This song didn’t just surprise me — it detonated.
I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t warned. No one handed me goggles or a helmet.
Mercy, the same band responsible for the extremely polite, extremely well‑behaved
Love (Can Make You Happy) — a song so
gentle it could be used to soothe anxious houseplants — apparently had a B‑side that throws furniture.
Now, Mercy had two chart singles, and that A‑side hit #2, blocked from the top spot by The Beatles’ Get Back, which is honestly the most Beatles thing ever: “Oh, you wanted a #1? Cute. Good luck with that.” And Mercy still tours with the original lead singer, which is interesting and impressive and also completely irrelevant to the fact that I have owned approximately 47 copies of this 45 and never listened to the B‑side because… why would I? I knew the A‑side. It’s friendly. It’s melodic. It’s the musical equivalent of a warm handshake from a man named Harold.
So, I’m watching an online record auction — you know, the kind where the auctioneer plays a snippet of the 45 like they’re a DJ at a retirement home — and suddenly they play the B‑side. And I’m thinking: “You’re playing the wrong side, champ. Fireball is not the hit. “But then my brain goes: WHAT?! WHAT IS THIS?! WHO SWAPPED THE RECORD
WHEN I WASN’T LOOKING?!
Because Fire Ball comes roaring out like Mercy suddenly decided to moonlight as a Psych band that drinks battery acid for breakfast. It’s loud, it’s wild, it’s unhinged — it’s the kind of track that makes you sit up straight and reconsider your entire filing system.
Naturally, I bid. Naturally, I won it for a buck. Naturally, I probably already have ten copies buried somewhere in my boxes, but I wasn’t taking chances. This was a spiritual awakening.
And now it’s filed in my collection, waiting for the day when I leave this earthly plane and some poor soul goes through my records and says: “Why did he keep this sappy Mercy 45 next
to The Tamrons?” Flip the
45, buddy. Flip. The. 45.
