Many of the listeners who made Powfu f/Beabadoobee’s “Deathbed” (first subtitled, then retitled “Coffee for Your Head)” a phenomenon probably don’t have to go back any further than the Band Perry’s “If I Die Young” as a lyrical touchpoint. For anybody who knows both, however, it’s hard not to think of Terry Jacks’ “Seasons In The Sun,” another tale of dying young that became an archetypical ‘70s pop hit. (WXSS [Kiss 103.7] Milwaukee PD Brian Kelly, an early supporter, calls it “‘Seasons’ crossed with ‘Cupid’s Chokehold.’”)
Beyond the deceptively cheerful farewell of the lyrics, there are other similarities. Both artists are not only Canadian, but from Vancouver. Both songs were interpolated from others, “Seasons” in an era when that was rare. “Deathbed” took nearly a year to go from Soundcloud to general release, waiting for its sampled hook to be cleared. “Seasons” was Rod McKuen’s early-‘60s English-language translation of a Jacques Brel song that Jacks rearranged, rewrote (to make the narrator younger), although he never got a writing credit, and unsuccessfully pitched to the Beach Boys more than a decade later before recording it himself.
What’s telling, though, is the difference in how the two songs came to the radio. Jacks was already known to U.S. radio and a regular hitmaker in Canada through the Poppy Family and then a handful of underrated solo singles. “Seasons” appears on Canadian playlists as early as (and appropriately on) Halloween 1973. Canadian-licensed CKLW Detroit officially added it in early December, but had likely been playing it for a few weeks by then. Detroit led to Cleveland and Louisville. By mid-January, “Seasons” was No. 1 at CKLW. A month later, it was No. 1 nationally.
But that’s not how hits break now. Powfu’s journey from Soundcloud to Spotify was 10 months, until the Beabadoobee song “Coffee” was cleared. The song built on YouTube over the course of five months. The promo blast quotes success stories from both Shazam and Spotify (it’s No. 7 on Today’s Top Hits), but there was a burst in TikTok activity that finally propelled it to radio in February. Mediabase shows WXSS first, then KIIS Los Angeles (although with fewer spins than the others), then Cox’s WBLI Long Island, N.Y.; WPYO Orlando, Fla.; and WPOI Tampa in succession.
Canadian radio started “Seasons”; the earliest supporter documented on ARSA is CKOC Hamilton, an equally legendary Canadian Top 40 AM. With “Deathbed,” the first Canadian radio spins are at Sirius XM’s The Verge on March 13, more than three weeks after WXSS, then on March 14 at Alternative CIND (Indie 88) Toronto, and at four Top 40s including CIHT (Hot 89.9) Ottawa and CKMP (Amp 90.3) Calgary. (One factor is that the song wasn’t officially certified as Canadian Content right away.) But this week, it’s up 31-23 in Canada vs. 47-37 here.
“Coffee” is also No. 17 at Alternative in the U.S. It’s possible that “Seasons” played on a few of those stations that evolved to Album Rock radio from a more nebulous “stereo rock” position, but for the most part, it was a lightning rod for ‘70s pop, the thing you listened to AOR to not hear. By mid-February, “Seasons” was leading a Top 40 chart full of polarizing ‘70s songs. At age 11-1/2, I remember that era fondly, but a lot of people regard it as a bottoming-out period.
“Seasons” was long gone from most gold libraries in 1979. Which made the requests I got for it at my college station that much odder. They came from the handful of teens who could hear the station on the local cable system. They were known to us as the “Kiss kiddies,” because of the band they most often requested, but they also asked for two less likely songs. One was the then-year-old “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” by Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond. The other was “Seasons.”
Two years later, WINZ (I95) Miami went top 40 with a healthy component of “oh wow” oldies, including both “Kung-Fu Fighting” and “Seasons in the Sun,” the latter reportedly testing well enough as a result that WHYI (Y100) began playing it again. The following year, KKBQ Houston launched (then as AM 79Q) using a lot of the same gold. “Seasons” became one of its signature songs as well. Apparently the song’s bopper appeal wasn’t a one-station fluke.
If “Seasons” (or “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”) had teen appeal, it was probably therapeutic — a way to talk about adult subjects, especially in a time before school shootings and before teen suicide was epidemic (or at least discussed openly enough to be identified as one). “Deathbed” began its journey to radio before the entire world was on the edge, but certainly still at a time when the world was edgy. It arrived shortly before existential crisis became everybody’s reality.
Powfu also arrived at a time when another Canadian song with thematic resonance was in play. JP Saxe & Julia Michaels’ “If The World Was Ending” did become a hit in Canada first, starting in early November and peaking top 10 in March at Hot AC and CHR (where it’s climbing again). But its path to the U.S. is very much of the time. Its early radio champions were Sirius XM’s The Pulse and Hits 1. But the story also includes a low skip rate and being featured prominently Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits, being heavily thumbed-up on YouTube, heavy Shazams after the first SXM Pulse spin.
Radio struggles with tone in every way now, from contesting to commercials. Music, and what’s appropriate, is definitely a moving target. Listeners stream both “I Will Survive” and “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It,” and on the emotional roller-coaster that is any given day, both resonate. Radio is too overtaxed to scrutinize songs, especially when so many have taken on new meaning, and stations are wary about repeating the perceived knee-jerking that took place after 9/11.
A few weeks ago, I came across “Seasons In The Sun” on the radio and definitely wasn’t in the mood for it. I wondered what would happen with “Deathbed” and “If The World Was Ending.” Younger listeners are less at risk, but now clearly at risk from the virus, and the risk to their parents is not the abstraction it was in 1974. And yet Kelly reports that the Powfu song only tests better every week. “If The World Was Ending,” (not a lyrical meditation on death, but a love song that uses the end-of-the-world metaphor), has generated a small handful of complaints in Canada according to both label and radio people, but it has picked up steam in recent weeks since the crisis took root. So clearly, both songs are serving as therapy now as well.
