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| What I'm calling his prime. |
The Hit
Billy Swan wasn't a household name in his time, but his 1974 hit, “I Can Help,” reached somewhere north of 2 million households. The twangy sprint of a guitar riff that opens it gives way to an RMI organ - one Swan got from Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge as a wedding gift - laying glowing, sustained notes over a galloping rhythm straight out of the 50s. It’s very much a throwback number and, once you know Swan’s history, the reference makes sense. The single’s popularity makes just as much sense, dropping as it did at the front end of a long bout of 50s nostalgia that started with American Graffiti and continued with Happy Days, Grease, Sha Na Na, and so on.
I also came out of a particular cultural moment, as an entry in Stereogum’s No. 1’s series notes:
“’I Can Help’ first blew up on country radio, mostly because the country establishment of the ’70s had absorbed ’50s rockabilly sounds, the same way that the country establishment of today has absorbed ’70s and ’80s soft-rock sounds.”
Stereogum is less than gentle about the quality of Swan’s voice - “[his] voice is weedy and flat, and he sounds like he’s just keeping up with the song” - but they treat the song kindly and, in a repeating joke, bless it as “a good Samaritan seduction song.” For clarification’s sake, that means “[you’re] trying to convince this other person that they need you.”
The song’s moment was Swan’s moment as well. He recorded a lot more material and, given everything, had a decent career, but he never scored another big hit. Going the other way, Swan’s single had at least one very famous admirer and, if you buy an anecdote he dropped in an (undated) interview with Classic Bands, it enjoyed at least one epic moment:
“According to an interview I read with May Pang, John Lennon once served as a [DJ] at a party and played ‘I Can Help’ over and over again.”
Billy Swan wasn't a household name in his time, but his 1974 hit, “I Can Help,” reached somewhere north of 2 million households. The twangy sprint of a guitar riff that opens it gives way to an RMI organ - one Swan got from Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge as a wedding gift - laying glowing, sustained notes over a galloping rhythm straight out of the 50s. It’s very much a throwback number and, once you know Swan’s history, the reference makes sense. The single’s popularity makes just as much sense, dropping as it did at the front end of a long bout of 50s nostalgia that started with American Graffiti and continued with Happy Days, Grease, Sha Na Na, and so on.
I also came out of a particular cultural moment, as an entry in Stereogum’s No. 1’s series notes:
“’I Can Help’ first blew up on country radio, mostly because the country establishment of the ’70s had absorbed ’50s rockabilly sounds, the same way that the country establishment of today has absorbed ’70s and ’80s soft-rock sounds.”
Stereogum is less than gentle about the quality of Swan’s voice - “[his] voice is weedy and flat, and he sounds like he’s just keeping up with the song” - but they treat the song kindly and, in a repeating joke, bless it as “a good Samaritan seduction song.” For clarification’s sake, that means “[you’re] trying to convince this other person that they need you.”
The song’s moment was Swan’s moment as well. He recorded a lot more material and, given everything, had a decent career, but he never scored another big hit. Going the other way, Swan’s single had at least one very famous admirer and, if you buy an anecdote he dropped in an (undated) interview with Classic Bands, it enjoyed at least one epic moment:
“According to an interview I read with May Pang, John Lennon once served as a [DJ] at a party and played ‘I Can Help’ over and over again.”
