Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's Genie Alexander and you're listening to one
of my favorite shows, the Surely You Can't Be.
Speaker 2: Serious Podcast, hosted by my good friends Dee and Jason.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely you Can't
Be Serious Podcast. Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We're
here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start the
Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes at
a time, which is about to link the song, so
it works out kind of nicely. So please join us
as we dive into some new lyrics today.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're
going to be covering today.
Speaker 3: Johnny Ray, South Pacific.
Speaker 2: Walter Winchell, Johnny Ray, Jason.
Speaker 3: Tell me what you know about Johnny Ray?
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Johnny Ray was a singer, songwriter, and pianist. Tony Bennett
called him the father of rock and roll what At
age thirteen, he lost his hearing in his left ear
at a cub scout sting where he got whacked in
the ear. He started singing professionally at age fifteen, so
he started singing in clubs as a white singer, which
kind of made a name for himself seeing these black Clubs,
R and B Clubs.
Speaker 1: If your Suit and the Letter.
Speaker 2: Of good Bye, he coined several rock and roll moves
like pulling your hair, falling on the floor and crying
while seeing. From there, he landed some movie rolls. He
landed a starring role in There's No Business Like Show
Business with ethel Merman, which I also know from Landy
Towns an Airplane, and Marilyn Monroe, which we're gonna be
talking about in a future episode. He was arrested in
nineteen fifty one and nineteen fifty nine for soliciting a
male undercover vice cop, which in the fifties that was
a big deal.
Speaker 1: Just walking in way get the sunken.
Speaker 2: Well, and then he eventually died of liver failure in
nineteen ninety. You can see him in the Come On
Eileen video by Dexy Midnight Runners from like vintage video
of him landing at Heathrow. He's name checked and Billy
Idols Don't Need a Gun video and he's actually in
the video. He's mentioned in Van Morrison Sometimes We Cry
and Jimmy Ray's Are You Jimmy Ray song from the nineties.
He also appeared in Happy Days in the Love Boat,
but his main contribution is he's known as the father
of rock and roll.
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
Speaker 2: All right, de, what do you know about South Pacific?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: South Pacific was a musical that came out in nineteen
forty nine, the year of Billy Joel's birth. It was
the biggest success on Broadway since Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma.
This was also a Rogers and Hammerstein's musical. It was
based on the book by James A. Mishner called The
Tales of the South Pacific, and it ran for one
nine hundred and twenty five shows before it was finally done.
It has songs that I knew growing up.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 3: I listened to the South Pacific soundtrack. I couldn't tell
you how many times you've got bally high you got.
I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair.
I'm going to wash that man right out of my hair.
You've got some enchanted evening.
Speaker 1: And China tudy. You may see a stranger, you may
see a strange across a rape at a rule.
Speaker 3: You've got there's nothing like a name, You've got Happy Talk,
You've got Younger than Springtime, and You've got I'm in
Love with a Wonderful Guy. All of them fantastic songs
from A Fantastic Musical from nineteen forty nine. The original
production won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score,
Best Libretto, and it is the only musical to win
Tony Awards in all four acting category. Jason, what can
you tell me about Walter Winchell?
Speaker 2: Okay? Walter Winschell is one of the first journalists to
make journalism to a form of entertainment. He originally started
out as a vaudeville performer and then became a Broadway critic.
He's known for digging up embarrassing stories on famous people. Now.
Initially he had a whole bunch of contacts with the
criminal mafia realm before Prohibition, but after he made so
many contacts there, he got kind of nervous and then
kind of aligned himself with g Men, Uncle Sam and
Old Glory. He was also Jewish and one of the
first American commentators to attack Hitler. During the fifties, he
supported Joseph McCarthy's quest to identify communists in the entertainment industry,
which we'll be talking about very soon. He's best known
for unethically attempting to destroy the careers of his political
and personal enemies. His life ends in sadness when his
son commits suicide. He ends up dying in nineteen seventy
two due to prostate cancer. One person came to his funeral,
and that was his daughter Walda.
Speaker 1: That's terrible.
Speaker 3: Okay, guys, That does it for today's episode. Join us
next time for five minutes of fire.