Strap in for a wild ride with Elvin Bishop and his fiery ensemble as they tear through the raucous track “Calling All Cows“, from the rollicking 1977 live album Raisin’ Hell. We dig into this electrifying live performance that showcases a band at the top of their game. A prime example of the musicianship that made the ’70s a golden era for live albums; Elvin Bishop’s Raisin Hell stands out as a testament to that time.

For those who have never heard Elvin’s work, this episode is a perfect introduction. And for long-time fans, it’s a chance to fall in love with his music all over again. 

“Calling All Cows” (Earley Dranne) Copyright Excellorec Music Co. BMI 

Take advantage of our discount code lovethatsong and save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You are listening to us on the Pantheon Podcast Network, and I am your host, Brad Page. And each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dive into it together, listening for all of those little moments, the special touches that make it a great song. No musical skill or knowledge is required here– all you need is a love for music, and you’re going to fit right in here.

Now, usually on this show we focus on studio recordings, looking at how songs were put together in the recording studio. But on this batch of episodes, we’re focusing on live recordings, tracks from some of my favorite, and kind of lesser-known, live albums. On this episode, we’re going to listen to a track by Elvin Bishop from his 1977 live album “Raisin’ Hell”, featuring his smokin’ hot band, showing just how exciting it can be when a really tight group of musicians cut loose and play. This song is six minutes of pure fun. It’s called “Calling All Cows”.

Elvin Bishop’s image has always been as a country boy, a real hayseed. But as is often the case, the truth, it’s a little bit more nuanced than that. He was born in Glendale, California, in 1942, but he grew up on a farm in Iowa with no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing. His family moved to Oklahoma when he was ten, but he was a smart kid. He graduated from high school as a National Merit scholar, earning him a full scholarship to the University of Chicago. Ostensibly, he went there to major in physics, but not coincidentally, it just happened to bring him closer to the blues and R&B music that he loved.

While at the University of Chicago, he met a harmonica player named Paul Butterfield, and they would visit the Chicago clubs, learn from the blues greats, people like Otis Rush, Hound Dog Taylor, Buddy Guy. They formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1963. Though Bishop was the original guitarist in the band, he was largely overshadowed by Mike Bloomfield, who joined in 1965. That’s not surprising, as Bloomfield was one of the greatest guitar players of his generation. Almost anyone would have taken second fiddle to him, but Elvin was no second-rate guitarist.

The Butterfield Blues Band released their first album in 1965 and about a year, later cut their second album called “East West”. “East West” is one of the most influential albums of the 1960’s. Along with a selection of typical blues covers, the album features two lengthy instrumental tracks which let the band cut loose, experiment with jazz and elements of Indian ragas. One of the first albums to incorporate these exotic elements in a rock and blues context.

Mike Bloomfield quit the Butterfield band after “East West”. Elvin Bishop would hang on for two more albums, and then he left, too, to start his solo career in 1968. The first Elvin Bishop group album was released in 1969, and over the course of four or five more albums, Elvin built a band around him of tasteful, flexible players who could really jam.

Donnie Baldwin on drums. Michael “Fly” Brooks on bass, Johnny Vernazza on second guitar. These guys were tight, but these albums were all largely under the radar; none of them were close to breaking any sales records.

A singer named Mickey Thomas had been singing background vocals on the last few Elvin Bishop group albums. But on their 6th album, “Strutting My Stuff”, in 1975, Mickey was promoted to full-time band member and got to sing lead vocals on a few tracks, including a little number called “Fooled Around And Fell In Love”.

That was it. That was the secret sauce. The band needed a group of super-tight players who could really hit the groove. Elvin’s guitar out front and Mickey Thomas’ vocals on top. They had a bona fide hit.

They followed the “Strutting My Stuff” album with their next record, “Hometown Boy Makes Good”, and then in 1977 released a live album called “Raisin’ Hell – Elvin Bishop Live”.

1977 was peak Live Album era; everyone was releasing live albums. Many of them became big hits. This is a pretty typical live album of the period. It’s a double album offering a nice retrospective of Elvin’s solo career with a few surprises thrown in. Robert Christgau, the “Dean of American rock critics”, actually gave this album an A minus. So that’s at least one thumbs up. But I really like this album a lot. It’s a selection of tracks recorded across five shows, from March 1976 through February 1977. This particular track, “Calling All Cows”, was recorded at the February 1977 show at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. “Calling All Cows” originally appeared on the “Juke Joint Jump” album from 1975. Here it’s expanded a bit to really let the band play. And this was a big band. There’s a lot of players on that stage. Of course, you have Elvin Bishop on lead guitar and lead vocal on this track. Mickey Thomas on backing vocals. Johnny Vernazza on guitar. Melvin Seals on keyboards. Don Baldwin on drums. Michael “Fly” Brooks on bass. Billy Slais on saxophone and keyboards, Renee Slais and Debbie Cathey on backing vocals. And Chuck Brooke, Bob Claire, Dave Grover and Bill Lamb on horns. The album was produced by Alan Blazek.

The song kicks off with a drum fill, and it sounds like there’s some percussion, conga drums maybe in there, too. Then the bass and synthesizer play a funky little riff together.

Elvin’s telling someone to wait a minute, I don’t know if he’s talking to the band or the audience, but this song isn’t stopping for anyone.

I love that bass part right there. They’re hitting such a great groove already. Listen to how the horns punch up certain little bits throughout the song. It’s classic.

And now we got a twin guitar part. Elvin and Johnny V playing in harmony. They’re both playing slide guitar here.

Let’s hear just the bass and the drums. Listen to that groove they’re laying down. Here comes the first verse sung by Elvin with, I think, Johnny V singing along with him.

“We’re gonna have a little milk we’re gonna have a little cream, we’re gonna have a little butter, a little margarine”. I mean, come on, is that great or what? I love this song.

There’s a great little lick in there in the left channel. I think it’s played by Johnny V on guitar. But then again, it could be Melvin Seals on keyboards. Let’s back it up a bit and play into that second verse.

Listen to those horn accents and the way they’re locked right in with the drums. This band is tight.

Let’s bring up those twin guitars. Notice how the guitar solo takes a break for the horns to do their thing, before we go back to the guitars. This isn’t just a free form jam. There’s an arrangement here. It feels like they’re just jamming, but there’s a structure behind it all.

Elvin is going to play a little solo. Listen to how the horns are building things up behind the solo, and then they bring it down to just the groove.

The keyboards get a few licks in here. And now another taste of those twin harmony guitars by Elvin and Johnny V. Another crescendo from the horns and back to the twin guitar riff.

And then the last verse. Let’s back off the vocals and just listen to the groove the band is laying down behind them.

Let’s bring the vocals back up now. Here comes a new little piece with some tasty guitar work. On the studio version of this track, the song just fades out at some point. They added this section, and this is actually where they would end the song live, right there. But by this time, they had added the horn section. And here they let the horns pick it back up right at the break and lead the band into an extended finale. It’s an example of how a song can evolve and grow as it’s performed live.

Listen to the bass and drums build the tension here. And then how the whole band just hits this riff. Listen to that bass.

We continue to build to a big finale. They are not done yet. They are going to squeeze every little bit out of this big ending.

The Elvin Bishop Group, “Calling All Cows”.

Commercial success was fleeting for Elvin Bishop. “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” was his one and only hit. But he’s kept making records and touring. He’s a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, and he’s been nominated for a Grammy for Best Blues Album quite a few times, though he hasn’t won yet. At 83 years old, he’s still playing, still got a shot at that Grammy. Hope he gets one. He deserves it.

Mickey Thomas would leave the Elvin Bishop Group after this live album, and not long after that, he joined Jefferson Starship. I love Mickey Thomas’ voice, and I expect we’ll hear from him on this show again sometime.

You know, Elvin has always portrayed himself as a fun-loving, good time boy, but there’s more to his life than just that image. Honestly, I kind of hesitate to bring this up because I don’t like to sensationalize things, but Elvin has suffered real tragedy and pain in his life. In August of 2000, both Elvin’s wife and his daughter were murdered. I can only imagine the toll that that must have taken on him. And again, I don’t want to play up anyone’s suffering for the sake of a podcast, but I think it’s important to acknowledge Elvin Bishop as a full person and respect what he’s been through and his ability to carry on.

Thanks as always for being a part of this episode. I’ll be back in about two weeks with another new show. Who knows what we’ll be talking about then, but I hope you join us. If you missed any of our previous episodes, you can catch up on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or find us wherever you listen to podcasts. We’re on iTunes and Spotify and YouTube and pretty much everywhere you can listen to podcasts.

If you’d like to support the show– and I hope you do– he first thing you can do is to just tell someone about the show, share it with your friends or family, because it’s recommendations by smart, knowledgeable people like you that really help us out.

On behalf of all the shows here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening. Go out and find yourself a copy of Elvin Bishop’s “Raisin’ Hell” album. Crank it up and listen to this version of “Calling All Cows”.

RESOURCES:

Elvin Bishop
https://www.elvinbishopmusic.com

Raisin Hell Album
Raisin’ Hell – Elvin Bishop | Album | AllMusic

Paul Butterfield Blues Band
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/paul-butterfield-blues-band-mn0000019552

East West Album
East-West (The Butterfield Blues Band album) – Wikipedia

Jefferson Starship
https://jeffersonstarship.com

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
https://www.rockhall.com

Blues Hall of Fame
https://blues.org/blues_hall_of_fame/

We dive into the electrifying atmosphere of live music on this episode, as we take a detour from studio recordings to explore the raw energy and spontaneous magic of live performances. This time around, we’re sizing up “Meadows” by Joe Walsh, from his dynamic 1976 live album, You Can’t Argue with a Sick Mind.

Join us as we trace the origins of Joe Walsh’s musical journey and examine the intricate layers of “Meadows,” from the driving guitar riff that hooks you in, to the dual drummers and star-studded band lineup that includes the likes of Don Felder, Jay Ferguson, and Willie Weeks. With two drummers, two keyboard players, and a percussionist, you’ll discover how this ensemble manages a tight, uncluttered sound that defines true musicians. Whether you’re a die-hard Joe Walsh fan or just love the thrill of a great live album, tune in and turn it up.

“Meadows” (Joe Walsh & Patrick Cullie) Copyright 1973 Songs of Universal Inc., Barnstorm Music Inc. and Belkin Music Company

TRANSCRIPT:

We are back once again for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. We’re here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Brad Page. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs, and we delve into it together to see how it works: what goes into making it a great song? As always, musical knowledge or experience isn’t a prerequisite here. We don’t get into music theory or anything too technical. We’re just going to use our ears and sharpen our listening skills.

Now, usually on this show, we focus on studio recordings, where we can examine how a song was put together, the choices made during production and recording. But in the next few episodes, I want to take a look at some live recordings. There are a lot of great live albums out there, some pretty popular and some really famous ones. You know the ones I’m talking about– from “Frampton Comes Alive” to “Kiss Alive”, Allman Brothers “At the Fillmore East”, Thin Lizzy “Live and Dangerous”, Humble Pie “Performance Rocking The Fillmore”, I mean, there’s just so many great live albums.

But what I want to do is go off the beaten path a little bit and play some probably less familiar tracks that highlight different aspects of what I love about my favorite live albums. This time, we’re looking at a track by Joe Walsh from his 1976 live album, “You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind”. This is a song called “Meadows”.

Joseph Fiddler was born in Kansas in 1947, but he was an army brat and moved around a lot. His father was killed in a plane crash in Okinawa, Japan, when Joe was only a year and a half old. His mother would later remarry when Joe was five, and he took his stepfather’s surname, Walsh.

Like many kids, he was insecure. Never felt like he fit in. But he had a talent for music. His mom was a classical piano player. Maybe he inherited that from her. He got a guitar when he was about ten years old, but it was hearing The Beatles for the first time that really kicked him into gear.

He went to college at Kent State in Ohio and gigged around regularly with a band called The Measles, and eventually hooked up with the James Gang out of Cleveland and became their guitar player. The James Gang was originally a five-piece. But when their keyboard player and lead singer quit right before a gig in Detroit, Joe stepped up and became their lead vocalist as well.

The James Gang built a following, got a recording contract and released three albums between 1969 and 1971, and they had a pretty big hit with the song “Funk #49”.

But Joe was restless with the limitations of that band, and quit the James Gang in ’71.  He put together a band called Barnstorm and recorded a couple albums with them, which were really marketed as solo albums. The second album featured “Rocky Mountain Way”, which of course became a big hit.

It was around this time that Joe had met Irving Azoff, who became his manager. Azoff was also managing a little band called The Eagles.

In April of 1974, his wife was driving his daughter to school when someone ran a red light and crashed into them. His wife was knocked unconscious, but his four-year-old daughter suffered major head trauma and didn’t survive. As you can imagine, it was heartbreaking and pushed Joe further into alcohol and cocaine abuse.

At the end of 1974, he released his next album titled “So What”. A number of The Eagles appeared on various tracks on that album, and within a year or so, Joe would become a permanent member of The Eagles.

But in November 1975, before he officially joined The Eagles, Joe was invited to appear on “Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert”, one of the all-time great rock music TV shows. So many great performances on that show, and they’re worth watching just for Don Kirschner’s awkwardly stiff introductions. Classic.

Anyway, Joe put together an all-star band and filmed a live show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on November 26, 1975. It was broadcast on Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert and billed as “Joe Walsh And Friends”. I don’t believe the video of that show was ever officially released; you can find it on YouTube, but the quality is pretty rough. But some of those tracks were released as a live album in March 1976. It was called “You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind”.

This was the height of live album mania, of course. “Frampton Comes Alive” came out that same year, but this album was a relatively concise single LP. It doesn’t feature everything from the Don Kirchner footage, but it’s really well recorded and well performed. And it’s one of those live albums where I prefer most of these versions over the original studio versions.

This episode we’re listening to the song “Meadows”, which is the second track on this live album. First, let’s have a quick listen to the original studio version, which was released on Joe’s second solo album called “The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get” in 1973.

The live version is a few beats-per-minute faster, as is often the case, but I think the riff and the groove of this song really benefit from being faster. It just feels, well, livelier. And the performance is just great. I mean, look at the lineup of this band:

Of course, you’ve got Joe Walsh on guitars and vocals; Don Felder of The Eagles, also on guitar; Jay Ferguson on keyboards– e was in Jo Jo Gunne and Spirit. We covered one of his Spirit songs in a previous episode. He also had a big solo hit in the seventies called “Thunder Island”.

You also have David Mason on keyboards. This isn’t the Dave Mason who played in Traffic. This is a different David Mason who spent some time playing in Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. You have the great Willie Weeks on bass; he was one of those go-to players. He was on records by David Bowie, George Harrison, Donnie Hathaway, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder. He just played on tons of albums.

And then there are two drummers on this song, both playing together. Andy Newmark and Joe Vitale. Again, both highly regarded session players. Each of them has a credit list a mile long.

Plus you have a percussionist, Rocky Dzidzornu, also known as Rocky Dejon. He played on tons of tracks, including “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones. Now that is what you call an all-star lineup.

Now, let’s get into the track. It begins with Joe Walsh playing the riff before the whole band joins in. I gotta say, this is one of my favorite guitar riffs of all time. So let’s just hear those guitars for a second.

Let’s go back and hear the full band version. And remember, besides two guitars and bass, there are two keyboard players, two drummers and a percussionist all playing together. But notice it doesn’t sound cluttered. Nobody’s over playing. They’re very tight. Those are signs that you’re dealing with real professionals here.

The verses are a little mellower. The keyboards come more to the front. Jay Ferguson is playing piano while David Mason is on the organ. And of course, Joe Walsh with the lead vocal.

Let’s try to bring up the piano and the organ so you can hear how they interact.

I wouldn’t describe Joe Walsh as a typical singer. There’s a lot of quirks to his voice, but I’ve always loved it. It’s unmistakably him. I think he sounds great on the next part of this verse, so let’s hear that.

The riff comes back. Listen to that bass part by Willy Weeks.

Here’s the next verse. Some things are left unspoken some things are handed down the circle stands unbroken sending it back around.

Around during the verses, Andy Newmark is playing the traditional drum kit, but Joe Vitale is just adding fills, playing kettle drums with a pair of mallets. Listen for that.

Now at this point, we come to a new section featuring a guitar solo played by Don Felder. This is different than the studio version. There’s no guitar solo here on that version.

Now if you listen closely, you can hear a buzzing sound, probably coming from one of the guitar amplifiers.  These days, they’d be able to remove something like that, but I kind of like it when these things are left in. It makes it feel like a genuine live recording, that they’ve captured something real. Let’s bring up Don Felder’s guitar.

Another thing to note about that section is that Joe Vitale switches from playing drums to playing synthesizer. So there’s only one drummer during that section, but there’s actually three keyboard parts.

At this point, the song builds back into the final verse, but there’s still plenty more of the song left to go.

We’re back to two drummers playing here. And this drum fill coming up is one of the few times where it’s very clear there are two drummers on this song.

Some more tasty playing by Willy Weeks on bass and a nice little Joe Walsh guitar lick here.

Now this is interesting: this is where the song seems like it should end. But they add a whole new section– and this is not part of the original studio version. Jay Ferguson is going to play a little bit on piano and then we’re going to get some extended guitar playing from Joe Walsh and Don Felder. That’s Joe Walsh on the right and Don Felder on the left. This is the kind of dueling guitars that these two would perfect on Hotel California, but they did it here first.

And here’s another new piece of music. Again, this is not part of the original studio recording, either. Jay Ferguson is once again going to take the lead on piano and now Joe Walsh is going to take a solo on his own. Let’s bring up Joe’s guitar for a little bit.

Joe Walsh – “Meadows”.

You can find the video of this performance on YouTube. Just search for “Joe Walsh Meadows live” and you’ll find it. It’s worth watching. Joe wears this goofy coon-skin cap through the whole performance. It looks ridiculous, but that’s Joe. It’s such a great performance though.

Of course, The Eagles would go on to massive success before imploding in 1980. Joe continued making solo records, but he descended deeper into alcoholism and drug dependency. When The Eagles started talking about reforming in 1992, they told Joe straight up they couldn’t do it unless he cleaned himself up. And he did. He got sober, and against all odds, Joe Walsh is still with us today– looking, playing and sounding great.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. If you missed any of our previous shows, you’ll find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or look for them in your favorite podcast app.

Be sure to share your thoughts on this song, or any of the other songs we’ve talked about, on our Facebook page; just search for “I’m In Love With That Song” on Facebook and you’ll find us. And of course, you can always send an email to lovethatsongpodcastmail.com.

And if you’re hankering for even more music related podcasts, well, the Pantheon Podcast Network has a bunch of other great music related shows, just waiting for you to discover them. So check them out.

And as always, if you’d like to support this show, the best thing that you can do is to tell someone about it. Recommend it to your friends, your family, or your coworkers, because your endorsement carries a lot of weight. So thank you.

I’ll see you again soon. Thanks for listening to this edition of “I’m In Love With That Song” featuring “Meadows” by Joe Walsh.

RESOURCES:

Joe Walsh
https://www.joewalsh.com/

The James Gang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gang

Kent State University
https://www.kent.edu/

Jo Jo Gunne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Jo_Gunne

Spirit (Band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(band)

Todd Rundgren’s Utopia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(American_band)

Willie Weeks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Weeks

The Eagles
https://eagles.com/

Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Kirshner%27s_Rock_Concert

The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get (Album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smoker_You_Drink,_the_Player_You_Get

Hotel California (Song)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_California_(Eagles_song)

Join us as we dive deep into one of Queen’s most iconic tracks, “Death on Two Legs,” from their legendary album A Night at the Opera, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. This episode features an in-depth analysis of the song’s history, production, and the individual tracks that make up this classic, along with performance insights from Tyler Warren, who has played this music live with the Queen Extravaganza. Don’t miss this chance to celebrate the music that shaped rock history.

“Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To……)” Freddie Mercury Copyright 1975 Queen Music Ltd

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dive into it together to discover what makes it a great song.

This episode we continue our look at one of the greatest albums ever made,” A Night at the Opera” by Queen, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Last episode, we talked about this album as a whole, what led up to the record, how it was recorded, and an overview of each track. We were joined by author Gillian Gaar, who’s just published a new book all about this album. Go back and listen to that episode for details.

This episode, we’re doing a deep dive on one of my favorite tracks on the album. It’s the song that opens the record and we’ve got a special guest who’ll join us at the end to give us some additional insight on actually performing Queen’s music live, especially the tracks from the “Night at the Opera” album. So let’s do it– Let’s dig into “Death on Two Legs” by Queen.

“A Night at The Opera” was Queen’s fourth album, mostly recorded during the summer and fall of 1975. As I mentioned before, we covered the making of this album on our previous podcast, so if you haven’t listened to that one, go back and check it out for the history of this album.

“Death on Two Legs” is the song that opens the album– side one, track one. The full title is actually “Death on Two Legs (Dedicated To…)”.  The lyrics never mention who the subject of the song is, but clearly Freddie is not happy with them.

The target of Freddie’s rage was Norman Sheffield, the owner of Trident Studios, along with his brother Barry, and the band’s former managers. This was your classic dispute between artist and manager, with the band claiming they never received the money that they were due, and management maintaining that the band racked up huge expenses and there just wasn’t much money left.

When Norman Sheffield heard that Queen’s new album began with a song that raked him over the coals, he sued the band for defamation. Though Sheffield is never mentioned by name in the song, the band ended up settling out of court for a not insubstantial sum.

“Death on Two Legs” was written by Freddie Mercury and performed by Freddie on vocals and piano, Brian May on guitar and backing vocals, Roger Taylor on drums and backing vocals, and John Deacon on bass. It was produced by Queen and Roy Thomas Baker.

The song begins with the sound of a piano, distant at first, then coming closer to us, the listener.

That heavy riff is played by a distorted guitar and an acoustic upright bass, also known as the double bass, played with a bow. But before that riff appears out of nowhere, you can hear some strange sound effects in the background. My guess is that those were actually played on Brian May’s guitar with some delay or effects added.

Let’s go back and listen to that again in context and see if those sounds jump out at you.

Now you can hear those effects getting louder here.

Brian’s overdubbed some additional guitars here, including a part reminiscent of those violin stabs from the “Psycho” soundtrack.

It’s going to continue to escalate, culminating in a blood-curdling scream, performed by Roger I believe, before it comes to a screeching halt. Literally.

Now were hitting the song proper. The author Martin Power, in his great book “Queen: The Complete Guide to Their Music”, described this song as a “heavy metal tango”. Which is actually a pretty good description.

Before the first verse starts, Brian plays a short guitar solo that has a real exotic feel to it. It’s not your typical rock mode. Let’s listen to that guitar by itself. Couple of things to note here: As usual he’s playing his legendary Red Special guitar. That’s the guitar that he built himself with his dad, made out of a 100-year-old piece of mahogany that came from a fireplace mantle. For amplification, we can assume that he’s playing through a Vox AC30 amp using a Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster pedal, between the guitar and the amplifier; that was his standard setup around this time. Another key element of the Brian May guitar sound is that instead of using a traditional pick, Brian uses a sixpence coin. So you’re actually getting a  metal-on-metal sound whenever he picks the strings. So, that combination of all of these things– the custom-built homemade guitar, the AC30 amp, the treble booster pedal, and using a coin for a pick– all of these things contribute to giving Brian one of the most distinctive guitar sounds in all of rock. So let’s hear that solo.

I think you can really hear the sound of that metal coin on the strings. Let’s hear that again in context with the rest of the song.

So here’s the first verse. Right before Freddie’s lead vocal comes in, we get a blast of those famous Queen harmonies. Then Freddie comes in with a vocal that is just spitting venom. Notice how he’s overdubbed the vocal on different tracks so that they overlap ever so slightly on the last word of each line.

All right, there’s a lot going on here. Right before that first chorus, we have a backwards cymbal that’s inserted.

Let’s hear that again in context.

There’s also an interesting drum pattern that Roger Taylor is playing under the chorus. Let’s hear some of that.

Then before the start of the next section, there’s a sound effect that, probably the best way to describe it is, it’s kind of a helicopter sound. I’m pretty sure that sound is made by Brian’s guitar through an Echoplex tape delay.

Let’s play through the next section.

Okay, let’s break down this section. We’ll start with Freddie’s piano, because that’s the part that’s really the foundation for this section. The original working title for this song was “Psycho Legs” because apparently Freddie’s piano playing was so intense.

Now let’s hear how Brian has layered a couple of guitars to thicken up this section.

Now the vocals.

Just wow. One more thing I want to hear before we move along is to listen to Roger Taylor’s drum part during this section,because this is just a classic Roger Taylor performance. Let’s hear it.

All right, let’s put that all back together again and hear the final mix of this section.

That is maybe the most brutal lyric in this whole song.

“Do you feel like suicide? You should.”

He’s basically telling this guy he should kill himself. Let’s go back and pick it up from there.

Another guitar solo from Brian May. This one is much more in a traditional rock vein, but still fantastic. Let’s just hear that guitar first.

And let’s hear what Freddie’s piano was doing under that.

And I haven’t forgotten about John Deacon. Let’s hear what he’s playing on the bass during this section. Theres some nice gritty distortion on the bass all through the track; that’s old studio trick that helps the bass cut through when you’re doing the final mix.

Okay, let’s hear that all put together.

That brings us to the final verse. Let’s play through that. I’ll stop along the way to point out a couple more things.

Nice bass guitar lick there by John Deacon.

And Brian May’s guitar joins in at the tail end of that lick.

And I’ve always loved the way Freddie sings the word “balloon” in this verse.

And let’s listen to the vocals on that part again.

And before we play through the final chorus, let’s highlight a couple more things. First, let’s hear Roger Taylor’s drums again.

And let’s hear John Deacon’s bass one more time.

And let’s hear how Brian’s guitar and Freddie’s piano work together.

On top of that, Brian plays some short little guitar licks; these were actually composed by Freddie on piano, then Brian learned them on guitar.

There are little licks like that throughout the song, which were all Freddie s idea. Okay, let’s put it all back together one final time and listen to this last chorus through to the end of the song.

And that’s it. That’s how the song ends, rather abruptly. On the album. It goes right into the next song, “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon”. And that transition couldn’t be more extreme. Two completely different styles, polar opposites.

And that is just one reason why I love this album: the sheer nerve it takes to open your album with a one-two punch like this. And it keeps going like that through the whole album. It’s incredibly audacious, this album. It’s a masterpiece.

And someone who has experience actually playing this album live, all the way through in front of an audience, is my special guest on this episode, Tyler Warren.

Tyler Warren is a drummer and singer who was recruited by Roger Taylor himself to play in the “Queen Extravaganza”, the Queen tribute that Roger Taylor put together. Then, when Queen hit the road with Adam Lambert, Tyler joined them on stage, playing drums and percussion. So, he knows this music inside out. I met up with Tyler in Nashville at the RockNPod Expo, and we had a brief chat about his experience performing this album live.

BRAD: Well, Tyler Warren, thanks for joining me here at Live at RockNPod. My next episode is focusing on one particular track from “Night at the Opera”, “Death on Two Legs”. And I really wanted to get your insight, because you’ve actually performed this song.

TYLER: Well with his, with the tribute band, official tribute band that he put together, 10 years ago now, called Queen Extravaganza.

BRAD: And you actually played the whole album front to back?

TYLER: We did. We did. We did it a couple of tours where we did “A Night at the Opera” front to back. The first tour we did, it was in two sections, and the first section was all music pre-“Night at the Opera”,. And then the second half was “Night at the Opera”.

BRAD: I mean, that’s quite a lot of music to bite off…

TYLER: I loved it. I love all that stuff. So I was in heaven.

BRAD: And that’s incredible record. And so you played drums and percussion?

TYLER: Yeah, I played drums and sang lead vocals with Queen Extravaganza. And then with Queen, I do percussion and background vocals, stuff Roger doesn’t want to do anymore.

BRAD: So tell us just a little bit about what is it like to work with Roger.

TYLER: It’s like I tell everybody else, like, Roger and Brian– obviously, I have more experience being around Roger– but they are who they are. They’re freaking legends. But they’re humans, too. And whenever we’re hanging out, it’s just like I’m hanging out with. buddies, you know? They just happen to be these massive, gigantic rock stars that are legends, you know?

BRAD: Right, right. So, let’s talk a little bit about this particular song, “Death On Two Legs”. What’s always fascinated me about this song is there’s so many elements, little pieces to that song. What was the most challenging thing about doing that particular song live?

TYLER: Really, the most challenging thing for us, whenever we did it with Extravaganza– with pretty much anything that’s Queen related– is background vocals.  Because everything else kind of falls into place and it kind of goes where it needs to go. But we just wanted to make sure that everything we could possibly do is there. And, you know, Roger was, and still is, extremely keen on not using tracks. So everything that we did, we did live.

BRAD: Right. No backing tracks, no fudging it.

TYLER: No, no, no, no, no. So if you screw up, it’s for real. But I would say that definitely the most difficult part was doing the background vocals. And we spent a lot of time making sure we got that one right. Because it’s important for us. Because especially for Roger, back then with the tribute band, the whole reason that he put it together was, he was sick of seeing all these other tribute bands that were way more focused on dressing up like Queen and putting on the mustache and stuff like that, and less focused on representing the songs and the albums as good as they possibly could, and making it something that actually sounded amazing. And that was the whole impetus of Queen Extravaganza; like, we didn’t dress up like them or anything. We just performed. And, you know, there are certain bands where the visual is just as important. You know, if you’re going to see a Kiss tribute, man, you want to see them dressed up in the makeup and stuff, you know? But a band like Queen, the visual is important, so there is a really good live show and everything, but the music is just as important.

BRAD: Right.

TYLER: And another thing I learned from Roger and, even back in the day with Queen, is they knew they couldn’t reproduce those records note-for-note live. So they became their own beast. They became their own little edgy thing live. And, you know, we tried to translate that as much as possible with Extravaganza, and most certainly still do with Queen and Adam Lambert.

BRAD: How difficult you find it in general reproducing some of those songs live, because there’s a lot of studio, I don’t want to say “trickery”, but, like, real production value. I mean, a lot of ways, on “A Night at the Opera”, Roy Thomas Baker is almost like the fifth member of that band, right?

TYLER: Sure. For sure.

BRAD: Yeah. So there’s a challenge there, right? Just getting that sound right.

TYLER: And honestly, like, Death was probably one of the easier ones. I don’t want to downgrade it that way, but it’s a little more straight ahead than some of the other songs on the record. Like, probably the hardest one that we did was… I would say it’s either a cross between “Seaside” and “Prophet Song”, because there was this guy named Mark Martell that was a lead singer in Extravaganza for a while, and when it got to that middle section with the echoes and stuff, you know, we did that live, and if you mess up, it messes up three times. But we worked so hard to make sure that that was good. And yeah, the hardest parts, the vocals; instrumentally, if we know the songs and we know what we’re doing, it comes together. But vocally, we all sang in that group, so we all had to make sure we knew our stuff.

BRAD: So did you sing the Roger parts generally?

TYLER: Yeah. Or just whatever needed to be filled in. I always took the high stuff and then Roger, anything that Roger sang lead on, I would do. Like, “Car” and things like that.

BRAD: So what were some of the other challenging things, aspects, maybe, that we wouldn’t necessarily think about doing that particular album, or just any Queen stuff in general, live?

TYLER: Well, it’s kind of two different beasts. With Extravaganza, we do what we can to do some of those, some of the stuff that they did in the studio that they didn’t do live.  Like, with “Seaside”, doing all the mouth trumpets and all that stuff, we would do that, and the ukulele things for “Good Company”. And a lot of it was pre-prep. Like, we would spend a lot of time on our own. Either I or the keyboard player would transcribe vocals and send each other parts. And, like, “you do this, you do this, you do this”, just to make sure that we’re all on the same page.

BRAD: Right.

With Queen, it is totally different because we can, it always comes together. But, like, whenever we get in rehearsals, we really don’t practice the music that much. You would think we would, but… we might, we’ll do, like, top and tail, beginning of a song, end of a song, and if there’s any massive train wrecks, we’ll go through it. Bbut other than that, we’ll spend a little bit on music, a bit on production, and then first show, hopefully everything comes together, and it always tends to. It always seems to be like, the first show is great, the second show is terrible, and then it evens out after that.

BRAD: That’s interesting.

TYLER: Yeah.

BRAD: So you’ve toured with the Adam Lambert version of the band?

TYLER: Yes. Yeah.

BRAD: And what’s it like working with Adam?

TYLER: It’s ridiculous. It is unbelievable what that man can sing, and it’s almost like it’s nothing to him. Like, we can show up for sound check and he’s not warmed up. He might have just woken up or might have just gotten back from a lunch or something. And we get up there and it’s there. And it just seems like it’s nothing to him. His voice is absolutely insane.

BRAD: What a gift, right? Man.

TYLER: And he’s such a nice guy. I just saw him a couple weeks ago because he was doing “Cabaret” in New York, and we saw his last show, March 28, I think. And of course, naturally, he was as ridiculous on that as ever. But he’s got a gift, there’s no doubt about it.

BRAD: Yeah. Well, let’s talk about some of your music. You were telling me you’ve released a couple of singles on your own.

TYLER: I have. I’ve got another band called Flare Light, but we’re kind of on hiatus at the moment. But around Valentine’s Day last year, we were in Japan with Queen and Adam Lambert, and the last show was Valentine’s Day, and I released two singles called “Beautiful Ways” and “Falling Into You”. It’s the first solo stuff that I’ve done in nearly 10 years, I would say. It’s just I’ve been so caught up with Queen and stuff like that, I just hadn’t really had time. But since those two singles, I’ve been kind of getting back into the idea of being a solo artist again. And I’ve been writing, recording, so hopefully I’ll have a record out. And hopefully it’s some time this year.  But it’s on Spotify, Apple, all the streamers, wherever you get your music, “Beautiful Ways” and “Falling Into You”.

BRAD: Okay, and that’s under your name?

TYLER: Yes. Tyler Warren.

BRAD: Yeah. Cool. All right, well, thanks, man. I appreciate you coming by, talking a little bit about the record.  And we’ll play a little bit of that track to get us out of this episode.

TYLER: There you go.

BRAD: But thank you so much, man.

TYLER: The most vicious Freddie might have ever been. Oh yeah, It’s a great one. Thank you so much. Thank you.

BRAD: Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

Tyler Warren. I had a good time chatting with him.

Well, this wraps up our special two-parter on Queen’s “Night at the Opera” and the song “Death On Two Legs”.

Of course, “A Night At The Opera”, led by the hit single “Bohemian Rhapsody”, would become the album that broke Queen in the US and around the world. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Thanks for joining me for this edition of the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, there’s about 180 other episodes just waiting for you to discover them. You can find them on your favorite podcast app– Spotify, Pandora, Apple, Amazon, iHeartRadio, whatever podcast player you prefer, you can find us there. Just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast.  Or you can listen on our website, lovethatssongpodcast.com.

You can send your thoughts and comments to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com or post them on our Facebook page.

If you’d like to support the show, head on over to oldglory.com and buy a t-shirt or some merch from your favorite bands. They’ve got some quality Queen t-shirts there, and it’s all properly licensed stuff, so the bands don’t get ripped off. And when you use our discount code lovethatsong, you’ll save 15% off anything you buy there, and this show gets a few bucks on the deal, too. So go to oldglory.com, use the discount code lovethatsong, save some money and support this show. Thanks.

From everyone here on the Pantheon Podcast Network– where fans belong– I thank you for listening. I will be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, crank up your copy of “A Night At the Opera”.

Now, to play us out, let’s hear a little bit of our friend Tyler Warren and his song “Falling Into You”. You can find it on any of the streaming services, so please make sure you support artists like Tyler. See you next time.

RESOURCES:

Queen:
https://www.queenonline.com

A Night at the Opera (Album):
https://www.queenonline.com/discography/albums/a-night-at-the-opera

Tyler Warren:
https://www.tylerwarrenmusic.com

Roy Thomas Baker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Thomas_Baker

This episode we celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest ever made– A Night At The Opera by Queen. I’m joined by author Gillian Gaar, whose new book, Queen and A Night at the Opera 50 Years, offers a fascinating look at the making of this legendary record. Together, we explore the unique personalities of the band members, the pressures they faced leading up to the album’s release, and the innovative production techniques that defined their sound.

Each track on A Night At The Opera is a testament to Queen’s eclectic style and musical genius. Join us as we celebrate the artistry behind this classic album and the enduring legacy of Queen. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or new to their music, this episode is a must-listen!

Purchase Gillian’s book here:
Queen & a Night at the Opera a book by Gillian G Gaar – Bookshop.org US

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’m your host, Brad Page, and on the next couple of episodes, we’re celebrating the anniversary of one of the greatest albums ever made: “A Night At The Opera” by Queen.

Author Gillian Gaar has a brand new book out called “Queen and A Night At The Opera: 50 Years”. This is a great book, and so I’m happy to have her join me for this episode as we dig into this classic album. Here’s our conversation.

Brad Page: All right, Gillian Gaar, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the podcast. Just a few episodes back, I did a show on all of the amazing records that came out in 1975. It was an incredible year for some classic albums, and one record in particular that’s celebrating its 50th this year, is by any measure, an all-time classic. It’s Queen “Night At The Opera”. And you have a fantastic new book– I have it here, I’ve read it, it’s great. Couldn’t recommend it any higher. You’re kind of giving us the inside scoop on the making of “A Night at the Opera”. So, thanks for coming on the show to talk about the book and about this amazing record.

Gillian Gaar: Well, I’m excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Brad Page: Yeah, thanks for coming on. So, let’s set the stage here. Let’s talk about who Queen was. I think when you look back at, not all, but many of just the legendary bands, there are four very distinct characters, right? John, Paul, George, Ringo… The Who… Led Zeppelin. Each one of those guys is singularly unique in where they fit in those bands and really irreplaceable, I think. And I think Queen is the same way. You had four very distinct individual characters in this band. So, let’s talk a little bit about just who those guys were; Let’s start with Brian May and Roger Taylor, because they were kind of the core of the band and they had sort of been playing together before Queen became Queen, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. In fact, they were all in college, and Freddie Mercury knew them at that time and they were in the band Smile. And Freddie desperately wanted to be in a band, but Smile was a trio, so they couldn’t, he couldn’t really fit himself into that format, but he just hung around. He was an ambitious guy already at that stage; you know, he’d have suggestions for them. “Oh, why don’t you play this song? Why don’t you move like that on stage?” That kind of thing.

Brad Page: Yeah. Freddie kind of weaseled his way into the band just kind of on sheer personality, I think.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I mean once Tim Staffell left and Smile was over, well, then Freddie could step right in. And then it just took a while to find John Deacon. I mean, that’s a kind of interesting aspect about how a band comes together; they had three other bass players that they worked with before John Deacon, and it didn’t say that any of them weren’t necessarily, That John was necessarily so much a better bass player than them. I think they probably perhaps had the same level of skill, but they just weren’t the right fit. And John came along and he was like the last piece of the puzzle, which you see that in retrospect, though it couldn’t have felt like that at the time– they were probably thinking “Are we ever going to find a bass player?” And, kind of like the moment when Ringo joins the Beatles, the last part of the puzzle finally falling into place.

Brad Page: Right. The key piece that fits. And then it just gels, and it’s magic.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah. It’s also interesting, because they are four very different personalities, and yet they all worked well together. I mean, yes, of course they were known for their arguments in the studio and all, but in general they meshed well together. And I think I quoted, it was probably Freddie, or maybe Brian, just saying how he thought that element made them a more interesting group; that you did have all these different people instead of all the same kind of person.

Brad Page: Right. Well, yeah, again, that goes back to where you look at The Beatles, or The Who– I mean, that’s a bandwidth four very distinct characters. Led Zeppelin… John Deacon is kind of that John Paul Jones-type of character, right. The quote-unquote “Quiet One”.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: But an incredibly important force. I think every band has a “secret weapon”, Somebody who’s sort of under-the-radar but is so important, and to me, that’s John Deacon and Queen.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, well he turned out giving them some of their most notable hits.  And who knows, if he had not been in Queen, if he’d been in some other group, maybe he would not have become a songwriter, because he sort of blossomed with that. He didn’t join and say, “Oh, I have all these songs”. He sort of developed.

Brad Page: Yeah, and we’ll talk about that as we go through the record. So, as we come into 1975, Queen’s got three albums on the books. They’ve had a taste of success with “Killer Queen”. They didn’t really have any hits off the first two records, but “Killer Queen” on the previous album did pretty well.

There’s a thing where, by the time you get to your third record, if you’re not producing hits, there’s a lot of record company pressure. But where do you see the band as they come into this record? Where are they at in their career, in your perspective?

Gillian Gaar: Well, as you say, you know, obviously they hadn’t had the big breakthrough, but they were coming along, as frustrated as they probably felt that the three albums didn’t do better than they hoped. But by the time they made, “Night At The Opera”, they were a headlining act in Britain– not in the US; they had been to the US and were opening for other bands, and so probably the next step would have been to be the headliner. But they were headlining in Britain, so they had come on that much. “Killer Queen” was the first song I remember hearing from them. So that was like the first US breakthrough… I was going to say big hit; It wasn’t a “big hit”, but it got in the Top 40. So, you heard it on the radio, even in the suburbs.

They’ve got a new manager by that time, because they were having, they were having some conflicts with Trident where they were making the records. They were sort of under a management contract with Trident, who was also, I think, looking after their publishing and having them record in Trident Studios, which in Norman Sheffield’s book– he was one of Tritee’s co-owners, the founder, he owned it with his brother. He wrote out pretty interesting book, because the band was saying, “Oh yes, they didn’t pay us enough royalties”, etc. And he said that at the beginning, he didn’t want Trident to be overseeing all those aspects of the band because he just envisioned it generating conflicts of interest down the road, which of course it did, when the band was unhappy. But they brought in John Reid at this time and John said, you know, “Don’t worry about any management issues, record company issues. You just go out and make the best album you can.” So he sort of took that pressure off. He’s like, “Don’t think about business. Your job is to make this record. So just focus on the record and don’t even think about these business issues.” But I know Brian has said he considered it a make-or-break record, because they were on the verge of breaking through. So they were in a good position, they were in a great position for that. But then you have to deliver. And if they’d put out an album that wasn’t as strong, you know, they may have just stayed kind of at that middling success level. You don’t generate the momentum to carry you to the next level. So that was what they were looking to do with “Night at the Opera”. So certainly they themselves felt pressure for that.

Brad Page: Yeah. So they begin rehearsals in July of 1975. And they end up, over the course of the album, they end up using a total of six different studios, I think, between the overdubs and all of that.

Gillian Gaar: Yes. If you want to count the national anthem, it was seven, because they recorded that before that even started proper work on “Night at the Opera”.  They recorded it to play at the end of their concerts, because in Britain, they usually play the national anthem at the end of a theatrical performance. And, they thought, well, let’s provide them with a rock version to play. And so they’d already recorded that and decided to put it on the end of “Night at the Opera”.

Brad Page: Before we dig into the record, one more person to talk about, and that’s the producer, Roy Thomas Baker. Talk a little bit about Roy and his role here.

Gillian Gaar: Well, when he was starting out, learning his trade, he actually worked with some opera companies in the studio, which was very helpful, I think. One reason Queen got on so well with him was that he was as experimental as they were. And when they were making Queen II– which one band member, or maybe it was Roy had called it “the kitchen sink album”, because they just threw everything into that. But he had been told by Freddie when they were starting work on it, Freddie saying,” if there are any other crazy ideas you want to try that other bands wouldn’t let you do, you could do them on this album”. So they were both interested in experimenting and pushing the studio technology. So they were lucky in having Roy with them, because he was just as excited to see what could be done in the studio as they were.

Brad Page: Exactly. Particularly in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, you had a lot of those pop producers that were, you know, they made some great records, no doubt, but it was very much almost an assembly line in a way. It was just, you come in and you do X, Y and Z, and back out on the road. And there wasn’t a lot of room for the acts to experiment. I mean, sometimes they didn’t even get to play on their own records.

Luckily, you had four very strong-willed characters here who weren’t about to let themselves get steamrolled by any producer.

So let’s go through the record, track by track.  Because to me, when I think of the all-time great records, what makes a great record– not just a good record, but one that really stands out– to me, it’s sort of a cliche, but I always feel like a great record has to take you on a journey, from start to end. Doesn’t necessarily have to tell a story like a concept record, but it’s got to take you somewhere from the moment you drop the needle, so to speak, ‘till the end of the album. And to me, this record really does. It just takes you to so many different places and it’s such a fantastic record for that. So let’s look at these individual pieces that make this great work of art.

The album kicks off with a track by Freddie, that Freddie wrote called “Death on Two Legs”. And I don’t want to get too deep into it here, because we’re going to actually explore this track in detail on the next episode of the podcast… but just to kind of put it out there, this is one of the nastiest tracks that’s ever been written about another person. I think particularly written about their two managers, who, frankly, I don’t know that really deserve this level of vitriol. But it is a brutal takedown of Barry and Norman Sheffield, who you mentioned before, who had been acting as their managers. And clearly Freddie wasn’t particularly happy with that situation.

Gillian Gaar: Well, the whole band actually was wondering why they weren’t getting more money since their records were selling. And in particular, “Sheer Heart Attack”, the third one, selling more because it was the most successful. And Norman, in his book, which he called “Life on Two Legs”, he said that Queen had such expenses, such high expenses that they were still in debt to the company. Freddie in particular, always wanting a new costume to wear, and they had a kind of elaborate stage show, lights and all the rest of it that they wanted to use. So, he could certainly be right about that. And he was trying to tell them, or was trying to tell them. “Well, as more money comes in, then you’ll earn back this debt and then you go start to get money of your own”. But, yeah, that relationship did not last. And, they worked out a settlement to where the Sheffield’s were no longer involved. But they did get money from the next few albums until a certain period. Norman recognized that the song was about them and they were considering legal action, but he didn’t really want to, you know, hold up their career. It was easier to just make a settlement, let the album come out. And, if you notice, if you read interviews done at the time, Freddy’s careful to never name them. And he doesn’t even say, you know, our former managers or anything. He’s really kind of vague.

Brad Page: Yeah, he’s pretty cagey about it.

Gillian Gaar: They probably came to some agreement that, yes, we don’t want to get in legal trouble either.

Brad Page: Yeah.

Gillian Gaar: And I mean, it’s interesting to know that about the song, the backstory, if you will, but certainly you can relate to it anyway, even if you have no idea what they’re talking about. Because probably everyone’s had a boss or a superior that you didn’t like. Maybe not to that degree… Or a teacher. You know, there’s probably some figure that’s grated on you. Or these days, maybe it’s a politician. So, it has a lot of universal appeal, I would say.

Brad Page: Right, right. I mean, it is certainly a brutal takedown. And Freddie, just the way he digs into those lyrics vocally, it’s just like he’s just like breathing fire.

Gillian Gaar: He’s so over the top, though, that it’s kind of funny. I mean, you sense that his tongue is a bit in cheek there because it’s somewhat delivered with a wink. The animosity is real, but it’s, um, I think it’s tempered a little bit.

Brad Page: And then the song ends, and we go right into about as much of a polar opposite as you could get: Track two, “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon”, another track written by Freddie.

Gillian Gaar: Oh, I love that one.

Brad Page: I do too. The song is 1 minute and 7 seconds long; it’s like it’s over before you Know it. But even in that little over a minute time, there’s some interesting things going on. Let’s talk about how they recorded the vocal on this track because that’s pretty fun.

Gillian Gaar: You know, these days, I suppose you just hit a switch on the console and get a  digital effect to make your voice have that kind of “old timey” sound, like from a Victrola record player. Back then, you had to do those things, you know, the analog way, the hard way. So they had his microphone, they sent the vocal into a microphone in a bucket, to give it that kind of echoey sound, which actually is pretty clever when you think about it. A lot of the things they did on this album were very clever. They thought of all kinds of solutions to get the sounds they wanted.

Brad Page: Right. It’s pretty ingenious. He sings in the studio, as you normally would, but then they pump that audio into a pair of headphones; they put the headphones in a bucket and then stick a mic in the bucket to record the audio kind of bouncing around inside that tin bucket, and you get this sound that really sounds just like an old time radio or Victrola like you said.  It’s fun, it’s just a fun little track and I really dig it. And I love the juxtaposition of the fury of “Death On Two Legs” with “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon”.

Gillian Gaar: Oh yeah, the album starts out that way, it continues on. Each song is kind of, you know, so different from the one before it.

Brad Page: Yeah. And so the next song on the record is Roger Taylor’s moment to shine, and kind of became his signature song. “I’m In Love With My Car”.

Gillian Gaar: This is an aspect that isn’t talked about with Queen very much, but there was always a sense of humor running through what they did. I think not so much in the ‘80’s, and maybe that’s why I didn’t like their music as much in the ‘80’s, I’m more a ‘70’s Queen person.

But, of course, “I’m In Love With My Car” has all these great innuendos in it that are, you know, not unheard of in songs about cars. So he kind of continues that fine tradition.

Brad Page: It’s in 6/8 time, which is not an unusual time signature, but for kind of a more heavy rock song, it’s not typically used in that format, so that’s kind of interesting. It has that sort of false ending at the end, where it fades out and then it comes back in with the guitar part. And I believe Roger actually played rhythm guitar on this track, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yes, yes. Helped to thicken the sound.

Brad Page: Yeah. So you got, I think, both Brian and Roger playing a little guitar at the end of it. And then of course, they overdub Roger’s sports car at the end of it. That is a real car. Yeah, that’s his Alfa Romeo. That’s his actual car. You hear revving it again at the end. It’s  it’s not a sound effect, it’s an actual recording.

And then we get John Deacon’s moment, a song that he wrote called “You’re My Best Friend”. And, spoiler alert– this is my favorite track on this record. I think this is an absolutely perfect pop song. I love the sentiment of it, it’s just so pure, and I just think wonderful. And it’s like the second song he wrote, right? Because he had written one track on one of the previous records, and I think this was song number two?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I mean, you know, technically, I don’t know if he wrote a song in between or not.

Brad Page: Yeah, he may have had other songs, but this was this only the second song he brought to the band. But I mean, wow. You know, this is the kind of song I think you could write and just if you write this once in your life, that’s a big accomplishment. Pretty incredible. Such a great song. He plays the electric piano on it. It’s very distinctive, that electric piano sound.

That’s all John. Incredible bass part on here. If you go back and listen to the bass on this part, super busy. Very McCartney-esque, in that way that Paul’s bass parts are kind of like a song all unto themselves. You don’t really hear any guitar until you get to the third verse, and then Brian does that great harmonized guitar solo. Kind of what I always think of as that guitar orchestration that he was so great at. That’s such a big part of the Queen sound is in here.

Gillian Gaar: And it’s really the first on the album where you can see the group’s harmonies on full display.

Brad Page: Right? Yeah. Those classic Queen harmonies really come into play here. Just a great track.

Gillian Gaar: Oh, yeah.

Brad Page: And then the spotlight turns to Brian. So: so far on the record, we’ve had two Freddy’s songs, we’ve had a Roger song; John doesn’t sing “You’re My Best Friend”, but it’s really his moment to shine. And then we’ve got “’39”, which is one of Brian May’s featured tracks on the album. He sings it. It’s kind of this, it’s a sci-fi folk song, which is a genre all of its own.

Gillian Gaar: I think Brian had to himself.

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah, I can’t think of too many other sci-fi folk songs out there.

John Deacon learned to play the upright bass specifically for this one. It became a real staple of the Queen’s setlist. They would play this live in kind of their acoustic section.

Gillian Gaar: Yes. They’d come down to the front of the stage.

Brad Page: Yeah. Brian on vocal; it’s a pretty heartfelt vocal. And, you talk about it in the book, that ostensibly the song is about the concept of when you go out in space and you travel at the speed of light, a year might pass for you between the time your journey begins and ends. But back on Earth, like 100 years could have passed. So he comes back to Earth, He’s a year older, but his family, his wife has probably passed away at this point, or she’s an old woman, and his kids are fully grown. He’s missed all of that.

But in your book, you have quotes of him talking about that’s kind of like how he felt as a touring musician. Going out on the road, on tour, and then coming back, you’re almost a different person than the family you left behind, which I think is fascinating.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, it’s sort of an allegory as well as just being the song about interplanetary travel. I’ve read something similar from other musicians; especially if you’re on a big tour, a big major tour, that there’s sort of a disconnect when you come off the road and then you get back to, quote, real life with, maybe you’re married, your spouse and your family… you haven’t been dealing with them, you’ve been dealing with all this other stuff. And if you’re a big band, you know, you’re catered to all the time, right? And now you’re back home and wait, “I’ve got to get my own dinner?”

Brad Page: Yeah. “I have to take out the garbage?”

Gillian Gaar: “What do you mean, mow the lawn?”

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah. And meanwhile, your family at home has been living their lives, you know, they’re almost on a separate path than you are. It’s no wonder so many of these relationships just… they fail because it’s such a hard thing. It’s nobody’s fault, you know, it’s just the nature of being a touring musician. You’re kind of in your own world and then you have to come back and reorient yourself into, quote, unquote, real life. And it’s kind of a weird thing… but I love how this song gets at that. And there’s a point towards the end of the song where the music breaks and he just says, “Pity me”. And just. I don’t know, the way he sings that, to me, there’s like some real emotion in that, that’s getting at something deeper than just the story that he’s telling.

And then that’s followed up by another song written by Brian, a track called “Sweet Lady”. This is kind of the one that sort of gets short shrift on this record, I think. The one nobody ever talks about.

Gillian Gaar: Well, it is the weakest track, I would say, on the album, certainly.

Brad Page: You know, I love the guitar riff. I think it’s a great guitar riff. But somehow it never quite seems to take off or to gel, I guess.

At the end of the song, the band kind of tries to ramp it up and go into overdrive, but somehow it feels smaller to me, uh, when it should feel bigger.

I think it’s almost a production failure. It’s not a terrible song by any stretch, but it’s kind of tough to live up to all the rest of the tracks on this record, I think.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, I think that fade out– and here, I’m looking it up– it lasts about a minute and a half. I think that’s my favorite part. That’s when they really sound the most engaged in the song. Because I have to say, the rest of it, I don’t know, there’s almost kind of a forced Quality. It’s kind of leaden.

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah… Brian was trying to do this thing of having 3/4 time in the verse and 4/4 time in the chorus, and it almost feels, in a way, like maybe more of like an exercise than a finished product, if you know what I mean. Like, it’s nice idea but doesn’t necessarily go anywhere.

Gillian Gaar: Mhm.

Brad Page: Again, I really do dig that guitar riff I think it’s a great guitar riff. So, I don’t want to completely crap this on this song, but you know, it’s on a record that’s chock full of, I think, masterpieces. So you know, something’s got to come last, right?

And then side one closes out with another one of Freddie’s old timey songs,  “Seaside Rendezvous”, which I think has a fantastic vocal by Freddie.

Only he could do a song like this and pull it off that way.

Gillian Gaar: Well, that was the aspect I liked about Queen, in particular that camp side that Freddie embodied. Because I grew up listening to musicals, and it was fun reading Mark Blake’s book on Queen, “Is This The Real Life”, and hearing what a fan Freddie was of the musical “Cabaret”, the movie in particular. And I was, too. Probably appreciating a different level from him, because I was still in junior high school. So, I always liked that aspect. So I kind of, I understood more where those songs were coming from. And maybe I think some of the rock contingent didn’t quite get that. Or maybe they were just things they tolerated or put up with from Queen. But I always liked those type of songs.

Brad Page: I do too. And it’s a very Beatle-esque kind of thing, too, right? ‘Cause so many of the great Beatle records would have, usually from McCartney but not necessarily always, you’d have these kind of British music hall throwback-type numbers, and I just think it adds to the, just the whole overall scope of the record. Like I said, sort of taking you on a journey through different musical genres and different times, and I love that. I love a record that just throws all kinds of things at you. And I think these songs hold up as well as the more classic rock numbers. I think “Seaside Rendezvous” was great for that, and I think it’s a great way to wrap up side one.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah. Because of course, that’s how we heard these albums in those days; there was a side one and a side two.

Brad Page: Yep.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. When you think about it, when they were putting the albums together, not like today with the CD thinking what’s going to open and close the album. You had to do that twice, because you had to think of what’s going to open side one and close side one.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: So you have to think of two openings and two closings.

Brad Page: Right. But I think the feel of albums benefited from that. And there was something about that break, where you physically had to flip the tape or flip the album. There was just something about that pause that was like an Act 1, Act 2.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah, it did have that quality.

Brad Page: Yeah. And so speaking of that, side two kicks off with the song that I think was supposed to be the epic on the record. I know Brian always felt that this song kind of got overshadowed by “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which is one of the all-time epics, but “Prophet’s Song” is the song that kicks off side two, and it’s really an intense piece. What’s your take on this song?

Gillian Gaar: Oh, I always like that one. Especially when you, you know, got your first pair of headphones and you could appreciate the canon part in the middle, with the vocal kind of going around first on one channel, then on the other, and then in the middle.

And that was very exciting. And it was so long.

Brad Page: Yeah, it’s over eight minutes long. I believe it’s the longest song Queen ever did.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I wrote that, and I said technically, on one of the very later posthumous albums, they put this sort of long track together…

Brad Page: Yeah, there’s like an ambient piece that closes out the “Made in Heaven” record.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah.

Brad Page: But that’s not like a “song” song, right.

Gillian Gaar: No. I always, I liked it quite a bit. I do like Brian’s songs, he was the one that was more apt to go into, you know, the realms of fantasy and mythology. That was, well, you  saw that in “’39”. And then this similarly is tapping into that.

Brad Page: Yeah, this came From a dream he had, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, yeah, that was the impetus of it. And then he just said it was a very difficult song for him to bring all the different parts together. But, I know he always felt it was overshadowed by “Bohemian Rhapsody”, but I don’t know if it really would have been, say, as successful as “Bohemian Rhapsody” had “Rhapsody” not existed or been on that album.

Brad Page: Right.

Gillian Gaar: I think, because of the length, and then also just the different passages. You had the canon sequence with Freddie’s vocals, but then coming out of that, you have this kind of long rock instrumental section that goes on.

Brad Page: Yeah. “Prophet’s Song”’s not quite as catchy, in terms of… you know, I can’t really picture it ever being a hit on the radio, the way “Bohemian Rhapsody” took off.

Gillian Gaar: Oh, they’d take the middle section out completely. You know they would have done that.

Brad Page: True. Yeah. And if I had one criticism, I think it may go on a little too long.

You’ve got the sound of this wind, which is actually just an air conditioner, like a microphone in front of…

Gillian Gaar: Yes, it was funny.

Brad Page: Right. And this is kind of a kitchen sink thing too, because Brian’s playing a toy koto, which is a Japanese instrument that I think was gifted to him on a Japanese tour.

like a microphone in front of.: Yeah.

Brad Page: You’ve got tape effects in it; there’s one point where they actually, you hear the sound of the tape starting from dead stop. You know, when you turn a tape on, it doesn’t immediately… It’s not like a cassette, you know, these reel to reel tapes, they took a second to ramp up to full speed. And so you’d kind of get that ramp up sound. And they actually used that in here. They edited that in, which is very difficult to do.

Gillian Gaar: Well, especially then you’d have to cut the tape and, you know, like literally tape it back in there. Yeah.

Brad Page: Lterally editing with razor blade and splicer tape. You could not afford to screw up. You really had to know what you were doing or the whole thing would be trashed. Wasn’t for the faint-hearted.

And then you have this beautiful acoustic guitar at the end of it that turns into the next track. Freddie’s piano comes in, and you get the song Love Of My Life, which is one of the most beautiful songs that Freddie ever wrote and ever sang. Let’s talk about that song.

Gillian Gaar: Well, I think it was Brian who said that later on in the ‘80’s, Freddie was somehow a bit insecure about his piano playing. So in the ‘80’s, he didn’t play piano that much on Queen’s records, they’d get other people in to do it. But, here he does, and I think that makes all the difference. And it just shows how artists can be self-conscious about something that to the rest of us sounds perfectly wonderful.

Gillian Gaar: It’s a beautifully performed piano part.

Brad Page: And you see the classical influence. I mean we had, you know, his love of vaudeville in the earlier songs. But now the classical influence comes in to play, very strongly on this number.

Brad Page: Yeah. And he asked Brian to play harp. Brian had to learn how to play the harp.

I think you say in the book Brian basically had to do it like one chord at a time. ause he didn’t know how to play harp.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. And then he found it would go out of tune pretty frequently. So you’d have to stop and retune it then play the next chord. So yes, he wondered how they managed in symphonies. But, I suppose perhaps in more climate controlled rooms, that’s easier. I have heard that harps can go out of tune very easily.

Brad Page: So yeah, it’s a tricky instrument.  The guitar solo: Brian’s guitar work here really feels like what a violin would play; at other points, it feels more like cello. You know, Brian was so great, and we’ll talk about it further on on the record, of just making his guitar… I mean, it always sounds like Brian May’s guitar. That’s the other thing too, is that on one hand, it’s so distinctive. Brian is one of those players where you can hear two or three notes of a Brian May guitar part and say “That’s Brian May”. And at the same time, he can become other instruments, like violins and cellos, and play those parts. What a brilliant player.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. I think he’s underrated in a lot of ways. Perhaps people remember the big guitar riffs, the signature guitar riffs, something like “Tie Your Mother Down”. But he was just very inventive and very expressive. I mean, think about “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon”. You know, his little guitar part at the end there, which is just so fun, and it’s probably only 10 seconds or 20 seconds. I think people overlook that side of his skills.

Brad Page: Yeah. Just incredibly versatile as a player and yet always sounding like Brian May.

It’s an amazing track. It’s one of their greatest ballads, if not their best ballad.

Gillian Gaar: Yes, it probably is the best ballad. Freddie’s best ballad. Yeah, certainly.

Brad Page: And one of the things that I love about this song, and just in general sort of fascinates me about music and songs in general, is that they would play this song live– and it would be a big part of their live set– but it became something else. They would do it acoustically, basically just Brian, I think, maybe John playing bass, and Freddie singing, but the audience would sing with him. The song kind of became this whole other thing.

It’s like this heartbreaking kind of lonely song on the album…

Gillian Gaar: Yes.

Brad Page: …but when they brought it live, you would get this 10,000, 20,000 people singing it, and it becomes something else.

Brad Page: How this song of one man’s broken heart kind of became almost an anthem in a way. And sung by 20,000 people, all kind of sharing the same feeling. It’s just, it’s just great. And to me, that’s a sign of a great song; it can withstand being taken apart and performed in different ways, but still always works.

Gillian Gaar: Mhm.

Brad Page: That’s followed by another Brian May song. Another song that he takes the lead vocal on, a song called “Good Company”.

Brad Page: That’s another favorite.

Brad Page: Yeah, he plays ukulele on it, as well as taking the vocal. He turns his guitar into an entire brass band.

Gillian Gaar: I know, it was remarkable. And just talking about creating the horn parts by recording them one note at a time. So, it was just an incredible amount of effort that he put into just getting it just right. That was typical of his meticulous approach to his music like that.

Brad Page: Just incredible amount of work for, again, it’s probably 30 seconds worth of music, but it probably took weeks of work.

Gillian Gaar: Mhm.

Brad Page: There’s one interesting thing in this song where lyrically he rhymes the line “My very good friends and me” with “The girl from Number Four”, which doesn’t even rhyme, right? You’d think it’d be “The girl from Number Three”.

Gillian Gaar: Number three, but you’re right.

Brad Page: It’s got to be an intentional, like, well, “I’m not going to go where you think I’m go going to go. You think I’m going to say three, I’m saying four”.

I love the way at the end of this song there’s this guitar trill that’s kind of an unresolved thing.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah, it’s like this minor discord and it gives you a little, it kind of leaves the song hanging, sort of a bittersweet note.

Brad Page: But that also takes you into “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the a capella intro of that. Just the way that flows is really interesting.

Brad Page: So then, of course, that leads us to the last track on the album, Freddie’s masterpiece. I mean, I don’t know what more we could say about the song that hasn’t been said a million times by other people, but it is a tour de force. I mean, it’s iconic. It’s hard to think of any song more iconic. There are songs as iconic, but I don’t know if there are any that are more iconic than “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Gillian Gaar: You know, we’ve been talking about the different styles on the album, and this has all those different styles in one song.

Brad Page: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You’ve got just every element that makes Queen great; that they’re able to do all these different things, and do them masterfully. And it’s all crammed into this one song.

I love the little touches, like after he sings “Shiver down my spine”, you get that kind of metallic clanging, which is actually Brian hitting the strings behind the bridge on his guitar.

And you’ve got that big gong at the end of it.

Gillian Gaar: Yes. It really was remarkable. And to think of that being played on the radio. I don’t know that a track like that could get played on the radio these days, or would get played, rather.

Brad Page: Right. This song is sui generis, to use a big word. You can’t think of anything like, “Oh, well, that’s just like this other song”.

It’s hard to come to a song like this and hear it fresh. Sometimes you have to kind of force yourself to just to flush it out and try to hear it as it sounded in 1975 and what, like, a shock it was.

Gillian Gaar: Yeah. Uh, people say the same thing about “Stairway to Heaven”, too. Just overplayed. And perhaps you could say that about “Hey Jude”, the Beatles song. So much out there. But younger people, though, who maybe haven’t had all that exposure, as much exposure to it in things like commercials; maybe, you know, each generation comes to it with fresh ears, one can think.  You know, I find you have to sort of step back sometimes, and not play that favorite album for a while, and then listen to it again, and you can revisit how great you thought it was.

Brad Page: Yeah, sometimes you just, “Wow, that really is great. I forgot how great that song was”, you know?

And then the album closes on “God Save the Queen”.

Gillian Gaar: I think it sort of underscores the idea that you could see the album as a theatrical presentation.

Brad Page: Mhm.

Gillian Gaar: I mean, the cover kind of suggests a theatrical program that you might get when you were seeing a show.

Brad Page: Yeah– Let’s talk a little bit about the album art. For Queen, it’s kind of an understated cover, I mean, considering how big and flamboyant they could be. It’s basically just very white with some bright colors. And that Queen coat of arms on the front, that Queen logo on the front kind of represents each of the four members of the band, right?

Gillian Gaar: Yes. That was designed by Freddie based on their astrological signs. Remember, astrology being such a popular thing then.

Brad Page: And I think you said it kind of feels almost like a theater program or an opera program, kind of the way it’s laid out. It’s very elegant, which befits the title of the record.

Gillian Gaar: Yes, that too. And then, on the inside; it’s a gatefold, having the lyrics and the portraits of the band members, they look like headshots– always made me think of headshots, the kind of things that actors and performers would use to pass out to agents and so on.

Brad Page: It’s just a very complimentary album design to go with this record, and the music that’s contained within. I really love the whole package of it.

So the album comes out in November 1975.What happens?

Gillian Gaar: You know, if you look at the reviews at the time… I mean, there are some raves, but there are also some, they did get some mixed reviews as well. Just because it was so elaborate and so many different styles, and people were sort of not sure how to take this. But certainly the sales came out strong, and soon they had a number one album & single, right away in England; I don’t think either of those got to a number one in America, interestingly. But yeah, certainly in England. And it broke through, gave them their number ones and around the world it certainly performed strong, got in the top 10. It was the breakthrough they had wanted and waited for, and worked so hard for.

Brad Page: Yeah, no doubt. This is the record that really brought them to that higher level, that broke them, made them legends and again, when I think of the great records, the great albums, this is absolutely one that’s always up there for me. I just think it’s an incredible record.

By the time this episode airs, the book will be out April 1st. I encourage anyone who’s listened to the show that’s a Queen fan of any measure– Go pick it up. It’s great. It’s just a great fun read and it’s a beautiful package. Jillian, they really did a wonderful job putting the book together. It looks great. Packaging is great. It looks beautiful on your bookshelf.

Gillian Gaar: It’s got a golden spine, folks. It’s in a slip case and it has a lovely golden spine.

Brad Page: Yeah, it’s befitting a band as elegant as Queen, for sure. You can find it on Amazon, but of course, if you can get it from your local bookshop, please do. Wherever you get it, get it. You won’t be disappointed.

I love the book, I love the album and I love the chance to talk to you about both the book and the album. So, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really, really appreciate it.

Brad Page: Well, you’re welcome. I had a great time.

Brad Page: Thanks, Gillian.

The book is called “Queen and A Night At The Opera” 50 Years” by Jillian G. Gaar. It’s a  must-have for Queen fans.

One of my favorite places to order books from is bookshop.org.  When you order from them, you’re actually supporting your local bookstore, so it’s always a great place to get any book. Look, I’m not making any money from this… I’m not getting a kickback, I’m not sponsored by any of this. I just genuinely enjoyed Gillian’s book and I think you will, too.

I’ll be back here in two weeks, digging deeper into “Death On Two Legs”. So I will see you then. Until then, take care of those you call your own and keep good company.

Saxon came out of England in the 1970’s and quickly established themselves as one of the leading lights of the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal” (NWOBHM). Their 2nd album, Wheels Of Steel, is considered one of the classic Metal albums. On this episode, we dive into “747 (Strangers In The Night)“, one of the hits from this album and remains a concert favorite at any Saxon show.

747 (Strangers In The Night)” (Words & Music by Byford, Quinn, Oliver Dawson, Gill) Copyright 1980 Carrere Music/Heath Levy Music Co. Ltd. – 2009 Union Square Music Limited, a BMG Company

— Is Rock dead? Of course not! And there’s plenty of podcasts on the Pantheon Network to prove it!

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back, true believers, to the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. I’m the host of the show, Brad Page, coming to you on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Each episode of this show, I pick a favorite song to dig into, as we continue our exploration to uncover what makes great songs work. No knowledge of music theory or technical jargon is necessary here. We’re just going to use our ears to listen and see what we discover.

This episode, we’re going back to 1979 to take a look at the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and a song by one of the bands at the forefront of that scene. This is Saxon with a song called “747 (Strangers In The Night)”.

We haven’t touched on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal on this show before. So before we get into the song, let’s talk about that.  If you’re not familiar with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, or as its often abbreviated in print, NWOBHM or “Newabum”– which I find either of those pretty awkward, so I’m just going to keep calling it the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal”.

This was a scene that began in the mid-seventies in England, and by the early eighties it broke big around the world, with bands like Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest. The scene really developed in parallel with punk, but it was its own separate thing.

This is, of course, a gross generalization. Like any scene, there’s a lot of complexity when you dig into it. But one of the things that distinguished the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was that they took the core sounds of hard rock and early metal bands like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, and they injected it with some of the energy of punk. It was faster, more aggressive. Again, I’m giving a surface level overview here, but I think you get the idea. The term New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was coined by Jeff Barton, a writer for Sounds magazine, in 1979. There were literally hundreds of bands that came out of that scene, everything from Motorhead and Venom to Girlschool and the Tigers of Pantang. But one of the most successful and long lasting was a band called Saxon.

Though they never cracked the big time in the US, Saxon were huge in England, Europe and Japan. They had eight albums in the UK. Top 44 of them that reached the Top 10, and they’re still making records in touring today.

Saxon came together around 1975, after two separate bands disintegrated. The remaining members merged into a new band they initially called Son of a Bitch. They were negotiating a deal with a French record label, but the label insisted that they change their name to something a little more commercially acceptable. So Saxon was born in July 1978.

Their first album, titled Saxon, was released in 1979. Their second album, “Wheels of Steel”, was released in 1980. It hit number five on the UK chart and generated two hits for them, the title cut, “Wheels of Steel” and “747 (Strangers In The Night)”.

The lineup of this album was Graham Oliver and Paul Quinn on guitars, Steve Dawson on bass, Pete Gill on drums, and Peter “Biff” Byford on vocals. All five band members share writing credit, and the song was produced by Saxon and Pete Hinton.

Biff Byford was watching a BBC documentary about the great northeast blackout that happened in America on November 9, 1965. That started when a 230-kilovolt transmission line in Ontario, Canada, failed, which then caused other lines to go down, eventually bringing down the entire northeastern transmission network. It plunged eastern Canada, parts of seven US states and all of New York, including New York City, into darkness. People were trapped in subways and elevators, supposedly even the airport runway lights went down.

This inspired Biff to write the song. That image of planes coming in to land and the airport lights suddenly go out, the planes forced to divert or circle going nowhere. The song begins with one of the classic metal guitar riffs, with a great guitar solo played over the top.

Let’s check out the guitars here. Just classic heavy guitar tones across the board. Pretty straightforward recording, too. Just a little bit of reverb on the rhythm guitar and some echo on the lead guitar. One is panned left and one is on the right, though there is some crossover on each channel. I believe that’s Graham Oliver on the guitar on the left and Paul Quinn on the solo on the right.

The band breaks here, letting that rhythm guitar come to the front, really establishing that riff before the vocals come in for the first verse. You can really hear that reverb on the guitar during the break.

Biff sings those first two lines solo and then overdubs a harmony with himself on the next two lines. But on the next part of the verse, he sings three lines solo and only harmonizes on the last line.

And that lands us at the first chorus. This is the part of the song that Biff Byford wrote first. He liked the idea of strangers meeting in the night during the blackout. There’s always been a legend that nine months after the blackout, there was a baby boom. I don’t think there’s any evidence to really prove that, but hey, makes for a great punchline to the story. And Biff was tapping into that.

Second verse. Biff mentions a plane, Scandinavian 101, in this verse, based on a real flight involved in the 1965 blackout. The actual plane was Scandinavian Airlines flight 911. The pilot had his eye on the airport landing lights, but when he glanced down at his controls and looked back up, the lights were gone. Dangerously low on fuel, the plane was lucky to make it. Some planes were able to land thanks to a full moon that just happened to be that night. Bits of all of this make it into the song.

Let’s listen to what’s going on musically during the chorus. The two guitars, again panned left and right, are playing the same arpeggio throughout the whole chorus.

But the bass is playing a descending pattern, going lower every four beats. Now, let’s hear that all together, and then we’ll bring the vocals back in.

Here comes another guitar solo. This time it’s Graham Oliver who gets the spotlight. He’s the guy panned to the left. It’s another great solo.

Third and final verse. We’ll focus in on some of Biff Byford’s vocals here.

The Band UFO released an album called “Strangers In The Night” in 1979, a full year before Saxon recorded this album, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Biff Byford was influenced by that title. Biff has said that he probably got the idea from Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers In The Night”. Biff’s actually a Sinatra fan. They return to the Riff here one more time and we get some jet engine sound effects.

One interesting thing is that on the verses, Biff overdubs harmonies with himself, but on the choruses, he doubles the vocal– but it’s not a harmony. He sings them in unison. Both parts are the same.

That’s a nice big raise of the vocal there. And with that, they’ll play out the fade with one final guitar solo from Paul Quinn.

 Saxon – “747 (Strangers In The Night)”

I don’t claim to be the biggest metal fan, but there’s a lot that I do like, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Saxon. I first saw them open for Rush in September 1980, if I remember correctly, and they rocked. Biff was every bit the rock star, and Paul Quinn was almost an anti-rock star.  He had kind of an Angus Young thing going on; he wore a little cap, probably to hide his balding head (which I can relate to), and he spun his guitar around on his chest. I saw him do that long before I ever saw ZZ Top do it. The whole Band was great.

Thanks for listening to the show. New episodes of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so we’ll be back here soon. If you’d like to dig into our previous episodes, you’ll find them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or look for us in your favorite podcast app. We’re on Apple and Google and Amazon and Spotify and Pandora and every place that you can think of. So you got no excuse for not joining in on the fun.

Which reminds me, don’t forget to follow the show so you don’t miss an episode. If you’re inclined to support the show, well, you don’t have to spend any money, just leave us a good review and tell a friend about the show. Your recommendation is our best advertising.

I’ll see you next time here on the Pantheon Podcast network. Thanks for being a part of this show on “747 (Strangers In The Night)” by Saxon.

REFERENCES:

Saxon
https://www.saxon747.com/

Wheels of Steel album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Steel

Motorhead
https://imotorhead.com/

Venom
https://www.venomslegions.com/

Girlschool
https://www.girlschool.co.uk/

Tygers of Pan Tang
https://www.tygersofpantang.com/

Jeff Barton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Barton

Sounds magazine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_(magazine)

On this episode, we fix our gaze on guitarist Robin Trower. Though he’s not a household name today, he continues to be held in high regard by guitar aficionados. His time with Procol Harum and the formation of his own power trio laid the foundation for a sound that would captivate audiences and inspire countless guitarists. From Trower’s use of the middle pickup on his Fender Stratocaster to the swirling effects of the Univibe pedal, we explore the sonic artistry behind “Day of the Eagle“, and the power of music across decades… from the days when guitars ruled the airwaves and heroes were measured by bend of a string.

“Day Of The Eagle” – Robin Trower Copyright 1974 Chrysalis Music Ltd

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings, fellow travelers, on the road from yesterday to today… you’ve crossed the bridge into the Pantheon Podcast Network, and your path has brought you here to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, and each edition of this show, I rummage through my music library and pick one of my favorite songs, and we explore it together. Not in a technical way– we don’t get into music theory here, we’re just listening in a way to uncover those little nuances, those magical moments that make it a great song.

The history of modern music, especially rock music, is replete with brilliant guitar players. So many great guitar players.  We’ve celebrated some of them here. From the earliest sounds of rock and roll, the guitar– and the men and women who wielded them– demanded attention, playing louder, faster, pushing the boundaries of creativity and sonic exploration. Even today, when the guitar is not the ever-present driving force of the music business the way it used to be, there are still plenty of players making an exquisite racket with this infernal instrument.

In some ways, guitar heroes were a dime a dozen. There’s never been a shortage of guitar players. Even now, many of the greats are still celebrated today, but many more are overlooked or just plain forgotten. Well, on this episode, we’re going to shine a light on a player who was one of the biggest guitarists of the 1970’s. He’s not a household name now, but guitarists still hold him in high regard. This is Robin Trower with a song called “Day Of The Eagle”.

Robin Trower was born in March 1945. He was born in London, but during his childhood his family lived in Canada and New Zealand before moving back to London when he was about eight years old. In his teens, he started playing guitar, largely influenced by Cliff Gallup, Steve Cropper, and BB King. He formed the Paramounts with some friends, including keyboard player and vocalist Gary Brooker. They mostly played R&B covers and had a minor hit with their cover of “Poison Ivy”.

The Paramounts eventually split and Brooker went on to form Procol Harum, who had a big hit with “A Whiter Shade of Pale” in 1967. When their guitarist Ray Royer left, they asked Robin Trower to join.

Robin played with them from 1967 to 1971, appearing on their first five albums, though he’s not on “Whiter Shade of Pale”, because that was recorded before he joined. But by 1971, Trower was looking to move on. He was writing more of his own songs, and Procol Harum was dominated by the songwriting of Brooker, Keith Reed and Matthew Fisher. There just wasn’t room for Robin Trower’s songs. Also, Procol Harum was a keyboard-based band, and Robin was itching to play more guitar music.

So he left Procol Harum and put together a band named Jude, a four piece featuring Frankie Miller on vocals, ex-Jethro Tull, drummer Clive Bunker, and James Dewar, who had been playing with Stone The Crows, on bass. But this lineup didn’t work out, and it fell apart before they ever recorded anything.

So, Trower decided to form a power trio, following the example of bands like Cream. Besides playing bass, James Dewar was an excellent vocalist in the Jack Bruce mold, so he took over lead vocals, and they brought in Reg Isidore on drums. The trio of Trower, Dewar and Isidore released their first album, “Twice Removed From Yesterday”, in March 1973.

By this time, Robin was very inspired by Jimi Hendrix, as you can certainly hear on that track. The Hendrix influence is probably most direct on this first Robin Trower album, but the general Hendrix style would remain a part of Trower’s sound.

The band returned to the studio in late 1973 to record new material, which would become their second album, “Bridge of Sighs”, the album that many would consider their peak. It would be their commercial breakthrough, and is still Robin Trower’s most popular album today.

The album was produced by Matthew Fisher, Robin’s old buddy from Procol Harum, and it was engineered by Geoff Emerick, the legendary engineer who worked with the Beatles among many, many others, and is really the one responsible for the incredible sound of this album.

“Day Of The Eagle” is the song that opens the album. Side one, track one. It was written by Robin Trower and performed by Trower on guitar, James Dewar on vocals and bass, and Reg Isidore on drums. The basic tracks were recorded live in the studio. Rhythm guitar, bass, and drums. They nailed it in about two or three takes. The lead vocals and lead guitar were overdubbed shortly after.

The song begins with a heavy guitar riff, accented by the snare drum. Then the bass joins in for the second half of the riff. Let’s hear just the bass and drums there.

Let’s talk about Robin Trower’s guitar sound. He’s using two Marshall 100-watt amp heads with two 4×12 speaker cabs. He’s playing a Fender Stratocaster. It’s just a stock Fender Strat, but one of the unique things about Robin is that he favors the middle pickup. Most guitarists don’t really use the middle pickup much at all, but Robin prefers it, and that does contribute to his sound.

Another highly identifiable thing about Robin’s sound is the use of a Univibe pedal. It creates that swirling, fluid sound, and he uses that a lot on this track. He’s also using a homemade booster pedal, which allows him to drive the amplifier that much harder. There’s no distortion pedal or fuzz box in use here, just the amps cranked up and that boost pedal pushing the sound into overdrive.

Here’s the first verse. James Dewar on vocals.

Let’s back it up and listen to those vocals.

“I’m living in the “Day Of The Eagle” not the dove”. That’s pretty much the chorus. They return to the riff and then the second verse. Let’s pick it up from here.

I Love the way Robin bends those notes there. It’s like he just twists them. We’ll go back just before the second verse.

Back to the riff and then the guitar solo. Very interesting tone for this guitar solo. It’s very mid rangy, a honky, nasal tone. Not a very appealing tone all on its own, but I bet it was chosen for the way it lets the solo sit in the mix. It stands out in contrasts from the other guitar parts.

These tones all start with microphone placement. Jeff Emerick used three mics on the guitar amps: one close up to the speakers, one mic about 15ft away, and a third microphone in between, and he could choose and blend together all three of those microphones. I’d bet that the rhythm guitar is primarily the close microphone, whereas the guitar solo is mostly a blend of the two further away mics. Let’s push the vocals back up again for this last verse.

And now they’re gonna slow it down and change the whole feel of the song.

Let’s hear just the bass and drums for a little bit, and then we’ll bring the guitar back up.

You can hear that they’ve overdubbed an overdriven distorted guitar that takes over the solo here, while the cleaner guitar plays sparingly and quietly in the background.

Robin Trower “Day Of The Eagle”

The “Bridge Of Sighs” album was the record that gave Trower his big break, though he would always be more popular in the US than in his home country of England. Reg Isidore would leave after this album, replaced by drummer Bill Lorden, but James Dewar would stick around for a whole bunch of records: “For Earth Below”, “Long Misty Days”, “In City Dreams”, “Caravan To Midnight”, “Victims Of The Fury”. These were all good records– and great album titles too– though his profile diminished as tastes and trends changed in the eighties.

Record labels and bandmates would come and go, but Robin Trower has released new albums consistently in every decade, a solo career lasting over 50 years.

Reg Isidore passed away in March 2009 – heart attack.  James Dewar suffered from a debilitating condition that caused him to have multiple strokes, eventually succumbing in May 2002. But at the time of this recording, Robin Trower is 80 years old, still with us and still playing.

I hope you enjoyed this journey across the Bridge of Sighs into the “Day Of The Eagle”. New episodes of this podcast come out on the first and the 15th of every single month, so I’ll be back here poking your eardrums again soon. You can catch up on any episodes that you missed on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or of course, you can find us in pretty much every podcast player, so wherever you like to listen to your podcast, I’m sure you’ll find us there. And while you’re there, leave a review of the show, and if you’d like to send me a comment, you can do it on our Facebook page or send an email to lovethatsongpodcastmail.com.

To support the show, the absolute best thing you can do is to just share it with your friends. Tell someone about the show because your recommendations carry a lot of weight and I appreciate it.

 On behalf of everyone here at the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening. Now it’s time to crank up your turntable, CD player or the mp3 files– however you prefer to listen, and blast out “Day Of The Eagle” by Robin Trower.

RESOURCES:

Robin Trower
https://www.robintrower.com/

Procol Harum
http://www.procolharum.com/

Fender Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster History: The 1950s | Fender Guitars

Marshall Amplifiers
Marshall Amps – The Complete History (guitar.com)

Univibe pedal
Uni-Vibe – Wikipedia

Cliff Gallup
Cliff Gallup | Vintage Guitar® magazine

Steve Cropper
https://staxrecords.com/artists/steve-cropper/

BB King
https://www.bbking.com/

Gary Brooker:
Gary Brooker – Wikipedia

Geoff Emerick
Geoff Emerick – Wikipedia

Music has a unique way of capturing the essence of a time period, and 1975 was no exception. This year stands out in music history as a treasure trove of classic albums that have withstood the test of time, continuing to inspire and resonate with listeners even 50 years later. In the latest episode of the podcast, we take a journey through the iconic records that made 1975 a landmark year in music.

TRANSCRIPT:

Well, according to the calendar, it’s the first of the month, which means it’s time for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. My name is Brad Page, thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast Network for another exploration of my favorite songs.

And speaking of the calendar, it’s also telling me that we’re in the year 2025 now, and this episode also happens to be episode 175, so the numbers are telling me that this would be a good time to flip the calendar back to the year 1975– 50 years ago– and take a look at some of the incredible records celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. So let’s check it out.

We’ve already explored other great years in music history: 1957, 1965, 1971, 1973… and now with 1975, it’s another incredible year for music. Just a ton of classic albums released this year.

Beginning in January of 1975 with my favorite Bob Dylan album, “Blood On The Tracks”, a masterpiece. We talked about this album back on episode 99 with my buddy Brian Jacobs.

On January 2, 1975, a New York District Court judge ruled that John Lennon could access his Department of Immigration files as part of his deportation case. That was a key step on the road to allowing John to make New York City his home when he finally won the case in October.

Also in January, 1000 Led Zeppelin fans rioted while waiting for tickets to go on sale in Boston, causing the mayor to cancel the show. But three shows in New York at Madison Square Garden sold out in a record 4 hours.

AC/DC released their first album, “High Voltage”, but it only comes out in Australia; the international version of the album wouldn’t come out until 1976.

In February, Rush released “Fly By Night”. It’s their second album, but it’s the first one with Neil Peart on drums.

And getting back to Led Zeppelin, in February, they release “Physical Graffiti”. “Physical graffiti: featured eight new songs and a handful of tracks that had been left off of previous albums, but despite its pieced together nature, it’s a truly iconic album.

March of 1975 saw the release of a bunch of all time classic albums:

“Young Americans” was David Bowie’s 9th album, a total departure from the Ziggy Stardust look and sound, the launch of his plastic soul phase. Also in March, Alice Cooper’s “Welcome To My Nightmare”, his first album without the original Alice Cooper Band.

Earth, Wind and Fire released “That’s The Way Of The World”, their first really big smash album– a fantastic record. We did a deep dive on “Shining Star” on episode 56 of this Podcast.

Also in March, “Dressed to Kill” by Kiss. Steely Dan released “Katy Lied” in March, and Jeff Beck released “Blow By Blow”, one of the greatest guitar albums of all time. Absolutely one of my favorite records.

A few classic records came out in April, too. ZZ Top released “Fandango”, one side recorded live, the other in the studio. This record’s mostly famous for “Tush”, but I think there’s even better songs on this record, like “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings”.

Nazareth released their classic “Hair of the Dog” album in April, and Aerosmith released “Toys In The Attic”.

John Lennon appeared on the Tom Snyder show in April for a pretty famous interview. And on April 24, Pete Ham from Badfinger was found dead. Victim of suicide. Victim of the music business, really. We’ve covered Badfinger on this show a couple of times. I highly recommend you check those episodes out if you haven’t heard them.

In May, the Rolling Stones announced their north American tour by driving down Fifth Avenue in New York City playing “Brown Sugar” on a flatbed truck. Willie Nelson released his classic album “Red Headed Stranger”; Paul McCartney and Wings released “Venus and Mars”, and Elton John released the first of two albums that came out in 1975.

In June of 1975, Cher and Greg Allman got married. Believe it or not, the Talking Heads played their first show at CBGB’s. And Alice Cooper fell off the stage at a show in Canada, breaking six ribs. Bob Dylan and the Band finally released “The Basement Tapes”, originally recorded back in 1967. And Neil Young released “Tonight’s The Night”, his harrowing exploration of drug addiction, death and grief that was originally recorded two years earlier.

Also released in June, “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright, the BeeGee’s “Main Course”, the first album by the Tubes, and “Cut The Cake” by the Average White Band. That’s another one of my favorite albums.

In July, Black Sabbath released “Sabotage”, Fleetwood Mac released their self-titled album– the first with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks– and Lou Reed released “Metal Machine Music”, one of the most divisive albums ever released: A double album with each side featuring 16 minutes of feedback and noise.

1975 was also the year of some significant departures. The Faces broke up, Peter Gabriel left Genesis, and Richie Blackmore quit deep Purple, forming his new band, Rainbow, and releasing their debut album featuring Ronnie James Dio on vocals in August.

Also in August, the Ohio Players released “Honey”, probably their best record. Hall & Oates released their self-titled album, which includes “Sarah Smile”, their first big hit, and Bruce Springsteen releases “Born To Run”.

Also, Grand Funk Railroad released a live album called “Caught In The Act”, which you’re gonna be hearing a little from on this show coming up in the near future.

The classic album train keeps rolling right into September: Pink Floyd released “Wish You Were Here”, ELO released “Face The Music”, Brian Eno’s “Another Green World”. Rush, “Caress Of Steel”, Supertramp “Crisis, What Crisis?”, Foghat, “Fool For The City”… all of those came out in September 1975.

So did Jethro Tull’s “Minstrel In The Gallery”, a pivotal album in their career. And also released in September– an album that really changed my life. It’s probably a safe bet to say that if it wasn’t for this album, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here doing this podcast today. It’s Kiss “Alive”.

October 75 was the month where Bruce Springsteen appeared on the cover of both Time magazine and Newsweek. That was unprecedented at the time. Some unprecedented music came out that month, too: Elton John’s second album of the year, “Rock of the Westies”, Deep Purple’s final album, “Come Taste The Band”, “Siren” by Roxy Music (that’s the album that has “Love Is The Drug” on it), and an album by The Who that I think is really underappreciated: “The Who By Numbers”.

We’re heading into the home stretch here. November 1975 brought us Joni Mitchell’s “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”, Neil Young’s “Zuma”, and Patti Smith’s debut album “Horses”, and an album that is the very definition of a classic album: Queen’s “Night at the Opera”.

And 1975 comes to a close in December with Styx “Equinox”, Emmylou Harris’s “Elite Hotel”, her first number one album and an essential “Americana” album long before that term was even coined. Bob Marley and the Wailers released their live album.

And Parliament releases “Mothership Connection”, one of the most significant funk albums of all time. What a way to end the year.

That is just an overview of the music of 1975; we’re just scraping the surface here, here’s so much more. And if I skipped over one of your favorite records, I apologize, but I had to leave off some of my favorites, too. There was just so many great albums that year.

Thanks for listening to this episode. I hope this reminded you of some of the great records you haven’t listened to in a while, or maybe introduced you to some you’ve never heard before. Either way, I encourage you to seek these albums out, give them a listen, because this music still has something to offer us today, 50 years after it was first heard.

If you’d like to support this show, please head over to oldglory.com and order up a t-shirt or two. They have stock on merchandise from most of the artists we heard on this show, so get yourself a shirt from AC/DC or Springsteen, Kiss or Neil Young, or any of your favorite artists. Go to oldglory.com comma use our discount code “lovethatsong”. You’ll get 15% off and you’ll help to support this show. So thanks in advance.

New episodes of this podcast come out on the first and the 15th of every month, so stay tuned for more. And if you’d like to get caught up on our previous episodes– there’s over 174 other shows to listen to– you’ll find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.

On behalf of the whole crew at the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening. Now go out and listen to your favorite albums from 1975.

RESOURCES:

Bob Dylan
https://www.bobdylan.com/

Led Zeppelin
https://www.ledzeppelin.com/

David Bowie
https://www.davidbowie.com/

Rush
https://www.rush.com/

AC/DC
https://www.acdc.com/

Bruce Springsteen
https://brucespringsteen.net/

Fleetwood Mac
https://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

Neil Young
https://neilyoungarchives.com/

Queen
https://www.queenonline.com/

Elton John
https://www.eltonjohn.com/

Patti Smith
https://www.pattismith.net/

Pink Floyd
https://www.pinkfloyd.com/

The Who
https://www.thewho.com/

Joni Mitchell
https://jonimitchell.com/

Aerosmith
https://www.aerosmith.com/

Old Glory
https://www.oldglory.com/

Alice Cooper
https://www.alicecooper.com/

Earth, Wind & Fire
https://www.earthwindandfire.com/

Kiss
https://www.kissonline.com/

Pink Floyd has been a cornerstone of rock history, producing some of the most iconic albums ever recorded. One song that stands out in their catalog is “Have a Cigar” from the album Wish You Were Here, a track that offers a scathing critique of the music industry. In the latest episode of the podcast, we dive deep into this song, uncovering what makes “Have a Cigar” a classic.

“Have A Cigar” (Roger Waters) Copyright 1975 Roger Waters Overseas, Ltd

Take advantage of our discount code lovethatsong and save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPTS:

Come on, you ravers, you seers of visions– shine on with the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and every two weeks, we come together here on the Pantheon Podcast Network to explore a different song. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dig into it together, uncovering all the elements that go into making a great song. You don’t have to be a musician or have any technical knowledge– this isn’t a show for just the experts, this is for anyone who just wants to listen and explore what makes a good song great.

In this episode, we’re exploring a real classic. By any measure– artistically, commercially– Pink Floyd were one of the most successful bands of all time. They created a handful of the greatest albums ever released. On this episode of the podcast, we’re exploring a song from an album that came out just about in the middle of their career, an album that represents many things for this band, and the stories of making it are the stuff of legend. From the album “Wish You Were Here”. This is a song called “Have A Cigar”.

Pink Floyd have been covered on this show before: In episode 58, we looked at “Us And Them”, and episode 114 featured “See Emily Play”. If you haven’t heard either of those episodes, go check them out. I’m not going to go over their history again, you can revisit those previous episodes if you’d like. We’re going to pick up where we left off after “Dark Side Of The Moon”.

“Dark Side Of The Moon”, of course, was their breakthrough album. I don’t need to tell you how big that album would become, but it was an important, significant record from the moment it was released. So, for Pink Floyd, the challenge was: what to do next?

The band was searching for a direction. First weeks, then months, went by with not much to show for it. Endless sessions in their rehearsal studio, trying to come up with something. Something not just good, but something to match or top “Dark Side Of The Moon”. That’s no easy task.

Compounding the problem was the fact that fractures were beginning to occur within the band. The pressure of what to do next exacerbated the disagreements between the four band members. Initially, they returned to a concept that they first explored back in 1970. It was a project called “Household Objects”, where they would forego the use of their traditional instruments and create songs using rubber bands, broomsticks, wine glasses, aerosol cans, smashed Light bulbs. They had abandoned that idea before, but now, without any better ideas, they returned to “Household Objects” and spent at least a month in 1973 trying to conjure music from kitchen appliances and hand tools. But ultimately, they abandoned the idea again.

To my knowledge, the only thing that survived from the “Household Objects” project is a two-minute recording of tuned wine glasses, and a three-minute track called “The Hard Way”.  The sound of those wine glasses would be used at the beginning of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, but the rest of it all went by the wayside.

Finally, in January 1974, during one of those endless jam sessions, guitarist David Gilmour stumbled across a four-note phrase. Almost by accident, they took that idea and expanded it, pushing it in different directions and adding new elements, eventually forming it into a song called “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, a multi-part suite that would open and close their new album. They would also take the sound of those wine glasses and incorporate a little bit of that into “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.

The subject of that song, as all Pink Floyd fans know, was their former singer, guitarist and bandleader Syd Barrett. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is a fascinating piece of music worthy of an exploration all on its own. But not in this episode… we’re here for a different song.

So now Roger Waters, the bassist and primary lyricist, had some themes to work with: absence and the harsh realities of the music business, both of which directly related to Syd Barrett, but also extended beyond him.

The actual recording sessions for the album, which would be called “Wish You Were Here”, began at Abbey Road in January 1975, a year after they first came up with that riff that inspired the album. One of the tracks they worked on was a darkly funky track called “Have A Cigar”, a ripping takedown of the music industry, sung from the perspective of a typically greedy, self-serving record executive. It was written by Roger Waters, produced by the band, and performed by David Gilmour on guitars, Richard Wright on keyboards, bass by Roger Waters, drums by Nick Mason and vocals… well, we’ll get there in a minute.

The song begins with a riff played together on the bass and the guitar. Sounds like both the guitars and the bass have a flanger effect on them.

After a couple of playthroughs of the riff, the drums and the keyboards come in. There’s a little whoop sound in there. Let’s back it up a bit.

I like that descending guitar part that leads back into the riff. Here comes the second riff.

There are two synthesizer parts plus an electric piano, each one placed in a different spot in the stereo mix that allows each part to occupy its own space. When you add in the bass, drums and guitars– and I’m sure there’s more than one guitar track here– there’s a lot of music here, but the mix doesn’t feel cluttered at all.

That’s the first of these little guitar and keyboard fills that play off of each other, answer each other. It’s nothing fancy, but I just like the dialogue between the guitar and the piano throughout the song. Let’s pick it back up from there.

And it sounds to me like Richard Wright has also added a clavinet part now. 

And here’s the first verse. But that voice doesn’t belong to anyone in Pink Floyd. When it came time to record the vocals for this track, both David Gilmour and Roger Waters took a stab at it, but neither of them were happy with their performance. Just by happenstance, a singer songwriter guitarist named Roy Harper was recording his own album next door. Roy Harper is a fairly obscure figure, certainly in the United States, he’s never had any hits here and never got much radio play. If Americans know his name at all, it’s likely from the song title of the Led Zeppelin song “Hats Off To Roy Harper”. But Roy Harper is a brilliant British folk-rock songwriter and performer who has released a number of unique, and you could say eccentric, albums. He’s a musician’s musician, a songwriter’s songwriter. And he was friendly with the guys in Pink Floyd. Since they were both working on albums at Abbey Road, they would pop in to visit each other’s sessions. He watched Pink Floyd wrestle with the vocals on this track for days and eventually, he offered to sing it for them.

Here’s a little bit of the version with Roger Waters attempt at the vocal. It’s really not that drastically different, but Roy Harper brought a wonderfully acerbic tone to the track. Roy had his share of misfortune at the hands of record companies, so he could relate to these lyrics for sure.

That’s one of the best lines in the whole Pink Floyd canon. The idea that this record company bigwig who’s trying to schmooze them doesn’t even know that there’s no one in the band actually named Pink Floyd.

I love the way he elongates the word “train” and twists his phrasing at the end.

Sounds like he’s double tracked his vocal there too.

Here comes the second verse. You know, I’ve listened to this song so many times, but I never really noticed until now just how much work the keyboards are doing here. I’m even hearing a little bit of Stevie Wonder influence in there.

Let’s bring up the vocals again. Roy Harper is just killing it here.

So that brings us to the guitar solo. It’s another classic solo by David Gilmour. And we’ll listen to that in a minute. But first I wanted to focus on the rhythm section for a bit. I think it’s fair to say that neither Nick Mason or Roger Waters are virtuosos. Nick Mason is not a flashy drummer, but he’s rock solid. And neither he or Roger Waters are exactly funky players, but they’re laying down a pretty cool groove here. So let’s just listen to that for a while.

Alright, now let’s go back and listen again with the guitar solo.

Let’s bring up that guitar.

And now, we get a change of audio perspectives, as a synthesized “whoosh” repositions us,  as though were listening to the song now through an old transistor radio.

And that, of course for everyone who’s familiar with the album, leads us into the next song, “Wish You Were Here”. But that’s another story.

“Have A Cigar” by Pink Floyd. The “Wish You Were Here” album was released in September 1975 and topped the charts in the US and the UK. It is still regarded as one of Pink Floyd’s best albums. In fact, I believe it is David Gilmour’s favorite Pink Floyd album.

But it was the beginning of the end of the band. Roger Waters had taken over creative control and over time, would push the other members further away. Richard Wright was essentially fired from the band and then rehired as a session player for the group. Eventually, Roger Waters pushed himself out of the band.

But despite the personal unpleasantness, “Wish You Were Here” is a really cohesive album. Every band member contributes excellent performances, and the album flows perfectly as a whole. It’s a masterpiece.

Richard Wright died from lung cancer in September 2008. He was 65. Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Roy Harper are still with us today at the time of this recording.

Thanks for being a part of this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. If you’d like to support the show, why don’t you head over to oldglory.com and buy a t-shirt or two? They have a bunch of Pink Floyd shirts in stock, along with a ton of other bands, and if you use our promo code, “LoveThatSong”, you’ll get 15% off and you’ll be supporting the show. So thanks in advance.

You can find our previous episodes on Pink Floyd, along with over 150 other songs that we’ve covered, on our website lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for them in your favorite podcast app. Send us an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com or post your comments and feedback on our Facebook page. And of course, it would be great if you left us a rating or a review wherever it is that you listen to this show.

We are part of the Pantheon family of podcasts, home to a ton of other great podcasts, all featuring the music we love.

I will be back in about two weeks, so let’s meet here again. Until then, thanks for listening to this episode on Pink Floyd and “Have A Cigar”.

RESOURCES:

Pink Floyd
https://www.pinkfloyd.com

Wish You Were Here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_album)

Dark Side of the Moon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon

Roy Harper
https://royharper.co.uk

Abbey Road Studios
https://www.abbeyroad.com

For one hot moment, Broken Homes were the buzzed-about new band in LA, and big success was ahead. It never materialized. The band cut 3 albums for MCA, but they went nowhere. On this episode, we dig into a track from their first album, one of my favorite LP’s from the ’80’s and a real “desert island” record for me. The album never came out on CD, but if you can track down a copy on vinyl, I highly recommend it.

“An L.A. Rain” (Mike Doman) Copyright 1986

TRANSCRIPT:

The human ear is a pretty remarkable device. You can detect variations of less than 1,000,000,000th of atmospheric pressure. It can detect vibrations of your eardrum that move less than the width of one atom. Pretty incredible when you think about it. Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, where we put these amazing ears of ours to good use as we explore what goes into making a great song. You don’t need a lot of musical experience or knowledge here. You just need to use those extraordinary ears and see what we discover. I’m your host, Brad Page. We are part of the Pantheon family of podcasts, and today we’re listening to “An LA Rain” by Broken Homes.

Usually on this show, we have a lot of history to set up before we get into the song. You know, with artists that have been around for years, you have to put these songs in context. We did a Fleetwood Mac episode earlier this year that took 20 minutes of setup before we even got to the song. But on this episode, we’re talking about a band with not a lot of history to go on. In fact, there isn’t even a Wikipedia page for these guys.

Broken Homes were formed in the mid-eighties by singer Mike Doman and guitarist Craig Ross. The band got together in LA, but Mike Doman had come from the east coast–Pennsylvania, I believe– and he brought a rootsy, working class, kind of East Coast Rock and Roll sound with him. It’s very different from the hair metal bands that were big in LA in the middle of the eighties.

They recruited a drummer named Craig Aronson and started working out material. A bass player named James Ashurst was finishing up a gig one night with another band when they asked him to join the Broken Homes. They had a big gig lined up at the Roxy coming up pretty soon. They played that gig on a Friday night, and by Monday morning, they were signing a record contract with MCA Records.

Broken Homes didn’t fit in with the Sunset Strip sound at that time. Their sound was closer to bands like X or Lone Justice: straight-ahead traditional rock and roll, with a little bit of country and punk thrown in. But they became one of the hottest bands on the LA scene at the time. In 1986, they went into Ocean Way Studios, one of the greatest studios in LA and used to be known as United Western, and they recorded their first album with producer Jeff Eyrich.

The song we’re listening to here is called “An LA Rain”. It’s track number two on the album. It was written by Mike Doman. Mike is on lead vocals and probably a little guitar. Craig Ross does most of the guitar work. Jimmy Ashurst is on bass and Don Harvey is on drums. Producer Jeff Eyrich wasn’t convinced that their drummer, Craig Aronson, was up to the challenge of making this record. So, he brought in a drummer named Don Harvey, who had been playing with Charlie Sexton at the time. This had to be handled sensitively. They didn’t want to mess with the image of this being a tight knit, hard workin’ rock and roll band. I mean, all four band members names, including Craig Aronson, are, right there on the front cover of the album, even though Aronson didn’t actually play drums on the record. But if you look closely on the back cover in small print, it says “special thanks to Don Harvey, Drums”.

The song opens with what sounds to me like three guitar parts. One acoustic guitar in the center, possibly with a capo on it to raise the pitch. An electric guitar that’s panned left. Both of those are strumming chords. And another electric guitar on the right that’s playing a nice little part. Could be some chorus effect on that. Another thing to note is that most, if not all of the guitars are played in open G tuning. That’s a big part of what gives this track that blues based Americana by way of the rolling stones kind of rock and roll sound.

Now this intro will take us right into the first verse, and it’s an abrupt change. The bass, drums and vocals are all come in. The acoustic guitars are dropped, leaving one electric guitar now moved to the center. Let’s pick it back up from the top.

The bass and drums are providing a rock solid foundation here. Jimmy Ashurst’s bass is laying down a simple part that just fits perfectly. And Don Harvey’s drums are locked right into that groove. It’s a great drum sound. Probably starts with the natural room sound at Oceanway Studios, where this album was recorded, with some additional reverb added to make it sound even bigger.

Now, the story that Mike Doman is telling us here is that he’s driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible in the pouring rain, with the top down. Somehow he’s asleep at the wheel– his girl wakes him up just in tim,e as he sings “To ride a wall of water down the PCH”, and with that, we’ll ride right along with him into the chorus.

Once we hit that chorus, the sound opens up. That single electric guitar is now augmented by at least three additional guitars, left, right and center. One of the guitars is playing in a higher register, probably using that capo. It’s almost a mandolin like sound. None of the parts are particularly complex. Some of the guitars are just strumming and holding a single chord, but each one is playing in a different register, occupying its own frequency range. And each part is placed carefully in the mix, so that nothing is stepping on each other. Let’s listen to just those instrumental tracks.

When you take that and add some harmony vocals, it just makes this chorus bloom. Let’s go back and listen to this again. Listen to how when we hit this chorus, the sound just opens up. It’s like the audio equivalent of switching to widescreen. If you can listen on headphones, all the better. But you should be able to hear it bloom listening in your car or wherever it is that you’re hearing this now. This is the kind of production technique that I absolutely love.

This brings us to the second verse. And what I kind of like about this one is that, you know, usually with these songs, it’s a guy hitting on some girl, usually an underage girl. It’s always a little skeevy; but here, he’s flirting with a woman who’s a little older. Mike Doman was probably in his early twenties when he wrote this song. The woman he’s singing about has an ID that says she’s 24, but she’s really 31. But he’s into it.

Rewind and listen to the backing track here. I particularly like the Keith Richards influenced guitar that Craig Ross is laying down here.

It’s time for this second chorus. Let’s listen to just Mike Doman’s vocals first. I believe all of the parts are sung by Mike Doman.

Here’s that chorus again in the final mix. I love the drums on that part there, where they take a little pause with the tom fill and then hit hard on the second beat. Let’s play that chorus from the top again.

That transitions right into the bridge. The band pulls back a bit before it builds back up. Now, I think there might be a piano added to the mix here. Maybe an electric piano. It’s pretty low in the mix. Could be another guitar. Let’s listen to some of those instrumental tracks, see what you think.

Let’s hear all of the parts on the bridge. Now at the end, Mike is going to repeat the phrase “There was rainwater in my ears” multiple times. But each time, he sings it differently. And the more emphatically he sings it, the more it kind of makes you wonder how much he really means it. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “doth he protest too much?”

Listen to how they build the song back up. The bass and drums are doing the heavy lifting there. Let’s hear their part.

And that buildup takes us into another variation of the chorus.

Okay, first let’s go back and listen to Mike Doman’s vocals leading into the break here.

Now let’s listen to Craig Ross’s guitar part here. What he’s doing is taking his E string and detuning it. He’s not using a whammy bar, hs actually cranking his tuning peg down, turning it with his left hand while he plucks the string with his right. The string goes all the way slack. And then he cranks it back up to pitch and starts playing the riff again. Totally cool. Give it up for Craig Ross.

Let’s hear all of that together as it sounds in the final mix.

Now here comes a new part. Craig’s electric guitar is joined by an acoustic guitar. Strumming chords in the background with a very clean sounding electric guitar. Playing some simple lead lines. And listen to the drum fills here. Don Harvey is playing some simple fills, but they sound great. Just the right amount of reverb on them. This is a great drum sound.

Let’s bring up Mike’s vocals from the background there.

And there is a killer drum fill that leads us into this final chorus. So let’s check that out.

And now, as the song begins to fade out, you can hear that piano come forward a bit in the mix.

“An LA Rain” by Broken Homes.

The album was released in 1986 and big things were expected… but nothing happened. They just didn’t catch on. They toured hard as an opening act for some great bands, and certainly put in the work, but they just couldn’t seem to get any traction, and there was zero radio play.

But I love this record. Seriously. This is a Desert Island Album for me.

Broken Homes would record two more albums, a total of three albums that never went anywhere. And eventually they split up.

Who knows why some bands never take off. You could blame the record company, MCA. It’s a little tricky, I think, because MCA did stick with them for three albums, something that would never happen today—they’d be dropped after their first album. So I guess you got to give the label credit for that. But at the same time, I don’t think MCA knew how to market them. They just didn’t know what to do with this band.

Bass player Jimmy Ashurst said something very smart about this. Looking back on it years later, he said “Record companies still don’t know how to market for classic rock when it’s not yet ‘classic’, when it’s being made today; there’s no path for that.”

Jimmy Ashurst went on to play with Izzy Stradlin in the Juju Hounds and later was a member of Buckcherry. He also wrestled with heroin addiction and did some time in prison, but I believe he’s clean now.

Guitarist Craig Ross became the guitar player for Lenny Kravitz. He’s the guy with the big hair in all of those Lenny Kravitz videos, and he still works with Lenny today. Craig’s done quite well for himself.

Drummer Craig Aronson would leave the band after this first album. He was replaced by Michael Graves. Aronson would become an A&R man and was the guy who signed Jimmy Eats World and My Chemical Romance, just to name a few. Aronson died of cancer in 2014.

Michael Doman would kick around the music business for years, and would continue to be a great singer and songwriter. Unfortunately, Michael passed away in December of 2020.

I highly recommend the first two Broken Homes albums, especially this album, the debut album. It’s just called “Broken Homes”. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to find. It never came out on CD. You can find it on YouTube, but you’ve got to work a little bit to find the right Broken Homes. But it is worth it.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released on the first and the 15th of every month, so well be back soon with another new show. Until then, you can catch up on all of our previous shows right on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. Or just search for us in your favorite podcast app: Spotify, Google, Apple, Stitcher, Amazon, you name it– you can find us on every podcast app.

Post your reviews or comments on our Facebook page, or on Podchaser, or wherever it is that you listen to the show. And if you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell someone about it and share it with your friends, because your word-of-mouth is the most valuable resource for any podcast.

On behalf of everyone here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, I thank you for listening to our shows, and especially for listening to this episode on Broken Homes and “An LA Rain”.

RESOURCES:

Broken Homes
No direct link as there’s no Wikipedia page

Ocean Way Studios
https://www.oceanwaystudios.com/

Lenny Kravitz
http://www.lennykravitz.com/

Podchaser
https://www.podchaser.com/

In this epic episode, we embark on a sonic exploration of The Who‘s towering anthem “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” We explore the song that encapsulates the very essence of rock music– its intensity, grandeur, and unyielding spirit. We dive deep into the tumultuous history behind one of the most ambitious projects in rock history, The Who’s Lifehouse, and how it gave rise to an album that, despite its fraught genesis, stands as a masterpiece of the genre.

From Pete Townsend’s futuristic visions to the band’s quest for a universal musical connection, we unravel the tapestry of a song that has been both celebrated and misunderstood. With a careful ear, we dissect the iconic keyboard riff, Keith Moon’s explosive drumming, John Entwistle’s virtuosic bass lines, and Roger Daltrey’s soul-stirring vocals. This episode isn’t just a tribute to a classic track; it’s a deep dive into the heart of rock music and the relentless pursuit of artistic vision.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” Pete Townshend Copyright 1971 Towser Tunes, Inc., Fabulous Music Ltd. and ABKCO Music Inc.

Save 15% off t-shirts & merch from The Who– and all your other favorite bands– by using our discount code lovethatsong at OldGlory.com!

PREVIEW:

TRANSCRIPT:

Time to sing your song to the wide-open spaces, and sing your heart out to the infinite sea– Because we’re back with another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, right here on the Pantheon Podcast network. My name is Brad Page, I’m the host of the show, and each episode I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, uncovering all the elements, those little moments that make it a great song.

We’ve looked at a lot of great songs on this podcast, many of them all time classics. But if you had to pick one song that captures everything rock music has to offer– the intensity, the grandeur, the spirit, the power… one song to represent everything that’s great about rock and roll… If you had to explain to an alien what makes rock music great, what song would you pick? For me, it might just be this song: “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who.

Today were exploring a song that’s about as iconic as a song gets. But to understand how this song came to be, we have quite a journey ahead of us. From big ideas to failed concepts, through ambition and frustration, and even suicidal thoughts, to a compromise that, in the end, produced one of the greatest albums ever made.

Our voyage begins sometime after 1969. The Who had struck gold with “Tommy”, one of the first rock operas, certainly the first one to capture the public’s attention.

So how do you follow that up? Pete Townsend, guitar player, principal songwriter, and the driving creative force behind The Who, had an idea to expand on the ideas and themes he explored in “Tommy”. “Tommy”, of course, was the story of a boy who, after a traumatic experience, psychologically made himself deaf, dumb, and blind, essentially shutting himself off from the outside world. And it’s the story of his spiritual awakening.

Well, Pete had this new vision; this science fiction tale of a future where a large percentage of the population would be shut off from the outside world. They would live their lives sealed in these experience suits, linked together by something he called “The Grid”, that would be run by autocrats. In order to maintain control over the population, music was outlawed.  But some people rebelled; they created a secret place where they could create music and hack into the grid to reintroduce people to music. This secret clubhouse was called the “Lifehouse”. The goal of the Lifehouse was to bring everyone together, through music, to a universal consciousness, with everyone attaining enlightenment.

Now, let’s stop right here for a minute and think about this.  Because today, you can probably wrap your head around most of that, even if the spiritual stuff isn’t your kind of thing. But remember, this was happening in 1972, decades before the internet was available to the public. There was no virtual reality. There was no network. Townsend was presenting a future where people were linked together through and controlled by a computer system and faceless corporations that controlled the population.

Now, can you imagine the blank stares Pete Townsend would get from people when he tried to explain this concept? Most people just didn’t understand it, and the few that did, it all just seemed like an improbable fantasy. But let’s give Pete Townsend some credit. In some ways, he envisioned the world that you and I are living in today.

OK, so that’s the story of “Lifehouse” in a very rough summation. I’m leaving out a lot of detail, but I think you get the gist of it. But theres a whole ‘nother aspect to this story. We talked about how the Lifehouse was a place where the music would be performed and then fed back into the grid, where it would be experienced by the population. Integrated into the grid. Well, Pete Townsend envisioned a real-life Lifehouse, a venue where The Who would play, and it would be what we would describe today as an “interactive experience” for the audience.

See, by this time, The Who had played in front of some massive crowds, like the Isle of Wight festival. And Pete was aware of the energy that could be generated between the artist and the audience. Townsend always believed in the power of rock music. He had felt it. He said, “The most precious moments of my life happened on stage” when he and the audience became one. If that energy could be channeled, what could be achieved? Maybe even enlightenment.

This tied into some spiritual ideas or concepts that Pete had been studying. The idea that at the core of everything is one vibration, one musical note. As philosopher and musicologist Inayat Kahn theorized, “Music creates a resonance which vibrates the whole being. And that sound is the force which groups all things, from atoms to worlds.”

This is what Townsend was after in the Lifehouse performances:  some kind of spiritual link between the band and the audience that would attain something greater.

So, Pete would write the script and the songs; the songs would be recorded for an album; The Who would perform the songs in front of an audience, and the whole thing– the dystopian story and the concerts would be filmed and released as a movie.

The thing was that Townshend was having a hard time explaining the concepts to the band and to the other members of The Who’s organization. I don’t think the fault lies entirely with Pete or with the other band members. These were very esoteric ideas, not easy to grasp, especially in the world of 1970.

The other challenge was the live performances where The Who would conduct their experiments to find the vibrations that would unite the band and the audience and provide a key element of the film. Townsend knew that he had to find a better way to meld the band and the audience than the typical one-night-only concerts that they performed on tour. They needed a venue where they could take up residency and play to an audience over time.

They made an arrangement with a theater called the Young Vic in southeast London, where they could rehearse and perform. As the concerts and the film were described in the New Music Express magazine: “It was an experiment in relationship between the group and the audience. An attempt to create a portrait in music of The Who’s own audience. And with this in view, the cameras will follow the audience out of the theater and into their own lives.” Pretty ambitious goals.

They began rehearsing at the Young Vic in late 1970, and played their first public performance there in January 1971. At a press conference that same month, Pete explained, “We shall not be giving the usual kind of who rock show. The audience will be completely involved in the music which is designed to reflect people’s personalities. We shall try to induce mental and spiritual harmony through the medium of rock music.” That’s some vintage Townsend for you.

They announced a series of free shows at the theater. Pete hoped that pretty much the same audience would return each night and they would, over time, become more and more a part of the show. But it was never really clear exactly how the audience and the band and the overarching storyline of “Lifehouse” would all coalesce. Pete had expected that, somehow, characters would develop out of the crowd and become part of the film. But no one in the audience really understood what exactly they were expected to do. The new songs were unfamiliar to the audience, and the band weren’t quite 100% comfortable performing them yet. As a result, nobody was really happy with how the Young Vic shows turned out. After only a handful of shows, they closed up shop at the Young Vic.

Around the same time, they got the bad news that Universal pulled their funding; there would be no “Lifehouse” film.

The band did return to the Young Vic once more on April 26, 1971, for one more show, primarily to record it for posterity. Here’s a bit of a track from that show, an unreleased “Lifehouse” track called “I Don’t Even Know Myself”.

The band decided to salvage what they could, and regrouped in New York City at the Record Plant studios to record some of the new songs that they’d worked on for “Lifehouse”. But those sessions only lasted a week. Townsend was already suffering from overwork and exhaustion, putting so much time and effort and heart into “Lifehouse”, when he overheard one of his managers, Kit Lambert, being dismissive of Pete and his work. Well, that sent Townsend into an emotional tailspin. He ended up on the window ledge of his hotel room, considering whether he should jump.

The band returned to England, and in April, around the time of that final Young Vic performance, they convened with producer Glyn Johns. Glyn listened to the recordings made at the Record Plant and said that they were good, but he could do better.

Initially, they set up at Stargroves, Mick Jagger’s mansion that was often used as a place to record. They only stayed there two days, managing to record the basic tracks for only one song: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.  They reconvened at Olympic Sound Studios in southwest London and, for the next two months, laid down the tracks that would become their next album, “Who’s Next”.

The album would include quite a few songs from “Lifehouse”, but not all of them. Originally envisioned as a double album like “Tommy”, Glynn, Johns pushed them to trim it down to a single, concise LP. As a result, even though many of the songs came directly from “Lifehouse”, there is no concept or story to the “Who’s Next” album. It’s just a collection of songs. But what a collection of songs. In my opinion, it’s one of the strongest albums ever made, by anybody. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is the last song on the album, bringing the album to an epic conclusion.

By this time, Townsend was spending tons of time recording demos in his home studio, a concept pretty standard these days. But back in the late sixties, very few people had anything you could legitimately call a “home studio”. But Pete had converted two rooms of his house in Twickenham, built in 1721, into a small but very functional home studio. He had a 3M M23 eight-track tape machine, a small Neve BCM10 console, and large Lakewood Tannoy speakers, along with studio gear like limiters and reverbs, plus an array of guitars, pianos and keyboards.

At the heart of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is that iconic keyboard part, played on a Lowry Berkshire organ and fed through an EMS VCS23 synthesizer to create the filtered, pulsating sound that drives the song. Here’s Pete’s original demo, recorded in that home studio. Pete is playing all of the instruments on this demo, including the drums.

The keyboard part on the demo was so good that they would reuse it for the final version rather than re-recording it. They lifted the keyboard part off of the demo and the band built the final version around it.

That final version features Roger Daltrey on vocals, John Entwistle on bass, Keith Moon on drums, and Pete Townsend on guitars and of course, that Lowery organ part. It was produced by The Who and Glyn Johns.

 This was the first song laid down for the album, and as mentioned before, it was the only track recorded during the two-day attempt at recording at Stargroves. Johns set the band up in the Stargroves reception hallway. Let’s listen to the opening of the final version.

The keyboard part sounds exactly the same, right? Same as the demo version. Of course, when Keith Moon comes in on the drums, it has a very different feel than Pete’s basic drumming on the demo. Let’s listen to a little bit of those Keith Moon drums.

And there’s a tasty little guitar lick there, right before the first verse starts. Townsend throws in a lot of nice guitar fills throughout the song.

I think what Pete’s playing during the verses is pretty interesting, so let’s bring up his guitar part.

Let’s stop and talk about the lyrics, because this song has been misunderstood since the day it was released.  Many people take it as a call to revolution; it’s as much a cautionary tale about revolutions as it is a call to arms. In the context of the “Lifehouse” story, the song is about the people on the front lines who are expendable to the leaders calling the shots. It’s a call to pacifism and passive resistance. It’s about the negative effects of revolt. As Townsend once said, “The revolution is only a revolution in the long run, and a lot of people are going to get hurt.” The song is essentially dubious of the forces that cause revolution. He’s not saying revolution is inherently bad, but that there is a serious cost. And you have to weigh that against the cause., or maybe more accurately, weighed against the leaders that call for revolution. Who’s to gain? To quote Townshend again, “I’m more of a fighter than a sleeper, but there are times one should think about which path to take very, very seriously.”

Let’s listen to Roger Daltrey’s vocals on this first verse.

OK. There’s so much going on in that chorus, so much to listen to. Where to begin? Let’s listen to the one thing we haven’t highlighted yet– the absolutely incredible bass playing by John Entwistle.

And not to be outdone, let’s hear Keith Moon’s drums.

Alright, we’ll look more at the chorus coming up, but for now, let’s move on to the next verse. And this time we’ll take it all one piece at a time. First, there’s a few instrumental bars before the verse begins. So, let’s hear that, starting with that keyboard part.

The sound of that part, to me, it’s like the audio equivalent of some amorphous shape, like an amoeba that keeps shifting as it moves forward. And yet, at the same time, it’s the foundation the song is built on.

Also, there’s an acoustic guitar that plays throughout the song. It’s pretty low in the mix to the point where it’s felt more than it’s heard. And that’s a production technique that’s often used quite effectively. But let’s bring that acoustic to the front so that we can hear it clearly.

And then, of course, there’s Keith Moon wailing away at the drums.

Now let’s put all of that together with the rest of the instrumentation. Notice how the keyboards are panned to the right channel, while the acoustic, if you can hear it, is on the left.

Now here’s the second verse. Let’s start by just hearing Pete Townsend’s electric guitar. I like these little guitar stabs here.

Next, how about Roger Daltreys vocal track?

And John Entwistle’s great bass part.

Now let’s hear all of that together for the second verse change.

As we get to the second chorus, let’s look at a couple of things we passed over the previous time. There are backing vocals on the chorus by Roger and Pete, and possibly Entwistle, too. In the right channel, along with the keyboard track is a backing vocal by Pete. Let’s bring those tracks to the center and hear that.

While in the left channel, there’s a backing vocal dominated by Roger, with Peter, maybe John in there too. And what strikes me about this is, listening to it with just the acoustic guitar, is how it stands up with just the guitar and vocal. There’s an old axiom that if you can strip a song down, no matter how complex, down to just an acoustic guitar and a vocal, and it still works, that’s how you know it’s a really good song. I think that’s true here.

Let’s hear that verse all together.

I really like Townsend’s guitar fills there. Let’s go back and hear some of that for a second.

I hate to keep interrupting the song, but there’s just so many great moments. How about that walk-down on the bass there? Let’s back it up and hear that again.

And that leads us into another instrumental section, this one featuring those old favorites, you can’t go wrong with hand claps. Pete is playing power chords in that unmistakable Townsend style. You can hear after the first pass that he’s doubled the guitar in stereo. There’s also an acoustic guitar, again, lower in the mix, that’s playing a more frenetic part. Let’s hear that all together.

Listen to how Pete changes up his guitar part here. And with that Keith Moon drum fill, that takes us to the bridge.

Now let’s break this down a bit. First, let’s hear the backing vocals and some guitar, including the acoustic, which is doing some riffing in the background here.

And let’s hear the bass and the drums together. The rhythm section of John Entwistle and Keith Moon is one of the most formidable in rock history.

Awesome. Let’s pick it up at the end of the bridge into the next section.

You can hear Pete interject “Do ya”.  Let’s back it up again and hear that.

Townsend’s gonna play a guitar solo. You can hear that there’s two guitar leads there, playing on top of each other. Let’s see if we can pull them apart a bit. Here’s one; this is the one that’s a little bit lower in the mix compared to the other one, along with the acoustic guitar.

And here’s the other solo. This is the one that’s a little bit more forward in the mix.

Okay, let’s go back and hear all of that together.

Then there’s kind of a break with more of those huge Townsend chords. And there’s the first of Daltrey’s big screams.

Let’s play that again. This is actually the last verse, but there’s plenty more of the song to go. Let’s start this one with just Daltrey’s vocals.

Let’s listen to just Pete’s guitar fills here.

And now, let’s go back and hear those in context.

Once again, there’s more great Keith Moon drumming all through that part. So let’s go back and hear some of that.

Let’s pick it back up again. This is an extended section of the band just jamming. Maybe we’ll highlight some of the individual instruments as we go along.

Let’s hear just the guitars and now the bass. Let’s hear a little more of the guitar again. And finally, some of Keith’s drums.

And I really like Keith Moon’s drum fills here, leading into the break. Just love the sound of those floor toms.

And that brings us to the dramatic break, a tension-building section where the song is reduced to just the keyboard part. Over the course of about a minute, that keyboard part will build in intensity, until the band comes back in, in about the most dramatic way possible. So let’s listen through this section.

If you listen closely in the left channel, you can hear that the acoustic guitar actually keeps playing on a little bit longer after the rest of the band stops. Let’s hear just that.

OK, let’s go back to the beginning of that break and hear that again. This time, listen for that acoustic guitar on the left.

And the keyboard part remains primarily in the right channel. Remember that this is the same keyboard part from Pete’s original demo. It’s amazing to think that he got this sound and performance so right, back in his little home studio.  But he could envision the band relying on this track, not just for the album, but for live performances, too, which they’ve done right up until this day.

Things start to build back up with the reentrance of Keith Moon’s drums.

OK, first, let’s just hear those drums.

Come on, is there any moment in rock as powerful, as iconic as that moment right there? The keyboards have reached a crescendo, Keith Moon’s pounding away, the band comes crashing in, and Roger Daltrey lets loose one of the greatest screams in rock history. This moment is cathartic, it’s orgasmic, it’s transcendent… If Pete Townsend was looking for music that reached a higher plane, well, it’s happening right here.

Let’s listen to Townsend’s electric guitar. He’s overdubbed a couple of parts here to create those massive guitar chords. Pete was known for playing Gibson SG’s around this time, but on most of the tracks for this album, including here, he’s playing a 1959 Gretsch 6120 hollow body known as the Chet Atkins model, that was given to him by Joe Walsh.

And then there’s that scream. Theres actually two screams overdubbed. Here’s one of them. It’s so throat-shreddingly loud that you can hear it overdriving the microphone, just driving the meters way into the red.

And here’s another one, along with the acoustic guitar track, no less intense.

Let’s back it up and hear all of that all together again.

“Meet the new boss same as the old boss” — says it all right there.

Notice how he doubles the vocal on the line, “same as the old boss”.

Listen to that bass part. It’s interesting what Entwistle is doing. He’s playing octaves here.

And let’s listen to just the guitars here, both the electric and the acoustic. You can hear Townsend playing some guitar fills there.  They’re pretty low in the mix, in fact, you can barely hear them at all in the final mix.

Keith does some classic Keith Moon cymbal work there, and you can hear him let out a final exclamation at the end.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who.

“Who’s Next” went on to become one of The Who’s best-selling and highest regarded albums. But I think Townsend couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a failure… because it wasn’t “Lifehouse”, not anywhere near how he envisioned it. Over the years, he’s revisited the “Lifehouse concept”, and tons of demos and reimaginings of the project have been released. I think he’ll always be at least a little disappointed that “Who’s Next” wasn’t the album that he wanted to make, and I can understand that from his perspective. But for me, that album is a masterpiece, and one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Out of the collapse of Townsend’s most ambitious project came one of the most essential albums in the rock canon. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Well, thanks for sticking with me for this one. This has been one of our longest episodes ever on a single song, but I think this one deserves it. Research for this episode came from a few sources, including the book “Won’t Get Fooled Again: From Lifehouse to Quadrophenia” by Richie Unterberger. That’s a great book.  And especially from the “Who’s Next/Lifehouse” Super Deluxe Edition box set. That is really the ultimate story of this album and the “Lifehouse” project. It ain’t cheap, but I highly recommend it.

I’ll be back in two weeks with a new episode. If you’ve missed any of our previous shows, you can find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or look for them in your favorite podcast app. Share your thoughts on this song on The Who, or any music-related subject on our Facebook page, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on Facebook, or send an email to lovethatsongpodcastmail.com.

And speaking of music related subjects, there are plenty of other shows on the Pantheon Podcast network, just waiting for you to discover them, so go check those out.

And if you’d like to support this show, as I always say, the best thing you can do is to tell someone about it. Recommend this show to your friends, your family, or your coworkers, because endorsements from people like you are what keeps every podcast growing.

I’ll meet you back here again soon. Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who.

RESOURCES:

The Who
https://www.thewho.com/

Tommy
https://www.allmusic.com/album/tommy-mw0000192438

Pete Townsend
http://petetownshend.net/

Lifehouse project
https://www.thewho.com/music/lifehouse/

“Won’t Get Fooled Again: From Lifehouse to Quadrophenia” by Richie Unterberger
https://www.amazon.com/Wont-Get-Fooled-Again-Quadrophenia/dp/1900924950

Who’s Next (Lifehouse super deluxe edition box set)
https://www.thewho.com/music/whos-next-super-deluxe/