Last Original Drifter, Bill Pinkney, Dies at Age 81

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81-year-old Bill Pinkney, the last remaining original member of the Drifters, was found dead in a Florida hotel room Wednesday night, just hours before he was supposed to perform at a July Fourth celebration with the Original Drifters. Pinkney was a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted R&B group from 1953 to 1958, during which time they dominated the charts with hits like "Such a Night" and "Adorable."

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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