Songoftheday 7/2/14 - When it's cold outside and you want to sleep in, go for a pallet that's so nice and thin...

ZZ Top - "Sleeping Bag"
from the album Afterburner (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day comes from the Texan blues-rock band that got a total makeover in the 80's, ZZ Top. Their eighth album, Eliminator, brought drum machine rolls and synthesizers to the front along with babe-filled videos, and as a result they clicked with the younger crowd and scored two top-40 hits with "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and "Legs". In 1985, they released their next album, Afterburner, with even more of a produced sheen and a set of tightly written pop-rock confections that could've spun any number of singles. The one chose first was "Sleeping Bag", written by the band and produced by Bill Ham, and for the video the Eliminator car and its gaggle of gorgeous girls, this time foiling a robbery on a sweet girl and her soon-to-be hero...

"Sleeping Bag" became ZZ Top's second top-10 pop hit in December of 1985, while landing their first ever #1 single on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. The record even made the dance chart, peaking at #41 on the Club Play list. Internationally, it went to the top-20 in Ireland, Sweden, and New Zealand, and top-40 in Germany, Australia, and the UK.

And as much as it seems dated, I still love to put on this CD driving. It rocks like nobody's business.

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Here's the trio live with "Sleeping Bag" in 1991...

...and the extended mix for the clubs...

Up tomorrow: It's an early evening for this piano man.