June 9, 2025 • 31 mins
Ever heard a Broadway ballad about bathroom fixtures? Or a devilish ditty about selling tires?
From the 1950s to the 1980s, America’s biggest brands—Ford, Xerox, American Standard—commissioned full-scale, professional musicals for their employees, not the public. These “industrial musicals” were staged at sales conventions, lavish one-night-only productions designed to inspire, educate, and entertain. And they worked.
In this special crossover episode, written & produced by Amelia Tait and Casey Emmerling, we hand the mic to the team at Twenty Thousand Hertz to explore this fascinating corner of audio history, led by comedy writer and collector Steve Young. You’ll hear unforgettable songs about silicones, diesel engines, bathroom bliss, and more—plus the human stories behind the people who created this unlikely art form.
It’s easy to laugh at singing salespeople, but it’s harder to dismiss how powerful these productions were. People remembered them. They were moved. They sold more because of them. The question isn’t, "Why they did it?" It's, "Why did we stopped?
Maybe it’s time to bring a little of that musical magic back to modern audio ads.
Ad Infinitum is Presented by Oxford Road and Produced by Caitlyn Spring & Ezra Fox, MFA, written & hosted by Stew Redwine, and sound designed by John Mattaliano, with audio production by Zach Hahn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stew Redwine (00:00):
This is Ad Infinitum.
Ad Infinitum is theaward-winning podcast solely
(00:21):
focused on audio ads, thecreatives who make them and or
the latest thinking that informsthem how the space is evolving.
And, my favorite part, aroundup of recent audio ads with
analysis by yours truly, StewRedwine, and each episode's
guest.
Hello, it's Stew Redwine andyou're listening to Ad Infinitum
.
Today we're handing the mic tothe team at 20,000 Hertz to
(00:42):
feature one of their episodesthat I love Industrial Musicals.
It's a sonic deep dive into aweird and wonderful world where
companies like Xerox, ford andAmerican Standard once
commissioned full-blownBroadway-style productions, not
for the public but for their ownemployees.
And if you're thinking thatsounds bonkers, you're right.
But also maybe brilliant Musicsticks, it moves us, it makes
(01:05):
things memorable, it makes usfeel.
Singer 1 (01:08):
I feel all teeming inside.
Stew Redwine (01:10):
As Wayne Brady put it on a recent episode of Ad
Infinitum, music is the bestconveyor of message and comedy.
When it works, it's catchy, andthat's what you want as an ad.
You want it to be catchy AtOxford Road.
We've seen this firsthand.
Steve Young (01:30):
We once built a full-on miniature musical for a
client I can't name, but I canplay you just a sample.
Stew Redwine (01:34):
We also created a spot for Tommy John last year
called Sending you a Message.
Here's a little bit of that.
Steve Young (01:43):
Is it just me, or does it sound like the universe
is sending a message?
Stew Redwine (01:50):
We're excited that that spot was accepted as a
Mercury Award finalist for 2025.
And we'll let you know if weended up being a winner.
The point is, you know, we'renot afraid to take a swing when
music can say it better.
So, with that spirit, enjoythis episode of 20,000 Hertz.
It's a celebration of music asa tool not just for expression
(02:14):
but persuasion.
Dallas Taylor (02:17):
You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
Amelia Tait (02:22):
Are we ready to go?
Dallas Taylor (02:24):
I'm ready and you have the big red light going.
Amelia Tait (02:27):
Yeah, it's going yeah.
Dallas Taylor (02:28):
Excellent.
Recently I sat down withproducer Amelia Tate.
Okay so we're here to talkabout industrial musicals today
Dallas.
Amelia Tait (02:41):
Okay, Interesting.
In fact, before I even explainwhat an industrial musical
really is, I'd like to set ascene, if you wouldn't mind.
I'd love for you to imaginethat you're a salesman and it's
1972 and you work for LiptonTees.
Dallas Taylor (02:54):
Okay.
Amelia Tait (02:59):
Are you in the mindset?
Dallas Taylor (03:01):
72, big hair.
The color of the world is alittle bit more just like brown,
and I am selling tea.
Amelia Tait (03:09):
And it's not going that well.
You know it's a hard gig.
Your competitors are musclingin on your territory, so you go
to the company's annual salesshow and then you hear this but
it's the lived and live, and Ilove it, I love it and live it
(03:32):
every day.
Singer 1 (03:33):
I love the lived and live and I'm glad of it.
Sing it, fellas.
I wouldn't have it any otherway.
Amelia Tait (03:46):
I mean you're motivated, right.
Dallas Taylor (03:48):
I'm motivated, yeah.
Amelia Tait (03:49):
Yeah, you want to sell tea.
I mean it's a hard job sellingLipton tea.
So, in a nutshell, anindustrial musical is a
performance put on by acorporation for a purely private
audience of employees.
We are talking full-on musicaltheatre, with sets and costumes
(04:09):
and singing and dancing and,most importantly, original
lyrics about the company, itsproducts and its workers.
Here's a song called MakingProfits by York Air Conditioners
.
Singer 1 (04:22):
Liability, working capital, profit, gross and net
Making profits.
With good finance you bet.
Amelia Tait (04:34):
These glitzy productions started in the 1950s
.
Singer 1 (04:38):
With the new Ford tractors, the future's looking
fine.
Now's the time to roll yoursleeves up.
Amelia Tait (04:44):
Because if you rise and shine and they continued to
be popular through the mid-80sBack to the future.
Singer 1 (04:52):
A great petite future that starts right now.
Amelia Tait (04:58):
And it was designed essentially to kind of motivate
people and move them andsometimes teach you a few
selling tricks as well.
Dallas Taylor (05:05):
This is a wild, wild world.
Amelia Tait (05:07):
Yeah, I mean it goes so deep.
So yes, I've got another littlemotivational ditty in the queue
here for you, which is the 1963song Xerox, the Name by Xerox,
the Copying Company.
Dallas Taylor (05:20):
Are we back at a convention center, I guess?
Amelia Tait (05:22):
We're still in the convention center.
Yeah, there's women kickingtheir legs high with red
lipstick.
Wow, motivating you, although Ithink this one sounds a little
bit more like birds should besinging it in a Disney movie.
Like it's a little bit moresweet.
Singer 1 (05:36):
We're getting dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, being busy, busy,
busy at the Xerox company.
There's a crisis here a minute,but we're happy to be in it at
the Xerox company.
Dallas Taylor (05:52):
I feel like it would be more shocking than
anything.
You know the hard life of a teasalesman and you're just like
whoa.
It'd be awesome if you give melike a three cent raise, but
it's cool that you put on thisvery expensive production Right.
Amelia Tait (06:04):
I mean, that is the thing about these and why
they're such a fascinating bitof history is that a lot of them
were really big budget, biggerbudget than actual Broadway
musicals.
Dallas Taylor (06:12):
Wow, and it's just like for one performance.
Amelia Tait (06:16):
One performance yes .
Dallas Taylor (06:17):
You come home and you're gonna be like they put
on a full on Broadway musical atthe company meeting and
everyone being like no, theydidn't, you're exaggerating.
No, they did and they like haveto take that to their grave.
Amelia Tait (06:32):
But while some employees might have faced
skepticism from their friendsand family, others went home
with Proof, a souvenir recordwith all the songs they'd heard
that night.
These albums were neverintended to be sold to the
public, but over the decadesthey found their way into garage
sales and second-hand stores,and eventually people started to
(06:54):
find them, or at least oneperson did.
Steve Young (06:57):
I have a very strange record collection which
consists of records I was neversupposed to own or listen to.
Amelia Tait (07:04):
That's Steve Young, a comedy writer and collector.
Steve Young (07:07):
There are musicals about selling and servicing
diesel engines, the triumphs andtragedies of being a Coca-Cola
bottler, the exciting year aheadfor the marketing department at
a sunscreen company, or kids'sneakers.
Amelia Tait (07:23):
Steve has been collecting these records for
over 25 years, and today he'spretty much the leading expert
on the genre.
Steve Young (07:33):
The full-fledged industrial musical seems to have
come up in post-war America bythe early 50s.
You had Broadway musicals likeSouth Pacific and Oklahoma that
were enormous, popular,mainstream, middle-class
entertainments.
Singer 1 (07:54):
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the
plain.
Steve Young (07:58):
And gradually some people in the big corporations
realized, you know, we couldjust borrow this entire form for
our own purposes.
This is going to be a greatmotivational, educational
entertainment element for ourconventions and our folks are
going to be blown away bygetting into the convention hall
and seeing a musical abouttheir lives and their work and
(08:20):
they're going to be so fired upto go out and sell, sell, sell.
Singer 1 (08:36):
Who else but Whirlpool could ever be First of all?
David Letterman (08:38):
in the industry .
First with the products thatserve so well, first with the
features that sell, sell, sell.
Amelia Tait (08:43):
I think what I'm struggling to get my head around
is what the plots were.
Steve Young (08:47):
Some industrial shows were reviews and you had
just strings of songs andstagecraft to highlight
different points.
Amelia Tait (08:56):
For instance, a refrigerator company might make
a song to help their salesmanremember the most important
selling points.
Singer 1 (09:04):
They've got features.
To talk about Features, youshould all remember Magnetic
doors, revolving shelves,convenient things that sell
themselves.
Steve Young (09:18):
But the most ambitious of these did go down
the road of let's make a fullbook musical with a character
and a plot, and oftentimes itwas something about a McDonald's
manager or an American Motorsdealer who had kind of fallen
into a slump and was gloomy.
Singer 1 (09:37):
I manage a Kenny's shoe store.
I do it every day.
Steve Young (09:44):
I do it every day and then something would happen,
whether it was a sort ofDickensian ghosts of the past,
present and future, to show howgreat the coming products were
going to be in the marketing orsome other jumpstart to make the
main character and, byextension, everyone in the
audience feel wow, I think I'vegot my mojo back.
Pull yourself together.
A Kenny manager's life is oneof action.
Singer 1 (10:04):
The audience feel wow, I think I've got my mojo back.
We're so together.
A kinny manager's life is oneof action and with each sale
there comes a satisfaction.
So, despite the madness we mustface each day being right on
target is the only way Right ontarget is the only way, so it
(10:27):
might be hard to pickno-transcript.
Steve Young (10:32):
Oh boy, yeah, that's hard Like oh, which of
your children do you love themost?
Well, anything from DieselDazzle is pretty great.
Singer 1 (10:39):
Detroit.
Diesel is dazzling.
Diesel is dazzling.
Diesel is dazzling now.
Dazzling sales, dazzling growth.
Steve Young (10:48):
The other one that you always have to mention is
the crown jewel.
Just in terms of conceptualcraziness as well as quality.
Just in terms of conceptualcraziness as well as quality.
American Standard, the plumbingfixture company, put out a
musical in 1969 to get theplumbing fixture distributors
fired up about bathroomremodeling, and it's called the
Bathrooms Are Coming, and thesong that I call the gateway
(11:12):
drug of this whole genre iscalled my Bathroom.
Amelia Tait (11:18):
Oh yeah, so here we go.
This is my bathroom from 1969's.
The bathrooms are coming.
Dallas Taylor (11:23):
My bathroom, my bathroom, oh god this is this is
amazing is a private kind ofplace.
David Letterman (11:31):
Sure is very special kind of place.
Dallas Taylor (11:35):
Sure is.
David Letterman (11:36):
Very special kind of place.
Steve Young (11:44):
It's a woman just singing this confessional song
about how the bathroom is whereshe can be herself and feels
free and feels at peace in atroubled world.
Singer 1 (12:02):
Now at last I can you tell me a little bit when?
Dallas Taylor (12:15):
I wash and where I cream.
Amelia Tait (12:20):
So can you tell me a little bit about how you did
first hear these and how youfirst got into collecting
industrial musicals?
Steve Young (12:26):
I was a writer for Late Night and then Late Show
with David Letterman.
Singer 1 (12:31):
From New York, the greatest city in the world.
It's the Late Show with DavidLetterman.
Steve Young (12:39):
And one of the bits on the show was called Dave's
Record Collection, in which DaveLetterman would hold up real,
unintentionally funny recordalbums and we'd hear a sample.
He'd have a snarky remark.
David Letterman (12:51):
Ronald McDonald visits America.
Let's listen to a little bit ofthis.
Hi there, I'm Ronald McDonald,and you and I are about to
discover America.
Together, we'll visit all thestates and travel thousands of
miles, and then we'll find outwhat a clown smells like after
six days in a van.
Amelia Tait (13:11):
At the time, part of Steve's job involved going to
record stores and thrift shopsto look for more weird records
to play on the show, and diggingthrough those dusty record bins
, he came across somethingstrange.
Steve Young (13:25):
I began coming back from my hunting expeditions
with these mysterious corporatesouvenir records and I just
thought this is comedy goldbefore we've even heard one
second of the audio.
Amelia Tait (13:38):
But once he did start listening, it felt like he
had discovered a secret portalto another dimension.
It was this quirky chapter ofAmerican history that no one
seemed to know about or remember.
On top of that, the songs wereoften surprisingly good.
Steve Young (13:54):
You would think they would just be sad and
ridiculous and some of them werenot so great, but a few of them
really got my attention becauseof the production value and the
talent and just the catchinessof the songs.
Singer 1 (14:06):
My insurance man.
David Letterman (14:08):
Is that what they call you?
Singer 1 (14:10):
My insurance man.
Is that what they say?
Are you sure that you'rerecognized as the man who's
organized To make the most ofevery?
Amelia Tait (14:19):
single day.
Soon enough.
Steve was hunting down theserecords everywhere he could.
Steve Young (14:26):
I started going to record shows, networking with
other record collectors anddealers.
It was very, very slow becausealmost no one knew that these
records existed.
Amelia Tait (14:36):
But that scarcity just made these albums even more
enticing.
So Steve kept tracking themdown.
Today he has over 200 of them.
This is my absolute favoriteone, the one I want to play you
next.
I asked Steve what he thoughtwas the weirdest one, and he
told me about BF Goodrich, thetire dealerships 1979 industrial
(14:57):
musical which was called theGreat Life.
I'm just going to say itbecause it's so amazingly dumb.
A tire dealer makes a deal withthe devil.
Dallas Taylor (15:07):
Oh.
Amelia Tait (15:07):
And he's going to lose his soul and his tire
dealership if he doesn't sellenough tires in a month.
Dallas Taylor (15:14):
That is dark.
Amelia Tait (15:15):
It's dark right.
Dallas Taylor (15:19):
Oh, time's running out to sell tires.
He's got tires to sell, oh gosh, he's got tires to sell.
David Letterman (15:30):
If he doesn't sell them, the tires will sell.
Dallas Taylor (15:33):
That's terrifying If he doesn't sell them the
tires will sell 5, 10, 15 inthese people to sell tires.
Amelia Tait (15:47):
I mean it's interesting because this is 1979
.
So maybe you know we've hadabout 20 years of industrial
musicals by this point.
Maybe they're like the happyclappy stuff didn't work, let's
go straight for the threats ofhell.
They're like look we need tosell tires.
Dallas Taylor (16:00):
What do we do?
Amelia Tait (16:01):
Yeah.
Dallas Taylor (16:02):
Oh yeah, threaten their eternal damnation.
Note the BF Goodrich companyhas never explicitly threatened
employees with eternal damnationfor not selling enough tires.
David Letterman (16:09):
There's a job I've gotta do if I'm gonna hold
my own.
Gotta sell a load of tires.
Gotta hit the road for home.
I've made a crazy deal and it'sreally been a thrill, but the
piper will be paid and it's notyour average bill.
Amelia Tait (16:25):
Sometimes the salesman's wives were also
invited into the audience, whichdid mean that some of the songs
were actually kind of gearedtowards them.
Dallas Taylor (16:32):
I bet this is going to be culturally dated.
Amelia Tait (16:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's a little, so here is An
Ex-On-Dealer's Wife from 1979.
Dallas Taylor (16:43):
Oh.
Singer 1 (16:43):
Yeah.
Dallas Taylor (16:48):
Yeah, she is.
David Letterman (16:58):
It's true.
Amelia Tait (17:02):
Steve started his record collection because he
found songs like this hilarious.
But as he delved deeper anddeeper into this world, he
realised that there was a lotmore to it than he expected.
First, steve co-wrote a bookabout industrial musicals.
Then filmmaker Dava Wisenantmade a documentary about them,
(17:24):
with Steve as the main subject.
These projects brought Steveinto contact with the people
behind this music and hearingtheir stories changed everything
.
Steve Young (17:34):
What started as just a snarky can you believe
this is for real morphed overtime.
I started tracking down writersand performers who'd done these
shows and I learned about theirlives.
Amelia Tait (17:48):
For more than 25 years, Steve Young has been
hunting down recordings ofindustrial musicals, and as his
collection grew, he decided hewanted to share it with the
world.
So in 2013, Steve co-wrote abook called Everything's Coming
Up Profits the Golden Age ofIndustrial Musicals.
Along with the book, hecompiled three collections of
(18:09):
these songs and put them online.
A few years later, filmmakerDava Wisenant made a documentary
called Bathtubs Over Broadwayabout Steve's journey with this
music.
The film even features originalindustrial musical-esque song
and dance numbers.
Singer 1 (18:28):
CEOs, profits and sales with top hats and tails.
Corporate music, corporatemusical show.
Amelia Tait (18:43):
Through the documentary, steve finally got
to meet the people who made themusic that he'd been listening
to for decades.
For instance, he met composerslike Hank Beebe and Sid Siegel,
who worked on a bunch of theseshows.
Sid wrote the industrialmusical gateway drug my Bathroom
.
And here's a song that Hankwrote for a General Electric
(19:03):
production called GottaInvestigate Silicones.
Singer 1 (19:07):
I heard them say that silicones provide protection
from the heat and, inpractically the same breath,
from the heat and in practicallythe same breath.
I heard them say that siliconesprovide protection from the
cold.
Amelia Tait (19:28):
For Steve, meeting the guy who wrote the silicone
song was like meeting a rockstar.
Steve Young (19:35):
I worked at the Letterman Show for 25 years and
there were famous people comingon the show every day.
I generally didn't go out of myway to try to meet them, even
though I might have liked theirwork.
But boy was I excited when Ifinally got to meet Sid Siegel
or Hank Beebe, People who I feltwere maybe not well known in
the world or not known at all,but I knew their work and I
(19:58):
wanted to hear more about theirstories.
Amelia Tait (20:00):
But for these artists, Steve's enthusiasm came
as a bit of a surprise.
Steve Young (20:06):
When I would track someone down, there was
confusion.
How can you possibly know aboutthe diesel engine show or the
standard oil show or whatever?
Simply know about the dieselengine show or the standard oil
show or whatever.
They were so sure that no onein the outside world would ever
hear about this or talk about it.
Amelia Tait (20:22):
Here's composer Hank Beebe in the documentary.
Stew Redwine (20:26):
They were never publicized, there was no
advertising, there were notickets sold or anything like
that.
David Letterman (20:31):
It was like we were CIA agents.
Steve Young (20:33):
There was also worry because I was the comedy
writer from the late night TVshow.
Oh no, are we about to be madefun of?
Are we being set up somehow tobe mocked?
Amelia Tait (20:45):
But Steve didn't want to mock these artists.
He wanted to celebrate theirwork and learn what inspired
them to do it.
Here's a clip from the film ofactress Pat Stanton-Giornola,
the singer of my Bathroom alongwith co-star Sandy Freeman, I
think we knew that we weren'tgoing to become stars doing this
, you know but, it was just awonderful way to pay the rent
(21:08):
and to continue doing what welove.
Steve Young (21:11):
There's so many that said we only had one
setting use all our talent andmake it as great as it can be,
even if it's a lawnmower showthat's going to be heard once at
8am in a hotel ballroom,because that's just the reason
they got into this world of workwas because they enjoyed making
things great.
Amelia Tait (21:34):
Some industrial musical composers actually went
on to become quite famous.
Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bockwrote Ford's 1959 musical
Fordify your Future.
David Letterman (21:44):
Go fast, go slow you'll be shifting on the
go.
Here is any speed for any need.
Here is any speed for any need.
Amelia Tait (21:58):
A few years later, these same composers went on to
write songs for Fiddler on theRoof, Matchmaker, matchmaker
make me a match, find me a fine,catch me a catch.
But most of these composersnever found mainstream success
or appreciation.
Steve Young (22:21):
When the documentary came out, hank Beebe
said when I used to doindustrial shows in New York I
was called the king of theindustrial shows and it was
meant as an insult because itwas seen as not legitimate work
and certainly not worthy of therespect of the Broadway world.
Amelia Tait (22:39):
These artists might have been ignored or even
mocked by their mainstream peers, but when their work was heard
by the right people, it couldreally move them.
Steve Young (22:48):
I've heard stories from veterans from this field
saying they would be in thewings watching the audience and
seeing tears streaming down thefaces of salesmen and managers.
Just the feeling that somebodygets it.
Somebody knows what we're upagainst out there in the field.
Amelia Tait (23:09):
These songs were made for a very particular time
and place, but some of them canstill resonate today.
Steve Young (23:16):
There's one from the Detroit Diesel Engine Show
called One man Operation, sungby a woman who is recounting how
her husband was the soleproprietor of this diesel engine
business and he was runninghimself ragged Work days
holidays.
Singer 1 (23:34):
They all became the same 18 hours every 24.
Steve Young (23:43):
15 hours every 24.
50 years later, people who haveno connection with this world
of what the company was doingstill can feel that human drama
coming out of these songs whenthey're done right there for the
longest, while I never saw himsmile.
Singer 1 (24:02):
Now his smile is what he's famous for.
Dallas Taylor (24:08):
The thing that is the most surprising is just how
objectively incredible some ofthis musicianship is.
I mean even the one that's realcreepy about sell, sell, sell,
or you know.
Amelia Tait (24:19):
Or you'll go to hell.
Dallas Taylor (24:20):
Yeah, even that one is.
It reminds me of just anincredible, you know Broadway
musical.
Amelia Tait (24:25):
Yeah, I mean.
It's interesting though,because I had that discussion
with Steve, which is cancorporate art be art?
Steve Young (24:33):
I think we're at the point in history where we
don't automatically disqualifysomething from respect just
because of its commercialorigins.
I tell people, for example,that Michelangelo did not paint
the Sistine Chapel ceilingbecause it was a hobby or a
passion project.
Although he may have beenpassionate about it, he was
doing a corporate messaging gigfor the most powerful
(24:55):
corporation in the world.
Amelia Tait (25:04):
Sadly, Sid Siegel passed away in 2015 and Hank
Beebe died in 2023.
But Steve is grateful that hegot to know them and that he
could bring some attention totheir work while they were still
alive.
Steve Young (25:19):
These people became my friends and mentors and in
some cases even collaborators.
They got to look back from adifferent perspective on their
own careers and it was a greatvindication for them.
Sometimes someone like Hank orSid would say you know, until
you came around I hadn'tlistened to that Ford truck show
or whatever, in 40 years, and Ipulled it out last night.
(25:41):
It was very good, wasn't it?
And now people who weren't bornwhen any of that happened are
listening to the GeneralElectric silicones songs or the
diesel engine songs and thinkingthis is crazy, but it's also
really very good.
And he just never thought thatthere would be any respect and
(26:02):
it felt great to see thatrespect coming in for these
folks.
Amelia Tait (26:15):
So what happened to the industrial musical?
Why isn't your companycommissioning one for your next
sales meeting?
Steve Young (26:22):
It ran pretty well for several decades, I would say
by the early 80s it was nolonger a novelty and you had a
different generation of peoplein the workforce who did not
necessarily grow up thinkingmusical theatre was cool.
So you had some rock and roll,industrials and disco.
Stew Redwine (26:40):
Good morning dance fans and welcome again to 79
Fever, the world's first salesmeeting with a disco beat.
There's not one other officefurniture manufacturer that
hustled through 1978 the way wedid.
Steve Young (26:57):
But the wheel was turning and the golden age I
call it was really done by themid 80s.
Dallas Taylor (27:04):
I immediately think that it must be a million
times easier just to bring in anestablished artist, instead of
making a whole production fromscratch.
Amelia Tait (27:12):
Right, I mean, that's probably what they do now
.
Right, like Beyonce will do aprivate corporate gig.
Dallas Taylor (27:17):
Yeah, I saw like a clip from somebody's cell
phone of Kevin Hart doingsomething for the Walmart
corporate event.
David Letterman (27:22):
Well, right now , man, I want to say good
morning Walmart.
Singer 1 (27:26):
Good morning, wow, wow .
Amelia Tait (27:38):
In the modern era, industrial musicals are
critically endangered, butthey're not totally extinct.
Steve Young (27:45):
It continued into the 21st century and has never
completely gone away.
I know State Farm Insurance hascontinued to do big musicals
every couple of years.
Amelia Tait (27:57):
So Walmart did one in the early 2000s, which.
I am desperate to listen to,but do not have any evidence of
online, sadly.
Dallas Taylor (28:06):
See, because somebody at Walmart went,
there's this thing called theinternet, that's really blowing
up.
And maybe we just keep it righthere.
Amelia Tait (28:14):
We don't record it.
Yeah, after bathtubs overBroadway came out, some of these
companies started reaching outto Steve.
Steve Young (28:23):
I did one not too long ago where a production
company said we think we canconvince this pharmaceutical
company to do a musical openingnumber at their big sales
meeting.
Would you be interested inworking on that?
And I said you bet I would.
I've been training for 25 yearsfor it.
Amelia Tait (28:44):
Industrial musicals were almost lost forever, but
Steve has now ensured that theycan be discovered and enjoyed by
an entirely new generation.
So why has he put so much hardwork into preserving this
forgotten corner of pop culture?
Steve Young (29:01):
Because these shows were so ephemeral they were
really meant for one specifictime and place and it had such a
short shelf life.
Nobody thought it had any valuebeyond that one event, and I
said I think it does have value.
Maybe I'm a weirdo Well, we'requite sure I am actually but I
think there's something evenmore beautiful about these
(29:23):
things because they are sounselfconsciously of a moment,
for a purpose, and yet are madewith great craft and precision,
and so I just love that theyexist and that I found them and
that I am still listening tothem decades after they were
supposed to be forgotten 20,000Hertz is produced out of the
(30:02):
sound design studios of DeFactoSound.
Dallas Taylor (30:05):
Find out more at defactosoundcom.
Amelia Tait (30:08):
This episode was written and produced by Amelia
Tate.
Dallas Taylor (30:11):
It was story edited by Casey Emmerling.
With help from Grace East.
Singer 1 (30:16):
It was sound designed and mixed by Brandon Pratt.
Dallas Taylor (30:19):
And Jesus Arteaga .
Thanks to our guest, SteveYoung.
These days, Steve tours thecountry doing shows that include
live music, storytelling andexclusive clips from long-lost
industrial musicals.
Learn more atsteveyoungworldcom.
In the show notes you can findlinks to bathtubs over Broadway,
as well as three albums ofthese crazy songs, and if you
(30:41):
know someone who would get akick out of this episode, then
tap that share button.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
Thanks for listening.
Stew Redwine (30:51):
That was 20,000 Hertz and their episode
Industrial Musicals.
It's easy to laugh at singingsalespeople and odes to bathroom
fixtures, but it's harder todismiss how powerful these
productions really were.
People remembered them, theywere moved and they sold more
product because they were soinspired.
The question for us decadeslater isn't why did they do that
(31:14):
?
It's why did we stop?
It's time let's bring back theindustrial musicals, or at least
maybe bring them to some moreadvertisements.
You see them pop up.
They tend to come in waves,they come and they go like 3D in
the movie theaters.
So consider it.
You want to write a musical foryour product or service?
We would love to help over hereat Oxford Road.
(31:36):
Thank you for listening.
This is Ad Infinitum andremember to have fun and maybe
sing a little bit when you'remaking the ads work.
This is Ad Infinitum.
Ad Infinitum is theaward-winning podcast solely
(00:21):
focused on audio ads, thecreatives who make them and or
the latest thinking that informsthem how the space is evolving.
And, my favorite part, aroundup of recent audio ads with
analysis by yours truly, StewRedwine, and each episode's
guest.
Hello, it's Stew Redwine andyou're listening to Ad Infinitum
.
Today we're handing the mic tothe team at 20,000 Hertz to
(00:42):
feature one of their episodesthat I love Industrial Musicals.
It's a sonic deep dive into aweird and wonderful world where
companies like Xerox, ford andAmerican Standard once
commissioned full-blownBroadway-style productions, not
for the public but for their ownemployees.
And if you're thinking thatsounds bonkers, you're right.
But also maybe brilliant Musicsticks, it moves us, it makes
(01:05):
things memorable, it makes usfeel.
Singer 1 (01:08):
I feel all teeming inside.
Stew Redwine (01:10):
As Wayne Brady put it on a recent episode of Ad
Infinitum, music is the bestconveyor of message and comedy.
When it works, it's catchy, andthat's what you want as an ad.
You want it to be catchy AtOxford Road.
We've seen this firsthand.
Steve Young (01:30):
We once built a full-on miniature musical for a
client I can't name, but I canplay you just a sample.
Stew Redwine (01:34):
We also created a spot for Tommy John last year
called Sending you a Message.
Here's a little bit of that.
Steve Young (01:43):
Is it just me, or does it sound like the universe
is sending a message?
Stew Redwine (01:50):
We're excited that that spot was accepted as a
Mercury Award finalist for 2025.
And we'll let you know if weended up being a winner.
The point is, you know, we'renot afraid to take a swing when
music can say it better.
So, with that spirit, enjoythis episode of 20,000 Hertz.
It's a celebration of music asa tool not just for expression
(02:14):
but persuasion.
Dallas Taylor (02:17):
You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
Amelia Tait (02:22):
Are we ready to go?
Dallas Taylor (02:24):
I'm ready and you have the big red light going.
Amelia Tait (02:27):
Yeah, it's going yeah.
Dallas Taylor (02:28):
Excellent.
Recently I sat down withproducer Amelia Tate.
Okay so we're here to talkabout industrial musicals today
Dallas.
Amelia Tait (02:41):
Okay, Interesting.
In fact, before I even explainwhat an industrial musical
really is, I'd like to set ascene, if you wouldn't mind.
I'd love for you to imaginethat you're a salesman and it's
1972 and you work for LiptonTees.
Dallas Taylor (02:54):
Okay.
Amelia Tait (02:59):
Are you in the mindset?
Dallas Taylor (03:01):
72, big hair.
The color of the world is alittle bit more just like brown,
and I am selling tea.
Amelia Tait (03:09):
And it's not going that well.
You know it's a hard gig.
Your competitors are musclingin on your territory, so you go
to the company's annual salesshow and then you hear this but
it's the lived and live, and Ilove it, I love it and live it
(03:32):
every day.
Singer 1 (03:33):
I love the lived and live and I'm glad of it.
Sing it, fellas.
I wouldn't have it any otherway.
Amelia Tait (03:46):
I mean you're motivated, right.
Dallas Taylor (03:48):
I'm motivated, yeah.
Amelia Tait (03:49):
Yeah, you want to sell tea.
I mean it's a hard job sellingLipton tea.
So, in a nutshell, anindustrial musical is a
performance put on by acorporation for a purely private
audience of employees.
We are talking full-on musicaltheatre, with sets and costumes
(04:09):
and singing and dancing and,most importantly, original
lyrics about the company, itsproducts and its workers.
Here's a song called MakingProfits by York Air Conditioners
.
Singer 1 (04:22):
Liability, working capital, profit, gross and net
Making profits.
With good finance you bet.
Amelia Tait (04:34):
These glitzy productions started in the 1950s
.
Singer 1 (04:38):
With the new Ford tractors, the future's looking
fine.
Now's the time to roll yoursleeves up.
Amelia Tait (04:44):
Because if you rise and shine and they continued to
be popular through the mid-80sBack to the future.
Singer 1 (04:52):
A great petite future that starts right now.
Amelia Tait (04:58):
And it was designed essentially to kind of motivate
people and move them andsometimes teach you a few
selling tricks as well.
Dallas Taylor (05:05):
This is a wild, wild world.
Amelia Tait (05:07):
Yeah, I mean it goes so deep.
So yes, I've got another littlemotivational ditty in the queue
here for you, which is the 1963song Xerox, the Name by Xerox,
the Copying Company.
Dallas Taylor (05:20):
Are we back at a convention center, I guess?
Amelia Tait (05:22):
We're still in the convention center.
Yeah, there's women kickingtheir legs high with red
lipstick.
Wow, motivating you, although Ithink this one sounds a little
bit more like birds should besinging it in a Disney movie.
Like it's a little bit moresweet.
Singer 1 (05:36):
We're getting dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, being busy, busy,
busy at the Xerox company.
There's a crisis here a minute,but we're happy to be in it at
the Xerox company.
Dallas Taylor (05:52):
I feel like it would be more shocking than
anything.
You know the hard life of a teasalesman and you're just like
whoa.
It'd be awesome if you give melike a three cent raise, but
it's cool that you put on thisvery expensive production Right.
Amelia Tait (06:04):
I mean, that is the thing about these and why
they're such a fascinating bitof history is that a lot of them
were really big budget, biggerbudget than actual Broadway
musicals.
Dallas Taylor (06:12):
Wow, and it's just like for one performance.
Amelia Tait (06:16):
One performance yes .
Dallas Taylor (06:17):
You come home and you're gonna be like they put
on a full on Broadway musical atthe company meeting and
everyone being like no, theydidn't, you're exaggerating.
No, they did and they like haveto take that to their grave.
Amelia Tait (06:32):
But while some employees might have faced
skepticism from their friendsand family, others went home
with Proof, a souvenir recordwith all the songs they'd heard
that night.
These albums were neverintended to be sold to the
public, but over the decadesthey found their way into garage
sales and second-hand stores,and eventually people started to
(06:54):
find them, or at least oneperson did.
Steve Young (06:57):
I have a very strange record collection which
consists of records I was neversupposed to own or listen to.
Amelia Tait (07:04):
That's Steve Young, a comedy writer and collector.
Steve Young (07:07):
There are musicals about selling and servicing
diesel engines, the triumphs andtragedies of being a Coca-Cola
bottler, the exciting year aheadfor the marketing department at
a sunscreen company, or kids'sneakers.
Amelia Tait (07:23):
Steve has been collecting these records for
over 25 years, and today he'spretty much the leading expert
on the genre.
Steve Young (07:33):
The full-fledged industrial musical seems to have
come up in post-war America bythe early 50s.
You had Broadway musicals likeSouth Pacific and Oklahoma that
were enormous, popular,mainstream, middle-class
entertainments.
Singer 1 (07:54):
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the
plain.
Steve Young (07:58):
And gradually some people in the big corporations
realized, you know, we couldjust borrow this entire form for
our own purposes.
This is going to be a greatmotivational, educational
entertainment element for ourconventions and our folks are
going to be blown away bygetting into the convention hall
and seeing a musical abouttheir lives and their work and
(08:20):
they're going to be so fired upto go out and sell, sell, sell.
Singer 1 (08:36):
Who else but Whirlpool could ever be First of all?
David Letterman (08:38):
in the industry .
First with the products thatserve so well, first with the
features that sell, sell, sell.
Amelia Tait (08:43):
I think what I'm struggling to get my head around
is what the plots were.
Steve Young (08:47):
Some industrial shows were reviews and you had
just strings of songs andstagecraft to highlight
different points.
Amelia Tait (08:56):
For instance, a refrigerator company might make
a song to help their salesmanremember the most important
selling points.
Singer 1 (09:04):
They've got features.
To talk about Features, youshould all remember Magnetic
doors, revolving shelves,convenient things that sell
themselves.
Steve Young (09:18):
But the most ambitious of these did go down
the road of let's make a fullbook musical with a character
and a plot, and oftentimes itwas something about a McDonald's
manager or an American Motorsdealer who had kind of fallen
into a slump and was gloomy.
Singer 1 (09:37):
I manage a Kenny's shoe store.
I do it every day.
Steve Young (09:44):
I do it every day and then something would happen,
whether it was a sort ofDickensian ghosts of the past,
present and future, to show howgreat the coming products were
going to be in the marketing orsome other jumpstart to make the
main character and, byextension, everyone in the
audience feel wow, I think I'vegot my mojo back.
Pull yourself together.
A Kenny manager's life is oneof action.
Singer 1 (10:04):
The audience feel wow, I think I've got my mojo back.
We're so together.
A kinny manager's life is oneof action and with each sale
there comes a satisfaction.
So, despite the madness we mustface each day being right on
target is the only way Right ontarget is the only way, so it
(10:27):
might be hard to pickno-transcript.
Steve Young (10:32):
Oh boy, yeah, that's hard Like oh, which of
your children do you love themost?
Well, anything from DieselDazzle is pretty great.
Singer 1 (10:39):
Detroit.
Diesel is dazzling.
Diesel is dazzling.
Diesel is dazzling now.
Dazzling sales, dazzling growth.
Steve Young (10:48):
The other one that you always have to mention is
the crown jewel.
Just in terms of conceptualcraziness as well as quality.
Just in terms of conceptualcraziness as well as quality.
American Standard, the plumbingfixture company, put out a
musical in 1969 to get theplumbing fixture distributors
fired up about bathroomremodeling, and it's called the
Bathrooms Are Coming, and thesong that I call the gateway
(11:12):
drug of this whole genre iscalled my Bathroom.
Amelia Tait (11:18):
Oh yeah, so here we go.
This is my bathroom from 1969's.
The bathrooms are coming.
Dallas Taylor (11:23):
My bathroom, my bathroom, oh god this is this is
amazing is a private kind ofplace.
David Letterman (11:31):
Sure is very special kind of place.
Dallas Taylor (11:35):
Sure is.
David Letterman (11:36):
Very special kind of place.
Steve Young (11:44):
It's a woman just singing this confessional song
about how the bathroom is whereshe can be herself and feels
free and feels at peace in atroubled world.
Singer 1 (12:02):
Now at last I can you tell me a little bit when?
Dallas Taylor (12:15):
I wash and where I cream.
Amelia Tait (12:20):
So can you tell me a little bit about how you did
first hear these and how youfirst got into collecting
industrial musicals?
Steve Young (12:26):
I was a writer for Late Night and then Late Show
with David Letterman.
Singer 1 (12:31):
From New York, the greatest city in the world.
It's the Late Show with DavidLetterman.
Steve Young (12:39):
And one of the bits on the show was called Dave's
Record Collection, in which DaveLetterman would hold up real,
unintentionally funny recordalbums and we'd hear a sample.
He'd have a snarky remark.
David Letterman (12:51):
Ronald McDonald visits America.
Let's listen to a little bit ofthis.
Hi there, I'm Ronald McDonald,and you and I are about to
discover America.
Together, we'll visit all thestates and travel thousands of
miles, and then we'll find outwhat a clown smells like after
six days in a van.
Amelia Tait (13:11):
At the time, part of Steve's job involved going to
record stores and thrift shopsto look for more weird records
to play on the show, and diggingthrough those dusty record bins
, he came across somethingstrange.
Steve Young (13:25):
I began coming back from my hunting expeditions
with these mysterious corporatesouvenir records and I just
thought this is comedy goldbefore we've even heard one
second of the audio.
Amelia Tait (13:38):
But once he did start listening, it felt like he
had discovered a secret portalto another dimension.
It was this quirky chapter ofAmerican history that no one
seemed to know about or remember.
On top of that, the songs wereoften surprisingly good.
Steve Young (13:54):
You would think they would just be sad and
ridiculous and some of them werenot so great, but a few of them
really got my attention becauseof the production value and the
talent and just the catchinessof the songs.
Singer 1 (14:06):
My insurance man.
David Letterman (14:08):
Is that what they call you?
Singer 1 (14:10):
My insurance man.
Is that what they say?
Are you sure that you'rerecognized as the man who's
organized To make the most ofevery?
Amelia Tait (14:19):
single day.
Soon enough.
Steve was hunting down theserecords everywhere he could.
Steve Young (14:26):
I started going to record shows, networking with
other record collectors anddealers.
It was very, very slow becausealmost no one knew that these
records existed.
Amelia Tait (14:36):
But that scarcity just made these albums even more
enticing.
So Steve kept tracking themdown.
Today he has over 200 of them.
This is my absolute favoriteone, the one I want to play you
next.
I asked Steve what he thoughtwas the weirdest one, and he
told me about BF Goodrich, thetire dealerships 1979 industrial
(14:57):
musical which was called theGreat Life.
I'm just going to say itbecause it's so amazingly dumb.
A tire dealer makes a deal withthe devil.
Dallas Taylor (15:07):
Oh.
Amelia Tait (15:07):
And he's going to lose his soul and his tire
dealership if he doesn't sellenough tires in a month.
Dallas Taylor (15:14):
That is dark.
Amelia Tait (15:15):
It's dark right.
Dallas Taylor (15:19):
Oh, time's running out to sell tires.
He's got tires to sell, oh gosh, he's got tires to sell.
David Letterman (15:30):
If he doesn't sell them, the tires will sell.
Dallas Taylor (15:33):
That's terrifying If he doesn't sell them the
tires will sell 5, 10, 15 inthese people to sell tires.
Amelia Tait (15:47):
I mean it's interesting because this is 1979
.
So maybe you know we've hadabout 20 years of industrial
musicals by this point.
Maybe they're like the happyclappy stuff didn't work, let's
go straight for the threats ofhell.
They're like look we need tosell tires.
Dallas Taylor (16:00):
What do we do?
Amelia Tait (16:01):
Yeah.
Dallas Taylor (16:02):
Oh yeah, threaten their eternal damnation.
Note the BF Goodrich companyhas never explicitly threatened
employees with eternal damnationfor not selling enough tires.
David Letterman (16:09):
There's a job I've gotta do if I'm gonna hold
my own.
Gotta sell a load of tires.
Gotta hit the road for home.
I've made a crazy deal and it'sreally been a thrill, but the
piper will be paid and it's notyour average bill.
Amelia Tait (16:25):
Sometimes the salesman's wives were also
invited into the audience, whichdid mean that some of the songs
were actually kind of gearedtowards them.
Dallas Taylor (16:32):
I bet this is going to be culturally dated.
Amelia Tait (16:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's a little, so here is An
Ex-On-Dealer's Wife from 1979.
Dallas Taylor (16:43):
Oh.
Singer 1 (16:43):
Yeah.
Dallas Taylor (16:48):
Yeah, she is.
David Letterman (16:58):
It's true.
Amelia Tait (17:02):
Steve started his record collection because he
found songs like this hilarious.
But as he delved deeper anddeeper into this world, he
realised that there was a lotmore to it than he expected.
First, steve co-wrote a bookabout industrial musicals.
Then filmmaker Dava Wisenantmade a documentary about them,
(17:24):
with Steve as the main subject.
These projects brought Steveinto contact with the people
behind this music and hearingtheir stories changed everything
.
Steve Young (17:34):
What started as just a snarky can you believe
this is for real morphed overtime.
I started tracking down writersand performers who'd done these
shows and I learned about theirlives.
Amelia Tait (17:48):
For more than 25 years, Steve Young has been
hunting down recordings ofindustrial musicals, and as his
collection grew, he decided hewanted to share it with the
world.
So in 2013, Steve co-wrote abook called Everything's Coming
Up Profits the Golden Age ofIndustrial Musicals.
Along with the book, hecompiled three collections of
(18:09):
these songs and put them online.
A few years later, filmmakerDava Wisenant made a documentary
called Bathtubs Over Broadwayabout Steve's journey with this
music.
The film even features originalindustrial musical-esque song
and dance numbers.
Singer 1 (18:28):
CEOs, profits and sales with top hats and tails.
Corporate music, corporatemusical show.
Amelia Tait (18:43):
Through the documentary, steve finally got
to meet the people who made themusic that he'd been listening
to for decades.
For instance, he met composerslike Hank Beebe and Sid Siegel,
who worked on a bunch of theseshows.
Sid wrote the industrialmusical gateway drug my Bathroom
.
And here's a song that Hankwrote for a General Electric
(19:03):
production called GottaInvestigate Silicones.
Singer 1 (19:07):
I heard them say that silicones provide protection
from the heat and, inpractically the same breath,
from the heat and in practicallythe same breath.
I heard them say that siliconesprovide protection from the
cold.
Amelia Tait (19:28):
For Steve, meeting the guy who wrote the silicone
song was like meeting a rockstar.
Steve Young (19:35):
I worked at the Letterman Show for 25 years and
there were famous people comingon the show every day.
I generally didn't go out of myway to try to meet them, even
though I might have liked theirwork.
But boy was I excited when Ifinally got to meet Sid Siegel
or Hank Beebe, People who I feltwere maybe not well known in
the world or not known at all,but I knew their work and I
(19:58):
wanted to hear more about theirstories.
Amelia Tait (20:00):
But for these artists, Steve's enthusiasm came
as a bit of a surprise.
Steve Young (20:06):
When I would track someone down, there was
confusion.
How can you possibly know aboutthe diesel engine show or the
standard oil show or whatever?
Simply know about the dieselengine show or the standard oil
show or whatever.
They were so sure that no onein the outside world would ever
hear about this or talk about it.
Amelia Tait (20:22):
Here's composer Hank Beebe in the documentary.
Stew Redwine (20:26):
They were never publicized, there was no
advertising, there were notickets sold or anything like
that.
David Letterman (20:31):
It was like we were CIA agents.
Steve Young (20:33):
There was also worry because I was the comedy
writer from the late night TVshow.
Oh no, are we about to be madefun of?
Are we being set up somehow tobe mocked?
Amelia Tait (20:45):
But Steve didn't want to mock these artists.
He wanted to celebrate theirwork and learn what inspired
them to do it.
Here's a clip from the film ofactress Pat Stanton-Giornola,
the singer of my Bathroom alongwith co-star Sandy Freeman, I
think we knew that we weren'tgoing to become stars doing this
, you know but, it was just awonderful way to pay the rent
(21:08):
and to continue doing what welove.
Steve Young (21:11):
There's so many that said we only had one
setting use all our talent andmake it as great as it can be,
even if it's a lawnmower showthat's going to be heard once at
8am in a hotel ballroom,because that's just the reason
they got into this world of workwas because they enjoyed making
things great.
Amelia Tait (21:34):
Some industrial musical composers actually went
on to become quite famous.
Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bockwrote Ford's 1959 musical
Fordify your Future.
David Letterman (21:44):
Go fast, go slow you'll be shifting on the
go.
Here is any speed for any need.
Here is any speed for any need.
Amelia Tait (21:58):
A few years later, these same composers went on to
write songs for Fiddler on theRoof, Matchmaker, matchmaker
make me a match, find me a fine,catch me a catch.
But most of these composersnever found mainstream success
or appreciation.
Steve Young (22:21):
When the documentary came out, hank Beebe
said when I used to doindustrial shows in New York I
was called the king of theindustrial shows and it was
meant as an insult because itwas seen as not legitimate work
and certainly not worthy of therespect of the Broadway world.
Amelia Tait (22:39):
These artists might have been ignored or even
mocked by their mainstream peers, but when their work was heard
by the right people, it couldreally move them.
Steve Young (22:48):
I've heard stories from veterans from this field
saying they would be in thewings watching the audience and
seeing tears streaming down thefaces of salesmen and managers.
Just the feeling that somebodygets it.
Somebody knows what we're upagainst out there in the field.
Amelia Tait (23:09):
These songs were made for a very particular time
and place, but some of them canstill resonate today.
Steve Young (23:16):
There's one from the Detroit Diesel Engine Show
called One man Operation, sungby a woman who is recounting how
her husband was the soleproprietor of this diesel engine
business and he was runninghimself ragged Work days
holidays.
Singer 1 (23:34):
They all became the same 18 hours every 24.
Steve Young (23:43):
15 hours every 24.
50 years later, people who haveno connection with this world
of what the company was doingstill can feel that human drama
coming out of these songs whenthey're done right there for the
longest, while I never saw himsmile.
Singer 1 (24:02):
Now his smile is what he's famous for.
Dallas Taylor (24:08):
The thing that is the most surprising is just how
objectively incredible some ofthis musicianship is.
I mean even the one that's realcreepy about sell, sell, sell,
or you know.
Amelia Tait (24:19):
Or you'll go to hell.
Dallas Taylor (24:20):
Yeah, even that one is.
It reminds me of just anincredible, you know Broadway
musical.
Amelia Tait (24:25):
Yeah, I mean.
It's interesting though,because I had that discussion
with Steve, which is cancorporate art be art?
Steve Young (24:33):
I think we're at the point in history where we
don't automatically disqualifysomething from respect just
because of its commercialorigins.
I tell people, for example,that Michelangelo did not paint
the Sistine Chapel ceilingbecause it was a hobby or a
passion project.
Although he may have beenpassionate about it, he was
doing a corporate messaging gigfor the most powerful
(24:55):
corporation in the world.
Amelia Tait (25:04):
Sadly, Sid Siegel passed away in 2015 and Hank
Beebe died in 2023.
But Steve is grateful that hegot to know them and that he
could bring some attention totheir work while they were still
alive.
Steve Young (25:19):
These people became my friends and mentors and in
some cases even collaborators.
They got to look back from adifferent perspective on their
own careers and it was a greatvindication for them.
Sometimes someone like Hank orSid would say you know, until
you came around I hadn'tlistened to that Ford truck show
or whatever, in 40 years, and Ipulled it out last night.
(25:41):
It was very good, wasn't it?
And now people who weren't bornwhen any of that happened are
listening to the GeneralElectric silicones songs or the
diesel engine songs and thinkingthis is crazy, but it's also
really very good.
And he just never thought thatthere would be any respect and
(26:02):
it felt great to see thatrespect coming in for these
folks.
Amelia Tait (26:15):
So what happened to the industrial musical?
Why isn't your companycommissioning one for your next
sales meeting?
Steve Young (26:22):
It ran pretty well for several decades, I would say
by the early 80s it was nolonger a novelty and you had a
different generation of peoplein the workforce who did not
necessarily grow up thinkingmusical theatre was cool.
So you had some rock and roll,industrials and disco.
Stew Redwine (26:40):
Good morning dance fans and welcome again to 79
Fever, the world's first salesmeeting with a disco beat.
There's not one other officefurniture manufacturer that
hustled through 1978 the way wedid.
Steve Young (26:57):
But the wheel was turning and the golden age I
call it was really done by themid 80s.
Dallas Taylor (27:04):
I immediately think that it must be a million
times easier just to bring in anestablished artist, instead of
making a whole production fromscratch.
Amelia Tait (27:12):
Right, I mean, that's probably what they do now
.
Right, like Beyonce will do aprivate corporate gig.
Dallas Taylor (27:17):
Yeah, I saw like a clip from somebody's cell
phone of Kevin Hart doingsomething for the Walmart
corporate event.
David Letterman (27:22):
Well, right now , man, I want to say good
morning Walmart.
Singer 1 (27:26):
Good morning, wow, wow .
Amelia Tait (27:38):
In the modern era, industrial musicals are
critically endangered, butthey're not totally extinct.
Steve Young (27:45):
It continued into the 21st century and has never
completely gone away.
I know State Farm Insurance hascontinued to do big musicals
every couple of years.
Amelia Tait (27:57):
So Walmart did one in the early 2000s, which.
I am desperate to listen to,but do not have any evidence of
online, sadly.
Dallas Taylor (28:06):
See, because somebody at Walmart went,
there's this thing called theinternet, that's really blowing
up.
And maybe we just keep it righthere.
Amelia Tait (28:14):
We don't record it.
Yeah, after bathtubs overBroadway came out, some of these
companies started reaching outto Steve.
Steve Young (28:23):
I did one not too long ago where a production
company said we think we canconvince this pharmaceutical
company to do a musical openingnumber at their big sales
meeting.
Would you be interested inworking on that?
And I said you bet I would.
I've been training for 25 yearsfor it.
Amelia Tait (28:44):
Industrial musicals were almost lost forever, but
Steve has now ensured that theycan be discovered and enjoyed by
an entirely new generation.
So why has he put so much hardwork into preserving this
forgotten corner of pop culture?
Steve Young (29:01):
Because these shows were so ephemeral they were
really meant for one specifictime and place and it had such a
short shelf life.
Nobody thought it had any valuebeyond that one event, and I
said I think it does have value.
Maybe I'm a weirdo Well, we'requite sure I am actually but I
think there's something evenmore beautiful about these
(29:23):
things because they are sounselfconsciously of a moment,
for a purpose, and yet are madewith great craft and precision,
and so I just love that theyexist and that I found them and
that I am still listening tothem decades after they were
supposed to be forgotten 20,000Hertz is produced out of the
(30:02):
sound design studios of DeFactoSound.
Dallas Taylor (30:05):
Find out more at defactosoundcom.
Amelia Tait (30:08):
This episode was written and produced by Amelia
Tate.
Dallas Taylor (30:11):
It was story edited by Casey Emmerling.
With help from Grace East.
Singer 1 (30:16):
It was sound designed and mixed by Brandon Pratt.
Dallas Taylor (30:19):
And Jesus Arteaga .
Thanks to our guest, SteveYoung.
These days, Steve tours thecountry doing shows that include
live music, storytelling andexclusive clips from long-lost
industrial musicals.
Learn more atsteveyoungworldcom.
In the show notes you can findlinks to bathtubs over Broadway,
as well as three albums ofthese crazy songs, and if you
(30:41):
know someone who would get akick out of this episode, then
tap that share button.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
Thanks for listening.
Stew Redwine (30:51):
That was 20,000 Hertz and their episode
Industrial Musicals.
It's easy to laugh at singingsalespeople and odes to bathroom
fixtures, but it's harder todismiss how powerful these
productions really were.
People remembered them, theywere moved and they sold more
product because they were soinspired.
The question for us decadeslater isn't why did they do that
(31:14):
?
It's why did we stop?
It's time let's bring back theindustrial musicals, or at least
maybe bring them to some moreadvertisements.
You see them pop up.
They tend to come in waves,they come and they go like 3D in
the movie theaters.
So consider it.
You want to write a musical foryour product or service?
We would love to help over hereat Oxford Road.
(31:36):
Thank you for listening.
This is Ad Infinitum andremember to have fun and maybe
sing a little bit when you'remaking the ads work.
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