Bobby and Eddie start the episode talking about cover songs that were hated by the original artists and share what they think are the best covers of all-time. Rob Harvilla is the author / host of 60 Songs That Explain the '90s and a senior staff writer at The Ringer. He's been a professional rock critic for 20-plus years and talked to Bobby Bones about why he chose to explore the music of the '90s in his new book and podcast. Rob talks about what he does as a rock critic, why he chose that profession and the types of interviews it's led him to like the time Courtney Love reached out to him. He also explains why Nirvana were giants in '90s music and discusses some conspiracy theories around Kurt Cobain's death and more!
Rob Harvilla's book, 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90S is out Tuesday, November 14, preorder here, and signed bookplate copies are available here. Also check out new episodes of 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90S every Wednesday!
Follow on Instagram: @TheBobbyCast
Follow on TikTok: @TheBobbyCast
Watch this Episode on Youtube
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Every episode of the show is about one song, one artist,
and I bring in a lot of other things ideally,
but I just wanted to get these songs talking to
each other, across the genres, across the years. The way
we lived it is different from the way we remember
it now.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Episode four twenty one, we'll talk about cover songs, good ones,
bad ones, and we'll talk to Rob Harvilla coming up,
who does one of my favorite podcasts. It's sixty songs
that made the nineties, but now he's on like song ninety.
It's like we do twenty five whistles, and we just
kept going. So we would like to Rob Harvilla and
just Little Bad's got a book coming out, but Eddie
and Reed are both in here for this one. What's
(00:46):
the best cover? Not maybe your favorite, what's the best
cover of all time? It's so good that people may
not even realize that.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's a cover.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Oh wow, And I can go first, go ahead, I
would say, Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Respect was that a cover Otis reading?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh Dan, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, that's definitely an Otis Redding song. And he sings
it a bit different too, and he's like sweaty. I
got the record, so it was a live version, and
so I'll read the Franklin respect because I think even
I forget sometimes that that's a cover.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Oh man, that just that just brought up another one
that I didn't even think of. But it's the Black
Crows covering notice reading too hard to handle.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
That's really good, same record and.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That with much Gotta Goes and my mom shot head around. Yeah,
so good, same thing. Another one is Shinead O'Connor. Nothing
compares to you. That's Prince because it's a Prince song.
But she's the one that made it to hit.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I'm gonna go with another one, Jimi Hendrix all on
the Watchtower Bob Dylan Bob Dylan song.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
How about drift Away Uncle Cracker, because I think just
a newer generation doesn't know that was Adobe Gray song,
Adobe Gray.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
Yeah, I didn't know that one.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
See, I mean, here's read reads like twelve. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
Yeah, I'm over here thinking like Wagon.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Will okay, but that that's fine because Wagon will Well,
that would be Darius covering covering Ould Crow Medicine show
who wrote or I mean Bo Bob nos version never
came out, but it wasn't and it was just a part.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It was partial too.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
It was a demo and he was just singing rock
me mom, and I need to mumble the rest.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
How about Hallelujah when Jeff Buckley did it? Because Leonard
Cohen's version was and still is. I mean, Letoe is
still a live I think I don't know. He reminds
me of Spock from the TV show Spot because he
looks like that. I think that's that's why it is.
Then maybe it doesn't even look like that. Maybe I
never put that together, say.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, what is it?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Leonardy is his name?
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Hilarious?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Wow, I've always wondered why Hallelujah guy running me a Spock.
It's because their names are the same. So yeah, Leonard
Nimoy No, nope.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Leonard Cohen. He's dead, by the way, Cohen he is.
He just died twenty sixteen. Okay, Spock. That's why I
thought he was Spock.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
He's in his version?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Is Lulujah?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Right?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Really?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
With like what like a symphony or something.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
But Jeff Buckley's.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. But then Buckley's is way way,
way better.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's hard for me to say one's better because one
couldn't exist without the other.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
But the Buckley version I prefer.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Obviously it's derivative of the original, sure, but I just
like the guitar and the hollow.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
But Rady, you ever heard the song?
Speaker 6 (03:30):
Oh yeah, it's a classic.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Do you ever see him live in the concerts coming
to National next week? Well, little Dickeye, little Dickey man,
he see that he died. He's drowned swiming across the
river in.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
The Mississippi River.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Little Dickie died.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
No, I feel like I would know about that one.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I think another one that people know now for the
most part. But as I will always love you, I
think when Whitney first came back with it, I don't
think everybody knew it was Dolly like.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
That was a great cover.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
You do a good cover that one too, Proud Mary, uh,
proud Mary, Tina Turner.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
But who did that first? Was it Credence or CCR? Yeah,
And so she did it different and did it awesome. Yeah,
but that one was really cool.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Oh oh gosh, Janice Joplin and Bobby McGhee.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And what's crazy about that song because Chris Kostopherson, he
wrote it. What's crazy is she never felt any success
from that song she died before it hit.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, that's tough.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
That documentary is tough to watch. It was really good.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
It's a good one. If you know nothing about her, well,
I know, even if you know a little bit about her, man,
you learn a lot of stuff about Jane Joplin.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Tough life.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
She went through it, she did, She had a tough life.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
People were mean to her. What was crazy too, is
I didn't know her and Jerry Garcia like we're a thing.
Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead, like they loved each other,
both both dead.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, her story is sad, like the ultimate ultimate bullied person.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So those are all that we like.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
But this whole article here comes out and this is
cover songs that the original artists hated when the new
artists did them, because I want to lead with that
positive part of it, but then get to the juicy
stuff here.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So the Kinks back in the day had.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Girl you Really Got Me Now you Got Me souch.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Oh, come on. They hated van Halen's version they did
how you hate that?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ray Davies or the Kink said it sounded very Middle America,
and his brother David quote, good art isn't always about
having the comfiest technique, and the Kinks are British, I
would imagine, yeah, punks van Halen.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I don't really like the van Halen version. You don't
I like the original?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh dude, it's van Halen sounds too like I don't
know mid America. Yeah, so this song I need to hear.
But this is the original? Is Tom Waits fifty five.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
And the Eagles that cover of it? But I don't
know that I know this song well.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
So quickly.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
Ibnodes sounds familiar, yeah, because it sounds like the Eagles,
But I don't.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And I even I like Tom Waits a lot. I
had a whole couple of years where I listen to
a lot of Tom Waits. I don't even know that
song from him. And if you're like a Tom Waits
purist or an Egles peace, if I hate us right now,
I don't know those songs. So here is let's play
the sex pistols. Here is anarchy in the UK?
Speaker 7 (06:26):
Here Johnny Rotten, that's what it is. Hey, that story
is pretty chile too. I don't know that story.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
How he died in the hotel.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I think that's same band.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Let me tell you though, that's the same band though, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I will tell you.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
I was watching like when I worked.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
And uh, sit and Sid that's right, Sit in Nancy.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Sorry, go ahead, sit in Nancy.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
That was yeah, ambitious in New York.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
You tell me what is that story? I'll tell you
my story.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I'm gona mess it up. You've aready missed it a four times,
so why don't you just take it from here?
Speaker 4 (07:16):
That's all I really remember. Story like Romeo and Juliet,
but the punk Trajic story.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Oh really yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, yeah, So what are you saying about the news?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I know I was.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I was at home because I worked night shift, and
so I was watching watching Judge Judy, and uh, Johnny
Rotten was on there getting sued by his roadies. I
wish I could find that episode again because it was awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
His roadies are like.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh, yeah, they're just going to pay friend of.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Our hotels didn't do it.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
And we'd check into these hotels and Johnny would have
a mansion up there and we would have these two
little little hotel rooms and Joe's I'm the leader of the.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Band, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It was amazing?
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Wow, Yeah, Judge Judy Johnny Rotten check it out.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
After the sex Pestile just abandoned seventy eight, Sit and
Nancy moved to New York City, where could attempt to
make a name for himself in the America punk scene.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
But heroin was very cheap.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
By this point, Said and Nancy were desperately sick with
the diction and consumed every aspect of their lives.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
And they died.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And Sid was who of the second and the whole
thing was she was stabbed and bled to death.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And they don't because but did he stab her?
Speaker 4 (08:22):
I think it added a heroin overdose.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
But do you think she stabbed herself?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I don't even like the sex pstial, to be honest
with you.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
You could do crazy stuff when you're on that heroin stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
So you're here, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
That's what I hear.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Here's Motley Crue doing anarchy in the UK. I'll tell
you I don't leave both of them me too. Who cares?
Now we're get to music, guy, Like here, first of
all is the who with behind blue Eyes?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Like, god, dude, you do you know who covered it?
Speaker 5 (09:02):
Yeah? Limp Biscuit, No, No, it's pretty good too.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It is. And I when I first came out, like
this is gonna be lame. It's awesome because they never
really like take it to biscuit Land.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
They don't like faith they take to biscuit Land.
Speaker 8 (09:17):
Yeah, because this is this is full biscuit And they
even start off and face it's like, I guess it
will be nice, and it stills like, oh this is funky,
well could care.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
But they never take behind Blue Eyes.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
To biscuit Land, yeah, which I thought was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Oh man, I love this song when it came out.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
This is a great cover.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Oh man, when it.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Comes to covert, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess it will
be nice. Nimba, I couldn't touch some ud.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That's awesome. Let's do uh Bruce Springsteen?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Wait, Bruce Springsteen the Light? Oh yeah, blinded by the Light. Yeah,
that's an old one from Bruce.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
And then who sang the new one?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'm gonna tell you, but you have Bruce.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Manfred's Man's Earth Band did this one that I know
that song.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
We all know.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
It's not like a douche wrapped up like a douche.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So I thought I was trapped like a douche.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
We all did, but I think it's because Bruce sings
cut loose like a deuce. So I think it's wrapped
up like a deuce, right, revved up like that's what
it is, up like a douche. No deuce, wrapped up
like a doe. You're right.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Why did an engineer not go do you're going ship
at the end of that?
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Do that again?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Well?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
You you sound like you're saying douche.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
You're saying deuce, right, mind, I am say it again. Douche,
No deuce, douche. It does sound like douche. How about
where the streets have no name?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Wait?
Speaker 5 (10:56):
What that's you two?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Did somebody cover that?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So here's the YouTube version. The Pet Shop Boys kind
of did a disco e tite. Oh, come on, guys,
this is terrible. I've never heard that. I'd be pissed about.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Was YouTube like.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Pet Job Boys?
Speaker 3 (11:25):
We don't.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I don't I like pet up Boys. What else do
they have? They had that song Flamboyant flamboy pull up
some more Pet Shop Boys. Maybe I just don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I like them.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Convince this, Mike, I don't think if you don't like that,
that's their style.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, I don't like that style, but maybe I like
a couple of songs and maybe I don't know, I
like their style and.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
That song is not even in here.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Let me pull up Pet Shop Boys on my phone.
I feel like Pet Shop Boys though. Are the guys
who make prank phone calls?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Right?
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Isn't that them?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
It's not?
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Who is that? Because I remember I found a CD
on the side of the road when I was like
in high school and that.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Was Crank Anchors.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
No, no, no, no, no no, they did prank calls.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Oh, I know west End Girls. West This is pet
Shot Boys.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You got that one in here?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
You do have that one?
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Let me fast forward.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
It can play here.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
You think you're mad stick? Oh yeah, Western Boys and rounds.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
An Northstaurant, you know Weston Town.
Speaker 9 (12:20):
Colos is around.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Around Western Town. What is always on my mind?
Speaker 5 (12:31):
You were always on?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
No, and I don't think it's that one. It could
be it's got two hudred and forty million streams.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Do you have that on there? Mm hmm, okay, let
me play a little bit this from my phone. Oh
here goes? Oh my god, it is that song?
Speaker 5 (12:44):
Are they using Willie there? Or is that them?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
No?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I don't think that's it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
It's always on my mind.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
I think it's them. I don't think it's Willy. That's crazy.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
I kind of like that version. What about Go West,
Go West, young Man? Haven't you been told that's Tobe Key?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That one?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
It might be though, dude, they covered Willy. Let's hear it.
That sounds like garbage.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
You like a play? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:14):
You like that, mic, I do like that.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I guess patch up boys aren't my thing. And
then one other one, weird Aw when he did the
parodies of everybody but.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Like he did Coolio hid Gangster's.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Paradise, but he did Almish Paradise hilarious.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Read he didn't get to experience weird Ow.
Speaker 6 (13:29):
I loved word ow.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was like, but you you're not old enough to
really feel it.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
No, I probably came a little bit later than what
I should.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I mean, it was revolutionary, I know now, it's just
everybody has parodies weird How was revolution?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Have you seen the movie? No You Good?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Daniel Radcliffe Harry Potter plays the weird Ow.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I keep meaning to watch that as good.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
It's a parody movie of like a music biopic. So
he makes fun of the format because it's kind of
cheesy and does his own like really exaggerated version pretty good.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Did you ever watch Don't Stop Superstar and Whatever with
Andy Sandberg?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Awesome, kind of like that. So that's on my favorite movies.
I never even think about his mono favorite movies because
it's so funny. Pop Star, Yeah, don't Stop Popping pop Star,
never stop stopping, Stop popping DPTP.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
What were we saying?
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Oh, oh, the the Jerky Boys? Was the Prince Boys?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Just look that up? Good job.
Speaker 6 (14:15):
I think the first weird album that I noticed was
Riding Nerdy.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
That was a later version of Yeah that's yeah No Yeah.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I think that's when I got got introduced him.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Like he had like like a surgeon, like a surgeon
almost such a fussy young man. Don't want that, Captain Chris,
don't want no raising brands.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Eat it, eat it and just eat it.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, just.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Weird.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
That was awesome.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
All the artists hated him, probably he was using.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
They felt like he was making fun of them right,
not with them, but.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
He would still get their permission even though he didn't
have to. Not always Coolio didn't give it to him.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That was their big beef.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
I feel like I thought I thought he said he
wouldn't put out a I think he did say that.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I think there was confusion that if he really got
Kolio's permission, but Coolio said he never gave it and
he said, no, we called and got it from the
label or whatever. And I think that's why they kind
of got into it. The thing about weird ol, Like,
I think it's like his parents died in the house fire,
oh like while after he was famous, or like when
he was younger, Mike.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Did I make that up?
Speaker 4 (15:20):
That sounds right. I feel like he was in an
interview and somebody brought up his parents and he had
to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I brought that that was me. I did an interview
with him once and I was like, so, what did
your parents whatever? And I didn't know TI after the interview,
they were like his parents dined in house fire.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
You interviewed weird well and then you asked him that well.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I was just talking about, like, what does his parents
think about him doing the music like being because it
was so different.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Let me see this weird awl, good job bones. No
accidental carbon monoxide poisoning is what I see. Really, So
it was in a house, but it was carbonoxide poison. Yeah,
that I see.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
They passed away in their home.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
They started a fire in the fireplace with the flu
closed m.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
And they died.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Of yeah, that's it.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
He bones, you just started a fire with the flume
closed flu whatever. Yeah, I mean, that's that's scary. You
won't even know it. It's like Payne Stewart in the plane.
Like they didn't even know it. They just died.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
I know he played a concert that same night, did
he know? Yeah? He said he played a concert later
that night and started it by saying, since my music
has helped so many of my fans through tough times,
maybe it'll work for me as well. Did the show you.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
See Pete Davidson's that gets those two confusing. Pete Davidson's
intro into SNL's Last.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
Week, No, was it the Barbie one?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No? The intro was him going because all this stuff
is happening Israel, Palestine, and so he's like, hey, look
there's a lot of stuff happening right now. And I
know you're like, why is Pete Davison talking before SNL?
And because my dad died in terrorist attack? Because his
dad died nine to eleven, and so he's like, the
only thing that ever made me kind of feel normal
(17:03):
was my mom accidentally bought me this tape. There was
Eddie Murphy comedy tape. She thought it was something else,
and it was the first time I laughed him forever.
He was like, So that's why I'm here to start
the show is because sometimes I feel like laughter is
the best thing you can do in.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Times are hard. Dang his dad dynamic in nine to eleven?
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Did they talk about that in Staten Island? The King
of Staten Island is in this movie.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, I don't know if I watched that.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Oh yeah, that's not that good.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
He hasn't really had success in movies yet. They always
put him in the same role playing himself.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Pete Davidson, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Even commercials like the Taco bell commercial.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Do you Can touch? Who mixed it up?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Pete Davidson and Hamburg they're similar.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
They're just tall, funny white guys, goofy, goofy.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I like both of them. But in Sanbury got older.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Yeah, he's probably like ten years older, though maybe just didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, they're both funny that never stopped pop popping stopping
as the heck, I love that movie.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
I've never seen that pop Star.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
You never watched pop Star?
Speaker 4 (17:58):
We all watched it, inter rebuted on the Potot.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
You've seen it, Eddie, Well, I don't think I saw it.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
It's a spoof of those documentaries. But it's also like
the Bieber, a spoof of the Bieber. He's in a
boy band, but he goes by himself. Maybe I did
see God it's so good, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
All right, that's it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
We'll do this and we will come back in a
second and we'll talk with one of my favorite guys
who does this podcast called sixty Songs that Made the nineties.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
All right, hold on, let's take a quick pause for
a message from our sponsor.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast. Rob.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
How are you, buddy?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I am excellent. It's great to see you again. Yeah,
you too, And for having me on.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I'll say that I'm I'm super pumped at you're back.
Like this is one of my favorite podcasts, and I
don't I'm not sure how I was exposed to it.
I've listened to every single episode. I think I saw
the ringer maybe retweet you, and it was like, Hey,
I'm doing this podcast about songs in the nineties and
you had done maybe eight or nine episodes, and I
(19:04):
know you and I have spoken. I've guessed it on
the show when Weezer was the.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Weezer Yeah, so so it was this buddy, how I
forget what it was? Any Weezer song works.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Really yeah, And you know what you do that's so
great is that it doesn't really matter the song because
that's not what it's about.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
It is, but it's not I mean yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The For example, I learned so much from the Chumblewamba
episode because for those that don't remember, they had really
one song, this song that goes.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I get knocked down and not get up again.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I had no idea they were basically anarchists and the
whole story of that band. So when you're doing a
story on chumblewam but did you already know? What did
you learn about them?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
That was new?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Tumblewamba was somebody I didn't they I didn't have a
lot of experience with them. I knew that they were
anarchists vaguely. I knew that they had like a daunting
back catalog prior to tub something but I didn't know
how daunting exactly. It's like twelve of records or something like.
That was a lot of Chumblewamba that I packed into
a week, you know. Chumblewomba week was a really intense
(20:08):
week for me. Sometimes, I know, like a ton something
like nine Inch Nails, like the Downward Spiral. I listened
to that album like six thousand times when I was
in high school. I never need to hear that album
again because it's just playing in my head on a
loop in the backgrounds regardless, like I can, I can
recreate every single second of that record. Chumblewomba I had
way less experience with, and that was a lot to
(20:31):
deal with. But it's also rewarding, you know, so to learn,
you know, the backstories of just these these they feel
to us like random one hit wonders. It feels like
they drop down to Earth out of nowhere. But they
have this long, thorny, bizarre history, prehistory before they become famous,
and that's gratifying to sort of delve into that.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That, to me, is what was amazing about chumblewomb But
I thought maybe Simon cow put them together in the
nineties and they had a song and they went away.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
But listening do you talk about them?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
And by the way, how would you describe their Can
we say anarchists and I don't think I would even
I know what anarchy is. But musically, what do you
think they stood for as anarchists?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
They really did walk the walk, you know. The first
record they put out was it was called something like
Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, and it was like
an anti Live Aid screed, right nineteen eighty five. Live Aid,
you know, it raises a lot of money for Africa,
but they just found it pompous and self serving and
(21:36):
they were sort of taking the piss out of rock stars.
You know, it's just just swooping in to save you know,
other countries. You know, just the pompousness of that. You know,
since the mid eighties, they'd been at it, and they
lived in squats, you know in the UK, you know,
like they they lived collectively, you know, and they put
out records on their own. But as the you know,
(21:58):
as their discography grinds on on, they become poppier and poppier,
and they become more invested in this idea of like
raging against the machine from inside the machine. Right, they
decide that they want to make a pop song so
insidious that it gets played on the radio that they
become pop stars. But then you know, they can spread
(22:18):
their anarchist ideology, you know, to the masses, and that
kind of works with tough thumbing, and it kind of doesn't.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Work because they got so popular. That song was so
popular they got a record deal. A lot of people
were looking at them like, hey, you guys sold out
and got a record deal, but they were like no, no, no,
we sold in like we tricked them. So my final
question about Chumbawamba, because I was just so enthralled by
this whole episode, is that what do you feel like
they were up to. Do you feel like they finally
(22:45):
were like, man, we sure just could use some money.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That's got to be part of it. You know, they're
not saints, you know, nobody's intentions are totally pure. But
I do think that looking into it, like they they
believed it right, you know. And and a remember of Chumblewamba,
I think it's Alice Nutter goes on Bill Maher, you know,
his talk show at the time, and it's like, you
should steal our record, you know, and everybody gets mad
(23:09):
at her, But I do think it's always a little suspect,
you know, when people decide they want to be pop stars,
but they want to be pop stars for the right reasons.
You know, they're doing it subversively, you know, and the
money is just a bonus. But really, I'm just trying
to do this and this like they're lying to some extent.
They do enjoy the attention, the fame, and the money
(23:29):
to an extent, But I do believe that there was
a purity to Chumblewumba that transcends, and that's what makes
it sort of funny and discordant that, like, that song
is now a jock jam, right, You're going to hear
that song at every sporting event you attend for the
rest of your life. It's a drinking song, it's explicitly
a drinking song. But just the difference between where they
(23:50):
came from and where they ended up, the dissonance of
that is a little hard to wrap your head around.
But it's fascinating to me.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
At the most capitalist event where they sell beers for
fe fourteen dollars, you'll hear Jumble at the of anarchist singing.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
So that episode a little bit of your history.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
You've written for a lot of different things when you
finish college, Like what is your first paid job?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Where do they pay you first to write?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
They pay me first to write at the other paper
in Columbus, Ohio, I got started an alternative weeklies, right,
weekly newspapers you know, sold for free, not sold just
free on corner boxes or on top of the cigarette
machines in concert venues. Right. And the difference between an
alternative weekly and like the regular newspapers, you can swear
(24:35):
in a weekly, and that's very important. That was very
dear to my heart at the time. But I worked
at one in Columbus, Ohio. I grew up mostly in Ohio.
I worked at a weekly in Oakland, California. I was
at the it was in New York City for a while.
I worked for the Village Voice for a while. And
some of those papers still exist, that most of them, don't,
you know, There are still some weeklies, but not many,
(24:57):
you know, the Internet sort of decimated them, craigs, et cetera.
And so it's weird, Like my path technically still exists,
but it is far less robust than it was when
I was coming up, you know, And I don't know
if there's any guarantee it'll still exist even five ten
years from now, but I remember it fun.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Was it always music.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
It was from the very beginning, you know. I from
sitting in my orthodonist's office getting my braces on. You know,
when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, I wanted
to write for Rolling Stone. He had back issues of
Rolling Stone in his office and I would just sit
there and read them in his waiting room, and that's
what I wanted to do. I went to school for
magazine journalism. Told anyone would listen, I want. I wanted
(25:40):
to write for Rolling Stone. I wanted to write about music,
you know, and I got one attitude, which is great.
I think that I think I did.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Okay, you add an episode on Natalie and Brule a
torn Yeah, had no idea the still lot.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, the still back of that song.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So that torn that the song in general, and I
want to I just want to do a quick version
of this.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
It's hard to do because it was so good.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And I encourage you guys to go look up sixty
songs and explain the nineties. Listen to the Chumble Blaba,
listen to the Natalie Ambrulia. It's kind of like when
I tell people to start Black Mirror, I'm like, go
to White Bear first, even though it's like episode, Like,
go to White Bear and if that's your jam, you're.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Gonna love it all.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I feel like those are the two if you listen
to those and you love them, right, So give us
the quick version of torn in your best way, Rob.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Wow, Okay, so two, Holy moly.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
It was just in so many languages too.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I had no idea this song was saying in so
many languages, and it was a hit by so many people.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
It was a hit by so many Yes, it's aband
in La. Two people in aband In La wrote it
with a dude who had been in the Cure. He
was a bass player for the Cure for a little while.
They write this song, they demo it, but it ends
up first it was Denmark.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah it's been song.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
No, I'm telling you. It was a European language. I
didn't even know what it was, right. And then Natalie
Imbruglia is this like she's a model, she's a singing
and it's her only hit ever as well, but the
song is.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Soap opera star in Australia. Yeah, and it's like the
third or fourth version of the song. There was a
Danish version, you know, and then the La band itself
cut it and that version is great, you know, and
then somebody else. Yeah, it's three or four people got
to Torn before she did, but she found something in
Torn that had never been there before, and she somehow
(27:34):
turned it into this massive pop hit. And that's sort
of fascinating when it takes a few times. You know,
there's a version of achy Breaky Heart before the Billy
Ray Cyrus version that didn't do anything, you know, and
Billy Ray's version is superior, but it's not like that superior, right.
I'm always fascinated by this idea that it takes several
iterations of a song and several different people singing a
(27:57):
song before it becomes a hit, And like, why is
this version the definitive you know, millions billions of plays version.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Did you ever write an article or a critique and
actually get a call or a message from the artist
you wrote the critique about and it wasn't positive?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I wrote, excuse me? I wrote like six thousand words
about Summer Girls by LFO. This predates the podcast by
a couple of years, but I you know, that's a
weird history and there's a lot of tragedy there. A
couple members of that band have passed away, and I
think I talked to one surviving member of LFO and
(28:35):
he was displeased, you know, with what came out. I think,
because I don't want to look down on these songs ever,
you know, even the achy breaky Hearts, you know, even
the Macarenas of the world. Like I love them and
I try and find the good in them, even if
people are sick of them. I think the problem with
these songs most often is that they've been overplayed so
(28:57):
much that people are sick of them. It's not that
the song is bad, that the song has just been
worn out by over you. And that's not necessarily the
case with Summer Girls. But like I just I tried
to write a playful article, you know, that got into
the Abercrombie and Fitch of it all, you know, and
the White Rapper of it all, et cetera, like that,
it's just such a silly song. And the verses of
(29:18):
this song are just so bizarre and so not They're
just a bunch of non sequiteurs. And I it's always
a drag when I get feedback like that, And thankfully
it hasn't happened often, but it did happen in this case,
you know, where he just he wasn't happy. He felt
it was disrespectful, you know, And of course that's his legacy,
that's his song, and I completely understand that, you know.
(29:38):
And I was raised, born, raised in the Midwest, and
I feel bad when that happens, truly, because I'm not
trying to disrespect or look down on these songs ever,
Like I'm trying to have fun with it, but I'm
trying to be I'm trying to honor, you know, the
greatness of the song and in its place and history.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What about the opposite way you ever written one a
glowing review and you got an appreciation note.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
The weirdest thing that's happened to me in the podcast
so far is that Courtney Love reached out to me.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Great interview.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
I did a whole great interview, thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You know, it's I don't know if interview even describes
what happened there. You know. You just let Courtney Love
cook right like, I'm there and I'm sort of talking
to her and she's talking to me. But yeah, you
don't want to hear from me when it's me and
Courtney Love talking. You just want her to talk. And
that's what happened there, and that was great. But yeah,
I did an episode on Whole, right, I did an
episode on doll Parts, you know, and somebody passed that
(30:30):
to her and she reached out and you know, and
we talked a little bit, and I asked her if
she wanted to be on the show. And I didn't
hear anything for a while, but then suddenly she's asking
if she can do the smells like teen Spirit episode,
the Nirvana episode. And not in a billion years would
I have asked her ever to do that, right. It's
it's so personal, you know, in such an anguished history
(30:50):
ultimately that I never would have asked her to revisit that,
you know, even playfully. But she wanted to talk about it,
and we talked for like an hour and a half,
you know, on Mike about it. And that's for sure
the wildest experience I've had, you know, with somebody I've
talked about reaching out to me. And I always try
and remember when I'm talking about somebody that they are
(31:11):
a real person, you know, and as abstracted as these
people were to me when I was a teenager, Billy Corgan,
Trent Rezner, you know, We's er whoever. Like they were
gods to me, you know, and they didn't seem like
real people to me, but they are, you know, And
it is theoretically possible that they could reach out, you know,
and tap my shoulder, and I always want to be
(31:32):
mindful of that.
Speaker 9 (31:34):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast, this idea. And by the way, where over
sixty songs? Now for those asking they're like, well, how
do you pick sixty?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Well? Now is that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Like? I don't even know what number you're on, but
you kept going, which I thought was brilliant.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
First of all, how did how did you start this?
Where the idea come from? And why sixty? And then
was there a meeting where it's like, all right, should.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
We do more? Can we afford more? Like what happened there?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
This was? It was in twenty twenty. This was a
COVID era project, you know, And it's not like COVID
comes up a lot, but I do think that that's important, right,
Like in the summer of twenty twenty we're like, I
want to do a podcast. I want to do a
podcast that's based on songs. You know, what's a good
orienting principle there. The nineties just sort of leaped out
at us. You know, it's like a distinct. You know,
(32:30):
when you say the nineties, people have a picture in
their heads of what that was, whether they lived through
it or not. And I was really interested in interrogating
the dissonance between the nineties as I lived through them
and the nineties as people understand them now. You know,
the myth of the nineties versus the reality is I
remember it, and so I Nineties songs that explained the
(32:53):
nineties would have made a lot more sense. But that
seemed like too many songs to me in the moment,
and I wasn't sure if the show was going to work.
I didn't want to be the guy with a show
called ninety Songs that explained the nineties and then I
get canceled after like the fourth episode, right, Like that
would be very embarrassing. Sixty songs also a lot of songs,
you know, but like we've like thirty songs. That's too
few songs, Like we just arbitrarily decided on sixty. And
(33:16):
when we got to around forty or forty five and
I'm looking at this spreadsheet we've created of all the
songs that we could do, I'm like, oh no, look
at all these songs we want to do. We have
fifteen more spots. And that's when I have to go
to my editors and be like, can we please do
more songs? And they say yes, and I do ninety
and then we get to you know, seventy seventy five
(33:36):
songs and I'm like, oh no, there's still too many,
so like and I have to go back again and say,
can we do one twenties? Like this is it? And
I'm like okay, and that's you know, and we kept
jumping up. By thirty when we realized that we still,
you know, there's so many stories I want to tell
and so many songs I want to revisit, you know,
and it just it just kept building and building. This
is going to be it. Though one hundred and twenty songs.
(33:58):
You know, you don't want to go too far. I
don't want to start doing like super obscure and sort
of I'm reaching, you know, for something to talk about.
But I one hundred and twenty songs comfortably is what
you know this format can support. And I'm still having
a blast, you know. I think I'm working right now
on it's either one hundred and six or one hundred
and seven, you know, and I still feel as fresh
(34:19):
as I did when we started.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I'm thinking about doing the series every song ever recorded
in the nineties. I do everyone song ever recorded, and
I go to studio and I talk about it and
break it down, really to overtake you as the most.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
You better start now, yeah, kind of go, that's your plan. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Hey, my wife has convinced that Dave Girl murder Kurt Cobain,
and not because she knows. It's because TikTok has these
conspiracy theories about artists from the nineties, and we went
and watched Two Fighters a few weeks ago, and they're
for her a little aggressive. She enjoyed Fallout Boy way
more than she did Food Fighters. But she's like, that's
the guy who that's the guy who killed Kurt Cobain.
I'm like, that's not true.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
But I've never heard that one.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh, get on TikTok. It's a whole it's a whole
lane there of White Girl, one of them dead. Because
he wanted to be the star, which is totally false,
totally inaccurate.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
But of course that woo.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
The Nirvana relationship between those three guys, but also there
was kind of a fourth member, but also there were
like six drummers. So but we just really remember those three.
Is that because that's when the never even before Pat smear?
Is it just because the never Mind album? That's the
three because they that's the album?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Of course, Yeah, I mean it's hard to say. It's
hard to refute the idea that the nineties start with
smells like teen Spirit, Right, the nineties start, you know
in nineteen ninety one, when that song comes out and
blows up and totally changes MTV and totally changes rock radio,
and that it sort of sets the template for the nineties.
And those are the three guys at that point, you know,
(35:50):
the prehistory of Nirvana. Yeah, there's another drummer, there's a
second guitarist for a while, you know, Dave Grohl's not
on Bleach their first record, But that's the definitive lineup
of Nirvana and Pat Smeir, you know, coming from the Germs,
has got a ton of cred. Everybody loves him, you know,
and to have him up on stage in the latter
period of the band, to have him just standing next
(36:10):
to Kirk Cobain, and that passing of the torch is
very important. But no, definitively Nirvana is those three guys.
It's Dave, Christ and purd of course, And I think
that's always the way it works. You know, you remember
you remember the band from the first you know, the
first song you ever heard from them. The first album
that you hear is usually the one you love the most,
and the first lineup too, like it just sets in
(36:32):
your head like this is this is what Nirvana is.
And I think that's true for the world at large
at this point.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Who's your favorite band of all time?
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Who's my favorite band of all time? Artists answer to that?
Or he might be Giants Love.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
That's a really good episode, really good, great thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
And you know it's funny how because I was introduced
to them different than you were, and you referenced this
in the episode.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I was introduced to them from Tiny Tunes of course.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Of course it's stable Constant, yeah, or the wrestling one,
you know, whether it's like Triangleman Particle, Man Particle.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
That's how I.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Found they might be giants, and so through your favorite
of all time?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
What about them? Where did you discover them?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
My cool uncle Nick first played Particle Man for me.
I heard about them a little bit before Tiny Toon Adventures,
but not very not very long before. I was like
twelve years old when that record when Flood came out,
you know, and I was like a weird kid, you know,
I was what you would call a nerd, I guess
in nineteen ninety, you know, and I sort of grew
up on like what like Pee Wee Herman, you know,
(37:39):
like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you know, Saturday
Morning cartoons, Looney Tunes, you know, this whole, this whole
like weird al yankubc of course, you know, like this
very playful and silly aesthetic. And I just they spoke
to me immediately they might be giants as like playful
and silly, but also like hugely accomplished, you know, and
just so prolific and so great at what they did
(38:01):
and so comfortable in themselves. I think when you're twelve
years old, you see people who are doing what they
want to do and being who they want to be,
and not really carrying how they're perceived by the outside world,
Like this isn't Nirvana, right, These guys aren't, you know,
tough burly rock guys. You know, they're not afraid to
be silly, They're not afraid to be playful, They're not
(38:22):
afraid to be irreverend, you know. And that really spoke
to me when I was twelve, and now I've grown
up with them. Right, they went through a period where
they had they made kids albums when they had kids themselves,
and then I'd play those albums to my kids.
Speaker 8 (38:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
It's just I've seen them probably twelve to fifteen times
in my life. It's just been the most rewarding musical relationship,
you know, of my life, in that I'm sort of
growing up parallel to them. I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I think that's why I love the Presidents America.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Like love the Presidents.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Listen to everyone all the records, and then also even
Barnaked Ladies early and they still do some of that nolory.
Those were kind of the same reasons that I love
those guys because it was a great music. Obviously, there's
also fun and goofy and kitchy, and so how do
you do a book on this because the book is
out in November fourteenth, you can pre order now, you
can get a signed book plate. Still as of we're
recording this right now. But what's what in the heck
(39:13):
is the book? Like, what's in it?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
What I love about the book? You know, it's based
on the scripts that I record for the episodes, Like
I write these episodes out, you know, down to the word,
and so I have a lot of source material. And
what I wanted to do with the book is get
these songs interacting with each other. Right, you think about
the idea of sellouts so prevalent in the nineties, right,
you know, this this idea of signing to a major
(39:36):
label or being on MTV or playing on Saturday Night
Live like you were selling out, like Green Day's accused
of selling out, et cetera. But that idea can also
apply to rappers, you know, like ice Cube or Doctor
Dre or Coolio suddenly getting famous like in suburban Middle America.
Suddenly they have this huge pop audience of white kids
(39:57):
who have no experience, you know with living and central LA.
And that's those those rappers really worried about their audience,
about the idea of selling out and going pop, and
so I wanted to get these songs and these ideas
sort of bouncing off each other. And some of it's personal,
you know. I can put Celine, Dion and Whole right
next to each other for personal reasons, just the way
(40:19):
that I heard them in high school, just the way
that my friends brought me this music. You know. There's
a personal element to the book that's supposed to just
get you, the reader, thinking about your own personal relationships
and these weird confluences you have of different artists and genres,
you know, But it's it's as much about you know,
every episode of the show is about one song, one artist,
(40:40):
and I bring in a lot of other things ideally,
but I just wanted to get these songs talking to
each other, across the genres, across the years, you know,
across my personal experiences, and across you know, just the
sociopolitical notion of the nineties and the way the way
we lived it is different from the way we remember
it now.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I read the book The Nineties from Duck Klosterman Chuck Closterman,
who I've read almost everything he's ever written. I love
Chuck Closterman like like Bill Simmons and Chuck Closterman to
me are culture people who who kind of talk for me,
you know, and they say things often that I'm like, dang,
I've felt that.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
I wish I could have said that.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
You know, but relatable.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, it's so, I guess us being you know, big
nineties kids. It all obviously hits a little different anyway.
But so here's the deal. Sixty Songs that Explain the
Nineties are their pictures in the book, though.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
There are there are illustrations. There are awesome illustrations and
an illustrator named Tara Jacobe. I'm so excited about them.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I need them.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
That's one of my favorite parts of the book.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
I need them. I need them.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
You guys go follow Rob on Instagram. Rob Harvilla also
every Wednesday on Spotify new episodes of sixty Songs that
Explain the Nineties. And we had an announcement today's doing
ten thousand episodes. So this is crazy. We'd love it.
We're very excited.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Just five thousand, that's slow down, five thousand plenty.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Thank you, congratulations on the book. You guys go to
Rob's Instagram or at Harvilla on Twitter. You can find
all the links there. We'll post it as well, but
sixty songs that explain the nineties. The book out Tuesday,
November fourteenth. You can pre order now and get that
signed book plate, or you listen to the podcast, or
do them both like I do.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
All right, Rob, good to talk to you, buddy. Appreciate
the time.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 9 (42:19):
It's an honor, all right, there is thanks for listening
to a Bobby Cast production.
Every episode of the show is about one song, one artist,
and I bring in a lot of other things ideally,
but I just wanted to get these songs talking to
each other, across the genres, across the years. The way
we lived it is different from the way we remember
it now.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Episode four twenty one, we'll talk about cover songs, good ones,
bad ones, and we'll talk to Rob Harvilla coming up,
who does one of my favorite podcasts. It's sixty songs
that made the nineties, but now he's on like song ninety.
It's like we do twenty five whistles, and we just
kept going. So we would like to Rob Harvilla and
just Little Bad's got a book coming out, but Eddie
and Reed are both in here for this one. What's
(00:46):
the best cover? Not maybe your favorite, what's the best
cover of all time? It's so good that people may
not even realize that.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's a cover.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Oh wow, And I can go first, go ahead, I
would say, Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Respect was that a cover Otis reading?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh Dan, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, that's definitely an Otis Redding song. And he sings
it a bit different too, and he's like sweaty. I
got the record, so it was a live version, and
so I'll read the Franklin respect because I think even
I forget sometimes that that's a cover.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Oh man, that just that just brought up another one
that I didn't even think of. But it's the Black
Crows covering notice reading too hard to handle.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
That's really good, same record and.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That with much Gotta Goes and my mom shot head around. Yeah,
so good, same thing. Another one is Shinead O'Connor. Nothing
compares to you. That's Prince because it's a Prince song.
But she's the one that made it to hit.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I'm gonna go with another one, Jimi Hendrix all on
the Watchtower Bob Dylan Bob Dylan song.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
How about drift Away Uncle Cracker, because I think just
a newer generation doesn't know that was Adobe Gray song,
Adobe Gray.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
Yeah, I didn't know that one.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
See, I mean, here's read reads like twelve. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
Yeah, I'm over here thinking like Wagon.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Will okay, but that that's fine because Wagon will Well,
that would be Darius covering covering Ould Crow Medicine show
who wrote or I mean Bo Bob nos version never
came out, but it wasn't and it was just a part.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It was partial too.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
It was a demo and he was just singing rock
me mom, and I need to mumble the rest.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
How about Hallelujah when Jeff Buckley did it? Because Leonard
Cohen's version was and still is. I mean, Letoe is
still a live I think I don't know. He reminds
me of Spock from the TV show Spot because he
looks like that. I think that's that's why it is.
Then maybe it doesn't even look like that. Maybe I
never put that together, say.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, what is it?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Leonardy is his name?
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Hilarious?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Wow, I've always wondered why Hallelujah guy running me a Spock.
It's because their names are the same. So yeah, Leonard
Nimoy No, nope.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Leonard Cohen. He's dead, by the way, Cohen he is.
He just died twenty sixteen. Okay, Spock. That's why I
thought he was Spock.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
He's in his version?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Is Lulujah?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Right?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Really?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
With like what like a symphony or something.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
But Jeff Buckley's.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. But then Buckley's is way way,
way better.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's hard for me to say one's better because one
couldn't exist without the other.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
But the Buckley version I prefer.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Obviously it's derivative of the original, sure, but I just
like the guitar and the hollow.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
But Rady, you ever heard the song?
Speaker 6 (03:30):
Oh yeah, it's a classic.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Do you ever see him live in the concerts coming
to National next week? Well, little Dickeye, little Dickey man,
he see that he died. He's drowned swiming across the
river in.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
The Mississippi River.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Little Dickie died.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
No, I feel like I would know about that one.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I think another one that people know now for the
most part. But as I will always love you, I
think when Whitney first came back with it, I don't
think everybody knew it was Dolly like.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
That was a great cover.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
You do a good cover that one too, Proud Mary, uh,
proud Mary, Tina Turner.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
But who did that first? Was it Credence or CCR? Yeah,
And so she did it different and did it awesome. Yeah,
but that one was really cool.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Oh oh gosh, Janice Joplin and Bobby McGhee.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And what's crazy about that song because Chris Kostopherson, he
wrote it. What's crazy is she never felt any success
from that song she died before it hit.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, that's tough.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
That documentary is tough to watch. It was really good.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
It's a good one. If you know nothing about her, well,
I know, even if you know a little bit about her, man,
you learn a lot of stuff about Jane Joplin.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Tough life.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
She went through it, she did, She had a tough life.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
People were mean to her. What was crazy too, is
I didn't know her and Jerry Garcia like we're a thing.
Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead, like they loved each other,
both both dead.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, her story is sad, like the ultimate ultimate bullied person.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So those are all that we like.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
But this whole article here comes out and this is
cover songs that the original artists hated when the new
artists did them, because I want to lead with that
positive part of it, but then get to the juicy
stuff here.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So the Kinks back in the day had.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Girl you Really Got Me Now you Got Me souch.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Oh, come on. They hated van Halen's version they did
how you hate that?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ray Davies or the Kink said it sounded very Middle America,
and his brother David quote, good art isn't always about
having the comfiest technique, and the Kinks are British, I
would imagine, yeah, punks van Halen.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I don't really like the van Halen version. You don't
I like the original?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh dude, it's van Halen sounds too like I don't
know mid America. Yeah, so this song I need to hear.
But this is the original? Is Tom Waits fifty five.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
And the Eagles that cover of it? But I don't
know that I know this song well.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
So quickly.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
Ibnodes sounds familiar, yeah, because it sounds like the Eagles,
But I don't.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And I even I like Tom Waits a lot. I
had a whole couple of years where I listen to
a lot of Tom Waits. I don't even know that
song from him. And if you're like a Tom Waits
purist or an Egles peace, if I hate us right now,
I don't know those songs. So here is let's play
the sex pistols. Here is anarchy in the UK?
Speaker 7 (06:26):
Here Johnny Rotten, that's what it is. Hey, that story
is pretty chile too. I don't know that story.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
How he died in the hotel.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I think that's same band.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Let me tell you though, that's the same band though, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I will tell you.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
I was watching like when I worked.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
And uh, sit and Sid that's right, Sit in Nancy.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Sorry, go ahead, sit in Nancy.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
That was yeah, ambitious in New York.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
You tell me what is that story? I'll tell you
my story.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I'm gona mess it up. You've aready missed it a four times,
so why don't you just take it from here?
Speaker 4 (07:16):
That's all I really remember. Story like Romeo and Juliet,
but the punk Trajic story.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Oh really yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, yeah, So what are you saying about the news?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I know I was.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I was at home because I worked night shift, and
so I was watching watching Judge Judy, and uh, Johnny
Rotten was on there getting sued by his roadies. I
wish I could find that episode again because it was awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
His roadies are like.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh, yeah, they're just going to pay friend of.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Our hotels didn't do it.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
And we'd check into these hotels and Johnny would have
a mansion up there and we would have these two
little little hotel rooms and Joe's I'm the leader of the.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Band, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It was amazing?
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Wow, Yeah, Judge Judy Johnny Rotten check it out.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
After the sex Pestile just abandoned seventy eight, Sit and
Nancy moved to New York City, where could attempt to
make a name for himself in the America punk scene.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
But heroin was very cheap.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
By this point, Said and Nancy were desperately sick with
the diction and consumed every aspect of their lives.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
And they died.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And Sid was who of the second and the whole
thing was she was stabbed and bled to death.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And they don't because but did he stab her?
Speaker 4 (08:22):
I think it added a heroin overdose.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
But do you think she stabbed herself?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I don't even like the sex pstial, to be honest
with you.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
You could do crazy stuff when you're on that heroin stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
So you're here, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
That's what I hear.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Here's Motley Crue doing anarchy in the UK. I'll tell
you I don't leave both of them me too. Who cares?
Now we're get to music, guy, Like here, first of
all is the who with behind blue Eyes?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Like, god, dude, you do you know who covered it?
Speaker 5 (09:02):
Yeah? Limp Biscuit, No, No, it's pretty good too.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It is. And I when I first came out, like
this is gonna be lame. It's awesome because they never
really like take it to biscuit Land.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
They don't like faith they take to biscuit Land.
Speaker 8 (09:17):
Yeah, because this is this is full biscuit And they
even start off and face it's like, I guess it
will be nice, and it stills like, oh this is funky,
well could care.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
But they never take behind Blue Eyes.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
To biscuit Land, yeah, which I thought was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Oh man, I love this song when it came out.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
This is a great cover.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Oh man, when it.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Comes to covert, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess it will
be nice. Nimba, I couldn't touch some ud.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That's awesome. Let's do uh Bruce Springsteen?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Wait, Bruce Springsteen the Light? Oh yeah, blinded by the Light. Yeah,
that's an old one from Bruce.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
And then who sang the new one?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'm gonna tell you, but you have Bruce.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Manfred's Man's Earth Band did this one that I know
that song.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
We all know.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
It's not like a douche wrapped up like a douche.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So I thought I was trapped like a douche.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
We all did, but I think it's because Bruce sings
cut loose like a deuce. So I think it's wrapped
up like a deuce, right, revved up like that's what
it is, up like a douche. No deuce, wrapped up
like a doe. You're right.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Why did an engineer not go do you're going ship
at the end of that?
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Do that again?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Well?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
You you sound like you're saying douche.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
You're saying deuce, right, mind, I am say it again. Douche,
No deuce, douche. It does sound like douche. How about
where the streets have no name?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Wait?
Speaker 5 (10:56):
What that's you two?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Did somebody cover that?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So here's the YouTube version. The Pet Shop Boys kind
of did a disco e tite. Oh, come on, guys,
this is terrible. I've never heard that. I'd be pissed about.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Was YouTube like.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Pet Job Boys?
Speaker 3 (11:25):
We don't.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I don't I like pet up Boys. What else do
they have? They had that song Flamboyant flamboy pull up
some more Pet Shop Boys. Maybe I just don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I like them.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Convince this, Mike, I don't think if you don't like that,
that's their style.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, I don't like that style, but maybe I like
a couple of songs and maybe I don't know, I
like their style and.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
That song is not even in here.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Let me pull up Pet Shop Boys on my phone.
I feel like Pet Shop Boys though. Are the guys
who make prank phone calls?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Right?
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Isn't that them?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
It's not?
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Who is that? Because I remember I found a CD
on the side of the road when I was like
in high school and that.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Was Crank Anchors.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
No, no, no, no, no no, they did prank calls.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Oh, I know west End Girls. West This is pet
Shot Boys.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You got that one in here?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
You do have that one?
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Let me fast forward.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
It can play here.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
You think you're mad stick? Oh yeah, Western Boys and rounds.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
An Northstaurant, you know Weston Town.
Speaker 9 (12:20):
Colos is around.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Around Western Town. What is always on my mind?
Speaker 5 (12:31):
You were always on?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
No, and I don't think it's that one. It could
be it's got two hudred and forty million streams.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Do you have that on there? Mm hmm, okay, let
me play a little bit this from my phone. Oh
here goes? Oh my god, it is that song?
Speaker 5 (12:44):
Are they using Willie there? Or is that them?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
No?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I don't think that's it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
It's always on my mind.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
I think it's them. I don't think it's Willy. That's crazy.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
I kind of like that version. What about Go West,
Go West, young Man? Haven't you been told that's Tobe Key?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That one?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
It might be though, dude, they covered Willy. Let's hear it.
That sounds like garbage.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
You like a play? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:14):
You like that, mic, I do like that.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I guess patch up boys aren't my thing. And
then one other one, weird Aw when he did the
parodies of everybody but.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Like he did Coolio hid Gangster's.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Paradise, but he did Almish Paradise hilarious.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Read he didn't get to experience weird Ow.
Speaker 6 (13:29):
I loved word ow.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was like, but you you're not old enough to
really feel it.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
No, I probably came a little bit later than what
I should.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I mean, it was revolutionary, I know now, it's just
everybody has parodies weird How was revolution?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Have you seen the movie? No You Good?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Daniel Radcliffe Harry Potter plays the weird Ow.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I keep meaning to watch that as good.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
It's a parody movie of like a music biopic. So
he makes fun of the format because it's kind of
cheesy and does his own like really exaggerated version pretty good.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Did you ever watch Don't Stop Superstar and Whatever with
Andy Sandberg?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Awesome, kind of like that. So that's on my favorite movies.
I never even think about his mono favorite movies because
it's so funny. Pop Star, Yeah, don't Stop Popping pop Star,
never stop stopping, Stop popping DPTP.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
What were we saying?
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Oh, oh, the the Jerky Boys? Was the Prince Boys?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Just look that up? Good job.
Speaker 6 (14:15):
I think the first weird album that I noticed was
Riding Nerdy.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
That was a later version of Yeah that's yeah No Yeah.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I think that's when I got got introduced him.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Like he had like like a surgeon, like a surgeon
almost such a fussy young man. Don't want that, Captain Chris,
don't want no raising brands.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Eat it, eat it and just eat it.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, just.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Weird.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
That was awesome.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
All the artists hated him, probably he was using.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
They felt like he was making fun of them right,
not with them, but.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
He would still get their permission even though he didn't
have to. Not always Coolio didn't give it to him.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That was their big beef.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
I feel like I thought I thought he said he
wouldn't put out a I think he did say that.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I think there was confusion that if he really got
Kolio's permission, but Coolio said he never gave it and
he said, no, we called and got it from the
label or whatever. And I think that's why they kind
of got into it. The thing about weird ol, Like,
I think it's like his parents died in the house fire,
oh like while after he was famous, or like when
he was younger, Mike.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Did I make that up?
Speaker 4 (15:20):
That sounds right. I feel like he was in an
interview and somebody brought up his parents and he had
to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I brought that that was me. I did an interview
with him once and I was like, so, what did
your parents whatever? And I didn't know TI after the interview,
they were like his parents dined in house fire.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
You interviewed weird well and then you asked him that well.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I was just talking about, like, what does his parents
think about him doing the music like being because it
was so different.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Let me see this weird awl, good job bones. No
accidental carbon monoxide poisoning is what I see. Really, So
it was in a house, but it was carbonoxide poison. Yeah,
that I see.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
They passed away in their home.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
They started a fire in the fireplace with the flu
closed m.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
And they died.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Of yeah, that's it.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
He bones, you just started a fire with the flume
closed flu whatever. Yeah, I mean, that's that's scary. You
won't even know it. It's like Payne Stewart in the plane.
Like they didn't even know it. They just died.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
I know he played a concert that same night, did
he know? Yeah? He said he played a concert later
that night and started it by saying, since my music
has helped so many of my fans through tough times,
maybe it'll work for me as well. Did the show you.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
See Pete Davidson's that gets those two confusing. Pete Davidson's
intro into SNL's Last.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
Week, No, was it the Barbie one?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No? The intro was him going because all this stuff
is happening Israel, Palestine, and so he's like, hey, look
there's a lot of stuff happening right now. And I
know you're like, why is Pete Davison talking before SNL?
And because my dad died in terrorist attack? Because his
dad died nine to eleven, and so he's like, the
only thing that ever made me kind of feel normal
(17:03):
was my mom accidentally bought me this tape. There was
Eddie Murphy comedy tape. She thought it was something else,
and it was the first time I laughed him forever.
He was like, So that's why I'm here to start
the show is because sometimes I feel like laughter is
the best thing you can do in.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Times are hard. Dang his dad dynamic in nine to eleven?
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Did they talk about that in Staten Island? The King
of Staten Island is in this movie.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, I don't know if I watched that.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Oh yeah, that's not that good.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
He hasn't really had success in movies yet. They always
put him in the same role playing himself.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Pete Davidson, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Even commercials like the Taco bell commercial.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Do you Can touch? Who mixed it up?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Pete Davidson and Hamburg they're similar.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
They're just tall, funny white guys, goofy, goofy.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I like both of them. But in Sanbury got older.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Yeah, he's probably like ten years older, though maybe just didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, they're both funny that never stopped pop popping stopping
as the heck, I love that movie.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
I've never seen that pop Star.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
You never watched pop Star?
Speaker 4 (17:58):
We all watched it, inter rebuted on the Potot.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
You've seen it, Eddie, Well, I don't think I saw it.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
It's a spoof of those documentaries. But it's also like
the Bieber, a spoof of the Bieber. He's in a
boy band, but he goes by himself. Maybe I did
see God it's so good, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
All right, that's it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
We'll do this and we will come back in a
second and we'll talk with one of my favorite guys
who does this podcast called sixty Songs that Made the nineties.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
All right, hold on, let's take a quick pause for
a message from our sponsor.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast. Rob.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
How are you, buddy?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I am excellent. It's great to see you again. Yeah,
you too, And for having me on.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I'll say that I'm I'm super pumped at you're back.
Like this is one of my favorite podcasts, and I
don't I'm not sure how I was exposed to it.
I've listened to every single episode. I think I saw
the ringer maybe retweet you, and it was like, Hey,
I'm doing this podcast about songs in the nineties and
you had done maybe eight or nine episodes, and I
(19:04):
know you and I have spoken. I've guessed it on
the show when Weezer was the.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Weezer Yeah, so so it was this buddy, how I
forget what it was? Any Weezer song works.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Really yeah, And you know what you do that's so
great is that it doesn't really matter the song because
that's not what it's about.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
It is, but it's not I mean yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The For example, I learned so much from the Chumblewamba
episode because for those that don't remember, they had really
one song, this song that goes.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I get knocked down and not get up again.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I had no idea they were basically anarchists and the
whole story of that band. So when you're doing a
story on chumblewam but did you already know? What did
you learn about them?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
That was new?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Tumblewamba was somebody I didn't they I didn't have a
lot of experience with them. I knew that they were
anarchists vaguely. I knew that they had like a daunting
back catalog prior to tub something but I didn't know
how daunting exactly. It's like twelve of records or something like.
That was a lot of Chumblewamba that I packed into
a week, you know. Chumblewomba week was a really intense
(20:08):
week for me. Sometimes, I know, like a ton something
like nine Inch Nails, like the Downward Spiral. I listened
to that album like six thousand times when I was
in high school. I never need to hear that album
again because it's just playing in my head on a
loop in the backgrounds regardless, like I can, I can
recreate every single second of that record. Chumblewomba I had
way less experience with, and that was a lot to
(20:31):
deal with. But it's also rewarding, you know, so to learn,
you know, the backstories of just these these they feel
to us like random one hit wonders. It feels like
they drop down to Earth out of nowhere. But they
have this long, thorny, bizarre history, prehistory before they become famous,
and that's gratifying to sort of delve into that.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That, to me, is what was amazing about chumblewomb But
I thought maybe Simon cow put them together in the
nineties and they had a song and they went away.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
But listening do you talk about them?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
And by the way, how would you describe their Can
we say anarchists and I don't think I would even
I know what anarchy is. But musically, what do you
think they stood for as anarchists?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
They really did walk the walk, you know. The first
record they put out was it was called something like
Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, and it was like
an anti Live Aid screed, right nineteen eighty five. Live Aid,
you know, it raises a lot of money for Africa,
but they just found it pompous and self serving and
(21:36):
they were sort of taking the piss out of rock stars.
You know, it's just just swooping in to save you know,
other countries. You know, just the pompousness of that. You know,
since the mid eighties, they'd been at it, and they
lived in squats, you know in the UK, you know,
like they they lived collectively, you know, and they put
out records on their own. But as the you know,
(21:58):
as their discography grinds on on, they become poppier and poppier,
and they become more invested in this idea of like
raging against the machine from inside the machine. Right, they
decide that they want to make a pop song so
insidious that it gets played on the radio that they
become pop stars. But then you know, they can spread
(22:18):
their anarchist ideology, you know, to the masses, and that
kind of works with tough thumbing, and it kind of doesn't.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Work because they got so popular. That song was so
popular they got a record deal. A lot of people
were looking at them like, hey, you guys sold out
and got a record deal, but they were like no, no, no,
we sold in like we tricked them. So my final
question about Chumbawamba, because I was just so enthralled by
this whole episode, is that what do you feel like
they were up to. Do you feel like they finally
(22:45):
were like, man, we sure just could use some money.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That's got to be part of it. You know, they're
not saints, you know, nobody's intentions are totally pure. But
I do think that looking into it, like they they
believed it right, you know. And and a remember of Chumblewamba,
I think it's Alice Nutter goes on Bill Maher, you know,
his talk show at the time, and it's like, you
should steal our record, you know, and everybody gets mad
(23:09):
at her, But I do think it's always a little suspect,
you know, when people decide they want to be pop stars,
but they want to be pop stars for the right reasons.
You know, they're doing it subversively, you know, and the
money is just a bonus. But really, I'm just trying
to do this and this like they're lying to some extent.
They do enjoy the attention, the fame, and the money
(23:29):
to an extent, But I do believe that there was
a purity to Chumblewumba that transcends, and that's what makes
it sort of funny and discordant that, like, that song
is now a jock jam, right, You're going to hear
that song at every sporting event you attend for the
rest of your life. It's a drinking song, it's explicitly
a drinking song. But just the difference between where they
(23:50):
came from and where they ended up, the dissonance of
that is a little hard to wrap your head around.
But it's fascinating to me.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
At the most capitalist event where they sell beers for
fe fourteen dollars, you'll hear Jumble at the of anarchist singing.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
So that episode a little bit of your history.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
You've written for a lot of different things when you
finish college, Like what is your first paid job?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Where do they pay you first to write?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
They pay me first to write at the other paper
in Columbus, Ohio, I got started an alternative weeklies, right,
weekly newspapers you know, sold for free, not sold just
free on corner boxes or on top of the cigarette
machines in concert venues. Right. And the difference between an
alternative weekly and like the regular newspapers, you can swear
(24:35):
in a weekly, and that's very important. That was very
dear to my heart at the time. But I worked
at one in Columbus, Ohio. I grew up mostly in Ohio.
I worked at a weekly in Oakland, California. I was
at the it was in New York City for a while.
I worked for the Village Voice for a while. And
some of those papers still exist, that most of them, don't,
you know, There are still some weeklies, but not many,
(24:57):
you know, the Internet sort of decimated them, craigs, et cetera.
And so it's weird, Like my path technically still exists,
but it is far less robust than it was when
I was coming up, you know, And I don't know
if there's any guarantee it'll still exist even five ten
years from now, but I remember it fun.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Was it always music.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
It was from the very beginning, you know. I from
sitting in my orthodonist's office getting my braces on. You know,
when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, I wanted
to write for Rolling Stone. He had back issues of
Rolling Stone in his office and I would just sit
there and read them in his waiting room, and that's
what I wanted to do. I went to school for
magazine journalism. Told anyone would listen, I want. I wanted
(25:40):
to write for Rolling Stone. I wanted to write about music,
you know, and I got one attitude, which is great.
I think that I think I did.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Okay, you add an episode on Natalie and Brule a
torn Yeah, had no idea the still lot.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, the still back of that song.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So that torn that the song in general, and I
want to I just want to do a quick version
of this.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
It's hard to do because it was so good.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And I encourage you guys to go look up sixty
songs and explain the nineties. Listen to the Chumble Blaba,
listen to the Natalie Ambrulia. It's kind of like when
I tell people to start Black Mirror, I'm like, go
to White Bear first, even though it's like episode, Like,
go to White Bear and if that's your jam, you're.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Gonna love it all.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I feel like those are the two if you listen
to those and you love them, right, So give us
the quick version of torn in your best way, Rob.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Wow, Okay, so two, Holy moly.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
It was just in so many languages too.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I had no idea this song was saying in so
many languages, and it was a hit by so many people.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
It was a hit by so many Yes, it's aband
in La. Two people in aband In La wrote it
with a dude who had been in the Cure. He
was a bass player for the Cure for a little while.
They write this song, they demo it, but it ends
up first it was Denmark.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah it's been song.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
No, I'm telling you. It was a European language. I
didn't even know what it was, right. And then Natalie
Imbruglia is this like she's a model, she's a singing
and it's her only hit ever as well, but the
song is.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Soap opera star in Australia. Yeah, and it's like the
third or fourth version of the song. There was a
Danish version, you know, and then the La band itself
cut it and that version is great, you know, and
then somebody else. Yeah, it's three or four people got
to Torn before she did, but she found something in
Torn that had never been there before, and she somehow
(27:34):
turned it into this massive pop hit. And that's sort
of fascinating when it takes a few times. You know,
there's a version of achy Breaky Heart before the Billy
Ray Cyrus version that didn't do anything, you know, and
Billy Ray's version is superior, but it's not like that superior, right.
I'm always fascinated by this idea that it takes several
iterations of a song and several different people singing a
(27:57):
song before it becomes a hit, And like, why is
this version the definitive you know, millions billions of plays version.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Did you ever write an article or a critique and
actually get a call or a message from the artist
you wrote the critique about and it wasn't positive?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I wrote, excuse me? I wrote like six thousand words
about Summer Girls by LFO. This predates the podcast by
a couple of years, but I you know, that's a
weird history and there's a lot of tragedy there. A
couple members of that band have passed away, and I
think I talked to one surviving member of LFO and
(28:35):
he was displeased, you know, with what came out. I think,
because I don't want to look down on these songs ever,
you know, even the achy breaky Hearts, you know, even
the Macarenas of the world. Like I love them and
I try and find the good in them, even if
people are sick of them. I think the problem with
these songs most often is that they've been overplayed so
(28:57):
much that people are sick of them. It's not that
the song is bad, that the song has just been
worn out by over you. And that's not necessarily the
case with Summer Girls. But like I just I tried
to write a playful article, you know, that got into
the Abercrombie and Fitch of it all, you know, and
the White Rapper of it all, et cetera, like that,
it's just such a silly song. And the verses of
(29:18):
this song are just so bizarre and so not They're
just a bunch of non sequiteurs. And I it's always
a drag when I get feedback like that, And thankfully
it hasn't happened often, but it did happen in this case,
you know, where he just he wasn't happy. He felt
it was disrespectful, you know, And of course that's his legacy,
that's his song, and I completely understand that, you know.
(29:38):
And I was raised, born, raised in the Midwest, and
I feel bad when that happens, truly, because I'm not
trying to disrespect or look down on these songs ever,
Like I'm trying to have fun with it, but I'm
trying to be I'm trying to honor, you know, the
greatness of the song and in its place and history.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
What about the opposite way you ever written one a
glowing review and you got an appreciation note.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
The weirdest thing that's happened to me in the podcast
so far is that Courtney Love reached out to me.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Great interview.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
I did a whole great interview, thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You know, it's I don't know if interview even describes
what happened there. You know. You just let Courtney Love
cook right like, I'm there and I'm sort of talking
to her and she's talking to me. But yeah, you
don't want to hear from me when it's me and
Courtney Love talking. You just want her to talk. And
that's what happened there, and that was great. But yeah,
I did an episode on Whole, right, I did an
episode on doll Parts, you know, and somebody passed that
(30:30):
to her and she reached out and you know, and
we talked a little bit, and I asked her if
she wanted to be on the show. And I didn't
hear anything for a while, but then suddenly she's asking
if she can do the smells like teen Spirit episode,
the Nirvana episode. And not in a billion years would
I have asked her ever to do that, right. It's
it's so personal, you know, in such an anguished history
(30:50):
ultimately that I never would have asked her to revisit that,
you know, even playfully. But she wanted to talk about it,
and we talked for like an hour and a half,
you know, on Mike about it. And that's for sure
the wildest experience I've had, you know, with somebody I've
talked about reaching out to me. And I always try
and remember when I'm talking about somebody that they are
(31:11):
a real person, you know, and as abstracted as these
people were to me when I was a teenager, Billy Corgan,
Trent Rezner, you know, We's er whoever. Like they were
gods to me, you know, and they didn't seem like
real people to me, but they are, you know, And
it is theoretically possible that they could reach out, you know,
and tap my shoulder, and I always want to be
(31:32):
mindful of that.
Speaker 9 (31:34):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast, this idea. And by the way, where over
sixty songs? Now for those asking they're like, well, how
do you pick sixty?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Well? Now is that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Like? I don't even know what number you're on, but
you kept going, which I thought was brilliant.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
First of all, how did how did you start this?
Where the idea come from? And why sixty? And then
was there a meeting where it's like, all right, should.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
We do more? Can we afford more? Like what happened there?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
This was? It was in twenty twenty. This was a
COVID era project, you know, And it's not like COVID
comes up a lot, but I do think that that's important, right,
Like in the summer of twenty twenty we're like, I
want to do a podcast. I want to do a
podcast that's based on songs. You know, what's a good
orienting principle there. The nineties just sort of leaped out
at us. You know, it's like a distinct. You know,
(32:30):
when you say the nineties, people have a picture in
their heads of what that was, whether they lived through
it or not. And I was really interested in interrogating
the dissonance between the nineties as I lived through them
and the nineties as people understand them now. You know,
the myth of the nineties versus the reality is I
remember it, and so I Nineties songs that explained the
(32:53):
nineties would have made a lot more sense. But that
seemed like too many songs to me in the moment,
and I wasn't sure if the show was going to work.
I didn't want to be the guy with a show
called ninety Songs that explained the nineties and then I
get canceled after like the fourth episode, right, Like that
would be very embarrassing. Sixty songs also a lot of songs,
you know, but like we've like thirty songs. That's too
few songs, Like we just arbitrarily decided on sixty. And
(33:16):
when we got to around forty or forty five and
I'm looking at this spreadsheet we've created of all the
songs that we could do, I'm like, oh no, look
at all these songs we want to do. We have
fifteen more spots. And that's when I have to go
to my editors and be like, can we please do
more songs? And they say yes, and I do ninety
and then we get to you know, seventy seventy five
(33:36):
songs and I'm like, oh no, there's still too many,
so like and I have to go back again and say,
can we do one twenties? Like this is it? And
I'm like okay, and that's you know, and we kept
jumping up. By thirty when we realized that we still,
you know, there's so many stories I want to tell
and so many songs I want to revisit, you know,
and it just it just kept building and building. This
is going to be it. Though one hundred and twenty songs.
(33:58):
You know, you don't want to go too far. I
don't want to start doing like super obscure and sort
of I'm reaching, you know, for something to talk about.
But I one hundred and twenty songs comfortably is what
you know this format can support. And I'm still having
a blast, you know. I think I'm working right now
on it's either one hundred and six or one hundred
and seven, you know, and I still feel as fresh
(34:19):
as I did when we started.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I'm thinking about doing the series every song ever recorded
in the nineties. I do everyone song ever recorded, and
I go to studio and I talk about it and
break it down, really to overtake you as the most.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
You better start now, yeah, kind of go, that's your plan. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Hey, my wife has convinced that Dave Girl murder Kurt Cobain,
and not because she knows. It's because TikTok has these
conspiracy theories about artists from the nineties, and we went
and watched Two Fighters a few weeks ago, and they're
for her a little aggressive. She enjoyed Fallout Boy way
more than she did Food Fighters. But she's like, that's
the guy who that's the guy who killed Kurt Cobain.
I'm like, that's not true.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
But I've never heard that one.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh, get on TikTok. It's a whole it's a whole
lane there of White Girl, one of them dead. Because
he wanted to be the star, which is totally false,
totally inaccurate.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
But of course that woo.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
The Nirvana relationship between those three guys, but also there
was kind of a fourth member, but also there were
like six drummers. So but we just really remember those three.
Is that because that's when the never even before Pat smear?
Is it just because the never Mind album? That's the
three because they that's the album?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Of course, Yeah, I mean it's hard to say. It's
hard to refute the idea that the nineties start with
smells like teen Spirit, Right, the nineties start, you know
in nineteen ninety one, when that song comes out and
blows up and totally changes MTV and totally changes rock radio,
and that it sort of sets the template for the nineties.
And those are the three guys at that point, you know,
(35:50):
the prehistory of Nirvana. Yeah, there's another drummer, there's a
second guitarist for a while, you know, Dave Grohl's not
on Bleach their first record, But that's the definitive lineup
of Nirvana and Pat Smeir, you know, coming from the Germs,
has got a ton of cred. Everybody loves him, you know,
and to have him up on stage in the latter
period of the band, to have him just standing next
(36:10):
to Kirk Cobain, and that passing of the torch is
very important. But no, definitively Nirvana is those three guys.
It's Dave, Christ and purd of course, And I think
that's always the way it works. You know, you remember
you remember the band from the first you know, the
first song you ever heard from them. The first album
that you hear is usually the one you love the most,
and the first lineup too, like it just sets in
(36:32):
your head like this is this is what Nirvana is.
And I think that's true for the world at large
at this point.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Who's your favorite band of all time?
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Who's my favorite band of all time? Artists answer to that?
Or he might be Giants Love.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
That's a really good episode, really good, great thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
And you know it's funny how because I was introduced
to them different than you were, and you referenced this
in the episode.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I was introduced to them from Tiny Tunes of course.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Of course it's stable Constant, yeah, or the wrestling one,
you know, whether it's like Triangleman Particle, Man Particle.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
That's how I.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Found they might be giants, and so through your favorite
of all time?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
What about them? Where did you discover them?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
My cool uncle Nick first played Particle Man for me.
I heard about them a little bit before Tiny Toon Adventures,
but not very not very long before. I was like
twelve years old when that record when Flood came out,
you know, and I was like a weird kid, you know,
I was what you would call a nerd, I guess
in nineteen ninety, you know, and I sort of grew
up on like what like Pee Wee Herman, you know,
(37:39):
like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you know, Saturday
Morning cartoons, Looney Tunes, you know, this whole, this whole
like weird al yankubc of course, you know, like this
very playful and silly aesthetic. And I just they spoke
to me immediately they might be giants as like playful
and silly, but also like hugely accomplished, you know, and
just so prolific and so great at what they did
(38:01):
and so comfortable in themselves. I think when you're twelve
years old, you see people who are doing what they
want to do and being who they want to be,
and not really carrying how they're perceived by the outside world,
Like this isn't Nirvana, right, These guys aren't, you know,
tough burly rock guys. You know, they're not afraid to
be silly, They're not afraid to be playful, They're not
(38:22):
afraid to be irreverend, you know. And that really spoke
to me when I was twelve, and now I've grown
up with them. Right, they went through a period where
they had they made kids albums when they had kids themselves,
and then I'd play those albums to my kids.
Speaker 8 (38:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
It's just I've seen them probably twelve to fifteen times
in my life. It's just been the most rewarding musical relationship,
you know, of my life, in that I'm sort of
growing up parallel to them. I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I think that's why I love the Presidents America.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Like love the Presidents.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Listen to everyone all the records, and then also even
Barnaked Ladies early and they still do some of that nolory.
Those were kind of the same reasons that I love
those guys because it was a great music. Obviously, there's
also fun and goofy and kitchy, and so how do
you do a book on this because the book is
out in November fourteenth, you can pre order now, you
can get a signed book plate. Still as of we're
recording this right now. But what's what in the heck
(39:13):
is the book? Like, what's in it?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
What I love about the book? You know, it's based
on the scripts that I record for the episodes, Like
I write these episodes out, you know, down to the word,
and so I have a lot of source material. And
what I wanted to do with the book is get
these songs interacting with each other. Right, you think about
the idea of sellouts so prevalent in the nineties, right,
you know, this this idea of signing to a major
(39:36):
label or being on MTV or playing on Saturday Night
Live like you were selling out, like Green Day's accused
of selling out, et cetera. But that idea can also
apply to rappers, you know, like ice Cube or Doctor
Dre or Coolio suddenly getting famous like in suburban Middle America.
Suddenly they have this huge pop audience of white kids
(39:57):
who have no experience, you know with living and central LA.
And that's those those rappers really worried about their audience,
about the idea of selling out and going pop, and
so I wanted to get these songs and these ideas
sort of bouncing off each other. And some of it's personal,
you know. I can put Celine, Dion and Whole right
next to each other for personal reasons, just the way
(40:19):
that I heard them in high school, just the way
that my friends brought me this music. You know. There's
a personal element to the book that's supposed to just
get you, the reader, thinking about your own personal relationships
and these weird confluences you have of different artists and genres,
you know, But it's it's as much about you know,
every episode of the show is about one song, one artist,
(40:40):
and I bring in a lot of other things ideally,
but I just wanted to get these songs talking to
each other, across the genres, across the years, you know,
across my personal experiences, and across you know, just the
sociopolitical notion of the nineties and the way the way
we lived it is different from the way we remember
it now.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I read the book The Nineties from Duck Klosterman Chuck Closterman,
who I've read almost everything he's ever written. I love
Chuck Closterman like like Bill Simmons and Chuck Closterman to
me are culture people who who kind of talk for me,
you know, and they say things often that I'm like, dang,
I've felt that.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
I wish I could have said that.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
You know, but relatable.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, it's so, I guess us being you know, big
nineties kids. It all obviously hits a little different anyway.
But so here's the deal. Sixty Songs that Explain the
Nineties are their pictures in the book, though.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
There are there are illustrations. There are awesome illustrations and
an illustrator named Tara Jacobe. I'm so excited about them.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I need them.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
That's one of my favorite parts of the book.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
I need them. I need them.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
You guys go follow Rob on Instagram. Rob Harvilla also
every Wednesday on Spotify new episodes of sixty Songs that
Explain the Nineties. And we had an announcement today's doing
ten thousand episodes. So this is crazy. We'd love it.
We're very excited.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Just five thousand, that's slow down, five thousand plenty.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Thank you, congratulations on the book. You guys go to
Rob's Instagram or at Harvilla on Twitter. You can find
all the links there. We'll post it as well, but
sixty songs that explain the nineties. The book out Tuesday,
November fourteenth. You can pre order now and get that
signed book plate, or you listen to the podcast, or
do them both like I do.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
All right, Rob, good to talk to you, buddy. Appreciate
the time.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 9 (42:19):
It's an honor, all right, there is thanks for listening
to a Bobby Cast production.
Host
Bobby Bones
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.