We wrap up our Labor Day singles sock hop rock-a-thon with a few B-sides, some very famous, some legendary and some totally unknown.
In 1970 Led Zeppelin cut its classic Led Zeppelin III, and the first single off that album was “Immigrant Song.” The flip side was “Hey, Hey What Can I Do.” The song was the only non-album track Zeppelin would offer up during its career, and for the longest time the only way you could hear it was on a scratchy single (or through the benevolence of a local radio DJ), but it’s since appeared on some Led Zeppelin box sets and as a bonus track on the Coda CD.
MP3: “Hey, Hey What Can I Do” by Led Zeppelin
Elvis had a pink cadillac, John Prine called an album Pink Cadillac, and Bruce Springsteen cut “Pink Cadillac” during his sessions for Born In The U.S.A. in 1984. Appearing on the flip of “Dancing In The Dark,” Springsteen’s Cadillac got a lot of mileage during his 1984-85 world tour and received radio play worldwide. The song has since appeared on a few of the Boss’s compilations and Tracks sets.
MP3: “Pink Cadillac” by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Townes Van Zandt is perhaps the godfather of Texas singer/songwriters. Before his death in 1997 he wrote and recorded a number of classics, and he has influenced the current generation of Lone Star pickers, like Steve Earle and Robert Earl Keen. “Dirty Old Town” is the Ewan MacColl song most famously covered by The Pogues, and Townes cut it in 1996 at one of his last recording sessions. “Dirty Old Town” is the B-side of “Riding The Range,” released on single by a German company in 1999.