How Good It Is

Of all the people in the Beatles' inner circle, Jane Asher is perhaps the most mysterious. Not because she's reclusive--far from it, in fact. Jane Asher has spent lots of time on stage and on screens large and small from the time she was a  child. But other than newspaper and magazine articles, and maybe a few video clips which survive from the 1960s, there isn't a lot of first-hand knowledge about her relationship with Paul McCartney. For about five years she was his girlfriend, and she had a front-row view of the beginnings of Beatlemania, the madness of touring, the changes in the band's sound, the death of Brian Epstein, the psychedelic period, even the visit to India. But she finds it insulting when people ask her about those days. And even though she's written several books, both fiction and non-fiction, none of them are about The Beatles. She may be the only person who's had prolonged contact with the band who hasn't written a book about it. But Paul McCartney, tunesmith that he is, wrote several songs about Jane Asher. In later years, he'd mostly concede only that they were songs of a personal nature rather than saying something like "It's about Jane," possibly as a means of respecting both her and his late wife Linda, but a pretty straight line can be drawn between some of the events in their respective lives and the subject matter of his songs. Click here for a transcript of this episode.  Click here to become a Patron of the show. Paid-level Patrons get a newsletter about 48 times per year (I do take the occasional week off); Free-level Patrons get it two weeks later. So why not join? What's to lose?

In case you haven't heard, we're on a little bit of a journey, meeting various women who have had an influence on multiple pop songs. In today's episode we'll be visiting Rosanna Arquette. The interesting thing here is that whether or not the songs in this episode are about Rosanna has been an on-again, off-again mystery. For a while they're not, then they are again, and maybe, maybe not. Personally I think the evidence is there, although I can accept the explanation that there are other models for one song and there's a deliberate ambiguity in the other, because of the nature of the music that was influencing the singer. At any rate, there's a terrific storm going on tonight and I've already lost power briefly one time; let me get this out before there's another outage. Click here for a transcript of this episode.  Click here to become a Patron of the show. Paid members get a newsletter 48 times per year and ad-free episodes. Free members get the newsletter on a delayed basis.  

For the next several episodes, we're going to take a look at the women who inspired some of the Rock Era's most iconic songs. There will be six episodes in this series; five of them will concentrate on a specific woman, each of whom inspired multiple songs. The sixth episode will look at several women who each inspired a single song. A couple of the women I've chosen will be fairly obvious but I'm hoping a couple will come as a surprise to you. And this episode, I hope, is one of the surprises. We'll be taking a look at Renee Fladen-Kamm, who was just Renee Fladen back in the day. This young woman inspired three songs, all with a similar theme to them. Two of the songs became big hits for the artist, and the third...not so much. But there's a pretty good cover that I mention during the episode. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons receive a weekly newsletter about 48 times a year (I dunno, I don't count, but I don't take a lot of weeks off), plus bragging rights and an advance release of the episode, so you get it ad-free. How's that for a deal!

After this many episodes, it gives me a moment of "Huh, isn't that interesting" when I start writing the post for an episode and discover that I haven't covered a song from that particular year before. In this case, that year would be 1956. In retrospect, that shouldn't be a surprise, given that we're reaching waaay back into the early days of the Pop music era. But it's still a fun little statistic, regardless. "In the Still of the Night" was originally "In the Still of the Nite," partly because they didn't want this song to be confused with a 1936 song written by Cole Porter and recorded several times over the years. The other reason is that it was a little bit of a trend to spell "Nite" like that. (See also The Dells' "Oh What a Nite".) Later on the spelling changed to the more conventional style, and you'd often see "(I'll Remember)" tacked on. Why it's "I'll remember" and not "I remember", I have no idea. This wasn't relevant to the broader story, but in 1986 Ronnie Milsap recorded a song called "Lost in the Fifties Tonight", where he recounts some fond memories from listening to this song. As part of the chorus he actually sings a few bars of this song.  That song went to #1 on the Billboard Country Chart and earned Milsap a Grammy for Best Country Male Performance. And finally, I didn't promise this during the episode, but here's the song from the Trivia Question (go listen to the episode first!):  This link doesn't have any actual video to it, but do a search and you'll catch a lot of fun videos associated with the song. You won't even mind hearing it repeatedly because it's a genuine banger. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons get a newsletter about 48 times a year (I never counted, but I don't skip weeks often) and now they get advance access to ad-free episodes.

This is an episode I wrote in the Southern Studio, so I may  have been in a better mood than usual to write it than I ordinarily am, given  the subject matter. When Blue Öyster Cult first got together, they were a college band from Stony Brook, New York. That's not far from where I grew up. Oddly, none of the band's original members are from Long Island. Two of them grew up in New  York City, one in upstate NY and the last was born in Alabama but moved to the Island as a child. Go figure. They took on the name Soft White Underbelly first and used that from 1967-1969. Then they caught a bad review for a show and decided to change their name. After a few permutations they landed on Blue Öyster Cult, which they didn't really like. But the fact is, they didn't care enough at that point to come up with anything else. I touched on this briefly in the episode itself, but it's pretty clear that the band members were still pretty fond of "Soft White Underbelly". Oftentimes when they played smaller clubs around the NY Metro area, that's the name they'd use in those clubs. So when fans of BOC saw an ad in the local newspapers touting that band in the 1970s and 80s, they knew they were actually in for a Blue Öyster Cult show. "Don't Fear the Reaper" is notable for several different reasons. It was a new recording studio and they experimented with their sound in different ways. That would include having Buck Dharma sing the lead. (Dharma is the lead singer on "Godzilla" and "Burnin' For You", so they may have hit on something there.) You'll hear about some of the bells and whistles they use. And yes, you'll hear a little bit about Saturday Night Live and how they feel about it. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons get a newsletter about 48 times a year (I never counted, but I don't skip weeks often) and now they get advance access to ad-free episodes.

By 1968, Glen Campbell had moved from session musician to a star in his own right. His single "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," written by Jimmy Webb, was a huge hit for him. So when Campbell decided he needed another song, he turned back to Webb and asked him for another song. For whatever reason, he asked Webb to make it a song about a specific location. Webb, at that time, was in the business of writing as many songs as possible about his ex, a woman named Susan Horton. (Coincidentally, Jim Holvay was also spending a lot of time writing songs about a woman named Susan, go figure.) Susan Horton was at the heart of "Phoenix" and "MacArthur Park, which had just been released when Campbell came calling again. So he cranked out yet another song ostensibly about Susan. That song was "Wichita Lineman." Now, Webb wasn't as obvious about Susan as Holvay was, but in all of these songs you can hear some sense of loss and longing, so it's pretty clear that he had it bad for her. And between Webb's nearly-finished work and the production values that Campbell and producer/arranger Al De Lory, before long they had a genuine masterpiece on their hands. And honest to god, why haven't I covered this song back when the show was still in single digits? What else haven't I covered that really needs some attention? Drop me an email  at howgoodpodcast@gmail.com! Click here for a transcript of this episode.  Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons get a newsletter about 48 times a year, plus a few other goodies from time to time.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! Today we're looking at three Christmas songs that are born from the anxieties of World War Two. Two of the songs aren't direct references to the war itself, but it clearly informed the subject. Themes of separation and loneliness emerge, and a sense of nostalgia is present throughout. Interestingly, one of the songs was so dark that the lyricist was asked to change the words...twice. For the other two songs, there's a verse that usually goes unsung, though once in awhile we get to hear it. And one song was popular enough with the public that it still holds the Guinness record for most copies of a song sold—and it's not even the original recording! And, as promised: here are the original lyrics to "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." Have yourself a merry little Christmas. It may be your last. Next year we may all be living in the past. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Pop that champagne cork. Next year we may all be living in New York. No good times like the olden days. Happy golden days of yore. Faithful friends who were dear to us. Will be near to us no more. But at least we all will be together. If the Lord allows. From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow. So have yourself a merry little Christmas now. Happy holidays to ye! Click here to become a Patron of the show. Patrons get a newsletter nearly every Saturday night/Sunday morning, about 48 times a year. Sorry, no transcript this time.

...before we were so rudely interrupted... This is a song that I'm long-overdue in covering, if only because of the backstory it has. It's simultaneously heart-warming and heart-breaking. It's a love letter from lyricist Doc Pomus to his wife. That's not unusual, of course. Many songwriters compose songs dedicated to a loved one. But this one has an extra special twist to it. I shan't spoil it here, though: you'll have to actually listen to the show. So in this episode we'll learn about the genius of Doc Pomus, the genius of Dick Clark, and a little bit about children's television. Click here to support the show as a Patron. Patrons receive a weekly newsletter about 48 times a year.

How many times now have I gone into the backstory with a song and learned that the person who wrote it says something akin to, "Yeah, I knocked that one off in about fifteen minutes." Oftentimes they also think that the song isn't going to amount to very much, which I find kind of funny. But it also supports a working theory I have that it's not always the song itself, but the way it's presented. The Crickets (sans Buddy Holly) and a few others approached it one way, but Bobby Fuller and The Clash looked at it differently, and it paid off for them. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to support the show as a Patron. 

I don't often play favorites on this show; in fact there have been a couple of songs I genuinely disliked, but I covered them anyway because the story behind them was kind of interesting. And I think you'd be hard-pressed to identify those songs, because I do try to be even-handed. However. I am going to take the time to gush about "Tiny Dancer" just a little bit, because it's one of my favorite songs by Elton John, and it may even be somewhere in my all-time Top Ten, if I took the time to compose such a list. Actually, I've already taken that time, and here's the episode. Before you listen, however, I will note that my wife doesn't really like this song, and I can't convince her to sing along with me on the chorus. Ever. Spoilsport. And, as promised, here's the "Tiny Dancer" clip from the 2000 film Almost Famous: Kate Hudson shoulda been a bigger star. Click here for a transcript of this episode.  Click here to become a Patron of the show. 

The Association was a band that just kind of floundered for awhile. First in was in their early years when they were known as simply The Men, then, in 1966 after their first album did well, the second one did...not so much. Bones Howe Part of the problem, it seemed, is that the band members playing their own instruments was mostly not a good idea. So for their third album, Warner Brothers (which had purchased The Association's label and therefore their contract) brought in a new producer. That producer, Bones Howe, in turn brought in a bunch of session musicians who later became known as The Wrecking Crew. The Insight Out front sleeve. The members themselves also made some changes with regard to their overall sound and the materials that they recorded, and they managed to break away from their Sunshine Pop sound and into a more eclectic feel. Some tracks were psychedelic, some were Baroque, some were folky, and there was even a touch of the Garage Band sound. That third album, titled Insight Out, performed about as well as the first one did and yielded two of their biggest hits.  And in this episode we learn a little about one of those songs. Click here for a transcript of the episode. (The Blubrry player is supposed to provide one now; if you try it let me know how that works for you.) Click here to become a Patron of the show. For your trouble you'll receive a weekly newsletter about 48 times a year (hey, once in awhile I have to take a week off). It's chock full of news, opinions, and the weekly Calendar of This Day in Music History.

One  of my favorite titles for an album comes from The Animals. They did a bunch of albums up to 1969, then for a year or two there were a couple of compilation albums after they broke up.  But in 1977 the Animals reunited and released a new album, titled Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted. I don't know what made me think of that. Anyway. (heh.) This was one of those episodes where, the more I found, the more there was TO find. And so what I thought would be a relatively short episode clocks in at close to twenty minutes. What a bonus for ye! "Without You" has humble beginnings and a huge, happy ending, except for the composers, Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Although it was a huge hit for Harry Nilsson and later Mariah Carey, neither composer saw much money for it. They, themselves, didn't see much potential in the song, so they buried it in the dead center of the album, at the end of Side 1. Then in 1975, after years of mismanagement and legal squabbles, Ham committed suicide shortly after learning that all of his money had disappeared. Then, in 1983, following a dispute over royalties from the song, which had been in escrow going back to the Apple Records era, Evans also committed suicide. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. As a Patron, you get access to a weekly newsletter that publishes at least 48 times per year (stuff happens once in awhile, ya know?). You also get occasional goodies like: Giveaways Special videos Bonus Episodes A Sense of Pride for Having Helped Foster an Independent Creator

I think that by now the Monkees have overcome their epithet of "Prefab Four," which I suppose was clever but not especially accurate. At least three of the Monkees were musicians who could act. I'd argue that Micky Dolenz was an actor who could play music. (More on that below.) Having said that, however, he's got one of the best voices of the rock and roll era, so my label comes from the fact that he came from acting rather than from music, as the others did. That they didn't write most of their own music is really of no consequence, given that the pressure for artists to write their own material wasn't really there yet. Similarly, the Monkees were under a tight contract, which made that difficult. Every move they made toward autonomy was met with resistance. In Michael Nesmith's case, it meant some acrimony between him and the label. At any rate, as I mention early in the show, "Daydream Believer" was the Monkees' last Number One hit, but it was only  their second-to-last Top Ten in the United States.  (Their last was 1968's "Valleri," which peaked at #3.) After that, it was the bottom half of the Hot 100 for the band until a brief comeback in 1986. While the  band members had achieved the autonomy they sought, they were also drifting apart as a group. Dolenz had lost interest in drumming, preferring instead to let session musicians take over. Producer Chip Douglas also noted that Dolenz was the weak link musically. He said that Dolenz' work on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. was cobbled together from several takes of the same song. The cancellation of the show and the poor reception of the film Head didn't help either. Finally Peter Tork quit the group by  buying out his contract at the end of 1968. By the time their television special 33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee aired in April 1969, Tork was long gone. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show. As a Patron, you get access to a weekly newsletter that publishes at least 48 times per year (stuff happens once in awhile, ya know?). You also get occasional goodies like: Giveaways Special videos Bonus Episodes A Sense of Pride for Having Helped Foster an Independent Creator

You might remember a few episodes back when I teamed up with Mike Messner. He's the host of the Gordon Lightfoot appreciation podcast Carefree Highway Revisited. Well, Mike is back, and this time around we're talking about Lightfoot's first big American hit, "If You Could Read My Mind." I actually went looking around for the album that I'd first heard this song on, and it turned out that I was exactly correct about its title: This was a four-album box set that came out in 1973, so clearly the folks at Warner Brothers didn't have a lot of hope for the rest of the decade, musically. However, this is a pretty amazing collection. I don't think K-Tel ever put anything like this together. And it's a shame that A) it's never appeared in cassette or CD format; and B) it's not likely to be, considering the nightmare it's got to be to get the rights to them by now. (You can get it on 8-track tape if you're so motivated, according to Discogs.) At any rate, I've actually wanted to cover this song for a long while, but didn't really have enough material for an entire episode, so I was glad to have Mike along for  the ride this time around. Click here to support the show  via Patreon. As a reminder: Patrons of the show get a newsletter in their email box every Sunday, whether there's a new episode or not. So I've been keeping them apprised of what's been happening in the news and in my life. They've been following me through the "medical issue" that I alluded to early in this episode. And they'll be getting something extra-special in the next week or two. This show doesn't have a transcript except for the one provided by the Blubrry player.

To be honest, I didn't really expect both of the musicians I approached this year to be both very open to the idea of an interview and so generous with their time. But I'm definitely glad that they were, especially because you get to benefit from the chats I had with them. And during this holiday season you get two long episodes instead of one semi-long one. Win-win all around! Brandon Walker's "Chinese Food on Christmas" isn't as Baltimore-centric as David DeBoy's song is, but it definitely has its origins in the fact that Brandon is from the Baltimore area, which is estimated to have about 100,000 people of the Jewish faith living here. Baltimore City is just under 600,000 people, so that's a pretty big chunk of matzoh, there. And, of course, he shot the video at several spots in the immediate area: Hunt Valley Towne Centre is a local outdoor shopping mall just north of the city. And yes, they spell it like that. The Senator Theatre is in the northern part of town.  You may recognize it from several John Waters films. The Chinese restaurant (now gone) that appears near the end is in Owings Mills, MD. It's perhaps best known for being where the Baltimore Ravens' training facility is located. And, of course, some of it was shot in his mother's basement. I don't think you can tour that or anything. So anyway, here's my chat with Brandon: And here's the second, fun version of the video, which Brandon posted about  13 years ago: As usual, interview episodes don't have a transcript created by me, but I'm curious to know whether the transcript generator provided by Blubrry gets the job done for you. Click here to become a Patron of the show.  Click here to learn more about OrchKids. 

Over the last several years, radio stations have been snapped up by large corporations. Then, as a cost-cutting measure, certain functions have been centralized. One of these has been the stations' playlists, the literal list of songs that a station has in its rotation. This has led to a homogenization of radio stations and it kind of makes them not as much fun to listen to when you travel. That said, there are going to be variations to the playlists depending on requests and local tastes. For instance, Billboard lists the Top Song of 2022 as "Bad Habit" by Steve Lacy, but in Charlotte, North Carolina it comes out as #16 for the year. In Baltimore, there's a Christmas-related song that's a perennial favorite among the locals. However, it gets next to zero airplay anywhere else. And the song's author and performer is fine with that, because he knows that the song is very Baltimore-centric. His name is David DeBoy, and his song is called "Crabs for Christmas." David DeBoy is a local  theater actor, a television and movie performer, a voiceover artist, a motivational speaker, and a generally cool guy. And I'm not saying that because he responded so quickly to my request for an interview. In today's episode we spend some time talking about his career overall and some of the stories connected to "Crabs for Christmas." And I think my opening question may have caught him by surprise. Later this week I'll have another Baltimore-oriented holiday song for you, and a chat with that song's composer and performer. Click here to visit Dave DeBoy's website.  Click here to support this show through Patreon.  (Sorry, no transcripts for interview shows. However, the Blubrry podcast player is now supposed to generate one automatically, so let's see how well that works. )

Such a life I've had lately, what with getting Covid and then getting part of the house renovated...four weeks of a two-week project. And the job isn't even done, but that's not the contractor's fault. (Replacement parts, don'tcha know.) And for some reason it's taking forever to put the kitchen—the whole downstairs, really—back together. Anyway. This episode takes a peek at the song that arguably became the Four Tops' signature hit. The funny thing is, none of the Tops thought it would be a hit. What's more, none of them thought it SHOULD be a single, never mind a hit. But Berry Gordy isn't called "genius" for nothing, and he not only released the single, he made it the lead (and title) track for their fourth album. Reach Out (the album) is definitive Four Tops, and marks the bridge between early 1960s Motown and the sounds they were producing in the second half of the decade. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

If you haven't been paying attention (and, based on the download statistics, you haven't), I'm part of a second podcast, where I take on more of a support role than as the lead voice. The show is called Words and Movies, in which my partner Sean Gallagher and I choose a pair of films and find the links between them. In an upcoming episode, we discuss a film from 2007 called Honeydripper, starring Danny Glover. There's a scene involving Glover's character and a blind musician played by Keb' Mo', who sings a couple of bars of "Stagger Lee," causing Glover to mutter, "I hate that song." We don't find out why until later in the film, but (spoiler alert) it's because when he was younger, he'd been in an incident similar to the one outlined in the song. The interesting thing here, though, is that the song "Stagger Lee" was always about one man killing another. But when Lloyd Price recorded the song, he recorded two versions: one in which one man kills another over a dice game, and another where they merely get into a fight over a pretty girl. (The second version was for American Bandstand and for radio consumption in more conservative areas of the country.) The experience that Glover's character went through as a younger man appears to be a mashup of both versions of the song. At any rate, "Stagger Lee" as a song has a very rich history, and it turns out to be rooted in a true story. Many times, when doing the research for an episode I reach a point where the more I dig, the more I find myself going in circles. This time, I tapped a rich mine of information, to the point where I found myself having to decide what to keep and what to toss to keep the episode to a reasonable length. Enjoy! Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Pardon my allergies; I've sounded kind of rough for a week or so. There was a lot of throat-clearing to edit out of this one. I can't even blame the Southern Studio on this one; it's the direct result of spending too much time cutting the grass at home. (And THEN I can blame the Southern Studio a little bit, because I went there the next day and it certainly didn't help matters.) How does one spend too much time cutting the grass? By having an electric mower and starting the job with a battery that isn't fully charged, that's how. This is an episode topic I've wanted to return to for a long time, but for some reason I kept procrastinating. But way, way back in Episode 11, I featured a bunch of songs that had mistakes in them which were discovered before the final product was released, but they decided they liked it better that way and ran with it. And today we return to that well for another dip. The tough part with songs like this is curating the best ones to use. Led Zeppelin often left in stray noises because they didn't really care (ringing phones), or because they were actually counting on it (squeaky pedal on Bonham's drum kit). So finding one that was both inadvertent and improved the recording? Absolute Gold, Jerry. Similarly, The Beatles would make an error in rehearsal or elsewhere and decide that that was something they needed to retain/reproduce (e.g. the wine bottle rattling at the end of "Long Long Long"), so those weren't really good candidates. And, of course, you run into a story which is just plain wrong. Yes, Ronnie Van Zant was talking to the board operator when he said "turn it up" while recording"Sweet Home Alabama," but he did not mourn the loss of doughnuts near the end. (What you're hearing is, "Montgomery's got the answer.") At any rate, I finally buckled down and did the necessary research, and I hope you have fun with this one as much as I did. Incidentally, a big shout-out to the newest member of our Wall of Fame. Everyone say hello to Cousin Robert! If you want to join the family, you can click here to become a Patron of the show. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Screen capture of McCarty during our Zoom-based interview. Jim McCarty is one of the founding members of The Yardbirds, and he's recently published his second book, She Walks in Beauty: My Quest for the Bigger Picture. It's a journey that starts with the death of his wife Lizzie and then jumps back to earlier in his life, as he examines the various things that connect us to parts of the world that are just beyond our reach. I was hooked immediately when I began reading this book, and no doubt you will be too. There's a search for spirituality weaved among stories about his musical career with, and since, the Yardbirds, and how the two occasionally intertwined. You can order the book from this site, or you can check out all the usual outlets (but it's guaranteed to be in stock there). At any rate, because he's living in France and I'm living in Baltimore, he and I communicated via Skype. It was supposed to be Zoom, but he couldn't get it to work. Then I couldn't get it to work. So we bailed out and jumped over to Skype, where my camera wouldn't work but at least we could hear each other. I'm so glad we both persevered, because I think we had a fantastic conversation, and the date of the interview turned out to be important to both of us, for similar reasons. At one point we talk about the Krishna Das cover of "For Your Love", which I gave him a heads-up that I wanted to talk about, and it turns out that he was quite familiar with it, and a little bit more. There's a short clip in the interview but the whole thing is here, and worth a listen. It's probably in my Top Ten all-time tracks: Enjoy! Jim McCarty Official Website Yardbirds Official Website Sarcoma Foundation of America Click here to become a patron of the show.  (Sorry, no transcript for this episode.)

When the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik first came out, I'd just left a job working in a record store and was doing some part-time work as a mobile DJ. I had a few regular gigs here and there on Long Island, which is where it's at when you do that sort of thing, because you get to know your crowd and who likes what, etc. Weddings and birthday parties, etc. were just Death on a Triscuit, because you have guests of all different ages, and the old people want to hear one thing, and the young people want to hear something else, and there are always arguments about the volume...feh. I hated doing that stuff. At any rate, I was working in a bar in Franklin Square, NY at this point and this crowd absolutely loved this track. That was a cool bunch, with a lot of that adult alternative stuff. I enjoyed working there except for two things: The equipment was stored in the bar's basement, which meant going outside into the alley out back, going downstairs to get it, dragging it upstairs and setting it up, and having to und0 it all at the end of the night; The setup was on floor level, which meant that any drunk moron could—and sometimes did—crash directly into my stuff. And since I was still playing records sometimes, that made for some audio disasters. I would have stayed longer if I hadn't broken my ankle and moved 30 miles away in the interim (long, long story there). I also liked my boss and he'd throw me other work from time to time. Ah, well. Incidentally, I didn't mention this during the episode but the song has been covered about a dozen times and sampled more than twice that many. In fact, Busta Rhymes' "Break Ya Neck" owes so much to "Give it Away" that all of the musicians who played on "Give it Away" appear on the record's credits as co-writers. (It's not so much a sampling as it is Rhymes inserting the chorus into the song.) Click here for a transcript of the episode. Click here to support the show via Patreon.

This is a show that I made a long while back specifically for the Patreon crowd. Those are the folks who have been supporting the program and helping me to cover some of the hosting and other costs attached to doing the show (e.g. subscriptions, software, etc.). In fact, it was so long ago that the show's logo changed in the interim. I had to re-do the cover art to accommodate the change. (Changing the lettering is easy; the rest of it was more complicated than it should have been. But now I'm just kvetching.) Their money also funded the source materials for this particular episode. As it happens, there's only one place you can get it. And it's only available on LP, though with the LP came the ability to download digital files as well. At any rate, because the LP set was quite expensive, I decided to create the episode as a "Thank You" to those folks. I also knew that I would publish it to everyone else in the future, around this time of year. For those of you who don't know: you can support the show financially at patreon.com/howgooditis. For a mere five bucks a month, you get a weekly newsletter where I share information from around the music world. The newsletter has a couple of Patron Saints, and that newsletter is delivered every single week (OK, there have been a couple of misses, usually due to illness) whether there's an episode or not. So while there haven't been any episodes in several weeks, the Patrons have been seeing newsletters. So anyway: what we have in this super-sized episode is a look at the Golden Record. That's the collection of music curated by scientists and then mastered onto a disc, which was put on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 and blasted off into space. The Voyagers are billions of miles away, and while their discovery by aliens is unlikely (because space is BIG, yo), there's a more-or-less permanent record (heh) of human culture out there in the universe. This episode is a track-by-track view of the Golden Record. You don't hear most of the tracks in their entirety, but you do hear something from every track. It's a fascinating look at what was considered significant enough to represent the entire planet back in 1977.

Hi, folks: I know, the feed has been quiet for awhile. Listen and you'll hear a little bit of the story, and what happens next. (Don't worry, I'm not quitting the show.)   

For the last few weeks I've been having some weird troubles with the websites for both this podcast and the other one (wordsandmovies.com, in case you didn't know), especially with the other one. Pages would load slowly on my end, or not at all, which made it very difficult for me to post anything. And in the case of this site, it rendered releasing new episodes nearly (but not completely) impossible. So, after many hours on the phone with my webhost provider—most of them on hold—I finally gave up on them and moved the sites to a new location. A few bumps in the road were expected, and sure enough I got those. But for the most part everything has been going well over the last couple of days, so I took the time to record and post a new episode for you. (And apologies to the Patron crowd; that's the time I usually spend writing the newsletter.) There are still a few glitches here and there, and I'll be ironing those out as best I can. But I think in general we're all back on track. All that said, we're looking at a rather faithful cover of a song that, in turn, was a cover of another recording. However, that first cover was rather different from the original. To find out how different, you'll have to listen to the episode itself. But then, that's why you're here, isn't it. Despite being born in Westchester County, NY, Felix Cavaliere is closely associated with Long Island, enough so that he inducted Vanilla Fudge into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. Most of Vanilla Fudge is from New Jersey, so there's that. I have to think that it's because both Vanilla Fudge and The Rascals earned a lot of their performing chops in Long Island clubs. At any rate, it was the "live" feel and energy of their performing "Good Lovin'" that the record's producers were hoping to capture when the track was cut, and it's pretty clear that they succeeded, even if Cavaliere and company didn't really like their performance on the record. In fact, they didn't think it would sell very well at all. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a patron of the show.

If you want to get technical about it, Looking Glass was NOT a one-hit wonder. "Brandy" was, to be sure, their biggest hit and the song that most people identify with the band. But "Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne," the opening track from their second album, spent only one week less on the Billboard Hot 100 chart than "Brandy" did. Okay, it peaked at #33 while "Brandy" spent most of its chart life at or near the top, but still. "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" was actually a departure from their usual sound, which was a little more Jersey Shore Rock and Roll. This wound up creating a little trouble for audiences who came to see them expecting to hear an entire evening of "Brandy"-grade music, and it probably contributed to the demise of the band. Founding member Elliot Lurie left the band in 1974 for a solo career, and by the end of the next year the band changed names twice and moved into a power pop/metal sound. That band, called Starz, did have a couple of hits and they do still play from time to time. Lurie, meanwhile, moved into the production and music supervision side of things for awhile, and occasionally returns to live performances. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a patron of the show.

Wang Chung was a band that wasn't getting a lot of traction when they had a more traditionally Chinese name. I remember that early self-titled album Huang Chung and I have to admit I was a little put off by it, because it frankly wasn't especially cool-looking, so I didn't give it much of a chance. By the time their fourth album, Mosaic, came out, they'd switched labels a couple of times and had enlisted the help of people like David Geffen and Peter Wolf to get them on track. In fact, Wolf listened to the demo for "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" and made a suggestion that changed the tenor of the song, and turned it into the hit we all know and love (or hate, I don't know you). So after all that, what does it mean to "Wang Chung tonight"? Well, I think Nick Feldman explained it best. He said, "Wang Chung is the feeling, not the word. It represents an abstract, an escape from pragmatic, complex ideas. Wang Chung means whatever you want it to mean. Have fun with it. That's the whole idea of the line 'Everybody Wang Chung Tonight.' It can mean a tribal dance, a Viennese waltz, a party in New York, or whatever." And now you know. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a patron of the show.

OK, I know it's not midweek, as I'd promised. But I am back after an unscheduled hiatus, and with any luck I'll be posting more regularly. Patrons, I'll be updating you regularly in the Newsletter (which I swear won't be so much about me, but you're on the journey too and I do appreciate your support). "I Can Help" is one of those songs that managed to come together very quickly for Billy Swan, and it turned into his biggest hit as a songwriter, and his only hit as a performer. One of the things I like about it is the way that it feels like a generic offer of assistance, not unlike Bill Withers' "Lean On Me," and yet at the same time there's a little undercurrent of a guy who's desperate to get out of the Friend Zone ("If your child needs a daddy, I can help."—really?). But on the casual listen you don't really care, because of the way that Farfisa organ just carries you along, like you're in a skating rink and just along for the ride. One of the cool things about Billy Swan, though, is that he really wasn't cut out to be a rock star. He greatly preferred being the sideman. And as soon as all the excitement over "I Can Help" died down, he went beck to playing in Kris Kristofferson's tour band. Part of that, he thinks, is because he was never comfortable having to talk in between the songs. If all he had to do was sing, he'd probably be okay. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

This episode is a special one, boys and berries. Mike Messner, from the podcast Carefree Highway Revisited, joined me a few weeks ago to talk about the Gordon Lightfoot hit "Sundown." "Sundown" was Lightfoot's only song to reach Number One on the Billboard Hot 100. During our conversation we each took our own approach to the song. So what you're getting is a pretty well-rounded view of it. In addition, we make a couple of fun diversions to another Lightfoot song and my own personal heartaches. It's a fun ride, and I invite you to join us. If you're interested in listening to Mike's show, you can click on the link in the first paragraph, or just do a quick search in your favorite podcatcher. Click here to become a Patron of the show. Click here for a (partial) transcript of this episode.

Oh, I do enjoy breaking format once in awhile to do special episodes like this one. For this year's Christmas episode, I return to the songs that you don't seem to hear on the radio when the stations are playing All Christmas All The Time. You'd think that with the huge catalog of recordings to choose from (even if the list of songs is relatively limited), radio stations could go on for literally days without ever repeating a recording. But no, we're going to get Mariah Carey and Trans Siberian Orchestra over and over and over again. There was one station that managed to have a pretty deep catalog one year. It was out in Colorado and I think I went four hours before I heard a repeat. So that was pretty good. I don't think they're still doing that, though, more's the pity. I took a little more time to script this show than I did last year, so for those of you who are interested, there is a transcript this time. Last year, I was working off of notes, and it clearly shows. Hey, you live and you learn. Or you don't live long. (h/t to Lazarus Long) Here's the playlist for this year's episode: Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer (1979 version)—Elmo and PatsyChristmas Kisses—Ray Anthony and the BookendsChristmas on the Block—Alan Mann BandCrabs for Christmas—David DeBoyChristmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)—The DarknessHow to Make Gravy—Paul KellySanta Claus is Comin' to Town—Joseph Spence And finally, let me note that Jenna Getty has come through again with a Christmassy version of the theme music, funded by the Patrons of the show. I haven't mentioned this enough: Patrons of the show got a special hour-long episode a couple of weeks ago as an extra "Thank You" for their support. Plus they get the Newsletter with my lame blatherings every single week, whether a show drops or not. And if you become a Patron of the show, you'll have access to all of that. If that sounds interesting to you, please click the link below. Have a great and safe holiday! Click here to support the show through Patreon. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

When the B-52s first hit the music scene, even their own reaction to the sound of their first album was "this is SO bleak!" because it was relatively unproduced. There was no reverb, no echo, no studio tricks filling out the gaps in the recording. And then they decided they liked it that way. Their first single, "Rock Lobster," was originally much faster. Then it was slowed down a little and made longer. Then it was cut down for the 45. Then it was cut down again for the radio. It didn't matter; people liked it and they began to fill the clubs with their mashup of Surf Guitar and Punk with a splash of New Wave thrown in. The song never really tore up the Billboard charts but it's still the B-52s' signature song and we can't imagine a performance without it. That's some stupid artwork, isn't it. They can't all be gems. I should note that the lobster photograph was taken by David Clode for Unsplash. Any adulterations to it are mine. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

This whole episode came about because of a request by someone who wanted to hear the story behind a song. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot to it, but it got me thinking about other songs with similar subject matter. And now that I'm typing this, I realize that all the songs I discuss came from roughly the same period of time. What the hell was going on in the late 70s, anyway? Ah, well. With this episode I feel as though I've bookended a series that I started all the way back in Episode 80. Here's a couple of panels from a Sunday Doonesbury strip from 1979. Nerd that I was (OK, am), I remember when this first appeared: For what it's worth, "Songs about prostitutes" is a well I could come back to repeatedly. I'm not sure I have the mental stamina to do so, frankly. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

John Hall, you may remember from a couple of episodes ago, is the founder of the band Orleans. He recently released a solo album, his seventh (if you count the John Hall Band material). After spending some time in local and national politics, he returned to Orleans and they're still making music. In fact, at the time of the previous interview they were putting the finishing touches on Orleans' first Christmas album. That album is now finished and is available for your purchasing and listening pleasure. It's called New Star Shining, and it's a great piece of work. There's a lot of original material, a traditional Christmas carol and a single song from more recent holiday music canon. For lack of a better term, it's a kind of Yacht Rock Christmas album. I think the rowdiest track on it is their version of "Winter Wonderland." John and I met in the atrium of a Nashville hotel (more details during the show itself), and I do hope you'll forgive a little ambient noise. Plus, there was a little bit of both of us fidgeting with our handheld microphones. For all that, once again John comes through as a very thoughtful fellow. By that I mean he's not spouting out canned answers to the questions I asked (although some of them were inadvertentely rehearsed--my recorder failed and we had to start over again). And even with that technical glitch, he was both gracious and forgiving, and managed to make me feel not as stupid as I originally felt when I looked at the recorder in horror and realized what happened. Also, I'm a complete idiot because I didn't ask for an autograph, or a selfie of the two of us, or anything. So this recording is the only evidence that we were in the same space together. As an aside, the next day I was in the Podcast Movement conference and chatting with the people from ElectroVoice Microphones. I was using some new EV microphones for the interview. I told them about my interview "right over there in the atrium," and some of the issues I had with the fidgeting noises and such. While we chatted, one of the EV reps walked away and then came back. He handed me a box and said, "Here, try this one." It was a different model microphone, which he said would probably solve that problem. Boom! Free microphone! I used it to record some other material you'll hear in an upcoming episode and I think you'll notice the difference! This is why I worship at the Church of ElectroVoice. I did get the opportunity to thank them again a couple of days later. So here is my follow-up interview with John, which we did during the first week of August this past summer. Enjoy! Sorry, no transcript available for this episode. Enjoy this instead. Click here to support the show as a Patron.

I gotta tell you, I've been trying like a maniac to record this episode for several days. I typically take a break in August when I go to the Podcast Movement confab (every other year, it seems), and I come back with a bunch of actionable ideas and a few new contacts, and I kind of have to let it percolate in my head before I'm ready to come back. In the meantime, I was working on a David Bowie episode, and I frankly got writer's block. I was going in a hundred directions at once, and the story wasn't jelling right for me, so finally I abandoned it in favor of this one. And then, both of the computers that I use to produce this show died on me within a day of one another. I knew they were probably fixable, so I took them to my local shop, a guy I've used for years and would trust with my search history at this point. My problem is that he's really, really good and other people have figured it out, so now instead of a few days, the repairs are more like two weeks. I decided to persevere--after all, I don't use the desktops when I'm in the Southern Studio, right? But for whatever reason, the laptop wasn't cooperating with recording. I sounded bad. I mean, really bad. After three fixes and three re-tries, it still sounded terrible. But fortunately, I got the word that the computers were ready for pickup this morning. So I spent a chunk of the evening re-assembling my studio (with the able help of my daughter), and then re-re-re-recorded the show. By this point I nearly had the thing memorized and I barely glanced at the script. Anyway, it's been a frustrating few weeks and I thank you for hanging in there with me. I do have some cool stuff coming up over the next few episodes, some of it related to my trip to Nashville. I also have something that I've never done before: I'm working on a special Patron Exclusive episode which should be ready to go pretty soon. I had a pretty cool idea but it cost me a few bucks to get the source material, so I figured that the people whose donations made it possible for me to make that purchase should get first crack at it. And, incidentally, during this hiatus they got a newsletter every week except one, when I made the inexplicable mistake a couple of weeks ago of writing a newsletter and then not sending it out. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to support the show as a patron.

John Hall has been around the block a few times, and he's not finished traveling. In fact, when he and I chatted via Skype a short time ago, he was in the middle of a move from New York to Tennessee, and making that move in between gigs for both his solo shows and with the band that cemented his position in the Rock and Roll firmament, Orleans. In this episode we talk about the early days of his career, including how a couple of Orleans' first few hits came to be. We also get into his time away from the band, working on solo projects and how that turned into dedicating himself to environmental causes. And how that, in turn, provided the impetus for him to embark on a political career for several years. He managed to sponsor some legislation that not only received vocal bipartisan support, it actually passed with a bipartisan vote. It was a pretty significant piece of law, and he'll tell you about it during the show. After a health scare, John returned to playing music, both with Orlans and with his solo projects. He chronicled his journey in a book called Still the One: A Rock and Roll Journey to Congress and Back a couple of years ago, and this past year he released a solo album called Reclaiming My Time. (These are Amazon links but I don't get affiliate money for them.) And during the interview he also talks about a special project that Orleans is working on, which will be coming out in the fall. During the interview, I made mention of Orleans performing "Dancing in the Moonlight" and mistakenly said I thought the clip was from the late 70s, when they first covered it as the title track for an album. In fact, that performance was from 2006 and I present it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7QMsALoZMQ&ab_channel=JohnMarsden Sorry, no transcript for this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Original cover photo by  awatif abdulaziz  on  Scopio Olivia Newton-John was already a pretty big star by the time 1974 rolled around, but she still hadn't scored a Number One hit. Then along came Peter Allen, who was coincidentally also from Australia. Allen was putting together an album of his own, and he enlisted Jeff Barry to help him with the songwriting. Together they put together "I Honestly Love You" and cut a demo. The intent of the demo was to have something to work from when they recorded it for the album. Instead the demo wound up in the hands of Olivia Newton-John's producer, who played it for the singer. And the rest, as they say, is history. Except, not quite. There were a couple of other things that needed to happen. But if I told you here, why would you bother listening to the episode? I ask you! Because this episode is running a few days late, you're getting a treat: Episode 146, which will be an interview with John Hall, founder of the band Orleans, will drop either Monday or Tuesday, depending on how quickly I finish my post-production. Hall was a terrific interview and I hope to do a follow-up with him in the near future. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

The interesting thing about this song is that it was written for a specific singer. That said, it's been a pretty big hit for many different artists over the years. "Everlasting Love" was written in 1967 specifically to match Robert Knight's voice, but it's proven to be quite the malleable tune. It's been rendered in R&B, in disco, in rock, in techno and god knows what else. So the story behind the song isn't incredibly interesting. Interesting, but not incredibly so. But the journey it's taken to embed itself in the hearts of different generations is a fun one. Ride along with me, why don't you?. This is not the episode that I teased earlier. That one's still coming; there's an interview attached to it and we've had some scheduling issues. As promised, here's the video of the song by Sandra from 1987. It's got a very 80s feel to it. I think that comes from the editing and the "backstage" feel it's supposed to be conveying. I dare you to tell me I'm lying about the Natalie Wood thing: Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Since I was a young adult, I've liked listening to Janis Joplin. That bluesy rasp she always had going on really underlined her overall sound. And like so many others my age, I devoured her biography Buried Alive. One of the things that struck me then was the way so many of the people from her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, thought she'd ruined her voice because she'd sounded sweeter and purer as a teenager. Of course, they also bullied the hell out of her because she had an artistic mindset and she wasn't a racist at heart. (She did drop the N-bomb from time to time because it was originally the only word she had in her vocabulary for Black people.) The other thing that struck me was that in all of her photos she seemed like kind of a mess. Her hair was everywhere. She wore a million beaded necklaces. She had the baggy, shapeless clothes on. In short, she looked kind of scuzzy and while it kind of matched her sound, it belied the emotion behind her delivery. It wasn't until a few years ago when I saw a black-and-white nude she'd done in 1967, that I was able to see her differently. In that image, taken by Bob Seidemann but not released until after her death, her hair is a little more under control. She's still wearing lots of necklaces, but now they're nearly her only defense against the camera's eye. She's got some curves going on that you never suspected were there. But her face...her face is an expression of vulnerability, maybe even fright. You can see it in the cropped closeup to the right which I'm pretty sure is from the same session. Janis was always artistically naked on the stage, but now she was giving us a literal nakedness that allowed the young woman behind the bawdy broad to shine through. And I think that might be at the heart of her rendition of "Me and Bobby McGee." Janis was able to channel more of a bittersweet sound than her usual Kozmic Blues thing, and then when the band opens up toward the end of the record, she's just along for the ride. Click here to become a patron of the show. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

This week I've got something extra-special for you. It's an interview with Anthony Robustelli, whom I got to speak with recently via Skype. Anthony is a musician who has toured with lots of big-name performers, he's written books about Steely Dan and The Beatles (with more to come currently on the back burner), he's got a Beatles-based podcast that takes a whole new look at them, and his latest project is a 3D animated rock opera that takes place in the ashes of the 2016 election. Whether your politics lean red or blue, you'll probably find it fun (though admittedly it's a little more fun for the blue crowd). This is a longer episode than usual—just a shade over an hour, total—but my hope is that you'll have as much fun listening as I had chatting. If you want to encounter him elsewhere on the web: Where you can find him on the Twitter Machine. LIkewise, here's his Instagram profile. His 3D animated rock opera, The So-Called President. This is his main page. shadybear.com Link to his production studio. If you're interested in checking out his Beatles book, this is the place to go. And last but not least, here's the direct link to his podcast, which is back up and running as of today! You should also be able to find it in Podcast Republic or your favorite podcatcher software: https://shadybearbklyn.podbean.com/ Enjoy. No transcript this week, unfortunately. My apologies! Click here to become a Patron of the show.

James Taylor was a talented guy, but early in his career he was having a tough time getting a break. Even when the Beatles signed him to their label, it was at a time that the label was coming unraveled and promotion was scarce. Plus, Taylor had his own issues to deal with. It took some time but he managed to get his act together, get himself cleaned up and get some talented people to work with him on his second album, which fortunately wasn't on Apple Records. With some support from Warner Brothers, Sweet Baby James became a hit album, and "Fire and Rain" became a breakout his for Taylor. "Fire and Rain" is one of those songs that seems to have a lot of weird theories surrounding its subject matter, and the best I can tell you is that most of them are close, but not close enough to be considered correct. But the real stories attached to the song are more compelling, if not quite as exciting. As I promised during the show, here's a sample of the old Smokey Stover comic strip that I referred to: For my money, some of that art suggests that Bill Holman was a big influence on the MAD Magazine crew. It's also likely that Holman himself was influenced by George McManus, the artist behind "Bringing Up Father." Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Where have I been? Let's start with: I'm okay, my family is okay, everybody's okay. My wife, as you may know, was considered especially vulnerable to the virus and spent a lot of time in the Southern Studio, but she's back home and everyone in the household is fully vaccinated, thank goodness. But that doesn't have a lot to do with where I've been. The fact is, I'm a victim of my own success. This show is considered "big, for a small podcast" which typically doesn't mean that much, but in recent months the show has seen a small surge in growth. This happens every now and again: I see a sudden uptick in downloads and then it levels off for a long while until another uptick comes along. My listenership managed to cross some critical thresholds this time around. So it was time once again for me to think about choosing another provider to host the show. I've done it before and it's typically not a big deal. In fact, it usually goes so smoothly that you don't know the difference. The problem that I bumped into this time is that the new host has limits for data uploads that I didn't know about, because the show's length (in minutes and seconds) isn't usually enough to create a problem for me. It's when I started migrating older shows into the new space that I suddenly had a problem, and I was prevented from uploading anything else untila month had gone by and the meter reset itself. So my options were to buy more data to upload for a single cycle, or wait it out. I chose to wait it out, since I'd recently spent the money on the new hosting and the new theme music, some of which you haven't even heard yet. There's a little more detail in this audio clip here, which should already be in your podcatcher: Thanks for listening! I've got some exciting stuff coming up in the near future and moving into summer!

When I was in high school, there was a guy I knew named Phil. Phil and I shared an art class, a class I had to be talked into attending because I'd had a bad experience with an art class in the eighth grade. But I was told that the teacher was really good and kind of a cool guy, and sure enough he was. Mr. L, our art teacher, let us bring in our own music to listen to while we worked. So one fine day in the spring of 1980, Phil brings in a bunch of 45 records, and one of them was this song. "Cars" was the kind of tune that, at the time, was unlike anything I'd heard before, and I was both fascinated and hooked. The first opportunity I had, I went out and got my own copy of the record (I wasn't very album-focused yet), and played that record hard. Numan didn't see a whole lot more action in the United States after that, probably because New Wave came along and nudged him out of the way, but I don't think I'll forget the impact of hearing that record for the first time, even on that crummy, bulky, big brown nearly-portable record player that so many schools used. In retrospect, it occurred to me that you kind of have to see the original video--at least the first minute or so--to understand what they were doing with part of the Die Hard commercial, so here's the original 1979 video: And here's the Die Hard commercial in full: What song did you hear that just knocked you out on the first listen? Tell me in the comments! Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a patron of the show.

Laura Nigro was a sixteen-year-old musical prodigy who was trying on several last names, as creative types sometimes do. She happened to be "Nyro" when she finally started to catch on in the music industry, so Laura Nyro she became. Nyro was never a huge star in her own right. But she left behind a musical legacy in a bunch of songs that became big hits for other artists. That's a roster that would include Three Dog Night, the Fifth Dimension, Barbra Streisand and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Nyro wrote "And When I Die." Peter, Paul & Mary made it kinda-sorta famous. But it was Blood, Sweat and Tears that really brought it to the fore. David Clayton Thomas' voice, combined with Dick Halligan's arrangements made for a relatively light-hearted romp through the graveyard. And while BST's version is musically different from Nyro's, they never lost sight of that gospel feel that it had, even as they gave it the cowboy instrumental section. In doing the research for this show, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole of listening to Laura Nyro's music. I may have to do a whole bunch of shows dedicated to her sometime soon. Nyro is definitely an under-appreciated talent. Click here to become a patron of the show. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

In a relatively short period of time, Pink Floyd went from a band with a fairly small but loyal fan base to an international phenomenon. And it was taking its toll on the members of the group. Even as they were putting together this, probably their most cohesive album, they were largely working in isolation. Only occasionally were all four members in the studio at the same time as they worked on it. This sense of alienation from each other and their newfound audience, plus the cynicism of the record label executives they met up with after the success of Dark Side of the Moon, gave rise to Wish You Were Here. (The story goes that they did, indeed, have someone ask them "Which one's Pink?") In addition, the band was sorely missing founding member Syd Barrett, who'd left the group a few years earlier after having a breakdown. There were a few attempts to bring him back, but Barrett just wasn't able to bring the spark he'd had previously. Wish You Were Here the album explores all of these themes separately, but I'd argue that "Wish You Were Here" the song ties all of them into a neat little bow. From that point there are only about twelve minutes left to the album. That leaves twelve minutes of a coda bringing the whole thing to a tidy close. So where have I been the last few weeks? I've been doing some pondering about re-working the show a little bit, and getting some new elements in. So you'll hear some big differences in the beginning of the show (and a little bit at the end), and I'll be trying out a couple of other things soon as well. Here's a for-instance: the show has new theme music! Thanks to the generosity of the show's Patrons, I was able to commission some custom music for the show. I'll always have a soft place in my heart for "Surfing Day" but I think this new track has a little bit of the same feel and I hope you like it as much as I do. (You can hear it unsullied by my voice on the Facebook page.) For what it's worth, the show has been away for a few weeks, but I haven't. I've been communicating with the Patreon crowd every Sunday morning via the newsletter. If you'd like to see what that's about, click here to become a Patron of the Show. You won't be able to see the recent newsletters, but you can see the ones from this past fall. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

It's kind of melancholy for a song that many consider to be a Christmas song, isn't it? What you have in this tune is the true story of two people who re-encounter each other after several years of separation. And as they spend some time re-connecting, they both recognize that despite opening up to each other, it doesn't mean that anything else is going to happen for them. The moment has passed them by, and they're mostly just left with the restlessness and maybe even some self-pity that they hadn't even realized they were experiencing earlier. They're glad they saw each other, and they still manage to come away sadder about their own situation, having gained and lost a shred of hope that this is the opportunity they've been waiting for. Fogelberg always insisted that the story was true, but he never revealed the identity of the woman in the story. But shortly after he died in 2007, she came forward and did an interview with a Peoria, Illinois newspaper. Her name is Jill Anderson Greulich, and she says she hears from Fogelberg's fans all the time, with almost invariably positive messages, and especially around the holidays. It's not really a Christmas song in the sense of Christmas songs we typically think of. It's set during Christmas, but it's not the overly-happy, sanitized Christmas we're used to singing about. It's more like the Christmas that actually happens to us. And that's not always a bad thing. I meant what I said about the cookies. If you come up with a guess, hit me up on the social media and I'll let you know if you got it. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Bill Withers was an aspiring musician, but he kept his feet on the ground for a long time. Even after his first album started to climb the charts, he kept working his job assembling bathrooms in an airplane factory because he thought the music industry was fickle. He wasn't wrong, incidentally. But in his case he may have been pessimistic. It wasn't until "Ain't No Sunshine" went Gold that he finally left the factory job and went on tour to support the album. Given the star power that supported him with the recording of his debut album, Just As I Am, it's a small wonder that he became such a huge star right away. When you've got Booker T. Jones producing and the rest of the MGs, plus Stephen Stills and Jim Keltner on drums, you're going to be a huge hit. Or, maybe you're not nearly as good as you think you are, and you may as well spend the rest of your life in that factory. "Ain't No Sunshine" wasn't the first single off the album. And I don't think I'm spoiling any surprises here when I tell you this: It isn't too tough to figure out how it got all the airplay, and eventually all the sales, that it did. Oh—and, as promised, here's the video of the cover by the Black Label Society from a few years back. They're a heavy metal band, but this cover is mostly acoustic. Zakk Wylde kind of digs the negative attention that the video got for the use of the horse masks (and more) that you'll see in this video. But maybe just lean back and enjoy it instead of reading into it too deeply. I'm aiming for the next show to drop on January 3, so until then: have a Happy and Safe New Year! Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

Merry Christmas! I actually had a different show in mind but I got to listening to some old radio airchecks (not my own) and I was inspired to do something different from the usual show. The first thing you'll notice is that it's a half-hour long. That's because I'm playing songs in their entirety and not really talking very much. (If any episode is going to net me a C&D letter, this'll be the one.) In this year's Christmas episode, I'm playing eight songs that don't get airplay anymore for some reason. A few of them are kinda goofy, a couple are kind of derivative, and I daresay a few of them are seminal to their genre. And while I share a little history with you here and there, the intent this time is to just sit back and wonder why the All Christmas All The Time station in your area is sticking with the same twenty songs, and not playing any of these guys. All of these songs can be found without too much hassle on Amazon Music or YouTube. If you want to revisit them, here's the playlist: Merry Christmas, Mary—Tommy Dee and Carol KayMerry, Merry Christmas, Baby—Dodie StevensSanta's Song—The Oak Ridge BoysYulesville—Edd "Kookie" ByrnesSanta Claus Meets the Purple People Eater—Sheb WooleyPlease Come Home For Christmas—Charles BrownWhite Christmas—The RavensSilent Night—The Ravens (flip side of White Christmas) And just for the giggles, here's one more song that didn't make it into the show itself. It's Bobby Helms' other shot at a Christmas tune, from 1965. He wasn't the original artist (I think he was the fourth) to release this song. I think the most popular version came from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in 1968, though Bobby Vinton's version is kind of well-known, too. At any rate, here's Bobby Helms: Sorry, no transcript of this episode, since it's mostly music. Click here to become a Patron of the show.

This is a re-upload of Episode 134 for the folks who got the bad file on the original send. If you've already heard this one, there's nothing new here and feel free to skip or delete it; I won't feel badly.

(Original photo by Meg Wagener for Unsplash) Let me start by thanking the show's newest Patron, Scott Fraser, for joining the family! Next: my apologies: I counted on taking a week's break but not two. I got remarkably sick a couple of times in the past week, culminating with a trip that involved having testing swabs stuck up my nose to varying depths, depending on what they were looking for that time. They were relieved to tell me that I "only" had food poisoning...they think. Reassuring? Anyway, if I sound a little rough in this episode, now you know why. There are several elements of the story behind "Maggie May" which are going to sound very familiary to you, if only because I've told a variation on them at some point in the past with regard to other songs. On the other hand, there are definitely a few elements to "Maggie May" which you're not going to hear anywhere else, because not every song starts with getting deflowered at a jazz festival's swan song. Oh--and as promised, here's Godley and Creme's first video, for their own "Englishman in New York." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQr6FYFEjI8&ab_channel=JoeyOddo Click here to become a Patron of the show. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

When Sheryl Crow finished her debut album, she decided that it didn't sound the way she wanted it to. So she actually convinced A&M Records to scrap it and let her start over. The result was a collaboration between her and several other Los Angeles-area musicians who met weekly to help each other with their songwriting. That quickly turned into a project dedicated to putting together Crow's second debut album. That group became the Tuesday Night Music Club, because that's the night they'd meet, and it also became the title of that album. Now, some controversy arose around the TNMC and the album that arose from it, specifically who got credit for what, and it may have led to the death of one of the members. But that all came later on and as a result I didn't focus on any of that in this episode. Instead I stuck to Crow's early career and what led to the Club, her (second) first album and how "All I Wanna Do" went from a throwaway track to her breakout hit. And as ever, I'm thankful for your support. Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a patron of the show.

So I'm in the Southern Studio again this weekend, which means I don't have a good handle on the way the show sounds until long after I've posted it. Also, I tried something very different with my workflow this week so I'm curious to know what you think of the way the shows sounds at your end. I won't be upset if you think it stinks, promise. Next week I'll be back in Baltimore, sounding more typical. To tell the story of "Knock Three Times" we had to dive a little bit into the early career of Tony Orlando and how he got that way. Orlando had actually retired from singing and was doing well with producing and working in Columbia Records' music publishing department, when someone asked him a favor: could you please record this for us? Orlando said, "No thanks. You're not even a Columbia label. " They said, "Please? We'll give you three thousand dollars." And Orlando said, "Don't put my name on this or there'll be trouble." So Bell Records kept their promise and released the record under the name Dawn. They even took the time to fake a photo of the band for the 45's picture sleeve. Look at those guys over there. None of them are on this record. They're literally just four guys in a photograph. The band was composed of session musicians and a couple of backup singers, including Toni Wine, who co-wrote the song. This wound up being a good news/bad news thing, because "Candida" was a pretty huge hit worldwide, and Bell Records got hot for a follow-up track. Orlando went back into the studio with the same session players and made an entire album, including a second single, "Knock Three Times." That song was an even bigger hit, and Orlando was forced to come out in the open, hire some genuine members of Dawn and go on tour. But I'm pretty sure it worked out okay for him in the end, yeah? Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a patron of the show.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin were in a remarkably productive period in the early 1970s. Over a span of just two weeks they'd not only written enough material for an album, they'd written enough for two. And they were thematically similar enough that all the songs could be combined into a single two-LP package. That became the double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which yielded three hit singles. It would have generated at least one more, but in the meantime John had cranked out yet another album (Caribou), and any more singles from Goodbye would have delayed Caribou's release. So "Harmony" became a B side, and while "Candle in the Wind" had been released as a single in the UK, it never came out in the US. However, 1973 was early in the period when FM radio was starting to grow, and some radio stations were only too happy to play entire album sides without interruption. And since Side 1 of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road could be considered practically a single piece, "Candle in the Wind" got some FM airplay then. At any rate, it wasn't an unknown quantity by the time 1986 rolled around and Elton played it in concert in Australia, where the song made it onto the live album he released the next year and it WAS released as a single, this time charting in the US and (again) in the UK. Because the song had gotten some national attention it turned out that Princess Diana was familiar with it to the point where she'd told Elton John that she'd found herself identifying with some of the predicaments that the Marilyn Monroe of the song had faced during her lifetime. So when Diana was killed in a car crash at the same age that Marilyn was when she died, and when the Royal Family asked Elton John to play at Diana's funeral, Elton asked Bernie Taupin to come up with new lyrics for the song. And thus it was that "Candle in the Wind" found new life on the charts. But there's more to the story than just that. Tune in and find out what! Click here for a transcript of this episode. Click here to become a Patron of the show.