Justin: And you probably want something a little mellow, aware and calm when you're waiting for the dentist as opposed to Nepal death. Jane: Definitely. Laura: You don't want anything in the dentist lobby that's going to remind you of the drill, right? Justin: I mean, theoretically that or just, and maybe go the other direction and just embrace it. Look, you're here. What's going to happen? We're going to remind you with a background noise. Just suck it up. Maybe this is why I don't run a dental office. Yeah. Laura: Welcome to the Saturn's favorite music podcast. We have friends of the pod, Justin and Jane back Jane: Another wintry morning. Laura: We have a yacht and sunshine themed episode, which is nice because I'm looking out at masses of snow right now. Jane: It's perfect. Laura: So I'm going to start off by talking about the first song on our list, and then I'm going to save the titles of the next three to be a Surprise. Justin: All right, Laura: Sounds good. So the first song was a Staple of Adult Contemporary Radio in the eighties into the nineties. It was released in 1980 and it was Christopher Cross's Sailing, which I think is sort of the prototypical yacht rock song. Definitely. Jane: Funny thing is we just heard it on the latest episode of Landman and they referred to Yacht Rock as well. Justin: Yes. Oddly playing it while heading to a funeral. Laura: Okay. Justin: Yeah. Laura: I suppose it fits in a way. It's like it's sort of about leaving your troubles behind. Justin: Well, I think in a fashion it was almost done somewhat ironically, because the whole point was the family members were fairly somber, and of course the one person is like, well, we need to have music, and they were like, we're going to a funeral. And she's like, so no. Why and what type? And one of the guys finally was like, I guess yacht rock. Makes sense. So that's what happened to pop up. Yeah, it was interesting how that has come back around and like I said, when you brought it up here, suddenly the universe is going, oh, and yeah, by the way, still relevant. I told Jane yesterday, I went to look for something on Google and the first article that came up was that Christopher Cross is going back on tour. Laura: Okay. I think he just released a box set too. Justin: Just interesting how the timing all came together. Laura: Yeah, I mean, I haven't really been aware of him putting out music since early eighties, since probably the theme from Arthur Best that you Can Do. That's probably the last one that I'm aware of. Jane: Yeah, same here. Laura: So what's your hot take on sailing Christopher Cross? Jane: It's kind of mixed. I mean, yeah, I like the beachy feel, but on the other hand, it returns me back to my childhood and it's not my favorite song. I'll listen to it if it's on the radio, but in the grocery store, but yeah. Justin: Yeah, it just cracked me up out. You're kind of like, eh, you're like less than Luke Warren. Jane: Yes. Yes. Laura: That's okay. It's okay. Justin: It's not a style I normally would particularly seek out, but for me it's a little more, it comes on and I'm like, yeah, all right. I can get into the feel of it. I'm tired of it. Laura: I kind of felt that way when I listened to it. I put it into the book as just sort of an example of your iconic adult contemporary music, what would be on Adult Contemporary station, and I was listening to it through headphones, which I haven't normally done, and that kind of the language, kind of caramel vocals and the laid back delivery when you're looking out at snow. It's nice. It's nice to imagine being on a yacht somewhere. Jane: Definitely. Laura: But yeah, I'm with you. It was not a song that I rushed out and bought or a song that's featuring on my playlists. Really. Jane: No, it's true. And I do feel like they overplayed it At the time it was like everywhere you went. Laura: And it lasted for a really long time on adult contemporary radio or playing in your store or in your waiting room and that sort of thing. Jane: Yep. Justin: Actually, that's funny you put it. I didn't think about that. Now I'm like, oh yeah, in the waiting room. Laura: It's that kind of music that they put on when they want to not make anyone say, I hate this music. Which is different than putting something on that makes someone say, I love this music. Justin: Yes. Completely different. You probably want something a little mellow, aware and calm when you're waiting for the dentist, as opposed to Nepalm Death. Jane: Definitely. Laura: You don't want anything in the dentist lobby that's going to remind you of the drill, right? Justin: Well, I mean theoretically that and maybe go the other direction and just embrace it. Look, you're here. What's going to happen? We're going to remind you with a background noise. Just suck it up. Maybe this is why I don't run a dental office. Yeah. Laura: Well, what I discovered just today is that this song interestingly charted higher on the top 100 billboard chart than on the adult contemporary chart, which really surprises me. Jane: Yeah. Laura: It got to number one on the billboard chart and only number 10 on the adult contemporary chart. Justin: I dunno, getting all the way up on the billboard chart kind of makes sense to me. As much play as it got there wasn't the radio stations just foisting on. Everybody's forcing you to listen to it. People got behind it. Laura: It probably sounded different than the other stuff that was on the radio at the time. Jane: Definitely. Laura: Came out in 1980, and I'm trying to think about what kind of stuff. I mean, that was sort of the tail end of disco and the beginning of New Wave and this sort of vibe kind of thing. Probably hit a spot that wasn't being met by a lot of the other records. Jane: True. Yeah. Laura: I mean, it destroyed at the Grammys. It just, that album blew everyone away. It won album of the year. It won best arrangement, best New Artist, record of the Year, song of the Year and Pop. No, he didn't win Pop Male vocalist. He was up for Pop male vocalist, but Kenny Loggins beat him. Jane: Kind of along the same lines in my head, I kind Kenny Loggins. Yeah. Even though it was a very different sound, Christopher Cross, it's like those solo male vanilla artists in my head. Laura: They were both big adult contemporary artists. They were part of that soundscape of the adult contemporary radio. He beat out for Album of the Year. He beat out Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb with Gil Billy Joel with Glass Houses, Frank Sinatra with Trilogy and Pink Floyd the Wall. Jane: That's impressive. That's some stiff competition. Laura: It was. History is probably not on the Grammy side on that one. Jane: True. Justin: Of course, we get King Floyd just kind of out of all those in that category. It's like one of these things is not like the others. Laura: It is. Justin: That is very different sound in comparison. Laura: It seems like the Grammys, I mean, looking at the people who were really up for a lot of the awards, Lionel Richie, the Bee Gees, Barry gi, Robin Gibb, Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Kenny Rogers. It was a much more establishment type of prize, I think. Jane: Definitely. Yeah. I listened to a lot of Kenny Rogers back then. Justin: But again, if you want to consider it, well, the term we haven't thrown out there yet would be in the soft rock or adult contemporary category, all those others. Yeah, they've been in that category for a while. Pink Floyd was pretty much experimental from the beginning in the seventies, so that's why I say that's a little further afield in comparison. Laura: They had some constituency in the Grammy voters. Someone said, Hey, this is Innovative. Jane: Plus they had more roots in the sixties and seventies, rebellious look deeper at stuff, which I think was cool. Even though I wouldn't seek out the album myself, I still think it had a lot of thought and meaning behind it. Justin: And only because it's in my head. I don't want to go too far afield with us getting into the Pink Floyd thing, but it does remind me, an old friend of our family used, I had told Jane before, kind of an ex hippie guy, really liked to travel, and he would work six months out of the year at really high risk, high paying jobs and then travel the other six. But one of the more unique jobs he did was he kind of did roadie work for Pink Floyd for a while. And what I remember him telling me when I was a kid was when they did the arena tours, they had to go out and they had a 17th century silver spoon that they would tap on something to make sure that the tonal quality of the area was on part of what they wanted. Yeah, Laura: That's crazy. Justin: Yeah, I thought so too. I mean, it just stood out. I mean, who knows, maybe somebody ages ago made it up as a story, but it always seems like, well, that's pretty unique and specific. Laura: I mean, it may be just that was the particular, this was the spoon that made that sound, and so it wasn't like, it must be, you must go out and find me a 17th century spoon. Justin: Not like riders for musicians now where I need all red m and ms. Laura: So Christopher Cross sailing, it made number 32 in the billboards year end chart. So even though it won basically every Grammy, a lot of songs beat it out in popular record buying the top song of 1980. You have any thoughts on what that might've been? Jane: No idea. Laura: It was Blondie and Call Me. Jane: Nice. That one I would seek out maybe. Laura: So if you were giving a letter grade to Sailing... Jane: I would go with maybe a D plus Laura: D Jane: Plus. Yeah. Justin: Jeez. Jane: I'd listen to it if I had to. Justin: You are harsh. Jane: Yep. Justin: Boy, Jane: Some songs. I'm just... Justin: I know there's some stuff you like that I think is dribble. So personal preference is personal preference. I would probably be more of a high C hedging toward a B, not quite there. More than passing letter grade. Laura: So Jane is a turn it off and you're it can stay on. Justin: Yep. Right. Yep. And I'd probably sing along with parts of it. Jane: I would on occasion if I hadn't heard it for a long time. Laura: Well, the next three, here's why I decided to not announce them upfront. I took them from a break from the afternoon announcer in the book. His name is Rad Farr, and he says, coming up we'll have music from a musician born Reginald Dwight, a band with three musicians named Taylor, all unrelated, and a song that was named the Best Song of the seventies. But first we'll kick off another superstar, seven in a row. So when I wrote that, I was just writing a book and I didn't need to know what all those songs were. So some of them, the Best Song of the seventies, for example, which we'll get to, I don't know what he was talking about, but Reginald Dwight is Elton John. Jane: Oh, right. Laura: And Sir Elton John. And the song that was popular at that time, which came out May, 1992, was the one, and it comes up again in the book a little bit later because it would've been an A, which was a current hit, and so it would've gotten played over and over. And the morning man warns Clara, who's the main character that she's going to get really sick of the A's and so later on she comments about this song that yes, she is really, really sick of this song. I could see, it doesn't mean it was a bad song, but she got really sick of it. Jane: Yeah, absolutely. I think I got tired of it back then, but I think that the lyrics spoke to my heart more than sailing. Sailing was fluffy, whereas the one is a little more introspective, not hearing it for so long, listening to it before this podcast, I was like, oh, yeah, it didn't mentions horses in it. Of course, I would've liked it back then. Justin: Subconsciously you picked up. Laura: Any song with horses? Justin: Even the ones involving putting them down? Jane: No, shush. Laura: Are there songs involving that? Justin: I'm sure if I look around enough, I'll bet you I could find a couple. Jane: Well, is there a little, I have to listen to A Horse With No Name, whether or not he dies. Justin: I don't know. No, I Don't believe so. Laura: He's just got no name. Justin: Right. Jane: Which is sad. Laura: He should have named him. Jane: Maybe that means literally calls him No Name, just like Nobody in Dead Man. Laura: Yeah. If the horse has no name, it's really his fault because horses don't come and say, my name's Bob. Jane: That's true. That's true. Justin: According to what you've been telling me, they kind of do though. Jane: Well, there's the whole thing about animal communication, and I've had experiences where... Justin: Remember, this is on the podcast, so don't go too far down. Jane: I won't. I've had experiences, an experience with somebody very genuine, and that's one thing, but there's plenty of, well, he doesn't like the color of his halter kind of crap, but somewhere in that realm, there are stories about horses saying they don't like their names, so I don't know how legitimate that is. Justin: Fair enough. Laura: Would they like having no name better? That's the question. Jane: No, I think they're individual enough to appreciate us calling them out as individuals. Justin: IIf I have a horse, I'm naming them Zero so that it's humble. Laura: But Horse with No Name is actually not the song that we're discussing. Jane: No. Nevermind. So The One, yeah. For me, it kind of is a similar category to sailing. It's like overplayed heard it got reminded. Yeah. Okay. He brings up every man is Cain. Yeah. That was interesting to me because we all go through very tough times when we make decisions we're not proud of. Justin: And want to murder our siblings. Jane: Maybe. Justin: I think most of us have moments of that, at least if we have siblings. Jane: But then the idea of someone walking along the beach and being in that more spiritual environment and being able to recognize their heart and change their ways and regret their choices, but change their path, I think is pretty deep. I enjoyed that. Laura: I think, yeah, he sort of has this idea of exile and coming back and this album was actually kind of built as a comeback for Elton John because he had gone into rehab. So it was first album sober, and he had not made an album for three years, which doesn't seem like a long time really to be talking about a comeback. This was his 50th top 40 hit. Justin: Wow. Definitely makes the three year gap kind of a big deal when studios expect you annually to be putting something out essentially Jane: When you're that big. Yeah. Yeah. Laura: This is not one of those Elton John hits that I remembered or think of. If you said, name an Elton John hit song, the one is not one of the ones that I would probably blurt out. Jane: Nah, same. Definitely not. I'd totally forgotten about it. To be honest. Laura: The reviews were kind of lukewarm on it in the us. They were kind of mildly positive. They were positive about the fact of Elton John having an album out, and maybe the fact of Elton John having an album out drove it to the top of the charts. It did reach number one, but some of the UK reviewers were scathing about it Jane: Doesn't surprise me. Laura: Yeah. Simon Ashbury of The Telegraph called it a wishy-washy collection of blandness with sluggish love songs and said that Elton John was more concerned with the growth of his hair than with the growth of his artistic integrity. Ouch. Which is very harsh. I think it's artistically has integrity. Jane: Although equating it as a wish washy love song makes sense to me because some people, they only catch the chorus or a little piece of the song, and that's what they gom onto. So that ends up being the most popular feeling on a song is, oh, you're the one. Yeah. Okay. Everybody has that desire and that want, so it does make sense that it was a big hit. Laura: It does have that hook though, that it's got a kind of rising chorus. It got melodically, it kind of lifts you up at that point. Justin: Yes, it does. But yeah, to me mean, since you mentioned about this being after rehab in a period of hiatus, it feels compared to some other Elton John stuff, it feels kind of soft on energy though. Laura: That's true. Justin: It's not like I'm phoning it in, but it's on the, I don't have this song in me like I did, so this is where we're at. It's almost like I need to figure out and rebuild. Jane: Yeah. Laura: It's not a Benny in the Jets, right? It's a more mature, sort of laid back Elton. Jane: Yeah. Somebody who's been through a lot of crap. Laura: And that theme, of course, he doesn't write the lyrics, he writes the music. Elton John writes the music, but I think that that does his experience coming back, and I imagine you'd come back and doing something in a different way where you've always kind of been under the influence. You'd have some worry about whether you're going to find it again, find the music again, and so you can kind of think of that as the one. Jane: Yep. Yeah, That's quite a struggle. Laura: I don't now. I mean, it's an odd comparison, but to me it was making me think about, I don't know if you're familiar, there's a movie about the graffiti artist. They've got a scene where he's partway into his career, he's been popular and he's talking with one of his oldest friends about, he's getting a little bent out of shape over the critics and what they're saying about his work, and they're saying now that he's off drugs, his work is kind of stagnant and it doesn't have an energy. And he's like, what do they want? First, they were critiquing me for being on drugs, and now I'm getting grief for being off drugs and that it's not what it should be because the feeling isn't there. And he's like, look, I don't know why you're listening to them, because no matter what, they're going to have something negative to say, you do something totally new, you're going to go, well, how come he isn't coming up with such and such in reference back to another piece of art? And if he does the same kind of thing, oh, well, then he's being redundant and it's like, you can't win. He's like, so why are you letting yourself get Ben out of shape over it? It's not worth it. Well, I'm just thinking about the one as just a love song on his face, what it is, and I think about another Elton John song like Your Song, which is basically just a simple love song, but there's a real difference in the way that those two hit. Jane: Oh, yeah. Justin: it's true. Laura: Your Song just seems so timeless and simple and beautiful in a way that the one just seems kind of forgettable in comparison. Jane: Yeah. Justin: Yeah, it's true. Jane: And there's that clash between the depth of lyrics versus what people want to hear. Laura: Yeah. I think that your song feels heartfelt and the one actually, the one is lyrically at a distance because it's talking sort of Well, no, it is saying All I ever needed. So it is the narrator talking first person, but there's something a little more distant about the one. It's more like, here's my theory about love, whereas your song is directly addressing someone. Justin: True. Jane: Yep. Justin: One seems like while you're in the midst of it, and the other is thinking back on situations and trying to figure something out regarding it. Laura: What I'm hearing is that this is not the number one Elton John song on any of our lists. So do you have a grade for the one I say a C? Justin: I'm more in the D minus area for that. Yeah. I mean, again... Laura: So if you had a choice, you would be listening to sailing and Jane would be listening to The One . Justin: Or almost any other Elton John song. Laura: Right. Justin: I'm not an Elton John fan particularly, but there are some that stand out, some that I like having come on and I play through, and then some where I'm like, okay, what else is there? This would go in that. What else is there? Category. Oh, good. I found Tiny Dancer. I'll go for that. Laura: Well, that one is, it's kind of got a beachy start. It's got the Beachy music, and we're moving on to Duran Duran and Rio. Jane: Yay. Laura: Which is on a yacht. That's the three Taylors all unrelated in Rad Farr's announcement, which was a fun fact, but in reality, it's sort of unlikely that they would've been playing Duran Duran on the station. The early Duran Duran wasn't really considered adult contemporary, and it wasn't until Ordinary World that they started getting adult contemporary play, and that was later in the year, so they wouldn't have been playing Duran Duran probably. So I had to dig back and think about if they did play Duran Duran, what Duran Duran song would they play? And it seemed like the most likely was Rio. Jane: Yeah. It has that British poppy sound to it. Laura: The video got huge play on MTV, so the visual was there of them being on the yacht. That was the early eighties band. In some ways, I think that they're excellent videos. They're MTV dominance and their good looking ness kind of eclipsed their music. People thought of them as pretty faces, and so if you have a pretty face, you can't be making good music. Jane: And it didn't matter to us in middle school so much. Justin: Whereas eventually we hit a point in time where look was almost more important than the output of music. Jane: Yes. Especially in the eighties. New Kids on the Block, oops, we're going off. Justin: No, that doesn't apply, because they weren't just popular for, look, I don't like the music at all. Don't get me wrong. I'm only defending that had more than just, oh, it was a bunch of pretty guys up on stage. You think? So, obviously that wouldn't have gotten them as much radio play as they had because you don't see them. Jane: It was catchy. Justin: And yet they were on the charts. That's the distinction I'm making on this. Jane: Gotcha. Justin: That said, I can't stand New Kids on the Block. Jane: And I was hanging out with younger people. Justin: Let Donnie stay to acting. That's a good area for him. It works out. Jane: And Marky Mark. Laura: Well, Duran Duran, they were more experimental than I realized at the time, because you don't really have a sense of history when you're 12 or 13. You don't see how things fit into the arc of music, but that synth pop and that experimenting with synth sounds, I mean, that was very new and it was exciting. And I think one thing that Duran Duran did that I didn't appreciate so much was that a lot of the synth pop bands like Human League or Depeche Mode, they were very much based on the synths and the technology and Duran Duran were really taking a kind of funky band and putting this synth layer onto it so they'd find these great synth sounds and build kind of a, they'd get the rhythm section and the baseline going, and I think that that was part of what made them so popular besides the videos. Justin: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I could see that. Jane: That's probably why I liked them. Laura: The sounds in Rio were made by a synthesizer Roland Jupiter four, which had a random setting so he could set a chord, and those Boppy sort of synthesizer sounds are randomly generated by the Roland around a particular chord. Justin: It's a weird concept. Interesting. But I mean, yeah. Laura: So what is your take on Rio Duran Duran? Jane: I love it for the memories of hanging out in my friend's bedroom, just being kids, and it was Boppy and Upbeat, which I always liked at the time. So yeah, Rio's not my favorite Duran Duran, but I would say B plus. Justin: I'm a little lower on that than Jane. I was a big Duran Duran fan. Rio was probably one of my least favorites of the hits, and I can't quite pin down why. Laura: I had a friend when I was in junior high or high school, I don't remember, but he was into the base and he just got so excited about on the reflex, he would play those first three notes that lead in over and over. Justin: Yeah. Yeah. It's a hook. It makes sense. I get that. That's a great hook. If say a prayer or hungry like the Wolf or one of those came on, I was all in. Jane: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Justin: I didn't dislike it. I just definitely was like, okay, once is plenty. Laura: The lyrics are a little more literal or cohesive than the stuff on Duran Duran's next album when Simon Lebon was writing things like shake up the picture of the lizard mixture and stuff like that. Justin: Yeah. Jane: We listened to a version with the lyrics and especially the first part of it, I never really picked up on I'm so Rio. Yeah, Rio. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that. It did paint more of a picture. Definitely. Justin: It's true Jane: To really wrap your head around the lyrics. Justin: I feel like we're doing more of that these days though, with going back to music we knew and really starting to pay attention to not just different aspects of instruments, but paying attention to the lyrics. Maybe what the intent with the lyrics was, or in some of the cases where they're so far off with any kind of linear story, you're like, okay, so I don't need to try to find a line in here. Just, I appreciate the way it flows together. Otherwise it's psychedelic craziness. Jane: Right. I find that contrast really strong with you two, because there's a feeling to their music that I completely relate to, but the lurks don't always logical. So yeah, I find YouTube kind of indescribable in that way, but I absolutely love them. Laura: Well, I think a lot of times a vibe in the lyrics or a feeling is really what you're looking for more than a story. I mean, if you want to tell a story, you can write a story or a novel or something. Speaker 5: Right. True. True. Laura: So what is your favorite Duran Duran song? Justin: Mine or Jane's? Laura: Both. Either one. Jane: That's hard. I want to say, Come Undone. Laura: That's a good song. Justin: That's good. Yeah. Laura: There's actually a sort of Duran Duran deep cut that I really like, which is, Do You Believe in Shame? Justin: Oh, yeah. Laura: Simon Lebon had lost a very good friend and he wrote about, the lyric that I love is Do you believe in shame? Do you believe in love? And if it tastes the same, will you love again or abandon both. Justin: Oh, nice. Laura: I think that's a really nice lyric. Justin: Yep. Agreed. Jane: Yeah, that's really thoughtful. Justin: Me personally, and again, I think it probably goes to the time period, but for me it's probably still Say a Prayer. Laura: Yeah, that's a good song. Justin: And that caught me when I was younger enough that, I mean, I'm not the biggest musician. I've dabbled on a number of instruments, but my dad had gotten us a really nice keyboard synthesizer, and I do recall that was the first sheet music that I picked up and bought from a store and learned to start playing. I was into it, and the way it sounded on synth made perfect sense. Laura: I thought about Save a Prayer for the song that might have been played on Adult Contemporary Station. It does have a sound that's gentle and would fit in with that mix. It's true. But it turns out that that was never a single in the United States. It was. Justin: I know. Which is odd. Laura: It was a hit in the UK and in the US it got tons of play on MTV. You wouldn't know if you were, I mean, I got most of my music at that time from MTV, so I would've said that was a huge hit because you were seeing it all the time, but it wasn't. They came out with a live version a few years later when they did a concert film, but Save a Prayer. Yeah. Never a single. Justin: It's alright. That's my pick. Laura: It doesn't have to be a single to be your favorite. Right? Justin: I mean, sometimes, like you mentioned, I mean sometimes. Yeah, for different bands and songs, I go for a deep cut or a B side. Laura: Well, the last song was the Best Song of the seventies, the song that was voted the best song of the seventies according to the fictional Rad Far. So I did some research to try to figure out what he could have been talking about. It had to be something that he could have read prior to 1992, someone naming something, the best song of the seventies. I'm just going to say that it was like his local poll or something. I didn't find anything specifically, but here's some of what I found when I was looking up Best Song of the seventies in Sources prior to 1992. So Sore Magazine in 1980 did a poll of the best songs of the seventies, and according to their readers, it was Stairway to Heaven. Jane: Makes sense. Laura: But of course, Stairway to Heaven would not be on an adult contemporary radio station, so it couldn't be Stairway to Heaven. Jane: No. Laura: I found an article from 1979 about a book by a record producer. He was the music director for John Denver and the Starlight Vocal Band. His name was Milton Okun, and he wrote a book about the best songs of the seventies, and he put in, I think he had lyrics and music so you could play them or something. So he said he wanted to include John Lennon's, Imagine, but he couldn't clear the copyright. Justin: Love that song back then. Yeah. Laura: So that might've been his pick for the best song of the seventies. Jane: Oh, I would agree with that. Yeah. It'd be kind of hard pressed to argue that one. Yeah. It stands across the time. I mean, even watching it when they did it, was it The Closing Ceremonies in Paris? It still makes me cry. It's an incredible song. Laura: It started with an idea from Yoko Ono, just this idea of Imagine, I think Yoko Ono's, more ethereal, artsy ideas are better filtered through John Lennon. Jane: Yes. Justin: I agree. That's a good way of putting that. Yep. It needs a different filter. Jane: They did work well together. Justin: Somewhat more recent. Interesting work with a couple of people from Sonic Youth though. Laura: Oh, really? Justin: Yeah. They got like an experimental... Laura: Yoko Ono did. Justin: Yeah. Don't quote me, I'm thinking, I'd have to look it up, that the group they were going by, they were like Chelsea Station or something like that, but it was a little noise rock, a little instrumental, different stuff. Some of her kind of singing. I mean, it's interesting for the fact that it's different from a lot of anything else. Laura: They did an album of Yoko Ono covers a year or two ago. Jane: Well, I think I remember hearing that. Yeah. Laura: But Yoko Ono not voted the best songs of the 1970s. Justin: No. Laura: No. Justin: It's true. Jane: No, and so many people just blamed her for the breakup. Justin: Only because it's true. Jane: Yeah. Justin: You got a solid unit and what is always going to break that up, A woman coming in that somehow is going to have influence, good, bad, or otherwise. Jane: Linda McCartney, right? Yep. I'm wearing my Paul McCartney t-shirt, by the way. Laura: Well, are there any Wings songs that you would put as among the best of the seventies? Justin: Wait, is that a group? Laura: Yes. The Lead singer of Wings used to be in a band before that. Jane: Oh, what was it again? It started with a B. The song that I played over and over at one point in my life was Give my Regards to Broad Street. For some reason I absolutely loved that. Justin: I'm trying to think. I don't have one, honestly, I never got into Wings enough to even really know. I was like, I recognize Paul McCartney. Laura: Yeah. Justin: That's the extent of it. I apologize. Laura: There's this song called Admiral Halsey. I keep thinking of it because there's an Admiral Halsey who's in the news a lot now, and every time that his name comes up, I think of that wing song, Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey. Jane: I listen to quite a bit of Wings. I mean, I grew up on John Denver, the Beatles, Jackson Brown Eagles, you name it. So those, Carol King, Janice Joplin. Laura: Well, Milton Okun because he was the music director for John Denver. Maybe he was biased when he said that he thinks that John Denver was one of the most important songwriters of the 1970s. Jane: Maybe slightly biased, but his lyrics and his, again, genuine heart behind it, I think get lost in the fog of history. There was so much to what he was trying to express that for me, it hits really, really deep. Laura: I like John Denver. Milton Okun predicted that Paul Williams was going to be giant. Jane: Who? Paul Williams. Paul Williams, no idea. Justin: Yeah, he did. Laura: He wrote Rainbow Connection. The Muppets Rainbow Connection Justin: He's done much, much more than that. But yes, that would be probably the most notable for the general public. Jane: Okay. Justin: Phantom of the Paradise. Jane: Nope. Justin: You, you're going to end up watching Watch that. It's an early Brian de Palma movie He's actually in it as a musician. I come to think of it, and he's actually, he was in, wasn't he in Smoking in the Bandit or was it Can No Cannonball Run? Cannonball Run, and he was in the Muppet movie, I do believe. Jane: Okay. Justin: I'm going to use the polite term. He is diminutive and he almost always got a pair of glasses on. He's got a look that when you see him, you're like, oh, wait, I know that's Paul Williams. Jane: Okay. Justin: But he was a singer songwriter. Like some of the others like Cheryl Crow or Prince, where you start to realize how many other people have been given his work. He's all over the place. If you really start looking around, Laura: Jane you would probably agree with Milton Okun's takes because he named James Taylor, Don McLean as the most important songwriters of the seventies along with John Denver. So that's singer-songwriter vein. Justin: Yeah. I'll take John Denver over those other two. Jane: And it's a totally different general public ear to go in the more folksy singer-songwriter direction versus Pink Floyd, big arena stuff, Queen or Bee Gees or any of that. It's again, personal preference. Laura: A couple of deep cuts. Michael Ventura of LA Weekly named Jerry Lee Lewis's Rockin My Life Away, the best album of the 1970s, and Ken Tucker of Knight Ridder called Arlo Guthrie's Victor Hara, the best political song of the 1970s. So those are some of the potential best songs of the seventies. But in the end, I chose for the song that Rad is talking about the Eagles Hotel California from 1977, which according to the BBC is played on American radio somewhere every 11 minutes. Jane: And one of those rare songs that as I'm older, if I hear it, I don't have that feeling of, oh, I've heard it too much, even though it's played. That Off was played that often. Although what it takes me back to is traveling cross country from Los Angeles and being in the desert in Arizona or across the flats in Kansas and really ing the lyrics in my young mind and being pretty scared. It really terrified me. Laura: Is it the dark desert highway or the being stuck in the hotel and you can never leave? Jane: All of that. Justin: Living with ghosts for the rest of your time? Jane: Yeah, yeah. Not having a choice, being stuck somewhere, not knowing what's in front of you. I sat, we had a Dodge fan and the engine was actually between the driver's seat and the passenger seat, so I had a nice warm seat with a cushion on top and just staring straight down the highway, the hallway for two weeks. Justin: What about, you're supposed to make a meal out of a creature you can't even kill. Jane: Right? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like any of that. It was all too scary for me, but as an adult, I appreciate it much, much more. Not my favorite Eagles song, but I do appreciate it. Justin: What would be your favorite? Laura: What is your favorite Eagle song? Justin: Yeah, see, you make a statement. You got to have an answer for it. Jane: Yep. I want to say it's a tie between Take It to The Limit and Desperado. I will belt those out however horribly whenever I can. Laura: This started out with the guitar, and the guitar is great on this. The Eagles had two guitarists, Joe Walsh and Don Felder, and so Felder wanted to come up with a song that could really take advantage of having two guitars. So that guitar riff that opens it is basically what inspired the song, and Glenn Fry listened to it and thought that it sounded like something from The Twilight Zone, which led to Don Henley to write lyrics in kind something that felt weird and mysterious. Definitely. Yeah. Justin: Go back to the discussion I had with you about the Doors. Jane: Oh, Yeah. Justin: And Robbie Krieger writing Light My Fire, You were like, it's pretty good. And he was like, well, I figured after some of your stuff, Jim, I had it either had to involve Snakes, fire or something else. A little change, but yeah, it does. I think that's part of why Hotel California can hold up is also because it's not cookie cutter and it's telling a particular story that isn't just what you would expect of, okay, so here's a love song, or I mean, it's a road trip, but I mean, it's not a road trip anybody else is going to have. That is a very unique breakdown of images that are very clear that you can put in your head. Jane: It's not comfortable. Justin: No, it's not comfortable, but you can also, at least I'm like, yeah, I could easily see finding that place and going and okay, this is kind of freaking me out, but also not. Laura: So I tour part of the year with the Ballet project. We stay in a lot of hotels, and it kind of has that feeling of when you get to one of these sort of resorts that's past its prime and you can kind of feel how great it probably was in its prime, but then it also kind of feels like a ghost town in a way, and it's got that kind of ominous feeling of that mix of, in the song they're offering pink champagne on ice and people dancing, but at the same time, it's like you can never leave. You're trapped in this weirdness. Justin: All your drinks, you can't go anywhere, so enjoy while you're stuck here. Right. Laura: Yeah. Justin: It's true. Jane: Yeah. Enjoying your drinks is all you have. Laura: Yeah, and I think that if it was more literal, because there's a mystery to it, and you can kind of take it as metaphorical for the music business or for Hollywood, or you can take it as a ghost story or you can, I think if it was more literal about what it was trying to say, it just wouldn't have the staying power. Justin: I think you're right. Jane: Absolutely. Yep. Justin: I mean, what I loosely referenced in the lyric of stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast. What is this creature that they're going to try to eat that they can't seem to kill? Wouldn't a knife take care of it? Apparently not. So why do I even want to try to eat that thing? I want no part of it if I can't kill it with a knife, but here we are, and what? You can't get me wine. What? Come on. They had everything you could think of at the overlook and the Shining that bartender could bring you whatever you were looking for, and he was a ghost. I'm just saying. Igot a little wound on that one. Laura: They're world weary. They're past their prime, and they used to have wine back in the day. Justin: And it probably means that the beast is probably also a ghost. It's some sort of spirit. That's why you can't kill it because it's already dead. It's kicking around because everything in this place is now some sort of ethereal spirit. Jane: And you're about to become one. Justin: Yeah. Laura: But it's a lovely place. Right? Justin: It depends what you consider Lovely. Well, if it becomes where you have to be the rest of your time, then guess what? You need to make it lovely. Otherwise you're going to go insane. Laura: Maybe it's purgatory. It could be purgatory. Justin: Absolutely. Entirely possible. Laura: Yep. Well, this won a Grammy for Best song in 1978, and if you were giving it a letter grade? Jane: I'd say a good solid B. Justin: I would agree with that. I think, yeah, I would go... Laura: Best song of the seventies? Justin: Yeah, because there is a lot of seventies that I can appreciate, and then there is also plenty that kind of goes in a direction. I'm like, yeah, I don't need that part of the seventies. Whereas as we've said, Hotel California still plays and still feels relatively relevant. It hasn't lost, it's not stagnant like the hotel that they're describing. Jane: I would still have to go with Imagine as the best song of the seventies. Justin: I think that's a good pick. Jane: Yeah. One of my best songs ever. Justin: Oh, I don't know. Yeah, that's tough. I can't really say who I would pick or what I would pick. Laura: Simon and Garfunkel had some good ones in the seventies. Jane: Definitely. Yeah. That reminds me of sitting around and a small back room with a dear friend with her strumming on the guitar and smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. She would play all those, Simon and Garfunkel, Carol King, John Denver, and I've been looking back at those times a lot. Music for me was the listening of it. I did try violin for a short period of time, didn't have the patience, but to really be able to listen and enjoy live music. To me, it's almost like going to church. I need it. If I don't have it, at some point I get itchy. Laura: Well, that's why I've been enjoying this because I feel like I use Spotify a lot and I'm making playlists and I'm looking for the next thing and trying to discover it, and this makes me slow down because I have to say something about it. It makes me listen and listen again and find out how it was made, and I've missed that. I used to buy an album and just sit with it for a long time, and that's not the way I consume music anymore. Jane: No, none of us do. It's a completely different thing these days, and maybe that's why going to live shows brings the more visceral part of music back to us. I mean, one of the first times we really, Justin and I ever got together and did anything, we went to Enter the Haggis show and there were Canadian Irish rock bands that broke up last year. Well, retired. Laura: The haggis exited. Jane: Yes, they did. I can't tell you how many shows. Justin: Didn't they make that reference as well? I think, yeah. They made a reference to exit the haggis. Jane: Exit the Haggis. That was their big poster, but that, and then raw Celtic drums that just get right through you and take you back to your ancestors from 700 years ago. All that kind of indescribable, non-logical thing about music, it affects our whole bodies in a totally different way than just being intellectual about it, and yeah, it's a good healthy thing that we tend to forget to do. Justin: I had to do a quick look to double check on the year. You were asking about a seventies personal best pick. Jane: There you go. Justin: Fleetwood Mac again, partly because that's like my parents. There are certain albums and musicians that we grew up with, like Jane had mentioned for her, like James Taylor and Jackson Brown, and those that in our house. I can hear now and still appreciate, and it brings me back to a certain time f Fleetwood Mac with the Rumors album in particular. But I would say probably the chain is the one that stands out the most. Yeah, that's a good one. But that one for me, that's probably because I had to look and see that the album was 77 before Hotel California. Right. Laura: They definitely would've played Fleetwood Mac on this radio station, so that might've been a good one for a best song of the seventies that he'd be referring to and would play. Justin: Yeah. I mean, it is interesting with some of these big groups and in particular it seems like that time period, but some of these bigger groups that had so much internal strife going on and yet managed to with that put out some of the best work, and now that Fleetwood Mac album's kind of hard to argue. They were ready to literally kill each other, and there was a lot of good Fleetwood Mac stuff, but everything on that particular album is incredible. Laura: I think the Kinks are like that too at each other's throats. They'll be coming up later because the morning show announcer, his favorite band is The Kinks, and so they talk about the Kinks. Jane: Nice. Laura: We can have some more battling bands in the future. So overall, I think we had a kind of mixed list of songs this time. Justin: Definitely Laura: More sort of subdued. Not bad. Justin: Yeah. Laura: Not bad. Not trying to break through the radio. Justin: No, but I mean, again, you're talking about it's supposed to be for a station that's overall going to have music that's easy to absorb, but is not necessarily going to engage every listener beyond that observance. Laura: Which makes them sometimes harder to talk about because it's like, yeah, it's nice. Justin: Yeah. I don't know. I kind of appreciated the fact that you picked stuff that, like I said, I wouldn't normally necessarily be seeking out, but it's made me go back and listen to it a few times recently to reapproach it and being older. It comes at a different direction. Laura: And I think just listening to it, actively listening to it feels different than having it on in the background in an office or something. Jane: Definitely. Absolutely. Yep. Laura: Okay. Well, we completed another Saturn's favorite music. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming and talking music with me. Jane: Yeah, it's always fun. Laura: Thank you for listening to the Saturn's Favorite Music podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend. Word of mouth is the most important way to help spread the word. Also, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. For more information on the music you heard, visit lauraleeauthor.com where you can also learn more about the book. Next week we'll have an eclectic episode where we'll discuss a 20 minute anti-war anthem, the only musical theater number in this series, A lighter hit by Bruce Springsteen and see you then.