Speaker 1: Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 2: We have to listen to you.
Speaker 3: Well, no you don't, but if you have any interest
Speaker 3: in history.
Speaker 4: Hey, this is Jesse Carmichael from Room five.
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Phil Margol of the Tokens.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 5: It's Nicole Atkins on the Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 3: Well hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Rock and Roll
Speaker 3: History Show on Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. We
Speaker 3: have a great couple of shows coming up, and it
Speaker 3: is a topic that fits the crambones absolutely perfectly. So
Speaker 3: allow me to introduce a group of folks who don't
Speaker 3: suffer from insanity. They enjoy every minute of it. First
Speaker 3: and foremost, from the Richter Observatory, he can only sleep
Speaker 3: on a pile of old magazines. He's got back issues.
Speaker 3: Heil Richter is here.
Speaker 4: I might be squooy, but I ain't going to alcat twash.
Speaker 4: What's up Dot?
Speaker 3: A great from paranormally yours. She recently stuck two bananas
Speaker 3: on her feet and pulled them slippers. Y'all.
Speaker 2: Nuclem's back.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's a visual.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The scary thing is I got a visual on it myself.
Speaker 3: Especially trying to go downstairs. That would be make sure
Speaker 3: you video that.
Speaker 2: I hope do that very well under normal circumstance.
Speaker 3: Well, this might it'll make it faster. It might not
Speaker 3: make it better, but it would make it faster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope, I hope.
Speaker 4: There's these jokes on a sign for the way this
Speaker 4: show is going, because.
Speaker 3: We're going down. We're circling the drain before we get started.
Speaker 3: From a silver Scream, she saw a snail crawl into
Speaker 3: a bar in order a drink, and the bartender said, hey,
Speaker 3: we don't serve your kind here, and he threw them
Speaker 3: out the door. Two years later, she's sitting in the
Speaker 3: same bar and crawls the same snail, who goes, what
Speaker 3: the hell was that? Mercedes KA, I love that.
Speaker 1: Yes, hey, everybody, I embraced my insanity.
Speaker 3: Yeahheartedly, the only way to get through all the right
Speaker 3: people do. At last, but not least, the host of
Speaker 3: shaving Cream, she poured a root beer into a square
Speaker 3: glass and now she just has beer. Barbara Veil was back.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I was worried about another math joke.
Speaker 3: Thanks, all right, Well, this week and next week we're
Speaker 3: talking about insanity, and I don't remember who came up
Speaker 3: with the topic, but uh oh, it was Mercedes. There's
Speaker 3: a shocker. Why don't we hop right in? Mercedes are
Speaker 3: going to lead us off?
Speaker 1: Okay insanity? So of course I was going to do
Speaker 1: an Alice Cooper song. I was going to do Ballot,
Speaker 1: a Dwight fry about a guy at a mental institution,
Speaker 1: but apparently we've done it before on the show. So
Speaker 1: my song for today is by the band Slade from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. The Slade original lineup was Natty Holder,
Speaker 1: Dave Hill, Jim Lee and Don Powell. So the first
Speaker 1: time I saw Slade, Aerosmiths was opening for them in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: I had pushed my way to the very front because
Speaker 1: you could do that back then. My ribs were pressing
Speaker 1: up against the stage and people behind were pushing. I
Speaker 1: did have bruises later, but I was really happy. At
Speaker 1: that same show, I grabbed Aerosmith's Joe Perry's left boot
Speaker 1: and he snarled and kicked at me. Insane right, Well
Speaker 1: worth it out anyway.
Speaker 2: Later.
Speaker 1: An English rock band formed in nineteen sixty six. They
Speaker 1: started out as the in Betweens and That's Apostrophe and
Speaker 1: Betweens and early record of this band, You Better Run,
Speaker 1: was produced by Kim Foley, who managed The Runaways and
Speaker 1: had worked for Alan Freed and Barry Gordie, who founded
Speaker 1: Motown record label. They were offered a contract at Fontana
Speaker 1: Records if they changed their name, which the band was
Speaker 1: not happy about because of the reputation they had finally
Speaker 1: built up as the in Betweens, but eventually conceded and
Speaker 1: changed the band name to Alt Ambrose Slade, inspired by
Speaker 1: their record label's secretary, she had a name. She had
Speaker 1: named her handbag Ambrose and her shoes Slade.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: That is amazing to me, so I immediately have named
Speaker 1: everything in my closet after their After their first album flopped,
Speaker 1: they were approached by Chad Chandler, the basis for The Animals,
Speaker 1: who had managed Jimmy Hendricks. Chandler was not happy about
Speaker 1: the first album and suggested they change their look to
Speaker 1: skinheads and changed their name to Slade. Ban was not
Speaker 1: happy about that look. They had all been working on
Speaker 1: growing their hair for years. Initially, they couldn't get on
Speaker 1: top of the Pops because the producer's son had been
Speaker 1: beat up by skinheads.
Speaker 2: Oops.
Speaker 1: So later they did grow their hair again and followed
Speaker 1: the glam movement of the nineteen seventies. They played Top
Speaker 1: of the Pops with the song titled because I Love
Speaker 1: You It's coz I luv you, to the horror of
Speaker 1: British school teachers. The misspellings of titles became a trademark
Speaker 1: for the band. Another song being look what You've done?
Speaker 1: What is WoT done is dun and take me Back
Speaker 1: Back Ome back as bak Ome is apostrophe Ome and
Speaker 1: their third record when their third actual number one single
Speaker 1: in the UK Mama We're All Crazy Now, which is
Speaker 1: my song for this topic, and weird is w e
Speaker 1: e R and Crazy cr a Zee. The music was
Speaker 1: written by Jim Lee and lyrics by Natty Holder. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, their popularity in the US, sorry in
Speaker 1: the UK was waiting, so they made a move to
Speaker 1: the US, bringing with them twelve tons of equipment. Wow,
Speaker 1: so Brian help me out here. But isn't that like
Speaker 1: a lot?
Speaker 3: That sounds like a lot to me.
Speaker 1: And they toured with zz Top, Black Sabbath and Arismith
Speaker 1: which brings me back to my experience that I talked
Speaker 1: about at the top. Slade is still playing shows and
Speaker 1: releasing albums, one being Whatever Happened to Slade from Graffiti
Speaker 1: that was seen in London, which I think is hilarious
Speaker 1: of course. Also they have released fifteen studio albums and
Speaker 1: four live albums. So Natty Holder makes sort of a
Speaker 1: primal scream during what he did do that and during
Speaker 1: a woke up yikes doing a vocal warm up. I
Speaker 1: needed some vocal warm up today in preparation to record
Speaker 1: this song. The producer recorded it and put it in
Speaker 1: the song before the verse, so listen for that. So
Speaker 1: let's hear mama, we're all crazy now.
Speaker 7: Oh lot, mom, don't stop. Now come home another tron.
Speaker 7: I will come on home. I want from my mom.
Speaker 7: That's fine, that's I said.
Speaker 6: My way now said more now said zy Now.
Speaker 8: Who you told me a full fight I wanted and
Speaker 8: you tease me And no, my ladies said, I don't.
Speaker 9: Stop, come another Troy, come on. I'm no, That's that's
Speaker 9: what I say. Now shut.
Speaker 6: Now, good set saying now stop, I don't want to drink.
Speaker 6: I see that steal know to fall in love. My
Speaker 6: dear said, don't stop now come on and that I want,
Speaker 6: that's suck, that's s s set.
Speaker 1: So here's what happened. Jim Lee had seen Chuck Berry
Speaker 1: play a show and was impressed with the audience's reaction
Speaker 1: and participation. At the time, he said, everybody in the
Speaker 1: audience was singing along to his tunes. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: a few people, who was everyone. Lee explained late years later,
Speaker 1: I thought that was amazing. Why not write the crowd
Speaker 1: into your own songs. The lyrics were written after a
Speaker 1: wild night of playing an NME Pole winners concert where
Speaker 1: many bottles and seats had been smashed. Surveying the aftermath,
Speaker 1: Holder thought, christ, everyone must have been crazy tonight. He
Speaker 1: goes on to say there was a mountain of broken
Speaker 1: chairs in the middle of the hall. Holder says, looking
Speaker 1: back now, it might have happened at Empire Pool, or
Speaker 1: it might have been in Liverpool, but it was somewhere massive.
Speaker 1: This was our first real concert tour as headliners, and
Speaker 1: it gave us a real taste of how big the
Speaker 1: band was becoming. It was mostly a male audience and
Speaker 1: the seats always took a real smashing. It used to
Speaker 1: cause us to fortune. So that's how he came up
Speaker 1: with the idea for the song today, Lee and Holder
Speaker 1: felt Mama Were All Crazy Now was the first time
Speaker 1: they could get the audience to sing on mass. It
Speaker 1: was the first time they were able to capture that. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: the song originally was titled My MI Were All Crazy Now,
Speaker 1: but miss was misheard by the producer. It was recorded
Speaker 1: all together in one room, partitioned off, but playing together
Speaker 1: as a band, and I think that's pretty cool. The
Speaker 1: song has been covered by Quiet Riot, James Last, the
Speaker 1: Runaways and more Like Orchestral Stuff. Their follow up single
Speaker 1: to that was in nineteen seventy three, Come On Feel
Speaker 1: the Noise, which went straight to number and you know
Speaker 1: how that's spelled right.
Speaker 3: C us, Yes, yes, you used to annoy me no.
Speaker 1: End, which went straight to number one in the UK,
Speaker 1: the first time a single had done that since the
Speaker 1: Beatles Get Back in nineteen sixty nine. It only reached
Speaker 1: number ninety eight in the US. So it's really not
Speaker 1: a deeper meaning just go crazy and have fun.
Speaker 3: Oh love it all right? Thank you, Mercedes. Perfect lead
Speaker 3: off for our topic tonight, We're going to take a
Speaker 3: quick break of quick break. Let you take your meds
Speaker 3: and we'll be back.
Speaker 2: In Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1: This concludes the first part of this cassette.
Speaker 3: Please turn the cassette over and begin again on side too.
Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 3: Ah, and welcome back tonight. We're talking about insanity. So
Speaker 3: who better than the one and only Neil Richter.
Speaker 4: Ah and I shall rise to the occasion. Thank you
Speaker 4: very much. And I've never condoned insanity, drugs or alcohol
Speaker 4: for anyone, but you know, in my case it always worked.
Speaker 4: But in rock and roll music, particularly in the psychedelic sixties,
Speaker 4: when drugs like LSD or at their height, the theme
Speaker 4: of insanity was quite prevalent. And at the forefront of
Speaker 4: this movement was the British band Pink Floyd and one
Speaker 4: of its founding members see Sid Barrett. Now, although he
Speaker 4: was only in the band for the first two years
Speaker 4: and only appeared on their first two albums, The Man,
Speaker 4: the Myth and the Legend of Sid Barrett has cast
Speaker 4: a huge shadow over Pink Floyd's entire career. Now, by
Speaker 4: the seventies and eighties, Pink Floyd international superstars. Nobody can
Speaker 4: deny they were selling millions upon millions of albums like
Speaker 4: Dark Side of the Mood in the Wall and both
Speaker 4: of which delve deeply into the themes of insanity and
Speaker 4: mental illness, and in fact, their nineteen seventy five album
Speaker 4: Wish You Were Here was basically a tribute to Sid Barrett,
Speaker 4: written and recorded long after Sid had left the band
Speaker 4: because of his mental health problems. Now incidentally, Sid Barrett
Speaker 4: reportedly adopted his nickname Sid from an old British jazz
Speaker 4: bass player named Sid the Beat Barrett, and our Sid
Speaker 4: spelled his with a y. Sid the beat Barrett spelled
Speaker 4: his with an I, so I guess it was to
Speaker 4: avoid confusion between the two. And of course Our Sid
Speaker 4: was only fourteen years old at the time, so I
Speaker 4: don't really think there would have been that much confusion
Speaker 4: going on. But another account says that his schoolmates gave
Speaker 4: him the nickname because he wore like a working class
Speaker 4: styled cap and Sid was a working class name, you know,
Speaker 4: like hey, hey mac Hey, Bud over there, Hey Sid.
Speaker 4: So however he got it. He used both names Roger
Speaker 4: and Sid because his real name is Roger. He used
Speaker 4: them interchangeably, but his sister Rosemary said that he never
Speaker 4: allowed anyone to call him Sid when he was home,
Speaker 4: you know, in the family home. So when Pink Floyd began,
Speaker 4: they were playing cover versions of American R and B songs,
Speaker 4: But by nineteen sixty six they'd begun to develop a
Speaker 4: style of their own, mixing improvised jazz into their rock
Speaker 4: and roll. Drummer Nick Mason recalled that most of these
Speaker 4: ideas came from Sid Barrett. He became the band's primary songwriter,
Speaker 4: combining whimsical styles of singing, stream of consciousness lyrics, and
Speaker 4: on top of that, he added psychedelic effects such as distortion, echo,
Speaker 4: and feedback from his guitar. In nineteen sixty seven, with
Speaker 4: Barrett at the helm, Pink Floyd released their debut album,
Speaker 4: Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Sid wrote all but
Speaker 4: three of the eleven songs on the album, but by
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty eight his input and behavior became increasingly erratic,
Speaker 4: mostly because of his heavy drug use, which possibly may
Speaker 4: have accelerated or exacerbated some underlying undiagnosed mental illness like schizophrenia,
Speaker 4: and it's also speculated that he had also become disillusioned
Speaker 4: with the music business in general and really had no
Speaker 4: interest in being a pop star or a rock star
Speaker 4: at all, unlike the other members and all the other
Speaker 4: musicians at the time, that's what they wanted. Did really
Speaker 4: seemed to care about that now. A recently released documentary
Speaker 4: called Have You Got It Yet, a film that chronicle
Speaker 4: Sid's journey from being a groundbreaking musician to becoming manic
Speaker 4: and mentally unstable, seems to suggest a combination of all
Speaker 4: these factors. And by the way, the film's title have
Speaker 4: You Got It Yet, was taken from the title of
Speaker 4: a song Barrett had been showing to the band. Now
Speaker 4: Intentionally or not, he kept changing the arrangement of the
Speaker 4: song as they went along. Each time he played it
Speaker 4: for him, he played it a different way, making it
Speaker 4: impossible for them to learn. They were like, what are
Speaker 4: you doing now? Was he just pranking them? Or was
Speaker 4: he like intentionally in a psychotically passive, aggressive way, trying
Speaker 4: to get them to fire him because he just didn't
Speaker 4: want to do it anymore. We'll never know, We'll never know.
Speaker 4: Whatever the case, the man who had once been discribed
Speaker 4: his joyful, friendly, and extroverted had become depressed and withdrawn,
Speaker 4: with disorganized speech, memory losses, memory lapses, and a blank expressionalist,
Speaker 4: dead eyed stare, He was unable to recognize his friends
Speaker 4: and often didn't even know where he was. He only
Speaker 4: contributed one song to their second LP, A Saucerful of Secrets,
Speaker 4: and that's the song we're about to hear, called jug
Speaker 4: Band Blues, and some claim that this song he wrote
Speaker 4: as a farewell to the band after sensing that they
Speaker 4: were probably about to fire him because of his deteriorating
Speaker 4: mental condition.
Speaker 10: It is so considerate thing, and I'm most obliged to
Speaker 10: you for.
Speaker 6: It's clear that I'm not. I never knew something, and
Speaker 6: I'm grateful.
Speaker 10: But you threw away mild shoes.
Speaker 6: And brought me here instead dressing red.
Speaker 10: And I'm wandering who could be writing this song?
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 10: It's a nut shine and I don't care if nothing
Speaker 10: is mine, and I don't care.
Speaker 6: I loveles win you. I'll do my loving in the winter.
Speaker 10: Up to sex and.
Speaker 6: Then Queen. Then what exactxact.
Speaker 4: Exact, And that, my friends, is what Pink Floyd used
Speaker 4: to sound like. And obviously by a Dark Side of
Speaker 4: the Moon the whole sound changed. But they put out
Speaker 4: I think five or six LPs before they really broke worldwide.
Speaker 4: They were they were big in England, but not like
Speaker 4: they would become you know, they go worldwide. But now,
Speaker 4: as Sid's condition worsened, he would just stand stock still
Speaker 4: on stage, sometimes with his arms just limp at his side,
Speaker 4: and refused to sing. Or he'd stand there and detune
Speaker 4: his guitar one string at a time until they'd all
Speaker 4: fallen off onto the floor, and when that was done,
Speaker 4: he'd just leave the stage.
Speaker 3: Performance art, Yeah, I don't know when the whole band
Speaker 3: is counting on you, I don't know if that counts
Speaker 3: as performance art.
Speaker 4: Well that by that By the end of nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 4: Pink Floyd added guitarist David Gilmour as a fifth member,
Speaker 4: particularly to supplement Barrett's erratic behavior on stage during live performances,
Speaker 4: until matters kind of came to a head in January
Speaker 4: of nineteen sixty eight. While driving to a gig and
Speaker 4: they were going up collecting all the members, one of
Speaker 4: the band members asked or not they should even pick
Speaker 4: up Sid, and according to Gilmour, the answer was a
Speaker 4: unanimous nah, let's not.
Speaker 2: Bother oops so.
Speaker 1: Out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can understand it, I get it, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: That pretty much signaled the end of Barrett's tenure with
Speaker 4: Pink Floyd, and by early March of nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 4: the band held a meeting and it was agreed that
Speaker 4: Barrett would leave and Gilmour would permanently take over the
Speaker 4: guitar role. And as I say, the rest is history.
Speaker 4: Now as far as the song goes, jug Band Blues.
Speaker 4: The basic tracks were recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios,
Speaker 4: with Norman Smith handling the production. Now, Smith had previously
Speaker 4: worked as an engineer there at Abbey Road along with
Speaker 4: George Martin and the Beatles, so there was some you know,
Speaker 4: there was some heavy hitters, and you know they were
Speaker 4: they were doing well in England. Nobody heard about him
Speaker 4: over here, but you know when you're at Abbey Road
Speaker 4: with you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with those guys here with Beatle pedigree.
Speaker 4: There, that's not too shabby anyway. Smith claimed it was
Speaker 4: his idea to later add the brass arrangement, and Barrett
Speaker 4: had suggested, well why not use a Salvation Army band? Okay,
Speaker 4: So after some considerable effort, apparently, they assembled an eight
Speaker 4: piece Salvation Army Band and booked them for a three
Speaker 4: hour session, to which Barrett arrived about an hour late,
Speaker 4: so now we're down to two hours and Smith then
Speaker 4: asked Barrett, well, what is his ideas? What do you
Speaker 4: want the brass band to play? And Sid said, well,
Speaker 4: just let them play whatever they want, basically just the
Speaker 4: chaotic Salvation Army freak out that you kind of heard.
Speaker 4: And then he walked out of the studio and didn't return,
Speaker 4: leaving Smith to write out what arrangement there was for
Speaker 4: the Salvation Army Band. After Pink Floyd, Sid Barrett had
Speaker 4: a brief solo career, releasing a single and two albums
Speaker 4: recorded with the help of three other of his old
Speaker 4: bandmates in Pink Floyd, and he then left the music
Speaker 4: industry entirely and retired from public life in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 4: probably the one sane thing he did. But now, according
Speaker 4: to his sister Rosemary, who became his primary caretaker at
Speaker 4: that point, he returned to his love of painting and
Speaker 4: also took up photography and she would take him out
Speaker 4: to photograph, you know, landscapes or seescapes or whatever, and
Speaker 4: then he would often create paintings from the pictures he
Speaker 4: had taken, after which he would take them outside and
Speaker 4: light them on fire.
Speaker 3: Already then maybe he didn't have enough storage space.
Speaker 4: Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one way to look at it.
Speaker 1: They were done, you know, onto the next thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, she said he had also developed an interest
Speaker 4: in horticulture and gardening, and he enjoyed going to London
Speaker 4: to look at major art collections there, and he also
Speaker 4: made regular trips to the botanical gardens. Now, this is
Speaker 4: the kicker, this story. This one blows my mind.
Speaker 1: It's just more.
Speaker 4: Now. In June of nineteen seventy five, Pink Floyd were
Speaker 4: at Abbey Road Studios again. At this point they were
Speaker 4: already established thing and they were working on the Wish
Speaker 4: You Were Here LP when they noticed a fat, bald
Speaker 4: man with shaved eyebrows standing near the back of the
Speaker 4: recording studio, just kind of hovering, And it took a
Speaker 4: while until they realized who it was. It was Sid Barrett.
Speaker 4: He looked totally different from when the last time they
Speaker 4: saw him, and he'd come on in on his own,
Speaker 4: unannounced and unnoticed, and he.
Speaker 3: Actually got into the studios with so security is a
Speaker 3: little different nowadays. Number one.
Speaker 4: And the song they were working on when when he
Speaker 4: was came in was shine on You Crazy Diamond. The
Speaker 4: song that they had written about sid himself. Wow, Wow,
Speaker 4: can you believe that? And and he asked him, you know, sincerely,
Speaker 4: he said, are you ready for me to record my
Speaker 4: guitar part yet? And they kind of went well and
Speaker 4: they kind of lied and said, well, now we've already
Speaker 4: got that done. Thanks, you know, don't don't worry about it.
Speaker 4: We've got it. And they played the tape of him
Speaker 4: and asked him what he thought. Apparently he didn't seem
Speaker 4: too impressed, and then just left. Wow, but is that
Speaker 4: is that crazy? That he just he showed up at
Speaker 4: on the day that they were recording the song song
Speaker 4: about him?
Speaker 2: About him?
Speaker 1: That's insane.
Speaker 4: And there's pictures they had, you know, this was in
Speaker 4: that film I mentioned earlier, And there are pictures you
Speaker 4: can see and it looks nothing like him from the
Speaker 4: you know, you look at the pictures from you know,
Speaker 4: in the day and it looked hard enough you can
Speaker 4: see it.
Speaker 3: But it's like, wow, Yeah, if you didn't know it
Speaker 3: was him, you wouldn't recognize him. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow. And I had first heard about that in the
Speaker 4: film that you know when I said that, And now
Speaker 4: I looked it up and in fact, yeah, that really
Speaker 4: that occurred, and that that that blew my mind. I thought,
Speaker 4: that's that's wow.
Speaker 3: Was that the last time they saw him? You know that.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it you know, it may have
Speaker 1: been he's not with us anymore.
Speaker 4: No, no, Well, in nineteen ninety six, Barrett was inducted
Speaker 4: into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alone with
Speaker 4: you know, all the other members of Pink Floyd. And
Speaker 4: then yeah, he did die of pancreatic cancer in two
Speaker 4: thousand and six. So there you have it. A song
Speaker 4: about being insane or going insane, written and performed by
Speaker 4: a real, live insane person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a story.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 1: I think I think you win tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, hands down definitely. That was a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what, And as much as you know
Speaker 4: I like to sit and joke about being crazy and
Speaker 4: being insane, it's really it's really not a funny matter.
Speaker 4: It's not it's you think, especially when I was young,
Speaker 4: you kind of like you kind of romanticize it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I could be a mad genius. You know, it must
Speaker 4: be great to be crazy like that until you realize
Speaker 4: it's you can't turn it off. If you're really that,
Speaker 4: you can't just like Okay, I'm done now and flip
Speaker 4: a switch and then you're back to normal and home
Speaker 4: and watch TV. You know, so yeah again, I just
Speaker 4: want to say it's it's really not funny. It's funny
Speaker 4: to think you're crazy, but if you really are now
Speaker 4: the one thing about the word the other thing. The
Speaker 4: other thing about about sid here is you know, he
Speaker 4: was kind of like hinting at it. And most crazy
Speaker 4: people are all crazy people, I think, or what they're
Speaker 4: not aware of themselves. They don't know that they're great,
Speaker 4: they think they're the they're the same one.
Speaker 3: That's what I was going to actually mention is crazy.
Speaker 3: I've had a bunch of experiences like you know, too
Speaker 3: bad Jesses and here are a medical person back in
Speaker 3: my previous life. You know, you're dealing with people with
Speaker 3: mental illness and it comes and goes for some of them,
Speaker 3: and they're aware, they are aware that you know, the
Speaker 3: symptoms come and go. And I to me, that just
Speaker 3: sounds like it's much worse because you know you're going
Speaker 3: to cycle back into that at some point.
Speaker 4: Well that that sounds like his story here, and that
Speaker 4: was pretty much the last song and the last you know,
Speaker 4: connection he had with the band, and that was like
Speaker 4: pretty much the only song, you know, the only song
Speaker 4: he wrote it really even played on because he was
Speaker 4: pretty much ineffective otherwise at that point. So but I
Speaker 4: just find that it's such a haunting song too. I
Speaker 4: mean it gets a little wacky in the middle there.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but when you know why and you know
Speaker 3: the story, I think I.
Speaker 4: Think it gives it a different It puts it in
Speaker 4: a whole different light.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, there you have it.
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, okay, great, and I get to follow you tonight.
Speaker 3: So thanks raised the bar just a little bit, and yeah,
Speaker 3: we're gonna do things a little out of order. I'm
Speaker 3: going to go go last tonight. And I went with
Speaker 3: a song called They're Coming to Take Me Away haha
Speaker 3: by Napoleon the fourteenth.
Speaker 1: Remember I remember that from my childhood, so remember that.
Speaker 3: I knew it for a different reason. But we'll get
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This was released a few years before and I was born.
Speaker 3: It was a nineteen sixty six Warner Brothers release that
Speaker 3: became an instant success. It's a song that's actually spoken
Speaker 3: in a marching rhythm, based on an old Scottish tune
Speaker 3: titled the campbells are coming. It's spoken over a bass drum,
Speaker 3: a snare drum, handclaps, and a tambourine that is not
Speaker 3: played by Ringo. Napoleon the fourteenth is really a New
Speaker 3: Yorker named Jerry Samuels who was born in nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 3: He wrote songs for other artists. He later became a
Speaker 3: book booking agent, but he spent most of his career
Speaker 3: as a recording engineer back in the analog days, which
Speaker 3: I think is so cool. Samuels came up with the
Speaker 3: song while he was working at Associated Recording Studios in
Speaker 3: New York City. We will come back to that in
Speaker 3: a minute. The success of their Coming to Take Me
Speaker 3: Away led to a full album of his songs, most
Speaker 3: of which have mental health themes, such as I Live
Speaker 3: in a split level, Head and Yeah and Bats in
Speaker 3: My Belfry. None of those other tracks kind of had
Speaker 3: the success that this one did, though. He also had
Speaker 3: a nineteen sixty eight follow up album Shelved because he
Speaker 3: went a little bit too far. That album was titled,
Speaker 3: for God's Sake, Stop the Feces. I think just the
Speaker 3: title alone probably set up flags with the power that
Speaker 3: be one track called the note details Suicide in depth.
Speaker 3: Another track called Rape was also a little bit too
Speaker 3: detailed for Yeah, for general consumption, we'll say. The album
Speaker 3: was later released by a small label in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: If you're interested in going back and hearing that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff, he did write some funny stuff, but this
Speaker 3: is not for kids. There's your disclaimer, all right, if
Speaker 3: you want to go back and listen. As far as
Speaker 3: they're coming to take me away. It's a spoken song,
Speaker 3: but you'll hear that the vocals rise and fall and pitch,
Speaker 3: and it sounds artificial. Nowadays, we would just do that
Speaker 3: in pro tools on a computer, but this was analog
Speaker 3: at the time. It was an analog recording done on
Speaker 3: a reel to real multi track. So what he did
Speaker 3: Samuels recorded the track, the music track in real time
Speaker 3: straight through, and then when he went back and overdubbed
Speaker 3: his vocal track as he was saying the words, he
Speaker 3: would slow the tape reel down. He would slow down
Speaker 3: his vocals to match to stay in time with the music,
Speaker 3: but he would continue to speak in his normal pitch,
Speaker 3: so that when the tape was later played back at
Speaker 3: full speed in steady time, the March would keep time,
Speaker 3: but his vocal pitch would then go up.
Speaker 4: You know that is not as easy as it sounds now,
Speaker 4: I'm like, wow, no.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of hard nowadays. I think it's actually
Speaker 3: for the youngsters in the digital age to wrap their
Speaker 3: head around it, because now you could go and you know,
Speaker 3: watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast. You
Speaker 3: can double time it or change the speed just to
Speaker 3: move it along, and it keeps the pitch the same.
Speaker 3: It just doubles the speed. That's not how analog tape works.
Speaker 3: As you slowed it down, the pitch went down. As
Speaker 3: you sped it up, the pitch went up. And he
Speaker 3: used that like the chim mounks. Yeah, exactly, but if
Speaker 3: but he had to do it on the fly and
Speaker 3: get it and get it in real time. Yes, he's
Speaker 3: adjusting the speed of the recorder as he's doing this
Speaker 3: in real time.
Speaker 4: So as you were explaining it, my head was spinning
Speaker 4: trying to help. Yeah, you know now, you know to
Speaker 4: get that that is insane. That just sit and actually
Speaker 4: do that, you know, and if it is, it'll drive
Speaker 4: you insane.
Speaker 3: But yes, yeah, is it all him.
Speaker 1: Music?
Speaker 3: He wasn't the band now there was a band that
Speaker 3: came in and played, but he did the vocals himself
Speaker 3: and he did the engineering. So the B side to
Speaker 3: the song is the same song with the title spelled backwards,
Speaker 3: and it's the song played backwards. The label is printed
Speaker 3: upside down, including the Warner Brothers logo, so you flip
Speaker 3: it over. It's literally flipping everything over side note side,
Speaker 3: little story. This is how I knew the song. Jerry
Speaker 3: Samuels stood up Howard Stern live on the air back
Speaker 3: when Howard Stern was on WNBC in New York City
Speaker 3: on AM, back when AM was still a powerhouse. Howard
Speaker 3: used this song as his opening theme for about a year.
Speaker 3: That's how I knew it. I was listening to Howard
Speaker 3: Stern and he set up an interview with Samuels to
Speaker 3: talk about the song. So when the time came, he's
Speaker 3: live on the air, dials up Samuels and got his
Speaker 3: answering machine. Oh, Howard was not a happy camper, went
Speaker 3: off for a couple of minutes, ago called him back,
Speaker 3: got the answering machine again. So if you want to
Speaker 3: hear that, that is actually up on YouTube. Howard is
Speaker 3: doing his out of the closet gay Stern character, and
Speaker 3: you got to remember when this was so this was
Speaker 3: the younger, less mature Howard Stern. But I think it's
Speaker 3: still pretty funny that he had this whole interview set
Speaker 3: up and Sam was just stood him up. That was it.
Speaker 3: Now he has to fill this airtime and he went
Speaker 3: he went a little berserk, but he stayed in character.
Speaker 3: I'll give him that. Do you want the spoiler alert
Speaker 3: before or after the song?
Speaker 6: Aren't you supposed to do a spoiler alert first?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking first spoiler. Do you want to know the
Speaker 3: ending of the song now or do you want to
Speaker 3: wait till the end? I would say now, that would
Speaker 3: be my voice, all right, Okay, So the lyrics seemed
Speaker 3: to be talking about a woman who left him and
Speaker 3: his descent into madness. That's what they're coming to take
Speaker 3: me away, they mentioned. He mentions a funny farm, which
Speaker 3: was an outdate now an outdated term for a psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 3: At the end of the song, he adds the line,
Speaker 3: well you just wait, they'll find you yet, and when
Speaker 3: they do, they'll put you in the aspcau mangy mutt.
Speaker 3: He's singing about a dog. He's not singing about a woman.
Speaker 3: So there I thought he was calling a human a dog.
Speaker 3: That would be a bigger insult and probably a little
Speaker 3: bit funnier. But no, no, the idea is he's talking
Speaker 3: about a dog. So let's check out. They're coming to
Speaker 3: take me away by Napoleon the fourteenth.
Speaker 2: Remember when you ran away and I got on my
Speaker 2: knees and begged you not to leave, because I go berser.
Speaker 4: Well, you left me anyhow, and then the days got
Speaker 4: worse and worse.
Speaker 2: And now you see I've gone completely out of my mind.
Speaker 2: They're coming to take me away.
Speaker 6: Haha.
Speaker 2: They're coming to take me away.
Speaker 5: Oh he has a tunny farm where life is beautiful
Speaker 5: all the time. Then I'll be happy to see those
Speaker 5: nice young men in their clean white's coats and they're
Speaker 5: coming to take me away.
Speaker 3: You thought it was a joke, and so you laughed.
Speaker 2: You laughed when I had said that losing you would
Speaker 2: make me flip my lip. Right, you know you laughed.
Speaker 2: I heard you laugh. You laughed, You laughed and laughed,
Speaker 2: and you left. But now you know I'm utterly mad man.
Speaker 2: They're coming to take me away. Ha ha, They're coming
Speaker 2: to take me away. Oh he ha.
Speaker 5: To the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping
Speaker 5: birds and basket weavers who sit and smile.
Speaker 3: And swiddle their thumbs and sows, and they're.
Speaker 6: Coming to take me away.
Speaker 2: I cut your food, I cleaned your house. And this
Speaker 2: is how you pay me back for all my kind,
Speaker 2: unselfish loving deeds.
Speaker 6: Ha.
Speaker 2: Well you just wait, I'll find you yet. And when
Speaker 2: they do, they'll put you in the ASPCA young and
Speaker 2: they're coming to take me away.
Speaker 8: Ha ha.
Speaker 2: They're coming to take me away funny farm where life
Speaker 2: is beautiful all the time.
Speaker 5: And then I'll be happy to see those nice young
Speaker 5: men in the clean white coats and they're coming to
Speaker 5: take me away with trees and the flowers and the
Speaker 5: dripping birds and we they're just sing to smile. It's
Speaker 5: fittless thumbs and toes, and they're coming to take me away.
Speaker 3: All the cranbones are singing along.
Speaker 2: Words.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's really funny. I remember that song
Speaker 1: being a lot longer mm hmm, like just my perception
Speaker 1: of it, It just went on and on.
Speaker 4: That's really funny. You said that because I was thinking
Speaker 4: the same thing. And I've heard of a million times since,
Speaker 4: you know. Yeah, And it just said, Wow, that seemed
Speaker 4: really short because it seemed like it just kept getting
Speaker 4: you know, going on and on and getting worse and worse,
Speaker 4: and you know, crazier and crazier. And what what was
Speaker 4: the year exactly? Again?
Speaker 3: Did sixty six?
Speaker 4: Okay? Because that that would yeah, that was prime time.
Speaker 4: And in my you know, I was like about ten
Speaker 4: years old, had just discovered Mad magazine, which just you know,
Speaker 4: and it linked right in with that. So and I
Speaker 4: guess it was kind of like what do they call it,
Speaker 4: the zeitgeist of the time, was you know that kind
Speaker 4: of silly I'm crazy, And I think, you know, it
Speaker 4: was a harbinger of things to come later on in
Speaker 4: the decade. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3: Yep, good use of the studio too, Brian.
Speaker 1: I don't want to jump on you on your line,
Speaker 1: but I'm done. Did it oh you are?
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: It was banned when it first came out, wasn't it
Speaker 1: on the radio?
Speaker 3: So was some some places did, some places didn't.
Speaker 1: A child and I remember something about.
Speaker 3: That, And there's always going to be somebody that wants
Speaker 3: to ban something somewhere for something, you know.
Speaker 1: See, I thought it reached like number three on the Billboard.
Speaker 3: It was a huge hit.
Speaker 4: I don't know how it ranked, but I think I
Speaker 4: first heard it, not on the radio, but actually, you know,
Speaker 4: some of the you know, the older kids, you know,
Speaker 4: like you know, the twelve year olds going around, you know,
Speaker 4: singing it, and that was like, what are they.
Speaker 3: What are they talking about?
Speaker 4: This is crazy?
Speaker 3: Yeah I heard it.
Speaker 2: Oh I get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but how many times have we seen over and
Speaker 3: over you try to ban something that just makes it
Speaker 3: more popular.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, yeah yeah. But I just remember it
Speaker 1: as a child. I remember that being kind of a
Speaker 1: big deal. As the rest of time I'd ever heard
Speaker 1: of a song being banned on the radio. That's shocking,
Speaker 1: right right.
Speaker 3: Well, that's all I've got anything else to add for
Speaker 3: We wrap it up there, Cranbones.
Speaker 1: I think we're all crazy now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we better get out of here.
Speaker 2: To us all the way.
Speaker 3: I think it's time to pull the plug for our
Speaker 3: own safety. All right, Thank you all. We'll be back
Speaker 3: next week with another round of insanity here on the
Speaker 3: Rock and Roll History Show. Until then, don't forget to
Speaker 3: subscribe in your favorite podcast app, and don't forget to
Speaker 3: check out all the other shows we do here. At
Speaker 3: Hudson River Radio. There is a little subject for everybody
Speaker 3: as a special treat. Barber's hosting next week's episode, so
Speaker 3: we're looking forward to that and we'll see it then.
Speaker 3: Until then, peace out, everybody, rock.
Speaker 9: Cop Bottom, Okay, Bye bye.
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