Music In My Shoes
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Music In My Shoes
E98 Remembering Janis Joplin, and Top Female Vocalists of All-time
Janis Joplin's untimely death on October 4, 1970, marked a profound loss for rock music just sixteen days after Jimi Hendrix's passing. We explore her remarkable legacy, breakthrough at the Monterey Pop Festival, and participation in the legendary Festival Express train tour across Canada.
• Janis Joplin died at age 27 with only four albums released, yet her impact remains enormous
• "Mercedes-Benz" was the last song Joplin recorded before her death
• The Festival Express train tour featured impromptu jam sessions with Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and The Band
• Room 105 at the former Landmark Motor Hotel (now Highland Gardens Hotel) has become a shrine to Joplin
• We compare rankings of greatest female vocalists across genres, including Ann Wilson, Stevie Nicks, and Whitney Houston
• Notable discussion of other musical icons including David Bowie's "Scary Monsters" album, Genesis' "Turn It on Again" Split Enz "I Got You" and The Cure "Close to Me"
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Hey everybody, this is Jim Boge, and you're listening to Music in My Shoes. That was Vic Thrill kicking off episode 98. As always, I'm thrilled to be here with you. Let's learn something new or remember something old. Jimmy, two episodes ago, we spoke about the death of Jimi Hendricks on September 18th, 1970. Sixteen days later, on October 4th, 1970, rock music lost another icon with the overdose death of Janice Joplin. Yeah. And if you think about it, it's hard to imagine, you know, just over two weeks in such a short period of time, two of the most iconic rock and roll people lost their lives. You know, again, Jimi Hendrix didn't have a a ton of albums out. I think we talked about he had four out at the time, three studio, one live. And for Janice, she had four. Two with Big Brother and the Holding Company, two solo, but the last solo didn't come out until after her death, about three months later. She was actually recording it when when she died. And it's just amazing how some people can put out music and not a ton of it, and it have such an impact still all these years later. Yeah, it really does. It's amazing. I mean, just listen to some of these songs that Janice released. Down on Me, Summertime. I think Summertime is an absolute killer song. And I know a bunch of these are covers, but she put her own spin on it and just gave it this blues, you know, from the heart feeling.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, she did.
SPEAKER_02:Are you choking up there, Jimmy?
SPEAKER_03:No, I just had a Greek salad. I didn't realize this episode was gonna touch you like that. You know. It's also the the lack of a beard on Jim is kind of like throwing is putting a lump in my throat or something.
SPEAKER_02:It is the new look. At least today's look. Who knows what tomorrow's look will be.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you can't grow it back in a day unless you get like a Santa beard.
SPEAKER_02:We'll see what happens, Jimmy. All right. So Peace of My Heart. I think everybody in the world knows that song. You might not know the name of the song, but when it comes on, everybody knows that. Another cover, Ball and Chain, Ball and Chain, what a fantastic song. Try Just a Little Harder, Move Over, Me and Bobby McGee, and Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz is an a cappella song, which is the last song she recorded. Oh, okay. It's the last thing she did before she died. And what a great song it is. And I talked about this once before. She had two shows at the Capitol Theater in Porchester, New York. And between the two shows, and I I don't know if they were the same day or or days apart, that I don't remember, she was at a bar with some people, some friends, and based it off of a poem someone had wrote and had the song, and by the second show, she was playing it at the second show. And it's just crazy, you know, that people have that much talent, you know, and be able to pull something like that off. So 1967, Monterey Pop Festival, Monterey International Pop Festival, POP Pop, is again, I I've mentioned it probably 20 times. It is probably my favorite festival of the 60s.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And part of it is because at that time the drugs and alcohol hadn't taken over so many of the musicians, and they really were all in it about the music and what they could possibly do. And at the same time, many of these bands weren't signed bands or weren't well known. If you take a look at at Janice Joplin, their first album didn't come out until two months after the Monterey Pop Festival on a a large scale. You know, it was released kind of like an independent type thing. But then large scale, it you know, it was this big thing after they had the success that they had at Monterey. That's cool. One of the things about Monterey is that they videoed the whole thing, and that you can uh um DA Pennebaker and you can watch, and that's you know, I definitely love watching these festivals and seeing what was going on. But at the time, Albert Grossman was the manager of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and he refused to give them permission to film. And she had this amazing performance, especially with with ball and chain. And, you know, it got kind of crazy after that, different stories, whether or not, you know, uh the Monterey people like, hey, yeah, you really need to do that and put it on film. Or Janice was really upset that it wasn't on film after she gave this unbelievable performance. But at the end of the day, they get to play the next day and it's on film, and you can watch it and you can see everything. They're the only band that played two days at the um Monterey Festival. Yeah, I mean, the audience absolutely loved them. They weren't really known outside of San Francisco. And to be at a pop festival, this place where people from all over, it really was the breakout performance, you know, for both Janice as well as Big Brother. So, you know, just a really good time, uh, a really good vibe when you watch the show. Another really cool thing that Janice was part of was in the summer of 70, thing called Festival Express. And it was a train in Canada that a bunch of rock bands got on. They decided, well, we're not like driving, we're not flying, we're gonna try something different. We're all gonna go on a train. And there was about 14 cars. There was a bar car and sleepers and you know, all kinds of stuff. It was the very end of June of 70, and I think it went to like July 4th of 1970, just a handful of shows, not many whatsoever. But it was really cool because you had The Grateful Dead, you had Janice Joplin, you had the band, Buddy Guy, uh the Flying Burrito Brothers. I mean, just so many different people that were part of it. Uh Delaney and Bonnie and friends. Um just I I can't even think of everybody that was part of this. The coolest moment, because it's on film. Okay. The coolest moment of the film is when they just kind of have a drunken jam in the bar car. Oh, yeah, I bet. And it's Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, and it's a couple of guys of the band, and it's Janice Joplin, and it's it's just so cool.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, I'd like to hear that.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it's just fun. It's just a fun time. So the promoter had bought all the alcohol, they ran dry, they had to stop the train in a town, and everybody pooled their money together so that they could buy, you know, more alcohol and continue the trip. And it it's cool to watch. And the other thing that's cool is that people had gotten to the point where they were sick and tired of paying for music that they thought should be free. And, you know, there was kind of like protest against it, and and it wasn't huge amounts of money, but people didn't think they needed to spend any money on it. Right. And uh at one of the cities, what Jerry Garcia came up with was hey, we're gonna do this concert at this place here, but tomorrow we're gonna show up at this park and we're gonna play free. So, you know, support this, but we're gonna support you tomorrow and we're gonna do this, you know, free show, and you know, a couple of bands played a few songs, and you know, enough to to make people happy. But it's just funny how people were kind of fed up with the fact of rising ticket prices that weren't that much to start off with.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, how much was it? Like three bucks or something.
SPEAKER_02:It was not I don't know off the top of my head, but I know it wasn't a ton of money. But um it's a it's a cool um documentary if you ever get a chance to watch it, Festival Express. Again, I talk about it because another cool thing that Janice Joplin did. So the landmark motor hotel in Hollywood, and that's Hollywood, California, not Florida. So Janice died. It's now the Highland Gardens Hotel, and room 105, that's where she was found, her hotel room. It's kind of like a shrine now. And up until a few years ago, you could actually still rent this room. You could go and be like, yeah, I want 105, and you could sleep in the room, and the closet had a lot of people writing on it, and you know, just kind of cool things. They don't let you sleep in it anymore that I can find, but you can actually go and visit the shrine that they have for her. So, yeah. You know, we've talked about Jimi Hendrix lately, we've talked about John Bottom, so we've talked about great guitarists, we talked about great drummers. So that leads us today to great female vocalists. All right. So great female vocalists. We're gonna start off with rock, so just the rock genre. Okay. So ranker, 100 best female uh rock vocalists, number five, Tina Turner. She started with Ike Turner. They had the I think was it, the Ike and Tina Review or the something like that that they played back in the sixties. And then she was solo, you know, she had Private Dancer and you know, a bunch of other stuff in the 80s.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You wouldn't really call that rock, but okay.
SPEAKER_02:Tina Turner in the 60s. That's I I think that's rock.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was. It was a form of rock. Yeah. I definitely didn't.
SPEAKER_02:No, no. But you know how it is. People get older, they kind of change a little bit, and they're still remembered for their rock vocal. Number four, Janice Jomplin. Mm-hmm. Number three, Pat Benatar. I'm not sure that I'm in all in on this with Pat Benatar's number of. I think she is, but I can think of some other people that I think are better than her at number three. Number two, Stevie Nicks. So Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, as well as solo. I get it. I like her voice. Very distinctive voice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, she's very distinctive. Let me guess what number one then.
SPEAKER_02:All right, wait, hold on. I know this is female vocalists, but I'm gonna do the drums.
SPEAKER_03:Nancy Wilson.
SPEAKER_02:The wrong Wilson.
SPEAKER_03:Anne Wilson. Anne Wilson. And 50-50 chance.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, Anne Wilson of heart. And I can't disagree with this at all. Okay? No. No. Cannot disagree. When you listen to the song Barracuda, that is just an unbelievable song. Her her vocals, her voice, unbelievable.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, all the songs. Magic Man is another one, unbelievable. Crazy on you? Yeah. And then, of course, they did go soft in the 80s too, but we were talking more about their 70s stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Correct.
SPEAKER_03:Now, I saw uh behind the music or something about Heart, and Nancy was talking about Anne, and she said she didn't always sing like that. Like she she was a good singer, and she's like, it was literally in the middle of a show one night, and all of a sudden she found this part of her voice that she'd never found before. And she's like, we all looked at each other like, oh my God, Anne is amazing. And then from then on, she was who she was.
SPEAKER_02:The rest is history. Yeah. That that is cool. We talked about Nancy in our last episode because she was married to Cameron Crow at one point. They wrote some songs for the movie Almost Famous. And it's kind of cool when things kind of episode after episode things tie in from previous, and you know, we don't know where it's gonna go, but that's where it goes. That's where it goes. So Ultimate Classic Rock, all right? And I I read Ultimate Classic Rock online a ton. I really enjoy it. I think it's pretty cool. Um, their top ten female vocalists. Number 10, Grace Slick, Jefferson Airplane.
unknown:Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03:Another band that went super soft in the 80s.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, God. They had the worst song of all the time, yeah. You know, I got some some static from people when I said that the last time that they could not believe that I said we built the city from Starship was the worst song. Aaron Ross Powell Really? Yes. I I don't even think it's debatable. I don't think it is either. I think it is the worst song since the moment it came out, and which is 40 years ago. It was 85, I believe, when it came out.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's held up.
SPEAKER_02:And you don't normally say that with a bad song. You usually talk about good songs, or you say a good song 40 years ago hasn't held up and it's bad now. This is straight up bad from the get-go.
SPEAKER_03:It is. It's like you remember those cars, um, the uh the gremlin that car? You know, I always thought that and a pacer was another one. I always thought that those were really ugly cars when I was younger. And now I look at them like those were cool cars, you know, and but we built the city hasn't had that transformation.
SPEAKER_02:It hasn't hasn't changed one bit, has it, Jimmy? So um, you know, this is based off of if you look at White Rabbit, Somebody to Love, just you know, some classic songs that came out in 1967 that were really, you know, cutting-edge songs at the time and really, you know, taking rock from from one thing to another and really exploring things that hadn't been explored before. And Grace Slick did a great job with that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03:Psychedelia.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Number nine, Courtney Love of Hole. I never would have expected this in the top ten, but I don't have a problem with it. I love her voice. I love her albums. Well, you know, I've talked about her multiple times on the show. I I'm okay with this. Okay. I'm okay with this one. Not that it matters, not that what I think really matters at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_03:No, not that what uh ultimate classic rock thinks matters either. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02:But I I can go with this one. I think her voice is pretty good. I like it. Number eight, Joan Jett and the Blackheart. And also she was with the runaways beforehand. And I I like her voice. I think she's done some stuff. You know, I love rock and roll. Like when that song came out, her voice and just everything about it, like wow. Number seven, Chrissy Hind Pretenders.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_02:All right, I can go with that. Number six, Debbie Harry of Blondie.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, she was really good in in her day. Yes. I saw her saw Blondie in 2014 at Riot Fest in Chicago. Right. And I think she was upset about something. She was being very particular. She didn't move on the stage at all. They played, you know, normally when you have a festival set, you if you have an hour, you're playing every minute of that hour, right? You're fitting in all the songs you can. And so, like, 15 minutes before their time was up, they played Call Me, and they had already played Heart of Glass, and you know, I'm like, what do they have left? Um, they just left the stage, they just cut it 15, 20 minutes short. Wow. Yeah, I think she was she was having a bad day.
SPEAKER_02:That's sad to hear, especially at Riot Fests.
SPEAKER_03:I know. Man. But you know what? Saw a lot of great things that day, though. Saw Violent Femmes, they were fantastic, and saw uh the replacements that night.
SPEAKER_02:Oh. That is very good. Violent Femmes and the replacements. And Blondie. Hey, that's still a good day.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:Number five, Annie Lennox of the Erhythmics. I don't see this whatsoever. No, I don't, but none of them. She's distinctive. Yeah, but I mean, she doesn't have, you know, that many songs. I know Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, Would I Lie To You? I like those. I don't really even like Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This, to be honest with you. I like the song Would I Lie to You. That song I like. I I just don't see how she's number five on their, you know, top women voc rock vocalist. Number four, Janice Joplin. Three, Tina Turner. Two, Ann Wilson. Number one, Stevie Nicks. So the top four seemed to be the same. So I decided let's look at all genres. So I went to rankers, 340 best female vocalists ever ranked. And the fact that it wasn't 350, it was 340 plus, that got my attention. It worked. It worked. So number 19, Janice Joplin. So this is everything. This is any type of music. Okay, whether it's pop, rock, jazz, um, anything.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've got R and View that I'm expecting we're gonna see in here. We'll see.
SPEAKER_02:Number 18, Diana Ross from Diana Ross and the Supremes and Solo. Number 17, Amy Winehouse.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Back to Black, You Know I'm No Good. Those are the songs that I know. I know. I know we had some uh talk about what was that song? Valerie? Yeah, yeah. I still don't know that song. I have listened to it. I I believe I've listened to it with you, and I I just don't know the song. I don't. Okay. So nothing but a good laugh. Number 16.
SPEAKER_03:I still love you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you, Jimmy. That makes me feel better. Hey, this has been Music My Shoes. I hope you have a great day. Number 16, Stevie Nicks. Now, this this one perplexes me. Number 15, Kelly Clarkson. Since You've Been Gone, Stronger. I like those songs. I know they're poppy.
SPEAKER_03:But of all time? She's pretty good. You know?
SPEAKER_02:So, but you know what? Since You've Been Gone, when that song came out, I really liked it. And I really like that stronger song. I do. Number 14, Dolly Parton, 9 to 5, Jolene.
SPEAKER_03:Great vocalist.
SPEAKER_02:Number 13, Judy Garland. Everybody knows Over the Rainbow from the film she starred in, Wizard of Oz. But she does just an absolute fantastic version of Have Yourself a Merry Christmas. And I think and I don't know, but I believe it's from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I think it is. It is absolutely fantastic. It is mesmerizing when she sings it. Number 12, Linda Ronstadt, You're No Good, Blue By You, When Will I Be Love. Blue By You was one of those on the radio songs all the time when it came out. Number 11, Tina Turner. Number 10, Patsy Klein. Yeah. All right. Crazy, I Fall to Pieces. I Fall to Pieces was a Walmart commercial, I believe, for quite some time as the prices were changing. Number nine, Adele. Hello. Someone like you.
SPEAKER_03:I like that pick.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not a huge Adele fan, but I I can't say that I disagree with it. She's she's pretty, you know, popular and has a great voice. She does. Yeah. Number eight, Billy Holiday.
SPEAKER_03:I was expecting that.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So Billy Holiday. Number seven, Mariah Carey. All right. Her big song back in the day was Hero. She's got that voice. I can't name all of the songs that she does, you know, but she's got that voice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, she could hit like higher notes than anybody could, too.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. I don't know if she can still do it, but back in the day, you're like, how does she do that? You know? Number 16, Celine Dion, My Heart Will Go On. That's from uh the Titanic movie. What was that? Like here, uh far, wherever you are.
SPEAKER_03:Here, far, wherever you are.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:I know that my heart will go on.
SPEAKER_02:You know more about it than me. That surprises me.
SPEAKER_03:Um I am not a Celine Dion fan, but I do have to say that I think that song was perfect for the movie. Like even at the beginning of that movie, when they're showing the wreck, and then that like the um flute version, you know, like the intro notes come in. It was like, okay, I'm all in on this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There you go. I like that, Jimmy. Number five, Etta James. The song at last is one of the best songs of all time. That song is just a killer song, okay? Love that. Number four, Karen Carpenter of The Carpenters. Okay. I love her voice. I think she's got a great. I really do. Uh they long to be close to you, superstar. We've only just begun. She always seems sad to me. She was.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_02:That's why she seemed it, because she was.
SPEAKER_03:I know, but I don't want to listen to her to sad person.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know what, Jimmy?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, if I want to listen to a sad person, I'll listen to Kirk Cobain.
SPEAKER_02:I thought you were going to say Morrissey.
SPEAKER_03:I won't even do that.
SPEAKER_02:Number three, Ella Fitzgerald, the first lady of song. A jazz great. Uh you know, she was around, I bet she was around 50 years or so. I mean, she really is fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:I'm I've got to guess at number one.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I've got to go to number two first. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I mean Well, we'll see if she's number two.
SPEAKER_02:Is that the new thing? We go to number one and then like ladies and gentlemen, number two is number two, Aretha Franklin. Respect a natural woman, you know, just a great voice. So number one on the top 340 plus female vocalist of any genre is Whitney Houston. Whitney Houston. I want to dance with somebody. I will always love you. Greatest love of all. I will always love you. That was from that movie with the bodyguard.
SPEAKER_03:And that was a cover of Dolly Parton.
SPEAKER_02:And it was a cover of Dolly Parton, correct. Which I didn't know at first. It took me a while before I found that out. I've never seen The Bodyguard, but that song, I Will Always Love You, that is a good song.
SPEAKER_03:To take a song like that that somebody as good as Dolly did and like remake it and make it your signature song, that says a lot about her.
SPEAKER_02:It does. I mean, it really does.
SPEAKER_03:So Dolly Parton was on this uh TV show called The Porter Wagner Show, and that's where she got her start. She was like the pretty girl, and he was like the old guy that had his own show, and they that was kind of their shtick. And she would sing on there, and eventually she decided she needed to go off on her own, and she wrote that song for him to sing as her final song on the show to let him know, you know, um, I'll always love you.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I did I didn't know that. That's pretty cool, Jimmy. I like that.
SPEAKER_03:If you listen to the words, it kind of makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:Uh we'll do it now. I'll listen to it and maybe darken the lights a little bit and just kind of listen to it and see what it says to me.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, so Jimmy, that was a pretty cool list. I enjoyed going over that. I've enjoyed some of the lists we've gone over the last few episodes. It's kind of fun to hear some different things, especially trying to guess who's in the top five, top ten, top twenty, whatever it may be.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02:Tick, tick, tick. It's Minute with Jimmy.
SPEAKER_01:It's time for a minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy. It's time for a minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy, Minute with Jimmy.
SPEAKER_03:So I know that we've talked about the Shaky Knees Music Festival, and it was just in Atlanta this weekend, and I didn't have tickets because it's just so expensive. And I was sitting there on Sunday afternoon. My uh wife and son and I are having lunch at a place nearby, and I was like, you know, I heard from somebody that actually people are selling the wristbands on the street, and you can get in relatively cheap. Like, if we could get three of us in for the price of one, like let's go over there and do it. So we my son drove me over from the restaurant. I jumped out of the car, went down the sidewalk to see if I could get some wristbands, and I ended up getting three. So uh we we had a blast there. We got to see Devo. Nice, they were fantastic. Um, a little bit of weird owl, you know. Hey, it's fun. Uh wet leg was really good. Um and Vampire Weekend was good. So it was it was a lot of fun. It was a good uh little spur-of-the-moment thing. So yeah, it was it was a blast.
SPEAKER_02:Well, awesome. That sounds pretty cool. I love when you're able to do things like that and you know, get into a show cheap, however, you know, that comes about. And nothing like seeing Devo. That is pretty cool. I'm gonna try and go see them. They're playing with uh Lena Lovich and the B-52s next month, and I'm hoping to go see that show.
SPEAKER_03:Where's that?
SPEAKER_02:That's in Alpharetta at the umiris? Yes. I always struggle with the name of that place. But, you know, to uh see wet leg, you know, there's been a lot of talk about wet leg. Um a guy at work turned me on to wet leg a few months ago, and um it would have been cool to see them and you know weird Al. What can I say?
SPEAKER_03:It was fun. He had um, you know, sometimes he would go back to do like a costume change, and so they would just show some video stuff, and it was clips of like all these different TV shows that have had him on it, you know, The Simpsons and this animated show Close Enough and everything in between, just all all kinds of funny clips of him throughout the years. So that that added to it. And also when he would do like My Bologna or you know, one of those a lot of his songs, he would only do one verse and chorus of it, and then he'd move on to something else. Oh, really? So he didn't have to sit and listen to a four-minute version of Eat It.
SPEAKER_02:Um was it just him with the um accordion or did he full band? Was it a full band?
SPEAKER_03:He came out and did he came out in Nirvana attire with a wig and everything, and did his smells like teen spirit spoof. And yeah, what they went from there.
SPEAKER_02:My Bologna.
SPEAKER_03:I think that was the original that was what put him on the map.
SPEAKER_02:I think it was. I think it was. My name was Jimmy. Hey, not that we can top that, Jimmy, but let's revisit some more music in my shoes. September 12th, 1980, David Bowie's Scary Monsters and Super Creeps album came out. First single off it was Ashes to Ashes, that came out August 1st of 1980. Fashion was released in October of 1980, so 45 years ago, but But it only peaked at number 70 on January 10th, 1981. And then Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, the single, was released in January of 81. And it did nothing, just like Ashes to Ashes did nothing. I think this is a really good album. I'm not sure why it was overlooked. I'm not, you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I remember the music video for Ashes to Ashes. He was like kind of dressed almost like Puddles the Sad Clown. You remember you ever seen that? Yes. Kind of looked like that, like walking along the beach and maybe in black and white or something.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I just don't know. I mean, this is it's a good album. It really is. I mean, fashion is a fantastic song. Ashes to Ashes, really good. Scary monsters, I get it. You know, it's a little bit out there, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_03:He did a little callback to Major Tom. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. How to reach back out to go to the past to bring it to the future. Genesis, Turn It On Again, peaked at number 58, October 4th, 1980. Now, I'm not a huge Genesis fan, but I love this song. I don't just like this song. I love this song. And I'm not even sure why. It kind of starts off, you know, it's low, slow, but it's like, you know, building up is like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, you know, like, and it just captures me until they're ready to sing, and then all of a sudden Phil Collins belts out, all I need is a TV show, that and the radio, down on my luck again, down on my luck again. And I love those words. I think everybody can relate at some point to that song, you know, with those words. And it is something that, again, I'm not a huge Genesis fan, but this song has always been like, you know, I don't know, like turn it on again, and I know it has to do with turn on the radio and turn on the TV and everything. But for me, personally, a lot of times it's a song that helps, like, you know, if I'm down about something, I can put it on and turn it on again. Means to me to turn it on to bring it back to something else, to get back out of this, to get out of this slump type of thing, you know, and that's the way I've always looked at it. It's driving me mad. It's just another way of passing the day. I, I get so lonely when she's not there. And I just love this song. I do. So the same day, October 4th, 1980, that was number 58. At number 53, split ends, I got you. Two so totally different songs. All right, five spaces away on the Billboard Top 100.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, one one from like a classic prog rock band and one from a total new wave band.
SPEAKER_02:From Australia. Yeah. And it's just like it's like the guy singing I got you, kind of like a paranoid, worried, distressed, but it's the music also when you when you listen to it and you think about it, the music sets you into that whole thing, like, oh my like something's you know, not right here. But it just pulls you into it. I got you, that's all I want. I won't forget that's a whole lot. I don't go out, not now that you're in. Sometimes we shout, but that's no problem. I just find it like I love it. He thinks his girlfriend is cheating. He's not going out because she's home, so he doesn't want to leave her. When she's out, he's doesn't, he's, you know, like, what's going on? You know, and it's just all crazy. But listen to the song and listen to it, you know, thinking about how paranoid he is, but how the music reflects it also. It's not just him singing it, it's the music. I don't know why sometimes I get frightened. You can see in my eyes, you can tell that I'm not lying. Love the keyboards and the synth on the song. Just love it. Great song. Again, one of the songs, not like We Built the City, which has stood the test of time of suckiness. This song has stood the test of time of being a really good song. Yeah, it really has. The Cure, Close to Me, W-L-I-R, Screamer of the Week, fourth week of September 1985. I've waited hours for this. I've made myself so sick. I wish I'd stayed asleep today. I love this song. It was the last single off The Head on the Door. You know, they had a ton of songs in 1985. Great album, great song. They did just such a good job of being able to bring in a whole new audience to what they did. Still love this song. Yeah. I never thought this day would end. I never thought tonight could ever be this close to me. Jimmy Bariah Carey Fantasy, number one on Billboard Hot 100 from September 30th to November 18th, 1995. Eight straight weeks. All right, I mentioned before, you know, she had the song Hero. I couldn't really tell you much about that song. But this song samples Tom Tom Club's Genius of Love. Tom Tom Club were members of The Talking Heads. The remix, because there's several of them, the remix with ODB, Old Dirty Bastard, of the Wu-Tang clan, is absolutely fantastic. And the sound quality and and the song and everything, he starts it off, and oh my lord. So my 40th birthday back in 2006, buddy of mine was a DJ, and he couldn't DJ my birthday party, but he had something else to do. He says, But I can get you the DJ equipment for like 30 bucks. You just got to DJ yourself. I said, I can do it. He gets me, Jimmy, the big huge speakers that you put on the stands. Wow. It was the whole getup. Okay? And the first song, I set it up in my garage because I want to test it out. The party's gonna be in my basement, but I want to test it in the garage. And I set everything up, and I play that song first. And I had it so loud, there were people probably 14, 15 houses down coming out of their house and looking to see what the heck was going on. Imagine ODB starting off a Mariah Carey song and you know, New York in the house and blah, blah, blah, blah, and it was so loud. It was like spinal tap. I had it on 11. It was great. It was a great time, it was a great memory. Hey, listen, if you have any comments on our list or any of the songs that we talked about today, you can reach us at musicinmyshoes at gmail.com. Please like and follow the Music in My Shoes Facebook and Instagram pages. That's it for episode 98 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 big thrill for our podcast music. This is Jim Boj 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.
