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Song Stories

“Downtown”

Petula Clark | 1965

Few celebrations of the city's allure and bright lights were as upbeat or successful as Petula Clark's "Downtown," a 1965 chart-topper that broke her in the US after years of stardom in the UK and France. Her producer Tony Hatch had written the song in hope that an American black singer or group would record it. "While I'd been in the States, I'd been greatly inspired by the atmosphere in New York and the life there," he remembered in 'This Is My Song': A Biography of Petula Clark. "I had picked up the word 'Downtown' [in the US]."

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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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