Laura: If, okay, you're in 1992 and you're going to time travel and you're going to bring back a song to 1992, the movie where the guy he only remembered, he was the only one who remembered Beatles songs. Jenny: Oh my God, Yesterday. That was such a good movie. Laura: Yesterday. So you're in 1992 and you want to be a hit songwriter by going in the time machine. What would you bring back to 1992? Welcome to the Saturn's favorite music podcast. I'm Laura Lee. I'm the author of a book called Saturn's Favorite Music, which was set in a small radio station in 19 92, 93. And this podcast is going to follow the timeline of the book and go through all of the many music references, but it's not about the book. You don't have to have read the book, but it's going to be a deep dive into what you would've heard on the radio back in that time. So we're hoping it'll be fun, and I'm going to have guests on every time. My guest today is Jenny Hunter. Say hello, Jenny. Jenny: Hello. How are you? Laura: Good. Usually we do four songs each episode. This time we have five because the episode after that is all alternative music, and I thought having a random Vanessa Williams song on that episode didn't make sense. Tell me a little bit about your musical background. What do you like to listen to? Jenny: I'm pretty eclectic. I like everything from, well, let's see. I'm going to a Sean Cassidy concert tonight. So Sean Cassidy. Laura: Sean Cassidy? Jenny: Yeah. Laura: Oh, he's still touring. Jenny: Yeah, he is. And 10-year-old. me is gleeful today about the fact that I get to see him in concert. Laura: I had a Sean Cassidy poster when I was a kid. It's funny. Sean Cassidy was that artist that everybody was supposed to be into when we were kids. And I think I liked him because people said, oh, here's who you like, Jenny: But I've been listening to his stuff lately because we're going to the show and I'm like, he actually is really good. Cool. So anything from that to Bon Jovi and Styx to alternative stuff. I really like The Indigo Girls, so kind of all over the place. Laura: Well, that's good. So how about the adult contemporary music of 1992 to 1993? Jenny: I listened to it in 1992 and 1993. So in fact, the five songs that we're going to talk about, there was only one I had never heard before. Laura: Well, let's talk about what the songs are. We've got five songs. Actually, what I'm going to do in this case is most of them come from an announcement that's made by one of the characters who's called Brad Far. He's the afternoon announcer, and while the main character Clara Jane is driving into the radio station to do her interview, she hears this on the radio. He says, I'm Red Farr, it's sunny and 72 degrees. Beautiful day. I've got another superstar seven in a row coming up with music from Joshua Kaison, Brian Carey and Barry Manalow, plus a song written by Lenon McCartney, but not performed by the Beatles. It's all coming up in the next hour. Stay tuned. So that's what we'll be covering and the extra bonus, Vanessa Williams Save the Best for Last. Jesse Joshua Kadison. Is that the one that you were not familiar with? Jenny: Yes, that's the one I was not familiar with, so I listened to it this morning. It was decent. It was decent. It's not one that I think I would've sought out. He was pretty, I watched the video that went with the song and he was a very attractive man. I was laughing because I always watch YouTube with the subtitles on, and it was like happy or cheerful music whenever he was just playing the piano, which I thought was really ironic because the song is not cheerful, Laura: But the piano does sound cheerful though. Jenny: And then when it had the core change, the key change, the Half Step to Heaven, it changed from cheerful music to joyful music. Laura: Oh, so key change makes it joyful Jenny: Apparently. Yeah. Laura: It's funny, this is one of those songs. I had not seen the video before I was working on this, so when I was working in radio at this time, I didn't go home and watch MTV and I certainly didn't go home and watch VH one, but we had this record on the air and it had, I think maybe it had the picture sleeve. No, it wouldn't have, because they all came in a cardboard sleeve. So I had no idea what he looked like until I looked at the video and I just watched it yesterday and I said, oh, maybe that had something to do with this success. He is a success. Jenny: Exactly. Laura: He's sitting there on the beach. Yeah, playing a piano on the beach, which probably the piano doesn't like too much. Jenny: No, it was a pretty cat too. The cat that wandered through was a very nice looking cat. Laura: The cat features in the song. Jenny: Right, right. Moses. Laura: Moses, his cat, Moses features in the song. So this is actually a song that I messed up the timeline on the book. It doesn't explicitly spell out what everything is happening, but it's pretty clear from different references. And it starts in June of 1992. And Joshua Kadison was just one of those artists that I really associated with working in radio, and especially the first station where I worked, where we played this sort of light rock mix. And so when I was looking for a song that would say what that station was, I thought of Joshua Kaison. And it wasn't until I was working on preparing the information for this that I realized that the song was released in April of 1993. Oops. So she wouldn't have been listening to it in June of 1992 unless the station got some crazy advanced copy. Jenny: Yeah. But given that most, I had never heard of him, and I was pretty up on music back then. I am guessing nobody will notice. Laura: It did make the top 40. It got to number 26 on the billboard charts. It was number 11 on the adult contemporary charts for five weeks. So if you were listening to Adult Contemporary, you probably would be more familiar with it. Jenny: Yeah. Laura: It seems like the kind of song that people sort of think of as, yeah, that's nice. That's pleasant. Jenny: Exactly. It didn't make me want to turn it off. I wasn't like, oh God, what is she making me listen to? But it's not one that I'll be going to search up more of his music. Laura: Most of the review, there was one review that I found, I did dig back in to see what people were saying at the time, and there was one music critic who called it his pick for the Song of the year in 1993, but most of them just said some variation on like, it's nice, the piano's nice. It's got a nice voice. It's very pleasant song. Yeah, I agree. It's not something that made me go out and rush out to buy it, but when I listened back to it, I liked it more than I sort of remembered liking it. You could put it in your music mix. Yeah, Jenny: It would just be a nice background song. Laura: And it's another one of those sort of, you talked about the caption saying that the music was joyful. What was it before it was joyful? It was Jenny: Cheerful. Laura: Cheerful. It was cheerful and joyful. So it's one of those cheerful, joyful, dysfunctional relationship songs. Jenny: Yeah, that's what I thought. It was so funny that it kept saying cheerful music because that he's talking about this relationship with this girl that she just keeps coming back. Every time he finally gets over her, she keeps coming back and messing with him. I mean, that whole bit about the cat. The cat finally stopped worrying about you, and we finally took the pictures off the wall and I was like, yeah, the cat was worried. Laura: Those cat lyrics are kind of a bone of contention. Some of the reviewers signaled them out as kind of a low spot in the song when he's talking about the cat, but so he's talking to Jesse, who's clearly dumped him, right? He's not dumping her, she's walking out on him. And Jenny: Multiple times is what I gathered from this. Laura: I get the feeling that she's kind of a free spirit and she kind of fls out and then she's got all these big ideas and he's still stuck on her and he's sitting with his cat. That kind of reminds me of the kind of thing you'd talk about with someone who you had spent a lot of time with and hung out with the cat. I'm not bothered by the cat reference. Jenny: I wasn't bothered by the cat either. I actually found it kind of an endearing part of the song. They were a air quote family, the two of them and the cat. Laura: They lived together probably and had the cat, and she's asking how the cat Jenny: Wants and she wants him to bring the cat. It's a package deal. That particular line about maybe, Laura: Maybe it's not him that she wants, maybe she misses Moses the cat. Jenny: Yeah. Maybe she just wants the cat because the cat in the video was very pretty cat, very fluffy. Laura: She wants him to come to Mexico with them Jenny: And live in a trailer on the sea. Laura: So overall, what's your overall last word on Jesse by Jaro? Kaison? Jenny: I guess a B minus. It hit all the points that it should. It was definitely a nineties song, that timeframe. I remember songs like that, but it's also kind of forgettable, so I wouldn't put it as an A, but I don't think it deserves anything lower than a B. Laura: It's not as dated as some of the sort of ballads of the early nineties. It's a little bit, it's basically him and piano and it's a nice song. He's got a nice voice and yeah, it's improved by watching the video. I think Jenny: So too. He was very attractive. Laura: He was good looking guy. Okay, so I guess we can move on to song number two. Big song number two is Mariah Carey. The reference that I was going from was only the artist Mariah Carey, but I looked up what was out at that time, and it was, I'll be there from MTV Unplugged, which came out on June 19th, 1992. Jenny: And that's actually the video I watched was The Unplugged version. Laura: Yeah. Jenny: Yes. Laura: I mean, it's hard to go wrong with Barry Gordy Motown material. I do like the Jackson Five version better. Jenny: Shane was listening to music with me. He was sitting next to me when I was watching it, and so we were discussing... Laura: Shane is Mr. Jenny. Jenny: I'm sorry. Yeah, Shane was my husband, and so he actually looked it up, and so Jackson five put it out, and then Michael Jackson covered it in what you said, 89 in 88. And then Mariah covered it in 92, and it was the only song that the first time it was released, and then it's the second time it was covered. Both went to number one, is that what you said? Yeah. Made the top billboard, made the billboard charts. So we thought that was kind of cool. Laura: Well, the Jackson five version when Michael was 12 years old, came out in 1970, and that was a number one hit. And then Mariah Careys was the number one hit. Jenny: There we go. See. Laura: And this was that period when MTVs unplugged, it was just starting out. It became kind of a cultural phenomenon, and artists would go on, and I think every generation has their litmus test to show that something's authentic. In the early nineties, I think things were so produced in the late eighties and early nineties, they just got so polished and they wanted to show that the artists actually could sing on their records. Sing on stage. Yeah. Jenny: Yeah. That was when MTV, we were in, what, seventh grade when MTV came out. And so that's what it was all, it was all about those polished videos and the pieces of that. And so I remember The Unplugged, and I remember watching it because it was... Laura: Let's see if they can actually do this thing. Jenny: And it wasn't about the videos, and it wasn't about all the pretty images. It was about them and the song. And I liked that. Laura: And this actually came out about a year after Millie Vanilli had their Grammys taken away for lip-syncing on their records. So I think people really had a lot of skepticism that, especially Maria, I Carey, because she did so much vocal gymnastics. Was that just a studio trick? Jenny: Her vocal gymnastics actually commented on that when I was watching it, that her runs that she does, and I like Mariah Carey and I love her voice, but I hate it when she does those runs. And I'm always like, just stop, just sing. I don't need to hear the her Laura: Whistle register. Emotions when she's doing that whistle register. Jenny: Yeah. To me, that's not singing. That's just screeching really high. Laura: Yeah, I feel like, I mean, obviously Mariah Carey has the chops. She's got a great voice. She's got huge octave and range. I've never been a huge Mariah Carey fan for that reason. A lot of the times it just seems to me like she's showing Look what I can do rather than kind of emoting the song, feeling Jenny: The song. I think that's one of the reasons I like this particular song though, is because it was the unplugged version. She did the runs, but it wasn't the focal point of the song. Some of her other pieces. Laura: And she actually, her backup singer, his name is Trey Loren. He does the Jermaine Jackson parts on this. And I think there were times when he just steals the show. He Jenny: Oh, I agree. Yeah, I agree. He was so good. Laura: Yeah, it is kind of a restrained performance for Mariah Carey, and I think that a lot of that is the unplugged setting. This was actually sort of an added song at the last minute. He said, well, let's do this cover of the Jacksons. And this might've been, this is just from my memory, this isn't from research, but I feel like this is one of the first singles that they released from an unplugged performance. There were some that became like Eric Clapton's, Layla from Unplugged became a big hit. And of course, the Nirvana's Unplugged was an album and a huge hit. This is the first one that I, off the top of my head, can remember. Yeah. I am kind of attached to Young Michael's young Michael Jackson. I mean, he's just got this charisma coming out of his pores. And Mariah Carey does a pretty faithful cover. It doesn't vary too much. She does a bit more of her vocal range, Jenny: But a 12-year-old boy, he hadn't hit puberty yet, so he's got that crystal clear soprano voice. So did she is so does she, that made it sound like she doesn't sing anymore. But yeah, she had that same tone to her voice that he did. Laura: It sounds like an updated version of the same song. Like I said, you can't go wrong with that song. I read somewhere that the line, look Over Your Shoulder Baby. That was improvised by Young Michael Jackson. Jenny: Very nice. Laura: Mariah Carey's I'll Be There from MTV. Unplugged went to number one. It knocked another song from the top of the chart. Do you have any guesses what might've been number one in June, June 19th, 1992? Jenny: No, I have... Laura: There's a comment coming from the wings. What does he say? Jenny: The comment from the wings Is Smells like Teen Spirit. Laura: It was Kris Kross Jump. Oh yeah. Kris Kross will make you jump, jump. Jenny: Never one of my favorites. Laura: So Maria Carey is better. So thumbs up for Maria Carey? Jenny: Absolutely. Laura: Thumbs up for this performance. Jenny: Absolutely. Laura: Should we be consistent and give her a letter grade? We had, what was it, a B minus on Joshua? Jenny: I think hers is an A. This was one of my favorites of hers. Laura: So now we move on to probably one of the divisive figures in our show. Barry Manalow, Barry Manilow and Mandy. So I chose Mandy because I think it's Barry Manolo's biggest hit. And Barry Manalow was the epitome of uncool in the eighties and nineties for someone who was into alternative music, like the main character of the book. And she's going to this radio station and she hears that they're going to be playing Barry Manalow. That is just a dreadful thing for her. Cringe, cringe, cringe. Barry Manalow seems to kind lean into his uncool. He doesn't, he's not bothered by that. And he can be uncool all the way to the bank, one of the bestselling musical artists of all time. Jenny: Yeah, I was going to say he doesn't care. Laura: I read that Barry Manalow fans are called Fanilows. Jenny: I have heard that. I have. I've heard that. Laura: So are you a fanilow? Jenny: I guess. I mean, I like Barry. I'm not sure I'm a fano in that I follow him and all that kind of stuff, but I do enjoy his music. My first, this is really stupid. So my first memory of a Barry Manalow song is I Write the Songs. I think that's the title of it. And I was at church and my friend and I decided we were going to write a song. And so I was actually trying to write a song like lyrics, and she wrote down the lyrics to I write the songs. And I remember being like, whoa, that's so good. And then I realized it was a real song. Laura: So you wrote the melody to I write the songs. It was somewhere in your... Jenny: No, I just wrote lyrics. I was writing lyrics to a song. Laura: Oh, you were writing a different song? Jenny: I was writing. I was actually trying to write a song and she was writing down the lyrics too. I Write the Songs. Laura: And you thought that she had come up with something great. Jenny: I was like, wow, that's so good. I was eight. Give me a break. Okay. Laura: One of the things that I read, someone talking about Barry Manalow that I kind of related to is this writer was saying that the reason that people think that Barry Menlow is uncool is because he got mischaracterized. He wasn't really a pop singer, he was an American standard singer. So sort of in that Tony Bennett mold, and there wasn't, so he got played on pop radio, but when you think of which is not where he belonged. Right. But there wasn't really a format for new standards. My second radio station, the AM was Music of Your Life, which was a format that was like pre rock era songs. So it was for the greatest generation, their music, and it was a lot of forties and fifties and Perry Como and stuff like that. And this would fit in with that. But that music, the format was constrained by dates, so they wouldn't have played something that was new. But when you think of his background, he started out writing commercial jingles. His first instrument was the accordion. He loved all those, like Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, those kind of singers. And I think you can really hear that in his music. It's got, his delivery is very warm and showy and theatrical, and the songs are very hooky. Jenny: I really like his stuff. I do, and I think I liked it back then. I can remember singing Copa Cabana and whatnot when we were young. And now I actually will play his music when I'm grading papers. I'll put it on in the background because it's a nice mellow songs, and I can plow through the stuff that I've got to get done because I enjoy the music that's playing in the background. Laura: Sometimes I think that something being cool, this is something that I've been thinking about a lot with the adult contemporary versus alternative and stuff, is that for something to be cool, it has to kind of be not popular. And it has to be like, I get it, but you don't. With Barry Manilow, you instantly get it. Jenny: So did you know that he wrote the State Farm jingle? Laura: I did know that. And he wrote Bandaid. I am stuck on bandaid. Jenny: Oh, that's awesome. Laura: Yeah, the State Farm jingle, I guess is one of his biggest, it's been like 40 years they've been using that same jingle and they're still using it. Yeah. Yeah. I think he gets royalties on that. So that's pretty good. Jenny: And that's why he's writing it to the bank. Laura: He writes the songs. So Mandy is actually not one he wrote. It's actually a cover. That's funny. And it was originally called Brandy. It was by an artist called Scott English, and he put out his own version in 1971 under the title Brandy. It was a UK hit, but it never hit in the us. But at that time, there was another hit. It was the Looking Glasses, Brandy, You're a Fine Girl. Jenny: I love that song. Laura: And he didn't want to put out another Brandy song right then. So that's how it became Mandy. So he changed the tempo. He made a few other little changes, and the original artist got English. It depends on what day you got him on, because I read a number of interviews and sometimes he liked the song and sometimes he hated it, and he hated the changes that he made. But he definitely had a good payday from royalties on the Barry Manalow version. Jenny: Oh, I'm sure. That's awesome. Laura: Sometimes he would say, oh, it's great. It's a great version. I love what he did with it. And sometimes he'd be like, I hate what he did with it. So, Jenny: Well, there's a group, it's an Irish group called Westlife that covered it, and they had a big hit with it about 10, 15 years ago. Laura: And there was a viral TikTok video with someone singing Mandy recently. Jenny: Yeah. So it's still out there. So his face is still getting money off of it. Laura: I got Daybreak stuck in my head while I was working on this. I think Barry Manalow songs just get their hooks in you. Jenny: They do. They do. Once I listen to one, I'm singing it for days. Laura: And I'm still stuck on bandaid and bandaid's stuck on me. So what's our grade for Barry? Jenny: Oh, he's an A. He's always been an A. Laura: Alright, good result for Barry. So on our clock hour of the radio station, we had an oldies, an oldies spot. The clock hour was this round, it looked like a clock, and it had different letters for the different categories of music. And I think from memory, we had A's, BS, C's, and D's. This is how my mind remembers it anyway. And a's were the current songs, so Mariah Carey would've been an A, the B'S were the recent songs. So the songs that had been a's and got bumped down. So the past five years, maybe the C'S would be, because this was the early nineties, so that would go into the early eighties and the seventies. So Barry Menlow was probably a C, and the Ds would be the oldies, which in 1992 would've gone all the way back to the early sixties. I don't know what Jesuit Kadison would've been because there wasn't a category for future music, but this is probably a D. Jenny: I'm sorry, but if you're going to time travel and bring back a great hit, I'm not sure that's... Laura: Bring a Future, future song. Okay. You're in 1992 and you're going to time travel and you're going to bring back a song to 1992, the movie where the guy he only remembered, he was the only one who remembered Beatles songs. Jenny: Oh my God. Yesterday. That was such a good movie. Laura: So you're in 1992 and you want to be a hit songwriter by going in the time machine. What would you bring back to 1992? Jenny: I'm looking things up. Laura: I wonder if Beyonce's Put a Ring on It would've done well in '92. Jenny: Well, you've got, wow, that was a pretty eclectic songs from 93. There was, I'd Do Anything for Love from Meatloaf up there with Snows Informer. Do you remember that song? Yes, I do. Laura: Informer. Jenny: Yeah, that one . Laura: Licky boom, boom down. Jenny: But I think if I had to bring one back, I'd have brought maybe probably Meat Loafs, I'd Do Anything for You. That was one of my favorite songs back then. Laura: So that was in 1993. Jenny: Yeah. Laura: So you're leaving Joshua Kason in 93 and you're bringing back Meatloaf. Jenny: Yeah. Yeah. Laura: I really appreciate Meatloaf's voice. I've come to really those sort of long Prague kind of rambling operatic songs didn't land with me at the time, but his performance, his delivery and his voice just amazing. Jenny: Yeah. I loved him. Okay, so back to our, Laura: We're actually going the other direction in our time machine back to 1964, and this is Peter and Gordon, A World Without Love, This is a Lenon McCartney reject. Jenny: Yes. Laura: So what was your first reaction to Peter and Gordon? Jenny: Oh, I knew the song. I knew the song, which helped, I was giggling at the video because they were so sixties, the two of them sitting there on their stools playing their guitars, but the haircuts, and I don't know which is which, but the one that has bright red hair and his black glasses, and I was like, oh my God. They look like they're straight out of the sixties, which I know they were, but that's what struck me at first was their look. And it's Laura: Kind of funny how sometimes you watch things that are old and you think like, well, the set decoration was so great making this 1964, and you're like, oh wait, it was 1964. That's why 1964. Jenny: Yeah, I knew the song. I knew the song well, but one of the things I commented when I was watching it was I wouldn't have known it was Peter and Gordon. That would never have occurred to me. And again, because Shane was sitting here with me when I was watching it, we talked about how it sounds like a lot of other bands from that time period, and that's when we figured out that it was a Lennon and McCartney reject. Laura: Yeah, it does sound like the Beatles from that period, that early Beatles. It's interesting. I don't think The Beatles would've done it differently, really. It's got those great harmonies, and I think it would've sounded, it would just have the familiar Lenon McCartney vocals, but it would've, I think, been... Jenny: It would've been the same song. Laura: Exactly. Same. Yeah. It was rejected from The Beatles because Paul McCartney actually wrote it when he was a teenager before he was in The Beatles. And John Lennon made fun of it, and he teased him for the opening lyric, please Lock me Away. He thought that was schmaltzy or something. And so Paul McCartney said, gave it away. One of the Peter and Gordon, I think it's Peter Peter was the brother of Paul McCartney's then girlfriend Jane Asher. So it was Peter Asher. He was a budding musician also. And he said, Hey, I got a song for you. It has never been recorded by the Beatles. I guess there's a demo that goes around in bootlegs, so maybe in the anthology number seven, we'll get the demo sometime. Jenny: It definitely sounds like a Beatles song though. The harmonies, the chord progressions, everything about it. As soon as I figured out that it was a McCartney, well, I thought Lenon McCartney, but that it was one of their songs. It was like, oh yeah, I hear it. Absolutely. Laura: It's interesting the deal that they had Paul McCartney and John Lennon, that they just put Lenon McCartney on anything that they put out that either of them wrote. Yeah. And so John Lennon got his cut on this song that he tanked by making fun of it. Jenny: Yeah. He got money off of a song that he thought was stupid. Laura: And what's funny about that is that John Lennon was always the kind of depressive one in The Beatles. He would always throw in the kind of, oh, woe is me lyrics, and please lock me away sounds more like a Lennon lyric to me. It surprises me. Jenny: Yeah, no, I get that. And then that's the part he thought was funny. Laura: Yeah. Maybe he thought Paul was honing in on his territory Jenny: From before they even knew each other. Laura: Yeah. I think that if this had been released by The Beatles, it would've been a huge hit. I mean, it was a hit. It was a big hit, but I think it would've been one of those standards that's a classic Beatles song and a great version. Peter and Gordon, they have very nice voices together. Jenny: Yeah, they had good harmonies. Laura: Yeah. So I think it's a great, I would give this an A. It's a great sixties, early sixties kind of song. Jenny: Yeah. No, I would also give it an A. It's a fun song. I like listening to it. And I know when you'd sent me the list of songs, I didn't recognize it from the name, but as soon as it started playing, I was like, I know this song and I'm singing and Laura: I don't care what they say. Jenny: I was like, I know this one. Laura: So that's our second A for the day. We got Barry Manilow, Mandy, and Peter and Gordon. The next song is our bonus song, our song number five, which is Vanessa Williams, save the Best For Last released in January, 1992. So it was probably a B in the card system, not a B in terms of grade. This was a number one hit on both Billboard and the AC charts. And it won Song of the Year, the A Ask Kept Song of the Year for the Year. So a pretty successful song all around. And I think this was the song that brought back Vanessa Williams' career and Reputation. She got the last laugh after a scandal with Miss America. Jenny: Yeah. I love her. And I love that she basically flips everybody off with her song career. You go ahead. You take away the title Miss America, but I win in the end. Laura: Yeah. I mean, how many Miss Americas, do you remember? Jenny: Her. Laura: There's one. Jenny: Yeah. And I'm sure there's others that we know, but we just don't realize that they were a Miss America. Laura: Yeah, that could be. That could be. Jenny: Yeah. But I remember when she won, because she was the first Black Miss America, and I was at my great aunt and uncle's house, and that's when I found out that my parents are not racist. And so there were words I had never heard before in my life. And when she won, I heard words that I should never have heard because they were very upset about it. And my mom having to take my brother and I aside and explain to us what the problem was. And we were both like, well, that's stupid. Laura: Which is good. Jenny: And then my mom's like, well, yeah, it is stupid because that's not how we raised you and that's not how we think. And I truly believe, and I still believe to this day, that the only reason there was a scandal about her, and I know that the scandal was about the pictures and whatnot, but the only reason that anybody went looking for it was because she was black. Laura: Well, yeah, she had posted for nude photos before she was in the pageant. That was way back. And she wasn't thinking about it. And of course, when she became prominent for winning Miss America, someone sold them to Playboy. I guess there were a couple they sold to Playboy in Penthouse or something, and she had to give back her title. I think part of the reason is just because she was groundbreaking that raised the profile of Miss America and raised her profile in a way that other Miss Americas. Jenny: No, I agree. I agree. And I think that that's why the whole thing happened and people weren't happy that she won. And so when Dirt came out, they were like, yeah, take it away from her. And that's why I love that she went on to be a number one selling musical artist, because it literally was like, yeah, screw you all. Laura: Yeah, top-selling music, artist, actress, very, and she's beautiful person. Successful, talented person. Yeah. Jenny: Yeah. She is physically beautiful. But everything I've ever read about her, she's also a good person. Laura: I read about the writing of this song. It was written by Phil Galston, Wendy Waldman and John Lind. It originally had some different lyrics. Oh, it said, Phil came down to write with me that weekend. This is Waldman talking. One of the co-writers. He played me the track of Save The Best For Last, and I thought the music was beautiful. Initially, I didn't understand the title because the original lyric idea they had was kind of bitter and ironic. I said, this is so dark. I thought you guys meant it to be a positive song. So we agreed to change the lyrical concept, making it positive. We came up with a line. Sometimes the snow comes down in June, sometimes the sun goes around the moon. I wasn't able to find what the dark and ironic version of the song sounded like, but it's hard to imagine what it would've been. Jenny: Yeah. Because such a positive. Laura: You saved the best for less. This is the forever relationship. Jenny: Yeah. You're my forever person. Laura: I'm trying to imagine. So he said, it's so dark. It was bitter and ironic. So it must have not had the happy ending. So it was like, Hey, I'm here and you go off with someone else or something. It's hard to imagine. Jenny: She got so tired of being waiting for him that by the time he finally came around and saved that best for last, she'd been with somebody else. Laura: She said, yeah, too late. Dude, I'm out. Should have put a ring on it. I think musically, the beginning, there's something that sounds very nineties in the instrumentation to me, very late eighties, early nineties. It's hard for me to put my finger on what it is. When you hear a song, you say, oh, that's really eighties. And this just had that kind of adult contemporary ballad of the early nineties sound. And I think there's something kind of, I don't know, a kind of tinny keyboard sound a kind of echo in the voice that just said to me, oh, this was the nineties. Jenny: Yeah, I wonder if they were starting to play with, we were moving off of the synthesizers from the eighties into more of the piano sound. And I wonder if it's like that cross right there where it was still kind of both. Laura: Yeah. Because in the eighties, what you think of as the eighties, which is more early eighties, they were really excited by the technology and were trying to make it sound artificial. And then it was kind of still using those synthesizers and those kinds of instruments, but trying to make it sound more like acoustic instruments. But it still has... Jenny: That's what I'm trying to say. It's like we were shifting from the synthesizer sound to the piano sound, and this is kind of like a cross in between them. Laura: Yeah. It still has that kind of artificial sound in the keyboards in particular. Yeah. So a very good ballad. I think I may have actually bought this one. I may have had it on a Ingle. Jenny: Oh God, I remember those. Laura: Yeah. I liked the lyrics. I'm glad that they didn't go with the bitter ironic version. Jenny: Yeah, me too. This was always a favorite song. It was just such a nice, sweet ballad. And there were a lot of songs that I remember from that timeframe about cheating, and this wasn't about that. I remember Part-Time Lover and things like that, where it was a sweet song until you actually listened to it and it was about cheating. Laura: Or Jesse, a lively, joyful song about a dysfunctional relationship. Jenny: Exactly. And this one was actually a happy ending song. I got my forever person. They're my end. This is it. I love it. Laura: Yeah, it has a whole little drama to it. So it sounds like that's an A for you. Jenny: Yeah. Laura: So we had Joshua Kaison, we had a B minus. We had, what was our second song? Our second song was Mariah Carey. Jenny: We liked that one too. I think we gave that one an A too. Yeah. Laura: So that was an A. Barry Manilow. We gave Peter and Gordon an A. Jenny: We liked these songs. Laura: We were very bullish on the songs this episode. So that's good. Good result. Jenny: I have to tell you though, it made me giggle when you first sent me the list of songs we were going to do, I misread what you wrote. You had said that there were five in this episode because you were trying to keep the alternative songs together for the next episode. Except that I read it as you had five because you were trying to keep the alternative songs together. And I was thinking was this episode, I'm like, these are not alternative songs. What are you talking about, woman? Laura: About? I would love to hear the alternative cover of Barry Manalow. That would be fun. Jenny: I was like, these are so not alternative. What are you doing? And then I reread the message a week later and I was like, oh. Oh, nevermind. Laura: It's our psychedelic episode. Jenny: I was so confused. Laura: I'm waiting for the Barry Manilow covers album. I don't think anyone's done one like they do with the Carpenters. Jenny: That would be fun. Yeah, he's got good songs out there. Laura: And to hear kind of an alternative treatment or just a very modern pop take on something, I think that would be a fun album. Jenny: I say, I'd love to hear the Foo Fighters cover a song. That'd be fun. Laura: Okay, well, we did it episode two, we did it. Yay. Saturn's Favorite Music. We like the songs. And next episode we go into the alternative music club and we... Jenny: The actual alternative music. Laura: The actual alternative music. So I hope you'll join us for that. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. No problem. This was fun. This was fun. Thank you for listening to the Saturn's favorite music podcast. In our next episode, we'll go to the Alternative Music Club with Clara and talk about two very different ministry songs and a happy musical departure from former Bauhaus members tones on tail and misheard lyrics from Nine Inch Nails, Head Like a Hole and lots of fun discussions with our guests, Justin and Jane. I didn't expect this to be a bagpipe themed episode. Justin: Right. No, I don't. Well, yeah, it still won't be. Laura: See you then.