Songs Heard Live

Songs Heard Live There’s nothing quite like the energy of live music—the roar of the crowd, the raw emotion in every note, and the way a song can transform when played in front of an audience. In this episode of Listen to This, host Eric Leckey dives into the magic of Songs Heard Live—the anthems that take on a whole new life when experienced in concert. From legendary festival performances to intimate acoustic sets, we’ll explore tracks that define the live music experience. Whether you’ve seen these songs performed in person or wish you had, this episode will transport you straight to the front row. So turn it up, close your eyes, and Listen To This!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to listen to this. This is the podcast dedicated
to bringing you stories behind the artists, behind the songs,
and hopefully we're introducing you to old songs that have
influenced all that music that you hear today. The goal
is I want you to hear an artist that you
might not normally listen to and search out their music
on whatever streaming service you subscribe to. But better yet,

(00:22):
why don't you just buy the artist's album on physical media, CD, records, cassette,
eight track, whatever, Just own it. We invite you to subscribe,
comment and recommend this podcast. That's the way we survive
from season to season. Every episode has a theme, and
today's is songs that are always heard live, never in

(00:44):
the history of the United States a monster of such
size and power.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Welcome to listen to this, a podcast that brings you
the stories behind the songs and artists with a theme
to tie it all together.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Here's your hosts, Eric Lecky. There are different levels of
musical enjoyment, at least for me. I mean, the lowest
level is just hearing a version of a song on
a radio. You know it can be edited and stripped
of its soul, and of course they fade in and
talk over the intro, and they fade the song out,

(01:19):
and it's definitely not as the artist intended. The next
level for me would be streaming it, just like you
are streaming this podcast. However, that music, just like my
normally silky and sexy voice, gets compressed and then uncompressed,
and then let's just say, it's not as crisp and
clear as in full CD or vinyl format. And of course,

(01:41):
speaking of those CDs and vinyl are great. There's a
soulfulness to it, and we hear it listen to this
Worldwide Headquarters always tell you to buy it on physical
media so that you at least own the music, But
that's not the highest level of musical enjoyment, however, I mean,
as we all know, music is best enjoyed live and loud.

(02:04):
Nothing like hearing your favorite song live and a room
full of people all singing along and a feeling of
belonging and camaraderie. But then there is the not so
good stuff about hearing it live. I mean, concert ticket
prices are just out of control. Parking is like between
fifty and one hundred bucks. It takes an hour just
to leave the parking lot, plus the smells of the

(02:26):
bathroom and getting home late, and it's just a whole mess.
So then I thought, why not just have the live
versions of songs, you know, the ones that you hear
on the radio. You hear the live versions of these songs,
and I thought that was the best of both worlds.
So the theme for today is songs that you normally
hear the live version of on the radio. And this

(02:47):
will be a great episode to play on some good
speakers and play it loud, and let's get it started
with our very first band.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
And we turned around and hate it.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Sweetie, Sweetie, oh sweet sweet Jade.

Speaker 5 (03:36):
Wad put him down by the alley, waiting there for
him to come home, went down on and on the corner,
faking ways to get back home.

Speaker 6 (03:59):
Sweet.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
That was the Velvet Underground Live with Sweet Jane from
the Velvet Underground Live album of nineteen sixty nine and
Velvet Underground leader Lou Reid wrote this song as a
surreal look at the life of a rock star. Reid
included the song in his live sets, and it appeared
on his album Live at Max's in Kansas City in

(04:34):
nineteen seventy two and on another live album Rock and
Roll Animal in nineteen seventy four. The version on Rock
and Roll Animal, which was recorded at a New York
show on December twenty one of nineteen seventy three, features
the twin guitar work of Stephen Hunter and Dick Wagner,
who Read employed to rock out his songs on tour

(04:56):
with released as a single. This live version of the
harolded a new sound for Reed when he quickly abandoned. However,
when he fired Hunter and Wagner at the end of
the tour and actually disavowed the entire album, well, lou
Reid released his internationally awful Metal Machine Music album the
following year, while his bygone guitarist joined Alice Cooper on tour,

(05:21):
with Wagner becoming Cooper's songwriting partner. This song appears on
the nineteen sixty nine album The Velvet Underground Live, which
was released in nineteen seventy four. Not to be confused,
it's the sixty nine album, but released in seventy four.
It's a double album with The double album features a
famous gatefold revealing a pretty leggy model in sparkling go

(05:45):
go boots and hot pants showing some buttocks on a
vibrant green background, very sought after by today's Velvet Underground collectors.
There Sweet Jane has a significantly different chord progression and
and it was still kind of a work in progress
and for decades. Nineteen sixty nine Velvet Underground Live with

(06:06):
Lou Reed offered the only halfway decent live document of
the band that launched a million other bands. Released only
months after Lou Reid's nineteen seventy four hit Rock and
Roll Animal and just on the cusp of the punk moveent,
the nineteen sixty nine version offered kind of a stripped
down read for hungry years in downtown New York and beyond,

(06:29):
performing future standards to pretty tiny crowds in Dallas and
San Francisco. The nineteen sixty nine live album features almost
entirely new material for the band at that time, songs
that the Velvets never properly recorded one songs like over You,
Lisa says and the song Ocean Song, drafts that they'd

(06:50):
record in different forms like New Agent, Sweet Jane, and
at least one song that Patty Smith would by the
year after its release be opening sets with at seeb GB.
We're all Gonna have a real good time together.

Speaker 7 (07:33):
Up my eyes on the cable, slump my amp.

Speaker 8 (07:43):
Do you feel that? Do you feel that? Red?

Speaker 6 (08:00):
That's true? Why then one when I when I'm.

Speaker 9 (08:21):
Born?

Speaker 7 (08:22):
My mother?

Speaker 10 (08:25):
Who? No, don't know?

Speaker 6 (08:48):
One man one?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Now, that is definitely a song that you always hear.
The live version of that was Peter Frampton with do
you feel like I do? And this song is about
being hung over. Frampton would often write from experience, and
at the time he was experiencing the effects of a
night of drinking. When he woke up that morning, there

(09:26):
was a wineglass by his bed, and he wondered how
it got there. You could hear that in the line
whose wine, what wine? Where the hell did I dine?
Still pretty hungover, Frampton went to rehearsal and somehow remembered
some chords that he was playing the night before and
his acoustic guitar. Well. The band kind of hashed out
the tune along with him as he played, and told

(09:48):
Frampton to just come up with some lyrics, to which
he replied, I can't. I have a really bad hangover.
His bandmates told him to just write about that, which
he did. After forming Humble Pie back in nineteen sixty nine,
Peter Frampton left the band in seventy one. He only
lasted two years with them, embarked on a solo career.
Do You Feel Like We Do was released in seventy

(10:09):
three on his second album, which was named after his
backing group, Frampton's Camel. This version runs six minutes and
thirty two seconds, but was often extended during live shows
where the band would do lots of improvisations during the song,
often with Frampton scat singing parts of it. Always a
crowd favorite, Frampton kept refining this song, which This version

(10:34):
was recorded on November twenty second, nineteen seventy five, during
a sold out show at Memorial Hall in Plattysburg. This
recording was included on the nineteen seventy six landmark double
album Frampton Comes Alive, which shot Frampton to stardom and
became the best selling live album ever least at the time.

(10:56):
In the summer of seventy six, Nothing was in the
air quite like Frampton Comes Alive, the ultimate example of
the double live album with the gatefold cover. It was
supposed to just be a single album until A and
M Records took the unusual step of insisting on a
second disc Frampton a journeyman, humble pie, guitaris, gone solo,

(11:17):
happily obliged, Baby, I Love Your Way, show Me the Way,
and most of all, do you Feel like We Do?
Came to life in this live setting, all fourteen minutes
of it. Even the crowd noise just seems sensational. Frampton
Comes Alive quickly became the best selling album of all time.
It didn't take long to reach that number, just a

(11:38):
couple of months. One year before Frampton Comes Alive, they
had released a studio version of Showed Me the Way
as a single. In it totally tanked. Frampton has said, quote,
it was a pretty strange to put out a live
version and watch it go through the roof. It was
still the same song. What had changed, Well, the big
radio format at the time was adult oriented rock, and

(12:00):
they were playing Frampton Comes Alive like crazy. If you
put on one of those stations, any of those stations now,
you would pretty much hear most of the songs from
that record. And he's right.

Speaker 6 (12:10):
I remember.

Speaker 9 (12:12):
When we used to sit.

Speaker 6 (12:17):
In the Government's yard is trenched now.

Speaker 7 (12:24):
And then George would make the light as it was.

Speaker 6 (12:31):
Lockwood burning through the night.

Speaker 11 (12:38):
Then we would the cord in brine and the man.

Speaker 9 (12:45):
A windstyle share with you.

Speaker 6 (12:53):
My feit just my lonely courage A man. Oh, I've
got to bull shown through. But why I'm good.

Speaker 12 (13:06):
Everything that's gonna be all right with everything. It's gonna
be hard. Everything is gonna be alright time, everything's gonna
be Everything's gonna be all that. Everything is gonna be already.

Speaker 6 (13:25):
Everything's gonna be alright time. Everything is gonna be all right.

Speaker 13 (13:32):
No right, oh no, no, don't shed no dear, no, no,
no one the right, Oh my little assistent, don't shed
no tears.

Speaker 6 (13:51):
No, no mama, no one on the rod.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
The only way to hear Bob Marley is too here
him live. And that was Bob Marley with No Woman,
No Cry from the album Bob Marley and the Whalers Live.
This became Marley's first hit when it was released as
a single from his album, at least his first hit
in the United States, the album, which was recorded at

(14:17):
Likeham Studios in London in nineteen seventy five. It was
a hot July night and they gave a rousing performance.
The tour was just a huge breakthrough for Marley and
the Whalers. Their previous tour went horribly as audiences outside
of Jamaica did not appreciate his pure reggae. He polished
and tightened his sound for this tour in order to

(14:40):
compete with the slick arena acts that were popular at
the time, and got a great response. Glowing reviews led
to sold out shows in the US, and by the
time the tour hit London, they were a pretty huge success.
The original version on the Natty Dread album was nothing
like the live performances. It was shorter and sped up

(15:01):
in tempo and with little of the energy that Marley
brought to it live in concert. Bob Marley and the
Whalers nineteen seventy five Natty Dread tour began in America,
where some fifteen thousand fans watched the reggae band perform
in Central Park. By the time they crossed the Atlantic,
the verdict was in. I mean, they were huge hits.
After two sold out shows at London's Lysome Arena and

(15:24):
Melody Maker magazine cover story pronounced Bob as possibly the
greatest superstar to visit these shores since the days when
Dylan conquered the concert halls. Of Britain Well. Neither of
these gigs were intended to be recorded, but when Island
Records founder Chris Blackwell witnessed the madness that was taking
place in the audience, he made sure that the Rolling

(15:47):
Stones made their mobile studio available parked outside the venue
for the second show. The result was a song collection
of pointed lyrics and political chants and funky ruse, and
livened by the new guitarist for the band, Al Anderson.
The seven minute version of No Woman, No Cry reached

(16:08):
the UK Top ten and pretty much remains the definitive
version of this classic song, eventually appearing as track number
two of the fifteen times platinum album Legend by Bob Marley.
Even the mic feedback that echoes over the first verse
has become filled with emotion and considered part of the act.

Speaker 9 (16:33):
Daniel Buzz used to say, lift.

Speaker 6 (16:48):
Is changing, in which we.

Speaker 9 (17:00):
Never let go, never, never, never let.

Speaker 14 (17:51):
What does that mean?

Speaker 11 (17:54):
You've got a job and you can do it well,
You've got to give.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
That was Paul McCartney and Wings with Live and Let Die.
It's a play on the phrase live and let live.
This was the title song for the eighth James Bond film,
by the Way, which was the first to star Roger
Moore as James Bond. Wings co founder and original drummer
Denny Sywell said of this song quote, everybody thought it

(18:32):
was cool that we were doing something for James Bond.
I remember what Paul told us. He said a couple
of weeks before we did the actual recording that they
wanted him to write a theme for the next James
Bond movie, and they sent him the book to read.
And we were all up at the house one day
and he just had read the book the night before
and sat down at the piano and said, James Bond,
James Bond, dum da dum dum dumb, starting to screw

(18:55):
around in his head at the with a melody and
with the piano phrasing and just trying to come up
with something. Within ten minutes he had the song written.
It was pretty awesome really to watch and get in
there and see how he does that process. He truly
is the greatest of all time. I'll remember it the
rest of my life. George Martin produced this and arranged

(19:17):
the orchestra. Martin produced most of the Beatles' work, so
this was McCartney's chance to work with him again, and
this was the most successful Bond theme up to that point.
Other hits from James Bond movies includes Nobody Does It
Better by Carly Simon, from The Spy Who Loved Me
for Your Eyes Only by Sheena Easton, of You to
Kill by Duran Durant, Even Though They Suck, and It's

(19:37):
a Crappy Band. McCartney played this at the halftime of
the two thousand and five Super Bowl. It was the
only non Beatles song in his set.

Speaker 15 (20:01):
We passed, un stands spoken, Walls Well, I don't know.
Wild walls are bad. Sell the walls A spround where
its chamers a supprised I spoke too in size.

Speaker 6 (20:25):
I founder died out long, I don't.

Speaker 9 (20:30):
Know, A long time ago.

Speaker 16 (20:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 10 (20:38):
I mean.

Speaker 17 (20:40):
We never lost control to face to face the lone
his soul love.

Speaker 6 (21:05):
Left, Sue s wade Way the.

Speaker 7 (21:14):
Assa spell full.

Speaker 6 (21:18):
Years years around.

Speaker 11 (21:22):
A Jazer Jasus.

Speaker 18 (21:24):
Staff Way, Momilliam, Yes Am Steve Dad, Hello, Hello Time.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Ago from my favorite album of the entire nineteen nineties,
which also happens to be a live album that was
Nirvana Unplugged with the Man who sold the world and
this is a David Bowie song, as Kurt Cobaine mentions
during the concert, but it was not a well known

(21:58):
Bowie song, which was actually the reason it was chosen.
The song is about a man who no longer recognizes
himself and feels awful about it. For years, Bowie struggled
with his identity and expressed himself through his songs, often
creating characters to perform the songs. The song is the
title track to Bowie's third album. On the cover, He's

(22:21):
wearing a dress. Some of the lyrics are based on
a poem by Hugh Merns called the Psychoede. As I
was going up the stair, I met a man who
was not there. He wasn't there again today I wish
that man would go away. We passed upon the stairs,
a figurative representation of a crossroads in Bowie's life where

(22:41):
his ziggy, stardust alter ego catches a glimpse of his
former self, which he thought had died a long time ago.
Then he the old Bowie says, oh no, not me.
I never lost control. This indicates that Bowie never really
lost sight of who he was, but he sold the
world or made them believe that he had become ziggy,

(23:04):
and he thought it was funny. I laughed and shook
his hand. He sings, he goes on to state. For
years and years I roamed, which could refer to touring
at least. I think Gaz a gaisly stare at the millions.
Here is Tim talking about the fans at the concerts.
It was Chad Channing, Nirvana's drummer in nineteen eighty eight

(23:26):
to nineteen ninety, who actually introduced Kurt Kobain and Chris
Novselk to Bowie's music. Chad has said in an interview quote,
we were in Boston and stopped by a record store
and I found this copy of The Man Who Sold
the World. It was a pretty cool copy, had the
poster and everything. And these guys weren't familiar with their
record and I inquired, what about David Bowie do you

(23:46):
like or do you even like David Bowie? And they're like, well,
the only David Bowie were familiar with is the songs
they play on the radio. And I was surprised. I said, really,
you really got to hear some early David Bowie stuff
for sure, And I put the record on. So when
I got the opportunity, I made a tape at somebody's
house while we were touring. I essentially just made a
mixtape and popped it in the tape and let it roll.

(24:08):
After a bit, Kirk turned around and said to me,
who is this kind of a little knowingly just something
familiar with the voice, but it's not something he recognized.
I said, this is the man who sold the world,
and he's like, yeah, this is a fantastic song. It
actually feels like I'm writing it because it seems like
it's about me. You strip away the Fuzz and Bluster

(24:28):
and Nirvana were doing nothing but raw emotion. For a
taping of the MTV Unplug series. They gave a pretty
much what I would consider the most legendary performance of
their brief career, stripping down deep cuts and select covers
to acoustic guitars. They softly played the drums, and Kurt
Coban gave his gravelly, heartbreaking voice a pretty good going

(24:50):
on most of these songs. Special guest and underground heroes
the Meat Puppets, joined the band on stage for a
trio of songs. MTV execs thought that a bus from
Seattle was going to come down and Alice in Chains
or Pearl Jam or Soundgarden, We're all going to come
out and jam with Nirvana. They were actually disappointed when
it was only the Meat Puppets. Where did you Sleep

(25:12):
Last Night? Arrangement, In my opinion, from this album totally
steals the show, kind of capping off the series most
iconic episode of an unsettling note, as it was revealed
in the biography of Kurt Cobain Heavier than Heaven that
the melancholy nature of the show had been aesthetically intentional.
Kurt said that he told the show's producers to have

(25:34):
the set decorated like a funeral and it was only
months later that he killed himself.

Speaker 7 (25:40):
And this next song.

Speaker 8 (25:43):
Is called I Want You to Want Me.

Speaker 19 (26:08):
I want.

Speaker 10 (26:11):
Want me, I mean.

Speaker 6 (26:17):
I love me, I.

Speaker 10 (26:27):
Want you, I mean you know me?

Speaker 6 (26:41):
Shoes go Sure got the word you so that you
love me?

Speaker 10 (26:52):
Do you not say? Try? Oh?

Speaker 6 (26:57):
Dot das say try?

Speaker 1 (27:21):
What a great sing along song that is? Everyone sings
the chorus to that one that's cheap trick with I
want You to Want Me? And that's of course from
Live at Buka Dan and Tokyo. And this is oddly enough,
at least as far as I could figure out. One
of the very few hit rock songs of all time
that starts with the chorus, It's very rare to have happened.

(27:45):
I Want You to Want Me has a long and
actually intriguing history. It was written by Cheap Tricks guitarist
Rick Nielsen and recorded for their nineteen seventy seven self
titled debut album, but didn't make the cut. The song
was included on their second album, in Color, released later
in nineteen seventy seven. This version has a medium tempo,

(28:07):
with more of a country feel and a honky tonk
like piano throughout the song. By nineteen seventy eight, the
band had dropped it from their setlist completely, but restored
it when they toured in Japan that year, kind of
re releasing it for the first time in a while.
Since the Japanese audience loved the song, they decided to

(28:29):
play it on April twenty eighth and thirtieth at their
famous concerts at the Bukadan Temple in Tokyo. Really big
deal because many Japanese citizens felt the temple was sacred
and not appropriate for rock concerts. The shows were recorded
and released as the Live at Bukadan album, and it

(28:49):
was enhanced by kind of an excited crowd going ape
for the band. The songs had a very different feel,
capturing every bit of Cheap Tricks live energy. The album
was released in February of nineteen seventy nine and immediately
sold well over three million copies, completely turning around their

(29:11):
fortunes in America. The once extracted from the set list,
I Want You to Want Me, is now their first hit,
charting a number seven. Many early Cheap Trip songs written
by Rick Nielsen are from the perspective of characters who
are a little unhinged, you know, like see the song
like dream Police, and the band played that up with

(29:34):
their eccentric fashions and accessories. The guy in this song
is a bit desperate and delusional, figuring a shoe shine
and a new shirt will make the girl love him.
According to Rick Nielsen, the band considered this sort of
a hokey pop song when they first recorded it, and
the arrangement did actually kind of match that sentiment, with

(29:57):
finger snaps and a kind of country feel to the song.
Robin Zander played up the schmaltz in the vocal as well,
sounding like a woebegone kind of a corn poke from
the country. The song fell flat, but when they played
it live as an earnest garage band rocker in a stadium,

(30:21):
it worked and it was a fantastic song.

Speaker 10 (30:42):
Too.

Speaker 16 (30:43):
Loman now talk about take those pictures down, shake true
the consequence.

Speaker 19 (31:00):
You don't.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
Use that dam and dance.

Speaker 7 (31:07):
Race it around.

Speaker 8 (31:11):
Zare goes my.

Speaker 6 (31:16):
Watch him Massy.

Speaker 8 (31:26):
Yeah, goes my.

Speaker 6 (31:30):
He's on Todavy.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Well, that was the Foo Fighters with my hero. Great song,
Another great sing along song, by the way too. The
song is about the heroes that Foo Fighters guitarists and
lead singer Dave Grohl has had in his life. They
were ordinary people who did extraordinary things. This is coming
from the guy who is Kurt Cobain's bandmate, but he

(32:02):
explained that he has little use for hero worship when
it comes to celebrities, especially rock stars. The song is
written from the perspective of a kid, but it reflects
GROLs beliefs. Like many of his Foo Fighter tracks. The
listeners assume that this song was about Kurt Cobain, but
Gorole has explained that it really isn't. The video shows

(32:25):
a young man rescuing many things from his home which
is on fire while the band performs inside of it.
The man's face is never shown, probably to imply that
heroes are everyday people. This is a rare song where
the fast paced album version was a huge hit and
the stripped down acoustic live version which I played for

(32:47):
you was also a massive hit and is now played
on the radio more than the studio version. Not only
the acoustic version of a rocking song that became popular
for the Foo Fighters and Dave Grole because huz, let's
do one more from the Food Fighters as a live song?
Why not.

Speaker 9 (33:14):
Some seconds?

Speaker 10 (33:42):
Wow?

Speaker 8 (33:51):
Why the one where not away?

Speaker 7 (33:54):
Why the child's away follows you?

Speaker 10 (33:58):
That com.

Speaker 7 (34:04):
W say shame jobs?

Speaker 1 (34:40):
As I said another Foo Fighter songs live? Because why not?
That was? Of course times like these I always hear
the live version on the radio. At the time, Dave
Grohl called this the best song I've ever written. The
rousing track became a live favorite for the band, one
of five songs in their set when they performed at
the Live Earth concert in Wembley Stadium in London to

(35:04):
a crowd of about eighty thousand people. The song finds
Dave Grohl at a crossroads, but confident he will find
the right path. The one by one album sessions we're
a slog of sorts. It took them a while, and
it really made him question the band's future. You can
kind of see that in the lyrics. I'm a little divided,

(35:25):
Do I stay or run away and leave it all behind?
But then he assures himself that these trials are for
the best, as he will emerge stronger. It's times like
these you learn to live again. The Foo Fighters perform
this song on the February twenty second, two thousand and
three episode of Saturday Night Live. During the performance, Jim

(35:48):
Carrey ran out onto the stage and strummed his leg
like a guitar and then dove off stage, which the
band really didn't seem to appreciate all that much.

Speaker 20 (36:01):
Well, my daddy left tom when I was three, and
he didn't leave much. Tomaw and me, just this old
guitar and a empty bottle of food. Now, I don't
blame him because he running head, But the meanest thing
that he ever did was before he left, he went
and named me soup. Well, he must have thought that

(36:23):
it was quite a joke, and it got a lot
of laughs from lots of folks. Seems I had to
fight my whole life through. Some gal would giggle and
I'd get rid, and some god laughed and I had
bust his head. I'll tell you life.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Ain't easy for a boy named Soup.

Speaker 20 (36:43):
Well, I grew up quick, and I grew up mean.
My fist got hard and my wits got keen. Rown
from town to town to hide my shame, But I
made me a vow to the moon and stars. I'd
search the home of toms and bars and kill that
man and give me that awful name. Well it was
Gatlinburg in mid July, and I'd just hit down and

(37:05):
my throat was dry. I thought I'd stop and have
myself agrew. I had an old saloon on a street
of mud. There at a table dealing stud such a
dirty mains you dog that named me Sue. Well, I
knew that snake was my own sweet dad from a
worn out picture that my mother had had, And I

(37:25):
knew that scar on.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
His cheek cut his evil eye.

Speaker 20 (37:30):
He was big and vent from gray and old. And
I looked at him and my blood ran cold, and
I said, my name is Sue.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
How do you do now?

Speaker 8 (37:40):
You got to die. Yeah, that's what I told him.

Speaker 20 (37:46):
Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes, and
he went down, but to my surprise come up with
a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
But I busted a chair right across his teeth, and
we crashed through the wall and the street, kicking on
a gougeon and the mud and the blood and my beard.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
I gotta tell you, on that one, I almost just
played you the whole damn song. I actually I debated
whether I should. I think actually I should have played
you the whole song because that song Live at San
Quentin from Johnny Cash is just literally just testosterone incarnate.
It's amazing. That was from Cash's nineteen sixty eight live album,

(38:28):
and it came kind of at the right time for
the country legend who had found himself spiraling out of
control with alcohol and drug addiction, not to mention suffering
a lull in his success. He hadn't scored a top
forty hit in over four years at that point, though
he had been performing in prisons for nearly a decade

(38:49):
already at the time he arrived at fulsome Cash's first
live recordings at the site that inspired the iconic nineteen
fifty five hit Fulsome Prison Blues turned out to be
exactly what his career needed. That's where I met Glenn Shirley,
said the singer in a nineteen seventy three interview in
Rolling Stone, referencing the Fulsome Prisoner, whose song gray Stone Chapel,

(39:15):
Cash debut during this set. That's where things really started
up for me again. It went so well that shortly
after Fulsome Prison he performed live at San Quentin. Even
though the Fulsome Prison album is more legendary, the performances
for the San Quentin Prison album became bigger hits, and

(39:37):
of course that is where he played a boy named Sue,
which became the version that gets played the most often.
A crew from Granada Television in the UK was they're
filming the concert for a broadcast on television, and in
the extended version of the concert, which was released by
Columbia Records in the year I think it was in

(39:59):
two thousand, Cash has actually heard expressing frustration at being
told what to sing and where to stand during his
performance of I Walk the Line, and there's a famous
image of an angry looking Johnny giving the middle finger
gesture to the camera, and it actually originates from this
performance and the liner notes of the two thousand reissue,

(40:23):
Cash actually explained that he was frustrated at the film
crew constantly blocking his view of the audience, and when
the crew kept ignoring his request to clear the stage,
he said he made the gesture to get his point across.
As for the song itself, it was actually written by
the multi talented Shelle Silverstein, who later wrote several hits

(40:47):
for Doctor Hook, including the song Sylvia's Mother and cover
of the Rolling Stone. Silverstein also wrote several popular children's books.
You could say, I mean, they're pretty much in every
parent's library their children in America. It's like a must
read book. And he got the idea for the song
from his friend Jeene Shepherd, a guy who had to

(41:08):
deal with a girly name Jean after all. Shepherd was
a writer and humorist like Silverstein. He actually is the
one who narrated the nineteen eighty three movie A Christmas Story,
which is based on his writings. This is about a
boy who grows up angry at his father, not only
for leaving the family, but for naming him Sue. When

(41:29):
the boy grows up, he sees his father in a
bar and gets in a fight with him. After the
father explains that he named him Sue to make sure
he was tough, the son understands well. Shelle sang this
song for Johnny. They were friends, and Johnny's wife, June Carter,
thought it was a great song for Johnny Cash to perform,
and not too long after that, they were headed off

(41:52):
to San Quentin to record a new record, the Live
at San Quentin an album, and June said, why don't
you bring that song that Shell sang for you with you?
And they brought the lyrics and when he was on
stage and performed that song, the one that we hear
every radio version that he was actually singing that for

(42:13):
the first time ever with the band. He performed it
live in front of the captive audience and had to
read every word. He had not even memorized the song yet,
and it's amazing how that's the one that stood the
test of time. He had to read the lyrics off
of a paper that was actually at the foot of
the stage too. That made it even harder, and he
was squinting the whole time to make sure he got

(42:36):
every lyric, and of course it was a hit, and
it wasn't touched up, it wasn't produced or simulated. They
just did it and it stuck. Kind of the power
of live music.

Speaker 12 (43:27):
M M.

Speaker 8 (43:45):
You know them, n.

Speaker 10 (43:57):
N n.

Speaker 9 (44:31):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
That'll get your heart racing and take your breath away.
And that was absolutely mind blowing in nineteen sixty nine
at Woodstock, and honestly, let's face it, it's still pretty
mind blowing today. Now, this wasn't the only time he
performed the Star Spangled Banner, as it became a concert
staple for him, but this is by far the most

(44:53):
famous version and played all the time on the radio.
As the version Jimmy, of course, was just putting his
spin on the national anthem. No lyrics, no flashy accompaniment,
no no nothing. In fact, according to the bassist, the
song wasn't even on the set list. It was just

(45:14):
Jimmy playing a legendary electrifying guitar solo in a just
to an astonished crowd at the nineteen sixty nine Woodstock
seeing all those hippies with their mouths wide open, having
their minds blown. The poem that formed the basis of
the lyrics, though, was penned an eighteen fourteen incident during

(45:36):
the War of eighteen twelve to be exact by Francis
Scott Key, thirty five year old lawyer who was sent
to negotiate with the British in an attempt to gain
the release of an American prisoner that they were holding
will On September seventh, Key reached the British fleet and
after a few days of negotiations, secured the release of

(45:56):
the prisoner. However, the British planned to attack Baltimore. Barren
would not release the Americans until after the battle. While
on September thirteenth, the British launched a fierce bombardment on
Fort McHenry in Baltimore that lasted throughout the night, and
event that Key witnessed from the deck of a US
truce ship. Well the next morning, in the dawn's early light,

(46:20):
you could say he saw the Americans take down the
battle torn US flag and at the fort and replace
it with an even larger one. Well. This inspired him
to write down notes for his famous poem, which he
finished upon his return to Baltimore the evening of the sixteenth.
Before nineteen thirty one, the US actually had a different

(46:43):
national anthem. It was my Country tis of Thee, which
I actually believe is a better song for our national anthem.
That's just my personal preference. Hendrix was considered the greatest
guitarist in the world at this time. Jimmy left like
an astonishing musical legacy in such a short period of time.

(47:03):
After serving in the army until nineteen sixty two, he
played backup for musicians like Little Richard, bb King, Sam Cook,
even the Eisley Brothers. Like many people when they first
hear this rendition, I was confused initially by all of
the noise that I heard when I was a teenager
and first heard this version. I had no idea that

(47:24):
you could even make those sounds on a guitar. And
why did Jimmy include copious amounts of feedback and distortion
into a I guess, a sacred United States song? And
why was he playing the Star Spangled banner in the
first place and giving the song a closer listen? And just,
I guess, with the wisdom of age, I realized what

(47:46):
he was doing. Jimmy is mimicking the sounds of war
on his electric guitar, the bombs dropping, the sireens blaring,
and his fast rat tat tat, machine gun rolling, and
even the people crying. You could hear it in the
whales of the guitar. It's simply amazing. Towards the end
of the song, he strums the melody of taps, the

(48:08):
bugle call that's played at flag ceremonies in military funerals.
All these sounds were meant to emulate the sounds of
the Vietnam War and the protests on the streets during
that time, and to do that all spontaneously in a
live song is powerful, and that's probably why it still
gets played live so often today.

Speaker 11 (48:44):
You may find yourself that a shot gun shot.

Speaker 6 (48:48):
You may find yourself.

Speaker 11 (48:49):
You may find yourself. You may find yourself.

Speaker 9 (49:00):
With a beautiful wife.

Speaker 11 (49:01):
You may ask yourself, will.

Speaker 21 (49:05):
How did I get the spad?

Speaker 10 (49:07):
In the days?

Speaker 8 (49:08):
Mama and the water hope me down there in.

Speaker 22 (49:11):
The days, mama, water blowing under faster, the pet after
the money's time, once in the night time, water blowing
on your crowns.

Speaker 23 (49:23):
You may ask yourself, I'm doing work. You may ask
yourself where is the loss to the beat? You may
tell yourself this is not a beautiful house.

Speaker 19 (49:35):
You may tell yourself, this is something beautiful life, the days,
Mama and the Lona hope me down there in the days, Mama.

Speaker 22 (49:44):
Water going up, be bound missing a poet. After the
Money's time, most of the night time, water blowing, same
as it worst.

Speaker 6 (49:56):
This is a pepper bot, This is a piper bost.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
I could have chosen any of the songs from the
Stop Making Sense album that's the live album from the
Talking Heads, because so many of these songs are played
on the radio alongside their studio album counterpart versions. Well,
I chose Once in a Lifetime because I think I
hear that as the live version more than most other

(50:25):
of the songs. So as for this song that the
song deals with, I guess the futility of not being
happy when you don't appreciate the things that you have,
like trying to remove the water at the bottom of
the ocean. There's no way to stop life from moving on.
The forces of nature like the ocean keep you moving
almost without your conscious effort, like a ventriloquist moving a puppet. Well,

(50:50):
head head, you get it, like head, talking headhead, I
thought that was funny. Head Head. David Brrn shed some
light on this lyrical inspiration when he told time out
magazine quote. Most of the words and once in a
lifetime comes from evangelists. I recorded off the radio while
taking notes and trying to pick up phrases that I

(51:13):
thought were interesting directions. Maybe I'm fascinated with the middle
class because it seems so different from my life, so
distant from what I do. I can't imagine living like that. Well,
Brian Eno he produced this song and wrote the chorus,
which he also sang on. David Byrne wrote the verses,
which he kind of does his talk singy thing in

(51:33):
an intriguing narrative style. Over the course of Stop Making Sense,
the live album the live performance, Talking Heads gradually grow
from David Byrne with an acoustic guitar and a boombox
into a super charged nine member you Know funk machine.
The band is supplemented by Parliament Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Warrel

(51:56):
and the Brothers Johnson guitarist Alex Weir, among others. If
the curtain opened and everything was there, there'd be nowhere
to go, Burne once said in a pseudo interview with himself,
because he's a weird guy. The film tells the story
of the band and it gets more dramatic and more
physical as it builds up. It's like sixty minutes on

(52:19):
acid Well. He was directed by future Oscar winner Jonathan Demi,
and the band funded the concert film, combined tapings from
three different shows at the Hollywood Pantagious Theater supporting the
speaking in Tungue's album tour in nineteen eighty three. It
was also the band's decision to put it into very

(52:40):
small college theaters and art houses around the country instead
of trying to open it big drummer Chris Franz later
said in a Rolling Stone interview, that's one reason that
it succeeded as well as it did. It was able
to have long runs at art house theaters. The audience
would keep coming back seeing it over and over again,
even without the vision shoul of Burns refrigerator sized suit.

(53:03):
The album showcases the band's manic creative peak that they would.

Speaker 10 (53:08):
Ever reaching.

Speaker 6 (53:29):
You sells every us.

Speaker 8 (53:33):
Keep on that really gets time and he trun wild.

Speaker 6 (53:38):
Try crazy and me say your wad numbers the body something.

Speaker 8 (53:50):
He try live.

Speaker 6 (53:51):
He'll try crazy.

Speaker 10 (53:56):
Jumps as.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Well. If you're a loyal listener of this podcast, and
I hope you are, you might know that I normally
choose not to play Kiss and listen. It's not because
I hate them, it's just more I find them really gimmicky,
and you know, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just
not my cup of tea. But this song was just
too much of a good fit for this episode, so

(54:31):
of course it was gonna make it in here. The
live version of you could sing the chorus rock and
roll all Night, Party every day. Yeah da yahda yea dha.
We've all heard it. It's an all time party anthem.
And it was actually Kisses first charting single. It actually
reached number sixty eight on the Hot one hundred after
appearing on the album Dressed to Kill, but they scored

(54:54):
with the follow up update the album, a Live exclamation Point.
It was at least just six months later with the
studio track as its B side. The hit turned out
to be the end concert version of the song. It
was featured an added Ace Freely guitar solo, and it
brought the Kiss to the masses for the first of

(55:16):
their six top twenty singles. Rock and Roll All Night
then emerges kind of a mainstay in all their concerts,
usually the pyro technic filled finale about the album kiss Alive.
By the way, you wanted the best and you got it.
The hottest band in the land is what it says
at the very beginning, swaggering intro all the way through

(55:37):
guitarist Paul Stanley's banter about audience members preferred beverages. The
album Alive kind of neatly summarized Kisses, gritty, early seventies catalog,
and extremely their outsized charm more than their outsized talent.
In turn, the nineteen seventy five double LP wound up
being the band's first top ten album. Muscular takes on

(56:02):
knuckle glam classics like Strutter and Cold Gin revealed just
how much sweat seeped into the band members makeup on
any given night. Chatter over just how much the album
was sweetened up in the studio artificially persists to this day,
but it still hasn't dimmed their legacy.

Speaker 21 (56:27):
It's all cold down along the beach, wind's whipping down
the boardwalking.

Speaker 6 (56:39):
You guys know what time it is? What time?

Speaker 8 (56:43):
What?

Speaker 10 (56:47):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (56:47):
Christmas time?

Speaker 9 (56:49):
You guys?

Speaker 6 (56:49):
Are you guys all been good and practicing real hard?

Speaker 21 (56:53):
Yeah, clients, you've been you've been rehearsing real hard now,
so staying up, bringing new saxophone.

Speaker 6 (56:59):
Right, everybody, I've never been good in what.

Speaker 9 (57:04):
Oh that's not many, not many of you guys in
trouble out you.

Speaker 7 (57:10):
And you better watch shot.

Speaker 6 (57:12):
You're better, not try, You're better not man.

Speaker 9 (57:16):
I'm telling you why.

Speaker 24 (57:19):
Sea closest coming to town san the closest coming to
town Santa class it coming to.

Speaker 21 (57:35):
You?

Speaker 19 (57:35):
Speaking of lists, chicken it twice you start.

Speaker 6 (57:39):
To find out who's lord.

Speaker 19 (57:41):
You're nice saying closus coming to town sad lorsus coming
to town sand close, It's coming tusy.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Yes they do own a calendar, and yes I could
see that it is not the Christmas season, but who cares.
We all know that this is the version that we
hear during Christmas time, the live version. It's the famed
live version, and it was a Christmas staple at this point.
But it was recorded and on December twelfth, nineteen seventy five,

(58:20):
at a concert at CW Post College in Brookville, New York. Well,
it was recorded and then rush released to radio stations
so they could play it for that holiday season. And
it was kind of a means to keep Bruce Springsteen's
Born to Run album Momentum Going Santa Claus Is Coming
to Town. It's kind of become a seasonal staple and

(58:41):
it's just played in almost every country. You go to
other countries and they all sing the Bruce Springsteen version.
It actually wasn't formally released as a studio version until
nineteen eighty two on the Harmony I compilation, and then
nineteen eighty five is the B side to Born in
the USA single My Hometown. Well, but we at this point,

(59:02):
we've all only heard the live version. I mean, when
did you ever hear the studio version of that song
from Bruce. It's still a concert favorite for him. By
the way, the song never charted at Home, but did
hit it big in several other countries, including a top
ten in Sweden and Canada and the Netherlands.

Speaker 25 (59:32):
Some highway east of Home Hall, you can listen to
the engine Moon and ad A is one known song
you can think about.

Speaker 6 (59:44):
The woman, Oh the girl you knew the nad before.

Speaker 7 (59:54):
Budd Your thoughts will soon be wander and.

Speaker 26 (59:58):
The wait always When you're riding sixteen hours and there's
nothing much to do and you don't feel much like riding, you.

Speaker 6 (01:00:10):
Just wish the trip was through whom.

Speaker 11 (01:00:18):
See.

Speaker 6 (01:00:18):
Here I am on the road again.

Speaker 9 (01:00:24):
There I am.

Speaker 8 (01:00:28):
On stage.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Here I go.

Speaker 7 (01:00:33):
Playing star again.

Speaker 9 (01:00:36):
There I go.

Speaker 6 (01:00:40):
Turn the Page.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Hopefully hearing that song makes you want to put on
the album Bob Seeker Live Bullet. If so, I have
done my job for this episod. Bob Seer had released
eight albums and had been on the road for nearly
a solid decade when he played the Detroit's Cabo Hall
on September fourth of nineteen seventy four, but he was

(01:01:13):
still largely unknown outside of the Midwest. The main problem
was that he simply couldn't capture the magic of his
stage show in a studio album, which is likely why
Live Bullet made such a huge impact. Because it was
his cover of Ike and Tina's Nutbush City Limits got

(01:01:34):
a ton of national airplay, and then suddenly Live Bullet
was selling like crazy. It was also fueled by the
song Turn the Page, which is what I played you.
It's a nineteen seventy three track about the riggers of
touring life that had been a mainstay of classic rock
radio station for past forty fifty years. We were doing

(01:01:54):
like two hundred to three hundred shows a year before
I did live Bullet Out album. Seeger said in twenty thirteen,
we were playing virtually five nights a week, sometimes six
as the Silver Bullet Band, and we just hadn't slown
down at all. Thank god we recorded that show's live performance.
Segar wrote this song and what for him was an

(01:02:16):
unusual way. He's said in interviews, quote, I hardly ever
wrote on the road. I was more of a field
general and there wasn't a lot of time for writing
back then. The only two songs that I could think
of that I wrote on the road are Night Moves
and Turned the Page. But those are basically cases of
getting an outline of verses over three hour periods. The

(01:02:37):
songs weren't totally finished until I had a week or
two off the road to really knuckle down on him.

Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
We're caught on a traffic.

Speaker 9 (01:02:52):
I can't walk out.

Speaker 10 (01:02:58):
Too much.

Speaker 6 (01:02:59):
Baby, Why can't you see who?

Speaker 14 (01:03:07):
What's it doing to me?

Speaker 19 (01:03:09):
Who?

Speaker 6 (01:03:10):
Winning on me?

Speaker 10 (01:03:12):
Word?

Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
I'll say, we can't go together?

Speaker 19 (01:03:21):
The suspicious mine, I mean, we can't bear a laudry.

Speaker 7 (01:03:28):
A suspicious my.

Speaker 10 (01:03:32):
Oh if an old friend I know, shugar Fin.

Speaker 14 (01:03:36):
Say what I still see suspicialing your Here we go
again to ask you where I'm.

Speaker 8 (01:03:51):
Then you can't say a tear on me like.

Speaker 11 (01:04:01):
We can go. Suspicious Suspicious.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
From Live in Las Vegas album of nineteen seventy. That
was Elvis Presley with Suspicious Minds, and in this song,
the trust it's gone. It's replaced with a toxic suspicion
that is making the couple miserable. The song is sung
from the guy's perspective. It seems he's been accused of

(01:04:48):
cheating and his partner doesn't believe a word he says.
He turns the tables, telling her that suspicions are killing
him and asking for a fresh start so they can
rebuild their dreams to together. It's not clear if he's
really been unfaithful or if he's been wrongly accused. Suspicious
Minds was written by Memphis singer a singer named Mark James,

(01:05:10):
who also wrote the bj Thomas hit Hooked on a Feeling.
James recorded the original version in nineteen sixty eight, but
it went nowhere well. Elvis heard the song at Chip
Moment's American Sound Studio in Memphis, where he came to
record as a change of pace from the Nashville Recordings,
and it was his first time recording in Memphis since

(01:05:30):
nineteen fifty five. Donna Jene Goucho, who sang backup on
james original and also on Elvis's recording, because, as we
have discussed in a very famous past episode of ours,
Elvis stole everything, the lyrics, the music, and yes, even
the actual musicians who played on the original versions of
these songs. Well, Donna said about it. Quote, Elvis was

(01:05:53):
in the studio at American Sound in Memphis, and our
friend Mark James, who wrote Suspicious Minds, had an office
there too. Elvis walked by Mark's office and Mark was
playing the demo that we had done. We had done
all the background vocals on his version of Suspicious Minds,
while Elvis walked in and said, I want that song
and I want those girls singing it. Suspicious Minds was
a permanent fixture on Elvis's set list, a guaranteed crowd pleaser,

(01:06:18):
but he did grow mighty tired of belting it out
night after night. Quote. I hate this damn song, I
really do, Presley once stated while actually performing it in
Las Vegas. There must have been a moment of stunned
silence when he said it, followed by a confused whispers.
Here was the king seemingly rebelling against his own crown jewel.

Speaker 27 (01:06:39):
Now this could only happen to a guy like me,
had only happened in a town like this.

Speaker 28 (01:06:49):
And so I say to each of you most gratefully,
as I throw each one of you, uh.

Speaker 10 (01:07:03):
M hm.

Speaker 6 (01:07:07):
Oh, this, I'll find it.

Speaker 14 (01:07:16):
I'll find it.

Speaker 21 (01:07:18):
This is.

Speaker 25 (01:07:26):
My kind of town.

Speaker 7 (01:07:30):
Chicago is.

Speaker 9 (01:07:33):
My kind of town. Chicago is.

Speaker 6 (01:07:39):
My kind of people. To people who a smile at.

Speaker 28 (01:07:49):
Each each time that I roam Chicago, it's calling me home,
Chas jump ump it down.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
It's Chairman of the Board and old blue eyes there
with my kind of town. And that's from the album
Live at the Sands, a great album. It's sometimes called
my kind of town Chicago is, but that's a funky,
weird way of saying it. It's a song by Jimmy
Van Hughesen and Sammy Kahn, and it's an homage to
the Windy City. It was written for the nineteen sixty

(01:08:31):
four musical Robin and the Seven Hood starring Sinatra, Dean Martin,
Sammy Davis Junior, with Bing Crosby and Peter Falk filling
in for the rest of the rat Pack. This was
nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, but
lost to Chim Chim Cherie from Mary Poppins. Sinatra recorded
this several times with a Nelson Riddle arrangement. It's featured

(01:08:55):
on sinatra sixty five album, on the live albums Sinatra
at the Sands, which came out in nineteen sixty six,
and Austra was on the Main Event in nineteen seventy
four album, which I also considered using is it had
some really great live versions well. Sinatra performed this song
during his last performance in public, at the Frank Sinatra

(01:09:18):
Desert Classic Golf tournament in Palm Springs in February of
nineteen ninety five. He said, here's one that everybody knows,
he said right over the intro, and then sang the song.
It was his last song he ever sung. Filming Robin
and the Seven Hoods in Chicago proved to be a
nightmare for Sinatra, but neither the movie nor the town

(01:09:39):
was to blame. I mean, first, he received word that
his good friend President John F. Kennedy, which he also
called a close friend, and confidant was assassinated. Devastated, he
told the film crew, let's shoot this thing. I don't
want to come back here anymore. Two weeks later, he
suffered another blow when his teenage son, Frank Think Junior,

(01:10:01):
was kidnapped from a hotel in Lake Tahoe. After his
son's safe return a few days later, the singer retreated
to his Palm Springs home to recover from the shock
of it all. Not that I not that I buy
into conspiracy theories, but one that has lingered in the
zeitgeist of American culture for many years is the rumor

(01:10:21):
that Sinatra's son was kidnapped as a warning to not
talk about the assassination. The rumor being that it was
the CIA and the Mob teaming up to take out Kennedy,
the same mob that Frank used to help get JFK
elected with the help of a friend of the Mob
and the Kennedy's Sinatra knew who the perpetrators were, and

(01:10:43):
that taking his kid was a warning shot across the
bow to not talk. I'm not sure if it's true,
but it is certainly fun to talk about. Before he
became mister New York, Frank Sinatra's signature town was Las Vegas,
and Sinatra at the Sands capture him as his ring
ding a dinging peak, complete with adoring casino crowd and

(01:11:05):
an epic quote t break monologue where the chairman cracks
harsh on his rat pack subordinates. The Sands might be
the ultimate period piece for those who prefer Johnny Mercer's
songbook to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. With Quincy Jones
conducting Count Basie's orchestra and the fifty year old Krooner
still at the height of his warm yet threatening vocal powers,

(01:11:28):
the music is sensational, including the definitive versions of signatures
like fly Me to the Moon, I've Got You under
My Skin, And for an added bonus, there's the introduction.
The Sands is proud to present a wonderful new show
by Bill Conrad, the well traveled character who also narrated
the Rocky and bowl Winkle show.

Speaker 10 (01:11:57):
Oh talk.

Speaker 6 (01:12:14):
To herself. There's no one else so nesting. No, She
tells a saying hell in the families, back when she
was smooth and stoke and reading and pover to come

(01:12:35):
on home.

Speaker 9 (01:12:36):
So she do who that she says he is?

Speaker 14 (01:12:42):
She lies and she said season long became camp Find
the better Land.

Speaker 6 (01:12:49):
She didn't call treating camp find. She lies and she
said she stayed with us.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
Film that was Pearl Jammer. More importantly, that was pretty

(01:13:45):
much just Eddie Vedder with the song better Man, and
I use the version that's live from Madison Square Garden.
Eddie Vedder wrote better Man before he even joined the
band Pearl jam when he was still in his teens.
He performed it actually with his previous band, a San
Diego based group called Bad Radio. Well. The song itself
is about a woman who well, she settles for a

(01:14:07):
man because she doesn't think that she could do any better.
Vetter had his stepfather in mind when he wrote it.
After Eddie's biological father died, his mother remarried, and Eddie
thought she did it only because she needed someone to
help support the family, not because she loved him. At
some concerts, Vetters dedicated this to quote the bastard who

(01:14:29):
married my mother. Eddie Vedder plays guitar on this track,
so at the beginning it's just him and the crowd,
and this creates a rather intimate moment during these live performances,
and he's often the only person on stage for the
first minute or so, and the crowd inevitably sings along.
Sometimes Vetter will go silent and just let the audience

(01:14:50):
take the whole verse. When the full band joins in,
it swells with energy, and it's always a highlight of
the concerts and has played on the radio all the time.

Speaker 21 (01:15:12):
Tonight, stroll up in your tail break somewhere in this town.

Speaker 11 (01:15:19):
Let me and the barkeet so we don't like it.

Speaker 9 (01:15:22):
So we're getting up and going down. Had Lord looking
way to lave.

Speaker 21 (01:15:29):
You see you's coming up, bring its fairs, Move away
you And I say, I'm look at my brother.

Speaker 10 (01:15:39):
God.

Speaker 6 (01:15:40):
Let me tell me.

Speaker 21 (01:15:43):
In this town tonight, God and me to tell me
to God be today the trouble some of us wots about.

(01:16:12):
You see the botts of business.

Speaker 6 (01:16:19):
I movin save that.

Speaker 9 (01:16:29):
Hot tail.

Speaker 10 (01:16:33):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
I love. The live version of Thin Lizzie's Jail Break,
similar to the Thin Lizzie hit the Boys er Back
in Town, This song finds the band singing about the
hell and unrest they are about to cause this particular evening.
Both songs became staples of classic rock radio, and both
songs are well known for their live versions. For the album.

(01:16:56):
In nineteen seventy eighth, the then Red Hot Thin Lizzie
decide that they wanted to work with producer Tony Viscatti,
who had made his name working with fellow glam rock
travelers David Bowie and t Rex Well. Time was tight,
so a live album was the most likely scenario to
get this done with him. The album became Live and

(01:17:17):
Dangerous and That was a pretty snarling rock filled result.
It documents a band that took no prisoners and on
even mellower tracks like Dancing in the Moonlight. How exactly
the Irish outfit came to be captured so effectively is
still in dispute. Viscotti has asserted that seventy five percent
of Dangerous and Live was recorded in the studio, actually

(01:17:40):
to smooth out the rough spots, but the band vehemently disagrees. Quote.
We are a very loud band. Guitarist Brian Robertson has said,
me being the loudest of all of us, So how
are you going to replace my guitar when it's so
loud that it's going to bleed all over the bloody
drum kit sound? We definitely recorded that live. He didn't
record at the studio at all. He's full of crap.

Speaker 29 (01:18:03):
Mm Hmmman, you know about six me to you?

Speaker 6 (01:18:58):
Says sixpences day too bad.

Speaker 9 (01:19:02):
It's just a sad baby.

Speaker 6 (01:19:05):
To Susa sting too bad.

Speaker 10 (01:19:37):
I want.

Speaker 9 (01:19:40):
Heaven.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
So that was the Who by the way, with magic Bus.
That's from the Live at Leads album. And listen, I
know that if you're paying attention, I played that song
for you earlier in the season, but I played the
studio version then, and this is the live version, and
I'm actually gonna consider that that's a different song. So
but don't worry. I have other things to say about
this song, but let's at least recap. But the song

(01:20:13):
is about a man who wants to buy the bus
that he takes to get his to his girlfriend every day,
but the bus driver does not want to sell it.
And a song is a staple of Who concerts and
has been sung in many different versions throughout the year.
I played for you the version from the Live at
Leads album because that's kind of the most legendary performance
of the band. Who spent most of nineteen sixty nine

(01:20:35):
and seventy on the road just non stop playing their
rock opera. Tommy as the centerpiece of these pretty epic concerts,
they become a fearsomely powerful live band, as fluid as
they were brutal for wizards at separate corners of the
stage raising their golden demon instruments together. The original version

(01:20:56):
of Live at Leads, recorded at a college gig on
Valentine Kinds Dan in nineteen seventy, was three cover songs
and three transfigured who standards, packaged to look like a
warts and all bootleg LP and, as singer Roger Daltrey
exclaims later quote that was actually the end of a
two and a half hour show. You're just catching us

(01:21:19):
with the jamming bits at the end. Tommy itself was
actually omitted, although some of its riffs show up in
the course of a fifteen minute jam that evolves out
of this proto punk headbanger version of My generation. Later
editions have gradually added the other twenty seven songs that
were played that night. And to end for today, I

(01:21:44):
want to play you some Bob Dylan and if any
of you saw the recent biopic movie A Complete Unknown,
which is really good, by the way, you know the
story and that's why we will be playing it for
you for our final song. It's a pivotal moment in
rock history. It's known as Dylan goes Electric, and it
was a really big deal. It happened at the Newport

(01:22:07):
Folk Festival.

Speaker 9 (01:22:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
He was a favorite of the show, having previously performed
in sixty three and sixty four singing folk songs that
he'd written, like Blowing in the Wind with Folk Royalty
Joan Bias. But at the end of the nineteen sixty
five festival, Dylan plugged in and performed electric rock music,

(01:22:29):
the horror to the crowd. The festival took place a
mere five days after Dylan had formally released his newest single,
Like a Rolling Stone, so naturally he played it at
the fest. Earlier, he warmed up the crowd by playing
a few acoustic songs and some a smaller setting on
a Saturday night at the festival, but he made the

(01:22:50):
impromptu choice at the last minute to plug in and
play loud. According to one person on hand, as documented
in the two thousand and one documentary Down the Highway,
Dylan got up on stage and said, quote, well fuck them.
If they think they can keep electricity out of here,
I'll do it, and on a whim, he wanted to

(01:23:11):
play electric. According to the documentary footage from the festival,
Dylan was met with both booze and some cheers as
he began his now classic hit Maggie's Farm and then
just burst into like a rolling stone. Dylan and his
band cut the set short and left the stage to
booze and applause. When the knight's host Peter Yarrow took

(01:23:35):
the mic, he pleaded with Dylan to come back. When
Dylan came back on the stage, he said what are
you doing to me? To Yarrow, but then agreed to
play a little bit more, Needing an e harmonico, Yarrow
asked the crowd. Then a barrage of mouth harps flew
up and hit the stage, and Dylan grabbed it and
performed Mister Tambourine Man, and It's all over now, Baby

(01:23:59):
Blue for the rabid hippie folk crowd. And truly it
was all over now for those baby blues. Because Dylan
wouldn't play the fest again for thirty seven years, he
actually played in two thousand and two wearing a wig
and a fake beard. Just to be ironic, it's a
pretty iconic Bob Dylan's song I Mean Like a rolling Stone.

(01:24:21):
It's the It's one of his biggest songs ever. It's
the story of a debutante who becomes a loner when
she falls out of high society. It's a crushing blow
to her, but there's an upside because when you got nothing,
you got nothing to lose. Another advantage to being on
your own. When you're invisible, you have no secrets to reveal.
As Dylan tells her, the title is not a reference

(01:24:44):
to the rolling Stones. It's actually taken from the proverb
a rolling stone gathers no moss. Dylan got the idea
actually from the nineteen forty nine Hank Williams song Lost Highway,
which contains the line I'm a rolling stone all alone
and lost well. Listen to the crowd booing at the beginning.

(01:25:05):
They were pretty mad at him going electric and not
singing those leftist protest songs that they wanted from him.
The song quality isn't at its best, that the sound
is a little jankie, but it's an important moment in music,
and I wanted to play it for you to close
it out. So enjoy Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone
Live from the Newport Folk festival, and of course turn

(01:25:27):
it up loud and join us next week for even
more fun.

Speaker 17 (01:26:14):
Once upon a time you drist so fine through the
bunks of dime in your bride.

Speaker 10 (01:26:20):
Then you.

Speaker 11 (01:26:23):
People call send me away.

Speaker 6 (01:26:25):
No, you're mind to fall.

Speaker 10 (01:26:27):
You thought they were all in you.

Speaker 6 (01:26:34):
You used to laugh about.

Speaker 7 (01:26:39):
My money, that us hang it out.

Speaker 11 (01:26:43):
I don't talk so loud. Now you don't seem so
brown about.

Speaker 6 (01:26:53):
Having to be surrounding you.

Speaker 10 (01:26:55):
Oh that's how does it feel?

Speaker 6 (01:27:04):
How does it feel? The man young.

Speaker 27 (01:27:13):
With a dilecture, All, I got no fleet up? No,
I can't run its.

Speaker 6 (01:27:35):
Hi o God, I gotta find a school.

Speaker 9 (01:27:38):
All riding this lonely. But you know you only used to.

Speaker 6 (01:27:41):
Get juice in end. Nobody's in the count. I'm living
now on the street. Now you're gonna have to get
used to it. You say you never compromise. You're in
the miskit tras.

Speaker 10 (01:28:01):
Now you're re alive.

Speaker 19 (01:28:04):
Please not saying em as you stay to the vacuum losten.

Speaker 9 (01:28:14):
Do you want to.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Big thank you for listening to listen to this. Please
recommend to a friend, and don't forget to rate, review,
and subscribe for more podcast and online content. Please visit

(01:28:37):
this is funner dot com.

Speaker 10 (01:28:39):
This is Funner