during the Cubs / Sox crosstown interleague massacre (go Cubs!)

WGN, on several occasions played the classic Stones tune “Hitch Hike”

which to any Velvet Underground fans contains a very familiar opening riff

but the Stones didn’t write the song, which was pretty normal for the time.

In fact of the dozen tunes on “Out of our Heads” the Glimmer Twins only wrote three songs

Gotta Get Away, I’m Free, and Heart of Stone.

Marvin Gaye wrote Hitch Hike, and performed it fabulously on the T.A.M.I. Show

where it even had it’s own dance move, apparently

hugely influential songwriter guitarist and singer Lou Reed took that opening riff

and made it his own in the Velvet Underground hit “Here She Comes Again”

off the 1967 masterpiece “The Velvet Underground and Nico” produced by Andy Warhol

the Velvets tune was covered by lots of people including R.E.M. who had it in their set

as early as 1980, but eventually recorded it and it wound up on 1987’s Dead Letter Office

along with two other Lou Reed-penned covers “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Femme Fatale”

but probably the most interesting progression of the Gaye riff

from Motown the UK to NY back to the UK

was when Johnny Marr appropriated it a few times in “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”

from the 1992 Smiths classic The Queen Is Dead.

love how that little baby riff hitch hiked its away around the globe

in into some of the best albums in rock.