In the fall of '23 a creative director in the New York office wanted to come up with a way to encourage RAPPers to complete and submit their time sheets every Friday afternoon. I suggested bringing back RAPP Radio, which started in the summer of '22 as a way to share music with interns over Microsoft Teams, with a different employee acting as DJ each week, but its signal faded out by the end of the year.
RAPP Radio Presents Timesesh, the spin-off, made its debut on February 2 last year and is still being broadcast almost 18 months later—to approximately 30 listeners week in, week out, admittedly, but they're a loyal bunch, and those who've DJed have introduced me to songs I doubt I would've heard otherwise. Plus, many of them have gone above and beyond with the visual component of their DJ sessions, especially when compared to my PowerPoint slides, which I've included below along with write-ups I placed in the Teams chat for each song, radio ad, and otherwise.
I love the connections songs make in people's hearts and minds, just as I love the connections I've made with my fellow RAPPers.
Welcome to RAPP Radio Presents Timesesh!
I'm DJ Cassanova. Make no mistake: I have no idea how to talk to women [insert standard DJ air-horn noise here], and I never will. But my last name is Cass, and my first car was a Chevy Nova, and I do like LeVert's 1987 classic "Casanova."
I've got qualifications, y'all.
RAPP Radio was created by Rhia Newman* in 2022, and she's been gracious enough to allow us to infringe on her copyright. Thank you, Rhia!
It's three o'clock on the east coast, two on the midwest coast, so grab an adult beverage if you'd like and LET'S START DOIN' TIME!
(written by Dolly Parton; produced by Gregg Perry)
"In the same boat with a lot of your friends / Waiting for the day your ship'll come in / And the tide's gonna turn / And it's all gonna roll your way …"
The theme song to the hit film starring Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin, "9 to 5" reached the top of Billboard's pop, country, and adult-contemporary charts in early '81, forcing Sheena Easton's song of the same name, which had already been a top-five smash in the UK, to be retitled "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" when it was released as a single in the U.S. that February. Easton's song also went to number one on the pop and adult-contemporary charts. But did it use a typewriter as a percussion instrument? Advantage: Dolly!
The theme song to the hit film starring Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin, "9 to 5" reached the top of Billboard's pop, country, and adult-contemporary charts in early '81, forcing Sheena Easton's song of the same name, which had already been a top-five smash in the UK, to be retitled "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" when it was released as a single in the U.S. that February. Easton's song also went to number one on the pop and adult-contemporary charts. But did it use a typewriter as a percussion instrument? Advantage: Dolly!
(written and produced by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter)
"So, baby, leave a little time / 'Cause you never know what's on my mind …"
It only takes a minute to fall in love, according to Tavares. Does it only take a minute to fill out your time sheet? No, it does not, which is why we've blocked off a full hour for RAPP Radio Presents Timesesh just to be on the safe side.
The Tavares brothers—Butch, Chubby, Pooch, Tiny, and Ralph (he was the oldest brother, so I guess he reserved the right to not have a nickname)—hail from Providence, Rhode Island, and, in addition to "It Only Takes a Minute," scored hits with 1976's "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" and, from 1977's Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album, "More Than a Woman," written by the Bee Gees.
(written by Larry James, Anthony Middleton, and Lawrence Taylor; produced by James)
"Now is the time for you to be somebody / Be anything you wanna be / This is your chance to become someone / Here comes your opportunity …"
You probably guessed from the opening notes that this isn't a cover of the Beatles' song of the same name.
Fat Larry's Band formed in Philadelphia and released eight albums between 1976 and '86, achieving chart success in the UK with songs such as "Act Like You Know" and "Zoom," both from 1982's Breakin' Out, which also features a favorite of mine called "Traffic Stoppers." (They broke up after drummer and bandleader Larry James died of a heart attack in December of '87 at the age of 38.)
Al Jarreau, "Moonlighting" [Extended Remix] (1987)
"There is the sun and moon / They sing their own sweet tune / Watch them when dawn is due / Sharing one space …"
(written by Lee Holdridge and Al Jarreau; produced by Nile Rodgers)
"There is the sun and moon / They sing their own sweet tune / Watch them when dawn is due / Sharing one space …"
Moonlighting, a one-of-a-kind comedy-drama-mystery-romance series starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis, aired on ABC from 1985 to '89 and finally made it into the streaming era last October via Hulu. If you've never seen this show I highly recommend it, along with pretty much everything Al Jarreau (1940-2017), a.k.a. Milwaukee's best, ever sang. His theme song for Moonlighting was released as a single in the summer of '87, at the peak of the show's popularity; this "extended remix" allows the versatile jazz-pop-R&B singer to show off his considerable scattin' skills.
(In case the seven-inch-single paper sleeve on your screen has you doing a double take, no, Jarreau didn't also sing the theme song to The Golden Girls, which, like Moonlighting, debuted on TV in '85. That was Cynthia Fee, covering Andrew Gold's 1978 single "Thank You for Being a Friend.")
BONUS USELESS TRIVIA! In the fall of '87, ABC premiered Dolly Parton's short-lived variety show, Dolly. The third episode featured a guest appearance by Bruce Willis, who at the time was a few weeks away from shooting Die Hard, his catapult from TV stardom into movie stardom (which meant a lot more back then than it does now, of course).
(written by Sam Dees, Joey Gallo, Bubba Knight, Gladys Knight, and Rickey Smith; produced by Smith)
"Darling, don't stay away too long / Pretty baby, save the overtime for me …"
RAPPers, please save the overtime for your moonlighting gig—Oasys won't allow you to list more than 40 hours on your time sheet each week.
Long before "Save the Overtime (for Me)" topped Billboard's R&B chart in 1983, Gladys Knight & the Pips racked up multiple hits in the '60s and '70s, including "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "If I Were Your Woman," "Midnight Train to Georgia" (woo-woo!), "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me," and the memorably titled "Daddy Could Swear, I Declare."
Time to pay the bills at RAPP Radio!
The director of The Exorcist, William Friedkin, grew up in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood, where I've lived since 2016, and attended Edgewater's Senn High School in the 1950s alongside Philip Kaufman, who directed another of the Me Decade's scariest movies, the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The narrator of this ad is Percy Rodriguez, a Canadian actor who also provided bone-chilling voice-overs for the radio and TV spots promoting Steven Spielberg's Jaws 18 months after The Exorcist broke box-office records.
(trad., arr. by Hugh Burns, Marsha Hunt, and Steve Rowland; produced by Rowland)
"Let's get the rhythm with the hands / Now we got the rhythm with the hands / Let's get the rhythm with the feet / Now we got the rhythm with the feet …"
Yes, thank God it's Friday, but it doesn't have to be "the beast day" if you get your time sheet turned in on time.
My wife remembers singing this folk song, for lack of a better term—I've also heard it described as a jump-rope song—in Girl Scouts in the early '70s, but as she said, "We definitely didn't sing this funky arrangement."
According to some sources, including herself, Marsha Hunt was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones' 1971 song "Brown Sugar"; she's the mother of Mick Jagger's first child, Karis.
The Time, "Jerk Out" (1990)
"I got real bored on a Friday night / I couldn't find a damn thing to do / So I pulled out a suit about the same color / As my BMW …"
(written and produced by the Time)
"I got real bored on a Friday night / I couldn't find a damn thing to do / So I pulled out a suit about the same color / As my BMW …"
The Time was a seven-member band from Minneapolis—Jerome Benton, Morris Day, Jimmy Jam, Jellybean Johnson, Jesse Johnson, Terry Lewis, and Monte Moir—whose producer, Prince, unofficially wrote and performed the bulk of their first three albums. You could say he had time on his hands, but he was a genius who knew how to play almost any instrument, so who was going to argue with him?
Prince also contributed heavily to the band's fourth album, Pandemonium, but on "Jerk Out" the Time get to show their stuff as musicians. When they decided to reunite for a new album 21 years later, Prince refused to let them use their original name, which he owned, so the Time became the Original 7ven.
(written by Eric Frederic, Melissa Jefferson, Blake Slatkin, Theron Thomas, et al.; produced by Ricky Reed and Slatkin)
"Oh, I've been so down and under pressure / I'm way too fine to be this stressed, yeah …"
Look, Lizzo's the one who's saying it's about damn time you filled out your time sheet—don't get mad at me.
Aaaaaaaand at almost the half-hour mark, this playlist has officially entered the current century! Thank you, thank you so much. Is it obvious I spend a lot of time dwelling on the past?
That was a rhetorical question, but can we talk flute? Lizzo plays the flute. And I love hearing the flute in popular music. You heard some pretty aggressive flute-playing a little earlier in "(Oh, No! Not) The Beast Day," but Lizzo employs a softer touch on her postpandemic floor filler "About Damn Time." What do you call the sound a flute makes? A "pip"? Well, that's what I'm going with, so pip on, Lizzo, pip on!
(written by Rod Temperton; produced by Quincy Jones)
"And if we stay together / We'll feel the rhythm of the evening taking us up high / Never mind the weather / We'll be dancing in the street until the morning light …"
"Give Me the Night" was my favorite song growing up. Four decades later it probably still is, because first impressions often make lasting impressions when it comes to music, if you ask me. And when I first heard "About Damn Time" two years ago, I thought it had a similar groove. Don't worry, I won't be suing Lizzo on behalf of the late songwriter Rod Temperton (see: Marvin Gaye's estate v. Robin Thicke, Marvin Gaye's cowriter's estate v. Ed Sheeran). Just sayin' is all …
George Benson, just like Al Jarreau, is a cat who knows how to scat, and in 2006 the two legends teamed up for the album Givin' It Up, featuring guest appearances by Patti Austin, Paul McCartney, and Jill Scott.
(written and produced by Rupert Holmes)
"Before the dawn begins to shine its hazy blue light / Let's get crazy tonight …"
This single (with flute accompaniment!) comes from Rupert Holmes's 1978 album Pursuit of Happiness, not 1980's Adventure, so the album cover on your screen is misleading, but, to me, it's a perfect example of how MTV and music videos changed the game for many artists one year after Adventure landed on record-store shelves. Image became everything, so if your most recent LP's cover photo made you look like a suburban dentist getting ready to attend a classy Memorial Day barbecue, you were out of luck. Then again, Holmes was a smart, savvy singer-songwriter à la Randy Newman who'd probably had his fill of pop fame after his most famous tune, "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)," went to number one on the Billboard Top 40 in the final week of '79.
After he released the album Full Circle in '81, Holmes turned to writing for the theater: his 1985 musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical and, for Holmes, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.
(written and produced by Papas Fritas)
"Maybe you're afraid that the time's not right / And there's no end for you in sight / We've got all night …"
Actually, we don't have all night for you to fill out your time sheet. I don't mean to alarm you, but please be mindful of the time.
The indie-pop trio Papas Fritas—Shivika Asthana, Keith Gendel, and Tony Goddess—met at Tufts University in Massachusetts in the early '90s and released three terrific albums between '95 and 2000. "We've Got All Night" comes from their second LP, Helioself (1997), but if you'd like to read an exhausting—I mean, exhaustive—oral history of their self-titled debut, I know a guy who can help you out.
It's time to pay some more bills at RAPP Radio.
"Do you hear the cries of pleading mothers or the screaming of young men about to be dragged out to sea? It might be more than just your imagination." Whoa, what's this guy selling?
This spot for American Airlines won a Clio Award for Best Use of Sound. And which agency created it, you ask? A small Chicago outfit named Doyle Dane Bernbach, more commonly known today as DDB.
(written by Carole King and Toni Stern; produced by Jack Daugherty)
"It's going to take some time this time / No matter what I've planned / But like the young trees in the wintertime / I'll learn how to bend …"
Yes, it's going to take some time to fill out your time sheet. Again, that's why we've blocked out this hour. We're here to help at RAPP Radio Presents Timesesh.
Now, no offense to Jesus Christ and Harrison Ford (how often do you hear those two names in the same sentence?), but they're carpenters. Sibling superstars Karen and Richard, on the other hand, are Carpenters!
Carole King cowrote "It's Going to Take Some Time" and recorded it for her 1971 album Music, but just as the Carpenters made "(They Long to Be) Close to You" their own—it was originally sung by actor Richard Chamberlain in 1963 when he was starring on the NBC medical drama Dr. Kildare—they also add a certain something to King's tune. Could that certain something be the flute? Yes, it could! But the Carpenters' arrangement of King's song is also just plain pretty. Soothe me, sibling superstars …
The Weeknd, "Out of Time" (2022)
"Say, 'I love you, girl,' but I'm out of time / Say, 'I'm there for you,' but I'm out of time …"
(written by Daniel Lopatin, Abel Tesfaye, et al.; produced by Oscar Holter, Lopatin, Max Martin, and Tesfaye)
"Say, 'I love you, girl,' but I'm out of time / Say, 'I'm there for you,' but I'm out of time …"
No no no, you're not out of time—you're almost out of time, so get that time sheet filled out. Alas, five o'clock waits for no one.
From the Weeknd's fifth album, Dawn FM, comes "Out of Time," which samples Tomoko Aran's 1983 song "Midnight Pretenders," an example of the Japanese genre called city pop. Similar to Percy Rodriguez and our own Rhia Newton and Joy Knight, the Weeknd, née Abel Tesfaye, is Canadian. But that's where the similarities end, because I'm pretty sure neither Rhia, Joy, nor Mr. Rodriguez ever played a shady cult leader in a short-lived TV series (HBO's The Idol, in the Weeknd's case). If you can prove otherwise, though, please let us know here in the chat.
By the way, happy Groundhog Day! Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow earlier today, which means spring is on the way. That's great and everything, but I predicted he would see his shadow—I lost a $5,000 bet because of that wily woodland creature!
The Brand New Heavies, "World Keeps Spinning" (1994)
"So, have faith in future love / 'Cause there's heaven up above / When we think we've reached the end / The world keeps on spinning …"
(written by Jan Kincaid; produced by the Brand New Heavies)
"So, have faith in future love / 'Cause there's heaven up above / When we think we've reached the end / The world keeps on spinning …"
"World Keeps Spinning" is misspelled as "Worlds Keep Spinning" on most versions of this English acid-jazz group's third album, but as Sting once sang, on a track from the Police's Ghost in the Machine (1981), "One world is enough for all of us." So, let's be good to each other—a little bit of kindness goes a long way.
On that note, can anyone loan me $5,000? I promise I'll pay you back in the spring, which would be months and months away from now if not for a certain groundhog's erratic behavior.
"Tree Tips" PSA
Hey, do as this public service announcement from the '70s says and plant a tree, New Yorkers! (Naturally, we're perfect little environmentalists here in Chicago. Why would you think otherwise?)
Todd Rundgren, "Where Does the Time Go?" (2000)
"Where does the time go when I'm with you? / Why does it seem like there's never enough? …"
Hey, do as this public service announcement from the '70s says and plant a tree, New Yorkers! (Naturally, we're perfect little environmentalists here in Chicago. Why would you think otherwise?)
(written and produced by Todd Rundgren)
"Where does the time go when I'm with you? / Why does it seem like there's never enough? …"
Well, we've reached the end of this installment of RAPP Radio Presents Timesesh. Where did the time go? It flew, most likely. It often does.
This track from Todd Rundgren's album One Long Year was supposedly recorded in '85, but it stayed in his vaults for the next 15 years. Is Todd God? Some of his fans in the '70s thought so—you heard his top-five hit "Hello It's Me," from 1972's Something/Anything?, in the background of that "Tree Tips" PSA—but thanks to Friday-afternoon drive-time radio, he may be best known for 1982's "Bang the Drum All Day." You don't want to work? You want to bang the drum all day? Todd feels your pain—and, luckily, once you turn in that time sheet, your workweek will be over and you can bang the drum all weekend.
Thank you for listening! If you'd like to hear most of this playlist on Spotify, click here. And if you'd like to hear what Spotify doesn't have from that playlist, including "(Oh, No! Not) The Beast Day" and the Moonlighting theme with its original sax solo and not a harmonica solo, let me know and I can send those MP3s your way.
Have a great weekend!
* Names of RAPPers have been changed to protect the innocent just in case the innocent don't want to find their names on a random blog during a random Google search.
