"Itchycoo Park" (Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane) Copyright 1967 United Artists Music Limited, EMI United Partnership Limited
Small Faces are one of the all-time great British bands from the 1960’s but they never got the attention, success or respect they deserved. (Some of that was due to self-inflicted damage, but still…) Their biggest hit was “Itchycoo Park“, 2:45 of psychedelic pop perfection. All 4 members of the band shine, and engineer Glyn Johns gets to introduce the world to the sound of flanging. Feel inclined to blow your mind? Check out this episode.
“Itchycoo Park” (Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane) Copyright 1967 United Artists Music Limited, EMI United Partnership Limited
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome, everyone, to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, part of the Pantheon family of podcasts. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs, and we listen to it together, uncovering all the little moments, those special touches that make it a great song. You don’t need to be a musical expert here, we don’t get too technical. All you need is a love for music, and you’ll fit right in here.
On this episode, we are revisiting the Small Faces, because I really do love this band, and I think they’re criminally underrated, certainly here in the US.
The mid 1960’s were an amazing time for music: lots of change, experimentation, and invention. The psychedelic sounds of this era are this perfect blend of adventure, exploration, and naivete. There’s an “Alice in Wonderland” feel to all of it. And one of the best examples of this is “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces.
We talked about the Small Faces before on this podcast, back on episode #54, and their song “Tin Soldier”, so I won’t rehash their biography again. You can go back and listen to that episode.
But for a quick refresher, Small Faces was formed in 1965 by guitarist/vocalist Steve Marriott and bass player Ronnie Lane, with Kenny Jones on drums and Ian McLagan on keyboards. Like other British bands of the era, The Who, for example, they started by playing covers of American blues and R&B artists. But by 1966, they were writing their own songs, primarily composed by Marriott and Lane. “Itchycoo Park” was their 10th single overall, but only their second single for their new record label, Immediate Records, who allowed them a lot more freedom in the studio to experiment.
The song was released in August 1967, the height of the “Summer of Love”, and it reached number 3 on the UK charts, number 16 in the US and number 1 in Canada.
The song was written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane. It all started with an idea from Ronnie Lane, inspired by Oxford, England, and a park near where Marriott and Lane lived. Exactly which park is a question, because both Lane and Marriott referred to different parks over time. According to Lane, the initial musical idea came from a hymn called “God Be In My Head”.
See if you can catch how that melody influenced this song.
They structured “Itchycoo Park” as a dialogue between a normal average “straight” person and someone who was “tuned-in” and enlightened. That’s pretty much the psychedelic sixties in a nutshell.
Marriott and Lane are credited as producers on the track, with Glenn Johns as the engineer.
The song begins with an acoustic guitar in the left channel. Pretty quickly after that, Ronnie Lane’s bass joins in on the right channel, followed by the drums also on the right and the organ on the left. I think there’s a piano in there as well, but it’s pretty low in the mix. And that’s it for the intro– pretty short. The vocals come in right there.
Steve Marriott is one of the all-time great soulful belters, just one of the ballsiest singers. He influenced generations of vocalists, from Robert Plant and Paul Rogers right up through Chris Robinson of the Black Crows and beyond. He’s on my list of the all-time greatest singers. I just love his voice. But, you know, he could also hold back and sing more gently, as he does here.
A couple of other things I want to point out before we move on: Let’s remove the vocals and listen to just the backing track here. You can hear Ian McLagan’s organ part a lot clearer and especially listen to the bass. Ronnie Lane had this really unique loping style of playing that’s really on display here.
All right, let’s get to the second part of the verse. This is the part where the dialogue between the two characters comes in, as we mentioned before, with the backing vocals from Ronnie Lane; Ronnie Lane playing the part of the straight man and Steve Marriott being, well, Steve Marriott.
That’s more of the classic Marriott vocal there. This leads us into the chorus. “It’s all too beautiful”– the ultimate vision of the sixties if only that were.
There’s this little descending keyboard lick that’s kind of central to that whole chorus.
Now this brings us to the bridge. This was Steve Marriott’s biggest writing contribution to the song. He wrote this part, but what really makes it interesting is the way it was recorded. This was one of the very first records to use the effect that would become known as “flanging”. You can hear it on the vocal and the drum track.
A recording engineer named George Chkiantz is generally credited with inventing this flanging technique. He showed it to Glyn Johns, who used it on this recording. Eventually, they developed a way to do this electronically. And of course, now, like everything, you can do it digitally. I’m using a software plugin to do it to my voice right now. But back in 1967, the only way to do this was manually. Two tape machines were synchronized together, playing the same song. And by slightly slowing down one of the tapes, usually by placing your thumb on the flange of one of the tape reels, hence the name flanging, you would get this effect, which would then be recorded onto a third tape machine. There was a lot of work required to get this sound.
So we’ve been listening to the stereo version of this song because I think the stereo version provides a little better differentiation on the individual parts. But on the original mono mix of this track, I think the flanging is a little more obvious. So let’s just hear this chorus from the mono mix.
Let’s go back to the stereo version and hear the second verse. This features more of the back and forth between the lead and the backing vocals.
Let’s listen to just the vocal track.
The BBC initially banned this song because they were concerned that “I get high” was a drug reference. But the band said, “Oh, no, this song, it’s about a park. Of course, we’re talking about swinging on a swing. You know, when you’re swinging, you try to get higher and higher. That’s what we meant.” They were shocked – shocked – that you would think this song was about drugs. And the BBC bought that story.
Here’s the second time around for the bridge, and this time I think the flanging is even more prominent.
That “Ha” that Marriott puts in there. From here, they repeat the chorus until the song fades out, and they apply the flanging effect to it as well. Steve Marriott, as he always does, sounds great here.
Small Faces – “Itchycoo Park”
The small faces recorded dozens of songs that I think stand up to the best British bands of that decade. The Beatles, Stones, The Who, The Kinks… The Small Faces released stuff that was just as good, in some cases even better.
But fate just didn’t really go their way and to be honest, they never really got their act together. There was a self-destructive streak there, especially with Steve Marriott, which would only get worse throughout his life. As we’ve discussed on this podcast before, Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991. He was 44. Ronnie Lane was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died in 1997, age 51. Keyboard player Ian McLagan had a long career as an in-demand session musician and sideman until he died of a stroke in 2014. Drummer Kenny Jones went on to play with The Who, and at the time of this recording, he’s still with us and continues to oversee the legacy of the Small Faces.
If you’d like to explore more Small Faces, there’s a ton of compilation albums out there. Some are better than others. My favorite is one called “The Autumn Stone”. I would start there. There’s also one called “The Ultimate Collection”. That one’s pretty good, too.
Thanks for hanging out here on this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. As you probably know by now, new episodes of this show come out twice a month, so I’ll be back in about two weeks with a brandy new episode. If you can’t bear to wait for the next episode, you can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or just look for us in your favorite podcast app.
And if that’s not enough, there are plenty more music-related shows that you should check out right here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. We’d love it if you’d leave a review of the show wherever it is that you listen, just post a comment there. You can also find us on Facebook, just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, you’ll find our page.
And the most important thing you can do if you’d like to support the show is to just recommend the show to your friends, because your word-of-mouth carries a lot more weight than any promotion I can do. So, as always, thanks for that.
And thanks for listening to this episode on “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces.
"The Tracks Of My Tears" (William "Smokey" Robinson, Warren Moore, Marvin Tarplin) Copyright 1965 Jobete Music Co. Inc. (ASCAP)
William “Smokey” Robinson was the man behind many of Motown’s greatest hits– not just the tracks he recorded himself with The Miracles, he also wrote many hits for other Motown acts. But perhaps his greatest achievement was “Tracks Of My Tears“. It was selected by the RIAA & NEA as one of the 365 Greatest Songs of the 20th Century; it’s on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll, and Rolling Stone magazine named it The Greatest Motown Song Of All Time. Join us for this episode as we explore this masterpiece.
“The Tracks Of My Tears” (William “Smokey” Robinson, Warren Moore, Marvin Tarplin) Copyright 1965 Jobete Music Co. Inc. (ASCAP)
TRANSCRIPT:
Every good song tells a story. The story is often all there in the lyrics; sometimes you have to use a little imagination to fill in the gaps, sometimes the story is mostly in the rhythm or the groove. Sometimes the melody tells you everything you need to know. Either way, a song takes you on a journey. Sometimes inward, sometimes outward. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, where we look at how these songs, these stories, are put together and trace the steps along those journeys.
My name is Brad Page. I’m your tour guide on these musical trips. You don’t have to be any kind of musical expert here. Just open your ears and come along for the ride.
“Shop Around”, “You Really Got A Hold On Me”, “Ooh Baby, Baby”, “Going To A Go Go”, “I Second That Emotion, “Tears Of A Clown”. All of these were huge hits from Motown, all written or co-written by Smokey Robinson, and all performed by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. That’s quite a track record. But if I had to pick just one Smokey Robinson song, my favorite would have to be “Tracks Of My Tears”. Three minutes of pop perfection. On this episode, we’ll be tracing the “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
William Robinson Junior was born in Detroit on February 19, 1940. His uncle Claude gave him the nickname Smokey Joe because little William loved cowboy movies and that was his cowboy nickname. By the time he was twelve, he dropped the Joe, but Smokey stuck. He and his friends at Detroit’s Northern High School, Pete Moore, Ron White, Sonny Rogers and his cousin Bobby Rogers, formed a doo wop group, first called The Five Chimes and later The Matadors.
Smokey’s mother had died when he was ten years old and his sister Jerry became his legal guardian. Jerry was a jazz lover and turned Smokey onto singers like Sarah Vaughn, who became a big influence on Smokey.
I can definitely hear the influence in Smokey’s vocal style there. In 1957, Sonny Rogers left the band and he was replaced by Sonny’s sister, Claudette.
With a woman now in the group, they changed their name to The Miracles. Smokey and Claudette would eventually get married. Right around that time, they had an audition for Jackie Wilson’s manager. They didn’t get that gig, but they did meet Barry Gordy at that same audition– a chance meeting that would literally influence the course of music history. Gordy became their manager and producer, and he nurtured Smokey’s songwriting. When Gordy started Motown Records, The Miracles were one of the first artists he signed. In 1960, they released “Shop Around”, which became their first big hit, and Motown’s first million selling record.
A lot more hits would follow, including “Mickey’s Monkey” and “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”.
And of course there was “Ooh Baby Baby”.
By then, guitarist named Marvin Tarplin had joined as an unofficial “Miracle”, and became one of Smokey’s key collaborators. Besides The Miracles, Smokey was writing and producing records for other Motown artists, like Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. By 1965, with the release of the “Going To A Go Go” album, the name of the group was changed to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. And Claudette stopped performing with the band. Though she would record with them in the studio, no more live gigs.
“Tracks Of My Tears” was released as a single, and it’s included on the “Going To A Go Go” album. The track was recorded on January 20, 1965. It was written by Smokey Robinson, Warren Moore and Marvin Tarplin. In 2021, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Tracks Of My Tears” as the greatest Motown song of all time.
Now, as to who actually played on the track, well, that’s tricky, because I have a hard time finding documentation of who exactly plays on a lot of these old Motown tracks. Of course, it’s well known that Motown had its own in-house band, the Funk Brothers. And if you’ve never seen the documentary about the Funk Brothers, “Standing In The Shadows of Motown”, go watch it right now. It is essential viewing. But the Funk Brothers was a conglomeration of many players; multiple drummers, guitarists, horn players, etcetera. And determining which guys played on which record, well, I found it really hard to do. So here are just some of the key players in the Funk Brothers, who probably played on this track.
You had Earl Van Dyke, who was not only a keyboard player, but also the bandleader. On guitars, there were Robert White, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina. James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt on bass—I’m pretty sure it’s James Jamerson on this track. Drums, Benny Benjamin, Richard “Pistol” Allen and Uriel Jones. And on percussion, you had Eddie “Bongo” Brown and Jack Ashford. Jack turned tambourine playing into an art form. And for the horn section, well, that number of potential players is just too long to list here.
We do know that Smokey’s songwriting partner, guitarist Marv Tarplin, played on the track. And the members of The Miracles who provide backing vocals are Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore and Claudette Robinson. With Smokey Robinson, of course, on the lead vocal, the song opens with a guitar part played by Marv Tarplin.
As the story goes, Marvin Tarplin was just kind of messing around with the chord changes to “The Banana Boat Song” by Harry Belafonte.
He switched the chords around, changed the rhythm, and the central idea for “Tracks Of My Tears” was born.
That little drum fill is such a classic Motown intro. It’s simple, but it’s so perfect. You can also hear Eddie Brown on bongos and Jack Ashford on that tambourine. The bongos are fairly low in the mix on the final version, but that tambourine jumps out through the whole song. Drum fills like that would be borrowed and used on hundreds of songs to come, because they announce what’s coming. They ease you into the song, but they don’t step on any of the other instruments or vocals. Just perfect. I believe that’s Uriel Jones playing drums on this track. One of the unsung greats.
Let’s listen to just Smokey’s vocal track. It sounds so great acapella.
Remember, this was before AutoTune and before they were punching in every other phrase or word even, to get the perfect take.
That short verse brings us right to the first chorus in classic Motown fashion. They don’t waste any time here. They’re packing as many hooks as they can into three minutes. And for my money, this chorus can’t be beat.
Smokey said that Marv Tarplin would make tape recordings of his guitar parts and give them to Smokey, and he would listen to them over and over to come up with melodies and lyric ideas for this song. The first three lines of the chorus came to him pretty quickly. “Take a good look at my face, you’ll see my smile looks out of place. If you look closer, it’s easy to trace”. You’ve got that nice triple rhyme in there, face, place, and trace. But he was stuck on what comes next. Until one day, Smokey was looking into the mirror shaving, and the thought popped into his head. What if someone had cried so much that it left tracks down their face? And that was all he needed to finish the rest of the song.
And then we have this short little two measure transition that gets us from the chorus into the next verse.
And that gets us to the second verse. And I especially like Smokey’s performance and his phrasing on this verse.
Let’s go back and listen to that vocal track again.
Smokey is not a belter. He’s a smoother, gentler singer. He’s up on the mic so you can really hear his breath. And I think that just adds to the intimacy and the humanness of the part.
Now, about the next line. Pete Townsend of The Who was a big fan of this song and the story I’ve heard– I don’t know how true this is, but what I’ve read is that Townshend was so captured with the way Smokey sings the word “substitute” that that inspired Townsend to write his song “Substitute”, which would become a Who classic.
Let’s listen to the backing track. Under that verse, you can hear some bells or maybe vibes, probably played by Jack Ashford. And notice how the strings swell up under the second half of the verse, all, um, building for that chorus. That little descending part that happens all throughout the song. That is such a crucial part of the song, resolving the end of each line, bringing it back to the start to the root. Now, let’s listen to the vocal track for this chorus and notice how he leaves out the last word of each line. Those key rhyming words, face, place, and trace. Smokey doesn’t sing them this time. He leaves that to the backing vocals.
Now let’s listen to that again as it all comes together in the final mix.
I love how they just stop there. They pause everything for a heartbeat and then another great drum fill takes us into the bridge.
That’s the crescendo of the song right there. A repeating set of four triplets, 123-223-323-423; the whole band is hitting those notes so dramatically. Even the tambourine is in on the action. And the vocal is hitting those beats too.
Smokey Robinson and The Miracles – “Tracks Of My Tears”
My mother-in-law wasn’t what you’d call a diehard music fan, but she did love Smokey Robinson. She’s gone now. So this one’s for you, Kath.
You can be forgiven for thinking of Motown as your parents’ music. For many people, that’s probably true. The music of Motown was the sound of Young America. It was everywhere when your parents, or maybe your grandparents, were young. It’s part of the soundtrack of their youth. These songs may have been oldies by the time you were discovering your own music, but I believe– I have always believed– that there is no expiration date for a great song.
Thank you for once again joining me on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. The journey continues, and we’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. In the meantime, you can find all of our previous excursions on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just find us in your favorite podcast app.
And if you’re still looking for even more musical adventures, be sure to check out some of the other podcasts here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. If you’d like to support our show, the best thing you can do is to recommend it to a friend, share it with your other music loving friends and help to spread the word.
I’ll see you soon. Thanks for listening to this episode on “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
RESOURCES:
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/smokey-robinson-and-miracles
Motown Records https://www.motownmuseum.org/
Standing in the Shadows of Motown (Documentary) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314725/
"It's All I Can Do" (Ric Ocasek) Copyright 1979 Lido Music Inc
The Cars debut album was a commercial and critical success. The pressure was on for a follow-up, and the band delivered big time with their 2nd album, “Candy-O“. The album was packed with more Cars classics, including the subject of this episode, “It’s All I Can Do”, a song that shows the strengths of each band member– everyone contributing something special top this great track.
“It’s All I Can Do” (Ric Ocasek) Copyright 1979 Lido Music Inc
…and check out this previous episode on The Cars: lovethatsongpodcast.com/the-cars-just-what-i-needed/
TRANSCRIPT:
Time for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, sending these love letters to the music we cherish, care of the Pantheon podcast Network. Each episode I pick a favorite song and we look at it in detail, trying to understand what makes it a great song. You don’t have to be a musician or have any advanced knowledge, because we don’t get into music theory or technical stuff here. If you’re willing to listen, then this podcast is for you.
On this episode, we’re exploring a track from a band that came onto the scene as the 70’s were coming to a close, and their sound was critical in launching the sound of the 80’s. This is The Cars with “It’s All I Can Do”.
We talked about The Cars on this show once before, back in episode number 43, “Just What I Needed”. So you can check out that episode for an overview of the band’s history. This time, we’ll pick up where that episode left off.
They released that first album in June 1978. A year later, their second album, “Candy-O”, hit the shelves. That first album was considered one of the strongest debut albums of all time, and it still is. Rolling Stone ranks it in their Top 20 Greatest Debut Albums. So when it came time to record their second album, the pressure was on, and they delivered… no sophomore slump here.
“Candy-O” ended up charting higher than the debut album. It made it to #3 and would eventually sell over 4 million copies. There were three singles released off of “Candy-O”. “It’s All I Can Do” was the second single. The song features Rick Ocasek on rhythm guitar, Elliot Easton on lead guitar, Greg Hawks on keyboards, David Robinson on drums, and Benjamin Orr on bass and lead vocals.
The song begins with a bass drum hit and a quick open and close of the hi-hat. One guitar on the left with a slightly distorted tone is playing staccato, muted power chords. The bass in the center is duplicating that guitar part. On the right, there’s another guitar playing smoothly strummed, ringing chords. Sounds like there’s maybe some reverb, perhaps some chorus effect on that guitar. The rest of the tracks are pretty dry, and Greg Hawks is playing a simple but effective melody on the keyboards.
Rick Ocasek is universally acknowledged as the architect of The Cars’ sound, and he wrote all the songs on the album; but every member of the band contributed something special, and to me, the magic ingredient of the best Cars songs is the vocals of Benjamin Orr. He had a great voice and so perfectly suited to The Cars sound.
For the second half of the verse, the guitar that was playing those clean, ringing chords on the right is going to suddenly shift to playing heavy, distorted chords. Listen for the change.
Then David Robinson is going to do a short drum fill on the toms to launch us into the first chorus, and those toms are pretty high in the mix.
The instrumentation behind the chorus is pretty minimal, not a lot of overdubs, just the basic band performing, but each player is doing something just a little different enough that it sounds nice and full, with Greg Hawke’s melodic keyboard part just riding on top. Let’s bring the vocals back in and listen to that again.
Both The Cars’ first album and “Candy-O” were produced by Roy Thomas Baker, one of the most famous and successful producers of the 1970s. Baker is probably most known for working with Queen, including producing “Bohemian Rhapsody”, so he knew how to layer vocals. Though the cars kept the production tricks to a minimum on this album, there are moments where the Roy Thomas Baker effect shines through those rich backing vocals at the end of the chorus. Here is a good example.
That chorus leads immediately into the second verse, and notice that clean, ringing guitar is back.
That’s one of my favorite lines in the song—“When I was crazy, I thought you were great.” We’ve probably all had a time in our lives where we were so crazy in love that we couldn’t see just how bad that person was for us.
And the distorted guitar returns.
Greg Hawkes is playing pretty much the same keyboard part that he played on the first chorus, but he’s using a different sound this time. Here’s the sound again from the first chorus. And here’s the keyboard sound on this second chorus. They add an extra six beats in there to lead us into the guitar solo.
And I’ve mentioned before on this show that I love Elliot Easton’s guitar playing. And this is another great example of a tasteful, melodic, memorable guitar solo by Elliot Easton. Check it out.
One thing we haven’t looked at yet is David Robinson’s drum part on the verses. What he’s doing is pretty subtle, but it’s not just a straightforward drum beat. He’s put some pretty clever twists into it. Let’s listen.
Also on this final verse, Greg Hawkes has added a new keyboard part. You can imagine a string section playing this part. It really adds a new layer of drama to this last verse. Listen to how it builds through to the end of the verse.
And that’s another great line; “As soon as you get it, you want something new”. How many of you have been on one end of that in a relationship?
Listen to the way the guitar and the keyboard are going to answer each other. It’s the guitar on the right, the keyboard on the left.
Like the way Benjamin sings this line here.
“It’s All I Can Do” by The Cars
The Cars released six albums between 1970 – 1987. Five of them were top 20 hits. Four of them reached the top ten. They split up in 1988.
Benjamin Orr died from cancer in 2000. The remaining members reformed for one more album in 2011. But without Benjamin Orr, it just wasn’t the same.
Rick Ocasek died in 2019. David Robinson has more or less retired from the music business and owns an art gallery in Rockport, Massachusetts. Elliot Easton is still active and has a number of musical projects that keep him busy, and Greg Hawkes does session and touring work, working frequently with Todd Rungren.
Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day to listen to this show. I always appreciate it. New episodes of the podcast come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll be back soon with another episode. You can keep in touch with the show on our Facebook page, or on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, where you’ll also find all of our previous episodes. And you can find the show on your favorite source of podcasts, whether it’s Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher– wherever you listen to podcasts, you’ll find this show. We are part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts, the place for music related podcasts, so be sure to check out some of the other shows, too.
Thanks again for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast featuring The Cars and “It’s All I Can Do”.
"Midnight Train To Georgia" (Jim Weatherly) Copyright 1971, 1973 Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc
Introducing a new segment of the podcast – “Creation & Evolution“, where we explore songs that travelled a long & winding road before they reached their final version. In this episode, we trace the history of a song that started from a phone call with Farrah Fawcett and ended up as Gladys Knight’s biggest hit.
“Midnight Train To Georgia” (Jim Weatherly) Copyright 1971, 1973 Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc
TRANSCRIPT:
There’s the telltale theme music… it means it must be time for another episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network. My name is Brad Page, and I’m your musical tour guide, your geologist of another sort, as we explore the rock that made history.
This time, I’m introducing a new segment I’m calling “Creation and Evolution”, where we’ll take a look at both the birth and the journey a song takes before it ends up in its final form. Some songs have a rather short path from the writer’s pen to the final release, but some songs take the long way around, and that’s what we’re going to explore here on “Creation and Evolution”.
For example, what do airplanes, Houston Texas, and Farrah Fawcett have to do with “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips? Let’s find out.
Jim Weatherly was a songwriter from Mississippi who had written a few songs for Dean Martin and Peggy Lee. No hits, though he hadn’t really made his mark yet. One day in 1970, Weatherly called his friend, a struggling actor named Lee Majors, who would find fame as TV’s “Six Million Dollar Man”.
Majors wasn’t around, but his girlfriend, a struggling actress named Farah Fawcett, picked up the phone. She, of course, would eventually star in “Charlie’s Angels”.
Farah and Weatherly got to talking, and she told him she was just about to head out of LA to visit her family, leaving on a midnight plane to Houston. That phrase, “midnight plane to Houston”, stuck in his head. And as soon as he got off the phone, he sat down and in about 40 minutes, he wrote a whole song.
He based the song loosely on Fawcett and Majors. It was about a girl who went to LA to make it big, but when it doesn’t work out, she goes back home and her boyfriend follows her back. Weatherly recorded the song and included it on his 1972 solo album called Weatherly.
It’s a pretty modern country song, but the publisher had some faith in it and sent it around, hoping to find other artists to cover it. They even offered it to Gladys Knight.
But at this point, she passed on it.
They pitched it to another artist, singer Sissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mom. She liked the song, but not the title. She said, “my people are from Georgia, and they didn’t take planes to Houston or anywhere else”. They took trains. And this is just a guess, but I think she might have been concerned about some confusion since her name was Houston and the song was about the city of Houston. Either way, Weatherly agreed to change the lyrics to “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
And besides the title change, this version also changes the genders. Now it’s the man who has failed and is going back home, and it’s the woman who follows him.
Sissy Houston released her version in February 1973.
Meanwhile, in 1973, Gladys Knight and the Pips had left Motown Records and signed a deal with Buddha Records, which gave her more freedom to pick her own material. By this time, Gladys had already had a hit with another Jim Weatherly song, “Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye” in 1972.
And when Gladys heard Sissy Houston’s version of “Midnight Train to Georgia”, she knew she could make it work. She envisioned it as an Al green style soul number.
Producer Tony Camillo had worked with everyone from Diane Warwick to Grand Funk Railroad. It was his job to record the instrumental tracks for “Midnight Train” for Gladys. But she wasn’t happy with what he came up with. Too polished, too orchestrated. She wanted something more stripped down. So he cut another version– and she rejected that one, too.
So working with engineer Ed Stasium, who would later become a legendary producer in his own right, working with The Ramones, Talking Heads, Motorhead and Living Color, just to name a few, they put together a small band: Jeff Mirinoff on guitar, Bob Babbitt on bass, Andrew Smith on drums, and Tony Camillo himself on piano. They banged out a simple backing track in an hour and sent it to Gladys, and that was exactly what she was looking for. They overdubbed horns and some strings, but for the most part, they kept it straightforward.
Gladys recorded her vocal in almost one take. No warm up, no run through, no punch-ins. She was well rehearsed and she knew what she wanted. She stepped up to the mic and four minutes later it was almost done. Except for some ad libs at the end, which we’ll get to later.
I love how she’s singing pretty softly there– she’s holding back, but then she lets loose a bit for the next part.
And here’s the first chorus.
Now, notice how the backing vocals by William Guest, Edward Patton, and Bubba Knight, along with Gladys herself, aren’t just singing harmonies or repeating lines from the lead vocal, they’re actually adding commentary. They’re in dialogue with the lead vocal. That’s something that Gladys and The Pips brought to the song. None of the other versions do that.
Here’s the second verse, and let’s bring up the vocals again so we can hear more of that interaction between the lead and the backing vocals.
I love this part.
And check out the backing vocals here.
James Jamerson is the bass player most associated with the Motown sound, and he’s a legend. But Bob Babbitt also played on many Motown classics, too, and he’s a phenomenal player as well. Let’s listen to some of Bob Babbitt’s bass work here.
You gotta love those woo-woos.
Now, I mentioned before how Gladys recorded her vocal in one take, and that’s true, right up until this point in the song. They wanted to have Gladys do some ad-libbing during the final choruses, some of those inspired, energetic interjections that can really add some emotional weight to a song.
The problem was that Gladys didn’t feel like she was a natural at that kind of thing, at least not at this point in her career. She didn’t feel comfortable and kind of froze up at the mic.
Merald Knight, who everyone called “Bubba”, was not only one of the pips, he was also Gladys’ brother. He took a mic into the control room, and with the backing track playing, he fed Gladys some lines into her headphones, and she sang them back as the tape rolled.
Now picture Bubba Knight in that control room looking at Gladys through the glass, singing these lines to her like, “my world, his world, our world”. And she’s singing them back and putting her own spin on them.
Gladys Knight and the Pips – “Midnight Train To Georgia”.
Buddha Records issued “Midnight Train to Georgia” as a single in August 1973, and eventually it worked its way to number one. It won the Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, and it would become Gladys Knight and The Pips calling card for the rest of their career.
Of the original Pips, Edward Patton passed away in February 2005; William Guest died in December of 2015, but Merald Bubba Knight, Gladys’s brother, is still with us, and Gladys herself, as of this recording, is still alive and well. She released her last album in 2014.
Jim Weatherly passed away in February 2021. He was 77.
Thank you for joining me for this episode. We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, you can binge on all of our past episodes, they’re all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.
You can find us on Facebook to share your thoughts and feelings, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, and you’ll find us. You can also send me email at lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.
This show is one of many great podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network, so be sure to seek out all those other great shows.
To listen to the song again, complete and uninterrupted, stream it, download it, or buy it and support the music you love. Thanks again for joining me for this “Creation And Evolution” episode on Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
"The Ark" (Gerry Rafferty) Copyright 1977 The Hudson Bay Music Co. BMI
Everybody knows “Baker Street”– even if you don’t know the artist’s name or the song title, you probably know that sax riff. But there’s more to Gerry Rafferty than “Baker Street” (or “Stuck In The Middle”, for that matter). Here’s an incredibly moving song that’s every bit as good as his biggest hits.
“The Ark” (Gerry Rafferty) Copyright 1977 The Hudson Bay Music Co. BMI
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome, true believers, to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, your host here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, where each episode, I pick a favorite song of mine and we explore it together on our never ending quest to understand what makes a song great. We don’t get into music theory here, so you don’t have to know a lot of jargon or technical stuff, we’re just going to listen together and see what we discover. On this edition of the podcast, we’re going to contemplate a song by Gerry Rafferty. Chances are, if you know the name Gerry Rafferty, it’s from this song [Baker Street]
But on this episode, we’re going to explore a song you may not have heard before. This is a song by Gerry Rafferty called “The Ark”.
Gerry Rafferty was born in Scotland in April 1947. He was the youngest of three children, and by some accounts, his birth was unplanned and his father resented his very existence. His mother would take Gerry out of the house on Saturday nights and stay outside, late into the night, just to keep Gerry’s drunken father from beating them.
When Gerry was 16, he formed his first band with a friend, Joe Egan. Firs,t they were known as The Mavericks, and then they became The Fifth Column, and they released a single in 1966 called “Benjamin Day”.
That single failed to make any waves. So, Rafferty quit and joined a group called The Humble Bums, which also featured Billy Connolly, who eventually become a legendary comedian. Here’s one of Gerry’s songs with the Humble Bums. This one’s called “Shoe Shine Boy”.
Eventually, Rafferty decided to try being a solo artist, and released his first solo album in 1971. It has a great album title– he called it “Can I Have My Money Back?”
The solo career was slow to get off the ground, though, and by now, Gerry was married with a young daughter. So he teamed back up with his old friend Joe Egan and they formed Steelers Wheel. Their first album came out in 1972 and features this song– and I’m sure you all know this one, too.
“Stuck In The Middle” was a top ten hit in the US and the UK. Steeler’s Wheel would release three albums between 1972 and 75. But the band split up, and they were entangled in a bunch of legal problems, which meant that Rafferty could not release a new album for three years.
But finally, when he recorded his second solo album, he was more than ready. The album “City to City” was released in January 1978, and thanks to the chart success of “Baker Street”, it became his biggest selling album. “Baker Street” is mostly famous for that saxophone part, but I’ve always loved that guitar solo, played by Hugh Burns. The “City to City” album also features “Right Down The Line”, which was another big hit from this record.
But the song we’re going to talk about today is “The Ark”. It’s the song that opens the album, side one, track one. It was written by Gerry Rafferty and performed by Tommy Ire on piano, Gary Taylor on bass, Henry Spinetti on drums, Graham Prescott on mandolin and fiddle, Glenn Lafleur on tambourine, Barbara Dixon on backing vocals, the great Jerry Donahue on electric guitar, and Gerry Rafferty on lead vocals and acoustic guitar.
The album was produced by Gerry and Hugh Murphy. The album, and the song, open with some traditional instrumentation. This was performed by an Australian group called The Bushwhackers has a real Celtic feel to it. Probably reminiscent of the sounds that Gerry heard growing up in Scotland.
That’s essentially the melody for the verse. After that opening section, the song switches to more traditional rock instrumentation for the actual verse.
This is a fairly stark but beautiful song, I think, anyway. Let’s take a look at the elements that make up this verse. The piano is the most prominent instrument, but there’s also an acoustic guitar that’s strumming along underneath it.
That chord change there on the piano, that gets me every time. It’s simple, but there’s just something righteous about that. And what the bass and drums are doing couldn’t be any simpler. It doesn’t need to be any more complex than this. All of the instruments are leaving plenty of space.
So let’s go back, hear all of those parts together, and add the vocals in.
I like how the drums skip a beat there. It breaks out of the simple repetition and kind of perks up your attention at the end of the verse. So let’s go back and listen to all of that and how it brings us into the second verse and set.
I’ve read in a couple places that Gerry had perfect pitch. I don’t know if that’s true, but there is a certain effortlessness in his vocals that they just seem to flow out of him so naturally.
And check out that great little electric guitar fill by Jerry Donahue.
Let’s back that up and start again and listen for more of those guitar fills by Jerry Donahue.
Let’s talk about the lyrics. Apparently, Rafferty had the idea for this song as far back as 1970- 71, but it was one of the last songs that he finished for this album in ‘78, almost eight years later. He really had to work at this one. I guess he was reading some books about philosophy or spirituality and about the ark– Noah’s Ark, and what it represented metaphorically or symbolically rather than literally. I think the song is about if we can wake up, if we can become aware, then we can start out on a journey to enlightenment. That’s where it begins. We’re all on this journey together. Here’s the chorus.
This is a great verse. Let’s focus in on his vocals here.
And that’s a nice little drum fill there, too. Everything about this track in this whole album is immaculately recorded. It’s just a great sounding record.
Let’s listen to the vocals. On the chorus, Gerry is harmonizing with Barbara Dixon, but he has also overdubbed his voice in layers. He was really masterful at that.
And that takes us into an instrumental section where the electric guitar plays off of the Celtic instruments from the beginning of the song. It’s an interesting choice. And Jerry Donahue gets off some great guitar licks here. This is a really well-structured solo.
Rafferty repeats the first verse here, but this time he’s double tracked his vocal.
More great guitar fills here.
And listen to the tambourine.
The Bushwhackers and their traditional instruments join in one last time here at the end.
Gerry Rafferty – “The Ark”
Gerry Rafferty was a very gifted man, but he hated being a celebrity. If you grew up in the did, you’ll remember when “Baker Street” was on the radio constantly, you couldn’t get away from that song. It made Gerry Rafferty a rich man… but it didn’t make him a happy man.
He was a great musician and songwriter and a singer with perfect pitch, but I think he was also very insecure. He didn’t seem to be that into playing live, and I don’t think he ever toured America. He didn’t like being a rock star and he lived a pretty private life. And he was an alcoholic.
By 1990, his wife of 20 years finally left. He struggled with depression and volatile behavior. In November 2010, he was admitted to the hospital and put on life support due to multiple organ failure. He was eventually taken off life support and sent home with his daughter, where he died of liver failure on January 4, 2011. He was 63.
A trace of loneliness and alienation runs through many of his songs, and you can hear it in his voice. You can hear it in this song. But this is also a song about hope; that we can wake up from this sleep and set out on our journey. I hope that Gerry Rafferty finally found the ship to take him on his way.
Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so we’ll be back soon with another new show. Until then, you can catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us on your favorite podcast app– Spotify, Google, Apple, Stitcher, Amazon; you name it, his show is there.
We are part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts, home to many other great music-related shows, so be sure to check them out. And if you’d like to support this show, well, the best thing you can do is to just tell a friend about it, because your recommendations are the most valuable thing.
So thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode on “The Ark” by Gerry Rafferty.
"Dead End Street" (Ray Davies) Copyright 1966 Davray Music Limited. Carlin Music Corporation.
“Dead End Street” marked a shift in Ray Davies’ songwriting. His songs began to take on a more UK-specific focus. And if not political, it was at least more socially pointed, as he sings about an out-of-work, impoverished couple who wonder, “What are we living for?” 50+ years on, many still ask that same question.
“Dead End Street” (Ray Davies) Copyright 1966 Davray Music Limited. Carlin Music Corporation.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Greetings to all of you dedicated followers of fashion, my name is Brad Page, host of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, here on the Pantheon Network of Podcasts. Each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, on our quest to understand what makes a song great. You don’t have to be a musical expert or know anything about music theory. We don’t get that technical here. We just use our ears to do some “forensic listening” and see what we discover. On this episode, we’re digging into an all-time classic song by one of the all-time classic bands: this is The Kinks with “Dead End Street”.
The Kinks are indeed a legendary band, one of the most important and influential bands to come out of the 60’s. But in some ways, I think they’re overlooked. Although in recent history they’ve been viewed in a new light, I don’t think they ever received commercial success that’s commensurate with their influence.
The Kinks formed in 1963 in an area of north London called Muswell Hill. Two brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, were the nucleus of the band. Now, I’ve heard that their last name should actually be pronounced “Davis”, but here in America, for literally decades, it’s been pronounced “Davies”. And if I said “Davis”, no one would even know who I was talking about. And I’ve been saying “Davies” for almost 50 years. And honestly, if I tried to change it now, I’m sure I would slip up somewhere along the line in this podcast, which would just make it more confusing. So, I’m going to continue pronouncing it “Davies”, and I apologize to anyone who’s annoyed by that.
Ray Davies was the primary singer and songwriter, and he played guitar. His younger brother, Dave Davies, played lead guitar and would occasionally sing a lead vocal. The original lineup of the band that became The Kinks included Pete Quaife on bass and Mick Avery on drums. Working with producer Shell Talmy, they signed a record deal with Pye Records in early 1964. The band was persuaded to cut a version of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” and release that as their first single. To be honest, I don’t think it’s a great version. From what I understand, it was a song that they’d never even played before, and it doesn’t feel to me like their hearts were really in it. Not surprisingly, the song failed to make much of a dent on the charts.
Their second single was an original written by Ray Davies called “You Still Want Me”, which sold even less than that first single. It didn’t even make the charts, but at least it was one of their own compositions.
But their third single, that was a different story.
Written by Ray Davies, “You Really Got Me” was released in August 1964 and was a number one hit in the UK. It was a top ten hit in the US. But beyond being a hit, this song earned its place in history based on their performance and the sound alone. As legend tells it, guitarist Dave Davies slashed his speaker with a razor to get that gnarly guitar sound. As opposed to blues or 50’s rock and roll, this was the sound of Rock music, arguably the first real Rock Guitar riff. It set the template for all the hard rock and, yes, heavy metal that would come. You cannot underestimate the importance of this song.
They followed that with a string of incredible singles. Most of them have become classics, including “All Day And All Of The Night”, “Tired Of Waiting”, “See My Friends”, “A Well Respected Man”, “Till The End Of The Day”, “Dedicated Follower Of Fashion” and “Sunny Afternoon”. Just an amazing run of songs.
And in November 1966, they released their 15th single– at least I believe it was their 15th single in the UK—“Dead End Street”, once again written by Ray Davies.
Ray had been continually improving and evolving as a writer, and “Dead End Street” is, I think, somewhat of a milestone in he Kinks catalog. In previous songs, Ray had explored topics like class, fashion and wealth, all with a satirical bent. But he was tackling something a little more serious here. This is a song about poverty. It’s been said that this is the song where Ray’s lyrics moved from social observation to social commentary.
Ray started with a backstory for this song: it was about a couple that wants to emigrate to Australia under what was known as the Assisted Passage Migration scheme, which was instituted to increase the population of Australia. But the couple in this song can’t find a job in Australia, so the plans fall through and they are stuck in England with no work there either.
Ray and Dave’s sister Rose had actually emigrated to Australia, so that was a source of inspiration. And in fact, a few years later, Ray would write a whole concept album based on Rose and her husband—“Arthur”.
Now, in June 1966, before they recorded this track, Pete Quaife was injured in a car accident and decided to leave the band. John Dalton joined the band on bass and he plays on this track. However, shortly after the song was recorded, Pete Quaife returned to the band. So Quaife appears in the promo film for this song. It’s kind of a proto-MTV video. You can find it on YouTube, but it is John Dalton who actually plays on this track.
The band recorded two versions of “Dead End Street”. They initially recorded it with their regular producer at the time, Shell Talmy. Talmy added an organ and a French horn to the song, but the band was unhappy with that version. So when Talmy left for the day at 05:00, the band decided to rerecord it on their own, this time bringing in the great Nicky Hopkins on piano. And Ray decided that he wanted a trombone instead of a French horn. So they went down to the local pub, where a lot of the session musicians would hang out. And they found a trombone player named John Matthews, and they dragged him back to the studio to add a trombone part.
So, the song features Ray Davies on lead vocals, Dave Davies on backing vocals, acoustic guitar and bass, John Dalton on backing vocals and bass, and Mick Avery on drums, with Nicky Hopkins on piano and John Matthews on trombone.
Now, you may have noticed that I credited both Dave Davies and John Dalton with playing bass, and that’s because there are actually two bass parts on this song. One is played on a typical Fender bass, while another part is played on a Danelectro bass, which has a brighter, twangier sound. When the song begins, you can hear both bass parts with that twangy Danelectro sound right up front.
And let’s hear a little of that trombone part. And that short intro will take us right into the first verse.
At this point, Ray was writing songs so rapidly that he was pulling ideas and inspiration wherever he could find them. He was living in an old house at that time. That had a crack in the ceiling and he used that to kick off this first verse.
On the second part of the verse, Ray doubles his vocals.
The instrumental backing also follows that vocal line, which reinforces the melody. Let’s hear that all together now.
That section there that leads us into the chorus that takes advantage of the woozy but mournful sound of the trombone, and there’s a nice simple snare drum fill that kicks off that part.
Really nice use of gang vocals here. Leading into the chorus, Ray sings, “We’re strictly second class and we don’t understand.” And then the crowd chants “Dead End” like they’re voicing their anger and frustration.
Then the call and response pattern switches. Instead of the crowd chanting first, they respond to Ray’s call of “Dead End Street” with a defiant “yeah”.
And that brings us directly into the second verse.
And that trombone plays a pretty prominent part in this verse.
Let’s listen to that.
And here’s the part of this song where he talks about losing the chance to emigrate to Australia and not being able to work.
“People live on Dead End Street, people are dying on Dead End Street, I’m going to die on Dead End Street”. You know, a lot of Ray’s songs are satirical, sardonic, farcical, but this song, lyrically, this song can be straight up bleak. I think Ray saw himself as kind of a champion for these people. The working class. He would mock those of us who were pompous, spoiled and greedy. But at this point anyway, he sympathized with the common man.
Mick Avery does some tasty little drum fills during the chorus, so let’s go back and listen to that.
That brings us to a short instrumental section that features the trombone. You can also hear that twangy Danelectro bass here. And they also add in some hand claps.
Let’s bring up the vocals again on this chorus.
There’s some terrific bar-room style piano under the chorus, played by the great Nicky Hopkins. Nicky was the go-to guy at the time. He must have been the busiest piano player in England all through the into the 70’s, he played on so many records. Let’s see if we can bring up his piano in the mix.
As the song approaches the final fade out, the hand claps return and the trombone takes a solo on the way out.
The Kinks – “Dead End Street”
As I mentioned before, The Kinks shot a promotional film for this song. It’s one of a number of films that could claim to be the first music video; it’s always a fuzzy science to determine the first of anything like this, but the clip for “Dead End Street” was definitely a very early precursor to the MTV style video. Instead of lip syncing to the song, the film shows the band acting out a scene where they’re dressed as undertakers carrying a coffin. Eventually the body, or the ghost from the body, jumps out of the coffin and escapes.
Of course, the BBC refused to show it, they said it was in bad taste. But you can watch it on YouTube now.
Thanks for joining me for this episode. If you enjoyed this one, there’s plenty more like it. You can find all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. Or just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on Amazon, Google, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere that you can find podcasts, you’ll find this show.
You can keep in touch with us on our Facebook page, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. That’s also a great place to leave comments or feedback. And if you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to just tell people about it. Share it with your friends, because your word of mouth is the best advertising that any podcast could get. I will be back in two weeks with another new show. Until then, check out some of the other great podcasts on the Pantheon Network. And thanks for listening to this episode on “Dead End Street” by the Kinks.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The Kinks https://www.thekinks.info/
"Run Through The Jungle" (John Fogerty) Copyright 1970 Jondora Music
Creedence Clearwater Revival were quite the phenomenon from 1967 to 1972. During that short period– only 5 years– they racked up ten songs in the Top 20, 5 of them making it to #2. In the middle of that run, they released “Run Through The Jungle” in April 1970. The song is often identified with the Viet Nam war, but we explore the true roots of the song and listen to the individual elements that make up this great track.
“Run Through The Jungle” (John Fogerty) Copyright 1970 Jondora Music
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, friends, it’s Brad Page, host of the ““I’m In Love With That Song”” podcast here on the Pantheon Network. It’s time to put on your explorer helmet and spelunking boots one more time, because we’re about to explore another song and see what we discover. As always, no prior musical knowledge or experience is required; we don’t get technical here. If you’re willing to just listen a little more intently, and want to learn more about what goes into making a great song, you’ve come to the right place.
This time, we are heading back to 1970 to cross paths with Creedence Clearwater Revival and explore one of my favorite songs of theirs, “Run Through The Jungle”.
The band that we know as Creedence Clearwater Revival began in El Cerrito, California, sometime around 1959. Back then, they were known as the Blue Velvets: John Fogerty on guitar, his brother Tom also on guitar, and both of them shared lead vocals back then, with Stu Cook on bass and Doug Clifford on drums. Here’s a single recorded by the Blue Velvets in 1961 called “Come On Baby”. It was written by Tom Fogerty, and it’s Tom singing lead.
In 1964, they signed a contract with Fantasy Records. The record company changed their name to the Gollywogs– which they hated. Blue Velvets wasn’t a great name, but I don’t know why the label thought Gollywogs was any better. I’d hate that name, too.
Anyway, the Gollywogs recorded quite a few singles. Here’s one from 1965 called, “You Got Nothing On Me”.
In 1967, the band changed their name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Their first single as CCR, a song called “Porterville”, didn’t chart. But their second single, their version of “Susie Q”, that was a hit.
“Susie Q” would be their only Top 40 hit that was not written by John Fogerty. By now, John had become the driving force in the band. He was writing the songs, he was singing the songs, he was producing the records. Creedence Clearwater Revival was now essentially John Fogarty’s band.
A boatload of hit singles would follow. We may revisit a couple of them on the show in the future, you never know. But today, we’re going to focus on the song “Run Through The Jungle”.
Originally released as a single in April 1970, it was what they used to call a “Double A-sided” single, because both sides of the 45 record were earmarked for potential hits and radio play. The other side of this single was “Up Around The Bend”, which was indeed a hit, too. Both songs were included on their album “Cosmos Factory”. Released in the summer of 1970, “Cosmos Factory” was their fifth studio album. Creedence would eventually release seven studio albums; six of them became platinum albums, selling over a million copies each. In fact, “Cosmos Factory” would go on to sell 4 million copies. It’s their biggest selling album, and in my opinion, it’s their best.
“Run Through The Jungle” was the song that closed out Side One of the album. The song opens with a pretty psychedelic effect. Sounds to me like a piano in the middle with guitars panned left and right, heavy with echo. The guitar in the right channel begins to oscillate. That’s when the echo feeds back on itself. This is an ominous way to start the song.
There’s that tambourine that sounds like a rattlesnake. And then the main guitar riff comes in, which is sitting primarily in the right channel. Tom fills and hand claps in the left channel.
The rest of the band joins in and we’re off.
And that’s pretty much it. Musically, the song stays with the same riff for the duration of the song. That repetition of the riff, it’s almost like a drone. It’s hypnotic. It sets such a mood to me, it never gets boring. Here’s the first verse.
The vocals are thick with a slapback echo. It’s very 1950s style sound. Let’s listen to John Fogarty’s vocal track.
Now, here’s something interesting. This song has often been interpreted as being about Vietnam. The song came out in 1970 when the war was still raging, and the song’s been used in movies and tv shows as a soundtrack to Vietnam era scenes. But when Fogerty wrote this song, he wasn’t thinking about the jungles of Vietnam. He was thinking about the urban jungles right here in America. Here’s a quote from John Fogerty from an interview he did with Dan Rather back in 2016. He said, “the thing I wanted to talk about was gun control and the proliferation of guns.” I think that puts a whole different spin on the imagery in the song. Let’s pick it up at the second verse.
I know gun control is a controversial issue, so I’m going to let John Fogerty speak for himself. Here’s a clip from that same interview”
“I think I remember reading around that time that there was one gun for every man, woman and child in America, which I found staggering. We’re talking about privately held guns. Um, and so at somewhere in the song, I think I say 200 million guns are loaded. Not that anyone else has the answer. I did not have the answer to the question. I just had the question. I just thought that it was disturbing that it was such a jungle for our citizens re to just to walk around in our own country, at least having to be aware that there are so many private guns, um, owned by some responsible and maybe many irresponsible people.”
Let’s hear the vocal track for this verse again. And the first line has one of those classic idiosyncratic fogey phrasings on the word “Heard”.
John Fogerty takes a harmonica solo here, but let’s check out some of the backing tracks here as well. Like all Creedence songs, they keep it pretty basic. Just a couple of guitars, bass and drums.
First, let’s check out those bass and drums. That’s a pretty gnarly bass sound. Let’s listen to a little bit of that for a while. Here’s the main electric guitar part. I think this is two separate guitar parts. One in the left, one in the right. The one on the right is louder, but it could just be one guitar. There’s so much tremolo effect on the guitars, it’s hard to tell. It’s a great riff though.
That harmonica part along with the other guitar part played by Tom Fogerty, plus some overdubbed percussion and some acoustic guitar accents.
The harmonica continues to play on in between the vocal lines.
Let’s listen to a little bit more of that harmonica’s unsettling effects from the opening of the song return some of it played backwards this time.
“Run Through The Jungle” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Here’s an interesting fun fact for you: According to the Billboard Hot 100, Creedence has the distinction of being the band with the most number two hits without any number one hits. Over the course of their career, Creedence had ten songs that made the top 25 of those made it all the way to number two, but none of them made it to number one. Just an interesting bit of trivia.
Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes of this show magically appear on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so we’ll see you back here in about two weeks. Until then, you can catch up with all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com or on Apple Podcasts, Google, Amazon, Spotify. Basically, anywhere you can find podcasts, you’ll find our show.
You can keep in touch with us on Facebook, just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast and you can write a review on Podchaser or wherever it is that you listen to the show. And if you have friends who love music as much as you do, share this show with them. I really appreciate that.
We are part of the Pantheon network of podcasts, where you’ll find a ton of other great music related shows, so check them out.
And thanks again for listening to this episode on Creedence Clearwater Revival and “Run Through The Jungle”.
John Lennon & Paul McCartney Copyright 1968 Northern Songs Copyright 1968 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
It’s nearly impossible to pick the “best” Beatles song, but by nearly every measurement– sales, chart success, cultural impact– it’s hard to beat “Hey Jude”. Author James Campion‘s new book, Take A Sad Song, is an in-depth look at the history and legacy of “Hey Jude”. He joins us on this episode for a deep dive into this legendary, iconic song. A true classic.
John Lennon & Paul McCartney Copyright 1968 Northern Songs Copyright 1968 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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Time for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, right here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. I’m your host, Brad Page, and on this episode, I’m joined by author James Campion. He has a new book out called “Take A Sad Song” that’s an in-depth analysis of the Beatles song “Hey Jude”. So I invited James onto the show to talk about this song and this book. This is one of the longest shows we’ve ever done, but if any song warrants this kind of attention, it’s this one. So, without any further ado, here’s my conversation with James Campion on “Hey Jude”.
Brad Page: Well, James Campion, welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You’ve got a new book out called “Take A Sad Song” that’s an in-depth look at the Beatles song “Hey Jude”. You really take a look at this song from every possible angle. I thought the book was a fascinating read.
And the main thing we do here on this podcast is to take a deep dive into an individual song, just to try to understand what makes it work, why it’s such a great song. And I truly do love this song. But to be honest, I’ve been almost too intimidated to cover this song on this show. It just seems almost too… too big, like, I’d just be biting off more than I could chew. So that was almost too much for me to handle. So, when I heard about your book, I really had to invite you on the show to talk about this song, so we could do it together. I feel like I need your expertise here to tackle this amazing song. So let’s get into it.
I assume most Beatles fans know the history of the song, but for those that don’t know the story, maybe you can just give us the background, tell us the origin story of the song, how it came to be written.
James Campion: Many people know this, that originally the song, or the melody that Paul had in his head was, “Hey Jules”. And the way the story goes is, Paul is 26 years old; he’s on top of the world, really. Biggest man in the world. He’s the most eligible bachelor in the world. He just meets Linda, for all intents and purposes. A couple of months earlier, he’s driving out to comfort Cynthia Lennon and Julian Lennon, wife, soon to be ex-wife, and son of John Lennon, who has just met the woman he will live with until his death in 1980. Yoko Ono. All of this is happening within weeks of each other in 1968.
And what rock star on top of the world is going out to drive an hour out of his way to comfort the ex-wife of his partner and best friend since he was 15 years old? And then to write a song and to have this song to sing to Julian? And although Julian for years had no idea the song was about him, and when John first heard the song after Paul wrote it, he’s like, “wow, this song’s about me meeting Yoko”. And Paul’s kind of like, “Well, I wrote it. It’s kind of like me meeting Linda”. But the origins of the song in that little melody, because Paul McCartney is a melody machine, he wrote the song driving with his Astron Martin up to visit Julian. And it’s a fascinating story, just on the origin of the song itself.
Brad Page: Yeah, absolutely. A few facts about the song: It was released August 6, 1968, almost 54 years ago. It was number one in 18 countries, stayed on the top of the US charts at number one for nine weeks. It was the Beatles biggest selling song of 1968. Really their biggest hit ever. Right?
James Campion: In America. Yeah. It’s nine weeks and at number one 19 weeks overall. Internationally, I think it was number one in more countries than any other Beatles song, which is fascinating in itself, Brad, because we’re talking about 1968, and part of the reason why I loved working on this book and researching it; ‘68 is such a seminal moment in American and international history, but it is a very significant moment in the history of the Beatles, because for the first time in their career, since 1962, they were going up, up, up and up, and they just kind of hung out in the middle there. After ‘67, they weren’t going up anymore. They were just kind of part of the pop pantheon. But “Hey Jude”, of course, is the exception to that.
Brad Page: It was the first single on Apple Records, which that’s pretty significant. I mean, what a way to launch your record label! Unfortunately, it was kind of all downhill from there in a lot of ways. But, man, just as a Double-A side single, it’s totally killer.
James Campion: Yeah. “Hey Jude” and “Revolution”, of course. And again, the yin and the yang of the Beatles, the John and the Paul. But also, you mentioned it again, I tried to write about this in the first chapter, all the things that it’s the first of, and it is still to this day– the largest selling debut single for a record label. And why wouldn’t it be, right? The Beatles just were already on top of the world.
Brad Page: And it’s also, I believe, the longest in terms of actual song length of any number one pop single. Is that still true today?
Speaker A: That isn’t technically. So, as you know, in the last couple of months, Taylor Swift re-released her Red album. And, one of the songs on there, and the name escapes me, I’m sorry, the title was the ten minute longer version of that song. And that came in at number one. Before that, “American Pie” technically is longer. And that was released in 197—’71, ‘72. However, as you might remember, Brad, they split that song up. Side A was three and a half minutes or something, and Side B was four minutes. So, it wasn’t a side, a single. They fit all seven minutes and 11 seconds of “Hey Jude” on the a side of that a-b single. So up until a couple of months ago, when Taylor Swift swooped in with a ten-minute song that made it to number one, yes, “Hey Jude” was the longest running number one song ever.
They went to a different studio, not Abbey Road. They went to Trident Studios in London and recorded it on the only eight-track player recorder in London. It’s really a sonic marvel. And some of the greatest engineers and of course, George Martin produced and engineered this thing to get it to be the wonderful record. Because it’s not only a great song, it’s not only written by a great songwriter, it’s not only played by an excellent and one of the greatest bands, but it’s a great record– because there is a distinction between how good a song is or how good a record sounds. You know what I mean?
Brad Page: Right, right, yeah. Trident would later become one of the most famous recording studios in the world, but at that time, I believe they were practically a brand new studio. Right?
James Camption: They were.
Brad Page: Yeah, yeah. They were breaking them in. And as you point out in the book, the piano that McCartney plays on this track was like the house piano there at Trident. It would later go on to be performed by Rick Wakeman on Bowie’s “Life On Mars”. I believe Queen recorded “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the same piano. Is that correct?
Speaker A: That is correct, yeah.
Brad Page: So, well, let’s get into the song. The song famously opens with just Paul’s vocal and piano. In fact, the very first note that we hear is just Paul’s voice. No reverb, just really dry, which I think that just makes it really intimate. It’s like he’s right in your ear. Talking right in your singing, right in your ear.
Brad Page: On that second line, where he sings the word “bad”, he actually drops that. It’s like the lowest note that he sings, I believe, in the song. And I absolutely think that’s not a coincidence; entirely intentional, that the words he chooses to use when he sings that lowest note tend to be, like, the bummer words of the song.
James Campion: Right, right. And you hit it right on the head. Think about this: this is 1968. This is AM radio. Because that’s where you played all the big hits and the sound effects and the booming DJ’s and all the traffic reports and the sports news and the car rumbling down the street that you’re listening to this, this song, you know? And here comes Paul, completely cold, out of the blue. Literally. And he sings the title and the melody of the song. I interviewed dozens of songwriters for the book: Musicologists, psychologists, sociologists, Beatle biographers, writers, music journalists… Almost every person, too, that I interviewed said, think about when you ask someone, how does “Hey Jude” go? What do you say? “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad”. There it is. There’s the song. He’s telling you the title, he’s telling you where he’s going. It’s amazing artistry, amazing craftsmanship. And by the way, The Beatles did that better than anyone. And I went through The Beatles catalog, and you probably know this as well, Brad, how many great Beatles songs start with just their voices telling you the title?
Brad Page: Right!
James Campion: “Help”. “Nowhere Man”, “She Loves You”. I mean, there’s at least 15. And it comes right out, “Hey Jude”, he’s telling you it all right now. It’s brilliant. And getting to the second part, you were saying about the song going down and up? Some of the musicologists I interviewed said this makes it a classic lassic ballad in the American, in the great American songbook– or in the case of Paul, the great British songbook, in the sense where you have the lilting of the voice go up and back down again, up and back down again. And the words seem to reflect that.
Brad Page: Yeah, I love the way, “don’t make it bad”, and then “take a sad song”, and he goes up. He’s literally taking a bad moment or a bad feeling and making it better as he’s singing those actual words.
Brad Page: And then he hits the word remember, and then there’s a pause.
Brad Page: That’s so conversational I think, in the way that it’s like… I mean, if I say to my kids, “remember to take out the trash”, that’s one thing; If you say, “Remember– take out the trash”. That pause in there. To me, that whether it’s intentional or not, it hits you in a very specific way.
James Campion: Again, all the musicologists that I spoke to, and some of the songwriters I spoke to, pointed out that very point. Remember, this song is written in the second person. He is talking to someone. I think a lot of listeners hear him kind of talking to them like, “buck up, it’s going to be great.” But he’s talking to someone we know; he’s talking to Jules. If we look back, but he’s talking to the thematic Jude. And by doing that, he’s bringing you in slowly. And the way George Martin arranged this, along with The Beatles, where each instrument, an acoustic guitar comes in, the tambourine, and the height and those beautiful fills by Ringo, it’s just an incredible way of arranging this conversation that Paul is having with you.
Brad Page: And then you get the line “let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better.” So you get that internal rhyme there, which is just classic old school songwriting.
Brad Page: And like you said, he’s having a conversation, relatively specifically between two men. It doesn’t exclude a conversation with a woman; but this comes up in your book, right?
James Campion: I want to give credit where credit’s due. The great Beatle musicologist and author Tim Riley, who gave me hours of his time, had this incredible light bulb go off. And Tim said, there is definitely a line to be drawn between “She Loves You” and “Hey Jude”. And “She’s Loves You”, it’s two young men, a young man telling another young man, “hey, you better get on this because she really loves you, and you’re blowing it. Okay?” And then, “Hey Jude”, here he is, a little older, a little wiser, and he’s saying the same thing to someone. “You found her, now go and get her.” “Don’t hold back. If you’re cold, you’re only making your world colder.” This is Paul’s way of communicating again. And I love the fact that we have that lineage in the way The Beatles communicate.
Brad Page: Yeah. I mean, there have been songs of two guys sort of fighting over a girl; you know, that sort of, “well, if you don’t take her, I’m gonna.” “If you don’t treat her right, I’m gonna take her”. Neither of those songs are that. [Referring to “She Loves You” and “Hey Jude”.] Both of these songs are one friend encouraging another friend to make a move, you know, to think positive.
That’s fairly unique, I think, in sort of the macho rock and roll culture, right?
James Campion: Totally unique. And one of the things that I used to love when I was a kid is when he says, you know, “it can’t be bad”. He’s saying, “she loves you and it can’t be bad.” Now, I believe that because Paul and John both lost their mothers at a very young age. Paul, over the years, because he has lived into his seventies, he’s said many times that they got each other through. That’s the bond that they had. And I really do believe that that sentiment, that empathy that those guys put in those songs is real.
Brad Page: The acoustic guitar comes in on the stereo version. That’s in the left channel. I believe the drums are also in the, primarily in the left channel. And there’s an overdubbed tambourine. Now, there’s an interesting history of the stereo mix, right? That the stereo mix– correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the stereo mix wasn’t done until, like, a year later or something?
James Campion: Yeah. When they were doing the Alan Klein “Hey Jude” record, which is just a bunch of singles that didn’t come out in America on a record. But interestingly enough, when they did the mono mix of “Hey Jude”, they did it from the original stereo acetate. It’s very odd– they did a stereo mix, but they didn’t do a true mono mix. They had to do a mono mix from the stereo, two tracks. And then that later was made a true… not “true”, but you know what they used to say, “fake stereo”, but, right, there was no official studio stereo version or mix of that until, like, 1970, almost when The Beatles were broken up. Oh, and by the way, the stereo version, the one you hear in the “Number Ones” album, the one you hear on the “Hey Jude” album, the one you hear today on Spotify, is not seven minutes and 11 seconds. So, in case anybody, and I’m sure people are going to come out of the woodwork when they read my book, this thing isn’t seven minutes. It’s seven minutes and 8 seconds, or seven minutes and 9 seconds. Because the stereo version they did, to get rid of the hiss, they just faded at that extra 2 seconds. And let’s face it, they’re singing “na na” for four minutes. Nobody felt they would ever notice this. But you know, uh, we’re nuts.
Brad Page: Of course! Yeah, hardcore Beatle fans are going to notice every bit of minutiae, but for the average listener…
And so, then on that second verse, you get the line, “don’t be afraid”. And again, when he says the word “afraid”, another kind of, if you will, negative word, like “bad”, he drops his voice down on that.
James Campion: Right?
Brad Page: Then there’s that line, “The minute you let her under your skin”… the songwriters in your book talk about it; usually, when you talk about somebody getting “under your skin”, it’s a negative, it’s an irritant. Right here, he’s encouraging it. He’s telling you to open up, to be vulnerable, to let that person in. You’re open to that potential irritation. But there’s a benefit there, too. There’s a positive to that. I just think it’s a really interesting turn of phrase.
James Campion: Yeah. And that’s, you know, my good friend and a gentleman I’m working on a book with currently, Adam Duritz, lead singer and main songwriter for Counting Crows. He was nice enough to give me some time for the book, and he really nailed it for me. He’s such an emotional singer and songwriter that it makes sense he would come up with this. He said, you know, Paul is writing from such a vulnerable point, and he’s saying, if you really want to love and be loved, you gotta be willing to be hurt.
Brad Page: Yes.
James Campion: You gotta let go and just lay it out there, man. Otherwise, you’re just cheating yourself and the person you love.
Brad Page: Yeah, yeah.
Brad Page: At that point, the backing vocals come in. I’m pretty sure that that’s the three of them, right? John, George, and Paul overdub, doing the, at that point, it’s the “Ah” right, the “ooh’s”. But they harmonize on the word “better”. It’s one of the few times where the backing vocals are actually hitting a word.
Brad Page: I think there’s an extra measure in there, isn’t there like a 9th measure?
James Campion: Yes, there is.
Brad Page: Yeah. There’s just that little extra measure there that kind of gives Ringo a chance to do a bit more of a fill. One of those classic Ringo drum fills with the tea towels on him.
James Campion: Right.
Brad Page: That real muffled drum sound that so classic Ringo. And he hits the ride cymbal, which is kind of an interesting choice there. That’s usually more of a chorus kind of thing, right? But he goes right for that there. And it’s so obvious in the mix. It really jumps out. That ride cymbal in the mix.
James Campion: And again, credit where credit’s due: Rob Sheffield, the great pop culture writer and music writer for Rolling Stone magazine, another guy who gave me hours of his time over and over again. He kept saying, “Ringo is the best on this song”. This song is not a song if not for Ringo. Ringo gives it all on this. Listen to Ringo here. This is a band song because Ringo’s making it a band song. He’s not letting you think that this is a singer songwriter. This isn’t Paul’s lament. This is a Beatles song. Yeah.
Brad Page: Just one of the most unique drummers. There’s a sound that you can, you know, it’s Ringo. There’s also the bass guitar comes in there, which is overdubbed by McCartney. Sometimes on Beatle tracks, the most flashy performance is the bass part. But this song, he’s really, he really holds back. It’s just very… it’s basic, and keeps the focus on the vocal and the piano part. But it’s not your typical McCartney. Sometimes the bass parts steal the show on some of the Beatles tracks, you know… not here.
James Campion: Yeah. And again, I have to give credit to the musicologists that I interviewed for the book, pointing out that Paul is writing the bass line on the piano. This is a piano bass line. He’s a bass player, but he’s adding that bass player aesthetic to the piano. And I write extensively, and I learned much about how much the piano meant to Paul as a child, getting over his mother’s death. His father used to play the piano, really engaging him into playing. The family all hung around the piano that sings songs. When he was a child, he really, to the point where Paul actually, in his twenties, when he was already a famous Beatle, took piano lessons. So he’s adding all those different elements into this bass line. And interestingly enough, when they did the live to tape version of it for the David Frost show– that famous clip, you could see it on YouTube– you see George is playing sort of a bassy guitar.
Brad Page: Yeah, the Fender VI. The Fender Bass VI, which is a six-string bass guitar.
James Campion: Yes. And just such a great subtle, you pointed out, a subtle way because Paul does, and thank goodness, add so much with his bass in all the songs and all The Beatles songs. But here, you’re right, he pulls up, he lets that piano, that left hand, really tell the story of music, right?
Brad Page: And he’s just following that. He’s not really embellishing much on the bass part, which, again, it’s fairly unique for him. I think of all his many talents, I think the one that he doesn’t, that he doesn’t give himself enough credit for is as a bass player. He’s my favorite bass player of all time.
At that point we get to the bridge, which is a descending chord progression. I always felt that when he’s saying, “don’t carry the world on your shoulders”, the chords are descending down, and to me, that kind of feels like you’re literally taking that weight off as the chords slowly descend there.
James Campion: The Beatles used that to great effect on dozens of songs. And Paul is utilizing, and we haven’t gotten into it, and if you want to, we can, Brad; you know, the origins of two melodies that Paul had ingrained into his system. Everyone takes something and then it incorporates it, whether it’s, you know, Bach, in the case of Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys, or the Mozart pieces that were used for Stevie Wonder; Paul is using two things. And I won’t get too deeply into it. I talk about it in the book, but in that bridge, there is a little bit of The Drifters’ “Save The Last dance For Me”.
James Campion: And it was Walter Everett who pointed that out to me, and we listened to it, and it’s there. There is echoes, there are fingerprints there of the music that made Paul want to pick up an instrument, that doo-wop sound, that late fifties, early sixties. It’s really amazing how he was able to combine sort of a gospel, African-American, southern feel in with a classically structured ballad.
Brad Page: In the book, you also talk about sort of a classic Irish piece of church music that you think was influential.
James Campion: If you listen to the first notes of John Nicholson’s, Ireland’s 1917 liturgical piece called “Te Deum”. But Paul goes in a palatable, more pop, more romantic way by lifting the melody, whereas the Te Deum, it’s much more solemn, written for like an organ, where Paul, but again, he’s taking these things. And in essence, and it was pointed out to me by Professor Devers and Professor Everett that Paul sang in the Liverpool Angelical Choir in 1950. So he was born in 42, so he had been, what, eight? So Paul is singing these songs. It has to be absorbing into him. And the fact that he’s writing this sense of comfort for another person, whether it’s Julian losing his dad and his family is breaking up, or he’s trying to implore John or himself or a friend to go after that woman of his dreams, the one that will complete him. To go back to something, uh, dare I say, religious or spiritual, really does speak to how important this song was for Paul. And nobody is suggesting that Paul ripped off or stole or was taking a homage to something. I truly believe these things were subconscious, and I doubt if he has, Paul now, he’d even remember that. But I think it’s in there purposely. I think the subconscious sometimes speaks to us when we’re being creative. And Paul is giving us the density of this early liturgical piece and saying, this is, again, a very important song I’m writing here. Yeah.
Brad Page: And I mean, let’s face it, in western music, at least, you’ve only got eight notes; There’s only so many combinations. I mean, sometimes it feels limitless, but it’s all in the little tweaks and spins you put on them. But they’re absolutely, no one’s going to invent a new note that no one’s ever heard before.
James Campion: And especially in pop music, let’s face it, this is pop music, certainly popular music, and it’s now considered a classic in the sense of rock class. But again, that’s what The Beatles did so well, didn’t they? You know, they changed it up. They did break molds.
Brad Page: And the second part of the bridge, the backing vocals change from “Ah” to “Ooh”.
And you mentioned it before that this is where the song sort of takes a break. He does that little “na, na, na”.
Brad Page: And you can actually hear George playing some electric guitar behind that, which actually echoes that little melody. So the few times George actually pops, his guitar pops out of the mix there. But in the book, you describe that little break, little piano break there as almost like a moment of Zen. I love that. It is a place to take a breath almost, and subconsciously reassess or something.
James Campion: Yeah. And it also foreshadows the na-na’s at the end. Yes, Brad, again, this is the combination of that magical thing that Paul talks about dreaming “Yesterday” and writing about it, but also his tactical, the structural things that The Beatles did so well. I talked about earlier about having the name of the song sung right off the bat to get people, jumps out of the radio. Here’s the song, here’s the melody. Everything you need to know is right here. What Paul’s doing there, I think, is he’s letting us breathe, as you mentioned, and I said a moment of Zen, because he’s going back to that “Hey Jude”. And it gets back to those two notes from the liturgical piece from 1917. Again, he’s letting you take a break there. And it’s amazing when there’s silence in a song like that. And it’s very quick, but when there’s silence in a song like that, it’s on purpose. But it also is something that we, subconsciously, we don’t get. But it’s there and it’s so important, man, it does reset the song.
Brad Page: And again, we got the line “don’t let me down”, and he hits a low note on “down”, about the lowest note in the song, and then we get lifted up again. And the way he sings that line, “you have found her”– the way he hits the word “her” there…
Speaker A: He uses different phrasing. I do spend some time, and did talk to vocalists and songwriters, about Paul’s phrasing here. Paul could have gone this way or that way, but he doesn’t. He changes it up for you. So even though it’s what seems like a pretty provincial ballad, is not because of the way he’s singing it. And you mentioned earlier about how he goes down on some of these words, which are significant. I also find it very significant that the first time he goes up high and, probably the highest point of his singing until he hits that real high note before the na-nas, is when he says, “take a sad song”, like he goes there. So the “sad song” is really the underlying theme of the song. There’s the sad song. And of course, I extrapolate that out in my book. 1968 was a pretty sad year with assassinations and war and riots. And he’s saying, we are in the midst of a sad song here. And I think it was Howard Sunes, one of his biographers told me, when Paul goes to the song, when he goes to music to describe an emotion, he’s not screwing around. That’s a big deal to Paul McCartney. So again, I hate to keep bringing this back to the fact that this seemed like a really important thing for Paul, but I really do think so. I think he really knew he was onto something here and he was trying to communicate some important elements and themes.
Brad Page: Yeah, yeah. There’s an interesting part where there’s an overdubbed voice, or maybe it’s a leftover voice that says, “let it out and let it in, Hey Jude”, kind of between the regular verses.
James Campion: I love that.
Brad Page: I love that too. That doesn’t happen anywhere else in the song. It happens here in sort of the third verse. And again, I always look at those things as just another creative way of giving you something new, that every time something cycles around, you’re just not repeating the first verse again. You’re building on that, you’re adding new elements. It keeps your ear interested and it makes the song exciting. It makes it something new in there that you didn’t hear before.
James Campion: You’re right. No, musically too. And that little part you’re talking about, “let it out, let it in, Hey Jude, begin”, you know, that whole bit, one of the things that was pointed out to me in his brilliant book, “The Recording Sessions”, Mark Lewison, who is the number one Beatle historian in the world, who was kind enough to send me back a couple of emails to sort of keep me on track. He lists out in that book all the parts in which, when Paul recorded it with the band, before he did the lead vocal, he recorded what they would call a guide vocal, which, you know, Brad, and they left a lot of that in that. You could hear that in there.
Brad Page: So you’ve got that there and then you’ve got John and Paul singing harmony and it’s just always so great.
James Campion: Yeah.
Brad Page: When the two of them sing together, there’s just really nothing like it. When they sing, “remember to let her into your heart” together, it’s just beautiful. John typically sings below Paul, but when you get to that line, “then you can start”, John goes high.
Brad Page: He goes over Paul. And that’s, that does not happen very much in The Beatles catalog.
James Campion: In fact, according to Tim Riley, never. That’s the only time that John went above him in a song, to his recollection. And this is a guy who’s written about every Beatles song several times. Now, I didn’t go that in depth, but I did quote him on that. Maybe somebody will go in and try to find another spot where John, now, there’s some times where John and Paul both go up—“It Won’t Be Long”, yeah, that kind of thing. And of course, “She Loves You”. And some of the high notes, they both sing, but yes, on a harmony, a single two- part harmony, John going up there and his voice sort of cracking, and it’s just the two of them singing… Oh, my God, it just breaks my heart every time, because I know what this song meant to John. “I thought this song was about go get Yoko”, and he was so in love with Yoko, you know, and it changed his life. It did. It changed his life. It changed everyone’s lives in the 1960’s. It changed the Beatles. So, to hear him singing that with Paul there, there’s just way more for us Beatles fans.
Brad Page: It’s just a beautiful, beautiful moment in the song. I just, I love that part. And then you get the next verse where you get the “let it out and let it in” the second time. He says that, which you actually talk about that line a few times in the book; you know, there’s just a lot said in “let it out and let it in”, just by itself, says a lot.
James Campion: It means nothing and it means everything. It really comes down to that. If you’re a poet or you’re a songwriter, or you’re someone who likes to deconstruct music the way I like to do it, and you do it on the show, that thing is just rings all the bells. I think it was Kylie Lotz, who goes by the name of “Petal” in her professional career– wonderful singer songwriter, young woman– just really nailed it when she said, it’s breathing, isn’t it? It’s just breathing.
Brad Page: The “Ooh’s” return in the harmony, and you get that line, “You’re waiting for someone to perform with”, which just is such a specific phrase that you know, so much of the rest of the song, I think anyone could apply it to their own personal feelings, but I’m not sure most people are looking for a partner to “perform with”, however you want to take that. But it’s just an interesting phrase to put in there that literally applies to the future of both John and Paul, Right” Because they both end up performing for the rest of their careers, as long as their partners are alive, with their significant other.
James Campion: Right.
Brad Page: But at that time, they weren’t. That line literally predicts the future.
James Campion: There’s no way that Paul didn’t know that when he wrote that. That’s what he’s saying now, did he think he was going to be in a band called Wings with Linda? No. Did John think? I think John did. I think John knew from the very beginning, because he did all those tape loops with her. He worked on the tape loop “Revolution Nine” with Yoko. She sings on “Bungalow Bill” with him. That line about, that is a very odd line for a love song. You find someone to perform with. Not perform sexually or…
Brad Page: No, it’s not a sexual thing at all.
James Campion: No. You’re going to go off and do this thing together. And this is a song about, you know, “you could do this”. You could do it. I’m right here with you. You don’t have to do it alone. So it’s pretty cool.
Brad Page: There’s another little George Harrison guitar fill that pops out there. Then you get the line– this is the line that always strikes me—“Don’t you know that it’s just you, Hey, Jude, you’ll do”. And that just touches me in a way that’s, it’s difficult for me to kind of really put that into words. But, you know– and I know Bruce Springsteen often gets a lot of crap for that line in Thunder Road where like, “eh, you’re not a beauty, but you’re all right”. And you could maybe say that here, that’s like, “you’ll do”. Well, that’s not like, you know, that’s not saying “you’re great”, “you’re awesome”… it’s “you’ll do”. But there’s something about that that’s just saying, it’s not hyperbole, it’s just like, “you’re good enough. You can do this”. “Don’t you know that it’s just you, you’ll do”, it moves me every time. And the way he sings “and don’t you know that it’s just you”, it’s probably his most soulful, most bluesy vocal effect, on the whole song.
James Campion: Yeah, I mean, his vocals, again, magnificent here. Uh, yes, I think this is the tightrope that he walks in this song. He’s saying, “I’m going to be there for you. I’m rooting for you”. But he also says, “you got this, you got this”. This is completely different than “All You Need Is Love”. But in a way, he’s telling Jude or Jules or you or me, you know, “you got this”. You got this. You don’t need a lot of mumbo jumbo. You don’t need the Maharishi. You don’t need a big steeple. You don’t need a ton of cash. You know, you could do this and whatever you want to apply to it. I think that’s what he’s saying.
Brad Page: Yeah, exactly. And then you get the line, “the movement you need is on your shoulder”. The most enigmatic line in the song.
James Campion: Yeah. When I saw him in ‘89, when he sang it, it gave me the chills, too. And then I find out later on that he told Bob Costas, Bob asked him, “do you ever think about the audience when you’re playing a song or singing to them?” And he’s like, “No, no. It’s just like being an actor. You’re doing lines, you’re trying to get through it, you’re in the song. You like to interact with the musicians on stage, but when I sing that line, I think of John.” And when you think of “the movement you need is on your shoulder”, which is such, as you said, perfectly enigmatic, could mean everything. And again, nothing. But John, of course, loved it. Paul just put it in there. He just had that in there. He even told John, “this is just a filler.” And he goes, “no, no, no, it’s the best line in the song”. And he respected John so much for it. And I think it was, again, Tim Riley, who told me, think about the ego and the it ownership, that John had a lot of those songs. If he did, when he did the Playboy interviews right before he died, he went through every Beatles song and he would say, “I helped him with this line. He helped me with that line”. “I kept Paul from going to Saccharine here, we did this”, he always said over. And even during their dark times, when they were fighting with each other publicly, he always said, “’Hey Jude’, that’s Paul, Paul’s baby. Probably his best song.” So to have that line in there, and him to blow Lennon away with it, and Lennon insisting he keeps it in there, and that Paul plays it 30, 40 years later and it still thinks of John on stage. Just absolutely beautiful.
James Campion: I love the fact that it’s on your shoulder. It comes right after you’ll do. It’s about you. You can do this.
Brad Page: Right? Right. You can move mountains. You can do it. The song is so full of those little moments that are just uplifting to your soul.
There’s another pause for that short little “na na na”, which he adds a yeah, at the end, which I would normally think that would just be like an ad lib, but it’s actually doubled. And then you get the last verse, the “Hey Jude”, where he has that melisma on the voice, where you’re not just hitting a note, but you’re scatting around it. McCartney was so great at that. “Hey Jude” harmonies on that verse by John.
Brad Page: And then– and this is something that I feel foolish, because, again, one of my favorite songs, I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to this song… Never heard it till I read your book. But after they sing under your skin, John in the background says…
James Campion: Yeah, you can’t unhear that. Yeah. And it’s, and many people had a theory, and I throw them all in there, but I stick with the one that because Paul changed “heart” to “skin”, John was doing the harmony, and he blows the line, and then he just says, #@!&
And then when they were mixing it, I just wondered, why would they leave it in there? According to Jeff Emmerich, who was cleaning up the mix of it, John just came up to him and said, leave it in there. Leave it in there. No one will hear it. And if they do, it’ll be a little bauble for everybody. And, you know, biggest single in the history of Rhe Beatles, the biggest band on the planet, has the F-word in it, right?
Brad Page: That’s so great. And leave it to John to say, just leave it in there. But that would be my take on it, too. I think if you listen closely, it’s tough to tell, even when you isolate just the vocals, but I think you’re right that the previous verses “let her into your heart”, here he sings “let her under your skin”. And you can almost hear there, John start to sing “into” instead of “under”, and then, like, catches himself, and then lets the F-word fly because he blows the line.
Brad Page: It’s just funny. And again, when you think of The Beatles, how many people have played their songs backwards and forwards and inside out, looking for crazy stuff, backwards masking and whatnot? And this is right there, and nobody ever points that out, but it’s just great.
Then we get to really kind of the climax of the song, where they repeat the word “better”, climbing in pitch each time. There’s a classic Ringo drum fill. Under that little pause, Ringo hits a single hit on the hi hat. And then we are off into the second part of the song, which is a whole different animal. But I always hear– and I almost hate to put it this way, because I don’t mean it to be in a sexual way at all, but that “better, better” and then when he screams, yeah, it’s orgasmic.
James Campion: Oh, uh, no question.
Brad Page: You know, “orgasmic” just in the sense of release; build, climax, release. And it’s so emotional.
Brad Page: And that launches you into that second half of the song, that is longer than the beginning. I believe the first part of the song, where we are up until now is about three minutes. The remaining part of the song is four minutes, roughly, right?
James Campion: Yeah, it’s four minutes plus of just “na na’s”. So, we’re less than halfway through the actual record, but the song structure is over now. And now you have the “double amen”, or “plagal cadence” in the parlance of music, where you repeat that line over and over again. The famous, famous, nobody can forget it, everyone loves to sing along with it part. But before we leave the scream, I defy you to find, you could probably find equal, but is there one that’s better when someone goes up and up and up and he just exploded. And now he’s leaving that other part behind. He’s done talking to you, and now he’s making you feel like you’re part of something. He’s making Jude feel like, “don’t worry, you’re not alone here”. And that’s when the na na’s come in, and that’s where I feel he’s using gospel cords. He’s using gospel phrasing. He starts to do the melisma to get us there. The blues tropes.
Brad Page: Yeah. And as you just kind of pointed out, at this point, the song shifts from being very personal and intimate to being a communal experience. The first part is kind of like about you and making you feel better. Then you get to this part and it’s like, “You know what? We’re all together in this. We all have to figure this out, all have to work together if we’re going to survive, get through this together. We got to do it together.”
James Campion: Yeah. And of course, you know, that’s the sixties edict that The Beatles helped build.
Brad Page: You’ve reached a point in the song where you’ve transcended what you can say with actual words, and now you’re just chanting. He’s already said everything he could say to you in those first couple of verses now. It’s just the uplift of. It’s just like pure, unfiltered joy almost.
James Campion: And again, the “na na’s” break the barriers of language. I’m reminded of Paul playing it at the Kremlin, and I mentioned it in the beginning of the book, and I’m reminded of the thousands and thousands of young Russian kids singing “na, na, na”. And no matter where you go, you could sing that.
Brad Page: An interesting thing you also point out in the book is that, during this final section, the coda, if you listen closely in the right channel, you can hear some of those previous ad-libs from the initial run through. It’s still there buried in the mix.
I believe it repeats 18 times. Do I have that right? Is that the number?
James Campion: Yeah.
Brad Page: The number of “na na na’s”?
Speaker A: Yeah, it’s right around there. It’s fun to play with that and figure out how many, and I break it all down in the book. I can’t remember all of them right now. And George Martin said for years, music is mathematics. It’s magical math, but in the end, it’s math.
Brad Page: You just get this continual build here through the coda, where the second time around they add hand claps. I think it’s the fourth time around, the orchestra comes in, and then that’s where Paul comes in with that famous “Judy, Judy, Judy”. The 6th time around, I think the brass gets a little louder and he does that, you know, “you can make it, you’re not going to break it” ad lib in there. That’s great. The 7th time around, just riffing on the verse lines. “Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song. Make it better.”
Brad Page: Around the 10th time, the fade starts to begin, so you get this really long fade that just takes forever. The 11th time, I think you can hear him say, “don’t go back, Jude”. And then the second to last time, Paul’s voice comes up a little bit in the mix for one last little screaming ad lib in there. And then that song just rides out. Just what a communal experience again, you get from that, that whole end section. It’s just, I find it so emotional.
James Campion: Yeah, well, I think I titled the last chapter “Comfort and Unity”. He got the comfort part. “Hey, Jude, you could do this, buddy”. And then, we’re all doing it together. No one should ever sleep on the fact that, again, as Rob Sheffield so beautifully said, this is a band song all the way through. And I think somewhere around the fifth or 6th, they just stop trying to play the song, and they’re just into that whole plagal cadence. Like that the band is a groovin’, there’s a part where they just groove. They’re not doing staccato punches on the acoustic guitar. They’re just flowing, and the bass is going, and Ringo is just doing his thing, and it’s a full… and Paul is really banging on the piano, so it’s a full, full band song on the way out. As you just pointed out beautifully, each section builds on another, and it never makes it boring. Ever makes it boring.
Brad Page: I my book, it’s just one of the greatest songs ever written and ever recorded. It’s a perfect song, I think.
James Campion: Yep. I agree.
Brad Page: So your book, called “Take A Sad Song”, what inspired you to write a whole book about this one song?
James Campion: Well, when I was a kid, as I said earlier, it affected me greatly. I just saw, I came up with this idea in late 2019, but then my father got sick and passed right before the pandemic. And then the pandemic hit. And I was home and I had the time and I said, this song seems to speak to that. To this. We’re all alone, but we’re kind of together. We’re going through this thing. We’re going to try to survive this thing. And it seemed to work in 1968, because when all that craziness was happening during the summer, and then, of course, after the election, it just seemed to be ‘68 again. Everybody’s saying, well, this is the worst year since ‘68. And it just, I felt like I was in it, you know, it just spoke to me. So “Hey Jude” is my favorite Beatles song, period. And once I started looking up different things about it and all the stuff we talked about on this podcast, and also, I thought it would be really cool to just break down one song to figure out why songs work, not just this song, but why songs affect us. And that’s why I talked to a psychology professor and a sociology professor in musicology, and history and songwriters and biographers and music journalists. I just kept asking them, why? Why do we still care about these songs, this song particular? And I think I got the answer in the book. And it really buoyed my spirits during the pandemic, and I hope it does when people read it, because that’s what I meant to do, is make them understand why music affects us.
Brad Page: It’s a remarkable piece of work, and I really enjoyed your book. It was such a great insight into this song. It was just a great read. I loved every minute. It was a pleasure reading the book. It’s been a total pleasure having you on the show to talk about this fantastic song. So, thank you for writing the book, and thank you for joining me on the show.
James Campion: Brad, thank you. You do some great work here. I really enjoy listening to your breaking down songs. I think you’re doing some, you’re doing a service to all of us who love music. Thank you. Coming from you, I really appreciate that. And, um, I hope people get out of it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. It really was a lot of fun, and it made me love the song more, made me love Paul more, and it certainly made me understand and love The Beatles more.
Brad Page: James Campion, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. It’s been great. Thank you.
James Campion: Thank you, Brad.
Brad Page: And thanks to everyone for listening. I hope you enjoyed this show. James Campion is the author of a number of great books, including “Accidentally Like A Martyr”, which is a series of essays on Warren Zevon, and “Shout It Out Loud”, the story of how Kiss made the “Destroyer” album, which was a big help to me when I put together my previous Kiss episodes. This new book is called “Take A Sad Song: The emotional currency of ‘Hey Jude’”, and it’s available online and in bookstores today. Please check it out, you won’t regret it. And please join me here again in two weeks for another new episode. On behalf of everyone on the Pantheon Podcast network, I thank you for listening. Now go take a sad song and make it better.
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