Foreigner is one of those "classic rock" bands that you cannot escape on modern commercial radio. & you couldn't escape them back then, either. When I was a sprog in the late 70s, they were hugely popular. My brain, thanks to constant exposure to those radio stations, still knows the words to songs like "Feels Like The First Time," "Cold As Ice," "Hot Blooded," &, of course, "Double Vision."
Will anyone request "Double Vision," seeing as how this week's theme is "seeing double"?
The guitarist for Foreigner is named Mick Jones, & he's British, but he's not the same person as my idol Mick Jones of the Clash - but wouldn't it be hilarious if he was & I never knew? (Mick Jones is apparently the only original member of the band, which still exists.)
That's how little I knew about the band Foreigner - you could have mentioned the names of any of their members over the years & I would have drawn a blank. But reciting the lyrics to "Hot Blooded"? Hey, check it & see, I got a fever of a hundred & three, come on baby you can do more than dance! I just wrote all those out without consulting a lyrics site because my brain has them stored up. Memories of my childhood shoved away so I could remember mediocre "classic rock" songs.
That being said, I can't say I "hate" Foreigner. They're probably still making lots of cash from constant airplay & I'm sure there are people my age & older who go to see them in moderately large venues - tonight they're playing a casino in Indiana & earlier they played amphitheaters in Michigan. But I have never never nerver met anyone who will say anything like "Foreigner were the consummate rock band of the 70's" or "Foreigner changed the rock & roll landscape." There's not a Foreigner album anyone's ever said I have to listen to. No one cites Foreigner as an influence - well, no one good, anyway, & certainly not anyone I would be listening to, or that would be making any sort of mark . There are some seriously overrated bands that people utterly worship who are as successful as Foreigner that otherwise right-thinking people consider to be great.
Having said that, a friend of mine who pretty much only listens to classic rock radio once got mad at me for quoting the lyrics to "Cold As Ice" to her. She said, "Don't sing Foreigner to me! They ruined rock & roll!" I don't think she understood that many of the bands she loved had already destroyed rock & roll at that point - & that Foreigner was something arbitrary she picked out to focus her self-loathing. The rest of us, of course, allowed ourselves to be rescued by punk rock.
Please don't request "Double Vision" on my show. I could sing it to you over the phone but I won't play it, especially since the classic rock station further up the dial is probably playing it anyway - hurry! Or you'll miss the guitar solo!
PS I just discovered that Brave Combo do a cover of "Double Vision" on their record "The Process." I don't own it so I can't play it. But I can't imagine it's any good.
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