Darn, it’s too late for Lent…
It looks like another beautiful Monday morning, at least if you have the next five nights off work like I do. Hey, even if you do have to slave away at that grindstone for The Man this week, The Nest is gonna try to cheer you up with another totally lost earworm straight from the moldy depths of the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy’s digging all the way back to 1977 today when she was blowing up the discotheques with the grooviest of dance tunes for John Travolta wannabes everywhere… but the Sponkies won’t have to dig out their platform shoes to enjoy this slice of late 70’s heaven. And that’s a good thing, because those things are murder on the hooves…
Dean Friedman is not one of the best remembered artists in pop music lore. Most of his career seemed to be spent writing and producing theme songs for Nickelodeon shows in the early 90’s that were watched by kids who weren’t even born when he had his one moment of pop chart fame. Not that a song that only reached #26 on the Hot 100 would be anything to write home about for even a one-hit wonder… but it’s one of the more unique pop songs we’ve ever heard and deserves to be remembered a lot better than it is today. Let’s give it up for Dean Friedman’s 1977 hit “Ariel”…
You’d need all of your fingers and toes to count all of the awesome (now) retro pop culture references in this song… not to mention the nods to local phenomena from Friedman’s hometown of Paramus, New Jersey. Just some of what you’ll find in Ariel’s lyrics are…
The iconic VW van…
Peace, love and machine guns.
A trip to Dairy Queen for something other than a sunduh sundae…
Alas, poor Dennis. We hardly knew ye…
TV’s with a vertical hold knob!
Looks perfectly fine to me…
And channels that signed off the air with the National Anthem!
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…
And let’s not forget one of the greatest lines of any pop song ever written….
I said, “Hi,”
She said, “Yeah, I guess I am.”
Dean and Ariel would go on to start an online astrology website that brought great joy to my readers…
Join me again next Monday for another long lost earworm to benefit the Volunteer Ambulance Corps…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
Now that’s a nice, perky Monday morning earworm if ever there was one!
Pam
Indeed! A happy-making song if there ever was one…
Stoner Boy could be this guy’s offspring. Spooky.
You’re right! The taste in really bad hair runs in the family…
LOL My death-metal, gangsta-rap listenin’ husband has this song on his phone. 😀
That’s great! Nobody can resist the happiness of “Ariel!”
I love the chorus… and that all was “hand-made” without techie-stuff like today…. Chapeau Mr. Friedman, that’s creative :o)
Yep, and I’ll bet the fireworks sounds came from real fireworks! I’ll bet that was fun to set off in the studio! 😉
1977 was a big year for me but somehow I missed this gem. It brings out the true essence of the 70’s. I was listening to Al Stewart and Foreigner and ELO. But wow, what an ear worm. Thanks again ES for contributing to my cultural education.
I always got the sense this was a bigger hit on the East coast and, to a lesser extent, in the Midwest. It may not have been played much out west. Not that my two year old self would have noticed at the time, but that’s what I’ve heard about the song…
I finally signed up for Hulu because I missed the American 1980s and all of it’s pop culture. I didn’t miss the 1980s, I just got the Israeli version of it, which was rather a bit different. Although I’m really enjoying Hill Street Blues and will probably like St. Elsewhere, too, for the most part, I think my choice to be on another continent through the 80s wasn’t a bad idea at all. Just the clothing is enough to make me think being far away was a sensible response. The music wasn’t entirely bad, though. Nice to catch up with some of that, and I thank you for filling in my patchy years of the past!
I remember my Mom being hooked on St. Elsewhere, which may have had the stupidest series ending in all of television history. I riffed on it when I did my Millionaire story, but won’t spoil it in case you haven’t seen it yet…
Hey, finally a song I remember and can hum (well, actually booom booom booom that awesome bass line!) even before I listen to the you tubed video!
This post is Fanny Approved!
As much as I love a good bass line, there was so much else in this song I liked that I don’t think I paid any attention to it until you just called it out. YAYAY for cheesy 70’s pop!
I can’t help it. Once a bass player…..
It’s been driving me crazy for a day now trying to think of what song has the same line. I’m sure there are many, but one in particular that I think is late 90s or early 00s. It’s “almost” there…..
And of course I no sooner hit post than some lyrics came to me, although I was way off on the time frame.
Third Rate Romance!
Did someone redo it? The original, and only version I know, is a few years older than Ariel…
That’s why I said I was way off on the time frame. Unless that came to me while trying to think of something else, but it’s hopeless now because TRR is the only thing I’m hearing now.
Oops, I missed where you said the time frame was wrong. Yeah, I didn’t read something again… what else is new?
I had never heard this song before… When our TV used to sign off for the night, it was replaced with Teletext. There were games on it, and news, and trivia and you could cycle through it all. It was the internet of the time, and was great for insomniacs like me 😀
That kinda reminds me of a national sports channel (Actually, it was called SportsChannel!) from the early 90’s that would run a looping series of sports stories and statistics generated on an Amiga computer when it was off the air. The muzak also looped every half hour, but damn, I could listen to it all night long…. and did many times back then! My issue wasn’t insomnia, though, I just enjoyed keeping vampire hours even from a young age!
heerz one de food servizz gurl doez knot remember….act shoo a lee; sheez tryin ta rememburr wear her waz livin in 77…. ~~~~~~~~~~~~
🙂 ♥♥
They say if you can remember the 70’s, you probably didn’t live in the 70’s…
OMG, why did you have to use the words Under the Sea? Now I’ll be hearing that little crab guy singing it in my head all day long! Having boys, I didn’t even see The Little Mermaid that many times but that song still somehow burned itself onto my brain. Dean Friedman, not so much. I don’t remember the song or his name, which isn’t really surprising. The 70’s everyone else experienced didn’t make it to my little neck of the woods.
I had to make an Ariel/Little Mermaid reference in the title somehow, and that’s what I picked over “Kiss the Squirrel”, which would have just had you singing another earworm! I recommend repeated listenings of Ariel to rid yourself of the crabs!
Can’t get this out of my head now… thanks Evil! My computer has been helter skelter all last week. Save me? XOXO – Bacon
Do you need me to give it a boot in the butt for you? I actually heard somebody use a term the other day for the practice of trying to get electronics to work by whacking it… “concussive maintenance!” It;s the only type of repairs I specialize in…
Oohh squeals. I like that terminology. I must pass that along to the I.T. Guys at moms work who seem to be holding her hostage tonight. Snorts. XOXO – Bacon
I’ll bet you that’s what the IT guys do when they fix computers… you know what, I just may have had some Thursday comic inspiration! Thanks, buddy! 🙂
Anytime my friend. I’m always here for you. Snorts. XOXO – Bacon
just Wow! That was/is a beautiful song.
Very much so. Hey, nice bilbies in your Gravatar! 🙂
Thank you ES! 😀
The hair… the eyebrows… the moustache… the hair…
Sorry, was he singing as well? I got brain freeze. The hair…
I’ll bet that looked really sexy 40 years ago. Scary, isn’t it?
It’s scarier that back then we thought it was cool.
Hi, I sang “Lucky Stars” with Dean Friedman in the 70s. Hope you get a chance to check out my post about it:
https://wordpress.com/post/denisemarsatheartist.wordpress.com/469
I am enjoying your blog!
Best,
Denise