Speaker 1: Hey, this is Chris Webber and you're listening to the
Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome
back to the Shirley you Can't Be Serious Podcast Special
Edition five Minutes of Fire. We are here talking about
the lyrics of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel.
We're covering only five minutes at a time, which is
about to length of the song, so it works out
kind of nicely. So please join us as we dive
into some new lyrics today.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're
going to be covering today.
Speaker 1: Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy Metal, suicide. We're at.
Speaker 2: Heyde tell me about Wheel of Fortune?
Speaker 1: All right now. The Wheel of Fortune actually started in
nineteen seventy five. It was a MERV Griffin game show.
The original hosts were Query we all know because he's
a game show icon, right, and Susan Stafford was our
letter turner. Okay, but they left the show. Chuck left
in nineteen eighty one, replaced by Pat Sajak. In eighty two,
Stafford left, replaced by and White still looking good, majors, yep.
And in nineteen eighty three, September of eighty three, the
show went to a nighttime position Because of its popularity,
It is at this point considered one of, if not
the most popular game shows of all time. Over seven
thousand episodes and you still have Pat and Vanna helming
the ship. Wow. I can't tell you how many episodes
of the show that I have watched with my grandmother,
with my family, with my kids. It is evergreen if
you will. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Side note, I saw a comedian talking about how he
watches Wheel of Fortune, then Jeopardy. He goes from genius to.
Speaker 1: Moron in an hour. Jason Who's Sally Ride.
Speaker 2: Sally Ride was an American astronaut and physicist and was
actually the first American woman in space. After high school,
Sally earned a grief in physics from Stanford. Nineteen seventy seven,
she saw an article fighting women to apply to NASA.
She applied and was one of six women chosen over
eight thousand people had applied. After a series of tests,
on January sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, she was informed that
she was selected to be a part of the NASA
Astronaut Group eight. Georgia Abbey, who was a big wig
at NASA wanted a woman in space for their next mission,
and Sally was selected. The media began asking her super
dumb questions like will spaceflight affect your reproductive organs? Do
you weep when things go badly on the job?
Speaker 1: Oh? My god?
Speaker 2: NASA even famously worked on a space makeup kit for her.
On June eighteenth, nineteen eighty three, she became the first
American woman in space. Two Soviet women actually preceded her.
Her job was to work the robotic arm. She flew
in the Space Shuttle again in nineteen eighty four, and
she died of pancreatic cancer in twenty twelve. Pioneer iconkay
Do tell us about heavy metal suicide Okay.
Speaker 1: On the evening of December twenty third, nineteen eighty five,
twenty year old James Vance an eighteen year old Raymond
Belknap shot themselves with a shotgun in the playground of
a church with the purpose of committing suicide. They had
been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana earlier that evening. What
their parents ultimately alleged was that they had committed suicide.
Had formed this suicide pack based upon the lyrics and
music and subliminal messages contained in Judas priests nineteen seventy
eight album Stained Class. Belknap was the first one to
put the shotgun under his chin. He died instantly. Some
time later, Vance shot himself, but he only disfigured himself
by blowing the lower half of his face off. He
ended up dying three years later, probably from a drug overdose. Now,
what Billy Joel didn't know in nineteen eighty nine was
that the next year there would be a lawsuit. Lawyers
representing the two families said that subliminal messages had urged
these two young men to do it. Embedded in the
song better by You, Better than Me, which is actually
a cover of a nineteen sixty nine Spookytooth song. Judas
Priest had actually only recorded the cover at the urging
of their record company because the rest of Stained Glass
had already been completed. During the trial, they tried playing
at different speeds and playing it backwards, saying the backmasking
that there were these messages to the youth, but the
judge ultimately found that it was just a combination of
guitar chords and exhaling that made these kind of coincidental noises. Ultimately,
Amongst a big protest by the heavy metal fans, the
members of judas priests were ultimately exonerated.
Speaker 2: Remember those days.
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, that does it for today's episode. Join us
next time for five minutes of fire.