Off Broadway's "Stay In Time" 45 RPM single.

The power pop band Off Broadway was formed in 1977 in Oak Park, Illinois by Cliff Johnson (lead vocals), Rob Harding (guitar and backing vocals), John Ivan (guitar), John Pazdan (bass), and Ken Harck (drums, vocals). Cliff Johnson and John Pazdan were members of Pezband, another power pop band based in Oak Park. Pezband had been formed a few years earlier and enjoyed critical acclaim with such albums as “Pezband” (1977) and “Laughing in the Dark” (1978). Critical success did not translate to sales, however, and Johnson and Pazdan left to form Off Broadway. The band signed with Atlantic Records and released their first album, “On”, in 1979. The album also spawned their first single, “Stay In Time” b/w “Full Moon Turn My Head Around”. This is today’s featured single.
“Stay In Time” was Off Broadway’s biggest hits, and has all the earmarks of a great power pop song. Opening with a drum beat which is soon joined by Harding and Ivan’s guitars. Cliff Johnson’s vocals are somewhat reminiscent of Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander, and are effective even when delivering such relatively lightweight sentiments as “[e]veryday when you turn away from your world boy/You’re ignoring your life an oh, what a shame boy”. The song has a relatively simple arrangement and a strong, catchy hook, as if the pop melodies of The Beatles have been wedded to the punchier rock of of the 1970s. “Stay In Time” was definitely Off Broadway’s moment in the sun, and peaked on the Billboard singles chart at #51.
The B-side of the single, is a more up-tempo rocker, and one of the stronger songs from their excellent debut album “On”. The lyrics aren’t any more ponderous than those of “Stay In Time” (with lines like “[w]hen I’m edgy and I feel a little crazy and I’m going wrong/Should I take a drink or should I try to think about a simple song”), but the overall the song packs more energy than the A-side, the perfect antidote to those who would dismiss the band as Cheap Trick-lite. While this song is not as catchy as “Stay In Time”, it could easily have been a hit in its own right.
The single (catalog #: 3647) was released on Atlantic Records in 1979. No picture sleeve was issued, although a sleeve with the company’s name (“The Altantic Group”) was issued. The label features the Atlantic logo featured on 45 RPM singles issued during this era. The album “On” reached #101 on the Billboard album chart and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The follow-up album, “Quick Turns” (1980), was significantly less successful. After a few years of touring, Off Broadway broke up in 1983. In 1996, Johnson, Harding and Harck, joined by Mike Gorman (guitar) and Mike Redmond (guitar), formed Black on Blond. After receiving numerous audience requests to play Off Broadway songs, they soon began playing concerts as Off Broadway. The new lineup released “Fallin’ In” (1997), Off Broadway’s first new studio album in 17 years. A live album, “Live at Fitzgerald’s” (1998), was subsequently released on Crash Records. Since then, Off Broadway has apparently become defunct once again, with former band members moving on to new projects; Cliff Johnson formed the band Cliff Johnson and the Happy Jacks.

Picture sleeve for Them's "Baby Please Don't Go" single

Them was not only a great rock band in its own right, it was arguably the first rock band from Northern Ireland to make a significant impact on the music scene. Them originated when Van Morrison, formerly of the Golden Eagles, formed an rhythm and blues club at the Maritime Hotel in Belfast with entrepreneurs Jimmy Conlon, Jerry McKenna and Gerry McCurvey. He set about to find a backing band and eventually joined up with a band called The Gamblers that had been formed in 1962 by Ronnie Millings (drums), Billy Harrison (guitar) and Alan Henderson (bass guitar). Eric Wrixon, who was still in school, was recruited as a piano player and keyboardist, while Morrison played saxophone and harmonica and shared lead vocal duties with Harrison. Following the suggestion of Wrixon, the band rechristened itself Them (after a 1954 science fiction movie). The band debuted on April 14, 1964, and within a week people were queuing down the street to get into the two hundred capacity venue. Supposedly their studio work never captured the brilliance of their live performances, as they fed off the energy of the audience. A tape of one of their songs recorded by a fan found its way to Dick Rowe of Decca Records. Rowe had become famous as the man who turned down The Beatles, and eager not to make the same mistake, he rushed to the Maritime Hotel to see them in concert and soon signed Them to a standard two year contract. The minors who were members of the band needed their parents’ permission, and when Eric Wrixon’s parents refused to sign, he was replaced with Patrick McAuley. After an initial single failed to chart (“Don’t Start Crying Now”, released in August 1964), Them’s manager, Phil Solomon, and Dick Rowe hired session musicians Jimmy Page, Peter Bardens, and Bobby Graham to back Morrison on a cover version of Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go”. The session was recounted in Stephen Davis’s biography of Led Zeppelin, “Hammer Of The Gods”:

The sessions for Them were really uncomfortable for Jimmy, as the four tough Belfast musicians were replaced, one by one, with London session hacks, “The group went in thinking they were going to record,” Jimmy said, “and all of a sudden they find these other people playing on their records. It’s a miracle they didn’t replace Van Morrison. Talk about daggers!”

The single had “Gloria” on the B-side. “Gloria” was a Van Morrison composition that had gained almost legendary status in the band’s live performances, where Morrison would often ad-lib the lyrics, and the song would often run twenty minutes. As one might have already guessed, “Gloria” became the stronger side and the single was even re-released with “Gloria” on the A-side and “Baby Please Don’t Go” on the B-side. And as one might have surmised from the title of this posting, this is the featured single of the day.
“Baby Please Don’t Go” was originally released as a single by Joe Williams’ Washboard Singers in 1935; Williams recorded another version in 1941 and the song has been covered by many artists since then; the most memorable example from recent years is the Aerosmith version from the “Honkin’ On Bobo” album, and AC/DC recorded a version that was included on the “’74 Jailbreak” EP. The original version features Joe Williams on guitar, singing while accompanied by – you guessed it – a washboard (and a violin). The 1935 recording sounds like it was recorded in the stone age, yet Williams and company turn in a spirited performance (I liked the washboard percussion at the end as well). The 1940’s version featured a harmonica (essentially replacing the violin) and a more traditional rhythm section (a bass guitar and drums). The chord progression on the song isn’t overly complex, and in the Them version, the song is driven by the main riff on Page’s lead guitar accompanied by a bass guitar. [One suspects that when Aerosmith recorded their cover version of the tune, they used the Them version, rather than the original version, as a template for their remake.] About 15 seconds into the song, an organ kicks in and not too long after that, drums and percussion. The lyrical content is very simple: it’s about a man begging his significant other not to leave him: Baby please don’t go/Baby please don’t go/Baby please don’t go/Down to New Orleans/You know I love you so/Baby please don’t go”. There is also a very interesting guitar effect about 1 minute and 20 seconds into the song that is difficult to describe; essentially, it sounds as if the guitar is muffled. A harmonica can be heard about 1 minute and 55 seconds into the song, and so much is going on here that until this point, one almost doesn’t notice that there hadn’t been any harmonica. Overall, the song moves along nicely, making it seem even shorted than its 2 minute 38 second length. Although “Gloria” ultimately became the more popular song and the band’s signature tune, the Them recording of “Baby Please Don’t Go” is a great song and it even became the theme music for the ITV music show “Ready Steady Go”.
“Gloria” is yet another of the classic songs covered in this blog that has been written about extensively, and as a result, it is very difficult to do it justice in a brief blog posting such as this. But if Van Morrison and Them can encapsulate teenage lust as well as they did in 2 minutes and 38 seconds, I guess I can try to encapsulate the song in a single paragraph. This is a very simple song: there are only three chords, although there are dynamic changes throughout the song, so that the band gets the most out of this rather simple riff. The song starts with the melody played on electric guitar by Harrison, followed by Morrison’s speak-singing Howlin’ Wolf voice (at the same time that Morrison starts singing, an organ can be heard – in the left channel in the stereo version – in the background, playing the same melody as the lead guitar; this could be either McAuley or perhaps session musician Arthur Greensdale, who was brought in by Rowe): “Like to tell ya about my baby/You know she comes around/She about five feet four/From her head to the ground/You know she comes around here/At just about midnight/She make ya feel so good, Lord/She make ya feel all right”. This is probably, as one critic suggested, one song that is as raunchy as it’s reputation, and in addition, it’s probably one of the best songs to get past the censors. About 1 minute and 20 seconds into the song, the tempo slows down, and the organ becomes more audible, and Morrison’s vocals seem even more desperate than before, as he describes the denouement of his anticipation:” Comes a-walkin’ down my street/When she comes to my house/She knocks upon my door/And then she comes in my room/Yeah, an’ she make me feel alright”. And then of course this gives way to the end of the song, in which the tempo picks up again, and Morrison delivers the last iteration of the famous chorus (“G-L-O-R-I-A!” with the rest of the band chanting “Gloria” in the background). It wouldn’t be doing the song justice if I didn’t also mention the fact that there seems to be two drums on this record – one providing rhythm, and the other one just thumping away. The extra drum may have been dubbed in, or perhaps it is Bobby Graham, also brought in by Rowe. In either case, there seems to be a lot going on in this pop song. “Gloria”, like “Baby Please Don’t Go”, has been covered numerous times (it’s so easy to play that Dave Barry once joked that if you throw a guitar down the stairs, it will play “Gloria”); the Status Quo, The Doors, the Patti Smith Group, and U2 come to mind as far as cover versions go, and AC/DC used the riff as the basis for “’74 Jailbreak”.
This single (catalog #: F12018) came with a picture sleeve – you can see it here as my default pic (as of 4-19-2008). And I happen to think it’s a rather nice sleeve, green and yellow with a picture of the band and track listing. It seems a bit weird that the word BABY appears in a larger font than the words PLEASE DON’T GO, with the word GLORIA appearing in a font size somewhere in between the two extremes; I have no idea why they did that. Interestingly enough, it was issued in the United States by Parrot Records, a division of London Records (Decca Records in the U.S.). After Parrot Records folded in 1973, the single was reissued by London Records. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, that this single currently has the honor of being the oldest single covered in this blog, having been released in November 1964.

Wiseguy: Season One Volume One DVD cover

This posting does not deal with the usual subject matter of this blog, but I recently finished watching the “Wiseguy Season One Volume One” DVD set, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on it:

Wiseguy First Season Volume One
Mill Creek Entertainment
2 Discs (the box says 4 discs, but I assure you there are only 2)
7 hours 33 minutes
Color
I first encountered “Wiseguy” circa 1990, when CBS starting airing reruns after the cancellation of “The Pat Sajak Show” (1989-1990), and quickly fell in love with the show. I’m not really sure what prompted my initial affinity for the show, although I had been a fan of shows like “Danger Man” (a.k.a. “Secret Agent”) and I liked the idea of the main protagonist fretting over the unpleasant consequences of his own actions. I also liked the idea of multiple episode story “arcs”, which something the show does particularly well. While each episode conceivably could be viewed in isolation, each one containing its own denouement and certain issues resolved within it, most of the episodes are part of a larger arc that are meant to be viewed in sequence.
“Wiseguy” was created by producer Stephen J. Cannell (“The Rockford Files”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, “The A-Team”, “21 Jump Street”), whose shows have provided endless hours of escapism. The series followed Vincent Michael “Vinnie” Terranova, an undercover agent for the Organized Crime Bureau (OCB), presumably a fictional division of the FBI, as he infiltrates and brings down various criminal enterprises. Although the scriptwriting is of a high caliber, much of the appeal of the show derives from the cast. By 1987, when the show first aired, Ken Wahl, who starred in the show as Terranova, was a veteran actor best known for his roles in “The Wanderers” (1979) and “Fort Apache: The Bronx” (1981). Jonathan Banks, who played Terranova’s superior, Frank McPike, was probably best known as one of the bad guys in “Beverly Hills Cop”. Jim Byrnes, who plays Daniel “Lifeguard” Burroughs, Terranova’s contact person, did not have any television roles before “Wiseguy”, but later appeared in “Highlander: The Series”.
This budget-priced DVD set covers the first ten episodes of Wiseguy, covering the entire Sonny Steelgrave arc, as Terranova infiltrates the organization of Atlantic City crime boss Salvatore “Sonny” Steelgrave (the late Ray Sharkey).
Other recurring characters introduced in this arc include Elsa Raven as Carlotta Terranova, Vinnie’s mother, and Gerald Anthony as Father Pete Terranova, Vinnie’s older brother. Pete Terranova was killed off at the beginning of the second season; Carlotta Terranova appeared sporadically over the first three seasons. Here’s a synopsis of the episodes (SPOILER ALERT):
1. Pilot (part one): Vinnie Terranova is released from Newark State Penitentiary, where he has just completed an 18-month sentence designed to establish his cover. When his training officer is killed by David Steelgrave (Gianni Russo), Vinnie sets his sights on bringing down the Steelgrave empire. He succeeds in getting himself hired as Sonny Steelgrave’s driver, although Sonny’s right-hand man, Tony Greco (Robert Miranda) and his brother David remain wary of him. He runs afoul of a redneck sheriff, the appropriately-named Lewis Butcher (played by Cannell favorite Jack Ging), who goes about his business in a manner as subtle as a flying mallet. The Steelgraves soon uncover a plot by Norman Winfield to ship guns from their docks without the Steelgraves’ consent. This intransigence costs Winfield his life, but who was his buyer? Part one ends with Terranova being arrested for a hit-and-run incident involving Butcher.
2. Pilot (part two): Terranova locates the buyer of the contaband guns using a motel receipt he found in Winfield’s pocket. This leads to a meeting with the buyer, Renaldo Sykes (Mark Rolston), in which David Steelgrave is shot dead by Sykes’ associate Raya Montenegro (Adriana Baron), while Sonny and Tony Greco are both wounded. Terranova soon realizes that Sykes’ claim that he had already paid $100,000 to have the guns shipped may be true and that Greco, who runs the docks on behalf of Steelgrave, may have pocketed the money without the Steelgraves’ knowledge. In any case, Terranova has the OCB deposit $100,000 in Greco’s bank account. Greco finds out Terranova is a federal agent, but by then Sonny realizes that he is a turncoat and Greco has no choice but to cooperate with the OCB in exchange for enrollment in the Witness Protection Program. A final showdown with Sykes results in the death of both Sykes and Montenegro, although the police arrive, seizing the weapons and arresting Terranova yet again. Soon Terranova is installed as Sonny’s new right-hand man after he apparently helps Sonny kill an FBI agent.
3. New Blood: In the wake of David Steelgrave’s death, Sonny feels the squeeze from both New York City mob boss Paul “Pat the Cat” Patrice (Joe Dallesandro), who forces Steelgrave to allow his accountant Sid Royce (Dennis Lipscomb) to become his business manager, and corpulent Philadelphia mob boss Mack “No Money” Mahoney (Joe Shea). Special prosecutor Anthony Serrera (Vic Polizos) is investigating Steelgrave, and Patrice is behind an attempt to assassinate Serrera, hoping to frame Sonny. Terranova manages to pinpoint a pizzeria which is behind the attempt he and Steelgrave manage to narrowly thwart the plot.
4. The Loose Cannon: Patrice insists that Sonny collect the full 15 percent protection money from local hood Cecil DeMont (Raymond Forchion), which precipitates a war with DeMont and his henchmen. In the meantime, Sonny’s nephew, Lorenzo Steelgrave (David Marchiano) arrives in Atlantic City, but the younger Steelgrave appears to be, as the title implies, a loose cannon. Terranova dates local girl Gina Augustina (Yvette Heyden) who eventually figures out that Vinnie is a federal agent, leading to an exciting climax for this episode.
5. The Birthday Surprise: Terranova investigates the murder of his cousin Danny Tessio (Eddie Pagliaro). Sonny decides to do business with drug smuggler George Zaratzo, against the advice of Patrice and Royce. McPike uses strong-arm tactics to find Danny’s killer, and Sonny’s attempt to smuggle Zaratzo’s drugs into the U.S. via Buffalo is thwarted.
6. One on One: When several attempts to smuggle contraband via the docks are thwarted, Terranova begins to suspect that the local police have an undercover agent inside Steelgrave’s organization. This comes in the form of Karen Leland (Annette Benning), who is having an affair with the married Royce in order to obtain information about Steelgrave’s business. Royce, however, has his own ideas about who the mole is, and has Patrice’s henchmen kidnap McPike, hoping to get him to reveal the identity of the undercover agent. Terranova and Leland arrive at a Patrice-controlled laundromat and free McPike. Leland subsequently disappears and is presumed murdered, with Royce as the prime suspect.
7. Prodigal Son: Terranova’s mother is mugged, leaving her in the hospital. This prompts Vinnie to finally reveal his identity as a federal agent to his mother, against OCB policy. He also finds out that Steelgrave is head of a drug distribution network operating in Patrice’s territory. McPike must decide whether to report Terranova’s violation to his superiors.
8. A Deal’s a Deal: When singer Joey Romanowski has a hit, he wants to renegotiate his contract with Steelgrave, much to Sonny’s chagrin. He instead hires two rogue cops (Dan Lauria, Steve Vinovich) to rough up Joey. They get overzealous and crush his larynx, ending his career. Overzealous does not equal smart, however, and they are the first officers to arrive on the scene of their own mugging. McPike suspects the cops are responsible for the mugging, but they in turn take pictures of Terranova meeting with McPike, which puts Vinnie’s cover in danger.
9. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Sonny decides to marry Theresa Baglia (Martina Finch), daughter of Bronx mob don “Joey Bags” Baglia. Patrice finally decides to kill Sonny, perceiving him as a dangerous rival, and seeks someone inside Sonny’s organization to help him. Vinnie agrees to help him, but also arranges to have the OCB raid Sonny’s bachelor party 15 minutes before Sonny is to be killed. Sonny learns of the plot and garrotes Patrice in front of a V.I.P. crowd at his bachelor party.
10. No One Gets Out of Here Alive: Sonny decides not to kill Vinnie for his treachery, but realizes Vinnie is a cop and flees his bachelor party minutes before the OCB raids the place. Terranova pursues Sonny and both end up locked in a closed movie theater. After a violent fist fight, the two settle in and wait for the cops to show up. When they do, Sonny electrocutes himself rather than face the death penalty for murdering Patrice. In the meantime, Don Baglia’s son, Aldo Baglia, who presumably would have become Sonny’s new right-hand man, disposes of Patrice’s body and apparently evades the OCB dragnet.
Comments: I picked up this low-budget DVD set for $2.50 at WalMart. Although I was a fan of the show, I hadn’t seen any of these episodes in over 20 years, and I wondered if the show was as good as I remembered it to be. It was. Particularly memorable was the late Ray Sharkey’s performance as mob boss Sonny Steelgrave. He succeeds in taking a murderer and turning him into a likeable character. The supporting cast was also good; Jonathan Banks plays his role as the cantankerous McPike with relish, establishing an unusual on-screen chemistry with Wahl (speaking of which, how many shows have one of their key episodes ending with the hero being arrested by his partner?). Jim Byrnes does not have a lot to do here, although he would have a chance to shine in subsequent episodes. Elsa Raven and Gerald Anthony are worth a mention as his mother and brother respectively; they both provide some depth to the main protagonist and ultimately become fully developed characters in their own right. We also get some good performances by Joe Dallesandro as Patrice and Dennis Lipscomb as the oily Harvard-educated Sid Royce. While I generally abhor violence, many times during the arc I kept wishing Sonny would punch Royce’s lights out (“Go ahead, Sonny – this one’s justified”). And let’s not forget Annette Benning towards the beginning of her career as Karen Leland, and veteran actor Dan Lauria (this may have been another case of Cannell preferring actors that were already in his shows; I think Lauria guested in an episode of Cannell’s “The Greatest American Hero”).
There are several strong episodes here, but the best episode – and the most memorable one – in my opinion was the last episode in the arc, “No One Gets Out of Here Alive”. In this episode, Vinnie and Sonny, locked in a movie theater and waiting the arrival of the Feds, have some riveting dialogue. Sonny, realizing the net is closing, tries to justify his behavior and rails against Vinnie’s betrayal. One of the downsides of the DVD release of this episode is the absence of the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin”, presumably due to copyright issues. The substitution of generic music diminished the scene in which it was used somewhat, but this is still easily the best episode of the arc. This episode also provides a good example of why I like this show: loose ends are rarely left as loose ends without a reason. Aldo Baglia, who we last see burying Patrice, surfaces in a later episode. A wanted felon in the U.S., he flees to Vancouver and has to suffer the indignity of working in a butcher’s shop and staying in a second-class hotel. He discovers Vinnie is also in Vancouver and tries to kill him. (Sid Royce also surfaces in a later episode, having joined the Witness Protection Program and working in Iowa as a shoe salesman under the alias Elvis Prim.)
If you’re looking for extras, this isn’t the set for you. There are no extras, and with 5 episodes on each DVD, the video quality isn’t the greatest. It would have been nice to see interviews with the cast members (especially given the direction which Ken Wahl’s career has taken), which might have provided some insight into the making of the show. Nevertheless, if you just want to see the episodes (the first season is also available on YouTube), and especially if you’re a fan of the show or of this genre, you can’t go wrong.

The Black Crowes' "Thorn in My Pride" 45 RPM single

Today’s single brings us well into the 1990’s: 1992 to be exact. By then, I doubt that many people were actually buying and playing vinyl (I think it was in 1990 that the needle on my turntable broke, and I never bothered to replace it), but vinyl records were still being manufactured and imagine my surprise when I went on eBay and found today’s featured single: “Thorn in My Pride” b/w “Sting Me”.
Fans of music from that era will likely recognize those two tracks as being from the Black Crowes’ “Southern Harmony And Musical Companion” album. In 1992, The Black Crowes (Chris Robinson – vocals; Rich Robinson – guitars; Marc Ford – guitars; Johnny Colt – bass guitar; Eddie Harsch – keyboards; Steve Gorman – drums) were still basking in the afterglow of their successful debut album, “Shake Your Money Maker” (1990). Rather than rest on their laurels, the band released a follow-up effort that is probably their magnum opus, in which they took their blues-rock revival to new levels, and for anyone who enjoyed their Faces meets Humble Pie meets the Rolling Stones meets blues and soul act, the album was thoroughly enjoyable. But not only did they release one great album, they put two of the album’s best songs on one single.
“Thorn in My Pride” is a slow ballad, opening with an acoustic guitar, followed by Eddie Harsch’s organ, and the rhythm section of Colt and Gorman. The song really is a good example of the Black Crowes slowly building a wall of sound. Like many other bands, they understand the light-heavy dichotomy and the idea that tension can be built in a song by holding back, but unlike some of the songs reviewed here (e.g. The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes”), there is no moment here where the dam bursts; instead, the music gradually builds, adding guitars, pianos, and eventually backing vocals, until the coda, where all this is stripped away, and we are left with Chris Robinson’s soulful vocals and and acoustic guitar, neatly creating a bookend for the song. And who could resist inscrutable lyrics like these: “Wake me when the day breaks/Show me how the sun shines/Tell me about your heartaches/Who could be so unkind?”. In the words of one reviewer, “The roots of Otis Redding and Humble Pie meet with a viable grace here…” This is classic Crowes all the way.
“Sting Me”, on the other hand, is a rocker that exhibits much of the happy sloppiness that the Black Crowes often exemplified. The opening of the track has the sound effect of a tape machine starting up, launching into Rick Robinson’s lead guitar, followed about ten seconds in by someone clapping, followed by Harsch’s organ and Gorman’s drums; the vocals don’t start until forty-eight seconds into the track, as if either the Crowes want to give us a feel for the sound of the track before launching into it, or they want to provide a really big intro for DJs to talk over (which given Chris Robinson’s criticism of commercialization seems unlikely). About three minutes in, there’s a powerful Rick Robinson guitar solo. The rhythm section is here, providing a solid backbone for the Black Crowes’ sound. But on this track, as with “Thorn”, what’s really noticeable (especially in comparison to their first album) are the keyboards, both the organ and the piano, and the decision to recruit Eddie Harsch in 1991 seems to have paid serious dividends; the band went from being a very good blues-rock revival band to a band that has a fuller, more refined sound. And if they were aiming for something that sounded a bit more like the Faces, adding a keyboardist was a step in the right direction (I always considered Ian McLagan a key component of the Faces’ sound). The lyrics seem to be directed towards an unknown woman: the chorus of “[c]an you sting me?” is a sexual metaphor, and Robinson’s asking “[w]hat’s a wasp without her sting?” is a question that seems to answer itself. The rhyme structure of the song is interesting as well: we get two rhyming lines followed by a non-rhyming line: If you feel like a riot/Then don’t you deny it/Put your good foot forward/No need for heroics I just/want you to show it/Now’s the time to shine”. Note the third line doesn’t rhyme with the first and second lines; the sixth line doesn’t rhyme with the fourth and fifth line; they don’t rhyme with each other; nor do they rhyme with any other lines in the song.
This single was issued with the black Def American label, with a barcode on the left side and the Def American logo (a map of the continental U.S.) on the right side. And here’s something that’s rather cool: a lot of the songs reviewed in this blog had special “single edits” to make the songs more AM radio-friendly (e.g. “No Sugar Tonight” was cut down to about two minutes). But by 1992, AM Top 40 radio had pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur, so such considerations were not a factor. As a result, the single has the full album-length version of “Thorn in My Pride”. I’m not sure about “Sting Me”, but I’d imagine that would also be the full-length version. Even if it isn’t, this is still a damn good single.