Frampton's Lost Guitar and Fun Biology Facts

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The boring disclaimer: We do try to double-check all of the facts we talk about. If something isn’t quite correct, we humbly apologise. Credit to our many sources including, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, Tim from Kicking Harold, Mental Floss, Wikipedia and so many more.

Transcript

​ Hey folks, and welcome to Fun Facts and Sidetracks. Yes. We're back. We are back. How are you mate? I'm great. Yourself? I'm very well. We are still coming to you live from our, temporary studio in an abandoned royal tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. I'm getting quite comfortable here, Al. It's just the noise from those jets. (Jet noises)  I must say it's nothing like the brochure said it would be. Food's good, but. The food is good. Yeah. And, we've still got some of your famous Spaghetti Bolognaise. Yeah, we're still scraping the bowl out. 

We are. Okay, now just to step away from the silliness for a moment, A quick reminder that we don't claim to be experts The facts we discuss on the podcast are as correct as we can ascertain. We research on the internet, we read books, we follow history-related pages, YouTube channels, all sorts of stuff, Mm-hmm. And we do try and check through at least a couple of sources to make sure that they're as accurate as they can be. And of course, we always like to share a few funny stories that take us down some side tracks, just like we do whenever we catch up, Mart . Yeah. Well, there's the serious disclaimer out of the way. Let's rip in. Let's do it now. Okay.

Talking music first up as always. Great. And this time talking about live music. Live albums? Yeah, live albums. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's pretty interesting because sometimes there are bands where their recorded music never really matches the experience of seeing them live. Yeah. Midnight Oil would be a classic example of that.

Yeah, that's right. That room is sweating and when you hear them live and see them live, there's nothing like it. The albums are great, you know? But over the years, live albums have been a massive part of music and it's probably hard for maybe some of our younger listeners to realise just how big live albums were, particularly like double albums and triple albums because it's just not part of what happens anymore, right? But when do you think that started?

Yeah, well [00:03:00] it's interesting because there's always been live recordings, and I guess the big ones in the '60s were James Brown Live at the Apollo, The Beach Boys Live in Concert, and Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison was just huge

It was a big album, wasn't it? We always seemed to mention The Man in Black. The Man in black. You know what happened to me?

I was having a coffee with Lin at a, this is, sorry, this is a sidetrack. No, that's all right. It's never too early. We were having a coffee at, uh, just up at Ashgrove there, a nice little coffee shop we go to. And we're sitting there and this lady comes walking just around the corner and she goes, "Johnny Cash."

And she's staring at me and Lin looks at her, and she comes over and she goes, "I come around the corner and I looked at you and I thought it's Johnny Cash." And I thought, "I don't look like Johnny Cash." And I said, "The Man in Black. She went, yes, that's why I'm wearing black today." And she had this black dress on and she just banged on for about five minutes.

We're just sitting there looking at her and then she moved [00:04:00] on. And I said to Lin, "What happened then?" Did you say to her, "I've shot a man in Reno?" I should have. Oh, dear. Yeah, Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash. Yeah. So, so the 60s were kind of when live albums started.

And then if we just jump ahead to the 80s, obviously you had things like Talking Heads, um, Stop Making Sense, which was a massive concert movie and a soundtrack. And in the 90s you had all of the MTV Unplugged albums- Yeah. ... which were just nuts. So you had, you know, Nirvana, in 1994, which had so many songs that are still being rolled out on classic radio now.

Yes, yeah. And things like Alice in Chains and Alicia Keys and there's a whole bunch of them and the biggest live settling album of all time is Eric Clapton's MTV Unplugged. Yeah. It sold 26 million.

26 million [00:05:00] albums.

It had the acoustic version of Layla. It had Tears in Heaven, which was a huge song, that came out not long after he'd tragically lost his son. But the other songs on the album were kind of blues standards. It wasn't really a greatest hits record at all.

Mm. So he was sort of covering Muddy Waters and… It was a great album…. Robert Johnson, all these people. Yeah. And, I guess for people who aren't familiar with Unplugged, they're kind of what the name says, they're acoustic versions. Yeah. It's a whole new slant, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes it can make it sound even better.

Yeah. Mm. Well, everyone got in on the act and they, I mean, Rod Stewart and all these people went, "Yeah, there's a way to make some more money." Maybe that's the way I should go. Yes. Or we should go. Again, it's never too late. But the 70s was really where live albums were really a thing and there's a whole bunch of them…. The Who Live at [00:06:00] Leeds and Neil Young and Crazy Horse Rust Never Sleeps and The Allman Brothers had a huge double album, at the Fillmore East.

And that's kind of the interesting thing. A lot, a lot of these times they're double albums or even triple albums- Yeah. ... which is just unheard of now. Yeah. Yeah. But some of them had a lot of stuff on them that were, you know, like lead breaks and drum solos that went for the whole album. They were. Well, there's, there's a Lynyrd Skynyrd one called One More for the Road. Yeah. And it's got like an 11 minute version of Freebird. Wow. And, you know, Led Zeppelin had a double live album. It's got something like one side is just devoted to one song because there there's this massive lead break and there's long drum solos

It's a 27 minute version of Dazed and Confused. Oh my goodness. And like, do you think that was a good idea? Well, at the time, these things sold their heads off, but you can kind of pinpoint the [00:07:00] moment in time where audiences just went, "I don't want to hear a 27 minute version of a song."

And the punk scene came along and said, "You know what? Here's a two minute song and it's got three chords." Yeah, God Save the Queen. Exactly. And we're out of there and, you know, good on them too, because it was just getting all a bit bloated and what have you. But in the '70s, live albums were huge and…. Frampton.

Well, yeah, we'll, we'll get to Frampton in a sec. But you've got things like Wings Over America, which is a triple album. Yeah. And, you know, the neat thing about that was when McCartney left The Beatles, and he went, "I'm just going to start this little band and we're just going to drive around in a bongo van and just play in little country pubs and things."

And that's gonna happen. And before you knew it, it, they've got jumbo jets full of gear- Yeah. ... and they're traveling, you know, Wings Over America, Wings Over the World, all that stuff, which was pretty…. How did that feel? Yeah. [00:08:00] Yeah, so 28 songs on that one. But the big albums, I suppose, were people like Kiss.

Yeah. Their records had never sold that much. In 1975, they brought out Kiss Alive, and that just sold its head off to the point where they bought out Kiss Alive 2, because that's what you do. Cheap Trick live at Budakan, which, just became this massive live album.

Neil Diamond, Hot August Night. It's a beautiful noise. It was a beautiful noise coming up from the street. Yeah. Played at every barbecue.

Yeah, it was played at every barbecue. And that, funnily enough, it sold so many more albums in Australia than most other countries because- Well, yeah, it was just very Australian, I reckon. 

Yeah. Well, it spent 29 weeks at number one, and there's a stat I saw online that said one in four homes in Australia owned a copy of Hot August Night. So that's how popular it was. It's just nuts….. Holy dooly.

Well, yeah. Or you might say, "Good Lord." [00:09:00] So Cherry Cherry and Red Red wine and, you know, Cracklin’ Rosie and all that stuff. What'd they call them? What were those, those suits they used to wear with the shorts?

Like you'd have a suit top but shorts and long, long white socks and brown shoes. What they call them? Safari suits! Safari suits. That's it. That's what reminds me of Neil Diamond. Were you wearing one of those? No, I wasn't. You were. I didn't, I didn't go down that road. You did? I didn’t. No, I was, I was more into the, um, platform shoes and bell bottoms.

Go and get your safari suit on and give, give us a few bars of Song Sun Blue. A light blue coloured one. Of course. Yeah, with brown shoes. That's it.

So look, there were all of these, and John Denver had a live album, I think it was a double live as well, and all this stuff. But the biggest live album was Peter Frampton. Frampton [00:10:00] Comes Alive. Yeah. Which was just- Yeah. ... bananas. And again, he'd, had records. He'd been in Humble Pie and stuff, and then he started his solo career, and he had all these albums, but they sold nowhere near as much as when Frampton Comes Alive, came out.

You know Al, some of the support acts he did were people like Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix. Wow. The Who, and you know, Bowie. Yeah. Imagine being a guitarist and supporting Jimi Hendrix. No pressure. He'd probably, that's probably when he come up with that, the idea with the bit of pipe.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You’d be pulling out every trick you could. What? This will blow Jimi's mind. Goodness. Wow, that's pretty cool, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Jimi Hendrix, I wouldn't have believed that. Yeah. Yeah, wow. So Frampton Comes Alive [00:11:00] was, just an amazing double album. It was. Sold way more copies than all the rest of his catalogue put together.

As a teenager back then, I think it was probably one of the albums that everyone had to have. I think every household had one. Yeah. And everyone played on high rotation. Show Me The Way. Yeah. And Do You Feel Like We Do? Yeah. - Yeah. But a little sidetrack on Frampton. On that album, he was playing a particular guitar called The Phoenix.

Okay. Yeah. So, like if you've seen the album cover, you'll know the guitar because it's a black Les Paul. Yeah. It's got triple pickups and for people who nerd out on such things, it was a guitar that had been modified. He was having trouble with feedback and stuff when he was playing lead in concerts.

And, a friend of his actually said, "Why don't you try this guitar?" [00:12:00] And straight away he went, "Yes, please." Mm. Yeah. But what happened was, so he was very happy with that. Um, it, it's a 1954 Black Beauty, but, just played a gig in Venezuela.

Yeah. And all of the equipment was being flown ahead to Panama for the next concert, but the plane never made it. It crashed on take-off. All the crew were killed and- Oh my goodness. ... all the gear was destroyed. I don't remember that. Wow. Apparently. Okay. So Frampton's manager went to the crash site and just said, and I'm quoting here, "It was a fireball. It was totally filled up with fuel and they couldn't get near it for five hours. It was just like a H bomb went off." Wow. So once he'd kind of got over the fact that a whole bunch of people had sadly been killed. Yeah. ... he was also thinking, well, you know, I've lost all my guitars and especially the Phoenix that he was [00:13:00] using on everything, right?

Yep. Which would be hard to go out and make a decision on a new guitar. Like he couldn’t just go to a music store and go, give me that one. Oh, for someone like that- Yeah. ... especially it had been sort of hand built and had all these bits and pieces on it. But anyway, 31 years later, he got an email from someone in Holland and it came via, a Luthier, so a guitar tech, and this guy had said, "I reckon I've got your guitar."

He fired off a whole bunch of photos to him and sort of opened it up and showed him the inside and he went, "Yep, that's my guitar." 30 years later? Yeah, 31 years later, yeah. 

Yeah, so this is in Curacao, which is off the Venezuelan coast, and somebody had bought the guitar, inverted commas, intending to learn

They'd never used it. They put it away, it was gathering dust until eventually his teenage son [00:14:00] expressed an interest in playing. And, at this point, the guitar was in pretty bad shape, so he brought it into this guitar shop to a Luthier to have it all fixed up, and that's when this guy, and this is the kicker, the Luthier also happened to be a customs inspector, and he's gone, "What?"

So that's when he contacted Frampton straight away. Wow. Like, what are the odds of that? That, that's just crazy. After 31 years. It's like, where would the, where would they originally, do you think they got it off? They'd had to get it from the plane site. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But so someone's been out there very quickly and scavenged what they could.

Well, there would have been heaps of them, wouldn't they? I suppose. Wow. A pretty dodgy thing to do when people have been killed there. Yeah, but anyway. Yeah. So there were all sorts of dramas. It took like 18 months to get an agreement to sell the instrument and there were sort of issues with, the Luthier not wanting to be connected with selling a stolen guitar and all [00:15:00] this sort of thing.

So eventually the government of Curacao bought the guitar for $5,000 and got it back to Peter Frampton Wow.

 And, basically he still uses that and that's his pride and joy.

It would be like finding an old friend. Yeah, well that's the way he describes it, yeah. Wow. And of course it's called a Phoenix and- Yeah. ... you know, a Phoenix rises from the ashes and there you go. Geez. Yeah, all that time later. Incredible. Pretty cool. It's an incredible story, huh? Yeah. 

Alright. It's time for some fast facts on biology. Dunno much about history. Dunno much about biology. How does, what's the rest? That's Sam Cook. Dunno. Dunno much about the French I took or something. Yeah.

Yeah, that's it. Don't know much about Yeah. The French I took, but I do know. Let's move on now. I love you Mart. [00:16:00] Alright. Biology fast facts. Your nails grow faster in a hot summer. Wow. Yep. They reckon it's because of increased blood supply to fingertips.

Actually, here's a question for you. What's that? Do your fingernails actually keep growing when you die? Well, I have heard that. Yeah, but I also heard that it's an illusion. Yeah, because you're dehydrating, your skin shrinks and you know, around the follicles of your nails and that. Yeah. So it makes your nails look that they've grown.

So if you were like put in a coffin and they dig you up Yeah. much later, yeah. Would actually, your hair would look like it's grown longer. Well, I haven't got much hair. It might be good for you to do…… something to look forward to. I've got some hair loss tips. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what happens in that case.

Well, I'm not looking forward to finding out, Mart. Could you imagine what my eyebrows would look like? [00:17:00] They'd have their own postcode! Yeah. Goodness. No, but that's what happens. Okay. Yeah. There you go. I'm smarter than you think I am. Another myth busted. 

 On the subject of fingernails, Al. Mm-hmm.. Yeah, there's another little fun fact, is that your fingernails grow faster than your toenails. Okay. But also, your dominant hand, the fingernails grow faster on that than the other one. 

 There you go. Fun fact. That's a fun fact.

Speaking of. The subject of death.

Yeah. They reckon that murder rates rise in summer. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently violent crime increases when the weather gets hotter. So I guess we get agitated, but yeah. Far out that's taking things to the extreme. I know the moon changes people's per personalities. That's very true. Yeah. Yeah. Full moon.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember playing in the [00:18:00] piano bars and it would be complete chaos, and I’d think what's going on? I bet it's a full moon and I'd go out to take my gear out to the car. Yeah. And it'd be a full moon. Yeah. I mean, just idiots come into the bar. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Yeah.

There's something in that, isn't there? There is. Yeah. I was one of them.

They reckon…. here's another fun fact on this. Yeah. They reckon that you can actually die laughing. Like, there's been a number of people who have laughed so intensely that it brings on a heart attack. Or suffocation. So, wow. You know, if you're at a comedy show or you know, at one of your gigs, oh yeah, sure, yeah.

One of my musical serious gigs. Yeah. But apparently it's a thing. So there go. Wow. Yeah. Fun fact. It's always like you hear when you go to the comedy and someone's laughing all the time and you think, what are they laughing at? That wasn't really that funny. Yeah. But then like [00:19:00] I wonder it's that type of person maybe.

Yeah. Hey, here's one I found interesting. And it's the fact that you don't like the sound of your own voice because of the bones in your head. You know how most people say, ‘I hate the sound of my own voice’. Yeah. Well, everyone says that. I say it. Yeah. I say it too. But apparently it's the bones in your head.

Wow. That make your voice sound deeper or something. So, wow. And whenever you say that, people go, no, you've got a good voice. That's right. Apart from those people who are laughing in the comedy shows where you go, oh, you sound like a foghorn. Bloody hell. Yeah.

Another one for you. Mm-hmm. So you could sweat when you are anxious to alert others. They reckon that something biological has evolved us so that we sweat to alert other people to danger or to something that they should be anxious about. So I reckon that probably explains when you're watching border [00:20:00] security or Yeah.

Some of those shows. Yeah. And they go, oh  just take your case aside, sir. Insert Martin here. Well, and then they start sweating bullets, you know. Wow. because they're bringing in, I don't know, drugs. Yeah. Drugs or, or just Panadol. Yeah. Or more likely they're bringing in, you know, food and it's not wrapped properly and it's exposing us to all sorts of diseases or what have you. 

Yeah. But they're always sweating like mad. Maybe that's why. Look, I remember, I’ve got a funny, like bit of a sidetrack here Al. Mm-hmm. Like I I'd been working all day and I noticed these trucks were going up and down the hill taking the soil away.

Maybe they were digging a swimming pool or something, you know. Mm. I was just working, doing a bathroom. Renovating a bathroom, and when I left that afternoon, I just, I was in a hurry, jumped in the car and took off. Mm. Had an apple in my lunchbox and I started eating it. A nice big apple and it was beautiful, juicy, and I was [00:21:00] really enjoying it.

And I'm driving down the road and then suddenly I see this, RBT is it? Yeah. Breath testing. Yep. And I thought, oh, I didn't feel worried about it. You know, I hadn't been drinking or anything. I thought, oh, I hope that don't pulled me over anyway. Mm-hmm. And I'm getting closer to them, and they sort of come out in front of me and say, pull over, pull over.

And I said, oh God, because I've got this old car, you know. So I pull over and he goes, have you been drinking? I said, no. And he said, why is the guard, your flared guard hanging off your car? Yeah. And I looked out and I went, oh dear. I said, look, I really don't know. Someone must have clipped me when I was parked.

 He said, you never noticed it? I said, no. I honestly didn't notice it. It'd been dragging underneath the car. Yeah. Anyway, he said, we're gonna put you on the breathalyser. I went, yeah, whatever, you know, I think I sleeve even had the Apple core in my hand and um, he's going blind to the bag behind the bag and I'm not worried at all.

Then he said, you've got a reading. I said, you're kidding me? He said, have you been drinking? I said, no, I haven't been drinking. I said, I just ate an apple. He didn't say it was a big reading, but there was a reading there. Yeah. Right. Because I'd eaten an apple. And he said, well, you better pull over there and fix your guard up.

Yeah. So I did, and that's when I started sweating, thinking, had I been drinking, you know? Yeah. Had I been to the pub and drunk a heap and just wiped out all these cars? No. It's probably what they're thinking. Yeah. Well that's what they, well, that's what I started thinking. That they were thinking. Yeah. Wow.

I remember getting pulled over once. I think we were going out to dinner or something and, the, the police car pulled up right next to me and held up this sign, like an illuminated sign. Mm-hmm. Police pull over. Wow. And I started [00:23:00] sweating because I was like, well, I haven't done anything, but, mm-hmm.

No. You know? Yeah. You get nervous when that happens. Oh, you do? And it turned out that my exhaust pipe had fallen off. It was, and I'm driving all the way out, from a long way. And with an exhaust pipe that's just dragging in the road, just sparks pouring out of my car. You know, and same deal. It was just, yeah, you're right, but you better fix it before you go anywhere. And it's like, oh yeah. Bloody hell. I, was in a three piece suit going to a wedding, I can't climb underneath the car. Yes. Yeah. And it's my wedding. Yeah. Yeah. Lucky I had the tools in my car. I had the screw gun and that, so I just got a couple of screws out and screws on the side of the car.

Geez, you're always prepared, Mart, aren't you? Um, anyway, here's another good one. The longest time that anyone has ever held their breath underwater and survived. It's 29 minutes and three seconds

 Get Oh, you are kidding me. Well, I don't know. Yeah. Where did we get that fact from? Out, [00:24:00] uh, from there.

Did you do it? Let's just check. It felt like a long time. Wow. It is a long time. Yes. How could it possibly hold your breath that long? 

It's in the Guinness Book of Records…… Holy dooly.

It was a Croatian guy in 2025, but the technique that he used was a technique called pure oxygen pre-breathing. So what they do is they breathe 100% pure oxygen for about 10 minutes prior to submersing, so that they're saturating their body with oxygen. Still pretty amazing. Wow. 

The average for a human to hold their breath is 30 to 90 seconds underwater, but I dunno about you, but if you are under water in a pool, or if you're in the surf getting hammered and you're hanging on. yeah.

29 minutes 

you are not, I don't know really. He's a, he's a monk probably. He's like the Dalai Lama. The guys that do big wave surfing. Yeah. And these days I think they have like a tank that [00:25:00] they can access.

Because if they get held down… Yes. … like at Nazare in Portugal, do you know? Yeah. They just get held down for ages. Yeah. I've seen those tanks. They're little, they get like, they've got like two. Yeah. But back in the day, those guys that were doing that, mm. There's a guy called Ross Clark Jones, an Australian guy.

Yeah. I watched a film about him and he would get in a pool Yeah. And just hang on to bricks. Yeah. And just sit on the bottom of the pool and basically switch his body off so that he wouldn't panic if he was running out of air and that he wouldn't try and. You know, breathe in or anything else. Yeah.

 But 29 minutes is pretty extreme

That's, that is extreme. That's crazy stuff. Yeah. That's like death. Well, I couldn't imagine holding my breath. I'll give me, I think. Yeah. Three lapse of a small pool. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. No, this, this guy died after six minutes. Oh, he died after 30 [00:26:00] seconds? No, no. (joking)

He had a scotch next to him. Oh, dear. Goodness. Yeah. Oh, he had, he had like one of those…. and a scuba tank.

Those and a waterproof magazine. Those, those one of those ancient bells that the Romans used to use. The Romans, what did they ever give us? You know those ones they used to submerge with them? Yeah, yeah. He was just sitting down there going, oh, I reckon that's enough underwater tv. Yeah. Ah, there you go.

And obviously we should add, "Don't try this one at home, kids." Yeah. 

Here's another one. You inhale 50 potentially harmful bacteria every time you breathe. Wow. So your immune system is working all the time. So pretty well, all of these are destroyed without you feeling a thing. Pretty amazing thing. The body. Now this is one that you'll, I think you've got a vested interest in. Oh, you think [00:27:00] so? Smells can pass through liquid. You told me a story about this. Yeah, I did. Well, yeah, I was listening to a podcast. Mm. And, it was about this, it was one of those continuing stories, you know, that. I was listening on the way home from work and every afternoon had the continuing story about this murder case, and they were trying to find out where the body went. They got the tracking dogs onto it, and it was like a year later, or could've even been longer. This was in a lake. It wasn't salt or tidal, it was a lake. Mm-hmm. And they took the tracking dogs down to try and find any evidence. And this dog started hanging around this area like.

And they took it out in the boat, out in the water, and it was reacting to what they do, you know, and they sense what they're supposed to sense. Mm-hmm. Well, they brought the dog in and they got another dog to test. I think they did about three different dogs. And the three dogs came up with that same, [00:28:00] so they were saying that in the water there could be a dead body.

Yeah. In the water, after like, it was months. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I suppose if it's not tidal. Yeah. Then that smell would probably infiltrate into the soil or the, you know, the rocks or whatever. I don't know. Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't tide. They just said a lake. Yeah. So, but I'm thinking. Yeah, I'm thinking it was pretty amazing.

Dogs are crazy things. They're smart. Yeah. Dogs are the best people. No, no, they are. Without doubt. Yeah. Well, that's pretty wild, isn't it? Yeah. Another little fun fact for you. Pine trees can tell if it's about to rain. Well, you ask. So pine. Yeah, I talk to the trees. Yeah. A pine cone will indicate whether the air is humid and it starts to close.

Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, you can kind of tell if rain's on the way. Well, we should get a pine tree. Yes. [00:29:00] This is nuts and, you are more qualified to talk about this because you have a lot more hair than I do. Okay. In 1990, a Malaysian strongman, Ramasamy Letchemanaha. Apologies for the pronunciation on that. Where was he from? Where? Malaysia. Okay. He used his hair to pull a Boeing 737 aircraft in Kuala Lumpa. Oh, I can see this. 56 feet setting a new world record. His abilities were passed onto his daughter who pulled a truck with her hair in 2002. Ah, runs in the family. Like what possesses you to want to pull a 737?

A truck? Bloody hell, with your hair? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. It just feels good.

Yeah, I started out on cars and then before I knew it, I was on trucks and I wanted more. I wanted a 737. Yeah. Let's tow the moon!

Yeah. [00:30:00] Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Yep. One last one on this, the average human is around 50% bacteria, 56% bacteria in fact. They've discovered in 2016 in a study that, bacteria is so light by weight. Each person is over 99.7% human and the rest is bacteria. Wow, isn't it? Well, that makes sense with that bacteria we're breathing in.

Yeah. So, wow. Yeah. Interesting. It is. So what do you do about that Al? Uh, try and pull a plane with your hair. That expends all the bacteria. Yeah, that'll fix it. Imagine what the body's saying. What the heck are you doing?

Okay. We've, we've come to the end of the show, Al, but I know that you will have one more up your sleeve. I do. And, credit to a guy called Cody [00:31:00] Tucker for this one. I follow him on social media. And this fun fact relates to, I think our collective obsession with the Beatles. Yeah. And it's based on the fact that John Lennon wrote, I'm the Walrus in response to all the people who were trying to psycho analyse all of the Beatles' lyrics. Yeah. And read things into them…..That real psychedelic thing. Yeah. Things that just weren't true. People were dissecting them for hidden meanings and all sorts of things.

Playing it backwards. Yeah. All that. So, it became so silly that the Quarry Bank High School for Boys, which is where Lennon went to school, wrote him a letter and they said they were using the Beatles songs to analyse lyrics in their literature class. Wow. So just to mess with them and a whole bunch of other people who were, going way too far with this stuff. Lennon wrote a song with absolutely no meaning, and that's, I am the Walrus. So it's surreal. It's nonsensical. He was off his nut on, [00:32:00] LSD when he wrote it.

Oh, wow. But, when you jump onto. The internet and start looking for, sites that talk about the meaning of I am the Walrus. There's thousands of them. Isn't that incredible? It's amazing. So goo goo g'joob! Exactly. It's kind of based on a poem called The Walrus and the Carpenter.

Oh. And it belongs to a novel called Through The Looking Glass. So it's a follow up to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Yeah. Yeah. He basically was just doing word play. When you look at the lyrics, there's lots of references for his dislike of law enforcement. Mm-hmm. Lots of commentary around things like piggies Eric Burdon of The Animals claimed that he was the egg man. His nickname was eggs, so he kind of claimed that that was him. 

In the seventh verse, there's a reference to Semolina Pilchard. And apparently that's a reference to Norman Pilcher, who was a [00:33:00] high ranking detective who used to harass British rock stars and hippies. Oh yeah. And, and, you know, kind of try and pin things on them.

Yes. Yeah. He went to jail that guy. Did he? YYeah, so, he was the one who, put Lennon on drug charges for… yes… 290 grams of cannabis. I actually found the newspaper report where it says John Lennon fined on 150 pound drug charge. John Winston Lennon, aged 28 of The Beatles. Yeah.

And it goes…. Winston. Yeah. Yeah. He was named after, Churchill. Churchill, yeah. Wow. But yeah, it's just a news article, but it's pretty funny. Yeah. But they took the dog squad to his house and all sorts of things and found it. He talks about ‘elementary penguins’, which was a diss against, Alan Ginsberg.

There's all sorts of stuff in there, but it's him just messing around with words when he is off his face. But, you know, people think it's probably some amazing thing, [00:34:00] you know? Yeah. And these real Beattle people Yeah. Would that like to analyse this and do that? Yeah. They would probably still believe that even if he came out and said that it was just messing around.

Yeah. And No, you could tell he wasn't because Yeah. Well there's the best example of this, the in the Imagine documentary. Yeah. There’s footage of this guy who was a homeless guy. Who'd been living in John and Yoko's garden on their property. Yeah. They'd heard about it and they said, oh, he is not worrying anyone.

But while this filming's happening, this guy, his name's Kurt Claudio, he comes up to them and he's going, oh man, you know, like you've been writing your songs about me and just how fantastic he is. And this poor bugger… he's had PTSD from the Vietnam War. So he was an ex soldier, but he turned up at Lennon's door and it's just great.

Because Lennon's really nice to him. He's going, oh, why don't [00:35:00] you come in and have a cup of tea, have some breakfast. But he's saying to him, you've got to stop believing that. Like, I'm just a singer. This is just how I, sing about my life. You've got to go out and live yours, you know? Yeah. Because you're wasting your life thinking that I'm the Messiah. Yeah. But yeah, pretty interesting. 

There's a documentary about the guy and it's in, Gimme Some Truth. It's in Above Us Only Sky and, you know, in the book, Imagine John and Yoko and all this stuff. But yeah, pretty interesting. But there's an example of people who just went, oh, if Lennon sung it, it must be…. yes.

I wonder what he's doing now. 

Yeah, he actually died in a light plane crash in the early '80s. There's a BBC documentary called What Happened to Claudio? So there's a there's a lot of fascination with this fellow who was clearly, messed up, but he really saw Lennon as a beacon of hope

 But yeah, he's a good example of just this fascination with, of [00:36:00] course, anything that Lennon wrote, it must be, yeah.

You know, and sometimes he just went. I just write goo goo g'joob because that sounds good. You know? Yeah, Anyway, okay, terrific. That's a last fact. I can depend on you to come up with another last fun fact… with a bit of sidetrack thrown in. Yeah. Alright, well, thanks again for listening folks.

We're off, we're off. And as always… we're not virtually off. We've been on, but now we're leaving. We are. As always, if you want to get in touch with us, send us an email to Fun Facts and Sidetracks@gmail.com, or you can find us on Instagram or Facebook.

As the Two Ronnies would say, it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from him. Goodbye.

 Adieu, adieu, adieu.

[00:37:00] 

Show Notes 

Hosts Al and Marty record “Fun Facts and Sidetracks” from a temporary studio on an abandoned oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, then discuss the rise and decline of live albums: early classics (James Brown Live at the Apollo, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison), big ’70s multi-LP releases (The Who Live at Leeds, Allman Brothers at Fillmore East, Wings Over America, Kiss Alive, Cheap Trick at Budokan, Neil Diamond Hot August Night) and MTV Unplugged’s ’90s impact, noting Eric Clapton’s Unplugged as the best-selling live album (26 million). They highlight Frampton Comes Alive and the saga of Frampton’s “Phoenix” guitar, lost in a Venezuela-to-Panama plane crash and recovered 31 years later via Curaçao. Fast biology facts include nail growth, voice perception, summer violence, sweating, breath-holding records, bacteria exposure, smells through liquid, pine cones sensing humidity, hair-pulling feats, and human/bacteria composition. A final segment explains Lennon wrote “I Am the Walrus” to mock lyric over-analysis and mentions Kurt Claudio’s obsession with Lennon.

00:00 Tanker Studio Intro

02:05 Live Albums Take Off

03:19 Johnny Cash Sidetrack

04:15 Unplugged and 70s Giants

09:56 Frampton Comes Alive

11:28 Lost Guitar Returns

15:36 Biology Fast Facts

20:13 Border Sweats and Contraband

20:31 Apple Breathalyser Mix up

22:46 Pulled Over for Car Trouble

23:43 29 Minute Breath Hold Record

26:39 Bacteria and Body Defenses

26:54 Smells Travel Through Water

28:37 Pine Cones Predict Rain

28:59 Hair Pulling World Records

30:02 We Are Mostly Bacteria

30:50 Lennon and I Am the Walrus

36:09 Goodbyes and Contact Info