In this episode on the Soundtrack to Stranger Things we examine the artists and songs from Episode 3. This time we dive into the glorious music of Foreigner, their rise to classic rock fame and the turbulence along the way. We also discuss one timeless holiday classic, a classical piece that you'll recognize from Bugs Bunny and cap it all off with David Bowie and the most emotional song he's ever performed. You won't want to miss it!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, Shirley fans.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
For the last three years, Jason and I have been
bringing you the stories behind all of your favorite movies
from the eighties. But today we begin a new series.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
In twenty sixteen, the Duffer Brothers introduced the world to
Stranger Things. This show not only changed the way we
all watch television, but surprisingly also truly impacted the music
we listened to, from Africa to Running Up that Hill.
Stranger Things has brought back songs of our past and
introduced them to a whole new generation.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So the Surely you Can't Be Serious Podcasts begins a
new series bringing you the stories behind the songs of
Stranger Things. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley
you Can't Be Serious Podcast. I am James D.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Graves.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I am here with my good buddy Jason Colvin, and
we are here to talk some Stranger Things music.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Episode three of season one. I've got one question for you,
d Yeah, is that new bra.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Was last episode?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Sorry? Last episode?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Hey, it jumps in right where we left off last
episode with Steve and Nancy.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And Barb and Barb, poor Barb man.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
These shows I love going back to revisit these episodes.
And preparation for these things. This is such a well
made show. It is, and I know we're here to
talk about the songs, but man, the production is so
good I feel like we need to talk about it
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Basically, Barb is stuck in the upside down. Yes, she
was on the diving board at the party, having a
crappy time dropping blood in the water. Yeah, all of
a sudden boom, She's in the upside down. While Steve
and Nancy are making out yep, Eleven down in the basement.
Mike's taking care of her, Yeah, pumping snacks tour, taking
care of her, and their buddy Will is still lost.
(01:46):
Everybody's looking for Will.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And in this episode we discover through flashbacks that Eleven
has more powers than we really knew about right two,
that she is not willing to kill cats, but is
willing to kill orderlies who are trying to throw her
in the closet. They deserved it, and that she's punished
for not killing the cats, so that we know that
there's something fishy going on here. I can't not talk
(02:07):
about this, right. I realized that we're here to talk
about the song, but I just have to say that
So the sheriff goes to investigate at the research facility
and he's very suspect, like he's like, can you show
us the video of the night the kid disappeared? And
when they leave, he's like, did you see any ring
in that video? He called it off for the storm, right,
So they start investigating at the library. He's had a
little little thing with the library and that was kind
(02:29):
of funny. And when they're doing their research, it comes
across this page where doctor Brenner played by Matthew Modine.
He shows up as implicated in some nefarious stuff, including
and this is the first first article that he sees
the mk ultra experiments. I did some looking on this.
(02:51):
This is a real thing. I am sure that a
lot of our Shirley fans know about this, but this
this was my first. This was my first to dive
into this stuff. It is crazy. I mean this is
I mean literally, like we talked about LSD in our
first episode in nineteen fifty three, when Korean prisoners of
war came back to the United States and were like
(03:12):
toting the communist party line, They're like, holy cow, these
guys have been brainwashed, and so what they decided to
do was make their own brainwashing investigation. And with these
completely front organizations that appeared to be educational or treatment
oriented or whatever, they would give people LSD and other mescaline,
(03:34):
other drugs, other weird sort of experimentations on them. I
mean frequently. It was like Nazi war camp crap all
through the CIA for like twenty years, and they spent
twenty million dollars on it. It's insane. My mind was blown.
My mind was blown.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
When you called me and said, hey, this do you
know about this? All this stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I was like, who smokes like it's Manchurian candidate style stuff?
Is manasering except real life, right right? And they gave
one of their own guys. They gave like a US
weapons biochemist LSD without him knowing about it, and he
jumped out of a freaking window a week later, like dead.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Don't do drugs, kids, don't don't don't do it. Don't
take drugs from the CIA. Boys and girls. Hey, I've
got another mind blowing thing for you, something we talked
about during our Top Gun episode. Yes, okay, Matthew Modine,
the guy who plays doctor Brenner, Yes, who played Loud
and Swain in Vision Quest, Yes, which I showed my daughter.
(04:33):
She was like, no way, that guy is old and
he's playing a young guy. And you know, yes, Matthew
Modine was the second choice to play Maverick in Top Gun.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I'm cruse got it, but their backup plan was Matthew MODI.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I don't know if I'll find a way to throw
this in later, So I'll throw it in now. We're
going to talk about David Bowie and by gosh, eighties
he started acting in addition to his other endeavors, and
he in a movie called The Hunger directed by Tony Scott,
director of Pop Gun.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yes, that's true.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Terrible movie by.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
The way, horrible, not well received.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's a vampire movie.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
So I'm like, awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I like ready for like Friday Night or Lost Boys.
Yea boring, my gosh boy.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
To finish up the episode, yeah, Elle is taking the
boys to find him, and we cannot forget that. Joyce
has the lights up and is convinced that Will is
communicating with her through the lights, and then we see
some you know more pushing through the paper stuff. Thankfully,
it's Christmas time and she's able to go out and
buy a whole lot of lights, and then we have
the discovery of what appears to be Will's body at
(05:39):
the end of this episode. Sorry spoiler alert, sorry for
not telling you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Hey, I do want to give a quick shout out
to my good buddy Tristan Martin, who deserves some credit
and I haven't given him any credit yet. My kids
actually were the final straw in making me sit down
and actually watch Stranger Things. So I'm late to the party.
I joined at season four, but I went back and
started season one, got caught up. But Tristan Martin's been
begging me for years to watch this and he was.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Like, what about me?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
What about when I was begging you to watch it?
So Tristan, thank you. You are one of the major
reasons why I watched the show as well.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's been a great show, so well done. And I
mentioned last last episode that was the ET episode, like
it was very similar to the ET stuff. This one
was totally close Encounters of the third kind, right right.
Everybody thinks Joyce is losing it. She's thinks she's communicating
with Will from beyond through lights. I mean, she's obviously nuts.
(06:36):
So just turns out she's Richard Dreyfus, and she's right.
It did mean something.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
You're exactly right, this means something.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I love watching these.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
With my kids because I see, like the thing that's
kind of bending through the walls. I'm like, that's Nightmare
on Elm Street right there.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's like me commentating to my kids. They don't want
to hear it, but.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
This is from Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, all right, d So it's football season, and so
Tom Brady's forty five years old. He's out there getting
it done. Yeah, he's basically our age. Yeah, and you know,
one of the secrets for his success in the NFL.
Every time he goes out onto the field, before he
goes out of the field, he feels his balls. He
squeezes him, he caresses them. He was actually involved in
(07:18):
a scandal revolving around the pressure of his balls.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, if your balls are under pressure, maybe it's because
you got too much jungle going on down there, which
brings us to our sponsor for the day, manscaped dot com.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
That's right, let's talk serious for just a second. Okay,
serious twenty serious, twenty. Let's talk serious twenty right. Okay,
your wife, your girlfriend. They want you to be clean
and trim and looking good. They don't want a nasty jungle.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Manscape has these great products like the lawnmower that's there
to make you look good.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Right, guys, if you go to the barber every couple
of weeks and you take care of all other hair
on your body every year or so, you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
That's right. Nobody wants to be with a caveman, right,
take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Go to Maandscape dot com. Be sure and use our
promo code which is serious twenty and you'll get twenty
percent off of your order. And they have fantastic products
for you to use. I like the kits where you
can get like a whole bunch of stuff all in
one package.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Don't be a caveman.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Whack it, wack it.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Okay, we're ready to dive into the music. Let's dive
into the music. We've been blathering on for long enough now.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Okay, d So we're diving in right off the bat.
Forty seconds into this episode. Forty seconds, forty seconds, we
basically jump right in with Steve and Nancy who are
under the sheets.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Well, speaking of jump like I had, I was listening
for the song because I knew it came right on.
You're sitting me watching me listen for the song, and
it turns out the first thing that you hear in
the episode is barb goh, I jump clean out of
my seat.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
And you died laughing. Yeah, that was funny, but yes.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
About forty seconds after that, we see Steve and Nancy
getting down, getting with it.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Things about to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
He's checking out her new bra.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Her new bra, and then the BRA's gone, and all
sorts of stuff's happening.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
But you dive right in with one of the eighties
great power ballads, a song called Waiting for a Girl
Like You by Foreigner, And this is the perfect song
(09:38):
to have in this spot because it's not only a
huge song of the huge song of the eighties, it
is a power ballad that when you mix a romantic
scene in with a terrifying scene, it takes all of
those cool synthesizers that they're doing and makes them much
more eerie. It is a chuck the position, if you will,
(10:01):
of Beauty and Horror.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Back and back.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Let's talk about that song for just a second. Then
we'll talk about Foreigner for a second. Okay, So the
song reached number two, and only number two. It actually
has the distinct honor of being number two for ten weeks.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Ten weeks.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
That's like some kind of record.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
It is a record.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Actually is the longest that any song has been at
number two and not made it to it's number one.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, I think who did I tell you that? The
other one was Missus Elliott. Yes.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So Foreigner releases this song October of nineteen eighty one.
By January of nineteen eighty two, it reaches number two,
but it's blocked for nine weeks by a song called
Physical by Olivia Newton John.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Well, I like to listen in the Olivia Newton John's
body talk.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
That song was eighties iconic. You said nine weeks though,
and this was on the chart for ten weeks. Well,
then you have a song by Hall of Oates called
I Can't Go for that.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Two icons of the eighties keeping another icon of the
eighties out of the number one spot.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
So it leapfrogged, it went to number one, blocked it again,
and then that last week Jay Giles band Centerfold takes
the number one spot and Foreigner drops to number three.
It just missed its window.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And this song comes off of their fourth album, appropriately
titled four. Right, it would have been a good comparison
for us on Toto's four, which is what we did
whenever we had our first episode and we talked about Africa.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
But we still have it out there to compare to
somebody else. I'm not sure who that is yet, but
it is an icon album. And I asked my brother,
I'm like, how did this get by me? You know, like, hey,
older brother that introduced me to all of the eighties bands.
Did you ever own the four tape or anything? He
was like, no, I always wanted it, but it was
like something else always came up that I picked it
(12:15):
over that one. So before we get into four itself,
let's talk about how they how the band came to
be all right, sure, okay, So Mick Jones is the man,
like he is the founder of the band, so throwback
to him. He was a guy who started playing music
very early, got a ukulele, yeah, and loved it and
played it all the time and decided to become a guitarist.
(12:37):
The first band that he got involved with was a
band called Nero and the Gladiators.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I know, flashback to our Gladiator episode.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I knew you were going to do that. So he
plays with them, and their gimmick was Nero was in
a toga and the gladiators were in gladiator gear up
on stage.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Right, He ends up a secession musician in France. He
wrote songs for Johnny Holliday, who was considered the Elvis
of France.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right, I thought that I'm like the freaking French Elvis.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Right, the French Elvis. And there's a song I want
to butcher the pronunciation here. We need Melissa Mingle over
here to help us pronounce this. But talk to Cassier.
I'm guessing is the name of the song.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Hey we wee?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, you know who played guitar, No, Jimmy.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Pay Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page played guitar on the French
Elvis's song written by Mick Jones. Hey wait now the
French ol We got the French Elvis. Yeah, and remember
when we talked about the Minneapolis Wham. Yeah, it was
amber one hit Wonder, right. So guys, hey, guys, if
you want to check out our one Hit Wonder episode,
to be sure and go to our Patreonpatreon dot com
(13:42):
Backslash Shirly podcast, and you can hear all about the
Minneapolis Wham. That's right, that's right. You talked about that
on the Jets episode.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So he's doing pretty well, like he's making money as
a musician. He ends up making friends with the Beatles.
He ends up in this band called Spooky Tooth that
does a okay.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
For a while.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
So Luke Ematico gives him this LP from Black Sheep.
Lugarmatico's band and Mick Jones' band is in New York
at the time.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Right, So just a quick thing on Spooky Tooth.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Spooky Tooth.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah, the original singer for Spooky Tooth was a guy
named Gary Wright. If you've seen Wayne's World, you've heard
this guy seeing Gary Wright seeings dream Weaver. Okay, so
(14:34):
here you go. I've got some stuff on Black Sheep.
Black Sheep was a band in the early seventies. They
were actually the first band signed by Chrysalis. Yeah, I
was going to tell you this, Okay, So if you'll remember,
we talked about Chrysalis a lot during the Huey Lewis
in the News episode. Right, Huey Lewis made the album
(14:54):
Sports but Chrysalis was kind of falling on bad times.
They were calling and no one was answering in New
York and in London, and they were not going to
turn their album over to a company going out of business, right.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
They would sleep with the originals underneath their.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Pillow flashback to our hear listen in his sports episode
Black Sheep is acquiring some success. They actually become the
opening band for Kiss and in the seventies band that's
a huge deal.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So they have this they're traveling and they have this
accident where their equipment truck crashes and destroys all their equipment.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yes, it's the New York State Thoroughfare covered in ice.
All of their band equipment is destroyed. And band equipment
is expensive. It is, It is very expensive.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
And Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are like, sorry, fellas,
sucks to be you, good luck, see you later.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So Mick Jones also at this around this same time,
his band is falling apart as well, falls apart there
while he's in New York and he's got no money,
so he's stuck in New York. Oh wow, So he's
working as this session musician and producer A little bit
in New York. But he he's got all these songs
that are coming into his head and he's like, man,
(16:03):
maybe I just should start my own band instead of
just being the guitarist for somebody else's band, I'll start
my own band. So he gets together with Ian McDonald
who is from King Crimson, and they decide to form
a band together, form the band trigger right, yes, And
so they're picking other guy's up, Al Greenwood, some other
folks to be a part of the band, but they
still haven't found a singer. And suddenly he remembers this guy,
(16:25):
Lou Grammatico, that had given him this Black Sheep LP
and he's like, hey, let's give that guy a call. Well,
when Black Sheep's equipment truck wrecked and all of their
equipment broke, he had to find another job. You know
what lu Grammatico was doing when he got a call
for mc jones. No, he was a janitor for a
public service building. He was cleaning toilets and mopping floors.
(16:49):
You know we've talked about in our Journey episode. When
Steve Perry got the call, he had gone home and
was working at his stepdad's turkey ranch.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
He was done with music.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
He's done with music. Whenever Brian Johnson got the call
for ac DC, he was putting carmon shields in right.
He was working as a mechanic, basically occasionally singing at
a club here and there, and you know, doing a
Hoover vacuum commercial every once in a while.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Now Lugermatico gets this.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Call, they fly him up to New York. Within the
first two lines of him singing, they're like, this is
our guy. But Lugermatico doesn't sound as cool as another name,
and so he changes his name to lou Graham lu
Graham and the band has to change their name from
Trigger to Foreigner and they start working on their first album.
(17:46):
So their first album is an incredible success. And it's
funny because I heard Al Greenwood talking about this. He's like,
I was so excited we were listening to these songs,
were blown away at how good they were. So when
the finally gets done, I take it, I have it
at my party and play it for all of my
friends and it gets done and they're like, that was terrible.
(18:07):
Like number one, get new.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Friends, get differends?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
What right? And number two how wrong? Could they be?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
They were so wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Not only were they rude, they were out of touch
with what good music was.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Because that first album blew ups up the man in Me,
which is great, except this was a studio band, like
Mick Jones had put this together and his whole purpose
was to do a record, not to go out and tour.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
But when this.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Album does as well as it does, they have to
go tour to support the album. Well, the problem is
they've never played live on stage before. It took a
little bit for them to get up to steam, but
after a while they perfected their stage act and they
hit another couple of albums. Mick Jones kind of seemed
to be a task master, a bit of a heart
as if you will. He's third yeah yeah, and he
(19:03):
ends up firing the bass player because he feels like
he's not jelling. Well, I mean, we're talking about a
band where they're having all kinds of success. He fainted.
The bass player fainted. But they keep going and their
third album didn't do as well, and so they decided
to slim down the band from a sextet to a foursome.
They got rid of Ian McDonald, who was one of
(19:25):
the remorators.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, so we're talking about classics here. Okay, So the
first three albums, yeah, listen to this feels like the
first time Cold as Eyes, Hot Blooded, Double Vision, Dirty
White Boy, Head Games, those first three album I mean
you're talking about rock and roll royalty, right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
The monster hits. They were breaking records with how well
their songs were doing.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Their first eight singles cracked Billboard Top twenty.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Nobody had done that since the Beatles, that's right.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
So in nineteen eighty one, they go to record their
fourth album, which they.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Call four Created.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
You know who their producer is?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I do, And I also know how they got their
original record deal. They signed with Atlantic. Do you remember
who the A and R guy for Atlantic is. It's
a guy we talked about in our White Snake episode
and a guy that we talked about in our Aerosmith episode,
John Kladner. John Klaudner. If you don't know who he is,
go back and check those episodes out. But just to
throw you a picture in the Dude looks like a
(20:23):
Lady video, he's the guy dressed up in the wedding
dress with his easy top beard.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
He is the one of the most successful an R
guys of all time, and he recognized Foreigner for a
possibility to be a record breaking band, and he was
absolutely right. And so yes, by the time we get
to four, they're like, who do we get to produce this?
We are looking for some singles, We're looking for something
that's going to be chart topping hits. Who do we get, well, who,
(20:50):
of course.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Do you get?
Speaker 3 (20:51):
You call Mutt Langa, Mutt Lang, Baby, Mutt Lang, the
guy who did Back in Black, who did ultimately he
did Pyromania, but he did Hi and Dry with def Leppert.
The guy is a hit maker and he's great at
polishing stuff, make it radio friendly, making it hits. Yeah,
and boy did he knock it out of the park
with this album. So I think it's interesting the difference
(21:12):
in philosophy between Lou Graham and Mick Jones. Yeah, okay,
And actually Mick Jones goes on to produce an album
where the same philosophy is rearing its ugly head in
the mid eighties.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Okay, you wouldn't be happy to talk about the first
Van Hagar album, would you say?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yes? I am my favorite one fifty one fifty. Mick
Jones actually is one of the producers for fifty one
to fifty.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Guys, if you haven't checked out our van Halen Versus
van Hagar episode, please go check that out. It's one
of our best three episode series. It was so fun
to do and there's so much story in all of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
But yeah, fifty one fifty, I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Eddie van Halen's like, hey, guys, I want to bring
synthesizers into this rock band and make radio friendly hits.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Mick Jones is like, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
I can go with that.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Okay, So now what's interesting about this song number one?
It was a change for him, right, yes, And it
was a change that some of the band was behind
and some of the band wasn't. A little bit later
on it was eighty five, they come out with another
song that is a power ballad, synthesizer heavy song that
is their only number one hit, beautiful song, but the
(22:24):
song that broke.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
The band, Waiting for a Girl Like You. As you mentioned,
power ballad, I mean, one of the biggest songs of
the eighties. How do you argue with that success? Well,
lou Graham argued with it, right, He's like, we're a
rock band, you know, right, And So in nineteen eighty five,
Mick Jones calls up Lou Graham and says, hey, man,
I've got the bones to a song that I'm working
on and I think it's great. Once, come on over.
(22:45):
So Lou Graham lives about fifteen minutes away, he drives over.
They pound it out, they work on it, they had
it hammered out, and the song is called I Want
to Know What Love is?
Speaker 4 (22:58):
And there's been a hot, aching pain. Don't you fucking
found travel so to change love? I want to know
(23:30):
I wanta shove.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Dude, Dude, it touches you in a way. I mean,
you did say what you will about what this did
to the band. But man, that song is movie.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It's epic and it was a.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Global smash, right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
So here's the tough thing about that song. So when
Lou Graham and Mick Johns sit down and they write
the song together, you build it, you polish it, you
massage it, you work on it, you arrange it, you
compose it, you do all these things to it, and
at the end of the day, when you're done with it,
you have to decide what percentage did you do? What
percentage did I do? It? Has to do with money
and royalties and all this other stuff. It is big business, right.
(24:07):
So lou Graham said, there was lots and lots and
lots of times where it was fifty percent him, fifty
percent meet. That's just how it went. And usually if
there was a discrepancy, they'd kind of meet in the
middle and they'd call it good. So after they had
done this, when they sat down at the table, lou
Graham wrote down his number, Mick Jones wrote down his.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
They were saying what they thought their percentage contributed.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Will you write down what you think what we both did.
I'll write down what I think we both did. So
Lou Graham wrote down sixty five, thirty five, sixty five,
Mick Jones thirty five Lou Graham, okay, And Mick Jones
wrote down ninety five Mick Jones five percent Lou Graham.
And that was super, super insulting to lou Graham. And
he's like, you're basically saying that I did almost nothing
(24:50):
on this song. He's like, man, I gave my heart
and soul. He's like, this all this is is greed.
So in fact, why don't you just keep it all?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
And so bick Jones.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Said fine, I well, and he did, and he got
all the royalties for that song. And it was a massive,
massive song, no.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Massive massive song.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And ultimately Lou Graham was like, I'm not interested in
being the lead singer for Foreigner anymore.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Screw you, hit you and your greed. You can have
all the royalties. I'm out of here. Yeah, I want
to drop just a couple of nuggets on Lou Graham
before we move on. So in nineteen eighty seven, he
comes out with a song.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Called Midnight Blue.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Midnight Blue.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
That song, to me is just an epic radio friendly hit.
I love it. It's great. Also, in nineteen eighty seven, he
gives a song to the Lost Boys soundtrack flashback to
Our Lost Boys Versus Friday Night episode. That song is
called Lost in the Shadow. So and it really sets
(26:09):
the tones. Great song.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Oh it is a great song. Okay for sure.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Now then I've got to put the end on the
story of Lou Graham. This is incredible. You're ready for this, sure.
So in nineteen ninety one, he realizes and I've got
a drug problem. So he goes right from a show
at New York City's Madison Square garden. His friend finds
place in Minnesota, so he goes and he spends thirty
days there and he says it's the greatest thirty days
of his life. And it gets him clean, gets him
off drugs, and he really grows spiritually. So he becomes
(26:33):
born again Christian in the mid nineties. And I thought
this was really interesting. He actually sang for the Christian
rock band Petra, which any good Christian boy in the
early eighties listened to Petra for a little bit, right,
So he sings with Petra. But in nineteen ninety seven
he starts to have these headaches, headaches so bad they actually,
he said, they crossed his eyes, like he couldn't uncross
(26:53):
his eyes. And this is the day before they have
this tour with Japan. He's back with Foreigner now yea,
and he goes in. They do a scan on his
brain and they find a non cancerous tumor the size
of a large egg and it has tentacles wrapped around
his pituitary gland and his optic nerve.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
He talks to a friend who recommends a surgeon who
is like the best in the world of brain tumors.
So he goes and he sees this guy and the
guy says, it's inoperable. Get your affairs in order, you're
on your way out.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So he goes home, obviously distraught, and he just happens
to turn on the TV and he's watching twenty twenty
and he sees a special where there's a surgeon who
uses lasers to remove brain tumors that are previously thought
to be inoperable.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Shouldn't be laughing, this is really I just imagining that
the doctor's name is doctor.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Evil, and he uses that's okay, I know lou.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Graham lives, so I can laugh at this point.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Right.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
That's a terrifying moment for him at that stage.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I mean, can you imagine you're at your house, You're thinking,
I've got an inoperable brain tuber. I'm going to die,
and I'm happen to see this TV show that mentions this.
Two days later, he was in a surgery for eighteen hours.
They carved it out, and he is alive and well today.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
In fact, he said he believes that God supernaturally caused
him to be in front of the television at that
exact moment so that he would see that, so this
his life would be spared. He said, Now then, because
of all that, the song, I want to know what
love is. I have special meaning, spiritual meaning.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
There you go. Okay, so switch back to the song
for just a second.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Day.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
You have that fifteen second ambient music at the very beginning,
that strong, strong keyboard. You know who plays that keyboard?
I do tell us who plays that keyboard.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It's Thomas Dolby. Tomas, she blinded me with science.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Thomas Dolby was nineteen years old, fresh off the turnip truck. Yes,
he was recording some music and kind of playing with
some stuff, and he knew that Mutt Lang recorded at
this particular studio, and so he rented some time there
in the hopes that he would bump into mut Lange,
and sure enough he did, and because of that he
ended up playing on the Foreigner record, and because of
that he ended up getting his own record, and it
(29:16):
gave us the one hit wonder. She'd blinded me with science.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
You you mentioned to me that like when he came in,
that Mutt Lang liked his stuff, and so he said
you should sing back up. What a great way to
get a friendship developed? You know what your voice is great.
You should sing backup on this song for a great idea.
He also, by the way, played keyboards on one of
our one hit wonders, the first one hit wonder.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Video Killed the Radio Star yep. And he also played
keyboards on def Leppard's Pyromedia.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
How about that suns the Muttlane connection there it is? Okay,
So one more thing before we leave foreigner Okay. He
was married to and Dexter Jones, who was a socialite,
but she was the mother of three relatively famous children.
One of them is Mark Ronson. That name any meaning
(30:06):
thing to you? Yes, Mark Ronson did a Bruno's Mars
song Uptown Funk.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I got it uptown fuck no way. I felt like
we were on Jeopardy there for a second, Lovetown Funky.
Every Bruno Mars song that you possibly can updown for.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So the best Bruno Mars song was produced by the
step son of Mic Jones.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
How about that DJ for him?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's cool?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
By the way, Mick Jones also executive producer on the
Billy Joel album Stormfront, which had we Didn't Start the Fire?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh nice, good one?
Speaker 3 (30:44):
All right? Are we done with Foreigner.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, I think it is time to move on to
our next song in the episode. Okay, next song in
this episode comes in at sixteen twenty two. Joyce has
realized that the lights mean something, okay, really something right,
and so she's gotten out all of her Christmas lights.
She's put them all up everywhere to give a little
(31:06):
tracers for Will to communicate with her from wherever he is,
because at this point we don't know. And then she
runs out of Christmas lights and decides time to go
back to her old job at the general store and
pick up some nuance. And when she walks in, what's
playing over BPA. Well, it's Christmas time. So it's a
song called we Wish You a Merry Christmas. Okay, So
(31:28):
this is a traditional song. This one was arranged by
Joel Laervold and was performed, according to the records that
I have here, was performed by the Joel Evans Quartet.
Now I will say this. I went and tried to
pull that up, and when I listened to it, it
is an instrumental there's no singing. When I watched the episode,
(31:49):
it's a woman singing. There's no question. It's a woman singing.
So I don't know where the disconnect is, but there's
something unusual going on there. But not many people are
unfamiliar with the song, both the music and the words.
But you got something to tell.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Me about this?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
I've got a little bit on this one.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Help me ouh.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Okay, I've got some sort of bland background. And then
I've got a punch you in the face nugget that
I can't wait to tell you.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Okay, Well, we don't do bland, so just get by that,
move past the bland.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
All right.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Well here's the deal, okay. So we wish you a
merry Christmas is of unknown origin, okay, but it dates
back to at least the sixteenth century, okay, okay, and
it was sung as a Christmas carol by children going
door to door. They would knock on your door. When
you open the door, they would sing this to you, yes,
(32:35):
in the hopes that you would give them a sweet treat,
like pudding, like figgie pudding.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
And when you think this sounds a little bit odd,
think about what we're gonna do on October the thirty
first this year, right, you know? Yeah, it's the Christmas
version of Halloween.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Now, then caroling for twig spars.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
So this guy named Arthur Warrel it actually kind of
gets credit for popularizing and again in nineteen thirty five, Okay,
this guy was a conductor and an organist for the
University of Bristol. He had a performance and where this
song became popular again nineteen thirty five. All right, but
now then this is in England. This becomes popular in
(33:14):
the United States because Ben Crosby records a version of
this on his nineteen sixty three album I Wish You
a Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I wish you a married Christmas. I wish you a
merry Christmas. I wish you a merry Christmas and a
happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Okay, now get this, this is the bomb. I'm ready
to drop on you.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Okay, you my seat.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Okay, so he recorded for his nineteen sixty three album Okay, Now,
before I get to that nugget, I gotta tell you
one more thing. In nineteen seventy nine, John Denver sang
this with the Muppets. Yeah right, and it's a hilarious
version because they sing the bring us some Piggy Pudding
and Miss Piggy is like, what what are you talking?
(34:00):
About you know, they're like figgie pudding, not piggy pudding. Owing,
that's a figgy pudding, now nodding with figs.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh sorry, bacon.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Anyway, it's really cute. But in nineteen seventy seven, Bing
Crosby had a Christmas special that was broadcast on national television.
He did a duet with David Bowie. Oh nice, okay, nice,
Now wait for this. So they sang together. They sang
a duet. They sang the Little Drummer Boy Cannon and
(34:47):
it was peace on Earth. It was a mashup. Okay,
so you got the young star, you got the old guy.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Okay. Now.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
They released this Christmas special a month after bing Crosby died. Okay, wow,
all right, I recorded it. But during this Christmas special
they broadcast a video of David Bowie's of a song
called Heroes.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Get the Heck out of Town.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Look at that wow? How about that?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
And if, dear listener, if you are not having your
mind blown right now at what Jason has just said,
it's because you don't know what's coming up, stay tuned
to find out why that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, wow, boom job, thank you, good job. Nice one,
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
All right, We're done with that one. Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Next song on the episode is very subtle. You might
overlook it because it is that diegetic music that comes
out from the scene. You actually see the source. In
this particular one, little Elle is wandering around the house.
She wanders up to Nancy's room as fascinated by all
of her stuff, and there's this pretty little music box
(35:54):
like all of the girls in the eighties had, and
she opens it up and there's a little ballery in it,
dancing and the song that is playing is Brahms Lullaby.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
Lulab and Goodland the sadness calling Saley to blanket bag
and return out break of.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
So.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Our original Patreon member and longtime friend and sometime collaborator,
James Buckley noted after listening to our first episode, there
will be more mentions of John Peel and there will
be more mentions of suicide as these episodes go on. Woo,
I bet you weren't expecting it for Broms.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
No, here we go. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
I have no idea what you're about to say.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Okay, So, Johannes Brahms is considered one of the three
bees Bach Beethoven, Brahms.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
That's how I knew who he was.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
When I was a little kid, we had a music
book at our piano that was The Three Bees, and
it had songs from all of those guys in it.
His dad was a musician. He taught little Johannes how
to play music, and he got good enough that he
hired some good music teachers. His music teachers actually said
he could really be a phenomenal player if he would
(37:14):
just stop with the composing all the time and focus
more on playing.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
How's that for a.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Bad recommendation, right, So he gets another music teacher who
is encouraging to him a little bit more in his composition.
But eventually he becomes a teenager starts to kind of
rebel a little bit. There's rumors that he started playing
in brothels. Well that's what the action is. Just to
imagine this, right, just imagine this, right. This is the
(37:40):
eighteen hundreds, right, But I could just see this like
this is the rock bands that we're talking about. He's
out there playing clubs and he meets this Hungarian guy
who's like a phenomenal He's like the one of the
best violinists around. But He's just like, hey, man, let's
go tour together. And that's what they do. They go
tour together. And this Hungarian named Eddie Ramini go on
(38:03):
a tour together. Okay, and their tour in Germany, right
all over the place, going to all.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
These sold out dates. Yes, you got t shirts and everything. Yeah, groupies,
the roupees all over Okay, keep going.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
This is great. Okay. So I say this his musical taste.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
He was a very structured guy, but then when he
rebelled a little bit, he started investigating new types of music,
and this Hungarian guy inspired him to write songs. Later on,
has changed his style of music a little bit. And
one of the songs that one of the sets of
songs that he wrote are called the Hungarian Dances. Okay,
so he composes all these songs called the Hungarian Dances. Right,
(38:41):
but I'm gonna play this for you. This is Hungarian
Dance number five. I think you're gonna recognize.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
It absolutely mainly because of bugs Bunny exactly. Hi, Oh
my gosh, yes, of course.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
How many of us gen X folks had our classical
musical education come from Looney Tunes? Absolutely right here, yes,
zoom exactly In.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Fact, I'm gonna throw in this nugget while you're dropping
all this wonderful history on it.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
In the Looney Tunes episode back Alley Oproar, not uproar,
oproar like opera, I got it, Sylvester is out on
the fence post singing keeping Elmer Fudd awake. Yes, and uh,
Elmer Fudd's finally had enough, and Sylvester starts to sing
the lullaby song to Elmer Fudd, go to sleep, Stop,
(39:40):
go to sleep, close your big bloodshot now you stop.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I've even got a nugget for you on that, my friend.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Oh my gosh, okay, keep going.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
So when we very first started talking about the songs
in this one, and then you were like, broms Lullabye.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I don't know that one, I'm like no, no, no,
no no no, I'm like, oh you know it, yes,
so we all know it.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
From those go to sleep, Go to sleep, close your
big blood shut eyes right.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yes. Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
So back to Brahms and his world tour or you know,
Germany tour or whatever he's touring, and he meets franz
List franz List franz List, who also has Hungarian rhapsody, right,
which we all know from the bugs Bunny the piano thing, me.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Play it for you? Yes, absolutely, you got to. Okay,
here we go. Mm hm. He's chasing the mouse around them.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
You got it, Yes, you got it, chasing the mouse
around the piano keyboard.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
So he meets Franz List. Now, Franz List takes one
of like just Matt takes one of Brahms musical pieces,
plays it perfectly from sight, like has never heard it
or seen it before, plays a perfect, amazing talent Fran's List.
A little bit later that day, when he's in his
concert and he's playing his own stuff, Franz lenz List's
(41:11):
own stuff Brahms false asleep, and so Eddie says, I'm
breaking up the band. Oh wow, I'm out.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
By the way, just got to throw this in the
Hungarian dances that we listened to just a second ago.
That's in Pigs in a Polka, another one of the
Looney tunes things. Yes, little porky pig looking guys, it's
kind of the three Little Pigs. Yes thing yep, cartoon
education right, absolutely okay. So just after this he meets
another Hungarian violinist. But this guy is arguably the greatest
(41:41):
violinist of the century. Right, his name is Joseph Jaquim. Now,
while he was touring with Eddie, he was like, I
really want to meet Robert Schuman. So he's I mean,
just you can imagine this. This is Jerry Cantrell and
Axel Rose. He sends Robert Schuman music, right, sends him
an envelope of his music. It comes back to him unopened,
(42:04):
no thank you. Well, after meeting Joseph Jacquim, Jakim's like,
I know, Robert, I'll give you a letter of introduction.
He gives him a letter. He shows up to Robert
Schuman's door unannounced, uninvited, just shows up and he's like,
who are you, what do you want? He shows in
a letter by Jacquem and he's like, okay, come in,
and he's like, I just if you just let me
play for you some of my pieces, I indulge me
(42:25):
for just a second. He starts to play and Robert's like, stop, stop, stop, stop,
Clara get in here. Robert Schuman's wife is one of
the greatest pianists of the century as well. He himself
is this fantastic composer, which is why Brahms wanted to
meet him. And so he's like, this is incredible. Listen
to what this kid can do. And so little twenty
year old Broms starts playing the piano again, and both
(42:48):
Clara and Robert Schuman are blown away at how good
he is. And so they start working together. They start
collaborating together, and they start writing some hits.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Hits, hit, Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Four months later, Robert Schumann tries to kill himself. What
he has some sort of mental disorder that people, you know,
doctors looking back in history they say it was probably
bipolar mixed with mercury poisoning. You know, I hate it
when that happens, but I mean, he's he's been a
successful composer. He meets this new kid, they start doing
(43:23):
great things together, and then four months later he's trying
to commit suicide. Crazy wow, crazy enough that he commits
himself to an asylum.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
So Broms is left with Clara and Schumann's eight children. Yeah,
and he kind of is like, I'll take care of
you guys, and he kind of acts as that runs business,
the things that men have to do back in the
eighteen hundreds and she was on her game, right, I mean,
she helps support the family even when Robert was there
(43:52):
with her piano plane because she was so good. But
Clara and Johannes Brahms formed this very deep tonicle. Maybe
at the time it had to be that way, but
I think he had stronger feelings for her.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Than she had for him.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
But she was married, I mean, the right way to
be right. But they don't indulge. But they're living together.
Her husband is in an asylum. He is taking care
of things, and they have this very deep and meaningful
relationship that is platonic. So what happens then is two
years later, Robert Schuman dies of pneumonia in the asylum.
They say, okay, we'll go on a holiday together. We'll
(44:29):
see how things go, and ultimately it doesn't work out.
She just says I will always love my husband. I
can't love any other man. And they don't end up
getting together, okay, And not too long after that, he's like,
I can't stay here anymore. I need to leave, and
she says after she leaves the train station after dropping
him off, she says, it feels like I'm leaving a funeral,
like it was that much of a devastation, so she
(44:51):
obviously cared deeply for him as well. But I think
they legitimately remained platonical acquaintances with very feelings for each other,
and they remained friends for the remainder of their lives
and neither one of them got married.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Interesting. Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
So they actually made a movie about this, Okay, it
was called Song of Love. Catherine Hepburn played Clara. Oh wow,
And just to give you an idea, Clara was on
the hundred deutsche mark, like her picture was.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
That's how big she was.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
And we're not talking about you know, some lady who
plays piano with the local saloon.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
She was big time.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
She was on the hundred deutsche mark from like nineteen
eighty nine until the euro took over in two thousand
and two.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Wow, she's big time.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
That is big time.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And so that brings us to the song Brahms Lullaby.
Well I didn't he didn't call it Brahms lullaby. I mean,
that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
The name of the song is vigen lead, which I
believe is how the Germans would pronounce it right, not
wagen led, not wagen led no, which does mean lullaby
or cradle song.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
This is Opus forty nine, number four. It was first
published in eighteen sixty eight. It is one of his
most popular pieces. You mentioned back Alley Opera, right, that
came out in nineteen forty eight. That involves Sylvester the
cat singing at and two. Elmer Fudd turns out that
in nineteen forty five there was another cat singing the song,
(46:20):
and that cat was Tom from Tom and Jerry. Alright,
that is the first time that we here. Go to sleep,
Go to sleep, close your big, bloodshot eyes. And then
he has another verse, You're a dope and you're a lug,
and I hope you don't wake up, and he at
this point pours knockout drops into Spike the dog's nose
because that's who he's trying to get to go to sleep. Yes,
(46:43):
nineteen forty five. The name of the episode is Quiet
Please to one Real Animated cartoon and is the twenty
second Tom and Jerry short and it won the nineteen
forty five Academy Award for Best Short Subject Cartoons, making
it the third executive win for the Tom and Jerry series.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
And it was produced by Fred Quimby. Now three years
later nineteen forty eight. That's when Sylvester is singing to Elmer,
and that one was directed by Friz Friedling, who did.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
So many others.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
But also in that cartoon is the Hungarian Rhapsody by
Franz List.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yes, it all comes back.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yes, I love Looney Tunes and I love Tom and Jerry. Yeah, Okay,
there you go, Brams lalla By and blow Me Away
music Box. I did not know any of that, yeah
when we started. Okay, so we're moving on to the
last song in the episode.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
It comes in at forty six minutes and fifty seven seconds.
That song is called Heroes by Peter Gabriel.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
I wish I could swim like Dauphins, like dove fans
can swim.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Okay, so this song was composed and performed originally, not
by Peter Gabriel. Right before I get there, let's talk
about David Bowie. Yes, okay, without going into the whole history.
He ultimately develops this persona of Zeggy Stardust, right, and
he has this label that he is associated with that
he's really the one that's making all the money for
(48:22):
the label. Right, He's in partnership with the guy who's
his manager, and so he keeps touring, he keeps being
Ziggy Stardust. There's all kinds of money being made. The
only problem is it seems like all of the employees
of the company have like these big spending accounts, and
they've got offices in different parts of the country. And
David Bowie is like, why am I broke right? I'm
(48:44):
doing all the work, I'm making all the money. You
guys are even supporting other acts on the money that
I've made. How is this happening? He finds out that
he is not a partner in the company. He is
an employee of the company. So he's been making a
paycheck like he's got no profit share from the stuff
that he's been involved in. And so at this point
he drops the persona of Ziggy Stardust. He sues his
(49:06):
manager to try to get something back off of all
of this, and he completely changes the way that he
is making music. Oh, by the way, he's also severely
addicted to cocaine at this point. WHOA Like there are
articles about his paranoia and belief in UFOs and all
of these other things that are going on. And I
saw an interview where he like they're doing the interview
(49:28):
in the backseat of the car like they did in
the seventies, you know, and suddenly there's a siren going
and I mean he's he's like completely stand straight up
and he's like, are we gonna pull over?
Speaker 1 (49:39):
I mean, they found real right. I don't know how,
but they found me right.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
And so he decides to completely change the music that
he's making and he moves out to la and he
meets one of the Beatles again. The Beatles come up, yes,
mister John Lennon who can identify with the troubles that
come along with and so they develop a friendship. David
Bowie goes to Philadelphia during one of his tours and
gets involved with these soul musicians, changes his music in
(50:09):
the middle of the tour, has some backup singers come in,
one of whom is Luther Van Dross. Luther Vandross right
a unknown at that point, and then he ultimately goes
back to New York and John Lennons in New York
shows up at the studio and they write a song together,
and they write a song called Fame. You mentioned in
(50:36):
our first episode that Taya yellow ribbon around the old
Oak Tree was the number one song in May of
nineteen seventy three, which is when you were born, right,
A song that was number one in October of seventy
five when I was born was fame by David Bowie.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yes, that's awesome. Way, So he does that.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
He ultimately wins the lawsuit or settles somehow with the company,
gets lump some but he's still really addicted to drugs.
But he's still trying to change his style of music,
and he hooks up with this guy from Roxy Music
named Brian Eno. We talked a little bit about Brian
Eno on our YouTube episode Those Amazing Organs that you
(51:17):
hear at the beginning the Joshua Tree album.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
That's Brian Eno. Yes.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Also at this point, as he's touring and Iggy Pop
shows up at his door and he's like, Higgy, you
look like crap.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
He's like, I'm not doing well. He's bad, addicted to drugs.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
He's not had a successful music career, and he said,
David Bowie says, come on tour with me. So Iggy
Pop starts touring on stage, singing with David Bowie on stage,
and then David Bowie produces Iggy's next album, which is
called The Idiot. It brings Iggy Pop back. And then
David Bowie does this album with Brian Eno called Love
(51:52):
and it is totally different than anything he's done before,
and the record company is like, there's no single on
this album. This is and then he's like, I know,
I don't want there to be a single. I'm not
trying to be a pop musician. I'm trying to make
music that I like. The album still is in the
top ten, but there's no singles coming off of it.
And then so the record company is like, okay, well,
you at least have to tour to support this album,
(52:14):
and he goes, no, I don't, And so what does
he do? He tours with Iggy Pop and plays keyboards
for Iggy Pop while he's doing his tour for The Idiot.
Speaker 6 (52:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
The next album that comes out after that is The
Is also with Brian Eno, and that brings us to
the song that we're here to talk about today. The
song and the album are both called Heroes.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
So awesome, good job you're dropping bombs man. So David
Bowie is tired of being famous, right, Yeah, he's tired
of the fame. Tired of all the trouble, so he
moves to Berlin. Oh yeah, right, so.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
I've talked about this.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
He was like, they were in a chateau that he
and Iggy were trying to record in a chateau in France,
but somehow they made some sort of scheduling mistake and
they were left without a domestic staff or food. So
no butler, no maide, no cook and no food. So
they're like, man, we're really messed up.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
That was starving.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
How about we go to Berlin and try to clean
ourselves up off of the drugs. Berlin at this time
is the heroin capital of Europe, but they decided that
was the place to go to clean up.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
So they're in Berlin.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
So David Bowie rints a cheap apartment above a auto
repair place, and he's just there to hold up and
write songs and hang out and not be famous. The
studio that he starts to record these songs at is
five hundred yards away from the brilliant Wall. Okay, so
the first song that he's working on, Brian E now says,
you know what, I just really like the word heroes.
This little piece that you've got going right here, it
(53:51):
just sounds grand and heroic, and so I think maybe
we could work the title heroes or the words heroes
into it.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Just one day.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
So David Bowie's like, okay, let me work on the lyrics.
He said, everybody just get out of the studio and
leave me alone, and that included producer Tony Visconti. Okay, okay,
So Tony Visconti is the producer of this album, and
he says, everybody leave, just leave me alone. Let me
stay in here and work on the lyrics. And so
as he's thinking in brainstorming, he looks out the window
and he sees Tony Visconti, who's married at the time.
(54:31):
He's sneaking away with this woman named Antonia Moss, who
is a backup singer on David Bowie's album. And David
Boye's looking out and he's like, huh, hey, there's Tony
and Antonia. Hey they're kissing. Oh, And he's looking and
it's like there's there're two forbidden fruit lovers stealing a moment.
And David Bowie's like, I could just really tell that
(54:52):
he was in love with her. And so this idea
of forbidden love by the Berlin wall just really inspired him,
and so he wrote this song about two lovers, one
on one side of the wall and one on the
other side of the wall, and they can't ever be
together and it's just this forbidden love, and that gave
birth to the song heroes Love It pretty cool now,
then this is the thing that blows me away. Okay,
(55:14):
this song about this heroic love. Whatever. David Bowie played
this song in nineteen eighty five at Live Aid at
Wembley Arena. We've talked about Live Aid many times. Okay,
so massive thing. But he played it in nineteen eighty
seven in Berlin. Okay, this is still before the wall
came down. This is ten years after he wrote it.
But they actually were up against the wall. Basically the
(55:36):
wall was the backdrop for the stage and he got
word that if we play it loud enough that people
in East Berlin could hear this, and he's so he's like, well,
let's do it. You know, this is awesome. He didn't
know how much or how loud, or you know, what
will be going on over there, but he said, as
he's playing this song, he starts to hear people cheer
and sing from the other side of the Wall said
(56:00):
it was basically one big concert divided by the Wall,
and he says it's the most emotional performance he's ever had.
He can't even talk about it without getting choked up.
And just the idea that Berliner's where he wrote the
song about those people and about that divide, says, just
an amazing experience.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Oh my goodness, Wow, how emotional. That's incredible. Pretty cool, Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Now then Peter Gabriel, yeah, redoes this in twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right, So this song from late seventies. Yes, we're hearing it,
but we're not hearing the David Bowie version. We're hearing
the Peter Gabriel version.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
That's right. So both versions are amazing.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yes, they are both very different, totally different. What s.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
Like, there's much more.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Going on orchestra wise with Peter Gabriel's version. So how
did we get here? How do we get to Peter
Gabriel covering David Bewie?
Speaker 3 (57:17):
Okay, so this is a really cool story. So in
twenty ten, he comes out with an album called Scratch
My Back. Okay, all right, and it's an album full
of covers and he just goes through and he does
a cover of this artist and this artist and this
artist with the idea that they will in turn cover
one of his songs on an album that they would
in turn call and I'll scratch yours. Okay, right, yeah,
(57:41):
so this is pretty cool. So just to mention a couple.
Randy Newman, who you may know from the song I
Love La, Sure, he does the song Big Time, Lou
Reed does Salisbury Hill. Brian Eno actually does a song
called Mother of Violence.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
David Bowie, however, declined to cover one of Peter gabriel songs,
which is kind of not but I thought this was interesting.
So about that difference. So it's totally different. Peter Gabriel's
version is completely different. This was his quote. I thought
this was great. If you're going to reinterpret something, then
really do something. Nail your colors to the mast and
say this is different and it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
When I drove up here, I listened to both of these,
I'm like, man, this song is awesome. And then I
turned around, I'm like, well, this song is awesome, but
they're absolutely different. Yep, but here's the kicker.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
You ready for this? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (58:26):
This is my bomb for you. Okay, yeah, all right,
so one of these days the you and I are
going to have to cover the album so by Peter Gabriel.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Absolutely, I'm a huge album in nineteen eighty six. Huge, Okay.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
It has Sledgehammer, it has big Time, it has in
your Eyes. It also has a song on there called
Don't Give Up, which is a duet. The other singer
(59:06):
in that duet is Kate Bush Get the heck out
of Town, who has maybe the biggest song in the
entire Stranger Things universe running up that Hill make it.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
Yeah, wow, that's wow.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
How about that?
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (59:39):
I mean, if this goes well, we'll get to her eventually.
I know it'd be a while. About forty more episodes.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
That's awesome, body, great, great out.
Speaker 6 (59:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
So that's it.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
So that's all for this episode. Be sure and go
check us out on Facebook. Be sure you check us
out on Twitter. Be sure and check out our YouTube page.
Speaker 3 (59:58):
If you're not there right now, and if you are
there right now, go check us out on a podcast
app and be sure.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
If you want to become an executive producer of one of.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Our episodes, go to our Patreon page, which is patreon
dot com slash Shirley Podcast, and you can be an
executive producer and you get access to all of our
secret episodes where we cover one hit wonders of the eighties,
and just some extra things that we'd decide, Hey, we're
going to give a.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Gift back to the Patreons.
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
Absolutely, we've got some great episodes of our on our
Patreon page. For as little as five bucks a month,
you get all these awesome extra episodes. In fact, during
our simple Minds episode, we actually talked a little bit
about David Bowie, so there's a lot of crossover and
you definitely want to check that out on Patreon.
Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
And if you're on Facebook and you want to win
a pair of socks and not spend any money, actually one, two, three, four, five,
six pairs of socks all devoted to Stranger Things, be
sure and like and subscribe on our YouTube channel and
leave a comment down below that you want some socks,
and then whatever other favorite part of the episode you had.
(01:01:02):
As for everybody else, thank you guys for coming back
or visiting us for the first time. We look forward
to talking to you again next week and next week,
so next week, be.
Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Sure to come back for a super special song. We
will see you guys next week for season one, episode
four of Stranger Things.
Hello, Shirley fans.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
For the last three years, Jason and I have been
bringing you the stories behind all of your favorite movies
from the eighties. But today we begin a new series.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
In twenty sixteen, the Duffer Brothers introduced the world to
Stranger Things. This show not only changed the way we
all watch television, but surprisingly also truly impacted the music
we listened to, from Africa to Running Up that Hill.
Stranger Things has brought back songs of our past and
introduced them to a whole new generation.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So the Surely you Can't Be Serious Podcasts begins a
new series bringing you the stories behind the songs of
Stranger Things. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley
you Can't Be Serious Podcast. I am James D.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Graves.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I am here with my good buddy Jason Colvin, and
we are here to talk some Stranger Things music.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Episode three of season one. I've got one question for you,
d Yeah, is that new bra.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Was last episode?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Sorry? Last episode?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Hey, it jumps in right where we left off last
episode with Steve and Nancy.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And Barb and Barb, poor Barb man.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
These shows I love going back to revisit these episodes.
And preparation for these things. This is such a well
made show. It is, and I know we're here to
talk about the songs, but man, the production is so
good I feel like we need to talk about it
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Basically, Barb is stuck in the upside down. Yes, she
was on the diving board at the party, having a
crappy time dropping blood in the water. Yeah, all of
a sudden boom, She's in the upside down. While Steve
and Nancy are making out yep, Eleven down in the basement.
Mike's taking care of her, Yeah, pumping snacks tour, taking
care of her, and their buddy Will is still lost.
(01:46):
Everybody's looking for Will.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And in this episode we discover through flashbacks that Eleven
has more powers than we really knew about right two,
that she is not willing to kill cats, but is
willing to kill orderlies who are trying to throw her
in the closet. They deserved it, and that she's punished
for not killing the cats, so that we know that
there's something fishy going on here. I can't not talk
(02:07):
about this, right. I realized that we're here to talk
about the song, but I just have to say that
So the sheriff goes to investigate at the research facility
and he's very suspect, like he's like, can you show
us the video of the night the kid disappeared? And
when they leave, he's like, did you see any ring
in that video? He called it off for the storm, right,
So they start investigating at the library. He's had a
little little thing with the library and that was kind
(02:29):
of funny. And when they're doing their research, it comes
across this page where doctor Brenner played by Matthew Modine.
He shows up as implicated in some nefarious stuff, including
and this is the first first article that he sees
the mk ultra experiments. I did some looking on this.
(02:51):
This is a real thing. I am sure that a
lot of our Shirley fans know about this, but this
this was my first. This was my first to dive
into this stuff. It is crazy. I mean this is
I mean literally, like we talked about LSD in our
first episode in nineteen fifty three, when Korean prisoners of
war came back to the United States and were like
(03:12):
toting the communist party line, They're like, holy cow, these
guys have been brainwashed, and so what they decided to
do was make their own brainwashing investigation. And with these
completely front organizations that appeared to be educational or treatment
oriented or whatever, they would give people LSD and other mescaline,
(03:34):
other drugs, other weird sort of experimentations on them. I
mean frequently. It was like Nazi war camp crap all
through the CIA for like twenty years, and they spent
twenty million dollars on it. It's insane. My mind was blown.
My mind was blown.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
When you called me and said, hey, this do you
know about this? All this stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I was like, who smokes like it's Manchurian candidate style stuff?
Is manasering except real life, right right? And they gave
one of their own guys. They gave like a US
weapons biochemist LSD without him knowing about it, and he
jumped out of a freaking window a week later, like dead.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Don't do drugs, kids, don't don't don't do it. Don't
take drugs from the CIA. Boys and girls. Hey, I've
got another mind blowing thing for you, something we talked
about during our Top Gun episode. Yes, okay, Matthew Modine,
the guy who plays doctor Brenner, Yes, who played Loud
and Swain in Vision Quest, Yes, which I showed my daughter.
(04:33):
She was like, no way, that guy is old and
he's playing a young guy. And you know, yes, Matthew
Modine was the second choice to play Maverick in Top Gun.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I'm cruse got it, but their backup plan was Matthew MODI.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I don't know if I'll find a way to throw
this in later, So I'll throw it in now. We're
going to talk about David Bowie and by gosh, eighties
he started acting in addition to his other endeavors, and
he in a movie called The Hunger directed by Tony Scott,
director of Pop Gun.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yes, that's true.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Terrible movie by.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
The way, horrible, not well received.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's a vampire movie.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
So I'm like, awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I like ready for like Friday Night or Lost Boys.
Yea boring, my gosh boy.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
To finish up the episode, yeah, Elle is taking the
boys to find him, and we cannot forget that. Joyce
has the lights up and is convinced that Will is
communicating with her through the lights, and then we see
some you know more pushing through the paper stuff. Thankfully,
it's Christmas time and she's able to go out and
buy a whole lot of lights, and then we have
the discovery of what appears to be Will's body at
(05:39):
the end of this episode. Sorry spoiler alert, sorry for
not telling you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Hey, I do want to give a quick shout out
to my good buddy Tristan Martin, who deserves some credit
and I haven't given him any credit yet. My kids
actually were the final straw in making me sit down
and actually watch Stranger Things. So I'm late to the party.
I joined at season four, but I went back and
started season one, got caught up. But Tristan Martin's been
begging me for years to watch this and he was.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Like, what about me?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
What about when I was begging you to watch it?
So Tristan, thank you. You are one of the major
reasons why I watched the show as well.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's been a great show, so well done. And I
mentioned last last episode that was the ET episode, like
it was very similar to the ET stuff. This one
was totally close Encounters of the third kind, right right.
Everybody thinks Joyce is losing it. She's thinks she's communicating
with Will from beyond through lights. I mean, she's obviously nuts.
(06:36):
So just turns out she's Richard Dreyfus, and she's right.
It did mean something.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
You're exactly right, this means something.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I love watching these.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
With my kids because I see, like the thing that's
kind of bending through the walls. I'm like, that's Nightmare
on Elm Street right there.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's like me commentating to my kids. They don't want
to hear it, but.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
This is from Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, all right, d So it's football season, and so
Tom Brady's forty five years old. He's out there getting
it done. Yeah, he's basically our age. Yeah, and you know,
one of the secrets for his success in the NFL.
Every time he goes out onto the field, before he
goes out of the field, he feels his balls. He
squeezes him, he caresses them. He was actually involved in
(07:18):
a scandal revolving around the pressure of his balls.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, if your balls are under pressure, maybe it's because
you got too much jungle going on down there, which
brings us to our sponsor for the day, manscaped dot com.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
That's right, let's talk serious for just a second. Okay,
serious twenty serious, twenty. Let's talk serious twenty right. Okay,
your wife, your girlfriend. They want you to be clean
and trim and looking good. They don't want a nasty jungle.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Manscape has these great products like the lawnmower that's there
to make you look good.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Right, guys, if you go to the barber every couple
of weeks and you take care of all other hair
on your body every year or so, you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
That's right. Nobody wants to be with a caveman, right,
take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Go to Maandscape dot com. Be sure and use our
promo code which is serious twenty and you'll get twenty
percent off of your order. And they have fantastic products
for you to use. I like the kits where you
can get like a whole bunch of stuff all in
one package.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Don't be a caveman.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Whack it, wack it.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Okay, we're ready to dive into the music. Let's dive
into the music. We've been blathering on for long enough now.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Okay, d So we're diving in right off the bat.
Forty seconds into this episode. Forty seconds, forty seconds, we
basically jump right in with Steve and Nancy who are
under the sheets.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Well, speaking of jump like I had, I was listening
for the song because I knew it came right on.
You're sitting me watching me listen for the song, and
it turns out the first thing that you hear in
the episode is barb goh, I jump clean out of
my seat.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
And you died laughing. Yeah, that was funny, but yes.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
About forty seconds after that, we see Steve and Nancy
getting down, getting with it.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Things about to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
He's checking out her new bra.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Her new bra, and then the BRA's gone, and all
sorts of stuff's happening.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
But you dive right in with one of the eighties
great power ballads, a song called Waiting for a Girl
Like You by Foreigner, And this is the perfect song
(09:38):
to have in this spot because it's not only a
huge song of the huge song of the eighties, it
is a power ballad that when you mix a romantic
scene in with a terrifying scene, it takes all of
those cool synthesizers that they're doing and makes them much
more eerie. It is a chuck the position, if you will,
(10:01):
of Beauty and Horror.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Back and back.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Let's talk about that song for just a second. Then
we'll talk about Foreigner for a second. Okay, So the
song reached number two, and only number two. It actually
has the distinct honor of being number two for ten weeks.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Ten weeks.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
That's like some kind of record.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
It is a record.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Actually is the longest that any song has been at
number two and not made it to it's number one.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, I think who did I tell you that? The
other one was Missus Elliott. Yes.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So Foreigner releases this song October of nineteen eighty one.
By January of nineteen eighty two, it reaches number two,
but it's blocked for nine weeks by a song called
Physical by Olivia Newton John.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Well, I like to listen in the Olivia Newton John's
body talk.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
That song was eighties iconic. You said nine weeks though,
and this was on the chart for ten weeks. Well,
then you have a song by Hall of Oates called
I Can't Go for that.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Two icons of the eighties keeping another icon of the
eighties out of the number one spot.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
So it leapfrogged, it went to number one, blocked it again,
and then that last week Jay Giles band Centerfold takes
the number one spot and Foreigner drops to number three.
It just missed its window.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And this song comes off of their fourth album, appropriately
titled four. Right, it would have been a good comparison
for us on Toto's four, which is what we did
whenever we had our first episode and we talked about Africa.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
But we still have it out there to compare to
somebody else. I'm not sure who that is yet, but
it is an icon album. And I asked my brother,
I'm like, how did this get by me? You know, like, hey,
older brother that introduced me to all of the eighties bands.
Did you ever own the four tape or anything? He
was like, no, I always wanted it, but it was
like something else always came up that I picked it
(12:15):
over that one. So before we get into four itself,
let's talk about how they how the band came to
be all right, sure, okay, So Mick Jones is the man,
like he is the founder of the band, so throwback
to him. He was a guy who started playing music
very early, got a ukulele, yeah, and loved it and
played it all the time and decided to become a guitarist.
(12:37):
The first band that he got involved with was a
band called Nero and the Gladiators.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I know, flashback to our Gladiator episode.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I knew you were going to do that. So he
plays with them, and their gimmick was Nero was in
a toga and the gladiators were in gladiator gear up
on stage.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Right, He ends up a secession musician in France. He
wrote songs for Johnny Holliday, who was considered the Elvis
of France.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right, I thought that I'm like the freaking French Elvis.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Right, the French Elvis. And there's a song I want
to butcher the pronunciation here. We need Melissa Mingle over
here to help us pronounce this. But talk to Cassier.
I'm guessing is the name of the song.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Hey we wee?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, you know who played guitar, No, Jimmy.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Pay Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page played guitar on the French
Elvis's song written by Mick Jones. Hey wait now the
French ol We got the French Elvis. Yeah, and remember
when we talked about the Minneapolis Wham. Yeah, it was
amber one hit Wonder, right. So guys, hey, guys, if
you want to check out our one Hit Wonder episode,
to be sure and go to our Patreonpatreon dot com
(13:42):
Backslash Shirly podcast, and you can hear all about the
Minneapolis Wham. That's right, that's right. You talked about that
on the Jets episode.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So he's doing pretty well, like he's making money as
a musician. He ends up making friends with the Beatles.
He ends up in this band called Spooky Tooth that
does a okay.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
For a while.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
So Luke Ematico gives him this LP from Black Sheep.
Lugarmatico's band and Mick Jones' band is in New York
at the time.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Right, So just a quick thing on Spooky Tooth.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Spooky Tooth.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah, the original singer for Spooky Tooth was a guy
named Gary Wright. If you've seen Wayne's World, you've heard
this guy seeing Gary Wright seeings dream Weaver. Okay, so
(14:34):
here you go. I've got some stuff on Black Sheep.
Black Sheep was a band in the early seventies. They
were actually the first band signed by Chrysalis. Yeah, I
was going to tell you this, Okay, So if you'll remember,
we talked about Chrysalis a lot during the Huey Lewis
in the News episode. Right, Huey Lewis made the album
(14:54):
Sports but Chrysalis was kind of falling on bad times.
They were calling and no one was answering in New
York and in London, and they were not going to
turn their album over to a company going out of business, right.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
They would sleep with the originals underneath their.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Pillow flashback to our hear listen in his sports episode
Black Sheep is acquiring some success. They actually become the
opening band for Kiss and in the seventies band that's
a huge deal.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So they have this they're traveling and they have this
accident where their equipment truck crashes and destroys all their equipment.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yes, it's the New York State Thoroughfare covered in ice.
All of their band equipment is destroyed. And band equipment
is expensive. It is, It is very expensive.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
And Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are like, sorry, fellas,
sucks to be you, good luck, see you later.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So Mick Jones also at this around this same time,
his band is falling apart as well, falls apart there
while he's in New York and he's got no money,
so he's stuck in New York. Oh wow, So he's
working as this session musician and producer A little bit
in New York. But he he's got all these songs
that are coming into his head and he's like, man,
(16:03):
maybe I just should start my own band instead of
just being the guitarist for somebody else's band, I'll start
my own band. So he gets together with Ian McDonald
who is from King Crimson, and they decide to form
a band together, form the band trigger right, yes, And
so they're picking other guy's up, Al Greenwood, some other
folks to be a part of the band, but they
still haven't found a singer. And suddenly he remembers this guy,
(16:25):
Lou Grammatico, that had given him this Black Sheep LP
and he's like, hey, let's give that guy a call. Well,
when Black Sheep's equipment truck wrecked and all of their
equipment broke, he had to find another job. You know
what lu Grammatico was doing when he got a call
for mc jones. No, he was a janitor for a
public service building. He was cleaning toilets and mopping floors.
(16:49):
You know we've talked about in our Journey episode. When
Steve Perry got the call, he had gone home and
was working at his stepdad's turkey ranch.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
He was done with music.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
He's done with music. Whenever Brian Johnson got the call
for ac DC, he was putting carmon shields in right.
He was working as a mechanic, basically occasionally singing at
a club here and there, and you know, doing a
Hoover vacuum commercial every once in a while.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Now Lugermatico gets this.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Call, they fly him up to New York. Within the
first two lines of him singing, they're like, this is
our guy. But Lugermatico doesn't sound as cool as another name,
and so he changes his name to lou Graham lu
Graham and the band has to change their name from
Trigger to Foreigner and they start working on their first album.
(17:46):
So their first album is an incredible success. And it's
funny because I heard Al Greenwood talking about this. He's like,
I was so excited we were listening to these songs,
were blown away at how good they were. So when
the finally gets done, I take it, I have it
at my party and play it for all of my
friends and it gets done and they're like, that was terrible.
(18:07):
Like number one, get new.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Friends, get differends?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
What right? And number two how wrong? Could they be?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
They were so wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Not only were they rude, they were out of touch
with what good music was.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Because that first album blew ups up the man in Me,
which is great, except this was a studio band, like
Mick Jones had put this together and his whole purpose
was to do a record, not to go out and tour.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
But when this.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Album does as well as it does, they have to
go tour to support the album. Well, the problem is
they've never played live on stage before. It took a
little bit for them to get up to steam, but
after a while they perfected their stage act and they
hit another couple of albums. Mick Jones kind of seemed
to be a task master, a bit of a heart
as if you will. He's third yeah yeah, and he
(19:03):
ends up firing the bass player because he feels like
he's not jelling. Well, I mean, we're talking about a
band where they're having all kinds of success. He fainted.
The bass player fainted. But they keep going and their
third album didn't do as well, and so they decided
to slim down the band from a sextet to a foursome.
They got rid of Ian McDonald, who was one of
(19:25):
the remorators.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, so we're talking about classics here. Okay, So the
first three albums, yeah, listen to this feels like the
first time Cold as Eyes, Hot Blooded, Double Vision, Dirty
White Boy, Head Games, those first three album I mean
you're talking about rock and roll royalty, right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
The monster hits. They were breaking records with how well
their songs were doing.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Their first eight singles cracked Billboard Top twenty.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Nobody had done that since the Beatles, that's right.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
So in nineteen eighty one, they go to record their
fourth album, which they.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Call four Created.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
You know who their producer is?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I do, And I also know how they got their
original record deal. They signed with Atlantic. Do you remember
who the A and R guy for Atlantic is. It's
a guy we talked about in our White Snake episode
and a guy that we talked about in our Aerosmith episode,
John Kladner. John Klaudner. If you don't know who he is,
go back and check those episodes out. But just to
throw you a picture in the Dude looks like a
(20:23):
Lady video, he's the guy dressed up in the wedding
dress with his easy top beard.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
He is the one of the most successful an R
guys of all time, and he recognized Foreigner for a
possibility to be a record breaking band, and he was
absolutely right. And so yes, by the time we get
to four, they're like, who do we get to produce this?
We are looking for some singles, We're looking for something
that's going to be chart topping hits. Who do we get, well, who,
(20:50):
of course.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Do you get?
Speaker 3 (20:51):
You call Mutt Langa, Mutt Lang, Baby, Mutt Lang, the
guy who did Back in Black, who did ultimately he
did Pyromania, but he did Hi and Dry with def Leppert.
The guy is a hit maker and he's great at
polishing stuff, make it radio friendly, making it hits. Yeah,
and boy did he knock it out of the park
with this album. So I think it's interesting the difference
(21:12):
in philosophy between Lou Graham and Mick Jones. Yeah, okay,
And actually Mick Jones goes on to produce an album
where the same philosophy is rearing its ugly head in
the mid eighties.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Okay, you wouldn't be happy to talk about the first
Van Hagar album, would you say?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yes? I am my favorite one fifty one fifty. Mick
Jones actually is one of the producers for fifty one
to fifty.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Guys, if you haven't checked out our van Halen Versus
van Hagar episode, please go check that out. It's one
of our best three episode series. It was so fun
to do and there's so much story in all of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
But yeah, fifty one fifty, I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Eddie van Halen's like, hey, guys, I want to bring
synthesizers into this rock band and make radio friendly hits.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Mick Jones is like, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
I can go with that.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Okay, So now what's interesting about this song number one?
It was a change for him, right, yes, And it
was a change that some of the band was behind
and some of the band wasn't. A little bit later
on it was eighty five, they come out with another
song that is a power ballad, synthesizer heavy song that
is their only number one hit, beautiful song, but the
(22:24):
song that broke.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
The band, Waiting for a Girl Like You. As you mentioned,
power ballad, I mean, one of the biggest songs of
the eighties. How do you argue with that success? Well,
lou Graham argued with it, right, He's like, we're a
rock band, you know, right, And So in nineteen eighty five,
Mick Jones calls up Lou Graham and says, hey, man,
I've got the bones to a song that I'm working
on and I think it's great. Once, come on over.
(22:45):
So Lou Graham lives about fifteen minutes away, he drives over.
They pound it out, they work on it, they had
it hammered out, and the song is called I Want
to Know What Love is?
Speaker 4 (22:58):
And there's been a hot, aching pain. Don't you fucking
found travel so to change love? I want to know
(23:30):
I wanta shove.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Dude, Dude, it touches you in a way. I mean,
you did say what you will about what this did
to the band. But man, that song is movie.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It's epic and it was a.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Global smash, right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
So here's the tough thing about that song. So when
Lou Graham and Mick Johns sit down and they write
the song together, you build it, you polish it, you
massage it, you work on it, you arrange it, you
compose it, you do all these things to it, and
at the end of the day, when you're done with it,
you have to decide what percentage did you do? What
percentage did I do? It? Has to do with money
and royalties and all this other stuff. It is big business, right.
(24:07):
So lou Graham said, there was lots and lots and
lots of times where it was fifty percent him, fifty
percent meet. That's just how it went. And usually if
there was a discrepancy, they'd kind of meet in the
middle and they'd call it good. So after they had
done this, when they sat down at the table, lou
Graham wrote down his number, Mick Jones wrote down his.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
They were saying what they thought their percentage contributed.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Will you write down what you think what we both did.
I'll write down what I think we both did. So
Lou Graham wrote down sixty five, thirty five, sixty five,
Mick Jones thirty five Lou Graham, okay, And Mick Jones
wrote down ninety five Mick Jones five percent Lou Graham.
And that was super, super insulting to lou Graham. And
he's like, you're basically saying that I did almost nothing
(24:50):
on this song. He's like, man, I gave my heart
and soul. He's like, this all this is is greed.
So in fact, why don't you just keep it all?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
And so bick Jones.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Said fine, I well, and he did, and he got
all the royalties for that song. And it was a massive,
massive song, no.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Massive massive song.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And ultimately Lou Graham was like, I'm not interested in
being the lead singer for Foreigner anymore.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Screw you, hit you and your greed. You can have
all the royalties. I'm out of here. Yeah, I want
to drop just a couple of nuggets on Lou Graham
before we move on. So in nineteen eighty seven, he
comes out with a song.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Called Midnight Blue.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Midnight Blue.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
That song, to me is just an epic radio friendly hit.
I love it. It's great. Also, in nineteen eighty seven, he
gives a song to the Lost Boys soundtrack flashback to
Our Lost Boys Versus Friday Night episode. That song is
called Lost in the Shadow. So and it really sets
(26:09):
the tones. Great song.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Oh it is a great song. Okay for sure.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Now then I've got to put the end on the
story of Lou Graham. This is incredible. You're ready for this, sure.
So in nineteen ninety one, he realizes and I've got
a drug problem. So he goes right from a show
at New York City's Madison Square garden. His friend finds
place in Minnesota, so he goes and he spends thirty
days there and he says it's the greatest thirty days
of his life. And it gets him clean, gets him
off drugs, and he really grows spiritually. So he becomes
(26:33):
born again Christian in the mid nineties. And I thought
this was really interesting. He actually sang for the Christian
rock band Petra, which any good Christian boy in the
early eighties listened to Petra for a little bit, right,
So he sings with Petra. But in nineteen ninety seven
he starts to have these headaches, headaches so bad they actually,
he said, they crossed his eyes, like he couldn't uncross
(26:53):
his eyes. And this is the day before they have
this tour with Japan. He's back with Foreigner now yea,
and he goes in. They do a scan on his
brain and they find a non cancerous tumor the size
of a large egg and it has tentacles wrapped around
his pituitary gland and his optic nerve.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
He talks to a friend who recommends a surgeon who
is like the best in the world of brain tumors.
So he goes and he sees this guy and the
guy says, it's inoperable. Get your affairs in order, you're
on your way out.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So he goes home, obviously distraught, and he just happens
to turn on the TV and he's watching twenty twenty
and he sees a special where there's a surgeon who
uses lasers to remove brain tumors that are previously thought
to be inoperable.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Shouldn't be laughing, this is really I just imagining that
the doctor's name is doctor.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Evil, and he uses that's okay, I know lou.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Graham lives, so I can laugh at this point.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Right.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
That's a terrifying moment for him at that stage.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I mean, can you imagine you're at your house, You're thinking,
I've got an inoperable brain tuber. I'm going to die,
and I'm happen to see this TV show that mentions this.
Two days later, he was in a surgery for eighteen hours.
They carved it out, and he is alive and well today.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
In fact, he said he believes that God supernaturally caused
him to be in front of the television at that
exact moment so that he would see that, so this
his life would be spared. He said, Now then, because
of all that, the song, I want to know what
love is. I have special meaning, spiritual meaning.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
There you go. Okay, so switch back to the song
for just a second.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Day.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
You have that fifteen second ambient music at the very beginning,
that strong, strong keyboard. You know who plays that keyboard?
I do tell us who plays that keyboard.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It's Thomas Dolby. Tomas, she blinded me with science.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Thomas Dolby was nineteen years old, fresh off the turnip truck. Yes,
he was recording some music and kind of playing with
some stuff, and he knew that Mutt Lang recorded at
this particular studio, and so he rented some time there
in the hopes that he would bump into mut Lange,
and sure enough he did, and because of that he
ended up playing on the Foreigner record, and because of
that he ended up getting his own record, and it
(29:16):
gave us the one hit wonder. She'd blinded me with science.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
You you mentioned to me that like when he came in,
that Mutt Lang liked his stuff, and so he said
you should sing back up. What a great way to
get a friendship developed? You know what your voice is great.
You should sing backup on this song for a great idea.
He also, by the way, played keyboards on one of
our one hit wonders, the first one hit wonder.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Video Killed the Radio Star yep. And he also played
keyboards on def Leppard's Pyromedia.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
How about that suns the Muttlane connection there it is? Okay,
So one more thing before we leave foreigner Okay. He
was married to and Dexter Jones, who was a socialite,
but she was the mother of three relatively famous children.
One of them is Mark Ronson. That name any meaning
(30:06):
thing to you? Yes, Mark Ronson did a Bruno's Mars
song Uptown Funk.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I got it uptown fuck no way. I felt like
we were on Jeopardy there for a second, Lovetown Funky.
Every Bruno Mars song that you possibly can updown for.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So the best Bruno Mars song was produced by the
step son of Mic Jones.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
How about that DJ for him?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's cool?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
By the way, Mick Jones also executive producer on the
Billy Joel album Stormfront, which had we Didn't Start the Fire?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh nice, good one?
Speaker 3 (30:44):
All right? Are we done with Foreigner.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, I think it is time to move on to
our next song in the episode. Okay, next song in
this episode comes in at sixteen twenty two. Joyce has
realized that the lights mean something, okay, really something right,
and so she's gotten out all of her Christmas lights.
She's put them all up everywhere to give a little
(31:06):
tracers for Will to communicate with her from wherever he is,
because at this point we don't know. And then she
runs out of Christmas lights and decides time to go
back to her old job at the general store and
pick up some nuance. And when she walks in, what's
playing over BPA. Well, it's Christmas time. So it's a
song called we Wish You a Merry Christmas. Okay, So
(31:28):
this is a traditional song. This one was arranged by
Joel Laervold and was performed, according to the records that
I have here, was performed by the Joel Evans Quartet.
Now I will say this. I went and tried to
pull that up, and when I listened to it, it
is an instrumental there's no singing. When I watched the episode,
(31:49):
it's a woman singing. There's no question. It's a woman singing.
So I don't know where the disconnect is, but there's
something unusual going on there. But not many people are
unfamiliar with the song, both the music and the words.
But you got something to tell.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Me about this?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
I've got a little bit on this one.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Help me ouh.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Okay, I've got some sort of bland background. And then
I've got a punch you in the face nugget that
I can't wait to tell you.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Okay, Well, we don't do bland, so just get by that,
move past the bland.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
All right.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Well here's the deal, okay. So we wish you a
merry Christmas is of unknown origin, okay, but it dates
back to at least the sixteenth century, okay, okay, and
it was sung as a Christmas carol by children going
door to door. They would knock on your door. When
you open the door, they would sing this to you, yes,
(32:35):
in the hopes that you would give them a sweet treat,
like pudding, like figgie pudding.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
And when you think this sounds a little bit odd,
think about what we're gonna do on October the thirty
first this year, right, you know? Yeah, it's the Christmas
version of Halloween.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Now, then caroling for twig spars.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
So this guy named Arthur Warrel it actually kind of
gets credit for popularizing and again in nineteen thirty five, Okay,
this guy was a conductor and an organist for the
University of Bristol. He had a performance and where this
song became popular again nineteen thirty five. All right, but
now then this is in England. This becomes popular in
(33:14):
the United States because Ben Crosby records a version of
this on his nineteen sixty three album I Wish You
a Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I wish you a married Christmas. I wish you a
merry Christmas. I wish you a merry Christmas and a
happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Okay, now get this, this is the bomb. I'm ready
to drop on you.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Okay, you my seat.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Okay, so he recorded for his nineteen sixty three album Okay, Now,
before I get to that nugget, I gotta tell you
one more thing. In nineteen seventy nine, John Denver sang
this with the Muppets. Yeah right, and it's a hilarious
version because they sing the bring us some Piggy Pudding
and Miss Piggy is like, what what are you talking?
(34:00):
About you know, they're like figgie pudding, not piggy pudding. Owing,
that's a figgy pudding, now nodding with figs.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh sorry, bacon.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Anyway, it's really cute. But in nineteen seventy seven, Bing
Crosby had a Christmas special that was broadcast on national television.
He did a duet with David Bowie. Oh nice, okay, nice,
Now wait for this. So they sang together. They sang
a duet. They sang the Little Drummer Boy Cannon and
(34:47):
it was peace on Earth. It was a mashup. Okay,
so you got the young star, you got the old guy.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Okay. Now.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
They released this Christmas special a month after bing Crosby died. Okay, wow,
all right, I recorded it. But during this Christmas special
they broadcast a video of David Bowie's of a song
called Heroes.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Get the Heck out of Town.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Look at that wow? How about that?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
And if, dear listener, if you are not having your
mind blown right now at what Jason has just said,
it's because you don't know what's coming up, stay tuned
to find out why that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, wow, boom job, thank you, good job. Nice one,
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
All right, We're done with that one. Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Next song on the episode is very subtle. You might
overlook it because it is that diegetic music that comes
out from the scene. You actually see the source. In
this particular one, little Elle is wandering around the house.
She wanders up to Nancy's room as fascinated by all
of her stuff, and there's this pretty little music box
(35:54):
like all of the girls in the eighties had, and
she opens it up and there's a little ballery in it,
dancing and the song that is playing is Brahms Lullaby.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
Lulab and Goodland the sadness calling Saley to blanket bag
and return out break of.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
So.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Our original Patreon member and longtime friend and sometime collaborator,
James Buckley noted after listening to our first episode, there
will be more mentions of John Peel and there will
be more mentions of suicide as these episodes go on. Woo,
I bet you weren't expecting it for Broms.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
No, here we go. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
I have no idea what you're about to say.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Okay, So, Johannes Brahms is considered one of the three
bees Bach Beethoven, Brahms.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
That's how I knew who he was.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
When I was a little kid, we had a music
book at our piano that was The Three Bees, and
it had songs from all of those guys in it.
His dad was a musician. He taught little Johannes how
to play music, and he got good enough that he
hired some good music teachers. His music teachers actually said
he could really be a phenomenal player if he would
(37:14):
just stop with the composing all the time and focus
more on playing.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
How's that for a.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Bad recommendation, right, So he gets another music teacher who
is encouraging to him a little bit more in his composition.
But eventually he becomes a teenager starts to kind of
rebel a little bit. There's rumors that he started playing
in brothels. Well that's what the action is. Just to
imagine this, right, just imagine this, right. This is the
(37:40):
eighteen hundreds, right, But I could just see this like
this is the rock bands that we're talking about. He's
out there playing clubs and he meets this Hungarian guy
who's like a phenomenal He's like the one of the
best violinists around. But He's just like, hey, man, let's
go tour together. And that's what they do. They go
tour together. And this Hungarian named Eddie Ramini go on
(38:03):
a tour together. Okay, and their tour in Germany, right
all over the place, going to all.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
These sold out dates. Yes, you got t shirts and everything. Yeah, groupies,
the roupees all over Okay, keep going.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
This is great. Okay. So I say this his musical taste.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
He was a very structured guy, but then when he
rebelled a little bit, he started investigating new types of music,
and this Hungarian guy inspired him to write songs. Later on,
has changed his style of music a little bit. And
one of the songs that one of the sets of
songs that he wrote are called the Hungarian Dances. Okay,
so he composes all these songs called the Hungarian Dances. Right,
(38:41):
but I'm gonna play this for you. This is Hungarian
Dance number five. I think you're gonna recognize.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
It absolutely mainly because of bugs Bunny exactly. Hi, Oh
my gosh, yes, of course.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
How many of us gen X folks had our classical
musical education come from Looney Tunes? Absolutely right here, yes,
zoom exactly In.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Fact, I'm gonna throw in this nugget while you're dropping
all this wonderful history on it.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
In the Looney Tunes episode back Alley Oproar, not uproar,
oproar like opera, I got it, Sylvester is out on
the fence post singing keeping Elmer Fudd awake. Yes, and uh,
Elmer Fudd's finally had enough, and Sylvester starts to sing
the lullaby song to Elmer Fudd, go to sleep, Stop,
(39:40):
go to sleep, close your big bloodshot now you stop.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I've even got a nugget for you on that, my friend.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Oh my gosh, okay, keep going.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
So when we very first started talking about the songs
in this one, and then you were like, broms Lullabye.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I don't know that one, I'm like no, no, no,
no no no, I'm like, oh you know it, yes,
so we all know it.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
From those go to sleep, Go to sleep, close your
big blood shut eyes right.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yes. Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
So back to Brahms and his world tour or you know,
Germany tour or whatever he's touring, and he meets franz
List franz List franz List, who also has Hungarian rhapsody, right,
which we all know from the bugs Bunny the piano thing, me.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Play it for you? Yes, absolutely, you got to. Okay,
here we go. Mm hm. He's chasing the mouse around them.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
You got it, Yes, you got it, chasing the mouse
around the piano keyboard.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
So he meets Franz List. Now, Franz List takes one
of like just Matt takes one of Brahms musical pieces,
plays it perfectly from sight, like has never heard it
or seen it before, plays a perfect, amazing talent Fran's List.
A little bit later that day, when he's in his
concert and he's playing his own stuff, Franz lenz List's
(41:11):
own stuff Brahms false asleep, and so Eddie says, I'm
breaking up the band. Oh wow, I'm out.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
By the way, just got to throw this in the
Hungarian dances that we listened to just a second ago.
That's in Pigs in a Polka, another one of the
Looney tunes things. Yes, little porky pig looking guys, it's
kind of the three Little Pigs. Yes thing yep, cartoon
education right, absolutely okay. So just after this he meets
another Hungarian violinist. But this guy is arguably the greatest
(41:41):
violinist of the century. Right, his name is Joseph Jaquim. Now,
while he was touring with Eddie, he was like, I
really want to meet Robert Schuman. So he's I mean,
just you can imagine this. This is Jerry Cantrell and
Axel Rose. He sends Robert Schuman music, right, sends him
an envelope of his music. It comes back to him unopened,
(42:04):
no thank you. Well, after meeting Joseph Jacquim, Jakim's like,
I know, Robert, I'll give you a letter of introduction.
He gives him a letter. He shows up to Robert
Schuman's door unannounced, uninvited, just shows up and he's like,
who are you, what do you want? He shows in
a letter by Jacquem and he's like, okay, come in,
and he's like, I just if you just let me
play for you some of my pieces, I indulge me
(42:25):
for just a second. He starts to play and Robert's like, stop, stop, stop, stop,
Clara get in here. Robert Schuman's wife is one of
the greatest pianists of the century as well. He himself
is this fantastic composer, which is why Brahms wanted to
meet him. And so he's like, this is incredible. Listen
to what this kid can do. And so little twenty
year old Broms starts playing the piano again, and both
(42:48):
Clara and Robert Schuman are blown away at how good
he is. And so they start working together. They start
collaborating together, and they start writing some hits.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Hits, hit, Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Four months later, Robert Schumann tries to kill himself. What
he has some sort of mental disorder that people, you know,
doctors looking back in history they say it was probably
bipolar mixed with mercury poisoning. You know, I hate it
when that happens, but I mean, he's he's been a
successful composer. He meets this new kid, they start doing
(43:23):
great things together, and then four months later he's trying
to commit suicide. Crazy wow, crazy enough that he commits
himself to an asylum.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
So Broms is left with Clara and Schumann's eight children. Yeah,
and he kind of is like, I'll take care of
you guys, and he kind of acts as that runs business,
the things that men have to do back in the
eighteen hundreds and she was on her game, right, I mean,
she helps support the family even when Robert was there
(43:52):
with her piano plane because she was so good. But
Clara and Johannes Brahms formed this very deep tonicle. Maybe
at the time it had to be that way, but
I think he had stronger feelings for her.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Than she had for him.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
But she was married, I mean, the right way to
be right. But they don't indulge. But they're living together.
Her husband is in an asylum. He is taking care
of things, and they have this very deep and meaningful
relationship that is platonic. So what happens then is two
years later, Robert Schuman dies of pneumonia in the asylum.
They say, okay, we'll go on a holiday together. We'll
(44:29):
see how things go, and ultimately it doesn't work out.
She just says I will always love my husband. I
can't love any other man. And they don't end up
getting together, okay, And not too long after that, he's like,
I can't stay here anymore. I need to leave, and
she says after she leaves the train station after dropping
him off, she says, it feels like I'm leaving a funeral,
like it was that much of a devastation, so she
(44:51):
obviously cared deeply for him as well. But I think
they legitimately remained platonical acquaintances with very feelings for each other,
and they remained friends for the remainder of their lives
and neither one of them got married.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Interesting. Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
So they actually made a movie about this, Okay, it
was called Song of Love. Catherine Hepburn played Clara. Oh wow,
And just to give you an idea, Clara was on
the hundred deutsche mark, like her picture was.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
That's how big she was.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
And we're not talking about you know, some lady who
plays piano with the local saloon.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
She was big time.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
She was on the hundred deutsche mark from like nineteen
eighty nine until the euro took over in two thousand
and two.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Wow, she's big time.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
That is big time.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And so that brings us to the song Brahms Lullaby.
Well I didn't he didn't call it Brahms lullaby. I mean,
that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
The name of the song is vigen lead, which I
believe is how the Germans would pronounce it right, not
wagen led, not wagen led no, which does mean lullaby
or cradle song.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
This is Opus forty nine, number four. It was first
published in eighteen sixty eight. It is one of his
most popular pieces. You mentioned back Alley Opera, right, that
came out in nineteen forty eight. That involves Sylvester the
cat singing at and two. Elmer Fudd turns out that
in nineteen forty five there was another cat singing the song,
(46:20):
and that cat was Tom from Tom and Jerry. Alright,
that is the first time that we here. Go to sleep,
Go to sleep, close your big, bloodshot eyes. And then
he has another verse, You're a dope and you're a lug,
and I hope you don't wake up, and he at
this point pours knockout drops into Spike the dog's nose
because that's who he's trying to get to go to sleep. Yes,
(46:43):
nineteen forty five. The name of the episode is Quiet
Please to one Real Animated cartoon and is the twenty
second Tom and Jerry short and it won the nineteen
forty five Academy Award for Best Short Subject Cartoons, making
it the third executive win for the Tom and Jerry series.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
And it was produced by Fred Quimby. Now three years
later nineteen forty eight. That's when Sylvester is singing to Elmer,
and that one was directed by Friz Friedling, who did.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
So many others.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
But also in that cartoon is the Hungarian Rhapsody by
Franz List.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yes, it all comes back.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yes, I love Looney Tunes and I love Tom and Jerry. Yeah, Okay,
there you go, Brams lalla By and blow Me Away
music Box. I did not know any of that, yeah
when we started. Okay, so we're moving on to the
last song in the episode.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
It comes in at forty six minutes and fifty seven seconds.
That song is called Heroes by Peter Gabriel.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
I wish I could swim like Dauphins, like dove fans
can swim.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Okay, so this song was composed and performed originally, not
by Peter Gabriel. Right before I get there, let's talk
about David Bowie. Yes, okay, without going into the whole history.
He ultimately develops this persona of Zeggy Stardust, right, and
he has this label that he is associated with that
he's really the one that's making all the money for
(48:22):
the label. Right, He's in partnership with the guy who's
his manager, and so he keeps touring, he keeps being
Ziggy Stardust. There's all kinds of money being made. The
only problem is it seems like all of the employees
of the company have like these big spending accounts, and
they've got offices in different parts of the country. And
David Bowie is like, why am I broke right? I'm
(48:44):
doing all the work, I'm making all the money. You
guys are even supporting other acts on the money that
I've made. How is this happening? He finds out that
he is not a partner in the company. He is
an employee of the company. So he's been making a
paycheck like he's got no profit share from the stuff
that he's been involved in. And so at this point
he drops the persona of Ziggy Stardust. He sues his
(49:06):
manager to try to get something back off of all
of this, and he completely changes the way that he
is making music. Oh, by the way, he's also severely
addicted to cocaine at this point. WHOA Like there are
articles about his paranoia and belief in UFOs and all
of these other things that are going on. And I
saw an interview where he like they're doing the interview
(49:28):
in the backseat of the car like they did in
the seventies, you know, and suddenly there's a siren going
and I mean he's he's like completely stand straight up
and he's like, are we gonna pull over?
Speaker 1 (49:39):
I mean, they found real right. I don't know how,
but they found me right.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
And so he decides to completely change the music that
he's making and he moves out to la and he
meets one of the Beatles again. The Beatles come up, yes,
mister John Lennon who can identify with the troubles that
come along with and so they develop a friendship. David
Bowie goes to Philadelphia during one of his tours and
gets involved with these soul musicians, changes his music in
(50:09):
the middle of the tour, has some backup singers come in,
one of whom is Luther Van Dross. Luther Vandross right
a unknown at that point, and then he ultimately goes
back to New York and John Lennons in New York
shows up at the studio and they write a song together,
and they write a song called Fame. You mentioned in
(50:36):
our first episode that Taya yellow ribbon around the old
Oak Tree was the number one song in May of
nineteen seventy three, which is when you were born, right,
A song that was number one in October of seventy
five when I was born was fame by David Bowie.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yes, that's awesome. Way, So he does that.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
He ultimately wins the lawsuit or settles somehow with the company,
gets lump some but he's still really addicted to drugs.
But he's still trying to change his style of music,
and he hooks up with this guy from Roxy Music
named Brian Eno. We talked a little bit about Brian
Eno on our YouTube episode Those Amazing Organs that you
(51:17):
hear at the beginning the Joshua Tree album.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
That's Brian Eno. Yes.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Also at this point, as he's touring and Iggy Pop
shows up at his door and he's like, Higgy, you
look like crap.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
He's like, I'm not doing well. He's bad, addicted to drugs.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
He's not had a successful music career, and he said,
David Bowie says, come on tour with me. So Iggy
Pop starts touring on stage, singing with David Bowie on stage,
and then David Bowie produces Iggy's next album, which is
called The Idiot. It brings Iggy Pop back. And then
David Bowie does this album with Brian Eno called Love
(51:52):
and it is totally different than anything he's done before,
and the record company is like, there's no single on
this album. This is and then he's like, I know,
I don't want there to be a single. I'm not
trying to be a pop musician. I'm trying to make
music that I like. The album still is in the
top ten, but there's no singles coming off of it.
And then so the record company is like, okay, well,
you at least have to tour to support this album,
(52:14):
and he goes, no, I don't, And so what does
he do? He tours with Iggy Pop and plays keyboards
for Iggy Pop while he's doing his tour for The Idiot.
Speaker 6 (52:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
The next album that comes out after that is The
Is also with Brian Eno, and that brings us to
the song that we're here to talk about today. The
song and the album are both called Heroes.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
So awesome, good job you're dropping bombs man. So David
Bowie is tired of being famous, right, Yeah, he's tired
of the fame. Tired of all the trouble, so he
moves to Berlin. Oh yeah, right, so.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
I've talked about this.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
He was like, they were in a chateau that he
and Iggy were trying to record in a chateau in France,
but somehow they made some sort of scheduling mistake and
they were left without a domestic staff or food. So
no butler, no maide, no cook and no food. So
they're like, man, we're really messed up.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
That was starving.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
How about we go to Berlin and try to clean
ourselves up off of the drugs. Berlin at this time
is the heroin capital of Europe, but they decided that
was the place to go to clean up.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
So they're in Berlin.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
So David Bowie rints a cheap apartment above a auto
repair place, and he's just there to hold up and
write songs and hang out and not be famous. The
studio that he starts to record these songs at is
five hundred yards away from the brilliant Wall. Okay, so
the first song that he's working on, Brian E now says,
you know what, I just really like the word heroes.
This little piece that you've got going right here, it
(53:51):
just sounds grand and heroic, and so I think maybe
we could work the title heroes or the words heroes
into it.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Just one day.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
So David Bowie's like, okay, let me work on the lyrics.
He said, everybody just get out of the studio and
leave me alone, and that included producer Tony Visconti. Okay, okay,
So Tony Visconti is the producer of this album, and
he says, everybody leave, just leave me alone. Let me
stay in here and work on the lyrics. And so
as he's thinking in brainstorming, he looks out the window
and he sees Tony Visconti, who's married at the time.
(54:31):
He's sneaking away with this woman named Antonia Moss, who
is a backup singer on David Bowie's album. And David
Boye's looking out and he's like, huh, hey, there's Tony
and Antonia. Hey they're kissing. Oh, And he's looking and
it's like there's there're two forbidden fruit lovers stealing a moment.
And David Bowie's like, I could just really tell that
(54:52):
he was in love with her. And so this idea
of forbidden love by the Berlin wall just really inspired him,
and so he wrote this song about two lovers, one
on one side of the wall and one on the
other side of the wall, and they can't ever be
together and it's just this forbidden love, and that gave
birth to the song heroes Love It pretty cool now,
then this is the thing that blows me away. Okay,
(55:14):
this song about this heroic love. Whatever. David Bowie played
this song in nineteen eighty five at Live Aid at
Wembley Arena. We've talked about Live Aid many times. Okay,
so massive thing. But he played it in nineteen eighty
seven in Berlin. Okay, this is still before the wall
came down. This is ten years after he wrote it.
But they actually were up against the wall. Basically the
(55:36):
wall was the backdrop for the stage and he got
word that if we play it loud enough that people
in East Berlin could hear this, and he's so he's like, well,
let's do it. You know, this is awesome. He didn't
know how much or how loud, or you know, what
will be going on over there, but he said, as
he's playing this song, he starts to hear people cheer
and sing from the other side of the Wall said
(56:00):
it was basically one big concert divided by the Wall,
and he says it's the most emotional performance he's ever had.
He can't even talk about it without getting choked up.
And just the idea that Berliner's where he wrote the
song about those people and about that divide, says, just
an amazing experience.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Oh my goodness, Wow, how emotional. That's incredible. Pretty cool, Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Now then Peter Gabriel, yeah, redoes this in twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right, So this song from late seventies. Yes, we're hearing it,
but we're not hearing the David Bowie version. We're hearing
the Peter Gabriel version.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
That's right. So both versions are amazing.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yes, they are both very different, totally different. What s.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
Like, there's much more.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Going on orchestra wise with Peter Gabriel's version. So how
did we get here? How do we get to Peter
Gabriel covering David Bewie?
Speaker 3 (57:17):
Okay, so this is a really cool story. So in
twenty ten, he comes out with an album called Scratch
My Back. Okay, all right, and it's an album full
of covers and he just goes through and he does
a cover of this artist and this artist and this
artist with the idea that they will in turn cover
one of his songs on an album that they would
in turn call and I'll scratch yours. Okay, right, yeah,
(57:41):
so this is pretty cool. So just to mention a couple.
Randy Newman, who you may know from the song I
Love La, Sure, he does the song Big Time, Lou
Reed does Salisbury Hill. Brian Eno actually does a song
called Mother of Violence.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
David Bowie, however, declined to cover one of Peter gabriel songs,
which is kind of not but I thought this was interesting.
So about that difference. So it's totally different. Peter Gabriel's
version is completely different. This was his quote. I thought
this was great. If you're going to reinterpret something, then
really do something. Nail your colors to the mast and
say this is different and it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
When I drove up here, I listened to both of these,
I'm like, man, this song is awesome. And then I
turned around, I'm like, well, this song is awesome, but
they're absolutely different. Yep, but here's the kicker.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
You ready for this? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (58:26):
This is my bomb for you. Okay, yeah, all right,
so one of these days the you and I are
going to have to cover the album so by Peter Gabriel.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Absolutely, I'm a huge album in nineteen eighty six. Huge, Okay.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
It has Sledgehammer, it has big Time, it has in
your Eyes. It also has a song on there called
Don't Give Up, which is a duet. The other singer
(59:06):
in that duet is Kate Bush Get the heck out
of Town, who has maybe the biggest song in the
entire Stranger Things universe running up that Hill make it.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
Yeah, wow, that's wow.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
How about that?
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (59:39):
I mean, if this goes well, we'll get to her eventually.
I know it'd be a while. About forty more episodes.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
That's awesome, body, great, great out.
Speaker 6 (59:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
So that's it.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
So that's all for this episode. Be sure and go
check us out on Facebook. Be sure you check us
out on Twitter. Be sure and check out our YouTube page.
Speaker 3 (59:58):
If you're not there right now, and if you are
there right now, go check us out on a podcast
app and be sure.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
If you want to become an executive producer of one of.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Our episodes, go to our Patreon page, which is patreon
dot com slash Shirley Podcast, and you can be an
executive producer and you get access to all of our
secret episodes where we cover one hit wonders of the eighties,
and just some extra things that we'd decide, Hey, we're
going to give a.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Gift back to the Patreons.
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
Absolutely, we've got some great episodes of our on our
Patreon page. For as little as five bucks a month,
you get all these awesome extra episodes. In fact, during
our simple Minds episode, we actually talked a little bit
about David Bowie, so there's a lot of crossover and
you definitely want to check that out on Patreon.
Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
And if you're on Facebook and you want to win
a pair of socks and not spend any money, actually one, two, three, four, five,
six pairs of socks all devoted to Stranger Things, be
sure and like and subscribe on our YouTube channel and
leave a comment down below that you want some socks,
and then whatever other favorite part of the episode you had.
(01:01:02):
As for everybody else, thank you guys for coming back
or visiting us for the first time. We look forward
to talking to you again next week and next week,
so next week, be.
Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Sure to come back for a super special song. We
will see you guys next week for season one, episode
four of Stranger Things.
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