the first time, specifically so Nancy Pelosi could get the gavel and impeach him. When she instead said, "He's just not worth it," that was an eye-opener.
This is a really good way of putting it. See also the "is it fascism or just sparkling authoritarianism" discourse. Like, maybe it's my panic attacks talking, but the debate over technicalities and definitions is, uh, not the main thing!
The career-ending diagnoses of presbyopia and paper cuts. (Also common to English majors.)
Not only that, it's who runs half my farmer's market stalls. Verisimilitude!
Well, shit. 🫤
I mulled what an update of the 1930s "Everyman" (sic) stereotype would look like. Hmong farmers in Minnesota? Black postal workers? Suburban wine moms? You can update Kal-El's Earth origin in a way that you can't for, say, Captain America (too event-bound). Felt like a missed opportunity.
It's tricky because, right now, a truth-seeking outlet and a left-wing hack factory will look largely the same. "The GOP is a fascist org that is killing you" is a hackish-sounding statement that also describes our current reality. There's not a good way around this!
Warnock?!?
There's a whole fairy tale about this!
From the Billboard Hot 100, October 16, 1993.
And the song lives: Andy Holland’s instrumental rock cover went live on YouTube just as I was finalizing this thread. www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Ai... 48/48
Ryan Reynolds sang the song while promoting Free Guy on Live Kelly and Mark. 47/
Nothing to do with the song, but YouTuber Sally N cut footage of the TV show to the Bonnie Tyler single “Holding Out for a Hero,” which seems appropriate. 46/
Pomeranz’s entry, “Make It Go Right,” doesn’t appear to be online. The title track features John Travolta, Frank Stallone, and Leif Garrett, and sounds like ViceCityGPT with a mall-kiosk choir. 45/
The Pomeranz rabbit hole led me to The Road to Freedom, a 1986 album of songs written by L. Ron Hubbard and sung by famous Scientologists. 44/
Also on the list: “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now,” the Starship-title-biting theme to the Bronson Pinchot sitcom Perfect Strangers, which somehow ran for EIGHT SEASONS (and spun off Family Matters!). The song, sung by Scientologist David Pomeranz, is the most 80s thing in this thread. 43/
The song made a listicle of television themes better than their shows. 42/
As a piece of pop culture junk mail (RIP DHAK), “Believe It or Not” turns up in more ways than just covers. There’s the famous Seinfeld clip featuring George’s answering machine. 41/
The song’s cover versions include a 2014 legacy-era effort from lite metal also-rans Enuff Z’Nuff, which is well done but inessential. 40/
I’ve never seen an episode of the show, but it seems terminally 80s in both high-concept nature and execution. 39/
Also, Ralph originally had the surname Hinkley. However, Reagan’s near-assassination was 12 days after this show’s premiere (which also featured an attempted presidential assassination). As a result, Ralph was renamed Hanley (or “Mister H”), then reverted to Hinkley in the second season. 38/
The MSTies did in fact reference the song in their Puma Man riff (about 1:18:55 into this full-length clip). 37/
The show seems predestined for MST3K mockery. This supercut shows that Ralph flies like Puma Man and lands about as well, often with complimentary buffalo shot. 36/
Let’s talk about this show. The laconic TV Tropes version: Aliens give the teacher Ralph H. a superhero suit that only works for him, but he loses the instruction manual. Ralph bumbles through learning the suit’s powers with the help of his FBI handler (played by Robert Culp!). 35/
Final choice quote from Geyer, about a long-lost guitar with rabbit fur glued to the back: “[The fur] felt soft and comforting against my two-pack when I danced naked in the Maryland moonlight as a young man howling at the dreaming moon!” 34/
Eventually Geyer soured on both Post and songwriting collaboration, and began working solo. He released the album Harlequin Wind in 2007. Its instrumental title track is an amalgam of rockabilly swing and Ren Faire instrumentation that doesn’t quite gel due to the bright production. 33/
Geyer’s introduction to Post was brokered by Ron Anton, VP of the publishing company BMI. Per Sklar, Geyer was one of the guitarists on this recording. During the show’s run, Geyer continued to write original songs for the show at the rate of approximately one per episode. 32/
While still in high school, Geyer recorded an album with a local band named Curfew. Leadoff track “Photogenic Jenny” (written by Geyer) is stalwart acid-rock with an organ tumor, but whoever’s on drums is crushing it. 31/
While a teenager living in the UK on a US Air Force base, Geyer began playing music with his brother. A label expressed interest in signing them, but then the label’s owner was killed due to a business feud. (The joke is right there but I won’t touch it.) 30/
Geyer (born in Peru in 1950) had the closest connection to the show’s subject matter: he was the son of a CIA operative. 29/
The selection “Redemption Valley” is a lovely bluegrass-blues merger with symphonic strings. 28/
In 2024 Post wrote and conducted the suite “Message from the Mountains and Echoes of the Delta,” which conveyed this timely message: “It’s about how strong this country is, because it’s so diverse.” (Fuck Donald Trump.) 27/
His themes were so prevalent that Pete Townshend named a Who song after them in 2006. Unrelated lyric: “Everything is all right / We’ve prayed today / If there really is a god / We should be laid today.” 26/
As with Scarbury, this song is Post’s biggest hit, but he had four other charting TV themes: from The Rockford Files (1975), Hill Street Blues (1981), Magnum, P.I. (1982), and L.A. Law (1988, Adult Contemporary). 25/
Sklar and Scarbury had just come off the Parton-Stallone two-hander Rhinestone when the two joined with Post for this recording. 24/
(I’ve been screwing up my links lately; here’s the video I was supposed to share in that post.) 23/
On bass is YouTube mainstay Leland Sklar, whom I serendipitously cited in last week’s thread on his friend Billy Joe Walker Jr.’s composition “Best of Intentions.” 22/
He shared behind-the-scenes recording footage on his TikTok. Scarbury looks like a morph merge of the two 1980s Kennys (Rogers and Loggins), and Bruce Hornsby mans the piano. 21/
Post’s origin story for “Believe It or Not” is exactly what you’d expect: industry hackwork. 20/
Post (born Leland Postil in Berkeley in 1944) co-produced the ringer-sung Van Halen III but is better known for his television themes. His first professional credit was writing the 1963 B-side “Rainin’ in My Heart” for the child star Eddie Hodges. It’s an engaging punk-time genre workout. 19/
As of the 2014 interview above, Scarbury was out of the business entirely and managing a Lexus dealership. 18/
Once his recording career faded, Scarbury worked as a songwriter. He split credit (with Even Stevens, appropriately) on the Oak Ridge Boys’ 1989 single “No Matter How High,” a country #1. It suggests that yacht rock evolved into the 1980s country sound. 17/
Scarbury’s last Discogs-documented single was “The River’s Song,” another Post cut from the 1984 movie The River Rat. It eschews the yacht-rock gloop for a lonesome country lope, and is better for it. 16/
Scarbury had one songwriter credit on the album, the Geyer co-sign “Everything but Love.” It’s only half yacht rock, with a little country on the verses; Scarbury delivers a credible growl on the chorus. 15/
After “Believe It or Not” hit, Scarbury recorded his sole album, titled after the show and including tracks written by Dan Seals (brother of “& Crofts” James) and Bruce Hornsby. 14/
He had his first Hot 100 hit, “Mixed-Up Guy,” in 1971. Also that year, he missed the charts with the Post-produced “(Point Me in the Direction Of) Albuquerque,” which sounds terrifyingly similar to our decade-later title subject. 13/
He began working in the music industry when he was 14. His first single was a reading of Jimmy “Macarthur Park” Webb’s “She Never Smiles Anymore,” which I can’t find online. 12/
The people working in the industry kitchen – day gigs, backgrounds, commercials – need to be strong enough to showcase the named talent, but not so distinctive as to overshadow them. Scarbury’s story, then, is strange: a serviceable background player who briefly encountered the big time. 11/
Session players fascinate me. I cut my teeth on alt-rock and indie punk, where only some musicians were talented but all had something to say. 10/
In this 2014 interview, Scarbury (aptly) identifies himself as “a studio singer who became a performer.” 9/
Scarbury (born in California in 1955) is an afterthought in his own career. His success is primarily tied to his work with Post, and of his three Hot 100 singles, this is the only one to make the top 40. 8/
Chart trajectory is the hit’s burial mound: steep slopes on either side, nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop. #27 was a relatively high top 40 debut at the time. 7/
My favorite part of the video is the bored blonde gum-chewer, apparently unrelated to song or show, who ends by walking away with her aerobics buddy. 6/
The lyrical thrust seems oriented toward the song’s show of origin (more below), but the two-line bridge interrupts it for a standard love plot: “This is too good to be true / Look at me falling for you.” 5/
“Believe It or Not” has the inimitable chintz of the early 1980s: elevator strings, phaser keyboards, and holographic harmonies. Scarbury provides an earnest but wispy vocal. 4/
The long-running ballad “Endless Love” kept three different songs from the top spot: this, the Pointer Sisters’ “Slow Hand,” and Juice Newton’s “Queen of Hearts.” Breihan gave a nod to the latter. 3/
So close! The stories of the songs that peaked at #2 are worth a Tom Breihan column of their own. 2/
#RandomHot100 Joey Scarbury, “Believe It or Not (Theme from Greatest American Hero)” Rating: 2.0 Written by Mike Post, Stephen Geyer Produced by Mike Post Debut: #85 May 9, 1981 Peak: #2 August 15, 1981 (two weeks) 26 weeks on chart 1/
Am I missing something? "The higher the percentile, the more effective that talking point is at driving down Donald Trump's disapproval"? Democrats don't want Trump's DISapproval to go DOWN? (Are they inverting the scale on that Republican page?)
Got it! Thank you for the rundown.
Yup. And also, if they refuse to talk about B when I want them to talk about B, I don't want them to represent me anymore.
"Why is THIS person, saying THIS thing, in THIS venue, to THIS audience, at THIS time?"
Huh - not an expert (at all), but I wouldn't have expected any difference! I assume petroleum was greater? Did you have any sense of why?
I learned pretty late in life that Tyler defected to the Confederacy, so he's my personal worst. (If I read my history right, every other living ex-president at least nominally supported the Union.)
Despite its punchline status, I like Cracker Barrel! As a vegetarian, I always appreciate guaranteed pancakes on a road trip.
The only tentative explanation I have is that any art less self-demonstrating than Thomas Kinkade's turns a lens on the viewer by requiring their input, and MAGA is vehemently averse to self-examination.
The new logo *is* pretty characterless, without even considering its relative "wokeness." The previous logo told some kind of legible story about what Cracker Barrel was trying to be; this one, visually, could be pretty much any corporate brand.
Repairing potholes? Fixing streetlights? Addressing pedestrian safety? Creating youth programs? Shoring up senior transit?
I think it's that 1) the logo used to have an old, country white guy; 2) now it doesn't. In the minds of MAGA trash, any reduction in the visibility of old, country white guys is wokeness.
Thanks to you, me too!
I've been following your and others' commentary on how racist Xitter has gotten, but this is way worse than I imagined. Thanks for sharing, though. Now I know.
This dynamic seems similar to Trump's first term - he spent most of it on a glide path left over from Obama's stewardship, but when Covid hit, it exposed how catastrophically unqualified he and much of his administration were.
UGH. And by "bare minimum" he means "has heard these writers' names," since he hasn't actually read any of them - his bookshelf is like a dorm room Fight Club poster.
Since Democrats' track record is that "keeping their powder dry" precedes total inaction, at this point they HAVE to identify how they'll punish crimes upon retaking power - just to keep the trust of their own base. A trap for which they can't blame anyone but themselves.
This is another reason it's a problem that Democratic leaders have relentlessly chosen passivity in the Trump era. Theoretically, it's a good idea NOT to publicize how you'll punish Trump-related crimes upon retaking power. It gives Trump et al. less incentive to corrupt elections. But...
Ugh - a SECOND correction on this thread. The release year for Another Time, Another Place is 2018.