WEBVTT - Encore: Good Old Boys 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:24.756 Pushkin. This episode contains explicit language. There are all kinds 0:00:24.756 --> 0:00:28.196 of reasons for wanting to do a podcast episode. You 0:00:28.236 --> 0:00:30.636 want to tell them a specific story, you want to 0:00:30.636 --> 0:00:33.636 make an argument, make sense of a particularly powerful piece 0:00:33.676 --> 0:00:37.316 of tape. But the simplest, and let's be honest, the 0:00:37.396 --> 0:00:40.716 most selfish reason is it you want an excuse to 0:00:40.756 --> 0:00:44.156 hang out with someone you love. And this was the 0:00:44.196 --> 0:00:47.556 origin of the Randy Newman episode. I am one of 0:00:47.556 --> 0:00:49.876 the very large group of music lovers who think that 0:00:49.996 --> 0:00:52.996 Randy Newman is a genius and that his best albums 0:00:53.396 --> 0:00:56.036 like sail Away or Good Old Boys are basically as 0:00:56.036 --> 0:00:59.276 good as pop music ever gets. So I tracked him down, 0:00:59.476 --> 0:01:02.396 actually to his son Thanks Amos, booked a flight to 0:01:02.436 --> 0:01:05.236 Los Angeles, and on the plane ride asked myself, Okay, 0:01:05.436 --> 0:01:07.756 of all the million things I could possibly talk to 0:01:07.836 --> 0:01:10.836 Randy Newman about, what would make for the best story, 0:01:11.796 --> 0:01:16.196 And somewhere over I'm sure Nebraska, I realized, Oh, it's 0:01:16.236 --> 0:01:20.916 obvious I need to talk to him about his song Rednecks, 0:01:21.396 --> 0:01:23.636 And so I did. And if you're listening, Randy, and 0:01:23.716 --> 0:01:26.236 you want to have me over again, just say the word. 0:01:27.876 --> 0:01:30.996 In the fall of nineteen seventy four, the musician Randy 0:01:31.036 --> 0:01:34.476 Newman released an album called Good Old Boys. The most 0:01:34.476 --> 0:01:37.476 beautiful song on the record is the third song on 0:01:37.556 --> 0:01:40.476 the first side, Wait Can I prevail on? You did 0:01:40.516 --> 0:01:43.396 disteal a little bit of Marie Sure so. I love 0:01:43.436 --> 0:01:44.276 that song so much. 0:01:44.916 --> 0:01:45.716 Thank you very much. 0:01:58.916 --> 0:02:02.876 Look like a Princess Night. 0:02:05.036 --> 0:02:06.876 Was your part of. 0:02:11.836 --> 0:02:14.956 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:02:15.156 --> 0:02:20.236 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:02:20.276 --> 0:02:23.116 about Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, one of the most 0:02:23.116 --> 0:02:26.436 remarkable albums of its era. I listened to it for 0:02:26.476 --> 0:02:29.436 the first time years ago, but then I happened to 0:02:29.476 --> 0:02:32.476 listen to it again very recently and realize that Good 0:02:32.476 --> 0:02:34.516 Old Boys is not an album you can hear just 0:02:34.556 --> 0:02:37.956 once and hope to do it justice, because it's not 0:02:38.076 --> 0:02:41.996 just remarkable, it's unsettling. I don't think an album like 0:02:42.036 --> 0:02:44.556 this could be made today, and by the end of 0:02:44.556 --> 0:02:49.236 this episode, I suspect you'll agree with me. I decided 0:02:49.276 --> 0:02:52.756 to go to California, sit down with Randy Newman, and 0:02:52.876 --> 0:02:56.276 create a listener's guide to one of the most perplexing 0:02:56.316 --> 0:02:58.996 works of music that I have ever encountered. 0:03:00.156 --> 0:03:08.236 Drug. Well, I've got to be a little bit too. 0:03:10.116 --> 0:03:14.036 Which you mean me? Low? 0:03:14.356 --> 0:03:23.396 You the first time soul, you always love you me. 0:03:27.036 --> 0:03:30.396 Newman is in his seventies, still writing music, Tall and 0:03:30.436 --> 0:03:34.676 slightly intimidating. He's Hollywood Royalty. His uncle, Alfred, was a 0:03:34.676 --> 0:03:38.556 composer who was nominated for an Academy Award forty four times, 0:03:38.876 --> 0:03:42.036 won nine times. Newman has had a second career writing 0:03:42.036 --> 0:03:44.556 for the movies as well, like You've Got a Friend 0:03:44.596 --> 0:03:48.596 in Me for Toy Story. Newman is unusual among songwriters 0:03:48.636 --> 0:03:51.716 because he writes in character, and the narrator of Good 0:03:51.716 --> 0:03:55.396 Old Boys is a creation of Newman's. He's called Johnny Cutler, 0:03:55.916 --> 0:04:00.196 a steel worker from Birmingham, Alabama, thirty years old. The 0:04:00.276 --> 0:04:04.356 song Marie is about Johnny Cutler coming home late after 0:04:04.396 --> 0:04:07.796 a night out with the boys and gazing love struck 0:04:08.156 --> 0:04:09.116 at his sleeping wife. 0:04:09.796 --> 0:04:16.436 I like the idea very much about being inarticulate without 0:04:16.716 --> 0:04:19.676 that's not the right word, in articulate, but being unable 0:04:20.516 --> 0:04:23.956 to have the words unless you drink something. You know, 0:04:24.036 --> 0:04:26.596 I can't say this to you, and maybe to lack 0:04:27.476 --> 0:04:31.516 the ability to say those kind of words. 0:04:31.716 --> 0:04:35.156 But he's the fact that he has been drinking and 0:04:35.156 --> 0:04:37.996 he and you realize he can only say what he's 0:04:37.996 --> 0:04:40.556 saying because he's dr and because she's asleep. 0:04:42.356 --> 0:04:42.516 Right. 0:04:42.836 --> 0:04:47.516 Yeah, but that even that makes me humanizes him and 0:04:47.876 --> 0:04:50.716 even more I sort of feel so love her. 0:04:51.036 --> 0:04:55.116 I mean, it would seem that that isn't drink, but 0:04:55.196 --> 0:04:59.676 it might be. Is this a good guy? And my 0:04:59.796 --> 0:05:03.476 answer to that is I don't know. I mean, I'm 0:05:03.516 --> 0:05:04.276 suspicious of. 0:05:05.996 --> 0:05:06.076 This. 0:05:06.396 --> 0:05:08.596 I'm drunk right now, baby, but maybe when I'm awake, 0:05:08.636 --> 0:05:09.756 I might not the shit out of you. 0:05:09.876 --> 0:05:10.236 Sometime. 0:05:11.236 --> 0:05:15.196 Randy Newman wrote, Marie, he created Johnny Cutler. He dreamt 0:05:15.276 --> 0:05:17.836 up a beautiful love song for him, but he doesn't 0:05:17.876 --> 0:05:21.356 know if he understands him or even if he likes him. 0:05:21.556 --> 0:05:24.436 As if Johnny Cutler came from his imagination but is 0:05:24.476 --> 0:05:28.756 now somehow independent of it, it makes you wonder who's 0:05:28.796 --> 0:05:29.796 in charge of this song. 0:05:32.156 --> 0:05:42.476 Sometimes I'm crazy, but I guess you know a week 0:05:43.396 --> 0:05:53.996 it all lies. It a hurt, So I never listen 0:05:54.236 --> 0:06:02.436 to the world you say when you calmed me in 0:06:02.636 --> 0:06:10.196 trouble do and not just try awake. But I love you. 0:06:11.796 --> 0:06:20.276 I love you first time A sign ah. 0:06:20.396 --> 0:06:23.276 We love may. 0:06:27.156 --> 0:06:30.276 The story behind good Old Boys begins with a man 0:06:30.356 --> 0:06:34.316 named Lester Maddox. Maddox was governor of Georgia from nineteen 0:06:34.356 --> 0:06:38.236 sixty seven to nineteen seventy one. Now he's mostly forgotten, 0:06:38.636 --> 0:06:40.556 but in his day he was notorious. 0:06:40.956 --> 0:06:43.716 I thank his full to act for real. I don't 0:06:43.756 --> 0:06:45.956 look at myself as one of the very smart people, 0:06:46.556 --> 0:06:49.036 so I try to act like Lester Maddox like inside 0:06:49.076 --> 0:06:50.596 I feel and think and believe. 0:06:53.396 --> 0:06:56.436 Maddox grew up in the depression in Atlanta. His father 0:06:56.556 --> 0:06:57.356 was an alcoholic. 0:06:57.756 --> 0:07:01.756 My dad never made hardly any money. We times we 0:07:01.796 --> 0:07:03.716 didn't even have a bathroom in the house. We had 0:07:03.716 --> 0:07:06.556 four rooms in a path rather than four rooms in 0:07:06.556 --> 0:07:08.676 a bathroom. We didn't have electricity. 0:07:09.396 --> 0:07:11.516 Dropped out of high school, got a job as a 0:07:11.516 --> 0:07:14.956 steel worker to help support his five younger siblings, married 0:07:14.996 --> 0:07:18.916 his childhood sweetheart, Virginia, and after the war he started 0:07:18.956 --> 0:07:22.316 a diner near Georgia Tech. The house specialty was skillep 0:07:22.356 --> 0:07:25.516 fried chicken. He called his place the Pickrick. 0:07:26.876 --> 0:07:29.516 So I wanted to name no one else had. Now 0:07:29.556 --> 0:07:32.996 I came on the name upon the name Pickwick, and 0:07:33.036 --> 0:07:35.396 I found out it really wick doesn't meaning thing ex 0:07:35.396 --> 0:07:37.596 So what you know it to be Wick. That's what 0:07:37.756 --> 0:07:41.316 Webster will even tell you that Wick and someone had 0:07:41.316 --> 0:07:44.676 already used the name Pickwick in England, so I couldn't 0:07:44.756 --> 0:07:46.676 use that. So it was about three o'clock one morning. 0:07:46.716 --> 0:07:48.196 I'd been working on it for weeks. 0:07:48.516 --> 0:07:50.676 Maddox was one of those people who you can't do 0:07:50.756 --> 0:07:53.716 a cartoon version of because he already looks like a 0:07:53.756 --> 0:07:57.916 cartoon version of himself. He's skinny, with an oversized head, 0:07:58.076 --> 0:08:01.956 bald dome, black plastic glasses, always in a black suit, 0:08:02.356 --> 0:08:05.596 moves with a kind of loose, slimmed floppiness, like a clown. 0:08:06.276 --> 0:08:09.116 There are so many oral history interviews with Lester Mattain 0:08:09.356 --> 0:08:12.076 floating around the state of Georgia that he must have 0:08:12.116 --> 0:08:15.196 spent as many hours reminiscing about his time as governor 0:08:15.516 --> 0:08:18.956 as he actually spent serving as governor. The man liked 0:08:18.956 --> 0:08:19.636 to talk. 0:08:22.676 --> 0:08:25.716 See to pick mes ascidiously, to pick out, to choose 0:08:25.756 --> 0:08:28.556 a select, and rick means to pile up to heap 0:08:28.636 --> 0:08:31.756 or damas. So I named my restaurant Pickrick and said, 0:08:31.756 --> 0:08:34.276 if you'd picnic it to Pickrick and pick it out, 0:08:34.356 --> 0:08:37.356 we would rick it up. And we would. We did, 0:08:37.396 --> 0:08:39.796 and that's why it was named Pickrick. I've never heard 0:08:39.836 --> 0:08:41.196 anything else being named Pickrick. 0:08:41.676 --> 0:08:44.716 Mattis advertised the Pickrick in the Saturday edition of the 0:08:44.756 --> 0:08:48.476 Atlanta Journal in a column with the title Pickrick says 0:08:49.236 --> 0:08:52.836 lots of one liners in Matoxisms, like the nineteen fifties 0:08:52.956 --> 0:08:54.076 version of tweets Well. 0:08:54.116 --> 0:08:58.156 I talked about Christmas, I talked about marriage. I talked 0:08:58.156 --> 0:09:01.196 about the monkey house at Grant Park. I talked about whether. 0:09:01.276 --> 0:09:03.916 I talked about fishing in my edge. 0:09:04.636 --> 0:09:08.236 But soon his column, Pickrick says, becomes more and more 0:09:08.236 --> 0:09:12.116 political because this is Atlanta in the mid nineteen fifties, 0:09:12.516 --> 0:09:15.116 one of the birthplaces of the civil rights movement, and 0:09:15.276 --> 0:09:18.556 Pickcrick is a ten minute drive from Auburn Avenue, where 0:09:18.556 --> 0:09:20.916 Martin Luther King and Andrew Young and Vernon Jordan and 0:09:20.916 --> 0:09:23.836 everyone else are starting to stir things up and less 0:09:23.876 --> 0:09:27.836 Dramattox is not at all happy with that. He's a segregationist, 0:09:28.316 --> 0:09:31.196 and the more strident Maddox gets in his weekly ads, 0:09:31.556 --> 0:09:35.756 the more popular Pickwick says becomes. People start buying the 0:09:35.796 --> 0:09:38.436 Atlanta Journal on Saturday just to read what Maddox is 0:09:38.516 --> 0:09:42.196 up to. Maddox decides to run for mayor of Atlanta. 0:09:42.756 --> 0:09:46.876 He is no organization, no money, he drives himself around 0:09:47.356 --> 0:09:50.156 and he loses. But the race is closer than you'd think, 0:09:50.596 --> 0:09:53.596 so he runs again and loses, and runs a third 0:09:53.636 --> 0:09:57.756 time and loses. But then the wave of desegregation protests 0:09:57.836 --> 0:10:01.596 hits Atlanta in the early nineteen sixties. The public schools 0:10:01.636 --> 0:10:05.716 are integrated first, then the lunch counters than the restaurants, 0:10:06.436 --> 0:10:09.476 and since the Pickcrick restaurant does not admit black par people, 0:10:09.916 --> 0:10:12.356 the civil rights protesters come knocking. 0:10:14.836 --> 0:10:18.956 Well, the first time, I was about four wives and 0:10:18.996 --> 0:10:23.476 tree blacks came in and Virginia and I were about 0:10:23.476 --> 0:10:26.476 to eat our luncheon Saturday afternoon. They told them what 0:10:26.516 --> 0:10:27.676 they're going to do, and I told them, you're not 0:10:27.716 --> 0:10:28.956 going to do any such things. 0:10:29.156 --> 0:10:31.356 What they were going to do was eat a pickrick 0:10:31.836 --> 0:10:33.876 with the television cameras as witness. 0:10:34.036 --> 0:10:35.956 I said, you never been here before. You just want 0:10:35.956 --> 0:10:38.636 to fuss and fight. So I grabbed two of them, 0:10:38.676 --> 0:10:40.956 I think what it was John Lewis or Brown or somebody, 0:10:42.076 --> 0:10:43.676 and I just had them out the door. When they 0:10:43.716 --> 0:10:45.356 happen to remember, they were supposed to lay down on 0:10:45.356 --> 0:10:48.036 the floor. If you hadn't thought about that, I'd had 0:10:48.076 --> 0:10:53.356 them both out and they got on the floor because 0:10:53.356 --> 0:10:56.116 I couldn't drag them, so I called them my black employees. 0:10:56.956 --> 0:11:00.476 I had the kitchen and I said, these people trying 0:11:00.476 --> 0:11:02.436 to destroy our business. They don't want to eat with us, 0:11:02.436 --> 0:11:04.836 they just want to create a problem. They out the television, 0:11:04.996 --> 0:11:08.076 radio and everyone with them, and I said, I'm going 0:11:08.076 --> 0:11:09.916 to give you ten dollars. Each one of them is 0:11:09.956 --> 0:11:13.396 throw out. In the next thirty seconds. 0:11:14.076 --> 0:11:17.916 Maddox's employees through the mount but the protesters came back. 0:11:18.396 --> 0:11:20.956 This time Maddox met them at the door, with the 0:11:20.996 --> 0:11:24.156 television cameras rolling and a crowd starting to gather. 0:11:25.076 --> 0:11:28.796 Youdia, now you want. 0:11:32.916 --> 0:11:35.676 There's Maddox in front of the pickrick with his black 0:11:35.716 --> 0:11:40.276 suit and bald head protesters shouting cameras all around. He's 0:11:40.276 --> 0:11:40.796 in heaven. 0:11:41.236 --> 0:11:44.356 I'll use a channels, I'll use guns, I'll use pain, 0:11:44.476 --> 0:11:47.436 I'll use my fist, I'll use my customers, I'll use 0:11:47.516 --> 0:11:51.276 my employees, I'll use anything. It's mind this bold. This 0:11:51.476 --> 0:11:55.276 property belongs to me, my wife and my children. It 0:11:55.316 --> 0:11:57.636 doesn't belong to anybody else. I'll throw out a white 0:11:57.636 --> 0:11:59.356 one or a black one, or a red headed one, 0:11:59.436 --> 0:12:01.596 or ball when it doesn't make any difference. 0:12:02.036 --> 0:12:05.236 Maddox gets hauled into court because the Civil Rights Act 0:12:05.276 --> 0:12:07.996 has been passed and what he's doing is illegal. He's 0:12:08.036 --> 0:12:11.796 given a choice, integrate or shut his doors, and he 0:12:11.876 --> 0:12:15.036 decides to shut the Pickwrick, one of the most popular 0:12:15.036 --> 0:12:18.156 and successful restaurants in Atlanta, the business that he has 0:12:18.156 --> 0:12:22.036 spent his lifetime building that made him famous, and to 0:12:22.156 --> 0:12:24.716 every Southerner angry at the way the world is turning, 0:12:25.156 --> 0:12:28.436 he becomes a hero. A friend says to him, you know, 0:12:29.156 --> 0:12:32.876 maybe you should run for governor, and Maddox says, okay. 0:12:33.316 --> 0:12:38.796 And in nineteen sixty six, he wins a white nationalist 0:12:38.956 --> 0:12:43.076 in the hospitality business who came to public attention writing pithy, 0:12:43.196 --> 0:12:47.476 politically charged statements in a widely read media forum, runs 0:12:47.476 --> 0:12:51.396 against the political establishment and pulls off an upset victory. 0:12:51.796 --> 0:12:54.236 And by the way, it's a very close race. Maddox 0:12:54.276 --> 0:12:56.716 doesn't actually get as many votes as his opponent, but 0:12:56.796 --> 0:12:59.316 he wins when the election is thrown to the legislature. 0:13:00.116 --> 0:13:02.556 Oh and a huge part of Maddox's rhetoric is how 0:13:02.556 --> 0:13:06.356 the media can't be trusted. He's constantly accusing newspapers of 0:13:06.436 --> 0:13:08.916 lying about him. In fact, in the corner of his 0:13:09.116 --> 0:13:12.356 official governor's portrait as a little table with a dead 0:13:12.396 --> 0:13:15.716 fish on it, wrapped in a copy of the Atlanta Journal. 0:13:16.756 --> 0:13:20.836 A white nationalist in the hospitality business who wrote pithy 0:13:20.916 --> 0:13:24.916 statements on a media platform, runs against the political establishment, 0:13:25.196 --> 0:13:28.236 accuses the news media of running fake news about him, 0:13:28.476 --> 0:13:31.756 doesn't get as many votes as his opponent, and nonetheless 0:13:31.836 --> 0:13:35.636 takes over the highest executive office. I mean, when has 0:13:35.716 --> 0:13:42.436 that ever happen? Maddock serves four years, has to step 0:13:42.476 --> 0:13:45.836 down because of term limits. Jimmy Carter takes over as 0:13:45.876 --> 0:13:49.316 governor of Georgia as the state, he might say, returns 0:13:49.356 --> 0:13:53.556 to its senses, and Maddox consoles himself with running for 0:13:53.756 --> 0:13:57.156 and winning the job of lieutenant governor. He is well 0:13:57.196 --> 0:14:00.716 on his way to obscurity. And then he gets a 0:14:00.716 --> 0:14:03.636 call from New York from the Dick Cavot Show, the 0:14:03.676 --> 0:14:07.236 great late night talk show of the nineteen seventies. They 0:14:07.276 --> 0:14:10.916 want him as a guest. That's when we return. 0:14:18.756 --> 0:14:19.956 In America. 0:14:20.716 --> 0:14:28.276 You get foody, won't have to run through the jungle 0:14:28.356 --> 0:14:30.036 and scuff up you feel. 0:14:30.556 --> 0:14:33.876 The first Randy Newman song I ever heard was sail Away. 0:14:33.916 --> 0:14:40.796 You just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day. 0:14:40.836 --> 0:14:43.596 It's great to be an American. 0:14:44.516 --> 0:14:46.876 Sail Away is the title track of the album Randy 0:14:46.916 --> 0:14:49.716 Newman made right before he wrote Good Old Boys. I 0:14:49.756 --> 0:14:51.756 was a kid when I first heard it, and I 0:14:51.796 --> 0:14:54.516 had the same experience I would later have with Newman's 0:14:54.516 --> 0:14:58.116 other songs. I didn't get it at first. I'm not 0:14:58.196 --> 0:15:01.356 sure I even paid attention to the words. I just 0:15:01.436 --> 0:15:02.716 loved how grand it was. 0:15:05.276 --> 0:15:13.996 Nain, no land, no MoMA's name, just sweet wall a 0:15:14.196 --> 0:15:15.716 melody in the bug. 0:15:15.516 --> 0:15:16.556 Week, Keep. 0:15:19.756 --> 0:15:28.676 Everybody's happy as make me clamb a ball, little log, 0:15:28.876 --> 0:15:30.196 stay the way winny. 0:15:31.716 --> 0:15:33.756 But then I got a little older, and as I 0:15:33.796 --> 0:15:38.356 heard sail Away, I said, wait a minute, everybody is 0:15:38.396 --> 0:15:42.836 as happy as a man can be. Climb aboard little 0:15:42.916 --> 0:15:48.156 Wog sail away with me. Wog really offensive British colonial 0:15:48.236 --> 0:15:51.916 slang for someone who's not white. It's the N word. Basically, 0:15:52.476 --> 0:15:57.436 I noticed some interesting story at behind sail Away, the song, Oh. 0:15:57.156 --> 0:15:59.916 It was a A guy was going to make a 0:15:59.956 --> 0:16:02.956 movie and he was going to give ten minutes to 0:16:04.236 --> 0:16:07.836 five or six pop people, Van Morrison, I remember, and 0:16:08.236 --> 0:16:13.276 Hendrickson to do ten minute thing, and I came up 0:16:13.276 --> 0:16:15.116 with this thing. It had a sort of a sea 0:16:15.196 --> 0:16:19.316 shanny before it, you know, very irish kind of yo 0:16:19.476 --> 0:16:23.916 ho you know there, and then this guy be standing 0:16:23.916 --> 0:16:28.076 in a clearing in the jungle and singing this song, 0:16:28.276 --> 0:16:29.876 and that was what I was going to do with 0:16:29.956 --> 0:16:30.716 my ten minutes. 0:16:31.556 --> 0:16:34.996 Randy Newman wrote a song about an American slave trader 0:16:35.476 --> 0:16:39.316 standing somewhere in West Africa giving his sales pitch to 0:16:39.396 --> 0:16:44.156 potential recruits. Come to America. You're gonna love this little 0:16:44.156 --> 0:16:46.316 cotton plantation that I've lined up for you. 0:16:47.596 --> 0:16:52.836 Oh no, lion tied, No moms sleep. It's a sweet 0:16:52.956 --> 0:16:57.756 watermelon and a book. It's the nose laugh. 0:16:58.236 --> 0:16:58.756 Yeah. 0:16:58.836 --> 0:17:03.316 The character is so kind of outrageous. Yeah, but we're 0:17:03.356 --> 0:17:05.796 not laughing along with him. We're horrified by him. 0:17:05.796 --> 0:17:08.716 I mean it's yeah, but people laugh at that in 0:17:08.716 --> 0:17:14.396 a nerve sway at the watermelon joke and sit around 0:17:14.636 --> 0:17:16.516 think about Jesus, drink wine all day. 0:17:17.116 --> 0:17:18.876 Now, there's a way to do that song so that 0:17:18.916 --> 0:17:25.356 it's not so shocking, in like the cover version done 0:17:25.396 --> 0:17:28.076 later the same year by Bobby Darren, who was one 0:17:28.076 --> 0:17:30.516 of the biggest pop stars of the nineteen sixties. 0:17:30.756 --> 0:17:33.236 Oh yeah, wrong, Through the Jungle. 0:17:33.756 --> 0:17:35.196 Bobby Darren is happy. 0:17:35.356 --> 0:17:38.516 Yeah, come to America a little one when we get 0:17:38.596 --> 0:17:39.156 rid of the wag. 0:17:39.916 --> 0:17:44.316 Oh my god, that's that's like blasphemy. 0:17:45.756 --> 0:17:46.556 I'm barn. 0:17:46.796 --> 0:17:49.316 Little one sail away with me. 0:17:50.636 --> 0:17:54.516 In Bobby Darren's version, the line climb a board, little 0:17:54.636 --> 0:17:58.436 wog sail away with me, which is crucial in establishing 0:17:58.436 --> 0:18:03.036 how vile the narrator is, becomes climb a board, little one, 0:18:03.516 --> 0:18:05.596 sail away with me. But I'm sorry, I can't get 0:18:05.636 --> 0:18:09.316 I can't get pass it so quickly. That's unbelievable that he. 0:18:09.276 --> 0:18:10.116 Did a happy version. 0:18:10.316 --> 0:18:12.356 Yes, it's this. 0:18:12.556 --> 0:18:15.036 It isn't there's there it is. 0:18:15.276 --> 0:18:18.756 The thing is Newman liked Bobby Darren. He knew him, 0:18:18.956 --> 0:18:21.716 and he didn't know what to think. I mean, there 0:18:21.796 --> 0:18:26.036 is a world of difference between wog and one. Also, 0:18:26.236 --> 0:18:30.596 if I'm not mistaken, Bobby Darren substitutes the words mamba 0:18:30.676 --> 0:18:35.916 snake with mama snake eight no lions and tigers and 0:18:35.956 --> 0:18:37.556 no nurturing mama snake. 0:18:38.116 --> 0:18:38.276 You know. 0:18:38.676 --> 0:18:41.116 He was all, do I like to do that? And 0:18:41.156 --> 0:18:45.676 it's like, come to America, you know, become But this 0:18:45.756 --> 0:18:48.036 is this, this song is like this is not a 0:18:48.116 --> 0:18:48.836 dumb guy either. 0:18:49.236 --> 0:18:52.276 This is this song is like a. It is a wallop. 0:18:52.356 --> 0:18:56.996 It is emotional wallop. This searing song about this the 0:18:57.076 --> 0:18:58.836 darkest moment in America's past. 0:18:58.916 --> 0:19:04.636 It's a jaw dress like springtime for Hitler, A little one, 0:19:04.836 --> 0:19:08.236 little wo like come away with me. You know, it 0:19:08.396 --> 0:19:14.356 just was so right his Shulvia's instincts. Couldn't they restrain himself. 0:19:15.196 --> 0:19:17.036 How did you feel when you first heard that version? 0:19:18.236 --> 0:19:21.796 I felt, you know, oh my Jesus Christ. And that 0:19:21.916 --> 0:19:22.156 was it. 0:19:22.716 --> 0:19:25.516 The original intention of sail Away was to make the 0:19:25.596 --> 0:19:31.316 listener uncomfortable. Newman takes a familiar figure, a salesman, an entrepreneur, 0:19:31.516 --> 0:19:35.676 a patriot, and gives him a rollicking sea shanty. But 0:19:35.796 --> 0:19:39.276 then he forces you to acknowledge that underneath all that 0:19:39.996 --> 0:19:44.316 there looks a monster. Bobby Darren chickened out. He couldn't 0:19:44.316 --> 0:19:47.116 do it. He didn't want us to be uncomfortable, and 0:19:47.156 --> 0:19:51.676 so Wog became one and sail Away became a glorified 0:19:51.796 --> 0:19:55.516 nursery rhyme. I don't mean to single Bobby Darren out, 0:19:55.716 --> 0:19:57.796 because I think that most of us take the easy 0:19:57.836 --> 0:20:01.796 path in these situations too. But the particular genius of 0:20:01.876 --> 0:20:05.596 Randy Newman is that he won't do that. He can't. 0:20:10.596 --> 0:20:11.596 Dick Cavat show. 0:20:13.996 --> 0:20:17.716 So it's nineteen seventy. Lester Maddox gets a call from 0:20:17.716 --> 0:20:20.796 Dick Caviot, come on our show. He flies to New 0:20:20.876 --> 0:20:25.956 York and who tunes in that night, Randy Newman, Ladies 0:20:25.996 --> 0:20:34.356 and gentlemen, Dick Cabot. Dick Caviot is a year into 0:20:34.396 --> 0:20:37.956 his legendary late night show on ABC, up against Johnny 0:20:37.956 --> 0:20:41.836 Carson's Tonight Show. Cavit show was like a highlight reel 0:20:41.876 --> 0:20:44.796 of the nineteen seventies. He did the greatest ever interview 0:20:44.876 --> 0:20:48.436 with Jimmy Hendrix. Groucho Marx was a regular, so was 0:20:48.516 --> 0:20:51.476 Muhammad Ali. He once had Salvador Dally on the same 0:20:51.516 --> 0:20:55.356 show as a legendary pitching great Satchel Page. The famous 0:20:55.356 --> 0:20:59.716 debate between Gorvadal and Norman Mailer that was on Dick Caviot. 0:21:00.356 --> 0:21:01.076 Listen, we have a. 0:21:01.156 --> 0:21:03.036 Very good show tonight, and I want to move right 0:21:03.076 --> 0:21:06.236 into it. An excellent show. I think, I don't know, 0:21:06.276 --> 0:21:07.636 how do I know? I haven't seen it. It might be 0:21:07.676 --> 0:21:10.876 a big dead b aw. Why do people say that 0:21:10.916 --> 0:21:11.996 at the beginning of a show. 0:21:12.396 --> 0:21:15.636 Cavat looks like Paul Newman's baby brother. No more than 0:21:15.676 --> 0:21:20.236 five six impish big polka dotted tie. His first guest 0:21:20.276 --> 0:21:22.956 is a woman named Alice Gray, an entomologist from the 0:21:22.996 --> 0:21:26.916 American Museum of Natural History, cat eye, glasses, hair, and 0:21:26.956 --> 0:21:29.996 a bun who brings a box full of cockroaches to 0:21:30.036 --> 0:21:30.396 the set. 0:21:30.636 --> 0:21:32.356 What can we do about then? What can we learn 0:21:32.396 --> 0:21:33.676 about them? Are they our friends? 0:21:35.076 --> 0:21:37.996 No, they're not exactly our friends, but there are certainly 0:21:38.036 --> 0:21:39.596 our companions. 0:21:39.756 --> 0:21:40.476 And all our. 0:21:42.436 --> 0:21:45.276 All our doings, and I'm rather fond of them. 0:21:45.476 --> 0:21:48.356 They have a distinguished ledge. How many of us could 0:21:48.356 --> 0:21:50.836 meet our ancestors of three hundred million years ago and 0:21:50.876 --> 0:21:52.636 recognize them the cockroaches? 0:21:52.676 --> 0:21:54.276 Can they go back that far? 0:21:54.356 --> 0:21:55.076 They go back that far. 0:21:55.476 --> 0:21:57.196 It's older than the dinosaurs. 0:21:56.636 --> 0:21:58.636 Twice as old as the dinosaurs. All the way back 0:21:58.676 --> 0:22:01.796 to the coald Age, they were already recognizably cockroaches. 0:22:03.276 --> 0:22:05.636 That's it's always the people who don't like We're the 0:22:05.716 --> 0:22:09.396 last to leave, isn't it. 0:22:09.556 --> 0:22:11.636 They'll be here long after we have quitted this earth. 0:22:11.676 --> 0:22:15.556 I'm sure Cavot does a good ten minutes. I cockroaches 0:22:15.756 --> 0:22:16.076 are these? 0:22:16.196 --> 0:22:17.836 Your cockroaches are some of ours? 0:22:19.316 --> 0:22:23.236 The cockroach lady finally leaves the stage, and then. 0:22:23.596 --> 0:22:25.516 My next guest tonight is Governor Lester Maddox. 0:22:28.836 --> 0:22:33.636 How comes Maddox, the gleaming bald head, the black suit Governorm. 0:22:33.316 --> 0:22:36.716 Maddox, I still call you, Governor, Dont call me mostly 0:22:36.756 --> 0:22:40.916 innything you won't do everybody else does? Have you ever 0:22:40.956 --> 0:22:42.036 followed bugs before? 0:22:42.836 --> 0:22:44.716 Yes, a few moments ago on your problems. 0:22:44.996 --> 0:22:45.716 That's the only time. 0:22:46.076 --> 0:22:49.716 That's the only time. God, I love Dick Cavit. They 0:22:49.756 --> 0:22:53.876 shake hands, they take their seats rust colored swivel loungers 0:22:53.876 --> 0:22:56.836 atop a gray shag carpet. Kavit shows the audience a 0:22:56.836 --> 0:23:01.116 photograph of Maddox holding his axe handle outside the Pickrick restaurant, 0:23:01.596 --> 0:23:05.156 and Maddox then corrects him and says, no, it's not 0:23:05.196 --> 0:23:08.636 an axe handle, it's a pickhandle, and goes off on 0:23:08.636 --> 0:23:11.716 one of his long, endless digressions about the meaning of the. 0:23:11.676 --> 0:23:15.996 Pickrick, theaw hard work. And we had in the restaurant 0:23:16.156 --> 0:23:18.636 some of these pick candles, two cakes of them, by 0:23:18.636 --> 0:23:21.396 a big old fireplace where we burned hickory wood. And 0:23:21.436 --> 0:23:23.236 there were six of them in each of the cakes, 0:23:23.276 --> 0:23:27.196 and they were dark red, because that was the look 0:23:27.316 --> 0:23:29.636 something similar to a chicken leg or pick candle does 0:23:30.396 --> 0:23:32.036 not like the axe handle. It's the news me he 0:23:32.116 --> 0:23:33.196 talks about. 0:23:33.156 --> 0:23:37.716 And Kaviot, who must be wondering what on earth, simply. 0:23:37.356 --> 0:23:39.356 Says, well, I've certainly learned a lot. 0:23:41.716 --> 0:23:45.276 Kaviot brings on his next guest, the football player Jim Brown, 0:23:45.556 --> 0:23:48.156 then one of the most famous professional black athletes in 0:23:48.196 --> 0:23:51.756 the country. Brown settles down next to Maddox, who is 0:23:51.796 --> 0:23:55.756 literally half his size, and gives him a polite smile, 0:23:56.516 --> 0:23:58.236 and Kavit says to the two of. 0:23:58.196 --> 0:24:00.156 Them, do you feel separate but equal? 0:24:04.036 --> 0:24:07.316