All the songs referenced in X’s True Love Pt. #2
For a while there, X were arguably the coolest band in Los Angeles. They’re often called a punk band, even though they never quite sounded like the Ramones, the Damned, etc. That said, John Doe, the band’s singer and bassist, certainly had a punk name for the ages.
By the time of 1983’s More Fun in the New World, X had relaxed and lightened up, hiring Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek to produce.
True Love Pt. #2 is a jam, and kicks off with a killer riff from guitarist Billy Zoom. Have a listen. (That riff may or may not have been influenced by the Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running.)
In the song’s final two minutes comes a rapid string of references, winks and musical influences. They’re knocked off in quick succession as Doe and fellow singer Exene Cervenka trade lyrics, echoing everyone from Tammy Wynette and Elvis to Curtis Mayfield and P-Funk.
So… let’s go through every single one.
If you’d like to follow along, Genius annotation to the lyrics is here.
Here’s the first referenced lyric:
True love is the Land of 1000 Dances
Wilson Pickett was not the first person to record Land of 1000 Dances (more on that shortly), but his 1966 version is the standard, and for Pickett it was a career-defining moment in soul music.
Be bop-a-lu-la she’s my baby
Be bop-a-lu-la I don’t mean maybe
A decade earlier, Gene Pitney recorded Be-Bop-A-Lula. Given that X had a rep as a rockabilly band (rockabilly felt like more of a connection than punk, to be honest), it made sense they tipped their hat to a definitive tune of the genre.
D-I-V-O-R-C-E, D-I-V-O-R-C-E
From rockabilly to country, and Tammy Wynette’s signature 1968 song, about a woman spelling out the D-word to fly past the ears of her little boy. While Cervenka sings those letters, there’s a subtle overlay of “E-I-E-I-O,” from Old McDonald fame, but sung in Wynette’s tune.
Then we get into latter-period Elvis Presley, and his 1972 hit, Burning Love:
I gotta hunka hunka burnin’ love
A hunka hunka burnin’ love
Next up, a few lines of the American folk lyric, “I’ve been working on the railroad, all the live-long day” … with John Denver here providing a representative sample:
From folk to Seventies hard rock.
Oh Black Betty (bam a lam)
Oh Black Betty (bam a lam)
Ram Jam was a primo example of a one-hit wonder, scoring a Southern-fried-sounding hit in 1977 with a rocked up version of Black Betty, which had been recorded almost four decades earlier by Lead Belly. (For context, X covering Ram Jam, even just six years later, felt like a total hipster move.)
Backing up to 1972, and Freddie’s Dead, one of the songs Curtis Mayfield wrote for the Super Fly soundtrack. This one is a bit subtle; I didn’t get the reference for years.
Well Freddy’s dead
Well Freddy’s dead
Yeah that’s what I said
Yeah that’s what I said
Back to The Land of 1000 Dances!
Naa, na na na na, na na na na na na na, na na na na na
While Pickett is known for the singalong chorus, it originated with another cover, by Cannibal and the Headhunters (what a name), who recorded the Chris Kenner song in 1965.
Like X, they were also from Los Angeles.
Have a listen; the “na na” part is cued up:
To close … why not a little P-Funk?
One nation under a groove
In the mix of the “na na na na” chorus is a definite nod from John Doe to Parliament-Funkadelic:
And there you have it: soul, rockabilly, country, power pop, folk and funk, all whipped together in a couple of minutes.
I’ve been curious about why, and why such a range. My hunch? X wanted to say something about influences, how American music has many parents, how everyone borrows and learns from someone else. Or, maybe, it’s all just music.
I want to close with a live performance of True Love Pt. #2 that X did in 1984, for an American TV special called Super Night of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Yes, that’s WKRP alum Howard Hesseman sporting a faux punk look for the intro. X sizzles in this one, even for a prime-time TV audience.
Thanks for following along. Click here to see other posts about particular tunes.