Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody back to the Shirly You Can't Be Serious podcast.
This week we are going track by track through Toto four.
Shirley fans, if you can leave us a five star
review and use the words Killiman, Jarro or Serengetti in
your review, you will be entered into a competition to
win a custom engraved cups featuring your name and Shirley
Can't be Serious podcasts, but we will send to you
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Jarrow or Serengetti, and.
Speaker 3: We are going to be entered into that condent.
Speaker 2: That's right. We're also going to give you a freaking
cool shout out on.
Speaker 3: The show, definitely, because anybody who can work those words
into a review deserves a shadow.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that brings us to Toto four. We're gonna
kind of jump in. If you guys missed the history
of Toto leading up to Total four, check us out
what we did last week. We brought you right to
this point. We covered some of the cool stories behind
the band, how they got together, hold the line, all
the stuff that got us to this point. This album
d came out April eighth, nineteen eighty two. It is
turning forty years old in April.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is nuts. So can you think of the
time in like nineteen eighty three where you've gone over
to Hastings Music or whatever and you're flipping through the
album covers and all of a sudden you see this
red sword with rings around it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is this?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: There was a Peaches Records and Tapes in Tulsa, Oklahoma
that was my go to right, and yeah, flipping through
the albums. Thriller was my first cassette tape. Yeah, so
I think I had this on record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I had the LP on this one
as well. So the art on the front it's a
double edged sword with four rings, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So their first album, Toto, also had that double edged sword.
Album art was by a guy named Philip Garris who
had done a lot of the Grateful Dead album covers.
It's supposed to be the sword of Danil Cleaves they're
holding above his head. Anyway, I don't need to get
into all that anyway, it's a throwback to that, just
like they're going back to their old style of recording
and polished music. They're going back to that first album
idea of the double edged sword, only this time they've
got four rings because it's their fourth album, and each
of the rings is a little more worn, a little
more rough, and it's time to say, all right, here
it is, guys, this is one ring to rule them all.
Speaker 2: Nice. So we talked before about how the record company
came to them and said, listen, guys, you had one
really good album, you had two stinkers. This has got
a hit, or we're dropping you. So we need you,
guys to concentrate on making something we can freaking play
on the radio. Let's go. And here is their response.
And Toto four, released in nineteen eighty two, had some
of the biggest songs of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting, it's what's going on after this. Right
as the album has come out, Bobby Kimball is facing
charges for dealing drugs right like he's looking at potentially
going to prison. The guys hold off on their tour
for this album because they've been asked by Michael Jackson
to perform on the Thriller album.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating and all of.
Speaker 3: A sudden, these songs start to be released, and they
are huge successes, and some of them at a complete
shock to the band.
Speaker 2: And they're also competing with themself on the chart, right
because Thriller also came out nineteen eighty two November of
that year, and so just here's a freaking tsunami.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, biggest album of all time.
Speaker 2: Arguably, right, Yeah, but these guys.
Speaker 3: Performed on both of them. And one of the songs
that we're going to talk about a little bit later
on has been downloaded one point one billion times. So
let me just let me put that in perspective. Okay,
Let's say that you had a song that was downloaded
one hundred million times, you'd be like, I'm a complete success. Yeah,
these guys did that times eleventh incredible downloads didn't even
exist at the time of this song, I mean downloaded,
It's true, didn't happen until the mid two thousands, right,
and now it has been downloaded one point one billion times.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that here in just a little bit,
are we ready to jump in track? Let's up in
track by track. We're starting off with what Steve Lucather
calls the Totoist Toto Song of all Toto songs.
Speaker 3: I gotta jump in immediately. Let me just say this
to start off, all right, Okay, so David Page wrote
this first song called Rosanna. There's a story behind it.
Let's talk about the story real quick.
Speaker 2: Okay. Steve Paccaro is dating, not seriously, but dating. Yeah,
this girl you might have heard of called Rosanna Arquette.
Speaker 3: Who's that girl?
Speaker 2: I knew her first from Disperately Sinking Susan, But she's
been in pulp fiction, She's been in the whole nine yards,
She's been in a million things, and she's gorgeous and
a Hollywood movie star.
Speaker 3: Are you talking about that girl with all the interface? No,
that's Jody, that's my wife. That was not her best look,
but she is a very beautiful lady.
Speaker 2: That was not her best look.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Rosanna Arquette is sort of dating one of
the guys. They all are totally enamored of her because
she's hot, and so at some point David Page is like, Hey,
that's a great name. I'm gonna put it as the
chorus to this song that I've been working on, right, right,
So he writes the song.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In writing credits, both he and Jeff Pacaro get writing credits.
But I think the way David perceives it is Jeff
was totally involved. And these guys are so great about
complimenting each other. I mean, they love on each other hard,
and they've known each other since there were kids, so
they didn't screw with each other because they'd know what
was going on, right yep. But he says Jeff really
was inspiration, like he'd throw them a line and it
would like balloon up into some other full verse or
something like that. But when David has written it, he
comes to Jeff and he's like, listen, what I really
want on the drums on this one. I mean he's
talking to Jeff right, the freaking arguably best drummer of
the eighties, right yes, And he's like, Jeff, what I
want on the drums on this one is kind of
a bow didly you know, Louisiana style drumbeat that dunda
dunda dun dun dun dun dundu. And Jeff is like, Okay, well,
what do you think about this? And at the point
that David hears these drums, he's like, Okay, we'll go
with what you've got.
Speaker 2: Then it's fantastic. So our buddy James Buckley hit me
up on this about a month ago. He's like, this
is the party shuffle, and I don't know anything about drumming.
I know nothing about drumming, right, so when we dive
into this, I'm like, oh, okay, So apparently this is
a very difficult thing to pull off.
Speaker 3: Yes, the halftime shuffle groove is a drum pattern that
was originally created by Bernard Party and he called it
the party shuffle, right. So but what Jeff Pacaro did
is he took that and he blended that shuffle with
a John Bottom groove that you can hear on led
Zeppelin's Fool in the Rain. And then adding in what
David Page had done, He's got a backbeat sound like
the drum beat, the Louisiana bo Diddley style drum beat.
And so it's a combination of like three different styles
of drumming that is absolutely magical, unmistakable. As soon as
you hear it, you're ready to start singing.
Speaker 5: Rosanna, you went to wake up in the morning, see
you not that?
Speaker 1: Good luck you you good?
Speaker 5: Have a cab for me.
Speaker 2: You're ready to date, Rosanna Arquette. So this song reached
number two on the charts and it stayed there for
five weeks. It was bested by two songs at different weeks, right,
so like one moved out, another one moved in, and
Rosanna never made it to number one. The ones that
were at the top of the chart that blocked Rosanna
from the number one spot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Don't You Want Me by the Human League, Oh well, yeah,
it's a huge eighties song.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then maybe the biggest song of nineteen eighty two
by The Tiger by.
Speaker 3: Survivor, Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but a huge success nonetheless. By the way, Rosanna
was the first song written for this album. Hmm. And
when they wrote it, they're like, this is a huge
hit right off the bat, and Luca their said it
set the bar for the album. Everybody had to bring
their best stuff because Gosha, this is our first one
out of the gate. We're onto something.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This song is so intricate and so complicated and
so full of amazing music. And when he starts the
verse normal songs, you're like, you're gonna play three four
chords maybe five before you start repeating. So in the
verse the chords go g F nine E minor seven,
g C, F E flat D minor seven. It's like
there's eight chords without ever repeating a pattern. Would it is.
It's really fascinating what they do kind of in the
middle of that first verse, and you can hear it
as the music changes. It like modulates the g F
nine and E minor seven match up with the F
E flat and D minor seven, but it's modulated up.
Speaker 7: I didn't know.
Speaker 2: It sounds complicated to.
Speaker 3: Me, okay, and then it comes in with some amazing bit.
This is like a do woppie kind of I mean,
we talked about the Louisiana sound and the Bo Diddley style,
but then they come in with this do Woppi. You
can see the guys standing around the trash can and
Rocky snapping their fingers and singing the do WOPSNG got
this amazing friend of musical styles all within the first
verse and chorus of the song.
Speaker 2: Total creates great choruses. They're so hooky that all the
musical stuff has lost on me. I just know how
I love how they sing and sound. When they hit
the chorus right, you can tell that there's a different
voice almost you're listening to the guy singing and you're like, oh, whoa,
he just jumped up really high. Well, that's because it's
two different guys singing, right.
Speaker 8: Right, Steve Lucather is singing the first part, and then
Bobby Kimball is coming in and doing that second higher part,
and then David Page.
Speaker 3: Steve and Bobby are all over dubbing with their backing vocals,
which is given it that barbershop quartet style backs on
the chorus, which is just amazingly beautiful. But then you've
got you got horns.
Speaker 4: They met.
Speaker 3: Got horns. You've got Okay, So we mentioned in our
last episode Lenny Casters on this one right, he's doing
the congos. He is their other drummer, right, brilliant percussionist
and they involved in all of their albums. But in
addition to that, they've got Gary Grant, Jeremy Hay and
Jim Horn on trumpets and saxophones. You know we talk
about double masking. They did that with the horns, so
what you get is actually five horns.
Speaker 2: It's so full, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: And just an incredible song. I could go on and on,
but I won't.
Speaker 2: Okay, before we talk about the video, which is amazing
in its own right. Yeah, they have an impromptu jam
session at the end of this song where Jeff Briccarr
just kind of kept drumming, and so Page jumps in
with the piano and Lukether follows, and you have this
kind of funky jam session.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of fun yep, I like it. Yeah,
it's a total breakdown and it's amazing. This is a
eighties banger right out of the gate. Okay. Now you
and I have had long and in depth conversations about
a very interesting and little known fact about this it.
Speaker 2: We're ready to go toe to toe on this.
Speaker 3: Well, let's have it.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's the deal. Everyone listening in the video, pause
the podcast, go watch the video, come right back. Okay.
So in the video, you have this West Side Story
type of thing going on. Okay, and you've got this dancer,
beautiful woman, Cynthia Rhodes. Yes, she's been in Dirty Dancing
and the movie Runaway with Tom Sellick. She was in
Staying Alive, which Sylvester Saloon saw her in this video
and hired her from that nice which is kind of cool.
And she's doing her thing. She's beautiful. She is starting
to interact with these other dancers, like these rival gangs.
According to Entertainment Weekly and IMDb and IMDb, one of
the other dancers is Patrick Swayzey.
Speaker 3: Nobody puts Bady in the corner, right.
Speaker 2: But you're not going for it. I'm not going for it,
even though clearly there's Internet corroboration here.
Speaker 3: There's lots of Internet corroboration. And I am disagreeing with
the internets. Okay, I know how easy it is to
throw some rumor out there and have people jump on
the bandwagon, because what a juicy piece of information it
is that the other actor, this actor that I say,
is not really in there.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. I look at it. I'm like, yeah, that's him.
Clearly it is not him.
Speaker 3: It is a guy who has a similar haircut and
a similar eyebrow formation. That's about it. That's about it.
There's no way that this guy is Patrick swayze.
Speaker 2: All Right, Twitter World and Facebook world, watch this video.
Where do you come down? Are you team Swayzey with Jason?
Are you anti team Swayze with d.
Speaker 3: I realized that the internets is against me, But if
you look at this guy's ear lobes, you look at
his jawline, you look at his lips. It's not Patrick Swayzey,
I'm sorry. It is a guy that looks like Patrick Swayzee,
but it's not him.
Speaker 2: I was really looking for that gold nugget that was
going to solidify that, and it's elusive.
Speaker 3: It is elusive. Now, I will say this, The most
convincing thing that you told me is that Cynthia Rhode
said something about this. She didn't say it super clearly.
She didn't say Patrick was in the video with me,
but she did kind of hint that that was a possibility.
Speaker 2: She said that she had worked with Patrick Swayze previously
in a dancing type of situation.
Speaker 3: Right, which could have been this or could have been
one hundred thousand other dancing things that are out there.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, So Shirley fans tell us which one of
us is right? Is it Patrick Swayzee? Is it not
Patrick Swayzee? You decide.
Speaker 2: We hit our buddy James Buckley about this, and he
was like, he looks like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you ear lobes, jawline, lips. No, it's all different,
all right, real quick. Yeah, this song is about Rosanna
Arquette vaguely right, right. So it's interesting because to hear
Steve Pakar, the guy who was supposed to be dating her,
he was like, you know, every one of us liked it.
Wasn't even acting like he was the man. Right, I'm
dating Rosanna arquet but I'm not the man. But he was.
He's very humble about it. He's like, I think we
all just kind of fell in love with her. She
denied it for years, right, She denied that she was
the Rosanna of the Rosanna song until like five years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the funny part is that she got tired
of everybody coming up to her going Rosanne and that
would get old, right, right, get sick of that. But yeah,
she then has said yeah, it's her.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And what's interesting is she was also the inspiration
for another song.
Speaker 2: That song is Peter Gabriel's in your Eyes, Oh my.
Speaker 5: Head.
Speaker 2: You still haven't seen say anything.
Speaker 3: I still haven't seen any but I know that song,
I know in your Eye.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But what kind of awesome life have you led? That
You've been in a movie as a look alike for
Madonna and you have two gigantic hit songs written about.
Speaker 2: You all right, are we done with Rosanna? I hate
to be done with this song before we leave. Rosanna
d this one Record of the Year at the Grammys
in nineteen eighty three. Of course, Toto four one Album
of the Year, and just kind of as a side note,
I thought this was funny. Toto has seven songs on
their first seven albums that has a woman's name. Oh yeah,
that's right, Angela, Lorraine, Eleanor Rosanna, Carmen, Leah, and Pamela.
Speaker 3: So I think that you can kind of tell from
the lineup of the track listing what songs these guys
thought were gonna be hits. Because we leave first single
and we come to another single that they released called
make Believe.
Speaker 1: Bottoming.
Speaker 8: I love again.
Speaker 2: Dude, this is a great song.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you. I was not super familiar with
this song when we started doing this, and when this
thing came on, I was like, I love it. I
love this song. And this was a single. I was
like six or seven years old at the time this
is coming out, so this wasn't probably in my radar
at the time. But now listening to it now, it's great.
It's got to me. It's got kind of a Billy
Vera at this moment feel to it, but a little snappier,
a little more peppy, and it's just beautiful. But is
a rollback to that kind of fifties style of rockers.
Speaker 2: So I was young when this song came out, too.
I listened to it for the podcast. I was like,
that was buried in my brain somewhere and I had
I was with my mom at the grocery store in
the car or something, and it was like discovering, like
I've forgotten treasure.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I love it, So I love it when that happens,
there's a great song. David Page wrote This one reached
number thirty on the Hot one hundred. It actually was
featured in Grand Theft, Auto Vice City Stories video game Wow,
which that blew me away right right. Apparently there's a
radio station that plays the song while you're doing whatever
you're doing in that video game.
Speaker 7: So, okay, how about that.
Speaker 3: I love it, and I love the whole idea behind it.
Like they've broken up, things are over, but sure do
you kind of miss yet? I'm saying I want to
get back, but maybe we can just pretend that we're
in love.
Speaker 2: It's such a guy right, it's like a guys song.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, how about tonight.
Speaker 2: We just kind of forget we broke up? Yeah, just
for tonight. I love it. It's fun, it's upbeat, it's romantic.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Could you see this in an eighties rom com?
Speaker 3: Oh for sure? Yeah? Oh for sure?
Speaker 2: Doesn't it fit?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you're hidden memory. This is a new treasure
for me. This is like me listening to Pyromania for
the first time. I'm like, I'm so glad that I'm
listening to this. And you know, we talked earlier this
week about that idea of albums and how it doesn't
happen anymore. People don't buy albums anymore, right, And the
idea that back in the eighties or seventies or whatever,
when you spent your hard earned nine dollars and ninety
nine cents on an album, if you didn't love it
right off the bat, you listen to it again, and
you kept listening to it until you found a way
to make it a part of your life. Right, Make
those songs mean something to you. They were like an
acquired taste, like a fine wine. Sure. That's the great
thing I love about doing this podcast with you is
that we get to go back and revisit these things,
and I can find those things that maybe I didn't
appreciate at the time and really get to enjoy them.
Unlike today where if you don't love the song the
first time you hear it, you don't ever have to
listen to it again because you didn't spend any money
on it. That's listened to it on Spotify or Pandora
or whatever. You hit the skip button and you moved on.
This is one of those songs that maybe I skipped
the first time, but now that I've gone to revisit it,
I love it.
Speaker 2: It's another reason to subscribe to our podcast. We're leading
you through each song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good, very good. And speaking of that, let
us jump into number three, another single off the album,
I Won't Hold You Back. Try not to during this scene.
I don't want to talk during this song. I don't
want to let this song keep playing right. It's gorgeous, amazing,
And again it's another one of those ones that I
missed because like, okay, maybe Frank here, when I was
in the backseat of a car with the girl, the
song that was on the radio was better. Roses by
Bonjo okay, that was your go to This was the nineties, right,
that was I was driving in the nineties, right. My
brother is older than I am, and this song was
released when was the what was the release date on
this March of eighty three? March of eighty three, so
that's three months before he gets his driver's license. When
we started talking about this one, I'm like, hey, by
the way, we're going to talk about Toto and Total
four and Duran Duran And we start talking about it
and he says, this is what he says to me.
He goes listening to make Believe right now, very tight,
but has that overproduced clinicals? And I'm like, okay, fair enough,
these guys were definitely very produced. And then he says,
this is a beautiful line. All these songs are panty droppers.
And in parentheses, he says, thinking about Bell Park now,
which is the local park where you would if you're
gonna go make out with a girl and didn't want
the cops banging on your window, you go over to
Bell Park. And he says, now, I'm laughing thinking about
a dude telling a girl you know, I can't hold
you back. Now, that's a good game.
Speaker 2: This is a beautiful song.
Speaker 3: I mean, from the time that he said that, every
time I hear it, I'm thinking, I can just imagine
being in the back seat with the girl right now.
Speaker 2: This reach number one on the Adult Contemporary chart, which
was Toto's first number one until later on the next year.
Speaker 3: Right, can't get to that. We'll get to that.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get to that one.
Speaker 3: I wonder, I wonder how many babies were made to
this song? How baby making music?
Speaker 2: A lot?
Speaker 3: So freaking good. So Steve Lucather wrote this song. This
is the first one that he wrote for this album. Right,
he wrote and sings yeah, yes, And he's got a
great voice. I mean, the man is a master of
the guitar. But this is his beautifully sung song. So
he's written this song and they're like, dude, Steve, this
is great. We are gonna put this on the album.
So so he's got it, and he's got no bridge,
and they, you know, they call him, they're like, okay, hey,
come on over. You know we're gonna do that song today.
We just need to put your bridge in there. And
he's like, crap, I don't have a bridge, right, And
so he gets there. He gives himself about three minutes
at the piano and he's like, Okay, here's the bridge, right,
And this is what kind of musical genius he is.
The bridge is not easy. I mean, this is complicated
chords and it's what goes on underneath his guitar solo.
So you've got these I mean, listen to the music, hard, beautiful,
and he totally plays it off like all right, guys,
here it is. This is what I need you to do. Wow,
like he'd had it the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that guitar solo it just kind of mirrors
the tune. And this week I sent you ate one
of those reaction videos oh yeah, which you know, it's
kind of funny because you know, these are people are like, hey,
I'm listening to this song for the first time. Check
me out. And so I sent you once from the
Jay Show. I want to give her a shout out.
She plays about thirty seconds of it, she pauses it,
she goes, oh Lord, Jesus held me. Okay. She continues
to play, and all she does the rest of the
song is cry. It's just I mean, she's not balling,
but the tears are just flowing. Because if you listen
to song if you've ever been in love and the
love has been unrequited, or you've lost it, something happened
that ended that, and but you still have feelings for
this person. This song will tear your heart in half.
Yes it will, Yes, it will so beautiful. A couple
of things for you on this one. Okay, So you
know who does the strings on this one? Tell me
James Newton Howard. Oh yeah, okay, right. This was one
of a couple of songs where they went to London,
got the Symphony behind it. That's when you get a
little extra heart tug with the symphony.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: You also have Timothy B. Schmidt, who was the basis
for the Eagles yep, singing on the chorus you can
hear in clear as day yep. Steve Perry of Journey
called Steve Lucather and said, I just want you to
know your song got me through a breakup with my girlfriend.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Pretty cool, right, Yeah, I got one more thing for you.
This song is so beautiful. How in the world are
there nine songs better? Okay? Right, listen to this murderer's
row of nine songs better than this?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: March seventh, nineteen eighty three, so it tops out at
number ten, Wow, okay, okay. Number nine, Little Red Corvette done.
Number eight, mister Roboto, Sure. Number seven, she blinded me
with science.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Number six overkill? Wow, number five, der commissar okay. Number four,
come on, Eileen, Oh my god. Number three, let's dance, Yeah,
Number two Jeopardy, oh yeah? And number one beat it.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: That is a murderer's row of eighties hits right there.
Speaker 3: It's yeah. I'd listened to that on repeat all day
long for sure. By the way, you mentioned James Newton.
Howard did the orchestral arrangements and was the conductor for
this one. Also on this track, another person who did
orchestral arrangements, mister Marty Page, David's dad.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Marty Page used to call it David Page Pagage. The
guys in the band thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2: Isn't your last name? Page? All right? Are we done
with this one?
Speaker 3: I hate to be done with this beautiful, beautiful song.
Speaker 7: It's fantastic.
Speaker 2: This is going in the this is going in the
Makeout list of eighty three. Absolutely, we need to get
on Spotify and create our makeout list.
Speaker 9: We do.
Speaker 3: David Wright's going to do it for us. He's taking
the cue right now.
Speaker 2: He's already on Spotify today on Challenge. Okay, now we're
moving on to a song called Good for You, another
great piano rocker. It's fun, absolutely this song.
Speaker 3: When I heard this song, I immediately thought I want
to be watching an eighties montage of some kind, like
the montage of the guy, you know, Daniel Larusso's trying
to get the girl something like that. That's the montage
that I need to be, that kind of victorious trumpet
that's behind it. I yeah, I could be good for you.
You could be good for me too. Let's make this
thing happen.
Speaker 7: This is a fun song.
Speaker 2: This one could have been a single in my opinion.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely yeah, especially in the eighties. I mean yeah yeah.
If I Have the Tiger is a number one song
in this time period, then this absolutely could have been
a top ten hit for sure.
Speaker 2: This song was written by Steve Lugetter and Bobby Kimball.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the vocals are great on this one. I
watched the video and David Page is playing two separate keyboards,
you know, one hand on one one hand, on the
other it.
Speaker 3: Just I'm like, wow, screams the eighties, right. So Roger
Lynn did the synthesizer programming on this one. You've got
a very we can tell this is synthesizer music, but man,
it's so good. And then we have another Pakaro brother
who comes in on this song. Mike Piccaro plays the
cello on a song. Okay, yeah, he hadn't become a
part of the band.
Speaker 2: Yet, right. Well, soon as David Hungate checked his head
set against the wall, I can't take this anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: They're like, well, I guess Mike Akaro is our new
bass player.
Speaker 3: There you go. As we mentioned, Timothy B. Schmidt is
doing backing vocals on this one as well.
Speaker 7: This is after the Eagles broke up.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't do anything right, waiting for hell to freeze over,
right right, which it did eventually it did in ninety four.
One of the things on this song at the very end,
there's like a great guitar outro. Yeah, it's like, I
don't know what it is about. There's like an unwritten
rule in the band. They're like, okay, when you want
to fiddle around and go for it. Wait till the
last thirty seconds as we're fading out. Okay, we done
with this one.
Speaker 3: Yep. Time to move on.
Speaker 2: Moving on to the last song on side one. It's
called It's a Feeling. Okay.
Speaker 3: The beginning of this song kind of makes me feel
like a stage musical it happened, okay, and then once
they get into it, it's got I'm gonna say, like
an elo kind of feeling about it. It's a more
serious tone song, yeah, and I mean it's about a
guy who's suspicious that somebody's fooling around on him. Right.
It's not my favorite.
Speaker 2: Okay, See this one, I get Miami vice or moonlighting
type of feel. You know, Crockett walking around the city,
he got tub shot. He's feeling bad right right right see,
or he found his girlfriend cheating or something like that.
This one was sung and written by Steve Mcaro. Yeah,
it's jazzy. I like it, but it's not my favorite
on the album, right, Okay, Moving on, Moving on, it's
dobbing tab Layer Kick it out. Flip it over side
two of Total four with a song called Afraid of Love.
Speaker 3: All right. We start off this one with a solid
crunchy guitar. I'm digging it. I don't like the lyrics.
They're flat. It's just there's nothing there. And then the
melody of the chorus. This is going to be a
skip skipper for me.
Speaker 2: No, you're way wrong on this one.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, You're way wrong. This is so The lyrics
in this are so generic. I mean, I like the
way you moved and just the way you are. I
can't take anymore because girl, you're pushing too hard. This
is by Paige and Luca thur. We got guys who
wrote the Kilimanjaro and Serengetti into their song. I'm not
writing something that's like a kid in high school wrote.
Speaker 2: Okay, I like the music, but allow me to rebut
goo ahead. This would have been the lead single if
this song had been on Turnback or Hydra Yea.
Speaker 3: It's because this album sucked, That's.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 2: The reason why this song didn't get released as a
single is because you had Africa and Rosanna and I
Won't Hold You Back all those other ones in front
of it. This could have been a hit.
Speaker 4: Sain Goal.
Speaker 2: This should have been on the American Anthem or Vision
Quest soundtrack This is a very eighty song. It sounds
like Journey to me.
Speaker 3: I like, yeah, we're we're in disagreement on this one. Okay,
all right, we done with this one? Yeah, all right, ready, yes, okay,
groovy piano to start this baby out. Yeah yeah, and
then the verse it's good. Yeah, you hit that chorus
and I'm Michael Winner. We have a winner here. This
is fantastic chorus. I love the I dig it. I
love this song. This was another surprise for me that
was like, oh, dang, this is good.
Speaker 2: It's good. I think you can tell that they're trying
to write hit songs because every song has kind of
that on cheat upbeat feel to it.
Speaker 3: And this one is familiar. I can't tell where that
chorus is familiar to me, but it's familiar. Whatever it is.
Count me in.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. Great song, great song. And you
know again, maybe this one's also about resent arcade. You
wish you had her.
Speaker 7: It's possible, you should make you cry, shall make you high.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're done with others in the night. Let's move
on to the third song on side two. We made it. Okay, Now,
this piano intro makes me think of the Muppets, Like
I can imagine them walking down the Saxon Man with this.
But then it comes in with with what maybe one
of the best first lines in all all of music
writing history, are you.
Speaker 2: Ready to okay?
Speaker 3: Bad time for love? You caught me on your birthday.
I could feel your heart break into one hundred pieces.
So he is screwing around with another girl on his
girl's birthday. Oh, set the stage. That is.
Speaker 2: The good news is though we made it, well.
Speaker 3: We can make it again. How about it? I like
this one.
Speaker 2: I love that that Luca the guitar screech.
Speaker 3: Yeah he's he's working it, yeah he is. And this
is this is not one that was a single, Nope,
but it's this is a good song. It's a good song.
Speaker 2: All these songs are like infectious. There are toe tappers
right well, and once again they're trying to write hits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so we're working our way down the list,
right yep. Well, I think that the songs that they
thought were probably not the best songs they're saving for
the last, right.
Speaker 2: This is insane to me.
Speaker 3: So we got second to last song on the whole
album called Waiting for Your Love, Don't go However, this
song was actually released as a single.
Speaker 2: This was the fifth single released in June of eighty three.
Speaker 3: I don't know who was in charge of that decision,
but you're freaking fired. Okay. Now, I'm sure that there
are a lot of people who love the song. Probably
it's catchy, it's eighties, you know, it's it sounds like
Michael Jackson Off the Wall, which these guys were completely
involved with.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you said that, because to my ear,
it's totally Baby Be Mine from Thriller.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, which I think I even described when
we talked about Baby Be Mine, when we talked about Thriller,
I said, I think this one belongs on Off the Wall.
This is not Yeah, this is not a thrill song.
This isn't Off the Wall song. And it's dancy. And
can we talk about the video?
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the video.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that the video existed for this thing.
And all I can say is it's an eighties dance club.
You got eighties hair, you got eighties shoulder pads, you
got eighties dancing going.
Speaker 2: On like line dancing. Yeah, And for some.
Speaker 3: Reason they thought it would be appropriate that the band
be completely covered in their own sweat. What is going
on if the guys all look like they're coked out
of their minds and like that. There it's one hundred
degrees inside of the Well Club.
Speaker 2: Every woman in the dance club has no bra on.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not complaining about that. That is not a
problem for me. But I mean, Bobby Kimble up on stage.
The guy is not a slim, trim guy. He's got
the porn stash from the seventies and he and every
other member of the band are sweaty on this one. God,
there's Jeff Roat for Cordously.
Speaker 2: I've got those huge, you.
Speaker 3: Know, child molester glasses on.
Speaker 2: You have got to watch this video if you have
not seen, Oh.
Speaker 3: My goodness, it is of a little bit of eighties
joy all.
Speaker 2: At the same time, Hey, I gotta give a little
bit of credit to Bobby Kimble because he really goes
for it lyrically on this. This was his song, right,
So Bobby Kimball wrote this song in the seventies, okay,
And it sounds like it kind of stayed in the
seventies to me, But I don't know. The video is
so good, it's so yeah, atrociously bad. It's marvelous.
Speaker 3: It is you will you will enjoy your time watching this,
reliving the moments that you're glad you don't have from
the eighties anymore. A lot of really great stuff happened
in the eighties, and this video represents not that stuff,
the stuff that was more appropriately left behind.
Speaker 2: All right, are we finally there?
Speaker 3: We could do an entire podcast series on the song
that's about to come up? Are you ready? Shirley fans.
Speaker 2: One of the best songs of the nineteen.
Speaker 3: Eighties, one of the best songs of all.
Speaker 2: Time, songs called Africa.
Speaker 3: The beat is undistakeable, it's incredible. So for this song
they had Sony come in and help program the keyboards
that Steve Percaro is playing right, okay, so the marimbas
that you hear are that Sony programmed keyboard marimba sound.
Before they even get there, they say, we got to
have this perfect beat. So they record an entire taite
of just Jeff Oiicaro and Lenny Castro play in the
drums over and over, same drum beat, over and over
and over and over and over and over. Right, and
once they've done it for a full tape, whatever that
might be. They take one measure. They listen to it
all and they find the one measure that's perfect, and
they put that on.
Speaker 2: Look, that's the one right there, this one right here.
Speaker 3: This one right here. And now keep in mind this
is for computer recording. So when we say on loop,
that means that they took the tape. They took that
one measure, cut the tape out, then put it on
the tape recorder, ran it around a MIC's stand, around
a chair, around another mic stand, and onto the next
part of the recorder, so that the tape would just
rotate in a circle. And that is the way that
you have this perfectly synchronized, incredible drum sound for the
entire song.
Speaker 2: Once they got that loop that they liked, David Page
and Jeff Piccaro laid down the drums and the pianos
one take, one take.
Speaker 3: But they build off of it, you know. They this
is a pyramid song, and it is starting with the drums,
and then we're introducing the keyboards, and then we're introducing
the vocals, and it just builds and builds and builds
into this amazing collection of music.
Speaker 2: Hey boy, let's wait.
Speaker 3: And let's talk about how the song was conceived. Right, Okay,
so David Page wrote this song about Africa. Yes, you'd
never been to Africa, never been there, went years like
I don't think it was like twenty first century before
he ultimately got to go to Africa, right, And they're like, hey,
this is such a wonderful song. When did you come
to Africa? And he's like, actually, this is my first time.
How's everybody doing good to see it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean he went to a Catholic school and he
had learned about missionaries, yeah, and had a subscription and
National Geographic.
Speaker 3: You guys can remember in the eighties when the UNISEF
commercials would come on and they would tell you these
children in Africa need your help. Right. Well, he talked
about how when he was a kid, those missionaries would
come and talk to it at his school and they
would talk about how they blessed everything, which I don't
really understand. It may be a difference between a Catholic
and Protestant thing. But they would bless food, they would
bless experiences, and when it rained, they would bless the rain.
And that's how you get that line, Oh I bless
the rain down in Africa. But man, it's a fantastic line.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter. It sounds so wonderful.
Speaker 3: Okay. So in addition to this concept of blessing things,
one of the other things that the missionaries talked about
was the difficulties. And obviously difficulties of seeing people in
these deprived conditions was a huge thing. But the other
thing that was difficult for them was being alone and
celibate out there. And so this song is about a
guy who's waiting for a girl to arrive to meet her. Right, yeah,
her plane is coming in right and he's twelve thirty
flightlight ready to meet her. And so that's the underlying
story of the song. And he meets a man to
get some more music, and then the man is like,
it's waiting there for you. And then we jump into
this course and just before the chorus comes on, I
gotta say this. We love this course and it seems simple,
but listen to it this way, all right. The first
line I blessed the grains down in Africa is it's
a very simple melody. Right when that second line comes in,
you add a second harmony behind it, different notes, and
you can hear it. You can hear the distinct notes
that the two people are saying the same words different notes.
And then the third we add get a third layer
of different notes which are extremely complicated. You go from
simple to complicated over these three lines. And the magic
when you have that two part harmony behind the very
simple underlying chorus and melody is is magical. I mean magical.
Speaker 2: Hey, listen. David Page said God gave this to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We've talked about how there are some songs that are
divinely inspired. Yeah, I think Jonathan Kane on the Journey
Frontier's album Heads Faithfully, he felt like that God gave
that directly to him. Yes, David Page is the same
way God inspired. He says, I'm talented, but I'm not
that talented. God gave this to me. Now, then keep
in mind, particularly after hearing the song Waiting for Your Love,
Steve Lucather said, this is the worst song on the album. Yeah,
if this is a hit, I'll run naked down Hollywood Boulevard.
Speaker 3: So what they would say to each other whenever they
didn't want a song on the album is they would say,
maybe you should save this for your solo. That is
exactly what they said to David Page about this song.
Maybe you should save this for you Steve's solo album. David, Yeah,
I cannot believe it.
Speaker 2: It's shocking.
Speaker 3: Talk about not knowing your own stuff.
Speaker 2: Now. Steve Piccaro didn't like this song either. I saw
an interview with him. He said David Page was really
into it, and their agreement was, when you have a song,
we're going one hundred percent for you, because when I
bring a song, I want everybody in on my And
so they said that doesn't mean we didn't kill ourselves
in this song, but nobody believed in it right.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. These guys do not bad talk to each other.
I have never in all of the interviews that I've heard,
I have never heard one of them say one bad
thing about another member of the band. Even if they're
not getting along and they're separated. It is those guys
are amazing musicians. And whether it was my song and
they didn't like it, they still brought one hundred percent.
And if it was their song and I didn't like it,
I still brought one hundred percent. We did our absolute
best on every single song. Like it or hate it.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about Hungry like the Wolf next week. Yeah,
these are some of the best pop songs of the eighties.
Speaker 3: Right, at some point we mentioned that they've delayed touring
and they went and worked on Thriller for this before
they started touring. In this one, right at some point
when they come back. This is kind of like the
run DMC story that we talked about with Walk this Way.
They come back and David Page gets a call and
they're like, man, they are playing the heck out of
your song at all of these dance clubs. Thinking Rosanna,
He's thinking make believe you know one of the right,
It's like, what song? And then they're like Africa and
he said really, yeah, he couldn't believe it. And then
Africa gets released as a single and it is their
only number one hit.
Speaker 2: So it's the third single. It's released October of nineteen
eighty two. It's their first and only song to hit
number one on the Hot one hundred. Let's talk about
the video for a second, Okay, So the video is
sort of Raiders of the Lost arkish. He's looking through
some books, sure in the library, he's wearing that pith hat.
I'm telling you, Raiders the Lost Ark was impactful at
this time because hungry, like the wolf of that video
is definitely impacted by ras.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, and then they're all kind of miniaturized. They're
on a stack of books.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they said that the stage was really weird. It was. Yeah,
they painted it all to look like they're standing on
top of these books, and it looks like he's looking
for a map or something in the library.
Speaker 2: He's got a torn paper and he's looking through the
book and it's like the biggest dog ear, not very mysterious.
Speaker 3: And then you get you've got this African American lady
as the librarian, and then suddenly there's a spear being
from I wouldn't say that this video would not pass
muster at in the day's world, right, I'm just I
don't think it would. So you've got David Page singing,
and then also he's singing the first part, and then
of course Bobby Kimball comes in with the second part,
and can we talk just a second about his freestyling
at the end of the song. Ye, holy cow, it's amazing.
I talked about that build that they have on the chorus,
and then when he throws in that freestyle. Let's listen
to it now, I'm stealing your info here. That's okay,
because we talk, we talk, and this is so I'm
gonna steal you. Said that Bobby Kimball has an amazing voice,
but just not all the time, right, And so if
you watch the live show, it's a little cringing. Yeah,
you're like, oh, you're missing you're missing here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But when he would hit it was so good. So
these being studio musicians, they knew how to go up,
do it again, do it again, do it again. Ah,
there we go. That's the one. That word, that's the
that word. Yep, that's the one we need. And man,
they wove it together in an amazing tapestry. And to
bring it full circle, I love this. Yes, Joe Pacar,
the guy who said to David Page, you need to
meet my son Jeff. Yes, he's playing the marimbas in
the chorus.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
Speaker 3: It is fantastic. So this song was a huge hit,
everyone surprised to everybody in the band.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 3: Lasts for a long time and then, as all any
songs do, it falls out of favor. Now I can
remember with absolute clarity twenty eighteen, that's four years ago, yep.
I walk in to the kitchen. See, my daughter's almost
nineteen now, so she's she would have been fourteen or
fifteen at the time, okay, and she is rocking out
to Africa. Now I've given her are a lot of
good songs, right, you know, I molded her musical education.
As I mentioned, she's a big Metallica fan thanks to me,
Bonjovi fan, thanks to me. But I'd never played Africa
for her. I'm not this huge Toto guy. So when
I walk in the kitchen and she's jamming out to Africa,
I'm like, where have you heard this song? And she's like,
it's just around. It's awesome.
Speaker 4: Dad.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, it is awesome, but how do you
know it? And then I find out somehow this song
is becoming incredibly popular again.
Speaker 2: It's viral.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I looked at my old text from like twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen, and I could talking to my brother about this.
I'm like, how is it this song is becoming big again?
It doesn't make any sense to me. And people try
to say, well, it was the Weezer thing, but that
was after that.
Speaker 2: Was after that. That was in response to its popularity exactly,
and I.
Speaker 3: As deep as I have dug, I cannot figure it out.
Something happened I know was I know it was China.
I don't know what happened. But somehow this song hit
that tipping point again in the last five years and
suddenly it was everywhere again. I guess I don't get it.
And so there was a fourteen year old girl who
developed the Twitter handle at Weezer Africa. Yes, I love
this story, and her soul mission was to get the
band Weezer to cover the song Africa right. And so
she gets so much exposure she becomes viral with this
thing that Weezer to troll.
Speaker 2: Her records a version of Rosanna. Know this is hilarious
me too.
Speaker 7: They're like, oh, we got the rock songs so.
Speaker 3: Far, and Rosanna ends up doing very well for them,
and so finally they're like, well, maybe we should record
and sure enough it becomes their biggest hit in like
ten years or something like that. They hadn't had a
hit since the early two thousands, and suddenly their version
of Africa is hitting the charts.
Speaker 2: You know who plays the lead singer in the video.
Speaker 3: Our best friend mister weird al yank such a fantastic video.
So they take the Weezer concept that blue backscreen. Was
it the Sweater song? I think it was the Sweater song?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: And so they do they recreate that exact play of
the video, except that it's weird Al doing the lead
singing in the song. It's great.
Speaker 2: Hey, there is some sort of sound installation device in
the Nambib Namib. I, like David Page, have never been
to Africa. So the Nabib Namib desert. Yes, that plays
Africa on loop infinitum, just again and again and again.
It is solar powered out there in the middle of
the desert. There's lay in Africa, Toto, who did this?
I don't know, the missionaries apparently.
Speaker 3: So all of humanity is going to cease to exist
and the recording of Africa will live forever. Yes, yes, great.
The aliens when they come will be like, well, I
don't know that the civilization, but they knew what was
good music.
Speaker 2: Once again, Steve Lucather thought it was the worst song
on the album, but he did not dance down Hollywood
Bullyvard naked Steve Lugather, the ball is in your court.
We expect you naked down Hollywood Boulevard. It's been a
huge hit twice in like two different centuries. It's incredible.
It's incredible, one of the best songs of the eighties.
Spike in the Football, it's one of the best.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Okay, So that does it for the album. We
got to talk about a few things that happened after Yes.
So this whole time, Bobby Kimball has been afraid of
these drug charges that are against him. Ultimately, case gets dismissed.
He was about to go to trial. The defense had
filed the motion to dismiss because what they believed happened
was that he didn't get rid of Miranda rights. Yeah,
and so the judge believed it, and without even the
judge making a decision, the prosecution voluntarily dismissed the case.
He was never convicted of drug traffic.
Speaker 2: So Bobby Kimball's off the drug charges. However, he's not
off the cocaine.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: In fact, he started to smoke it.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's freebasing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so it destroyed his voice.
Speaker 3: It's tragic.
Speaker 2: So they had to fire him after their biggest album ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Ultimately he rejoins the band about twenty years later
and that lasts for another ten years. I think after that,
I guess he'd quit hitting a crack bite.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, they
did have a couple other hits in the eighties. One
of them is called I'll Be Over You, big hit
in eighty six.
Speaker 3: Okay, real quick, I'm gonna tell you a story.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we mentioned that they are huge musicians on the
Thriller album, right mm hm. And you know that Human
Nature was a big song on that album, right.
Speaker 2: It's a lily huge hit, huge hit.
Speaker 3: Human Nature was written by Steve Pacarl. So here's what happened. Wow,
they're already working on the album, right, and Quincy Jones
is looking for music, and so he says, Hey, David,
I need you to get me a song. So David
says to Steve, who kind of like almost working for
him at this point, He's like, hey, I need you
to record this song onto a tape for me. And
the tapes are short, they're like, you know, one song
on each side. Okay, I need you to record this
for me and send it over to Quincy. So Steve
takes this tape that he had. They had one of
his own songs on. It was a song that he
wrote spur of the moment after he had this conversation
with his daughter, Heather Pecara, who goes on to be
a musician herself. She's a little kid, some kid, some
boy hits her and she doesn't know what and she
comes home and he's trying to explain to her that
the boy probably likes you. This is just human nature,
this is the way they behave. And then he realizes, hey,
that's kind of a good human nature, this kind of
a good song. Runs over the keyboard, records the yy why,
the human nature, the melody, and the chords of the
song onto this tape. Okay yep. Then a little later
David calls and says, hey, I need you to put
my song on a tape and send it over to
Quincy Well. The tape that the only tape that he's
got with him at the moment is the tape that
he's got Human Nature on.
Speaker 2: Okay wow.
Speaker 3: So he records it on the other side of that
sends it to Quincy Jones. Quincy Jones is listening to
David Page's song but lets it keep on playing and
it's got the automatic flip over on the tape and
so Quincy hears human Nature and he calls up David,
and David said, it took me thirty minutes to figure
out he's not talking about He's like, you know, tell
me about human nature. This is great. He's like, what
are you what? Yeah, And so he didn't want David's song.
He picked Steve's song. And Steve's like, Eve Ben mean
for this to happen, Wow, it becomes Michael Jackson's.
Speaker 2: Human look at their said, he made a small fortune
off of that one song.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well the screen.
Speaker 2: All right, real quickly, so just touching on one more thing.
Toto goes off into the sunset. Interestingly enough, they were
tabbed to do danger Zone for the Top Gun soundtrack.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: They had actually been asked to participate in Footloose. They
sent some songs in they weren't selected. The Footloot soundtrack
goes on to be a huge smash album go Back
where we covered that track by track. So they were
intent on being included in Top Guy. So they came
in they said, hey, we want you to do danger
Zone and so they rearranged it. They made it better,
and the guy said, okay, we really like the lyrics.
We really like the arrangement, we really like the singing.
But we're going to bring in some studio musicians to
replace you, guys. And they're like, what are you talking about.
We're the best there is. And so they pulled it
and they said, Nope, we're out. Otherwise we would have
Toto instead of Kinney Loggins on Top Guys.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: We're gonna cover a top gun hearing about him?
Speaker 4: Unk?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, a couple more things. Okay, The Beatles were
a huge influence on all of these guys, right right.
So Steve tells a story of the time that he
got to meet Paul McCartney. Yes, it's when they're recording Thriller,
and of course Paul McCartney the Girl is Mine with
Michael Jackson, which you don't care for the dog gun garly.
So they're there and he's got his whole entourage and
it's this big production while they're doing their recording or whatever,
and Steve says, what happens, He's not even recording with
them at this point. Jeff is the one drumming, and
Steve and David they're the ones involved, not Steve. Steve
Lucather and David Page, the ones, not Steve Pacarr, right,
but Steve Pacaro is there when this happens. He gets
to see him, and then he leaves with his entourage.
They're taking down their equipment, and suddenly Paul McCartney walks
back in by himself, snuck away from the paparazzi or
what have you, and he's like, I just wanted to
come back and talk to you guys for a little while.
And so he just sat down and hung with the
band for like ten minutes. And so Steve is just,
you know, staring in awe at his idol, just sitting
across the couch room him.
Speaker 2: That is awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great. Okay. So we know that Bobby Kimball
lost his position with the band because of some cocaine use,
and we know from our research that all of these
guys were pretty heavily into cocaine. And even if you
didn't know, if you go back and watch any of
those videos, there is no question that these guys were
ha ha.
Speaker 2: Listen, it was the eighties, it was the early eighties,
and everybody was rolling around in the white powder.
Speaker 3: It was it was a thing. It's a thing to do.
But interestingly, later on, Jeff Pacarro passes away under kind
of unusual circumstances, and what the medical examiner says is
that it is caused by his cocaine.
Speaker 2: He was fertilizing his lawn at the time. Steve Lucather said,
there's no way his cocaine news, so it had to
be that pesticide.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He said that the amount that they found was
like so ridiculously small that there's no way a guy
who had done as many drugs as he did in
the eighties would suddenly that that would cause him to
have a heart attack and die.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Lucather thinks he probably smoked either a cigarette or a
jay while he had the pesticide on his hands, therefore
sucking it into his lungs and causing the death. I
don't know if it's doctor Lucather or not, but I
can also say that there are medical examiners out there
who saw the spotlight for things too.
Speaker 2: So he was a heavy smoker, Yeah, he was a
cocaine user. Yeah, and he was squirting his lawn with poison.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: Sadly, we lost Jeff Piicarl, one of the best drummers
of all time at age thirty eight.
Speaker 3: Of course, this was a shock to everybody. There was
a memorial concert that took place at the Universal Amphitheater
on December fourteenth, ninety two, that just ro after he died,
had George Harrison, Boz Gaggs, Donald Fagan, Don Henley, Michael McDonald,
David Crosby and Eddie Van Halen and the members of
Toto singing a memorial concert for a.
Speaker 2: Lot of those guys we've talked about through this two
part are on Toto.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Richard Marx. You know, we mentioned that Steve
Lucather played the outro off of the Lionel Richie's album,
and Richard Marx was one of the guys who sang
backup for Lionel Richie back before he was a big man. Well,
he dedicated the song One Man to Jeff and said
Paccaro was the best drummer he had ever worked with.
Michael Jackson made a dedication to Pacaro in the liner
Notes of History from ninety five. He was just a
very well loved and very well respected guy.
Speaker 2: You know, it just hit me, h you mentioning that story.
The guys in Toto played on Richard Mark's debut album
has all those huge hits you know, don't mean nothing
in the summer nights, hold On to the Knights, just
a huge album. Toto played all over that. Richard Marx
married Cynthia Rhodes, the star of the Rosanna.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2: The song right here waiting was writting was written about her.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So Jeff Pucar's tomb stone inscribed
with lyrics from a song on Kingdom of Desire. Our
love doesn't end here, It lives forever on the wings
of time. Okay, everybody that does it. For this episode,
we are comparing two Mammoth albums from nineteen eighty two,
Toto's four which we just covered, and coming up next.
Speaker 2: We have Deran Durand's Rio album. Huge album, packed with heads.
Her name is Rio and she dances in the send.
That's awesome, man, I can't wait to dive into that one.
It's gonna be so much fun. Dran Duran huge, powerful
force on the wings of MTV.
Speaker 3: Early if you were listening to music and eighty two
and eighty three, these songs were in your ears every
single week and.
Speaker 2: On your TV. Yeah, come back here next week where
we dive into the history of Duran Duran followed by
Rio track by track, and we.
Speaker 3: All have a special guest for that episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Melissa Mingles. She's a good friend of ours,
friend of the show, big Duran.
Speaker 3: Duran fan, super fan if you will.
Speaker 2: If she had not married her husband Mark Simon Levaughn,
it was next in line.
Speaker 3: I think that's awesome. Okay, before we head out, we
need to do our shirly showcase. This time we have
a special fan of ours from Facebook who has interacted
with us a bunch. He is weighing in on this
matchup of Toto four versus Duran Duran Rio. Let's hear
what he has to say.
Speaker 2: This is our buddy, James Stiegel, friend of the show,
friend on Facebook.
Speaker 9: Hey, how you doing this? Is James Darling, Thanks for
sending me a message. Chime in with some thoughts on
Total four versus Rio.
Speaker 3: Just one of us.
Speaker 9: Between the album and the album, those boats came out,
you know when I was in ten years eleven years
old and fifth grade back in eighty two.
Speaker 3: Between each and one of them, they're.
Speaker 9: Both class six, they're both eighties Class six, both packed
with some hiss. You know, Total four it has that
album of the year distinction, which you know, some people
say make it, may make it better. But at the
same time, Duran, Duran and Rio, that whole MTV thing
with the early eighties and new wave new romantic, I
think that also carries it over to as well. You know,
it was with Total four you got Rosanna and Africa,
and you know two other top forty ars Hungry Locked
the Wolf, plus Rio, the title track, Mother Songs, plus
the MVP of that whole album save a Prayer, which
is pretty much a lot of Duran fans' personal favorite.
So if I had to really pick and choose between
you two, it's a tough choice. But I guess the
early eighties MTV fanatic with me and all those albums combined,
I probably would just go ahead and go pick the
Duran Duran first play it. Then of course I played
Total for it next after it too, obviously, find choices
other than that great be asked about some opinions about
two good albums. I love the podcast, love to Show,
love the page and everything, and love contributing. Other than that,
talk at you later least one.
Speaker 2: All right, James, thanks man, that's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, solid opinion. I can't fault you. I mean it is.
It's hard to pick between these two, and certainly one
is probably going to be slipping into the CD player
right after the other one in my rotation as well.
Speaker 2: That's right, We're going to cover Duran Duran next week.
Obviously that's his favorite, but he likes Toto four as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think next week we're going to have
a surely showcase with our old friend def Dave, who's
going to give his opinion on these two albums.
Speaker 2: Well, you can't wait to hear what he has to say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then tune in for the very end where
we give you our final judgment as to which of
these two amazing albums holds the top spot.
Speaker 2: See you back here next week.