Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media.
Speaker 2: Four and three and two and one. Let's go, guys.
It is the Surely You Can't Be Serious? Podcast, Part
two Beastie Boys Licensed Ill.
Speaker 3: Today, we're gonna go by track by track through license
to me and.
Speaker 2: I thought I had something. I had nothing.
Speaker 3: I was just like you are not rhyming and stealing
right there.
Speaker 2: I got Ali Baba and the forty Thieves just took
those thoughts right out of my head.
Speaker 3: Center stage on the mic, We've got our friend def
Dave back. Dave, how are you doing tonight.
Speaker 4: I'm on the cool check in. I'm hanging out with
the Gangster, the Prankston, the King of the app.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 4: I got some chef Woyer d cooling on the pot.
I can make a court a monkey and still stand still.
I'm ready to talk about life you.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yes, strong, and he's coming strong. So
we're going to talk track by track about Licensed Ill.
Speaker 3: Just in case you're jumping in at this point, you
may want to go back to last episode where we
did kind of an overview of the Beastie Boys. We
introduced Dave, we kind of talked about our relationship to
the album and then kind of how the Beastie Boys
got here. Okay, so this was the first rap album
of all time to hit number one on the Billboard charts.
I mean it's it's groundbreaking. Yeah, I think it hit
number one March.
Speaker 2: Seventh of e seven.
Speaker 3: You know what, it knocked out of the number one spot.
Not in sterio. You're warm though You're close, Dave.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 3: It knocked out the number one spot?
Speaker 4: I think I do?
Speaker 3: Okay, what you got?
Speaker 4: It ended the seven week reign of Slippery When Wet.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. Yes, that's exactly right. And it was
number one for seven weeks and then it got knocked
out by an album that we have podcasted on. You
know what, It knocked it out of the number one spot.
Speaker 2: I got nothing, Dave.
Speaker 5: Joshua Tree, the Joshua Tree, but you too.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you something about that. First of all,
Licensed Ill matched Slippery When Wet with seven weeks in
the top spot. But here's the thing. Slippery when Wet
had the benefit of two number one hits. Joshua Tree
had three number one hits, huh, and Licensed to Ill
had none. It had seven singles and only one the
top twenty and that was Fight for Your Right to
Party and it peaked out at number seven. So I'll
look at that, the same day that the album went
number seven, the.
Speaker 2: Same day that the album hit number one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what that tells me is radio was slow
to catch up with what was happening with kids all
across the country. We knew about the Beastie Boys and
we were buying up the album, but radio had not
caught up with this. And we see this album go
to number one and stay there despite lack of airplay
because there were no big hits that charted off of
this album.
Speaker 3: Pretty remarkable. I totally you get it. But you know,
despite the lack of radio play, Fight for Your Right
was on about every fourth song on MTV, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was absurd how often they were playing the song.
Speaker 3: But it was a great video.
Speaker 2: Oh we loved it. We loved it. Okay, So we'll
get we'll get to that here, that video when that
comes in. Before we jump full on into the album,
Let's talk a little bit of about the cover of
the album, all right. So it's it's iconic. You've got
this American Airlines Bowen seven twenty seven. You see the
tail on the front cover of the album, and then
when you open it up you realize that the plane
is crashing into the side of a mountain yep, and
it kind of resembles like a joint being crushed out
or something like that. The artwork was created by a
guy named Steven Byram and another guy named World be
Omes and World be Ohms, and it's been it's been
kind of imitated, like Eminem had an album where he
imitated it. But one of the things that you showed
me that I did not know about is the number
on the side that if you hold it up to
the mirror or just read it backwards, the threes become
ease and it says.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's three mt a e And if you
turn that around backwards, it's eat me. Even the album
cover is making joke.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So Eminem kind of duplicated it on his
album called Kamakazi.
Speaker 3: We would kind of be remiss if we didn't talk
about what the album was originally going.
Speaker 2: To be called.
Speaker 3: Okay, we can't say that, I know we are family friendly.
We'll dance around it a little bit. I do think
it's part of the story how they sort of evolved
from obnoxious teenage frat boy crazy men to respected artists
that we have later on today. So the album was
originally titled Don't be a f right.
Speaker 2: Another name for a cigarette in England, right, and Capitol
Records said, no, we're not doing that, right, Okay, So
what does License to Ill mean?
Speaker 4: The word ill was simply the opposite of chills. So
it was just a part of the lingo. If you
were whack, right, if you were not cool, if if
you were doing something stupid, you were either ill or
you were illing. And there was a keep in mind
just after the Raising Hell album has come out and
there was a track on there called you Be Illan,
I think we're playing off the license to Kill phrase
and just went with the lingo.
Speaker 3: I've got a quick funny story on the title of
the album. Okay. So they were on the Joan Rivers Show. Okay,
this is a while bag. Think back thirty five years.
Joan Rivers had her own talk show and she was
introducing the Beastie Boys and she's like, and here they
are to promote their album License to Kill, and you
can hear these people off screen.
Speaker 2: They're like, it's ill.
Speaker 3: It's ill, Joan. She's like, I'm sorry, let me do
it again. So they're here to do the record License
to Kill. They're like, Joan, no, it's ill. She's like what.
So they finally get her to say license to Ill,
and she's like, that's a stupid title.
Speaker 2: She said, you guys.
Speaker 3: Would have gone platinum in four weeks instead of seven
weeks if you had a better title than Licensed to Ill.
But I just thought it was really funny. Joan Rivers
thought it was a really dumb title.
Speaker 2: So out of touch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this album. I cannot overstate how massive this album
was for me my graduating class. We were in tenth
grade at the time. It came out in eighty six.
I discovered in early eighty seven. This took over our school.
We absolutely went nuts over this album and this group.
It really defined that school year for all of us.
Not only is it still the number one selling debut
album and def jam history, it is the top selling
debut album for Columbia Records, and it proved to be
a perennial seller, stayed as a top seller in their
catalog list, and even as of the two thousands, it
was selling like five hundred thousand units a year, so
it has continued to be a massive hit.
Speaker 3: What high school did you go to?
Speaker 4: I was at Hardway High School in Columbus.
Speaker 3: Give a shout out to the Fighting Farmers or whatever
they are.
Speaker 4: Shout out to the Hardaway Hawks class of eighty nine. Yes,
my crew, cool kid Chris clayboy E in the Chiff
Bad Goldie Rocks the boyd Wonder.
Speaker 2: So did you say that your mascot was the Hogs.
Speaker 4: Hawks Hawks like the Atlanta Hawks.
Speaker 2: Well? See, okay, So here's the connection that Dave and
I discovered whenever he started emailing us about this, because
I don't even remember what it was that spawned the
original email where you said, Hey, if you guys ever
do Beastie boys run DMC, I'm all in. But he
pointed out that he was from Columbus, Georgia, which has
a good story which we'll tell later on. I was
actually born in Columbus, Georgia. I didn't grow up there,
but I was born there when I moved to Arkansas,
where we were the Hogs, not the Hawks. But it's
just kind of crazy that there's a coincidental connection between
Dave and I and that it should happen to circle
itself around. Wow.
Speaker 4: It was released in November of eighty six. By February two,
it was certified gold and platinum on the same day.
By April they had gone multi platinum at three million
units sold, and by twenty fifteen it had been certified diamond,
which means ten million units sold of just this first album.
Speaker 3: I saw it in the Walmart five dollars bind.
Speaker 2: The other day. That's the CD I have in my car,
and once again I will promote by that CD. Spend
the five bucks. The sound quality is much better on
the CD than it is on Spotify or YouTube or
album music or any of those things.
Speaker 3: There's something better about having a CD or record tangibly
in your hand, too, much more personal connection, I think. Okay, Dave,
you mentioned November of eighty six, it's actually November fifteenth
of eighty six. We just crossed the thirty fifth anniversary
two days ago today. We're recording on November the seventeenth,
two days ago, this album turned thirty five years old.
Speaker 2: Now, I just want to say this. We posted something
on Facebook about this, and they grew up after this album.
They've so much as said this was just kind of
a goof album and that they were being goofy, and
that's how the songs came about. And we'll get into
all of that, but this album and Dave is a
testament to it right now. This album was a huge, momentous,
life changing thing for a whole lot of folks out there.
When we did that post on Facebook, it lit up.
Everybody loved this album when it came out, and I
think it's that same kind of thing that happened, you know,
about five years later with the with the grunge movement.
It spoke to those people who they were ready for
something new, they were ready for a rebellion, and these
guys were obviously rebelling against the establishment.
Speaker 3: Okay, we ready to go, Ready, all right, we are
diving in. Track by track. First, one out of the
gate is a song called Rhyming and Stealing.
Speaker 1: The Rest.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: They're coming hard right out of the gates with the
strong led Zeppelin rock samples. I think they're doing the
smart thing by catching the rock crowd right out of
the game.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. This drum beat is one of the most unmistakable
drum beats in drumming history. And they get a nice
little record scratch right at the beginning that plays as
a part of the rhythm. It's boom boom, blah blah bump,
and it's kicking butt right out of.
Speaker 4: The game Monster start to the album. You just immediately
top down, turn it up. Now. I'm fifteen years old
in nineteen eighty seven. I had never heard led Zeppelin,
never heard When the Left be Breaks. This was new
to me. I was offended later when I found out
that led Zeppelin had stolen from Hot Start to the album.
The verses everything they're written away to kind of frame
the Beastie Boys as pirates a love song. It's a
home run right out of the gate.
Speaker 2: The idea for me, at least.
Speaker 3: The ryman and stealing, I mean they're stealing hooks and
stealing beats and stealing bits of songs and then setting
their own rhymes to it.
Speaker 2: I mean, just the samples on this song alone.
Speaker 3: You've got When the Levee Breaks by led Zeppelin, You've
got Sweet Leaf by Black Sabbath, and then you also
have I Fought the Law by the Clash.
Speaker 2: Let's just think about this just for a second. So
they're referring to Ali Baba and the forty thieves. That's unquestionable,
right they repeat that one. They start off by talking
about Mutiny on the Bounty and Captain Blygh. They're also
talking about Pieces of eight and these are all like
literary references, but they've obviously got this rap beat. They
talking about being an ill bee boy and are already talking
about brass Monkey. So we party, we are intelligence, we rock,
and we also hip hop. It's like, here's all of
us all right out here in front, and we're a
little smart too. Okay.
Speaker 4: I love the references. What strikes me, and this is
gonna be true throughout the album, is that even though
it's easy to kind of look at them as as
almost a comedy approach or a parody of hip hop,
they're bringing the goods. They are bringing the goods that
every track is awesome, and they've got the quality, they
got the skills, they got the production and the rhymes.
It's just I'm a big fan. It's awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I can tell the bridge where they say Ali Baba
and the forty Thieves about twenty times. You can't hardly
miss that reference. You know, the other stuff kind of
flies under the radar, do you guys? Watch the thirty
for thirty on ESPN. Yeah, I caught one the other day.
I was a big nineteen eighty six New York Mets fan,
and so I watched that thirty for thirty and they
were using Ryman and Steeling as putting it to the
highlight videos for that year, So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 4: This is one of the few tracks on the album
that was not released as a single, but it is
one of my favorite.
Speaker 3: This one should have been a single.
Speaker 4: So when they went on the License to Ill tour,
you know, they only had this one album, so they
didn't have a large repertoire to bull from. They basically
performed this entire album. There was only one track off,
but they did not do They started with Ryman and
Steel and I remember it very clearly. Their opening act
was Fishbone. They were a hardcore punk band, but when
the VC Boys came on, those lights came on and
flooded the crowd, and then the when the levee breaks,
drum beat comes in they come stomping out on the stage.
The place went absolutely nuts awesome.
Speaker 3: So with the drum beat for Ryman and Steeling.
Speaker 2: Ad Rock and Mike Dee went over to MCA's house
and he had set up the loop.
Speaker 3: Had it strung all across his house where he had
looped manually the drum.
Speaker 2: Beat for when the levee breaks.
Speaker 3: Today, Hey, we would do that on a computer, it'd
be no problem. This was a ton of effort, but
it sounded fantastic today.
Speaker 2: On garage band there's a button. There's a loop button,
and it'll give you a whole list of loops that
you can use. But back in nineteen eighty six, it
was a new thing. It was something not many other
folks for doing it. So even though these guys are goofy,
even though they're hip hop, he is still bringing some
smarts and some savvy to even the music that they're producing.
All right.
Speaker 3: That brings us to song number two on the album.
This song is called the New Style.
Speaker 2: And on the cool check in set a stage.
Speaker 6: On the mic and with putting it on wax, it's the.
Speaker 3: New Style four and three's and one on the mic.
This stuffer's lie, what.
Speaker 6: Never got more?
Speaker 3: Just a great song right off the back. This was
released as the third single released No Remember six of
eighty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this one he actually they've sampled some other
things what have you got on? Samples on this one justly?
Speaker 3: Okay, So this song samples drop the Bomb by Trouble Funk, Yeah,
Peter Piper by run DMC, Yep, cool is Back by
Funk Inc. Two three Break by the b Boys, Click
of the Switch by ACDC.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 4: The song is great. I love the song. I'm down
with MCA, Mike D and U ain't I got more
juice than Picasso's Got paint. It is the third single
from the album. So the part where it breaks down
and he says, let me clear my throat, that was
an inside joke. So last week I explained that Elo
Coolja had been making home demos and sending them to
record labels, and it was the one that was sent
to Deaf Jam that Adam Horovitz found and gave it
to Rick Rubin. Well, as it turns out, at the
beginning of that tape, the demo before I Need to
Beat Star, you hear Ell say on tape let me
clear my throat. Well, for whatever reason, the Beast Boys
thought that was hilarious. They got a big kick out
of that. So that is the reference that's in a
new style when he says let me clear my throat.
That was an inside joke for them because it came
off of ELL's original demo that he had seen in
This one.
Speaker 3: Hit the US Hot Black Singles reached number twenty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm gonna throw this out there. It says
part of the lyrics say because I'm October thirty first,
that's my date of birth. I got the party and
you know what I did the smurf. Now, I'll say
as Ad Rock was born on October thirty first. It
is actually his birthday October thirty first, in addition obviously
to being Halloween. But what's the smurf?
Speaker 4: It must be a dance. He does the smurf, the
Popeye and the Jerry Lewis. He likes Bullwinkle, but he
doesn't like Brutus love it.
Speaker 3: I feel like we've got like the fourth Beastie Boy
with us today. Moving on to track number three, This
song is called She's Crapty.
Speaker 2: Around. So I just want to say. The lyric that
always jumps out of me at this one is the
cab driver recognized the girl from the back of her head.
Speaker 3: So wildly, Oh my gosh. The one that jumps out
to me is her name is Lucy, but they call
her Loose.
Speaker 2: What do you think about this one, Dave?
Speaker 4: I like it. It's catchy. I wouldn't put it in
the top tier of the songs on the album, but
I never skip it. That led Zeppelin sample drives it again.
I was ignorant of led Zeppelin when I was experiencing
this album. New it's kind of cliche for rap at
the time, but I loved it. I absolutely loved what
they did in this era, which is basically brag about themselves.
A lot of these tracks on here come down the
subject matter is just talking about how great they are.
She's Crafty is an exception. She's Crafty actually tells a
bit of a story. There's a couple on here that
tells stories, and she's crafty as one of them. So
it's a little bit of a of a change up
as far as that goes. What they're doing is they're
switching between lines, they're switching off parts, and it's something
that run DMC had kind of made their trademark that
was just with two MC's and VC Boys are taking
the next level with three. All I can say it's catchy,
it's funny. I think it's a funny story. He wakes
up necking the middle of the floor and he'd taken
the bed and the chest of drawers.
Speaker 2: This one is from led Zeppelin The Ocean, which is
on Houses of the Holy. It's unmistakable Zeppelin, Like I
know you not all of us were familiar with it
at the time, but there's no question what it is
when you hear it.
Speaker 4: Rap developed out of a club scene and a breakbeat
culture which they were cutting between records and playing different
records and cutting between them, and that developed, as rap did,
into this sample based approach to the music. And we
were getting sampling and other tracks already before now. But
what Rick Rubin did was he just kind of brought
it out to the foe. Instead of making it a
fill or a little extra gag in the song, he
built the whole song around these samples. He's coming to
the table with a love for hip hop and a
love for rap, but fully educated on rock and roll,
and he's able to take what he had already done
for RUNDI and c and take it to the next
level with this album. So he's just I guess they
got clearance on on these led Zeppelin songs and all
the samples that are throughout the album.
Speaker 3: I read an article with Jimmy Page. They're asking him
about it, and he's like, well, we didn't really give permission,
and he goes, I briefly thought about doing something legally
about it. He's like, but in the end, I was
flattered by it, so I just let it go.
Speaker 4: The whole issue that legal issues surrounding sampling was forced
by the Beast of Boys second album, which was not
produced by Rubin. It was Paul's Boutique in nineteen eighty nine,
and that is a masterpiece of production and technique, and
it's just nothing but samples. But it's also an album
that could It's no longer possible today because the rules
and the laws have changed and it would be too
expensive at this point to ever do again with this album.
Man with Paul's Boutique really kind of shaped copyright law
and shaped entertainment law when it comes to sampling.
Speaker 2: I gotta say, I know that this isn't a big
hit for you, but it was at this point in
the listening that I started dancing in my seat, like,
as I'm going through the album and this is a
good song, next song, this is a good song by
song number three, I'm starting to dance in my seat
as I'm driving to work in the morning.
Speaker 4: You can't help but just enjoy yourself. They just make
it a fun vibe to the whole thing, all.
Speaker 3: Right now, then we are now onto the next song
called Pussy and Effect. Yes, yes, you don't stop the place.
See he forgotten mind the bottles of seconds between it and.
Speaker 2: You don't stop? Did they that? They sampled that later on?
That's in another song, isn't it?
Speaker 3: That's that's I want to Sex you up by Color
Me Bad? Right?
Speaker 2: Are you serious?
Speaker 3: Let's check it rota Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: The and you don't stop he's saying, is in color
Me Bad, I want to sex you up. I gotta
hear this. No, it's not. It's very well, could do them.
Speaker 4: I don't know that that sounds like slit Rick and
Lotty Dotty. Slit Rick and Dougie Fresh teamed up to
a song called Lotty Dotty to the TikTok you don't stop, Okay, okay,
Lottie Dotty, we like to partty. We don't cross trouble,
we don't bother nobody with just some guys. That's on
the mic, and when we rock up on the mic,
we rock the mic.
Speaker 7: Yeah, wow, I can keep going.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So Posse in effect has three songs that it sampled,
Catch a Groove by Juice, Change the Beat by B Side,
and pee Wee's Dance Yes by Jove.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember ye.
Speaker 3: Pee Wee's dance as in pee Wee Herman.
Speaker 4: Yes, he took the the from Joskie Love. You know.
That was pee Wee Herman's little dance routine. And Joe
Ski was this guy's one hit wonder as far as
I know, But he had a rap about pee Wee Herman.
Speaker 3: That is awesome. We need to play a clip on
that right here.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to call it we herd it
And that's from Tequila, I guess.
Speaker 3: Oh fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say that that may be what
pee Rehearman was whatever was in that song, but that
was originally from Tequila, okay, which is what, of course
she does the dance to on top of the bar.
Speaker 4: Right in the movie Yes, when Mike d says, I
travel around the globe, I'm keeping girlies dizzy. My name's
Mike Dan, now watch me, And then they sampled Joskie
Love when he says get busy, y'all, that's Jokie Love.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, cool, nice.
Speaker 2: This one's really short.
Speaker 3: It's like two and a half minutes were the song.
Speaker 4: Here, Isn't this the one that says I got a
girl in the castle and one in the pagoda? You know?
I got rhyms like abe fda.
Speaker 3: Any song that makes reference to abea tom nine in
my bugs right there.
Speaker 4: There is redeeming value in this album because I was
educational for me. I learned what a pagoda was.
Speaker 2: Did you know who a god was?
Speaker 4: When you yeah, my dad was a Barney Miller fans
Ernie Miller.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: He was also, as you say, he was in the Godfather.
And didn't he didn't he play like Boris carl Off
in a movie as well?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but he definitely could. I do know this.
There is a Beastie Boys tribute band. I looked him
up on Facebook. They are called my Posse and effect.
Give them a lesson, give them a look see to
which you think.
Speaker 4: That's what I like about rap? And when I say
I like rap, I quit liking wrap. At the end
of the eighties, but the part that appeals to me,
the part that appeals to me is the cleverness of
the lyrics and the cleverness of the wrongs. And a
lot of times, you know, when you're talking about this
album is you don't have much more to say other
than I like the beat, and then you start quoting yes,
you know if it makes you smile, it makes you laugh,
and then it's memorable. Pussy and Effect and the next
one's slow Ride to Me are are among my favorite.
They were not released as singles, but to me, they're
almost the purest rap songs on the album. Wear a
Hat not Advisor, I drink bud Weiser, the turntables, up
on the drum, riser, yes on the groove, and the
finals on the platter, you know that I'm flyming. Is
no need to flatter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the rhymes keep coming and they don't stop.
Speaker 3: The drums at the very beginning of this the little
sample right there that sounds like the drum machine that
they probably paid for with their forty grand that they
got from British Airway.
Speaker 2: I think the forty grand with by their house, but
I think that I think Krick Rubin had the drum
machine that was That was really the selling point for
bringing him into the band.
Speaker 3: All right, Moving on to the next song. This one's
called slow Ride, super catchy. It's making a great use
of that the Lowrider song right there. They sample that hard.
Speaker 2: There's Lowrider, okay, and then there's slow Ride, which was
a fog Hat song too. Yes, but they've they've kind
of borrowed, I mean, because it was the same era
as the Lowriders song. But that the drum beat, you
know where it's from. Tell me, I'm asking you, We
want you to tell me. I think it is called
change the beat by the side, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you one thing that I know about these guys.
These dudes love White Castle. It is unmistakable. I think
they mentioned it in about every other song, something about
White Cast.
Speaker 4: So what I'll mention here is that I think part
of the appeal of this group, you know, the whole
world's discovering this group with this album. And so not
only do you have the three, but each of their
voices are very distinct, especially when you contrast King ad
Rock's wine with MCA's gruffness. It just adds to the fun.
But what it also does is it makes them unique.
And I think this is the reason why the BC Boys,
despite being white and despite being these like a party
hardy frap boy types and with all these raunchy lyrics
or whatever and all this rock and roll in it,
the reason they were so accepted by rap fans and
by the hip hop community, both professionals and by the
fans is that they were true to themselves. They didn't
try to sound like anybody else. You could tell that
they were coming at this with a true love for
hip hop, and they weren't making fun of anybody, and
they weren't treating it like a joke. They weren't treating
the form like a joke, even though there was humor
in their content. But again, just those the contrast of
those voices, I think it really carries both possing and
effect and slow ride.
Speaker 3: Yep, I'm totally with it.
Speaker 4: You know, we started off with some rock heavy, some
guitar bassed songs, but these last couple we get away
from that. You know, there's some horns and there's a beat,
but it's not really this driving guitar sound like we
like we started the album off with. So they've kind
of switched scares a little bit honest, and again we
stay away from the guitars mostly in this next song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they switch gears again right here.
Speaker 2: And I just got to say, for like songs, for
song three, and for song four, and for song five,
I'm dancing through all of it. But then we get
to song six, and not only only am I dancing,
but I'm smiling. I really want to come.
Speaker 6: In the morning.
Speaker 3: And even.
Speaker 2: This is like a nursery rhyme song. You've got a
nursery rhyme song, except it is ad rock talking about
having the hots for girl that used to be interested
in mc A, and so MCA wasn't interested in her,
and so he's like, yeah, go ahead and have at it. Girls.
Speaker 3: I totally agree with you, though. This sounds like a
little xylophone that you have in your church nursery.
Speaker 7: You know, it's catchy, it's different. It's so inappropriate. It
was so inappropriate for a guy who's got two daughters.
I'd be like, what what you shut up?
Speaker 2: Shut them out. But back when I was you know,
back when I was thirteen, it was awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, when I was fifteen, you know,
I thought this was hilarious. I listened to it now
and I'm like, yikes. You know, it's completely objectifying, you know,
talking about and it's chill to hear them talk as
if they're not real humans or something. But and then
you have them doing your dishes and you know, and
doing your laundry and stuff like that, which you know,
in tenth grade, you know, we think, we think this
is hilarious, and we're and we're quoting this song in
the hallways just to kind of get at the girls
in school, just to give them a hard time. You know.
It is a song that tells a story, and it's
a song that instead of bragging about himself, it's a
song of failure. He ends up not getting girl. But
it's one of those that they are embarrassed about. And
when I did catch the license to Ill tour in
February of eighty seven, they played all but one track
off the album for their set. Yeah, this was the
track that they did not play.
Speaker 3: I show this as the only song they've never performed live.
Speaker 4: I have no reason argue with that.
Speaker 2: So, just on the topic of whether they're feeling bad
about the subject matter of the song, did they still
have a stripper dancing inside of a.
Speaker 3: Stage and bad.
Speaker 4: Yes, they had girls in cages dancing and they're in
their DJ setup looked like a giant six pack of Budweiser.
Speaker 2: I heard them talk about this and they thought it
was a joke. Russell Simmons introduced to guy and said, here,
tell him what you want for your stage show and
he'll get it for you. And they're like, all right,
we want a giant six pack of Budweiser. We want
a stripper in a cage, and we want a h
mouth stick in a box. And he said, all right,
no problem, and sure enough they showed up and the
guy had gotten it all.
Speaker 4: I gotta tell you a personal story about this song.
There was a girl I was dating at the time,
and it was after school was out. We were all
in the hallways and one of the guys came in
to me and asked me where she was, and I
didn't know, but I thought I was hilarious, and I
just sat there and I just said, she's jocking Mike
d to my which was bad because I turned around.
She was actually right there. She heard it, and of
course we all love this album, so we gets a
big laugh. She gets you know, I didn't know she
was there. She's kind of sneak. She was, Uh, she
was crafty, right, she was she and uh that was
That was pretty much the end of us. She did
not appreciate the laugh at her expense, but you know,
if you ask her, she'll probably tell you that that
I'm cheaper than a hot dog with no mustard.
Speaker 2: That's great. Hey.
Speaker 3: You know, the fascinating thing about this song is the
way they wrote it and what they were trying to
model it after. So these guys were sitting around with
Rick Rubin one day, they're on the bus and he's like,
I've got a great idea. Why don't you model a
song after Shout by the Isisley Brothers. You know you
make me bone up?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I can totally hear that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure, this song is modeled after Shout.
Speaker 6: I like the way that they walk.
Speaker 3: And it's.
Speaker 2: My mind. You got it, that one, That one went
on the blowing mind.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, okay, well hang on just one more thing,
because Dave, you said this to me this week.
Speaker 2: I thought this was really cool.
Speaker 3: The Goldie Blocks toy Company in twenty thirteen did a
commercial where they took this song, and they changed the
lyrics to be like girl positive about girls who didn't
want to be princesses and dressed in pink and instead
they want to be engineers and be smart and they
have all these super cool toys.
Speaker 4: It was specifically specifically to promote girls to go into
STEM academics. And the entire commercial was a giant like
the rude Goldberg device and was It was directed by
the same guy who directed okay Go video that does
the same thing.
Speaker 3: I love the okay Go videos.
Speaker 2: They're amazing.
Speaker 3: They suit them, but they suit them.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Here's the problem with that. Adam York MCA died of
cancer in twenty twelve, and he had made it his
express wish and his last will that BC Boys music
never be used in commercials, right, And so ad Rock
and Mike d were in a position of having to
ask Goldieblocks like what are you doing? Like you didn't
ask us about this. They didn't need permission because they
had changed it up. It was it was protected as
a parody. Goldieblocks immediately sued the Beastie Boys somehow for
some reason. But the Beastie Boys are looking like they're
against promoting STEM for girls. But what they're really trying
to do was was to look out for MCA's final wish,
and so it was a bad pr hit for both sides,
and it was just kind of an awkward thing where
this was a positive use of their music, but it
still went against what Adam y'all said he wanted. So
they came to an agreement. They settled. I think it
was like a million bucks or something. Goldieblocks agreed to
quit using the song. They kept the commercial but just
used different music, and they paid one million dollars, but
it did not go to the surviving Beastie Boys. It
went to a charity of their choice that promotes stem
education for girls. So it was kind of a win
win all the way around. But they were able to
get their music removed from the commercial. So everybody's happy.
Speaker 2: Okay, are we ready? The song that changed everything?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Let er school man, you don't look down. Come
let your still said no you mist classes a.
Speaker 4: No home learnt The changer breaks class like song changer.
Speaker 6: You gotta fight fight all right, this.
Speaker 2: Is the one. This is the tenth pole. Okay, So
I said, now you know, at song number three, I
started dancing as I'm driving in my chair. I've done
dancing up until I get the song six. At song six,
I'm smiling and dancing, and then when song number seven starts,
I start banging my head.
Speaker 3: We're kind of an awesome stretch right here.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: This was released as the fourth single in December of
nineteen eighty six, and as we said before, this was
on about every fourth song on MTV. This video was fantastic.
The song was super catchy. It got to number seven
on the Hot one hundred.
Speaker 2: It was one of the last songs to find its
way onto the album because, and I don't know how
many times we've said this, Rick Rubin comes to him
and says, we need just one more song, and we're
running on a deadline, so you gotta get it in
and in like two hours. Yeah, And so this is
what they come up with. There's a they talk about
a song from Brooklyn, like the band Brooklyn, not the
town Brooklyn, that this song is based on this idea
of you got to fight for you right to party.
But they've definitely got their own lyrics to it, and
it's a goof song again, but they're making fun of
frat guys and party bros. And then when they make
the video, they play the part of frat guy and
party bro, and then when they go do their stage
shows they become those guys, and pretty soon it's their
entire image.
Speaker 3: This is what I thought they were for sure.
Speaker 2: I thought this was a genuine like, this is who
these guys are. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a hit of adrenaline when this song hits,
right because plusing effects, slow riding girls. We haven't had
that driving guitar yet. And it's catchy and you're dancing along,
but then it just opens with that power chord boom right, niggot,
I mean all of a sudden, you wait, back up.
It's a punch in the face right in the middle
of this album, and it rocks. And yes, it took
over MTV. You saw it in almost every segment, and
it was one you could jump around to bang your head.
It was easy to sing along with. It was the
tenth pole of this album. It was the highest charting
hit they had off this album. This Yeah, this defined
their image and this defined their sound, and it it
was everywhere.
Speaker 3: This is where I enter the scene. So even though
it's the fourth single off License to Ill, I had
not heard anything prior to this. I mean maybe because
I was just whatever it was on MTV. That was
my intake. The video, for me is as much a
part of my nostalgia for this song as the song itself.
The song is fantastic and hilarious and headbanging and all
that stuff, but the video, to me, is equally as
impactful and fun and funny. Do you like parties?
Speaker 7: Yeah, we can invite all our friends and have soda
and pot yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the video was directed by Rick Manelo and
Adam Dubin, right, yes, So these guys were roommates at
NYU where Rick Rubin was like the floor administrator guy.
What are they called Ara, the ra? Yeah, he was
the RA and he when they decide they're going to
do a video, he goes to I believe it was
Rick Manelo and says, hey, you're into all of these
old movies. I want you to make this video for me.
And Rick is like, no way. If this video is
a flop, I'm gonna be the one that gets blamed.
And so then they go to Adam Dubin, his roommate,
who is a film studies guy, and they said, hey,
will you co direct and that way, nobody can blame
it on either of you. And so these two guys
co direct this video literally in the dorm rooms at NYU.
The guys, one of them, their mom is the one
who gets the pie in the face. Yeah. Yes, And
they've got they've got Flea, they've got Mutt Lane, they've
got Tabithasor and they've got Lall Cool Jay, all of
these folks who were not somebody yet but who are
in this video walking through the door and party long.
And they've got they've got Rick Rubin coming in wearing
a Slayer T shirt right, which, of course is ironic
because we've got a song coming up that's got a
Slayer lead in it. Yep. And Slayer was actually a
band that he was also producing the records fourth time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you had members of the Young and the
Useless we're also in this video.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I know that you're teasing Kerry King there, but
we got to say this. He played on this song too.
The solo in this song is Kerry King? Really?
Speaker 2: Okay, I did not know that. Okay, nice. Good.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Tabitha Sowren for a second. This is
before she was an MTV personality. She just a NYU
student who happened to be friends with Rick Rubin. I
think she's actually blonde. In the video.
Speaker 2: She said she was doing everything she could not to
get a pie in the face because they didn't have
any money to make this video, so they went and
got the whip cream for the pies out of like
an old restaurant trash can. So it was like rancid
whipped cream, and she said it smelled like throw up.
Speaker 3: I saw the storyboards for this, and the funny part
about the storyboards were they were just barely even sketches.
I mean, you're talking like childlike faces figures, but they
were storyboarded exactly like you see the video.
Speaker 2: That's nice. Well, he was a film student, he's any
why were you film student?
Speaker 3: Of course he's in storyboards, storyboards the video, the guy
getting spit on in the face and you know, spiking
the punch, burning stuff, you know, kissing the girl and
all that stuff. This was a teenage boy's dream, burn stuff,
kiss girls, party while your parents are out of town.
Speaker 2: I mean I was fourteen when this came out.
Speaker 3: This is all I wanted to do.
Speaker 4: I gotta tell you this, this is the time for
this story. So this song was of course the biggest
hit they had on the album, and it was climbing
its way up the charts, and it would soon peak
at number seven on the Billboard Hot one hundred at
number seven. It would peak there on March seventh. Just
one week before that, they played a show February twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty seven, in Columbus, Georgia, and I was there
with pretty much my entire tenth grade class on the
floor close to the stage, packed in, absolutely living the dream,
soaking in this entire performance. It was a time of
our lives. It's a touchstone experience for our whole high
school years that we still talk about today. Fight for
Your Right was their big hit, It was their big finale.
They finished the show with fight for Your Right to party.
Before the night was over, they were on the news
before the week was over. City council had met to
discuss the Beastie Boys. So what you had was a
case of a bunch of families thinking that it would
be safe to take their kids to see some white rappers.
But what they got were some obnoxious punk rockers from
New York City who wanted to offend everybody in the house.
You could say. They had another member on stage unveiled
himself at the end of the show. This is where
they had the stage prop that's so notorious for this tour.
It was I can tell you it's true. I saw
it myself, a twenty foot replica of an erection. It
came out aside the box in the back of the stage.
It inflated up and it towered over the crowd and
waved back and forth. It was in embarrassing detail, and
we were all standing there in shock. We cannot believe
what we say. And I just remember the Baci boys
on stage looking up at it and busting out, cracking up,
laughing like they'd never seen it before. This did not
go over well. There were a lot of people clutching
pearls in the audience that night who said that there's
no way this should be allowed. So there were miners
in the audience that they had this prop waving over
everybody at the end of the show. They had scantily
clad women in cages throughout the whole thing. They had
girls in the audience that were lifting their shirts because
the beast of boys were telling them to. It was
highly offensive. It did not fly in Columbus, Georgia. But
as it turns out, they could not find where they
had broken any lass. They had not done anything illegal,
and the leadership and the public said, well, that's not right.
So the very next city council meeting, they passed a
new ordinance, the Lutinis Ordinance, that said basically that they
nobody could do this again. And so the Beast Boys
got away scott free, but now in their wake this
Lutinist Ordinance now existed on the books in Columbus. I
was also there in June of nineteen eighty seven when
ll cool J was headlining and during the song I
Need Love, he got really friendly with a couch that
they had brought out on stage and he was arrested
under this law. After the show, Todd from Queen's was
rubbing on a couch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Mak hasn't done that.
Speaker 4: So this is this is something that Ello cool J
went on our Senial Hall at the time to talk about.
He still talks about it on his talk show appearances today.
So I've seen on the internet a clip where in
recent years he was on Jimmy Kimmel talking about this
same incident, so it's not something LL has ever forgotten.
He was arrested. A year later, Bobby Brown was arrested,
and then a year after that, Gene Simmons was arrested
because he apparently mooned at the audience, and after that
they quit enforcing the law. So so Ello Cool Jay
and Bobby Brown and Gene Simmons have the Beastie Boys
to thank for their their arrest record in Columbus, Georgia.
Speaker 3: Gene Simmons bear butt made them cow down and just
say this is not worth it anymore. Have you guys
seen Fight for Your Right revisited?
Speaker 2: You sent me the clip. I've caught a little bit
of it, but just I know who's in it and
what kind of the actions are, and I got to
watch the whole thing. I'm excited to see it. Dave,
have you seen this?
Speaker 3: No, it's a thirty minute video where they Adam Yack
directed this right, but he asked Seth Rogan, Elijah Wood
and Danny McBride to come up with what happened after
the Fight for Your Right party. So they leave the party.
You see them leave the room where they have the
pie fight, and they come downstairs and they run into
people who are asking them. It's Susan Sarandon, Yeah, who's
asking them? What are you guys up to? You guys
are troublemakers. It's Seth Rogan, Elijah Wood and Danny McBride,
all wearing the same attire that the beast Boys wore
in the Fight for Your Right video. They run into
Will Ferrell, John c Riley, Jack Black, who are addressed
in the same attire. So it's like you have beastie
boys against Beastie boys.
Speaker 2: Beastie boys from the future, from the future in a.
Speaker 3: Dolorean, right, Yeah, there is a Delorion, all right, And
so they have this weird dance off and then the
cops show up and it's the real Beastie Boys as
the cops.
Speaker 2: The video is great, it's really funny. I sent it
to you.
Speaker 3: You did watch, I'm sorry, but it's definitely worth a look. Okay,
are we done with Fife?
Speaker 4: You're right, don't fuck You're right, and we're done with
side one? Flip it over.
Speaker 2: Time to hit stop on your tape layer kick it out,
Flip it over side two. Okay, Jason, let's take a
quick break while we do a Shirley Showcase, we have
a special one for today.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This is our friend Christopher Weber. He's been interacting with
us for a long time on social media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he decided to weigh in on our Police Synchronicity
versus Journey Frontiers album. Let's see what he has to say.
Speaker 8: Hey, Jason, INDI, this is Chris Weber down in New Orleans,
and I appreciate the opportunity to get of my final
judgment on a previous matchup. The episode that I chose
pitted the Police's Synchronicity album versus Journey's Frontier albums. I
have to admit when I first heard the matchup, I
thought it was going to be a landslide. But after
listening to the episode, I think both of y'all brought
some really good points that made me think about both
of these two albums. Prior to these two albums being released,
I was a somewhat casual Police fan. I had heard
every little Thing she Does is Magic on the radio,
and I was probably somewhat familiar with Rock Sand due
to forty eight Hours. But for the most part, I
was listening to Journey Escape in the years before this,
so I was very familiar with Journey. I had that
album and I listened to it front to back. When
Synchronicity came out with the advent of MTV, suddenly I
was hearing the songs on the radio. I was seeing
the videos on MTV starting to drive, so I was
buying cassettes to listen into my car. Journey Frontiers. I
was familiar with the singles that were played on MTV.
We'll get to the video in a minute, but really
I did not own this album. However, picking the album
up and looking at the first five songs on the
first side, it's pretty hard to argue that it did
have a lot of radio hits. However, looking at side
two of Frontiers, I feel like the album just drops off,
whereas Synchronicity. I played that cassette tape over and over
and over in my car. Yes, mother is on it,
and that we will say is an acquired taste. But
if you say side two of Synchronicity is the matchup
between side one of Frontiers, I think side one of
Synchronicity with Synchronicity one and Synchronicity two are stronger than
anything that's on side two of Frontiers, I agree the
match would have been even closer had Journey decided not
to take off two songs and save them for soundtracks.
Both songs that were taken off were later featured on
their greatest hits. So ask the Lonely, which was in the.
Speaker 2: Twist of Fate movie.
Speaker 8: Perhaps a throwaway soundtrack there still could have bolstered Side
too of Frontiers, But certainly only the Young, which was
the leadoff track on Vision Quest, which is just a
fantastic soundtrack, one of my two underrated soundtracks.
Speaker 2: Of the eighties.
Speaker 8: Certainly it had only the Young, It had two songs
by Madonna, it had Don Henley, it had a breakout
song with Lunative Fringe with Bred Ryder, and it featured
much maligned singer by Jason John Waite doing his cover
of Change. Change is a Spider song written by Holly Knight,
who also wrote Better Be Good to Me, which was
covered Tina Turner, who also did a cover of John
Waite's Missing You. I believe Jason took issue with John
Waite and his criticism of Open Arms, which was a
song that was in though not featured in a movie
whose soundtrack I also think is a hidden eighties gem
that being the last American Vergin. This soundtrack features Tommy Twotone,
the Police, Oingo Boingo, the Cars, the gleaming Spires, and
you two. If you haven't heard this album, go check
it out.
Speaker 2: It's pretty good.
Speaker 8: Now this gets us to the video for Separate Ways
worlds apart. Yes, some of those early MTV videos were
pretty bad, and this one, I will admit, is comical,
but I do have a particular affinity for it, as
it was filmed in New Orleans and in fact, it's
just a little bit down from where I'm currently working.
I suppose my best defense for it is the eighties
or the decade where we're all playing air guitars and
air drums and perhaps even air synthesizers or keyboards. So
when that song first starts off, who amongst us is
not playing the opening keyboard solo. In addition to that,
I think this song features a couple of wonderful drum
fills that rank up there with In the Air Tonight
and Tom Sawyer. So laugh at it if you must,
but I do have a soft spot for that video,
which brings me to my final judgment. I have to
go with my initial reactions the Police. I'm just more
familiar with that album. All of those songs I know
from beginning to end, and I just think from the
beginning of the album to the end of the album,
it's a much stronger album than Journeys Frontiers. Guys, keep
up the great work. I've enjoyed the show since the
beginning and look forward to more episodes.
Speaker 3: Okay, another vote for synchronicity right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this was the great part about this episode
was that you were confident that you were going to
be picking Frontiers on this one, and then after we
dived into him, you swapped sides and you gave him
to the right side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did. I switched sides after diving in. I
surprised even myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, poor John Waite. Listen.
Speaker 3: I know that Chris is coming to his defense here,
but John Waite made the biggest Wiener love song, and
for him to dog Jonathan Caine is just so funny
to me. But the cool thing Chris Weber sent us
pictures of the wharf down at New Orleans where they
actually filmed the Separate Ways video, So that was really cool.
Speaker 2: Chris, thank you so much. The instruments. Yeah, thanks Chris,
we really appreciated We had a great time listening to
two year showcase. Mat Man.
Speaker 3: Thanks for interacting with us and appreciate you listening. All right,
let's get back to side too of licensed Ill No
Who Let's go man.
Speaker 2: Bring the hard rocker coming man. That is awesome. So
the music on this one, the guitar riff?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: The sample? It sounds so much like something? Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: I love rock and roll, I've got a's got a
strong I love rock and roll vibe to it.
Speaker 3: We get the we get a sampling of Jones Jett
here in a minute, But I don't think it's on
this one.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, it's just dang good guitar.
Speaker 4: Then, well, the title is a reference to No Sleep
Till Hammersmith by Motorheads, but I'm not familiar with that song.
Speaker 3: And you're telling us that Kerrie King from Slayer actually
plays the guitar on this one as well as right, You're.
Speaker 4: Right, yes, he plays on both. Well, I'll just give
you my reaction to the song. Go ahead, I mean, boom,
you come right off a fight for your right, boom
you hit this? You got the boom boom pow the beat.
You cannot listen to this song and Stay Still. So
nineteen eighty six was a busy year for Rick Rubin.
He not only produced Raising Hell and Licensed to Ill,
but he also produced the album for Slayer. He was
working with Slayer at the same time, and so he
brought carry King over to play the guitar solo on
this song. But he's more known for some reason for
this song for the solo that he brings in. And
I didn't know this until I was researching for the podcast,
but he's also playing the solo. I don't think he
plays throughout the whole song, but he does play the
solo and Fight for Your Right bring in that hard rock,
that true rock guitar bang your head element to both
of these songs back to back on this album.
Speaker 3: You Know, the interesting thing I found about it is
that carry King didn't really liked this song. He didn't
really like the Beastie Boys, and the Beastie Boys didn't
really like him. They didn't really get each itty.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of like a Lemon to a Lime
or a Lime to a Limon. I gotta say the
guitar solo on this one is not good bad, it's terrible.
It's it might be good in a different song.
Speaker 9: But it's like it's I mean, you can't take the
guitar solo from you know, beat it and throw it
into the chords from Walk This Way or something.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't work.
Speaker 3: He intentionally played out of tune.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just sounds it sounds wrong, but that's what
they were going for.
Speaker 10: I mean, I literally when I first heard this, I thought, Okay,
these are just the beastie boys just trying to fingertap
on whatever they can do on the press board, just
to sound as weird and crazy as they possibly can't.
Speaker 3: This is a parody of hair metal once again. We
have a fantastic music video. It starts out it's really funny.
They knock on the door, The producer answers the door
or they're like, hey, guys, where's the band? And they're like,
where's the band?
Speaker 2: He's like, where are your instruments? And they pull out
a record.
Speaker 3: He grabs the record and he smashes it over their
head and he's like, get out of.
Speaker 2: Here, you guys, you're not the band.
Speaker 3: And as soon as he shuts the door, they knock
on it again. They opens it up and they're they're
got the big wigs on and they're like, dude, we're
like the Bend Man. I've been waiting for you boys,
Let's go.
Speaker 2: And so they're parodying Cara Metal once again, and it
ends with the hot girl going away with the gorilla.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, I think the gorilla was Rick Rubin, right.
The lead dancer in this video. Her name is Ruth Collins.
Is that ring a bell with you?
Speaker 2: Guys? I'm gonna say no on this. Have you ever
watched Cinemax After Dark?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Yes you have? You know you have?
Speaker 3: Yes, you have? Okay, She's been in Cemetery, High Which Academy,
and galact Jigglow. She is known more for her body
than for anything else.
Speaker 2: So if you're knowing me, she did not show her
acting chops in the Jigglo from Space or whatever.
Speaker 3: He showed more than her acting jobs.
Speaker 4: You know, I might recognize her if you showed me
the back of her.
Speaker 2: Google search Google.
Speaker 3: All right, well, this is a legit song though, I mean.
Jay Z performed this song on his All Points West
festival in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love the sequencing of this album because
you start out with some hard hitting rock, you kind
of slow it down a little bit and get away
from the guitar, and then right when it sucks you in,
boom it hits you with fight for your Right and
no sleep till Brooklyn, back to back, and then they
change gears again going into the next song.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This was the sixth single released March first of nineteen
eighty seven. Yep, cool, love this one, love this song,
love these two songs. Rock it out all right. The
next song song number two on side to Paul Revere.
Now here's a little story I got to tell about
three bead brothers.
Speaker 6: You know so well.
Speaker 3: It's sounded way back in history without read a little
healthy named Paul Revere.
Speaker 2: So the next song that we've got coming up has
an example of a backwards drum beat, which I'm not
sure that I have heard anybody before. These guys did
it do this style of drum beat in their song
as the underlying drum beat for the entire song.
Speaker 5: Look.
Speaker 6: I ran into a guy, his name is MC.
Speaker 2: I said, he said, Hi, I love it. I love it.
And so this one, this is the story on this one.
How it was inspired is great. So it starts with
them they're waiting outside a recording studio for run DMC.
When all of the sudden they see Joe Roun Simmons running.
He run is running towards them. He runs down the street.
He's screaming incoherently. He gets to the Beastie Boys and
he says, here's a little story I got to tell.
And after that he's they're confused, and he says, that's
the song, And from that point on worked up the
rest of the lyrics.
Speaker 4: And it mythologizes the origin of the Beastie Boys and
how they met, and it sets it in kind of
an Old West setting, at least the best imagery I get.
And it's the A to eight drum machine pattern that
they recorded and then strung up backwards on a tape
machine and played it backwards. It was MCA's idea and
a unique sound. You know right away what song you're
listening to as soon as this thing starts.
Speaker 2: And again they're throwing in those kind of educated references.
Paul Revere's the name of the horse from Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 3: This was the second single, released August thirteenth to eighty six.
This is still three months before the release of the
album YEP. I got a quick funny story about this one.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So I was talking to my buddy Doug Gray. Yeah,
shout out to my buddy Doug Gray. Doug, He's like, hey, man,
what are you guys working on this week? I said,
we're doing Licensed Deale by the Beastie Boys. And as
soon as I got those words out of my mouth,
he came back with, here's a little story I'd like
to tell and just.
Speaker 2: Rule out the words man.
Speaker 3: And Doug is not exactly the guy that I would think, oh,
do all the words to Paul Revere.
Speaker 2: No, to see, Doug is straight laced, typer intelligence, you know,
just a very cool cat kind of guy, and he
says some funny, dry stuff from time to time. I
love being around it. But to see him roll out
some Beastie Boys on Paul Revere, I would have just
I would have just been dumbstruck.
Speaker 3: It was unleashing of the lyrics right there. They were
all coming.
Speaker 4: I know this whole song. I could sit here and
do it from start to finish. Honestly, it's one of
my favorite.
Speaker 3: It's a great one.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: So let me tell you this. So the Licensed Ill
Tour continues in nineteen eighty seven, and it continues to
create controversy wherever they go. They are in England in
May and they've already got politicians there wanting to ban
them from the country because they think they're so offensive,
which is exactly the publicity they want. While they were
in England on their tour, they played a show in
Liverpool and while there they got out on stage and
immediately the crowd turns hostile and starts throwing beer bottles
at them and stuff like that. So for their own safety,
they have to abandon just like ten minutes into the show,
they run off the stage. They have to come up
with a way to continue the show, but they've got
to fend off all these bottles that are being thrown
at them, so they decide to do it with a
whiffleball bat.
Speaker 3: And they just happen to have a whiffleball bat on
tour with them backstage.
Speaker 2: I like these guys.
Speaker 4: While the music's playing, they are taking swings at the
bottles being thrown at them, trying to protect themselves and
knocking it back, and star of the crowd love it.
So this did create a problem.
Speaker 6: Though.
Speaker 4: There was one girl that took an injury around her
eye and she claimed that Adam Horovitz had been the
one to hit her, but anyway, he ended up arrested
after the show and spent the night in jail.
Speaker 3: Hey, he may have spent the night in jail, but
at least he can hit Yeah.
Speaker 2: Love this one.
Speaker 4: I'm tempted just to wrap the whole thing, but it's
very catchy and it's it's like a one two three
punch in the middle of this album coming after five.
You're right, there's until Brooklyn right into Paul Revere. I mean,
my goodness, the album does not stop. So Paul Revere
samples from It's Yours, the very first song that Rick
Rubin produced. He did it for Sheila Rock. Yeah, you'll
hear that familiar sound from Paul Revere. You hear the
very beginning of It's Yours if you listen to that.
Speaker 2: Awesome. All Right, we've done with Paul Revere.
Speaker 4: Well never but go ahead, haha.
Speaker 3: Now we're moving on to the first single release to
the album. This song is called hold It Now, hit It.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's time to get you.
Speaker 2: So talking samples. This one contains a bunch. We've got
birtha butt boogie by the Jimmy Castor bunch, We've got
dropped the Bomb and Let's Get Small by Treble Funk,
we Got Funky Stuff by Cooling the Gang, we Got
Taken You to the Marti Grab by Bob James, Christmas
Wrapping by Curtis Blow and lotted down by Dougie Fresh
and mcrickey d. The Lion Pump It Up Homeboy gets
sampled later on by Eric B and Rakeeem on their
song As the Rhyme Goes On, and by Iced Tea
on his song You Don't Quit. And then the Lion
beer drinking, breath stinking, sniffing Glue was sampled by Doctor
dre No the one You're expecting this time not the
fat One on Easy Ease Boy.
Speaker 4: Yes, so this was one of the very first songs
recorded for the album. It came out as a single
I think in April, yes, early, Yes. So this was
ahead of most of the sessions for the album, and
it was one that Run in particular Run DMC, but
particularly Run absolutely loved and Russell loved it. This song
got them excited and really I think encouraged them to
push the BC Boys. It probably got them on the
Raising Hell tour and all of that now because of
all those samples. As you're reading that off, I'm thinking
to myself, this is probably one of the more heavily
produced cuts, and it probably took a lot of the
most work from Rick Ruben to be able to piece
all this together. And so I'm kind of putting this
timeline in my head and I'm going to guess that
this song is the result of Ruben coming off the
Madonna tour early, because by coming off the road, he
was able to first songs to come out ahead of
the regular sessions and for it to be so heavily produced.
I'm thinking he was spending a lot of time really
this down and getting the sound right. And I love it.
I love the energy of it. I love the scratching
on the whistle sound, and the lyrics are hilarious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's fun. It's really fun, all right, love
it a lot.
Speaker 2: Of fun, high energy. I'm with you on everything.
Speaker 3: Are we done talking about?
Speaker 2: Hold it now? Hit it?
Speaker 4: Sure? Let's go all right, I'm dying.
Speaker 3: To talk about the next song. The next song on
the album is called Brass Monkey, Brass Monkey.
Speaker 2: Monkey Smokey Chunky.
Speaker 3: This song was released as the fifth single January fifth
nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: It is so catchy. I love this one. Here the
ingredients for a normal brass moment. You're gonna have one
part dark rum, one part vodka, and one part orange juice,
which sounds delightful. But what was happening back in the seventies,
eighties and nineties is there was a company called the
Hueling Company that produced pre mixed beer and other mixed drinks,
and they had basically the brass monkey in a can,
and that was the drink of choice for the beastie
boye and that is where the song came from. That
sounds like a poor man's mimosa.
Speaker 4: There was also a homemade recipe for brass monkey that
was basically malt liquor and orange juice, and I cannot
imagine how awful that must be.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the term brass monkey comes from the phrase
it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
Speaker 2: Are you guys familiar with this term? This is a
nautical term.
Speaker 3: Back when ships had to carry cannon balls, they had
to stack them in pyramids, right, okay, But to keep
them from rolling around on the deck, he had a
piece of iron that had concave like spots for all
the foundation balls to sit in, and that was called
a brass monkey. And if it got really cold, those
things would shrink and the balls wouldn't fit right. And
that is where the term brass monkey, of which the
drink was based on. Okay, you're learning something.
Speaker 2: I am learning something. Okay, So so for real, if
we're gonna get if we're gonna do this, let's go
even a little bit further. I mean, if def Dave
can go back to eighteen ninety, I.
Speaker 3: Can go back to World War two.
Speaker 2: World War two. A guy named Steve Donger. Steve Donger, the.
Speaker 3: Steve the Donger need food?
Speaker 2: What do you mentioned about it? I gotta sleep under
A guy named after a Dutch stor. He was an
advertising executive. He named the drink after a World War
two spy named H. E. Rasky. Alan Kaufman, who Kraft
the series of stories about this spy, created the ad
campaign using an old photo of his father as Rasky's image.
So he was named after a purported World War two spy,
although probably fictional.
Speaker 3: Double ow. Brass monkey.
Speaker 4: Very good. Yeah, so we're coming off. Hold it now,
hit it and then that whatever that is, we're hearing
it the first sound of this song, that honking kind
of scratching I don't know. Is that a sampled horn
they're scratching in. I don't know. But as soon as
you hear it, boom, you're dancing again. It's immediately just
completely rejuvenates you. Even though you're just coming off of
a high energy song, you're just right back into it.
When I was at the concert in nineteen eighty seven,
I everybody was bringing in Brass Monkey. Everybody was sneaking
in Brass Monkey. You see it everywhere, and it was
like the crowd they loved, fight for you right at
the end of the show. But that crowd was there
ready to get down with Brass Monkey. And when this
song started, when those opening notes sounded, there was a
surge towards the stage. It scared me. We got caught
up in it and everybody went nuts like that. The
crowd went to a whole other level right as this
song started, and we all got pressed forward kind of unwillingly.
I think I was lifted off my feet just by
the press of bodies. There were at least two girls
I can remember that I was friends with that fainted.
They fainted and would have fallen out except they couldn't fall.
There was no room to fall they had and we
kind of, like Fireman Carrie, kind of passed them along
and got them outside of the crowds they get some
fresh air.
Speaker 3: Okay, I got I got a song I gotta play
for you. Okay. This song is called Bring It Here
by Wild Sugar. Are you familiar with this?
Speaker 2: No? Check it out? Wow?
Speaker 4: They took it right from it, didn't they.
Speaker 3: They stole that right from them?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, unmistakably them for sure.
Speaker 4: Good fine, thank you? What year is that from?
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty?
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty?
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've got a great personal story I want to
share about brass Monkey. Okay, Okay, I'm gonna poke a
little fun at our friends in Texas for just a second. Okay,
all right, So the University of Texas has a special
teams coach who left his family.
Speaker 2: To be with the stripper.
Speaker 3: Okay, stay with me now, all right, I'm just gonna
poke fun at them for just a second. Okay. Now,
the stripper's name, get this is Pull Assassin.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 3: I can just imagine Pull as Sasson.
Speaker 2: Talking to your friends like I got myself a college
coach and they're like oh yeahhoo, and she's like, well,
he's a special teams coach.
Speaker 3: So miss Pole Assassin has a stress animal.
Speaker 2: That's a monkey. I'm not making this up. You guys
can look at this. I'm not making this up.
Speaker 3: So on Halloween, Miss Assassin and our good friend mister
Special Teams Coach have children come over for trick or treaty.
So the monkey bites a child. Okay. So that weekend,
Iowa State plays Texas in Ames. Okay, and what song
do they play? Fifty billion times? John Reed, that's for you, buddy,
all right, it is college football. Okay, So it's done. Well.
Speaker 4: Just quick note on Brass Monkey. It was the only
other single release from this album that cracked the top
fifty of Billboard one hundred okay, number forty eight, forty.
Speaker 3: Eight okay, cool, moving on, moving on, Okay, moving on
to the second last song on this album. This song
is called slow and Low, Let it Flow, Let go
so Low.
Speaker 2: This is the one that they sampled from Flip to
Switch for ACDC.
Speaker 4: Right right, So this song was written by run DMC
and it was intended for the King of Rock album
which came out in eighty five. Run DMC recorded a
demo of it, but they decided not to include it
on their album, so they never did a finished track,
but you can hear their demo. You can hear the
run DMC version of slow and Low on the expanded
edition of the King of Rock album that they put
out a couple of years ago. Bull on Spotify, you
can find it.
Speaker 3: Let's play right here the.
Speaker 2: South Bloat that is the boat Wow, there you go,
different but still awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep. And I think that they gave it to
the Bacie Boys, who of course had to rewrite just
a couple of lines. They the bac Boys put their
own name in it, and then they added the rhyme
about h white Castle fries only come in one side.
Speaker 2: Side what you.
Speaker 3: Get there, you ain't seed nothing.
Speaker 2: Anything.
Speaker 4: Everything else came from run DMC's version of the song.
So I think it was the right move. I think
it's better with the BC Boys. It's better with three
voices doing it, I think, and the finished production from Ruben.
I mean, this is a song where the bass drops hard.
Speaker 3: We will get gone with the boys.
Speaker 2: It's great dynamics to what you've had, because I mean
you've you've got amazing song after amazing song after amazing
song that are all rocking in your face. And yes,
this one's still rocked, but you're right, it's that kind
of more subdued rock. And at this point you've absolutely
bought in and you can take this little break from
the hard and go in with this more funky style.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think one of the strengths of this album
is the sequencing to come off of Hold It Now,
Hit It and Brass Monkey to This is a good move.
This was the oldest song on this album. They recorded
this in eighty five, so this predates Hold It Now,
Hit It. It was the It was the first one
they ever did. There's something about this being released as
a single. I'm not sure what was different about this release.
It's not always listed as a single in their discography,
but it did get some kind of exposure in eighty
five prior to to the album coming out. But that's
all I got on before we.
Speaker 2: Jumped to the very last song. There is a song
that was supposed to be on the album where they
had done some sort of version of I'm Down by
the Beatles.
Speaker 3: Right, but this is interesting.
Speaker 2: It couldn't make it onto the album because Michael Jackson,
who had bought the rights to all of the Beatles' music,
said no and pissed off Paul McCartney majorly. They used
to be friends until Michael Jackson brought up all the
back ye publishing for all the Beatles songs and then
told the Beastie Boys no, okay.
Speaker 3: So that moves us to the last song on the album.
Speaker 2: What's the time? It's time to get ill? What's the time?
Time to get ill?
Speaker 4: Time to get ill? Lost?
Speaker 6: The ties to get hell wast the tie? Time a
get hell lost?
Speaker 4: The time again?
Speaker 6: Hell?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: I want to close it out.
Speaker 2: With a bang.
Speaker 4: But this one for me, the star of this track
is the production. I love all the samples, the sampling
and the scratching they just make this track. Of course,
the interchange in the voices and the contrast and the
voices carries this also, just like it has through the
whole album. You're getting Green Acres and Mister Ed and
create Split Water Revival all at the same time.
Speaker 3: I Am mister Ed, the famous Mister.
Speaker 2: Fantastic album with two songs that have horses in them. Yeah,
the dynamics that they use on this one and the
crazy sampling for sure, But they have more dynamics and
more variation in this last song than they've had on
any other song on the album, and it totally knocks
it out of the park.
Speaker 3: Listen to the songs that they sample on this song. Okay,
I'm Gonna Love You just a Little More Baby by
Barry White, I Love Rock and Roll by Jone Jet,
That that scream That owl that's jone Jet Down on
the Corner by CCR Green Acres, the Green Acres television
theme song.
Speaker 2: They must have been watching Nick at Night when they
came over.
Speaker 3: And then they also did the Mister Ed TV theme
gucc You Time by Schoolly d, The Party Scene by
Russell Brothers, Rocket in the Pocket by Sharon Yes, Custard
Pie by led Zeppelin, and Nothing from Nothing by Billy Preston.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of samples. There's a lot of samples,
and I'm really glad that they finished off the album
with another led Zeppelin song, because you gotta you Gotta
dance to the Lady that brought you man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, By the way, I've visited mister Ed's gravesite in Telequah, Oklahoma. Wow,
there is a gravestone, says mister ed.
Speaker 2: You got anything for us on this one, David.
Speaker 4: I don't have anything particular for the song, but it's
just a lot of fun. This album's over before you
know it. There's literally not a song to skip, and
it's just good. It's just good. It's fun, it's exciting.
Every track hits and and you just have a good
time where you got to smile on your face the
whole time.
Speaker 2: I agree, that's well said, you know, just a good,
great album front to back. And so next week we're
gonna be coming back with the other side of the
coin on this one, right, I mean, the two groups
that basically brought this music and this genre to its
peak in the mid eighties. We're going to come back
with run DMC, raising hell excited and excited, and we're
gonna come back with Deaf Dave again. David Wright is
going to be with us again to about the history
of Run DMC and probably wrapped for that matter. And
then we're gonna jump in track back track and give
and we're going to race him.
Speaker 3: That and then we're all gonna give our final judgment.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna do the Wave and
maybe the Dolphin and probably backspin or two and then
I will get my friend. They they thank you very much.
Speaker 3: We will see you next week for part two.
Speaker 2: Dear listener, if you have been with us this long,
please hit the follow button, Please hit the subscribe button.
Check us out on Twitter and Facebook at Shirley Podcast.
Check us out on Patreon. If you want to be
a member who is a subscribed contributor to our podcast,
you will become an executive producer and you can do
that for as little as five bucks a month. But
by all means, engage us. Tell us what your favorite
track is on this album on Raisin Hell, and let
us know what you think of these two amazing bands
and albums. We'll see you next week, See you next week.
Speaker 4: Awesome. Thank you guys.
Speaker 2: Thanks Dave.