Hangin' out

Someone once said that you didn't have to be around in the 70s to love "That 70s Show," and that someone was right! Like any great situation comedy, that show had all the right components -  a great cast, great writing, and a million great ideas for stories.

The show catches your attention from the moment it bursts onto your screen (it's rerunning, sorry, streaming, on Peacock now) because of the theme song. Whereas a lot of shows hardly even have much of a theme, this one did, and there's a story or two behind it.

Once upon a time lived a teenager from Memphis by the name of Alex Chilton. At age 16, fresh off success at the talent show at Central High (Elvis went to Humes High) Alex joined a local band hitherto known as Ronnie And The Devilles, who changed their name to The Box Tops and recorded two big hits, "The Letter" and "Cry Like A Baby."

Leaving Memphis behind,  Alex learned guitar and songwriting, forming a band called Big Star that is still regarded highly, but ironically, failed to become big stars at all. On their first album "#1 Record" (again, a sad irony; it came nowhere near the top of the charts) Alex and co-writer Chris Bell came up with "In The Street," which came to the mind of a friend of Alex named Ben Vaughn, who was working on the soundtrack of the new "That 70s Show" in 1998.  For the first season of the show, a version of "In The Street" as recorded by singer Todd Griffin and some Los Angeles studio musicians was used as the show theme.

Here is the original Big Star version:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iXukwny37U

The redone version lacked what is technically referred to as either "oomph" or "pizzaz," so they brought in Cheap Trick to make what I think is the definitive version of the song we love to hear as everyone rides in the car. In this montage, you'll hear all the versions used in the show: the first version, the Cheap Trick versions, and the versions with Christmas and Halloween music effects added:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2CYKlWm5pg

"We're all alright" was added because it was the chant from Cheap Trick's great song "Surrender" which I refuse to stop singing when I'm alone in the car.

Chris Bell died many years ago, leaving Chilton to collect his half of the royalties on their song. For whatever reason, Alex never made it very big in music although, as I say, he was highly thought of by other musicians and rock critics. He never had more hits. He passed in 2010 under sad circumstances; he had been ailing but did not seek medical attention because he had no health insurance, so he lived to be but 59.

Cheap Trick is still out on the concert circuit, still playing what they call "That 70s Song" night after night, and although Alex Chilton, before his death, told Rolling Stone he never watched the show or heard Cheap Trick's version of the song, he made $70 in royalty every time the reruns played somewhere, so he called the show "That $70 Show."