Call me a cheater if you want, but I'm taking editorial liberties with today's pick.
What better way of paying tribute to this year's Super Bowl winner, I thought, than to select a band or song that represents the Green Bay Packers.
Problem is, that's harder than it may seem. I was racking my brain trying to come up with a song or band in the classic rock genre with 'green' in the title (Sorry, Green Day). Same goes for Packers. And there's not many classic rockers who hail from Wisconsin.
So, I'm left with awarding co-songs of the day (two is OK, since neither one is officially classic rock)
1) "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers.
The 1970s Scottish popsters were popular amongst teenage crowds in Great Britain the post-Beatles era. (Fun fact: Originally named The Saxons, the band chose a new name randomly by throwing a dart at a map of the United States. It landed near Bay City, Michigan, a mid-sized town that sits along Saginaw Bay, about two hours northwest of Detroit ).
When introduced in the U.S., "Saturday Night," which flopped in the UK, soared to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also hit No. 1 on the RPM national singles chart in Canada.
2) "Blister in the Sun" by Violent Femmes.
One of the earlier alternative rock bands, the three-man Femmes, as they are known by fans, formed in 1980 in Milwaukee (about two hours south of Green Bay). Released in 1982, "Blister in the Sun" was one of their first hits -- and perhaps their biggest, even though it only reached No. 76 on the Billboard Rock Chart.. A music video was filmed in 1997 for the song's use in the film "Grosse Point Blank."
Following a contentious legal battle over the use of the song in a Wendy's commercial, the band officially broke up in 2009.
Photo credit: Tim Hagen, 2008
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