Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Tuesday Tuneage
Eddie Money - "Two Tickets To Paradise"
1977

Springsteen/Seger hard rock polished up a touch, guaranteeing a landing on AM radio, yet still deep enough to fit in on FM. Unfortunately these days it's been reduced to a horrible TV commercial for Geico (and I've heard a worse audio-only variation of it while streaming a station on iHeartRadio), which makes it easy to overlook as one of the gems of the late seventies. It has one of the more interesting rhythms to appear on its era mainstream radio, certainly the opening guitars tell part of the story, while the choruses drive the point home.

On the surface it appears to be about a guy taking his gal on a last-minute trip to somewhere nice. But something in the desperation in Money's voice and the way the band plays always has me suspecting that this ain't no three-day weekend, it's a getaway, like the narrator has pulled off something that requires him leaving town, pronto. One of the joys of repeated listenings over the decades is that you can have it either way. AM/FM. Holiday/Escape.