(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)
Paper Lace - "The Night Chicago Died"
Hit Number 1: August 17, 1974
Stay at Number 1: 1 Week
"Daddy was a cop, on the East side of Chicago." That's the first line in Paper Lace's "The Night Chicago Died", and immediately you're hit with the first of many errors in the song. Chicago has a north side, a west side and a south side, but an "east side" doesn't exist. Unless the song takes place under Lake Michigan, it's not possible cause the lake sits immediately to the east of downtown Chicago. Also the song is about a shootout between the Chicago police and gangsters related to Al Capone. This isn't an event that really happened, and while Capone's men really did go into battle in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, that was between Capone's men and Bugs Moran's men. Capone definitely had run-ins with the cops before, but there is no documented event that left over a hundred cops dead in Chicago because of Capone's gang. Though it's still pretty funny to pretend that there was a big shootout between Capone and the Chicago police in the depths of Lake Michigan.
It's hard to fault Paper Lace too much for writing this song with many errors. After all, they were a British band, and at the time of members of the band writing the song, they had never been to Chicago before. After one of the members realized that there was no "east side" of Chicago, he fired back there's an east side to everywhere. But the story of Paper Lace is pretty interesting as far as their success in the U.S. went. Their first big hit was "Billy Don't Be a Hero", which hit #1 in the U.K., but barely managed to crack the Hot 100 in America. Instead, a cover by Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods was the best version of the song as far as America was concerned, and that version hit #1 earlier in 1974. So at that point, you might've thought Paper Lace were limited to their native country. Of course, that didn't happen, as a song with many errors by a British band that clearly needed to hit the history books ended up being one of the biggest American hits of 1974. Paper Lace got their big break in America with a song you'd never think would make it over here. But alas, it did. I've said it many times already, you can't figure out the charts.
The main plot of the song starts with telling of the fictional fight between Capone and the cops, and then starts to talk about how the narrator's mother was crying because she was afraid her husband, a cop, died in the fight. After all, about a hundred were said to be dead. But then the dad bursts open the door and kisses the mom in what's supposed to be some triumphant victory I guess. Brother, what a night it really was right? Musically, "The Night Chicago Died" is as strange as its own story. The song has synths at the beginning which imitate cop car sirens, and there's also a clock ticking sound effect in the middle of the song after the line "There was no sound at all but the clock up on the wall." It sounds like Paper Lace just messing around in the studio rather than performing a legit song.
But this is not always such a bad thing. Sometimes the most ridiculous stories are the ones that draw appeal to the song. "The Night Chicago Died", while it's a stupid song, is catchy as hell. The chorus is a distinct, undeniable earworm. There's slide guitar notes, weird sound effects and a sense of shamelessness on the part of the band, which is what makes this song hard not to like a little bit. Unless you're the old mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, anyway. Paper Lace sent the song to Daley, and he hated it because of its stupidity. One of his staff members apparently said Paper Lace should "jump in the Chicago river" and place their heads underwater three times and only surface twice. I don't think Paper Lace should drown themselves for the song, and I definitely don't hate the song as much as Daley and company did, but I can kind of see where they're coming from as far as not liking the song goes.
Even still, I don't hate the song. I kind of like its sheer stupidity. The fact that Paper Lace's facts are all wrong here just makes it even better. My final thoughts come down to: very stupid, slightly annoying, but really catchy and pretty fun despite everything else. My feelings towards "The Night Chicago Died" are mixed, but I've never been able to bring myself to dislike it and I find myself enjoying it whenever I hear it play.
Brother! What a night the people saw!
GRADE: 6/10
IN POP CULTURE:
Here's a scene from That '70s Show where Bob Pinciotti sings "The Night Chicago Died" while it's playing on the radio, and annoys Red Foreman in the process. No doubt, Red probably wanted to put his foot in Bob's ass here.
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