(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Cher - "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves"
Hit Number 1: November 6, 1971
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
The early part of the '70s were weird. I'm not sure if it was psychedelic hangover, or if the cool thing to do was to just be weird. The fashion was all over the place, politics were insane (believe it or not, maybe even more insane than today), but especially the music. There were different layers of it too. There was the "Everything Is Beautiful" kind of weird, which was a corny song about trying to make the world a better place. There was the "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" kind of weird, which was an epic rollercoaster ride of a song combined with expert craftsmanship. That shouldn't have worked as well as it did. And finally there was the "Go Away Little Girl" style of weird, which was just sheer mediocrity. Cher's first #1 single "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" is also a very weird song, but it's its own special kind of weird. A kind of weird that only Cher could ever match. (Drinking game idea: Take a shot every time I said weird in that paragraph)
Cher is one of the more interesting figures in music history in my opinion. She appeared in this series once before with her then-husband Sonny Bono in the song "I Got You Babe", but that song doesn't reflect who Cher really was. Cher had a stage presence that was hard to match, even today. (The artist who comes the closest to Cher in my opinion is Lady Gaga, but it's still not that close) She had her signatures too: her contralto voice, long black hair and exotic fashion sense. She was specially made to have a solo career. "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" was the beginning to the kinds of songs she would make, the songs that she would become to be known for. It's kind of hard to believe that "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" hit #1 at the time that it did. The '70s have this reputation of being weird, but the decade also has a reputation of being innocent. "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" is about as non-innocent as it comes. It touches on sensitive topics such as prostitution, racism and teenage pregnancy.
After the Sonny & Cher duo faded away, Cher started a solo career. At first she did well, cracking the top ten on more than one occasion. However around 1968, she began to see some struggles. She was still married to Sonny Bono, and he tried everything to revive her career. He was unsuccessful in doing so, so Cher's label, Kapp Records, recruited Snuff Garrett as her producer. Garrett chose Bob Stone to write a song for Cher, that song eventually becoming "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves". The plan was to write a song for Cher that would be more appealing to an adult audience. That's not exactly a shocker, considering the kinds of stuff this song talks about.
To be more specific, the song is about a girl who was born into an assumedly poor family. She was born "in the wagon of a traveling show," her mother dancing for money "they'd" throw, which hints at prostitution, and her father "doing whatever he could." He'd be a preacher and would also sell bottles of Doctor Good. The song gets even darker in the second verse when the family picks up a 21-year-old in Mobile, Alabama. They took care of the boy and let him travel with them to Memphis. However, Cher sings "Papa would have shot him if he knew what he done," which implies that he had sex with the narrator. The narrator then has a daughter who is born into the same mess that the narrator had to deal with. The family is constantly ridiculed by everyone else, and they were called everything the title of the song suggests. The original name of the song was "Gypsies, Tramps & White Trash", but was changed.
Now's the time to say that Cher's solo career is kind of meh to me. "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" is probably her best song from her peak in the early-70s, but it still flies right over my head. That's mostly because of the musical production. The song was well-written, and the story is interesting but the production is pure cheese. It sounds like something you'd hear in a fairy tale. The chorus is an annoying ear worm, with just enough catchiness to become memorable, but not enough flare to be good. It's a song that puts absolutely zero effect on me. To be fair though, that means it at least doesn't put a bad effect on me. I couldn't care less about the thing.
The best thing about the song is Cher herself. She has one of those intriguing contralto voices that's easy to listen to. Unfortunately, she can't do enough to save this song from "nothing" status for me. It's one of those songs that can be removed from music's existence and I wouldn't care. Much like a lot of other songs from Cher's solo career. Anyway, we're not done with Cher yet. We'll see her again in this series.
GRADE: 5/10
10 ALERT!!!:
John Lennon's immortal, dream-like, euphoric masterpiece "Imagine" peaked at #3 behind "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves". You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one that thinks it's a 10.
NOTE:
I have not been posting on here anywhere close to as much as I would like to. But this note is just to say that I'm not getting bored of this, and I'm definitely not throwing in the towel. I've just been super busy lately. I've been working hard core on a 10 page paper, as well as balancing a social life here in college. This blog is kind of my last priority behind everything else, but hopefully I can get these entries posted with a lot more consistency moving forward.
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