Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ordinals and Cardinal >10

I did zero to ten a few years back.  What songs can you think of that feature ordinals or cardinals greater than tenth or ten? Well, racking wracking my brains there's

Connie Stevens, Sixteen Reasons.  With footage from David Lynch, "Mulholland Drive."

Simon and Garfunkel, 59th Street Bridge Song. What a great song!  Slow down you hyperkinetic hustlers, you're moving too fast!

Cannibal and  the Head Hunters, Land of 1000 Dances.  This one goes out to Tom Coleman who probably danced to this at the El Monte Legion Stadium circa '65.  "Be there or be square!"  Can you pony like Bony Maroni?

Question Mark and the Mysterians, 96 Tears.  Is that a Farfisa organ making that cheesy sound?  This one goes out to Colin McGinn.

Bobby Darin, 18 Yellow Roses

Cannonball Adderley, 74 Miles Away

Chicago, 25 or 6 to 4

Frank Zappa, Twenty Small Cigars

Tom Waits, Ol '55

Paul Simon, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

Billy Ward and the Dominoes, Sixty Minute Man

Ike Turner, Rocket 88

Beatles, When I'm 64

Dave Alvin, Highway 61 Revisited.  So who is Dylan? A folksinger, a rock & roller? Or the bard of Deep Americana? 

13 thoughts on “Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ordinals and Cardinal >10”

  3. PS:
    Regarding “96 Tears”, a Farfisa would have been my guess as well, but apparently not:

    “Though combo organ lovers have strong opinions on the rivalry between the Continental and the Farfisa, it hasn’t always been easy to discern the difference between them on recordings.
    Take the organ riff on Question Mark and the Mysterians’ 1966 classic, “96 Tears.” Is it a Farfisa or is it a Continental? I called Bobby Balderrama, the Mysterians’ amiable guitarist, and asked him to settle the 50-year old debate once and for all.
    He told me that Frank Rodriguez, the Mysterians’ organist, brought his Farfisa to the “96 Tears” recording session, but the studio engineer kept getting an annoying buzzing sound from the Farfisa.
    To keep the session going, the engineer offered the only organ the studio had, an ordinary wooden Thomas home organ. Rodriguez rocked that Thomas to rock ‘n’ roll immortality, proving in the process just how hard it can be to discern one organ’s sound from another.”

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  5. Bill,
    I asked Grok the question as you posed it: “What songs can you think of that feature ordinals or cardinals greater than tenth or ten?” Here’s the response:
    Here are several songs that mention ordinals or cardinals greater than tenth or ten:
    Ordinal Numbers:
    “21st Century Schizoid Man” by King Crimson – The title itself uses the 21st ordinal.
    “12th of Never” by Johnny Mathis – Refers to a hypothetical very distant future date.
    “32nd Street” by Bon Jovi – While not explicitly stated in the song, it’s from the album “7800° Fahrenheit” where the street number is mentioned.
    Cardinal Numbers:
    “99 Red Balloons” by Nena – Talks about the number 99 directly in the lyrics.
    “867-5309/Jenny” by Tommy Tutone – The phone number in the title includes numbers well beyond ten.
    “19th Nervous Breakdown” by The Rolling Stones – Although the title uses “19th”, within the song context, it’s more about the repetition rather than the specific ordinal, but the number 19 is cardinal here.
    “One Hundred Years” by The Cure – Lyrics include the number one hundred.
    “747 (Strangers in the Night)” by Saxon – References the Boeing 747 aircraft, thus using the number 747.
    This list isn’t exhaustive, but these are some popular examples where numbers greater than ten or tenth are highlighted in song titles or lyrics. If you’re looking for more, there are plenty of songs out there that use higher numbers, especially in genres like rock, metal, or even hip-hop where numbers might symbolize something significant or be used in storytelling.
    ————
    To which I would add:
    Pennsylvania 6-5000, Glen Miller, 1940
    Get Your Kicks on Route 66, Bobby Troup, 1946
    Beechwood 4-5789, Marvin Gaye, 1962
    A Hundred Years from Today, Ned Washington, Victor Young, 1933 (see the Sinatra/Quincy Jones cover 1984)
    One for My Baby, and One More for the Road, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, 1946

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  7. “500 miles” originally by Hedy West, but covered by 100s of ‘folk’ singers.
    Also “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers, who no one here will have heard of.
    “1999” by Prince, who no one here will have heard of either.
    I hope everyone here has seen the Bob Dylan film, which is very good. Even my wife liked it.

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  8. Oz,
    Yeah, we all saw the Dylan film. It moved me, to tears even, and it was sobering to look around the theater and see all the gray heads. Your wife liked it? I’ll bet your kids didn’t, assuming they saw it, which they probably didn’t.
    Peter Hitchens: >>Millions of young men once wanted to be Bob Dylan. God forgive me, I was one of them. Lots of them are dead now, and almost none of them, least of all me, have the frantic hair, let alone the slender waists, of our Dylan-worshipping days.
    I tell you this because the era of Dylan will soon be over, and those who come after it will find it impossible to understand.
    It is most beautifully expressed on the cover of what we then called an LP: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which I think I first saw, aged 14, at Christmas 1965. << https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14313635/PETER-HITCHENS-Like-millions-wanted-Bob-Dylan-truth-thrall-Communists-entranced-hurried-moral-doom.html?ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490

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  9. James,
    Excellent selections that you and GROK pulled up. In writing these Sat nite posts I have never yet used an app. That may change. Gotta get with it.
    If I may quibble, the definitive and original version of Beachwood 4-5789 is not Marvin Gaye’s but this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us18AUBM2RI
    Since you live near where the action is, I hope you and yours are doing OK.
    It’s too bad Christopher Hitchens is no longer among us. His commentary on these heady times would have made great reading.

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  11. Wait – some of you haven’t heard that Proclaimers song? It’s great. (And it’s Scottish — but I repeat myself.)
    Also: this list wouldn’t be complete without the schmaltzy classic “In The Year 2525”, by Zager and Evans. (Denny Zager, by the way, has since done very well for himself as a guitar-maker.)

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