Music In My Shoes
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Music In My Shoes
E55 John Lennon & Elton John’s Musical Bet, and Thanksgiving Memories
Picture this: It's the summer of 1974, and a casual bet between music legends John Lennon and Elton John ends up changing the course of music history. We promise you’ll be captivated by the story of Lennon’s surprise performance at Madison Square Garden, a bet fulfilled after their collaboration on "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" soared to the top of the charts. Discover the remarkable musical synergy that defined this era, with vibrant contributions from saxophonist Bobby Keys and bassist Klaus Voormann, adding dimensions that turned the track into a timeless hit. We also reflect on Lennon’s musical journey, including his work with Elton on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," and relive the emotional farewell of his final major concert appearance.
Our episode doesn't just stop at these historic musical moments. We shift gears to celebrate enduring Thanksgiving traditions that have become as essential as the turkey on the table. Revisit the nostalgic charm of the 1934 classic "March of the Wooden Soldiers" and the quirky tradition of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" on the radio, woven into the cultural fabric of Thanksgiving. Join us as we explore these cherished customs, blending tales of music and tradition into a heartfelt tribute to the moments that have shaped our appreciation for music and family.
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Remember Something Old
Please Like and Follow our Facebook and Instagram page at Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail.com.
He's got the feeling in his toe-toe.
Speaker 2:He's got the feeling and it's out there growing. Hey everybody, this is Jim Boge, and you're listening to Music In my Shoes. That was Vic Thrill kicking off episode 55. As always, I'm thrilled to be here with you. Let's learn something new or remember something. Old Jimmy, how are you today? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing better. I've been under the weather, yes, so I sound a little different.
Speaker 1:Just a little.
Speaker 2:Just a little, but it's good to be back here with you and another episode of Music in my Shoes, great to be here as well. Well, thank you, I'm glad to have you here. So let's get started. And we're going to start back in the summer of 1974.
Speaker 2:And John Lennon was recording his album Walls and Bridges and on the song Whatever Gets you Through the Night, his friend Elton John joined them on harmony vocals and piano. Now Elton basically sings along with him, line for line, going from the verse to the chorus, to the verse. But what's cool about this song? But what's cool about this song is it's got Bobby Keys on it and Bobby Keys played saxophone. You know he was big with the Rolling Stones, did a lot of songs with them. Um, klaus Vorman, he played bass. Now Klaus is the guy that came up with that super cool bass intro to You're so Vain by Carly Simon and he's the guy that created the Beatles album cover for Revolver. Wow. And now he had played with John Lennon on different things. If John Lennon would have like a little live pop-up gig or something he could always get Klaus Like Klaus would be good to go and would know exactly what John wanted and what John was thinking.
Speaker 2:But every part of the song is like jam-packed, with the band playing their instruments and I don't think there's any space left to fill. You know what I'm saying, jimmy? Like it is saxophones going, pianos going, it's all going at the same time and I've always loved it, from the minute that I first heard it, how they can do that. It's almost, at times, with Elton John's piano it gets a little boogie, woogie type piano playing and it's just such a cool song when you think about it and I started to think about it, I listened to that song and then I put another song on from the album that had lots of fill that you could have put whatever in these you know uh, spaces with with whatever you wanted, right and whatever gets you through the night.
Speaker 2:It is just so cool how they do that. Like it just works perfectly. It's not noise, you're hearing everything and it's a lot of fun to listen. Sounds like a good mix. Yes, it is a good mix because you're right. If you don't mix it right, it's not going to sound good at all. So while they're recording the song, elton says to Lennon I think it's going to be a number one hit Up to this point, john Lennon had not had any number one hits as a solo artist. Now all the ex-Beatles had George, ringo and Paul. They all achieved this.
Speaker 1:Wow, Ringo even.
Speaker 2:And that's what I was going to say. Ringo had two number one hits by this time, One of them being Photograph. Very good song written by George Harrison. George Harrison plays on the song and the song You're 16, that was kind of like a 60s, early 60s song, Jimmy, I think. Right, I don't know if it was the 50s, I think it was more the 60s and you know, that's as bubble gum as one can get with a song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the premise hasn't aged very well, but you know, an older man talking about a 16-year-old girl is not exactly.
Speaker 2:No, and it went number one. Yeah, went number one, people loved it.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So Elton John bets John Lennon if the song would ever get you through the night, reaches number one that Lennon would have to come out and make an appearance at an Elton John show. Lennon didn't think it would happen, so he agrees to it. And don't you know? On November 16th 1974, it peaked at number one All right. The only other number one John Lennon song was Just Like Starting Over.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Which didn't become a number one song until a few weeks after his death on December 27th 1980. That's just hard to believe. I mean, you know he's had some really good songs.
Speaker 1:Imagine wasn't a number one song.
Speaker 2:No, I think it was a number three song. He had a bunch of songs that hit two, three, five, nine you know, around there, but it just never would hit number one. So on November 28th, thanksgiving night, 1974, elton John's playing Madison Square Garden in New York City. When after a few songs he told the audience seeing it's Thanksgiving, we thought we'd make tonight a little bit of a joyous occasion by inviting someone up with us onto the stage and I'm sure he will be no stranger to anybody in the audience when I say it's our great privilege and your great privilege to see and hear Mr John Lennon. The crowd just erupts. They go crazy when they hear that he's coming out.
Speaker 2:And while Lennon is, you know, tuning his guitar, making sure it's in tune, everything's good. You know, because back then everybody had a plug-in, no matter how it was, you know you plugged in. It wasn't all this wireless mumbo-jumbo stuff today. And he plays a few notes from the beginning of the Beatles' I Feel Fine, and I have always been like that was just such a cool couple of notes, Like you might not even catch it, but if you know the song you just do, and it's like he picks this song. I Feel Fine. He's playing this show that he never thought he was going to be at. He only knew 12 days earlier at hits number one that he might be there, and that's the song that he just picks a couple of notes from and I just found that cool. I've always been like that's a really good song to choose.
Speaker 1:As we know from the Jimmy Barron episode, elton John is a man of his word. You know he doesn't just say, oh, I'm going to bring you up on stage and then not follow through. It's like 12 days later you're on stage.
Speaker 2:And that is correct. And for those of you that don't know what Jimmy's talking about, when we had Jimmy Barron on a DJ here in Atlanta 99X Radio at some point, elton John had said he was going to invite Jimmy and some of the other DJs over for dinner. And sure enough, one day on the telephone there's Elton calling and saying hey, you know, pay up, you're coming over now for dinner. And they thought that they were going to meet for dinner, didn't realize they were going to Elton's house, to his home, where they were going to actually eat dinner in his dining room. So you're right, he is a man of his word. They were going to actually eat dinner in his dining room. So you're right, he is a man of his word.
Speaker 1:Anyway, back to your story.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that was good, I like that. So they get right into whatever gets you through the night. Whatever gets you through the night, it's all right, it's all right. It's your money or your life, it's all right, it's all right. Don't need a sword to cut through flowers. Oh no, oh no. And as a kid, those words, they really struck me.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember listening to this album on the radio. The previous album was a Mind Games album. I remember I hate to say it, but you know I'm old enough to remember those on the radio as regular songs. That's what Top 40 was. Some of the other songs from the album made it to, you know, album-oriented rock, but I remember listening to them and I always was like, don't need a sword to cut through flowers and it always kind of meant a lot to me. You know, like sometimes the way you're doing it, you don't need to do it, it's a lot easier by doing it this way. That's my take on it and it's a take that I've been using in my mind for 40 years. That's what's crazy about it. 40, 50 years, oh my Lord, 50 years, you know, 50 years since I've heard that and it makes me think, you know, and there are times when I'm doing something and I'll just say to myself don't need a sword to cut through flowers. Right, and I take it, you know, right from this.
Speaker 2:Next, they play Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which Elton had just released as a single, on November 15th, with John Lennon on backing vocals and guitar. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in January of 1975. So Elton John records Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and the Beatles had put that out in 1967. You know, I think one of the greatest songs in rock and roll of all time, and the guy that sings it, the guy that writes it, that comes up with all the coolness, you know the psychedelic parts of that song. He has to do background vocals and guitar with him and it is just super cool. I've always liked, you know, and people that can be into something like that that John Lennon was like no, I don't want to do that. He was like, hey, you know, you're my friend, elton, you want me to come on, I'm going to play it, you sing it and I'll just do. You know the background and it's just a really, really good song. So, before their third and final song together.
Speaker 2:John Lennon addresses the audience. I'd like to thank Elton and the boys for having me on tonight. We tried to think of a number to finish off with so that I could get out of here and be sick, and we thought we'd do another a number of an old, estranged fiancé of mine called Paul. This is one I never sang. It's an old Beatle number and we just about know it. And then they start playing. I Saw Her Standing there, oh, and it's really cool because in my mind I never really thought about John Lennon not singing in it, that it was a Paul song. You know, sometimes you think it's a Beatles song so you're just like they sang it. You know, not necessarily John or Paul or George, or occasionally.
Speaker 1:Ringo, yeah, especially the older ones like that.
Speaker 2:Right, a lot of them. They sang together and I just thought it was cool that they picked a song that was a Paul song, especially when they hadn't necessarily been getting along for a number of years. Yeah, and to play that. So the song ends. Elton acknowledges him with John Lennon crowd claps. And just like that, john Lennon crowd claps. And just like that John Lennon's last major concert appearance was over. He never toured as a solo artist. His last tour had been 1966 with the Beatles on their final tour, which happened here in America. He very rarely played large concerts and when he did, it was a benefit or a festival where he was just one of many on the bill, so different from his early Beatle days when they toured nonstop and he was the life of the party. And just very, very, very different.
Speaker 1:I think it just became so difficult for them to tour and all the fame and all the screaming fans and stuff. I think he just put it away and said I'm not doing that ever again.
Speaker 2:Right, but the others went on. Paul McCartney went on to tour Ringo.
Speaker 1:I don't know how much Ringo was touring but he, I mean he still tours these days, right.
Speaker 2:He put the all-star band together, I think in 1989. So since 89, you know that. You know ever-changing group of characters that he has. But he didn't do a lot of touring for a number of years. I'm not sure about in the 70s. What he was doing I don't remember.
Speaker 2:But George Harrison in 1974, he put on a tour. It was probably as far as what we consider a tour. It was probably his first actual tour since the Beatles had broken up. I know he had played Madison Square Garden where he had done some benefits. I know that he had done some things with Eric Clapton and you know, for him touring was a thing that he didn't do a whole lot more. I think he only toured one more time with Eric Clapton in roughly about 91, 92, somewhere around there. John never even did a tour. He didn't do anything. He really didn't play a lot. The biggest show that he played, 1972, he had helped with a benefit Geraldo Rivera had put on at Madison Square Garden. Back then they used to do a lot of shows where they would do a day show and then they would do a night show. Oh yeah, that's how things used to happen. I mean, the Doors used to do that when they would come to New York, the Rolling Stones, like everybody, would do stuff much different than the way it is today.
Speaker 1:Makes a lot of sense really. You set all the stuff up, do two shows.
Speaker 2:And knock it out and make more money, I think, depending on what kind of singing and your voice, though, trying to do all that in one day, I don't think that I could do two shows as a podcaster in one day, never mind singing.
Speaker 1:You had a funny quote to me recently. You told me that you can't do a podcast if you ate pretzels the night before.
Speaker 2:That is true. If I eat pretzels the night before that have a lot of salt on them, it's a struggle to get through the podcast. So it is funny, it is true. So I have to watch what I eat the night before because it will affect me. The last thing you want to do is have a super dry mouth as you're trying to talk to everybody out there in podcast land.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then I think in 1969, John Lennon did some sort of like a rock and roll revival show in Toronto. I think it was September of 1969. And there was about 20,000 people that were going to show up and the Doors actually played it. Speaking of the Doors, the Doors actually were there. I think Chuck Berry was there, I can't remember everyone. But the promoter calls up John Lennon and says will you be the master of ceremonies? And John Lennon says hey, I got a new band, why don't we just play? And the guy was like sure, you know, john didn't have a band. He ended up getting Klaus Vorman. Oh, lennon didn't do a whole lot of shows If he was not shot and killed in December of 1980, I think he reached a point where he had matured and he looked at things differently. He had had his son Sean, and I think that things would be different today. We would be talking about these different John Lennon tours kind of the way that we talk about the McCartney tours or we talk about the Ringo Starr All-Star bands.
Speaker 1:We might be talking about the Beatles tour.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to go there, but I did. You never know? I mean, you don't know, nobody knows anything. We didn't think Oasis was going to come back, right, but they did. Well, they say they are. We'll see what happens next year.
Speaker 2:So I actually heard the Elton John, john Lennon, those three songs at Madison Square Garden. You hear about them. There are things that we've talked about before where you know, you hear about these things and you want to find out if they're true, or you know what it actually sounded like or what it looked like. I listened to this thing called the Beatles Hour back in 79, 80, and it was on WBAU radio, which is a Delphi University on Long Island and it's run by the students, and a couple of these students ran this show, the Beatles Hour, and I think it was on Mondays. I can't remember, I mean it's a long time ago. But the show was super cool because everything they talked about, everything they played, was all these things that you didn't know about or you had heard about. But here was the place you were going to really get to hear it, because you're not going to hear on regular radio. I saw her standing there by Elton and John.
Speaker 1:Lennon.
Speaker 2:It's just not happening, Right Standing there by Elton and John Lennon. It's just not happening. And I remember it getting close to Thanksgiving and I want to say it was 79 and them playing all three songs back to back to back and I was like this is insane, Like I. I've heard about this and here it is.
Speaker 1:Is it on a bootleg or something, or where did they get it?
Speaker 2:It was released on a vinyl album of some kind at one point, but it was out of print by then, yeah, so I don't remember what it was. I think Elton had put out some live thing, but you can get it now, you can stream it. It's on Elton John here and now. So it's got a bunch of the Madison Square Garden concert. It's got some other concerts, you know, bits and pieces mixed in, but it's got those three songs with him and John Lennon. So it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:So I'm glad that I got to listen to a show like that on a radio station like WBAU. And sometimes I hope people that are listening to us that they learn something and they go check something out, kind of similar to you know what I was like all those years ago. You know, I've never forgotten that. I mean, that was all those years ago. I can't tell you who the guys were that did it, but I remember the show and I can tell you we're going to talk more about the show next year as different things come up, because it just kind of fit into my life and I started writing them letters and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's a story for next year. All right, can't wait. Walls and Bridges. It's a pretty good album. Other hit song off the album was Number 9, dream, which peaked at number nine.
Speaker 2:Oh perfect On February 22nd 1975. Number nine oh, perfect On February 22nd 1975. And I also like Surprise, surprise, steel and Glass and this song Nobody Loves you when You're Down and Out. Now, this is one of those songs. It's a good song, but Lennon had released it. Well, not Lennon, it was after his death. They had released it like the demo Just him and a guitar. A hundred times better than the polished version, so much better. I don't think it's currently available. I think maybe you can YouTube it and find it, but, man, it is so good.
Speaker 2:And then the last song on the album is Yaya. And then the last song on the album is Yaya. And that's that old 50s song sitting in my yaya playing my guitar, whatever it is. So I don't really remember what the words are. I know that those probably aren't the words. I think it's more like sitting in la-la waiting for my yaya, something like that. I don't remember everything, but the point of the whole thing is that this song is recorded. It's the last song on the album and what makes it cool is that John had just spent some time with his older son, julian Lennon, and they were just messing around in the studio. John starts playing it and tells Julian to start playing the drums. And he plays the drums and John says man, you know what I'm going to be proud? I'm going to say it's dad singing it, playing guitar, julian is on the drums and that's what he released. Oh, that's awesome. I think it really is. I think that's cool that you can do something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And for that I'm sure Julian was very thankful. So, jimmy, when I was a kid, on Thanksgiving I used to watch this movie March of the Wooden Soldiers. Have you ever seen it?
Speaker 1:I can't say that I'm sure if I have or not.
Speaker 2:I didn't think that you were going to say that you saw it. Most people I ask haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:Okay, maybe I'm confusing it with this part of the Nutcracker. I think it's March of the Toy Soldiers, correct, okay? So no, I've not seen it.
Speaker 2:So it's black and it's got Laurel and Hardy in it. Oh great. And it came out 90 years ago, november of 1934. And I started watching this in the 70s. My dad would say, hey, it's Thanksgiving, got to watch this movie and then the next year you watch it. So it turns out that since the early 1950s they have played this movie on WPIX television in New York almost every single year on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:It was colorized. I want to say I know it's been colorized twice, I think, once in the 90s and then once in the 2000s. I've never seen those. So now, because I did look it up to make sure that they still play it, right is they show the black and white at one time of the day and then they show the color version at a different time of the day.
Speaker 2:And there's not a lot of things that I can say that I would do as a kid. You know, every Thanksgiving, you know, I'm going to be watching this movie. That still happens today. Not trying to date myself, but that's just life, that's just not how things normally happen and I think it's super cool that a movie that's 90 years old there are people that are going to watch it this Thanksgiving for the first time I know and get hooked on it and say I want to watch it again next year and the next year. So I mentioned Laurel and Hardy, the whole thing and I'm not going to give away the whole movie, but basically they live in a shoe, okay.
Speaker 1:I think I've seen some of this.
Speaker 2:And next door is like I think Mother Peep and you know Bo Peep's mother, mother Peep and you know Bo Peep's mother, and it's just crazy because then there's an eviction. This is 1934 that the movie was done and they're talking about evictions. And it's just crazy because it goes like all of these characters that you know through children's.
Speaker 1:Nursery rhymes's nursery rhymes.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's the word I'm looking for. Like all of the characters are in it and it's really cool because they got Mickey Mouse to actually be in it. Walt Disney agreed hey, yeah, I know this isn't mine, but you could put Mickey Mouse in it. So Mickey Mouse makes an appearance in this 1934 movie where today, you know, everything is about rights and I'm not. You know, I'm not mixing this with this, I just think it's really cool. It's funny. The one thing that I remember reading is that they wish that they had filmed it in color, because the set was all vibrant colors. You know, they made it look like a children's you know children's toys. There were these vibrant colors and multicolor things. They made the set just like that, only to film it in black and white, and they wish that they had filmed it in color. Color was a new thing then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, color was a new thing and you know, when you see something in black and white, it doesn't matter what color it is, it just comes out black, white, gray, different shades of it. That's the way black and white TV was. I can tell you, the first few times that I watched the movie I did watch on a black and white TV. I didn't even, you know, wasn't even a color TV, Not that it would have been in color, but it was really a black and white TV. So, speaking of Thanksgiving, you're familiar with the Arlo Guthrie song Alice's Restaurant. Oh, yeah, Well, the real Alice, Alice Brock, who owned a restaurant, died on November 21st 2024. Now, Alice's Restaurant. They say you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.
Speaker 1:Accepting Alice.
Speaker 2:There you go. It's based on a real life event, with a lot of exaggeration. There's no, you know, denying on Arlo Guthrie or anyone that's involved with the story. But to make a long story short, you have Arlo Guthrie go to visit Alice and her husband in Massachusetts and you know they're doing some stuff and they have a bunch of garbage and they take the garbage and they go to the dump but it's Thanksgiving and this happened to be in 1965, I think is when the actual event happened and the dump was closed on Thanksgiving 1965.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whoever heard of a dump being closed on Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2:Crazy. So what do they do? They find a cliff and they actually let the trash all go to the bottom of the cliff.
Speaker 1:You know, it was a different time, Jim. People didn't know that littering was bad.
Speaker 2:True People wouldn't do that today. No, not in this day and age. The police actually go through SIF. They get you know a name and Arlo Guthrie and his friend who had dumped it. They actually get arrested and Alice has to go bail them out and Arlo puts this song together that comes out in 1967. And then they made a movie that came out in 1969.
Speaker 2:That's how popular it had become and it just talks about different things and when you listen to it you really realize how crazy some things can get Like. Maybe sometimes we just get too crazy about things. And you know, I know it talked a bit about the Vietnam War at the time and so forth, about the Vietnam War at the time and so forth. But it's a cool song. They played it at noon. Another thing every Thanksgiving at noon on WBAB radio and I checked it out. Wbab still plays it at noon every single year. I just think it's cool to find two things that I can think back on Thanksgiving when I was young, when I was a kid, that these two things that continue to happen today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've never like when I grew up in Atlanta, they didn't have any of those traditions like that.
Speaker 2:And it's something that I like traditions. I like when you can look back upon something that you did a long time ago or look at something that hasn't been torn down, and I'm grateful, and I am thankful for having March of the Wooden Soldiers having March of the Wooden Soldiers Alice's Restaurant.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And on that note, I am grateful and thankful that right now we have a minute with Jimmy. It's time for a minute with Jimmy, minute with Jimmy, minute with Jimmy. It's time for a minute with Jimmy, minute with.
Speaker 1:Jimmy minute with Jimmy. Okay, I wanted to talk about the 20th anniversary of the 2004 U2 album how to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. This is, in my opinion, the best U2 album since the Joshua Tree. This is a really great record. It starts out with Vertigo we know that was a big thing for them, kind of coming out with more of a hard rock sound.
Speaker 1:Songs like Miracle Drug Sometimes you Can't Make it On your Own Love and Peace or Else, city of Blinding Lights great song All Because of you. A man and a Woman Crumbs From your Table One Step Closer. Original of the Species Yahweh and Fast Cars. It's one of these albums you could listen to from start to finish, and I always do. I put it on and it's just one of these great albums. One of the songs that I really love is Sometimes you Can't Make it On your Own, and it's about his dad. Bono wrote it about his dad and he says it's you when I look in the mirror and it's you when I go pick up the phone. It's like I look like you, I sound like you. Sometimes you can't make it on your own. It was like his way of telling his dad look take help.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's a great choice, jimmy. I love the album. That was a great tour they toured in 2005. I love that tour. Really. Really good batch of songs. Now, on this bonus edition, this super deluxe that they just released, they've got a song, picture of you X plus W. That I think is a fantastic song. I don't know why they didn't put it out at first, maybe because they just had so many good songs already. But when I listened to the deluxe version, there are a ton of songs on there that didn't make the album, that they're fully produced, they're fully done, and that it took 20 years to put them out. And it made me wonder, like, how many bands have that many songs that they just didn't put them out? You know and I'm not talking about demos, we've talked about a lot of demos with deluxe editions of things. These songs are ready. They could have just been, you know, interjected on the album at any point.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's called how to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb and it's got those bonus tracks on it and everything.
Speaker 2:And, like you said, I mean all because of you. I love that song. I could listen to that song over and over.
Speaker 1:Really really good song. Perfect little pop rock song.
Speaker 2:And Vertigo. That's another fantastic song, I think the one song that I could. I don't want to say I don't like it, but if it wasn't there it wouldn't but Miracle Drug. I'm not a big fan of it, it doesn't really do anything.
Speaker 1:For me it's an album cut. You know it's when you're listening to the whole record. It's part of the thing, but it's. I wouldn't seek make it on its own.
Speaker 2:You heard it here first with Minute with Jimmy. Minute with Jimmy. That's it for episode 55 of Music in my Shoes. I'd like to thank Jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of Arcade 160 Studios located here in Atlanta, georgia, and Vic Thrill for our podcast music. This is Jim Boge, and I hope you learned something new or remembered something old. We'll meet again on our next episode. Until then, live life and keep the music playing. Thank you.
