Today In Oldies 12/14/2010

Golden Hits Radio and GHR-2's Everything Oldies......your Oldies news authority!

• British TV personality and America's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan's new show on CNN hasn't even premiered yet......and already a major music superstar has been banned!  
• A superstar has been invited to play in what is currently a political hotbed.  Will he accept?
• Who didn't think much of one of his songs that became a #1 smash?
• Take it for what it's worth, but here's what is reported to be a leak containing the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees....as always, as notable for who didn't get in as those who did
• Mick Jagger breaks his silence about his feelings toward Keith Richards' autobiography

 Oldies on TV

• Annie Lennox - Regis & Kelly - (syndicated, check local listings)
• Barbra Streisand - Good Morning America and Nightline - ABC
• Bette Midler - Late Night With Jimmy Fallon - NBC (12:35 a.m. Eastern/11:35 Pacific)

A Shot At The Title

All this week, Everything Oldies will play "What if?", as we spotlight songs with their original working titles.  Imagine what a different world we'd live in if the most covered song of all time were The Beatles' classic, "Scrambled Eggs".....which was the original working title of......"Yesterday".  Enjoy the stories behind the titles.....and why they changed.

• The first few copies distributed of this Beatles classic promoted it as being from a movie entitled "Eight Arms To Hold You".  That title, in fact, was supposed to have applied to both the single and the movie!  It was also originally written with a slower tempo by John Lennon, but was sped up to make it more palatable to radio.  The song originally called "Eight Arms To Hold You", with a much slower pace, became...........

• Another staple of American Oldies radio began with a much different title and lyrics.  The original theme of the song surrounded an interracial relationship, a taboo topic at the time of its release.  To make it more acceptable for radio airplay, the racial aspect was downplayed, and the title was changed.  While the line "makin' love in the green grass" was left in and still proved to turn off some radio stations, "Brown Skinned Girl" became better known as.............

• Songwriter Jim Vallance explains that this song's original title was "Best Days Of My Life".  Originally, it had only one reference to what eventually became the song's title.  He says that there were probably subconscious influences from the movie Summer of '42 and Jackson Browne's "Running On Empty", which contains the line "In '69 I was 21".  When it finally hit record stores and radio in 1985, it became a classic for Bryan Adams as...........

Golden Hits Radio & GHR-2's Burning Question of the Day

What was the first #1 song under Billboard's Hot 100 chart format? 

Check back tomorrow @ Everything Oldies for the answer, and leave a comment here with your best guess! 

Which artist pre-taped a 1976 appearance on Saturday Night Live about an hour before the broadcast due to being overcome with stage fright?

Answer: Carly Simon -- who kept it together via the magic of videotape long enough to perform "Half A Chance" and "You're So Vain" while being backed by Chevy Chase playing a cowbell (due to a member of her band being unable to perform)