Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 3: Shouldn't turned down those jukeakes?
Speaker 4: How does Sasa Jonnithan Diasberry jukes?
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Tom Chapin.
Speaker 5: Hello, this is preaching in Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 6: You're listening right now?
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Speaker 2: Show on Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. Tonight we're
Speaker 2: talking about old stuff thanks to Mercedes, and of course
Speaker 2: I took a different interpretation than everybody else did. But
Speaker 2: you're just gonna have to sit and wait and see
Speaker 2: how that turns out. But before we hop in as always,
Speaker 2: allow me to introduce all the crambones who are joining
Speaker 2: us here tonight. First and foremost from the Richter Observatory.
Speaker 2: He has a fear of really tall people. It's called
Speaker 2: fee fi phobia.
Speaker 4: E five four. How you doing, everybody?
Speaker 2: And from paranormally yours, she figured out that pirates never
Speaker 2: finish the alphabet because they keep getting lost at sea. Gil.
Speaker 3: I need to try to remember that one because I
Speaker 3: have a friend who's older.
Speaker 4: He go as a pirate.
Speaker 7: You need to center.
Speaker 2: Well, that just opens up more questions, doesn't it. Yes,
Speaker 2: let's come back to that, all right, welcome back, and
Speaker 2: from the silver screen she saw a Buddhist walk into
Speaker 2: a bar until the bartender make me one with everything.
Speaker 8: Mercedes here, Wow, that's a good one. Brian, Hey, everybody,
Speaker 8: very teep.
Speaker 2: Brian, though right, we try to make you think around here.
Speaker 2: And our officially retired teacher, he wanted to try planting
Speaker 2: an apple tree, but he was nervous. He wasn't sure
Speaker 2: about it, so his wife told him to grow a pair.
Speaker 2: John Kelly is here.
Speaker 9: Oh boy, ouch, how are you?
Speaker 2: Everybody? At last, but not least, the host of shaving cream.
Speaker 2: She recently asked the toy store clerk where the Arnold
Speaker 2: Schwarzenegger action figures were. He said, I'll be back barbarveal.
Speaker 3: Very good.
Speaker 2: Brian, Hey, everybody, all right. So Mercedes came up with
Speaker 2: tonight's topic. I don't know how. It's just old. That
Speaker 2: was the one word to go on, was old.
Speaker 4: Old.
Speaker 2: So did something happen that kind of prompted that or.
Speaker 8: There's no perspective none whatsoever. It just popped into my
Speaker 8: head and I was like, well, we haven't done that,
Speaker 8: so let's.
Speaker 2: It's true we haven't done that. And yeah, so knowing
Speaker 2: what's coming. I don't know the stories. I know the
Speaker 2: tracks that everybody picked. Mineus so far the outlier for
Speaker 2: everybody that, yeah, bless you exactly we are.
Speaker 8: We are all curious.
Speaker 2: Well why don't we hop in? And this week, Neil,
Speaker 2: you're going to lead us off?
Speaker 4: So it's age before beauty, right, Yes, indeed, And for
Speaker 4: this topic, no one here amongst the crambones is more
Speaker 4: qualified to speak on the subject of being old than
Speaker 4: I am myself. I am the septagenarian of the group
Speaker 4: that say that five times fast.
Speaker 2: And you're the only one who uses s A T
Speaker 2: words in the whole group too.
Speaker 4: Hey, it's the glorious results of a misspent youth. What
Speaker 4: can I say? Anyway? The song I picked is called
Speaker 4: The Old Man Down the Road by John Fogerty now
Speaker 4: John Cameron Fogerty born in nineteen forty five is an
Speaker 4: American musician, singer, and songwriter. Now Fogerty began his musical
Speaker 4: career way back in nineteen fifty nine. Now that's going
Speaker 4: that's old baby when he was a.
Speaker 8: Junior and I remember it well.
Speaker 4: Actually so do I. But anyway, his first band was
Speaker 4: in junior high school. It was a cover band that
Speaker 4: was inspired by the rock and roll pioneers, you know,
Speaker 4: Chuck Berry and all that. Elvis along with bassist Stu Cook,
Speaker 4: drummer Doug Clifford, and a little bit later on his
Speaker 4: brother Tom. So I think you can see where this
Speaker 4: might be going. They were originally called the Blue Velvets
Speaker 4: and they signed The band signed with Fantasy Records in
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty four. Now, unbeknownst the Blue Velvets, Fantasy Records
Speaker 4: changed their name to the Gollywogs against their better judgment
Speaker 4: or whatever. They recorded several singles that frankly were not
Speaker 4: all that successful, although they did have one called fight
Speaker 4: Fire that I've heard and I actually liked that. But
Speaker 4: that's neither here nor there. Because this, of course laid
Speaker 4: the groundwork, laid the foundation of what would become Creeden's
Speaker 4: Clearwater Revival, a band that lasted from nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 4: until nineteen seventy two. They would basically introduce what is
Speaker 4: known as swamp rock to the world. Would dominate the
Speaker 4: charts with ten top I'm sorry, nine Top ten singles
Speaker 4: and eight gold albums, and all of them with John
Speaker 4: Fogerty as lead singer, lead guitarist, and the primary songwriter.
Speaker 4: So moving along. After CCR parted ways in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 4: John would release several albums and singles that had some
Speaker 4: moderate success, but he was pretty disillusioned with the whole
Speaker 4: music business. He was kind of beaten down by it.
Speaker 4: I think what I read. He wouldn't even perform CCR
Speaker 4: songs at concerts at that time.
Speaker 2: He got hosed by Fantasy.
Speaker 4: Well we'll get to that in a minute. But after
Speaker 4: his hiatus of several years, he re emerged in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty five with an album called center Field, and it
Speaker 4: went right to the top of the charts. The title
Speaker 4: track is frequently played on classic rock radio stations and
Speaker 4: at baseball games right to this day. The LP also
Speaker 4: included the critically acclaimed top ten hit The Old Man
Speaker 4: on the Road, which we'll hear a little bit shortly,
Speaker 4: and it also led to some big legal problems for Fogerty,
Speaker 4: which we will also talk about a little later. But first,
Speaker 4: why don't we hear the song?
Speaker 10: You take um the problem the Mountains, You take a
Speaker 10: Langan problem scat, you bring a prong man to the bag,
Speaker 10: and you make the young mom crack.
Speaker 6: You got the had it had You got the jump
Speaker 6: bare round.
Speaker 7: You got the had.
Speaker 9: The old man.
Speaker 11: Down the road.
Speaker 6: You got the voices beating riddles.
Speaker 10: You got the hash black coat, you gotta foot tape coat,
Speaker 10: rasteak hat and staying right in the road.
Speaker 6: You got the had it hat.
Speaker 9: You got to jump up the way.
Speaker 6: You got the hid it hide it half.
Speaker 9: The old man.
Speaker 6: Down row.
Speaker 10: Stemaker rim call you love, you make the barget of
Speaker 10: the happen.
Speaker 9: Put a shed up.
Speaker 10: Across the window when the old man comes around.
Speaker 11: You got the half of half.
Speaker 6: You got the jump bare round you, you got the
Speaker 6: hid hide it half the old man. It's down a roup,
Speaker 6: the old man, it's down a rough.
Speaker 4: That's an awesome song. I think it's cool now. Lyrically Lyrically,
Speaker 4: the song depicts a mysterious kind of supernatural figure or
Speaker 4: wizard or sorcerer or something like that who commands the
Speaker 4: forces of nature and strikes fear into the hearts of
Speaker 4: men with an almost demonic presence, kind of like a
Speaker 4: voodoo hoodoo that they do do so well, that kind
Speaker 4: of thing. But the lyrics are also analogous to kind
Speaker 4: of the ugly side of the music industry that Fogerty
Speaker 4: had been experiencing firsthand when he was with to See
Speaker 4: Records and its owner of Saul's Ants. Now, how do
Speaker 4: we get into this story?
Speaker 2: Which story you got?
Speaker 12: Well?
Speaker 4: No, no, well basically, well, let me go, let me
Speaker 4: go back a little ways. That back when CCR broke up,
Speaker 4: Fogerty had to give up his copyrights and publishing rights
Speaker 4: for all the credence songs that he wrote to Saul's Ants,
Speaker 4: the president of Fantasy Records and Fancay Records themselves, in
Speaker 4: order to be released from his contract, which sounds like
Speaker 4: a pretty hefty price to pay. I mean, but you
Speaker 4: gotta do what you gotta do. So anyway, he lets
Speaker 4: you know, releases Old Man down the road and finds
Speaker 4: himself getting sued for plagiarism by pall z Ants and
Speaker 4: Fantasy Records. Accused of plagiarism for sounding like himself. How
Speaker 4: does that? How does that happen? Well, as I say that,
Speaker 4: I mean it's it's a pretty underhanded thing if you
Speaker 4: ask me for you know, but this is the music business.
Speaker 4: People they are not they are not good people. They
Speaker 4: are not nice people, not musicians. That's another story. But
Speaker 4: I'm talking about the suits. So yeah, he gets sued
Speaker 4: for ripping off himself. Basically the song was run through
Speaker 4: the Jungle that Fogerty had written for CCR many years before,
Speaker 4: and they said, no, it's just like that. But ultimately,
Speaker 4: ultimately Fogerty did prevail in the Landmark case and proved
Speaker 4: the two songs were distinctly different compositions by actually playing
Speaker 4: them on his guitar in court on the witness stand, which.
Speaker 2: I think is I never get a jury duty for that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, for that, that would be the best concert ever.
Speaker 4: But and well, by the way, Yeah, Fogerty also wrote
Speaker 4: a couple of other songs directed directed towards Zance, which
Speaker 4: I think he got, you know, sued for too, like
Speaker 4: for defamation or something he was going to be so yeah,
Speaker 4: it was it caused a little bit of a problem.
Speaker 2: But Zance Can't Dance was the track on there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: dance can't dance. But he'll steal your money watch them,
Speaker 2: or he'll rob you blind. And so I know he's
Speaker 2: threatened another lawsuit, so they chang instead of Zance it
Speaker 2: was Vance Can't Dance. But the video for that is
Speaker 2: a pig that's literally robbing the singer in the video.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there there was no ambiguity in that whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was another one called mister Greed. I think
Speaker 4: that was obviously maybe a little less uh, you know,
Speaker 4: it didn't mention him by name. But yeah, But anyway,
Speaker 4: aside from all that, in my opinion, the old Man
Speaker 4: down the Road is also a metaphor kind of for
Speaker 4: what's waiting for us all at the end of the line,
Speaker 4: at the end of the road. And I'm talking about
Speaker 4: you know, the grim Reaper missed the death that we
Speaker 4: all have to come down the end of the road
Speaker 4: and meet eventually. But on a lighter note CCR. They
Speaker 4: were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Speaker 4: back in nineteen ninety three. Fogerty was placed on the
Speaker 4: Rolling Stone magazine's list of the one hundred Greatest Songwriters,
Speaker 4: landing at number forty, and on its list of the
Speaker 4: one hundred greatest singers of all time, and that would
Speaker 4: be number seventy two for him. He was also inducted
Speaker 4: into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in two thousand and five. Now,
Speaker 4: believe it or not, and I full transparency here, I
Speaker 4: never saw Creeden's Clearwater Revival perform live in concert. It
Speaker 4: was well, they broke up in seventy two. I was
Speaker 4: going to stuff, but I don't even remember them playing
Speaker 4: anywhere particularly that was accessible to a sixteen or fifteen
Speaker 4: year old at the time. But I am going to
Speaker 4: see John Fogerty this fall, possibly twice, so I can
Speaker 4: make up for that. And back in two thousand and
Speaker 4: eight at the south By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 4: I actually got to sit and eat dinner at a
Speaker 4: restaurant with Creden's Clearwater Revival's bass player Stu Cook, who
Speaker 4: we've gelled as those all sorts of tales of you know,
Speaker 4: how much how.
Speaker 2: Much dislike there is amongst Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that, And he was also with Doug Clifford. They
Speaker 4: had a group called I don't know, they may still
Speaker 4: be doing it Creden's clear Water Revisited, and they were
Speaker 4: doing that at the time, which apparently I didn't. I
Speaker 4: didn't see them, but apparently all I heard was good
Speaker 4: things that they almost sounded better than the originals. But
Speaker 4: I can't, I can't.
Speaker 2: I think there were issue legal issues with the name too.
Speaker 2: I think they tried to take Creeden's clear Water Revival,
Speaker 2: and then that turned into a mess, so they wound
Speaker 2: up renaming the group.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I remember I was somewhere and they were in
Speaker 4: the area, but I didn't get to see them. I know,
Speaker 4: it was just not feasible. Anyway, That's that's my story
Speaker 4: for today. And now go see a concert.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you and I are going to be
Speaker 2: at the same show, at least one of them.
Speaker 4: Uh huh, that's right. Yet at the site of Woodstock itself,
Speaker 4: the original festival in dethel Yep will be there, which
Speaker 4: they played at, and we're kind of overshadowed or undershadowed
Speaker 4: by the Grateful Dead, who took more time tuning their
Speaker 4: guitars than they did actually playing. Yeah, and by the
Speaker 4: time Creden's came on, if I'm not mistaken, it was
Speaker 4: like way you know, everyone in the morning, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 4: everyone had fallen asleep.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well he puts on a great show. His
Speaker 2: two sons are in the band, you know, they each
Speaker 2: play guitar and all that, So definitely worth going to
Speaker 2: see him.
Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to it. Like I said, I never
Speaker 4: saw him, so this is this will be a first
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's eighty now, I believe right.
Speaker 4: Yep, yeah, if he was born forty five. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: he hated a birthday last year and all that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, definitely a good show.
Speaker 4: I'm catching up to him, but not not quite.
Speaker 2: And the video for the Old Man down the Road
Speaker 2: is definitely eighties but it's worth watching. It was simple
Speaker 2: but kind of creative. It follows a guitar cable everywhere
Speaker 2: through the woods, down the road, blah blah blah, and
Speaker 2: it just snakes all over the place. And of course
Speaker 2: at the end of the cable is John playing and singing.
Speaker 4: So he appears in it a few times as you
Speaker 4: travel through the you know, in different not disguises, but
Speaker 4: different different guys. Is I guess it's good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, fun, excellent. All right, you got a thumbs up
Speaker 2: for me so far one of my favorites, so works
Speaker 2: for me. Good lead off, all right, thanks Neil, Gail.
Speaker 2: We're up to you.
Speaker 4: You know me.
Speaker 3: I'm always looking for something a little different. I didn't
Speaker 3: want to just pick, you know, anything too well known,
Speaker 3: although some of the people in this group might know
Speaker 3: some of these people's work. The band I chose is
Speaker 3: Bowling for Soup. Yes, did you, Barbara, didn't you do
Speaker 3: a Bowling for Soup song once.
Speaker 6: On a while back?
Speaker 13: But I don't remember which one I picked because I
Speaker 13: love them all.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I did one on this show also yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, I knew somebody. Yeah yeah yeah. So apparently they
Speaker 3: are commonly abbreviated to BFS and they're an American rock band.
Speaker 3: Formed in Wichita Falls, Texas, in nineteen ninety four. They've
Speaker 3: had various member changes over the years, between people going
Speaker 3: to do solo projects and people having health issues, and
Speaker 3: it all ended up where following the lead guitarist, Chris
Speaker 3: Bernie's retirement in twenty twenty five, Jarrett Reddick is the
Speaker 3: only remaining original member now. Before they were Bowling for Soup,
Speaker 3: they were a band called Rubberneck, but they decided in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three to change the name of their group
Speaker 3: to Bowling for Soup, which was derived from the phrase
Speaker 3: bowling for and it's a word that begins with S
Speaker 3: but is poop from a comedy act by Steve Martin.
Speaker 3: And in nineteen ninety six, Bowling for Soup relocated to Denton, Texas.
Speaker 3: They have done some work with the Dolly Ruts. September
Speaker 3: eighth of ninety No September twenty fifth, twenty twelve, they
Speaker 3: released a split album with The Dolly Ruts and Patent
Speaker 3: Pending called One Big Happy, where the bands performed covers
Speaker 3: of each other's songs. Those three bands went on tour
Speaker 3: of the same name that year. In October twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Bowling for Soup had planned and announced a Surf the
Speaker 3: UK tour in twenty twenty one with Litt and The
Speaker 3: Dolly Rots, but they were forced to cancel due to
Speaker 3: why what happened in twenty twenty COVID. It had to
Speaker 3: be rescheduled, and it got rescheduled to April of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. Now, the song I chose.
Speaker 2: Is from.
Speaker 3: Well, the song itself is getting old sucks, but everybody's
Speaker 3: doing it, which that's true in it.
Speaker 2: I don't know I'm getting older. I'm kind of liking it.
Speaker 4: You know, as the older you get, the more you
Speaker 4: like it too, because from what I'm told, it beats
Speaker 4: the alternative.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, when you're.
Speaker 4: Young, you say, oh, I don't want to get old.
Speaker 4: I don't want to get old, and suddenly it's like,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, this doesn't sound like actually a bad idea.
Speaker 4: I think I'll keep signing up for this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's better than not getting old. So getting
Speaker 3: old sucks, but everybody's doing it. Is a catchy pop
Speaker 3: punk song I Didn't know that was a thing? Pop
Speaker 3: Punk released as a single on May seventh, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: and later featured on their twenty twenty two studio album
Speaker 3: Pop Drunk Snot Bread Now. The name of that album
Speaker 3: was a riff on uh, pop Punk's not dead.
Speaker 2: Gotcha? Okay, that was a long walk, but I got
Speaker 2: you there.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 14: You may think it's funny, but it's not.
Speaker 3: The song itself pokes fun at the physical and cultural
Speaker 3: realities of aging, such as going to bed early, guilty,
Speaker 3: hurting knees, got one, and not understanding TikTok. While I
Speaker 3: deal with is Facebook, I don't have the energy to
Speaker 3: deal with anything else. Also, the themes are complaining about
Speaker 3: loud cars, fading tattoos, early bedtimes, asking what's TikTok, and
Speaker 3: dealing with modern media and realizing that while aging hurts,
Speaker 3: everyone goes through it together. So let's have a listen.
Speaker 15: He grew up three blocks away the same old neighborhood
Speaker 15: to do much time on is one, then there's no
Speaker 15: football on.
Speaker 12: Where did the time go?
Speaker 6: What's that on his face?
Speaker 7: So we thought we live forever out of thing? We're
Speaker 7: up to that.
Speaker 6: By nine?
Speaker 7: Well, then the streets sound we come playing. When cons try,
Speaker 7: he said, saying the music is insanely love turn.
Speaker 6: To No Wady and looking back, it was all worth it.
Speaker 16: The truth is getting all suss, but everybody's doing it.
Speaker 6: We were t on the Saint John.
Speaker 15: We changed the same girls, we played in, all the
Speaker 15: same beads, each other's bestest.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 7: You had a heart attack.
Speaker 6: I've got too bunnies.
Speaker 7: We don't want to live forever? What the fuck is
Speaker 7: tip to child checkers.
Speaker 15: In the streets, how we complained when cons try to say,
Speaker 15: saying the music is insanely not crazed, and looking.
Speaker 9: Back it was all worthy.
Speaker 6: The truth is getting all subs good. Everybody's doing it.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 7: I don't think we.
Speaker 15: Can do bridges anymore.
Speaker 6: We need a break.
Speaker 16: Sounds like words original in here and old Milwaukee and Folgers.
Speaker 12: For those new ballads, we.
Speaker 7: Have to run with them the streets.
Speaker 15: Now we complain when const she says him the music
Speaker 15: and anything.
Speaker 7: Now the smoothies our car shots and remakes and ship
Speaker 7: down when we playing on music to our memories away
Speaker 7: and looking that she was all worth it, all worth
Speaker 7: the true is getting all sucks.
Speaker 14: But everybody's doing it.
Speaker 8: Everybody's doing it.
Speaker 3: Everything that almost sounds like it could be a theme
Speaker 3: song for like a sitcom.
Speaker 4: Totally definitely yeah, you know, yeah, growing old but doing
Speaker 4: it right reminds me of the phrase, you know, growing
Speaker 4: old disgracefully.
Speaker 2: Didn't they do a theme for a was it a
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon show?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 3: So, Ricking No, rick and Morning.
Speaker 2: No, Now it was a kids show. I know they
Speaker 2: did a theme for a kids show. I have to
Speaker 2: look it up. I don't remember which one.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I had never heard this song before I
Speaker 3: did the research for tonight's show. The album charted and
Speaker 3: this I don't know. I don't know if it didn't
Speaker 3: chart over here or what, but this is just the
Speaker 3: UK figures. UK album sales peak position was eighty. UK
Speaker 3: album downloads official charts peaked at twenty seven. UK independent
Speaker 3: albums official charts peaked at thirty seven, UK physical albums
Speaker 3: peaked at seventy three, and UK Rock and Metal Albums
Speaker 3: official charts peaked at number thirteen.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Their musical style has been described as pop punk, pop rock,
Speaker 3: alternative rock, and power pop. Wow, that's kind of a variety.
Speaker 3: AllMusic describes Bowling for Soups style as a feverishly catchy
Speaker 3: and humorous blend of power pop, ska punk, and hardcore,
Speaker 3: further characterizing it as a cheeky take on pop punk
Speaker 3: and melodic alt pop. Bowling for Soups influences include Green Day, Bad, Religion, Ramones, NFX,
Speaker 3: I have no idea who that is, descendants Elvis Costello
Speaker 3: and Willie Nelson.
Speaker 2: Willie's the og.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think you might have something to do
Speaker 4: with habit ah, just one just guessing, you know.
Speaker 3: Ultimate Guitar Senior editor David Slavkovich named Bowling for Soup
Speaker 3: the fifteenth weirdest band name of all time, highlighting a
Speaker 3: quote from one of the site's users who asked, are
Speaker 3: they bowling to obtain soup? Or are they bowling in
Speaker 3: the name of soup?
Speaker 2: Too?
Speaker 4: Deep?
Speaker 3: Valid question, Yeah, very philosophical.
Speaker 13: So they actually the theme song that we're thinking of
Speaker 13: is Phineas and Ferb and It's cold today is going
Speaker 13: to be a great day.
Speaker 3: Yep ah, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was Disney, not Nickelodeon, Disney Disney yep. Actually
Speaker 2: does Disney own them yet?
Speaker 4: I know? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, who knows?
Speaker 3: Well, considering since Disney owns the Star Wars, uh everything. Now,
Speaker 3: that makes Princess Leah a Disney princess.
Speaker 2: You may have heard they bought you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of the Fox Yeah TV shows and all that, including
Speaker 2: mash So Corporal, And I.
Speaker 14: Think that would make him very happy.
Speaker 9: I really do.
Speaker 2: Section eight all the way.
Speaker 14: Ye, pibity bobbity boo.
Speaker 17: Wasn't he the only one that actually served in the
Speaker 17: Korean War on that cast?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a veteran. Yeah. Interesting, All right, well done,
Speaker 2: I don't want to step on you if you're Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a good one. That was cute. I like that one.
Speaker 2: I hadn't heard that one either. All right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: take a real quick break and then uh we'll be
Speaker 2: back with more.
Speaker 1: So stick around Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: This concludes the first part of this cassette. Please turn
Speaker 2: the cassette over and begin again on side to listen
Speaker 2: to Hudson River Radio dot Com. Don't make us come
Speaker 2: and find you and welcome back. We're talking about old
Speaker 2: stuff and mercedes, it's your turn, it is my turn.
Speaker 9: I am up.
Speaker 8: I was the one that picked this and when I
Speaker 8: picked the topic, I had no idea what I was
Speaker 8: going to pick for this song.
Speaker 2: It was just vague enough that it could go in
Speaker 2: so many directions and that's great.
Speaker 4: I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 8: So when I actually thought about this topic, my immediate
Speaker 8: thought was Aquilung. And I know it's a song that
Speaker 8: like everybody knows, so it's a little cliche, but it
Speaker 8: absolutely fits for me. It is a song that really
Speaker 8: personifies an aging, old homeless man for me. The lyrics
Speaker 8: are very vivid and detailed. I mean immediately when you
Speaker 8: hear the opening lines, sitting on a park bench eyeing
Speaker 8: little girls with bad intents, not running down his nose,
Speaker 8: creasy fingers, smearing shabby clothes, you get a very descriptively
Speaker 8: clear picture of where you are and who the person
Speaker 8: is that you're observing.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 8: It was written by Ian Anderson of the bandje Throtel
Speaker 8: and his then wife Jenny Franks. Anderson has said, and
Speaker 8: apparently she wrote those first two lines that I just recited.
Speaker 8: And Anderson has said Aqualung wasn't a concept album, although
Speaker 8: a lot of people thought so. The idea came from
Speaker 8: a photograph that my wife at the time took of
Speaker 8: a tramp in London. I had feelings of guilt about
Speaker 8: the homeless, as well as fear and insecurity with people
Speaker 8: like that who seem a little scary, and I suppose oh,
Speaker 8: that was combined with a slightly romanticized picture of the
Speaker 8: person who is a homeless but yet a free spirit,
Speaker 8: who either won't or can't join in society's prescribed formats.
Speaker 8: Although the album is not a concept album, it is
Speaker 8: interesting to me that the Aquelon character is mentioned again
Speaker 8: in another song on the album, Cross Eyed Mary, which
Speaker 8: gives you an insight on the kind of person that
Speaker 8: she is. Aqualung is on the album called Aqualung, released
Speaker 8: in nineteen seventy one and never released as a single
Speaker 8: because of its length six minutes and thirty four seconds.
Speaker 8: At the time, there was a very clear divide between
Speaker 8: AM and FM radio stations. AM played three minute pop
Speaker 8: hits while FM played deep cuts. The album was Jethro
Speaker 8: Tell's first American top ten album and reached number seven
Speaker 8: in June of nineteen seventy one. The members are Ian Anderson,
Speaker 8: David Goodear, John O'Hara, Scott Hammond, and Jack Clark, with
Speaker 8: many more past members the Watercolor album. The Watercolor Album
Speaker 8: cover art was created by the artist Burton Silverman. Jethro
Speaker 8: Tell's manager, Terry Ellis, commissioned him after seeing his work
Speaker 8: in Time magazine. Burton took some photos of Ian Anderson
Speaker 8: wearing his old overcoat before he painted the cover, and
Speaker 8: the resulting work looked a lot like a haggard version
Speaker 8: of Ian, who was not pleased with the painting. Despite
Speaker 8: his objections, the cover became, of course, an iconic image
Speaker 8: in rock. The effect that you this is fascinating to me.
Speaker 8: The fact that you hear when the song hits the
Speaker 8: line sun Streaking Cold is called telephone burbles. Has anybody
Speaker 8: heard of that hope where you remove all frequencies except
Speaker 8: for a narrow band around the one thousand hertz mark.
Speaker 8: This is to reproduce the sound of a telephone. Anderson
Speaker 8: is quoted as saying, it's also like when you're a
Speaker 8: dressing a crowd through a megaphone, or even perhaps the
Speaker 8: tiny sound of a voice trumpet, which is a non
Speaker 8: active megaphone. It's a form of address. It's a sound
Speaker 8: that woke up young pilots in nineteen forty one and
Speaker 8: sent them into the skies to battle the the hun
Speaker 8: This is the sound of the Tonoi, the calling to
Speaker 8: arms of young men going up in their hurricanes and spitfires.
Speaker 8: It's something that's very much part of the blood of
Speaker 8: an Englishman.
Speaker 3: Tony is what they call like a public good arrest system.
Speaker 8: Ah, thank you, I did not look that up. So
Speaker 8: let's hear it and know we are not playing the
Speaker 8: six minute version. You can thank me later.
Speaker 2: No, okay, really, we'll just fade it out at some
Speaker 2: point then.
Speaker 8: I guess I did send you the radio edit.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's see how it goes.
Speaker 5: Stung spunding down his nose, raising big.
Speaker 6: Spirit, shabby flood.
Speaker 12: Hailove, crying in the full sun, watching over greeny pad
Speaker 12: is love Love, feeling like a dead dock.
Speaker 9: Smith out lobby, the.
Speaker 7: Love Manlove.
Speaker 18: Sunstreak and cold, a hold man mon drink lovely taking
Speaker 18: time the only way.
Speaker 9: Mad.
Speaker 19: As it bends to pick Duggan, it goes down to
Speaker 19: the bark and warns his feet feeling alone. The army
Speaker 19: is up park road.
Speaker 12: Solihlam boat and a club teeth equal longer, friend, don't
Speaker 12: just start away, leasing.
Speaker 9: Your poor old sort.
Speaker 6: You see it's only me. Do you still remember when.
Speaker 12: Decembers fucking freeze, when the ice the krings.
Speaker 6: Onto your fill w a sqeak, make agony, making a
Speaker 6: sat rattle.
Speaker 20: The glass threats with deep sea diam sounds, and the flowers.
Speaker 7: Fill night lamps and the screaming.
Speaker 11: Sunscreaming cold.
Speaker 6: An old man wanderloaded, taking time the only way heloads.
Speaker 12: Leg turning bad events a pair to tucket. It goes
Speaker 12: down to the bark and walk his feeling at home.
Speaker 12: The army und salvation had bad covert.
Speaker 6: Aqualung.
Speaker 12: My friends, don't just got away unathing your brown son,
Speaker 12: you see it.
Speaker 21: Turn back along, my friend, don't just start away uneasy,
Speaker 21: your poor old summat your seats.
Speaker 9: Sitting on the monk bench.
Speaker 14: I met the girls with fading heads.
Speaker 20: And stop spuning down his nose, reasying a smearing, shabby.
Speaker 12: Headlong trying in the full.
Speaker 9: Sun what tring have a brady pan?
Speaker 6: Is long.
Speaker 12: Headlong feeling like a dead duck, spending out cases of
Speaker 12: his brow long.
Speaker 8: Hackld Brian, thank you for playing the whole time. It's
Speaker 8: so good, though it's so good. I really do get
Speaker 8: lost in that song. So I don't think I have
Speaker 8: to say much more about the band. They are John's
Speaker 8: favorite band and he's done many of the songs. But
Speaker 8: I do want to add that an aqualung is a
Speaker 8: portable breathing machine, which Anderson had seen on the TV
Speaker 8: show Sea Hunt, where there was a lot of heavy
Speaker 8: underwater breathing. Anderson thought that. Anderson thought that's how people
Speaker 8: might refer to this character in the song because of
Speaker 8: his heavy breathing from being unhealthy. He didn't know that
Speaker 8: it was a brand name, and the company Aqualunge sued
Speaker 8: after the album came out. The case was eventually dropped.
Speaker 8: I looked up a few of the terms that I
Speaker 8: had never understood. So a dog end is a cigarette butt,
Speaker 8: not what you always thought.
Speaker 2: Is that a British thing? A dog?
Speaker 8: Not that I know, but maybe it's an old British thing.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 4: It isn't It isn't the bad end of a dog,
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 4: No, yeah, it's a cigarette yeah.
Speaker 8: And going down to the bog to warm his feet
Speaker 8: is probably about peeing on his shoes to warm his feet.
Speaker 8: That's from a comment on song facts, so that's not verified, but.
Speaker 2: That seems counterproductive in the long run.
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, yeah, But you never know what you're going
Speaker 8: to do in a pinch either, so who knows. There's
Speaker 8: a lot of comments about Aqualunge being a pedophile, which
Speaker 8: some people say that it is actually the impression of
Speaker 8: the people walking by him, not necessarily what he is.
Speaker 8: So people are just assuming all kinds of things about
Speaker 8: him as they see him sitting on the park bench.
Speaker 8: Whether he is really all those things or maybe happy,
Speaker 8: we don't know. Also, there was a comment on song
Speaker 8: song what did I say? Song Facts from Jenny Franks
Speaker 8: from Colorado saying this is all wrong. I was married
Speaker 8: to Ian Anderson and I wrote the lyrics. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 8: seems I'm being edged out of my credit. I'm going
Speaker 8: to assume that that was his actual wife, but it's
Speaker 8: hard to tell what she was referring to exactly the
Speaker 8: way the comments landed. Oh and there is an official
Speaker 8: video of the song that was released in Anybody No.
Speaker 8: Twenty twenty one?
Speaker 2: Wow really twenty twenty one?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, free time during.
Speaker 8: COVID huh I guess yeah, I mean, who knew? I
Speaker 8: thought that was super interesting. I did watch it.
Speaker 14: It was it was good. It wasn't great, but.
Speaker 8: That's aquaalum.
Speaker 4: All right. Well, I think that that opening riff that dead.
Speaker 4: That that is like as iconic as like you as Beethoven.
Speaker 2: M it's you know what it is the moment you
Speaker 2: hear it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, Neil do knew anything about
Speaker 8: the story about when they were in the studio and
Speaker 8: they were recording it and they came to the riff
Speaker 8: and apparently in those days you had to get a
Speaker 8: riff sort of on first take. And oh my gosh,
Speaker 8: now I can't remember what the other band was that
Speaker 8: it was in the studio next to them, and they
Speaker 8: came out somebody like really huge and they came out
Speaker 8: out in there. They were like waving to the guitar
Speaker 8: player is he was trying to lay down these tracks
Speaker 8: and he was very stressed out. I didn't hear that one,
Speaker 8: but I'm going to have to look up who it was.
Speaker 14: But but it worked.
Speaker 8: The riff is great.
Speaker 4: I love that. Yeah. No, if I say that that,
Speaker 4: you know, one hundred years from now people are going
Speaker 4: to hear that and know what it is. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: what I think exactly the same thing with maybe like
Speaker 4: the opening chords to uh Purple Haze by Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know you can name that song in one you know,
Speaker 4: one note.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a good one. All right, thank you, Mercedes, John,
Speaker 2: You're up okay. Well, as Mercedes pointed out, jeth Rotell
Speaker 2: certainly is just about my favorite band, but I also
Speaker 2: have another favorite, and it's a decidedly different form of music,
Speaker 2: Harry Chapin and his folk rock, and I have been
Speaker 2: I've loved that man's story songs my entire life, you know,
Speaker 2: ever since I was a kid. I remember having vinyl
Speaker 2: with Harry Chapin on it, and you know, and it's
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just.
Speaker 11: Take to it.
Speaker 17: And there's a lot of selections there. You know, this
Speaker 17: is a great topic. It's an interesting topic. What's interesting
Speaker 17: is you can go in so many different ways, the
Speaker 17: way Mercedes went, you know, the way Neil had gone
Speaker 17: and everybody. It's just so many different directions. My direction
Speaker 17: was Cat's in the Cradle. Now everybody knows Cat's in
Speaker 17: the Cradle. I know that, But a couple of little
Speaker 17: bit interesting points about it.
Speaker 2: It is from the.
Speaker 17: Album Verities and Bouldered ash from nineteen seventy four, when
Speaker 17: Harry Chapin was about thirty one years of age, So
Speaker 17: we're talking.
Speaker 2: About age and growing old.
Speaker 17: When he wrote this, he was thirty one, so I
Speaker 17: think in a lot of ways, I think he's a
Speaker 17: very old soul. You know, you could see a young
Speaker 17: child sometimes and you can say they have a very
Speaker 17: old soul. I really think Shapin had an old soul
Speaker 17: if you go back to some of those original cuts
Speaker 17: that he had done, and it just it just as
Speaker 17: a certain sophistication to the songs themselves. The song itself
Speaker 17: cats in the Cradle. It's narrated by a guy who
Speaker 17: becomes a father. He's constantly too busy with his work
Speaker 17: to spend time with his son, despite his son looking
Speaker 17: up to him and promising he will grow up to
Speaker 17: be just like him, and when the son graduates from college,
Speaker 17: he declines his father's offer to relax with him and
Speaker 17: instead ask for the car keys. In the final stanza,
Speaker 17: the now retired father calls his adult son and asks
Speaker 17: to spend some time together, but the son is now
Speaker 17: too busy with his own work and family time. Obviously,
Speaker 17: the son had grown up just like his old man.
Speaker 17: So the song itself, I think is about the full
Speaker 17: circle of life, you know. And I think no matter
Speaker 17: what kind of past somebody might have, whether it's with family,
Speaker 17: whether it's whatever it happens to be, life always seems
Speaker 17: to have these these circles, as I think Harry Chapman
Speaker 17: would say, So, why don't we play the song and
Speaker 17: we'll talk a little bit.
Speaker 9: After the child arrived.
Speaker 22: Just the other day he came to the world and LEU,
Speaker 22: you were way, but there were planes to catch and
Speaker 22: bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away,
Speaker 22: and he was talking for and doing, and as.
Speaker 23: He grew he'd say, I'm gonna be like you. And
Speaker 23: you know, I'm gonna be like you and the cats
Speaker 23: and the man when you're coming.
Speaker 6: Home that or don't don't win?
Speaker 9: Who will get together there?
Speaker 6: You know, we'll have a good time.
Speaker 9: Man. My son turned in just the other day.
Speaker 6: He said, thanks for the ball that tomorrow let's play.
Speaker 9: Can you give me the throw?
Speaker 6: I said, or not today, I got a lot to do.
Speaker 6: He said, that's okay.
Speaker 14: Then you want a way boy smile never tim and.
Speaker 9: Said I'm gonna be like him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I'm gonna be like him and the
Speaker 6: cats in the brail and the.
Speaker 2: Seas little ball with the man on the ball when.
Speaker 6: You're coming home that or don't don't win.
Speaker 9: Will get together there? You know we'll have a good time.
Speaker 6: Then.
Speaker 4: Well it came from.
Speaker 12: Gollege just the other day, so much like a man
Speaker 12: I just can't to say his son, am brown of you?
Speaker 6: And you said for a while. He shook his.
Speaker 2: Head and he said, with a smile.
Speaker 12: What I feeling like, Dad, is the power of the
Speaker 12: car keys, see you laid again, have them breathe, and
Speaker 12: the cats in.
Speaker 14: The braider and the silverspoon, little boy, and the man
Speaker 14: of the bone.
Speaker 6: When you're coming home.
Speaker 12: Son, I don't know when we will get together there,
Speaker 12: and you know we'll have a good time.
Speaker 6: Then.
Speaker 9: I've long since your time.
Speaker 6: My son has moved away. Call him up just the
Speaker 6: other day. I said, I'd like to see you if
Speaker 6: you don't mind. He said, I'd love to.
Speaker 9: Dad, if I can find the day you've seen. My
Speaker 9: new jobs are hassled and the kids of the flood.
Speaker 23: But it's your nice talking to you that if mature
Speaker 23: nice talking to you.
Speaker 8: And as a hung up the phone, it occurred to me.
Speaker 9: He grown up just like me.
Speaker 6: My boy was just like me. And the Cats in
Speaker 6: the Cradle and soon the little.
Speaker 9: Warclue and a man on when you're coming home son.
Speaker 9: I don't know, man, but we'll get together there that
Speaker 9: we're gonna have a good time there, Okay.
Speaker 17: Cats in the Cradle from Veriteth and Balderdash teen seventy
Speaker 17: four Harry Chapin, as we said, it was thirty one
Speaker 17: when he wrote this particular song. A couple of interesting
Speaker 17: facts about the song. The chorus itself references a children's
Speaker 17: game called Cat's Cradle, silver Spoons and silver spoons Excuse
Speaker 17: me as traditional baby gifts, as well as the nursery
Speaker 17: rhymes little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon,
Speaker 17: and part of the beginning of the song was influenced
Speaker 17: by Chapin's wife, Sandra, in a poem she wrote. Another
Speaker 17: interesting point, Chapin himself is quoted as saying the song
Speaker 17: was about his own relate. This song was actually about
Speaker 17: his own relationship with his son Josh, and frankly it
Speaker 17: scares him to death. So interesting points there. So it's
Speaker 17: that whole first full circle of life that comes with
Speaker 17: growing old. Sadly, Harry Chapin did not grow old, as
Speaker 17: we know, at the age of thirty eight, in nineteen
Speaker 17: eighty one, he was in a violent automobile accident on
Speaker 17: the Long Island Expressway in a New York state and
Speaker 17: where he was heading westbound on the highway, and he
Speaker 17: was in a rather bad accident with a truck and
Speaker 17: was flown to Nassau County Medical Center in East Meadow,
Speaker 17: New York, where he passed away. What I have always
Speaker 17: found chilling and eerie about this story and the fact
Speaker 17: that I've always loved his music, was in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 17: when I was twenty six, fourteen years after Harry Chapin,
Speaker 17: I was also on the Long Island Expressway in the
Speaker 17: very same stretch of roadway, in the same direction as
Speaker 17: Harry Chapin. I was also in a violent accident. I
Speaker 17: was also flown to Nasau County Medical Center by a
Speaker 17: police helicopter, And I of course am here to talk
Speaker 17: about it, and Harry Chapin is not. And I always
Speaker 17: find that kind of eerie. So whenever I hear his
Speaker 17: music that it just comes to mind, it really comes
Speaker 17: to mind.
Speaker 2: But sorry to be a real buzz killed everybody, but
Speaker 2: it's just no more going along island. That's the end
Speaker 2: of this. So I will say this this song is
Speaker 2: about being old, or the topic of old and or
Speaker 2: to get a ride in a helicopter.
Speaker 17: Yeah, but it was all about the full circle of
Speaker 17: life in Cats in the Cradle. So that is my
Speaker 17: selection for this evening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, if it's If it is any consolation, there
Speaker 4: is a hard rock version of the song that came
Speaker 4: out in like ninety two by a band called Ugly
Speaker 4: Kid Joe. So I mean it's this same message, I suppose,
Speaker 4: but at least it's a little more you know, a
Speaker 4: little more upbeat musically, but lyrically same, don't.
Speaker 17: I'll make it up on the next show. I'll pick
Speaker 17: out something that's just I don't know, happy, fastly, happy,
Speaker 17: different whatever. I'm sorry, Mercedes, I stepped.
Speaker 2: On you there.
Speaker 14: That's okay.
Speaker 8: I was just going to say I actually met him
Speaker 8: at a convention, like a national music convention for.
Speaker 17: Like, what was he like?
Speaker 3: Oh, he was great, he was great.
Speaker 8: He was actually sitting on the dais behind me, so
Speaker 8: we sat through dinner together. But you know, I didn't
Speaker 8: really get my nerve up to turn around and like
Speaker 8: like I was younger then, Okay, today would be different.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, you've you've changed your way, I've changed.
Speaker 8: But I did turn around finally and start talking to
Speaker 8: him because I had to. I mean, he's behind me
Speaker 8: on the dais are you kidding me? So I actually
Speaker 8: I got his autograph, and which I was not going
Speaker 8: to do because how tacky is that? But I did
Speaker 8: it anyway, And yeah, he was really nice. He was
Speaker 8: very sweet. I mean, his brother is sorry. His brother
Speaker 8: is Tom Chapin, who lives in Piemont. And Tom is amazing.
Speaker 8: He's amazing. I just love him so much. And his
Speaker 8: wife is amazing.
Speaker 17: So my uncle actually met him trying to sneak out
Speaker 17: at the end of a show one night. My uncle
Speaker 17: was a police officer in New York City and he
Speaker 17: he was kind of in the back area, you know,
Speaker 17: kind of guarding the back of the stage area, I guess,
Speaker 17: and he actually caught shape and trying to climb a
Speaker 17: fence to get to his car.
Speaker 8: To leave Witch Chapin Harry, Oh, okay, yes.
Speaker 17: I'm sorry, not Tom but Harry, Yes, Harry Chapin. But yeah,
Speaker 17: And in case anyone was wondering, another little piece of Trivia.
Speaker 17: The car he was driving was a nineteen seventy five
Speaker 17: Volkswagen Rabbit, and his wife got twelve million dollars in
Speaker 17: a lawsuit against the company of the for the the
Speaker 17: company that owned the truck that hit him.
Speaker 8: Wow, yeah, Can I Can I just go back to
Speaker 8: my topic for a second, please do.
Speaker 9: So.
Speaker 8: It was Jimmy Page in the next studio from obviously
Speaker 8: from Led Zeppelin, and he was at the control room window,
Speaker 8: and he was waving to him to say hi, and
Speaker 8: he was waving madly at Barr.
Speaker 2: That would be a little intimidating, I would say, yeah.
Speaker 8: So Barr was in the middle of recording his icond
Speaker 8: of improvised guitar solo and simply turned his back to
Speaker 8: keep playing.
Speaker 4: Martin is no slouch young guitar either, let's you know.
Speaker 4: So I don't think I don't think he'd have anything
Speaker 4: to be embarrassed about.
Speaker 2: But no, it's just nerds to get you. You know,
Speaker 2: you're all balanced now something like that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, I well, And at that point Jimmy
Speaker 4: Page was actually established. He had been with the with
Speaker 4: the Yardbirds, and Martin had just pretty much joined a
Speaker 4: couple of years earlier. He was not the original Told guitarist,
Speaker 4: but he was the longest standing and you know most
Speaker 4: you know, he is the Jethro Tolds guitar player, let's
Speaker 4: put it that way. But yeah, I could see him
Speaker 4: being a little bit little rat.
Speaker 17: I saw a Tall at all enduring a thunder and
Speaker 17: lightning storm at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate
Speaker 17: New York, and it was like one of the best
Speaker 17: shows I've ever been in my life because it was
Speaker 17: a pretty violent storm with wind and rain and thunder,
Speaker 17: and you know, that's an outdoor venue and they didn't
Speaker 17: stop the show and he just played right right through
Speaker 17: the lightning strike. It was just incredible, absolutely incredible.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think there's a few groups I've seen,
Speaker 4: like more than I can count, and obviously it would
Speaker 4: be The Ramones, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and probably
Speaker 4: Jethro Tall. And the first time I saw Jethrow Tall,
Speaker 4: they didn't play acalone, no, because.
Speaker 9: I didn't see them.
Speaker 8: It's their most played song in concert after.
Speaker 4: Locomotive Breath, and they didn't play that either.
Speaker 2: You know why they They hadn't been written, written, It.
Speaker 4: Was nineteen seventy. They hadn't.
Speaker 2: Happen Okay, you got us there, Neil, So Marvin Barry
Speaker 2: wasn't backstage. Guess not guess not? All right, all right.
Speaker 4: The times after that they played them Yester, yeah.
Speaker 2: Nice, all right. I think I think we need a
Speaker 2: break after that one. That's yeah one, yeah, so, but
Speaker 2: we have two more to go, so don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Hudson River Radio dot com. Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: And welcome back, Barbara. We're up to you.
Speaker 14: Okay.
Speaker 13: Well, I chose something a little more obscure, but believe
Speaker 13: it or not, I played this on my show at
Speaker 13: least three times because I keep getting requests for it,
Speaker 13: and I happen to like this song a lot, and
Speaker 13: it's a song that many folks of my age can
Speaker 13: relate to. It's called I Look Good Naked Anymore and
Speaker 13: it's by the Snake Oil Willy.
Speaker 17: Band, Snake Oil Willie Band.
Speaker 14: I'll get to. I'll get to how they call themselves
Speaker 14: that in a bit.
Speaker 4: Is that on the same list as bowling for Soup
Speaker 4: being a weird top ten weird names? I think?
Speaker 13: Well, I think this band formed, like you know, after that,
Speaker 13: they actually formed a New Jersey in ninety Yes in
Speaker 13: nineteen ninety five, and although they went through various lineup changes,
Speaker 13: the core members consist of Tony Krusinski on drums and vocals,
Speaker 13: and he also handles all their bookings because they do
Speaker 13: perform live still Seth Fleischmann on lead guitar and vocals,
Speaker 13: and he does the songwriting. And after I wrote that line,
Speaker 13: I realized that they basically have two original songs and
Speaker 13: the rest of us all covers, So I don't I
Speaker 13: couldn't find anything else that was original, but and if
Speaker 13: anybody does, please let me know. Also band member Frank
Speaker 13: de Bonus on bass and vocals, and he handles the
Speaker 13: band's social media and their repertoire includes classic rock of
Speaker 13: the sixties through the nineties, and southern and country rock.
Speaker 14: As you'll hear.
Speaker 13: Some of their influences include Leonard Skinnyard, Johnny Cash, and
Speaker 13: the Doobie Brothers, among others. I Don't Look Good Naked
Speaker 13: Anymore was released digitally in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 14: So let's pause here and have a listen.
Speaker 6: Will my body could use a little swimming?
Speaker 4: I bet my shirt all when to go swim in?
Speaker 4: And I ain't seen my feature.
Speaker 6: It's nineteen eighty four. The old lady watch a roll
Speaker 6: in the haye.
Speaker 16: We turned the lights down all the way because I
Speaker 16: don't look good in a kid a anymore. No, I
Speaker 16: don't up could naked anymore. I'm a deep fried, double
Speaker 16: white version of the.
Speaker 6: Man I was before.
Speaker 16: If I keep on like I'm doing it, I won't
Speaker 16: fit through the door, and I don't look good naked anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, it used to be a hell of a man.
Speaker 6: I chump wood with just one hand. But I can't
Speaker 6: do the things I've done before.
Speaker 16: Well, it all happened kind of slow, but I guess
Speaker 16: I kind of let myself go. Now I don't You
Speaker 16: couldn't naked anymore, No, I don't luck couldn't naked anymore.
Speaker 16: I'm a deep fried, double white version of.
Speaker 6: A man I was before. If I keep on like
Speaker 6: I'm do it, I won't fit through the door or
Speaker 6: and I don't look good naked anymore.
Speaker 16: With each and every passion year came a lot of
Speaker 16: French fries and beer.
Speaker 6: And Mabelly hung a little closer to the floor. Now
Speaker 6: Mabella as big as a truck.
Speaker 4: And the old lad he don't want to.
Speaker 6: She don't want to because I don't look good naked annymore. No,
Speaker 6: I don't look goodn't naked anymore.
Speaker 16: I'm a deep fried, double white version of the man
Speaker 16: I was before.
Speaker 6: If you keep on like I'm doing, I won't fit
Speaker 6: through the door. And I don't look good naked anymore.
Speaker 9: No, I don't look.
Speaker 14: Goodn't naked anymore.
Speaker 16: I'm a deep fried, double white verson of the man
Speaker 16: I love before.
Speaker 6: If on noon a long fade through the door, and
Speaker 6: I don't look good naked anymore. No, I don't look
Speaker 6: good naked anymore.
Speaker 13: Then I cannot tell you how much I love that song.
Speaker 13: It's very catchy. It's a catchy tune.
Speaker 14: I confess. I walk around the house singing it.
Speaker 13: And if you have like an earworm, a song that
Speaker 13: got stuck in your head and you don't want it there,
Speaker 13: sing this one. It'll get rid of it, which is
Speaker 13: another reason why I like it. So The Snake Oil
Speaker 13: Willy Band got their name from a Halloween party that
Speaker 13: had a fake tombstone duration that had the inscription here
Speaker 13: lies snake Oil Willy. So besides, I don't look good
Speaker 13: naked anymore. They recorded another original song called Gift Card.
Speaker 13: It's a Christmas song about receiving gift cards. According to
Speaker 13: their official website, they describe themselves as seasoned professional musicians
Speaker 13: with many years of dedication.
Speaker 14: To their craft.
Speaker 13: They go on to note that they are firmly implanted
Speaker 13: in classic rock, but appeal to a variety of musical tastes.
Speaker 13: Their website also provides a schedule of their appearances in
Speaker 13: case anybody wants to go see live music, and links
Speaker 13: to live videos of them performing both of their original
Speaker 13: songs as well as their covers.
Speaker 14: And I just love them.
Speaker 13: It's crazy. People are always asking me to play this song.
Speaker 13: They're just they're such an obscure band. But a lot
Speaker 13: of people I know just know this song. And I
Speaker 13: think that's really cool.
Speaker 4: And I love them a lot, so and now a
Speaker 4: lot more people know them. So there you go.
Speaker 2: I see the appeal.
Speaker 14: Yes, all right, that's what I got.
Speaker 2: That's a good one. That's a good one, all right.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna throw a monkey wrench in this whole
Speaker 2: thing because I went in such a completely different direction.
Speaker 2: Everybody went with, you know, songs about old people are
Speaker 2: getting old, you know, the logical choices. But I went
Speaker 2: with an old song. But crambones, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 2: be picking your knowledge on this, so jump in. All right,
Speaker 2: So we all know that the Star Spangled Banner is
Speaker 2: the national anthem of the United States of America. Right,
Speaker 2: So who wrote it? Scott Francis Scott Key. Do you
Speaker 2: know what he did for a living? In his story?
Speaker 4: Wrote songs about flags?
Speaker 2: You would think so, But no.
Speaker 14: Was he a journalist, no partian?
Speaker 2: No, No, he was actually an attorney and an all
Speaker 2: He was from Maryland. He wrote a poem called Defense
Speaker 2: of Fort Mahenry. Now the fort's name is Mick Henry.
Speaker 2: He took out the sea and put in the apostrophe
Speaker 2: because you clearly saved a whole lot of time. I'm
Speaker 2: sure that's why he did it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Well the copyright infringement thing, yeah.
Speaker 9: It could be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how copy was going on at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 4: Oh, you would be surprised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be. Could be. So his poem Defense
Speaker 2: of Fort ma Henry, which would become the Star Spangled Banner?
Speaker 2: Now during which war was it written? Eighteen twelve? Bonus
Speaker 2: point to Gale. I'm gonna keep track of bonus points
Speaker 2: because they might be worth something someday. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Very briefly, the War of eighteen twelve took place between
Speaker 2: eighteen twelve and eighteen fifteen. England and France were at
Speaker 2: war over maritime rights in trade, and the US wound
Speaker 2: up joining because England was all so messing around with
Speaker 2: American trade as well while trying to interfere with French trade,
Speaker 2: so they were using blockades all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: So the United States wound up going back to war
Speaker 2: with England. A friend of Francis scott Key, doctor William Beans,
Speaker 2: was arrested and held by the British on the ship
Speaker 2: HMS Tunant, accused of detaining British soldiers who had been wounded.
Speaker 2: The President at the time, James Madison, sent Franciscott Key
Speaker 2: to meet Colonel John Skinner, an American colonel, and then
Speaker 2: proceed to negotiate with the British to try to gain
Speaker 2: Bean's release. They were invited aboard the British ship. They
Speaker 2: wound up having dinner with British Major General Robert Ross,
Speaker 2: who ultimately agreed to release Bean because the general had
Speaker 2: received letters that were written by injured British soldiers about
Speaker 2: the compassionate care that they actually received. From American doctors.
Speaker 2: So it was a compassionate kind of thing. So the
Speaker 2: American doctors treated British soldiers well. So the doctor was
Speaker 2: granted his release. But the three of them, Francis Scott,
Speaker 2: Keef Skinner and Bean, had overheard the British plans to
Speaker 2: attack Fort McHenry, so they were not allowed to return
Speaker 2: to land. They were transferred to an American ship that
Speaker 2: was actually lashed tied to a British ship, and they
Speaker 2: were held out on the water until after the attack
Speaker 2: was complete. So this is where the story comes from.
Speaker 4: Why didn't they just why didn't they text them?
Speaker 2: You would think everybody blow to cover all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 14: So so what I'm taking from this is the guy's
Speaker 14: name was Billy Bean.
Speaker 3: I know, I know he Does that mean he was
Speaker 3: mister Bean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was doctor Bean, So he didn't go through
Speaker 2: four years of medical school to be mister Bean.
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 13: I know some people that that would fit the description
Speaker 13: fair enough.
Speaker 2: All right. So at dawn on September thirteenth, eighteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: the British bombardment of Fort McHenry off the coast of
Speaker 2: Baltimore started. It went for twenty five hours straight. This
Speaker 2: is where Franciscott Key observed the rockets red glare bombs
Speaker 2: bursting in air. The British fired around eighteen hundred bombshells
Speaker 2: and seven hundred rockets at the fort, but they had
Speaker 2: to do so from a maximum distance, so they would
Speaker 2: be out of range of the fort's cannon, which were
Speaker 2: superior weapons to what the British had, so the Americans
Speaker 2: could have knocked them out of the water if they
Speaker 2: got closer, so they had to stay far away, so
Speaker 2: they wound up sacrificing accuracy at the well. By the
Speaker 2: end of the battle, four American soldiers died and twenty
Speaker 2: four were wounded, which is a lot, but it could
Speaker 2: have been a whole lot worse, considering it was the
Speaker 2: whole fort under attack. At the start of the attack,
Speaker 2: the fort was flying what's known as their storm flag,
Speaker 2: the smaller version, which was twenty five feet by seventeen feet.
Speaker 2: That's the small flag that is roughly the size of
Speaker 2: two full sized pickup trucks park next to each other.
Speaker 2: That's how big the small flag was. At the end
Speaker 2: of the battle, when they realized that they had come
Speaker 2: out on top, they lowered the storm flag and raised
Speaker 2: the garrison flag, which was forty two feet by thirty feet,
Speaker 2: just to make the statement that is a giant flag. Now,
Speaker 2: this garrison flag is the actual star spangled banner that
Speaker 2: is on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: Which is worth the trip. It's one of those displays
Speaker 2: that you walk in, you go around the corner and boom,
Speaker 2: it's laid out and very impressive, and you realize how
Speaker 2: big that flag really was. So all patriotic, it all
Speaker 2: sounds good, right all you know, Americans came out on top, yay,
Speaker 2: and we write a poem about it. But you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not leaving it there. It should be noted that
Speaker 2: Francis Scott Key was a slave owner. He owned eight
Speaker 2: when he died. He publicly would denounce slavery while owning them.
Speaker 2: He represented both enslaved people who were fighting for their
Speaker 2: freedom and slave owners in court cases. I'm guessing it
Speaker 2: was whoever wrote the check got represented. Maybe maybe not.
Speaker 2: His poem Defense of Fort ma Henry has four stanzas.
Speaker 2: We only sing the first one as the US anthem.
Speaker 2: The other stanzas have some pretty racist language in them.
Speaker 2: If you care to go ahead and read them yourself.
Speaker 2: I'm going to leave that to you. Make that your
Speaker 2: homework assignment, because we're not going to read them here.
Speaker 2: I will leave that to you.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 2: The words that he wrote happened to fit a popular
Speaker 2: tune called the Anacreontic Song, which was the official tune
Speaker 2: of the Anacreontic Society, which was an amateur musician gentlemen's
Speaker 2: club in London, England. Nowadays we would just call it
Speaker 2: like a garage band, but they didn't have garages back then.
Speaker 2: A horse barn, a carriage house, ben.
Speaker 4: A garage, a garage.
Speaker 2: I stay corrected, You are absolutely correct. You know we
Speaker 2: could call it a bro jam. How about that. There
Speaker 2: you go, so you get the idea. Things were a
Speaker 2: little bit more formal back then. The society was named
Speaker 2: after the ancient Greek poet Anacreon, who wrote drinking songs
Speaker 2: and erotic poems. Rock and roll. So at their yeah.
Speaker 4: Awesome.
Speaker 2: So at their meetings they would have a guest, either
Speaker 2: a composer or a performer, come in, often quite famous,
Speaker 2: like Hiding the composer Hyden, who was still famous to
Speaker 2: this day. He was famous in his day. He would
Speaker 2: come in, speak, perform, do his own songs and then
Speaker 2: and the members of the group would perform their own songs,
Speaker 2: have their little jam sessions themselves. Now the Society seems
Speaker 2: to have fallen apart because in seventeen ninety two they
Speaker 2: had a duchess attend as a guest, and their subject
Speaker 2: material was questionable, to say the least at the time,
Speaker 2: and would not have gone over well with a duchess
Speaker 2: being present. So I think everybody kind of side eyed
Speaker 2: it and everything fizzled out after that.
Speaker 8: Prior to that, were there women, there no.
Speaker 2: Gentlemen's club, Nope, nope, nope, nope. So yeah, that kind
Speaker 2: of burst the bubble just a little bit. But the
Speaker 2: Society's theme was composed by John Stafford Smith, who was
Speaker 2: a well known composer and music historian at the time.
Speaker 14: Why do these guys always have three names?
Speaker 4: Who?
Speaker 2: Because they had a lot more time. The lyrics are
Speaker 2: attributed to Ralph Tomlinson two names, who was president of
Speaker 2: the Society at the time. The whole thing was ritten
Speaker 2: around seventeen seventy three. Nobody's entirely sure of exact timeframe,
Speaker 2: but the melody became so popular that people would write
Speaker 2: new lyrics over it and there were just countless versions
Speaker 2: over and over. Like folk songs. They knew the melody
Speaker 2: and they would just write lyrics to fit whatever occasion
Speaker 2: they want.
Speaker 3: Mike, that's like one of the most unsingable pieces on
Speaker 3: the planet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, why do.
Speaker 4: You hear it?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: So our national anthem is actually a spoof on a
Speaker 2: body British drinking song.
Speaker 14: Yea, I love it.
Speaker 2: So let's go over the first verse of the original song.
Speaker 2: The idea of the tune is the society is asking
Speaker 2: an Acreon to basically be their party bro, come join us,
Speaker 2: be the group leader, and he agrees to it. So
Speaker 2: the lyrics to an Acreon in heaven, where he sat
Speaker 2: in full glee, a few sons of harmony sent a
Speaker 2: petition that he there inspirer and patron would be all right.
Speaker 2: So the sons of harmonies are asking him to come
Speaker 2: join us. When his answer arrived from the jolly old
Speaker 2: Grecian voice, fiddle and flute no longer be mute. I'll
Speaker 2: lend you my name and inspire you to boot. And besides,
Speaker 2: I'll instruct you like me to entwine the myrtle of
Speaker 2: Venus with Bacchus's vine. Now the Myrtle of Venus is
Speaker 2: a plant dedicated to Venus, the goddess of love, and
Speaker 2: was thought to be an aphrodisiac at the time. Bacchus
Speaker 2: was the Roman god of wine and agriculture, so Bacchus's
Speaker 2: vine would be the wine that they're talking about. So
Speaker 2: this song is sex and alcohol.
Speaker 4: I thought Bacchus was.
Speaker 2: And mister Magoo, yeah he's a few generations later. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: he's coming back. So all right, so that is the
Speaker 2: song that our national anthem is based on. We're going
Speaker 2: to hear the original song. And this recording was done
Speaker 2: by a group called the Star Spangled Music Foundation, which
Speaker 2: was a nonprofit back in twenty thirteen. I went digging.
Speaker 2: I wanted to find out more about them, but their
Speaker 2: website is down, so I don't know what their status is.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the group disbanded or what happened.
Speaker 2: But when they did this recording, they used the harpsichord,
Speaker 2: which would have been accurate for seventeen seventy three. Harpsichord
Speaker 2: has a very distinctive sound. You've heard it before, even
Speaker 2: if you didn't know what it was. If you've never
Speaker 2: seen one, they look like a little grand piano, but
Speaker 2: they're often embellished with a lot of artwork and brighter
Speaker 2: colors and figures.
Speaker 3: And it's what Lurch plays.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Lurch plays yep, yep, but you only see
Speaker 2: that in black and white. You don't actually see how
Speaker 2: fancy that they would make these harpsichords. They really they
Speaker 2: would deck these things out. You know Eddie van Hilen's
Speaker 2: Franken guitar kind of thing, same idea, that's nothing new.
Speaker 2: The difference is that in a piano, the strings are
Speaker 2: struck by a hammer, so the player presses a key,
Speaker 2: the key moves a hammer, the hammer hits the string,
Speaker 2: so you can play loudly, you can play softly, depending
Speaker 2: on how hard you hit the key. On a harpsichord,
Speaker 2: the keys are a little bit smaller. The scale of
Speaker 2: the keys is smaller. So it's funny if you see
Speaker 2: an experienced piano player sit down and try to play
Speaker 2: a harpsichord, because they invariably mess it up because their
Speaker 2: fingers are hitting the wrong keys because the scale is
Speaker 2: a little bit smaller. And when a key is pressed
Speaker 2: on a harpsichord, it lifts up a strip of void
Speaker 2: called a jack, and the jack is attached to a plectrum,
Speaker 2: which is usually the tip of a quill, and the
Speaker 2: string is actually plucked instead of hit with a hammer,
Speaker 2: so it's actually plucked upward with the tip of a quill.
Speaker 2: So no matter how hard you hit the keys on
Speaker 2: a harpsichord, the volume remains the same. It's always plucked
Speaker 2: with the same same amount, so it's the same volume.
Speaker 2: So if you wanted to make something louder on a harpsichord,
Speaker 2: they would play octaves, so you'd get the same note,
Speaker 2: but you'd hear, you know, two notes at the same time,
Speaker 2: so it would be a little bit louder. Yeah, gotcha,
Speaker 2: all right, So we went over the lyrics. It's a
Speaker 2: song in more of an operatic style with the harpsichord,
Speaker 2: but it's still sex and drugs and alcohol. So here
Speaker 2: you go the Anacreontic song from seventeen seventy three. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, we're only gonna do two verses. So
Speaker 2: there's a verse in the chorus, a verse and the chorus,
Speaker 2: and then you get the idea and that's enough, all right,
Speaker 2: so we don't have to do the whole thing, all right.
Speaker 2: Here we go on.
Speaker 10: Where he's hot.
Speaker 11: A few songs of.
Speaker 9: And talk about this.
Speaker 11: That's the inspirer on the page on when it's a answer.
Speaker 9: All arrived from.
Speaker 6: The jolly.
Speaker 9: Boy spit on.
Speaker 11: No longer be huge, Ill lane you my name and
Speaker 11: inspire you to boot. And besides, I'll instruct you like
Speaker 11: me too.
Speaker 19: In fine they in us when a bacasas line and
Speaker 19: SI shot you like me to in finetic.
Speaker 23: News to.
Speaker 11: Passing media.
Speaker 21: If when a fonder preturn to agave himself pays, These
Speaker 21: mortols are sofer the team to pursue the time.
Speaker 11: God, this will stay hardt. But already they cry, and
Speaker 11: transports of joy all way to the sons of anacron
Speaker 11: will fly under that. We've got a puddles weln to
Speaker 11: in wine. That's a lot as coss whine.
Speaker 2: I think we all had the urge to raise our
Speaker 2: drinks and sway back and forth right, absolutely a drinking song. Right,
Speaker 2: So there we go. That's our anthem right there.
Speaker 8: So what did they think of it when they changed
Speaker 8: it or was vastly different.
Speaker 2: It didn't become our national anthem till the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 8: Oh okay, so officially anybody around for that version had
Speaker 8: no clue.
Speaker 2: They've heard so many versions of it because it was
Speaker 2: such a popular melody that I don't think anybody cared.
Speaker 8: I would guess, yeah, I mean it's just funny because
Speaker 8: it's too completely different, uh.
Speaker 13: Huh and drinking and bombs, yeah, the whole concept of everything.
Speaker 8: So who decided to change it to the national anthem?
Speaker 8: Like knowing the history of.
Speaker 2: It, I don't know. I don't actually know, you know what,
Speaker 2: that would have been a good thing to look into.
Speaker 13: I guess you were so be funneled by what you
Speaker 13: did find out that it distracted you from further investigation.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of thing, you know, papers are written on.
Speaker 2: And how long can I make you sit there and
Speaker 2: listen to.
Speaker 17: Complicated and colorful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, we have to find that
Speaker 2: right balance of entertainment and facts, so.
Speaker 12: We'll have.
Speaker 2: I think so well, now, you know, right next time
Speaker 2: you hear it, you're gonna start giggling and no one
Speaker 2: else is gonna know why.
Speaker 3: Absolutely every day, I'm just impressed, As I said off air,
Speaker 3: I'm just impressed. The one guy hit that high note,
Speaker 3: and that is not easy, trust me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was those tight pantaloons they will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hoist up your breeches.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: And also in those days, they didn't have a right
Speaker 13: or a left shoe. They just had one a shoe
Speaker 13: and yeah, those must have hurt. So that would really
Speaker 13: help you hit those high notes.
Speaker 14: Pantaloons and tight shoes.
Speaker 2: All right, that's all I've got for tonight.
Speaker 4: You know you're leaving you're leaving out a very important,
Speaker 4: very important fact here, but I don't think you even
Speaker 4: know that.
Speaker 2: All right, what's that?
Speaker 4: Okay? The topic for today was what Okay, now, the
Speaker 4: star Spangled banner is what the American flag? What is
Speaker 4: another nickname for the American flag?
Speaker 2: Oh, the grand old flag, Old Glory, Old Glory.
Speaker 4: You completely glossed over that, and I'm like waiting for it,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, I have to, I have to point
Speaker 4: this out to you, old Glory.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 14: Yeah, you totally nailed the topic.
Speaker 2: All right. Cool, So that means it's the perfect time
Speaker 2: to pull the plug.
Speaker 8: And you get all the points.
Speaker 14: Kick off those big buckled shoes.
Speaker 2: Sit back, loosen your breeches. All right, Yeah, it's time
Speaker 2: to go. Definitely time to everybody, holds your drink up
Speaker 2: and we're gonna we're gonna make our our classy exit.
Speaker 2: Here we go, all right. Thank you Mercedes for a
Speaker 2: good topic, excellent choice as always, Crambones, awesome selections across
Speaker 2: the board, and thank you all for joining us here
Speaker 2: for the Rock and Roll History Show. Please remember to
Speaker 2: subscribe in your favorite podcast app and check out all
Speaker 2: the other shows we do at Hudson River Radio. There
Speaker 2: is something for everybody. We'll see you next week with
Speaker 2: another brand new episode. Until then, start singing drinking songs
Speaker 2: and wave your drink in the air and have some
Speaker 2: fun and we'll see you next week. Peace out, everybody.
Speaker 4: Bottom Okay, bye bye.
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