Stranger Things Soundtrack: Season 1 Episodes 5-8: Sunglaasses at Night, White Christmas, Carol of the Bells and More!

This is our Stranger Things Season 1 Finale where we cover the music used in Episodes 5-8! In this episode we dive deep into one of the most iconic songs of the 80s (Sunglasses at Night), we take a look at the biggest selling single of all time (White Christmas) and we examine the amazing true story of "Carol of the Bells" and the incredible assassination of its composer! You won't believe it!

Episode Transcript

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 Shirley 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 can't tell you how
excited I am to be jumping back into Stranger Things
with my good buddy Jason Calvin.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
What's up, d how's it going? Man?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I am super excited to be here. We decided, guys
that we were instead of going episode by episode for
the last four episodes of season one, we decided we're
going to pack all of them into one super episode.
We may not hit every single song, but we're going
to hit the important ones and the ones with the
good stories. And then at the end of all of this,
we will give you our top five songs for season

(01:16):
one of Stranger Things.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
And then once we're done with that, where of course
we're diving into our Christmas movies, where we're going to
do Christmas Vacation versus Scrooged here in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Chevy Chase versus Bill Murray. I mean, it's just like backstage.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yes, we'll see when's the fist fight this time?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Hey, before we get started, I've got to do just
a couple of quick shout outs. I want to mention
real quick.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
So I was talking to my buddy JJ Woody at
the football game the other day. Yeah, so he was
telling me that he listened to our Weird Al Yankovic episode. Yes,
and he said when he was a young boy on
Sunday nights, when his parents and family would go to
eat after church, he would leave dinner early to go
sit in his car so he could listen to the
Doctor Demento show. Wow, I know right, I didn't even

(02:01):
know that that was a thing.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
So was he prohibited from listening to it by his
extra religious parent.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
I don't think it was super high on their priority list.
But so little JJ out in the car listening to
Doctor Demento. I thought that was pretty funny. And then
I got one more story for you, and then we
could jump into stranger things. Okay, So my good friends
Jeff and Shurry Gilliland, and they're my football buddies, Like
we go to our son's football games and we sit
together and we you know, talk about the game or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Jeff has become my poker budd Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, yeah. So so he was sitting there and he
said he was sitting in his house one day and
he's like, hey, that's Colvin's voice coming from inside my house.
And he started to follow the sound of my voice
and he followed it to his bathroom where his wife
was taking a shower. He's like, what is Jason's voice

(02:50):
coming from inside my bathroom? So, anyway, I thought that
was just a funny story. Anyway, so the Gillilands have
started listening, and so shout out to Jeff.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
And Sherry good friends of ours. Thanks you guys.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
All right, d I got a joke for you, Okay, Yeah,
what's the difference between a snowman and a snow woman.
I don't know snowballs. That transitions is right into our
Manscape dad.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Oh my God, which brings us to our sponsor for
this particular episode, manscapes dot com.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
If you want your snowballs to look.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Good, to be nice and smooth and round and appealing,
it's time to clean it up down there.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Guys.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Guys, this is a good thing to do for missus Claus.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It's Christmas present to you, it's Christmas present to her,
and it's better than milk and cookies.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
And so what you can do is go to manscape
dot com and use our promo code Serious twenty and
it will get you twenty percent off of your order
plus free shipping. Guys, it's Christmas time and maybe you think,
what am I going to give a ball razor to
one of.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
My best friends?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yes, the answer is yes, he will appreciate it and
so will his wife. And ladies, if you're listening to
this perfect give to givet to your man. That is
the gift it gives back to.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
You absolutely and the code again is Serious twenty for
twenty percent off free shipping. It's great gift.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
That's what I got you for Christmas.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Merry Christmas. Yeah, can't wait to open up my package.
Go to manscape dot com right now.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Whack it? Like it.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
All right, So we're ready to jump into stranger things.
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, let's jump into stranger things. Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
So the first song in this episode comes from New Order,
which is a perfect transition from our last song that
we talked about with Joy Division in our last episode,
because now we've got the guys who are in Joy Division,
right except for Ian Curtis, who have come together and
decided to form this new band, and so it transitions

(04:48):
nicely into the first song in this episode. This song
is called Elegia. It comes in at the very beginning
when they're having the memorial service for Will and then
goes right into the opening credits.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, it sets the tone for what you're seeing on
the screen. This is you know, this is great at
setting the tone.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
It's perfect, it's haunting, it's beautiful. Just like the Joy
Division songs. They've really got that post punk thing going,
which if you listen to our last one, or if
you're familiar with the Joy Division, you know that the
guys who were left over after Ian Curtis committed suicide
the day before they were supposed to leave for their
big United States tour.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
That's right. They decided, Hey, we're going to.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Get together anyway, and we're going to pick a new
lead singer and we're going to continue. But they had
made a promise to themselves that they would not keep
the name Joy Division if any member of the band
left for any reason, and so they had to decide
on a new name. So they decided, Hey, we're going
to keep on going.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
We're going to do the tour even though Ian Curtis
isn't with us.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
We're going to figure out who's going to sing, and
we're going to have to figure out a new name.
And their manager, Rob Grettin, was looking at The Guardian,
this magazine, and he came across an article that was
called The People's New Order of Campuccia, which is it's Cambodia, okay, right,
But he saw that title and he was like, new Order,

(06:09):
New Order, I think that's the perfect name for this band.
And the rest of the guys were on board, and
it's stuck. Now they're without their lead singer and so
they have to either get a new lead singer or
do what they did, which is nominated new guy from
the band to start singing the songs. Okay, so the
remaining members of the band were Bernard Sumner, Peter Hooks

(06:31):
name you love very much?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, Captain hook and Peter Pan had a baby.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
And Steven Morris. And Steven Morris had a girlfriend who
had joined them on stage previously. She played the keyboards,
and so they decided, you know what, we need a
new member of the band. Let's bring her on. They
didn't have her become the lead singer. They nominated Bernard Sumner,
and so Bernard Sumner is the lead singer.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Of New Order.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Now, most of our listeners probably know New Order from
their very famous song Blue Monday.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Absolutely, it's a great song.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, I mean a defining song of the eighties. And
this band was a big band in the eighties, more
so in the UK than here, but definitely a mover
and a shaker as far as the sound of.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
The eighties goes.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
But this song that we're going to talk about now
is not as well known.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
That song is called Elegia, and so here's what I
know about the song. Okay, So there's a single version
which is four minutes plus or so, right, and then
the real album version, which is over seventeen minutes long.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
This song has been featured in a lot of different
entertainment that you probably have seen or heard. Okay, So
this song was featured in the Academy Award winning short
called Moore by Mark Osborne. I know it from the
film Pretty in Pink, the Molly ringwol movie. Oh okay,
play it in Pretty Pink?

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh yeah, right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
It was in the trailer for the nineteen ninety two
film Night of the Living Dead Believe it or not. Wow, okay, yeah,
And it is actually featured in the TV show.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
The Crown if you remember that. Yeah, it's you know,
it's a pretty new show.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah. By the way, I've got a New Order story
for you, just real quick. Yeah okay. So New Order
was a little out of my wheelhouse as a young man,
but I was out of town. I was in Dallas
one day. I was at the mall and I'm running
around and there's a bunch of teenage girls that are
like in line and going crazy for something. Okay, And

(08:27):
I'm at the mall and of course a bunch of
teenage girls catching my eye because because I'm fifteen at
the time, right in nineteen eighty eight, and I finally
go up to a couple of them.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Hi, I'm Jason, good to see you.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
I said that line.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Go again.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
How you doing, I'm Jason Cole. How you doing? So No,
I really didn't go up to him, and I said,
what is going on here?

Speaker 1 (08:47):
What you got?

Speaker 3 (08:48):
They had like papers, they were ready to get autographs,
all this, all this stuff, and they said New Order
is here and they're going to be signing autographs.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
So you've got in line and you got an autograph.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
From I said, I'm sorry, did you say def Leppard?

Speaker 1 (09:00):
No?

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Okay, I'm out of here. But at the time, I
remember that caught my attention because I was ingesting all
types of MTV and I didn't know who the Order was.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Wow, But there you go.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
That was a little bit prior to when Blue Money
really broke.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
So you were like a room away from having met
these guys and you said, I'm gonna go to.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
The arcade see you later.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Karwdi Champ is calling my name right now.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, So that's that's what I got for you. Okay,
did you want to tell your a New Order story
that you told me this action nooon, Okay, this.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Is so wildly inappropriate. I I didn't share it.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
So this is not your story, my story, not.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
My story at all. But I was.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
We we do things, We read, we researched, we watched documentaries.
One of the documentaries I was watching it was showing
the guys from New Order in this kind of game
show where they answer questions about the band, you know,
like you know, like in the marriage, who's the one
that gets upset easiest, to the cleanest, all that, but
it's all the members of the band, right right. So
they're going through these questions and they're like, okay, who's

(10:01):
the laziest member of the band? And Peter hook I
swear without missing a beat, ghosts, it's got to be
Ian Curtis. This guy hasn't done anything in years. Like,
oh my god, what whoa dude? Whoa too far?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Everybody was in you know, stunned silence for a second,
and then everybody just busted up, laughing and shaking their
heads like you are right now.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Oh man, that's horrible.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Oh boy.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Okay, So the next song in this episode is a
song by Tangerine Dream. Yeah, this is a song called
Green Desert. We'll play it for you here. Here's the song.
Very cool song. I love Tangerine Dream. But they've got
songs sprinkled throughout, and so we'll jump into their story a.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Little bit later.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Sounds good, okay, And then we just have one more
song in this episode, okay. It is a song called
Nocturnal Me by Echo and the Bunnymen. Oh bunny Okay.

(11:11):
So this song comes in at the end of the episode.
It's when they're in the woods and it blends right
into those end titles. Another kind of ambient, creepy sound
to it. Echo and the Bunny Men is not a
band that I remember hearing of before they had a
few videos out on MTV. There were another Liverpool band

(11:33):
and they had a chance to be big. I mean,
they had a chance to be really big, but they
just it just never quite happened for them. But I
called you after I watched a documentary on him, and
I said, this was possibly the most boring documentary I've
ever seen. And I'm not even just talking about music
biography deck. I mean, like all documentaries, and I've seen
some pretty boring one.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
You are yes a consumer of boring documentaries.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
And this one was the worst.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
I mean, this was worse than the pulling out the
projector at ninth grade Civics class. I mean it would
the band is just not a terribly interesting story with
this band. But they're from Liverpool, so it was great
to hear.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
You know, the Beatles. It sounds just like the Beatles.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Yes, here's what I can tell you about the Echo
and the bunny Man. Okay, this is the complete encyclopedia
of my knowledge.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Echoing the Bunnyman.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
They have a song on the Lost Boys soundtrack, Strange
Strange Okay, which I would love to break down the
Lost Boys soundtrack sometime around Halloween.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
That sounds great. That's it.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Moving right along to one of the biggest two hit
wonders of the eighties.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Before you say another word, yeah, just turn up the
volume and let's crank it up.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
That synth line.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Man, I was obsessed with this song in the mid eighties.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
This is a fantastic song.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
It is it's iconic.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
It is one of the most memorable, one of the
most defining songs of that era. This is Sunglasses at
Night by mister Corey Hard. Here's So this is Corey
Hart's story is kind of an interesting one. Yeah, he
had his sister did skating and dance stuff. Yes, and

(13:20):
she happens to in one of her little shows, she
meets Tom Jones. Tom Jones, I know it's not unusual.
And so she's like, hey, my little brother, and I
mean he's what, he's like eleven, Yeah, he's just a
little kid. And she's like, my little brother loves to sing.
I would love it if you and and so he

(13:41):
comes over and like listens to him singing.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Listen. This story is highly suspicious because Tom Jones is
chasing a girl who's a figure skater. He is sure,
I'll listen to your little brother, honey, what's pussy cat? Yes,
of course, yes, I would love to listen to a
young man. What time should I be a trouse?

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Right?

Speaker 2 (14:03):
So Corey is so nervous that he can't stand up,
like his legs are.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Shaken too bad?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yes, So he literally performs his song for Tom Jones
in the living room on his knees.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yes, you know what song you could sang? Tell me
Ben by Michael Jackson. How about that?

Speaker 1 (14:19):
It was awesome?

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And Tom Jones says, I can't help you, but I
know somebody who can. Yes, And he says, let me
get your tape and I'm going to send it to
Paul Anka. And my gosh, Paul Ank is like, dude,
this kid's talented. Let's see what we could do. Yeah,
Paul freaking Anka. Yes, the man is a legend.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yes, absolutely well, I've thought this was interesting. So they
made some demos with Paul Anka. Didn't really go anywhere,
but Corey Hart still had his dream right right, and
so here's what he did. I thought this was fantastic.
Billy Joe and his band are coming to where Corey
Hart grew up, and he says, you know what, Billy
Joel's in town. I want to make sure they have
a demo tape of me singing.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
He's seventeen years old.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah. So he looks it, looks up their address, like
their publishing address, and he writes a letter and sends
a demo tape to each member of the band. You know,
dear mister Joel, you know, here is my demo tape.
Please listen to it. And so he sends it and
he hears back from.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
The saxophone player.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, the saxophone player his name is Richie Kanata, and
he contacts him and says, your tape's great, let's make
demos together, and gets him a record deal. So his
first album is called First Defense. This comes out in
nineteen eighty three. Okay, this is just a few short
years after contacting Billy Joel. So on this album, he
has already completed the whole album. He's recorded every song

(15:52):
on the album, and he's kind of fiddling with this
demo that he had from a few years ago called
My Cigarette Got Wet. And he said this is because
he's never smoked in his life, but he had this
song in his head called my Cigarette Got Wet, and
he's like, it's just not really clicking for me, right.
But he's in the studio and he's.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Playing with it.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
And he recorded the album in Manchester and it rained
the entire time, but he had just bought some brand
new ray Band sunglasses. I have actually heard two stories
on this, and so he's like, it's raining the entire time,
but I really want to wear these new sunglasses, so
I guess I'll just have to wear them at night.
Sott and I also heard another story where the producer

(16:42):
said that the air conditioning was blown in their faces,
so everybody had their sunglasses on to protect their eyes.
Either way, it's a great story. But Corey Hart takes
those words sunglasses at Night, puts them in the song
when Cigarette Got Wet, and it like boom, instant hit.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Right. But he's back in Canada at this point.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Right, that's right. He had already completed the album. Yeah,
totally done, and he contacts his producer and said, hey, man,
I go, I go one more and I really think
it's good. And to their credit, they're like, okay, let's
do this. You know, I mean it's undeniable.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
You don't. You don't hear this song and go it's okay.
It grabs you. This is one of those songs that
just grabs you by the testicles.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Right, exactly exactly. So this song is released January twenty first,
nineteen eighty four. It reaches number seven in September of
eighty four. David Right and I have gone round and
round about the best year in music for the eighties,
and we pretty much basically agree that it's nineteen eighty four.
So listen to this murderer's Row of top ten. When

(17:46):
you say, okay, seven that's pretty good. It's not great, No,
it's great.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
With this competition, let's say.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, I was gonna say because with this song I
would have expected higher than seven.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Well, it's an iconic haay song, right, what beats it?

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Okay? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (17:58):
So Number ten this week in September of eighty four
is if Ever You're in My Arms Again?

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Okay, okay, set that one to the side. Okay, all right,
all right?

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Number nine if this is it by Huey Lewis and
the News, Okay, sure, yes. Number eight Let's Go Crazy
by Prince obviously, right, seven is Sunglasses at Night. Six
is she Bop by Cyndi Lauper.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, that's one we hope to cover this coming year.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Right. Number five is when Doves Cry? Okay, I mean
massive song which has the same story, right, same story.
It was absolutely a last second edition to Purple Ring.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Hey, guys, you really need to put this in. We're done.
Could you listen to it? Okay, we'll put that in.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
That's really great. We think it's a hit.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Number four Ghostbusters obviously. Number three Stuck on You by
Lionel Richie. Okay, yeah, another song we hope to cover.
Number two, Missing You by John Waite.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Didn't you call this song like.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
The worst song of the eighties? Yes?

Speaker 1 (18:54):
What did you call this song?

Speaker 2 (18:56):
It was like the biggest woosfest?

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Remember what it was? But it was classic.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yes, I can't remember exactly, but I am not a fan.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Of this song. All right, Okay, you go.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
And then finally at number one this week, What's love
got to do with it? Tina Turner's comeback? I mean,
come on, I mean, I mean, what are we talking about?

Speaker 2 (19:14):
I mean, can you imagine that all of those songs
were out at the same time, in a day, in
an age where Taylor Swift has every single song on
the top ten of the Billboard Hot one hundred, imagine
a time where you had that many artists putting out
that many high qualities streaking great songs kept this song
at number seven. It's crazy, Yeah it is.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, So listen to this. I got just a couple
more tidbits on this.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
So the video won the Juno for Video of the
Year in Canada. Yeah, okay, Juno is like the Canadian
Music Award.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
He said he didn't even own a suit handed bar
Rick Springfield suit when he went to the deal. He's
wearing rick Springfield suit.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
I'm gonna wish I had Ricky.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
So this is a huge, huge song. So it reaches
number seven, which is funny because you think of this
as Coreyhart's biggest hit. It's not Never Surrender reached number
three in eighty five.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
It had to, but I mean that has to have
been because of this song. Yeah, just I mean, yeah, it.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Didn't have these this great song too, super songs to
compete against.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
Right. In nineteen eighty five, he declined the role of
wait for It, Marty McFly in Back to the Future.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Wow. I don't remember him being on your list. He
was on the list wow for Marty McFly. Okay.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
He also was one of the guys offered to sing
danger Zone in Top Gun. I do remember that, go
back to our Top Gun soundtrack episode. Yeah, and later
on in his life he's stepped away from all this
because he had children.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Decided he wanted to be a dad.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
His dad was not around when he was a kid,
and he's like, and he taught me a good lesson.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Want to repeat? Yeah, And so yeah, He's done a lot.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Of producing, has produced Celine Dion song, several others, and
it was funny. In the interview, I was why and
he was talking about that moment, you know, where the
women are mobbing the car and you get a little
nervous and the interviewer is like, yeah, I was talking
to one of the guys from New Direction and he
was talking about how scary and a nerving that can be.

(21:14):
And Corey Hart was like, well, if you don't want
to be a farmer, don't work on the farmer.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, listen to this. So this I thought was a
great story.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
He flew into Miami with his daughter Yea, and they're
on the bus with everybody else going from the terminal
to the parking lot.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Right tennis his kids play tennis, okay, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
And Sunglasses at the Height comes on the radio. Yeah,
And he's standing there amid all these people listening to
the song and he notices people are singing, people are
tapping their feet, and he makes that contact with his
daughter and it's just kind of the shared smirk of
check it out. I was once really awesome, you know. Yeah,
And he says he never gets tired of it. The

(21:52):
song has done wonders for him and it's just a
great song.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
And you know, it's a great moment.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
I gotta say, I had never listened to an interview
with him before, but he seen was like a genuine
down to earth, very cool guy.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Okay, So that does it for sunglasses at night?

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yes, So broms a Lula By shows back up in
this episode. Go back and check out episode so out.
Go back and check out episode three.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Whatever. Yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
And then at the outdoor supply store when Nancy and
Jonathan are stocking up, Yep, we've got the song by
the one the only Dolly Parton called the Bartner Store.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
My life is like in to a bug in store.
I may have just what you're looking for.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
She's been called the leading Lady of Country, the Smoky
Mountain Songbird, and the Backwoods Barbie So. She was born
January of nineteen forty six and Locustridge, Tennessee, in a
family of twelve kids. She said, there are so many
kids her parents couldn't watch them. So the older kids
were like assigned a child, like this is your baby
to watch over? Yes, so her baby died.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
While she was in charge. Oh my god, which is you.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Know, an impactful thing in her life? Yeah, so she
was on the Castwalk or Farm and Home Hour at
ten years old. At thirteen, she made it to the
Grand Old Opry. Now then she started on the Porter
Wagner Show. Okkay, Yeah, you ever heard of Porter Wagner?

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yes? Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
So this is one of those times in her life
where like she explodes with her writing. She wrote so
many songs. She says, she ran out of paper. She
wrote the cod of minic Colors on the back of
one of his dry cleaning tickets, and so, and of
course she's the star of the show, and it's it's
one of those things where it's the Porter Wagner Show,
but the real talent is Dolly Parton, Right, So she
decides one day that she's going to leave the show,

(23:54):
and she knows it's going to crush it and it's
probably going to be the end of the show. And
so she, in her own way, writes a lot note
to him so that she can leave.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Do you know this story?

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Okay, So she tells him, Hey, I want you to
come in here. I want you to sit down. She
grabs her guitar and she plays I will always love
you be fin.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Shoot stay, I would only be in you Sam, but
I know I'll think of you each step off the way, Willow.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
And that was her quote unquote resignation from the show.
Oh wow, Now there were some hurt feelings. He did
sue her. Okay, he didn't let her go that easily.
But of course we know the success of that song.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, Casey and Avery were literally watching it two nights ago.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean in the nineties, you couldn't get
away from you.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, they were watching the Bodyguard. Yes, right, but.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
They made amends and she was actually at his bedside
when he passed away.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Since then, she has earned twenty five number one songs,
twenty five gold, platinum and multi platinum records, nine Grammys,
three Amas, two Oscar nominations. She's one of the few
people in the world who's been nominated for an Emmy,
a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony some.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Of the things.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
You may have seen her in nine to five Steel
Magnolia's Best Little Horass in Texas. She did Islands in
the Stream with Kenny Rogers in nineteen eighty three. I
went to Dollywood last summer. It was fantastic.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Okay, let me just say this, So we've talked in
the past about doing nine to five against mister mom
is just one of the reversal. Yeah, yos right, And
so I don't remember why or what caused me to
kind of peruse IMDb on Dolly Parton and ninety five.
Maybe it was that, who knows sure, But this piece
of information is just in my head, so I'm going

(26:16):
to share it with Let's go.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
There was a TV series after the movie ninety five
called ninety five. H huh.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
It had a very buxom blonde woman in the part
of Dolly Parton's part.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Right, it was her sister.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
What I I literally, I'm like, I can't find anything else. Oh,
she's actually been in something with Dolly Parton. Oh my gosh,
it's her sister.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
No way, Yes, that's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
And since this is just out of my head, I
can't tell you what her name is, but I can
tell you TV series Dolly Parton's sister played people wanting
to say.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Joeline, but I know it's not Juline. It's uh Dorley,
Dorley Dorley. Ye. Now, then I've gotta tell you just
a couple of nuggets on the song.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Okay, so this song is called the bargain Store came
out January nineteen seventy five. Yes, it is a metaphor.
The secondhand merchandise at the store is like a woman
who has been mistreated by a husband. Sure, but it
turns out that a lot of the country stations would
not play the song because there's a line that says

(27:16):
you can easily afford the price, and they thought that
was a reference to prostitution. So nineteen seventy five country
music stations are pretty conservative and they're like, nop, we're
not playing this garbage.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
You whrror yeah, you hussye yeah. And I mean, come on,
Dolly's pretty pretty innocent. I mean, she's pretty whole.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Abs is.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
It's just that she's built like she's built, and so
every mind is going.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
To go to that direction.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
She's got a bid for sin.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, So I.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Mean, how disappointed were you when you got done with
the best little whorehouse in Texas and realized there was
no skin?

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yes, hey, throw back to our Thing episode where Kurt
Russell and John carbon Are pulled up and it was
welcome Dolly Varden and Burt Reynolds. So you're absolutely right.
Country music stations at the time were uncomfortable with it,
even though she swears there's nothing naughty about the song
at all, just a metaphor for a broken woman. Right now. Then,
this was the fourth consecutive number one song by Dolly Barton.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Okay, wow, okay, I.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Thought this was kind of cool. Yeah, four singles in
a row hit number one. I bet you you could
name two of the three previous.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well, you have love is like a butterfly.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yes, you're cheating.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
You have the song that you mentioned, Yes, I will
always love you. Yes, But I don't know what that
third one is.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Jolene, Jolene, so that I can another bit of information
that's rattling around in my head. I don't know how
this came up, but I watched the video where she's
performing live and she's there's a real Joline.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Really.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
She said that there was a bank teller at the
bank who was putting the moves on her husband and
she was an actual redhead. Really, that is the Yeah,
that's the inspiration about Tolene.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Life.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Will just randomly start singing Jolene. By the way, Oh, well,
me too.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
And she went out and had a talking with this girl,
did she Yeah, she didn't threaten to, you know, turn
her from a rooster into her hand.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
She gave her talking to and said, that's enough of that.
That's interesting. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
By the way, in nineteen seventy five, she won the
Country Music Female Vocalist.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Of the Year.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
And in twenty nineteen, this is how talented this woman is.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Dolly Parton's America was called the best podcast of twenty
nineteen by Forbes. Wow, so Ammy, Grammy, Oscar Tony and
now the best podcast in America.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Well, she's pretty awesome. I mean, there's just no doubt
about that.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
I don't know if it's good as the Shirley Podcast,
but right, okay, that's it for me on the bargain Store.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
All right, there's one more song in this episode. It
comes when Jonathan and Steve are having their fight in
the alleyway, and the song is another Tangerine Dream song.
This one is called Exit Again Tangerine Dream. We're gonna
talk about them soon. They have the first song on
our next episode. They have a song in the last
episode of the show, and so when we get there,

(30:13):
we will talk about Tangerine Dream at that time.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
But this is guys.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
If you don't know Tangerine Dream. If this is not
a name that's familiar to you, if you know Risky Business.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, and you know that scene, yeah, called love on
a Real Train.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
That is the song that's playing, and it is on
my Spotify, it is on my Apple Music. That is
a killer song for you know the make Out List
mixtape of nineteen eighty three. Yeah, yeah, okay, So that
brings us to episode seven, okay, And we have Fields

(30:46):
of Choral as our first song, and this is by
Van Gelis, who we talked about in our later in
our episode.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
The first time I watched Stranger Things and I'm watching
it with my kids, I'm always plating out things like, oh,
that's from Nightmare and Elstraight, Oh that's from E t
Oh that's from Close Encounters. When the theme song comes on,
the first thing that came in my brain, I'm like,
that's Blade Runner.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, I mean Tangerine Dream, Van Gelis, all of those
guys who are doing that ambient Brian Eno, all of
those guys who are doing that kind of ambient sound
joy Division, right, we order that is the sound that
they were going after in this episode. And as you've mentioned,
not only did they take that music from the past,
but they also with their composers Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon, Yeah,

(31:27):
they have recreated some ambient style of music to go
along with that as well. We will talk about those
guys shortly, but they are the composers of the music
that you're talking about, the theme music, right, as well
as all of the backing music for the scenes throughout
the show.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
By the way, I'm gonna go ahead and just drop
this nugget on Vangelis if.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
You don't know who he is.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
He had a number one hit in nineteen eighty one
that was an instrumental Yeah, almost no songs in the
eighties were instrumental number one hits, but this one was,
and you absolutely know it.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's called Jerid's Fire.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
You could not avoid this song in the early eighties,
like it was everywhere, and it's beautiful. It doesn't get old.
It's fantastic. And I remember seeing the video for it.
I mean it's literally him sitting at a keyboard, like
not even doing anything except smoking a cigarette. Like he's
black and white.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
He's just bored.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
He looks bored smoking a cigarette, and it's like, wait,
take a drag.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
I'm like, come on, dude, put that on MTV.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, but he was. He said it in he said
it in interviews.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
He's like, I did this stuff for Hollywood because not
that I wanted to be famous. I just wanted to
have the money to be able to do what I
want to do, Okay, And so that was really his
impetus to go do these amazing things, was that financially
paid for him to do the more creative thing.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Nobody really listens to make sense.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
If you want the full story on Ben Gellis, go
back and check out our Blade Runner versus the Thing
versus Et episode from earlier.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
This year, June of eighty two. That was something beautiful.
It was something else. I'll tell you that.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
This song from Van Gallis is called Fields of Choral.
It comes up two times in the episode. First time
is at the Buyer's house where Hopper, Joyce, Jonathan, and
Nancy are talking to Mike, Dustin and Lucas and eleven.
And it comes in again a little bit later on
at mister Clark's classroom and the gymnasium.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Okay, okay, the other song, this.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Is the only fully formed song that comes up in
this episode. The other song that comes up. We've mentioned
several times in the past, but it's not sung by
the band, it's sung by Noah.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
What.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, So Will Byers is stuck in the upside down?

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Oh yeah, that's right, answer.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
He's latched onto this song. And that's the reason that
we keep hearing it throughout the season is it was
this meaningful moment between him and Jonathan where they listened
to it on the radio and Jonathan's talking to him
about how the clash is anti establishment and not like
your mainstream radio and they have this moment which is
a little bit weird because this song came out like

(34:03):
in eighty three, and so if this is supposed to
be taking place in November of eighty three, I'm not
really sure how Jonathan was that in tune with everything,
but we give them a little pass. Okay, sure, I
mean Sunglasses at Night wasn't out until the next year,
So yeah, all right, that Steve's listening to it.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
In the car right.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
So anyway, in the show, Will Weyers is singing this song.
It's a pretty impressive moment in the show, and the
name of the song is should I Stay or Should
I Get Me?

Speaker 1 (34:41):
No?

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Should I Stay?

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Oh? Should I go.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
If you say, now, the Clash was this amazing band,
very influential. I will say this, Okay, we've talked about
a little bit about doing sex Pistols versus the Clash,
you know, sure, as the two kind of main punk bands,
the most well known punk bands of the early eighties, right,
And from what I've learned about them, basically it sounds

(35:09):
like the sex Pistols pushed the ball to the top
of the hill, and the Clash pushed it all the
way down and back up the next hill. They took
punk and over the course of their career, made it
into something new and exciting and more radio friendly than
the sex Pistols had ever done. But it was not
because they went commercial. It was because they became better musicians,

(35:32):
and they kept on insisting that they keep things unpolished
and cool, but they.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Were making better music.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
And this is basically the pinnacle. This is the top
of that hill, right. This song kicks so much butt.
Absolutely Okay, So instead of going into their whole history,
I think I'm going to save that for when we
do a full episode on these guys. All right, sure,
but what we need to know is that the most
well known version of the Clash included the vocalist and

(36:00):
guitarist Joe Strummer. Okay, he's usually the guy you saw singing,
the lead guitarist and occasional vocalist Mick Jones, the bassist
Paul Simeon, the drummer Nicky Topper Keaton, and he wasn't
around for the whole time either. Okay, normally you saw
Joe singing, but in this particular song, Mick is the

(36:22):
guy that's singing. And so, as it turns out, shortly
after this song came out, he left the band, right well,
and so a lot of people were like, Hey, is
this some sort of hidden message of I'm really about
ready to go? Should I stay?

Speaker 3 (36:37):
No?

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Should I go? Yes? Right? But then there's also this
rumor that's floating around about his then girlfriend. Yeah, tell
the story.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Well, here's what I know. His then girlfriend was Ellen Foley. Yeah,
she sings on Paradise by the dashboard Light by Meetloaf.
So she's the one that's like, what's gonna be Boy? Yeah,

(37:08):
I can wait all night.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Everybody's heard her voice, What's gonna be Boy?

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Right? She's cute like she was doing lots of shows
then too. Yeah, had her own close to fame moments.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
By the way, in the Meatlow video, the girl who's
singing in the video, yeah is actually lip syncing Ellen
Foley's vocals.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Wow, she's not the actual singer. Okay.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
So anyway, she had a relationship with Nick Jones.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, she had met them.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
She was going to check out a venue that she
was going to perform at in a couple of days,
and they happened to be performing there, and she met
Mick Jones and the googly eyes started and they parted
ways and then came back and got together, and there
was definitely a romance that was going on there.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
So a lot of people think that this song is
about that particular romance, right. Yes, now he is denied it, right,
but I was listening to an interview with her and
she's like, I'm not here to confirm it or did
I didn't write the song, but I'll tell you this.
A little while back, I got a check in the
mail for ten thousand dollars and I called the company

(38:13):
and I'm like, why why am I getting this check?
And they're like, well, this is for should I stay
or should I go? And she's like, well, I sang
back up on a different song and they're like, oh, yeah,
we know about that, but this is this is because
the song is about you. And she goes, I'm sorry,
how do you know it's about me? And they said, well,
we write it on Wikipedia.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
I'm going to Wikipedia and writing that this song is
about me.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Right, And she says, okay, they you guess. I'll keep
the money. And she says she continues to get checks
to this day. They're not ten thousand dollars checks, but
she continues to get royalty checks. I bet they've got
a bump after this, after Stranger Things came out Luly
and then the other The other thing about the song,
it's interesting is that the it didn't hit the top

(38:59):
forty when it came out out forty.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Five is where it topped out.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
It was, yeah, that's crazy to me, that is absolutely crazy.
And they re released the single in a few different
ways and it just never did hit the big charts
until nineteen ninety one and there was a Levi's commercial. Now,
these guys I mentioned, they wouldn't do commercial stuff right,
They didn't want to be anything other than true to themselves.

(39:24):
They stuck it out right right, just to give you
a little story about that. Right, So just before they
did London calling, like when they're in the studio and
they're trying to put it together. They need funding. They've
fired their managers who sued them, you know, and they're
trying to get money, and so they've got these executive
guys who come over and are supposed to watch them

(39:46):
to decide whether do I want to invest or not. Well,
they just happen to come over at the time that
every day these guys break and go out into the
park and play what we call soccer, play football with
each other. Sure, and this is no hold football. This
is like like their road manager was like, this was
my opportunity. When I was mad at them for whatever

(40:06):
they were doing, I could take it out on them
on the football field, right, I'd.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Let them have it.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
And so these executives show up right before they're about
to go play football. Do they stop and say, okay,
well we'll play our music for you. No, they say, hey,
we're going out to play football. You want to go?
And these guys are in leather shoes and sport coaches
and they don't want to be embarrassed, so they say, sure,
sure can I take off their coats and they got
and he said, the band whooped these guys back and

(40:34):
forth all the I mean like shouted in their face,
just you know, all over them.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
And of course they got pill will they will be double.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
So of course they did. Yeah, of course they did.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
So that's who they are.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Then, you know, nineteen ninety one, ten years after all
or more, after all of this has happened, they get
a call from Levi's that says, hey, we want to
use your song in this video. So they asked Mick,
because he's the guy that wrote the song, what do
you think, And he said, you know what, Levi's was
a part of what we were. They wanted to look
good on stage without looking you know, try yeah, right,

(41:16):
so they they do. They look cool up on stage,
but part of that cool look was the Levi's look,
and so he said, yeah, okay, go for it. And
when that happened, it was re released in the UK
and that's when it did its best.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
On the charts, number one. It hit number one in
the UK after that. Levis Kruschel, by the way, I
watched that Levi's commercial.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, it's a good commercial.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
There's basically a young guy model walks in. He plays
an older guy playing pool, and the guy wants to
play him for his Levi's yeah, and the guy and
Levi's wins, and he thinks the other guy take off
his back, so alrighty while the hot girl is, you know,
watching right, I just want to drop this bomb on
you now. They played the US Festival. We've talked about
the US Festival many times. Yeah, so they're they're they're

(41:58):
like hardcore socialist, extreme left wing, non commercial, give all
your money away type of guys. Right, But when they
went to the US Festival, they put on the big
screen behind him and the like projected it the check
that they received from the US Festival. Were playing like,
here's our check. How unrock and roll is this? There's

(42:19):
our check.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
This was the same show that Van Halen got paid
more money per minute than any other band had ever
gotten paid in history. Yep, for an hour and a
half long show. And I've talked to folks that were there.
They sucked. Oh really, Dave was drunk out of his mind,
like the show was terrible. What I've heard is Judas
Priest was the best show at the s Festival nineteen eighty.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
I think we talked about how in Excess was really
really good at the the S Festival.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, I mean in so many bands, Motley Crue, yep,
they all thought they were terrible. They were like, oh,
we're terrible, but their managers at the time pointed out,
you know what didn't matter. The crowd loved you, and
that was that was the key. But US Festival, I'm
so glad it comes up again.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
I know, right, it just keeps coming up. Yeah, I
got one more tidbit on this song, okay before we
bounce off of it.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
So in the middle of the song, you'll notice that
they're echoing the lyrics in Spanish. Yeah that you know,
they're playing around in the studio and they're like, I
really think there needs to be something right here.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah. Joe's the one that was like, let's do this
in Spanish.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah, And they're like, do you speak Spanish? And Guy's like, well,
I kind of speak a little text mex And so
they kind of passed it around. He okay, who can translate?
Who can help us out with this? So anyway, the
guy called his mom.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, the guy's mom spoke fluent Spanish, so he gives
her the lyrics in English, she translates them into Spanish. Now,
I was listening to this song just this week. I
just thought it was gibberish, right, And Brock's like, why
are they speaking Spanish?

Speaker 1 (43:48):
How did you know this?

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Spanish's like, well, I heard, you know, spout it out
some sort of Spanish. This is what you get when
you're in high school Spanish for right, exactly. So he
recognized something. But apparently a lot of people were like,
what is this strange Spanish? It's Ecuadorian. She's from Ecuador,
so it's Ecuadorian Spanish. There you go, not Mexican Spanish,
like we're used two down here in the South.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Makes perfect sense. Great song, Yeah, fantastic song and really
one of the pillars of the entire season one of
Stranger Things.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah, okay, so that brings us to the beginning of
the final episode of season one, episode eight, and our
final song by Tangerine Dream Horizon. This is the final

(44:38):
song by Tangerine Dream very quick. I love these guys,
they like Vangelis kind of led and pioneered the electronic movement,
and they did a ton of soundtracks in the eighties.
One of my very favorites being that risky business song
that we listened to. Right, they started off and we're
doing sounds like a sequencer before sequencers even existed. And

(44:59):
sequencers are hu huge in the Stranger Things soundtrack, the
way those kind of funky, weird pulses and beats and
stuff like that, that's all through sequencers, which we'll talk
about here in just a second. But they were doing
that type of music before it was even programmable into
a sequencer, right.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
And it's hard. I told you, I was like, I
was trying to find a documentary on these guys. They're
all in German.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
A little hard to understand.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Huh, Yes, you.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Have to brush up with my German ear. But they
not understanding English is probably a part of how they
got their name. It was a misunderstanding of lyrics, and
it was a misunderstanding of lyrics and one of the
most misunderstood.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Songs of all time.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
What Lucy and the Sky with diamonds? Yeah says with
tangerine trees and marmalade skies German ears of the time.
I guess heard tangerine dreams.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Oh that's cool story.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
And so that's where they that's where they got their
name again. DJ Peel comes in, Yeah, and they get
signed to Virgin Records, which was just beginning at that
same time early seventies, and then by the eighties they're
doing soundtracks and we get all of this amazing ambient,
earthy cool music. So we could go on forever on
Tangerine Dream, but we've got several songs to finish up with,

(46:13):
so let us jump real quick. Next song is a
song that's a newer song. This one's by Moby and
it's called when It's Cold I'd Like to Die. Okay,

(46:34):
So if you were around in the nineties, you probably
remember Moby.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, he's kind of a big deal.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Even I had heard of Mobi.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Right, you're not into edm but Mobi was big enough
that you were hearing his stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
He features strongly in the Born series. He's got some
great music of.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
The really yeah yeah, I mean you hear that track
that tells you it's porn identity, that's Moby, right.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
They used to play body Rock by Moby before the
football kickoff perfect.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
So this song comes off of his album called Everything
Is Wrong. It was released March of nineteen ninety five,
and this was not a single on that album. But
it's been used in a series before this. This was
used in The Sopranos Okay, and this is one of
two songs on the album that features vocalist named Mimi Gois.

(47:21):
This song appeared at the closing credits on the Sopranos
episode Join the Club, and as we know, is in
this one several times as Eleven is trying to save
our friends, they're playing this song over and over again,
and it comes back up in season four.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Really super cool song, really kind of an emotional song.
Great one to put here, not eighties, not psychedelic rock,
but cool stuff. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
That brings us to the next song, which is Carol
of the Bells. Everybody knows Carol of the Bells. And
when you and I were talking before this episode, we're like,
we're going to hit every single song, right, of course,
But then I said, if it's got a good story
to go along with it, then we should definitely cover
that song, right, And we started looking at Carol of
the Bells and I'm scrolling through stuff and I'm like, wait,

(48:08):
assassination right exactly?

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yeah, so you want to tell the story.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
So Carol of the Bells was originally a Ukrainian folk
chant called shattiek shattick.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Shitty shitdik shittik, yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Shadik okay. And so it was composed by this guy
named Mikola Leontovitch.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Something like that, Leontovitch, it's Ukrainian.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
Hey, my Ukrainian is not what it once was, Okay, Okay,
but we're going to talk about things like cultural diplomacy
and invasion assassination in this it's it's incredible, okay.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
So this song was composed by Mikola Leontovitch, right, and
it was first performed right around Christmas nineteen sixteen. It
led to him becoming famous. This is definitely his most
famous song even at the time.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Right. Just a little over four years later he would
be murdered.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
So Leontovitch is this Ukrainian composer and he comes up
with a song. He's actually very very critical of himself.
It wasn't really comfortable with this being this super famous,
next level song because he was always like, I.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Think it could be better. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
He was supposed to be a priest, went to school
to be a priest, and after doing all that, he
was like, I want to do music. And he was
really more like your high school music teacher, right, he
would put choirs together at whatever school he was teaching at.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
That was kind of what he did.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
So he puts together this Ukrainian choir in nineteen nineteen,
and he gathers up all the best singers from around
the countryside, and they're going to go on this tour
of Europe to sing this song and others, just.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
As a reminder for what's going on in the Soviet
slash Russia at that time. You've got the Bolshevik Revolution
going on, right, I mean, the Soviets are taking over
the Russian countries.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yes. In nineteen nineteen, Woodrow Wilson, at the peace conference
in Paris declares the Baltic states are independent and they
can self determine their own fate.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Well, guess who doesn't recognize.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
That the Soviets.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Yeah, of course, right, Oh, guess what We're gonna go
ahead invade Ukraine? Right, sounds kind of like today.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
There's a secret police that's formed called the Cheka. This
is kind of a pre runner of the KGB, and
they send these guys out all over the place. Their
targets tend to be the intellectuals and the artists, and
Leontovitch is one of those guys. So with all this
unrest going on, he goes back to his hometown of Tolchien,

(50:25):
which is in western Ukraine, and he's staying with his parents.
He's religious, which is another group that no no, yeah, yeah,
And so he goes back and is visiting for the
Eastern Orthodox feast of the Nativity, and there's this guy
who seems like he's a border He's like, hey, I
just need a place to stay for the night, and

(50:46):
so his parents let him sleep. He is sleeping in
the same room as Mikola and in the middle of
the night takes a rifle and shoots him because it
turns out he's one of these Checkist secret agents, which
I mean basically, this is the brute squad, right, they're
just out there murdering these people. He robs the house

(51:07):
and leaves. It seems pretty clear that Micola was a target.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
Absolutely, this is a total assassination. Yeah, the root squad
is after this guy and they take him out. Yeah
because why because the famous Ukrainian. All Right, So the
choir continues on to America, reaches Western audiences. They appreciate
it in nineteen twenty one. That's when they play Carnegie
Hall and the American audience starts to chant Long Live Ukraine,

(51:31):
and it starts to sort of tip the tide a
little bit culturally for Ukraine. Well, Russia doesn't like that,
and so they do everything they can to stamp it out.
Russia actually kind of does that, kind of diminishes in popularity,
Russia takes over Ukraine. Fast forward now to nineteen thirty six.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
This other musical master, Peter Wilhowski, here's it. And it's like,
I think I can make a basically a Christmas song
out of this.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
The original poem that this is based on is I mean,
it's basically prehistoric. It's been passed down forever and it
was about this swallow coming into somebody's house and bringing
good news of a good spring coming. And that's what
this song originally was. It was this new year, new
spring kind of thing. It's only when Peter Wilhowski changes
the words to the sweet sweet bells and the ding

(52:17):
ding a Dong that we get Carol of the bells
that we know and love.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
He's actually of Ukrainian descent. Did not know that, Yes,
he is n so he plays it on NBC Radio,
and here's this beautiful song being introduced again to Western audiences.
And music teachers around the country wrote into NBC Radio
and said, I've got to have the music for this
song so i can teach my class bells well. One
of the things I thought was interesting, a lot of

(52:42):
people had kind of lost touch with this song again
until Home Alone, and it introduced it again to a
new generation. So it's been played in Home Alone they
used it, and Diehard, they used it in The Simpsons.
Harry Potter used it.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
In nineteen ninety four when d Graves was working at
TGI Fridays and we had to have birthday songs that
weren't happy Birthday. Yeah, during Christmas season, I came up
with it's your birthday, It's Sure Birthday, It's Sure Birthday,
and the other singers would come in in harmony and
I would say, here you are at Fridays and we're

(53:17):
singing you a song.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
If you do not like it, then we will not
sing it long.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Happy happy happy birthday, Happy happy happy Birthday.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
I would love I would love to know it's still
singing at someone to TGI Fridays. Five years later.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Yeah, that's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
I like it.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Yeah, good job.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
We're ready for our next Christmas song.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Now, this song is one of Bing Crosby's most famous songs,
White Christmas.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Man love them what.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Christ Know?

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Okay, so this song comes in just before we get
the mysterious ending in the episode. This is Christmas at
the buyer's house. Right, Will's back, everybody's happy, you know,
celebrating Christmas, and we get this kind of weird ending
a little.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Bit later on that we're not expecting.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Right, But this song White Christmas is one of the
most famous songs from one of the most famous Christmas
quote unquote movies that we know.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
We've already talked about this movie.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
We talked about this movie on our first season when
we did die Hard Versus Lethal Weapon. And the reason
that we talked about it is because our friend mister
Stephen Desusa will do a side by side comparison of
die Hard versus White Christmas to say die Hard is
a much more Christmas movie than White Christmas is. And

(54:55):
that's the case, then it must be.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
A Christmas Clearly, when you compaired Diehard to White Christmas,
Diehard is more Christmas y and deserves.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
To be a Christmas movie.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah, go back and listen to that episode from season one.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Yeah, so that movie had Bing Crosby and Danny Kay
in it.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Danny F and k D. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yes, stay tuned, boys and girls, because that's our next
matchup is We're going to be matching Christmas Vacation against Scrooge.
Don't hit forget to hit the subscribe or follow button
so that you don't miss that episode.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Okay, right, the one of them is Ben Crosby tap
dancing with Danny F and Ky.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Now, this song White Christmas was sung by Bing Crosby,
but it was written by a guy named Irving Berlin.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
I don't know a lot about Ervie Berlin. I was
talking to you about it as I was learning. I'm
liked the songs that this guy wrote. Oh yeah, my gosh,
he changed American music. Oh yeah, I mean we're talking
about putting on the ritz, cheek to cheek white christ Ristmas.
Anything you can do, I can do better. There's no
business like show business. And find I mean, God.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Bless America, God bless America.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Are you kidding me? I know right?

Speaker 3 (56:10):
This guy is American music.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
He is a rock star. Before there were rock stars
if you will.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
So he was asked to write a song for the
movie Holiday Inn, which starred Ben Crosby and Fred Astaire.
The funny part about this is that he's writing this
in la There's actually two places, two hotels. There's a
Lakita and the Biltmore, and both claim that he wrote
that song at their location. Okay, but if you look
at the lyrics, it's a homesick song, right.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
He started this song in nineteen thirty eight, finished it
in nineteen thirty nine. When he played it for Ben Crosby,
he would do this right, and so he'd go into
his dressing room and he played these songs and Ben
Crosby was like, yeah, okay, I like that one. Okay,
we need to work on that one. And when he
played White Christmas for him, he's like, well, that one's
one you don't have to worry about. Instant hit. So
a few weeks later, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened. Okay, okay,

(56:56):
so we're in the middle of World War Two. Ben
Crosby introduced this song on Armed Forces radio and when
they played White Christmas, the homesick lyrics really hit home
with the gis Ah love a Christmas.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Wherever Christmas.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Run, and it became this hugely requested song and this
idea of I want to go.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Home, right, I want to go home for Christmas. I'm
dreaming of home.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
So Ben Crosby, after the success of this song, went
overseas during World War Two, and somebody asked him and said,
what's the hardest thing you've ever done? He said, I
sang White Christmas for one hundred thousand gis and I
knew a lot of these guys would not be coming home.
And that was right before the Battle of the Bulge,
and many guys did not come home. This is the
biggest selling single of I looked.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Up Irving Berlin on Spotify. I'm sure our listeners, some
of them are familiar with Spotify. When you go to
a particular artist, it will give you the top five
songs as far as downloads go that they have right
for Irving Berlin. Number one obviously White Christmas. Okay, number
two White Christmas, number three White Christmas, number four White

(58:21):
Christmas and number five White Christmas.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
This has been covered by.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
So many people and it is a smash every single time.
His top five downloaded songs are all some version of
this song.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
This song actually has the distinction of being the only
song where the presenter at the Oscars presented the award
to himself.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
Irving Berlin was the presenter.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Irving Berlin was the presenter, and when he's like and
this year is OSCAR for Best Song in a Movie,
goes to myself. Me, yeah, thank you, shake hands with
myself and so so it was so awkward. The Academy
said that will never happen again. It's too weird. We've
got to make sure the presenter is never the acceptor, right.

(59:07):
So this is before they kept track of like physical sales,
but the Gisbigger World Record still has him between fifty
million and one hundred million physical singles sold of White Christmas. Wow,
best silling single of all time. How could we skip this?

Speaker 1 (59:21):
We can't skip this, No way, no okay.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
And that brings us to the very last song of
the episode, and it brings us back full circle to
the beginning. The very first song that we heard is
the theme and the very last song is a song
by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. These guys had been
playing music together for ten years, and I mean they're
really just they look like guys that will work at Walmart.

(59:44):
I mean, it's they look they too, just Joe Schmoe.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
It looked like they could be your pizza delivery guy.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
So these two guys had formed this band called Survive
in Austin, Texas back in two thousand and nine. This
band did a bunch of live shows, had an EP
and an LP, and the last song on one of
these albums, the Duffer Brothers had taken and created a
mock trailer for Stranger Things. And these guys had no idea.

(01:00:11):
They just suddenly got this random email from the Duffer brothers,
who at that point nobody knew who the Duffer Brothers were, right,
And they just said, hey, we're going to do this
new series for Netflix. And I'm sure at that point
you're like, does Netflix make movies?

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Right? I thought it was the DVDs that I got
in the mail.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Right, right, I'm so sorry I paid my bill last month.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
But they're like, no, we've got this trailer we use
your music for. We think your music is awesome and
perfect for the style that we're going for. Yeah, And
so these guys have been playing music together for ten years.
Suddenly they just they get that magical call and they
end up winning a Grammy for the soundtrack for this show.
I mean, it's it's pretty impressive how things can just
kind of magically happen for guys to just do what

(01:00:58):
they love doing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
That is an awesome story. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Really, that's like the very end of Dumb and Dumber
where the bikini girls pull up out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Except that these guys did not give them wrong direction. Right,
So those are the composers, which obviously deserve a lot
of credit. And then another person who deserves a lot
of credit on this one is the music supervisor, Nora Felder,
And she's been a music supervisor for tons of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
But we've talked about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
The genius placement of these songs, and I don't know
how much is her and how much is the Duffer
brothers and all of that, But I mean, just White
Rabbit alone is such a perfect, perfect song, sure for
the very first episode of this entire series, right, it's brilliant.
So Nora Felder also somebody worth mentioning.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Absolutely, Okay, are you ready to talk top three songs,
top two stories for this? All? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
So let's let's do this, Okay, top three songs, yeah,
top two stories. How about unexpected songs that maybe you
liked more now than you or maybe you didn't know
about it or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Okay, this sounds great. Can you pull that off? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Okay, you want me to do my top three?

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Or how about I do three, you do three, I
do two, you do two, I do one, you do one?

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
So yeah, okay, these are the three best songs, three
best songs. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
So number three for me yes Corey Hart Sunglasses at.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Not Yes, love it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Fantastic song, Yeah, I mean it, defining song, not only
for me, but for that entire eighties period. Perfect choice
for the scene in Stranger Things.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Love it top to bottom.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
So my number three song is Hazy Shade.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
A winner by the Bengals. Oh good one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Every time that one comes on, crank it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Up two eleven, let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Yeah, solid choice, okay, Susannah Hoffs, Hey it still looks good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Oh my gosh, still looks good. Okay. So number two
for me has to be Africa.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Okay, yeah, Toto's Africa comes back with this episode. I
think you know, we solve that riddle. Has to be
the Stranger Things that brings Africa back to the forefront,
which leads us to do the album. I loved everything
about learning about Toto, and guys, be sure and go
check out our Toto episode History of Toto and Toto
four that has the full details of Africa on it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
But I mean another iconic eighty ship.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
That's one of my favorite track by track episodes that
we've done is Toto four. Yeah, okay. My number two
song is Sunglasses at Night.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Oh okay.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
That synth line comes on and it's just undeniable, huge
song from eighty four. I love it same reason you did.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yeah okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
So my number one song has to be White Rabbit
by Jefferson.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Oh well, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
I know it's unexpected it's sung from the sixties instead
of from the eighties, but it's such a powerful song.
It was so new, so innovative, and it's such a
perfect fit for this show. I have to say, I
can listen to it over and over and over again
and never get.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Tired of it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
It's it's definitely a musical masterpiece. It's fantastic. My number
one is Africa by a Tote Well, all right. Top
two stories that we dug out on these songs.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Okay, so number two on this one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
You know, my second favorite story has to be the
father Yode story that came from Sky Saxon and the Seeds.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Absolutely brilliant story. I don't know. I mean, it's a
it's one of those rabbit holes that you went down. Yeah,
and I'm the rabbit hole guy normally, but that was
a rabbit hole for you, and it was a fantastic one.
I loved learning about it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Well, thank you. That makes me feel good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
I'm glad that is unfortunate to.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Mind the hang letter accident on Christmas Day. Okay, cool.
So my number two story is the go Nowhere Revenue story,
the amazing serial killer, prostitution, drug abuse. That whole thing
blew my mind and I know it's coming up, so

(01:04:46):
I want to punt it to you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Well, yeah, that's number one for me for I mean,
when we very first said to each other, hey, we
should look we should look at doing the soundtrack of
Stranger Things. That's a fun different thing to do, right right.
And I'm just skimming through and I'm like brigging Youth.
I kind of remember that name, and then I come
across that story and I was like Holy cow, this
is movie worthy. This is one hundred percent movie worthy.

(01:05:09):
So that one yet definitely my number one. What's your
number one?

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
My number one is Heroes with David Bowie. The idea
of doing a concert at the Berlin Wall and you've
got West Berlin singing and you can hear people in
East Berlin singing at a time when people were concerned
about the rise of communism and all this stuff, and
so the idea of the uniting power of music.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
Heroes by David Bowie fantastic. I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Yeah, Okay, we went through all these songs. Is there
any song that maybe you hadn't heard before or one
that you appreciate more now that we've done it?

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Honestly, it was one of the ambient songs. It was
Fields of Choral by Vangellis. I had to drive the
family at the wee hours of the morning to the
Dallas Airport and I had that thing blaring in my
ears for a good portion of the drive down.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Awesome, Awesome, Okay, how about you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Well, for me, there's two Actually I'm a kind of
break moan here, but Heroes by David Bowie blew me away.
I'd never heard that song before in my life and
just love it. And then the second one, I've got
to go with Trooper and raise a little hell nice.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
That was a great one, Yeah for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
I mean that's like a classic rock could have been
a staple. I don't know why I'd never heard it before.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
Because of there are a bunch of Canadians.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Hey, Cam, Hey Addie Itch.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Guys, thank you so much for joining us. It's perfect
that we're ending on these Christmas episode songs and we
look forward to jumping into our Christmas episodes with you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
We will be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Doing Bill Murray and Scrooged versus Chevy Chase in National
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It will be another fun Christmas episode
that we will do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Can't wait to see you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Then it's gonna be a Christmas where we staple antlers
to mice.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
And wouldn't be more surprised if I woke up with
my head staple of the carpet.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
We're gonna like the Christmas tree on fire and seeing
the star spangled banner. It's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Yeah, thank you guys.