"Battleship Chains" by Georgia Satellites

Song#:  3067
Date:  03/28/1987
Debut:  95
Peak:  86
Weeks:  5
Genre:  Southern Rock



Pop Bits:  This Atlanta band grabbed a surprise Top 10 hit with the #2 "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." The song was taken from their self-titled debut album that reached #5 and went platinum. For a follow up, this next track was selected. It did well at Rock reaching #11, but it couldn't find an audience at Pop and it stalled low on the chart. While not issued out as a single, the LP track "Railroad Steel" got enough airplay to reach #34 at Rock. The band would now have the difficult task of trying to follow up their successful debut.

ReduxReview:  This is another good rocker from the band that I liked, but it just didn't have that same groovy appeal as "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." That one was a sing-a-long crowd pleaser that had mainstream appeal. This one was a hooky country rock track that just wasn't quite as engaging. I thought it might have done a little better on the Pop chart, but I knew it wasn't going to be another major hit for them.

ReduxRating:  6/10

Trivia:  This song was written by Terry Anderson for his North Carolina band The Woods. While that band would record the song for their 1987 debut LP, it seems that the Georgia Satellites picked up the tune and got it recorded and released first. Several artists would later cover this tune including an unexpected one by an R.E.M. offshoot project called Hindu Love Gods. In 1987, Warren Zevon got help from three-quarters of R.E.M. (Bill Berry, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck) in recording his album Sentimental Hygiene. During a session that turned into an all-nighter, Zevon and the R.E.M. trio recorded a bunch of cover tunes that were mainly blues standards. A couple of newer songs were tossed in including "Battleship Chains." The recordings weren't meant to be released, but in 1990 they were collected and issued out under the moniker of Hindu Love Gods. It didn't receive a lot of attention and stalled at #168 on the chart. This album wasn't the first recording released by the band. They had actually been performing on and off since 1984. On occasion, another musician, Bryan Cook, would also join in and with him the band recorded and released a single in 1986. The main song was, "Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight," a cover of The Easybeat's 1968 song "Good Times."

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