Episode one hundred and forty of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Trouble Every Day” by the Mothers of Invention, and the early career of Frank Zappa. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.
Episode one hundred and thirty-nine of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds, and the influence of jazz and Indian music on psychedelic rock. This is a long one… Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.
This week Danny and Tyler cover Dolly Parton's most-covered song: "Jolene," from the 1974 album of the same name. One can't overstate Dolly's importance to country music, but we do our best to cram as much gushing as we can into an hour. And along the way we talk about Dolly Parton's Stampede, Dolly's famous origin story, and the enduring legacy of other hits like "I Will Always Love You" and "9 to 5"--plus an awkward cameo from Tyler's cats!
Listen to Jolene and the rest of our ultimate country playlist here: https://tinyurl.com/takethispodplaylist
For more Dolly, these are Danny and Tyler's other hot recommendations: When Someone Wants To Leave Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8) Highlight of My Life Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That 9 To 5 My Tennessee Mountain Home Dumb Blonde Wild Flowers Hard Candy Christmas Baby I'm Burning for You Islands in the Stream
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas came out in 1993. It’s a stop-motion animated musical, with music by legendary composer Danny Elfman. He’s won Emmys, a Grammy, and been nominated for four Oscars. His work includes the music for Tim Burton’s Batman films, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Good Will Hunting, and the theme to The Simpsons. From 1979 to 1995, he was the singer and songwriter in the band Oingo Boingo.
The Nightmare Before Christmas takes place in a world where different holidays all have their own realm. And the story is about Jack Skellington, the leader of Halloweentown, a place where it’s always Halloween, and Halloween is all they know, and Jack has grown a little tired of it. But then, Jack discovers a portal to Christmastown, with snow and Santa and all things Christmas inhabiting it. He's never seen anything like it, and the discovery changes everything. The song "What’s This?" takes place in that moment of discovery. In this episode, Danny Elfman tells the story of how it all came together, and how writing and singing this song for Jack Skellington ended up profoundly connecting to his own life.
This episode is rated: Cowboy! This week Danny and Tyler are joined by comedian, writer, and The Chicks expert Caleb Hearon (@calebsaysthings, Keeping Records Podcast). Together they discuss The Chicks’ humble origin as a bluegrass quartet, the group's various controversies, “Truck Stop" and "Blue Collar" comedy, the Bush years (uh oh!), and how the song “Goodbye Earl” is the most fun murder ballad ever written.
This episode is a bit of a journey (you’ll see how and why when you listen), so thanks for joining us for a wild ride and through some technical/audio difficulties. We promise it’s worth it for a lot of great Chicks trivia, and some big laughs.
Follow the Spotify link to keep up with which songs are being added to our Ultimate Country Playlist: https://tinyurl.com/takethispodplaylist
Other recommended The Chicks listening from Danny, Tyler, and Caleb:
Wide Open Spaces There’s Your Trouble Tonight The Heartache’s On Me Long Time Gone Cowboy Take Me Away Sin Wagon Let ‘Er Rip Lubbock of Leave It White Trash Wedding Heartbreak Town
This is not a proper episode of the podcast. Rather, this is an explanation, at least in part, of why there have been fewer episodes than normal this year, and what I plan to do about that.
One of the things I promised myself when I started this podcast was that I would not do the thing that many podcasters do of waffling on for fifteen minutes at the beginning about their lives, in an attempt to build up a parasocial relationship with the listeners. I pride myself on the work I do, and part of that is making the podcast about the work, rather than about me. I do enjoy the friendships I have made through this podcast, but I don't want the podcast to be about anything other than the history and the music.
But that does mean that you haven't all had an explanation why, after two years of me getting the podcast out weekly on the dot, the podcast has averaged an episode every ten days or so this year, including some gaps of two weeks.
A small part of that is that the episodes have been getting longer. It takes more time to write, record, and edit a ninety-minute episode than a half-hour one, and while I keep promising I'll try to get the episodes back to the shorter length I prefer, there's just a lot of material to cover in some of these.
But a much larger part is that this last year has been the worst year of my life, without exception. There have been a whole series of stressful events, most of which I'm not at liberty to talk about because they involve other people, but the year started with one of those awful life-changing events that only happen once or twice in your life, and astonishingly managed to throw a couple of other curveballs almost that bad.
And that's on top of the stuff that everyone has been having to deal with, with the political situation in the world and with covid.
But there's also my health, and I can talk about that because it only affects me. I have multiple chronic illnesses and disabilities, which among other things meant that I had to spend the first five months of this year totally isolated, not seeing another human being, until I could get fully vaccinated. And it turns out that being totally isolated from the world for months, while multiple catastrophes happen in your life and the lives of those around you, is not great for chronic illnesses.
I have had a number of flare-ups this year, and to give you some idea, yesterday my blood pressure read as 196/120.
Getting all five hundred episodes of this podcast done is my highest priority, but in order to do that I have to live to see episode five hundred. And sadly, making sure I live to see episode five hundred means not working on days when any kind of extra stress could give me a stroke. Which has been the case on several days this year.
I am working out some new things with my doctor, which I hope and believe will make my chronic illnesses more like they were in 2018 through 2020 -- just annoyances rather than anything more worrying. I am fairly certain that 2022 will be much better.
So my plan is to get two more episodes out before Christmas -- episodes on the Byrds and Frank Zappa, both of which are mostly written and should be able to get out in fairly short order. Those two are again going to be very long ones.
I'm then going to take a few days off between Christmas Eve and New Year, and not do any new work for that week. I'm going to try to relax, get used to my new medication regime, and get my blood pressure down to normal.
And then, all being well, we'll start the new year as I mean to go on, with episodes coming out once a week on a regular schedule.
Thank you all for your patience and support during what has not been an easy year for anyone.
And I don't want to leave this without a quick acknowledgement of the sad death yesterday of Michael Nesmith. He was one of my personal musical heroes, and you can be sure that when the podcast gets to the Monkees, they'll be treated with the respect they deserve.
It's a Christmas miracle! Danny and Tyler are joined by one of their favorite comics, and a host of the Stand By Your Band podcast, Tommy McNamara! (@TommyMcNam) Tommy has written an EP of Christmas music, stars in and produces his own annual Christmas comedy show in Brooklyn, and is a country music fan, making him the perfect guest for today's topic: excellent country songs fit for our special Christmas playlist. We talk classic novelty songs, wintery wistful weepers, nostalgic gems, and everything else.
After you enjoy our bonus episode, check out our hand-picked country Christmas playlist here: https://tinyurl.com/TakeThisPodChristmas
Some songs we discuss and hear snippets of include: "Mr. And Mrs. Santa Claus" by George Jones and Tammy Wynette "If We Make It Through December" by Merle Haggard "Merry Christmas From The Family" by Robert Earl Keen "I Wont Decorate Your Tree" by Loretta Lynn "Cancun Christmas Morning" by Dougie Poole "Leroy The Redneck Reindeer" by Joe Diffie
...and more! For the full list, including a few alt versions and surprises, follow our playlist above!
This is just to let everyone know that the second volume of the book based on the podcast should be available by the time you get this episode in your podcast app. It's been a long, long, time coming, because the last year and a bit has been far more difficult, for far more reasons, than I can go into here, but the book is now done. It's called "From the Million Dollar Quartet to the Fab Four", and contains versions of the scripts for episodes fifty-one through one hundred, revised for the book format rather than audio, along with a rewritten version of the Patreon episode on the Big Bopper, an introduction summarising the first book, and a bibliography.
The ebook should be available from every major ebook store, though it might take time to filter through to all of them. I'll be including a link in the blog post for this episode which, if you click it, will take you to your preferred ebook store if the book's available there.
The paperback is currently only available from Amazon. It should eventually also be available from other retailers, as it will enter all the standard distribution catalogues, but it's self-published through Amazon's service, so those of you who boycott Amazon, completely understandably, might not want to buy that version. The ebook link will also take you to the Amazon page for the paperback.
The hardback is available from lulu.com. That too will eventually also be available from other online bookstores, but I make more money, and you get it quicker, if you buy it from Lulu rather than a third party. Again, I'll link that in the notes here.
The physical books are relatively expensive -- twenty-five dollars for the paperback, and fifty dollars for the hardback -- but they're *big* books -- six hundred and fifty-three pages counting the indexes -- and paper is expensive right now because of supply chain issues, so I hope you'll consider them good value for money, as they're literally priced as low as I can make them. If money's tight, the ebook is only $5.
And speaking of good value for money, for one week only I've reduced the cost of the ebook of the first book to just one dollar. That's a limited-time offer to promote the series, so if you've not got that and want it, now's your chance.
Patreon backers at the five-dollar-a-month level and higher have already received copies of the ebook. Those at higher levels will be receiving their copies of the physical books shortly -- they'll be being sent out in waves over the next few weeks. It's because of those backers that I am able to do this podcast at all, and I can't thank them enough for their generosity.See you all in a couple of days, when we'll be looking at the Byrds, and "Eight Miles High".
If you don't know Buck Owens, one of your favorite musicians is almost certainly influenced by him (or influenced by someone who was influenced by him, etc.). On this episode Danny and Tyler discuss Buck's wild success, his hilarious band (The Buckaroos), the megahit "Act Naturally," and how rebelling against the Nashville Sound can be even more rock 'n' roll than rock 'n' roll itself.
Follow the Spotify link to keep up with which songs are being added to our Ultimate Country Playlist: https://tinyurl.com/takethispodplaylist
Other recommended Buck Owens listening from Danny and Tyler:
I've Got A Tiger By The Tail Corn Liquor Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass? Sweethearts In Heaven Pick Me Up On Your Way Down Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms
greatest hits medleys, including: I Don’t Care (As Long As You Love Me)/My Heart Skips A Beat/Gonna Have Love & Under Your Spell Again/Above and Beyond/Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache)/Foolin’ Around/Hello Trouble/Truck Drivin’ Man
...and of course, (It's A) Monster's Holiday, Buck's Halloween song.
Halsey is an award-winning singer and songwriter from New Jersey. She's been nominated for two Grammys, and sold over a million records. In August, she released her fourth album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, which was produced by the Grammy and Oscar winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from Nine Inch Nails. Halsey wrote one of the songs on the album, "You Asked for This," with Greg Kurstin, who’s won 8 Grammys himself, including Producer of the Year. In this episode, Halsey tells the story of making this song while pregnant with her son, and how that shaped the lyrics and the music.
