Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show
Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known facts
Speaker 2: and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.
Speaker 2: We are your two men on the Internet telling you
Speaker 2: useless information supposed to fire your imagination and tell you
Speaker 2: how white your shirts can be.
Speaker 1: I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Run Talk and Jordan.
Speaker 2: Today we're talking about one of the all time greatest
Speaker 2: rock riffs. We're talking about a young man's snarl of
Speaker 2: anti consumerism that turned the young men who made it
Speaker 2: into some of the most insufferably wealthy musicians in all
Speaker 2: of recorded history. That's right, Jordan. We're talking about parentheses open.
Speaker 2: I can't get no parentheses clothes, Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: I refuse to pontificate about this song. You're gonna do
Speaker 2: all that for us. It just is. It's satisfaction. It's
Speaker 2: the demi urge of popular guitar music. It's the boundaries
Speaker 2: at which cool guitar tone and pop writing interact. That's it.
Speaker 2: It would just be one of those songs forever. Nothing
Speaker 2: more to say about it except for all the stuff
Speaker 2: we're about to say. But if you want to read
Speaker 2: a lot about what it means, find Clinton Halen or
Speaker 2: one of those jerk offs and let them explain to
Speaker 2: you how it fits into mid century white man malaise
Speaker 2: or possibly the Red Scare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of true. There's a book
Speaker 1: that I cited called The Sun and the Moon and
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones, which is like, you know, the three
Speaker 1: things that have just sort of always been present. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fair, that's very very fair. And also I got
Speaker 1: to say, as the resident Beatles guy on this show
Speaker 1: and possibly the resident Beatles guy in most of your lives,
Speaker 1: I have to say I was reluctant to tackle this
Speaker 1: topic initially, despite the fact that the song is turning
Speaker 1: sixty years old this month, which is insane.
Speaker 2: It's crazy to think that there's a future in which
Speaker 2: Mick Jagger will still be singing this song when it
Speaker 2: turns sixty five, after he famously said he'd rather be
Speaker 2: dead than singing it when he was sixty five, So.
Speaker 1: That means he's wanted to be dead for a long time.
Speaker 2: Now, long time who among us?
Speaker 1: Well, but yeah, you know, it's not that I buy
Speaker 1: into the whole Beatles Versus Stones thing, because that's just
Speaker 1: stupid and as any classic rock gri and will tell you,
Speaker 1: it's patently not true. The bands were very close friends,
Speaker 1: and there are tons of stories of them sharing cabs
Speaker 1: together around London and their early days and huddled around
Speaker 1: tables at clubs to work out their single release schedules
Speaker 1: that didn't step on each other's toes. Mick Jagger and
Speaker 1: Keith Richards were in the audience during the Beatles' famous
Speaker 1: TV broadcast that yielded All You Need Is Love in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, and the Beatles saying uncredited backup vocals
Speaker 1: on the Stones track We Love You that same year.
Speaker 1: So this is any kind of personal vendetta born of
Speaker 1: my psychotic Beatles fandom. It's just that at first, I
Speaker 1: kind of I didn't think there was that much to
Speaker 1: say about.
Speaker 2: The song Rolling Stones won.
Speaker 1: How so the fact that they're still out there on
Speaker 1: the road.
Speaker 2: They put out Exile on Main Street.
Speaker 1: You like Exile on Main Street more than any Beatles release?
Speaker 1: Question mark, Yes, Okay, let's talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 2: No, No, I don't know, man, I mean, look, I
Speaker 2: because like I didn't I wasn't a Beatles' album guy
Speaker 2: until college, because it was just like I had Beatles
Speaker 2: one and I just knew all of the songs. Same
Speaker 2: with the Stones, honestly. But for me, like every time
Speaker 2: I listened to Exile, I find something new and interesting
Speaker 2: in it, and I just noticed some new weird production
Speaker 2: thing or some stray bit of genius. The only mark
Speaker 2: against it is the fin Angela Davis song, like the
Speaker 2: worst song ever recorded, but ten Little Blackbirds. It's just
Speaker 2: like the most offensive thing. But everything about that album
Speaker 2: is also perfect with the exception of that. And you know,
Speaker 2: druggy experimentation from legitimate drug enthusiasts rather than the dainty,
Speaker 2: dainty boys of the Beatles is always going to be
Speaker 2: interesting to me, especially when it's like in an old,
Speaker 2: haunted castle and not like a studio where the technicians
Speaker 2: wear lab coats.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Okay, the problem is is that, like the Beetles may
Speaker 2: be better, but the Rolling Stones were cooler.
Speaker 1: Sure, Okay, I can't fight you on that, that's true.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I.
Speaker 1: Just I listened to Excel on Main Street and it
Speaker 1: just kind of all becomes one.
Speaker 2: It's like when you make a stew and then you
Speaker 2: put it in the fridge.
Speaker 1: A couple days later you take it out and it's
Speaker 1: just this kind of like brown sludge of well, you have.
Speaker 2: Mid making your stews correctly than my friend. You got
Speaker 2: to keep some cohesion in there. You got to you
Speaker 2: got to do your vegetables to certain levels of dunness
Speaker 2: of some pop and some are you know, a little
Speaker 2: bit more mushy. I shouldn't. I shouldn't be telling you
Speaker 2: about this. You need to come to this stuff yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's it's just hits, like a lot
Speaker 2: of the same wells of pathos and and just wonderful
Speaker 2: sounds and hooks every nook and cranny that record.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I hate the Stones. I like the Stones.
Speaker 1: But to me, they are a great attitude, They're a
Speaker 1: great vibe. Like you said, they are a great sound.
Speaker 1: But I feel like I could just kind of survive
Speaker 1: with like a double album greatest hit set for the
Speaker 1: Stones and be totally good. And I as you know,
Speaker 1: I was thrown into the deep end of Stone's lore
Speaker 1: because for a few years I was working on a
Speaker 1: documentary style podcast for I Heart about the Stones. Recording
Speaker 1: of Excel on Main Street and their nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: tour of the United States, and I really thought by
Speaker 1: like going deep on that I would glean more from it,
Speaker 1: I would appreciate it more, And for some reason I didn't.
Speaker 1: It just didn't really Even after interviewing all these people
Speaker 1: who were on the tour who knew the band intimately,
Speaker 1: I just never connected with it. And I'd even met
Speaker 1: some of the Stones on occasions, and I still didn't
Speaker 1: really feel anything. And honestly, it wasn't until I had
Speaker 1: the chance to see the Stones perform last that I
Speaker 1: finally started to get it. Have you ever seen The
Speaker 1: Stones live?
Speaker 2: No, dude, how much money do you think I have
Speaker 2: to throw at this stuff? Well? No.
Speaker 1: I had two separate friends who, like a day or
Speaker 1: two before their Met Life shows, got super cheap last minute,
Speaker 1: like sub one hundred dollars tickets and they're like, do
Speaker 1: you want to go? And I went the first night
Speaker 1: and it ruled. And that another friend a couple days
Speaker 1: later who asked me the same question. I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went the other day. It was incredible. I'd love
Speaker 1: to go again. Yeah. I would have never spent the
Speaker 1: money that these things usually go for if they weren't.
Speaker 2: Super super cheap, and I'm so glad I did so.
Speaker 1: Folks, this is a PSA. If the Stones are coming
Speaker 1: to your town, wait till the last minute and see
Speaker 1: if you can get any last minute tickets at those
Speaker 1: big stadiums.
Speaker 2: It ruled. I mean, you'd need forty licks, and then
Speaker 2: you also need exile sure, yeah, in its entirety, no skips,
Speaker 2: and then you'd need a whole other one of like
Speaker 2: deep cuts from all the country records, and even some
Speaker 2: of their eighties ones have some bangers, you know, let's
Speaker 2: not front really yeah, dude, waiting on a friend. It's
Speaker 2: even some good stuff on Black and Blue.
Speaker 1: Can you give us Shattered? Give us the rap from
Speaker 1: Shattered please?
Speaker 2: He's so obnoxious on that song? What is it? Rats
Speaker 2: in the hotel Roaches Downtown.
Speaker 1: Everyone gives Dibby Harry so much grief for the Rapture rap.
Speaker 2: Now his is awful.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do love the Stones. It's more like the.
Speaker 2: Beatles go deeper, do they? Yeah? They do deeper for you,
Speaker 2: or deeper into deeper into what I think.
Speaker 1: They cover a wider swath of music. But the Stones rock.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Stones rock better. But here in
Speaker 1: Paul mccarton to do long tall sally and like I'm
Speaker 1: down all those little Richard songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he has a better rock voice than
Speaker 2: Nick too. We're just getting into subjective measures here. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the Stones, being originally a blues band and
Speaker 2: not a skiffle band whatever that was, I suggest already
Speaker 2: went a little bit deeper because they were not simply
Speaker 2: listening to whatever the skiffle was. They were listening to
Speaker 2: like hardcore Chess Records blues already qualifies them as going deeper.
Speaker 2: And the fact that they like went down to muscle
Speaker 2: shoals and Jamaica, like they were just so much more
Speaker 2: globe trotting than the Beatles with where they chose to record,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, like, yeah, the Beatles have like
Speaker 2: way more pastiches of different styles, but they were all
Speaker 2: still doing them out of all of the same studio,
Speaker 2: like with no other local musicians. You know, these Indian
Speaker 2: musicians did they Yeah, oh yeah they did, Okay, so
Speaker 2: I'll give them that.
Speaker 1: And they wanted to record in Stacks, But as soon
Speaker 1: as the people at Stacks heard that the Beatles were involved,
Speaker 1: they just tried to price gouge them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean that probably would have been pretty
Speaker 2: embarrassing for them. Honestly, Like, if you're like Ringo and
Speaker 2: you know Al Jackson junior of Booker T and the
Speaker 2: MG shows up drumming, I'd probably just quit. Any Stax musician.
Speaker 2: Duck Dun on bass, Pau McCarty's Duck Dunn comes in
Speaker 2: playing a bass the size of a telephone pole, they
Speaker 2: get blown out of the studio.
Speaker 1: We can I agree to disagree on this, but I
Speaker 1: will say I'm forced to admit that, having researched this
Speaker 1: along with you, it's probably more fun to talk about
Speaker 1: the Stones than to talk about the Beatles.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah it is.
Speaker 1: Their stories are arguably way more entertaining and way more dramatic,
Speaker 1: and way more salacious and usually more hilarious than the Beatles.
Speaker 1: So I think this is gonna be a fun one.
Speaker 1: I went from fearing that we did have enough to
Speaker 1: talk about to us pounding out twenty pages this morning.
Speaker 2: This is gonna be a good one. So join us
Speaker 2: as we ride around the world metaphorically doing this and
Speaker 2: signing that in an attempt to break our losing streak.
Speaker 2: Those are lyrics from the song Here's everything you didn't
Speaker 2: know about the Rolling Stones. I Can't get no satisfaction.
Speaker 2: In the mid sixties, the Rolling Stones were at a crossroads.
Speaker 2: They've released their first single, I Want to Be Your Man,
Speaker 2: written for them by The Beatles, and their manager Andrew
Speaker 2: Lug Oldham was low, I think.
Speaker 1: Lug what is lug Luh?
Speaker 2: What kind of name is that? Short for Lugi? That's
Speaker 2: what went on his birth certificate. His dad was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's good. Doctor.
Speaker 4: Doctor was like, okay, that's a good bit, very well, sir,
Speaker 4: Lugi tremendous and their manager, Andrew Lugi Oldham had in
Speaker 4: its wake of that single, begun his crafty plan to
Speaker 4: usurp The Stone's nominal leader, the dandyish, unstable and allegedly
Speaker 4: genius Brian Jones.
Speaker 2: Oldham has given various reasons for his motivations for doing so.
Speaker 2: The most charitable one is, rather than continued to have
Speaker 2: the group based around the idea of one leader a
Speaker 2: la a Hermann in the Hermit's situation, he wanted a
Speaker 2: more collaborative identity for The Stone. But really he'd appreciately
Speaker 2: seen the Beatles as the end of an era, the
Speaker 2: era of pop stars who were delivered songs by professional
Speaker 2: songwriters instead of merely writing them for themselves. So while
Speaker 2: there are different explanations and different versions of the story
Speaker 2: of how Mick and Keith begin writing, to the easiest explanation,
Speaker 2: and thus the one I'm going to go with, is
Speaker 2: that they were just living together at the time, whereas
Speaker 2: Jones had his own flat as I believe they call
Speaker 2: them in sunny London Town. The story goes that Odin
Speaker 2: locked the Glimmer Twins into their kitchen and told them
Speaker 2: they weren't coming out until they'd written a proper song,
Speaker 2: not a pastiche of another musical style, and not a
Speaker 2: blues song, but something that could be released as a single.
Speaker 2: They spent all night in the kitchen, and Richards eventually
Speaker 2: got bored of being stuck in there without an elephant
Speaker 2: supply of heroin and started strumming his guitar and singing
Speaker 2: It is the evening of the day, and the two
Speaker 2: of them quickly came up with the rest of the song,
Speaker 2: although at least one source does suggest that As Tears
Speaker 2: Go By was actually written by Jagger and a session guitarist,
Speaker 2: Big Jim Sullivan, who will pop up in this episode again.
Speaker 2: If so, that would be the first time of many
Speaker 2: that a song written by Jagger or Richard's in collaboration
Speaker 2: with someone else would subsequently be to Jagger Richards and
Speaker 2: not the third person. Welcome to the music industry.
Speaker 1: Lennonda McCartney did that a lot too, or rather, Paul
Speaker 1: McCartney would write a lot of things, especially around the
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper era with their Roady mal Evans and mal
Speaker 1: Evans's diaries were published recently and there's all these like
Speaker 1: really heartbreaking excerpts of him being like grow. Paul says
Speaker 1: that I'll be credited on Captain Pepper. Oh, it'll be
Speaker 1: so great. Maybe a new house for the family.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, after the completed As Tears go By
Speaker 2: was correctly shipped out of their filthy mouths and off
Speaker 2: to someone less openly disreputable and leering, in this case
Speaker 2: Mary unfaithful.
Speaker 1: All right, I don't think I realized that As Tears
Speaker 1: go By was the first Jagger Richard song. That's a
Speaker 1: good song for a first time, it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. Despite this push two original songwriting, the
Speaker 2: bulk of the Stones first album was made up of
Speaker 2: cover versions of songs by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Rufus Thomas,
Speaker 2: Marvin Gay and other black American musicians. So The Stones'
Speaker 2: debut album, eventually coming to be known as England's Newest
Speaker 2: hit Makers, went to number one in the UK charts
Speaker 2: in April of nineteen sixty four. This was a big
Speaker 2: deal all the time because full albums, as opposed to
Speaker 2: single releases, were considered the province of the adult market,
Speaker 2: who generally had more money to spend on this time
Speaker 2: of things, so they were priced according and the sales
Speaker 2: charts just turned over at an absolutely glacial pace. Between
Speaker 2: May of nineteen sixty three and February of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: so almost five years, the only artists to have number
Speaker 2: one albums in the UK with the Beatles, The Stones,
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan, The Monkeys, the Cast of the Sound of
Speaker 2: Music and Val dunikin.
Speaker 1: Friend of the Pod, Val dunikin.
Speaker 2: Anything on Val dunkin Jordan.
Speaker 1: He had some incredible sweaters that much, I do know.
Speaker 2: Well, Funnily enough, between May of nineteen sixty three and
Speaker 2: April of nineteen sixty five, so almost a full two years,
Speaker 2: it was only the Beatles in the Stones that had
Speaker 2: number one albums.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I didn't realize that. That's nuts, I know.
Speaker 1: And also I think the sound the music soundtrack was
Speaker 1: number one for some ridiculous length of time too, like
Speaker 1: I want to say, like the better part of the year.
Speaker 1: I think that might actually be one of the best
Speaker 1: selling albums of the decade in the UK. That's an
Speaker 1: insane stat though. Wow, I didn't realize that you were
Speaker 1: a school of me on this intro.
Speaker 2: So the next single the band released, which the Bow
Speaker 2: didified version of Buddy Hawley's Not Fade Away. That came
Speaker 2: out in February nineteen sixty four and it hit number
Speaker 2: three on the UK charts, and it became the first
Speaker 2: Stones record to chart in the US, where it hit
Speaker 2: number forty eight. But that was considered enough of an
Speaker 2: achievement to begin discussions about getting them across the pond
Speaker 2: to the US to tour for the first time.
Speaker 1: Yes and the Beatles. Famously, their first trip to America
Speaker 1: was this capitulation. America fell to them, huge crowds beating
Speaker 1: them at the airport, their famous record breaking at all
Speaker 1: of the show appearance playing at Carnegie Hall really really,
Speaker 1: really tremendous. The Stones first US journey, Uh was more
Speaker 1: mixed show, we say. They went on Dean Martin's Variety
Speaker 1: show and he mocked them so much that Bob Dylan,
Speaker 1: in his liner notes to his album Another Side of
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, wrote the line Dean Martin should apologize to
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. It was a lot of those jokes
Speaker 1: that you could imagine Dino with his you know, ice
Speaker 1: clinking in his glass, all the stump. I'd be great.
Speaker 3: I wanna leave right after the show for London. They're
Speaker 3: challenging the Beatles to hair pulling contest. I could swear
Speaker 3: Jackie Coogan and Skippy we're in that group. Well, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna let you in on something. You know, all these
Speaker 3: singing groups today, you're under the impression they.
Speaker 2: Have long hair.
Speaker 1: Not to at all.
Speaker 2: It's not to go to lousion.
Speaker 3: They just have low foreheads and high eyebrows.
Speaker 1: Sa Ron.
Speaker 3: So as we leave you right now, we'll have our
Speaker 3: shorteren emission and we'll be back in Hollywood callous in
Speaker 3: about a minute.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Don't go away, you you wouldn't leave me here alone
Speaker 3: with the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: I just feel like you got to be like a
Speaker 2: real punk to take it from Dean Martin. Take it
Speaker 2: from din O. Yeah, that's true, your D list rat
Speaker 2: packer and we're the Rolling Stones. Don't bully us.
Speaker 1: Oh, come on, he's more than a D list member
Speaker 1: of the rat Pack. It's him and Frank. Him and
Speaker 1: Frank are like vibe for number one.
Speaker 2: Was he?
Speaker 1: Okay, he was number two, but he was always number two.
Speaker 1: It goes Frank Dean, Sammy Peter because of the Kennedy connection,
Speaker 1: and then Joey Bishop is last.
Speaker 2: I stand by that, Okay, okay, yeah, I'll defer to
Speaker 2: you on that.
Speaker 1: But Bob Dylan loved the Rolling Stones in a way
Speaker 1: that he seems to love few things then or now.
Speaker 1: It's kind of adorable, but it's also kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Dylan was obsessed with Brian Jones for some reason and
Speaker 1: repeatedly tried to call him to meet him when he
Speaker 1: was on tour of Britain in nineteen sixty five, and
Speaker 1: Brian Jones, as we'll discuss, was not a well man.
Speaker 1: He was so paranoid that he refused to believe that
Speaker 1: it was Bob Dylan on the other end of the
Speaker 1: phone until Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman came on and convinced him,
Speaker 1: and Dylan supposedly told Brian Jones the Stones were the
Speaker 1: best band in the world, which seems like.
Speaker 2: The kind of dumb thing that Bob Dylan would say.
Speaker 1: And they spent so long on the phone over the
Speaker 1: next year that the Stone staff dreaded getting the phone
Speaker 1: bills because Brian Jones was talking long distance to Dylan
Speaker 1: at all hours, which is kind of adorable.
Speaker 2: Is that where he picked up all his Carnabie Dandy
Speaker 2: exactly heels, Yeah, yep, yep. He started dressing like Brian Jones.
Speaker 1: That's why Dylan's tour in nineteen sixty five when he
Speaker 1: did come over was his last like solo acoustic tour
Speaker 1: when he kind of showed up in the standard folky
Speaker 1: regalia of you know, denim and in platte. And then
Speaker 1: the next time he came over with his backing group
Speaker 1: who would later go on to be the band, he
Speaker 1: was wearing his Chelsea boots in a mod suit and
Speaker 1: strapped in an electric guitar around him. When Brian Jones
Speaker 1: and Bob Dylan finally cross paths in New York for
Speaker 1: the first time at the end of the Stones nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five US tour, Brian Jones was so paranoid about
Speaker 1: getting busted for pot that even Dylan admitted that he
Speaker 1: was bumming him out. And then things got even weirder
Speaker 1: when they went to Andy Warhol's factory and Brian Jones
Speaker 1: got a little too friendly with Edie Sedgwick, which also
Speaker 1: bummed Bob out.
Speaker 2: I mean, he'sluck he didn't beat the shot out of her.
Speaker 2: Brian Jones was a notorious woman abuser. Yeah, we'll talk
Speaker 2: about that. Die like everyone in the band kind of
Speaker 2: hate him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, Oh yeah, that's in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's a direct quote from Keith that says
Speaker 1: he was not a good man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Stones met up with Murray the Kay, the famous
Speaker 1: New York DJ and self appointed fifth beadle who would
Speaker 1: earn a very different, believable nickname from Keith Richards that
Speaker 1: I don't know this.
Speaker 2: It's Murray the word that sounds like it starts with K,
Speaker 2: but it starts with a C. Okay, that's medium funny
Speaker 2: because he was really annoying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but despite not making a great impression on Keith Richards,
Speaker 1: Murray the K did play them a song by Bobby
Speaker 1: Womack called It's All Over Now, which had been a
Speaker 1: medium sized hit by a group called The Valentinos. The
Speaker 1: Stones decided on it as their next single, much to
Speaker 1: the annoyance of Bobby Womack himself, who wanted to release
Speaker 1: his own version. Phil Spector had suggested to manager Andrew
Speaker 1: lug Oldham that since the Stones loved the Chicago blues
Speaker 1: label Chess Records so much, they said record there and
Speaker 1: time was booked, and this was the genesis of a
Speaker 1: legend that when they arrived they found Muddy Waters changing
Speaker 1: light bulbs and painting walls in the studio, which is
Speaker 1: not true.
Speaker 2: He was what's the problem with that? He deserved better? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean maybe he was just like, you know, helping out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just help being a team player. Light Bombs don't change themselves.
Speaker 1: Aside from meeting several of their musical idols, which, aside
Speaker 1: from Muddy Waters, included Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry, the
Speaker 1: Stones managed to cut a version of It's All Over Now,
Speaker 1: which became their first UK number one single in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four. More tours and singles followed Little Red Rooster,
Speaker 1: which Brian Jones was dismayed to find the band had
Speaker 1: recorded without him.
Speaker 2: He showed up to a session with only himself on
Speaker 2: engineer and Jagger's instructions on where to put his slide fills.
Speaker 1: Wow, writing is on the wall because Brian Jones was
Speaker 1: the founder of this band and the leader of it
Speaker 1: for the early years. That's not nice, yeh.
Speaker 2: On April twenty third and nineteen sixty five, the band
Speaker 2: kicked off their third tour of North America, the first
Speaker 2: of two that year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really grounded out. They did several tours of
Speaker 1: the UK and Ireland that same year.
Speaker 2: It's pretty nuts. They'd had two top ten hits at
Speaker 2: this time the last time and time is on my side.
Speaker 2: These were a respectable showing, but in the rankings of
Speaker 2: the British Invasion, they still notched below Herman's Hermits, who
Speaker 2: scored big with Missus Brown You've got a Lovely Daughter.
Speaker 1: Truly dreadful song. Even I can't put a good face
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: This bell You've got a Lovely Daughter.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of song that gives, like mid sixties
Speaker 1: Mersey beat songs, a bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. Lead singer Peter Noon was considered a
Speaker 2: younger cuter jagger clomb and he looked also something like JFK,
Speaker 2: which helped the Hermit and his Hermits actually get distribution
Speaker 2: in the US. Herman's Hermits sold more tickets than the
Speaker 2: Stones and the Beatles combined over the next year, supposedly, which,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine, is an insane thing. The Stones
Speaker 2: shared concert bills with them in this period, and Mick
Speaker 2: always hated them. Herman's Hermits were in the top of
Speaker 2: the bill and we were second, and there was some
Speaker 2: argument about the dressing rooms. Herman was complaining because his
Speaker 2: wasn't big enough. There were and he was top of
Speaker 2: the bill because Herman's Hermits were huge, and the most
Speaker 2: impossible thing was going out to have a Hamburger and
Speaker 2: some guy would go, are you guys Herman Hermits? It
Speaker 2: would it would kill us. We'd say, you Herman Hermit's is.
Speaker 1: S Herbman's Emmitts. Is so funny because they are truly, truly,
Speaker 1: maybe second only to Freddie and the Dreamers, like the
Speaker 1: most saccherin pop group of the sixties, but they would
Speaker 1: always be the headlining act for these future rock legends.
Speaker 1: You've got the Stones, and then they also went on
Speaker 1: tour with The Who a little later in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and the famous story of the Who trashing a holiday inn.
Speaker 2: In I want to say Flint.
Speaker 1: I think it was in Flint, and you know became
Speaker 1: like ground zero for rock bands trashing hotels. That was
Speaker 1: when they were on like a Hermit's Hermit's tour, and
Speaker 1: there's pictures of like Peter Noon of Herman's Hermet's like
Speaker 1: in the background as this holiday inn's getting torn apart.
Speaker 1: So it's just hilarious. But like the squeaky cleanest group
Speaker 1: of the British Invasion are evolved of all these like
Speaker 1: really nasty guys and.
Speaker 2: In Flint too, like it doesn't have enough problems. Despite this,
Speaker 2: these early tours were remembered as a happy period before
Speaker 2: drugs and serious financial pressures took hold of the group.
Speaker 2: Photographer Jared with A g Mankowitz offered this evocative passage
Speaker 2: to Rich Cohen in his twenty sixteen book The Sun
Speaker 2: and the Moon and the Rolling Stones. That was the
Speaker 2: best time, Gerer jid manco Witz said, because we were
Speaker 2: still a gang. We didn't have that luxury or sophistication.
Speaker 2: We didn't have backup bands. We didn't have sound checks
Speaker 2: or lightings. We just had each other. It was primitive
Speaker 2: and it was fantastic. One night we camped out on
Speaker 2: the Apache Reservation outside Phoenix. It was like something out
Speaker 2: of The Lone Ranger. We slept under the stars, cooked
Speaker 2: on a fire. Keith bought us all guns and Stetson's
Speaker 2: that whips. Yeah, sorry, I never did that for you guys.
Speaker 2: The biggest pressure making Keith had to deal with was
Speaker 2: to write the songs that kept their whole thing going.
Speaker 2: Of course, though Jared with the g Mankowitz continued, we
Speaker 2: traveled at night. They'd come off the stage, go into
Speaker 2: the limo and straight to the airport. We'd fly until two, three,
Speaker 2: four am, check into some dump. Nobody to welcome us,
Speaker 2: nothing open, no food, Dadsville. The bulk of the tour
Speaker 2: was like that. You do the show, you're gone. And
Speaker 2: in all the in between times Mick and Keith were working.
Speaker 2: They had orders to come up with material and struggled
Speaker 2: because the schedule wasn't conducive, but they pushed through, taking
Speaker 2: down the ideas wherever they came. You'd see them all
Speaker 2: the time, jotting little notes. Throughout the tour. Mick would
Speaker 2: later say that on the road was quote the best
Speaker 2: place to write because you're totally into it. You get
Speaker 2: back from a show, have something to eat, have a
Speaker 2: few beers, and just go into your room and write.
Speaker 2: I used to write about twelve songs in two weeks
Speaker 2: on tour. They give you lots of ideas. The germ
Speaker 2: of the songs usually came from Keith, who played old
Speaker 2: blues legs which were then morph into something new over
Speaker 2: which he'd sing wordless vowel sounds, which is just like
Speaker 2: the strategy that literally everyone has in case you ever
Speaker 2: want to know how to write a song, which the
Speaker 2: just kind of to jam around and then you sing
Speaker 2: nonsense stuff over it. That's what Lenin did. There's when
Speaker 2: they they did that Bermuda box set. Oh yeah. Some
Speaker 2: of the audio files where him like working on Watching
Speaker 2: the Wheels and maybe Beautiful Boy too, and it's literally
Speaker 2: just him banging out chords in a cycle until he
Speaker 2: finds the core progression he likes and that he's just
Speaker 2: singing gibberish over it, and then the rest is just
Speaker 2: set dressing. Keith Richard's My favorite bit of studio advice
Speaker 2: from him is add something new every thirty seconds. Huh.
Speaker 1: That almost sounds stupid, but it's actually very smart.
Speaker 2: It's great, great advice. Yeah, it keeps people's ears attuned.
Speaker 2: So this process Valeve movement, Valel movements. So Keith and
Speaker 2: Keith and Mick taking Valel movements is more or less
Speaker 2: where we got satisfaction from. It was completed on tour
Speaker 2: at the Fort Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, after the band
Speaker 2: played a gig at the nearby Jack Russell Stadium, named
Speaker 2: after the.
Speaker 1: Dog that's a great question.
Speaker 2: According to an article in the Saint Petersburg Times, about
Speaker 2: two hundred young fans got into an altercation with a
Speaker 2: line of police officers at the show. Hell Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the Stones made it through just four songs as chaos
Speaker 2: ensued and they were forced to flee in a white
Speaker 2: station wagon like a white Bronco.
Speaker 1: I regret to inform you the Jack Russell as a
Speaker 1: baseball player.
Speaker 2: Ah lame. While only a small fraction of the estimated
Speaker 2: three to four thousand attendees caused chaos, the frenzy was
Speaker 2: enough to push a local recreation director to his limit.
Speaker 2: What a high limit that must have been. That's it,
Speaker 2: he declared, There will never be another show like this
Speaker 2: as long as I'm here at the Jack Russell Stadium.
Speaker 1: Well, it was during their stay in Clearwater, Florida that
Speaker 1: Keith Richards presented Mick with the infamous riff that we
Speaker 1: all know and love for satisfaction. As per rock legend,
Speaker 1: it came to him in a dream. However, the timing
Speaker 1: and location of the stream has been the source of
Speaker 1: much speculation.
Speaker 2: Over the years.
Speaker 1: I've seen it written that the dream actually occurred at
Speaker 1: this very same hotel in Clearwater, Florida, but I suspect
Speaker 1: that the tales evolved that way purely for economy of storytelling.
Speaker 1: I've also heard that this dream occurred at his apartment
Speaker 1: or his flat if you will, in Chelsea, his room
Speaker 1: at the London Hilton, or a different flat in the
Speaker 1: Saint John's.
Speaker 2: Wood neighborhood of North London.
Speaker 1: The latter spot is what Keith himself cites in his
Speaker 1: twenty ten memoir Life, So let's go with that, and
Speaker 1: the dream likely took place at some point in early
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five. But regardless of location, the substance of
Speaker 1: the story is always the same. He's told it hundreds
Speaker 1: of times over the years, but this is perhaps one
Speaker 1: of my favorite versions from his appearance on NPR's Fresh Air.
Speaker 1: I wish all songs would come this way, where you
Speaker 1: just dream them and then the next morning there they are.
Speaker 1: Satisfaction was a miracle that took place. I have one
Speaker 1: of the first little cassette players, Arauco or Phillips. It
Speaker 1: was a fascinating little machine to me, a set player
Speaker 1: where you could actually lay ideas down wherever you were.
Speaker 1: I set the machine up and put in a fresh tape.
Speaker 1: I go to bed as usual with my guitar, and
Speaker 1: I wake up the next morning and see the tape
Speaker 1: is run till the very end. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything. Maybe I hit the button while
Speaker 1: I was asleep, So I put it back to the
Speaker 1: beginning and pushed play, and there was sort of a
Speaker 1: ghostly version of Then after that, there's forty minutes of
Speaker 1: me snoring. The forty minutes is always very specific, and
Speaker 1: he's retelling of this, Yeah, it's always forty minutes.
Speaker 2: I always like that. He notes that he sleeps us
Speaker 2: with his guitar, which is like one of the bits
Speaker 2: of advice that he gives in life. He's like, literally,
Speaker 2: sleep with your guitar.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No. When I was working on that Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones show, one of the guys that I worked with
Speaker 1: on it was this Rolling Stone magazine journalist Robert Greenfield,
Speaker 1: and he lived with Keith at nellcut the the mansion
Speaker 1: on the French Riviera where they were recording Excel on
Speaker 1: Main Street, and he said, yeah, Keith truly did sleep
Speaker 1: with his guitar. He would go into the toilet with
Speaker 1: it like he was never without this guitar.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Yeah, that's what you That's the attitude it.
Speaker 1: Is, you know, Keith Richards in every sense it is
Speaker 1: not a quitter. Ah.
Speaker 2: So in his autobiography Life, Richards also id'd this legendary
Speaker 2: recorder as a Phillips and it was actually pretty novel
Speaker 2: at the time. It had been released by the Phillips
Speaker 2: Corporation because they were trying to develop an engineer there
Speaker 2: or head of development there named lou Auten's was attempting
Speaker 2: to slim down the possibilities for mobile recording. Prior to this,
Speaker 2: we're talking real to world tape units. You know, when
Speaker 2: Alan Lomax went and did his famous Southern Journey in
Speaker 2: this whole contraption that he had to carry around in
Speaker 2: his car to record people was like sixty seventy pounds.
Speaker 2: So qu Autins was walking through the halls of Phillips
Speaker 2: Development with like a carved block of wood roughly the
Speaker 2: size of the completed project, and telling everyone work on it. Okay,
Speaker 2: the internal real toil of the cassette tape has to
Speaker 2: fit in this. So basically portability and size were the
Speaker 2: first priority there. So Richard's exact model of Phillips recorders
Speaker 2: believed to have been an e L thirty three oh two,
Speaker 2: which utilized germanium transistors. We will return to germanium transistors later.
Speaker 2: I think small, Wow, Yeah, it looks it's quite portable.
Speaker 2: But Richard's beyond using it to rescue satisfaction from the
Speaker 2: realms of the subconscious. He basically ended up anchoring several
Speaker 2: Stones classics just with this device, he told the Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal and an interview. I began to think of
Speaker 2: the machine not as a dictation advice, but as a
Speaker 2: mini recording studio. I just couldn't use an electric guitar
Speaker 2: to record on it. The sound just overwhelmed the mic
Speaker 2: and speaker. I tried to an acoustic guitar instead and
Speaker 2: got this dry crips guitar sound on the tape the
Speaker 2: exact sound I'd been looking for. At the time, I
Speaker 2: was experimenting with open tunings on the guitar, you know,
Speaker 2: tuning the strings to form specific chords so I could
Speaker 2: bang out the broadest possible sound. That's how I came
Speaker 2: up with Street Fighting Man's opening riff. Sometime in early
Speaker 2: sixty eight, I took the Phillips recorder into London's Olympic
Speaker 2: Sound Studio and had Charlie Watts meet me there. Charlie
Speaker 2: had a snap drum kit that was made in the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties. Jazz drummers used to carry around this kit,
Speaker 2: which folded into a suitcase to practice while they were
Speaker 2: on the bus of the train, and had a little
Speaker 2: spring up high hat and a half sized tambourine for
Speaker 2: a snare. It was perfect because, like the acoustic guitar,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't overpower the recorder's mike. Everyone do yourself a
Speaker 2: favor and google this thing. It's like embarrassing what it
Speaker 2: actually looks like. So he said, he had Charlie sit
Speaker 2: right next to the mic with his little kit, and
Speaker 2: then Keith just kneeled on the floor next to him
Speaker 2: with an acoustic a Gibson Hummingbird big guitar, and then
Speaker 2: he says, there we were in front of this little box,
Speaker 2: hammering away, and after we listened to playback, the sound
Speaker 2: was perfect. He also explains a little bit more about
Speaker 2: the sound he got out of the Phillips in his
Speaker 2: autobiography Life Playing an acoustic You'd overload the Phillips cassette
Speaker 2: player to the point of distortion, so that when it
Speaker 2: played back it was effectively an electric guitar. You were
Speaker 2: using the cassette player as a pickup and an amplifier
Speaker 2: at the same time. Forcing acoustic guitars through a cassette
Speaker 2: player made what came out the other end electric as hell.
Speaker 2: In the studio, I plugged the cassette into a little
Speaker 2: extension speaker and put a microphone in front of the
Speaker 2: extension speaker so it had a little bit more breadth
Speaker 2: and depth, and put that onto tape. That was the
Speaker 2: basic track. There are no electric instruments on Street Fighting
Speaker 2: Man at all, apart from the bass, which I overdubbed later.
Speaker 2: They're all acoustic guitars. Even the solo that we're like
Speaker 2: Wow sounds almost like a siren. Which I think was
Speaker 2: the point. Oh yeah, I know you're right. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'd have to dive into the true
Speaker 2: granularity of that. But maybe it maybe it was an
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar. But sadly the e L thirty three two
Speaker 2: as a studio tool had a limited shelf life because
Speaker 2: Phillips put a limitter on the device soon after in
Speaker 2: its production run, so that you couldn't overload it. As
Speaker 2: Keith says, just as you're getting off on something, they
Speaker 2: put a lock on it. But this is actually what's
Speaker 2: really wild about how he did this. For Street Fight,
Speaker 2: Man Jumping Jack, Flash, Gimme Shelter. He would do what
Speaker 2: he was suggesting, which is just play this acoustic guitar
Speaker 2: into the tape recorder, but then he would overdob up
Speaker 2: to like eight other guitars on this And that's why
Speaker 2: the guitar sound is so full on those, because I
Speaker 2: think on Street Fighting, he says, it's up to eight.
Speaker 2: Back to you, Jordan.
Speaker 1: So back to the morning that Keith Richards wakes up
Speaker 1: after having dreamed the satisfaction riff. He plays it back,
Speaker 1: he hears the ghostly No, I think it was just
Speaker 1: those five notes I don't even think it was the
Speaker 1: descending part. And at first he was really worried that
Speaker 1: it was too close to a recent Motown hit, Dancing
Speaker 1: in the Street by Martha and the Vandellas.
Speaker 4: Dum oh, yeah, I can kind of hear it.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Ultimately he decided that was fine. He perhaps recalled that
Speaker 1: the Love and Spoonful was worried that the riff would
Speaker 1: You Believe In Magic? Was a sped up version of
Speaker 1: another Martha and the Vendela's hit, heat Wave, and no
Speaker 1: one seemed to care. So maybe he was like, if
Speaker 1: it's good enough for Love and Spoonful, it's good enough
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: That's often what I say. It is kind of the
Speaker 2: same core progression.
Speaker 1: Fine, yeah, Keith put the tape into an envelope marked
Speaker 1: can't get no Satisfaction, which in some retellings he drowsily.
Speaker 2: Sang on the tape too, just like mumbled.
Speaker 1: Something about can't get anice satisfaction. I've heard two different
Speaker 1: versions of either just the riff or that he did sing.
Speaker 1: I've never heard the sleep demo, as I choose to
Speaker 1: call it. I would It's got to be in like
Speaker 1: some kind of like fireproof safe somewhere, like do you
Speaker 1: think it exists? I still I would like to think so,
Speaker 1: because that's like very I want to believe it's really
Speaker 1: high on my list of it belongs to the museum
Speaker 1: type things. But oh for sure, I could also see
Speaker 1: as like a twenty something year old musician on the
Speaker 1: road with probably one, maybe two cassette tapes just like
Speaker 1: just overdubbed it, especially with all of us snoring on it,
Speaker 1: like because there's we'll talk about he really was not
Speaker 1: all that taken with this riff or this song it took.
Speaker 1: He's probably of everybody in the Stones, the person who
Speaker 1: likes it the least, second.
Speaker 2: Maybe to Brian Jones, I guess, but we'll.
Speaker 1: Get there, Sode I can't get no satisfaction line?
Speaker 2: Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: He's never explained the origin of the phrase himself, but
Speaker 1: in a Rolling Stone magazine interview years later, Mick Jagger
Speaker 1: theorized that Keith was probably influenced by Chuck Berry's Thirty Days,
Speaker 1: which includes the lyric if I don't get no satisfaction
Speaker 1: from the judge. Jagger explained Keith might have heard it
Speaker 1: back then because it's not any way an English person
Speaker 1: would have expressed it. Yeah, I'm not saying he purposely
Speaker 1: nicked anything, but we played those records a lot. And
Speaker 1: it's also been theorized that another inspiration for the line
Speaker 1: was Muddy Water's nineteen forty eight song Ib's Troubled, which
Speaker 1: contains the line I'm never being satisfied and I just
Speaker 1: can't keep from crying.
Speaker 2: I mean, Muddy Water is saying something about being satisfied
Speaker 2: in like every one of his songs. He just loves
Speaker 2: being satisfied or was constantly unsatisfied. That's true. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: one are you? Let's not go there.
Speaker 1: Keith has been very open about discussing the possibility that
Speaker 1: artists are less composers than mediums channeling energy from beyond
Speaker 1: you and I talk.
Speaker 2: About this a lot.
Speaker 1: Robert Hunter, the lyricists for The Grateful Dead, as fast
Speaker 1: as the ped would pull you, pulled the idea.
Speaker 2: Out of the ether.
Speaker 1: But it's also worth noting that there's a surprisingly long
Speaker 1: wiki list of art that supposedly sprung from dreams.
Speaker 2: Oh, I bet you're gonna tell us about it, Yes,
Speaker 2: i am.
Speaker 1: There's a few here that surprised me.
Speaker 2: Well, this first one didn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: The most famous example to me as the Beatles guy,
Speaker 1: is Yesterday. In early nineteen sixty five, probably around the
Speaker 1: same time that Keith had his satisfaction dream, Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: woke up with the tune to Yesterday in his head.
Speaker 2: You just can't give them anything. No, we don't know.
Speaker 1: Which one came first, though, we don't know. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: if history he's anything to go by, the Beatles probably
Speaker 1: did it first.
Speaker 2: I begrudgingly concede that parts yes, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney was living in a little artist garrett on
Speaker 1: the top floor of his girlfriend at the time, Jane
Speaker 1: Asher's family's house, and he had a little spin it
Speaker 1: piano by the bed, and he just rolled out of
Speaker 1: bed and kind of found the chords to what became Yesterday,
Speaker 1: And he was so convinced that he'd stolen it from
Speaker 1: an old jazz.
Speaker 2: Tune because his dad really loved old jazz.
Speaker 1: Songs and played piano around the house, that he compulsively
Speaker 1: played the song to anyone and everyone who would listen,
Speaker 1: asking if they knew what this was. And he famously
Speaker 1: used the working title Scrambled Eggs as the dummy lyrics
Speaker 1: when he sang this around to people said.
Speaker 2: He yesterday was scrambled eggs.
Speaker 1: Years later, he admitted that the lyrics were probably a
Speaker 1: lot of processing is grief around his late mother. He
Speaker 1: once made fun of the way she spoke, which he
Speaker 1: regretted the rest of his life. And he reflected on
Speaker 1: the line said something wrong. Now I long for yesterday
Speaker 1: as maybe having its origins in that trauma. So yeah,
Speaker 1: dreams way we process unresolved feelings, un resolved issues. Trauma
Speaker 1: is a very real possibility that Yesterday sprung from that
Speaker 1: and we got a second Paul McCartney entry on this list.
Speaker 2: Aren't you lucky?
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Singing which let it Be?
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney has also claimed that the idea for let
Speaker 1: It Be came to him after a dream.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's just kind of his go to
Speaker 2: explanation when he gets tired of actually talking about how
Speaker 2: he wrote the song, Oh, dream one, there was another
Speaker 2: dream one right there? Let me stop you right there dream.
Speaker 1: He does get weird about talking about where these songs
Speaker 1: came from. There is a n iHeart podcast actually where
Speaker 1: you know the Paul McCartney lyrics book that came out
Speaker 1: a few years ago where he goes like really deep
Speaker 1: into They took tapes from those interviews and made a
Speaker 1: podcast out of it, and it's actually really well done,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the most in depth I heard
Speaker 1: him talk about truly what he was thinking of when
Speaker 1: he wrote specific lines. It's all my heart, so uh,
Speaker 1: it's worth checking out. But yeah, let it be. He
Speaker 1: said he had a dream where his mother came to
Speaker 1: him during a really tense period when the Beatles were
Speaker 1: starting to split up, and he said, it was great
Speaker 1: to visit with her again. I felt very blessed to
Speaker 1: have that dream, so that got me writing let it Be.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately I made fun of her voice again and she
Speaker 2: hasn't spoken to me since.
Speaker 1: Terrible.
Speaker 2: I'm an awful person.
Speaker 1: In the dream, she supposedly offered words of comfort to
Speaker 1: her son that culminated in the phrase for anyone who
Speaker 1: looks like him.
Speaker 2: That's actually where they got the line in Training Day
Speaker 2: from is the unpublished part of his dream about his mom.
Speaker 2: She said, King Kong ain't got on me. You let
Speaker 2: those motherfuckers be, Paul, I'm gonna put papers on every
Speaker 2: single one of them, on every single one.
Speaker 1: You Another work of art that was supposedly inspired by
Speaker 1: a dream. I didn't know this Mary Shelley's eighteen eighteen
Speaker 1: book Frankenstein. Did you know this?
Speaker 2: I did not. I mean I know that it was
Speaker 2: at this whole artist institute and like artist retreat or
Speaker 2: whatever they're doing, like channeling, and you know she was
Speaker 2: married to Percy B. Shelley at the time. And yeah,
Speaker 2: she knocked it out of the park. She made like
Speaker 2: the first essentially the first science fiction novel in you know, Jules,
Speaker 2: like fifty years later, sixty years later. Yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And but I don't know what were you gonna say
Speaker 2: about it? Something less cool?
Speaker 1: It was less cool. But these are her words, so
Speaker 1: they that makes them more cool. It's a quote from her.
Speaker 1: She said. When I placed my head upon my pillow,
Speaker 1: I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think.
Speaker 1: My imagination unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive
Speaker 1: images that arose in my mind with a vividness, far
Speaker 1: on the usual bounds of reverie. I saw the pale
Speaker 1: student of unhollowed arts, kneeling beside the thing he had
Speaker 1: put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man
Speaker 1: stretched out, and then on the working of some powerful engine,
Speaker 1: show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half
Speaker 1: vital motion. Frightful must it be? For supremely frightful would
Speaker 1: be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the
Speaker 1: stupendous creator of the world.
Speaker 2: Tell you what does you? Didn't dream? An editor really
Speaker 2: thought that was great? No? No, I mean I've have
Speaker 2: you ever read the actual Franken sign?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think I read as a kid, like
Speaker 1: an abridged version that I thought was.
Speaker 2: The real thing. And then because the actual version is
Speaker 2: so much talking. That's why it's so damn funny that
Speaker 2: the monster in popular consciousness is this mute, a hulking beast.
Speaker 2: Because Frankenstein's monster in that book chatty. He's a real
Speaker 2: chatty bitch pill chatterbox. Well, have you been dead for
Speaker 2: a while, you probably have things to say too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's like every single body part was
Speaker 2: sending him memories that he had to talk about? Oh
Speaker 2: my god, that's an incredible thought.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's great, that's that bit. Yeah, we got a Oh,
Speaker 1: if you were a loved one.
Speaker 2: I think of writing a screenplay with that. Don't verbal
Speaker 2: copyright or.
Speaker 1: If you have thoughts on that. Wow, somebody sent me
Speaker 1: because I guess they wanted to make me cry. This
Speaker 1: woman was getting married and her young son had died
Speaker 1: and his heart he was an organ doner, and his
Speaker 1: heart had been put in another little boy. And then
Speaker 1: this little boy surprised her on her wedding day.
Speaker 2: Oh God, listened to.
Speaker 1: Her little boy's heartbeat before she walked.
Speaker 2: Down the aisle. Yeah that's crushing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, big time. Yeah. Somebody sent that to me today.
Speaker 1: And now it's your problem. Lists I can't take the
Speaker 1: burden alone. From Frank and Simon, we go to Twilight.
Speaker 1: The inspiration for Stephanie Meyer's book series came in a dream.
Speaker 1: She said. It was two people in a kind of
Speaker 1: little circular meadow with really bright sunlight, and one of
Speaker 1: them was a beautiful, sparkly boy, and one of them
Speaker 1: was just a girl who was human and normal, and
Speaker 1: they were having this conversation. The boy was a vampire,
Speaker 1: which is so bizarre that I'd be dreaming about vampires,
Speaker 1: And he was trying to explain to her how much
Speaker 1: you cared about her and yet at the same time
Speaker 1: how much you wanted to kill her. Who among us?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What I was I gonna say, Oh yeah. David
Speaker 2: Lynch in his book Catching the Big Fish, which is
Speaker 2: all about transcendental meditation, he talks about in there he'd
Speaker 2: been napping in his trailer and then like went out
Speaker 2: into the parking lot and put his hand on the
Speaker 2: hood of a car without realizing how hot it was,
Speaker 2: and the second he realized how hot it was and
Speaker 2: yanked his hand off. He says that this scene in
Speaker 2: the diner from Mulholland Drive where they guy explains his
Speaker 2: nightmare and he goes out and goes behind the you
Speaker 2: get that great jump scare when the creeping bag lady
Speaker 2: jumps out from behind the dumpster, that all came to
Speaker 2: him like at that moment, fully formed, which I just
Speaker 2: think is such a it's ever happened to me. But
Speaker 2: I'm happy it happened to David.
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense though, Like that would be.
Speaker 2: A horrifying thing to pop out of your dream.
Speaker 1: Ohyah. That it was just like a visual representation of
Speaker 1: like that shock of like the physical shock. That's really
Speaker 1: interesting to me. Huh. I don't think we touched on
Speaker 1: this on our Christmas Songs grab Bag episode, but a
Speaker 1: little town of Bethlehem was also at least the music
Speaker 1: for it also came from a dream. The American musician
Speaker 1: Lewis Redner wrote the tune into a Little Town of
Speaker 1: Bethlehem in December eighteen sixty eight, at the request of
Speaker 1: an Episcopal clergyman who had written the lyrics already. Redner
Speaker 1: had not written the tune on the night before he
Speaker 1: was scheduled to rehearse it, which God bless this man.
Speaker 1: According to his account, he was quote roused from sleep
Speaker 1: late in the night, hearing an angel strain whispering in
Speaker 1: my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper, I
Speaker 1: jotted down the treble of the tune as we now
Speaker 1: have it, and on Sunday morning, before going to church,
Speaker 1: I filled in the harmony. I used to do that
Speaker 1: when I was in screenwriting school and we really had
Speaker 1: strict deadlines about finishing scripts and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I just was like out, I had no idea
Speaker 2: where to go next. I would usually go to sleep,
Speaker 2: and then I would.
Speaker 1: Sleep really poorly, but I would wake up usually with
Speaker 1: whatever needed to happen next kind of already there.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also like, I remember, do you ever do
Speaker 1: this because you're you have whatever freaky thing I do.
Speaker 1: And you can extrapolate on that and whichever way you wish.
Speaker 1: I remember, I like turned it in like a really
Speaker 1: long article, and then I went to bed, I like
Speaker 1: emailed it in, and then I in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, I was like, oh, page six, paragraph nine,
Speaker 1: there's a typo there. And I went in and there
Speaker 1: it was. And it was like.
Speaker 2: I tortured myself in my sleep, is what I'm saying. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a great there's a great scene in the in
Speaker 2: the Wire where one of the I think it's in
Speaker 2: the fifth season, the one newspaper editor does exactly that.
Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, He like calls downstairs to the page.
Speaker 2: He like wakes up, goes downstairs, calls the paper and
Speaker 2: like asks them about a comma or says like something's
Speaker 2: errant and they're like, no, this was actually correct, just
Speaker 2: your average run of the mill. He calls it like
Speaker 2: night before printing editor nightmare or something like that. I
Speaker 2: just thought, was it's a great touch.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. The song Black Sabbath apparently came
Speaker 1: to Geezer Butler in a dream or a nightmare, I
Speaker 1: should say, he had a nightmare that he encountered a
Speaker 1: tall black figure at the edge of his bed, gazing
Speaker 1: at him. It was probably aussy. After he woke up,
Speaker 1: the book on the Occult that he'd been reading prior
Speaker 1: to his nightmare had mysteriously vanished from his room. Again,
Speaker 1: probably aussy. He later told the band about his experience
Speaker 1: and recorded both of.
Speaker 2: You to assume that Ozzie was literate at this point, respectfully,
Speaker 2: but come on.
Speaker 1: Now. Brian May said that he wrote the Queen song
Speaker 1: The Prophet Song nineteen seventy five Queen Song after a
Speaker 1: hepatitis induced fever dream he had about an apocalyptic flood.
Speaker 2: Okay, you must have.
Speaker 1: Known this, but I had no idea. James Cameron's said
Speaker 1: that he dreamed the Terminator. He said he had a
Speaker 1: soaring fever when he was sick and dead broke in Rome,
Speaker 1: Italy during the final cut of Piranha.
Speaker 2: II that he was directing great film.
Speaker 1: He dreamed of quote a chrome skeleton emerging from a fire,
Speaker 1: and made some sketches on hotel stationary Upon waking. He said,
Speaker 1: the first sketch I did showed a metal skeleton cut
Speaker 1: in half at the waist, crawling over a tile floor
Speaker 1: using a large kitchen knife. To pull itself forward while
Speaker 1: reaching out with the other hand extremely metal in the
Speaker 1: second drawing the characters threatening a crawling woman minus the
Speaker 1: kitchen knife. These images became the finale of The Terminator
Speaker 1: almost exactly good for him? Yeah, and didn't Terminator two.
Speaker 1: I want to say the plot was loosely inspired by
Speaker 1: a MDMA trip he like listened to. Uh, he listened
Speaker 1: to one of Sting's albums about like built the Russians
Speaker 1: hug their kids too or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you're you're pulling for me, but we
Speaker 2: will do T two. Oh yeah, because it's the best
Speaker 2: action movie up there.
Speaker 1: Wait, I need to find this. Keep talking about T two?
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean how much time he got? Yeah?
Speaker 2: What do you want me to say about it? Actually,
Speaker 2: the only thing that I don't like about that movie
Speaker 2: is poor Eddie Furlong, who was just like, you know,
Speaker 2: he's a child actor, so it's tough, but it's just
Speaker 2: so annoying in that movie.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: In a recent thirtieth anniversary oral history of Terminator Too,
Speaker 1: James Cameron admitted that he was on ecstasy when he
Speaker 1: conceived that the plot of the film. Yeah, he told
Speaker 1: the ringer, I remember sitting there once high on writing
Speaker 1: notes for terminator, and I was struck by sting song.
Speaker 1: I hope the Russians love their children too, And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, the idea of nuclear war is just
Speaker 1: so anithetical to life itself. That's where the kid came from.
Speaker 1: Why was he doing ecstasy just to feel something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he hadn't gone in a large boat for a while.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: Wait, two more things that surprised me that supposedly came
Speaker 1: from dreams. The periodic table. Did you know this?
Speaker 2: Of course? Do you guys? Have you guys heard about this?
Speaker 1: Please hear this. The chemist Dmitri Mendelev is said to
Speaker 1: have invented the modern periodic table in a dream where
Speaker 1: all the elements fell into place as required. Mendelev, a
Speaker 1: chemistry professor and an added player of the card game solitaire.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, had been attempting to clearly organize the elements,
Speaker 1: which at the time were grouped either by atomic weight
Speaker 1: or by common properties. However, in Solitaire cards are arranged
Speaker 1: by suit horizontally and also by number vertically, and after
Speaker 1: three days of NonStop attempts to invent the periodic table,
Speaker 1: mendeleevs said to have fallen asleep, whereupon he promptly dreamt
Speaker 1: its structure based on Solitaire.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 1: I also I didn't include this because it's been verified,
Speaker 1: but I also read that the modern sewing machine was
Speaker 1: supposedly inspired in a dream.
Speaker 2: Fascinating. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're going to end on a real damp
Speaker 1: squib here.
Speaker 2: Salesforce.
Speaker 1: The user interface of Salesforce, the widely used enterprise software
Speaker 1: platform founded in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: Was inspired by a dream of its co founder, Mark Benioff,
Speaker 2: who owns our former employer, well, not people, but he
Speaker 2: owns Time magazine. Now I didn't know that, okay.
Speaker 1: Benioff envisioned application interface resembling that of Amazon, which included
Speaker 1: labeled tabs. Benioff said that in his dream, quote, I
Speaker 1: could see this app that looked like Amazon, and it
Speaker 1: said Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, forecast reports at tabs. No one
Speaker 1: had ever built enterprise software quite.
Speaker 2: Like like that, that quite before. Wow, what a huge
Speaker 2: moment for him, You rich guy, What did you expect
Speaker 2: me to say? There?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just thought about all these like deeply moving pieces.
Speaker 2: Of art, or like the periodic table, or like so
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, oh yeah, the salesforce interfaced real cool story.
Speaker 2: What's your name? Doug? Bill? What was it Mark?
Speaker 1: Mark?
Speaker 2: No, Doug's better. As you meditate on that, we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with more too much information after these messages. Wow,
Speaker 2: things that didn't happen in dreams. A stay at the
Speaker 2: Fort Harrison Hotel in early May of what year, metthew
Speaker 2: sixty five, nineteen sixty five. Keith not really a fan
Speaker 2: of the song. He gave his jagger and as Mick
Speaker 2: would later say, I think Keith thought it was a
Speaker 2: bit basic. I don't think he really listened to it properly.
Speaker 2: He was too close to it and just felt like
Speaker 2: it was kind of a silly riff. Together, they posted
Speaker 2: up by the pool and Mick took shot at fleshing
Speaker 2: out the lyrics It was Born in Large Park. From
Speaker 2: the tensions of the tour, the crass commercialism of the
Speaker 2: loud TV ads came out in the line about the
Speaker 2: man on television telling him how white my shirts can be,
Speaker 2: but he can't be a man because he doesn't smoke
Speaker 2: the same cigarettes as me, a reference to the then
Speaker 2: ubiquitous Marble Marble cow Marvel marl Borough cowboy.
Speaker 1: Right, I have a fact I'd like to share go on,
Speaker 1: it's really just the name of the show. One of
Speaker 1: the original Marlborough Men, he was in ads in the fifties,
Speaker 1: Robert C. Norris. He never smoked, and after twelve years
Speaker 1: as the Marlboro Man, he quit the role to avoid
Speaker 1: influencing children, and he lived until age ninety in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, good for him. Yeah. Anyway, they have this
Speaker 2: aggression of youth so that they'd seen writing at their concert.
Speaker 2: The general frustrations that arise while touring related to women, sleeping, arrangements, women, alcohol, women.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest lyrical inspirations likely came from Bob Dylan,
Speaker 2: who's Bringing It All Back Home had Hit Shells earlier
Speaker 2: that year. A photo from the time even shows Jagger
Speaker 2: lounging pool side and clear water, intently reading the album's
Speaker 2: back cover. Dylan at the time was shaking up songwriting,
Speaker 2: showing that lyrics could be deeply personal, cryptic, and rooted
Speaker 2: in lived experience. Less like storyteller, you're more like overhearing
Speaker 2: a private joke you're not quite in on. It was
Speaker 2: a move borrowed from the beat poets, a modernist sleight
Speaker 2: of hand that made songs feel like puzzles. By keeping
Speaker 2: things elusive, Dylan encouraged listeners to come back again and again.
Speaker 2: After all, a few things are more intriguing than a
Speaker 2: rock star is half told anecdote, the kind of story
Speaker 2: you're left to finish in your own head. Accordingly, satisfaction
Speaker 2: central figure is a thinly veiled version of Jagger himself,
Speaker 2: a young man already famous but bracing for superstardom, railing
Speaker 2: against the growing pressures of fame, consumerism, and societal expectations.
Speaker 2: I said we weren't going to pontificate earlier. I know,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I would have read this, Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: It's less a traditional song than a defiant stance, a
Speaker 1: crystallization of Jagger's public persona and his way of moving
Speaker 1: through the world.
Speaker 2: The lyrics struck a nerve.
Speaker 1: Of the generation increasingly skeptical of authority in marketing, but
Speaker 1: beneath the sneer as a broader rebellion, a rejection of
Speaker 1: parental values, conventional wisdom, and the ever looming figure of
Speaker 1: capital t Capital am the man, a stand in for
Speaker 1: institutional control and discipline. It's the kind of attitude that,
Speaker 1: as later pop culture entities like School of Rock would
Speaker 1: argue feels like a generational mission resist at all costs.
Speaker 1: The fundamental dichotomy of the Stones, these you know, middle
Speaker 1: class white guys from England, can be summed up in
Speaker 1: the image of them writing this anti consumerist the Hell
Speaker 1: with the Man tirade while sitting around the swimming pool
Speaker 1: out of Florida hotel.
Speaker 2: That they are not paying for hypocrisy. Good for them.
Speaker 1: When I asked how he was able to write songs
Speaker 1: that connected so strongly to the zeitgeist, Jagger would later
Speaker 1: tell journalist Rich Cohen, It's about being a social animal.
Speaker 2: We're in an ant hill. We've got these antennas, I will.
Speaker 1: Say Jagger, having gone through like sixty hours of tapes
Speaker 1: with The Stones from nineteen seventy two for that podcast
Speaker 1: I worked on Jagger divorced from like how he looks
Speaker 1: at how he presents himself when you just hear his words.
Speaker 2: Not a very articulate guy. I don't I've never thought
Speaker 2: he was a good lyricist. I mean, like, do people
Speaker 2: like get rolling Stone arm tattoos or like that's a
Speaker 2: good point. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: start me up. I got start me up and the
Speaker 2: name of my mom because you know, and then the
Speaker 2: day that I was born, because that's when she started
Speaker 2: me up. So wow, my rolling Stone tattoo the lips there,
Speaker 2: that's true. Yeah, yeah, I guess you could. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think of other sympathy for the Devil's pretty good.
Speaker 2: That's like probably one of the few that I would
Speaker 2: give him credit for actually being a good song. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's such an old trope, you know, I know,
Speaker 2: but it's like, but but you know, how many people
Speaker 2: had read Master and Margarita at that point, or like
Speaker 2: had gotten these different you know, gotten any like even
Speaker 2: stringing something as a narrative together like that, Like that's
Speaker 2: like the idea of like the Eternal Warrior or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, we wouldn't even get that until years later
Speaker 2: with Rolling the Heads and Headless Thompson Gunner, Wow, Warren and
Speaker 2: by Warren. Yeah, I'll give him that one. What else
Speaker 2: would I give him? That's okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's okay.
Speaker 2: Moonlight Mile, it's kind of got some nice imagery, I
Speaker 2: guess Wild Horses, Uh well, I THNK.
Speaker 1: Graham Parsons ghost write a lot of that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was up.
Speaker 1: I was touring the hard rock vaults many years ago,
Speaker 1: and the head archivist became a friend of mine, and
Speaker 1: he was a really brilliant guy.
Speaker 2: He's a really brilliant guy.
Speaker 1: And one of the things he was most excited to
Speaker 1: show me was Grand Parsons Diaries, in which he had
Speaker 1: written an early version of Wild Horses and and he
Speaker 1: was very excitedly saying, you know, you don't you understand,
Speaker 1: like this change is rock history. This is like shows
Speaker 1: proves because Graham Parsons, the famous country rock pioneer, was
Speaker 1: a very close friend of Keith Richards before before he
Speaker 1: died of a heroin overdose and his body stolen and
Speaker 1: set on fire.
Speaker 2: But that's another episode.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was always theorized that Graham Parsons played
Speaker 1: a role in writing that song, but this was like
Speaker 1: pretty definitive proof that he he wrote a great deal
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm not giving that one to Mick or Keith.
Speaker 1: That's fairy.
Speaker 2: I always liked.
Speaker 1: The lyrics, probably for the same reason of like the
Speaker 1: Dylan role that we talked about earlier, where it feels
Speaker 1: like you're in like a joke that you're not you're
Speaker 1: hearing a joke you're not in on. I always liked
Speaker 1: you can't always get what you want, just because it
Speaker 1: was so specific. It scans so well, but I very
Speaker 1: rarely knew what any of it meant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. That's just kind of generic to me,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe fitting the specific definition you're talking about. I
Speaker 2: kind of I would always get that from like play
Speaker 2: with Fire. It's just like, what for you people talking
Speaker 2: about all of these different locations and names in England,
Speaker 2: anything else good that they've written, Torn and Freed has
Speaker 2: kind of a oh yeah, nice narrative to it. Got
Speaker 2: a session guitarist coat. That's it. I don't feel like
Speaker 2: talking about this any much longer. Okay, So and you.
Speaker 1: Know what, that's okay, that's okay.
Speaker 2: If you find one, get back to me.
Speaker 1: Well, now, I'd like to talk about the Fort Harrison
Speaker 1: Hotel where the stones were staying Jordan.
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 1: The fact that it's the origin of one of the
Speaker 1: most iconic rock songs in history. We more than enough
Speaker 1: to put the Fort Harrison Hotel on the Florida Registry
Speaker 1: of Historic Sites, and yet, and yet there's so much
Speaker 1: more of the history of this building is so much weirder.
Speaker 1: It was built in nineteen twenty six and managed by
Speaker 1: Ransom Olds, incredibly named Ransom Olds, the namesake of the
Speaker 1: Oldsmobile and to markets opening the Daredevil, Henry Rowland climbed
Speaker 1: the exterior in a blindfold.
Speaker 2: Which is pretty bad ass.
Speaker 1: And for a time it's where the Philadelphia Phillies would
Speaker 1: stay when they were doing spring training in Clearwater. Okay,
Speaker 1: but then, but then, but then strap in, folks. The
Speaker 1: building was later purchased by the Church of Scientology and
Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy five it served as the main building
Speaker 1: of the church's chief campus in.
Speaker 2: Clearwater where they do nothing wrong, called flag Land Base.
Speaker 2: It must be said, I don't want them around me
Speaker 2: in my house. Yes, they've done nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: Ever, Clearwater is basically like the Washington d C.
Speaker 2: Of Scientology.
Speaker 1: So this hotel where the Stones wrote Satisfaction is essentially
Speaker 1: the White House of Scientology. I think I have that right.
Speaker 1: If I don't, I'm sure I will hear. Is that weird?
Speaker 2: That is a horrifying thing to you think of as
Speaker 2: something that exists. That's really weird. Washington d C. Of
Speaker 2: Scientology being in Clearwater, Florida.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing It might have been in the Going
Speaker 1: Cleared Alex Gibney documentary on HBO from a maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe a decade ago now. I think I
Speaker 1: remember hearing that they've basically slowly been buying up real
Speaker 1: estate and clear water for I mean fifty years now. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's been kind of their home base. I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure totally why it might be. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: might be for tax reasons, but they don't need to
Speaker 1: worry about that, per Wikipedia, which for legal reasons I
Speaker 1: want to read from directly. The Fort Harrison Hotel has
Speaker 1: been the site of at least three suspicious deaths since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, when scientology took over the premises, most
Speaker 1: notably the death of Lisa McPherson, who died on December fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, after spending seventeen days in room one
Speaker 1: seven to four of.
Speaker 2: The building, or maybe she didn't.
Speaker 1: The official reported cause of death was a blood clot
Speaker 1: cause by dehydration and bed rest.
Speaker 2: She rested to death. Oh my God, the dream.
Speaker 1: The church later challenged the finding of the autopsy in
Speaker 1: court years before. In February nineteen eighty, a scientologist named
Speaker 1: Josephus A. Havinith was found dead at the Fort Harrison Hotel.
Speaker 1: He was discovered in a bathtub filled with water hot
Speaker 1: enough to have burned his skin off. Oh this is
Speaker 1: still a quote from Wikipedia. By the way, the official
Speaker 1: reported cause of death was drowning, although the coroner noted
Speaker 1: that when he was found Haneth's head was not submerged.
Speaker 1: In August nineteen eighty eight, scientologist Hubert Faff died of
Speaker 1: a seizure in the Fort Harrison Hotel. He had recently
Speaker 1: stopped taking his seizure medication in favor of a vitamin program.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, it's.
Speaker 1: Worth noting that in nineteen ninety seven, this is still
Speaker 1: a quote. Clearwater Police received over one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: emergency calls from the Fort Harrison Hotel all but they
Speaker 1: were denied entry into the hotel by Scientology security. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more, you all can google it yourselves.
Speaker 2: And get on the same watch list. Jordan is now fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the vibes in that place must be rancid,
Speaker 1: because I do believe there is something vaguely satanic about
Speaker 1: the stones.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, like the Robert Johnson continuum. Yeah. Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, oh yeah, you're gonna have you're gonna have something,
Speaker 1: you have some satan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, though, I feel
Speaker 2: like I feel like British blues guitarists would be like
Speaker 2: better if they had figured out how to sell their souls.
Speaker 1: You know. I think it's the conversion rate from the
Speaker 1: pounds to souls.
Speaker 2: Oh it just doesn't they get like a yeah, they
Speaker 2: get like a discounted, they get guitar skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the tariffs you know in this economy.
Speaker 1: Selling my soul.
Speaker 2: That's a terrible that's a terrible bit son.
Speaker 1: Oh well, the non Glimmer twin rolling Stones aka the
Speaker 1: not as good ones got their first satisfied. Yes, they
Speaker 1: are very much the rest man. Which one's Gilligan in
Speaker 1: which island's a skipper? I mean, Keith is probably Gilligan
Speaker 1: and the skipper's probably mixed.
Speaker 2: Right, this is your area of expertise. Sure, no it's not, Yes,
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: Which one seems like more of a dumb ass and
Speaker 1: which one seems more like an uptight control free I mean, oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean okay, but I think Jagger, honestly, I
Speaker 2: think Jagger by the like certainly in an exile and
Speaker 2: stuff was just flying in to do his vocals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that was Keith's. But that was like the
Speaker 1: one time Keith was in control divers Yeah pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually really the only time.
Speaker 2: I think, uh, Mick is mary Anne. Do you know
Speaker 2: thay they used to do the rest of the Stones
Speaker 2: used to call him debor have you ever heard that?
Speaker 2: That sounds familiar?
Speaker 1: But I thought that was like a like an Elton
Speaker 1: John Freddie Mercury, like how they all or Rod Stewart
Speaker 1: where they all called each other like drag names essentially.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not sure who was that. I thought they
Speaker 2: were just making fun of him because he was, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of a ponce. That's the perfect word. That's the
Speaker 2: perfect word.
Speaker 1: Yes, Now I should have brushed up on that Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone show. I did, because I remember there were a
Speaker 1: lot of really funny interpersonal dynamics because yeah, they they
Speaker 1: were messy, messy people. They were mesches, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 1: they were.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You gotta put in a proper plug for that show.
Speaker 1: I'll put it in the episode description if anyone's to
Speaker 1: hear fourteen or fifteen hours about a single Rolling Stones tour.
Speaker 1: Although we did do like two episodes about them recording
Speaker 1: exile on Main Street, and those are pretty good, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah they are. Those are the ones I listened to. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's okay.
Speaker 1: So yes, the non Glimmer Twins Rolling Stones got their
Speaker 1: first listen to Satisfaction in their hotel rooms at.
Speaker 2: The Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida.
Speaker 1: At this stage, Satisfaction was a folky acoustic dirge. Dirge
Speaker 1: is that inherently like pejorative. There's never it's never like
Speaker 1: a positive I think.
Speaker 2: So there's very many you don't Yeah, you typically don't
Speaker 2: hear about a lot of like upbeat dirges. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sure technically there are some in like the history
Speaker 2: of Orion, yeah, or just like really slow bock pieces there.
Speaker 2: Even though they were about death, it's probably like considered
Speaker 2: like a laudatory thing, yeah, because it's like, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to be together again. It's a crocish by the way,
Speaker 2: you just were on the ground.
Speaker 1: So neither Mick nor Keith saw much potential in this
Speaker 1: nascent version of Satisfaction as a single, and certainly not
Speaker 1: a hit. Bill Wyman, the bass player for the Stones,
Speaker 1: wrote Keith's instinct must have told him it was worth
Speaker 1: some effort, though, because he kept working on it. On
Speaker 1: May tenth, four days after completing the lyrics, the band
Speaker 1: ventured to Chess Records during their tour stop in Chicago.
Speaker 1: We mentioned this earlier for Blues Officionados from Britain. This
Speaker 1: was very much like visiting the Holy Land. This is
Speaker 1: the room where Muddy Waters had laid down his thunderous riffs.
Speaker 1: Holland Wolf growled into the mic, and Chuck Berry reshaped
Speaker 1: rhythm and blues into something electric and new. And it
Speaker 1: was here, by their idol's ghosts, that The Stones first
Speaker 1: attempted to capture satisfaction on tape and failed, and failed
Speaker 1: failed miserably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't go well.
Speaker 1: It was at the end of a nine hour session
Speaker 1: where they cut the songs try Me, That's how Strong
Speaker 1: My Love Is, the under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man,
Speaker 1: and Mercy Mercy.
Speaker 2: Which one of those song titles does not belong. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what was that other one? Was that like an attempt
Speaker 2: at doing like a Kinks title?
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually pretty much. Yeah, the under Assistant West Coast
Speaker 1: Promotion Man, that's exactly. Yeah, you know, it's a good song,
Speaker 1: though Yeah manager producer Andrew loug Oldham later described this
Speaker 1: early version of Satisfaction as quote.
Speaker 2: Acoustic wayward Harmonica Leyden.
Speaker 1: It just would not do the hook registered as marginal
Speaker 1: to nout What does knaut mean?
Speaker 2: Naw T never seen that word. Oh that's an angler,
Speaker 2: that's like I think that like that like but w
Speaker 2: T I think maybe the it's like Yorkshire dialect.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, so like non existent basically yes, Ok. Jagger
Speaker 1: and Richards were very nearly ready to abandon the song altogether,
Speaker 1: but Oldham urged them to keep after it. They try
Speaker 1: to get a few days later, when the tour brought
Speaker 1: them to Los Angeles, they were hold up at RCA
Speaker 1: Studios with sound enginior David Hassinger and Phil Spector arranger
Speaker 1: Jack Nasch. Jack would prove crucial for coming up with
Speaker 1: the arrangement of the song that we Know on Love.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a legend in Stone circles. I think
Speaker 1: he did did we do the arrangements for can Always
Speaker 1: Give You One? And maybe a street fighting man. He
Speaker 1: definitely stayed involved with the Stones for a long time.
Speaker 1: In addition to working with Neil Young Yeah on his
Speaker 1: new Young album some of Buffalo Springfield too. I think
Speaker 1: the beautiful strings for Expecting to Fly we're done by him.
Speaker 1: I want to say, real, he's one of the few
Speaker 1: Wall of Sound acolytes that really transcended the early sixties
Speaker 1: girl group phil Spector stuff and actually like did interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: I think he did the soundtrack to one flu of
Speaker 1: the Cougo's Nest too, with the rob of Native American instrumentation.
Speaker 1: And I want to say he wrote low lifts us
Speaker 1: up where we belong? I think hmm. Anyway, So Jack Niche,
Speaker 1: for all of his arrangement prowess, he would prove crucial
Speaker 1: for coming up with the arrangement for satisfaction that made
Speaker 1: it into the song that we now hold So dear
Speaker 1: Jack Niche began the sessions by pounding out a new faster,
Speaker 1: aggressive tempo on the piano. Better faster or stronger, younger, younger, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was younger. Though the piano part was removed
Speaker 1: from the final track, Andrew liul Golden, the producer, would
Speaker 1: claim this essentially established the groove of the song. And
Speaker 1: Jack also plays the tambourine, which remained on the final recording,
Speaker 1: which is pretty great. Like as far as tambourine parts go.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty iconic one, you.
Speaker 2: Know, tambourin U tambourine is really a secret weapon. It
Speaker 2: had a lot of great songs. That's why the one
Speaker 2: thing that Brian Jonestown Massacre did right was have a
Speaker 2: guy whose sole job was to play tambourine.
Speaker 1: I mean the Monkeys did too, but no, well it's
Speaker 1: Stevie Diggs play guitar on stage.
Speaker 2: But she did play. I mean she played tambourine, but
Speaker 2: she Okay, greatest tambourinists the guys on town, like any
Speaker 2: black person who grew up in church, not Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Like great tambourine playing is an art, just
Speaker 2: putting your lead singer out there with something listlessly shake
Speaker 2: because otherwise they feel like they aren't doing anything, which
Speaker 2: is true. That's an entirely different matter. That's a whole
Speaker 2: different color.
Speaker 1: How did your I said that when I was in
Speaker 1: the was it of oz playing in high school?
Speaker 2: Is my line? I know you've told us that. I
Speaker 2: think it's on record. It is.
Speaker 1: You were when we were in your band, there were
Speaker 1: sometimes when you weren't playing guitar up front and you
Speaker 1: were just lead singer. Yeah, how was that like for you?
Speaker 1: Did you have a preference? Seems stressful to like not
Speaker 1: have a thing.
Speaker 2: No, because I was just running around half the time.
Speaker 2: I did pick up tambourine because the only thing I
Speaker 2: can do is the double timeline, and I would often
Speaker 2: routinely peel vast swaths of my palm skin. I remember that,
Speaker 2: I do remember well doing that. So it's it's a
Speaker 2: hard it's a it's a get. You've got to beat
Speaker 2: the out of your hand with it. It's a tricky instrument.
Speaker 2: But there's really I mean, like if you listen to
Speaker 2: those early if you find like the stems of those
Speaker 2: Motown recordings, Yeah, here like actual like church gospel inspired
Speaker 2: tambourine playing. That is just truly wonderful. So don't listen
Speaker 2: to Stevie Nicks for your tambo playing. Sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: young women out there.
Speaker 1: So they finally have the groove established for Satisfaction, Mick
Speaker 1: got his vocals in one take, but the backing track
Speaker 1: took much more.
Speaker 2: Time to evolve.
Speaker 1: Andrew lou Goldham will to compare this early version of
Speaker 1: Satisfaction to the song walk Right In by the folk
Speaker 1: pop collective The rooftop singers.
Speaker 2: It called for striped shirts, he.
Speaker 1: Said, real cream, basketball slacks and a timeout in other words,
Speaker 1: no grit. In the early morning of May twelfth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, at the end of a fourteen hour session,
Speaker 1: Charlie Watts, drummer for the Stones, switched the tempo. After
Speaker 1: trying all sorts of different rhythmic accompaniments.
Speaker 2: Charlie branded on the simplest one.
Speaker 1: Which he borrowed from Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman.
Speaker 2: And there was another motown song, Uptight Everything's all right,
Speaker 2: no No.
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder borrowed that from the Stones song Oh interesting, okay,
Speaker 1: which is why when Stevie Wonder went out with the
Speaker 1: Stones on their nineteen seventy two tour as their opening act,
Speaker 1: he would come out on stage when they did Satisfaction
Speaker 1: and sometimes they would do a medley that went between
Speaker 1: Uptight and sa which if you could find his bootlegs
Speaker 1: of that on YouTube, Damn, I mean The Stones with
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder rules, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, didn't he also get booed off stage at a
Speaker 2: lot of those shows because people were racist.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of the shows, actually not really, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that he didn't get booed. I think the
Speaker 1: closest that they came was in Boston because the Stones
Speaker 1: had gotten arrested in Rhode Island and like hours before
Speaker 1: the show was supposed to begin, and the show went
Speaker 1: forward thinking that they would get out of jail in time,
Speaker 1: and they weren't, And so they were in jail when
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder was as their opening act was on stage,
Speaker 1: and they were basically just like stretch, stretch, after god
Speaker 1: knows how long on stage. The audience was like, all right,
Speaker 1: we get it, Now where's the Stones, And then they
Speaker 1: started getting hostile and then see.
Speaker 2: Right before the busing stuff, Yeah, they don't really do
Speaker 2: too well with that.
Speaker 1: No, no, So Stevie was like, I don't need this
Speaker 1: some Stevie Wonder, so he left the stage, and then
Speaker 1: people with Boston just just it was in the summer too.
Speaker 1: They're just cooking in the old garden waiting for the
Speaker 1: Stones to come. They had to get the mayor of
Speaker 1: Boston to put in a personal appeal to the governor
Speaker 1: of Rhode Island. They're like, please, we're gonna have a riot.
Speaker 1: My city's already on fire because of various I forget
Speaker 1: which specific racially motivated riot for at that moment, but
Speaker 1: just too many to keep seriously. Yeah, in the early
Speaker 1: to mid seventies. Yeah, so I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: the closest to Stevie ever being blewed God forbid. So Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: when drummer Charlie Watts hit upon the extremely steady rock Solid,
Speaker 1: he says, hoping that you don't correct him. Uh, pretty woman.
Speaker 2: Rip.
Speaker 1: That's when things began to fall into place.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't have my phone over here. Oh no
Speaker 2: I do. Let's see. Let's be about No, I'm going
Speaker 2: to see. I'm going to see if the if satisfaction
Speaker 2: ends at the same tempo. Oh, that's interesting. Like every
Speaker 2: other Rolling Stone song, it in fact speeds up by
Speaker 2: anywhere from five to ten clicks. All right, we're starting
Speaker 2: off in between around one thirty four, one thirty six. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was I was wrong. Good credit to Charlie stays
Speaker 2: within a couple beats the whole time. Good for him,
Speaker 2: do it his job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one job, alrip Charlie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would have hated or like ri Ip Charlie,
Speaker 2: you would have hated five year olds who can play
Speaker 2: drums better than your own TikTok oh kim, all these
Speaker 2: British drummers who were like, I'm really jazz drummer? Like,
Speaker 2: are you deaf? Do you hear the difference between what
Speaker 2: you play and what black people play? Like you get
Speaker 2: the out of here. You're not a jazz drummer. You're
Speaker 2: a toddler. You've wandered into a room a conversation. You
Speaker 2: have absolutely no context for claiming that you are. You
Speaker 2: have facility in this fat here?
Speaker 1: Where were we that Walter subject talk?
Speaker 2: Some of it was a bit of big lebousek. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to note I mentioned this earlier as
Speaker 1: a fourteen hour session that yielded satisfaction off of Stephen Davis,
Speaker 1: who probably most famous for writing the legendary led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: ton Hammer of the Gods. In his book Old Gods
Speaker 1: Almost Dead about the Rolling Stones, says that La Sceinsters
Speaker 1: brought cocaine to the session, a first in Stone's history. Oh,
Speaker 1: he's kind of he's kind of famously sillacious and not
Speaker 1: always the most trustworthy. But if this is true, it
Speaker 1: certainly would not be the last session that cocaine was
Speaker 1: used at for the Stones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's quite funny, because I wonder if
Speaker 2: you can then chart Charlie's rushing in real time. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, following the introduction of cocaine into his particular toxology. Yes,
Speaker 2: good for him.
Speaker 1: Well, the thick enough the guitar riff, with Keith already
Speaker 1: knew was the heart of the song. He dispatched ancillary
Speaker 1: Stone Ian Stewart, who honestly deserves an episode of his own,
Speaker 1: to a nearby music store Wallack's Music City to find
Speaker 1: something that could do the trick. We should we should
Speaker 1: talk about Ian Stewart for a second. In Stewart was
Speaker 1: original Rolling Stone. The Rolling Stones originally had six members.
Speaker 1: He was the piano and when Andrew loul Goldham came
Speaker 1: into the picture to be the Stones manager, he basically
Speaker 1: was like, six people's too many for a band. Five
Speaker 1: is already kind of pushing it, and you don't look
Speaker 1: like the others. Ian was like, I want to say,
Speaker 1: like ten years older than the other guys, and like
Speaker 1: very square jawed, and like he just looks like like
Speaker 1: a trucker. Basically, he's like, you don't look the part.
Speaker 1: You are no longer a stone. We're gonna find like
Speaker 1: roady jobs for you to do. He's a big guy
Speaker 1: and you can like back them on stage on piano
Speaker 1: if you want, but like you're not a stone. And
Speaker 1: instead of basically saying go to hell, he was like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I love these guys.
Speaker 2: And like I just went to hang out with my mates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like make a not a huge living, but
Speaker 1: a decent living, like lugging their stuff around and like
Speaker 1: sometimes playing ogi wiggie piano on stage from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he was sent to get something for Keith
Speaker 1: at this music store to make the guitar riffs sound thicker.
Speaker 1: This was the early days of guitar pedals, and he
Speaker 1: came back with something called a Gibson Maestro buzz box,
Speaker 1: which distorted Keith's guitar. Keith later told Guitar Player Magazine
Speaker 1: it was a miracle. I was screaming for more distortion.
Speaker 1: This rift's really got a hang hard and long. That
Speaker 1: was just like constant thing he would say during the session.
Speaker 1: This riffs got a hang hard and long. We burnt
Speaker 1: the amps up and turned everything up, and it still
Speaker 1: wasn't right. And then Ian Stuart ran around the corner
Speaker 1: to Wallack's Music City or something and came around with
Speaker 1: a distortion box. Try this. It was as offhand as that.
Speaker 1: It was just from nowhere. I never really got into
Speaker 1: the thing after that either. It had very limited use,
Speaker 1: but it was just right for the song, and Keith
Speaker 1: initially envisioned redoing the track later with a horn section
Speaker 1: playing this riff. He said, this was just a little
Speaker 1: sketch because to my mind, the fuzz tone was really
Speaker 1: there to denote what the horns would be doing, which
Speaker 1: is really interesting now, Heigel, Yes, I know, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at you like a bo that's been pulled back.
Speaker 2: I've trained my whole life for this.
Speaker 1: Please, I want you to tell us about guitar pedals.
Speaker 2: Well, specifically, we're going to hone in on just the
Speaker 2: overall concept of distortion in general and how that's been
Speaker 2: applied to guitar historically, not only in this song, but
Speaker 2: in many others. I'm giving you a playlist and you
Speaker 2: will learn today. So many people, including Keith himself in
Speaker 2: his own book, which is his right, have claimed that
Speaker 2: his use of the Maestro f Z one fuzz tone
Speaker 2: as the first recorded use of fuzz in history. That
Speaker 2: is incorrect, as we will see. But first let's figure
Speaker 2: out what differentiates fuzz from distortion and overdrive, which are
Speaker 2: three terms that you will constantly hear when you're talking
Speaker 2: about guitar music, specifically recorded electric guitar. So there are
Speaker 2: obviously many ways looking at the concept just distortion, but
Speaker 2: in pure audio terms, a great working definition of it
Speaker 2: is the falsified reproduction of an audio signal caused by
Speaker 2: change in the original signals waveform. So, as is fairly
Speaker 2: common knowledge, sounds travel via waves and in a wave
Speaker 2: when you see this surrendered horizontally over a period of time,
Speaker 2: there are natural peaks and valleys within that waveform. Guitar
Speaker 2: sounds are transformed when either amps just power amps, or
Speaker 2: tubes within those amps, or pedals or pre amps any
Speaker 2: kind of other signal is added to the guitar's original tone,
Speaker 2: and that changes the waveform it pushes them to. Clip
Speaker 2: Clipping is generally considered a negative thing because that means
Speaker 2: you're overloading a particular I guess a particular jack or
Speaker 2: socket or sound sources ability to process sound cleanly. But
Speaker 2: you can use soft and hard clipping before it gets
Speaker 2: truly distorted for a pleasing effect, which people have termed overdrive,
Speaker 2: and then is kind of slightly separate from that, and
Speaker 2: then at the next one is fuzz, and fuzz is
Speaker 2: the hardest form of clipping because what it does is
Speaker 2: just essentially clips off the peaks and the valleys from
Speaker 2: a guitar signal, and it literally turns the waveform into
Speaker 2: a square shape. So that's why you hear a lot
Speaker 2: of fuzz guitar and some synthesizers will sound the same
Speaker 2: because synthesizers also use square wave to give their signals shapes.
Speaker 2: So distortion changes the harmonic content of a note by
Speaker 2: adding new frequencies. Every note has what's called a fundamental,
Speaker 2: or the pure undistorted pitch of whatever the sound is.
Speaker 2: Because the way sound works, you can hear different multiples
Speaker 2: of overtones of any fundamental on different instruments. For example,
Speaker 2: if you go into a piano and jam a C chord,
Speaker 2: you know, you can often hear the with a g
Speaker 2: ringing separately. You can also hear this on stringed instruments
Speaker 2: occasionally even saxophones if people are overblowing and doing and
Speaker 2: generating these these overtones.
Speaker 1: Vocals too, sometimes like people like David Lee Roth and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, although I'm not sure if his whistle tones
Speaker 2: count as distortion, or as they count as two tones,
Speaker 2: you know. Anyway, So the quick way of getting a
Speaker 2: bunch more overtones onto a signal and thus make it
Speaker 2: sound more pleasing. People talk about it sounding fuller or
Speaker 2: more gleaming and bright. Carl Santana, I think has called it, like,
Speaker 2: you know, the an entire new palette of sounds building
Speaker 2: onto the original in terms of painting colors. So you
Speaker 2: can either turn your stuff up real loud, which is
Speaker 2: why stuff sounds better loud. Stuff does sound better loud always,
Speaker 2: that's the rule. And so there's an invisible space at
Speaker 2: the top and bottom of every waveform between the absolute
Speaker 2: top level that any source is capable of generating in
Speaker 2: terms of volume and those waveforms, and the space in
Speaker 2: between is called headroom. So you have headroom until you
Speaker 2: max out the volume, and then you run out of
Speaker 2: headroom and your thing is running it dimed, is what
Speaker 2: you know. You call it running into the red. Everything's
Speaker 2: turned up to ten. You know, that's the stereotypical like, oh,
Speaker 2: this would turn it up two eleven, Like that's what
Speaker 2: you're talking about. So the bigger you make your waveform
Speaker 2: relative to the headroom the more distorted your signal becomes,
Speaker 2: and lightly if you're pushing it lightly into the headroom,
Speaker 2: you get what's called natural overdrive. You might also hear
Speaker 2: people call this tube overdrive because before it was in pedals,
Speaker 2: it was from actually saturating the power tubes of the
Speaker 2: amp and pushing that through the speaker, and everything from
Speaker 2: speaker cone to the kind of tubes you use in
Speaker 2: the power amp section effect that natural overdrive. So all
Speaker 2: of these sounds, though, were done prior to satisfaction. One
Speaker 2: of the earliest examples of like an overdriven dirty guitar
Speaker 2: is actually from a Western swing record called Bob Will's
Speaker 2: Boogie that is from nineteen forty six, though it is
Speaker 2: more likely that that song, with the studio technology at
Speaker 2: the time, would have been overdriven through a solid state
Speaker 2: amplifier rather than a twoe band. A couple years later,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine, Gory Carter recorded Rockaway, which has some
Speaker 2: gnarly disorted guitar tone and also basically the Chuck Berry
Speaker 2: riff no no no no no no no no no
Speaker 2: no no no, years before Chuck Berry played it. However,
Speaker 2: generally agreed upon first rock and roll song ever recorded,
Speaker 2: is Rocket eighty eight in nineteen fifty one that amp
Speaker 2: achieved its tone simply by being damaged in some unspecified way.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen fifty three, James Cotton releases a song
Speaker 2: called Cotton Crop Blues, and the guitarist on there is
Speaker 2: a guy named Pat Hare. You can hear him use
Speaker 2: power chords about when is this fifty three? About five
Speaker 2: years before link Ray is credited with inventing the power
Speaker 2: chord on rumble powerchord on electric guitar anyway. Fun fact
Speaker 2: after this recording Hair, the next thing he recorded in
Speaker 2: the studio was a version of a nineteen forties blues
Speaker 2: song delightfully titled I'm going to Murder my Baby. And
Speaker 2: then nine years later he did just that, shooting his
Speaker 2: girlfriend in Minneapolis, and the policeman who came to investigate
Speaker 2: this was in this Member of nineteen sixty three. He
Speaker 2: pleaded guilty and died in prison in nineteen eighty. The
Speaker 2: next popular song you might have heard destroyed guitar on
Speaker 2: was by Johnny Burnett and the Rock and Roll trios
Speaker 2: Train Kept a Roll in a nineteen fifty six This
Speaker 2: happened when guitarist Paul Burlison deliberately loosened the tubes in
Speaker 2: his amps. When you have your tubes aren't fitted correctly
Speaker 2: into the amp, they will not produce enough power and
Speaker 2: you can get what's called a sag like a sag
Speaker 2: voltage effect. There are pedals that replicate this, this idea
Speaker 2: of like a pedal running out of something running out
Speaker 2: of power, and that's when you get sort of those
Speaker 2: fuzz effects. They just kind of trail off, they kind
Speaker 2: of fizzle out, the idea being that like it's replicating
Speaker 2: the sound of something not having enough power. But there
Speaker 2: were early attempts at making discrete fuzzboxes for this purpose.
Speaker 2: None other than Lee Hazelwood our boy Lee hazel would
Speaker 2: Love commissioned an unnamed radio technician to develop a fuzzbox
Speaker 2: for his use in the studio and Wrecking Crew guitarist
Speaker 2: Al Casey was one of the first guys to be
Speaker 2: recorded using it on a contract record by Sanford Clark.
Speaker 2: Name of that song is go On Home in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty six. Two years later, Link Ray just jabbed a
Speaker 2: pencil into the speaker cone of his amplifier to achieve
Speaker 2: the sound on Rumble is Menacing nineteen fifty eight. Instrumental.
Speaker 2: Brady Martin, who is the other guitarist on that Johnny
Speaker 2: Burnett session, replicated the trick on a Marty Robins song
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one's Don't Worry. That's one of those high
Speaker 2: profile songs to use this sound thus far. Martin himself
Speaker 2: was so entranced by the sound that he recorded his
Speaker 2: own instrumental using the trick to record a track that
Speaker 2: he simply called the Fuzz and may have earned its
Speaker 2: popular title that came out in nineteen sixty one. One.
Speaker 2: One of the true stars of the fuzzbox technology at
Speaker 2: this time was a pedal steel player named Red Rhodes.
Speaker 2: This guy's kind of famous in weird circles. He was
Speaker 2: a prime collaborator of is it Mickey? Which monkey hung
Speaker 2: out with him? Nesmyth?
Speaker 1: It must have been Nesmuth because Nesmuth was more of
Speaker 1: a country guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Red Rhodes, also a bit of a tinkerer,
Speaker 2: built his own fuzzbox. Several of them actually loaned one
Speaker 2: out to another wrecking Crew player, Billy Strange, who used
Speaker 2: it on of all things, and Margaret's I Just Don't
Speaker 2: Understand in nineteen sixty one. So Red was he built
Speaker 2: another one of these and sold them to the Ventures.
Speaker 2: They came to him in nineteen sixty two asking for
Speaker 2: one of these fuzzboxes, and then they quickly put its
Speaker 2: use on their song two hundred pounds B Great Size, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sounds like what it is. Perhaps the most enduring a
Speaker 2: proto metal guitar tone came courtesy of The Kinks Dave Davies,
Speaker 2: who copied link Ras approach by slicing up his amp's
Speaker 2: speaker cone with a razorblade for their nineteen sixty four
Speaker 2: hit You Really Got Me.
Speaker 1: Fuzz.
Speaker 2: Of the three distortion types, sounds the gnarliest, and that
Speaker 2: is because most fuzz circuits in pedals utilized transistors that
Speaker 2: have a lower fidelity sound and add more harmonics into
Speaker 2: the signal as the waveform becomes more squared. So not
Speaker 2: only is it reducing and clipping the size of the waveform,
Speaker 2: but it is also adding more and more harmonics into it,
Speaker 2: which is why they sound generally very muddy and disgusting.
Speaker 2: And those transistors are germanium, which, as we noted early
Speaker 2: we're using Keith's Phillips tape recorder. Germanium transistors have a
Speaker 2: smoother tone profile. Silicone transistors are more aggressive and bright,
Speaker 2: and so to this day you will see guitar pedal
Speaker 2: builders differentiating or even providing multiple modes on their pedals
Speaker 2: of which kind of transistor you can use. There is
Speaker 2: little disagreement though, however, over who introduced the first commercially
Speaker 2: available fuzz pedal. That is the venerable guitar maker Gibson,
Speaker 2: who released the aforementioned f Z one fuzz tone in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two through their subsidiary Maestro. Now the product
Speaker 2: was an actual invention of recording engineer Glenn Snoddy with
Speaker 2: D's and another radio engineer, Revis V. Hobbes. They sold
Speaker 2: their idea for the circuit to Gibson, but they did
Speaker 2: get the patent on it, I believe, and the FZ
Speaker 2: one fuzz tone dropped in nineteen sixty two, containing a
Speaker 2: three transistor circuit using RCA two N two seven zero
Speaker 2: germanium transistors. This is all germane to guitar nerds, because
Speaker 2: people are literally still looking up dead stock RCA two
Speaker 2: nd two seventy germanium transistors to use in there Maestro
Speaker 2: FZ one fuzz tone copies. But the thing was designed
Speaker 2: multiple times. Funnily enough, a subsequent redesign of this pedal
Speaker 2: was done by Robert mog of all people, so not
Speaker 2: only did he create the most iconic synthesizers of all time,
Speaker 2: he had a hand in redesigning the first commercial fuzz pedal.
Speaker 1: These pedals must be I mean, I'm on eBay right now,
Speaker 1: going for you know, close to one thousand dollars these
Speaker 1: vintage ones.
Speaker 2: It's funny because Seth Applebaum of the Ghost Funk Orchestra,
Speaker 2: who provided our show with its theme song, has a
Speaker 2: tone bender, which was another one of these early fuzz things.
Speaker 2: And not only is it the size of an NBA
Speaker 2: player's shoe, but it is just so finicky that I
Speaker 2: think he played it on like one show and then
Speaker 2: quickly pulled it off the board and replaced it with
Speaker 2: something newer. So early guitar pedals were usually made without
Speaker 2: size as a factor, because nobody could have foreseen that
Speaker 2: one day, thirty years, forty years. However, in the future,
Speaker 2: people were gonna have pedal boards with like twenty pedals
Speaker 2: on them, and silence was also not a virtue with
Speaker 2: the stiff action of these switches. So indeed, Richard's f
Speaker 2: Z one appears on satisfaction in not just its tone,
Speaker 2: but in the audible click that the pedal makes when
Speaker 2: he turns it on. The best part, he turns it
Speaker 2: off for the verse, and right before the chorus backs
Speaker 2: in he turns it on, and around thirty five seconds
Speaker 2: in you can hear a very audible mechanical click on
Speaker 2: the master track.
Speaker 1: I always thought that was like a dead note on
Speaker 1: his guitar that he was doing intentionally.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite part of the song. No, it's one
Speaker 2: of my favorite kind of things that get left in
Speaker 2: and become sort of the grain of the song, Like
Speaker 2: the crazy like kick drum squeak you got on certain
Speaker 2: that's all over certain Zeppelin recordings, That's all over James
Speaker 2: Brown recordings. I think it's the one Ludwig kick pedal
Speaker 2: that's just famous for having this horrible rat like squeak
Speaker 2: to it. Just made it on all his records. Well,
Speaker 2: that was amazing, Thank you, Hagel. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: I think the other big famous one is the fuzz face,
Speaker 2: which was designed by British engineers for Hendrix.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with I'm afraid that this is going
Speaker 1: to cause your head to explode. The Bobby socks and
Speaker 1: blue jeans. Version of Zippity Doda that Phil Spector produced
Speaker 1: that also has an early version of fuzz.
Speaker 2: No No, I'm not is a you look so sad
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: This was more of a studio accident as opposed to
Speaker 1: a pedal, but it was late nineteen sixty two. This
Speaker 1: is actually according to George Harrison, who became close to
Speaker 1: Phil Spector. When Phil Spector was making Zippity Doo Dah,
Speaker 1: the engineer who set up the track overloaded the microphone
Speaker 1: on the guitar player and it became very distorted. Phil
Speaker 1: Spector said, leave it like that, it's great. Some years
Speaker 1: later everyone tried to copy that sound, and so they
Speaker 1: invented the fuzz box. H And that would have been
Speaker 1: recorded h yeah, in late nineteen sixty two. So that's
Speaker 1: another early fuzzz example, all right, So it goes without
Speaker 1: saying the Maestra pedal was the MVP of Satisfaction. But
Speaker 1: even after this revamp, Keith Riches was not convinced that
Speaker 1: the song had would it take to be a single?
Speaker 1: Come on, Keith, I know he's really for somebody who's
Speaker 1: usually like pretty down to take a chance on things
Speaker 1: like Heroin this is really he's really being a bummer
Speaker 1: in this episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, quite a conservatory little boy. Come on now, conservative
Speaker 2: little boy, I should say.
Speaker 1: As Mick would recall, it sounded like a folk song
Speaker 1: when we first started working on it, and Keith didn't
Speaker 1: like it much. He didn't want it to be a single.
Speaker 1: He didn't think he would do very well. That's the
Speaker 1: only time we've had a disagreement.
Speaker 2: I voice it was not.
Speaker 1: I can't figure out if this was like a very
Speaker 1: very early quote or he's being very tongue in cheek.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Keith elaborated, saying that the version of satisfaction that we
Speaker 1: know in love always felt incomplete to him. He said
Speaker 1: it sounded like a dub or a demo.
Speaker 2: To me.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get excited about it. I really dug it
Speaker 1: that night. I wrote it in the motel, but I'd
Speaker 1: gone past it. I didn't want it out. It sounded
Speaker 1: all right, but I didn't really like that fuzz guitar.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make that thing different. You needed either
Speaker 1: horns or something else that could knock that riff out.
Speaker 1: The riff was gonna make the song or break it.
Speaker 1: He was correct, and it wasn't meant for guitar. Just
Speaker 1: as there are multiple conflicting versions of the song's genesis,
Speaker 1: there are also multiple versions concerning the song's release. According
Speaker 1: to one manager, Andrew lug Oldham decided to put the
Speaker 1: decision to a band vote, which feels like something out
Speaker 1: of Flight of the Concords. That's oddly adorable. According to
Speaker 1: Bill Wyman, the vote was close, with Charlie Watts the drummer,
Speaker 1: Bill Wyman, bass player, and Brian Jones, the guitarist, voting yes,
Speaker 1: put it out, which is prizing considering the pop hating
Speaker 1: blues purist. Brian Jones actually went for it, but we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that later.
Speaker 2: Mcking Keith meanwhile opposed.
Speaker 1: The choice of releasing it as a single. Mick Meanwhile
Speaker 1: has been asked about this and says he doesn't remember voting,
Speaker 1: which I guess it's probably done a good look for
Speaker 1: him to say, yeah, I didn't think we should put.
Speaker 2: Our most sign up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, A lot of people are charmed by those stories.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess he just he probably is incapable of bending.
Speaker 2: He was wrong, right, And yeah, no, that's true. That's
Speaker 2: the hold up there that's very true.
Speaker 1: Keith would say over the years that he only discovered
Speaker 1: that the song was released when driving through the United States.
Speaker 1: He said, we left the track and went back out
Speaker 1: on the road, and two weeks later I heard it
Speaker 1: on the radio. I said, no, that was just a demo.
Speaker 1: The timeline of that doesn't fully line up, because the
Speaker 1: US tour had rapped by the time the song was
Speaker 1: available in Chops. But it could have been a promo
Speaker 1: that Andrew Logodam leaked the radio stations because a favorite
Speaker 1: way of putting the muscle on record companies or bands
Speaker 1: who didn't want to release a song or were giving
Speaker 1: promos or tapes to radio networks and trying to get
Speaker 1: a ground swell of listeners to request it often enough
Speaker 1: that basically forced the label's hand to put it out,
Speaker 1: So maybe that was what he was doing. In any event,
Speaker 1: Satisfaction was released in the US on June fourth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, barely a month after Mike it first put
Speaker 1: words to Keith's riff by a Florida swimming pool. The
Speaker 1: song answered the Billboard Hot one hundred the week ending
Speaker 1: June twelfth, and by July tenth, the song was number
Speaker 1: one toppling the four tops. I can't help myself, sugar Pie,
Speaker 1: Honey Bunch that song wise, Yeah, a great song. It
Speaker 1: held the top spot for four weeks before the band
Speaker 1: was supplanted by their own nemesis, Hermit's Hermits and their
Speaker 1: truly dreadful song I'm Enery the Eighth I Am That
Speaker 1: song blows.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I forgot they also did that, Hey, I
Speaker 2: told yeah, yeah a song yeah sus sucks. Oh Menory
Speaker 2: the eight Menory the I Done. You would gain some
Speaker 2: kind of a perverse No, no, I hate that song now.
Speaker 1: That and Winchester Cathedral by the New Christy Minstrels. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's a there's a level of kitch that even
Speaker 1: I don't mess with. In the sixties, Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: can't deal with that. Do the Freddy by Freddie and
Speaker 1: the Dreamers also blows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. You're already talking about you passed into
Speaker 2: I don't know or care about and leave it. Keep
Speaker 2: it that way.
Speaker 1: In the UK, Satisfaction wasn't issued until August twentieth, so
Speaker 1: the Stones could promote it in person. Hit number one
Speaker 1: there on September fifteenth, and stayed for two weeks. Interesting
Speaker 1: that it was a number one in September because it's
Speaker 1: such a summer song. To me, it was interesting, classic
Speaker 1: classic song of the summer. I would argue, maybe there's
Speaker 1: something in the fifties I'm forgetting, but like that seems
Speaker 1: like the prototypical summer song to me.
Speaker 2: Interesting. What about Mungo Jerry.
Speaker 1: That was later though?
Speaker 2: That was seventy Oh so you think it's the first
Speaker 2: song of the summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say Satisfaction is the first song of
Speaker 1: the summer in all caps.
Speaker 2: I don't care to debate you with this, okay at
Speaker 2: this point, but I don't think that's true. And we
Speaker 2: will revisit this, Okay, think about this.
Speaker 1: I am think real hard. You're messing with the I am.
Speaker 2: I sure will, Okay, all.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, Okay, you know what Percy Face theme from
Speaker 1: a summer place in nineteen sixty did really well?
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean, I'm gonna come at this with my
Speaker 2: own kind of standards. But we'll talk. We'll cut. Get
Speaker 2: everyone caught up on this at some point, right.
Speaker 1: Think about it, worry about it, put in an email,
Speaker 1: don't send it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, find any gods you hold dear?
Speaker 1: Yeah, more than their first American number one. Satisfaction was
Speaker 1: a quantum leak beyond anything the Stones had ever achieved.
Speaker 1: Mick is a cherished memory of driving up La Specific
Speaker 1: Coast Highway with Andrew lug Oldham that summer and a
Speaker 1: red Ford Mustang, pouching the Radi buttons and hearing satisfaction
Speaker 1: on each station. That is a top five memory for anybody, really, YEA.
Speaker 1: In order to understand the song's popularity, it's important to
Speaker 1: compare the song to other songs in the chart at
Speaker 1: the time, polished pop tunes like The Birds and the
Speaker 1: Bees by Joeykins, The Song Also Blows, or This Diamond
Speaker 1: Ring by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. That song's Okay
Speaker 1: satisfaction sounded raw and rebellious, even just sonically. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: it was the first big hit to feature fuzzbox distortion,
Speaker 1: a sound the Beatles themselves would borrow a year later
Speaker 1: for Paul's base on Think for Yourself, a rare example
Speaker 1: of the Stones doing something before the Beatles. Speaking of
Speaker 1: the Beatles, Satisfaction truly clarified Andrew lou Goldham's goal positioning
Speaker 1: the Stones as the anti Fab four in a pop.
Speaker 2: Culture ruled by either oars.
Speaker 1: Pepsi or Coke Marlborough or Cool. Rock and Roll would
Speaker 1: now be either the Beatles or the Stones. It's interesting
Speaker 1: to note that the summer sixty five, the summer that
Speaker 1: Satisfaction hit number one and established the Stones as the
Speaker 1: bad boys of rock. The Beatles were included on the
Speaker 1: Queen's birthday honors list as mbes or members of the
Speaker 1: British Empire, and later that year they would come the
Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace and be given the honor in person by
Speaker 1: the Queen.
Speaker 2: Because there was such nice boys, I know.
Speaker 1: But it's just interesting that in the same month, June
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, that the Beatles were quite literally welcomed
Speaker 1: into the British establishment with the capitol eed, the Stones
Speaker 1: were scandalizing the populace with Satisfaction.
Speaker 2: Did John Lennon like send it back? No? But I mean,
Speaker 2: do you think did he like privately agonize over the
Speaker 2: fact that he was just, by association with Paul like
Speaker 2: suddenly thought to be like not as dangerous as the
Speaker 2: Stone Like? Did he worry about his bad boy image
Speaker 2: being supplanted by the Stones?
Speaker 1: I don't think at that time, No, I don't think
Speaker 1: he cared much that at that time he got as
Speaker 1: he got the little medal or badge they gave him
Speaker 1: and gave he gave it to his auntie Mimi. He
Speaker 1: was the woman who raised him, and she kept it
Speaker 1: on top of her television set.
Speaker 2: I didn't ask all that.
Speaker 1: And then in like nineteen sixty nine he asked for
Speaker 1: it back and he sent it back to the queen
Speaker 1: as a protest against a taxes that was some kind
Speaker 1: of massacre in Biafra.
Speaker 2: Oh well, okay, I saying corrected.
Speaker 1: That was cool with him, It was, yeah, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think he actually in sixty five, I think
Speaker 1: he was perfectly happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I vet him up, I ve him up, na na.
Speaker 1: I mean that was the summer that help came out,
Speaker 1: which was a literal cry for help from him. So
Speaker 1: he was dealing with certain demons, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they really had much to do with Uh.
Speaker 2: Whether or not he was perceived as cool as the
Speaker 2: rolling Stones, Yeah, he definitely wasn't. So it definitely bothered him.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to sell this so hard to you
Speaker 2: and just sitting at home clenching his tiny fits, seething.
Speaker 2: He throws his dumb little scally Greek fisherman's hat.
Speaker 1: Away that that was dumb. Even I admit that was bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The woman who like introduced him to that hat was
Speaker 1: like an art school Greek and uh no, but my
Speaker 1: Greek friend just texted me the moment you just said Greek,
Speaker 1: that was weird. Uh No, she was not Greek. She
Speaker 1: was just a friend from art school. And now she
Speaker 1: sells those caps. She makes them herself, so you can
Speaker 1: have an authentic John Lennon terrible cap. The other Beatles
Speaker 1: used to call it caps. Yeah, yeah, Anyway. Much of
Speaker 1: the public perception of the Stones as bad boys was
Speaker 1: down to the lyrics of Satisfaction. At the time of
Speaker 1: its release, the song was seen as provocative, not just
Speaker 1: for its sexual undertones, but for its scathing take on
Speaker 1: consumer culture in the modern world. Music critic Paul Gambuccini
Speaker 1: my interviewed once He's wonderful. He's a really interesting guy's
Speaker 1: written some great stuff. He noted the lyrics to this
Speaker 1: were truly threatening to an older audience. This song was
Speaker 1: perceived as an attack on the status quo, and in
Speaker 1: his BC Jagger biography God Awful Rock, His Story and
Speaker 1: Philip Norman, who wrote a not great book about the
Speaker 1: Beatles called Shout proclaims this the first pop song to
Speaker 1: directly reference sex, which feels both incorrect and deliberately obscure
Speaker 1: with the whole pop qualifier. But I just want to
Speaker 1: reference that as red meat to you and see.
Speaker 2: What you do with that. I'm gonna leave it alone, okay,
Speaker 2: which you didn't think I was gonna do.
Speaker 1: No, Well, I already took the fun out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also disagree.
Speaker 1: From the very start, producer manager Andrew lug Oldham knew
Speaker 1: that the lyrics of Satisfaction would cause some issues, particularly
Speaker 1: in the States. As a result, when mixing the song,
Speaker 1: he ordered engineer Dave Hessinger to bury the vocals. Dave
Speaker 1: Hessinger would later say, I never heard the damn lyrics
Speaker 1: of satisfaction for years. They kept telling me to bring
Speaker 1: the voice down in the track. I thought they were crazy.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it had to do with the lyrics
Speaker 1: and getting radio play. The most defensive line at the
Speaker 1: time was the bit about Jagger quote trying to make
Speaker 1: some girl, which I always heard until working on this
Speaker 1: episode as trying to meet some girl, which says more
Speaker 1: about me than it does about Mick Jagger or America
Speaker 1: in the sixties. Even though it was buried in the mix,
Speaker 1: this line was too much for WABC, the New York
Speaker 1: City Broadcasting powerhouse, made their own edit of Satisfaction, cutting
Speaker 1: the verse entirely. I've seen multiple reports that the line
Speaker 1: was beeped during the band's February nineteen sixty six performance
Speaker 1: on The All Important and Sullivan Show, but the versions
Speaker 1: available online have the line intact. However, the following year,
Speaker 1: when the Stones performed on Ed Sullivan, they had to
Speaker 1: change the title of Let's Spend the Night Together to
Speaker 1: Let's spend some time together. And it's really funny to
Speaker 1: watch because Mick rolls his eyes every time he gets
Speaker 1: to the chorus good.
Speaker 2: For him with a bitch yeah.
Speaker 1: Jagger would later claim that the Pearl Clutchers always missed
Speaker 1: what he considered quote the dirtiest line of the song.
Speaker 1: This is the one where the girl pleads baby better
Speaker 1: come back later next week because you see, I'm on
Speaker 1: a losing streak. I never really thought much about what
Speaker 1: that line meant, did you.
Speaker 2: I never even understood what he said. It's also mushmouthy.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: Yes, apparently, according to Mick, he intended this line to
Speaker 1: mean that the girl was on her period.
Speaker 2: Streak.
Speaker 1: That's not nice, but Jagger later elaborated, it's just life.
Speaker 1: That's what really happens to girls. Why shouldn't people write
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 2: Charming? He's so gross. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think he was young when he gave that quote.
Speaker 2: He was, no, but he was one of those young
Speaker 2: old people. Like even when he's like young and very pretty,
Speaker 2: he looks old, maybe just because he's English. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: English friends. Yeah, I'm sorry, guys born old. Nothing you
Speaker 2: can do about that. Yeah, since since for the Empire,
Speaker 2: it's such.
Speaker 1: A tough period being between young man and like daddy.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that today, something that haunts here
Speaker 1: because I'm in the mid period now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a young man. No, that's just
Speaker 2: oh okay, so just no point in me continuing that.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, what.
Speaker 2: Was your what was your contender for the first song
Speaker 2: of the summer Satisfaction? Okay? Yeah, what was your other one?
Speaker 1: Maybe theme from a Summer Place by Percy Faith, which
Speaker 1: I want to see in sixty or sixty one.
Speaker 2: Okay. I have the actual Billboard list up here.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, there were big songs in summers, but
Speaker 1: that's different than Song of the Summer, which is like
Speaker 1: a you know, like Umbrella was two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: I want to say, or seven that might have been
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, like the huge songs that just
Speaker 1: define the summer. Satisfaction was argued defined the summer sixty five.
Speaker 2: Well, according to Billboard, you're wrong that whatever you just said,
Speaker 2: Percy Faith did not appear. It doesn't even appear on
Speaker 2: their list of top ten songs of the year. In
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty was I'm Sorry by Brenda Lee. Nope, number
Speaker 2: two summer It's Gonna be uplifting? Oh well, Ali Oop
Speaker 2: by the Hollywood Argyles, making its second appearance on this podcast,
Speaker 2: and followed by the actual song of the Summer of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty it'sy Bitsy Tina Weeny yellow polka dot Bikini.
Speaker 1: Just qualified for being a novelty song.
Speaker 2: Walk Don't Run by the Ventures.
Speaker 1: Oh damn. I would say that transcends Song of Summer
Speaker 1: just being a killer song.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, if you're just gonna make up different rules,
Speaker 2: then let's go to nineteen sixty one. Okay, okay, sure,
Speaker 2: tossing and Turning by Bobby Lewis.
Speaker 1: That song goes, but it doesn't have the abiquity. I
Speaker 1: was there quarter to three by us Oh, that was
Speaker 1: also a great song. That's too it's too nebulous. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's no a real melody to that song.
Speaker 1: It's just like a party song. So it was recorded
Speaker 1: at a party.
Speaker 2: The ball Weavil Song by Book Brenton. No Michael by
Speaker 2: the Highwayman. Oh god, no, it's like a folk song.
Speaker 2: Rain Drops d Clark. No Moody River by Pat Boone.
Speaker 1: Not moon River.
Speaker 2: No. No. Well, then by virtue of elimination, we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to go with last Night by the Marquis.
Speaker 1: That song goes, but that's another like garage rock, like
Speaker 1: it's not a song of the summer. Has to be
Speaker 1: almost cinematic, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Billboard clearly doesn't. Nineteen sixty two. Okay, I Can't Stop
Speaker 2: Loving You by Ray Charles. It has to be upbeat,
Speaker 2: the locomotion. Okay, we're getting closer, getting closer.
Speaker 1: That's the closest one we have so far.
Speaker 2: What's that in the whah WAHTUSI in nineteen sixty two?
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna go ahead and give it to one
Speaker 2: of them. Okay. Nineteen sixty three, Yeah, pretty easy. It's
Speaker 2: Wipe Out by the Sufaris, or Surf City by Jan
Speaker 2: and Deine, or Fingertips Part two by Little Stevie.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, any of those I think could have qualified? I
Speaker 2: would are you never mind? But go ahead?
Speaker 1: Nothing nothing. It's not a melody based thing, are you
Speaker 1: talking about, charl Summer should be like the theme song
Speaker 1: to the greatest movie you've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Okay, it should paint pictures in your mind. Man, something
Speaker 2: called the bowl Weavil Summer doesn't do that for you.
Speaker 2: No bull Weavil song? Okay. Nineteen sixty four, Where did
Speaker 2: I Love Go? By the Supremes? I Get Around by
Speaker 2: the Beach Boys?
Speaker 1: Okay, getting Closer that's also good.
Speaker 2: Under the Boardwalk by the Drift.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's also really good. Okay, so we've glad we've
Speaker 1: settled it. I question the ubiquity of those songs, whereas.
Speaker 2: I'm getting this, I'm getting this right from Billboard.
Speaker 1: No, those are popular songs in the summer of blank year,
Speaker 1: as opposed to be the song of the summer.
Speaker 2: Okay. The tunes below a rank based on each track's
Speaker 2: performance on the Billboard Hot one hundred chart during the
Speaker 2: summer for the period through nineteen ninety one, prior to
Speaker 2: the advent of illuminate radio monitoring point of sales data.
Speaker 2: The rankings are based on an inverse point system, with
Speaker 2: weeks at number one earning the greatest point value and
Speaker 2: weeks at lower ranks earning less. So off, every single
Speaker 2: one of those I listed first was actually the thing
Speaker 2: that sold the most during the summer.
Speaker 1: I'm picturing it.
Speaker 2: Is coming out of every car speakers in the way
Speaker 2: that we were talking about. I'm telling you that, according
Speaker 2: to the people who ran the chart, those songs I
Speaker 2: named wore that song Okay, okay, must have been really
Speaker 2: depressing to be a live in nineteen fifty nine when
Speaker 2: it was Lonely Boy by Paul Anka.
Speaker 1: Oh my friend, Paul Anka. How was the song of
Speaker 1: the summer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, in nineteen sixty it was I'm Sorry by Brenda Lee.
Speaker 2: Oh my friend Brenda. Oh Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more. Too much information in just a moment.
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, Wow, where were you dragging this out?
Speaker 1: Well, there were all sorts of stupid interpretations about the
Speaker 1: lyrics Dissatisfaction. Apparently, a woman stopped the Stones at the
Speaker 1: airport and quized them about the line hey hey Hey,
Speaker 1: which she assumed meant hey hey hey as an h
Speaker 1: a y wow yeh grass, which is uniquely dumb, more dumb,
Speaker 1: in fact, than Bob Dylan thinking that the Beatles smoked
Speaker 1: pot after hearing the line on I want to hold
Speaker 1: your hand, it's such a feeling that my love I
Speaker 1: can't hide, which he thought was it's such a feeling
Speaker 1: that my love I get high, Yeah yeah, which would
Speaker 1: have been advanced for that song was released in like
Speaker 1: December sixty three, so that's it would have been pretty
Speaker 1: daring had they actually meant that. Amusingly, forty years after
Speaker 1: Satisfaction was released, the Stones performed three songs during Super
Speaker 1: Bowl XCEL in February two thousand and six. Satisfaction was
Speaker 1: the only one of the three songs that wasn't censored
Speaker 1: when it was broadcast. They censored Start Me Up for
Speaker 1: the Grown Man, Come of It All, and the song
Speaker 1: rough Justice, which I don't know is a new song
Speaker 1: of Theirs that I don't remember what the lines.
Speaker 2: Are, man, it doesn't sound very good. No rough justice,
Speaker 2: you guys doling out or at the receiving end of
Speaker 2: a lot of rough justice these days.
Speaker 1: Well, as we'll talk about, the Stones kind of had
Speaker 1: their own like self policing unit when they were on
Speaker 1: the road, Like whenever there were things that they had
Speaker 1: to like settle amongst themselves, they usually locked themselves in
Speaker 1: a hotel room and had like a little utofficial judicial committee. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that in a little bit, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting. They had this in nineteen sixty five in
Speaker 1: the American tour, and they had this seven years later
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventy two tour of the United States
Speaker 1: and people got messed up.
Speaker 2: The make some Girl line was in fact bleeped out
Speaker 2: during the band's appearance on the ABC variety show Shindig
Speaker 2: on May twentieth, nineteen sixty five. Jordan's mother was ten
Speaker 2: on that day.
Speaker 1: Yes, turn ten that day, Yes, Friend of the Pod Shindig,
Speaker 1: Front of the Pod, Chris Runtalk and Friend of the
Speaker 1: Pod Shindig.
Speaker 2: This is weeks before Satisfaction had actually been released, and
Speaker 2: it is thought to be the television premiere of the song.
Speaker 2: It is performed, However, without the fuzzbox. As previously mentioned,
Speaker 2: Keith had only intended that to be a placeholder for horns,
Speaker 2: and still had not accepted that it was a crucial
Speaker 2: part of the song.
Speaker 1: He had not accepted the fuzzbox into his heart as
Speaker 1: his Lord and savior.
Speaker 2: He had non As part of their agreement for appearing
Speaker 2: on the program, the band insisted to producers that formative
Speaker 2: Delta Blues icon Howland Wolf be a guest among them
Speaker 2: one of the coolest things that they ever did. Brian
Speaker 2: Jones introduced his performance of how Many More Years, which
Speaker 2: is one of the most fascinating crossovers and mid sixties
Speaker 2: television this side of the j justins meeting the Flintstones
Speaker 2: during the rehearsals, though, Holene Wolf took Mick aside and said,
Speaker 2: I want you to meet someone. He took him into
Speaker 2: the audience and introduced him to Son House, the man
Speaker 2: who had done the original version of Little Red Rooster,
Speaker 2: which is the blue standard that the Stones had taken
Speaker 2: to number one in England a few months before. Howland
Speaker 2: Wolf introduced Mick to sun House by saying, this is
Speaker 2: the man who did the original Little Red Rooster. Mayck
Speaker 2: had enough wherewithal to fear that son House might have
Speaker 2: been pissed, and was probably pissed in both senses of
Speaker 2: the word. I think this is into his wet brain era.
Speaker 2: Sun House was reportedly very gracious about this, though he says,
Speaker 2: don't you worry about copy and Little Red Rooster because
Speaker 2: I wasn't the first one to do it, which might
Speaker 2: actually be true because Sunhouse, I think was Charlie Patten's
Speaker 2: protege or contemporary, so he might have gotten it from
Speaker 2: sun House, which is one of the ways that people
Speaker 2: got songs associated with them. They just learned them from
Speaker 2: other guys. But despite its global success, Satisfaction did not
Speaker 2: earn the band praise from his circle of British blues
Speaker 2: purists who with their peers in the early sixties. Chris Barber,
Speaker 2: a major figure in that scene, expressed his displeasure about
Speaker 2: the song when speaking to author Rich Cohen in the
Speaker 2: aforementioned Sun Moon and Rolling Stones book It's Not Real.
Speaker 2: He said of Mick and Keith's music, specifically Satisfaction, and
Speaker 2: the sad thing is they were capable of the real thing,
Speaker 2: but they found something else which is not real but
Speaker 2: makes them an awful lot of money, and everybody else
Speaker 2: makes a lot of money on it too, so everybody
Speaker 2: likes it, but it's not real, and if you are
Speaker 2: a serious musician, you know it's not real. I've always
Speaker 2: found that annoying. Calling an original song not real when
Speaker 2: you are a cover artist kind of stupid. Another person
Speaker 2: who apparently hated the song was one of Mick and
Speaker 2: Keith's own band mates. As you mentioned at the top
Speaker 2: of the episode, the Rolling Stones had been originally been
Speaker 2: the tiny, furious, well dressed father of a thousand Bastards,
Speaker 2: Brian Jones. From the group's earliest days, he was the star.
Speaker 2: He had been mentored by one of the biggest blues
Speaker 2: figures in London, Alexis Corner. But Jones's inability to write
Speaker 2: his own songs, which was deemed crucial following the rise
Speaker 2: of Lennon McCartney the British music scene, led to a
Speaker 2: power shift within the band from him to Jagger and
Speaker 2: Richard's engineered As previously mentioned by Andrew lug e Oldham,
Speaker 2: the material that the Glimmer Twins were turning out of
Speaker 2: this point were more poppy than what Brian Jones would
Speaker 2: have liked. Brian never felt right about it, Barbara continued
Speaker 2: in Cohen's book, it was clear to anyone who knew
Speaker 2: him has led to a serious schism within the band,
Speaker 2: with Brian on one side and making Keith on the other.
Speaker 2: No one knows how Charlie and Bill felt, because they
Speaker 2: were the rhythm section and asleep most of the time,
Speaker 2: often on stage. Brian's discomfort over this dynamic, not to
Speaker 2: mention the depression that resulted from feeling though, as his
Speaker 2: band had been taken out from under him, led Brian
Speaker 2: to abuse drugs and alcohol in great quantities, and women,
Speaker 2: and he was apparently not a great guy, even at
Speaker 2: the best of the situations. Keith himself would bluntly say
Speaker 2: he was not a good man, and Charlie Watts roused
Speaker 2: himself to offer an even less varnish take he was
Speaker 2: a little prick. Brian Jones father at least four children
Speaker 2: with four different women, though some estimates put this number
Speaker 2: as high as six, and rejected all of the children
Speaker 2: that he knew about, although he did make poultry financial
Speaker 2: settlements in some cases. One former girlfriend, Valerie Corbett, gave
Speaker 2: birth to a son in nineteen sixty one named Julian
Speaker 2: Mark Andrews Jones acknowledged him but never supported the son financially.
Speaker 2: Another girlfriend, Linda Lawrence, had Jones's son, also named Julian,
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty four. That child was later adopted by
Speaker 2: the singer Donovan, whom Linda Lawrence married. Then, in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five, Jones reportedly paid a lump sum of seven
Speaker 2: hundred pounds to sell a paternity suit with a teenage girlfriend,
Speaker 2: with the condition that he have no contact with a child.
Speaker 2: Yet another alleged son, Simon Jones, has since spoken out
Speaker 2: about the emotional toll of being kept a secret. Jones's
Speaker 2: wild lifestyle and reluctance to face fatherhood meant that many
Speaker 2: of his relationships ended in estrangement or private legal wrangling.
Speaker 2: Decades later, The mystery of how many children he truly
Speaker 2: fathered and how many were quietly paid off still lingers
Speaker 2: as part of his so so stupid legacy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm not exactly an A plus human, but uh,
Speaker 1: don't take my word for it. Let's hear what three
Speaker 1: of the four Beatles had to say about Brian Jones.
Speaker 2: Shall we get his ass?
Speaker 1: Yes, it's George Harrison, per the Beatles' anthology book. I
Speaker 1: used to see Brian in the clubs and hang out
Speaker 1: with him. In the mid sixties, he used to come
Speaker 1: to my house, particularly when he got the fear when
Speaker 1: he mixed too many weird things together.
Speaker 2: I love George so much. I mean, that's a have
Speaker 2: you night, no, but that's a very real concern. I'd
Speaker 2: hear his voice shouting to me from out in the garden, George, George.
Speaker 1: I'd let him in. He was a good mate.
Speaker 2: He would always come around to my house.
Speaker 1: In the Setar period. We talked about Painted Black and
Speaker 1: he picked up my star and tried to play it.
Speaker 1: And the next thing was he did that track. We
Speaker 1: had a lot in common when I think about it.
Speaker 1: We shared the same date of birth or nearly so
Speaker 1: he must have been a Pisces as well. We also
Speaker 1: share the same positions in the most prominent bands in
Speaker 1: the universe, him with Mick and Keith and me with
Speaker 1: Paul and John. I think he related to me a lot,
Speaker 1: and I liked him. Some people didn't have time for him,
Speaker 1: but I thought he was one of the most interesting ones.
Speaker 1: And then Paul per the anthology book. Brian was a
Speaker 1: nervous guy, very shy, quite serious and maybe into drugs
Speaker 1: a little more than he should have been, because he
Speaker 1: used to shake a bit. We knew he was on heroin.
Speaker 1: He was lovely though, and John, speaking the Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: magazine in nineteen seventy, said Brian was different over the
Speaker 1: years as he disintegrated. He ended up the kind of
Speaker 1: guy that you dread he'd come on the phone because
Speaker 1: he knew it was trouble. He was in a lot
Speaker 1: of pain. But in the early days he was all
Speaker 1: right because he was young and confident. He was one
Speaker 1: of those guys that disintegrates in front of you. He
Speaker 1: was all right, not brilliant or anything, just a nice
Speaker 1: guy narrator voice. That's not what his bandmate said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say. I was hoping for more savagery.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He just died like less than a year or
Speaker 1: about a year before that. And John was in his
Speaker 1: primal scream era, so he probably saw somebody else who
Speaker 1: was in a ton of pain and them like maybe
Speaker 1: took more of a more sympathy towards him than he
Speaker 1: ordinarily would have.
Speaker 2: Well, recognizing that Brian was clearly in some kind of psychological, spiritual,
Speaker 2: or chemical distress, the Beatles reacted the way that most
Speaker 2: men in their early twenties would do. They started to
Speaker 2: feed Brian Yeah. John Lennon had a PA system installed
Speaker 2: in his Rolls Royce the mid sixties, which he would
Speaker 2: use primarily for his own amusement. Keith Moon, as an example,
Speaker 2: did something similar. Paul says that in this period he
Speaker 2: and John would leave late night recording sessions in John's
Speaker 2: rolls and speed through the London suburbs at two or
Speaker 2: three in the morning. They would be tailing George, a
Speaker 2: future Formula one enthusiast who loved driving his Ferraris at
Speaker 2: high speeds. John would then get on the mic and
Speaker 2: adopt the tone of a constable driving a police chase.
Speaker 2: It is foolish to resist. It is foolish to resist
Speaker 2: pull over. As Paul remembered it in Anthology, it was insane.
Speaker 2: All the lights would go on in the houses went past.
Speaker 2: Must have freaked everybody out, and more to the point,
Speaker 2: one day they used this tricked out roles to terrify
Speaker 2: Brian Jones. As we were going through Regent's Park and
Speaker 2: a way to North London to do a session. We
Speaker 2: were in John's roles. Suddenly we pulled up behind Brian Jones,
Speaker 2: who was sitting quietly in the back of his Austin Princess.
Speaker 2: John had been a very funny guy, and he shouted
Speaker 2: through the microphone, Brian Jones, do not move. You have
Speaker 2: been under surveillance. You are under arrest. Brian leaped up
Speaker 2: about eight feet and went as white as a sheet, going,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Oh my god. Then he saw it
Speaker 2: was us, you bunch of bastards. It nearly killed him
Speaker 2: that day. John was so official sounding. That's pretty funn
Speaker 2: So yes, Brian Jones was a man in crisis, and
Speaker 2: it was sparked in large part by the success. And
Speaker 2: I can't get no satisfaction. One illustrated example set into
Speaker 2: the aforementioned book by Stephen Davis, Old God's Almost Dead
Speaker 2: supposedly went down on the same day Mick and Keith
Speaker 2: were finalizing the lyrics to satisfaction by that Florida swimming
Speaker 2: pool feels a little too on the nose, but print
Speaker 2: the legend. That night, Brian apparently met a model at
Speaker 2: the hotel bar and brought her back to his room.
Speaker 2: The following morning, she emerged covered in bruises with both
Speaker 2: eyes blackened. She told her girlfriend, who had spent the
Speaker 2: night with Bill Wyman that Brian beat her up and
Speaker 2: raped her. She was dissuaded from calling the cops. But
Speaker 2: on this tour, the stones Coterie had their own internal
Speaker 2: justice system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this has been confirmed to me by people who
Speaker 1: toured with the Stones. They did not bring police into things.
Speaker 1: They handled things among themselves, not unlike the mafia.
Speaker 2: So after this incident, one of the Stones roadies stormed
Speaker 2: into Brian's room and, according to Davis, broke two of
Speaker 2: his ribs. Jones was taken to a nearby hospital where
Speaker 2: he was taped up and given painkillers, and the band
Speaker 2: made up a story that he'd fallen while practicing karate
Speaker 2: by the hotel swimming pool. To quote Davis, he spent
Speaker 2: the rest of the tour depressed and isolated, whacked out
Speaker 2: on pills and booze.
Speaker 1: Because of this, it seems unlikely that Brian Jones actually
Speaker 1: played on the track Satisfaction. Producer Andrew lou Goldham isn't
Speaker 1: sure himself, but it wasn't just the track that marked
Speaker 1: the turning point. It was the scale of the song's success.
Speaker 1: When Satisfaction hit number one, it signals seismic shift in
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones power structure. Mick and Keith were now
Speaker 1: firmly in control, and Brian had been sidelined. He would
Speaker 1: never again lead the band or occupy center stage, and
Speaker 1: the loss devastated him. That summer, his behavior became increasingly erratic.
Speaker 1: He drank heavily, turned violent and sullen, and often lashed
Speaker 1: out or disappeared entirely. During the La stop of their
Speaker 1: spring tour in the United States, Brian was given orange
Speaker 1: Sunshine acid by Ken Keasey's Mary Pranksters, who came down
Speaker 1: from San Francisco to party with the Stones. Brian went
Speaker 1: missing for so long that they nearly missed the next
Speaker 1: gig in San Diego. The next day, the Birds, their
Speaker 1: opening act, played Stone songs to prevent a riot whenever
Speaker 1: the band performed Satisfaction. After to become a massive hit,
Speaker 1: Brian mockingly vamped on the theme to Popeye the Sailor Man,
Speaker 1: which he was convinced the song sounded like. It was
Speaker 1: a move that provoked at least one furious backstage fight.
Speaker 1: To Brian, it wasn't just a joke, it was a protest.
Speaker 1: He saw Mick and Keith's growing creative dominance, encouraged by
Speaker 1: their manager Andrew Lou Goldham as a direct threat to
Speaker 1: his identity as the band's original leader, and now pushed
Speaker 1: the sidelines. He felt the cold edge of exclusion, and
Speaker 1: this would get worse in the case of Keith Richards, who,
Speaker 1: after stealing Brian's band, stole his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg.
Speaker 2: You know the story, Yeah, I've heard some of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Anita Pallenberg first crossed pass with the Rolling Stones
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five when she snuck into one of
Speaker 1: the band's concerts in Munich, Germany. This exquisitely beautiful twenty
Speaker 1: one year old model was able to talk her way backstage,
Speaker 1: where she quickly hit it off with Jones. The fact
Speaker 1: that Jones spoke German certainly helped Ooh, when you're that
Speaker 1: blonde and you speak germanly, you don't.
Speaker 2: Have to that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I needed produced Amle nitrates or Amle poppers from her
Speaker 1: purse and offered them around. Jones was the only one
Speaker 1: who accepted. I don't know who you are, but I
Speaker 1: need you the beasatted guitarist told her, that's a good line.
Speaker 2: That's a good line. We look at Brian Jones at least. Yeah,
Speaker 2: somewhat diffused by the fact that he was four feet tall. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but anyway.
Speaker 1: After meeting Anita Pallenberg, the returned to his hotel, but
Speaker 1: instead of a night of torrid passion, Pallenberg held Jones
Speaker 1: while he apparently sobbed hurt by a perceived slight by
Speaker 1: his bandmates. The rift between Jones and the Two Stones
Speaker 1: front man would intensify. Pallenberg and Jones quickly became an item, or,
Speaker 1: as she later recalled, I decided to kidnap Brian. Brian
Speaker 1: seems sexually the most flexible. Now, there's a couple ways
Speaker 1: that could be read.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, picking on that now, the fashionista would have
Speaker 5: a marked effect on the reticent Jones' style, cutting his
Speaker 5: hair into a delicate blonde bob and encouraging him to
Speaker 5: dawn flamboyant androgynous attire.
Speaker 1: They swapped outfits and jewelry on a regular basis, setting
Speaker 1: trends in the hit fashion districts of Carnaby Street and
Speaker 1: King's Road. She once summed up her style as boots, belts,
Speaker 1: cashmere hats, sunglasses and furs as well.
Speaker 2: It's kind of mine too, Yeah, for all the.
Speaker 1: Color for clothes, she introduced a dark edge to the band,
Speaker 1: turning them onto a cult imagery and encouraging them to embrace.
Speaker 2: Quote evil as a subject matter. Yes, the Rolling.
Speaker 1: Stones nineteen sixty eight hit Simpathy for the Devil is
Speaker 1: largely her inspiration. She lends her voice to the who
Speaker 1: who on the backing vocals. Filmmaker Kenneth Anger no stranger
Speaker 1: to the demonic himself. The film Lucifer Rising is arguably
Speaker 1: his most famous work. Once said, I believe Anita is,
Speaker 1: for want of a better word, a witch. Photographer Tony Sanchez,
Speaker 1: a longtime assistant to the band that he was known
Speaker 1: as Spanish Tony agreed. She was obsessed with black magic
Speaker 1: and began carrying a string of garlic with her everywhere,
Speaker 1: even to bed to word off vampires. He wrote in
Speaker 1: his largely debunked memoir. She also had a strange, mysterious
Speaker 1: old shaker for holy water, which she used for some
Speaker 1: of her rituals. Her ceremonies became increasingly secret, and she
Speaker 1: warned me never to rupt her when she was working.
Speaker 2: On a spell. I mean, come on, that's it just
Speaker 2: sounds like a woman in Bushwick. We've all dealt with
Speaker 2: witchy women in one way or another. Yeah we have yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we have yeah, to varying degrees of success. By nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven, Jones and Pallenberg were one of the hottest
Speaker 2: couples in London, but their drug use took a toll
Speaker 2: on the relationship. They began to experiment with LSD, which
Speaker 2: had a disastrous effect on Joan's tenuous mental state, giving
Speaker 2: him horrible nightmares. He was also prone to jealous rages
Speaker 2: that often turned violent. He was short but very strong,
Speaker 2: and his assaults were terrible. She later said, for days afterwards,
Speaker 2: I'd have lumps and bruises all over me. In his tantrums,
Speaker 2: he would throw things at me whatever he could pick up, lamps, clocks, chairs,
Speaker 2: a plate of food, and when the storm inside him
Speaker 2: died down, he'd feel guilty. He begged me to forgive him.
Speaker 2: At one point he punched her in the face so
Speaker 2: hard that he broke his own hand. Keith Richards then
Speaker 2: moved into the South Kensington home that Jones shared with
Speaker 2: Pallenberg that spring while his own estate was being renovated.
Speaker 2: Richards also found himself drawn to the enigmatic model's worldly nature.
Speaker 2: She knew everything, and she could say it in five languages.
Speaker 2: He once marveled. She scared the pants off me. He
Speaker 2: began to question, though, whether she was with the right man.
Speaker 2: The first time I saw Anita, my obvious reaction was,
Speaker 2: what the fuck is a chick like that doing with Brian.
Speaker 2: Anita is an incredibly strong a much stronger personality than Brian,
Speaker 2: more confident, with no reservations, whereas Brian was full of doubts.
Speaker 2: That March, the three of them decided to take a
Speaker 2: trip to Morocco, where Jones had previously fallen in love
Speaker 2: with the music, food and laid back lifestyle. Unfortunately, on
Speaker 2: this trip, Richards fell in love with Pallenberg. We went
Speaker 2: by car a Bentley with the driver and Brian got
Speaker 2: sick and ended up in the hospital. Pallenberg remembered, as
Speaker 2: he was very sickly fragile, So Keith and I drove
Speaker 2: on and left him there, and that was when we
Speaker 2: had a physical relationship. Richard says. The affair began in
Speaker 2: the back seat of his luxury car as it cruised
Speaker 2: through southern Europe. I still remember the smell of the
Speaker 2: orange trees in Valencia. When you get laid with Anita
Speaker 2: Pallenberg for the first time you remember things. What a
Speaker 2: quote machine he is.
Speaker 1: He's a romantic in his own unique way.
Speaker 2: That's true. The songs were very weird, it must be said,
Speaker 2: when it came to sleeping with each other's girlfriends, or
Speaker 2: basically anyone that any of the others said previously slept with.
Speaker 2: Apparently in the early nineteen sixty five tour basis Bill
Speaker 2: Wyman and Brian Jones being a sport out of stealing
Speaker 2: each other's sexual partners, sometimes multiples in a day. At
Speaker 2: a barbecue in Melbourne famously semi famously slept with both
Speaker 2: the hostess and her daughter. This is all per the
Speaker 2: Old God's Almost Dead book, which you know was a
Speaker 2: trashy book. Yeah, and it's written by a guy who
Speaker 2: wrote another trashy book that was largely discredited. So do
Speaker 2: with that what you will. I need a Pallenberg for
Speaker 2: her part split with Jones for good as soon after
Speaker 2: her affair with Keith began. Obviously, this further strained relations
Speaker 2: within the band. Jones, who was alienated from Richard and
Speaker 2: Jagger already saw it, stole some drugs and alcohol, wreaking
Speaker 2: havoc on his health. By the following year, he was
Speaker 2: a shadow of his former self, abdicating his role as
Speaker 2: co creator and the Rolling Stones. His musical contributions had
Speaker 2: dwindled by the time they recorded nineteen sixty nine to
Speaker 2: Let It Bleed, and he was asked to leave the
Speaker 2: band that June. Within a month, he was found dead
Speaker 2: in the swimming pool of his East Sussex estate, a
Speaker 2: farm formerly owned by Winnie the Pooh author A. A. Milne.
Speaker 2: Jones was an early entry into the infamous twenty seven Club,
Speaker 2: having to deal with his jealousy. Keith would later say,
Speaker 2: it becomes intolerable and you can really get nasty about it.
Speaker 2: I tried to be fair to him, but to be honest,
Speaker 2: he was a bit of a bastard and it doesn't
Speaker 2: surprise me that he came to a sticky end a stick.
Speaker 5: He d.
Speaker 1: Damn And for those of you who don't know, Brian
Speaker 1: Jones's death is somewhat controversial.
Speaker 2: That's a whole other episode, but look that up.
Speaker 1: The other way Satisfaction disrupted The stones interpersonal dynamics was
Speaker 1: that it introduced notorious rock villain Alan Klein into the
Speaker 1: group's orbit. Their manager at the time, Andrew lug Oldham,
Speaker 1: was more or less a young pr hustler rather than
Speaker 1: a proper entertainment in Pasario. He was the band's age
Speaker 1: and had his finger on what was happening in the
Speaker 1: music world, but he was not much of a business figure.
Speaker 1: With a gargantuan global success of satisfaction, he found himself
Speaker 1: in way too far over his head. Enter Alan Klein,
Speaker 1: a prototypical cigar chopping executive up there with Louis B.
Speaker 1: Mayer and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Really the primo music industry shark.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy this quote from his own nephew, Ronnie Schneider,
Speaker 1: who worked as the Stones tour manager for a time.
Speaker 1: Was Klein villified absolutely, But vilification works two ways. Saddam
Speaker 1: Hussein used vilification to keep himself safe for many years. Yes,
Speaker 1: Alan Klin's own nephew compared him to Saddam Hussein. Before
Speaker 1: managing the Rolling Stones, Klein had made a name for
Speaker 1: himself as one of the most aggressive and controversial figures
Speaker 1: in the music business. Raised in a New Jersey orphanage,
Speaker 1: he began his career as an accountant, specializing in auditing
Speaker 1: the royalty statements of record labels. In the late fifties,
Speaker 1: he gained notoriety for recovering unpaid royalties for artists like
Speaker 1: Bobby Darren and Connie Francis, often exposing shady record industry
Speaker 1: practices in the process. It's worth noting that Klein would
Speaker 1: often pocket at least half of these recovered royalties for
Speaker 1: his troubles. Klein soon expanded into artist management, quickly earning
Speaker 1: a reputation as a tough negotiator who could bring better
Speaker 1: contracts out of labels. He's big breakthrough came in the
Speaker 1: early sixties when he took over the business affairs of
Speaker 1: Sam Cook, legendary soul singer, helping him take the hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars he recovered.
Speaker 2: Through royalty statement audience, which again.
Speaker 1: Was Clin's specialty, and using the proceeds to establish Cook's
Speaker 1: own label and publishing company, which I feel.
Speaker 2: Is very, very overlooked in sort of the legend and
Speaker 2: history of black music in the United States, So that
Speaker 2: Sam Cook was a label owner, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, extremely, I mean it kind of got overshadowed, and
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to flip it by him getting murdered
Speaker 1: like with the yeah and a half of that happening.
Speaker 1: Client success with Cook cemented his status as a savvy
Speaker 1: if ruthless power player, drawing the attention of major artists.
Speaker 2: By the mid sixties, Client had hitched.
Speaker 1: Himself to the British Invasion bandwagon, doing deals with people
Speaker 1: like The Day Clark Five and The Stones, Nemesis Hermit's Sermits,
Speaker 1: Enemy the Pod Hermit's Ermitts.
Speaker 2: I just loved how much they pop up unless they
Speaker 2: annoy both you and the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: Actually though, I me there's a kind of hush show
Speaker 1: over the world that sounds good tonight.
Speaker 2: I like that song? Okay.
Speaker 1: So by working with these British Invasion bands that brought
Speaker 1: him into the Stone's orbit. Andelou Goldham, the Stone's nominal manager,
Speaker 1: was attracted by his tough guy persona, the way he
Speaker 1: eschewed suits for turtlenecks and swinged whiskey from the bottle
Speaker 1: and carried rolls of cash.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, he brought Klein into the business organization in the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen sixty five to help negotiate a new
Speaker 1: record deal between The Stones and their label, Decca following
Speaker 1: the global Successive Satisfaction. Klein's famous line at the time
Speaker 1: was that he promised to get the Stones more money
Speaker 1: than their friendly rivals, the Beatles. This he did on paper,
Speaker 1: where the money actually went is a little more complicated.
Speaker 1: Once Klein got his hooks into the Stones, it would
Speaker 1: prove next to impossible to get them out. Odum's role
Speaker 1: in the band quickly diminished as he sunk for the
Speaker 1: drug use. To quote Wikipedia, when Jagger and Richards were
Speaker 1: arrested for drug possession in nineteen sixty seven, instead of
Speaker 1: devising a strategy for their legal defense and public relations,
Speaker 1: Oldham fled to the United States, leaving Klein to deal.
Speaker 2: With the problem. Nah well, who among us? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm out of here. Sorry, guys, I haven't just getting
Speaker 2: way too heavy for old old loogie. Oldham sold his
Speaker 2: rights to the band to Klein later that year, effectively
Speaker 2: making him their sole manager. This was generally considered bad
Speaker 2: news for the Stones, considering that Klein generally operated under
Speaker 2: the mantra, why take twenty percent of my clients when
Speaker 2: I can have it all, although, as author Rich Cohen noted,
Speaker 2: it was fitting that a bunch of blues obsessed Brits
Speaker 2: got robbed blind by an scrupulous industry heavy giving them
Speaker 2: an authentic taste of what it was like for their
Speaker 2: black musical heroes. Klein died in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: but Jordan is still afraid of him, so for legal reasons,
Speaker 2: we'll phrase this next section as such. Klein has been
Speaker 2: accused of such a fences as pocketing the Rolling Stones
Speaker 2: one point twenty five million label advance, with holding royalty payments,
Speaker 2: stealing publishing rights to their songs, and neglecting to pay
Speaker 2: taxes for five years, which ultimately led to their famous
Speaker 2: taxile in France in nineteen seventy one, yielding their epic
Speaker 2: double album Exile on Main Street. So all things considered,
Speaker 2: it was a why. For more on this, please listen
Speaker 2: to Jordan's aforementioned Stone's Touring Party podcast. Klein is most
Speaker 2: famous these days as the management figure. He came in
Speaker 2: to oversee the Beatles during their death throws in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine, following the death of their original manager Brian Epstein.
Speaker 2: Paul McCartney famously hated Climb while the other three Beatles
Speaker 2: loved him, and the followout from that disagreement did much
Speaker 2: more to break up the band than Yoko Ono ever did.
Speaker 2: Paul hated Klein because he'd heard bad things about him
Speaker 2: from his new in laws, Lynda Eastman's father and brother,
Speaker 2: who were both New York entertainment attorneys, and Paul's friends,
Speaker 2: and the Stones. The Beatles actually called a meeting with
Speaker 2: Mick Jaggert asking about his experience with Klein, but unfortunately
Speaker 2: Clin was also invited to that meeting and Mick pussied out.
Speaker 2: Paul would say, we the Beatles were all gathered in
Speaker 2: the big boardroom there. We asked Mick how Klein was,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, he's all right if you like
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. He didn't say he's a robber,
Speaker 2: even though Klein had already taken all those copyrights off
Speaker 2: them by that time. Nick did approach John Lennon privately
Speaker 2: after the meeting and offered a much more dire warning,
Speaker 2: saying that signing with Clein would be quote the biggest
Speaker 2: mistake of your life. Lenin ignored the warning, and support
Speaker 2: for Clein jeopardized the band's entire business future and played
Speaker 2: a key role in their eventual breakup. Meanwhile, McCartney, taking
Speaker 2: Jagger's concerns to Hart, filed lawsuit against his fellow Beatles
Speaker 2: to formally dissolve the group, a move that ultimately protected
Speaker 2: their catalog from falling under Cline's control. Lenin would later
Speaker 2: admit that Paul and Mick had been right, but by
Speaker 2: that point it was too late and the Beatles were
Speaker 2: legally dissolved. So by the transitive property, Alan Klein used
Speaker 2: the Scrolling Stones to get to the Beatles, so descent
Speaker 2: in the ranks of the Beatles which led to their split.
Speaker 2: Klein had been brought into the Stones organization following the
Speaker 2: success Satisfaction. Therefore, Satisfaction led to the breakup of the Beatles.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, yeah, it's plausible. I mean so,
Speaker 2: I guess in the end the Rolling Stones did win.
Speaker 2: I'm still kind of that as Rolling Stones won Beatles zero.
Speaker 2: Go ahead though, okay if I must.
Speaker 1: According to whosample dot com, there are one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty four covers of Satisfaction, ranging from Everyone to Aretha
Speaker 1: Franklin to Devo, Phillis Diller to Cat Power and Britney
Speaker 1: Spears to the Grateful Dead, But as far as Keith
Speaker 1: Riches is concerned, the definitive version was Otis Reddings. Reddings
Speaker 1: recorded his version of Satisfaction a year after The Stones
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, encouraged by stack spand mats, Steve
Speaker 1: Cropper and Booker T.
Speaker 2: Jones.
Speaker 1: At first reading wasn't familiar with the song, and once
Speaker 1: he heard it he really wasn't a fan. So he
Speaker 1: imagined it entirely, swapping out the iconic guitar riff for
Speaker 1: a brassy horn section and taking major liberties with the lyrics. Ironically,
Speaker 1: this was closer to what Keith Riches had originally envisioned
Speaker 1: for the track, and he praised Redding's bold interpretation. The
Speaker 1: way Otis ended up doing it is probably closer to
Speaker 1: my original conception for the song. He later said, it's
Speaker 1: an obvious horn riff. Otis got it right. Our version
Speaker 1: was a demo for Otis. That's a nice thing to say,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: At a time when British bands were regularly covering black
Speaker 1: American artists, Redding's take flipped the script. It became one
Speaker 1: of the first notable examples of a black artist reworking
Speaker 1: a British rock song. Otis's version reached number thirty one
Speaker 1: on the US charts. According to Setless FM, the Stone's
Speaker 1: a play it. I Can't get No status faction one
Speaker 1: thousand and seven times to date during concerts which must
Speaker 1: mean they've done one thousand and seven concerts, because there's
Speaker 1: no way they didn't play that song after it became
Speaker 1: a hit. Also, Peter Noon of Hermas Hermit's has performed
Speaker 1: at six times. I have not heard it.
Speaker 2: So, as we mentioned earlier, one of Jagger's most famous
Speaker 2: quotes is I'd rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when
Speaker 2: I'm sixty five. So he turned sixty five years old
Speaker 2: on July twenty six, two thousand and eight, and since
Speaker 2: then they have played Satisfaction another one hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: eight times. So if anything about Big Jagger bothers, you
Speaker 2: know that since two thousand and eight he has privately
Speaker 2: wished for death on stage on some of the world's
Speaker 2: biggest stages in front of the world's biggest crowds at
Speaker 2: least one hundred and ninety eight times.
Speaker 1: This may be true, but Mick also said this in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. People get very blase about their big hit.
Speaker 1: This was the song that really made Rolling Stones changed
Speaker 1: us from just another band into a huge monster band.
Speaker 1: You always need one song. We weren't American, and America
Speaker 1: was a big thing and we always wanted to make
Speaker 1: it here. It was very impressive the way that song
Speaker 1: and the popularity of the band became a worldwide thing.
Speaker 1: It's a signature tune really, rather than a great classic painting,
Speaker 1: because it's only like one thing, a kind of signature
Speaker 1: that everyone knows. Its a very catchy title, as a
Speaker 1: very catchy guitar riff, as a great guitar sound, which
Speaker 1: was original at the time, and it captures the spirit
Speaker 1: of the times, which is very important in those kinds
Speaker 1: of songs. Decades later, Satisfactions steal pulses with the urgency
Speaker 1: and frustration that first electrified the airwaves in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a hit. It was a howl of discontent,
Speaker 1: a declaration of identity in a world that felt increasingly
Speaker 1: hollow and overpackaged. With one slashing riff, the Rolling Stones
Speaker 1: gave voice to a generation that didn't see itself reflected
Speaker 1: in the polish smiles of TV ads or the promises
Speaker 1: of the post war dream. It was raw, restless, and
Speaker 1: unapologetically alive. It continues to rank high on lists of
Speaker 1: so called greatest rock and roll songs, but those lists
Speaker 1: are subjective and stupid. Nothing else Satisfaction represents the moment
Speaker 1: rock and roll stopped asking for permission.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna think about that for a while. What do
Speaker 2: you think you got another one?
Speaker 1: You got another song of the summer and another song
Speaker 1: that stopped asking for permission?
Speaker 2: Which is which proto rock and roll song didn't ask
Speaker 2: for permission?
Speaker 1: I think scale is crucial. I think something that was
Speaker 1: aimed this high on the charts.
Speaker 2: And probably the song that that blues guy, the blues
Speaker 2: guitarist I mentioned earlier cut called I'm Gonna Murder that woman.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe the moment pop stopped asking for permission there?
Speaker 2: Are you happy with that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of murder ballads where
Speaker 2: they just talk about it. I murdered this I heard
Speaker 2: I didn't ask so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Eminem kind of like that Unlocked in the top forty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, possibly the most famous songs about murdering in the
Speaker 2: top twenty, I guess. Yeah, hang down your head, Tom.
Speaker 1: Juelas, Oh wow, that's good. All right, songs about murder,
Speaker 1: hit songs about murder, hit songs about murder.
Speaker 2: Let's look no, because now you have to go into
Speaker 2: like the whole history of the child ballads and everything
Speaker 2: through Appalaysia which are like you know, I mean, because
Speaker 2: then you have Hey Joe, well, yeah, hey Joe.
Speaker 1: Oh goodbye Earl. Did you actually kill him or was
Speaker 1: it just the plan?
Speaker 2: I forget, I remember the specifics in there. There's a
Speaker 2: Nick Cave for Cobby. That one my name was Las
Speaker 2: Jane Mac the knife, Mack the knife badly Roy Brown.
Speaker 2: I thought that was just cutting people up in barrooms?
Speaker 2: Is it about killing people?
Speaker 1: What's the other one? Then, don't mess around with Jim?
Speaker 1: Which I always thought was one was a sequel song
Speaker 1: or the other?
Speaker 2: I forget? Yeah, yeah, has that been disproven that? I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: We came along this road Nick Cave, Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Nick Cave has dozens of songs about murder. But I'm
Speaker 2: I'm I'm speaking. The wild Rose is like an old English.
Speaker 2: It's one of those old English ones. God, he's got
Speaker 2: so many songs about murder. Actually, one of my favorite
Speaker 2: songs that the Dead do from around this time is
Speaker 2: called Me and My Uncle, which is actually written by
Speaker 2: John Phillips of all people, and I can't give away
Speaker 2: the twist, but it does involve murder.
Speaker 3: Hm.
Speaker 2: This feels like kind of a fool's game. A lot
Speaker 2: of songs about murder. I've ruined your nice kicker with it, though, so.
Speaker 1: See cat that as a win.
Speaker 2: I shot the sheriff, rolling stones too, beetles zero, oh
Speaker 2: Maxwell silver hammer, forgot about that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Delilah, Delilah. I shot the sheriff psycho killer yeah,
Speaker 1: fullsome prison blues of course, of course, of course, excitable boy,
Speaker 1: but he bean raps it, man downs Rihanna.
Speaker 2: Oh well. The Kicks is also about by Foster. The
Speaker 2: People is also about murder. Oh, pumped up kicks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: school shooting, right, all the little kids with pumped up kicks,
Speaker 2: better run and run. Yes, somebody's gun. Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't like that. I don't like that. Man, don't do
Speaker 2: I don't It's in poor taste, not like all of
Speaker 2: our jokes. Uh sorry, why don't you just cut all
Speaker 2: this out of it? The stop messing for permission, and
Speaker 2: I'll say, And they never would again until LMFAO cut
Speaker 2: their song Sorry for Party Rocking, which threw the nation
Speaker 2: into a tizzy because once again rock had saw well, actually,
Speaker 2: in the maximum of Church Hill, it's always easier to
Speaker 2: ask for forgiveness than beg for permission. So that was
Speaker 2: suppose now I don't know, I don't know, I'm making
Speaker 2: that up. So in a sense, LMFAO embodied this for
Speaker 2: a troubled new millennium torn asunder by wars, on terrors, drugs,
Speaker 2: facing the Great Recession two thousand and eight, and so
Speaker 2: when they released Sorry for Party Rocking, not only were
Speaker 2: they asking for forgiveness instead of permission, but they were
Speaker 2: apologizing on behalf of the elders of that country. Because
Speaker 2: you remember, one of those men is like forty seven, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And he's er Barry Gordy's kid, right or nephew or something.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So you have a member of the older
Speaker 2: landed gentry apologizing in song to the younger millennials. And
Speaker 2: in that way you have a baby boomer apologizing and
Speaker 2: it fits right in the grand tradition of satisfaction. I'm
Speaker 2: tying it all together in a kicker right now. Sorry
Speaker 2: for Satisfaction Rocking. This has been too much information. Sorry
Speaker 2: for Satisfaction Rocking. I'm Alex Heigelan. This is my co host,
Speaker 2: Clinton Halen. Sorry, what's your name again? And I'm Jordan
Speaker 2: Roun talk. That's right, Okay, we'll see next time, folks.
Speaker 2: We'll do it. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna catch
Speaker 2: you if it just will catch you.
Speaker 1: Said it like the family guy, creepy old man voice.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna catch you. This has been this has been
Speaker 2: too much information and uh, we'll catch you, you little
Speaker 2: pig with some bitch.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, This is how we're gonna sign off
Speaker 1: that we forgot to after Galaxy Quest and Tim Allen
Speaker 1: would leave set he just was say leaving, that's where
Speaker 1: we ended, okay, leaving leaving too much information was a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog.
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog
Speaker 2: and Alex Heigel.
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows