October 16, 2024 • 64 mins
In this episode of *Listen to This*, host Eric Leckey delves into the epic world of songs that clock in at 10 minutes or longer. From rock anthems like Led Zeppelin’s "Stairway to Heaven" and Pink Floyd’s "Echoes" to progressive classics like Rush’s "2112" and Bob Dylan’s "Desolation Row," Leckey explores the stories, musicianship, and ambition behind these extended masterpieces. With deep insights into how these lengthy tracks push the boundaries of songwriting, he celebrates the art of storytelling through music that dares to take its time. Tune in for a journey through the long-playing legends of rock!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 to introduce you to old songs that have
influenced all the 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, and maybe buy
(00:20):
it on physical media. We invite you to subscribe, comment,
and please please recommend this podcast to people you know, friends, lovers, acquaintances.
Every episode has a theme, and today's theme is long
songs over ten minutes long.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Never in the history of the United States a monster
of such size and power.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Welcome to listen to this, a podcast that brings you
the stories behind the songs.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And artists, with a theme to tie it all together.
Here's your hosts, Eric Letty and Well Today, one thing
is for certain, I will not be playing you the
full version of any of these songs, not because they
aren't any good. It's just that most of them are
longer than Elizabeth Taylor's marriages. That joke was an old
(01:08):
Johnny Carson bit. Today we are celebrating songs that are long,
and no, it won't just be prog rock songs, although
there are a few of those on today's episode. You
will notice, though, that most of these songs come from
the seventies and eighties. I guess cocaine and acid make
you want to make long songs because you really don't
hear that from songs from the forties and fifties and
(01:29):
even modern songs. Most of the time, it is just
a band that wants to jam and maybe the substances
that they have imbibed had them not so much aware
of the amount of time that had elapsed. To qualify
for today's theme, I only picked songs that are over
ten minutes long. I thought about just for funzies, making
(01:51):
today's episode a really really long episode to keep with
the theme, but alas, today's episode will be under an hour,
and if we want to keep it under an hour,
you need to get it started. So let's get going.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Never listen up. Yeah Boy, wasn't.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Need Yeah not just.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
Boy was?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
That was Funkadelic with not just knee Deep. This is
a funk classic and it tells a story of a
guy who meets a girl at a party and has
her dance for him he's blown away when she does
the dance. The freak deep was a favorite saying among
George Clinton and his crew. In nineteen seventy eight, Funkadelics
(03:42):
offshoot Parliament released a song called Deep on their album
Motor Booty Affair. On this track, the lady is not
just knee deep, but totally deep, which is all consuming.
Disco was winding down at this time, but still very
much alive. George Clinton survived the era by staying true
to the funk. He said that not just knee deep
(04:05):
was intended to rescue dance music from the blah blah blahs.
This mission statement appears on the album cover itself. Philip Winn,
who is lead singer of The Spinners until leaving that
group in nineteen seventy seven, actually sings on this track.
He was part of the p Funk collective around this time.
The writing credits on this one are a little confusing.
(04:27):
According to the song's publisher, which writes the Royalty Checks,
Clinton and Philip and Win are the writers the single
and the album, though listen Clinton as the only writer,
though knows no way of telling what's the truth on
the album. This song runs fifteen minutes and twenty three seconds.
The single, though, is split into two sides, with part
(04:48):
one running four minutes and twenty five seconds and part
two coming in at five minutes and twenty seconds.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
I don't want to.
Speaker 7 (05:23):
Do to ja.
Speaker 8 (05:27):
Where I don't want to do about?
Speaker 9 (05:41):
Tell some sens.
Speaker 8 (05:46):
Go?
Speaker 10 (05:47):
Where about?
Speaker 4 (05:48):
How lies all fall? You all go?
Speaker 5 (05:55):
Way?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Where Red?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Coming in at eleven minutes and fifteen seconds. That was
the band tool with ten thousand Days Wings part two,
as lead singer Maynard James Keenan explains his mother, Judith Marie,
suffered a stroke in nineteen seventy six that left her
partially paralyzed and wheelchair bound. The length of time between
(06:42):
her paralysis and her death was twenty seven years, or
approximately ten thousand days. Ten thousand days is also the
amount of time it takes Saturn to revolve around the sun.
Keenan noted in an interview quote, that's the time in
your twenty eight twenty ninth year when you have presented
the opportunity to transform from whatever your hang ups were before,
(07:07):
to let the light of knowledge and experience lighten your load,
so to speak, to let go of old patterns and
embrace a new life in retrospect, Keenan regrets pouring his
private pain into the album. Quote, I think probably the
stupidest thing I could have done on ten thousand days
was put myself out there as much as I did.
I never will make that mistake again. I just took
(07:28):
too much out of me, too much emotionally, mentally and physically.
All those manifestations, those songs were exploited and misconstructed, and
people were flippant and dismissive of it, and it really
hurt me deeply. I won't be doing that anymore. And
technically Wings is a very difficult song to pull off live,
so I don't really want to play it live either.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Up are you.
Speaker 9 (08:11):
Right?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Like a gamers run says two stays.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Time can work throwing gods and love the.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Reton love when he went throwing gods and loves a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
The Reton.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Thing You want you speaking shows stay.
Speaker 8 (08:55):
One mountains on countays and on the one bosbot me
now such spill condet me him.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
One numble one number one away. Have you some talked
you and crazy and charge.
Speaker 11 (09:24):
Drink to my man?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
You do brak Frame, bring your last play your last boy, Don't.
Speaker 9 (09:37):
It's not the start that's bad.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I'm thinking that it must it's too late, my bo
It's god, it's too lay you ope, you may.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That was the Thin White Duke himself David Bowie with
Station to Station. It's the title track to David Bowie's
tenth studio album. It is notable as the vehicle for
Bowie's last great character, the Thin White Duke, as a
well dressed, cocaine adduled, tortured soul with an interest in
(10:26):
the occult. Station to Station is the only Bowie song
that names the character, The Return of the Thin White Duke.
He says in the song he would have abandoned the
persona after the album. During the sessions for Station to Station,
Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs, especially cocaine, and recalls
almost nothing of the production. He once joked, I know
(10:48):
it was recorded in LA because I read that it
was recorded in LA. The only memory Bowie has of
making the album is of ordering lead guitarist Earl Slick
to play repeat a chuck Berry riff over the opening
bars of this track. Quote. I only have flashes of
making it a saner, Bowie said much later, I have
(11:09):
serious problems about that year or two and I can't
remember how I felt, what I was had going on
in my life, and I have really no emotional geography
of that time of my life. The line making sure
white Stains is a reference to Alistair Crowley's first book,
White Stains. This is Bowie's longest studio recording, clocking in
(11:31):
at ten minutes and eleven seconds, just making it for
today's episode theme by eleven seconds for a full minute.
Sampled locomotives clatter from speaker to speaker, and the coke
deranged singer finally makes his entrance at three minutes and
seventeen seconds.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
It was gone out.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
And not call to stop to my sid was planning.
Speaker 9 (12:51):
I was saying, myself.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Shifted on the way. This how comfort.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Ball The crowd have long rostream, last team.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Running a smooth fifteen minutes of fifteen seconds. That was
Neil Young and Crazy Horse with the song Chevrolet World
Record is Neil Young's fifteenth album with Crazy Horse. Young
co produced the record with Rick Rubin and recorded it live.
It was mixed to analog tape at Ruben's Shangri Law
(14:18):
Studios in Malibu, California. For the bulk of World Record album,
Neil Young didn't play guitar, but when he did plug
in his battle tested nineteen fifty three Less Paul, it
resulted in the song Chevrolet, the album's most epic track.
On the surface, Chevrolet is a celebration of cars and
the freedom of the open road, but as the song
(14:40):
goes on, it becomes more about the memories and emotions
that are associated with the cars. Quote. It's based on
different kinds of Chevrolets, in different kinds of highways and
different parts of my life. Young said in an interview.
I don't really know how to describe it each verse
as kind of a different car at different time in
my life. I don't know whether I was talking about
last week or forty years ago. It all just came
(15:02):
pouring out. Young and his Crazy Horse bandmates guitarist Nils Lofgran,
bassist Billy Tabot, and drummer Ralph Molina jammed this song.
When they recorded it, they created a melting wall of
sound that takes us on a fifteen minute journey. Quote
we just played in one big circle, Young recalled of
the session. Quote, I was facing Ralph, Billy was to
(15:24):
my left, and Nil's was to my right, and we
just played the song and sang to each other very simplistic,
but it came out pretty great.
Speaker 11 (16:05):
You mad.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
About I'm just canting, so we take my sh from me. Yeah,
(16:49):
I can feel a hand of a stranger.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
I'm this tiding around my room.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
Help half have made this mad.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Im, I'm your cab man, I'm your cad man.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Modesty that was closer to home by a Grand Funk.
Grand Funk guitarist Mark Farner wrote this song and sang lead. Literally.
This song is about the captain of a ship who
is sick and fears he is going to lose his vessel.
The song has a much more metaphoric significance, however. In
(17:39):
an interview with Farner, he explained how the lyric came
to him from the heavens quote. Initially, the song came
to me after I said my prayers one night and
I put a ps on the end of my prayers.
I asked God to give me a song that would
touch the hearts of people that the creator wanted to
get to. I got up at three o'clock in the
morning and I started writing things down, and this song
(18:00):
happened to be one of the things I wrote down.
Much like Hey, Jude, by the Beatles. This song stretches
out with a very long outro where an orchestra plays
and Farner sings the line I'm getting closer to my
Home over and over. On the album, the song runs
ten minutes and nine seconds, just barely making the cut
for our ten minute cutoff, which wasn't a problem for
(18:24):
many of the FM radio stations that were happy to
play it. The single version sent to radio stations with
tighter formats is only five minutes and thirty one seconds long,
which is still far longer than most pop songs. Still
reach number twenty two on the Hot one hundred October
of nineteen seventy, giving the band their biggest hit to
that point. Repeat play on FM rock radio kept it
(18:47):
around for generations. In nineteen seventy three, Grand Funk exploded
with their number one hit where an American band and
became one of the top live acts in the US.
Closer to Home remained a fan favorite and a staple
of their set lists for years to come. That was
(20:03):
a song Chameleon, and this instrumental was composed by Herbie
Hancock in collaboration with saxophonist Bernie Moppin bass guitarist Paul
Jackson and drummer Harvey Mason. All four songwriters played on
the original version on Headhunter's album, which features solos by
Hancock and Moppin. The song has a characteristic jazz bassline
(20:26):
and is sent to a more funk beat quote. I
knew that I had never heard any jazz players play
funk like the funk I had been listening to, says Hancock.
Instead of getting jazz cats who already know how to
play funk, I got funk cats who knew how to
play jazz. The song is one of the more widely
recognized jazz standards and has become a standard of the
(20:48):
repertoire of most small jazz ensembles. The Headhunter's album is
a defining moment in the genre of jazz funk. On
the album, this runs a pretty heavy, hardy, beefy fifteen
minutes and forty one seconds. A version running just two
minutes and fifty seconds was released as a single. There
(21:08):
are about a one hundred and sixty species of chameleon
living in Africa, Madagascar, Spain and Portugal, and across South
Asia as far as Sri Lanka. Some species of chameleons
can change the color of their skin for camouflage or
to signal mood to other chameleons. This is caused by
stress and changes in the intensity of light and temperature,
(21:30):
which alter the dispersal of the pigment granules in the
layers of cells beneath the outer skin. The word is
figuratively used to describe a fickle person who shifts according
to the opinions of others, just as a chameleon can
change its color to blend with its background.
Speaker 12 (21:54):
The sign postcards of the hanging a painting, the passports brown.
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors. The circus is
in town. Here comes the blind Commissioner. They've got him
(22:19):
in a trends.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
One hand is.
Speaker 12 (22:23):
Tied to the tatoope walker, the other is in his pants.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
And the riot squad.
Speaker 13 (22:33):
They're restless. They need somewhere to go. As lady and I.
Speaker 12 (22:42):
Look out tonight from Desolution, the moon.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Sindar ally. She seems so easy.
Speaker 13 (22:58):
It takes one to know one.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
She smiled.
Speaker 12 (23:02):
And puts her hands in her.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Back parking very Davis style. An incomes Romeo.
Speaker 13 (23:13):
He's moaning you BEng to me.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
I believe.
Speaker 12 (23:20):
Then someone says you're in the wrong place, My friend,
you'd better leave.
Speaker 13 (23:29):
And the only sound that's left.
Speaker 12 (23:34):
After the ambulances go is s in Durrella sweeping up
on Desolation Room.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I've been waiting to play that song from Bob Dylan.
I've been saving that one. Glad I could use it
on this episode because Desolation Row runs eleven minutes and
twenty one seconds. It's from the album Highway sixty one Revisited,
an absolutely fantastic and must have album. The opening lines
of the song they're selling postcards of the hanging they're
(24:11):
painting the passport's brown refer to three men who were
in town with the circus and were accused of raping
a girl in Duluth, Minnesota, on June fifteenth, nineteen twenty.
A mob broke them out of jail and then lynched them.
Postcards with pictures of the hanging were actually sold as souvenirs.
Dylan's father, Abraham Zimmerman, was eight years old and living
(24:34):
in Duluth at the time of the hangings. This is
the last track on the album. It's over eleven minutes long,
as I said, and was Dylan's longest song up to
that point. At least Dylan rarely plays it in concerts,
but when he does, he actually can stretch it out
to almost forty minutes long. When trying to interpret this song,
keep in mind that Dylan was experimenting with LSD around
(24:56):
the time that he recorded it. It was never released
as a sing probably due to its length, but the
Highway sixty one Revisited album went to number three in
the US and number four in the UK. Dylan performed
this for the first time at Forest Hills Music Festival
in Queens, New York, in August of nineteen sixty five
after he electrified the Newport Folk Festival. It was part
(25:20):
of the acoustics set that Dylan played before bringing up
his electric band and shocking everyone. This was the first
Bob Dylan recording that bassist and guitarist Charlie McCoy played on.
He would go on to contribute to pretty much every
Dylan album from nineteen sixty five about nineteen seventy two.
His initial contribution, however, was the result of an accident.
(25:42):
When McCoy was in New York for a visit, his friend,
producer Bob Johnston, arranged for him to go see a
Broadway show. Johnson suggested that he drop by the nearby
Columbia Studios to pick up the tickets. He introduced me to.
Dylan recalled McCoy in an interview in twenty fourteen and
said to me, I'm getting ready to record a song.
Why don't you pick up the guitar and play. We
(26:02):
had time for one take, one playback, and then off
to another session, and that song happened to be Desolation Row.
Speaker 10 (26:20):
A man can see the moment, answers to the dram
and stay and look for ours daily sen same thing.
Speaker 9 (26:43):
As the Bondish left to create the spiral.
Speaker 14 (26:48):
A moment, regain and regarded both the same home complete
from the side of Seas of life review change sound
the soundless space, a great.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Between the job tim in the face of.
Speaker 14 (27:20):
Coming quickly the terms of expression made emotion reveals the ocean.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Complete the s.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
That was the band, Yes with and you and I.
Of course, there's going to be some prog rock on
today's episode. Written by band members John Anderson, Bill Bruford,
Steve Howe and Chris Squire, this song runs it ten
minutes and eighteen seconds as it is divided into four parts.
Part one, the Chord of Life, Part two Eclipse, Part three,
(28:12):
The Preacher and the Teacher Part four Apocalypse. They did
release a five minute and forty five second edit. It
was released as a single and charted at number forty
two in the US. So who is the you referred
to in this song, well, John Anderson answered, probably God,
or it could be we collectively, the audience and I collectively.
(28:34):
We look for reality of being a true understanding of
the beauty of life. We reached over the rainbow for
an understanding of things. You and I climbed closer to
the light. Few song titles start with the word, and
a more logical title would be you and I. John
Anderson said in this same interview, I sang it that
(28:54):
way as I was writing it with Steve and I,
and it just stuck and you and I, I'm over
the Sea to the Valley. It's all about the reasons
that we have to call our connections with the divine.
So it was just something that rhythmically worked out and
we kept the title that way. Rick Wakeman, who played
keyboards on this track, said it has different movements which
(29:14):
all go into each other. The object was having a
piece of music that was everything that the Yes critics
hated us for, but yet the yes fans loved us for,
which was emotion. This was a highlight of the band's
live shows and one of their favorites to play in concert.
The Close to the Edge album was conceived with live
performance in mind, which was prescient considering they were still
(29:37):
performing it more than forty years later.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
History recal.
Speaker 13 (29:57):
How great the fuck.
Speaker 15 (30:01):
While everybody's sleeping, the boats put out to sea.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
An on the wings of time.
Speaker 10 (30:16):
It seemed the answers were so easy to find.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Too late.
Speaker 10 (30:28):
The prophets cried, the islands sinking, Let's take to the sky.
Speaker 9 (30:44):
Called the man a fool, stripped him off his prophet.
Speaker 15 (30:52):
Everyone who's laughing up until the day he died, the
word went.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Still.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
He's calling a sound vastly.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Well, none alone.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That was Super Tramp, with Fool's overture running at ten
minutes and fifty eight seconds, This epic track was written
by Super Tramp's primary songwriters, Rick Davies and Roger Hodgston.
Hodgson sang lead song started as a collage of musical
ideas that Hodgson came up with, which they put together
into a song about the fall of mankind. He says
(31:44):
history recalls how the great fall can be while everybody's sleeping,
the boats pull out to see It was very much
the way I was perceiving life, that people were in
denial of the way we were heading and the way
the planet was heading.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Hodskin has said that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
When he wrote this song he could hear all the
parts of the orchestra in his his head. When he
did start playing with orchestras in the nineties, it was
a thrill for him to play this song. He has
commented that he gets goosebumps each time he plays it
with a symphony behind him. The song incorporates Winston Churchill's
famous we shall fight them on the beaches speech made
(32:17):
during World War Two. The part sampled is we shall
go on to the end. We shall fight on the
seas and the oceans. We shall defend our island, whatever
the cost may be. We shall never surrender.
Speaker 16 (32:45):
Coy, I'm not coming back around. There's none for creeping
(33:26):
out again, up coming all around the bed talking about
the time when we.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Will mutual Wolfe.
Speaker 9 (33:36):
I'll check my memory and I can't good, yes.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Oh, yes, oh, I'll check it. Run in some vocato,
drink water. Who then now I am coming back around there.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
That was Alligator by the Grateful Dead. The song was
recorded on July eighteenth of nineteen sixty eight. The word
alligator may have a double meaning. In addition to the
obvious animal interpretation, alligator is sometimes a term used to
describe white musicians that steal the music and art of
black musicians, otherwise known as Elvis Anyways I digress. The
(34:30):
term is also sometimes used by New Orleans jazz players
to describe white jazz men and white jazz fans, jav
black people, or what they call jitterbugs. The complete annotated
Grateful Dead lyrics finds connection between the nursery rhyme Old
King Cole and these alligator lines. Call for his whiskey,
(34:51):
he can call for his tea, he can call he wants,
but he can't call me. The Old King Coal lines go,
he called for his pipe, he called for his bull,
and he called for for his fiddlers. Three. The song
was played sixty times from its first performance, which possibly
occurred on January twenty seventh, nineteen sixty seven, to April
twenty ninth, nineteen seventy one, so pretty much at every
(35:12):
show they played in between those years.
Speaker 17 (36:06):
The Boots and Love and No Foxy two to two
on Sidon about fame fades, the batbol and die.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Don't see the years of fun.
Speaker 13 (36:22):
On the spare Everything.
Speaker 17 (36:26):
You said sign If I don't change the base, I
can't be the day oh Ting not you and the
man I pat you would jump.
Speaker 9 (36:52):
The fast.
Speaker 11 (36:59):
And my head.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
That was Elton John with Funeral for a Friend slash
Love Lies Bleeding. Elton wrote the music for the song
after thinking about what he would want played at his funeral.
Parts of it are very funeral dirge like running at
eleven minutes and eight seconds. This opens the with Funeral
for a Friend as a section an instrumental that transitions
(37:35):
into Love Lies Bleeding. This is an angry song about
a broken relationship, with lyric by Elton John's songwriting partner
Bertie Toppin. They started as separate songs, but when producer
Gus Dudgeon fused them together, Elton liked what he heard
and made sure that they stayed together. The Funeral for
a Friend part contains lots of transitional segments that Elton
(37:57):
came up with to a sure a smooth This song
starts the journey on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album opening
the double album, it's a slow build, fading up from
silence with a ethereal soundscape that plays for about thirty
seconds before the synthesizer notes even come in. It fades
back down at a minute forty, which is where Elton's
(38:19):
piano finally arrives, soon joined by the drums and guitar
and bass and even more synth. Elton doesn't even start
singing until five minutes and forty nine seconds. It's a
powerful introduction to a very substantial album. Goodbye Yellow Brick
Road is Elton's best selling studio album and the one
that influenced generations of musicians. The artist Brandy Carlisle says
(38:42):
she actually takes it everywhere with her. The album has
plenty of hits, as Benny and the Jets, the title
track of Saturday Nights all Right for Fighting, but also
a number of other tracks that endured as favorites in
Elton's live shows and on rock radio, like All the
Girls Love, Alice, Gray Seal, and Candle in the Wind.
Bernie Toppen called The Love Lies Bleeding lyric a statement
(39:05):
of what touring and rock and roll does to family life.
At the time, he was married to his first wife,
Maxine Fibleman. On the album Funeral for a Friend and
Love Livees Bleeding are listed as one track, but with
separate writing credits. There's no official delineation as to where
one track ends and the other begins.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
You're right to the bridge, You're right and go.
Speaker 9 (39:27):
Come.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
Stay on the scene, Stay on the scene. I love the.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
Stay on the scene.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
I love.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
The way I land his land is.
Speaker 16 (39:50):
I got do.
Speaker 13 (39:52):
Don't worry about stay on the scene.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Machine, Stay on the scene, love machine.
Speaker 13 (40:04):
Stay on the scene like a lot of machine.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Stay on the scene like a lot of machine.
Speaker 9 (40:13):
Stay on the scene, Stay on the scene.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Get a doubt, Get out down one more in, Get out.
I got that. People, Yeah, I got this. People do matter,
get I got it, get it, get out like a
(40:40):
sex machine.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
That was James Brown with Get Up, I feel like
being a sex machine. James Brown unleashed some feral energy
on this track, which wasn't all the unusual except for
the title, which was pretty shocking at the time. Most
artists couldn't get away with it, but Brown knew his
audience and knew they could handle it. He also knew
the radio stations that supported him would continue to do so,
(41:05):
and it was a good move. Get Up, I Feel
like being a sex Machine became the first Hot one
hundred hit with the word sex in the title. The
next was another James Brown song, just titled Sexy Sexy Sexy,
which hit number fifty in nineteen seventy three. The first
act other than Brown to do the deed was a
band called The Moments, who reached number seventeen with Sexy
(41:29):
Mama in nineteen seventy four. A few years later, sexy
songs were commonplace, led by Hot Chocolates, You Sexy Thing.
Much of this song is an interplay between Brown and
his right hand man, Bobby Bird, who does the get up,
get on up vocals. The intro is also called a
call and response, with Brown saying I'm getting ready to
(41:50):
do my thing and his band provides affirmations. This back
and forth made the song one of Brown's live favorites.
Despite the title, the song isn't all that carnal, as
sex Machine is used as a simile for staying on
the scene. The lyric mostly is vague affirmations like you
gotta have the feeling sure as you're born, stuff like that.
(42:12):
It runs ten minutes and forty eight seconds and opens
the Sex Machine album. The single was split into two parts,
with part one running two minutes and forty nine seconds
on the A side, and part two, which was two
minutes and thirty three seconds on the B side. Part
one is what most radio stations played, and this edit
retains a short version of the spoken intro and keeps
(42:34):
the first two verses, but after James Brown takes them
to the bridge, the song just fades out.
Speaker 8 (43:13):
Hooray I away from Yesterday, alive by the war in
sqeezusday so I love Cathea.
Speaker 7 (43:22):
Amy decided to take a last walk through the noise, still.
Speaker 18 (43:26):
The season, not to time but the baby home, away
from Ancel's batter and turn down.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
For you say, can you say?
Speaker 9 (43:53):
It's really it's such a mess. It's every n it's
a fighting nurse.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
It's giant in silistic team shape.
Speaker 7 (44:02):
Of things continue to rain and cause cream and pine,
and the art extends from silver flood of bloody red
as a belief by the sad and sis.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
That was my Man Jimmy Hendrix with nineteen eighty three
A Merman I should turn to be a Merman is
a male version of a merm maide in this song,
Hendrix sings about how he wants to escape the war
torn world and all the horrible things going on the
Vietnam War, for instance, at this time, and wants to
be reborn as a Merman using a machine which is
(44:37):
probably drugs, at least as far as Hendricks was concerned.
He decides to leave the out of style to the
destructive ways and just live underwater. The song isn't simply
anti war. Hendricks shows a disgust with the whole world
that we have built for ourselves and how all human
progress has been halted by things like war. He decides
to evolve and escape from the others. Running at thirteen
(45:00):
minutes and thirty nine seconds, it is Hendrick's longest song.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
And I would do any think fall low.
Speaker 9 (45:18):
I'm running right into hell.
Speaker 11 (45:20):
And that.
Speaker 6 (45:24):
I would do anything for.
Speaker 9 (45:28):
I'm never letting less of fat.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
But I'll never forget no way you feel.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Right now, No.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
No way.
Speaker 9 (45:45):
And I would do anything for love.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
But I won't do who that.
Speaker 13 (45:55):
No, I won't do who that anything.
Speaker 9 (46:01):
Well, I'm a doo.
Speaker 6 (46:04):
F, I'm a donything full up, but I won't do.
Speaker 13 (46:16):
No Wow, won't do.
Speaker 19 (46:37):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
I was Meatloaf with I Do Anything for Love, but
I won't do that. This was Meatloaf's big comeback song,
and nineteen seventy seven his album Bad Out of Hell
produced the hits two out of Three, eight Bad and
of course the legendary Paradise by the Dashboard Light and
even You Took the words Rate out of My Mouth
also known as Hot Summer, all written by the piano
(47:01):
player Jim Steinman. After a falling out with Steiman and
difficulty in his own personal life, Meetloaf released several unsuccessful
albums before reuniting with Steiman for Bad Out a Hell
two Back into Hell, which was considered a sequel to
the nineteen seventy seven album I Do Anything for Love,
has a very similar sound to Meetlof's previous hits and
(47:23):
the bombastic piano driven style that went over well with
his old fans as well as a new generation of listeners,
helping it to become a pretty massive hit. As in
Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Meetloaf is pouring out his
passion in the song and an effort to get with
a girl that he's fallen for hard. But it's much
more romantic than paradise. He seems more interested in love
(47:46):
than lust. He explains of very poetic terms how he's
feeling and makes it clear that he's all in. He'll
be with her until the planets stop turning. In the
full version of the song, we hear the girl express
her concerns, telling him it's all coming from the heat
of the moment, but he's soon to forget all these
lovely words and start screwing around. I won't do that,
(48:09):
he assures her. The album version runs twelve minutes in
one second, with the radio edit cut down to five
minutes and thirteen seconds. The version in the video runs
seven minutes and fifty two seconds. The album version opens
with the collage where we hear Meatloaf escaping hell on
a motorcycle, Then, after an extended intro, the vocals come
(48:30):
in at the one fifty mark on the single, just
ten seconds before the vocal. The full version has a
few long instrumental breaks with lots of guitar and some
additional lyrics, mostly at the end where the boy and
girl have their exchange. Many music critics turn their noses
up at the song, putting a lot of snarky worst
of lists at the end of nineteen ninety three, Blender
(48:50):
magazine named it one of the fifty worst songs of
all time in their two thousand and four list.
Speaker 13 (49:06):
It was the third of September that they I always
remember your time ca the further day that my dad died.
Speaker 20 (49:24):
I never got a chance to see, never heard nothing
but bad things about him. Tima, I'm depending on you tell.
Speaker 13 (49:35):
Me the truth. Mama just hung ahead and said, so,
my mo was a roll a stone.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
Wherever he Ladys had was.
Speaker 9 (49:46):
His home, and we need only the was a law.
Speaker 13 (49:56):
Was a roll the stone mother.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
Song that where Monty Lesses home, and.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
That was the Temptations with Papa was a roland stone.
A rolling stone may gather no moss, but it doesn't
handle responsibility well. And this song the father is just
a wild rover and disreputable philanderer. When he dies, the
mother opens up about him, telling the kids all about
his laziness and womanizing. This is written by Motown songwriters
(50:41):
Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield and produced by Whitfield. It
was the first song recorded by the band The Undisputed Truth.
But when Whitfield also had The Temptations recorded, that's when
they had much greater success. The album version of this
song runs eleven minutes and forty six seconds. The single
was released with the song split into two parts. Part
(51:01):
A was the vocal version, running it just under seven minutes,
and the B side is the instrumental that goes on
for another five Even truncated for single release. The A
side was exceptionally long and remains one of the longest
chart toppers in Hot one hundred history. It was not, however,
the longest number one of nineteen seventy two. That was
(51:23):
actually Don McLean's American Pie, which clocked in it eight
minutes in thirty three seconds. At least as the single,
both sides of the single won Grammy Awards. The A
side won for Best R and B Vocal Performance by
a Dupe grew Er Chorus, and the B side took
the award for Best R and B Instrumental Performance. This
(51:43):
was the last big hit recorded in Motown's famous studio A,
located in a two story house in Detroit. Most of
Motown's studio work had moved to Los Angeles by then,
but the Temptations still wanted to record in Detroit.
Speaker 13 (52:07):
Oh, Send a Man Where He Gonna Run? To send
a man where ain't gonna.
Speaker 5 (52:13):
Run to.
Speaker 13 (52:16):
We ain't gonna run to All on them day, will
I run to the rock?
Speaker 11 (52:23):
Please hicken me around the rock, Please haiden me around
the rock.
Speaker 13 (52:30):
Please hack me out. All on them day, put the
rock crowd out. I can't hide you, the rock craft.
I can't hide you the rock craft. I ain't gonna
hid you guys.
Speaker 11 (52:46):
All on them day, I said, a rock, what's the
matter with you, you rock? Don't just see on me
your rock under that loud on them day, swear run
to the river.
Speaker 4 (53:04):
It was bleeding around to the sea.
Speaker 6 (53:07):
It was bleeding around to the sea.
Speaker 19 (53:11):
It was bleeding.
Speaker 13 (53:13):
Or on them day, Sure, run to the river. It
was balling and round to the sea.
Speaker 6 (53:21):
It was borning around to the sea.
Speaker 13 (53:24):
It was born in or on them way. Soar unto
the Lord.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Please harden me along. Don't you see me prallant?
Speaker 13 (53:38):
Don't just stream it down head pain.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
But the Lord said, go to the devil. Lord said,
go to the devil. He said, God to the devil.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Or on them day, sultry voice of Nina Moan was
singing to you about sinnerman. Clocking in at over ten minutes.
Nina Simon's version of this African American traditional spiritual song
is an outpouring of intense emotion, possibly tied to her
own religious beliefs or her political fervor and the battle
(54:16):
for civil rights, condemning her own sins or condemning societies.
I guess that's up for you to interpret. It's featured
on her nineteen sixty five album Pastel Blues. The song
was inspired by the Book of Exodus, where Moses leads
a group of people out of Egypt, only to be
punished by a series of plagues when they're not truly
repentant enough for their sins. The story is also told
(54:39):
in Psalm seventy eight. Nina Simone learned this song way
back when she was known as Eunice Weiman, a young
girl known for her piano skills. At her mother's church,
the song was often used at revivals and prayer meetings
to bring sinners to the altar. Some of my most
fantastic experiences, experiences that really shake me now that I
(54:59):
think of them, happen in the church when we have
these revival meetings. I'd be playing something and then oh boy,
I'd really be playing because I could feel it. It
would move me. Folks would be shouting all over the place.
And that's my background and that's why I love music,
she said in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 9 (55:15):
Nine, Ees, no.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
Again, do.
Speaker 8 (56:06):
You sharing Sisa sun Side?
Speaker 9 (56:15):
He's a cap.
Speaker 4 (56:24):
To my mouth, done many far.
Speaker 9 (56:43):
Landing lost, He's a garant.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Well. In an episode that's about long songs, you knew
Genesis was going to make an appearance here at some point.
That was their song Suppers. Ready. I bet I could
have chose many different Genesis songs. This particular song is
a concept piece. Itce twenty three minutes long and divided
into seven sections. It tells the story of two lovers
who traveled to strange worlds, eventually returning to their own world,
(57:16):
only to witness the apocalypse. At Genesis concerts, pamphlets were
distributed with notes detailing what was going on in each
section and helped the crowd follow along. Peter Gabriel was
the band's lead singer at the time, and the lyrics
he wrote for this song were inspired by a night
he spent with his first wife, Jill, at her parents' house.
(57:36):
Gabriel believes Jill became possessed by a spirit which gave
him the starting point for a song about the battle
between good and evil. Gabriel said, one of the first
times I felt as if I was really singing from
my soul, almost like singing of my life. Section six
is titled Apocalypse. Gabriel got the idea for it while
(57:58):
reading the Book of Revelations in the Bible. This section
also features a solo that's over an unusual nine to
eight rhythm and for musicians that's incredibly rare. This is
the first big production number that Genesis came up with.
Led by Gabriel, they were starting to put on extravagant
stage performances to please the fans and generate publicity. In
(58:20):
nineteen seventy four, they took it to a new level
by performing their entire double album The Land Lies Down
on Broadway on tour, and that show, Gabriel changed costumes
a number of times. A few years after Gabriel left,
Genesis moved from anthems like this to short pop songs.
Now led by Phil Collins, they did lose some fans,
but gained new ones with their new string of hits.
(58:42):
When Gabriel left the band in nineteen seventy five, they
continued to perform this in concert with Phil Collins now
on vocals, and included it on their nineteen seventy seven
live album Seconds Out.
Speaker 12 (59:37):
Church, The.
Speaker 5 (59:50):
Perfect f.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
That was the Alman Brothers band with High Falls. The
song is named after a Georgia State park near Macon, Georgia,
where the band lived. This is an instrumental written by
Almond and the guitarist Dicky Betts. The longest studio track
ever recorded by the Alman Brothers. It runs fourteen minutes
and twenty eight seconds, and fittingly, we have come to
(01:00:42):
the end of this episode and our final song is
also called The End by the Doors. I planned it
that way. The end is death. Although the song also
deals with Jim Morrison's parents, it contains edible themes of
loving the mother and killing the father. Morrison was always
vague as to the meeting, explaining it could be almost
(01:01:04):
anything you want it to be. The Doors developed the
song during live performances at the Whisky a Go Go At,
a Los Angeles club where they were essentially the house
band in nineteen sixty six. They had to play two
sets a night, so they were forced to extend their
songs in order to fill the sets. This gave him
a chance to experiment with their songs. The End began
(01:01:25):
as Jim Morrison's farewell to Mary Weberlow, his girlfriend who
followed him from Florida to Los Angeles, and developed into
an eleven minute epic. On August twenty first, nineteen sixty six,
Jim Morrison didn't show up for The Door's gig at
the Whisky a Go Go. After playing the first set
without him, the band retrieved Morrison from his apartment, where
(01:01:45):
he'd been tripping on acid. They always played the End
as the last song, but Morrison decided to play it
early in the set and the band just went along.
When they got to the part where he could do
a spoken improvisation, he started talking about a killer and said, father,
I want to kill you. Mother, I want to f you.
The crowd went nuts, but the band was fired right
(01:02:06):
after the show. The Doors had recently signed a record
deal and they established a large following, so getting fired
from the Whiskey was not so much a crushing blow
as it would be for other bands. This is supposedly
the last song that Morrison heard the night he died.
He was playing an old Doors album which ended with
this song. It was the last song on that album.
(01:02:27):
This is recorded with the lights off and only one
candle burning next to Morrison to set the mood. The
album version of the song is an edited combination of
two takes, which took a total of about thirty minutes
to record. Producer Paul Rothchild called it one of the
most beautiful moments he's ever had in a recording studio.
And this episode hopefully was not too long for you.
(01:02:48):
Remember to rate, review, and subscribe, and of course turn
this song up and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 18 (01:03:11):
This is the end, beautiful friend, This is the end,
My only friend, the.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Oh my love, red gloves, the ear of velgry thing
that stas the ear.
Speaker 19 (01:03:40):
No saty, no.
Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
S rise the e.
Speaker 9 (01:03:46):
I'll never look get to your eye?
Speaker 13 (01:03:52):
Okay, can you bet you?
Speaker 14 (01:04:01):
What?
Speaker 16 (01:04:02):
Will so?
Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
Sady?
Speaker 19 (01:04:10):
Just relyly welsome strangers hand it up, just read.
Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Thank you for listening. To listen to this, Please recommend
to a friend, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe.
For more podcasts and online content, please visit this is
Funner dot com.
Speaker 6 (01:04:46):
This is Funner
Welcome to listen to this. This is the podcast dedicated
to bringing you stories behind the artists, behind the songs,
and hopefully to introduce you to old songs that have
influenced all the 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, and maybe buy
(00:20):
it on physical media. We invite you to subscribe, comment,
and please please recommend this podcast to people you know, friends, lovers, acquaintances.
Every episode has a theme, and today's theme is long
songs over ten minutes long.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Never in the history of the United States a monster
of such size and power.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Welcome to listen to this, a podcast that brings you
the stories behind the songs.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And artists, with a theme to tie it all together.
Here's your hosts, Eric Letty and Well Today, one thing
is for certain, I will not be playing you the
full version of any of these songs, not because they
aren't any good. It's just that most of them are
longer than Elizabeth Taylor's marriages. That joke was an old
(01:08):
Johnny Carson bit. Today we are celebrating songs that are long,
and no, it won't just be prog rock songs, although
there are a few of those on today's episode. You
will notice, though, that most of these songs come from
the seventies and eighties. I guess cocaine and acid make
you want to make long songs because you really don't
hear that from songs from the forties and fifties and
(01:29):
even modern songs. Most of the time, it is just
a band that wants to jam and maybe the substances
that they have imbibed had them not so much aware
of the amount of time that had elapsed. To qualify
for today's theme, I only picked songs that are over
ten minutes long. I thought about just for funzies, making
(01:51):
today's episode a really really long episode to keep with
the theme, but alas, today's episode will be under an hour,
and if we want to keep it under an hour,
you need to get it started. So let's get going.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Never listen up. Yeah Boy, wasn't.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Need Yeah not just.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
Boy was?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
That was Funkadelic with not just knee Deep. This is
a funk classic and it tells a story of a
guy who meets a girl at a party and has
her dance for him he's blown away when she does
the dance. The freak deep was a favorite saying among
George Clinton and his crew. In nineteen seventy eight, Funkadelics
(03:42):
offshoot Parliament released a song called Deep on their album
Motor Booty Affair. On this track, the lady is not
just knee deep, but totally deep, which is all consuming.
Disco was winding down at this time, but still very
much alive. George Clinton survived the era by staying true
to the funk. He said that not just knee deep
(04:05):
was intended to rescue dance music from the blah blah blahs.
This mission statement appears on the album cover itself. Philip Winn,
who is lead singer of The Spinners until leaving that
group in nineteen seventy seven, actually sings on this track.
He was part of the p Funk collective around this time.
The writing credits on this one are a little confusing.
(04:27):
According to the song's publisher, which writes the Royalty Checks,
Clinton and Philip and Win are the writers the single
and the album, though listen Clinton as the only writer,
though knows no way of telling what's the truth on
the album. This song runs fifteen minutes and twenty three seconds.
The single, though, is split into two sides, with part
(04:48):
one running four minutes and twenty five seconds and part
two coming in at five minutes and twenty seconds.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
I don't want to.
Speaker 7 (05:23):
Do to ja.
Speaker 8 (05:27):
Where I don't want to do about?
Speaker 9 (05:41):
Tell some sens.
Speaker 8 (05:46):
Go?
Speaker 10 (05:47):
Where about?
Speaker 4 (05:48):
How lies all fall? You all go?
Speaker 5 (05:55):
Way?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Where Red?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Coming in at eleven minutes and fifteen seconds. That was
the band tool with ten thousand Days Wings part two,
as lead singer Maynard James Keenan explains his mother, Judith Marie,
suffered a stroke in nineteen seventy six that left her
partially paralyzed and wheelchair bound. The length of time between
(06:42):
her paralysis and her death was twenty seven years, or
approximately ten thousand days. Ten thousand days is also the
amount of time it takes Saturn to revolve around the sun.
Keenan noted in an interview quote, that's the time in
your twenty eight twenty ninth year when you have presented
the opportunity to transform from whatever your hang ups were before,
(07:07):
to let the light of knowledge and experience lighten your load,
so to speak, to let go of old patterns and
embrace a new life in retrospect, Keenan regrets pouring his
private pain into the album. Quote, I think probably the
stupidest thing I could have done on ten thousand days
was put myself out there as much as I did.
I never will make that mistake again. I just took
(07:28):
too much out of me, too much emotionally, mentally and physically.
All those manifestations, those songs were exploited and misconstructed, and
people were flippant and dismissive of it, and it really
hurt me deeply. I won't be doing that anymore. And
technically Wings is a very difficult song to pull off live,
so I don't really want to play it live either.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Up are you.
Speaker 9 (08:11):
Right?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Like a gamers run says two stays.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Time can work throwing gods and love the.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Reton love when he went throwing gods and loves a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
The Reton.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Thing You want you speaking shows stay.
Speaker 8 (08:55):
One mountains on countays and on the one bosbot me
now such spill condet me him.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
One numble one number one away. Have you some talked
you and crazy and charge.
Speaker 11 (09:24):
Drink to my man?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
You do brak Frame, bring your last play your last boy, Don't.
Speaker 9 (09:37):
It's not the start that's bad.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I'm thinking that it must it's too late, my bo
It's god, it's too lay you ope, you may.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That was the Thin White Duke himself David Bowie with
Station to Station. It's the title track to David Bowie's
tenth studio album. It is notable as the vehicle for
Bowie's last great character, the Thin White Duke, as a
well dressed, cocaine adduled, tortured soul with an interest in
(10:26):
the occult. Station to Station is the only Bowie song
that names the character, The Return of the Thin White Duke.
He says in the song he would have abandoned the
persona after the album. During the sessions for Station to Station,
Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs, especially cocaine, and recalls
almost nothing of the production. He once joked, I know
(10:48):
it was recorded in LA because I read that it
was recorded in LA. The only memory Bowie has of
making the album is of ordering lead guitarist Earl Slick
to play repeat a chuck Berry riff over the opening
bars of this track. Quote. I only have flashes of
making it a saner, Bowie said much later, I have
(11:09):
serious problems about that year or two and I can't
remember how I felt, what I was had going on
in my life, and I have really no emotional geography
of that time of my life. The line making sure
white Stains is a reference to Alistair Crowley's first book,
White Stains. This is Bowie's longest studio recording, clocking in
(11:31):
at ten minutes and eleven seconds, just making it for
today's episode theme by eleven seconds for a full minute.
Sampled locomotives clatter from speaker to speaker, and the coke
deranged singer finally makes his entrance at three minutes and
seventeen seconds.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
It was gone out.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
And not call to stop to my sid was planning.
Speaker 9 (12:51):
I was saying, myself.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Shifted on the way. This how comfort.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Ball The crowd have long rostream, last team.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Running a smooth fifteen minutes of fifteen seconds. That was
Neil Young and Crazy Horse with the song Chevrolet World
Record is Neil Young's fifteenth album with Crazy Horse. Young
co produced the record with Rick Rubin and recorded it live.
It was mixed to analog tape at Ruben's Shangri Law
(14:18):
Studios in Malibu, California. For the bulk of World Record album,
Neil Young didn't play guitar, but when he did plug
in his battle tested nineteen fifty three Less Paul, it
resulted in the song Chevrolet, the album's most epic track.
On the surface, Chevrolet is a celebration of cars and
the freedom of the open road, but as the song
(14:40):
goes on, it becomes more about the memories and emotions
that are associated with the cars. Quote. It's based on
different kinds of Chevrolets, in different kinds of highways and
different parts of my life. Young said in an interview.
I don't really know how to describe it each verse
as kind of a different car at different time in
my life. I don't know whether I was talking about
last week or forty years ago. It all just came
(15:02):
pouring out. Young and his Crazy Horse bandmates guitarist Nils Lofgran,
bassist Billy Tabot, and drummer Ralph Molina jammed this song.
When they recorded it, they created a melting wall of
sound that takes us on a fifteen minute journey. Quote
we just played in one big circle, Young recalled of
the session. Quote, I was facing Ralph, Billy was to
(15:24):
my left, and Nil's was to my right, and we
just played the song and sang to each other very simplistic,
but it came out pretty great.
Speaker 11 (16:05):
You mad.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
About I'm just canting, so we take my sh from me. Yeah,
(16:49):
I can feel a hand of a stranger.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
I'm this tiding around my room.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
Help half have made this mad.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Im, I'm your cab man, I'm your cad man.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Modesty that was closer to home by a Grand Funk.
Grand Funk guitarist Mark Farner wrote this song and sang lead. Literally.
This song is about the captain of a ship who
is sick and fears he is going to lose his vessel.
The song has a much more metaphoric significance, however. In
(17:39):
an interview with Farner, he explained how the lyric came
to him from the heavens quote. Initially, the song came
to me after I said my prayers one night and
I put a ps on the end of my prayers.
I asked God to give me a song that would
touch the hearts of people that the creator wanted to
get to. I got up at three o'clock in the
morning and I started writing things down, and this song
(18:00):
happened to be one of the things I wrote down.
Much like Hey, Jude, by the Beatles. This song stretches
out with a very long outro where an orchestra plays
and Farner sings the line I'm getting closer to my
Home over and over. On the album, the song runs
ten minutes and nine seconds, just barely making the cut
for our ten minute cutoff, which wasn't a problem for
(18:24):
many of the FM radio stations that were happy to
play it. The single version sent to radio stations with
tighter formats is only five minutes and thirty one seconds long,
which is still far longer than most pop songs. Still
reach number twenty two on the Hot one hundred October
of nineteen seventy, giving the band their biggest hit to
that point. Repeat play on FM rock radio kept it
(18:47):
around for generations. In nineteen seventy three, Grand Funk exploded
with their number one hit where an American band and
became one of the top live acts in the US.
Closer to Home remained a fan favorite and a staple
of their set lists for years to come. That was
(20:03):
a song Chameleon, and this instrumental was composed by Herbie
Hancock in collaboration with saxophonist Bernie Moppin bass guitarist Paul
Jackson and drummer Harvey Mason. All four songwriters played on
the original version on Headhunter's album, which features solos by
Hancock and Moppin. The song has a characteristic jazz bassline
(20:26):
and is sent to a more funk beat quote. I
knew that I had never heard any jazz players play
funk like the funk I had been listening to, says Hancock.
Instead of getting jazz cats who already know how to
play funk, I got funk cats who knew how to
play jazz. The song is one of the more widely
recognized jazz standards and has become a standard of the
(20:48):
repertoire of most small jazz ensembles. The Headhunter's album is
a defining moment in the genre of jazz funk. On
the album, this runs a pretty heavy, hardy, beefy fifteen
minutes and forty one seconds. A version running just two
minutes and fifty seconds was released as a single. There
(21:08):
are about a one hundred and sixty species of chameleon
living in Africa, Madagascar, Spain and Portugal, and across South
Asia as far as Sri Lanka. Some species of chameleons
can change the color of their skin for camouflage or
to signal mood to other chameleons. This is caused by
stress and changes in the intensity of light and temperature,
(21:30):
which alter the dispersal of the pigment granules in the
layers of cells beneath the outer skin. The word is
figuratively used to describe a fickle person who shifts according
to the opinions of others, just as a chameleon can
change its color to blend with its background.
Speaker 12 (21:54):
The sign postcards of the hanging a painting, the passports brown.
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors. The circus is
in town. Here comes the blind Commissioner. They've got him
(22:19):
in a trends.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
One hand is.
Speaker 12 (22:23):
Tied to the tatoope walker, the other is in his pants.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
And the riot squad.
Speaker 13 (22:33):
They're restless. They need somewhere to go. As lady and I.
Speaker 12 (22:42):
Look out tonight from Desolution, the moon.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Sindar ally. She seems so easy.
Speaker 13 (22:58):
It takes one to know one.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
She smiled.
Speaker 12 (23:02):
And puts her hands in her.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Back parking very Davis style. An incomes Romeo.
Speaker 13 (23:13):
He's moaning you BEng to me.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
I believe.
Speaker 12 (23:20):
Then someone says you're in the wrong place, My friend,
you'd better leave.
Speaker 13 (23:29):
And the only sound that's left.
Speaker 12 (23:34):
After the ambulances go is s in Durrella sweeping up
on Desolation Room.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I've been waiting to play that song from Bob Dylan.
I've been saving that one. Glad I could use it
on this episode because Desolation Row runs eleven minutes and
twenty one seconds. It's from the album Highway sixty one Revisited,
an absolutely fantastic and must have album. The opening lines
of the song they're selling postcards of the hanging they're
(24:11):
painting the passport's brown refer to three men who were
in town with the circus and were accused of raping
a girl in Duluth, Minnesota, on June fifteenth, nineteen twenty.
A mob broke them out of jail and then lynched them.
Postcards with pictures of the hanging were actually sold as souvenirs.
Dylan's father, Abraham Zimmerman, was eight years old and living
(24:34):
in Duluth at the time of the hangings. This is
the last track on the album. It's over eleven minutes long,
as I said, and was Dylan's longest song up to
that point. At least Dylan rarely plays it in concerts,
but when he does, he actually can stretch it out
to almost forty minutes long. When trying to interpret this song,
keep in mind that Dylan was experimenting with LSD around
(24:56):
the time that he recorded it. It was never released
as a sing probably due to its length, but the
Highway sixty one Revisited album went to number three in
the US and number four in the UK. Dylan performed
this for the first time at Forest Hills Music Festival
in Queens, New York, in August of nineteen sixty five
after he electrified the Newport Folk Festival. It was part
(25:20):
of the acoustics set that Dylan played before bringing up
his electric band and shocking everyone. This was the first
Bob Dylan recording that bassist and guitarist Charlie McCoy played on.
He would go on to contribute to pretty much every
Dylan album from nineteen sixty five about nineteen seventy two.
His initial contribution, however, was the result of an accident.
(25:42):
When McCoy was in New York for a visit, his friend,
producer Bob Johnston, arranged for him to go see a
Broadway show. Johnson suggested that he drop by the nearby
Columbia Studios to pick up the tickets. He introduced me to.
Dylan recalled McCoy in an interview in twenty fourteen and
said to me, I'm getting ready to record a song.
Why don't you pick up the guitar and play. We
(26:02):
had time for one take, one playback, and then off
to another session, and that song happened to be Desolation Row.
Speaker 10 (26:20):
A man can see the moment, answers to the dram
and stay and look for ours daily sen same thing.
Speaker 9 (26:43):
As the Bondish left to create the spiral.
Speaker 14 (26:48):
A moment, regain and regarded both the same home complete
from the side of Seas of life review change sound
the soundless space, a great.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Between the job tim in the face of.
Speaker 14 (27:20):
Coming quickly the terms of expression made emotion reveals the ocean.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Complete the s.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
That was the band, Yes with and you and I.
Of course, there's going to be some prog rock on
today's episode. Written by band members John Anderson, Bill Bruford,
Steve Howe and Chris Squire, this song runs it ten
minutes and eighteen seconds as it is divided into four parts.
Part one, the Chord of Life, Part two Eclipse, Part three,
(28:12):
The Preacher and the Teacher Part four Apocalypse. They did
release a five minute and forty five second edit. It
was released as a single and charted at number forty
two in the US. So who is the you referred
to in this song, well, John Anderson answered, probably God,
or it could be we collectively, the audience and I collectively.
(28:34):
We look for reality of being a true understanding of
the beauty of life. We reached over the rainbow for
an understanding of things. You and I climbed closer to
the light. Few song titles start with the word, and
a more logical title would be you and I. John
Anderson said in this same interview, I sang it that
(28:54):
way as I was writing it with Steve and I,
and it just stuck and you and I, I'm over
the Sea to the Valley. It's all about the reasons
that we have to call our connections with the divine.
So it was just something that rhythmically worked out and
we kept the title that way. Rick Wakeman, who played
keyboards on this track, said it has different movements which
(29:14):
all go into each other. The object was having a
piece of music that was everything that the Yes critics
hated us for, but yet the yes fans loved us for,
which was emotion. This was a highlight of the band's
live shows and one of their favorites to play in concert.
The Close to the Edge album was conceived with live
performance in mind, which was prescient considering they were still
(29:37):
performing it more than forty years later.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
History recal.
Speaker 13 (29:57):
How great the fuck.
Speaker 15 (30:01):
While everybody's sleeping, the boats put out to sea.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
An on the wings of time.
Speaker 10 (30:16):
It seemed the answers were so easy to find.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Too late.
Speaker 10 (30:28):
The prophets cried, the islands sinking, Let's take to the sky.
Speaker 9 (30:44):
Called the man a fool, stripped him off his prophet.
Speaker 15 (30:52):
Everyone who's laughing up until the day he died, the
word went.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Still.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
He's calling a sound vastly.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Well, none alone.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That was Super Tramp, with Fool's overture running at ten
minutes and fifty eight seconds, This epic track was written
by Super Tramp's primary songwriters, Rick Davies and Roger Hodgston.
Hodgson sang lead song started as a collage of musical
ideas that Hodgson came up with, which they put together
into a song about the fall of mankind. He says
(31:44):
history recalls how the great fall can be while everybody's sleeping,
the boats pull out to see It was very much
the way I was perceiving life, that people were in
denial of the way we were heading and the way
the planet was heading.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Hodskin has said that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
When he wrote this song he could hear all the
parts of the orchestra in his his head. When he
did start playing with orchestras in the nineties, it was
a thrill for him to play this song. He has
commented that he gets goosebumps each time he plays it
with a symphony behind him. The song incorporates Winston Churchill's
famous we shall fight them on the beaches speech made
(32:17):
during World War Two. The part sampled is we shall
go on to the end. We shall fight on the
seas and the oceans. We shall defend our island, whatever
the cost may be. We shall never surrender.
Speaker 16 (32:45):
Coy, I'm not coming back around. There's none for creeping
(33:26):
out again, up coming all around the bed talking about
the time when we.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Will mutual Wolfe.
Speaker 9 (33:36):
I'll check my memory and I can't good, yes.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Oh, yes, oh, I'll check it. Run in some vocato,
drink water. Who then now I am coming back around there.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
That was Alligator by the Grateful Dead. The song was
recorded on July eighteenth of nineteen sixty eight. The word
alligator may have a double meaning. In addition to the
obvious animal interpretation, alligator is sometimes a term used to
describe white musicians that steal the music and art of
black musicians, otherwise known as Elvis Anyways I digress. The
(34:30):
term is also sometimes used by New Orleans jazz players
to describe white jazz men and white jazz fans, jav
black people, or what they call jitterbugs. The complete annotated
Grateful Dead lyrics finds connection between the nursery rhyme Old
King Cole and these alligator lines. Call for his whiskey,
(34:51):
he can call for his tea, he can call he wants,
but he can't call me. The Old King Coal lines go,
he called for his pipe, he called for his bull,
and he called for for his fiddlers. Three. The song
was played sixty times from its first performance, which possibly
occurred on January twenty seventh, nineteen sixty seven, to April
twenty ninth, nineteen seventy one, so pretty much at every
(35:12):
show they played in between those years.
Speaker 17 (36:06):
The Boots and Love and No Foxy two to two
on Sidon about fame fades, the batbol and die.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Don't see the years of fun.
Speaker 13 (36:22):
On the spare Everything.
Speaker 17 (36:26):
You said sign If I don't change the base, I
can't be the day oh Ting not you and the
man I pat you would jump.
Speaker 9 (36:52):
The fast.
Speaker 11 (36:59):
And my head.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
That was Elton John with Funeral for a Friend slash
Love Lies Bleeding. Elton wrote the music for the song
after thinking about what he would want played at his funeral.
Parts of it are very funeral dirge like running at
eleven minutes and eight seconds. This opens the with Funeral
for a Friend as a section an instrumental that transitions
(37:35):
into Love Lies Bleeding. This is an angry song about
a broken relationship, with lyric by Elton John's songwriting partner
Bertie Toppin. They started as separate songs, but when producer
Gus Dudgeon fused them together, Elton liked what he heard
and made sure that they stayed together. The Funeral for
a Friend part contains lots of transitional segments that Elton
(37:57):
came up with to a sure a smooth This song
starts the journey on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album opening
the double album, it's a slow build, fading up from
silence with a ethereal soundscape that plays for about thirty
seconds before the synthesizer notes even come in. It fades
back down at a minute forty, which is where Elton's
(38:19):
piano finally arrives, soon joined by the drums and guitar
and bass and even more synth. Elton doesn't even start
singing until five minutes and forty nine seconds. It's a
powerful introduction to a very substantial album. Goodbye Yellow Brick
Road is Elton's best selling studio album and the one
that influenced generations of musicians. The artist Brandy Carlisle says
(38:42):
she actually takes it everywhere with her. The album has
plenty of hits, as Benny and the Jets, the title
track of Saturday Nights all Right for Fighting, but also
a number of other tracks that endured as favorites in
Elton's live shows and on rock radio, like All the
Girls Love, Alice, Gray Seal, and Candle in the Wind.
Bernie Toppen called The Love Lies Bleeding lyric a statement
(39:05):
of what touring and rock and roll does to family life.
At the time, he was married to his first wife,
Maxine Fibleman. On the album Funeral for a Friend and
Love Livees Bleeding are listed as one track, but with
separate writing credits. There's no official delineation as to where
one track ends and the other begins.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
You're right to the bridge, You're right and go.
Speaker 9 (39:27):
Come.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
Stay on the scene, Stay on the scene. I love the.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
Stay on the scene.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
I love.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
The way I land his land is.
Speaker 16 (39:50):
I got do.
Speaker 13 (39:52):
Don't worry about stay on the scene.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Machine, Stay on the scene, love machine.
Speaker 13 (40:04):
Stay on the scene like a lot of machine.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Stay on the scene like a lot of machine.
Speaker 9 (40:13):
Stay on the scene, Stay on the scene.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Get a doubt, Get out down one more in, Get out.
I got that. People, Yeah, I got this. People do matter,
get I got it, get it, get out like a
(40:40):
sex machine.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
That was James Brown with Get Up, I feel like
being a sex machine. James Brown unleashed some feral energy
on this track, which wasn't all the unusual except for
the title, which was pretty shocking at the time. Most
artists couldn't get away with it, but Brown knew his
audience and knew they could handle it. He also knew
the radio stations that supported him would continue to do so,
(41:05):
and it was a good move. Get Up, I Feel
like being a sex Machine became the first Hot one
hundred hit with the word sex in the title. The
next was another James Brown song, just titled Sexy Sexy Sexy,
which hit number fifty in nineteen seventy three. The first
act other than Brown to do the deed was a
band called The Moments, who reached number seventeen with Sexy
(41:29):
Mama in nineteen seventy four. A few years later, sexy
songs were commonplace, led by Hot Chocolates, You Sexy Thing.
Much of this song is an interplay between Brown and
his right hand man, Bobby Bird, who does the get up,
get on up vocals. The intro is also called a
call and response, with Brown saying I'm getting ready to
(41:50):
do my thing and his band provides affirmations. This back
and forth made the song one of Brown's live favorites.
Despite the title, the song isn't all that carnal, as
sex Machine is used as a simile for staying on
the scene. The lyric mostly is vague affirmations like you
gotta have the feeling sure as you're born, stuff like that.
(42:12):
It runs ten minutes and forty eight seconds and opens
the Sex Machine album. The single was split into two parts,
with part one running two minutes and forty nine seconds
on the A side, and part two, which was two
minutes and thirty three seconds on the B side. Part
one is what most radio stations played, and this edit
retains a short version of the spoken intro and keeps
(42:34):
the first two verses, but after James Brown takes them
to the bridge, the song just fades out.
Speaker 8 (43:13):
Hooray I away from Yesterday, alive by the war in
sqeezusday so I love Cathea.
Speaker 7 (43:22):
Amy decided to take a last walk through the noise, still.
Speaker 18 (43:26):
The season, not to time but the baby home, away
from Ancel's batter and turn down.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
For you say, can you say?
Speaker 9 (43:53):
It's really it's such a mess. It's every n it's
a fighting nurse.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
It's giant in silistic team shape.
Speaker 7 (44:02):
Of things continue to rain and cause cream and pine,
and the art extends from silver flood of bloody red
as a belief by the sad and sis.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
That was my Man Jimmy Hendrix with nineteen eighty three
A Merman I should turn to be a Merman is
a male version of a merm maide in this song,
Hendrix sings about how he wants to escape the war
torn world and all the horrible things going on the
Vietnam War, for instance, at this time, and wants to
be reborn as a Merman using a machine which is
(44:37):
probably drugs, at least as far as Hendricks was concerned.
He decides to leave the out of style to the
destructive ways and just live underwater. The song isn't simply
anti war. Hendricks shows a disgust with the whole world
that we have built for ourselves and how all human
progress has been halted by things like war. He decides
to evolve and escape from the others. Running at thirteen
(45:00):
minutes and thirty nine seconds, it is Hendrick's longest song.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
And I would do any think fall low.
Speaker 9 (45:18):
I'm running right into hell.
Speaker 11 (45:20):
And that.
Speaker 6 (45:24):
I would do anything for.
Speaker 9 (45:28):
I'm never letting less of fat.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
But I'll never forget no way you feel.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Right now, No.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
No way.
Speaker 9 (45:45):
And I would do anything for love.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
But I won't do who that.
Speaker 13 (45:55):
No, I won't do who that anything.
Speaker 9 (46:01):
Well, I'm a doo.
Speaker 6 (46:04):
F, I'm a donything full up, but I won't do.
Speaker 13 (46:16):
No Wow, won't do.
Speaker 19 (46:37):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
I was Meatloaf with I Do Anything for Love, but
I won't do that. This was Meatloaf's big comeback song,
and nineteen seventy seven his album Bad Out of Hell
produced the hits two out of Three, eight Bad and
of course the legendary Paradise by the Dashboard Light and
even You Took the words Rate out of My Mouth
also known as Hot Summer, all written by the piano
(47:01):
player Jim Steinman. After a falling out with Steiman and
difficulty in his own personal life, Meetloaf released several unsuccessful
albums before reuniting with Steiman for Bad Out a Hell
two Back into Hell, which was considered a sequel to
the nineteen seventy seven album I Do Anything for Love,
has a very similar sound to Meetlof's previous hits and
(47:23):
the bombastic piano driven style that went over well with
his old fans as well as a new generation of listeners,
helping it to become a pretty massive hit. As in
Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Meetloaf is pouring out his
passion in the song and an effort to get with
a girl that he's fallen for hard. But it's much
more romantic than paradise. He seems more interested in love
(47:46):
than lust. He explains of very poetic terms how he's
feeling and makes it clear that he's all in. He'll
be with her until the planets stop turning. In the
full version of the song, we hear the girl express
her concerns, telling him it's all coming from the heat
of the moment, but he's soon to forget all these
lovely words and start screwing around. I won't do that,
(48:09):
he assures her. The album version runs twelve minutes in
one second, with the radio edit cut down to five
minutes and thirteen seconds. The version in the video runs
seven minutes and fifty two seconds. The album version opens
with the collage where we hear Meatloaf escaping hell on
a motorcycle, Then, after an extended intro, the vocals come
(48:30):
in at the one fifty mark on the single, just
ten seconds before the vocal. The full version has a
few long instrumental breaks with lots of guitar and some
additional lyrics, mostly at the end where the boy and
girl have their exchange. Many music critics turn their noses
up at the song, putting a lot of snarky worst
of lists at the end of nineteen ninety three, Blender
(48:50):
magazine named it one of the fifty worst songs of
all time in their two thousand and four list.
Speaker 13 (49:06):
It was the third of September that they I always
remember your time ca the further day that my dad died.
Speaker 20 (49:24):
I never got a chance to see, never heard nothing
but bad things about him. Tima, I'm depending on you tell.
Speaker 13 (49:35):
Me the truth. Mama just hung ahead and said, so,
my mo was a roll a stone.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
Wherever he Ladys had was.
Speaker 9 (49:46):
His home, and we need only the was a law.
Speaker 13 (49:56):
Was a roll the stone mother.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
Song that where Monty Lesses home, and.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
That was the Temptations with Papa was a roland stone.
A rolling stone may gather no moss, but it doesn't
handle responsibility well. And this song the father is just
a wild rover and disreputable philanderer. When he dies, the
mother opens up about him, telling the kids all about
his laziness and womanizing. This is written by Motown songwriters
(50:41):
Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield and produced by Whitfield. It
was the first song recorded by the band The Undisputed Truth.
But when Whitfield also had The Temptations recorded, that's when
they had much greater success. The album version of this
song runs eleven minutes and forty six seconds. The single
was released with the song split into two parts. Part
(51:01):
A was the vocal version, running it just under seven minutes,
and the B side is the instrumental that goes on
for another five Even truncated for single release. The A
side was exceptionally long and remains one of the longest
chart toppers in Hot one hundred history. It was not, however,
the longest number one of nineteen seventy two. That was
(51:23):
actually Don McLean's American Pie, which clocked in it eight
minutes in thirty three seconds. At least as the single,
both sides of the single won Grammy Awards. The A
side won for Best R and B Vocal Performance by
a Dupe grew Er Chorus, and the B side took
the award for Best R and B Instrumental Performance. This
(51:43):
was the last big hit recorded in Motown's famous studio A,
located in a two story house in Detroit. Most of
Motown's studio work had moved to Los Angeles by then,
but the Temptations still wanted to record in Detroit.
Speaker 13 (52:07):
Oh, Send a Man Where He Gonna Run? To send
a man where ain't gonna.
Speaker 5 (52:13):
Run to.
Speaker 13 (52:16):
We ain't gonna run to All on them day, will
I run to the rock?
Speaker 11 (52:23):
Please hicken me around the rock, Please haiden me around
the rock.
Speaker 13 (52:30):
Please hack me out. All on them day, put the
rock crowd out. I can't hide you, the rock craft.
I can't hide you the rock craft. I ain't gonna
hid you guys.
Speaker 11 (52:46):
All on them day, I said, a rock, what's the
matter with you, you rock? Don't just see on me
your rock under that loud on them day, swear run
to the river.
Speaker 4 (53:04):
It was bleeding around to the sea.
Speaker 6 (53:07):
It was bleeding around to the sea.
Speaker 19 (53:11):
It was bleeding.
Speaker 13 (53:13):
Or on them day, Sure, run to the river. It
was balling and round to the sea.
Speaker 6 (53:21):
It was borning around to the sea.
Speaker 13 (53:24):
It was born in or on them way. Soar unto
the Lord.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Please harden me along. Don't you see me prallant?
Speaker 13 (53:38):
Don't just stream it down head pain.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
But the Lord said, go to the devil. Lord said,
go to the devil. He said, God to the devil.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Or on them day, sultry voice of Nina Moan was
singing to you about sinnerman. Clocking in at over ten minutes.
Nina Simon's version of this African American traditional spiritual song
is an outpouring of intense emotion, possibly tied to her
own religious beliefs or her political fervor and the battle
(54:16):
for civil rights, condemning her own sins or condemning societies.
I guess that's up for you to interpret. It's featured
on her nineteen sixty five album Pastel Blues. The song
was inspired by the Book of Exodus, where Moses leads
a group of people out of Egypt, only to be
punished by a series of plagues when they're not truly
repentant enough for their sins. The story is also told
(54:39):
in Psalm seventy eight. Nina Simone learned this song way
back when she was known as Eunice Weiman, a young
girl known for her piano skills. At her mother's church,
the song was often used at revivals and prayer meetings
to bring sinners to the altar. Some of my most
fantastic experiences, experiences that really shake me now that I
(54:59):
think of them, happen in the church when we have
these revival meetings. I'd be playing something and then oh boy,
I'd really be playing because I could feel it. It
would move me. Folks would be shouting all over the place.
And that's my background and that's why I love music,
she said in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 9 (55:15):
Nine, Ees, no.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
Again, do.
Speaker 8 (56:06):
You sharing Sisa sun Side?
Speaker 9 (56:15):
He's a cap.
Speaker 4 (56:24):
To my mouth, done many far.
Speaker 9 (56:43):
Landing lost, He's a garant.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Well. In an episode that's about long songs, you knew
Genesis was going to make an appearance here at some point.
That was their song Suppers. Ready. I bet I could
have chose many different Genesis songs. This particular song is
a concept piece. Itce twenty three minutes long and divided
into seven sections. It tells the story of two lovers
who traveled to strange worlds, eventually returning to their own world,
(57:16):
only to witness the apocalypse. At Genesis concerts, pamphlets were
distributed with notes detailing what was going on in each
section and helped the crowd follow along. Peter Gabriel was
the band's lead singer at the time, and the lyrics
he wrote for this song were inspired by a night
he spent with his first wife, Jill, at her parents' house.
(57:36):
Gabriel believes Jill became possessed by a spirit which gave
him the starting point for a song about the battle
between good and evil. Gabriel said, one of the first
times I felt as if I was really singing from
my soul, almost like singing of my life. Section six
is titled Apocalypse. Gabriel got the idea for it while
(57:58):
reading the Book of Revelations in the Bible. This section
also features a solo that's over an unusual nine to
eight rhythm and for musicians that's incredibly rare. This is
the first big production number that Genesis came up with.
Led by Gabriel, they were starting to put on extravagant
stage performances to please the fans and generate publicity. In
(58:20):
nineteen seventy four, they took it to a new level
by performing their entire double album The Land Lies Down
on Broadway on tour, and that show, Gabriel changed costumes
a number of times. A few years after Gabriel left,
Genesis moved from anthems like this to short pop songs.
Now led by Phil Collins, they did lose some fans,
but gained new ones with their new string of hits.
(58:42):
When Gabriel left the band in nineteen seventy five, they
continued to perform this in concert with Phil Collins now
on vocals, and included it on their nineteen seventy seven
live album Seconds Out.
Speaker 12 (59:37):
Church, The.
Speaker 5 (59:50):
Perfect f.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
That was the Alman Brothers band with High Falls. The
song is named after a Georgia State park near Macon, Georgia,
where the band lived. This is an instrumental written by
Almond and the guitarist Dicky Betts. The longest studio track
ever recorded by the Alman Brothers. It runs fourteen minutes
and twenty eight seconds, and fittingly, we have come to
(01:00:42):
the end of this episode and our final song is
also called The End by the Doors. I planned it
that way. The end is death. Although the song also
deals with Jim Morrison's parents, it contains edible themes of
loving the mother and killing the father. Morrison was always
vague as to the meeting, explaining it could be almost
(01:01:04):
anything you want it to be. The Doors developed the
song during live performances at the Whisky a Go Go At,
a Los Angeles club where they were essentially the house
band in nineteen sixty six. They had to play two
sets a night, so they were forced to extend their
songs in order to fill the sets. This gave him
a chance to experiment with their songs. The End began
(01:01:25):
as Jim Morrison's farewell to Mary Weberlow, his girlfriend who
followed him from Florida to Los Angeles, and developed into
an eleven minute epic. On August twenty first, nineteen sixty six,
Jim Morrison didn't show up for The Door's gig at
the Whisky a Go Go. After playing the first set
without him, the band retrieved Morrison from his apartment, where
(01:01:45):
he'd been tripping on acid. They always played the End
as the last song, but Morrison decided to play it
early in the set and the band just went along.
When they got to the part where he could do
a spoken improvisation, he started talking about a killer and said, father,
I want to kill you. Mother, I want to f you.
The crowd went nuts, but the band was fired right
(01:02:06):
after the show. The Doors had recently signed a record
deal and they established a large following, so getting fired
from the Whiskey was not so much a crushing blow
as it would be for other bands. This is supposedly
the last song that Morrison heard the night he died.
He was playing an old Doors album which ended with
this song. It was the last song on that album.
(01:02:27):
This is recorded with the lights off and only one
candle burning next to Morrison to set the mood. The
album version of the song is an edited combination of
two takes, which took a total of about thirty minutes
to record. Producer Paul Rothchild called it one of the
most beautiful moments he's ever had in a recording studio.
And this episode hopefully was not too long for you.
(01:02:48):
Remember to rate, review, and subscribe, and of course turn
this song up and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 18 (01:03:11):
This is the end, beautiful friend, This is the end,
My only friend, the.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Oh my love, red gloves, the ear of velgry thing
that stas the ear.
Speaker 19 (01:03:40):
No saty, no.
Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
S rise the e.
Speaker 9 (01:03:46):
I'll never look get to your eye?
Speaker 13 (01:03:52):
Okay, can you bet you?
Speaker 14 (01:04:01):
What?
Speaker 16 (01:04:02):
Will so?
Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
Sady?
Speaker 19 (01:04:10):
Just relyly welsome strangers hand it up, just read.
Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Thank you for listening. To listen to this, Please recommend
to a friend, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe.
For more podcasts and online content, please visit this is
Funner dot com.
Speaker 6 (01:04:46):
This is Funner
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