Speaker 1: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Shirly You Can't
Be Serious podcast. Today we're going to continue our study
of the summer of nineteen eighty four. We are working
our way track by track today through the Footloose album.
My name is Jason Colvin, and let's hear it from
my boy d Graves.
Speaker 2: My boy, my boy. Okay, yeah, listen, man, I realize
this is almost paradise, but I'm not holding out for
a hero here. Okay. I'm free. I'm footloose and fancy free.
Speaker 1: All Right, We're gonna go track by track today through
one of the biggest selling albums in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I just want to talk real quick about
nineteen eighty four and leading up to the summer of
nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: This album came out in January of that year. The
movie came out in February of that year. A couple
months later, Breaking comes out, And I was a breakdancing
fool in second grade. I had my own sheet of cardboard.
I'd go dance in the streets, literally dancing the streets
doing the dolphin and the centipede and the wave, and
had my own move called the electric shock where I
laid down and shook like I was electrocuted. It was
a big crowd pleaser for the little second grader.
Speaker 1: You know you're serious when you have your own sheet
of cardboard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you got to do your heads. When I
went to watch this movie, I was in love. I'm like,
this is so up my alley. I wasn't super big
into the kind of I'm free dance that he was
doing in the warehouse. That was a little too ballet
and gymnastics for me. But some of those guys, the
dances that they were doing were rock on cool a breakdancing.
Speaker 1: You know the last scene where they're dancing at the prom.
They actually went I think we talked about this in
our previous episode. They went to LA clubs, found guys
that were really cool dancers, pulled him out, put him
in a corny tuxedo and said you're a high school
kid now break dance.
Speaker 2: Loved it and it was a big craze back then.
I mean like parachute pays and bandanas and all that
good stuff. I had my a boombox. My break dancing
name was Doctor Fresh. I still use that, like when
I've got it. When kids are like Dad, when you
want your name to be on the xbox and like
doctor Fresh, cool mood.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, go awesome.
Speaker 2: All right, So we got to jump into this album
because there's so many awesome songs, so many awesome artists
that we've got to talk about. But before we do that,
let's just talk about the name of the song, which
is the name of the movie, of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: So Footloose was, as we mentioned in our last episode,
written by Dean Pitchford. Right, yeah, this was his first
screenplay and he had no idea what to call it.
He had, like you mentioned, he had called it cheeked
to cheek, but that was not really anything he ever
intended to call it. And so he had a bunch
of names that he liked, but he was like, I'm
just gonna write down everything I can, and so he would.
He'd fill the pages with potential names of the movies.
Footloose came up on day two. Wow, And so he has,
you know, these pages and pages of names. He looks
over them all and picks out four that are his favorites.
But at that point, Footloose was what he wanted to
call the movie. But he takes it and he puts
Footloose by Dean Pitchford, and then he takes three other
names and he takes those names to the producers and
he puts Footloose at the bottom of the stack. Okay.
And this is all deliberate, right yeah. And so they're
looking at it and they're like, hmm, okay, first name,
second name, okay, all right, third name Okay, gets to
Footloose by Dean Pitchford, and they say, we love it.
And he was so excited because that was it. And
there's something about the word. I mean, it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1: But it's still well it comes from footloos in fancy
free right now, tell me exactly where did Elmore City
prompt falling the title options.
Speaker 2: I don't think that was sang it. I think he
just was excited about all of those o's.
Speaker 1: It looks great, it does.
Speaker 2: It looks jumps out at you. It leaps off the
billboard or the album or whatever. So he had the
name of the movie before there was ever a movie
and before there was ever a song.
Speaker 1: And it's actually interesting he's creating a movie around the
idea of great songs. Yeah, if you don't have great songs.
You don't have a movie?
Speaker 2: Should we jump in now?
Speaker 1: Well, the one thing I wanted to cover before we
get into track by track. Yeah, Footloose was one of
the only five albums of nineteen eighty four to hit
number one. So you had Thriller, you had Footloose yep,
you had Huey Lewis's Sports yep. You had Bruce Bringsteen's
Born in the USA. And then you had Purple Rain,
of course.
Speaker 2: Which we're going to be covered next week.
Speaker 1: Come back next week as we go track by track
through Purple Rain.
Speaker 2: And everybody knows how iconic Purple Rain is. But keep
in mind this album held the number one spot for
ten weeks in that year of those big hitters.
Speaker 1: If you were to tell me that this was one
of the best soundtracks of the nineteen eighties or maybe ever,
I wouldn't argue with you.
Speaker 2: No song after song after song, this is an incredible album.
Speaker 1: It's pop gold, all right, We're ready to dive in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Dive in in. First track, kick off your son issues.
This is Footloos, Dude, that is a slamming hit right
out of the gates.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the first drum beat. I gotta say this
totally reminds me of Hey, Mickey, you'r's the fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I can see that.
Speaker 2: And it was I mean that came out eighty two,
that was right, I mean it was big on the
charts right around the time that this song was getting written,
which let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2: Okay. So we know that this song is by Dean Pitchford, right,
we know that he's this is the key ingredient to
the movie that he's written that he's you know, this
is my this is my first venture into screenwriting, and
it almost didn't happen. Right, So Kenny Logins is big
at this point. He's done Caddyshack. But in January January twentieth,
nineteen eighty three, Kenny Logins is at a concert in Provo, Utah,
and the lights get dimmed so that he can come
out on the stage and he doesn't see where he's going,
and he steps off the stage onto the floor and
breaks ribs. He rescheduled the concert, but he's in the
hospital and he's about to leave the US and go
to Asia, and Dean Pitchford's like freaking out it's like,
what am I going to do? And so the guys
are like, you should fly to him in Tahoe and
you guys write the songs over there. He's like great,
And he wakes up the morning he's supposed to fly
out and he's run one hundred and one degree temperature.
He's got strip throat, and he's like, there's no way
he's going to let me in his room with his
wife and his kids and his injured body when I've
got this strep throat. I mean, the guy's about to
go perform concerts in China.
Speaker 1: This is you know, what do? He just lives? I
feeling fine.
Speaker 2: That's hard.
Speaker 1: We should mention that he had previously worked with Kenny
Loggins and Steve Perry when he wrote that song Don't
Fight It Yep, which was kind of a modest hit
number seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's good. No, that's a great song. So let's
talk real quick. We don't get to do a full
history I think on Kenny Loggins in any other episode,
so I'm going to do a quick brief one, right, Okay,
So Kenny learned to play guitar by stealing his brother
Dan Danny's song stealing his guitar. While he was the
way at work, he'd go practice his guitar and that's
how he learned to play. Decided that he would become
a songwriter when he saw his two brothers writing songs
and ultimately ended up doing pretty well. Wrote for Barbar
Streisan and A Star Is Born, which is how he met.
Speaker 1: The producer of Caddy Shack, Peter John Peter, and that's
how he got involved with Caddy Shack, And that's how
he came up with the hit I'm all Right, which
got him started down the road of movie making magic.
Speaker 2: Yes, but before he got there, he had been a
good songwriter for a lot of other folks. So the
first song that he wrote was a song called House
at Pooh Corner. Okay, back then, songwriters would get together
that hang out. He hung out with some guys from
the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band who weren't really even very
big at that point either, and they liked his song.
They had a record deal. They're gonna it looks like
this thing is gonna happen. He's like, super excited. Song
I wrote when I was seventeen is going to become
my first recorded song until they get a call and like,
the Disney lawyers are not gonna let this happen. It's
like ah, And so he goes out on a date
that night with his girlfriend and she's like, what's wrong.
And she's like, man, I thought my first big song
was gonna get recorded, but it's got Winnie the Pooh
and I guess like somebody said something about copyright and
Disney and I don't know, I don't I guess it's
not gonna happen. And she's like, oh, well, let me
give daddy a call. Her dad was this CEO of
the Walt Disney company the green lighted the song.
Speaker 1: Wow this history, Wow, how about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It ends up on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Bands album
Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy, which was the album
that had Mister bo Jangles and of course House at
Through Corner. And suddenly he's meeting all kinds of people,
including this guy who used to play for Buffalo Springsfield
named Jim Messina. Okay, so loggins and gets together with Messina.
Messina has been around for a year or two longer,
so he knows the ropes and he's going to produce
Kenny's first album, but they sound so good together and
Messina does so much work on it. They call the
album Kenny loggins with Jim Messina sitting in Clive Davis,
who we've mentioned before Aerosmith episode and a couple of others.
He listens to this and he says, listen, you guys
are too good to do this. Only once he goes,
I want to sign you to a six year many
songs as you'll give me deal, and I really think
and they're both like hesitant, especially Messina who is wanting
to do different stuff. He's like, just sleep on it. Well,
he slept on it. They did it, and they produced
gobs of good hits through the seventies, but ultimately, as
with many young artists, they started hating each other to
the point that they're doing a live recording, you know,
they're doing their kind of setup, and Kenny gets so
mad he chunks his microphone into the stands, no audience
members there, but chunks into the stands, walks out. Jim
comes over to him. He says, listen, I've been through
this before, and I want to end this before we
hate each other. And it was the best thing he
could have said, because they ended it then remained friends ultimately,
both of them obviously super successful guys. But that's what
leads into the soundtrack with Caddyshack, and that's what leads
into the soundtrack with Footloose.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the song Footloose is the biggest and only
number one hit for Kenny Loggins. So when he hooks
up with Kenny Loggins, you know, strep throat, broken rib,
He's got to get this in before he flies to Asia.
They knock out a few things. He wants to be
able to go back to them and say, Okay, we're
on it, We've got it, and they did. They had
the gist of it. They finished it up later with
the whole Milo and Ooie Murray.
Speaker 2: Dean Pitchford's mom's name.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? They threw that in Kenny Loggins like the way
that Milo sounded, and so that's how we got Jack
get back. We've got that list of names.
Speaker 1: Because it's pretty cool. Yeah, there's one part in the
song that I want to talk about. I don't know
what to call it, but they it rises in like tension.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll play it right here.
Speaker 2: So that beetles all over the place. Think you think
about the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off when he's
singing twists and shout. That's that that same exact build
up the scale and everybody's the tensions rising. That's straight
on beetles love it.
Speaker 1: And then you get this great yell I'm turning it loose,
and then right back into the chorus. It's super good
love this one. This one was released January eleventh, nineteen
eighty four, reached number one March thirty first, nineteen eighty four,
spent three weeks at number one, and this is definitely
one of the songs that helped knock Thriller out of its.
Speaker 2: Number one spot for ever.
Speaker 1: We need to talk about the video real quick.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: The video pulls straight out of the middle of the
movie and it's the Rage.
Speaker 2: Dance, right, and it's the same it's just the same
thing that Purple Rain did, right. I mean, it's all kinds.
It's like a extended preview of the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it gives you a taste. So hey, this
movie's coming out and this looks like a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Here's the weird thing. Flulus has played three times in
the movie okay, the opening credits, yes, where we have
the feet. All it is is the feet moving around,
by the way, the gold sneakers, that's Kenny Loggins's feet, right, Okay.
They play it in the middle when they're at the
country bar at the Country Bar, Okay. Then they play
it at the end for the prom and let's dance
at the party, and that whole thing is awesome. The
problem is they don't play it during the rage dance.
Speaker 2: Scene right right, right right. What you saw in the
video on MTV was not what you were seeing whenever
the song was playing there. So it's a complete yeah.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I was like, wait, wait a minute,
this wrong song. They got the wrong reel up top
or something's messed up the wrong song. But they do
save it for the end and it works out awesome.
Ye all right. So we want to point out this
soundtrack contained six Billboard top forty hits. Yes, okay, three
reached the top ten. Yes to reach number one. Yes,
this is one of those.
Speaker 2: This is one of those. Next song, let's hear it for.
Speaker 5: The boy babe, she don't talk, squeak, he ain't that
much to save, but.
Speaker 2: Looks anyway, So this is the other number one song.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: This was released February fourteenth, nineteen eighty four, reached number
one May twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: So this song again was written by Dean Pitchford along
with Tom Snow, who had written a slew of big hits,
Tell Me She Laid on Me, She's so shy by
the Pointer Sisters, She's so shy, Keep Going, Getting Ready
for Love by Bonnie Ray, Love, Sneaking Up on You
by Leo Sayer, and Don't Know But I Love You?
Speaker 1: Oh and your Rudstad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, little Aaron Neville. So they work together to write
the song, and then of course Denise Williams is the
one that sang the.
Speaker 6: Song every time he pulls me.
Speaker 1: Here's what I know about Denise Williams. She was a
gospel singer, she's a soul singer. So she was the
backup singer for Stevie Wonder on the song Wonderlove Yep.
Also sang back up for ROBERTA. Flax nineteen seventy five
album I Feel.
Speaker 2: Like Making Love?
Speaker 1: Do you like making.
Speaker 2: That one? I think that was a different version.
Speaker 1: That's a vacuums Okay, So the Day I Die Baby Okay.
One of the things I forgot to mention to you,
Denise Williams was actually sang on a song that is
kind of close to your in my Heart. You may
recognize her from this song right here.
Speaker 2: What would we Do?
Speaker 1: What would we Do?
Speaker 2: Yes? So Family Ties, it's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Denise Williams sang that song with Johnny Mathis. It's
the theme song for Family Ties. The backup singers for
Denise Williams on this song are a guy named George
Merrill and a woman named Shannon Rubicin, and they had
one giant hit in the late eighties called Waiting for a Start.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Dean Pitchford and Tom Snow for the scene that
Let's hear it for the boy comes up, they had
written a song but it was called Somebody's Eyes and
when herb Ross heard it, he was like, this is
not the right song for this scene.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that song here in just
a minute.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's still in the soundtrack, but it's not. It
was not the song that was supposed to be in
that scene. And so they said, okay, well, let's get
back together, let's try to write something, and they came
up with the line first, let's hear it for the boy.
They write this upbeat song around that title, and that's
how we get this song.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. That's why this song and Somebody's Eyes the
drum beat is exactly the same because every time they
did the dance montage at the end of the day
with Kevin Bacon and Chris Penn, it was set to
Somebody's Eyes. But when they realized that that tone didn't fit,
they just swapped him out. And this was the last
song added to the album. And in fact, they were like, crap,
we need to write another song really quick because we're
ready to go. We need to plug and play here.
And so it was like pressure, pressure, pressure, Ray Parker
Junior's Ghostbusters type of.
Speaker 2: Thing, right and or or some sugar on me right,
or we need another song he looks like a Lady,
or a hundred other songs. But that's awesome that I
didn't realize that they had been using one song and
had to change it out, but they kept the beat
the same. That's brilliant. My mind is blown, great.
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, How about this let me blow your mind
some more. Okay, we talked earlier in our previous episodes
about how Madonna auditioned for this role. Yeah, okay, she
didn't get it. Which man, that's right before she blew up.
I mean, if she's in this movie as Ariel, could
you see her singing this song?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: I was talking to our buddy James Buckley and we
were going back and forth about the eighties possibility of
Tom Cruise and Madonna being in these roles and then
maybe Madonna singing a song like this. It's that fun
alternate universe we like. I like how this movie or
this song is about. This guy is a total schlub,
but I love him anyway. He can't dance, he can't sing,
he's poor, but I still like him. Yeah, okay, I
got one more thing. Please you ready for this?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: In the video, Denise Williams is singing with a little boy.
Speaker 2: He was in the corner.
Speaker 1: He had a dunce cap on. She removes the dunce
cap and she's like, oh, you come with me and
let's hear it for my baby, right yeah, And he
is in a tux. This a little kid.
Speaker 2: Was he five or six or seven something like that.
Speaker 1: He's dancing around. He's got a top hat, on that
little boy. His name is Aaron Lore. He grows up
to Mary Idna Menzel.
Speaker 2: Oh wow from Wicked and Glee and she sing let
it Go Yeah and Frozen and Frozen.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's crazy. Now that's some deep cuts right there.
Speaker 1: How about that that you're not gonna hear anywhere else?
Speaker 2: Wow? Nice job?
Speaker 1: Yes, or, as John Devilta calls.
Speaker 2: Her, the wickedly talented one and only a death She
said that when she went to see this movie, had
that scene. Had she been picking the scenes that her
song would appear in, she would have picked the scene
because it's so perfect and it is. It is spot
on the best song to put with that montage scene
of Chris Pandlern how to Dance.
Speaker 1: Eighties were great for music montages.
Speaker 2: Yes, straight out of rock Okay, track number three almost paradise.
Speaker 1: About that dream belong to other Men?
Speaker 3: Because each time I got clue the beatings.
Speaker 2: Okay, so why don't we get the lead singer for
lover Boy and the lead singer for Heart together and
see how they sound? Holy crap, their voices blend so
amazingly well.
Speaker 1: There. Really, that was a home run of getting those
two singers at that time in the eighties Mike Reno
Lover Boy. That was the peak of their powers.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And this was kind of the beginning of
his sound track career as well. I mean he also
had a I mean talk about going along with Kenny Loggins.
He had Heaven in Your Eyes from Top Gun Gunyah.
He had Chasing the Angels on Iron Eagle two. He
had when There's a Night from Dream a Little Dream.
I mean, he was rocking up the charts for all
of the eighties.
Speaker 1: This is right before Heart's revitalization.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I mean they were kind of rock stations
came along and we were hearing all kinds of heart
on class Girl.
Speaker 1: You've got seventies Heart like Barracuda and Magic Man and
all that, and then you've got eighties Heart, which is
these Dreams and Never and Alone and all those songs.
This was the bridge between those two. Absolutely, and Wilson
may have the greatest female rock voice of all time.
Speaker 2: She is phenomenal. She's absolutely phenomenal. So this one Dean
Pitchford wrote with Eric Carmon, who is another icon in
the songwriting world, wrote a song on Dirty Dance Dancing
right that the flip of this movie right.
Speaker 1: In your eyes. Yeah, the song was written in one day,
in one twelve hour sitting. So they went to visit
herb Ross in his studio. They had a piano setup
in his office and when they showed up, they said, well,
we've got a song. We think it might be good
for the love theme. Right, So they sat down and
Eric Carmon sang the male part. She's sang the female
apart the Ann Wilson part, And when they were done,
herb Ross took a deep breath and he said, I
think you've written a classic. In nineteen eighty four, this
was the song that got couples to the middle of
the skate floor skating backwards.
Speaker 2: With your girlfriend. Yeah, I can't skate backwards. I would
just dance in a circle at the gymnasium.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things I thought is they were
working with the idea of religion and freedom and sort
of the wrestling of the two that's in the story Footloose, right,
and so they thought about making a song about salvation
or redemption. You know, they're kind of working with these
spiritual words, and that's how they landed on almost paradise.
Were knocking on Heaven's Door.
Speaker 2: Love It Okay.
Speaker 1: This song was released May of nineteen eighty four reached
number seven. This is the third top ten hit, third
of three. By the way, when they were filming the movie,
the song that they had originally intended to plug in
where Almost Paradise was was the Foreigners song I've been
Waiting for a Girl like You. Oh.
Speaker 2: I love that song. I love that song. But the
song's the right thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2: Pitcher says he remembers there sitting there with Carmen and
tossing out lines and coming up with I thought that
dreams belong to other men, because each time I get close,
they'd fall apart again. And he was like, that's great.
I was really really good. And he's sitting there and
he says, oh, how about this. I feared my heart
would beat in secrecy. And Carmen jumps up from the keyboard,
runs over, hugs him and says, that's great. That's one
of the most brilliant lines I've ever heard. And he says,
We've got a lot to do more. We've got to
do a lot more of this writing. And it was
that line. I feared my heart would beat in secrecy.
That was sort of the thing that joined them at
the hip after that.
Speaker 1: Point, all right, do you we done with almost Paradise?
Speaker 2: Well, couples move back.
Speaker 1: All right, do you ready for the next song?
Speaker 2: I've been holding out for it?
Speaker 1: No serious, I have.
Speaker 2: This is my favorite song. I mean, your entire album.
Speaker 1: Let's play, all right, this song is breaking awesome.
Speaker 2: Okay, listen to the bild. Listen to the bild, Listen
to the build. Listen to the harmonies coming in, build harmony,
Bill harmony, and then the drums. Oh my gosh, now
this song. I remember talking to you and you were like,
I don't know how many of these songs hold up,
you know, hold up for I'm like holding out for
a hero. If you turn this on in my house,
every member of my household from nine years old up
to me at forty five will be on the floor
singing and dancing along with the song and losing our minds.
It is so good.
Speaker 3: I'm holding on the night He's got.
Speaker 1: This song's amazing. It's on the tight roll to being
over the top. It's wonderful and it plays so well
in the movie. Yes, it's during the tractor scene right
where they're playing chicken with the tractors and ran his
shoelaces caught. He can't get his foot loose, but I
love it. This song was written by Jim Steinman and
being Patrick.
Speaker 2: Right, who we've talked about before in the def Lefford episode. Yes,
Jim Steinman was the guy that they hired when Mutt
Lang couldn't do it, and he was the one that there.
He was like, all right, that sounds good, and they're like, wait,
we haven't even warmed up yet. He had done Bad
out of Hell, which we talked about back then, and
he had done a lot of stuff with Bonnie Tyler.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, I just want to formally invite you
to come over and listen to our side project, the
podcast Full of Kryptonite with mister John Reid from the
thirty Sething Movie podcast, and of course you and me
meanwhile at the Hull of.
Speaker 2: Justice, we are the super Friends.
Speaker 1: That's right. We cover the TV show Superman and Lois.
We go over every episode. We have a great time,
and John knows so much about Superman. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: If you love Superman, or even if you don't and
you just want to learn more, come check it out
and if you haven't watched Superman and Lois yet, you
need to right now crawl out of your fortress of
solitude and turn the TV on podcast full of crips
a back faster than the speed of Night. I mean
that's huge, absolutely. I mean she was an icon of
the eighties as well. Who I love I love her.
Speaker 1: Her voice is killer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's something you may not know. When they brought
in Jim Steinman and they were writing the song, he
started saying, Hey, I got something to show you. On
the keyboard, he's pounding it out right and he literally
was playing so hard that his fingers started to bleed.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And so he's just Dean Pitcher say, he's just pounding
the crap out of the keyboard and there's blood all
over the keyboard. And Dean Pictuer's like, this guy's freaking awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, I can see it. I mean
with this song is so intense, it's like the galloping
of a horse. Right. It's it's the White Night writing
up to say the day. It's the Superman too good.
Speaker 7: It's good good.
Speaker 2: This song is well. The lyrics are awesome, the music
is awesome, and it lasts. I mean, you put this
song out right now, Well, I don't listen.
Speaker 1: They showed her the movie because they wanted her to
sing it with a sense of urgency, and I think
that comes across.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally. The immediacy of the song is perfect
in everything.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've got to play you something. This blew me
away in the same way that we talked about during
our bon Jovie episode when Desmond Child had written parts
of Living on a Prayer, but he plucked him from
other songs that he had done previously. So Jim Steinman
had a solo album called Bad for Good and there's
a song on there called Stark Raving Love Ready for this? Yes,
all right, here's the beginning.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, identical, identical, identical until you get to the voice.
Speaker 1: Until you get meet loafing. You can take a right
turn right there.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, that's funning. And that came
out in eighty one, so just I mean, they're recording
the songs to this in eighty three, so that was
just two years before that he had put that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we talked about how you know, you think
you've got a good idea and maybe it doesn't hit
for whatever reason, and you think, I don't care. This
is still good, like this is better than it received,
And so he pulls it out again. It often says,
I'm gonna try this again with Bonnie Tyler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they tried the song again only four years
later in the movie Short Circuit Too.
Speaker 1: No, right, everybody remember that, right, I mean, the.
Speaker 2: Movie is so bad that Steve Gutenberg wouldn't even do it.
Speaker 1: It was also in Shrek two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right now. That one actually was pretty good.
I liked that they had a different singer. It was
Jennifer Sonders, but you know, having kids in the early
two thousands, I was very familiar with that, and yeah,
she did a good job with that one.
Speaker 1: This yeah, it was good, very good. This song was
released April thirteenth, nineteen eighty four. This only reached number
thirty four in the US. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: That's nuts? Okay, that is nuts. I am just spiking
the football, as you say, best song, shorter Footloe's best
song in a while.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, hey, I've got deep cuts for you.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 1: There's a cover version of this song that was made
for the TV series Cover Up in nineteen eighty four.
It was sung by Miss e g Daily played Dottie
in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Oh okay, okay, we done
with this one. Yep, all right, everyone, that's it for
holding Now for a hero, Hit stop on your tape player,
kick it out, flip it over, first song on side two,
dancing in the sheets.
Speaker 2: Okay. So it's interesting that, I mean, you've said this
on almost every episode that we've had. It's musical, but
I can remember hitting stop on my tape player and
flipping it over to hear this song. And I love dancing,
doing my break dancing to this song right here, which
is why it's the perfect song for the prohibited dancing
that's going on at the local drive in. That's the
scene from the movie where Ariel puts the tape in
and everybody starts dancing along while they're playing video games
or eating French fries or whatever. Her to this incredibly
good song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she pulls out the boom box in the movie,
hits play under tape player on the boom box, and
the whole place, including the girls in the bathroom or
jamming out to this song. And it's a little bit naughty.
You've got the dancing in the sheets that implies not
just dancing's going on. This is exactly what song about
forlornication and that and that scene is great because John
Litko's character, Reverend Shawn Moore, shows up and he hits
stop on the tape player. He doesn't say anything. She's
just odd and shocked. Oh my dad is here. I'm
gonna be a big trouble. And he says, your mom
thought you'd run out of money, so here's some cash
for you. And it's almost like.
Speaker 2: It's more. It is moret doesn't yell at her, he
doesn't say any condemnation of her, but you see it
in his face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a heart ranging scene. Yeah, it's always dance.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Here's what I know about Shalamar. Okay, I've got I've
got a little bit some just very few facts on Shalamar.
Speaker 2: Well, there aren't very many facts that I have.
Speaker 1: Here's the one thing that I found interesting about Shalamar.
All right, Jody Wattley used to be in Shallamar.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: She had a bunch of big hits in the late eighties,
including looking for a New Love and Don't You Want Me?
And some kind of lover. I mean, she was a big,
big player, but she left Shalamar right before they recorded
the song. Do you know who Shalamar's number one fan was, no,
the thriller himself, mister Michael Jackson. Wow, he was a
big fan of Shallamar.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so the producer Dean Pitchford, you know, wrote
the song with Bill Wolfer. Bill Wolfer is the guy
who played the keyboard and synthesizer on Billy Jean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some connection there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Shalamar was one of those executive creations, not
quite a boy but in that kind of same vein.
There was a concert promoter named Dick Griffy, and he
decided to put together some studio musicians who are really good.
And then he got together with a guy named Don
Cornelius who had created Soul Train, and they had some
good dancers. And you put these dancers who were really
good with these musicians who are really good, and that's
how you get Shallamar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's dangerously close to Millie Vanilli, although these guys
do seeing their own stuff. One of the guys I
mentioned that Michael Jackson was a big fan of Shalamar.
One of the original members of Shalamar. His name is
Jeffrey Daniel. They got to be on the British Top
of the Pop show and that's when Michael Jackson saw him, thought, man,
this guy's awesome. I need to get him as my choreographer.
And that's how he got the job as the choreographer
for Michael Jackson's Bad video. Oh wow, all right, let's
move on to the next song, the second by Kenny Loggins.
It's a song called I'm Free. Heaven Helped the Man.
Speaker 2: It's good beginning.
Speaker 1: Dude, I'm spiking the football on this one. You're saying,
this is my favorite song on the entire album.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's solid, bro, And.
Speaker 1: I love all the songs, but this one just has
that energy and that great chorus and the children chorus
singing I'm Free.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: And it'd be interesting. You know, you've pointed out last
episode that in Purple Rain you don't go more than
ten minutes without a song coming in. It'd be interesting
to check that out as far as Footloot skips. Yeah,
because you've got a couple of different montage scenes of
things happening, and there's always music behind it, and we
know the song was built on the soundtrack, so it'd
be interesting to see how long you go in the
movie without here in music. I bet it's not very long.
Speaker 1: I bet it's kind of the same thing. Yeah, yeah,
And this song is actually used as that swell of
emotion when when Wren wins the argument at the town council.
So anyway, yes, this song was released February fourteenth, nineteen
eighty four. Yeah, Reach number twenty two.
Speaker 2: I mean another hit, Yeah, another hit, And this one's
this one is seems to kind of encapsulate what's going
on with the movie, like the fact that you're the
character is beaten down by this kind of ridiculous restrictive
idea and he breaks free, right, He conquers it. He
conquers his fear, which leads him to conquer the opposition
and they get their wish and finally I'm free.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the music video this one for just
a second, okay. And so this one's about Kenny Logins
breaking out of prison and then he meets a gang,
like a street gang, and he has a picture of
his girlfriend. He's looking for his girlfriend, his girlfriend in
the Virginia Madison.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1: She looks great. You know, she's young major babe in
the eighties.
Speaker 2: What movie was she in that we talked about.
Speaker 1: She was in Highlander two.
Speaker 2: Highlander too.
Speaker 1: That Islander two.
Speaker 2: You said that was the best part of the movie.
That's it, Virginia Madden.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's it.
Speaker 2: So here's an interesting thing like this. Okay, so this
movie came out in eighty four. Yes, Dean Pitchford in
eighty six or so is going to speak at this
film festival. He gets picked up at the airport by
this kid who obviously, you know, he's trying to work
in the industry. So he's done his research and talking
to him about Footloose, and he's like, you know, and
I love how it's kind of autobiographical. And Dean Pitcher's like,
what do you mean. He goes, well, like, you know,
you were from Honolulu and then you know you had
to move out to Kansas City, Missouri. And Dean Pictuer's like, wow,
it was kind of autobiographical. I didn't even realize, oh
that's you moved from you know, I mean, imagine the
difference between Honolulu and Kansas City, Missouri. Back in the sixties.
Speaker 1: Awesome. All right, Moving on song number seven on the album.
This song is called Somebody's Eyes.
Speaker 2: Okay, wait, before you push play, let's listen to the
first beat of the song, the first measure of the song. Okay,
thinking about let's hear it for the boy and the
fact that it's the exact same beat, and go there
it is. That's it, that's it. That's crazy. I believe
I never realized that before. Identical beat.
Speaker 1: But the songs are so different, they have totally different tone.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is This is a sad song. This
is not this is not what you want for the
guys learning how to dance. This is you know, she's
depressed and she's wandering the streets and.
Speaker 3: Such mega somebody size somebody size.
Speaker 1: In. This is a song about Ariel can't get away
because everybody's got their eyes on her. She can't break
free because somebody is always watching her. This is not
let's hear it for the boy and learn how to dance? Right,
But this is a great song.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, fantastic song. I remember calling you whenever we
first started listening to this album again and saying, I
think this song would have been a mega hit had
it not been surrounded by so many super ultra awesome
mega hits. Right, Like, this is a really good song,
but it's just it's kind of drowned out by being
surrounded by so many good songs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was also released in nineteen eighty four. It reached
number sixteen on the Adult Contemporary chart. It's not bad, Yeah,
a very respectable position. And this was used to pace
the dance songs.
Speaker 2: Like we said before, Yeah, this is a This is
a song that I could see parents listening to more
than the kids. Yeah, this was a skipper for me
when I was playing the tape for sure.
Speaker 1: Though my mom loved this song.
Speaker 2: I like a little better now that I'm older, but
it's still probably it's still.
Speaker 1: Gonna In the musical, this song is sung by Rusty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different dynamic and they changed the words
a little bit too, And it's more a plot point
in the musical than it is in the movie. Yeah,
good song song sang by Carla bon Off. She's still
doing stuff. She's still touring and doing stuff. She's more like,
I think, has more made more of her career being
a songwriter. She's done a ton of work for other folks.
But she's still performing, doing great stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, will be ready for the next one.
Speaker 2: We better be all right.
Speaker 1: The next song is called The Girl Gets Around.
Speaker 2: And this is a rocker by the Red Rocker rockiness
rock rock, rockety rock song on the album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was my introduction to Sammy Hagar. Oh really,
I didn't know who he was before this song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well this is and it's perfect. It is again perfect.
This is the second song that you have in the movie,
and it's the point where we're telling you Ariel is
the wild preacher's daughter. Right at first lines of the song, Well,
she'd like you to think she was born yesterday with
their innocent looks and her little ways. When she smiles
at me, she's got angels in her eyes. But I've
seen how she moves, and this girl really cooks. She
taught me some tricks she can't learn and book.
Speaker 1: This is played when she crawls out of the car
and she's standing with her foot on one car and
her foot on her boyfriend's car and they're going full
speed ahead at a semi yes, right, and she's a
psycho on wheels. At this point, I'm like, what is
what is ren doing chasing this girl.
Speaker 2: And then they defy the laws of physics. Somehow the
evil boyfriend manages to pull her entire body in and
a seating position from her ankle.
Speaker 1: He grabs her peaky towel and pulls her in.
Speaker 2: What's song?
Speaker 1: What's great song? Total rocker? I mean, the variety that
we have on this soundtrack is really great. You've got
rock songs, you've got dance songs, you've got ballads, you've
got pop gold.
Speaker 2: You got it all, you really do. There's all kinds
of music to appeal to all kinds of audiences in
this one, and it's all just hook after hook after hook. Now,
this one didn't this one didn't get released.
Speaker 1: This is the only one that did not get released.
Speaker 2: As a single, which is kind of crazy. I mean,
if it had been, it probably would have been in
our sights more than it is. But just the fact
that it didn't get released probably is why we don't
remember it from the album Yep.
Speaker 1: Right after this one, we have I Can't Drive fifty five,
and then another year or so later.
Speaker 2: The band what was that called? Yeah, Yeah, Roth something.
Speaker 1: Other Yeah, And then of course in nineteen eighty five
he joins van Halen flashback to our van Halen van
Hagar episodes. Okay, another great song. I'm not skipping it. No,
in fact, I'm turning it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're crawling out the window.
Speaker 1: I'm crawling out the window and I'm buying my hands
up looking at the semi like all right. Last song
on the album. This song is called never.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: This song was played during the Rage Dance. This is
the rage Dance song the Punch Dance, Punch Dance.
Speaker 2: This is the scene where you had to have four
different body doubles for Kevin Bacon because he's dancing better
than he can dance and doing gymnastics better than you
can do gymnastics, and is physically stronger and better built
than Kevin Bacon actually was. But again, huge memorable scene.
It's been parodied multiple times in different places. The song
is performed by a band called Moving Pictures.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're an Australian band.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Apparently they never got paid any money for this.
Speaker 1: This is a really sad story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The lead singer, Alex Smith said, we were just
the lowest part of the food chain. We got gobbled
up by companies and people that suddenly stopped exist thing,
and when we asked where our money was The things
you get talked into doing anyway. Yeah, we got to
record a sound city and the record plant, but a
couple of bucks would have been nice. Hence we never
play this song.
Speaker 1: They didn't get any money for this, no royalties. Are
you Kidney on an album of this size?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, the guitarist said, we performed it. It was
written by the guys that made the movie, and we
got nothing from it. Someone made a lot of money
out of the song, but it wasn't us.
Speaker 1: That's too bad. Yeah, and I don't blame him for
never playing the song.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, And I haven't heard other songs by this band,
but he's got a stellar eighties sounds to his voice,
and the beginning of the song is very very eighties
with that synthesizer. It's it's a great song. And I
mean the memorableness of the song obviously comes from the
scene of the movie, but it's still powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. And in fact, there is a Japanese
version of this song recorded by the singer m I. E.
Which apparently she's a pretty big deal. I don't know
who she is, but so Japanese. She's Japanese, which is
probably the reason why I don't know anything about her.
But it was a big success in Japan. It took
the song, changed the lyrics, and made Japanese cool. Okay.
So that finishes up the track list. There's a couple
of songs that we didn't talk about that are actually
in the movie that I think are worth mentioning.
Speaker 2: We should at least mention them.
Speaker 1: Okay. So You've got Hurt So Good by John Cougar Mellencamp.
Speaker 2: Huge, big, big song. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that was in the movie not on.
Speaker 2: The soundtrack, probably because it was on his album that
he wanted to sell a lot of probably his album
and not their album. Yep.
Speaker 1: Then you also have I've been Waiting for a Girl
Like You Yeah by Foreigner Right, which we talked about
was originally kind of slotted where the Almost Paradise song
was supposed to go in.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Then you have Bang your Head by Quiet Riot Metal Health. Yes,
they take the tape away from Ren and give him
a flip in the chin telling me better watch his attitude.
That song is not on the soundtrack anywhere. Quiet Riot
was huge in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can remember having that album, having the LP
on that one.
Speaker 1: Oh nice the LP.
Speaker 2: Yeah, him in a leather stray jacket with the metal
ye doctor Doom face on.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna throw this at you. This is gonna
blow your mind.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I listened to the audio commentary and I felt like,
this is like the evil Stepchild that they locked in
the basement they don't tell anybody about. But there was
a footloose rap song.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: We talked about the diversity on this album. Okay. So
there was a rap that Kevin Bacon actually performs in
the movie, and you can see him do it. Okay,
now you gotta look closely. But it's right after the
town council meeting. So they have the victory at the
town council and the next scene is they're riding motorcycles. Okay, okay,
and you can see if you look closely, Kevin Bacon
is clearly mouthing words. That was where that rap was
gonna be. But the producer in Dean Pitchford watched the
movie and they hated it so much they went to
Herbert Ross. You know, Herbert Ross is a stubborn guy,
and so Herbert Ross is like, what's wrong. He's like, well,
I don't really want to say, and he's like, well,
go ahead, it's fine, and he's like the rap. I
can't handle the rap and he's like, okay, well then
it's out. So Herbert Ross was like, okay, fine. But
if he'd gone in like pounding the fist, like you
gotta take this wrap thing out, it sucks. Herbert rossd like,
no way, I'm not. So they pulled it, so it's out.
I can't find it. I can't see it. I can't
listen to it. But if you watch that part of
the movie, you can see mouthing the words.
Speaker 2: All right, Dear Shirley fans, Now, my interest is pequed.
If anybody out there knows the rap that was supposed
to go in footloose, we got to know what that is.
Speaker 1: Lay it on us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You can find us on Facebook at Shirley Podcast.
You can find us on Twitter at Shirley Podcast. Come
back next week where we will do part two of
this comparison, looking at possibly the best album of the
entire decade of the eighties.
Speaker 1: If you like the eighties, you've got to come back
next week.
Speaker 2: We're we're talking about it next week.
Speaker 1: Purple Rain, track by track.
Speaker 2: That's a mighty long time, but I'm going to tell
you that this sucks an ound the out