February 13, 2025 • 57 mins
In this Season 14 Premiere, it's all about ways to get around—from walking and biking to trains, planes, and automobiles. Whether you're cruising with Queen’s "Bicycle Race," taking a wild ride on Ozzy Osbourne’s "Crazy Train," or strutting to The Bangles’ "Walk Like an Egyptian," this playlist is your ultimate travel soundtrack. So, hop on, tune in, and let’s hit the road with the best transportation-themed tracks ever! 🚲🚂🚗🎶
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to season fourteen of Listen to This. This is
the podcast that is dedicated to bringing you stories behind
the artists, behind the songs, and hopefully we are introducing
you to old songs that have influenced all the music
that we 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
(00:21):
you subscribe to, or even just buy it on vinyl
or CD or cassette whatever. We invite you to subscribe, comment,
and you gotta recommend this podcast to a friend. Every
episode has a theme, and to start off season fourteen,
our first episode will be Ways of getting Around never in.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The history of the United States a monster of such
size and power.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
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 (00:53):
Here's your host, Eric Leckey. Welcome everybody to season fourteen.
And for this episode codes theme, we had to first
figure out all the ways that we could think of
for getting around, I mean, walk, run, car, a plane.
We've all done categories as before, so if I use those,
I have to pick different songs for these options. There's
(01:15):
also trains and bicycles, motorcycles, skateboards. Hell, if I could
find a song about a unicycle, I would surely want
to play it for you. Plus, I have already done
an episode specifically on running and walking, and man, there's
a lot of songs with running and walking, and so
a lot of those songs have already been used. But
after a lot of research at the Listen to This
(01:37):
official top secret research facility deep inside of a mountain
in Colorado for security reasons, of course, we have managed
to find enough songs to get an episode done. I'm
proud of all of our scientists for their top tier work.
Also in this episode, in a first in the now
fourteen seasons of Listen To This, I your humble host,
(01:58):
was not the soul picker of the song. Actually, my father,
a big fan of this podcast, not only suggested this
as a theme, but also I used about ten of
his song choices in today's episode. So if it sucks,
you know who to blame. Let's get it started.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
All the old paintings on that toom I do the
sun dance, don't you know?
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Let the move too quick away?
Speaker 6 (02:35):
I'm falling down like go Domino Bazmon. By then we
got the money on a man, oh ccodile away, I'd
have that de doong cigarette, walk like an.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
Egyptian, the bond which was his, take their tracepin around
and they crossed the book.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
They've got the move so well.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
Don't you drink and they bring you more.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
I'll still kiss some sick of books.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
They like the bog in the little bit when the
wizard range the boken again Egyptian all the kiss in
the Muket place, say, won't like Gypt.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
That was the Bengals with Walk like an Egyptian, A
song so catchy and fun that we willingly ignore how
weirdly they pronounce the word egypan, just to make the
rhyme and the rhythm of the songwork. Songwriter Liam Snernberg
is who wrote this. He got the idea when he
was on a ferry boat and saw people struggling to
(04:03):
keep their balance. The way they held out their arms
and jerked around made it look like they were doing
Egyptian movements, and if the boat moved suddenly, they would
all topple over. Sternberg was part of a vibrant seventies
music scene in Akron, Ohio, where he wrote and produced
for the almost famous Jane Eyre and the Belvidere's and
Rachel Sweet. That Gritty City is the antithesis of Los Angeles,
(04:27):
But by the mid eighties Akron was in a musical
decline in La is where it was happening, so that's
where he pitched all of his new demos. The Walk
Like an Egyptian demo with a vocal by Marty Jones,
got the attention of Bengals producer David Kaine, who had
them record the song. This was the biggest hit for
the Bengals. Walk Like an Egyptian gave them a new
(04:48):
level of notoriety, but not the kind they wanted. They
formed in nineteen eighty one. They wrote their own songs
and were a big part of the La Paisley underground movement,
which included electric like Rain Parade and the Dream Syndicate.
These Paisley bands did well with the critics, but never
broke it big, except for the Bengals. Their first album,
(05:09):
released in nineteen eighty four, had a kind of a
sixties sound, with lots of clever and well constructed songs
written by their guitarist Susannah Haas and Vicki Peterson. It
did well and earned them a spot opening for Cindy Lapper.
Their second album, A Different Light, was their big breakthrough,
but the big hits were songs written by outsiders. First
(05:31):
came Manic Monday, a song that we've played for you
before on our Days of the Week episode, written by
high profile Bengals fan Prince. Then If She Knew What
She Wants, which was written by Jules Sheer. Then of
course came Walk Like an Egyptian. It's a goofy kind
of a romp song written by another outside writer that
(05:52):
the band didn't feel think would get released as a
single because they thought it was too weird of a song. Well,
it shot to number one and became a sensation, but
the group's rock pedigree took a hit because of it.
Suddenly they were known as the quasi novelty song band
instead of on their own compositions, which is a shame
because they were pretty good. The song does have their
(06:15):
stamp on it, though every Bengal could sing, and all
three of them get a verse on Egyptian. The guitar
riff is also their distinctive sound, something Vicki Peterson had
been developing for a while, and check out the song
He's Got a Secret from their first album. It sounds
very similar.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Made no sense.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Walking on, Walking on Son, Missy, Question on.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The Way, no.
Speaker 8 (07:19):
Sunrise, Shine, sun Sick, It's Morizona excusday game a man
as well, play.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Giant every Son, Walking on the Moon.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
That was the police with Walking on the Moon, and
these last two songs I played for you walk like
an You Egyptian and Walking on the Moon were left
off of our episode a few seasons back about walking
and running, and I thought this was the best spot
to get them in an episode. Sting was visiting that
German avant garde composer ed Budard Schooner in the early
(08:16):
part of nineteen seventy nine. Well, one night they went
out on a schnapps drinking session or whatever the hell
Germans drink, and Sting returned to his Munich hotel room,
drunk off his ass and slumped into bed. When this
song's rift came into his head, he got up and
started walking around the room to try and clear his head,
muttering to himself, walking around the room, walking round the room.
(08:39):
The next morning he wrote down the riff and decided
that walking around the Room was a stupid title, so
he changed it to an even more stupid one, which
was walking on the Moon. The song is set in space,
but it's an allegory for how Sting felt when he
was on the road, confined hotel rooms and stages as
the world kept turning. The Ohio based rock group Walked
(09:00):
the Moon, best known for their twenty fourteen hits Shut
Up and Dance, took their name from this song, beating on.
Speaker 9 (09:16):
Out on the road I've been down.
Speaker 10 (09:19):
Before, riding along on his beak on chapueen of him
begging about my home for my birth pat team survilling,
and I feel like it's all and done.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Somebody's trying to make me stay. You know, I've got
to be moved.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh they got Chad out of line.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Don't carry me to fallo away.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh they got Chad out of line.
Speaker 11 (09:56):
Because it's see, I got to.
Speaker 9 (09:59):
Say good bye to all my friends and all good
bye to the people I'm trusted.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I've got to go out and meg my it.
Speaker 12 (10:14):
I'm I get rich.
Speaker 9 (10:15):
You know, I'm not getting busted.
Speaker 10 (10:18):
But my heart gets calling me backwards as I get
on the seven of seven, Riding gotten Toosings.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
You know you gotta go alby Barton.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You gotta do head, big jet line up, don't carry
me to byway, big got jet out line.
Speaker 13 (10:44):
Down, because it's he I got do.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Steve Miller with jet air Liner. Jet Airliner was written
by Paul Pena, who's a blind folk singer from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
He played at the Newport Folk Festival in nineteen sixty
nine and released his debut album in nineteen seventy one.
Peena recorded Jet Airliner for his next album, New Train,
in nineteen seventy three, but the album was shelved and
(11:11):
didn't get released all the way until the year two thousand.
Brian Sierden, who is the producer for the band New Train,
played the song for Steve Miller and reworked it and
released it on his nineteen seventy seven album Book of Dreams.
Penia's version runs five minutes and forty two seconds and
has five verses. Miller set out to make the song
(11:32):
a hit, so he cut down to three minutes and
twenty seconds for the single. The album versions a little
longer and excised too verses, adding some extra repetitions of
the chorus at the end, got to give the people
what they want. He did keep the distinctive guitar riff
and even the ear catching chorus and the memorable line,
you gotta go through hell before you get to heaven.
(11:53):
This song is about missing home, something that many musicians
can relate to when they're on tour.
Speaker 13 (12:08):
Ah, my bag's are packed, I'm ready to go. I'm
standing here outside your door. I hate to wake you
up to say goodbye, but the dawn is breaking.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It early morning.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Taxi's waiting.
Speaker 13 (12:29):
He's blowing his horn already. I'm so lonesome. I could cry,
so piss me and smile for me. Tell me that
you wait for me, Call.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Me like you'll never let me go, calmly.
Speaker 14 (12:54):
On a gent plane.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 13 (12:57):
When I'll be back again. Oh, they I hate to go.
There's so many times I've let you down, so many
times I've played around.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
I tell you now, they.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Don't mean Peter, Paul and Mary with leaving on a
jet plane for you. There. That was actually written by
a very young John Denver, who was then a member
of the Chad Mitchell Trio before beginning his solo career
in the seventies. Denver wrote this all the way back
in nineteen sixty seven during a layover at a Washington airport.
(13:39):
Quote not so much from feeling that way for someone,
but for longing of having someone to love, he said.
The Chad Mitchell Trio recorded the song that year, as
did Spanky and Our Gang and Peter Paul and Mary.
Of course, it became a hit when the latter act
covered the song again two years later. That's the song
that you hear on the radio. Denver claimed that he
(14:02):
wasn't a prolific or systematic songwriter. He wrote songs when
they came to him. Some of his popular songs took
actual months to complete, but this one took him just
a few hours. This became the biggest hit for Peter
Paul and Maryanne, also their last.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
I want to ride my I want to ride my
bye Gig.
Speaker 15 (14:30):
I want to ride my bag. I want to ride
my busie. I want to ride it. Where I say, why.
Speaker 10 (14:40):
Said by shot him and Jos was never my scene.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
And I don't like Star Wars. She rolls give me
a choice. I scrashed that.
Speaker 15 (14:53):
I don't believe in Peter fan Fankistan a superman.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
I want to ride.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
I want to ride my busy girl. I want to
ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle girl.
I want to ride. My races coming myself. Forget audio duties.
Speaker 7 (15:24):
Audio.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Ride.
Speaker 11 (15:30):
So for those beauties, all.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Races race.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Well, A bicycle is certainly a pretty great way to
get a round. I wouldn't mind being in Queen's bicycle
race myself. Freddie Mercury wrote this in France after watching
the Tour de France bicycle race from his hotel. The
band was recording jazz in the French countryside, mainly as
a tax break. Roger Taylor claimed in the Days of
(16:13):
Our Lives documentary that they were being taxed as much
as ninety eight percent on royalties on previous albums, hence
why they defected to France and later to Montreaux in
Switzerland to record future albums. This was recorded as a
double a side single with Fat Bottom Girls. They ran
back to back on the album, and many radio stations
(16:35):
play them together. The Fat Bottom Girls are mentioned in
The Bicycle Race's song lyrics. Whenever Queen played, bicycle shops
sold out of bells bought by fans who brought them
to the show to ring them during this song. The
song features a surprisingly complex instrumentation in the jazz album
as a whole, perhaps represents the apex of Queen's experimentation
(16:58):
with music. Features an imagine tive solo played exclusively on
bicycle bells, unusual chord progressions, shifts and time signature from
a four to four to a six eight, and a
whole host of pop culture references and the lyrics, including
mentions of religion, the Watergate scandal, drugs, Jaws, Star Wars,
and Frankenstein.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
You get slowly on the ba.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Is fun.
Speaker 16 (17:46):
Justly man mad a little far and that's a man
page and open.
Speaker 8 (17:57):
You been my plays a less than a day, So.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Get on your bed loss cooter and ride.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
The more of my place is down night.
Speaker 17 (18:13):
The first saying of.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Mon I ever feeling a ride?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
All right, all right, hor A getting your bath, I'm
good and.
Speaker 16 (18:21):
Ride For the last time I seen your face, sat
and no want to take your place, no sense you've
been all.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
About feeling a bad.
Speaker 16 (18:41):
I'm coming New York with I'm a bad your dad,
So you you get on your.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Bath, cross Conner and ride a horn of my place
is down?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
How's the band Montrose with bad motor Scooter. Actually, I
actually wish I had a scooter. Scooter sounds fun. Like
a little Vespa scooter get around town sounds pretty fun.
This song came from the self titled debut album by Montrose.
Bad Motor Scooter has the distinction of actually being the
first song that Sammy hag Are, the band's lead singer,
ever wrote. It finds him inviting a girl to jump
(19:18):
on her bad motor scooter and come pay him a visit.
He'd go to see her, of course, but is afraid
of her dad. Unlike the song Leader of the Pack,
which used an actual motorcycle, this song revs it up
with a slide guitar lick played by the group's namesake,
Ronnie Montrose. It sets the tone simulating the bad motor
(19:39):
scooter on the road. Another song that pulled off the
motorcycle song with a guitar and some distortion effects is
bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf, with the guitar played
by Todd Rungren. In that case, San Francisco has a
kind of a rich musical history of psychedelic rock, but
Montrose was the first band to emerge from the city
(19:59):
with a pedal to the medal. Ronnie Montrose, who played
a far more delic guitar when he was playing on
the Van Morrison albums, specifically Tupelo Honey in nineteen seventy
one and Saint Dominic's Preview in nineteen seventy two. Well
then he formed a group in nineteen seventy three three,
recruiting newcomers like Sammy Hagar as his frontman. They released
(20:21):
the Montrose Album that year and quickly earned a reputation
for their adrenaline fueled live shows. Hagar lasted just one
more album, leaving the group in seventy five and starting
a successful solo career. In nineteen eighty five, he took
over as frontman for Van Halen, another group named after
its guitarist. He kept Bad Motor Scooter in his setlists
(20:44):
throughout his whole solo career.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
Ell Grave Well ugag Noll Later Am You.
Speaker 18 (20:52):
Are Hampney landing on a rock farm, the Room with the.
Speaker 19 (21:02):
Main Mad help too, Look, Oh No Wait with the
comy on the wood.
Speaker 20 (21:14):
Chip Lollipop in Tonight Trips Internet you Puff Andrey mo
Way on the book Chip Lonelypup.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Well you can get around on a ship even if
it is made of lollipops. That was good old Shirley
Temple with a good ship lollipop. Surely sang the song
in the movie Bright Eyes, for which she was honored
with a Special Pint Size Academy Award for her contributions
on nine feature films and two short films in nineteen
(21:47):
thirty four alone. Surely was only six years old when
this was released, and this is her signature song. This
was composed by Richard Whiting, who wrote the song Ain't
We Got Fun with lyrics by Sidney Clark, who wrote
the song Please Don't Talk about Me When I'm Gone.
Whiting was the father of popular singer Margaret Whiting, known
by modern listeners for her wintry duet with Johnny Mercer
(22:10):
with the song Baby It's Cold Outside the original version
mean why back in the year one, when you.
Speaker 21 (22:19):
Belong to know one?
Speaker 13 (22:23):
It didn't stand the chance, son, If it pends.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
On because you are pre.
Speaker 11 (22:36):
Humanity and so.
Speaker 13 (22:41):
Just society.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
One day, wake up.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
In the present day.
Speaker 22 (22:49):
He a million genary hatians, removed from expectattions, a being
who you really want to be?
Speaker 14 (23:02):
Skating away, skating away, skating away on the thin ice,
of a day.
Speaker 11 (23:20):
So as to put out from the show.
Speaker 23 (23:23):
Wants to turn ahead.
Speaker 13 (23:24):
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And make it deeper. One one way to get around
is to skate away on the thin ice of a
New Day, which is the name of that song by
Jethro Toll. This was one of the first songs to
discuss climate change, or what we now call climate change. However,
he and Anderson admitted to Mojo magazine that he actually
got his facts wrong. He says, based on what I
(23:48):
was reading in scientific journals, I thought there was a
mini ice age coming, he said. Not long after that
came out, the revelation was opposite, and I had a
lot of egg and indeed ice on my face. Well
maybe that's also because they keep changing it, because it's
just a way to sell politics to you. But I digress.
There are two lines in the song that reference the
(24:08):
nineteen seventy three Jethro Tol album The Passion Play quote
looking for a sign that the universal mind has written
you into the Passion Play and quote, or that everybody's
on the stage and it seems like you're only person
sitting in the audience. The Passion Play is a two
song album similar to Thick as a brick.
Speaker 14 (24:37):
You've seen a wing.
Speaker 13 (24:41):
Down the wrong way?
Speaker 24 (24:49):
Yeahs when it comes, do the usual events, same old
CRUs crawl.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
The roll again, he's taking jaxes.
Speaker 12 (25:07):
Just love to see it.
Speaker 14 (25:13):
Through the crowds and tighten.
Speaker 24 (25:23):
Aujah is she comes.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I played the two skating songs of ways of getting
around together. That previous one was skating Away on the
thin ice of a New Day, and this one is
skate Away by Dire Straits. There were a lot of
roller skating songs in the disco era, but none like
this one. Skate Away is the story of a girl
who skates her way around the city, listening to the
(25:50):
rock station in her headphones. She's the bane of taxi drivers,
but her many admirers love to watch her weave through
the traffic in the crowds. This song was written by
Dire Strait's frontman Mark Knopfler, who had away with words
and could really tell a story. You won't find another
writer who can get the phrase urban torridor into a
song and have it make sense. Skate Away runs six
(26:13):
minutes and forty seconds on the album, what was cut
down to four forty five for the single. Song didn't
get a lot of airplay, but found a devoted following
him earned airplay decades later on classic rock radio, where
the full version was actually typically played. Dire Straits was
a trio for Making Movies album, their third with Mark
(26:34):
Knopfler's brother David. He had left at that point, so
it was only a trio. They brought in keyboard player
Roy Baton of Bruce Springsteen's East Street Band for a
session or two, but other than that they were a trio.
The album title making Movies comes from a line in
this song. She's making movies on location.
Speaker 11 (26:53):
She doesn't know what it means, right, Bob.
Speaker 25 (27:18):
And forget.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Like a bab I'm going after Bravy Fred, I'm going
after Round Donny Crazy Fay.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Getting around on a crazy train. That was Ozzy Osbourne,
of course, And this song Ozzie asks when we can
all learn to love in a world gone mad? Ozzie
wrote this song with guitarist Randy Rhodes and baby player
Bob Daisy. While many believe that this is yet another
Ozzy song about insanity, it's actually about the Cold War.
(28:08):
Evidence in the lyrics quote millions of people living as foes,
one person conditioned to rule and control. The media sells it,
and you have to live the role airs of a
cold war. That's what we've become inheriting troubles. I'm mentally numb.
The relevant acronym was mad mad mutually assured destruction doctrine,
(28:29):
which basically amounts to, you know, if they shoot their
nukes at us, we shoot ours right back, and that
would end the world. No one really wants that, so
it won't happen as long as we keep pointing the
nukes at each other. Hence, crazy is another word for mad.
Randy Rhodse was Ozzy's guitarist on this song. He was
in Quiet Riot before joining Ozzy. Like most of the
(28:51):
guitar solos he recorded with him, Rhodes had to double
all of his guitar parts. That means he had to
play every note of very difficult exactly the same way twice.
This is one reason why the solo on the recording
sounds so unique. Roach was a very proficient and influential
guitar player and the first guitarist to seek Ozzy's input
(29:13):
during the songwriting process. Quote he was the first guy
to go, maybe you should do it in this key,
Ozzy said he was the first guy to ever consider
my opinion and give me a break. This was the
first single that Ozzy Osbourne released after leaving Black Sabbath
in nineteen seventy eight. He left the band after a
particularly heated dispute with guitarist Tony Iomi, at which time
(29:36):
Ozzy was painted as the substance abusing layabout by his
former bandmates. Well, I mean he was that, but you know,
still not nice to do by your former bandmates. Crazy
Train was kind of a triumph for Ozzy and that
he proved that he could succeed outside of the Sabbath shelter,
albeit with lots of help from an awesome guitarist.
Speaker 26 (30:09):
Okay, too much.
Speaker 12 (30:15):
For me, too much.
Speaker 26 (30:20):
So he's leaving a life he's comfortable, he said, he's
going He said.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
He's going back to fad God, what's left of.
Speaker 12 (30:38):
His work, the world he left behind not so long ago.
He's leaving.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Left that chain. George Yeah, said he's going back to Severn.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Gladys Knight's getting around on her midnight Train to Georgia.
Midnight Train to Georgia was not only a number one
hit on both the Billboard Hot one hundred and R
and B but it reached number ten in the UK
Singles Chart as well. It was a huge hit worldwide.
It garnered the group the nineteen seventy four Grammy Award
for Best R and B Vocal Performance and was inducted
(31:36):
into the Grammy Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety nine.
It's considered Gladys Knight's signature song. This is written and
originally recorded by Jim Weatherly, who had a solo hit
nineteen seventy four with the Need to Be. Weatherley explained
the origin of this song in an interview, quote, this
song actually came about after a phone call I had
(31:57):
with Farah Fawcett. Lee made was a friend of mine.
We played in a flag football league together in La
which sidebar? I mean, come on, how much would you
like to see video of him? A flag football league
with Lee majors?
Speaker 27 (32:10):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That just drove me nuts. He started dating Farah and
one day he called Lee and Farah answered the phone.
We were just talking and she said that she was packing.
She was gonna take the midnight plane to Houston to
visit her folks, and Matt phrase just stayed with me
and after I got off the phone, I sat down
and wrought the wrote this whole song in about forty
five minutes something like that. Didn't take me long at
(32:33):
all because I used Farah and Lee as kind of
like characters in the song, A girl that comes to
LA and doesn't make it and goes back home. Pretty simple.
I cut it on my first album as Midnight Plane
to Houston, and later on, about a year later, a
guy in Atlanta wanted to cut the song for Sissy Houston,
Whitney Houston's mother. They called and said they would like
(32:54):
a more R and B sounding title and wouldn't mind
if I changed the lyrics to something else. So we
changed it Midnight Train to Georgia so that Houston wouldn't
appear in both the title of the song and the
title of the artist's name. We said, change it for
anything you like, as long as I got paid, And
boy did I get paid.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
In the town when I was.
Speaker 17 (33:15):
Born lived the land who sailed to see, and he
told us on his life in the.
Speaker 27 (33:27):
Land of submarines.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
So we say, love do the song Jill.
Speaker 27 (33:35):
We bound the sabines, and we live neat the way
in our yellow submarine.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
He all live a yellow.
Speaker 27 (33:51):
Submarine yellows submarine, Yellow submarine.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
We all live in yellow.
Speaker 9 (34:01):
Yellous yellous.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Not really sure how many of us can get around
on a submarine, but just in case there are a
few of you out there that need a submarine to
get around, this is the song for you. Of course,
that was The Beatles. Paul McCartney wrote the majority of
this song. He explained it shortly after it was released
in nineteen sixty six quote, Yellow Submarine is a very
simple but different song. It's a fun song made in
(34:28):
a children's song way. Originally we intended it to be
a sparky children's record. Don't know what that means, by
the way, but now the idea of a yellow submarine
where all the kids want to go and have fun
seems like a pretty good idea. Paul purposely used short
words in the lyrics because he wanted kids to pick
it up early and sing along. Ringo Star sang lead,
(34:49):
as he did on many of the lighter of the
Beatles songs, including Octopus's Garden and Act Naturally. Originally, Ringo
had spoken intro to go with the children's story theme,
but this was discarded pretty early on in the recording process.
Ringo did eventually though, get his chance to narrate for children,
because he was the voice talent on the cartoon show
(35:11):
Thomas the Tank Engine. As just about every Beatles song,
there's a lot that can be read into this one
if you look hard enough. One possible interpretation. Once famous,
the Beatles were forced to stay in hotel rooms and
live under pressure equaling a submarine because they weren't having
a great time. It was yellow and all of the
friends and everyone around them. It was all about green,
(35:34):
sea of green, which is money. The sound of bubbles
and water and other noises were recorded in the studio.
The background vocals and some of the effects were done
by John Paul and George and they had some help
on the fade out chorus by Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall,
George Martin and Alf Bicknall, who was actually their chauffeur,
(35:54):
Jeff Emrick, Brian Jones, and the rolling Stones Marry Unfaithful,
Patty Harrison and a few other staff were people who
were just in the building at the time, all making
those bubble sound effects, and the bubble effects were actually
them blowing into a straw. All of the speaking parts
are done by John and Paul.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
The Perodis put up a park in Love.
Speaker 13 (36:29):
With a clean hotel, a boutique and a swing in
hot spot.
Speaker 5 (36:35):
Don't it always seemed to.
Speaker 13 (36:37):
Go that you don't know what you've got to list
on one they realized to put up a park in love.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
The ball the trees put him in a cream museum,
and it charged the people a dollar and a happiest.
Speaker 17 (36:57):
To see you.
Speaker 13 (37:00):
Don't you know we seem to go tach, you don't
know what you've got to live gone.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I personally hate getting around in taxis and haven't taken
one in a long time, but Joni Mitchell likes big
yellow taxis. Mitchell, from a nineteen sixty six interview in
the La Times, said quote, I wrote Big Yellow Taxi
on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi
to the hotel, and when I woke up the next morning,
I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green
(37:31):
mountains in the distance. Then I looked down and there
was a parking lot as far as the eye could see,
and it just broke my heart, this blight on paradise.
And that's when I sat down and wrote this song.
The song is about taking things for granted, and then
of course missing them when they're gone. In the first verse,
she uses Waikiki, Hawaii as an example. It used to
be paradise, but now it's a fakey tourist destination. When
(37:54):
you fly over the islands, all of the other islands
are nice and green, But when you get over a
Wahu and you see Waikiki, you just see Honolulu buildings.
The line took all the trees, put them in a
tree museum, charged the people a dollar and a half
just to see them refers to Foster Gardens, a place
in Waikiki which is basically a tree museum. It's a
(38:15):
huge garden full of tall trees, so you feel like
Alice in Wonderland. The line put away the DDT, Now
give me spots on my apples and leave the birds
and the bees refers to the insecticide DDT, which was
used on crops. This delirious effects of the chemical were
in the news, and the Americans learned that their food
(38:35):
was being contaminated by its use. Those spotless apples looked great,
but held hidden dangers. Also, birds were eating the insects,
and the fish poisoned by the DDT which caused them
to lay burtle eggs, and many of the species died.
It was kind of a whole big mess.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
On the first of the journey, I was looking all
the light.
Speaker 25 (39:06):
There were plants and birds and rocksand things, and was
sands and hills and rain.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
The first thing I met was a flow of a.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Bottle sound in the sky with no clowns.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
The heap was hot and the ground was dry, but
the air was full of sound.
Speaker 25 (39:30):
I went through the desert on a horse with no Name,
and it felt good to be out of the rain.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
In the desert, you can't.
Speaker 12 (39:40):
Remember your name because the rain no.
Speaker 17 (39:43):
One going to give you no thing.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
The that's the band America with a Horse with No Name.
America was formed in England by sons of US servicemen
who were stationed there. Lead singer Dewey Banell wrote A
(40:13):
Horse with No Name when he was only nineteen years old.
Although the song is commonly misinterpreted about being on drugs,
it's actually not. Banell based the images and the lyrics
on things he saw while visiting the US. This was
originally titled Desert Song, since Benell wrote it based on
the desert scenery he encountered when he and his dad
(40:34):
were stationed at an Air Force base near Santa Barbara
in California. The song tells a rather obtrusive tale about
a trip through the desert. While the landscape is unforgiving,
the singer also finds comfort in that scenario. According to
Dewey Banell, the horse represents a means of entering a
place of tranquility, and this tranquil place is best represented
(40:55):
by the desert, which sounded pretty good to him until
he was stuck in it. As for why the song
has a horse with no name and why it went
free after nine days but now doesn't really have any answers,
it seems that various listener interpretations is far more colorful
than any meaning he actually assigned to it.
Speaker 25 (41:24):
Name mister gets him, love him him, Come on man,
come my name and nap gone.
Speaker 11 (41:38):
Up, sive up.
Speaker 13 (42:04):
My race was guy now.
Speaker 12 (42:10):
No one hell?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
That was the doors. And apparently they want to get
around on a ship as long as it's filled with fools,
because that was the song Ship of Fools. The title,
after some research, I think has been inspired by the
nineteen sixty two novel by Catherine Ann Portership of fools.
It was made into a movie in nineteen sixty five,
(42:46):
and the phrase has since become a common lyric in
rock songs. This is about an acid trip, along with
nineteen sixty seven's The Crystal Ship, the second time the
Doors used ship as a metaphor for drugs. The lyrics
present a bleak image of the world heading towards oblivion.
Images of the Earth from space may have given Morrison
(43:09):
the idea to equate it with a ship. The moon
landing was in the news all throughout nineteen sixty nine
when this was being written. Morrison wrote most of the
songs on the album. On their previous album, The Soft Parade,
he contributed very little because he was drunk and high
most of the time.
Speaker 14 (43:29):
Oh the time will come up when the winds were
stop and the breezeless cease tim everything like the stillness
in the wind, hard the hurricane against they are that
the ship comes in and the sea was fled, and
the ships will hit and the sunds on the showline
(43:52):
who was shigging, And the tide will sound and the
waves will pound. In the morning, We'll be abrey. Can
your fishes will lie fast? They swim out of the path,
and the seagulls live be smiling, and the rocks on the.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Sand will proudly stand.
Speaker 14 (44:20):
He ow that the ship comes in, and the words
that are used for to get the ship confused will
not be understood as the spoken, or the chains of
the sea will have busted in the nigh and be
buried out the bottom of the hill.
Speaker 17 (44:45):
His song will lift as the main.
Speaker 14 (44:48):
Say, shift say, the poat drifts onto the shoreline, and
the sun will respect the every face on the deck.
He aw that the ship and this sounds well, lotic
cap and gold for you weird toes to be a
(45:08):
touching and this ship's wasman will remind you once again,
and the world is.
Speaker 12 (45:18):
Gee.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
That was our Bob Dylan song for this episode, when
the ship comes in. And I always try my best
to play Bob Dylan in every episode that I can,
And I have actually not played that song before, which,
by the way, is getting harder and harder to do.
I've played so many of his songs. Well. Dylan wrote
this song and this kind of a violent and vengeful
(45:42):
song in a hotel room in August of nineteen sixty three.
He was in an angry mood when he penned it
as a hotel clerk who thought he looked like a
deadbeat and actually refused him admission to the hotel. Well,
Dylan finally got a room after Joan Bias vouched for
his good character. This ship is a metaphor throughout myth
(46:02):
and literature. We find water is the symbol of the
unconscious spirituality in the earth, and the ship as the
tiny let's call it, ego of man making its lonelier
triumphant voyage across its dangerous deeps. The ship is used
as a symbol of freedom, and its arrival marks the
demise of the narrator's nemesis. From the Missing Person's debut
(47:26):
album from nineteen eighty two, I Played You the live
version from the US festival that was Missing Persons Walking
in La It was a minor hit in the United States,
spending about six weeks on the Billboard Hot one hundred,
peaking as high as number seventy in March of eighty three.
It is still recalled occasionally today for its comical portrayal
(47:47):
of Hollywood culture and its rye observations of getting around
in Los Angeles. Because, of course, nobody really does walk
in La it's actually true. Songwriter Terry Bosio has said
that this is inspired by the comedian making jokes about
driving everywhere in the city. Missing Persons is their American
rock band founded in nineteen eighty in Los Angeles by
(48:08):
guitarist Warren Coucarillo and vocalist Dale Bozio and drummer Terry Bozio.
They later added bassist Patrick O'Hearn and keyboardist Chuck Wilde.
And Dale had a kind of a quirky voice and
heavy makeup and made the band a favorite on MTV
when MTV first kicked off. Get up in the morning,
(48:40):
Get on the bus.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
Get up in the morning like the.
Speaker 13 (48:47):
Rest of us.
Speaker 23 (48:52):
Placius to go important people to meets. Better not get
up on you might lose you seat bus. Leave the
(49:15):
house at six o'clock to be on time. Leave the
wife of kids.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
At home to make a dive.
Speaker 23 (49:27):
Grab your launch pail, check for mail, and your slotch
You won't get your check if you don't punch the
clock bus.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Well, that was the guess who with bus writer and
it was a B side to their Share the Land
single in nineteen seventy. The B side did get some spins,
though at the time on the radio. The Guests Who
They're a Canadian rock band. They formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba
in nineteen sixty five, which is way older than I
thought they were. The band found their greatest success in
(50:01):
the late sixties and early seventies. The Guests Who officially
broke up in nineteen seventy five, with a major reunion
tour in the early two thousands what I like to
call a Oh crap, we have to pay the mortgage tour.
A separate band organized by former bassist Jim Kale also
toured and recorded under the Guests Who Named for several decades,
(50:22):
often performing without any original band members on stage. After
a long legal dispute, Bachman and Cummings regained control of
The Guests Who Name in a recent settlement that just
settled in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 21 (50:35):
The names Lanley, Lyle, Lanley, and I come before you,
good people, tonight, with an idea, probably the greatest. Oh
it's not for you, it's more of a Shelbyville idea.
I'll wait just a minute, well twice as mt as
the people of Shelbyville.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
Just tell us your idea and.
Speaker 21 (50:53):
We'll vote for it all right, I tell you what
I'll do. I'll show you my idea.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
You the Springfield monorail.
Speaker 21 (51:04):
I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook, and
by gum it put them on the map. Well, sir,
there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide electrified
six car monorail.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
What I say, monorail? What's it called monorail? That's right, monorail?
Speaker 5 (51:24):
I hear.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Those things are awfully loud, rides as softly as a cloud.
Speaker 5 (51:28):
Is there a chance the tread could bend?
Speaker 7 (51:30):
Not on your life?
Speaker 1 (51:31):
My Hindu friend.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
Walter brought us Brindan slaps.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
You'll be given cushy jobs.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
Were you shent here by the table?
Speaker 21 (51:38):
No good sir, I'm on the level.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
The ring came off.
Speaker 21 (51:41):
My pudding can take my bedknife, My good man, I
swear at Springfield's only choice.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Throw up your hands and raise your voice. What's it called?
Speaker 5 (51:51):
What's again? A matrix to walk craft and broken time.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
On mono doubt you will learn in a later episode
this season why I'm actually very bummed that I am
burning this song for this episode, But damn it, it
(52:21):
was too perfectly tempting to not include it. That was
one of my favorite songs from a Simpsons episode and
one of my favorite episodes, and it was actually written
by the way by Conan O'Brien. That was from the
episode Marge Versus the Monoail and it's the twelfth episode
of the fourth season of the show. Reoccurring guest star
(52:42):
Phil Hartman provided the voice of Lyle Lanley, while Leonard
Nimoy makes a great guest appearance as himself. When the
Environmental Protection Agency finds Mister Burns three million dollars for
dumping nuclear waste in a Springfield parka town meeting is
held to help decide how to spend the money. Marge
nearly persuades the townspeople to repair Springfield's heavily damaged main street,
(53:06):
but fast talking salesman Hile Lanley leads a song and
dance routine that convinces them to build a monorail to
get around instead. After running a questionable training program, Lanley
randomly selects Homer as the monorail's first conductor. A suspicious
Marge visits Lanley's office and discovers that he plans to
(53:27):
skim money from the project and leave Springfield Marge drives
to north Haven Brook, a previous purchaser of one of
the Lanley monorails, and finds it is in ruin.
Speaker 28 (53:43):
Monacycle Mama, Lay all bigs fine down, Monacycle Mama Login.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Lay all begs mine down.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
I'm always getting trouble when you're bringing.
Speaker 28 (54:02):
It around, motorcycle Mama, watching lay it down.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
A blasts.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
I was grumpy old man Neil Young with motorcycle Mama.
His mama likes to get around on motorcycles. Once you
lay your big sp down. I always get in trouble
when you bring it around, motorcycle Mama, won't you lay
it down? Coming near the end of the comes a
Time album, Motorcycle Mama provides some funky, lighthearted relief from
(55:13):
the gentle, albeit beautiful songs that make up the rest
of the album. It's a rare bluesy outing from Neil Young.
It's a guttural, almost Rolling Stones acoustic inspired song, and
it features more great vocals from Nicolette Larson. Quite simply,
it's a lust song rather than a love song, and
the motorcycle imagery is perfect for it. Well, we have
(55:37):
traveled the world walking on a ship and let's see
on a bus. We dine a train and hell even
a monorail this episode. And now it's time to get
back on the bus for one more ride, as I
come to you with my final song. This song from
The Who is about a man who wants to buy
a ticket and take it to go see his girlfriend
(56:00):
every day, but the driver does not want to sell
it to him. This song is a staple of Who
concerts and has been sung in many different versions. A
nearly eight minute long song version could be found on
the Live at Leeds album, a pretty damn good album.
So we are going to close with the song Magic
Buss by The Who, and thank you for listening to
(56:21):
the first episode of season fourteen. Of course, recommend these
podcasts to your friends, and of course, as always, turned
this song up.
Speaker 14 (56:53):
Every day.
Speaker 21 (56:54):
Cute to get on the bus.
Speaker 11 (56:59):
It takes me you.
Speaker 5 (57:02):
I'm sorr asad.
Speaker 11 (57:04):
Just sit and smile.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
I be the house is only another mile. Thank you Domagor.
Speaker 12 (57:14):
Getting me here.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
You'll be an inspect to have no fear.
Speaker 12 (57:23):
I don't want comfus, but cannot buy.
Speaker 5 (57:29):
Your magic bus.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
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 this is
funner dot com.
Speaker 7 (57:56):
This is Funner
Welcome to season fourteen of Listen to This. This is
the podcast that is dedicated to bringing you stories behind
the artists, behind the songs, and hopefully we are introducing
you to old songs that have influenced all the music
that we 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
(00:21):
you subscribe to, or even just buy it on vinyl
or CD or cassette whatever. We invite you to subscribe, comment,
and you gotta recommend this podcast to a friend. Every
episode has a theme, and to start off season fourteen,
our first episode will be Ways of getting Around never in.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The history of the United States a monster of such
size and power.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
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 (00:53):
Here's your host, Eric Leckey. Welcome everybody to season fourteen.
And for this episode codes theme, we had to first
figure out all the ways that we could think of
for getting around, I mean, walk, run, car, a plane.
We've all done categories as before, so if I use those,
I have to pick different songs for these options. There's
(01:15):
also trains and bicycles, motorcycles, skateboards. Hell, if I could
find a song about a unicycle, I would surely want
to play it for you. Plus, I have already done
an episode specifically on running and walking, and man, there's
a lot of songs with running and walking, and so
a lot of those songs have already been used. But
after a lot of research at the Listen to This
(01:37):
official top secret research facility deep inside of a mountain
in Colorado for security reasons, of course, we have managed
to find enough songs to get an episode done. I'm
proud of all of our scientists for their top tier work.
Also in this episode, in a first in the now
fourteen seasons of Listen To This, I your humble host,
(01:58):
was not the soul picker of the song. Actually, my father,
a big fan of this podcast, not only suggested this
as a theme, but also I used about ten of
his song choices in today's episode. So if it sucks,
you know who to blame. Let's get it started.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
All the old paintings on that toom I do the
sun dance, don't you know?
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Let the move too quick away?
Speaker 6 (02:35):
I'm falling down like go Domino Bazmon. By then we
got the money on a man, oh ccodile away, I'd
have that de doong cigarette, walk like an.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
Egyptian, the bond which was his, take their tracepin around
and they crossed the book.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
They've got the move so well.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
Don't you drink and they bring you more.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
I'll still kiss some sick of books.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
They like the bog in the little bit when the
wizard range the boken again Egyptian all the kiss in
the Muket place, say, won't like Gypt.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
That was the Bengals with Walk like an Egyptian, A
song so catchy and fun that we willingly ignore how
weirdly they pronounce the word egypan, just to make the
rhyme and the rhythm of the songwork. Songwriter Liam Snernberg
is who wrote this. He got the idea when he
was on a ferry boat and saw people struggling to
(04:03):
keep their balance. The way they held out their arms
and jerked around made it look like they were doing
Egyptian movements, and if the boat moved suddenly, they would
all topple over. Sternberg was part of a vibrant seventies
music scene in Akron, Ohio, where he wrote and produced
for the almost famous Jane Eyre and the Belvidere's and
Rachel Sweet. That Gritty City is the antithesis of Los Angeles,
(04:27):
But by the mid eighties Akron was in a musical
decline in La is where it was happening, so that's
where he pitched all of his new demos. The Walk
Like an Egyptian demo with a vocal by Marty Jones,
got the attention of Bengals producer David Kaine, who had
them record the song. This was the biggest hit for
the Bengals. Walk Like an Egyptian gave them a new
(04:48):
level of notoriety, but not the kind they wanted. They
formed in nineteen eighty one. They wrote their own songs
and were a big part of the La Paisley underground movement,
which included electric like Rain Parade and the Dream Syndicate.
These Paisley bands did well with the critics, but never
broke it big, except for the Bengals. Their first album,
(05:09):
released in nineteen eighty four, had a kind of a
sixties sound, with lots of clever and well constructed songs
written by their guitarist Susannah Haas and Vicki Peterson. It
did well and earned them a spot opening for Cindy Lapper.
Their second album, A Different Light, was their big breakthrough,
but the big hits were songs written by outsiders. First
(05:31):
came Manic Monday, a song that we've played for you
before on our Days of the Week episode, written by
high profile Bengals fan Prince. Then If She Knew What
She Wants, which was written by Jules Sheer. Then of
course came Walk Like an Egyptian. It's a goofy kind
of a romp song written by another outside writer that
(05:52):
the band didn't feel think would get released as a
single because they thought it was too weird of a song. Well,
it shot to number one and became a sensation, but
the group's rock pedigree took a hit because of it.
Suddenly they were known as the quasi novelty song band
instead of on their own compositions, which is a shame
because they were pretty good. The song does have their
(06:15):
stamp on it, though every Bengal could sing, and all
three of them get a verse on Egyptian. The guitar
riff is also their distinctive sound, something Vicki Peterson had
been developing for a while, and check out the song
He's Got a Secret from their first album. It sounds
very similar.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Made no sense.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Walking on, Walking on Son, Missy, Question on.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The Way, no.
Speaker 8 (07:19):
Sunrise, Shine, sun Sick, It's Morizona excusday game a man
as well, play.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Giant every Son, Walking on the Moon.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
That was the police with Walking on the Moon, and
these last two songs I played for you walk like
an You Egyptian and Walking on the Moon were left
off of our episode a few seasons back about walking
and running, and I thought this was the best spot
to get them in an episode. Sting was visiting that
German avant garde composer ed Budard Schooner in the early
(08:16):
part of nineteen seventy nine. Well, one night they went
out on a schnapps drinking session or whatever the hell
Germans drink, and Sting returned to his Munich hotel room,
drunk off his ass and slumped into bed. When this
song's rift came into his head, he got up and
started walking around the room to try and clear his head,
muttering to himself, walking around the room, walking round the room.
(08:39):
The next morning he wrote down the riff and decided
that walking around the Room was a stupid title, so
he changed it to an even more stupid one, which
was walking on the Moon. The song is set in space,
but it's an allegory for how Sting felt when he
was on the road, confined hotel rooms and stages as
the world kept turning. The Ohio based rock group Walked
(09:00):
the Moon, best known for their twenty fourteen hits Shut
Up and Dance, took their name from this song, beating on.
Speaker 9 (09:16):
Out on the road I've been down.
Speaker 10 (09:19):
Before, riding along on his beak on chapueen of him
begging about my home for my birth pat team survilling,
and I feel like it's all and done.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Somebody's trying to make me stay. You know, I've got
to be moved.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh they got Chad out of line.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Don't carry me to fallo away.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh they got Chad out of line.
Speaker 11 (09:56):
Because it's see, I got to.
Speaker 9 (09:59):
Say good bye to all my friends and all good
bye to the people I'm trusted.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I've got to go out and meg my it.
Speaker 12 (10:14):
I'm I get rich.
Speaker 9 (10:15):
You know, I'm not getting busted.
Speaker 10 (10:18):
But my heart gets calling me backwards as I get
on the seven of seven, Riding gotten Toosings.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
You know you gotta go alby Barton.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You gotta do head, big jet line up, don't carry
me to byway, big got jet out line.
Speaker 13 (10:44):
Down, because it's he I got do.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Steve Miller with jet air Liner. Jet Airliner was written
by Paul Pena, who's a blind folk singer from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
He played at the Newport Folk Festival in nineteen sixty
nine and released his debut album in nineteen seventy one.
Peena recorded Jet Airliner for his next album, New Train,
in nineteen seventy three, but the album was shelved and
(11:11):
didn't get released all the way until the year two thousand.
Brian Sierden, who is the producer for the band New Train,
played the song for Steve Miller and reworked it and
released it on his nineteen seventy seven album Book of Dreams.
Penia's version runs five minutes and forty two seconds and
has five verses. Miller set out to make the song
(11:32):
a hit, so he cut down to three minutes and
twenty seconds for the single. The album versions a little
longer and excised too verses, adding some extra repetitions of
the chorus at the end, got to give the people
what they want. He did keep the distinctive guitar riff
and even the ear catching chorus and the memorable line,
you gotta go through hell before you get to heaven.
(11:53):
This song is about missing home, something that many musicians
can relate to when they're on tour.
Speaker 13 (12:08):
Ah, my bag's are packed, I'm ready to go. I'm
standing here outside your door. I hate to wake you
up to say goodbye, but the dawn is breaking.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It early morning.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Taxi's waiting.
Speaker 13 (12:29):
He's blowing his horn already. I'm so lonesome. I could cry,
so piss me and smile for me. Tell me that
you wait for me, Call.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Me like you'll never let me go, calmly.
Speaker 14 (12:54):
On a gent plane.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 13 (12:57):
When I'll be back again. Oh, they I hate to go.
There's so many times I've let you down, so many
times I've played around.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
I tell you now, they.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Don't mean Peter, Paul and Mary with leaving on a
jet plane for you. There. That was actually written by
a very young John Denver, who was then a member
of the Chad Mitchell Trio before beginning his solo career
in the seventies. Denver wrote this all the way back
in nineteen sixty seven during a layover at a Washington airport.
(13:39):
Quote not so much from feeling that way for someone,
but for longing of having someone to love, he said.
The Chad Mitchell Trio recorded the song that year, as
did Spanky and Our Gang and Peter Paul and Mary.
Of course, it became a hit when the latter act
covered the song again two years later. That's the song
that you hear on the radio. Denver claimed that he
(14:02):
wasn't a prolific or systematic songwriter. He wrote songs when
they came to him. Some of his popular songs took
actual months to complete, but this one took him just
a few hours. This became the biggest hit for Peter
Paul and Maryanne, also their last.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
I want to ride my I want to ride my
bye Gig.
Speaker 15 (14:30):
I want to ride my bag. I want to ride
my busie. I want to ride it. Where I say, why.
Speaker 10 (14:40):
Said by shot him and Jos was never my scene.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
And I don't like Star Wars. She rolls give me
a choice. I scrashed that.
Speaker 15 (14:53):
I don't believe in Peter fan Fankistan a superman.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
I want to ride.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
I want to ride my busy girl. I want to
ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle girl.
I want to ride. My races coming myself. Forget audio duties.
Speaker 7 (15:24):
Audio.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Ride.
Speaker 11 (15:30):
So for those beauties, all.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Races race.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Well, A bicycle is certainly a pretty great way to
get a round. I wouldn't mind being in Queen's bicycle
race myself. Freddie Mercury wrote this in France after watching
the Tour de France bicycle race from his hotel. The
band was recording jazz in the French countryside, mainly as
a tax break. Roger Taylor claimed in the Days of
(16:13):
Our Lives documentary that they were being taxed as much
as ninety eight percent on royalties on previous albums, hence
why they defected to France and later to Montreaux in
Switzerland to record future albums. This was recorded as a
double a side single with Fat Bottom Girls. They ran
back to back on the album, and many radio stations
(16:35):
play them together. The Fat Bottom Girls are mentioned in
The Bicycle Race's song lyrics. Whenever Queen played, bicycle shops
sold out of bells bought by fans who brought them
to the show to ring them during this song. The
song features a surprisingly complex instrumentation in the jazz album
as a whole, perhaps represents the apex of Queen's experimentation
(16:58):
with music. Features an imagine tive solo played exclusively on
bicycle bells, unusual chord progressions, shifts and time signature from
a four to four to a six eight, and a
whole host of pop culture references and the lyrics, including
mentions of religion, the Watergate scandal, drugs, Jaws, Star Wars,
and Frankenstein.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
You get slowly on the ba.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Is fun.
Speaker 16 (17:46):
Justly man mad a little far and that's a man
page and open.
Speaker 8 (17:57):
You been my plays a less than a day, So.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Get on your bed loss cooter and ride.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
The more of my place is down night.
Speaker 17 (18:13):
The first saying of.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Mon I ever feeling a ride?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
All right, all right, hor A getting your bath, I'm
good and.
Speaker 16 (18:21):
Ride For the last time I seen your face, sat
and no want to take your place, no sense you've
been all.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
About feeling a bad.
Speaker 16 (18:41):
I'm coming New York with I'm a bad your dad,
So you you get on your.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Bath, cross Conner and ride a horn of my place
is down?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
How's the band Montrose with bad motor Scooter. Actually, I
actually wish I had a scooter. Scooter sounds fun. Like
a little Vespa scooter get around town sounds pretty fun.
This song came from the self titled debut album by Montrose.
Bad Motor Scooter has the distinction of actually being the
first song that Sammy hag Are, the band's lead singer,
ever wrote. It finds him inviting a girl to jump
(19:18):
on her bad motor scooter and come pay him a visit.
He'd go to see her, of course, but is afraid
of her dad. Unlike the song Leader of the Pack,
which used an actual motorcycle, this song revs it up
with a slide guitar lick played by the group's namesake,
Ronnie Montrose. It sets the tone simulating the bad motor
(19:39):
scooter on the road. Another song that pulled off the
motorcycle song with a guitar and some distortion effects is
bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf, with the guitar played
by Todd Rungren. In that case, San Francisco has a
kind of a rich musical history of psychedelic rock, but
Montrose was the first band to emerge from the city
(19:59):
with a pedal to the medal. Ronnie Montrose, who played
a far more delic guitar when he was playing on
the Van Morrison albums, specifically Tupelo Honey in nineteen seventy
one and Saint Dominic's Preview in nineteen seventy two. Well
then he formed a group in nineteen seventy three three,
recruiting newcomers like Sammy Hagar as his frontman. They released
(20:21):
the Montrose Album that year and quickly earned a reputation
for their adrenaline fueled live shows. Hagar lasted just one
more album, leaving the group in seventy five and starting
a successful solo career. In nineteen eighty five, he took
over as frontman for Van Halen, another group named after
its guitarist. He kept Bad Motor Scooter in his setlists
(20:44):
throughout his whole solo career.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
Ell Grave Well ugag Noll Later Am You.
Speaker 18 (20:52):
Are Hampney landing on a rock farm, the Room with the.
Speaker 19 (21:02):
Main Mad help too, Look, Oh No Wait with the
comy on the wood.
Speaker 20 (21:14):
Chip Lollipop in Tonight Trips Internet you Puff Andrey mo
Way on the book Chip Lonelypup.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Well you can get around on a ship even if
it is made of lollipops. That was good old Shirley
Temple with a good ship lollipop. Surely sang the song
in the movie Bright Eyes, for which she was honored
with a Special Pint Size Academy Award for her contributions
on nine feature films and two short films in nineteen
(21:47):
thirty four alone. Surely was only six years old when
this was released, and this is her signature song. This
was composed by Richard Whiting, who wrote the song Ain't
We Got Fun with lyrics by Sidney Clark, who wrote
the song Please Don't Talk about Me When I'm Gone.
Whiting was the father of popular singer Margaret Whiting, known
by modern listeners for her wintry duet with Johnny Mercer
(22:10):
with the song Baby It's Cold Outside the original version
mean why back in the year one, when you.
Speaker 21 (22:19):
Belong to know one?
Speaker 13 (22:23):
It didn't stand the chance, son, If it pends.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
On because you are pre.
Speaker 11 (22:36):
Humanity and so.
Speaker 13 (22:41):
Just society.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
One day, wake up.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
In the present day.
Speaker 22 (22:49):
He a million genary hatians, removed from expectattions, a being
who you really want to be?
Speaker 14 (23:02):
Skating away, skating away, skating away on the thin ice,
of a day.
Speaker 11 (23:20):
So as to put out from the show.
Speaker 23 (23:23):
Wants to turn ahead.
Speaker 13 (23:24):
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And make it deeper. One one way to get around
is to skate away on the thin ice of a
New Day, which is the name of that song by
Jethro Toll. This was one of the first songs to
discuss climate change, or what we now call climate change. However,
he and Anderson admitted to Mojo magazine that he actually
got his facts wrong. He says, based on what I
(23:48):
was reading in scientific journals, I thought there was a
mini ice age coming, he said. Not long after that
came out, the revelation was opposite, and I had a
lot of egg and indeed ice on my face. Well
maybe that's also because they keep changing it, because it's
just a way to sell politics to you. But I digress.
There are two lines in the song that reference the
(24:08):
nineteen seventy three Jethro Tol album The Passion Play quote
looking for a sign that the universal mind has written
you into the Passion Play and quote, or that everybody's
on the stage and it seems like you're only person
sitting in the audience. The Passion Play is a two
song album similar to Thick as a brick.
Speaker 14 (24:37):
You've seen a wing.
Speaker 13 (24:41):
Down the wrong way?
Speaker 24 (24:49):
Yeahs when it comes, do the usual events, same old
CRUs crawl.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
The roll again, he's taking jaxes.
Speaker 12 (25:07):
Just love to see it.
Speaker 14 (25:13):
Through the crowds and tighten.
Speaker 24 (25:23):
Aujah is she comes.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I played the two skating songs of ways of getting
around together. That previous one was skating Away on the
thin ice of a New Day, and this one is
skate Away by Dire Straits. There were a lot of
roller skating songs in the disco era, but none like
this one. Skate Away is the story of a girl
who skates her way around the city, listening to the
(25:50):
rock station in her headphones. She's the bane of taxi drivers,
but her many admirers love to watch her weave through
the traffic in the crowds. This song was written by
Dire Strait's frontman Mark Knopfler, who had away with words
and could really tell a story. You won't find another
writer who can get the phrase urban torridor into a
song and have it make sense. Skate Away runs six
(26:13):
minutes and forty seconds on the album, what was cut
down to four forty five for the single. Song didn't
get a lot of airplay, but found a devoted following
him earned airplay decades later on classic rock radio, where
the full version was actually typically played. Dire Straits was
a trio for Making Movies album, their third with Mark
(26:34):
Knopfler's brother David. He had left at that point, so
it was only a trio. They brought in keyboard player
Roy Baton of Bruce Springsteen's East Street Band for a
session or two, but other than that they were a trio.
The album title making Movies comes from a line in
this song. She's making movies on location.
Speaker 11 (26:53):
She doesn't know what it means, right, Bob.
Speaker 25 (27:18):
And forget.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Like a bab I'm going after Bravy Fred, I'm going
after Round Donny Crazy Fay.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Getting around on a crazy train. That was Ozzy Osbourne,
of course, And this song Ozzie asks when we can
all learn to love in a world gone mad? Ozzie
wrote this song with guitarist Randy Rhodes and baby player
Bob Daisy. While many believe that this is yet another
Ozzy song about insanity, it's actually about the Cold War.
(28:08):
Evidence in the lyrics quote millions of people living as foes,
one person conditioned to rule and control. The media sells it,
and you have to live the role airs of a
cold war. That's what we've become inheriting troubles. I'm mentally numb.
The relevant acronym was mad mad mutually assured destruction doctrine,
(28:29):
which basically amounts to, you know, if they shoot their
nukes at us, we shoot ours right back, and that
would end the world. No one really wants that, so
it won't happen as long as we keep pointing the
nukes at each other. Hence, crazy is another word for mad.
Randy Rhodse was Ozzy's guitarist on this song. He was
in Quiet Riot before joining Ozzy. Like most of the
(28:51):
guitar solos he recorded with him, Rhodes had to double
all of his guitar parts. That means he had to
play every note of very difficult exactly the same way twice.
This is one reason why the solo on the recording
sounds so unique. Roach was a very proficient and influential
guitar player and the first guitarist to seek Ozzy's input
(29:13):
during the songwriting process. Quote he was the first guy
to go, maybe you should do it in this key,
Ozzy said he was the first guy to ever consider
my opinion and give me a break. This was the
first single that Ozzy Osbourne released after leaving Black Sabbath
in nineteen seventy eight. He left the band after a
particularly heated dispute with guitarist Tony Iomi, at which time
(29:36):
Ozzy was painted as the substance abusing layabout by his
former bandmates. Well, I mean he was that, but you know,
still not nice to do by your former bandmates. Crazy
Train was kind of a triumph for Ozzy and that
he proved that he could succeed outside of the Sabbath shelter,
albeit with lots of help from an awesome guitarist.
Speaker 26 (30:09):
Okay, too much.
Speaker 12 (30:15):
For me, too much.
Speaker 26 (30:20):
So he's leaving a life he's comfortable, he said, he's
going He said.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
He's going back to fad God, what's left of.
Speaker 12 (30:38):
His work, the world he left behind not so long ago.
He's leaving.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Left that chain. George Yeah, said he's going back to Severn.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Gladys Knight's getting around on her midnight Train to Georgia.
Midnight Train to Georgia was not only a number one
hit on both the Billboard Hot one hundred and R
and B but it reached number ten in the UK
Singles Chart as well. It was a huge hit worldwide.
It garnered the group the nineteen seventy four Grammy Award
for Best R and B Vocal Performance and was inducted
(31:36):
into the Grammy Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety nine.
It's considered Gladys Knight's signature song. This is written and
originally recorded by Jim Weatherly, who had a solo hit
nineteen seventy four with the Need to Be. Weatherley explained
the origin of this song in an interview, quote, this
song actually came about after a phone call I had
(31:57):
with Farah Fawcett. Lee made was a friend of mine.
We played in a flag football league together in La
which sidebar? I mean, come on, how much would you
like to see video of him? A flag football league
with Lee majors?
Speaker 27 (32:10):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That just drove me nuts. He started dating Farah and
one day he called Lee and Farah answered the phone.
We were just talking and she said that she was packing.
She was gonna take the midnight plane to Houston to
visit her folks, and Matt phrase just stayed with me
and after I got off the phone, I sat down
and wrought the wrote this whole song in about forty
five minutes something like that. Didn't take me long at
(32:33):
all because I used Farah and Lee as kind of
like characters in the song, A girl that comes to
LA and doesn't make it and goes back home. Pretty simple.
I cut it on my first album as Midnight Plane
to Houston, and later on, about a year later, a
guy in Atlanta wanted to cut the song for Sissy Houston,
Whitney Houston's mother. They called and said they would like
(32:54):
a more R and B sounding title and wouldn't mind
if I changed the lyrics to something else. So we
changed it Midnight Train to Georgia so that Houston wouldn't
appear in both the title of the song and the
title of the artist's name. We said, change it for
anything you like, as long as I got paid, And
boy did I get paid.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
In the town when I was.
Speaker 17 (33:15):
Born lived the land who sailed to see, and he
told us on his life in the.
Speaker 27 (33:27):
Land of submarines.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
So we say, love do the song Jill.
Speaker 27 (33:35):
We bound the sabines, and we live neat the way
in our yellow submarine.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
He all live a yellow.
Speaker 27 (33:51):
Submarine yellows submarine, Yellow submarine.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
We all live in yellow.
Speaker 9 (34:01):
Yellous yellous.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Not really sure how many of us can get around
on a submarine, but just in case there are a
few of you out there that need a submarine to
get around, this is the song for you. Of course,
that was The Beatles. Paul McCartney wrote the majority of
this song. He explained it shortly after it was released
in nineteen sixty six quote, Yellow Submarine is a very
simple but different song. It's a fun song made in
(34:28):
a children's song way. Originally we intended it to be
a sparky children's record. Don't know what that means, by
the way, but now the idea of a yellow submarine
where all the kids want to go and have fun
seems like a pretty good idea. Paul purposely used short
words in the lyrics because he wanted kids to pick
it up early and sing along. Ringo Star sang lead,
(34:49):
as he did on many of the lighter of the
Beatles songs, including Octopus's Garden and Act Naturally. Originally, Ringo
had spoken intro to go with the children's story theme,
but this was discarded pretty early on in the recording process.
Ringo did eventually though, get his chance to narrate for children,
because he was the voice talent on the cartoon show
(35:11):
Thomas the Tank Engine. As just about every Beatles song,
there's a lot that can be read into this one
if you look hard enough. One possible interpretation. Once famous,
the Beatles were forced to stay in hotel rooms and
live under pressure equaling a submarine because they weren't having
a great time. It was yellow and all of the
friends and everyone around them. It was all about green,
(35:34):
sea of green, which is money. The sound of bubbles
and water and other noises were recorded in the studio.
The background vocals and some of the effects were done
by John Paul and George and they had some help
on the fade out chorus by Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall,
George Martin and Alf Bicknall, who was actually their chauffeur,
(35:54):
Jeff Emrick, Brian Jones, and the rolling Stones Marry Unfaithful,
Patty Harrison and a few other staff were people who
were just in the building at the time, all making
those bubble sound effects, and the bubble effects were actually
them blowing into a straw. All of the speaking parts
are done by John and Paul.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
The Perodis put up a park in Love.
Speaker 13 (36:29):
With a clean hotel, a boutique and a swing in
hot spot.
Speaker 5 (36:35):
Don't it always seemed to.
Speaker 13 (36:37):
Go that you don't know what you've got to list
on one they realized to put up a park in love.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
The ball the trees put him in a cream museum,
and it charged the people a dollar and a happiest.
Speaker 17 (36:57):
To see you.
Speaker 13 (37:00):
Don't you know we seem to go tach, you don't
know what you've got to live gone.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I personally hate getting around in taxis and haven't taken
one in a long time, but Joni Mitchell likes big
yellow taxis. Mitchell, from a nineteen sixty six interview in
the La Times, said quote, I wrote Big Yellow Taxi
on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi
to the hotel, and when I woke up the next morning,
I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green
(37:31):
mountains in the distance. Then I looked down and there
was a parking lot as far as the eye could see,
and it just broke my heart, this blight on paradise.
And that's when I sat down and wrote this song.
The song is about taking things for granted, and then
of course missing them when they're gone. In the first verse,
she uses Waikiki, Hawaii as an example. It used to
be paradise, but now it's a fakey tourist destination. When
(37:54):
you fly over the islands, all of the other islands
are nice and green, But when you get over a
Wahu and you see Waikiki, you just see Honolulu buildings.
The line took all the trees, put them in a
tree museum, charged the people a dollar and a half
just to see them refers to Foster Gardens, a place
in Waikiki which is basically a tree museum. It's a
(38:15):
huge garden full of tall trees, so you feel like
Alice in Wonderland. The line put away the DDT, Now
give me spots on my apples and leave the birds
and the bees refers to the insecticide DDT, which was
used on crops. This delirious effects of the chemical were
in the news, and the Americans learned that their food
(38:35):
was being contaminated by its use. Those spotless apples looked great,
but held hidden dangers. Also, birds were eating the insects,
and the fish poisoned by the DDT which caused them
to lay burtle eggs, and many of the species died.
It was kind of a whole big mess.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
On the first of the journey, I was looking all
the light.
Speaker 25 (39:06):
There were plants and birds and rocksand things, and was
sands and hills and rain.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
The first thing I met was a flow of a.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Bottle sound in the sky with no clowns.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
The heap was hot and the ground was dry, but
the air was full of sound.
Speaker 25 (39:30):
I went through the desert on a horse with no Name,
and it felt good to be out of the rain.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
In the desert, you can't.
Speaker 12 (39:40):
Remember your name because the rain no.
Speaker 17 (39:43):
One going to give you no thing.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
The that's the band America with a Horse with No Name.
America was formed in England by sons of US servicemen
who were stationed there. Lead singer Dewey Banell wrote A
(40:13):
Horse with No Name when he was only nineteen years old.
Although the song is commonly misinterpreted about being on drugs,
it's actually not. Banell based the images and the lyrics
on things he saw while visiting the US. This was
originally titled Desert Song, since Benell wrote it based on
the desert scenery he encountered when he and his dad
(40:34):
were stationed at an Air Force base near Santa Barbara
in California. The song tells a rather obtrusive tale about
a trip through the desert. While the landscape is unforgiving,
the singer also finds comfort in that scenario. According to
Dewey Banell, the horse represents a means of entering a
place of tranquility, and this tranquil place is best represented
(40:55):
by the desert, which sounded pretty good to him until
he was stuck in it. As for why the song
has a horse with no name and why it went
free after nine days but now doesn't really have any answers,
it seems that various listener interpretations is far more colorful
than any meaning he actually assigned to it.
Speaker 25 (41:24):
Name mister gets him, love him him, Come on man,
come my name and nap gone.
Speaker 11 (41:38):
Up, sive up.
Speaker 13 (42:04):
My race was guy now.
Speaker 12 (42:10):
No one hell?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
That was the doors. And apparently they want to get
around on a ship as long as it's filled with fools,
because that was the song Ship of Fools. The title,
after some research, I think has been inspired by the
nineteen sixty two novel by Catherine Ann Portership of fools.
It was made into a movie in nineteen sixty five,
(42:46):
and the phrase has since become a common lyric in
rock songs. This is about an acid trip, along with
nineteen sixty seven's The Crystal Ship, the second time the
Doors used ship as a metaphor for drugs. The lyrics
present a bleak image of the world heading towards oblivion.
Images of the Earth from space may have given Morrison
(43:09):
the idea to equate it with a ship. The moon
landing was in the news all throughout nineteen sixty nine
when this was being written. Morrison wrote most of the
songs on the album. On their previous album, The Soft Parade,
he contributed very little because he was drunk and high
most of the time.
Speaker 14 (43:29):
Oh the time will come up when the winds were
stop and the breezeless cease tim everything like the stillness
in the wind, hard the hurricane against they are that
the ship comes in and the sea was fled, and
the ships will hit and the sunds on the showline
(43:52):
who was shigging, And the tide will sound and the
waves will pound. In the morning, We'll be abrey. Can
your fishes will lie fast? They swim out of the path,
and the seagulls live be smiling, and the rocks on the.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Sand will proudly stand.
Speaker 14 (44:20):
He ow that the ship comes in, and the words
that are used for to get the ship confused will
not be understood as the spoken, or the chains of
the sea will have busted in the nigh and be
buried out the bottom of the hill.
Speaker 17 (44:45):
His song will lift as the main.
Speaker 14 (44:48):
Say, shift say, the poat drifts onto the shoreline, and
the sun will respect the every face on the deck.
He aw that the ship and this sounds well, lotic
cap and gold for you weird toes to be a
(45:08):
touching and this ship's wasman will remind you once again,
and the world is.
Speaker 12 (45:18):
Gee.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
That was our Bob Dylan song for this episode, when
the ship comes in. And I always try my best
to play Bob Dylan in every episode that I can,
And I have actually not played that song before, which,
by the way, is getting harder and harder to do.
I've played so many of his songs. Well. Dylan wrote
this song and this kind of a violent and vengeful
(45:42):
song in a hotel room in August of nineteen sixty three.
He was in an angry mood when he penned it
as a hotel clerk who thought he looked like a
deadbeat and actually refused him admission to the hotel. Well,
Dylan finally got a room after Joan Bias vouched for
his good character. This ship is a metaphor throughout myth
(46:02):
and literature. We find water is the symbol of the
unconscious spirituality in the earth, and the ship as the
tiny let's call it, ego of man making its lonelier
triumphant voyage across its dangerous deeps. The ship is used
as a symbol of freedom, and its arrival marks the
demise of the narrator's nemesis. From the Missing Person's debut
(47:26):
album from nineteen eighty two, I Played You the live
version from the US festival that was Missing Persons Walking
in La It was a minor hit in the United States,
spending about six weeks on the Billboard Hot one hundred,
peaking as high as number seventy in March of eighty three.
It is still recalled occasionally today for its comical portrayal
(47:47):
of Hollywood culture and its rye observations of getting around
in Los Angeles. Because, of course, nobody really does walk
in La it's actually true. Songwriter Terry Bosio has said
that this is inspired by the comedian making jokes about
driving everywhere in the city. Missing Persons is their American
rock band founded in nineteen eighty in Los Angeles by
(48:08):
guitarist Warren Coucarillo and vocalist Dale Bozio and drummer Terry Bozio.
They later added bassist Patrick O'Hearn and keyboardist Chuck Wilde.
And Dale had a kind of a quirky voice and
heavy makeup and made the band a favorite on MTV
when MTV first kicked off. Get up in the morning,
(48:40):
Get on the bus.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
Get up in the morning like the.
Speaker 13 (48:47):
Rest of us.
Speaker 23 (48:52):
Placius to go important people to meets. Better not get
up on you might lose you seat bus. Leave the
(49:15):
house at six o'clock to be on time. Leave the
wife of kids.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
At home to make a dive.
Speaker 23 (49:27):
Grab your launch pail, check for mail, and your slotch
You won't get your check if you don't punch the
clock bus.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Well, that was the guess who with bus writer and
it was a B side to their Share the Land
single in nineteen seventy. The B side did get some spins,
though at the time on the radio. The Guests Who
They're a Canadian rock band. They formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba
in nineteen sixty five, which is way older than I
thought they were. The band found their greatest success in
(50:01):
the late sixties and early seventies. The Guests Who officially
broke up in nineteen seventy five, with a major reunion
tour in the early two thousands what I like to
call a Oh crap, we have to pay the mortgage tour.
A separate band organized by former bassist Jim Kale also
toured and recorded under the Guests Who Named for several decades,
(50:22):
often performing without any original band members on stage. After
a long legal dispute, Bachman and Cummings regained control of
The Guests Who Name in a recent settlement that just
settled in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 21 (50:35):
The names Lanley, Lyle, Lanley, and I come before you,
good people, tonight, with an idea, probably the greatest. Oh
it's not for you, it's more of a Shelbyville idea.
I'll wait just a minute, well twice as mt as
the people of Shelbyville.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
Just tell us your idea and.
Speaker 21 (50:53):
We'll vote for it all right, I tell you what
I'll do. I'll show you my idea.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
You the Springfield monorail.
Speaker 21 (51:04):
I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook, and
by gum it put them on the map. Well, sir,
there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide electrified
six car monorail.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
What I say, monorail? What's it called monorail? That's right, monorail?
Speaker 5 (51:24):
I hear.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Those things are awfully loud, rides as softly as a cloud.
Speaker 5 (51:28):
Is there a chance the tread could bend?
Speaker 7 (51:30):
Not on your life?
Speaker 1 (51:31):
My Hindu friend.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
Walter brought us Brindan slaps.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
You'll be given cushy jobs.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
Were you shent here by the table?
Speaker 21 (51:38):
No good sir, I'm on the level.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
The ring came off.
Speaker 21 (51:41):
My pudding can take my bedknife, My good man, I
swear at Springfield's only choice.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Throw up your hands and raise your voice. What's it called?
Speaker 5 (51:51):
What's again? A matrix to walk craft and broken time.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
On mono doubt you will learn in a later episode
this season why I'm actually very bummed that I am
burning this song for this episode, But damn it, it
(52:21):
was too perfectly tempting to not include it. That was
one of my favorite songs from a Simpsons episode and
one of my favorite episodes, and it was actually written
by the way by Conan O'Brien. That was from the
episode Marge Versus the Monoail and it's the twelfth episode
of the fourth season of the show. Reoccurring guest star
(52:42):
Phil Hartman provided the voice of Lyle Lanley, while Leonard
Nimoy makes a great guest appearance as himself. When the
Environmental Protection Agency finds Mister Burns three million dollars for
dumping nuclear waste in a Springfield parka town meeting is
held to help decide how to spend the money. Marge
nearly persuades the townspeople to repair Springfield's heavily damaged main street,
(53:06):
but fast talking salesman Hile Lanley leads a song and
dance routine that convinces them to build a monorail to
get around instead. After running a questionable training program, Lanley
randomly selects Homer as the monorail's first conductor. A suspicious
Marge visits Lanley's office and discovers that he plans to
(53:27):
skim money from the project and leave Springfield Marge drives
to north Haven Brook, a previous purchaser of one of
the Lanley monorails, and finds it is in ruin.
Speaker 28 (53:43):
Monacycle Mama, Lay all bigs fine down, Monacycle Mama Login.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Lay all begs mine down.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
I'm always getting trouble when you're bringing.
Speaker 28 (54:02):
It around, motorcycle Mama, watching lay it down.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
A blasts.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
I was grumpy old man Neil Young with motorcycle Mama.
His mama likes to get around on motorcycles. Once you
lay your big sp down. I always get in trouble
when you bring it around, motorcycle Mama, won't you lay
it down? Coming near the end of the comes a
Time album, Motorcycle Mama provides some funky, lighthearted relief from
(55:13):
the gentle, albeit beautiful songs that make up the rest
of the album. It's a rare bluesy outing from Neil Young.
It's a guttural, almost Rolling Stones acoustic inspired song, and
it features more great vocals from Nicolette Larson. Quite simply,
it's a lust song rather than a love song, and
the motorcycle imagery is perfect for it. Well, we have
(55:37):
traveled the world walking on a ship and let's see
on a bus. We dine a train and hell even
a monorail this episode. And now it's time to get
back on the bus for one more ride, as I
come to you with my final song. This song from
The Who is about a man who wants to buy
a ticket and take it to go see his girlfriend
(56:00):
every day, but the driver does not want to sell
it to him. This song is a staple of Who
concerts and has been sung in many different versions. A
nearly eight minute long song version could be found on
the Live at Leeds album, a pretty damn good album.
So we are going to close with the song Magic
Buss by The Who, and thank you for listening to
(56:21):
the first episode of season fourteen. Of course, recommend these
podcasts to your friends, and of course, as always, turned
this song up.
Speaker 14 (56:53):
Every day.
Speaker 21 (56:54):
Cute to get on the bus.
Speaker 11 (56:59):
It takes me you.
Speaker 5 (57:02):
I'm sorr asad.
Speaker 11 (57:04):
Just sit and smile.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
I be the house is only another mile. Thank you Domagor.
Speaker 12 (57:14):
Getting me here.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
You'll be an inspect to have no fear.
Speaker 12 (57:23):
I don't want comfus, but cannot buy.
Speaker 5 (57:29):
Your magic bus.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
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 this is
funner dot com.
Speaker 7 (57:56):
This is Funner
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