The point where the ’70s went wrong for me was not the fall of Saigon or Nixon’s final chopper liftoff or WIN buttons or pet rocks or Popiel’s pocket fisherman or the Bay City Rollers or Holmes and Yoyo. No. It was the moment sometime in 1972 when my nearly 40-year-old mother walked through the front door one night dressed in glitter hot pants and fuck-me leather 
go-go boots.
I was sick. I was naseous, I was confused.
It was just not right.
However, those things looked just fine on the teen girl, Darlene, who regularly babysat me and my sister. In fact, she even borrowed the duds from Mom to go out disco-ing on night. Yes, Darlene looked fine in those things.
Luckily, Mom only donned the hooker wear only once more as the fashion had passed.
(I have no photos of Mom so attired, but just to give you some sense of the revulsion I felt at the time, this picture of Liberace in Bicentennial short shorts suffices nicely.)
I only bring all this up because today’s 45rpm vintage offering was one of many records we ended up buying because of Darlene, who was the opinion leader and tastemaker of our tiny little cloistered suburban world. If Darlene liked a record, we wanted it.
For the most part, her tastes—in retrospect—were pretty common. Today’s record, by soul artist Denise La Salle, is probably the hippest thing we ever bought on Darlene’s recommendation. “Man Size Job” backed with “I’m Over You” (Westbound W-206) came from La Salle’s 1972 LP On the Loose. I can’t find any chart info on “Man Size Job,” though it must have been a minor hit at least if Darlene knew about it.
FYI, if you want to know the story of Denise La Salle, check out her bio at the Disco Museum.
The single here is not a disco record, but straight up soul, in many ways it is a perfect A & B side contrast, thematically speaking.
“Man Size Job” is a groover; a thoroughly emasculating kissoff in which Denise boasts about the prowess of her new young stud in the face of her inadequate dejected castoff lover, whom, she says, “let a boy do a man size job.”
The B side, “I’m Over You,” is poignant soul ballad that also describes a breakup. But in this case the tone is more muted, the emotions less volatile. I appreciate this track more now than I did back when we used to play “Man Size Job” over and over. Consequently, due to less wear, the B side sounds a little bit better sonically.
A zip file containing both sides of this record can be had at Rapidshare via this LINK.
