WEBVTT - Good Old Boys 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:24.876 Pushkin. This episode contains explicit language. In the fall of 0:00:24.956 --> 0:00:28.556 nineteen seventy four, the musician Randy Newman released an album 0:00:28.636 --> 0:00:31.756 called Good Old Boys. The most beautiful song on the 0:00:31.796 --> 0:00:35.596 record is the third song on the first side, Wait 0:00:35.636 --> 0:00:37.716 Can I Prevail on? You did disteal a little bit 0:00:37.716 --> 0:00:40.756 of Marie Sure So. I love that song so much. 0:00:41.116 --> 0:00:59.156 We thank you very much. Look like a princess night 0:01:01.396 --> 0:01:03.236 with your hair part of that. 0:01:04.756 --> 0:01:05.396 I will know. 0:01:08.276 --> 0:01:11.396 My name is Malcolm Well. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:11.596 --> 0:01:16.676 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:01:16.716 --> 0:01:19.516 about Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, one of the most 0:01:19.556 --> 0:01:22.876 remarkable albums of its era. I listened to it for 0:01:22.916 --> 0:01:25.876 the first time years ago, but then I happened to 0:01:25.916 --> 0:01:28.916 listen to it again very recently and realized that Good 0:01:28.916 --> 0:01:30.956 Old Boys is not an album you can hear just 0:01:30.996 --> 0:01:34.396 once and hope to do it justice, because it's not 0:01:34.516 --> 0:01:38.436 just remarkable, it's unsettling. I don't think an album like 0:01:38.476 --> 0:01:40.996 this could be made today, and by the end of 0:01:40.996 --> 0:01:45.676 this episode, I suspect you'll agree with me. I decided 0:01:45.716 --> 0:01:49.196 to go to California, sit down with Randy Newman, and 0:01:49.276 --> 0:01:52.716 create a listener's guide to one of the most perplexing 0:01:52.756 --> 0:01:54.876 works of music that I have ever encountered. 0:01:56.596 --> 0:02:04.476 Drug Well, I've got to be a little bit. 0:02:06.556 --> 0:02:07.716 What you mean me? 0:02:10.076 --> 0:02:15.116 He lo you the first time, so you. 0:02:17.756 --> 0:02:19.476 Always love you. 0:02:23.476 --> 0:02:26.836 Newman is in his seventies, still writing music, Tall and 0:02:26.876 --> 0:02:31.116 slightly intimidating. He's Hollywood Royalty. His uncle, Alfred, was a 0:02:31.116 --> 0:02:34.996 composer who was nominated for an Academy Award forty four times, 0:02:35.316 --> 0:02:38.476 won nine times. Newman has had a second career writing 0:02:38.476 --> 0:02:40.996 for the movies as well, like You've Got a Friend 0:02:41.036 --> 0:02:45.036 in Me for Toy Story. Newman is unusual among songwriters 0:02:45.076 --> 0:02:48.156 because he writes in character, and the narrator of Good 0:02:48.156 --> 0:02:51.836 Old Boys is a creation of Newman's. He's called Johnny Cutler, 0:02:52.356 --> 0:02:56.676 a steel worker from Birmingham, Alabama, thirty years old. The 0:02:56.716 --> 0:03:00.796 song Marie is about Johnny Cutler coming home late after 0:03:00.836 --> 0:03:04.236 a night out with the boys and gazing love struck 0:03:04.596 --> 0:03:05.636 at his sleeping wife. 0:03:06.236 --> 0:03:12.876 I like the idea very much about being inarticulate without 0:03:13.156 --> 0:03:16.116 that's not the right word, in articulate, but being unable 0:03:16.956 --> 0:03:20.396 to have the words unless you drink something. You know, 0:03:20.476 --> 0:03:23.036 I can't say this to you and maybe to lack 0:03:23.916 --> 0:03:27.956 the ability to say those kind of words. 0:03:28.156 --> 0:03:31.596 But he's the fact that he has been drinking and 0:03:31.596 --> 0:03:34.436 he and you realize he can only say what he's 0:03:34.436 --> 0:03:39.476 saying because he's and because she's asleep. Yeah right, yeah, 0:03:39.516 --> 0:03:44.596 but that even that makes me humanizes him and even 0:03:44.636 --> 0:03:47.116 more I sort of feel so love her. 0:03:47.476 --> 0:03:51.556 I mean, it would seem that that isn't drink, but 0:03:51.636 --> 0:03:56.116 it might be. Is this a good guy? And my 0:03:56.236 --> 0:03:59.916 answer to that is I don't know. I mean, I'm 0:03:59.956 --> 0:04:00.716 suspicious of. 0:04:02.436 --> 0:04:02.516 This. 0:04:02.836 --> 0:04:05.036 I'm drunk right now, baby, but maybe when I'm awake, 0:04:05.076 --> 0:04:06.196 I might knock this shit out of you. 0:04:06.316 --> 0:04:11.236 Sometimes, Randy Newman wrote, Marie, he created Johnny Cutler. He 0:04:11.316 --> 0:04:13.876 dreamt up a beautiful love song for him, but he 0:04:13.916 --> 0:04:16.996 doesn't know if he understands him or even if he 0:04:17.156 --> 0:04:20.236 likes him. As if Johnny Cutler came from his imagination 0:04:20.556 --> 0:04:24.076 but is now somehow independent of it, it makes you 0:04:24.116 --> 0:04:26.236 wonder who's in charge of this song. 0:04:28.596 --> 0:04:38.356 Sometimes I'm crazy, but I guess you know, in a 0:04:38.636 --> 0:04:41.836 week it all Liz. 0:04:43.036 --> 0:04:50.876 And a hurt so and I never listen to the 0:04:51.156 --> 0:04:59.916 world you say when you calmed me in trouble doll, 0:05:00.156 --> 0:05:08.276 and I just try awake, but I love you, and 0:05:08.396 --> 0:05:20.796 I love you the first time my sign. 0:05:15.996 --> 0:05:18.076 And oh we love. 0:05:23.596 --> 0:05:26.716 The story behind Good Old Boys begins with a man 0:05:26.796 --> 0:05:30.756 named Lester Maddox. Maddox was governor of Georgia from nineteen 0:05:30.796 --> 0:05:34.676 sixty seven to nineteen seventy one. Now he's mostly forgotten, 0:05:35.076 --> 0:05:36.996 but in his day he was notorious. 0:05:37.396 --> 0:05:40.156 I thank his full to act for real. I don't 0:05:40.196 --> 0:05:42.396 look at myself as one of the very smart people, 0:05:42.996 --> 0:05:45.476 so I try to act like Lester Maddox like inside 0:05:45.516 --> 0:05:47.036 I feel and think and believe. 0:05:49.836 --> 0:05:52.876 Maddox grew up in the Depression in Atlanta. His father 0:05:52.996 --> 0:05:53.796 was an alcoholic. 0:05:54.196 --> 0:05:58.196 My dad never made hardly any money. We times we 0:05:58.236 --> 0:06:00.156 didn't even have a bathroom in the house. We had 0:06:00.156 --> 0:06:02.996 four rooms in a path rather than four rooms in 0:06:02.996 --> 0:06:05.116 a bathroom. We didn't have electricity. 0:06:05.356 --> 0:06:07.876 Maddox dropped out of high school, got a job as 0:06:07.876 --> 0:06:11.396 a steel worker to help his five younger siblings, married 0:06:11.436 --> 0:06:15.356 his childhood sweetheart Virginia, and after the war he started 0:06:15.396 --> 0:06:18.756 a diner near Georgia Tech. The house specialty was skillip 0:06:18.796 --> 0:06:21.956 fried chicken. He called his place the Pickrick. 0:06:23.316 --> 0:06:25.956 So I wanted to name no one else had. Now 0:06:25.996 --> 0:06:29.436 I came on the name upon the name Pickwick, and 0:06:29.476 --> 0:06:31.996 I found out it really wick doesn't meaning thing except 0:06:32.036 --> 0:06:34.556 what you know it to be wick. That's what Webster 0:06:34.596 --> 0:06:38.076 will even tell you that Wick and someone had already 0:06:38.156 --> 0:06:41.476 used the name Pickwick in England, so I couldn't use that. 0:06:41.556 --> 0:06:43.436 So it was about three o'clock one morning. I'd been 0:06:43.436 --> 0:06:44.556 working on it for weeks. 0:06:44.956 --> 0:06:47.116 Maddox was one of those people who you can't do 0:06:47.196 --> 0:06:50.156 a cartoon version of because he already looks like a 0:06:50.196 --> 0:06:54.356 cartoon version of himself. He's skinny, with an oversized head, 0:06:54.516 --> 0:06:58.396 bald dome, black plastic glasses, always in a black suit, 0:06:58.796 --> 0:07:02.036 moves with a kind of loose, slimmed floppiness, like a clown. 0:07:02.716 --> 0:07:05.756 There are so many oral history interviews with Lester Maddox 0:07:05.796 --> 0:07:08.516 floating around the State of Georgia that he must have 0:07:08.556 --> 0:07:11.636 spent as many hours reminiscing about his time as governor 0:07:11.956 --> 0:07:15.396 as he actually spent serving as governor. The man liked 0:07:15.396 --> 0:07:15.796 to talk. 0:07:19.116 --> 0:07:21.796 See the pick means to fastidiously, to pick out, to 0:07:21.876 --> 0:07:24.676 choose a select, and rick means to pile up to 0:07:24.796 --> 0:07:28.196 heap or damas. So I named my restaurant Pickrick and said, 0:07:28.196 --> 0:07:30.716 if you'd picnic at the Pickrick and pick it out. 0:07:30.796 --> 0:07:33.796 We would rick it up, and we would we did, 0:07:33.836 --> 0:07:36.236 and that's why it was named Pickrick. I've never heard 0:07:36.276 --> 0:07:37.636 anything else being named Pickrick. 0:07:38.116 --> 0:07:41.156 Maddix advertised the Pickrick in the Saturday edition of the 0:07:41.196 --> 0:07:45.036 Atlanta Journal in a column with the title Pickrick says. 0:07:45.676 --> 0:07:49.276 Lots of one liners in Matoxisms, like the nineteen fifties 0:07:49.396 --> 0:07:50.516 version of tweets well. 0:07:50.556 --> 0:07:54.596 I talked about Christmas, I talked about marriage. I talked 0:07:54.596 --> 0:07:57.636 about the monkey house at Grant Park. I talked about whether. 0:07:57.716 --> 0:08:00.356 I talked about fishing in my edge. 0:08:01.076 --> 0:08:04.676 But soon his column, Pickrick says becomes more and more 0:08:04.676 --> 0:08:08.556 political because this is Atlanta in the mid nineteen fifties, 0:08:08.916 --> 0:08:11.556 one of the birthplaces of the civil rights movement, and 0:08:11.716 --> 0:08:14.996 Pickcrick is a ten minute drive from Auburn Avenue, where 0:08:14.996 --> 0:08:17.356 Martin Luther King, and Andrew Young and Vernon Jordan and 0:08:17.356 --> 0:08:20.276 everyone else are starting to stir things up and less 0:08:20.316 --> 0:08:24.276 Dramattox is not at all happy with that. He's a segregationist. 0:08:24.756 --> 0:08:27.636 And the more strident Maddox gets in his weekly ads, 0:08:27.996 --> 0:08:32.196 the more popular Pickwrick says becomes. People start buying the 0:08:32.196 --> 0:08:34.876 Atlanta Journal on Saturday just to read what Maddox is 0:08:34.956 --> 0:08:38.636 up to. Maddox decides to run for mayor of Atlanta. 0:08:39.196 --> 0:08:43.316 He is no organization, no money. He drives himself around 0:08:43.796 --> 0:08:46.596 and he loses. But the race is closer than you'd think, 0:08:47.036 --> 0:08:50.036 so he runs again and loses, and runs a third 0:08:50.076 --> 0:08:54.156 time and loses. But then the wave of desegregation protests 0:08:54.276 --> 0:08:58.036 hits Atlanta in the early nineteen sixties. The public schools 0:08:58.076 --> 0:09:02.156 are integrated first, then the lunch counters than the restaurants, 0:09:02.876 --> 0:09:05.876 and since the Pickcrick restaurant does not admit black people, 0:09:06.356 --> 0:09:08.796 the civil rights protesters come knocking. 0:09:11.276 --> 0:09:15.396 Well, the first time, I was about four wives and 0:09:15.436 --> 0:09:19.916 tree blacks came in in Virginia and I were about 0:09:19.916 --> 0:09:22.916 to eat our luncheon Saturday afternoon. They told me what 0:09:22.956 --> 0:09:24.396 they're gonna do, and I told them, You're not gonna 0:09:24.436 --> 0:09:25.396 do any such things. 0:09:25.596 --> 0:09:28.316 What they were gonna do was eat a pickrick with 0:09:28.436 --> 0:09:30.276 the television cameras as witness. 0:09:30.476 --> 0:09:32.476 I said, you never been here before. You just wanna 0:09:32.796 --> 0:09:35.156 fuss and fight. So I grabbed two of them. I 0:09:35.156 --> 0:09:37.836 think on them was John Lewis or Brown or somebody, 0:09:38.516 --> 0:09:40.156 and I just had him out the door. When they 0:09:40.156 --> 0:09:41.796 happen to remember they were supposed to lay down on 0:09:41.796 --> 0:09:44.476 the floor. If you hadn't thought about that, I'd had 0:09:44.516 --> 0:09:49.796 them both out and they got on the floor because 0:09:49.796 --> 0:09:52.556 I couldn't drag them. So I called my black employees. 0:09:53.396 --> 0:09:56.916 I hat the kitchen and I said, these people trying 0:09:56.916 --> 0:09:58.836 to destroy our business. They don't want to eat with us. 0:09:58.876 --> 0:10:00.756 They just want to create a problem. They got the 0:10:00.756 --> 0:10:04.156 television and radio and everyone with them, and I said, 0:10:04.196 --> 0:10:05.956 I'm going to give you ten dollars for each one 0:10:05.996 --> 0:10:09.356 of them threw out. In the next thirty second. 0:10:09.196 --> 0:10:14.316 Them Maddox's employees through them out, but the protesters came back. 0:10:14.836 --> 0:10:17.396 This time Maddox met them at the door, with the 0:10:17.436 --> 0:10:20.596 television cameras rolling and a crowd starting to gather. 0:10:24.516 --> 0:10:25.236 India, now you want. 0:10:29.356 --> 0:10:32.116 There's Maddox in front of the pickrick with his black 0:10:32.156 --> 0:10:36.716 suit and bald head, protesters shouting cameras all around. He's 0:10:36.716 --> 0:10:37.236 in heaven. 0:10:37.636 --> 0:10:40.796 I'll use a channels, I'll use guns, I'll use pain, 0:10:40.916 --> 0:10:43.876 I'll use my fist, I'll use my customers, I'll use 0:10:43.956 --> 0:10:47.716 my employees, I'll use anything. It's mind as bold. This 0:10:47.916 --> 0:10:51.596 property belongs to me, my wife and my children. 0:10:51.636 --> 0:10:53.316 It doesn't belong to anybody. 0:10:52.836 --> 0:10:55.116 Else, I'll throw out a white one or black one. 0:10:54.956 --> 0:10:57.156 Or a red headed one, or ball when it doesn't 0:10:57.156 --> 0:10:57.916 make any difference. 0:10:58.476 --> 0:11:01.676 Maddox gets hauled into court because the Civil Rights Act 0:11:01.716 --> 0:11:04.476 has been passed and what he's doing is illegal. He's 0:11:04.476 --> 0:11:08.236 given a choice integrate or shut his doors, and he 0:11:08.316 --> 0:11:11.476 decides to shut to Pickwrick, one of the most popular 0:11:11.476 --> 0:11:14.596 and successful restaurants in Atlanta, the business that he has 0:11:14.596 --> 0:11:18.476 spent his lifetime building that made him famous, and to 0:11:18.596 --> 0:11:21.116 every Southern er angry at the way the world is turning, 0:11:21.596 --> 0:11:24.876 he becomes a hero. A friend says to him, you know, 0:11:25.596 --> 0:11:29.316 maybe you should run for governor, and Maddox says, okay. 0:11:29.756 --> 0:11:35.236 And in nineteen sixty six, he wins. A white nationalist 0:11:35.396 --> 0:11:39.516 in the hospitality business who came to public attention writing pithy, 0:11:39.636 --> 0:11:43.916 politically charged statements in a widely read media forum, runs 0:11:43.916 --> 0:11:47.876 against the political establishment and pulls off an upset victory. 0:11:48.236 --> 0:11:50.676 And by the way, it's a very close race. Maddox 0:11:50.716 --> 0:11:53.156 doesn't actually get as many votes as his opponent, but 0:11:53.236 --> 0:11:55.756 he wins when the election is thrown to the legislature. 0:11:56.556 --> 0:11:58.996 Oh and a huge part of Maddox's rhetoric is how 0:11:58.996 --> 0:12:02.796 the media can't be trusted. He's constantly accusing newspapers of 0:12:02.876 --> 0:12:05.436 lying about him. In fact, in the corner of his 0:12:05.516 --> 0:12:08.716 official governor's portrait, there's a little table with a dead 0:12:08.756 --> 0:12:12.156 fish on it, wrapped in a copy of the Atlanta Journal. 0:12:13.196 --> 0:12:17.276 A white nationalist in the hospitality business who wrote pithy 0:12:17.356 --> 0:12:21.356 statements on a media platform, runs against the political establishment, 0:12:21.636 --> 0:12:24.676 accuses the news media of running fake news about him, 0:12:24.916 --> 0:12:28.196 doesn't get as many votes as his opponent, and nonetheless 0:12:28.236 --> 0:12:32.076 stakes over the highest executive office. I mean, when has 0:12:32.156 --> 0:12:38.876 that ever happen? Maddox serves four years, has to step 0:12:38.916 --> 0:12:42.276 down because of term limits. Jimmy Carter takes over as 0:12:42.316 --> 0:12:45.756 governor of Georgia, as the state, he might say, returns 0:12:45.796 --> 0:12:49.996 to its senses, and Maddox consoles himself with running for 0:12:50.196 --> 0:12:53.596 and winning the job of lieutenant governor. He is well 0:12:53.636 --> 0:12:57.156 on his way to obscurity. And then he gets a 0:12:57.156 --> 0:13:00.076 call from New York from the Dick Cavot Show, the 0:13:00.116 --> 0:13:03.676 great late night talk show of the nineteen seventies. They 0:13:03.716 --> 0:13:14.396 want him as a guest. That's when we return in America. 0:13:15.156 --> 0:13:17.116 You get foody. 0:13:19.796 --> 0:13:23.876 Won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up 0:13:23.916 --> 0:13:24.436 your feet. 0:13:24.996 --> 0:13:28.316 The first Randy Newman song I ever heard was sail Away. 0:13:28.356 --> 0:13:35.236 You just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day. 0:13:35.276 --> 0:13:38.036 It's great to be an American. 0:13:38.956 --> 0:13:41.316 Sail Away is the title track of the album Randy 0:13:41.356 --> 0:13:44.156 Newman made right before he wrote Good Old Boys. I 0:13:44.196 --> 0:13:46.196 was a kid when I first heard it, and I 0:13:46.236 --> 0:13:48.916 had the same experience I would later have with Newman's 0:13:48.956 --> 0:13:52.556 other songs. I didn't get it at first. I'm not 0:13:52.636 --> 0:13:55.796 sure I even paid attention to the words. I just 0:13:55.876 --> 0:13:57.116 loved how grand it was. 0:13:59.716 --> 0:14:07.076 Ain't no lie side of me, no mama snake, just 0:14:07.236 --> 0:14:10.196 a sweet wall amelon the bug wheat. 0:14:14.156 --> 0:14:17.396 Everybody is happy as make it be. 0:14:21.396 --> 0:14:23.436 Climb a ball, little wog. 0:14:23.276 --> 0:14:24.356 Stay the way within. 0:14:26.156 --> 0:14:28.196 But then I got a little older, and as I 0:14:28.236 --> 0:14:32.796 heard sail Away, I said, wait a minute. Everybody is 0:14:32.836 --> 0:14:37.716 as happy as a man can be. Climb aboard little wog, 0:14:38.316 --> 0:14:43.076 sail away with me. Wog really offensive British colonial slang 0:14:43.116 --> 0:14:46.356 for someone who's not white. It's the N word. Basically, 0:14:46.916 --> 0:14:49.916 I noticed some interesting story at behind sail Away. 0:14:50.196 --> 0:14:53.676 The song, Oh it was a A guy was going 0:14:53.756 --> 0:14:56.556 to make a movie and he was going to give 0:14:56.596 --> 0:15:01.476 ten minutes to five or six pop people, Van Morrison, 0:15:01.636 --> 0:15:07.076 I remember, and Hendrickson to do ten minute thing, and 0:15:07.156 --> 0:15:09.036 I came up with this thing. It had a sort 0:15:09.036 --> 0:15:12.996 of a sea shanny before it, you know, very irish 0:15:13.116 --> 0:15:16.996 kind of yo hoo, you know there and then this 0:15:17.076 --> 0:15:21.676 guy be standing in a clearing in the jungle and 0:15:21.716 --> 0:15:23.956 singing this song, and that was what I was going 0:15:24.036 --> 0:15:25.156 to do with my ten minutes. 0:15:25.996 --> 0:15:29.436 Randy Newman wrote a song about an American slave trader 0:15:29.916 --> 0:15:33.756 standing somewhere in West Africa giving his sales pitch to 0:15:33.836 --> 0:15:38.596 potential recruits come to America. You're gonna love this little 0:15:38.596 --> 0:15:40.756 cotton plantation that I've lined up for you. 0:15:42.036 --> 0:15:48.156 Oh no, lion, no moms sleep. It's a sweet watermelon 0:15:48.236 --> 0:15:52.156 and a book. So those laugh. 0:15:52.676 --> 0:15:57.556 Yeah, the character is so kind of outrageous. Yeah, but 0:15:57.556 --> 0:16:00.236 we're not laughing along with him. We're horrified by him. 0:16:00.236 --> 0:16:03.156 I mean it's yeah, but people laugh at that in 0:16:03.196 --> 0:16:08.796 a nervous way, at the watermelon joke, and sit around 0:16:08.796 --> 0:16:10.956 to think about Jesus drink wine all day. 0:16:11.556 --> 0:16:13.316 Now, there's a way to do that song so that 0:16:13.356 --> 0:16:19.756 it's not so shocking. In like the cover version done 0:16:19.836 --> 0:16:22.516 later the same year by Bobby Darren who was one 0:16:22.516 --> 0:16:25.436 of the biggest pop stars of the nineteen sixties, won't 0:16:25.556 --> 0:16:27.636 have the wrong through the jungle. 0:16:28.196 --> 0:16:31.996 Bobby Darren is happy, Yeah, come to America, little one, 0:16:32.556 --> 0:16:34.916 when we get rid of the wog. Oh my god. 0:16:36.516 --> 0:16:41.636 But no, that's that's like blasphemy. I'm a born Little 0:16:41.716 --> 0:16:42.876 one sail. 0:16:42.596 --> 0:16:43.796 Away with me. 0:16:45.076 --> 0:16:48.956 In Bobby Darren's version, the line climb a board, little 0:16:49.076 --> 0:16:52.876 Wog sail away with me, which is crucial in establishing 0:16:52.876 --> 0:16:57.476 how vile the narrator is, becomes climber board, little one 0:16:57.956 --> 0:17:00.156 sail away with me. I'm sorry, I can't get I 0:17:00.156 --> 0:17:03.516 can't get pass it so quickly. That's unbelievable that. 0:17:03.556 --> 0:17:04.556 He did a happy version. 0:17:04.756 --> 0:17:07.516 Yes, it's this, It isn't. 0:17:07.796 --> 0:17:09.516 I mean, there's there it is. 0:17:09.716 --> 0:17:13.196 The thing is Newman liked Bobby Darren. He knew him, 0:17:13.396 --> 0:17:16.156 and he didn't know what to think. I mean, there 0:17:16.236 --> 0:17:20.476 is a world of difference between wog and one. Also, 0:17:20.676 --> 0:17:25.036 if I'm not mistaken, Bobby Darren substitutes the words mamba 0:17:25.116 --> 0:17:30.316 snake with mama snake eight no lions and tigers and 0:17:30.396 --> 0:17:31.996 no nurturing mama snake. 0:17:32.516 --> 0:17:34.996 You know, he was all, do I like to do that? 0:17:35.436 --> 0:17:38.396 And it's like come to America, you know, become. 0:17:39.756 --> 0:17:41.796 But this is this, this song is like this. 0:17:42.116 --> 0:17:43.316 Is not a dumb guy either. 0:17:43.676 --> 0:17:46.716 This is this song is like a It is a wallop. 0:17:46.796 --> 0:17:51.436 It is emotional wallop. He searing song about this the 0:17:51.516 --> 0:17:53.356 darkest moment in America's past. 0:17:53.356 --> 0:17:59.076 It's a jaw dress like springtime for Hitler, a little one, 0:18:00.036 --> 0:18:02.676 little wall like come away with me. You know, he 0:18:02.836 --> 0:18:08.676 just was so right, his Shulvia's instincts couldn't restrain himself. 0:18:09.596 --> 0:18:11.476 How did you feel when you first heard that version? 0:18:12.676 --> 0:18:16.236 I felt, you know, oh, my Jesus Christ. And that 0:18:16.356 --> 0:18:16.596 was it. 0:18:17.156 --> 0:18:19.956 The original intention of sail Away was to make the 0:18:20.036 --> 0:18:25.756 listener uncomfortable. Newman takes a familiar figure, a salesman, an entrepreneur, 0:18:25.956 --> 0:18:30.116 a patriot, and gives him a rollicking sea shanty. But 0:18:30.236 --> 0:18:33.716 then he forces you to acknowledge that underneath all that 0:18:34.436 --> 0:18:38.756 there looks a monster. Bobby Darren chickened out. He couldn't 0:18:38.756 --> 0:18:41.556 do it. He didn't want us to be uncomfortable, and 0:18:41.596 --> 0:18:46.116 so Wog became one and sail Away became a glorified 0:18:46.236 --> 0:18:49.956 nursery rhyme. I don't mean to single Bobby Darren out, 0:18:50.156 --> 0:18:52.236 because I think that most of us take the easy 0:18:52.276 --> 0:18:56.236 path in these situations too. But the particular genius of 0:18:56.316 --> 0:19:00.036 Randy Newman is that he won't do that. He can't. 0:19:05.036 --> 0:19:06.036 Dick have a troll. 0:19:08.436 --> 0:19:12.156 So it's nineteen seventy. Lester Maddox gets a call from 0:19:12.156 --> 0:19:15.236 Dick Caviot, come on our show. He flies to New 0:19:15.316 --> 0:19:20.396 York and who tunes in that night Randy Newman, Ladies 0:19:20.436 --> 0:19:28.796 and gentlemen, Dick Cabot. Dick Caviott is a year into 0:19:28.836 --> 0:19:32.396 his legendary late night show on ABC, up against Johnny 0:19:32.396 --> 0:19:36.276 Carson's Tonight show. Cavit show was like a highlight reel 0:19:36.316 --> 0:19:39.236 of the nineteen seventies. He did the greatest ever interview 0:19:39.316 --> 0:19:42.876 with Jimmy Hendrix. Groucho Marx was a regular, so was 0:19:42.956 --> 0:19:45.916 Muhammad Ali. He once had Salvador Dally on the same 0:19:45.956 --> 0:19:49.796 show as a legendary pitching great Satchel Page. The famous 0:19:49.796 --> 0:19:55.116 debate between Gorvadal and Norman Mailer that was on Dick Caviot. Listen, 0:19:55.156 --> 0:19:55.556 we have a. 0:19:55.556 --> 0:19:57.476 Very good show tonight, and I want to move right 0:19:57.516 --> 0:20:00.836 into it. Excellent show. I think I don't know, how 0:20:00.836 --> 0:20:02.116 do I know? I haven't seen it. It might be a 0:20:02.156 --> 0:20:05.556 big dead brow Why do people say that at the 0:20:05.596 --> 0:20:06.676 beginning of his show. 0:20:06.836 --> 0:20:10.076 Cavot looks like Paul Newman's baby brother, no more than 0:20:10.116 --> 0:20:14.356 five or six, impish, big polka dotted tie. His first 0:20:14.396 --> 0:20:17.316 guest is a woman named Alice Gray, an entomologist from 0:20:17.316 --> 0:20:21.236 the American Museum of Natural History, cat eye, glasses, hair, 0:20:21.316 --> 0:20:24.316 and a bun who brings a box full of cockroaches 0:20:24.356 --> 0:20:24.836 to the set. 0:20:25.076 --> 0:20:26.796 What can we do about then? What can we learn 0:20:26.836 --> 0:20:28.116 about them? Are they our friends? 0:20:29.516 --> 0:20:32.436 No, they're not exactly our friends, but there are certainly 0:20:32.476 --> 0:20:34.036 our companions. 0:20:34.196 --> 0:20:34.916 And all our. 0:20:36.876 --> 0:20:39.716 All our doings, and I'm rather fond of them. 0:20:39.916 --> 0:20:41.356 They have a distinguished linage. 0:20:41.876 --> 0:20:44.076 How many of us could meet our ancestors of three 0:20:44.156 --> 0:20:47.076 hundred million years ago and recognize them the cockroaches? 0:20:47.116 --> 0:20:48.716 Can they go back that far? 0:20:48.796 --> 0:20:49.516 They go back that far. 0:20:49.916 --> 0:20:51.636 It's older than the dinosaurs. 0:20:51.076 --> 0:20:53.076 Twice as old as the dinosaurs. All the way back 0:20:53.116 --> 0:20:56.236 to the coald Age, they were already recognizably cockroaches. 0:20:57.716 --> 0:21:00.076 That's it's always the people who don't like We're the 0:21:00.156 --> 0:21:01.036 last to leave, isn't it. 0:21:03.996 --> 0:21:06.076 They'll be here long after we have quitted this earth. 0:21:06.116 --> 0:21:09.996 I'm sure Cavit does a good ten minutes. I'm cockroaches 0:21:10.196 --> 0:21:10.516 are these? 0:21:10.636 --> 0:21:12.276 Your cockroaches are some of ours? 0:21:13.756 --> 0:21:16.036 The cockroach lady finally leaves the stage. 0:21:16.836 --> 0:21:19.956 And then my next guest tonight is Governor Lester Maddox. 0:21:23.276 --> 0:21:28.076 How comes Maddox, the gleaming bald head, the black suit Governorm. 0:21:27.756 --> 0:21:30.716 Maddics, I still call you, Governor, dont. 0:21:30.636 --> 0:21:32.396 Call me mostly anything you won't do everybody else? 0:21:32.436 --> 0:21:32.636 Does? 0:21:34.996 --> 0:21:36.476 Have you ever followed bugs before? 0:21:37.276 --> 0:21:39.076 Yes, a few moments ago on your problem. 0:21:39.436 --> 0:21:40.156 That's the only time. 0:21:40.516 --> 0:21:44.156 That's the only time. God, I love Dick Cavit. They 0:21:44.196 --> 0:21:48.316 shake hands, they take their seats rust colored swivel loungers 0:21:48.316 --> 0:21:51.276 atop a gray shag carpet. Kavit shows the audience a 0:21:51.276 --> 0:21:55.556 photograph of Maddox holding his axe handle outside the Pickrick restaurant, 0:21:56.036 --> 0:21:59.596 and Maddox then corrects him and says, no, it's not 0:21:59.636 --> 0:22:03.116 an axe handle, it's a pickhandle, and goes off on 0:22:03.116 --> 0:22:06.156 one of his long, endless digressions about the meaning of the. 0:22:06.116 --> 0:22:10.716 Pickrick hard work. And we had in the restaurant some 0:22:10.796 --> 0:22:13.156 of these pick candles, two cakes of them, by a 0:22:13.156 --> 0:22:15.996 big old fireplace where we burned hickory wood, And there 0:22:15.996 --> 0:22:17.796 were six of them in each of the cakes. And 0:22:17.836 --> 0:22:22.036 they were dark red because that was the look something 0:22:22.076 --> 0:22:24.956 similar to a chicken leg or pit. Candle does not 0:22:25.076 --> 0:22:27.636 like the axe handle. It's the news me he talks about. 0:22:27.596 --> 0:22:32.156 And Kaviot, who must be wondering what on earth, simply. 0:22:31.796 --> 0:22:33.796 Says, well, I've certainly learned a lot. 0:22:36.156 --> 0:22:39.716 Kaviot brings on his next guest, the football player Jim Brown, 0:22:39.996 --> 0:22:42.596 then one of the most famous professional black athletes in 0:22:42.636 --> 0:22:46.196 the country. Brown settles down next to Maddox, who is 0:22:46.236 --> 0:22:50.196 literally half his size, and gives him a polite smile, 0:22:50.956 --> 0:22:53.476 and Kavit says to the two of them, do you 0:22:53.476 --> 0:23:00.556 feel separate but equal? I realized that's nineteen sixties civil 0:23:00.636 --> 0:23:04.356 rights humor, but I still think it's hilarious. Maddox turns 0:23:04.356 --> 0:23:06.956 to Brown and says, I thought you was the singer 0:23:07.716 --> 0:23:12.396 he thought Jim Brown was James Brown. He then volunteers 0:23:12.396 --> 0:23:16.036 his personal definition of what being a segregationist really means. 0:23:16.556 --> 0:23:19.076 A segregation is a person that loves his race enough 0:23:19.236 --> 0:23:21.956 or all the racers enough, has enough for racial pride 0:23:21.956 --> 0:23:24.836 and integrity to want to preserve them. And I think 0:23:24.876 --> 0:23:26.836 a racist is one that doesn't care enough for his 0:23:26.996 --> 0:23:29.396 race or another race to where they would don't care 0:23:29.436 --> 0:23:31.396 whether they are malcolmated or destroyed. 0:23:31.076 --> 0:23:38.956 Or not amalgamated. Good lord, Now think about this for 0:23:38.996 --> 0:23:42.516 a moment. Maddox is no longer governor Georgia has come 0:23:42.556 --> 0:23:45.836 to its sinces an elected nice, safe, modern, non racist 0:23:45.876 --> 0:23:49.716 Jimmy Carter. Maddox is a footnote. So what point is 0:23:49.756 --> 0:23:52.116 there in having him on a mainstream talk show like 0:23:52.156 --> 0:23:55.356 Dick Cavot. The magazine where I work, The New Yorker, 0:23:55.556 --> 0:23:59.116 had a case like this recently. Donald Trump's Bengali Steve 0:23:59.156 --> 0:24:02.596 Bannon was invited to speak at the magazine's annual literary festival, 0:24:03.076 --> 0:24:06.836 and everyone flipped out. The New Yorkers writers took to Twitter. 0:24:07.076 --> 0:24:09.756 A bunch of high profile celebrity in teas to the 0:24:09.756 --> 0:24:12.756 festival dropped out. And the argument that was made about 0:24:12.796 --> 0:24:15.556 Bennon is an argument that could as easily have been 0:24:15.596 --> 0:24:18.916