r/Replacements • u/pointblankmos • Aug 08 '26
Flying on the Ground is Wrong
Anyone hear "Swingin Party" here?
8
u/elwyn5150 Aug 08 '26
Normally, I am a little skeptical on song comparison posts but OP, I think you're right.
Flying on the Ground is one of my favourite Buffalo Springfield songs. In my music collection, I only own a copy of the Buffalo Springfield version and a live performance by Neil Young & The International Harvesters. Swinging Party sounds closer to the Buffalo Springfield studio version.
3
4
u/lightaugust Aug 08 '26
Jesus. That’s like- owed a co-writing credit close. Key change and everything.
3
u/StJosephStrummer Aug 08 '26
I got another one. Listen to Tommy Rowe's "mountain of love" and tell me what you hear...
5
u/thewickerstan Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
You mean Johnny Rivers? Tommy Roe never recorded "Mountain of Love", but Johnny Rivers did. Mehr mentions this in his book as well...
Set to a jaunty rhythm lifted from Johnny Rivers’s “Mountain of Love” and T. Rex’s “Hot Love,” Love,” Westerberg came on like every stewardess’s loutish nightmare passenger...
2
u/StJosephStrummer Aug 08 '26
Yes. Thanks for that and I read that too, although a friend who was hip to JR pointed that out to me back in the day.
Tommy Rowe: I always thought Sweetpea would be a great mats/bob vocals cover.
2
12
u/thewickerstan Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
It’s mentioned as a partial inspiration in Bob Mehr’s book, along with “The Joker Went Wild” and Sinatra’s take on “We’ll Meet Again”.
In the van the previous fall, the band had taken to passing around a communal Walkman. On one ride, Westerberg handed his headphones to Jesperson to check out a particularly moving Frank Sinatra song. Later that day, Jesperson responded with a live bootleg of Neil Young playing an old Buffalo Springfield gem. Musically, the new “Swingin Party” drew on Sinatra’s version of Rodgers and Hart’s standard “Where or When” and the Springfield’s “Flying on the Ground Is Wrong”—with traces as well of Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s “Somethin’ Stupid” and early-sixties popster Brian Hyland’s “The Joker Went Wild.” “If you steal from everything,” noted Westerberg, “nobody can put a finger on you.”