Friday Song: “Battleship Chains”
Sometimes the best songs are the simplest, and evoke a feeling of familiar fun
Some Fridays, you just need some rip-snorting, tongue-in-cheek, down home blues-rock to round out the week.
The Georgia Satellites hail from Atlanta. In 1986, their self-titled debut album generated their most enduring hit, “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” a jocular bit of hokum about a woman who refuses to become more intimate with her boyfriend until he marries her. The lead singer said the song basically wrote itself one day when he was on his way home from his job on a construction site. The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts.
The band was in constant flux, breaking up numerous times before and after their first album, and consistently shuffling personnel. They occasionally perform live, but only one original member remains.
A lesser-known song from the debut album was written by Terry Anderson, a musician and songwriter from North Carolina, and recorded by his band at the time, The Woods. The manager of the Georgia Satellites heard this version, and got permission to record it. It became one of the better-known tracks from the album, even if it didn’t break the Top 40.
The song was also covered by the Hindu Love Gods in 1990, a collaboration between Warren Zevon and members of REM.
The initial guitar lick elicits the boozy, loose feeling of an evening at a local watering hole, and the song had a great, simple, driving energy throughout.
Nothing complicated here.
Enjoy!