Bill and Frank’s Guilt-Free Pleasures

Air Supply: ”Making Love Out of Nothing At All” (Jim Steinman is exhausting)

Despite the toll that it takes on ourselves, we are diving back into the Jim Steinman pool of songs. We've been looking forward to doing an episode on Air Supply since we began our show. We're glad that day is finally here!
Also, sorry about the initial upload. If this is only a minute long, please delete and reload. We fixed it!
The original best video.
The other video.
Our mixtape.
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too. Feel free to rate and review us wherever you listen!
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
 

Scorpions: ”Wind of Change” (Apollo did not die in vain)

Bill and Frank step out of their comfort zone to discuss a song not about romantic love, but instead about political change and hope. We cover everything from whistles to Apollo Creed's untimely demise. Follow us down the Moskva as we talk about the power of music and our hope that we can still experience a wind of change in our times. 
Special thanks to Vic for requesting this song!
Mixtape
Music Video
2022 Live Version
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too. Feel free to rate and review us wherever you listen!
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
 

Bryan Adams: ”Heaven” (From dance clubs to country roads to church camps)

In order to properly discuss Bryan Adams first US #1 hit, we decided to bring back our good friend Kate Angle. Besides being an actual member of the official Bryan Adams Fan Club for the past thirty years, Kate famously played tambourine with Bryan Adams (and Linda Evangelista) when the Canadian rocker came to our city. We discuss the film that inspired the song, whether "nice" is ever an apt descriptor, and why Frank is drawn to bizarre 1950s language whenever he thinks about this song. 
Mixtape
The DUI video
The TV screen video
Re-Recorded Version
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
 

Mariah Carey: ”Vision of Love” (The Magna Carta of Melisma)

May this episode do justice to the powerhouse that is Mariah Carey, and may it serve as Bill's penance for being so wrong about her over the past few episodes...
 
More show notes will be forthcoming...
 
Mixtape
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.

Dionne Warwick & Friends: ”That’s What Friends Are For”

Of all the big multi-artist charity singles, this one is the might be the best - it certainly feels the most personal. Bill and Frank test the limits of their own friendship through the analysis and reflections of this song.
Mixtape
Original Video
Alternate Video
Live Performance
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.

Foreigner: ”I Want To Know What Love Is” (Gospel Choir for Hire)

Our good friend Bruce Soderholm joins us again to celebrate Foreigner's number 1 smash hit. We discuss percentages (at length), poetic devices, and that primal groan that gives so much heft to this love song. If there's one thing we hope you can take away from this episode, it is this: "It ain't worth a damn if it ain't got Lou Gramm!"
Due to timeline constraints, we had to edit out our mixtape portion of the episode. Here is the link and see if you can predict at which points each of the three hosts are taking over the mix.
Thank you for joining us! Please share us with your friends in order to bring more joy to the world.
Helpful links:
Original Music Video
Farm Aid Performance
Mariah Carey Version
Chipmunks Version
Rock of Ages Version
Tina Arina Version
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Masadon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.

Hootie & The Blowfish: ”Hold My Hand” (A Redemption Episode)

Through revisiting Hootie & The Blowfish's first major single, Frank is finally able to come to terms with his shame. He is so sorry, Hootie.
Links:
Music Video
Sesame Street Segment
David Letterman Show
How Our Cruelty Killed Hootie and the Blowfish - and Damaged Our Souls
Mixtape
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Masadon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
 
Transcript
Bill:[0:01] Today is redemption day at Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures. We are going to celebrate the positive force that is Hootie and the Blowfish by taking,a deep dive into their iconic first single.Frank:[0:17] So why don't you hold our hand as we take you through this song and take you through the band's history.This is Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures.So I have a confession to make. I know the name of the podcast is Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures, but I am riddled with guilt.Riddled with guilt for what I have done with a band that I once loved and then turned my back on because it was popular to make fun of them. And of course we're talking about Hootie and the Blowfish,and we're going to be talking specifically about Hold My Hand today, but back in 94,Hootie and the Blowfish burst onto the scene with their album Crack to Review, and were hugely popular. Crack to Review is not only one of the best debut albums of all time, but one of thebest-selling albums of all time. And then 96 they released Fairweather Johnson. So,Cracked Review has I think 26 million copies sold and then by 96 Fairweather Johnson comes out 2.3 million copies sold. So the world turned their back on Hootie and the Blowfish and I was one of those who turned his back on them. I,I denied liking them. They were a dirty secret to me. I loved their music still. I still loved their music.[1:46] I was not supportive of the band and made fun of them. And for that, I need forgiveness.Bill:[1:54] So Hootie and the Blowfish, if you're listening, we're sorry. And we're going to go from guilty to guilt-free today.Let's go through the history of hooting the blowfish.Frank:[2:10] Yeah, so they kind of burst on the scene in 94, but they weren't just brand new.They had been playing as a band for eight years.They met and started the band in 86 in South Carolina.And the story goes, Mark Bryan heard Darius Rucker singing in the shower when they were both freshmen at university.From there he said like, hey, you got the, you have this great voice. So they started a band called the Wolf Brothers.And then they brought Dean Felber and the original drummer. Give me a second here. I have his name. Brantley Smith started the band.And then after university, Brantley left the band because he wanted to pursue a career in music ministry.And that's when Jim Sonnefeld came into the band.Bill:[2:58] And Jim Sonnefeld's tryout, is that what they call it when they're trying it? That's a better word. When he had his audition, he said to them, I write songs too. So Darius Rucker is telling the story at a concert a few years ago. And he's like, oh boy. And they said they spent the whole day kind.Frank:[3:02] Or audition, I think? Yep.Bill:[3:15] Of with him. And they had been drinking beer all day and like, oh boy, here we go. He's got a song.And the song that he brought to them was Hold My Hand. Even though it says all four of them wroteit from what I gather this is Jim Sonnefeld's song I think Darius Ruckerman worked on some lyrics as well I'm not sure I mean I like the idea that they,gave themselves all writing credit which of course was financially a great thing yeah but hold my hand was what the new drummer brought into the band and it's,one of those classic stories where you have all these pieces and then you kindof switch up drummers thinking of course that thing you do and then you some or the yeah was it Ringo okay sure so hold my hand which is the song we'regonna be talking about today was written I think probably 89 somewhere around.Frank:[4:04] 89, yep.Bill:[4:05] There so there's a version of it from 1990 that is released on the CrackedRearviews 25th anniversary and there's another version of it on their EP Koochie Pop and then it came out again and cracked rearview.So by 1994, a lot of these songs have already existedfor four to five years, I think. I think, I mean, maybe two to five years,but they've been around.Frank:[4:31] Yeah, because Houdini and the Blowfish were huge in the college bar scene in South Carolina.They all stuck around there.They played, you know, they're sitting in there going from bar to bar in their van andeverything and, you know, just kind of living that musician life until they caught their big break and caught it they did.Bill:[4:54] And it was tricky because they were denied the South by Southwest entry. They're never allowed in from what I can gather when they were trying out.They have these rejection letters from like Geffen Records, people saying, well, the criticism was this is the type of music people don't want nowadays.So that was there.So this sort of music from our early 90s. I mean, there's this big transition where suddenly it got darker.But this music existed.So I feel like we've talked before about this where there's this sort of dark cloud. We act as though,Existed in those early 90s this feeling of dread existential crisis,But the truth is who in the blowfish was out there playing? Someone's listening to country music non-stop on the radio too.So there's other stories going on.Frank:[5:40] Yeah, yeah, and there isn't that, like you said, it isn't doom and gloom with their music.It's called like middle of the road rock or like safe rock or whatever, but it's happy,it's positive and I think that's what we needed at that point.Bill:[5:58] Clearly the US craved it because it was the number one Billboard album.and our rock album going to number one for the year,still is kind of a rare thing. But it had that heartland feel to it. It had the positive vibes we wanted,and everyone was listening to it. And I know you feel bad about turning your back on thembut you weren't the only person who owned the album. But amongst our friends, You were the only one who was willing to say you had it.Frank:[6:27] Yeah, I had already established myself as being a huge Toad the Wet Sprocket fan, and I still am.And then bringing Hooting the Blowfish into the mix as well.I was concerned about being that guy that just liked bands with ridiculous names.Bill:[6:45] And I was doing my best to try to prove that I really liked early Genesis. So I'd already staked my claim in Prague Rock, Even though it's deep down, I just want to listen to Phil Collins all day.Frank:[6:51] Hahaha.[6:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know that this is probably common knowledge, but I think it bears repeating. The name Hootie and the Blowfish doesn't refer to anyone in the band.Bill:[7:08] Right, and they have a whole sketch on Key and Peele about this. It's okay, but it's the idea that he's not Hooty.Frank:[7:09] Everyone thought that Darius Rocker was Hooty and the band was the Blowfish.[7:16] Oh do they okay yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's right.Bill:[7:22] Yeah, yeah.And that is a thing, Darius Rucker says, oh man, now that they're touring again, hekeeps being called Hooty. But it was Darius Rucker who describes himself as a bit of a, he says, I'm a nice guy, but.Frank:[7:27] Oh, serious.Bill:[7:34] I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes and I would give these nicknames to people and sometimes they weren't the kindest nicknames,So he called one guy Hootie.Frank:[7:42] Yeah, because he had big eyes and looked like an owl.Bill:[7:44] Right and then another guy came out with like I don't I'm guessing he had facial features that made him look like a blowfish.Frank:[7:50] Yeah maybe like dizzy Gillespie cheeks or.Bill:[7:52] So he Yeah, so he called one of the guys Hootie and one of the guys blowfish and then he turned saidWhy don't we just call ourselves hooting the blowfish to whoever was in the band at that moment? But we've always thought Blowfish was plural.Turns out there was a guy named Blowfishand a guy named Hooty, according to Darius Rucker. I don't know how these two guys feel about it.But that was it. And then like so many other things,like told the Wet's Sprocket, they said, well, we put that in as a joke because they're in a battle of the bands or whatever, right?And then it never left. And this is the same thing. Well, we're gonna live. Well, I mean, the great thing is for search engine optimization, you type in Hooty.Frank:[8:21] It just stuck, yeah.Bill:[8:28] There's not too much that comes up outside of this band.Frank:[8:30] That comes up, yeah, exactly. Yeah.Bill:[8:33] So this brings us to, well, we've already talked about it.Cracked Rearview is their debut album. They've had several EPs already that sold well.I think Coochie Pop sold like 50,000 copies or something. And so they are wise enough to have already formed.Frank:[8:43] Yeah, yeah.Bill:[8:47] A corporation, Hootie the Blowfish. And they had like an office in, I think it's South Carolina or wherever they were.They already have it and they still have that office.But they set up a corporation and put in their own like insurance and stuff.So they were made sure they were paid all the time. And they were wise enough by the time that they hit it big, they were 29, I think. Yeah, they were late 20s. Yeah.Frank:[9:10] Yeah, they were late 20s by the time everything sort of panned out for them.Bill:[9:14] Yeah. So that kind of gave them career longevity, even though they seemed to be a flash in the pan in terms of, I don't know, pop zeitgeist moment or whatever.Frank:[9:25] And like the, I don't think they were ever cool necessarily, but they were popular.Bill:[9:35] Yeah. And Darius Rucker even said himself, they knew that.[9:38] Things were going great for them. But deep down, he said theyknew they weren't great.Frank:[9:43] You get the feeling that there's no huge egos with that, with the band.Bill:[9:46] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And they didn't have that. And they'reall buddies. And they stayed together. Interesting side noteTrivia the band members have had marriages and divorces all of them right cuz that's just life in this industry. I,Talk as though I know all about this industry. So drummer.Frank:[10:02] Well, your wife's in the industry, right?Bill:[10:06] The drummer Barry Sonnefeld Gets divorced and in 2008 he marries Mark Bryan's ex-wife.Frank:[10:16] Oh, seriously? Oh, geez.Bill:[10:16] Yeah, they all are still buddies. So that has worked out. So So that's a bit of random trivia for you there.Frank:[10:20] Okay.[10:23] I did not know that. Wow.You got to have a strong friendship for that to happen. happen. That's crazy. It's like Johnny and Joey Ramone all of a sudden.Bill:[10:29] Yeah.[10:30] Yeah. I mean, they never look at each other in interviews and they don't speak and.[10:38] I made up the don't speak part. I'm not even sure. I'm not even sure they're friends, but they still work together as a corporate unit. All right. So Cracked Rearview.This is the album you lent me in 1994. Right? So I borrowed it from you. And back then, I mean, CDs were so expensive.Frank:[10:55] Did you create a tape? Did you? Yeah.Bill:[10:57] Oh for sure.Frank:[10:58] But there's something so comforting in Darius Rucker's voice. It's that that baritone.It feels familiar and it feels comfortable and it feels safe.Bill:[11:09] And it has all these sort of elements all baked into it. So you have this Rock and roll heartland feel but you have a soul feel in there and then you also have a country feel.Frank:[11:20] You have a soul feel in there.Bill:[11:20] And that's all mixing into like well, basically all the modes of popular american music all in one voice.Frank:[11:27] Yeah and it crossed so many genres which is probably why Crack to Review did as good as it did.It spoke to so many different people.Bill:[11:36] Dears Rucker said that to him, hold my hand as a protest song.[11:41] And he said, for me, the song was always about racism, which I never thought of.Frank:[11:46] No, and we talked about this a little bit before some of the misheard lyrics.I thought it was more of a romantic type of song, almost going back to like that early 60s, that kind of like, I wanna hold your hand, like that kind of a feel.And then I just misheard some lyricswhile I was listening to it when I was younger and thought it was more about romance, but it's about the way I understood it now,rereading the lyrics, it's about pulling people up and building them up and supporting people,and being there for them.The harmonies, particularly in the chorus, It just, it helps to push through that theme of what, hold my hand, what thatthat resembles.Bill:[12:35] You always use that word. That drives me insane. Alright. So this song has three iterations to it.So there's this one, which is the one we all know, but there was two earlier versions.So the neat thing is hearing its development as it went. But neater still is it wasn't really developed.It was already there in 1990.I read somewhere where they said 95% of the sound was already on those EPs and you canhear it. Every part of it has already been worked together by them. So the producer of this is Don Gaiman, who also worked with Mellencamp and REM in the,past. And so they thought it was a good fit.And it was and he did bring some things out there like he just pushed certain sounds outthere. You can hear the bass much better. a clarity and there's way more power in the chorus, which is what makes the song whatit is to me. But they already had it there. So it's kind of neat that this band knew what they were and work towards it.It wasn't as though they were created by a producer.Frank:[13:45] Yeah, the producer just took what was already there and just sort of fine-tuned it a bit.Bill:[13:49] All right. Well, let's talk about the song.Frank:[13:54] Yeah, song analysis. What I like, it starts off with that nice clean acoustic guitar strum,and it starts off with the opening line, with a little love and some tenderness. We'll walk upon the water, we'll rise above the mess. With a little peace and some harmony, we'll take the world together, we'll take them by the hand.Bill:[14:14] Now, that in itself is something worth looking over, why this band is so popular.So, with a little love and some tenderness kind of brings back some of those peace and love 60s stuff.We'll Walk Upon the Water brings in the gospel, right?We'll Rise Above the Mess with a little peace and some harmony. And so you have this sort of all of us are together.When I heard this originally, I just thought it was a love song,because I have the Beatles, I want to hold your hand in my head.that's all I think it's about. But as I'm looking at it now, the gospel throwback lines make it feel much bigger thing,that there's something much more powerful going on. And that leads of course to the pre-chorus almost, or tease pre-chorus,cause I've got a hand for you, cause I wanna run with you.I just love the notion that it's holding someone's hand and then running with them.So you're kind of taking them somewhere, you're either taking them away from something,or towards something. And I think in this song is both.Frank:[15:14] You're running towards something.[15:18] But, and it's also, you're helping them to get there. It's like, it paints this beautiful picture in my mind anyways, of like, there's anexcitement behind it too, cause like you're dragging someone's like, I got like, no, no,no, no, no, you got to come here. This is super exciting. Come with me.Bill:[15:34] So you have a, the next verse or I don't know,but it's yeah, we'll call it verse. Yesterday I saw you standing there. Of course. We don't think it's yesterday. What do we think?Frank:[15:47] Yes, indeed.Bill:[15:48] Yes, indeed. Okay, so there's music yeah.Frank:[15:51] Well, and that was the other in the in the first verse, it was, when he says, we'll walk upon the water, we'll rise above the mess. I was I mean, it's just a slight change. But we'll I thought it was we'll rise above the mist.Bill:[16:04] Same with me because I thought I matched the water but the mess is is better but I but this is the sameI'm realizing now other lyrics so yesterday I saw you standing there your head was down your eyes were red No comb had touched your hair. I said get up and let me see you smile,We'll take a walk together walk the road a while cuz,But what cuz as a nut cousin hasn't because that line therewhere the idea of finding somebody who is down in the dumps.Now, just off the top of my head, just thinking about this,how about this for a reading?You're sitting down, you're ready for this?Frank:[16:43] I'm sitting down, yep.Bill:[16:45] This is Hootie and the Blowfish talking to 1990s music.Frank:[16:55] Oh, wow.Bill:[16:56] What do you think?They're looking at the grunge movement.Frank:[16:58] Yeah.Bill:[16:58] They're looking at the people just sitting therewith their red eyes are all upset.And this is the band coming to us and saying.Frank:[17:06] The band is saving the world.Bill:[17:07] The band is saving the world. Yeah, cause we didn't comb our hair.Take a look at all those grunge people. They didn't comb their hair. And he says, get up, let me see you smile. I love that. Cause like no one was smiling.It wasn't a thing.And he's gonna take us on a walk. We're walking together, walk down that road.And that's of course these classics Southern songs, beautiful pictures of this sort of harmony, hospitality. Let's get together.Frank:[17:35] And you can see that they're walking down a country road.There's like 100 year old trees lining the street and everything.and it's just a simpler time.Bill:[17:46] So here we go. Now we're headed into it. I've got a hand for you. I want to run with you. We've heard that before. And then it goes in that chorus. Hold my hand. I want you to hold my hand.and hold my hand, I'll take you to a place where you can be anything you want to be because I want to love you the best that the best that I can.Frank:[18:09] I'm getting goosebumpy and I'm getting teary-eyed right now. This is so beautiful.This is so, so beautiful. And then, like I said, Daris Rocker's voice is just so comforting and accepting. It is, oh my goodness, why did I ever turn my backs on these guys?Bill:[18:31] Listener Frank's actually crying. You are we didn't take a break here.Frank:[18:35] I might be. Yeah, no, it's just, oh, what was I doing? What was I thinking?My 20s were wasted.Bill:[18:46] Here's the thing listening to the lyrics of the song,tweeting the blowfish is not going to deny you entrance and to hootie-halla.Frank:[18:55] Oh, I know. And Darius Rucker's gonna take me by the hand and he's gonna run with me to all the fun and cool things. gonna judge you? No! It's okay. Oh man, such a beautiful song. Oh, I love this song.Bill:[18:56] You're still gonna be able to walk there with them.[19:04] He's not gonna judge you. It's okay.[19:12] Alright, let's work through some more of these lyrics because I think this is pretty rewarding. See, I was wasted and I was wasting time till I thought about your problems.I thought about your crimes.Now, I didn't think it was crimes. I thought it was crap. I thought about your crap. Okay, all right, so I thought it was tongue crap but crimes crimes is odd to me.Frank:[19:26] I heard crimes but.Bill:[19:32] So see I was wasted is wasting time thought about your problems thought about your crimes,Then I stood up and then I screamed aloud. I don't want to be part of your problems,Don't want to be part of your crowd that this this is the verse where it did throw me a bit thinking about Okay, this isn't just hey, let's hold hands and we'll be okay because when Darius Rucker says he's thinking racism,I'm trying to wonder if he's thinking about,Maybe American history or something about the I don't know if he's thinking about your the crimes that's been done in the name of,You know a segregation or what slavery all these sorts of things where he's now there. I,Don't know. I feel like when I was reading it he's screaming and he's saying I don't want to be part of this problem,Yeah, and then he's gonna grab the hand and take them away.Frank:[20:24] Yeah, that's the way I read it.Cause like you can read it one way saying, like he's just, he's getting out of there.But my understanding is he's getting out of there, but he's taking his friend with him.Bill:[20:36] Yeah, he's escaping but with so he is in a sense,saving people but this sort of notion that you could pull someone out of of whatever garbage they're in.Frank:[20:49] Oh, the muck and the mire and the crap that they're dealing with and all that. And yeah, he's being that good friend.Bill:[20:49] Yeah.[20:55] Yeah, so what this song is saying is you can be redeemed. And that's what we need to hear.In the 90s, there was so much,at least the early 90s, that sort of music was like,well, to quote a Nirvana song, that was a joke,but still it was called, I Hate Myself, I Wanna Die.But this is Hootie the Blowfish saying, no, no, no, come on up.and telling you who you are, right?You know, when Koma touched your hair,I'll show you what a good shampoo and conditioner can do.Frank:[21:23] And I just want to see you smile. Oh, when I see you smile.Bill:[21:24] And I just wanna see you smile. Yeah, yeah.Wow, that comes back to that song you danced to.Frank:[21:33] Yeah, that was an early 90s song too. Yeah. And considering that, like Hootie and the Blowfish.Bill:[21:34] Yeah, this is all coming together. Yeah, all that stuff got destroyedwith the grunge movement and all this, but it wasn't able to destroy some peace and harmony.Frank:[21:47] They came like from the mid 80s. That's when they started off 86 I think it was. So you know they're putting in their time and they're this fun bar band and everything and they have this popularity but then they're they're kind of watching like you said that they got rejection letters saying,this isn't the music that people want to listen to right now. Well obviously it was because it sold as huge as it was, but watching that huge cultural shift in terms of the music style and what was popular for about two years, but just persisting on.They held each other's hands and they got themselves through all that.Bill:[22:28] And that leads to our little switch up in that next chorus that kind of takes us through to the end where they talk about what he talks about having hand for you and all that stuff but says hold my hand want you to hold my hand that's his background i guess i could read this without the background vocals let me try that again.Frank:[22:45] Yeah, but the background vocals before you go any further, the harmonies and they're singing, It rounds everything out so well.And David Crosby sang harmonies on this for the choruses.Bill:[22:58] And this is what makes the big difference between the early versions and this is that chorus the sound of the voices pushing it forward is strong andif you listen closely you can hear David Crosby because there's that Crosby stills Nash sound, at least one third of it moving in there and I can almost kind of perceive that.Frank:[23:13] This is. Yeah. Well, it really does help that chorus pop.Bill:[23:19] Vocal pushing the song up to the heights. Oh yeah. And so in that chorus, instead of saying, I'll,take you to the place where you can be, it changes to, I'll take you to the promised land, capital P,capital L. So you have two things one is a course classic gospel language, but also promised land is language of,The abolitionist movement. Yeah, right. So so I can't.Frank:[23:49] Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.Bill:[23:51] Unsee this now, especially after Darius Rucker saying he always felt it was a protest song,So whatever he's looking at there in there or whatever Jim Sonfeld was also thinking when he wrote itI'm curious what the original version was and what?what the drummer brought to the band and then what the band did with it. Because I mean, to be fair, the song isn't what it is without that guitar bridge, right?The song isn't what it is without that sort of moving bass line that you can really hear,in this version. So I do like that they're all for credit as songwriters.Frank:[24:26] Yeah yeah yep.Bill:[24:29] The video for this, we'll come back to, we're going to come back to the song.Frank:[24:33] Yeah why's Jim gotta be the only one with his shirt off though yeah flesh.Bill:[24:36] But it was very odd why he's shirtless.At one point I wondered if he had any clothes on, like, oh good, he's got cargo shorts on or something.Frank:[24:44] Color cargo shorts or whatever.Bill:[24:46] Well, we were introduced to a band who dresses like,I mean, they dress like they're going to a university party,but also pretty close to someone who's dressing,like they're about to go play 18 holes of golf.Frank:[25:00] Yeah oh and who do the blow fit that huge golf fans all of them.Bill:[25:04] Yeah, I think part of the blowback against them was this felt like PGA rock to some extent.Frank:[25:08] Yeah.Bill:[25:10] But the video has all these sort of images,of people together.There's one point that there does seem to belike this sort of group of friends together having a pack,but then there's a moment where there's a guyreading the newspaper and kids are running around him, but he never seems to get up and change his mind. Then there's another thing where a whole bunch of people,are together in a circle running around,but I'm looking for the guy who's sitting there reading the paper and he doesn't seem to be there. So I don't know what the subtext is of it.Although the band didn't look like they're having a good time. And Jim Sonnenfeld has a smile that, yeah.Frank:[25:47] Such a goofy smile. They're all goofy guys.Bill:[25:50] Yeah, it's a lot of Care Bears smiles. Not quite Care Bears stares, but they got a lot of joy.Frank:[25:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they're I think they're just so pumpedIt's just like we are recording a music video right now. We have made it. This is so excitingWell, it's tough. I know it's cliche for me to say, but it's the chorus. It's the harmonies in the chorus.Bill:[26:04] Now that we talked about music video, I wanna get that out of the way. What's your favorite part of this song?Frank:[26:18] It just really moves everything the way that it needs to go. Second there's that great guitar bridge, which I really love.But yeah, like, cause I got a hand for you. I got a hand for you. And it's all like everyone singing together and then the like, hold my hand.And then Darius Rocker punches through with with his lyrics and everything. And it's just, it just comes together so nicely.Bill:[26:43] And that's mine too. That when they sing Hold My Hand, I know you took it. It was like, that bridge felt so familiar to the guitar bridge is like, oh, this is classic 90s bridge. But I.Frank:[26:47] Well, you can't have that. That's mine. Yeah.Bill:[26:56] Yeah, I think we're in agreement that that chorus is, you know,the thing. And it's a long song. It's four and a half minutes. And then other versions are about five minutes or so. And.Frank:[27:00] Yeah, that's where it's at.But it doesn't feel long. It doesn't feel long listening to it. But you're right though, like lyrically it paints this great picture.Bill:[27:07] But it doesn't feel long. No.Frank:[27:16] And the way that it's sung, you can feel it. You can feel and you can see in your head exactly what they're singing. it's just I don't know it's a great song I am sorry I am so sorry I turned my backs on you guys.Bill:[27:30] Well, you're here to stay now. Did you watch that early Letterman performance?Frank:[27:35] I remember seeing it videos of it after after they they had been on there butand I'd seen them again when they returned to because they returned a few times to Letterman.Bill:[27:48] So the first time they played Hold My Hand there, like you could sense sort of nerves.Like Darius Rucker is not as loose.Like he's a bit restrained but what was going on was Paul Schaeffer's whole backing band was in on the chorus and,They're playing along so even though the band isn't,totally tight in the performance, but they have the support of Schaeffer's band and it is pretty cool to see and,I know Letterman likes,The name Hooting the Bullfish, but you could see he really liked the album and he was pushing there's certain things he pushes and that was one of them.Frank:[28:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah. When Letterman likes you, he really lets you know.Bill:[28:34] And this is like a bit over the top, but I'm going to read it because Darius Rucker mentioned it when in this interview, there's the whole thing about the hatred of Hooting the Blowfish.One thing he said a couple things. One thing he said is people hate us because we don't write songs about how much we hate our parents or how much school sucked.And then he also talked about the Letterman thing and he said,this is the day grunge ended.Frank:[28:59] I don't think he's wrong though.Bill:[29:04] We had just gone through three or four years of record sales not being that good and grunge being the big thing on the radio.And then all of a sudden we're saying hold my hand.You know these great little hooks that were undeniable and people wanted to hear that.They wanted to hear it again and again.Frank:[29:21] And he's not wrong. I think people needed something positive. After, like we said, the doom and gloom of the early early 90s rock.Bill:[29:30] I found something even more positive than the song and I can say it this way because it's still the.Frank:[29:35] Oh, yeah!Bill:[29:36] Song but it's on Sesame Street. It was one of the best appearances of a band that I've seen,And so they're there with the Muffets and it's about crossing the street,It was so good And so Elmo's there and Darius Rucker takes Elmo by the hand to help him cross the street and that's so good The lyrics are set up to be about waiting for an adult you trust to help you cross the street and it was.Frank:[30:00] Yeah, that's awesome.Bill:[30:03] Beautiful positive and the band is all in.Frank:[30:07] You can't go through life with a band name Hootie and the Blowfish and take yourself too, too seriously.I think they understood and which is why they probably set up that corporation. They they probably knew it's like, okay, this might like this might be our only shot. So like, let's make sure that we capitalize on it. And you get the feeling that I can't remember if I said this or not.but there's not really a big ego with the band. We talked about like them being in bar fights and stuff like that early on but that was you know I think for for good reason if you you can you know,justify violence and all that but you don't get the feeling that they lived that quote-unquote rock and roll lifestyle.Bill:[30:50] They certainly didn't before Crack but afterwards each of them sort of had their struggles from the sounds of it.Frank:[30:58] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.Bill:[30:59] Yeah, so they never did heroin. But there was just reading interviews with like they,there was some crazy, yeah.Frank:[31:08] They partied pretty good. Well they were a party band to begin with. Well, Daris Rucker has that amazing country career right now too.Bill:[31:11] Right, and so I guess coming into this scene.[31:15] I think they found their way.They found their back on their feet, so to speak.and things are going well for them. I mean, so it's neat, you can kind of read up on the histories of each and then they're doing okay.[31:29] It's crazy. I remember when, yeah. We talked about him earlier for the Lionel Richie episode.Frank:[31:34] Which is bonkers.Bill:[31:35] His duet with Lionel Richie is bananas.Frank:[31:37] Is, yeah, it's crazy good. Can we put a little clip of it here?Bill:[31:44] Well, we got to. Yeah.Frank:[31:45] Yeah, okay.Bill:[31:48] All right, well, I think we got some categories we could talk about. Michael Bolton.Frank:[31:54] Okay, I'm going to say no.And there's reason because of that. The opening line is with a little love and some tenderness.I think he would get confused and just sing time love and tenderness.Bill:[32:08] I didn't think of that.That's good. I would love to see Darius Rucker, Michael Bolton duet, Ala, Lionel Richie, Darius Rucker duet.Frank:[32:16] Oh, yeah.Bill:[32:17] So I would like a thing where it's the Darius Rucker duets album and Michael Bolton comes out to sing, hold my hand.Frank:[32:23] That would be fantastic. As long as he's singing. He's not singing time love and tenderness.Bill:[32:28] Yeah, I think you'd have to have people feeding lines, also restraining Michael Bolton when he wants to go full Bolton, he's gonna have to control them.Frank:[32:35] Like a shock collar or something. You were weakened at Bernie's I was more running man.Bill:[32:36] They'll have ropes.[32:39] I was thinking of a series of pulleys and ropes,But yeah, you went more running man.[32:50] All right, Hallmark movie. I have written down here Hallmark Pure Flix movie, because I think this would make a great Christian movie.Frank:[32:59] And because there's no real romance about the song, it's all about like, building each other up and being like there for each.Bill:[33:02] The idea of that redemption is so much what I want life to be, that someone could come.Frank:[33:07] Together.Bill:[33:17] Along and help out somebody else.This is what the song is about.It's not the self-actualization of the person singing in terms of I'm going to find myselfand get there. They might be they might find themselves in the act of their,charity towards their fellow human.Frank:[33:34] Yeah. Yeah. But but all they're doing is they're looking out for their fellow human. It's not a self-serving thing.Bill:[33:41] And so that really does feel like the band because they are always seen ascollective. There's never a sense that I could see that they hated each other or or that Darius Rucker was gonna go on his own,even though he did, but it was amically.Frank:[33:54] Well, and they said they said like no we never broke up we were on hiatus. So in in 2008 was when Darius record left to do his solo career.but they're back together and they're touring and they're releasing albums and stuff like that And he said like, no, no, like we're always hooting the blowfish.we're always going to be us.Bill:[34:14] The great thing is the sort of vindication of time that 25th anniversary of crack free review finally came out like 2019. Their tour was sold out. Yes. And so I mean, it was,like the number one tour, I think of 2019. And of course, it's it coincides with that article. I mean, I don't know if we'd fully talked about it. But you read this article in Esquire magazine, which was titled What's the title of it?Frank:[34:42] How our cruelty killed Hooty and the Blowfish and damaged our souls.And then the byline is we need forgiveness for what we did in 1996.And this is what brought up a lot of guilt and pain for me realizing just like I have not atoned for my sins.Bill:[35:03] But 2019 ended up being a year that was amazing for Hootie and the Blowfish and the article is kind of funny reading it Because they're like 2018 was such a bad year. We got to find ourselves again. It's like, oh, no, no, no.Frank:[35:07] Yeah. You have no idea what's on the horizon here. Oh yeah.Bill:[35:18] Yeah, yeah, and he may even met anybody's like this being January 6. He mentioned someone's like, oh you have no ideaWhat January 6 is gonna mean in the future too? So we have like COVID is just about to come right?COVID-19 comes towards the end of that year and it doesn't really hit North America till maybe March,of 2020 and now we're in 2023 now and oh my goodness so much has changed since thenwhere this guy had no idea where we were headed.Frank:[35:43] Well, we'll put a link to the article in the show notes. Fantastic article.Bill:[35:45] Uh, yeah, Frank, I...Frank:[35:48] He takes a lot of pot shots at other artists that like we give these guys a pass, but we dump on Hootie and the Blowfish and he's calling out like Deep Blue something.I know Bill you love Breakfast at Tiffany's right? That's one of your favorite songs?Bill:[36:09] I don't know.Frank:[36:09] I don't think I've ever seen Bill shoot daggers at me before. But then like Dishwala, Dave Matthews band, Counting Crows, talking about all these bands.Bill:[36:13] Yeah.[36:13] But yeah, there is something to be said about where this music fits in within the 90s.Frank:[36:21] Just like, why did these guys get a pass but we dump on Hooty?Bill:[36:32] That's a good call. Like yeah, bands were able to survive and be given passes, but not this.Well that leads to the mixtape doesn't it?Frank:[36:40] Yeah, you go first. Okay, I have, it could be long.Bill:[36:41] Yeah. Okay I got a kind of long mixtape. Okay.Okay.I have a feeling we are going to cross over a lot here.Frank:[36:51] I'll let you go first.Bill:[36:52] Okay.Well here are the songs. I wanted to cut it down but that just wasn't happening because there's so many types of songs I wanted to put in here.So here we go. What I picked were bands from the 90s that were sort of given a dismissal by the widerculture in the end. Like they might have been popular, but then they were cast aside, especially by critics.Frank:[37:20] Okay. No, no, no, no. Mine is very, very superficial.Bill:[37:21] It's not crossing into your territory at all.Oh, good. Okay.Okay. So here we go.Enid by the Bare Naked Ladies.to me, Delamitri. It is. I know. And I'm not sure people hate.Frank:[37:35] That's a great song. I really like that song.Bill:[37:39] Delamitri because I'm like, I don't but it has that same happyfeel. And Ian it is goofy happy feel and Bear Nickleys toured.Frank:[37:42] Oh, yes.Bill:[37:46] With Hootie and the Blowfish.Favorite of yours here, the Goo Goo Dolls. Sorry, slide. So,positive. I go back to them. Yeah, sorry about that. Two,Two Princes, Spin Doctors, Run Around, Blues Traveler, Flood, Jars of Clay.Frank:[38:08] I think I had all of those albums.Bill:[38:10] Next one for sure you'd have, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Nightingale Song. I picked a yeah, I just it's a beautiful song and then I end it with Found Out About You by Gin Blossoms.Frank:[38:14] Oh, beautiful song.[38:20] Oh, okay. So I went.[38:24] I went so superficial. Songs that have body parts in the title.Bill:[38:30] Okay, all right, here we go.Frank:[38:32] So this is my head and shoulders, knees and toes, mixtape.Put your head on my shoulder, Paul Anka. Betty Davis Eyes, Kim Karnes.When I'm Back on My Feet Again by Michael Bolton. Footloose, Kenny Loggins.In Your Arms Awhile by Josh Ritter.I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight, Cutting Crew.Bill:[38:59] Wow. Yeah, it was definitely.Frank:[39:02] And then we are ending it with hands by Jewel.Bill:[39:08] Just know, I, you know, I should have seen that coming. And I, I know.Frank:[39:12] How could you not?Bill:[39:14] And as soon as I saw that you were going, you're still speaking like,oh, here it comes. Well, I can't say hands doesn't fit.Are you giving us Christmas hands or the original?Frank:[39:24] No, the original.Bill:[39:25] Oh, the original. All right. I can't say that's better.Frank:[39:28] Yeah, it's the same song. It just has no jingle bells in it.Bill:[39:29] Same song. All right. Well, I guess I get that for the Cuckoo Dolls. I like Slide.I like that song. All right.Frank:[39:36] Yeah, you can like it. I like hands.Bill:[39:41] There's another song called Hold My Hand by Lady Gaga for the Top Gun soundtrack.Frank:[39:44] That's right, yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah.Bill:[39:47] Good tune. So I was going to have a category, greatest Hold My Hand song, but I'm like, that's,we're not all about that. And this leads to Garth Brooks at the American Music Awards.American Music Awards had the following nominations for Artist of the Year. And it was Hootie the Blowfish, Green Day, Boyz II Men, TLC, Garth Brooks.Garth Brooks wins. Now American Music Awards is a bit different. It's based on sales and votes, I think, or something.So Garth Brooks wins. And he says, I can't accept this award because when we choose one artist over another, we're,all diminished or something like that. Yeah. And then he left it. And so I had thought.Frank:[40:29] He was very diplomatic about it, basically saying he didn't deserve it.Bill:[40:36] I had read that he'd actually mentioned Hootie and the Blowfish, but it might have come upin interviews later where he said, Hootie and the Blowfish sold the most. This is clearly the band everyone loves. So that's why we're not picking Lady Gaga versus Hootie and theBlowfish. Garth Brooks wouldn't want that. So Dearest Rucker is hanging out with Garth bit of a side note here, but it all comes together. And Garth Brooks said, do you ever wonder what.Frank:[40:52] Yeah, exactly.Bill:[41:00] Happened to that award I left on the podium? And Darius Rucker said, well, what happened to it?He goes, nah, it's on my mantle at home. I love Garth Brooks. It's so great. So just for that.Frank:[41:08] So we took it? That's awesome.Bill:[41:17] I think maybe someday we'll get to friends in low places.Frank:[41:22] Yeah, there's a whole genre that we really haven't gotten into is then that that's country music that's really not been in our wheelhouse, but it's obviously in Darius Rucker's wheelhouse.Bill:[41:26] Yeah.[41:33] Yeah, I'm open to going there.Frank:[41:34] Oh absolutely same here.Bill:[41:39] We've gone on quite a journey here, Frank.Frank:[41:41] Yeah and I feel a little bit I won't say redeemed but I feel it's good to get this weight off my soul and admit that I was wrong and and apologize to Hootie and the blowfish that I was one of the many that turned their backs on them.Bill:[42:01] So fellow listeners, you may be feeling the same way too, right?You may be feeling that you turned your back on Hootie, but Hootie is back. And so are the blowfish.And things are okay. So I want you to picture yourself maybe as Frank. And the band comes walking by.And today they see Frank standing there.His head is down. His eyes are red. He's admitted that he's turned his back on the band.You know what they're going to say to you, Frank, and to you listeners?Get up. Let me see you smile. We're going to walk together.We're going to walk the road a while because we all got hands for you.Frank:[42:50] I can't wait for that day to happen.Bill:[42:53] Thank you for listening to Bill and Frank's guilt-free pleasures.

Gino Vannelli: ”Wild Horses” (It’s Gino Time at GFP!)

The original version of "Wild Horses" is difficult to find. Outside of the music video on YouTube, it's not available on any streaming service or for sale electronically. Stranger still, Wikipedia has no entry for the song or its corresponding album. This is a shame - "Wild Horses" is an incredible song. In this episode, we give you all the information (and more) that we could find out on the song and video, from mystical experiences in Peru to a shaman named Jamie in Arizona and ties to the Getty family. Sit back and enjoy. It's Gino time!
Helpful links:
Original Video
Mixtape
Boom 97.3 Interview (Behind the Vinyl)
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Masadon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
Transcript:
Frank:[0:00] So today on Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures, we're going to talk about Gino Vannelli's "Wild Horses." We're going to discuss his determination in getting a record deal, his connection with a shaman named Jamie, and also his connection with the Getty dynasty.Bill:[0:17] But before we get to that, cut to the theme music.Frank:[0:22] Take it away, Ian McGlynn.Bill:[0:44] In this episode, we are pushing Frank Pearson to the limit. Because today's song is a mysterious song.It's a song that seemingly has disappeared from all streaming services. It is difficult to find any information on.Frank:[1:07] Yeah, there's no Wikipedia page specifically for this song. There's no song facts page for it. I have not been able to go to either of my main resources to look up information for this song.Bill:[1:21] And I realized this as I was doing my deep dive and I thought wow they even scrubbed the album from WikipediaSo today's episode is on Gino Vannelli's "Wild Horses."So turn up the heat, pour yourself a glass of red wine.Frank:[1:39] Sit back and enjoy.Bill:[2:04] As we mentioned, this is a challenge.Frank:[2:08] Oh my goodness, like I have so many tabs open on my computer right now and each of them has just a little bit of a nugget of information for the song or for Gino Vannelli and I mean I'm going to,be honest I'm probably not going to refer to any of them I'm just going to make it all up as I goalong but yeah researching this was a little bit of a little bit of a chore for me I'm glad I had a little bit of time off over the holidays so I could dedicate some time to it.Bill:[2:38] So why don't you give us a little history of Gino Vannelli anyways that you could find anyways on as far as the artist goes.Frank:[2:45] Gino Vannelli was born to his parents, has brothers and sisters, and is a musician.Oh wait, it's only brothers, isn't it?Bill:[2:53] You sure he's got any sisters?Yeah, okay. All right. Maybe maybe I'll have to take over,He's coming out of Montreal Quebec and so we also featured another musician at a Montreal named Andy Kim, who also had a similar backstory in that they went to the big city in the States.For Andy Kim, it was New York. For Gino Vanelli, I believe it was LA?Frank:[3:20] It was Hollywood actually. So this is one of the things that I actually found, I think it was a YouTube interview that he did.They booked tickets to go to Hollywood and they get there and they realize they're inHollywood Florida, not Hollywood California.He went with his brother Joe. And this is according to Gino Vannelli in a YouTube interview.This is something that I find interesting too, because some musicians have varying like origin stories or Genesis stories that that changed from interview to interview. So you kind of wonder which which is true and which is a bit of an embellishment.Anyways, according to Gino, he and Joe had tickets booked to go to Hollywood, but end up in Hollywood, Florida and then have to book a separate trip from Florida to California.they end up in Hollywood proper.Bill:[4:13] And while they're in Hollywood,he's being supported by his family. His parents are good to him. Like in terms of the story,his mother was sending money. But what ended up happening is his mother sent money to Hollywood, Florida instead of Hollywood, California. Was that what happened?Yeah. So I don't know if they went to, I mean, I didn't hear the story about them landing in Hollywood, Florida, but his mom had sent moneyto Hollywood, Florida and they were stuck. They had no money. They'd been trying to make things work.And he was kind of at the end of things. as far as making his dream happen.Frank:[4:46] Yeah, it was down to like his last $5.Bill:[4:48] Yeah, so he went into a church, he said, and sat in this church sometime in the early morning hours. It was open, sat in there, and just, I think he fell asleep.He said the quietness of the place, not so much some sort of mystical thing. He was really quick to say that, even though we'll talk about his spirituality later, I'm sure, but he said the quiet sort of space helped him to know what he needed to do.And then he went over to where Herb Alpert's studio was.And he sat there while the guard who is slightly injured,so he couldn't run so fast, but the guard's like, you stay there.And Gina Vannelli said, I'm allowed to stay here. It's on public property.And he said, don't you dare try to run over and talk to anybody.And Gina Vannelli's like, yep, yep, yep. And then he sees Herb Alpert come out and then he darts across the parking lot to get to him.Frank:[5:41] And Herb Alpert, sorry, is one of the co-owners of A&M Records.Bill:[5:45] Exactly, and so the guard is saying, damn you, he's trying to get him, pulls out his gun apparently, because Herb Alpert's wife has been stalked.Frank:[5:51] Oh, jeez.Bill:[5:55] Or something like that, so Herb Alpert's wondering what's going on. So in this moment, Herb Alpert's thinking this could be the stalker, Gino Vannelli's taking his life in his hands, and then he just says to Herb Alpert, I have all these songs, I want to try these things.And Herb Alpert says to the guard, like, hey Joe, relax, it's okay.And the guard is so angry.And he says to Gino, come back in half an hour. And so Gino Vannelli comes back in half an hour,plays the songs for him. And then Herb Alpert said, welcome to A&M Records.Frank:[6:27] Yeah, and it's similar to the Andy Kim story where he had a similar instance. He was in New York, but same thing, regular exec just waited, waited, waited, and finally kind of ambushed the exec.And I will apologize that my confusion with the Hollywood Florida versus Hollywood Californiastory in my typical research fashion, I was, you know, 100% into it. I was a had the YouTube video playing while I was scrolling through Tinder. So it's.Bill:[7:01] Wait, wait a sec. Did you make up the Hollywood Florida story?Frank:[7:03] No I thought that I heard that I think it might be true. I'm not sure.Bill:[7:07] Okay, but you know, he's gonna be so angry when he listens to this. So there's something about Montreal singers who have the sort of moxie to just go for it.Frank:[7:10] I know right.[7:16] Yeah, yeah, they got a lot of guts and especially to run through a parking lot,with the security guard chasing you like that's like going all in on your dream.Bill:[7:27] The guns pointed. Yeah, hopefully Joe was a bad shot. Well, hopefully he didn't kill curb Alpert. Yeah, these are tough times. Oh.Frank:[7:28] Yeah.[7:33] Yeah I know I like to think that the the guard was probably distracted by Gino of Nellie's amazing hair.Bill:[7:39] Yeah, he's a very good-looking man and in 1970s Gino Vannelli hair is something else now Gino Vannelli is very successful in the 70s,He had his big album. I think was this I was his third album or fifth album brother to brother Yeah, and the song was I just want to stop written by Ross Finnelli. I believe is one of his brothers I thought I was written by Gino was actually written by his brother. Gino is a songwriter. Yeah.Frank:[8:04] Make sense brother to brother.Bill:[8:06] But well, yeah, there we go. And that's a huge rock song and also I mean he just Did huge business in the 70s we head into the 80s and now it's a different time Gino cuts his hair.Frank:[8:10] Well, yeah, because the 70s are different from the 80s.Bill:[8:21] They are but there's a sound new wave has come in and Gino purposely ends up making an 80s record before this one so,He gets into a fight with CBS records or Arista one of these record companies of what he's with and they won't let himRelease his music. So there's this,Lengthy period where he doesn't release anything. So you have Nightwalker has come out in 81 and then it takes untiluntil 1984 for Black Cars to come out. And Black Cars is an 80s synth album.And he knows what he's doing.And then the follow up to that three years later, his big dreamers never sleep. You'll see on your Wikipedia page in front of you, Frank, there is no hyperlink.No one has published a Wikipedia entry.Now, of course, the question is, will we be the people who publish that Wikipedia entry?Frank:[9:12] I'm going to include the story of him traveling to Hollywood, Florida.Bill:[9:16] Yeah, and so we'll see if within half an hour someone changes it, we'll know it's false. So Big Dreamers Never Sleep, 1987, this album comes out and it's as usual produced by Gino Vannelli and his two brothers, Joe and Ross,and it includes kind of his last major hit,which is "Wild Horses," the song we're doing today. And then this sets in motion his future, I think.Cause by then now he can become a touring thing. He's got all these songs and "Wild Horses" is one of those regular songs he sings.Frank:[9:49] Yeah, yeah.Bill:[9:52] Yeah.So as I said earlier, I really pushed this episode.So I apologize, Frank. I'm like, we're doing Gino Vannelli, we're doing Wild Horses, it's happening. And Frank didn't realize I bought the CD onlinebecause you can't get an MP3, you can't buy a legit copy of this online.So I went and bought the actual album. So I got the CD and it's that old CD thingwhere you open the booklet and like, oh, here's a list of songs and a list of performers, no lyrics, it's thin.And the back page is all about how great a compact disc is. Oh, seriously? Oh yeah.Frank:[10:24] Oh seriously?Bill:[10:26] So I think I have an original copy. I think it might be a German pressing even. Yeah.Frank:[10:30] Yeah.Bill:[10:31] So it's fine. It's very 1980s in its production.There's a couple tracks that really stand out for me, but Wild Horses, Far and Away is a big one.Now it's written by Gino Vannelli and Roy Freeland,which I don't have a lot of information on Roy Freeland. I would have liked to have dove more into this,but he's done a lot of work with other songwriters.So it's hard to know, this frustrates me,when a songwriter doesn't talk about his co-writer. So when Gino Vannelli talked about writing the song,and talk about Roy Freeland's involvement.Frank:[11:08] I mean, it is a Gino Vannelli song. So, you know, it's tough to take that away from Gino. But at the same time, you know, throw the man a bone.Bill:[11:18] Yeah, now to be fair, I think both you and I when we talk to others about the podcast we don't even mention each other.Frank:[11:26] Oh, no, I call it my podcast. Who's this Bill guy? It's just a character I do.Bill:[11:31] Yeah, he's the other guy but anyways while I was making this.Frank:[11:34] One stop. Yeah. There is a Wikipedia page for that song. Thank goodness.Bill:[11:35] So, okay this brings us to the song There's so much to talk about with Gino Vannelli and he's so interesting in this way that I want to talk more about Ginofinale and hopefully we do an episode on I just want to stop. Yeah, that's gonna happen.Yeah. And I have this working theory or interest in Italo Canadian rock stars. Someday I'm going to write a paper on this, publish it in our scholarly journal that we publish semi annually.Frank:[11:58] Yeah.[11:58] Oh, yes.[12:06] You mean our show notes?Bill:[12:07] Yeah, our show notes. But I'm not there yet. But I just want to note also Italo Canadian when this comes up in our future episodes this year. All right, did you find anything on the song? Gina Vannelli talking about it.Frank:[12:20] Yes, like the inspiration for it. Yeah, yeah. So, oh, it's a classic mysticism rock star move.So Gino Vannelli is in Peru and he's hiking to Machu Picchu.And he doesn't say it specifically, but it's 100% assumed that he's in Machu Picchu.He takes part in one of those ayahuasca ceremonies, which is, it's like a tobacco. It's like a cannabis sort of, well, it's not cannabis, sorry.It's a...Bill:[12:58] It's not peyote, is it?No. Okay, so did you find an article? Like, I was looking high and low for, I found one interview.Frank:[13:04] Well, I read an interview, I read an article and I listened to the one interview and he.Bill:[13:11] Yeah, okay, go ahead. Keep going on the Ayahuasca thing, yeah.Frank:[13:14] Doesn't say specifically that he was doing ayahuasca but you look at Machu Picchu and he said he was involved in a sort of spiritual awakening and then when you research MachuPichu, yeah, they do these ayahuasca ceremonies, which sort of healers and shaman or whatever in Machu Picchu, it's part of the ceremony, it's supposed to open up your mind.Bill:[13:41] Gotcha. Okay, so I couldn't find an article on that stuff. That's good research. Good job.Frank:[13:46] He doesn't get an answer through this whole ceremony and through his whole experience.Bill:[13:51] But something has happened to him right he's had some sort of spiritual awakening.Frank:[13:55] Awakening. So he goes home and then he starts talking about it just like I need an answer for whathappened in Peru.So he hears about the shaman in New Mexico.Bill:[14:07] In New Mexico, Jamie the shaman. So Jamie the shaman is in New Mexico and he flies to Albuquerque and then has to drive.Frank:[14:10] The shaman.[14:20] Yeah, Jamie.Bill:[14:22] To the fun is it Santa Fe is that in New Mexico is something like that.Frank:[14:23] To find the shaman.[14:27] Yeah.Bill:[14:28] So he's driving and a convertible. So this is just to me is like, first he's a rock star who went to Peru while there was like all this civil unrest. People are getting murdered and stuff.Frank:[14:38] Yeah, they're oh yeah.Bill:[14:39] He's like, but I had to be there. I'm like, Oh, this is so rock star has this experience on a mountain top. And then buys a flight to New Mexico from LA.I think that's where he was at that point gets a convertible because of course you get a convertible and then drives at like a hundredmiles an hour down these roads, which is super dangerous.Frank:[15:00] The whole time he's kind of tapping out the beat of the song on the steering wheel. And he's saying like, I gotta get to that. I gotta get to the shaman. I gotta get to shaman Jamie.Bill:[15:11] He did.Frank:[15:13] I have to get there. It's like nothing's gonna keep me away from shaman Jamie.So he's booting along and I don't even again, I was probably scrolling Tinder, But did even he was talking about getting lost. Did even find Jamie. OK. Yeah.Bill:[15:28] He got to Jamie, but he never got the answers to what he needed, but he got this song that he had in his head. By the time he got there, he had the chorus kind of mapped out and so he had wild horses in his head and he had the drum beat going.Frank:[15:41] Yeah.Bill:[15:41] And so I imagine Roy Freeland probably helped in fleshing out these songs that he'd have them and he'd be like, not a ghostwriter, but the sort of person who comes inand helps kind of clean things up. That's my guess. Roy, you can reach out to us though.Frank:[15:52] Tell us your ayahuasca story.[15:57] But yeah, so the whole time when he's tapping it out on the steering wheel and he's coming, he's like, he's saying, I need to get there.wild horses aren't going to keep me away from getting an answer to my questions, to getting an answer for my vision.Bill:[16:11] Right, so this song in interesting ways,because you can see this as a love song, but this could also be a song about his seeking the divine.And so wild horses couldn't drive him away from this experience.But of course we're gonna dive into these lyrics.Frank:[16:28] Yeah, so the lyrics kind of indicate it's more of a romantic thing, but I think it's,This also, it also parallels nicely with his like dogged determination and his experience with Herb Alpert and getting a record contract back in the 70s.Bill:[16:47] Yeah, that's good analysis.Frank:[16:50] That is good analysis.Bill:[17:12] Alright, now it's time to dive into "Wild Horses" The Song.As the sun goes down on the Arizona Plane and the wind whistles by like a runaway train,Hey hey hey, it's a beautiful thing.Well it's me and you and a flatbed truck, my heart kicking over like a white tail buck.hey hey hey in the middle of spring.[17:59] So, whitetail buck, deer, middle of spring is they want to get some dates.They got like the Tinder thing going on for deer.Frank:[18:09] Yeah, the the the the bucks are on their Tinder. Right. What's deer Tinder? What do you think that? I wonder what that was? Yeah. Yeah.Bill:[18:13] You just always swipe right. Yeah. Always. I saw a bunch of whitetail buck actually in the woods and we followed it.Frank:[18:22] Oh, yeah, by by your place, eh?Bill:[18:22] Yeah. But then following it, I realized they're probably coyotes, which is a really bad idea to be trying to follow a group of coyotes. It was the total setup.Frank:[18:31] Wait, so you saw kairi's that were dressed as deer.Bill:[18:33] I gotta go see the optometrist.Frank:[18:35] This is sounding like a Looney Tunes episode. What I like about that opening lyric and we were talking about this when we were listening to the song beforehand is there's the and the wind whistles by like a runaway train, the drums, it's that clickety clack. It's that train sort of you get that real feeling that imagery of a train. So again, this is something thatthat the lyrics represent what the sound is.Bill:[19:04] Exactly. And they make sure to have like such perfect production for this. They have some of the best session players around, I think anyways, because the drummer and the drums are the key. It's those, it's those brushes on the drums. And that's Dave Garibaldi, who's the drummer for Tower of Power. And it's incredible. And so as you listen to it, those drums drive it. But there's also this bassist named Jimmy Haslip, who's on the bass. And if you go through,through his like website, you can see he just plays, he's just a session player.And he just came in for this one song and holy cow, that bass moves and then you have Joe Vannelli on the xylophone.Frank:[19:46] Thank you!Bill:[19:47] So those things altogether make this song what it is. And then Gino's voice is this sort of, I don't know, I'm trying to think of, he does something with it.It's different from I Just Wanna Stop. What are you thinking?Frank:[20:01] I get huge how this feels. feels.Bill:[20:03] So there's some Roy Orbison Elvis and other performers who I was thinking of that have that but the Elvis thing is really what I was thinking too.Frank:[20:15] That that hey hey hey like it's that.Bill:[20:18] Yeah.And so it's that lustiness, right? Like Elvis, even though now, at least for us growing up, I never thought of him as the this sort of sex symbol thing, but he was that thing in the 50s.And then Gino has that feel he's bringing to the table.And then you got, okay, the next section there, you can cut me deep, you can cut me down, you can cut me loose, it's okay.Yeah, yeah, it's okay. And then he goes to, you can kick and scream,you can slap my face, you can set my wheels on a high-speed chase, oh you, no matter what you do. And we go into that chorus.Is it...Frank:[20:56] No means no.Bill:[21:21] It's kind of creepy But this is the nature of these songs of that era, especially before.So it feels like it's harkening back to a 50s, 60s feel.And that's where you have this notion of this chase.There is something to it when you read these things like, ah, I don't know if I'd sing I'm saying that now, but that's not our styles when we're trying to woo women.Frank:[21:45] That is Gino style. Gino doesn't give up. again the whole Herb Alpert thing and you know speeding to see Shaman Jamie.Bill:[21:54] Yeah, "Wild horses could not drag me away from you."It is such a great line, and it works so well with all the sounds around it.And when I was a kid, I remember, this is the first time I heard a song about wild horses.And then of course years later I'm like, oh, there's a Rolling Stones song? Oh, I guess Gino was just singing a Rolling Stones song.And now the Rolling Stones song goes like this, wild horses couldn't drag me away.Frank:[22:22] Yeah. Well, it's a common saying though, too, right?Bill:[22:23] Okay.Yeah, I guess it is, yeah. And then, you know, there's, so there is a whole thing about wild horses in song.So Gino's got the, he's got the moxie to say, I'm gonna use this that Rolling Stones have used,I'm gonna use it in my song. only to be taught by Bono who's gonna use it a few years later.Frank:[22:42] The.[22:42] Yes. The feel of the song is a very Southwestern feel.Like I said, the clickety clack of the drums almost has a bit of a country edge to it.rock edge to it.Bill:[23:20] Yeah. And there's this, uh, I have written down here, evocative, erotic imagery, right?There's this sort of notion of like, it's me and you in a flatbed truck in a foot of mud, just my luck. Is that bad luck or good luck? Cause he's stuck in mud in a flatbed truck. That kind of insinuates that that's not a bad thing for him. Is it?Frank:[23:43] Yeah, I mean, if he's with her, it's a good thing because, you.Bill:[23:48] Is it?[23:48] It's a flatbed truck.Frank:[23:49] Know. Yeah, exactly. And the horses are going to get stuck in the mud too, so they can't evendrag him away from her at that point.Bill:[23:54] Yeah, exactly.[23:54] Right, they could probably help to get that truck out of the mud though.Frank:[23:56] Yeah, maybe. Yeah, just get a team of horses like a chuckwagon kind of a thing.Bill:[24:02] So we have the second verse has a nice balance to it where he says, well, as the sky falls down, right?And then that's where it begins.I guess the other one is the sun is going down. Now the sky falls down from the midnight blue, spitting like bullets on a hot tin roof.Hey, hey, hey, it's a beautiful sound. And I know that sound, the sound of rain coming down on a hot summer night on a tin roof.Frank:[24:27] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like bullets. Yeah. Like he says.Bill:[24:29] Oh yeah, like bullets. Yeah. Like he said.Exactly, yeah. Oh well, it's me and you in a flatbed truckand a foot of mud, just my luck, 100 miles out of town. And so again, I guess that's good luck.Although if the rain's coming down, I don't know if you want to be in a flatbed truck.Frank:[24:46] Well, they might be inside the cab of the truck.Bill:[24:48] Okay.Frank:[24:51] Just just because it's a truck, does it in a flatbed truck doesn't mean you have to be outside in on it.Bill:[24:55] Right. If I was going to go literal, he has a tin roof on that truck and it was too hot.Don't touch the tin roof.[25:25] Again, these are images and we learn from Richard Fry.Literalism isn't needed here. just get the picture and get the feel.Frank:[25:34] Yeah, exactly. It paints a picture.Bill:[25:36] And then from there, it goes to the same line. I'm all, it's different here. He says, yeah, you can call me a fool.Frank:[25:42] No, it's different. Yeah.Bill:[25:44] You can call me blind. You can call it quits. I can't hear a word that you said, what you said.Cause if I had you once, I'm gonna have you twice.Ah, okay. I'm gonna follow my heart instead of good advice.Frank:[25:58] No, I have is that good advice.Bill:[26:03] I think it makes more sense to say instead of good advice. my heart instead of good advice.Frank:[26:08] So my reading of it was, I'll follow my heart is that good advice. It's a question. And I'm going to tell Gino here, for someone who's been a fool in love and has been blinded by love, sometimes following your heart is not good advice. You do that too often you end up like me researching while you're on Tinder.Bill:[26:31] Stuck in a foot of mud.Yeah. And then of course we go on to the wild horses.there's repeats and stuff but the feels just come through and it's incredible just the sounds of the song.Frank:[27:10] The sounds in the imagery that it paints you can feel the song. Yeah, it's very textual.Bill:[27:18] Yeah definitely I was wondering this should textual is but what was the other word you said earlier remember what was it yeah definitely not a word yeah.Frank:[27:21] Yeah, definitely not a word.[27:29] Shakespeare in Vengeant Words, why can't I?Bill:[27:34] Oh, you're not Shakespeare.Frank:[27:36] Could be. The instrumental is that syncopation? It's got to.Bill:[27:38] All right. I was wondering if this should just become a category. Take it to the bridge.So the bridge in this song must be that part where he sings a bit and then it moves tothe brushes doing.It's got to be something like that. And it just is perfect because it just brings you to the end and all the good stuff going on there. And the brushes, you know, clean the floor. They do. Ah, that sounds a lot.Frank:[27:57] Be syncopation. There's a definite divide between the,song and then the ending and that just sort of takes you on a little journey.It does. The bass goes for a walk and it takes you along with it.[28:17] Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say the brush has set the pace.Bill:[28:21] Better than me going through man madry. Yeah, it's phenomenal.[28:55] Do you remember the first time you heard this song?Frank:[28:57] It's got to be early 90s, the first time that I really paid attention to it. Because I know that I've heard it, I must have heard it back in the 80s. But it was probably the early 90s when,I'm just starting to get into music and understand music. Starting to gain a small appreciation for,the stuff my parents listened to, in terms of like the Rolling Stones. So I probably heard it. and thinking it's like, that's not "Wild Horses." That's by the Rolling Stones. And then,hearing it again and listening to it. And the more I preferred this version or this the song to the Rolling Stones "Wild Horses." And I love the Rolling Stones "Wild Horses."Bill:[29:41] Yeah, I'm with you on that. I love this version. This is the version,And I would have heard it probably in the late 80s on video hits on cbc.Frank:[29:49] Oh, okay. Yeah.Bill:[29:51] Because this didn't do well in america, but with cancon regulations in canada you had to.Frank:[29:53] Because it had to have no choice but to do good.Bill:[29:59] And this is an example where cancon is great because the song is great,So for whatever reason it didn't make it over there, but we heard it over here I feel like I've heard it on the radio and they would play it on the radio I just never knew it was Gino Vannelli I wouldn't know who he was anyways then but it was a song I remember hearing cuz I played it for Ashley,This is a big test of course,Ashley's sitting next to me and I said, okay We're gonna do this song next and I play it and all I could think of is like yeah She has no idea about the song and she hears it. She goes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know this song.Frank:[30:32] She says that about a lot of songs, Bill.Bill:[30:34] But no, she was like she started humming the xylophone part She was like, whatever, I want to hum it.Yeah, and so she had it, like, okay, she knows this song. And so it is a song where people know it, even though when I say Wild Horse's Gino Vannelli, I feel like people might not be aware until they hear it and they're like, oh, I I know this.Frank:[30:53] Yeah, and even to mention Gino Vannelli, you're like, I know the name, but I have no idea what he sings. But then you say like wild horses, and you start,singing a bit of the song or I just want to stop. People know that song. So they know who Gino Vannelli is. They just don't,know who he is.Bill:[31:13] The music video is iconic.Frank:[31:16] Well, yeah.I want to say that there's a new move that I'm going to add to my dance floor repertoire. And we talked about like, there is a,There's a subtle eroticism about the song.And in the video, it's just Gino Vanell, like there's the one movie that he does where he he takes his fists and he's not pelvic thrusting, but he's just like slamming his fists on his,upper thighs and he just like and like to the beat and just like that's a new dance floor move for me.Like that that's a little bit of a transition move, but it's going to come out next time I'm on the dance floor.Bill:[31:51] You.[31:51] It's great. And so those who haven't seen the video, of course, you'll see the show notes. They'll be there,That's the only place you can hear the song if you're looking online.Frank:[32:00] Yeah, unless you buy the CD.Bill:[32:01] Unless you buy the cd like I did I would like to buy the vinyl me. I'll look for the vinyl next So let me set the picture for you. It's black and white,he's wearing A white billowy shirt not quite the pirate shirt that we would have seen in seinfeld but not too far removed from it very 80s,He's got those jeans that are they may be acid washed or stonewashed. I'm not sure Is that a stonewashed like acid wash or not at all? Wait, I think they're acid washed.Frank:[32:30] You're asking me fashion questions and I really have no answer to that.Bill:[32:33] Okay, so they're acid washed jeans I think or they're the blue acid wash style at least of that era and He's got some lighter Western boots on perhaps brown perhaps white hard to tell,So when you see him snap his fingers and then pump his fists against his thighs, he's moving with the beat,he's got the two-hand snap back and forth two-hand snaps sometimes hitting his thighs and,He's got,great hair.Frank:[33:04] Because I have it kind of playing here. Well, while we're talking about it. Everyone is sweaty. Yeah, it's the Arizona plate.Bill:[33:10] It's hot it's at least it looks hot I mean Arizona plate. It's hard to know like I keep thinking it's a carnival, but the scenes are like they're in the backyard of a hot Arizona town.Frank:[33:25] I think like raising Arizona like there's a there's a because the the laundry's out on the on the line and everything. Yeah.Bill:[33:32] Yeah, that's right because that's the background is these bedsheets that are hung up. There's a woman just sitting in her like bikini that looks like she's from the 50s maybe chewing gum and not.Frank:[33:42] Yeah, sunglasses. Yeah.Bill:[33:43] Interested. But there's also this fan beside her like those fans you see at the top of buildings that spins around. What type of fan is that? Yeah, so the condenser fan is right at her feet so it's like are they on top of a roof? But then you have a band behind him and it seems like at least one.Frank:[33:50] Well, that would be a condenser fan for an air conditioning unit.Bill:[34:02] Or two bass players at once. There's someone playing xylophone, someone playing drums, but there's,three iterations of this band. It keeps changing to these people who look like players because they don't look like anybody you would hire to act.Frank:[34:15] I'm looking at there's there's the one like bigger drummer, like he's balding wearing glasses and everything like, and I'm not here to shame, but he's not a Hollywood like attractive,man that you would like feature in a video.Bill:[34:31] There's only one person who is both out of place and totally in place and that is the it girl,So she's playing harmonica or appearing to play harmonica I'm not sure we can even see a harmonica and she's just moving with the rhythm and she is striking and She is sweating. Yes, like she's probably sweating the most which of course is very 80s.Frank:[34:45] Yeah, dancing and clapping. Yes. Yeah.Bill:[34:53] Yeah, and so Juno belly's kind of sweating but she is sweating and she's kind of like moving and and he's not, like this is the interesting thing for me in the video, is they're not set up as love interests.She's dancing around him to the music and he'll look over at her kind of, but he's not interested in her in that sort of way.Frank:[35:13] Main character of this video is the song.Bill:[35:17] And so they're moving to it and she's just kind of this character that as a viewer you're drawn to. She is totally fascinating.Alright, so here is some deep research. Two in the morning, I wake up, can't sleep. Maybe thinking about the video, I don't know.And like, I gotta figure out who this person is.So I find this article online. And let me just read the title because the title says it all.MTV It Girls. Who's the girl in the video? This is the article.Frank:[35:51] So you went, okay, you read the article, but then you went all the way through the comments.Bill:[35:52] They go through iconic ones. And then in the comment section, someone says, who's the girl in "Wild Horses?"[36:03] The comments. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I kind of typed into the search engine and then it said it had.Frank:[36:04] To find this information.Bill:[36:09] Something written there, but I had to look through and there's nothing on it. But several people wrote in the comments, who's the girl and "Wild Horses?" So clearly there are people wanting to know. So I get this name Rosetta Millington. And looking it up, like, who is she? I click on it.It's like, it's not Rosetta Millington. Someone named Rosetta Getty. Who's Rosetta Getty? So I'm I'm looking at this I see a picture of this person like well, that's her but there is nothing Linking her to the video. She is not,Unfamous She is married to Balthazar Getty who is the great-grandson of Jay Paul Getty,I believe it's Jay Paul Getty who is the richest man in the world Do you remember that movie all the money in the world? Where's about the kid who got kidnapped? That's Getty.Frank:[36:57] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Did they invite? Did they invent Getty images? Like when you?Bill:[37:00] And so his father Balthazar's father.[37:06] Yeah, the Getty no, it's all connected. Yeah, it's all connected. So.Frank:[37:09] Is it? Yeah. Okay. I was trying to be hilarious.Bill:[37:11] Yes, I think so. Anyways, I at least from what I know because there's this Getty Museum and stuff.Frank:[37:15] Oh, that's unfortunate.Bill:[37:16] And So Balthazar Getty's father is the guy who got kidnapped,in that and had his ear cut off by the mafia and all that and then had a pretty tortured life and died young.Frank:[37:27] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's unfortunate.Bill:[37:28] So Balthazar Getty was a son who never really had you know, a good father figure anyways.This is kind of going off on the side here, but it's all gonna come together.He marries Rosetta Millington who becomes Rosetta Getty who has her own clothing line.Frank:[37:42] So how does she end up in this video?Bill:[37:43] And she's like a fairly big deal from everything I see and they're worth a ton of money, like 300 million.This is before they're married. So there's no mention, she's online and everything, no mention of this video.But when you see her, that is Rosetta Getty.And she has her own line of gowns and stuff. And you can watch these videos where they talk about their life together.And the reason I'm bringing this up is She maybe inadvertently follows the theme of this song,because Balthazar Getty was not an easy person to live with because he had this very public affair with Sienna Miller in 2008.Frank:[38:26] Oh, that's right.Bill:[38:28] Oh, that's right. So everyone knew this. He had kids, like they had three or four kids, I think.And he was off for a long time with Sienna Miller and they got back together and they're still together,because wild horses could not drive Rosetta Getty away from her husband despite, yeah, very public.Frank:[38:45] His infidelity. Yeah, very public. Wow, that's crazy.Bill:[38:48] So it's crazy. So that was my deep dive research and it's totally her. And there is no connection.So I don't know if she's used her money to push down "Wild Horses." I don't know why, because it's fascinating.And as far as eight girls in a video, she's not exploited, I don't think.I mean, it's, we're guys talking about beautiful woman in a video, but she's just this fascinating figure.Frank:[39:13] Yeah, yeah. And she's not I mean, it's not an overt objectification of her in the video. It's not her front and center writhing in a bikini on a car or something like that.Bill:[39:25] No, she's not wearing the bikini the person wearing the bikini is just sitting there. Yeah, I.Frank:[39:28] Yeah, and she's completely uninterested. It's almost like a David Lynch film.Bill:[39:32] Was Heather in down yeah, that's great. It is like a David Lynch film If anything, this is what Wild at Heart should have used maybe I mean, of course, what am I saying?Frank:[39:34] I would be down. Do you know that?[39:43] Yeah, well, why would a hard?Bill:[39:44] Chris Isaac, but this has a total lynching feel and belt is our getty said David Lynch. This is not connected but isis he sees David Lynch as kind of a surrogate father to him. All these weird connections.Frank:[39:56] But.Bill:[39:59] Yeah. Either way, this video feels like Lynch.Frank:[40:03] Yeah.[40:03] It's all six degrees of Gino Vannelli.Bill:[40:06] Yeah. Thank you, Gino for Twin Peaks. So that video is so watchable. I've, I've watched it over and over again, but I also can't help but see Eugene Levy playing Gino Vannelli from the SCTV.Frank:[40:14] So.[40:20] In an SCTV parody of this, yes.Bill:[40:20] Yeah. Yeah. They did a parody of it. I just want to stop where he keeps singing and growing more and more chest hair. So that would be like when we talk about categories, if we're even heading there, we might as well.Frank:[40:26] Yeah.Bill:[40:32] Hallmark movie is like, well, it's a David Lynch movie. This belongs in a David Lynch movie.Frank:[40:35] Yeah.in David Lynch movie. Yeah.Bill:[40:37] So I can't see it as a Hallmark thing,but I can see it as a David Lynch movie.Frank:[40:41] Can we talk about Gino Vannelli in more recent pop culture history? So in 2008,Boston Celtics would play a clip of Dick Clark's American Bandstand and it's just like music playing and a bunch of people dancing and it was like you know panningthrough the crowd and everything and the end of this clip that they would play at Celtics games and it was always during a blowout win for the Celtics. The end of it was this bearded man wearing a very,very tight t-shirt with Gino Vannelli on it. It just said Gino,and they call it Gino time. So in 2008, Gino Vannelli is thrust into the forefront of the Boston like sort of sports popculture history because everyone knows the guy who's dancing in video and everyone knows the shirt that he's wearing so it's Gino time so GinoVannelli has this small little resurgence in 2008 and that's also the year that they won their last championship was 2008 so Gino Vannelli has a part of the Celtics 17th championship in the NBA.Bill:[41:53] All right, let's talk some categories. Okay. Michael Bolton. Could Michael Bolton sing this?Okay, I was actually thinking he could if he toned it down.Frank:[42:08] But you're asking a bird not to fly.Bill:[42:10] I was gonna say at the end, but he could not by the end. He just go wild. He is the wild horse.Frank:[42:15] He is the wild horse.Bill:[42:17] Now I do have another category unfair because I didn't tell you about this. But who who else could sing this and I have one person who I feel could sing this and that's Chris Isaac.Frank:[42:25] Yeah. It's fine. Oh, yeah. Well, it has that that sort of, like.Bill:[42:28] Oh yeah. Yeah.Frank:[42:30] I said, that southwestern almost rockabilly feel to it. So,yeah, who else would who else would would be able to do that? maybe John Bon Jovi and his like cowboy rock stage or Kid Rock?Okay, like Enya?Bill:[42:44] Or I could see it being like a female voice who makes it feel kind of ethereal. So maybe.Yeah. Yeah, she could.Maybe Anya. Maybe like a Phoebe Bridges or a Tori Amos?Could she do it?I'm just trying to think. Someone could do something with it. Could Jule sing this?Frank:[43:14] Yeah, I can hear Jewel singing this. Yeah, Jewel. This is your challenge. And we know you listen to the episode. So we challenge you to sing Gino Vannelli's Wild Horses and send it over to us and maybe hang out with me.Bill:[43:15] Yeah, all right, Jule. The challenge is on.[43:49] Another category here what season of the year and what time of the day does this song work best?Frank:[43:56] End of summer in the evening.Bill:[43:58] You got it, that's the answer. All right one more for you. What part of the date do you play this song on?Frank:[44:05] Okay, it's not a first date song. You know what, it's a third date song after you have a mild misunderstanding. If you're really into her, but without, you know, going creepy.Bill:[44:14] Oh, okay,Okay, because I have getting fresh written down. Not mild misunderstand. To me it seems like that would be your kind of go-to kissing song. It's a kissing song. That's a game.Frank:[44:21] Okay, well that's usually third date.[44:29] It's a kissing song. And a flatbed truck.Bill:[44:33] Yeah, all right. I mean there's one more major category we gotta get to of course. Mixed tape. Mixed tape. You got a mixed tape going? I have a mixed tape. Okay, I'll let you go first.Frank:[44:40] Okay, yeah. Mix tape.Okay. I have a mix tape. Okay, so my mix tape, the theme I went with was songs that have animal names.Bill:[44:51] Animal names? animals Okay, all right, all right, gotcha, okay.Frank:[44:51] Animals in the title.So, Like a Bird on a Wire, the Neville Brothers, Barracuda by Heart,Rock Lobster, the B-52s,A bit of an outlier here and this is just because I love the band but also the song is beautiful. Transient Whales by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Pony by Genuine.And I am ending this just for you Bill hands by Jewel.Bill:[45:30] Hands is not an animal.It's not funny anymore. This is like four, I don't know how many episodesyou've done this to me, whether I've kept it in or cut it out. Okay.Frank:[45:40] No, no, no, I do have an ending for you and this one honestly is just for you. by crazy town.Bill:[45:42] Oh yeah.[45:47] Yes. Oh, what an ending. Oh, that's a great transition into my stuff.So my mixtape went with texture to quote you actually actually from an earlier episode. So after you know, Wild Horses plays or I guess your part. I'm on fire Bruce.Frank:[46:01] Oh yes! Oh good call! Bruce Springsteen can sing me a song.Bill:[46:08] Springsteen. Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah, I got the feel. Yeah. Oh,he could totally sing this. I just died in your arms tonight cutting crew. Okay. Drive the cars. Wicked Game Chris Isaac.Frank:[46:18] I will listen to this mixtape.Bill:[46:24] And then I'm gonna end with Yeah, who's gonna ride your wild horse is you too, because it has that feel and not the one that's on Octon baby, but the mix that was actually the single. It has that sort of feel as well. And it's like a scale,back Bono. And I really like that song and the wild horsesfits within the Gino wild horse world. So it feels like the Gino finale is like wild horses won't drive me away. And Bono is like.Frank:[46:47] Yes, yeah.Bill:[46:53] Who's gonna ride your wild horses? There's there's something going on there. It is the Gino verse. Yeah, I felt really good. I spent a lot of time on this. I do have something else. Gino is so weird. When he's interviewed, he doesn'tFrank:[46:56] It's all in the Genoverse.Yeah. That's a great mixtape.Bill:[47:09] even bother talking about "Wild Horses". He only wants to really talk about his spiritualjourney. I just don't want to hear about it. I want to hear about "Wild Horses," Gino! I don't want to hear about the ego and you're Carl Jung. I just want to hear -Frank:[47:20] I just want you to stop and tell me all the things about you baby. Bill:[47:24] Exactly. So I am so glad we got to talk about a song that's not easy to find on Spotify, that's,not easy to find anywhere.Yeah, that you'd have to go on Amazon and look for dreamers never sleep if you wanted to get a CD copy of this.Frank:[48:00] Yeah, or write Bill, he might be able to send you his. Bill's like a CD library. He can he lends them out and they do come back sometimes. Yeah, and the song I think is critically.Bill:[48:09] They do. You know what? are still an awesome way of listening to music.Frank:[48:17] Critically underappreciated. Like we said, it did very well in Canada, but in the broader NorthAmerica really didn't chart but such a such a good song such a really really good song and a visceral song, you can feel it.You can feel everything that he's singing.It is so good.Bill:[48:39] Yeah, I can't help but gush over this and so, you know, we don't do irony anyways,We like to joke around we don't do irony and this song is incredible. So if you're out there And you know this song but haven't been able to sort of place it anywhere. We're here for you,and,We want you to know that no matter what's going on in the world, wild horses won't drag us away from bringing guilt-free pleasures to you.Frank:[49:13] Thank you for listening.
 

Rod Stewart: ”Downtown Train” (with Rich Terfry)

We are thrilled to have Rich Terfry join us for this episode. Rich has been the host of CBC Radio 2's "Drive" since 2008. Besides his work for CBC Music, Rich is a published author who is also known as Buck 65 - a Juno-winning alternative hip hop artist. Today we examine Rod Stewart's glorious cover of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train."
Links:
Our Mixtape
Tom Waits Original
Rod Stewart Version
Patty Smythe Version
Bob Seeger Version
Boy Meets Girl Version
Buck 65 Bandcamp Page
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Masadon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
 
Transcript (best read on our website)
 
Intro Music
Frank:[0:22] So today on Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures, we have a Chicken or the Egg song. Was it Downtown Train that inspired Rod Stewart's love of model trains? Or was it his love of model trains that inspired him to cover this song? That's what we're kind of looking at a little bit.Well, not at all, but that's a it's a philosophical question that that I believe needs to be asked.And also today we're really excited to have a guest with us today, Rich Terfry who some of you may know from CBC Radio 1. Rich Terfry:[0:59] Radio 2, CBC Music as we refer to it now.Frank:[1:07] Radio 2. Yes, sorry. Yeah. So Rich Terfry has been good enough to join us today and talk about this song. And I know that you're on the radio and everything,
but I can tell you're a little bit intimidated with our $25 mic stands and our towels for soundproofing, but we encourage you just to be yourself here today.Rich Terfry:[1:23] Sorry, yeah.[1:23] I'll do my best. This is much nicer than my setup at work here, so.Frank:[1:27] I'm not saying a whole lot for CBC are we?So yeah today we're looking at Downtown Train by Rod Stewart but before we talk about Downtown Train by Rod Stewart, we need to talk about Downtown Train by Tom Waits, because he was the guy that wrote the song and originally recorded it back in 1985.Bill:[1:49] Right, and that was on his Rain Dogs album, which is his most popular album, at least until... It's hard to tell...Frank:[1:57] And at least until Scarlett Johansson did her cover album, right?Bill:[2:00] Right, right, right.Rich Terfry:[2:01] Certainly a classic. Yeah. And often when people talk, Tom Waits, one of if not the first album that tends to come up in conversation.Frank:[2:12] I think it's probably maybe the most accessible. Maybe so. Yeah.Rich Terfry:[2:15] Maybe so.Bill:[2:16] Our friend Eric Stewart, no relation to Rod, sent, I asked him, I sent him a text far tooBill:[2:24] late last night asking why he's a big Tom Waits fan and asked him to tell mewhy Downtown Train works so well on Rain Dogs and he said I think because in thefirst three quarters of the album he makes the listener work so hard to findthe melody that when you finally get to something that's even close to a radio song it comes as a relief. Consonance is only pleasing in thepresence of dissonance.Frank:[2:49] I understood 70% of those words.Rich Terfry:[2:52] Yeah, I think the simple way to put it is that Rain Dogs is kind of a weird record. And then in a strange way, Downtown Train is a sore thumb.Because all of a sudden, here's like a pretty straight up standard, you know, good old structured pop song in the midst of all this weirdness.Bill:[3:39] There's talk that this was sort of like rock star bait, that there's rumors that Tom Waits had finally got his publishing to himself, and that they said that this song was put out there to sort of um... Lure. Yes.Rich Terfry:[3:51] Lure a bigger artist to, you know, specifically for the purpose of covering it.Bill:[3:59] Yeah. And allowing him to take some time off. Apparently the cover, one version I read was that allowed Tom Waits to take a couple years off to raise his kids.Yeah. Rod Stewart's version is it put in a pool. That's about to be quite a pool if it's 1989 royalties, I would think.Frank:[4:10] Yeah, I just thought it was, yeah.Rich Terfry:[4:38] So I've read a few Tom Waits biographies, none of which he kind of participated in the writing of, because I don't think that's really what he does.But some people very close to him believe that, that he was really doing that, that he was specifically trying to create cover bait, basically, with this song, and maybe a few others that he's written.Just, you know, throw in the potential hits out there, just waiting for someone to take the bait and make them some money.Bill:[5:10] If Rod Stewart wants to cover one of our podcasts...Frank:[5:12] Hey, put on American songbook like 47 or whatever he's on right now.Rich Terfry:[5:19] But don't forget, you know, Tom Waits,so the first chapter, if you will, of his career was very different from where he ended up in the 80s with this trilogy of records.Really, right? People talk about rain dogs, Swordfish Trombones and Frank's Wild Years is sort of a trilogy where hereally started to experiment, started to become the guy that ultimately he became and sort of is now. But before that in the 70s, although it was still alittle different from you know kind of what might have been on the pop charts,he was more of a songsmith less the experimenter back then. So he had this inHe knew how to write a song. Always did, I would say.Bill:[6:05] And so you have Bob Seeger hearing this and saying, this is my ticket.Frank:[6:11] Before that, Patty Smythe did a cover of it too. She covered and recorded and released it in 87.Bill:[6:14] Oh yeah, yeah you're right.Frank:[6:19] It made it on the charts, I think it charted at 93.Of all the covers that I've heard, I'm gonna say that hers is my favorite.Bill:[6:28] That's tough for you, because I know Rod Stewart means so much.Frank:[6:33] He has a big spot in my heart.[6:59] Then that brings up the whole Bob Seeger controversy, right? So the story that I read anyways was that Bob Seeger recorded the song and he was gonnarecord an entire album surrounding the song and that was his idea and he played it for Rod Stewart and then like a month after that Rod Stewart just recorded Downtown Train just as a one off to add on to a greatest hits compilation.Rich Terfry:[7:30] And managed to release it before Bob Seeger was able to.Frank:[7:34] Yeah, so Bob's like laboring on this entire album, which isbuilt around Downtown Train. And Rod's just like, Here's a one off and I'm going to release it on my on my greatest hits here.So I don't know, like, so it caused a rift between the two them because they were friends and now they're foes.Rich Terfry:[7:54] Yeah, they say Bob Seeger was genuinely ticked,and kind of felt like Rod Stewart's move kind of ruined it for him.Frank:[8:02] Yeah, yeah.Bill:[8:03] And it was the end of Seeger's had this big run until around 87, 88, I think. He actually scored a number one, the song called Shakedown on the Beverly Hills Cop 2 soundtrack.Frank:[8:14] Oh, yeah, that's right.Bill:[8:15] And it looked like, how is that number one? I remember hearing, I thought it was one of those awful throw offs they put on movie soundtracks. Or like, okay, there's one song like Shakedown, who's that? You know, as a kid, but I guess it went to number one.I should probably re-listen to it. But he was seeing Downtown Train, I think, either as a transition or like as,a big move for him as an artist. The story I heard is he told Rod Stewart about the song but hadn'tplayed it for him and get this he told to him on a train.Rich Terfry:[8:44] The plot thickens.Thanks for watching!Bill:[8:47] And then yeah now Rod Stewart's version and I I kind of believe him he's like oh I don't remember.Frank:[8:47] Layers upon layers.Bill:[8:53] That and it's believable to me that Bob Seeger might have been pouring out his heart and Rod Stewart at this stage of his life might not have been paying close attention, but he'sgot a lot of women coming in and out of different rooms and his autobiography sound like he was quite a wild man even at his age then.Frank:[9:12] Well, yeah.Bill:[9:13] Here's the tough part. Rod Stewart was 44 years old when he recorded this.Frank:[9:20] Okay.Bill:[9:20] We are 45.Frank:[9:23] I've missed my downtown train year.Bill:[9:26] You did, and  Rod Stewart, by the time he was doing Downton Train, had a whole entire career.Frank:[9:31] Yeah, I've had a career. I've had a number of careers. and just keep losing them because of gross incompetence.Bill:[9:32] Are we familiar with the story of how Rod Stewart claims that he heard the song for the first time?Rich Terfry:[9:38] I don't know if I am either.Bill:[9:49] Well, I got it from his autobiography and some mean-spirited writer online said "his autobiography"  or "whoever wrote his autobiography."He was just saying he didn't write his autobiography.Frank:[10:04] Well Rod Stewart doesn't write his own songs either so why would he write his autobiography?Bill:[10:09] Well, he did. He can write a song.Frank:[10:10] He can write his own songs. No, he can.Bill:[10:11] This is the great.I guess this this sort of marked a moment where he changed directions a bit.At least they talk about this. I'll just retell it.I was gonna read it, then I realized it's too long.So his manager came in, I think it was his manager, came in with a tape player.So this is 1989. Plays Tom Waits, Downtown Train for him. And he says to Rod Stewart, holds his hand up and says, don't speak.Plays it. Rod Stewart is listening. Plays the whole entire Downtown Train. Tom Waits stops it. And then he says, don't speak. And he plays it again.Third time. Don't speak. plays it again now Rod Stewart is singing along with it he's like I want this the song has become mine or I want to sing this song and I want to put iton the album but he's saying that's the first time he heard of the song so of,course Bob Seeger's like we talked about this on the train but Rod Stewart.Frank:[11:01] The train. That all makes sense now. Models, model trains, trains. There's a Venn diagram for Rod Stewart's life.Bill:[11:03] Might have been thinking model trains or models in general and so was yeah yeah.[11:11] Well this is the perfect song for him. Rod Stewart said his eight-year-old sonRich Terfry:[11:15] Yeah.Bill:[11:17] came into the room and says, what was that awful sound? Who is that guy singing? And Rod Stewart would say, well, Tom Wait's voice, although he loves Tom Wait's voice, this is an acquired taste.Frank:[11:28] Yeah. It's kind of, it's a pop voice.Bill:[11:28] Whereas Rod Stewart's is like a mild coffee.Rich Terfry:[11:35] Both got a bit of whether you'd call it gravel or gruff or scratchiness though, there is a quality to a degree, you know, Tom Waits is kind of cranked up to 11 but.Frank:[11:49] Yeah, yeah. Tom Waits is like a coal fire.Rich Terfry:[11:51] You're right. And you could argue that at least, you know, at times in his catalog that Bob Seeger dabbled in a little bit of that as well.and so I've wondered if I don't know the question popped into my to my head whenyou know Tom Waits is lay in this trap was he thinking specifically like you know I'll set this one out there for the gravelly voiced bros wait till they hear.Frank:[12:20] Yeah, because because at that, because at the time, like that would be 85. Right? So like Bruce Springsteen is a huge popularity. And then just follow the road down there was.Rich Terfry:[12:22] This.Frank:[12:31] Springsteen, Brian Adams, Rod Stewart, like they all have that,sort of gruffness in their voice.Rich Terfry:[12:38] They hear Tom Waits and think I can shine this up just enough.Frank:[12:41] Yeah, Tom Waits, the godfather of gravel.Rich Terfry:[12:44] Yeah. Yeah.Bill:[12:45] And the Destroyer of Friendships, I guess too. Because if he hadn't put that out, maybe Bob Seeger would still be buddies with Rod.Frank:[12:48] Oh, yeah.[12:52] They recorded an album Rod and Bob.Rich Terfry:[12:54] That was good. Yeah.Bill:[12:58] All right, so we got this. This is released on his Storytellers album, The Greatest Hits. So I thought I kept looking for it on an album. They released a demo of it, or an early version of this on his Vagabond album from 91, the Deluxe edition.It's actually surprisingly different in a way that it sounded a little closer to Tom,Waits. Yeah, Rodster's, yeah, his voice was like, he had a bit more rasp, but it was like phlegmy.Rich Terfry:[13:22] There's no way I can do that.Bill:[13:29] Rasp which really disgusted me. As I listened to it, I realized I do have issues.Clear that comes up. Yeah, yeah, I turn the taps on if someone's using a bathroom too close to me. So it's a.[14:12] So his early version actually sounded closer to Waits or at least it seemed like something that he would been used to the Tom Waits version And then maybe was still in that zone, but then I don't not sure how much Trevor Horn had to I mean, he's the producer,But he takes it and brings it into full rod or at least full late 80s rod. Yeah.Frank:[14:32] Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, what's a Oh, that's right. Yeah, he was on we talked about what the do they know it's Christmas.Bill:[14:34] We've talked Trevor Horn before He's the guy in the bugles with the thick glasses?Frank:[14:44] Right? Yeah. So, and researching the song. Yeah, you're looking you're looking Rod Stewart does his version and the,guy playing the slide guitar is Jeff Beck on this version and I diving like back deeper as far as Wikipedia was gonna take me I didn'tknow that Rod Stewart played with Jeff Beck like post yard birds no is before faces let me find it here oh yeah Stewart he he joined the Jeff.Bill:[15:07] Was it in Faces? Were they in Faces? No.Frank:[15:17] Beck group which is a super original name as a vocalist and sometimes songwriter So yeah, I guess he did write songs.Bill:[15:25] ... You heard Every Picture Tells a Story?[15:27] It's off on the side here, but Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart is phenomenal. Like, as an album.Frank:[15:34] Okay, when was that album? That was... 71. Okay.Bill:[15:35] Like 1971. It's so good that it makes it tough to listen to his later stuff just,because of Rod Stewart's capability as a singer and what direction he could have gone in that he he picked a path that was easy money and an easy easy living,but he had he had a lot of grit and.Rich Terfry:[15:57] Chutzpah.Bill:[16:00] Yes, he had a lot of chutzpah.Rich Terfry:[16:02] You know, I don't know if this is the right moment to interject this, but I find that in the story of both of the versions of this song that we're looking at today, the guest,guitarist really comes up as a big part of the story on both.Because famously, Keith Richards contributed to the Rain Dogs album, but it was GE Smith,who was the Saturday Night Live band leader who played the guitar on Tom,Waits' Downtown Train, who as far as you know guitar slingers mid-80s you knowkind of would have been one of the the top top guns out there and so I you knowyou got to think Rod Stewart's probably thinking we're gonna have to bring in a real hot guitar player on this one who you know when you're talking legendary,guitarists you don't you don't get too far down the list before before Jeff Beck's name pops up.Frank:[16:57] Okay, cool. I did not know that GE Smith because GE Smith I was always introduced like my only knowledge of him was honestly from the Saturday Night Live band And that was it. And I was just like, who's this long haired skeleton? Like, why is he in charge of the band?Rich Terfry:[17:10] Yeah yeah he was you know kind of a studio guy I think you know I'm sure heprobably made some records as well but he was a kind of a studio guitarist played on a lot of records I wouldn't be able to rhyme off you know kind of the,discography here and now but I know he played on some records but yeahinteresting that you know they both brought in some you know some big gunsto play the solos on these songs.Bill:[17:37] When I think about those two songs, like the Downtown Train, Tom Waits version, I think about that guitar. Because that guitar really, it's kind of crying and it makes you feel that sort of longing.[17:59] And when I think of Rod Stewart's Downtown Train, I don't think anything about the guitar.I'd have to re-listen to think about that guitar again. I can just think of Rod Stewart,saying oh baby and and making sounds and I'd never think about the guitar but interesting,I wonder how Jeff Beck felt about it.Frank:[18:16] Oh, they're buds. I think he enjoyed it.Bill:[18:18] Yeah, that's true. Okay.Frank:[18:37] I know that growing up that I had heard Rod Stewart because my dad probably had an eight track back in the day or or like you know 81 in the back seat of the Oldsmobile or whatever andwe're he's playing something by Rod Stewart but I remember my sister got Gasoline Alley which was,his second album she got the tape for Christmas and it was like 1990 1991 so it would have been in around the same time that Downtown Train comes out and I'm wondering if that kind of inspired her,to like look back at his catalog and start picking up some of his music and stuff like that. But,I remember her specifically getting the tape for Christmas and like my dad and my aunt is just like Rod Stewart's like who's listening to him still because he's been around since the mid-60s.Like he's been around for a good chunk of time.Rich Terfry:[19:31] Yeah, and I would think a little bit before my time, I suppose, but the peak of his solo pop stardom, I mean, I think, you know, the average person might think, you know, kind of "do you think I'm sexy" is maybe peak, you know, Rod Stewart, which at that point would have been the better part of 10 years in the rear view mirror sort of thing.Frank:[19:45] Yeah, that Maggie Mae and all that. Yeah.Rich Terfry:[19:53] Yeah. Yeah. All that, yeah.Bill:[19:54] Now you have right before it, so 89 for me, because I'm grade six then, and I grew up listening to a lot of Elvis and Amy Grant. That was kind of, those were our two big ones. So I wasn't, yeah it was.Frank:[20:08] Oh, I'm just, I'm just picturing the duet in my mind right now.Bill:[20:11] I know if only Elvis had lived long enough he'd be, he'd definitely be doing Christian rock. So.Rich Terfry:[20:17] Alright.Bill:[20:18] I know Rod Stewart through music videos and so Forever Young came out before this. Yes. And then this little heart of mine was like released before this and this was on the greatest hits.Frank:[20:23] Yes.Yeah. Oh, yeah.Bill:[20:28] And it was the second time he did this little heart of mine. I loved it.Frank:[20:32] Yeah. Yeah.Bill:[20:33] Yeah, and then this came out and it was like wow, this is amazing So I mean Canada loved it because it went to number one. I'm pretty sure in Canada.Frank:[20:40] Yeah, downtown train went to number one in Canada and three in the states.Bill:[20:44] And it also like I started looking at his previous songs and so in Canada They often went to number one up to downtown trains. So This Old Heart of Mine went to number oneI think Forever Young did really well too. So we loved Rod Stewart even in the 80s periods.Rich Terfry:[20:59] I wish I could recall this specifically, but sometime around this time, as I recall, my mom went to see him live. Okay. Yeah, so she really, and I don't have memories of her being a big time,Rod Stewart fan earlier on. Funny enough, she was actually a big Elvis fan. And I can kind of,of remember some other stuff that she would have been into late 70s, early 80s. But I think, funnyenough, this 80s era Rod is where it really grabbed her. She went to see him live. I remember her,coming home from the concert that night and telling the stories of him kicking soccer balls into the,into the crowd and, you know, loving that. So that would have been in Halifax. I wish I could remember specifically what year that would have been, but I'm thinking it was right around this time.Frank:[21:52] Yeah, because I think Out of Order and then The Vagabond Heart. I think there is a bit of a maybe a bit of a resurgence. Like maybe there's a little dip and then a little bounce back at the end of the 80s, right?Bill:[22:04] In his autobiography, he talked as though he had to prove himself with Downtown Train, but I don't get it at all because he already had Forever Young and a couple other songs in the,tank. So if it's proving yourself a year after a hit, it seems weird now in our era of 2023 where,I don't know, you could go years without doing something, you're still kind of an it. But yeah, he claimed it sort of gave new life to his career. In a lot of ways, this period pads his,his live performance career.As he goes through this, now he's becoming this touring thing that can make tons of money,I think.Frank:[22:42] What's crazy to me right now is like from the beginning of his career to like when he released this album, Storytellers, that's a smaller period of time than it is from the release of that album to now and he's still releasing music. Because it's been 30 years, well 33 years now.Bill:[23:01] Holy cow.Frank:[23:02] Since that album came out, since that first greatest hits package.Bill:[23:05] Right. And he was younger than us then, than we are now.You got that math right? I'm working through this, I got issues, it's okay.Frank:[23:12] Yes. I think so. You're the math teacher. Yeah. So listening to like Rod's version versus Tom's version and I'm gonna speak about them using just their first names.Bill:[23:17] And he changed it.Frank:[23:27] Because I feel like they're familiar to me right now and and even the the covers that like Patti Smythe did and then because eventually Bob Seeger did release a cover version I think in 2011.Bill:[23:40] He didn't like his version.So all the complaining, he's listened to it and said, I don't like it and then changed it and did a new vocal and put in backup singers.Frank:[24:18] So I found the Patty Smythe and the Bob Seeger version a little more faithful to the original in terms of the music that starts off with the guitar, warble, whale, whatever it is you want to call that. But Rod Stewart comes in, it's a little softer, a little more orchestral. And in,my mind, what he's trying to do is he he started it slow. And he's just he's going for that build because he knows how to write a pop song he knows how to do well maybe this is Trevor Horn right.Bill:[24:47] Right, but this is what his voice needs to climb that mountain.Frank:[24:52] But uh yeah yeah so it's it starts off slow and it's really soft and everything and then by the end it like he's full rod.Rich Terfry:[25:00] But yeah, the arrangement on Rod Stewart's version is the most, for lack of a better term, radio-friendly.Cut down on the intro, kind of get to it, get into it a little quicker, kind of sand off some of the edges a little bit. Although strangely, the long sort of coda at the end,which is unusual for a hit song. I'm guessing maybe when it was played on the radio, there might have been some fading going on,for that whole thing.Frank:[25:30] The DJ is talking over the end of the song. Yeah, it's almost uncomfortable.Rich Terfry:[25:32] Yeah, because that is a little unusual, I must say. That's the part of the song that surprises me.That's where this version gets almost a little bit experimental, because it goes on so long.We were listening earlier, it's like, this is almost weird how long this is going on for.Bill:[25:47] It was an awkward moment for all three of us.Rich Terfry:[25:50] But otherwise, it is a very, you know, polished and cleaned up arrangement of this song,as we discussed earlier. The spotlight is somewhat taken off the guitar. And Rod Stewart's very much the star of the showon this version of it. And it really does build in a way that Tom Waits versiondoesn't quite have that steady upward trajectory.Frank:[26:19] It doesn't have it doesn't seem like it has a peak. It just sort of it's that it's a slow burn. Yeah Rod Stewart's version like when you hit that musical bridge and I'm assuming it's a bridge right like you're a musician you can explain do you do you know what a bridge is can you explain what a bridge is to us.Rich Terfry:[26:24] Right.[26:32] Let's call it a bridge.[26:36] I usually just simply think of it as like,sort of an instrumental passage in a song that is kind of in the middle of the song rather than at the beginning or the end. And so it's usually bridging between, say, a verse and a chorus or a chorus and a nextverse or something to that effect.But yeah, usually just like an instrumental passage in the middle of the song.Frank:[26:59] OK, so I think we were right. And every every time we were asking what a bridge was. we have an answer. Yeah, yeah. Or we just end the podcast. I think that was the whole idea. The podcast was determined what a bridge was.Bill:[27:04] We finally have a succinct answer that we will now be just hitting when you ask this question next time. We'll just hit play.Rich Terfry:[27:16] . .Frank:[27:20] Well, thank you, Rich, for being on the last episode of Bill of Frank's guilt free pleasures. But but that bridge because it's climbing, climbing, climbing the entire song. But that bridge.Rich Terfry:[27:24] .Frank:[27:31] Like it takes it up like a steep ramp at that point. And then it comes to that end where he goes full Stewart.Bill:[27:53] I've written down here about my misheard lyrics. I was reading the lyrics. I'm like, that's not what I heard when I would listen to the Rod Stewart version. And I think the reason is,the Tom Waits version, there's this loneliness, longing. I don't think it's creepy, but it's certainly about someone watching somebody else and waiting to see someone he's in love with,but is never going to talk to on a train. And he's a loner who sits on a train waiting for the sameperson to come on that train and he's there kind of following her and whatever life she leads. At,least that's what I had in my head and all the other people, the Brooklyn girls who are there,going off to go out to clubs or whatever was going on then. That's what I hear when I hearthe Tom Waits version. Now the Rod Stewart version, I have no sense that this guy's a loner,or that there's any chance that she's not going to get together with him. So when I read the lyrics,I just hear it differently like there's a line so the beginning was outside another yellow moon,Has punched a hole in the nighttime mist I climbed through the window and down to the street. I'm shining like a new dime,That's Tom Waits, but when I was a kid, I don't know if you thought this but I'm like, oh Rod Stewart,He's shining like a new diamond because yeah, because Rod Stewart's a diamond.Frank:[29:11] That's what I heard too, yeah.Bill:[29:13] I keep listening back and I only hear diamond because it's Rod Stewart and he's worth a ton of money,But the dime is super depressing.So this is the Tom Waits who makes rings out of spoons, right, for somebody to get married,whereas Rod Stewart has big diamonds.Rich Terfry:[30:05] You know, and interestingly, although you could say that in the context of the Rain Dogs album that Tom Waits sort of, you know,cleans things up a little bit on Downtown Train, we talked about it being a bit of a sore thumb. And it's true, you see it in the lyrics as well as, you know, the instrumentation that's happening, the arrangement and everything else. But there, you know, just a few little,Tom Wait-isms in there, even the mere mention of a carnival in the lyrics and you know maybe this comes from you know knowing too much about these these twoindividuals. I can imagine Tom Waits hanging out at a carnival. I don't picture Rod Stewart kind.[30:47] Of roaming around a fairgrounds you know just soaking up the vibes and then although Tom Waitsis a California guy he spent some years in New York you know recording these albums and exploringsome new musical ideas. And so knowing that he was living in New York at the time, him mentioning the Brooklyn Girlsand so on, like yeah, checks out. Somehow, I don't know, Rod Stewart in Brooklyn, kind of scrappy Rod Stewart, the performancesis great and he delivers and so it's believable in that sense.But when you really kind of get in there and you take a close look at the lyrics, I don't I don't know if I'm buying.First of all, Rod Stewart, I'm always imagining a subway train rather than a commuterinterstate train or whatever. Rod Stewart riding the F train or whatever in New York.I don't see it, let alone in Brooklyn.Frank:[31:51] Unless he like rent it out for himself and that's about it, right?Rich Terfry:[31:54] Yeah, right. Maybe. And then like I said, hanging out at the carnival grounds.Frank:[32:01] Yeah, right. Maybe.Rich Terfry:[32:01] You know, not so sure.But it is interesting.And to me, that's the one real Tom Waits tell in the lyrics, you know, because he had a thing for all things carnival.Frank:[32:09] Yeah.[32:13] Yeah. Well, and it comes through on that rain dogs album, too, because there's a lot of like carnival sounds on it right?Rich Terfry:[32:16] Yeah.[32:16] Oh, sure does.Yeah, absolutely.Bill:[32:19] And it's like the dark corners of a carnival, even though I imagine everything's circular in a carnival, but there's always darkness somewhere in a corner and there's Tom.Rich Terfry:[32:26] Oh, the sideshow is where that's where Tom's hanging out.Frank:[32:30] Yeah yeah yeah that's where the freak shows are yeah yeah yeah yeah.[32:40] The opening line is something that I really love. Outside of another yellow moon has punched a hole than a nighttime mist. And I like that. It's very similar to me to Bruce Coburn's Loversin a Dangerous Time, where he says you got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. Like, it's very visceral, the lyric, and you can imagine it, you can see it happening,you can see an action actually happening, you can like see the moon punching through the miss or it's almost a violent act but there's beauty in that violence.Rich Terfry:[33:12] It's a beautiful line. I mean, there's real poetry in these lyrics, and I would say more so than your average pop song, even by 80s standards. And so I must say, for me, for as much as I admire Tom Waits as a pop song, to see a few times in his career, his songs being covered and being turned into hits,surprises me in a real pleasant way because you know often you don't get this level of poetry in a number one hit pop song. Maybe from a Bruce Coburnthe odd person who's that kind of writer but and so maybe this really sayssomething about you know Rod Stewart's talent that he's able to make something that you know might otherwise be utterly inaccessible for most people in TomWade's hands turns into as big a hit as it could possibly be in Rod Stewart'shands where everyone loves it. Yeah. Basically.Bill:[34:08] This is why I have no animosity to this song. Like I might make fun of Rod Stewart once in a while, but I will listen to this song the whole way through. And even those last 40 seconds.But there is something about him bringing Tom Waits to the masses. So for me as a kid, I didn't know Tom Waits. He was terrifying. There's a video with him on a tricycle and he had devil horns.Rich Terfry:[34:28] "I Don't Want To Grow Up."Bill:[34:30] It was on Much. Yeah, I did. I couldn't, I just turned the station. I couldn't watch that, but this I could. And then years later, when I grew up, sometime in my mid 30s, I finally was ready to listento Rain Dogs. Like, oh wow, this is fantastic.But it really, if it wasn't for this, I wouldn't have got there.Rich Terfry:[34:48] Yeah. Maybe it's worth mentioning, I don't know about you, Frank, but I only, like you, Ionly became a Tom Waits fan later. I heard the Rod Stewart version first. I became familiar anyway with the Rod Stewart version before I did the Tom Waits version.Is that the same for you?Frank:[35:03] Oh, same here. Yeah, yeah. 100% I kind of knew who Tom weights was a little bit but really didn't get into understanding him. I don't still don't think I understand him. But but like, yeah, gaining an appreciation until our friend, Eric Stewart. Like, because he's such a big fan and like he plays stuff and he's just like, Oh, geez, this is good. And you listen to his like, Oh, geez, this is really good. So you start digging into it a little bit more. You were talking about that misheard lyric and there's another one.Rich Terfry:[35:17] But gaining some appreciation.Frank:[35:37] That in the Rod Stewart version, I always heard it as when I see you tonight on a downtown train. And that was a certainty. It's like when I see you because you're going to be there and I'm going to be there. But the line will I see you tonight? It just.Bill:[35:43] Yes.Frank:[35:52] Odd. It turns it right around on its head, right? And it just makes it even more sad I guess it's it's but it's so beautiful.Rich Terfry:[35:58] Right, more longing and...Bill:[36:10] Christmas night while I was listening to this song. I'm like, oh I kept hearing it seeing Will I'm like, no, it's gotta be when like you said I wrote down Rod Stewart's going to win the girl So when he sees her he's going to see her and they and they're going to be together if they're not already.Frank:[36:25] Yeah, it's a certainty.Rich Terfry:[36:26] Whereas with the Tom Waits version I absolutely assume he won't.Frank:[36:29] Yeah, well exactly.Bill:[36:31] Oh yeah, he's never talked to her.Rich Terfry:[36:32] Yeah, this is, there's much more distance.Bill:[36:45] So second verse, maybe second verse is short.The downtown trains are full, full of all them Brooklyn girls, trying so hard to break out of their little worlds. And then this line here kind of confuses me. You waveyour hand and they scatter like crows. They have nothing that'll ever capture your heart. They're just thorns without the rose. Be careful of them in the dark.[37:39] Rod Stewart's pronunciation of dark really throws me off whenever I'm saying like he I kind of wish Trevor Horn's like no Could you say dark again? It's kind of a weird our thing going on,So who's scouring my crows? Are they the Brooklyn girls?Frank:[37:53] Yeah, I think so. Because they don't have anything to offer. That this is my take on it. Like, sorry, not that they don't have anything to offer. But there's nothing of interest to,him at that point, because he's, you know, looking for that girl that he's looking for on that downtown train. That's my take.I don't know, you guys?Rich Terfry:[38:15] I've always just loved the image and like you were saying with the first line of the song it just really conjures a strong image in my mind I've never really been able to get past that to even think about it too much I just love that image.Bill:[38:28] Rod Stewart said that Tom Waits can do imagery so well as a songwriter and then Rod Stewart's like, I have to work on that, which is classic Rod Stewart sort of like, I gotta work on that.Frank:[38:40] It's like I try.Bill:[38:40] And then he said, I just write from the heart. That's what I do. I'm like, you're such a...Frank:[38:44] This is why I love Rod Stewart so much because he's all feeling. That's all I am.Bill:[38:48] He's all feeling. But the thorns without the rose, it's such a great image. And I like what you say,that Rich is like, just the image being there is enough.Like I can't really pierce through it. There's a little bit of thorn imagery there, but I don't totally know, but that what he paints there,is something that's true.Frank:[39:09] Yeah.[39:09] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.Bill:[39:11] If that makes sense.And there's a little line before, if I was the one you chose to be your only one.[39:19] Oh baby, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?Frank:[39:22] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.Bill:[39:23] So with Ron Rod Stewart saying, Oh baby, it's not like Tom White saying, Oh baby,where it's just, let's sort of the walk away from it, but his old baby is like, okay so you're getting you're getting you're getting with it.Frank:[39:34] You're getting the girl.[39:48] Well then then you jump into the the the course, which is, you,know, will I see you tonight on a downtown train? Every nightevery night is just the same on a downtown train. I like I likeit. It's it's a good little course. It does its job andeverything and that question of will will I see you tonight? Ireally like that reading through the lyrics as opposed tolistening to the lyrics and understanding what the actuallyric was it like you said it just adds that longing.Rich Terfry:[40:38] It's, in my experience, rare touching on what you just mentioned, Frank, where reading the lyrics of a pop song gives you a whole other rewarding experience often.Otherwise, with a lot of pop songs, it really does nothing to heighten your experience of it. If anything, it might even drag it down. It's like, oh, these lyrics are terrible.Frank:[41:00] Yeah.Rich Terfry:[41:00] It's all just, a lot of songs are just carried by the melody. And the melody of this song is very, very strong as well.and I think that's what makes, I think you could argue anyhow, the chorus of this songmemorable is the melody of it is so great.But it's true that there's a lot of people out there don't even really pay a lot of attention to lyrics, but if you're one such person and you do decide one day to look them up and,you read them, you're going to be floored. Whereas a lot of pop songs, they're not really going to give you a lot to sink your teethbut there's a lot going on here.Frank:[41:31] Well, I mean, you would have been similar to us like today, like with everything streaming and all of that. You just listen to songs.But when I was really getting into music in the 90s, you had CDs and you had CD cases. And that was my favorite thing to do was open up, check out the artwork and follow along with the lyrics, with the songs and then try and experience them that way.And you're absolutely right. you gain a better appreciation of the song.Rich Terfry:[41:58] And I think that, you know, I lament that a little bit for, you know, sort of younger generations today. Although it's easy enough, you know, everything's on online, it's easy enough to Google lyrics,but it's not always necessarily a part of the experience when you're streaming.It's not right there like it is if you're, you know, kind of, you know, playing a CD and you havethe case in your hands or for that matter, you know, on an LP or something like that. There's that function if you're using Apple Music where if you, you know, tap a couple things and you can bring up the lyrics, but it's sort of a little bit of effort to do.But I sometimes wonder if young people are really, you know, spending time with lyrics of songs the way we used to automatically because the experience you described I think was a fairly universal one. I think everyone loved doing that.Frank:[42:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was always the because there are different types of CD cases to like there's the there's the book, then there's the ones that would just fold out lengthwise.Rich Terfry:[42:55] Fold.[42:55] Poster, sure. Never get it right.Frank:[42:56] And then there was the ones that folded out almost into a poster and then trying to fold those back where it was just terrible.Bill:[43:02] "Fully Completely." I remember looking like what? Oh, come on. That's not how you put lyrics on a sheet Don't be crazy and then REM would come out with like a booklet and then you just realize they're Michael Stipe pictures and that.Frank:[43:08] Yeah.Bill:[43:14] Made me so angry. We're like you could have put the lyrics on I still don't know what you're saying.Rich Terfry:[43:19] I don't think he wanted you to know what he was saying, But that's a whole other discussion right there.Bill:[43:22] Yeah, yeah.Frank:[43:24] Well, I bet the there's the third verse we can we can go we talked about it a little bit but it's like the I know your window and I know it's late.Bill:[43:26] Alright Frank, we hitting every single lyric on this song?Frank:[43:38] I know your stairs and your doorway, which I think could be taken as creepy.But again, there's, there's from Tom Waits, like from his perspective, it's like, I don't find it creepy. find it sad.[44:23] Yeah, he's because he's going there and he's.Bill:[44:25] It makes me think a little bit of Taxi Driver, a little bit, which is a little more creepy. But when Rod Stewart says it, I'm like, well, of course, because he's going there. to date her, yeah.Rich Terfry:[45:07] Now, in my mind, I see those lines, that verse. And it adds a little intrigue to the song, because I start to wonder, oh, is there actually a bit of an established relationship here?He's been to her house. Maybe there's more going on in this relationship than first meets the eye.Maybe. It's just, in my mind, raised as a question.Could go either way. Maybe there's more familiarity there there than we've been led to believe to this point or yeah there it is a littlecreepier than we first thought where he's you know the creepin' is goingbeyond the train and it's you know.Frank:[45:49] So we kind of talked about this a little bit before when we were listening to the song, but but what's your favorite part in the song? the Rod Stewart version.Rich Terfry:[46:00] Well I'll say something controversial okay and let me give you a little contextbefore I say this, I'm dropping a bomb here. I know you know this, but I'm a Tom Waits fan.And I like a lot of his recent work.Although I would probably say my three favorite,Tom Waits albums is this trilogy that is sort of before us here today, Rain Dogs, Swordfishtrombones,and Frank's Wild Years.Frank:[46:32] Which I don't think he really captured all of my wild years in that album, but you know.Rich Terfry:[46:37] Who could? No, really. In one album.But I'm the type of guy, the weirder Tom Waits gets,the more I like him. And if I was listening to, I hate to say this, but if I'm listening to Rain Dogs in the car, there might be days where a downtown train comes on.I might skip it.Bill:[47:01] This is shocking.Rich Terfry:[47:03] So, where I'm going with this, my point is,me being the kind of music listener that I am,for as strange as it is, the unusual coda at the end of Rod Stewart's version is where it starts to get interesting for me. It's like, oh, what's going on here?He's got a little trick up his sleeve here.He's not the one trick pony that maybe you might,paint him as. It's like, oh, now wait a minute. And was he inspired by Tom Waits to, you know, kind of explore some more interesting terrainat the end of the song. And maybe it's safer to kind of put it at the end.But I get excited when something makes me raisean eyebrow a little bit. I like when someone's willing to go there a little bitor experiment a bit. So although I can appreciate what,he did with the song, where he took it, that he turned it into a hit, it's interesting to comparein contrast his voice, his vocal chops to Tom Waits.But I'm actually intrigued. If Rod Stewart walked in the door right now, and I could ask him one question about the song, I'd be like, what's the deal with the outro on the song?To me, that's super interesting.Frank:[48:11] Yeah, okay, cool.Bill:[48:39] Most controversial moment in our podcast history. I think there no one has ever picked the the final coda Yeah, my favorite part of the rod stewart song is the party's not singing.Rich Terfry:[48:50] Well, how do you like them apples?Bill:[48:51] Let's do that. Yeah.Frank:[48:53] Well, that's my favorite part, too, except it's that musical bridge.Bill:[48:56] Oh, wow.[48:56] Okay, oh, is it after the carnival and heart attacks? is that rhythm? Okay.Frank:[49:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah, because there's a like a 30 second bridge there and the guitars coming in and it's a little orchestral and cinematic. And like it was always climbing, climbing, climbing. but that's when it gets steep.Rich Terfry:[49:09] Yeah, sure, absolutely.[49:14] And I should also mention, I'm a big time Jeff Beck Yardbirds fan.In terms of pure riffage, I'd probably pick him over a lot of guys, if not everybody.And so his inclusion on the song, that's pretty cool to me as well. Yeah.Frank:[49:58] Bill, favorite part?Bill:[49:59] I gotta say, when he says, oh baby, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? I think that really is it. I just assumed he said it over and over throughout the song. He must have. Yeah, I like the Rod Stewart-isms. Yeah.Frank:[50:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it makes it his own.Rich Terfry:[50:13] And that's exactly what I was about to say. Yeah, that's that right there is where he...It's interesting the story you were telling when he was first listening to it and there a moment came where he felt that he was taking ownership of the the song and right there is where he sort of delivered on that promise.Frank:[50:33] So we usually jump into categories towards the towards the last third of the podcast. So I've prepared rich.Should we do our mixtapes? You have a mixtape? I'm gonna let you guys go first and then I'll finish things off I have about 12 songs that I potentially.Bill:[50:42] Oh, good. Yeah.[50:50] Oh, wow. Okay, I got a low list, but I like a guest going first. And we didn't mention this at the beginning, but Richard Fry's, AKA Buck65 for listeners, especially our Canadian listeners who will know.And so when I hear the word mixtape, I know, you know, not like I'm intimidated in a good way.Rich Terfry:[51:10] Well, and although I had a little known fact, I too covered a Tom Waits song once. I should say maybe more than once, but in 99 I released an album called Man Overboard and the original, it might be most fair to say demo version of that album, included a,cover of Singapore by Tom Waits, which didn't make the final cut of the album.And then live, I used to do a very deep cut Tom Wait song,called Tabletop Joe. But anyhow, yes, this is my whole thing, putting these mixed tapes together.And so I gave it some thought. Should we jump into it here? I find it, I bet you guys have found the same thing,is that this song, Rod Stewart's version of this song,routinely pops up on these lists, a bunch of them, on the internet of songs you didn't know were covers.Now to me, that's an interesting enough category. God knows I've talked about that sort of thing on my radio show plenty.But with this particular case, there'smore to it than just that.I think it fits into an even smaller category. And I wish there was more of this, where you have here.[52:32] Big-time bonafide mainstream pop star bringing into you know the spotlight and the mainstream consciousness what at best we might call sort of a cult figure.[52:50] Right? Tom Waits I mean you know he's not nobody but in in particular when we're looking at an album like Rain Dogs you know you ask the next person that walksdown the street hey ever heard Rain Dogs? I'll put 50 bucks on them saying no. Soknow he's he's not I don't know if you could call Tom Waits a household name. I think of him in,particular the parts of his catalog that I love the most. To me I almost think of him as an underground type character, certainly a cult figure, and if not in the strictest definition of it,if you look at his body of work and maybe what inspired him and what he was interested in he'sHe's certainly coming from the deeps, you know what I mean? So maybe at best you could argue that he was an experimenterand whatever else who had more success with it than a lot of others. But nevertheless, I think that here wehave a case where sort of, I'm trying to think of the most fair word I can use,but maybe a slightly more fringy musician is being brought into the mainstream.because a lot of the other songs that you would find on those lists of songs you didn't know were coversaren't necessarily that.I'm trying to think of a good example, but if you look at.[54:12] I Love Rock and Roll by Joan Jett, the Arrows, who wrote and recorded the original version, were a fairly successful band in their own right.And you see a lot of that on those sorts of lists.So this situation got me thinking of other cases where this was the case. case and I really wish that there were more examples of it because to me it's super interestingand exciting and more often you see it the other way around where and hopefully this isn't too,flippant a way to put it but where like an indie band will do kind of an ironic cover of some big,pop it that happens all the time sometimes it makes me roll my eyes but this is much moreinteresting and and the stakes are a little higher where a big time pop star will take a more obscure fringy, culty, whatever, however you want to describe it, person and cover them. So I came upwith a couple examples and I don't know if they're quite as strong as today's example but I'll throwout there and this one is very similar parallel I would say Eric Clapton'sversion of Cocaine by JJ Kale.[55:23] JJ Cale, if you're going to compare anyone to Tom Waits, you know, if you're going to put anyone else in a category, maybe it's a guy like JJ Cale and Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton. I mean, not that,far off, right? So it's a very, very close, you know, kind of thing. Now, I don't know if you,know that The Tide is High by Blondie is a cover, but the original version of that song was by a,relatively small, certainly on an international level.[55:58] It was a Jamaican band called the Paragons,and I don't think they really had any success outside of Jamaica at all.Bill:[56:03] Wow, okay, I didn't know this either.Rich Terfry:[56:05] Really super interesting to me that the guys in Blondie even knew this song. Someone would really have to know their stuff,to know the Paragons and maybe this song in particular. To my knowledge, and I could be wrong about this,have to look it up but I don't even know I have the out the Paragon's album I don't know if their version was even ever released as a single so to me it extra super interesting maybe a real classic and one that does turn up onthese lists fairly often the birds version of turn turn turn or whatever by,Pete Seeger right so you're taking something from a you know I guess aslightly more fringy genre, you know, kind of deep folk music and turning it into a big pop hit.I got a couple other good ones. This one is another fairly well-known case, but RobertaFlax, Killing Me Softly, is a cover of an extremely little-known song. What's her name?Lori Lieberman, I think, who originally, you know, singer, LA singer-songwriter, kind of played at the Troubadour, it never really became famous. The story goes that Roberta Flack just heard it,kind of on a total fluke and loved it. And then of course there's the whole other wave, the Fugees,Yeah. covering it again decades later and making it a hit all over again.Frank:[57:29] Because I remember we did, I forget which song it was, but it was a cover song. And then I said, you know, famous cover songs, where the the cover is more popular than the original.And I said, Fuji is covering Roberta Flack. And then afterwards, finding out that it was Laura Lieberman or just, I was wrong on the podcast.And that never happens.I've never said anything that was infactual on the podcast.Rich Terfry:[57:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.Bill:[57:55] Yeah, we can insert it. Don't worry. No one will know.Rich Terfry:[57:59] I'll throw out one more for you and then I'll and then I'll pass the mic as you.[58:05] Will. No, no, no. But and this one is a little more obscure, but a great example of what I'm talking about, I suppose. But What a Man by Salt and Pepper is,basically a cover. You might argue that it's like an interpretation, but it's,pretty darn close to a cover of a sort of a soul song by a woman named Linda Lindell.Let me double check that. I did write it down because I want to be sure, but I'm pretty sure it's Linda Lindell. Yes, Linda Lindell.It was just released as a 45, just sort of a one-off single.I don't even know if Linda Lindell ever recorded a full-length album.So not well-known, pretty obscure figure, of course. and Salt and Pepper had a bunch of hits.That might have been their biggest one. That was a big old hit. So, and you know, certainly another case where songs you didn't know were covers.And super interesting that, you know,this one sort of turns the tables a little bit in that, you know, we're talking aboutwhat was like, you know, kind of a soul song. Fairly sort of, you know, mainstream in its presentation,but then here's a hip hop group doing it. That in itself is a bit of a rarity,a hip hop group kind of taking on a cover.[59:26] But nevertheless, at this point in their career, Sal and Pepper, they were big pop stars,very well established, and like I said, they turned that into a big hit. So that was the first thing that popped into mind for me was, again, I don't know if it's the exact right word,but fringier artists being brought into the mainstream with a cover, because that doesn't happen a lot.In fact, those were really the only examples of thatthat I could find.I'm sure there are more, and if anyone can think of more, I'd love to hear them, because this is the sort of thing that really excites me.Frank:[1:00:01] Right into the right please someone write us please someone tell us something yeah but it's really cool because there's all sorts of like musical gems out there that no one knows about.Rich Terfry:[1:00:04] Yes.Drop us a line.Frank:[1:00:16] Like or sorry I shouldn't say no one but there it's not as well known and then these pop stars are are bringing them out to the forefront.And sometimes these artists can gain a second life because of it.Rich Terfry:[1:00:29] Now in the early days of rock and roll, this happened all the time, of course, right? So you think like Elvis doing,well practically every song Elvis did the early days of his career was a cover of a song recorded by some lesser known, usuallya blues artist or R&B artist or something like that.But I digress.Bill:[1:00:49] I gotta say this is a big moment for me just as a radio listener because Rich Terfry does the (is it called the drive?) from about (is it three to seven?) okay so three to seven on CBC Radio Two.Rich Terfry:[1:00:57] Yeah.Bill:[1:01:03] And i would listen to it around i think is it around six o'clock that you would do the deep dive like on a friday or is it okay last hour of the show and there'd be this deep dive and.Rich Terfry:[1:01:09] Yeah, right. last hour of the show.Bill:[1:01:14] And it was my favorite part. And so- Well, the stories. Oh, it is great.Frank:[1:01:15] Oh yeah. Well the stories.Bill:[1:01:18] And so even if it was having a bad day at work and I knew I had to be leaving at six to go home, but I knew I could get this.And that was like my favorite part of the show. So I always wanted to find these deep dives. Like, so the one day you did a deep dive,on a tragically hip album, because you did every album. That's right. And so it was on Phantom Power and I was, didn't want to come out of the car,because I knew I wouldn't be able to find it because I'm like, there's gotta be, so I go online, rich to fry deep dives, like they're not available, I want like, you know,maybe a box set, it would be great for me personallyor for the world, but we just got our own personal deep dive.Frank:[1:01:54] Yeah, which is fantastic.Rich Terfry:[1:01:55] Yeah, man.Bill:[1:01:56] Yeah, so that leads to my couple songs. I may be jumping on Frank's toes here, maybe,but because we think similarly, and this was the easiest way to do this,was originally I was thinking of train songs, But then I thought of songs that were like the vibe in Tom Waits, but then were coveredso that they were kind of cheesier, but I couldn't, it wasn't coming up for me.So I ended up thinking of a couple train songs that were so similar.Because we were 12, I only have like three. So the most obvious one for me is Downbound Train by Bruce Springsteen, because it sounds so similar, downbound and downtown.And there's that longing and depression within the song that is kind of in the Tom Waits song.Well, there's something more joyous,even in the Tom Waits version, compared to the Bruce Springsteen.[1:02:55] But thinking of Rod Stewart's cover as very Rod Stewart,this is almost like Bruce Springsteen going,more Bruce Springsteen than usual to me in the song.Like sometimes he mutters his lines in a way that Ben Stiller would imitate Bruce Springsteen.So I liked the song. And so that was one. There was another one called Downbound Train by Chuck Berry, which was about the devil taking a guy to hell.Okay. And then there was another one called Night Train.There's a Bruce Cockburn one, which I love, but I went with the James Brown version because it was a bit more upbeat.Frank:[1:03:28] So I went straight planes trains and automobiles. That's the theme of my of my uh, well, it's modes of transportation. Bicycle Race by Queen. This has nothing to do with any sort of feel. It's justthis is the theme. Modes of transportation. Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. Oh, I know right.Rich Terfry:[1:03:47] Modes of transport.Bill:[1:03:48] So, I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of a,That's okay.Frank:[1:03:54] Midnight train to Georgia, Gladys Knight in the Pips, Pink Cadillac, Bruce Springsteen.Bill:[1:04:00] Very good.Frank:[1:04:02] Runaway Train, Soul Asylum, Aeroplane by Bjork, Get Out of My Dreams Get Into My Car by Billy Ocean, and then we are going to finish it off with Hands by Jewel.Bill:[1:04:16] Oh, no, no. You don't, that's not funny. And no, you don't walk in your hands somewhere. No, not funny. No.Frank:[1:04:17] Okay, okay, we won't put jewel on we'll put Train In Vain by The Clash.Rich Terfry:[1:04:26] You.Bill:[1:04:33] That's a good call. We haven't talked about another iconic performer we bring up most episodes.Frank:[1:04:40] The patron saint of Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures. Yeah. Rich, your opinion. Could Michael Bolton sing this song?Rich Terfry:[1:04:48] Hmm oh downtown train yes I think so.Frank:[1:04:53] I think so, too.Rich Terfry:[1:04:54] I feel like I didn't even need to think about it long I can hear it in his voice almost immediately.Frank:[1:04:59] Especially at the end, like after that bridge that when when he's just repeating the chorus at the end, and he just sort of brings it up. That's when Michael Bolton destroys the world though, though, where he goes full Bolton and just ends the world.Bill:[1:05:11] Oh, yeah, and that Michael Bolton in 1989 is is a then is that when we got?Frank:[1:05:17] Oh, this is right in the that's right in the meat of the MichaelBolton sandwich. So I have in front of me here the the Grammys,for best male pop vocal performance, because DowntownTrain was nominated in 1991. Lost to Roy Orbison's Pretty,woman. But Michael Bolton was on that list, Georgia on my mind.The year before Michael Bolton won for How Am I Supposed to LiveWithout You. The subsequent year, Michael Bolton wins 1992 for,When a Man Loves a Woman. But I'm looking at the list of the.Rich Terfry:[1:05:52] Right. How could he not?Frank:[1:05:56] Songs that were nominated in 91. Oh my goodness, how do you pick?So Roy Orbison wins for Pretty Woman. Another Day in Paradise,Phil Collins, Georgia on my mind, Michael Bolton. I Don't Havethe heart James Ingram who's critically under appreciated in my mind Stormfrontby Billy Joel and then Downtown Train by Rod Stewart 1991 I think was I think.Bill:[1:06:18] 1991? I thought this song came out in 89.Frank:[1:06:22] Was released in 90.Bill:[1:06:24] Oh right, because they would release it for so long. I got this all wrong.Rich Terfry:[1:06:27] Grammys are often, you know, a little behind.Bill:[1:06:29] Oh yeah, yeah sure. Yeah, that's right. So this comes out in 1990. Oh wow, I gotta to re- rethink about how I heard the song for the first time. I'm 14 then. That's a whole other world.Frank:[1:06:38] Yeah, that's a that's a different world.[1:06:40] Anyways, yeah, 100%. This could have been a Michael Bolton song. Could this be a Hallmark movie?Could easily become a creepy Hallmark movie.Bill:[1:06:51] Hallmark after dark.Rich Terfry:[1:06:52] Does Hallmark do creepy movies?Frank:[1:06:56] Yeah, I don't like them.Rich Terfry:[1:06:59] I mean, you know, there's some sort of romance, obviously, at the heart of this thing.So from that standpoint, like I said, if you went with the interpretation I've had where the third verse comes along, you think, oh, wait a minute, maybe these people,maybe these two know each other. Maybe it's the early days of a relationship or something,you know, in which case, maybe. But I'm with you in that, you know, it's more Scorsese, even, but Taxi Driver vibes,that hallmark. And if a hallmark movie set in New York, you know, it's like.Bill:[1:07:28] Yeah, I don't think that downtown train is taking them out to the country to like find themselves.Frank:[1:07:33] No, exactly.Rich Terfry:[1:07:38] Upper West Side, not Brooklyn.Frank:[1:07:40] Yeah, yeah. What other categories do we have?Bill:[1:07:44] You know.[1:07:44] I just thought out the top of my head when I was listening to the ending that you could do a pretty good floor routine To this song with that final moments. Yeah. Oh no with the with the thing with the.Rich Terfry:[1:07:54] Rhythmic gymnastics.[1:07:55] Yeah.Bill:[1:07:55] With the yeah yeah rhythmic gymnastics would work especially at the finalmoments where everyone's watching them the final sway.Rich Terfry:[1:08:01] And you're thinking just based on the gestures I'm seeing here, the ribbon.Bill:[1:08:04] Yeah it's all ribbon yeah yeah maybe some leaping it could be yeah I don't.Rich Terfry:[1:08:06] Yeah. It's all ribbon. Okay.[1:08:10] Maybe something like that. Thank you.Bill:[1:08:12] Know why I do this on a podcast but I'm I sometimes will talk with my hands yeah.Frank:[1:08:15] Can see if you can see Bill right now he's he's rhythmically flailing his arms about.Bill:[1:08:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.Frank:[1:08:38] So we're bringing the the episode to a close and rich we just yeah thanks so much for bringing yourself and your knowledge and the insight not just to the song but musically in general and most especially telling us what a bridge is so that ended,over a year long debate in our minds.Rich Terfry:[1:08:58] I almost hate to ruin it for you, but this is fun. Have me by again sometime. I'd love to.Frank:[1:09:04] This would be fantastic. Yeah. And we want to thank the listeners for sticking it out right to the end. And, you know, we know you have it on your phones and on your computersand all that other sort of stuff. And you listen to it to the podcast wherever you are. And just wondering, will we see you tonight on a downtown train?Bill:[1:09:29] Thank you for listening to Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures.
 

Fleetwood Mac: ”Everywhere” (A Bullet-Proof Pop Song)

[Transcript included at the end of these show notes]
Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere" is one of the greatest pop songs ever. Although forged in tumultuous times, "Everywhere" sounds like it comes straight from heaven. 
Thanks for spending your time with us! Follows, ratings, and recommendations are always appreciated!
Helpful links mentioned in the episode:
Our mixtape
The demo
That awful video
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Masadon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.
Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.
Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.
Transcript
(easier to read on our website)
Bill:[0:07] Let me set the stage for you, Frank. It's 2011.Frank:[0:11] Okay, like now or then? Gotcha.Bill:[0:13] Then, so bring yourself back to 2011.Frank:[0:19] 34 years old? Oh, what was I doing?Bill:[0:23] I know what I was doing.Frank:[0:25] Oh, yeah, that's right.Bill:[0:26] I was pining. So it's somewhere in March and I'm wondering if things are going to work out with me and,Ashley because we're not back together yet. It's been this seven year stretch and things look like they're promising but there are no kind of guarantees.Frank:[0:44] Yeah.Bill:[0:52] She's actually living in France.dating somebody else.Frank:[0:58] So there's a lot of obstacles stacked up against you.Bill:[1:03] Yeah, I got some, I got a bit of faith.[1:09] And that's, that's what I had going for me. Gumption.Frank:[1:12] Yeah engumption yes.Bill:[1:16] Yeah, that's right. I had gumption. So it's my like week off from school and our great friend of the podcast, our mentor, Chris Newkirk,says to me, hey, I got to go back to the States. Do you want to drive with me? I got to go for the week. It's your holiday.Why don't we drive down and you can do we road trip it?Frank:[1:38] And just road trip it. Yeah, nice.Bill:[1:40] So I went with on this road trip with Chris Newkirk. And at one point we're doing a drive from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.And he said, you know what? I have an iPod. He had an actual one of those old iPods, not even a phone, just iPod full of music.Frank:[1:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had one of those up until about two years ago when it was stolen out of my car.Bill:[1:59] Because when we play a game.[2:03] That's right.Frank:[2:04] Just so you know.Bill:[2:05] Yeah, that's right. No, of course not. So he said, why don't we play three songs each?Frank:[2:06] It's not that old. It's not that uncommon, Bill.Bill:[2:11] You pick three songs and you could set it up in queue and then he'd pick three songs in queueand so that would be our way to kind of get things moving on our journey. And so I'm looking through his music which of course is way cooler than mine so I'm like I don't know this Smith song,I don't know this Pure song. So I'm desperately trying to find a song that I could put on also to impress him because we're always kind of trying to impress him. And then I see this song,Fleetwood Max everywhere.And I think to myself, oh, I remember this song.I was a kid, I loved this song. So I put it on the queue and then those opening notes come out or what would we call it? Opening beats.Frank:[2:55] Notes. I think you were right the first time.Bill:[2:56] Notes. Notes. I think you were right the first time.Okay. And suddenly everything is right in the world. And I say to him, everything about this song,is what makes life beautiful, something like that. I had this like profound moment that everything is gonna be okay.This is the most joy I have felt. And suddenly when I heard this song, it brought back feelings of being a kid and full of wonder.And it brought back sort of memories of just straight up hopefulness.And then I knew things would be okay. And so within the week, things are looking good. I'm engaged to Ashley by June, we're married.And then flash forward 11 years later, you're sitting amongst a ton of toys and blocks.And I apologize, there was a diaper right at your feet. We couldn't figure out why this place smelled like sewage.My apologies, but this is the life. This is everywhere to me.Frank:[3:57] In your defense, you didn't smell it because you're nose-blind. But no, this is a good place to be, and I'm glad that we can do this podcast everywhere.Bill:[4:12] Christine McVie just passed away recently. So people have been commenting on social media and in the news about how she really was.Frank:[4:14] Yeah, yeah.Bill:[4:24] One of the great songwriters of the past 40 yearsin a sense. And with Fleetwood Mac, we love to talk about,the Buckingham Knicks thing, the kind of craziness surrounding their albums,but she was the sort of steady hand in terms of making consistently great songs.Frank:[4:44] Yeah, so after her passing, I found I was listening to the radio and they did this little thing talking about Christine McVie and how she joined the band.So I don't know if you if you heard this necessarily.So she she's married to the bass player John McVie,but she has her own solo thing going on. But the tensions of like, two artists, you know, separately on the road doing different things.She kind of took a backseat and decided like, you know, I'm gonna give up my solo career and,I'm gonna be a wife. I'm gonna try and like that this marriage is too important like I'm gonna make the sacrifice and and just like I'll give up music as my career and,Then I can't remember which album it was but they're in this cabin and they're,No, no, sorry. It was it was for a tour,tour. They're in this cabin and they're just kind of rehearsing and performing and allthis. And she's sitting there just on the sidelines. She knows all the songs because she's been with the band for as long as they've been together at this cabin rehearsing, gettingready for this tour. And then at the last minute, it was just like, hey, do you want,Wanna just join the band?Bill:[5:58] And so that's 1970. She joins Fleetwood back in 1970. By 1971, she's writing and singing in Fleetwood Mac.And she stays right through, you know, you have Buckingham Nicks joining,right through this album, Tango in the Night.And then there was still behind the mask and time, albums in the 90s, she was still there.And still writing actually pretty good music for albums that were not strong. She still was the sort of steady hand.And then she was there for the reunion, retired, but then came back around, I think it was around 2014 or something like that. So she's back in the band and still playing up until recently.And so she's had an incredible career,and still released a pretty good album with Lindsay Buckingham a few years ago called Christine McVee, Lindsay Buckingham, although Buckingham McVee would have sounded way cooler.Frank:[6:52] Yeah, a little bit on the nose with the title of the album, right?Yeah. But yeah, to say that Fleetwood Mac's history of personality is tumultuous, I think is aslight understatement.Bill:[7:05] Oh my goodness. So, I mean, I dove deep for the last few days into the history of Fleetwood Mac and you can find it. You can find all these stories and it is a tale of massive excess. It's just insane.All the things I was warned about with heavy metal groups, I didn't realize Fleetwood Mac was way, oh man, it is insane.It's just insane. Just reading about the amount of drugs consumed and the amount of money spent and wasted is crazy.So we all know that, or if you don't know that, you can just look into it. so we won't dive into it.Frank:[7:44] Yeah, just just Google Fleetwood Mac Gong show and then it's something you'll get the whole history.Bill:[7:51] So Tango in the Night, which is this album, this was originally supposed to be Lindsey Buckingham's third solo album. He's working on it. He has three songs that are decent songs,Big Love, Caroline, and I think maybe Tango in the Night. I think that those are three songs he's already working on.And they ask him to come back and do a Fleetwood Mac album.So this is, I think, the record company. So his solo career is not taking off like Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie had a great album in the eighties.You really got a hold on me. Do you remember that song?Frank:[8:29] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, big.Bill:[8:30] So good. So good. She's just so steady. And Lindsay Buckingham, I think might have produced it.Either way, Buckingham's just like, okay, I'll put my solo aspirations on hold for the sake of the band.And because he's Lindsay Buckingham, He just can't go in there and play his music. He needs to kind of take over.So whoever was producing, they just ended up saying, okay, why don't you leave? Lindsay Buckingham, Richard Dashett will come in.They're gonna produce. And so there's these stories about it. And basically it's just super depressing,how much work they put in. They put in 18 months of nonstop work. It's insane. And Lindsay Buckingham is a perfectionist, but he's also experimenting with some synthesizers.the Fairlight program we've talked about, he's experimenting with that.He's doing so much. And so every song he'd spend weeks and weeks and weeks on.[9:27] So let's head into the backstory. They ended up recording at his house a lot of the time.And that wasn't good for Stevie Nicks, who was coming out of, who just came out of rehab, she wouldn't have gone in during it.And going to her ex-boyfriend's house to record didn't make her feel well. And he's, I don't think he has like a great bedside manner anyways, Mick Fleetwood and the others ended up renting an RVand stationing it in the driveway so they could go out ofhis house and do whatever it is they're doing.Like it sounded just like a mess. Often they would talk about how you have the sixties and they're doing all the experimenting.And then the seventies is a lot of cocaine.And the eighties, the drugs aren't working and that cocaine's now controlling the people more than they're using it to make their music. And this is what's going on.Like it's just a mess. And Buckingham talks about how they're all at their worst point when they're recording this album.I don't know much about Christine McVie in terms of this, but she brought these songs that are wonderful to this album.Frank:[10:33] She wrote some great songs for the album. Like there's this song in Little Lies, which is...Bill:[10:38] Which are the two greatest songs on the album to me.Frank:[10:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely there.Bill:[10:43] The amazing thing is her two songs that she brought, Little Lies and Everywhere are thethird and fourth singles. You'd think they would be the lead singles. So, yeah. So the first two singles are Big Love and Seven Wonders, which are good.Frank:[10:49] They're so good.[10:51] Yeah. Well, I know, right? They're so good.Bill:[10:59] It's just so weird. whole time is weird because they those songs didn't stand the test of time in In terms of us, I like them. I like them all. I really like this album.Frank:[11:07] Well, in the context of those songs, like I don't or barely remember them.But Little Eyes and Everywhere, yeah, in a heartbeat. say Everywhere Fleetwood Mac? Yeah, I know exactly the song you're talking about andI know that it's awesome. Same with Little Lies.Bill:[11:24] Yeah. So whatever went on in production, they don't have like an interview where they talk about this. But there's a demo, which wasn't released on the deluxe edition, but I found it on YouTube.Frank:[11:30] Yeah.Bill:[11:37] So I'm assuming the demo was done by Buckingham and McVie. She brings it. He does some things to,it, but he hasn't done the full Buckingham to it. So I'm gonna play this for you. He hasn't bucking.Frank:[11:49] Yeah. He hasn't Buckinghammed it.Bill:[11:51] Their new verb. Okay. I'm going to play a little bit of it for you. So you can hear the beginnings of it, but it doesn't have that special quality.Frank:[12:02] It's really quite raw. It's missing a lot of the final touches, but you can feel hints of them.So when we played this song, it sounds magical.It sounds like a fantasy.Bill:[12:15] Yeah. Well, this is it. This is why the song is so perfect. is it creates this sort of fairy-like world where people,you can almost just see fireflies around you while the song is going on. So Richard Dashett, who is the co-producer, by co-producer, he was the encourager of Buckingham.Like he's really good about this when he talks about it. He said, I know my role.There's gonna be, Buckingham is the guy. So I'm there to support him and to kind of listen and do it.He said that the beginning that we always talk about is a half speed acoustic guitar and an electric guitar combined.And then, yeah, McV said, Buckingham slowed the tape down really slowly. So they did this all over the album, slows it down and played the part slowly.Then when it came to the right speed,it sounded bloody amazing. So whatever he was doing, he was playing with both acoustic and electric over top of each other and altering the speeds.Frank:[13:10] Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Yeah.Bill:[13:12] And so he does this actually with like voices too. Sometimes he uses his voice to become a female voice.Yeah, there's all these things going on. So even the voices in this song, I'm not sure who they are.And so, but apparently it is Stevie Nicks because she got into a big fight with him because she thought that he took her vocalsoff of this song.Stevie Nicks only showed up for two weeks to do any recording of this 18 month process. So just to put that out there, so Stevie Nicks is kind of to say the least.Frank:[13:36] Oh, tumultuous.Bill:[13:42] But anyways, we got everywhere out of this time and everywhere is perfect.Frank:[13:47] Yeah, yeah if it took 18 months to get everywhere I'm okay with that.Bill:[13:52] All right, so the opener, we got that already down. This is magical, this is perfect.Frank:[13:57] Yeah, because it's a song about those first sort of throws of being in love.Bill:[13:58] And so this is one of those things where the lyrics, they're just pretty straightforward, which she does well, but she also is able to kind of take in these sort of, the emotions of love.And she's really good at singing about this feeling in love.Frank:[14:20] And that really giddy sort of euphoric feeling you feel.And it's childlike and funand everything's great and fantasticand the world could be crumbling around you but you're in love. So you're smiling and you're happy.Bill:[14:35] And what she say here, she says, Can you hear me calling out your name? You know that I'm falling and I don't know what to say.I'll speak a little louder. I'll even shout.You know that I'm proud and I can't get the words out.So, okay.Basically, when you're feeling this, everything seems right to say, or you have nothing to say.That sound makes sense? I'm trying to find the words myself and I can't find them.Frank:[14:59] Yeah.I can't mark. Just going through those lyrics. But like I immediately went back.There's that scene in Anchorman when Ron Burgundy is falling in love.It's like, I'm in love with Veronica Corningstone and I don't care who knows it.It's just like, did I say that loudly? It's like, yeah, Ron, you pretty much shouted it.That's that feeling, right? Like you don't care who knows.Yeah.Bill:[15:20] I think that does speak of my 2011. Like I was just so, it just set everything in motion. And then it leads to that chorus with all those voices.Frank:[15:30] Yeah.[15:31] And it's layered, right?Bill:[15:32] Yeah.Frank:[15:34] And it's soft and it's not saying a whole lot.It's just repeating the same line twice, but it's so effective and you can feel it.Bill:[15:47] I can't say this enough about how his instinctsas a producer are right on the money. So he'll make his songs kind of complicated or difficult at times to listen to.They're not that difficult, but he knows that there is this sort of pure beauty to what she's doing.And he just highlights it and adds to it and does creative things, but they're all about this dreamlike feel,which he does in Little Eyes as well. It's just so incredible. And I don't know how many times he's layering voices what he's doing but I can guess just from the sounds of it. It's so pleasing to our ears but,it might have been a month of a nightmare for these other co-producers and engineers who are,just watching him. That's right the one producer used the following two words to describe the.Frank:[16:34] If they have to suffer for my pleasure, I'm okay with that.Bill:[16:41] Experience trauma. Still thank you it was worth it. The only other verse really because then they.Frank:[16:44] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.Bill:[16:52] Start repeating things but something's happening, happening to me, my friend's saying I'm acting peculiarly. Come on baby. Did I say peculiarly right? Sure. Okay. I'm gonna say yes. Come on baby.Frank:[17:02] Line, the Pekirulu.Bill:[17:06] We better make a start. You better make it soon before you break my heart.Frank:[17:10] That you said, Pekirulu,that's a good one.Bill:[17:16] Yeah.Frank:[17:17] That P word that you said, peculiar. Oh my goodness.Bill:[17:22] Peq- Oh, how did she say it? Peq-ular-ly. Yeah.Frank:[17:25] Yeah, yeah. But it's, my friends have me saying,I'm acting this way. And that's like, when you're kind of, again, giddy in love.I feel like I should write a song called Giddy in Love.It'll be like the spiritual sister to Crazy in Love by Beyonce.Anyways, when you're giddy in love,yeah, you're acting a little bit different.Like, you know, you're happy, you're bouncy,you're kind of doing goofy things, I find. Like, I know that's the way I've been, like when I'm kind of really into someone and they're into me and things are going good,before everything just falls apart.Bill:[18:07] Yeah, then it's a different song. I think that song you're looking for is Nowhere.Frank:[18:11] Yeah. That song's like every other song we've done on the podcast.Bill:[18:18] That's right.[18:19] This is a brief moment of levity.Frank:[18:20] I know, right? Yeah, so, you know, we'll do a breakup song again pretty quick, I'm sure.Bill:[18:21] I know. Thank you for bringing it back down.[18:26] Oh yeah, no question.She did co-write this with Jonas David Kroeper.I'm giving his full name just because it's on my songwriting sheet here. but that was her husband at the time.So this is about their love and their early love, so much joy and...Frank:[18:41] Yeah, yeah, he was he was also a keyboard player, right?Bill:[18:44] Okay, well then that, maybe that explains...Frank:[18:46] Because I think they married shortly after the recording of this album.Bill:[18:50] Okay, right, so they're already in this sort of love.Frank:[18:52] Yeah, this this giddy stage.Bill:[18:54] She has a tendency to do that with certain songs. By tendency, I mean she wrote one other song like that.So rumors she wrote, you make love and fun, which was about her affair or relationship,with the lighting guy in Fleetwood Mac. But she told John McVie it was about her dog so that he wouldn't get suspicious or angry.Oh man, so everywhere it was not about her dog. This is about this happy new relationship,and this marriage that was coming. The power beyond those lyrics, of course, is just the sounds.It's what Buckingham is doing with those sounds.Frank:[19:31] I read a quote saying that it's a bulletproof pop song, which I will not disagree with.The song's, what, 87 it came out, so we're 36 years after this song comes out,and it still plays, and it's still bouncy and fun and poppy and great. It's not contemporary to in 2022, but it still plays.Bill:[19:55] It not only still plays, Like it shows up in commercials in the UK and then re charts at like got to number 15 recently.Frank:[20:02] Yeah, it was used for a Chevrolet electric vehicle commercial recently.Bill:[20:09] And there are a lot of bands that have kind of,arisen in the last decade, like Vampire Weekend,there's been more than a decade I know. Paramore, there's a bunch of other bands too, who've looked towards Tango in the Night as their inspiration.They talk about it and everywhere is covered by Vampire Weekend and Perron More.Frank:[20:27] Yeah, and Paramore, yeah.Bill:[20:29] So I think it is getting its due. And when you see like the top 50 songs, or Rolling Stone did the top 50 songs of Fleetwood Mac, this was number five. So I think it's not an unsung hero. People are realizing how incredible it is.It's still incredible to me that this is the fourth single. So if I had to choose between these two, I would put this ahead of Little Lies. I like Little Lies, but everywhere is the one. I can't believe this wasn't the lead-off single.Frank:[20:56] Yeah, oh I know. And it charted relatively well. It was 14 on the US Billboard Top 100.But I mean, ultimately, the Bill and Frank's guilt-free pleasure, the only chart we really care about is the adult contemporary chart, right?Bill:[21:14] Straight to number one, baby. So, and we brought this up before, even though I charted 14, whatever was number one that week.Frank:[21:16] Straight to number one.[21:24] I don't even know.Bill:[21:24] I know I don't even care because this is the one.Frank:[21:25] I don't care!Bill:[21:28] That endures, because it was played all the time.Frank:[21:30] I don't want to, you know, jump the gun here, but this is a roller rink song.Bill:[21:30] At least when I was a kid, I remember it. And so just hearing the, oh my goodness,there's so many bits and pieces to that song.[21:44] Yeah. Oh yeah. This is perfect. Roller rinks still around late 80s? Okay. Would you put, would you roller skate to this at Prudhommes Landing? Did you ever roller skate at Prudhams?Frank:[21:46] I think so.Yeah, I roller skated in the early 90s even.I mean, I would if I was cool enough to roller skate at Prudhommes Landing.No, no.Bill:[22:05] Oh man, this is a call back to our Prudhommes Landing episode. Just songs that remind you of.Frank:[22:11] If you don't know what you're talking about, just listen to all of our previous.Bill:[22:15] Yeah.Frank:[22:15] Episodes and eventually you'll get get the reference. No, no, no, no, don't tell them I'm trying to get listens here.Bill:[22:18] So in Gloria Stefan's bad boy, it's a, Oh, well we can get them straight to bad boy and we can see the, okay.Frank:[22:25] But I'm trying to get them to listen to everything.Bill:[22:27] Either way, if you don't know Prudhommes Landing, well, you'll know this is the summer song, not to jump into a category. We are there for jumping into these categories.Frank:[22:35] We're jumping into categories.Bill:[22:36] So, all right. I see this as a perfect breezy summer day.Frank:[22:44] Yes, absolutely.Bill:[22:46] Also, I could see this as snow falling close to Christmas. This could be like a Christmas song.Frank:[22:52] It's an all-season song.Bill:[22:53] It is because it just will make whatever situation you're in brighter.Now, I'll tell you what's not bright is the music video.Frank:[23:04] Yeah, it's... not good.Bill:[23:06] Yeah, apparently there was two. I can't find this other version that is with Fleetwood, McV and McV.Because by the time Everywhere comes out, this is depressing, but Buckingham has left the band.So he had done all this work on the album And then it came down to them planning their tour.And he just said, I can't do it. And basically saying, I can't be around you guys. You guys are destructive.You're gonna die. I don't wanna die.And then Stevie Nicks lunged at him while they're in Christine McVie's mansion.And then he got so angry that he chased her. And she talked about, this is Stevie Nicks saying, she was running through the halls of this sort of house that was almost like, it feels like they're in some sort,of maze and he's chasing her and they're end up on the street, he's still chasing her and she's afraid for her life.Frank:[24:05] Oh, jeez! Oh!Bill:[24:06] And he throws her against a car and then she threatens to have him killed by her family.It's just awful. And this of course is bringing over their relationship from a decade earlier and it's awful. I imagine Christine McVie just sitting still there in the house and it's-Frank:[24:17] Yeah.Oh my goodness.[24:22] I just want to sing everywhere on stage.Bill:[24:24] I know, so he's already gone, he's left the band. And so by the time this video comes out, they film it without any members of the band.And they think, oh, everywhere, why don't we do like something that's like a ghost story, and we do the highway man as a music video.Now the highway man is that old poem, and you can watch the music video and it kind of just follows the story of it.But this does not work with the song at all, because there's like...Frank:[24:53] Not at all. It's not, it's a song about falling in love and being in love early on and when everything'sgood and fantastic and fun.Bill:[25:04] It's not about getting kidnapped, killed and then getting revenge and then being a ghost. Oh, that's insane. The only time I want to hear the Highwayman is from Anne Shirley when she's.Frank:[25:08] Yeah, by redcoats!Bill:[25:15] Doing her speech competition and Anna Green Gables. That's the most powerful version ofthe Highwayman. Everything else doesn't matter. Oh, I'm sure he is. Megan Follows, best Highwayman.Frank:[25:25] Is Gilbert in the audience watching?Bill:[25:31] And rendition, that might've occurred at the same time. Cause standing green gables I think came around then. Sorry, Fleetwood Mac, bad choice.Frank:[25:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah.Bad choice, yeah.Bill:[25:39] Now, if you look at the cover of the single, this cover of the single has this sort of picture of someone whose arms are kind of open up to the world.Frank:[25:47] Oh, okay.Bill:[25:48] There's a planets star.It looks like the person who did the artwork for the little prince did the artwork for everywhere.It's perfect. It works exactly as it should. And that's what it should have been.Frank:[26:02] Yeah.[26:02] The video doesn't, yeah, it doesn't work.And if we're going to be critical of the video, so I watched it just once.And there's a bunch of scenes where like these British redcoats are running inside this cottagehouse or whatever it is. They're going up the stairs and it's clearly animated shadows on-so there's all these animated pieces that just like- it's like was your shadow guy on vacation?that's why you couldn't get the lighting right? I don't know. No, no, no, no, no.Bill:[26:31] It's not worthy of the song. The record company spent a boatload of money on producing this album, just like they've spent it on Tusk and other things. When oh, this is awful. This is side note,but when they would go to hotels in like the early 80s, they'd have them like bring in a grand piano.And if they couldn't get it through the doors, I don't know how you get through a hotel door,they have to like break open windows to get it in. They'd force them to repaint the walls white.so that they'd have white rooms like they were just the excess was ridiculous. That's crazy. But they didn't put any of that into this music video. No. No. No. No. How dare they? Okay.Frank:[27:08] No, no, no, no, no. How dare they? I mean, you know me, it's the chorus, right? But it's the opening of the chorus, the oh, like, I love that sustained. I right. I love that. And then I want to be with you everywhere. It's just so fun. I love it.Bill:[27:13] What's your favorite part of the song?[27:34] So that's what you're singing to in the car. Oh yeah. And you know me, I like doing backing vocals to the song so I'm doing whatever's going on in the background and trying to make those vocalizations.Frank:[27:36] Oh yeah, absolutely.[27:46] Well at the end of the chorus where it's like, I want to be with you everywhere.And then there's the sort of follow up, want to be with you everywhere.Bill:[27:53] Want to be with you everywhere. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Even thinking about that.Frank:[27:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah.Bill:[28:00] How could I pick a favorite part? Everything's perfect. Everything's great. Bulletproof. And the ending of the sort of vocals going back and forth. It's bubbly. It literally sounds like they're making bubbles to me. And it's just like, oh my goodness. Yeah. This is where.Frank:[28:02] Oh, I know.Proof Pop song.[28:14] Yeah, magical bubbles.Bill:[28:19] You go to dreamland. There's a picture of some sort of heaven where you have like grass just blowing in the wind, bubbles in the air, fairies dancing.Frank:[28:30] Yeah, people dancing with ribbons.Bill:[28:32] Yeah.[28:33] Yes. This is it. That leads us to a category pretty naturally.So for the talent show, you're going to be doing a floor routine.Frank:[28:41] Yeah.[28:41] Gymnastics floor routine with ribbons.Bill:[28:42] Yeah, gymnastics floor. Yeah, with the ribbons. Yeah. Yeah, that's that. This is easy.Frank:[28:44] Yeah. Yeah.Bill:[28:46] So there you go. Category check.Frank:[28:48] Check. Would you sing this at karaoke?Bill:[28:52] No, I don't think I could do it. It's so good that it demands this sort of perfection that I don't think I could even come near it.Frank:[28:57] I think the only way it could be done is if there's got to be someone taking the lead,but you need someone to harmonize on those choruses.Bill:[29:08] You better have someone incredible.Frank:[29:09] Yeah. I think Stevie Nicks would do karaoke with me, right?Bill:[29:14] Maybe but she might only show up for a few minutes like she did for this album.Frank:[29:19] Yeah. She showed up for enough for this album.Bill:[29:21] Oh, yeah. Okay. Hallmark movie. I have written here, no way. This needs to be a mainstream movie, not something on Hallmark TV, but this is a song that should.Frank:[29:28] Yeah?[29:28] Well, it has that, well, the opening magical like sort of dreamy sequence, right?Bill:[29:32] Be sort of like this heads in a mixtape territory. Remember when they'd play Dreams by Cranberries all the time to sort of set the stage?Forget Dreams. Play everywhere.Frank:[29:48] Well, Dreams had it too and it kind of had to because it was in the name,But also linger same same sort of a feel so I'm sure we'll do a cranberry song at some point too, but.Bill:[29:56] Our usual category, we, it keeps altering in different ways. Can Michael Bolton sing this song?Frank:[30:08] I think he can but I don't want to hear it.Bill:[30:10] No. What would Mariah Carey do to it? She would Mariah Carey it it would suck.Frank:[30:13] She would destroy this,Yeah, yeah, she I don't think she has the self-control not to go full Mariah on it.Bill:[30:23] Yeah, Celine Dion also I can't think of of anyone who could do it off the top of my head.Frank:[30:31] Also yeah.[30:32] There's a subtlety about the way that Christine McVie sings the vocals.Like she doesn't go over the top.She's a little bit reserved, like as much as it is like a fun happy song about beingin love, she's reserved and conservative with it.Bill:[30:49] She does have a very British way of being, if I could say that. Yeah. She did also the song. Do you remember song, Songbird from Rumors?Frank:[30:52] Yeah.Stiff upper lip.Bill:[31:01] They closed every concert with it. So Eva Cassidy, if you remember Eva Cassidy.Frank:[31:03] Uh, yes. Yeah.Bill:[31:06] She did a version of Songbird, which is near perfect. It probably is perfect. I still don'tknow if Eva Cassidy could have done everywhere because there needs to be a bounciness that I,I never pictured with her, but maybe she could have done it. But there is something special about Christine McVie is both unassuming, but also is in these grand songs because she can go along with Buckingham.They always got along. So Buckingham, notoriously difficult to get along with, but he never had a bad thing to say about McVieand vice versa. They could do albums together. They understood each other.And she wasn't into all the drama. I mean, she partied hard, but compared to the rest of Fleetwood Mac, I think she's a girl guide.Frank:[31:45] Yeah, the rest of them. Yeah, she was... Yeah.Bill:[31:48] And she was also with Dennis Wilson from, um, the beach boys for a while. Yeah. There's a whole, she's got her own backstory and sadness too, right?Frank:[31:52] Oh, really? Okay.Bill:[31:56] About all that stuff.Mix tape.Frank:[31:59] You're just going to name Ashley's album?Bill:[32:01] You want me to go first?So I decided in honor of the person who was the catalyst for this song, kind of coming back to my life and then defining my 2011.Frank:[32:16] You're just gonna name Ashley's album?Bill:[32:18] You're just.Oh yeah. Well, we love you too, Ashley. But I'm thinking of Chris Newkirk. I'm dedicating this to Chris Newkirk.Frank:[32:20] Oh, that's fantastic.Bill:[32:26] Sorry, Ashley.So. She'll never listen to this. She'll never listen to this. So these are songs that I heard while hanging out with Chris Newkirk in 2011.Frank:[32:31] She'll never listen to it.Bill:[32:40] Not all of them actually, but they made me think about Chris Newkirk and his love of this sort of big dreamy sort of pop song. Okay, so everywhere we'll open it of course.Frank:[32:52] I'm sorry.Bill:[32:56] There's a song called I L U by the school of seven bells. It is insane.And the woman who sings lead also passed away few years ago, but in her 30s, I think.Frank:[33:08] Okay, oh.[33:09] Yeah, so Bill just played the song for me and it'll be in the show notes, but my goodness they gave me goosebumpsbumps it's it's ethereal and and and dreamy and oh man that's good.Bill:[33:21] I heard that also on that same drive. Chris Newkirk. Wow.Great taste in music. And so also on the drive, we heard cloud busting by Kate Bush.I'm pretty sure that's like just so good.So hands of love from Kate Bush also inspired the production of Tango in the Night.So Kate Bush's style and her relentless drive was where Lindsay Buckingham waswas looking towards for making this. Also, I don't think I'll ever be able to pronounce this right, but one more Chris Newkirk, number three. Hoppipolla, Hoppipolla.Frank:[34:02] Happy pool! That doesn't sound at all at least.Bill:[34:05] Yeah, that doesn't sound at all like Sigur Ross, but it is.And it's a Sigur Ross, like the major song, which played when Chris and Jade, I think we're walking down the aisle after their wedding.Frank:[34:09] That's like a new song.[34:15] Oh really?Oh nice.Bill:[34:16] So incredible song. So we were just discussing this as I was playing it,but cinematic in scope as is all these songs, as as is everywhere.Okay, and then I threw a couple more in, Fleet Fox's Can I Believe You?And one more song, Everywhere by Brandvan 3000, which I love.Frank:[34:42] Was that on that trip too or no?Bill:[34:45] No, but I just think I should have played it on the trip. I don't know if he would have liked it. Do you remember everywhere? Yes. Oh, I don't know if it fits. However, you know, those first three were something else.Frank:[34:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.[34:57] Mix tapes are allowed to have an outlier, right?Bill:[35:01] Yeah, and maybe it transitions into yours.Frank:[35:03] All right. So my mixtape is, I tried to keep it like happy songs, like giddy songs, fun songs aboutfalling in love. So Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. Butterflies by Kacey Musgraves.Bill:[35:13] Okay, oh good.[35:20] Okay not crazy town.Frank:[35:22] No, surprisingly not.Bill:[35:25] No, okay, great.Frank:[35:26] He just threw me right off there.Bill:[35:31] Yeah, sorry about that.Frank:[35:33] The way you are by Bruno Mars. Love is in the Air by John Paul Young and then wefinish it off with Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows by Leslie Gore. Sunshinelollipops and rainbows everywhere that's how I feel when I feel that we're,together that's a and then finishing it off with the sunshine lollipops and.Bill:[36:00] Got it okay perfect well this mixtape just good thing i put in brandman 3000 it's just a transition straight to walking on sunshine oh good.Frank:[36:14] Rainbows.Bill:[36:15] Yeah, yeah. future I'm sure it's a future episode.Frank:[36:18] Well I'm sure yes so I before we before we came to record this song I wastalking to my friend Becca and saying, oh, we got to go.I got to go and record this podcast. And he's asking, what song are you doing?I said, Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac.And she said, I love that song. When her and her partner were in New Zealand, they had this this,crappy garbage car and that had a tape deck.So her and Blake went to a thrift store to buy tapes just to play.and they bought Tango in the Night and just listened to that on repeat and this was far andaway their favorite song on the album. I told Becca just like, all right I'm gonna tell that story if you're okay with it and well here it is it might actually make the cut.Bill:[37:06] I will and you know what? We don't often do these call-outs. I try to listen to other podcasts because often they're like, hey here's the name of our show which we... do we even say what we're called? Yes you did once but you have to be an astute listener but of course you also have been.Frank:[37:18] Great.Bill:[37:22] An astute enough person that if you're listening to our podcast you're looking at it and the nameof our podcast is right in front of you. So we really are glad you're listening to Bill and Frank's.Frank:[37:28] Yeah, exactly.Bill:[37:31] Skill-free pleasures we don't have patreon right now for you to give us money or anything like that but what we would like is to hear your story about Fleetwood Max everywhere tell us how this song,has made your life brighter.Frank:[37:48] And also you can just mail cash to us to our addresses.Bill:[37:51] It's right.Frank:[37:52] We'll put those in the show notes.Bill:[37:53] That's right.Frank:[37:56] It's been a fun and fantastic experience putting this podcast out every week.And this song is coming out at the beginning of 2023. And we just want to thank everyone for listening to us and being with us and downloading andtaking this on your drives, on your walks, wherever you listen to it.I listen to podcasts at work all the time instead of working.Bill and I would like to say we want to be with you everywhere.Bill:[38:25] Boop-a-doo-doo-doo.