Transcript

Laura (00:00): This one is actually mentioned in the book twice. The first time comes when Seth plays it at the wrong speed. So he is got a 45 of goodbye yellow brick road, and his turntable is set to 33. So it's going woooohh. (00:38): Welcome to the Saturn's favorite music podcast. Each episode we talk about music and especially the strangely unexplored adult contemporary genre and other music that small radio stations would've played in 1992 to 1993, and the music the DJs would've played at home. The name of the podcast refers to the novel of the same name. It's set in a town called Saturn. And Saturn's favorite music is the tagline of the fictional radio station. So we're going through each of the music references one by one and chatting about the songs. Today we're focused on some of the older songs that would've been played. And joining me is fan favorite guest, Jenny Hunter. Jenny Hello. Laura So welcome back, Jenny. Yay, friend of the pod. The first couple of songs that we have, we have four songs this episode, and two of them are by the artist Lee Michaels. And what happens in the book, the reason there are two Lee Michaels songs is that Clara plays one of the Lee Michaels songs by mistake. And this comes out of a situation where she's trying to get her phone hooked up and she's talking to the operator on the phone while she's working and she cues up the wrong track. Jenny (02:01): That makes sense. Yeah. Laura (02:02): This actually came out of something that happened. I mean, a lot of the stuff came out of something that happened, but not the playing the wrong track so much, but getting the phone set up. People who were born post iPhone will not remember, but getting a phone hooked up used to be a major thing. You'd get a new home. Jenny (02:22): I was going to say, you had to be there. Laura (02:24): You had to be there. They had to show up, put in wires if you didn't have them. And when I moved into my first apartment when I was working in radio, I had a really hard time getting the phone set up, and at the time, my dad was a writer and he said, oh, you should write about that. It's so funny when you talk about it. And so I wrote down this whole thing about getting my phone set up, and I put it aside. I thought it was funny, but sometimes when you look back at things that you wrote ages ago, you go, oh, that wasn't any good. Jenny (02:59): That was not as funny as I thought it was. Laura (03:00): That was not, I remember that I wrote that. I looked for it and oh, this was not good. But this one, I went to great lengths to retrieve what I wrote at that time, because I couldn't find it on my computer anywhere. I wrote it pre-computer. I couldn't find any paper in my house that had it on it. And so I ended up buying an external floppy drive reader and putting in all these three by five floppy discs into it to see what was on them. And I eventually found it, and so I recovered it. Jenny (03:34): Did you find anything else good? Laura (03:35): No. I mean, it's just a lot of old documents, but thankfully I found it and it wasn't terrible, so it would've been terrible if I found it and it was terrible. Jenny (03:47): For all that effort. Laura (03:49): Finally, find the reader. I found it. I found the document. Wow. This is, I don't know if I should say the word of what it is, but... Jenny Trash. Laura We'll go with trash, keep that clean rating for my podcast. So Claire is trying to queue up her records. She's talking on the phone, trying to get her phone set up. And so this is the text of what happens in the book By now, the previous track was reaching its end. Clara hung up on her call, jumped into the driver's seat and threw on her headphones. You're listening to another superstar, seven in a row on Saturn's favorite music, RTV. Here's Lee Michaels with, Do You Know What I MeanClara started the turntable. The song began with a jangly blues inspired piano. Claire was pleasantly surprised that this was part of the RTV playlist. She was even more surprised when the chorus rolled around. It was a joyous celebration of being stoned. And that was when Ed, who is the station manager, rushed through the door. What is this? He shouted. It's she looked at the card, Lee Michaels. Do You Know What I MeanNo, it isn't, ed said. So that's what happens. Jenny (05:22): There's a little difference between Heighty Hi and Do You Know What I Mean. Laura (05:28): Yeah. So the song that I was describing that's a bluesy celebration of being stoned is Heighty Hi by Lee Michaels. It's a 1969 song about being at a party where everybody's stoned and so is he. It's certainly possible that someone would cue up the wrongly Michael's track. It's actually not possible that Clara could have mistakenly tried to queue up. Do You Know What I MeanAnd played Heighty Hi because they're not on the same album. Jenny (05:58): Yeah. Do You Know What I Mean came out in 71. Laura (06:03): Do You Know What I Mean came out in 1971? Jenny (06:09): Yeah. See, look at me. The only reason I know that is because when I listened to it this morning, I was like, Hey, I'm older than this song. You're older than this song too. Laura (06:18): Yeah. So I don't know if I knew that when I was writing it, but I didn't really care. I thought that Heighty Hi was, and it doesn't mention the song, but it seemed like a perfect example of playing the wrong song and putting something totally inappropriate for your station on the air. Jenny (06:36): They're both decent songs, though. I was actually surprised. I didn't realize I knew them both. Laura (06:43): Were you familiar with Lee Michaels? Jenny (06:45): I knew the name, but I wasn't making any connections. And then when I listened to the music this morning, I was like, Hey, I know both of these songs. Laura (06:54): Well, maybe you heard me playing them because I bought these albums and this is really my, that kind of hippie sixties thing is kind of my jam. It's not really Clara's. So starting with, Do You Know What I Mean, which was the actual hit single that Clara was trying to play? What's your take on Do You Know What I Mean? Jenny (07:13): I like it. I like it. I liked it better than I thought it was going to because I didn't realize what song it was. And then when he got to the, Do You Know What I Mean, I was like, Hey, I do know this song. It's kind of a laid back kind of song, even though it's about him catching his girlfriend cheating and things like that, but it just feels real laid back. But then he is like, yeah, it is what it is. Laura (08:05): This is one of those songs, kind of like Richard Marx and Hazard that we talked about before, where the artist, it was his biggest hit, and I think that he wanted to disown it. He didn't think it was representative of him, and it wasn't his favorite. He said it was not autobiographical in any way. It didn't mean anything. And so he wasn't that connected to it. Jenny (08:29): No real allusion in it then. Laura (08:32): Yeah. I mean, I think that that happens a lot when somebody, they have their biggest song and people have a lot of different sides, and they feel like, this isn't showing who I am or my work. It's not representing me, but I think he is wrong. I love this song. I think it's very fun and happy in a hippie way. Jenny (08:57): Well, and I wonder if the hippie way is why It's kind of like, oh, she cheated on me. Laura (09:05): Yeah. It's funny. Thomas Ryan of American Hit Radio called it “a feel good song about Losing Your girlfriend.” I, that's right. I think he realizes that he screwed up. He knows that he is been not paying attention to her. He's been taking her for granted. And so it's like, oh, well, what do you do? What are you going to do? Hurts, but... Jenny (09:28): Yeah, okay. I hope she's happy. Laura (09:32): And he's going to go off in the corner and smoke something and feel better about life. Jenny (09:39): I can't talk about that on that station though. Laura (09:41): No, Heighty Hi. This is another fun one. So like I said, it's not on the same album. It is on my Happy Hippie playlist on Spotify. How did you feel about Heighty Hi? Jenny (09:58): I enjoyed it. I do. I like this song. I think it's fun. It's long. It was longer than I remembered it being. Laura (10:04): Yeah, I think there's a single version and then an album version that's longer. So you probably got the long version. Jenny (10:11): Yeah, I think it was seven minutes something. I was like, wow, it's a bathroom song. That was my first thought. It's a bathroom song. Laura (10:20): If you could play it on the air, it would be a bathroom song. Yeah. Jenny (10:23): Yeah. But it was definitely not the same vibe. I mean, other than being a hippie song, it wasn't the same vibe. It was like you said, it's about getting high. It's about having fun, and everybody's just saying, Hey. Laura (10:38): Yeah, he's very late sixties San Francisco. He had some political songs. He had this let's have a party and get stoned and play the organ and stuff. But he's also got, yeah, and he is got this kind of blues side to him too. I like it. Jenny (11:04): I like this one better than Do You Know What I Mean. But I actually liked Heighty Hi a lot better. It was more like you can dance to it. Laura (11:12): Yeah, you could sway to it. Yeah. I like Heighty Hi better too. And I think that's probably my favorite Lee Michael's track. It's good for vibing out too, having a party. Jenny (11:26): Which is, yeah, you put it in the book somehow. Laura (11:28): That's why I put it in the book and why I put it on my Happy Hippie playlist. So for me, Heighty Hi is an A. I also like, Do You Know What I Mean. It's an A for me. Jenny (11:39): Yeah. I would give them both As. I enjoyed it. It was fun music. Laura (11:43): Good. So we starting out on a high note. That's good. So the next song that we've got is Elton John, goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973. You were born before this one too? Jenny (11:55): Yes. I was here. My brother was born. Laura (11:59): Yeah, my brother too. There you go. This one is actually mentioned in the book twice. The first time comes when Seth plays it at the wrong speed. So he is got a 45 of Goodbye yellow brick road, and his turntable is set to 33. So it's going whoooosh He says, I meant to do that. Jenny I miss being able to do that with records. Playing 'em at the wrong speed. Laura (12:30): Yeah, playing them backwards. You can roll them back. Jenny (12:33): Jenny It was fun. I'm sure we were doing no damage at all to our records doing that either. Laura (12:37): I just remembered Adam and the Ants album, prince Charming, and it had a secret track on it, so it was like a minute long. It was further along in the groove, so the less song would play, and if you didn't get up and take the needle off and it kept playing, it just played this little bit of Hawaiian music. And it also had scratched into the inner groove. It was etched with, have you found the Lost Hawaiians? That's the kind of thing you could do with vinyl that you can't do with streaming. Jenny (13:44): There was a Styx album that did that too, and I'm trying to remember which one it was. I always got it out of the library. I don't think I ever actually owned it, but that's where Plexiglass Toilet was. It was a hidden track. It was a bonus track. Laura (13:56): That's where it deserves to be, I think. We'll not be reviewing Plexiglass Toilet by Styx. So the second mention of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is very late in the book, and Clara is trying to get wisdom from the lyrics while she's listening to Elton John. And she realizes that she never understood the lyrics. She couldn't understand the words. So for her, it's like back to the mortified Cow. She doesn't know what it says. Jenny (14:53): Geez. Laura (14:55): So those are the mentions in the book. Jenny I guess if you don't want to be embarrassed like the cow, then that's good advice. Laura (15:01): I mean, I don't think that I ever picked up that it was about going back to the farm, leaving the city life behind. I don't think that I understood the lyrics or paid attention to them. Jenny (15:19): I don't think so either. I mean, I always just thought it was a Wizard of Oz song. Laura (15:57): So what is your overall top of the line hot take on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Jenny (16:05): It's actually one of my favorite songs. I adore Elton John, and this is one of the ones that I could play on repeat. Laura (16:12): I think it's my favorite Elton John song. It's got that soaring kind of falsetto in the chorus, and I think melodically it's a lot more in the nineties. I think he had a lot of sort of middle of the road adult contemporary kind of stuff. That was nice. But yeah, I think this is a high point for Elton John. Jenny (16:34): I do too. Especially, I mean, my first Elton John song that I can remember was I'm Still Standing. Laura (16:44): That's a good song. Jenny (16:45): Because it was on MTV and I really liked it, but this was always a step above that. When I finally heard it I started listening to his music outside of what was on MTV, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was always one of my favorites. I liked it melodically. I like it. Well, I guess meaning wise, although at the time I didn't know what it meant. Laura (17:08): Yeah, I think if I hadn't read the lyrics, I wouldn't have gotten them. I know what they are because I know what they are now. But before I read them, I don't think I knew what they were. Jenny (17:21): So I think I just get caught on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and I always kind of thought of it as saying goodbye to the fantasy and accepting reality, I guess is kind of how I always viewed it. Laura (17:35): Yeah, I mean, that's the moral of Wizard of Oz, isn't it? She's looking for all this glamor in the Emerald City, and she just wants to go back to her plow in Kansas. Jenny (17:46): Back to the pigs and the rainbows in the sky and not be on the other side of the rainbow anymore. Laura (17:55): So I didn't delve deeply into the inspiration for the lyrics. So I don't know how they got on the Wizard of Oz theme for it, but this was kind of an exciting one for me because this was recorded in the Chateau de Herouville in France. Jenny (18:14): Oh. Laura (18:14): When I was an exchange student in high school, I lived in Herouville, France, and the house where I lived was right across the street from the Chateau, and when I was there, it wasn't operating as a recording studio. It has these big walls around it, so people would just point to the walls and say, that's where that recording studio is. But I mean, it was all of the big artists of the seventies recorded there. Elton John, David Bowie, T-Rex, Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, the Bee Gees recorded songs for Saturday Night, Night Live there, Saturday Night Fever. Jenny (18:57): I know what you meant. That's really cool. Laura (18:59): Yeah, so it was like a combination hotel and recording studio. So the artists liked it because they could live in the Chateau and then they just had the recording studios available. So if they woke up at two in the morning with inspiration and wanted to go down and record, they could do it. Jenny (19:18): That's kind of cool. And you don't have to worry about fans and getting sidetracked. Laura (19:27): Yeah, it seems like it was a great place to record, but I guess the business side of it didn't go that well. So in 84, it closed down, and then I was there like 85, 86, so it was just behind the walls, but I guess they brought it back now. So it's a recording studio again, so that's pretty exciting. Jenny (19:51): Did Queen ever record there? Laura (19:54): Well, they're not on my list, so I don't know if they recorded there or not, but... Jenny (19:58): I'm only asking because when I watched Bohemian Rhapsody, there's a whole thing where they're recording, and it sounds like this place, you're talking about the Chateau. That's the only reason I'm asking. Laura (20:08): Yeah. I mean, I have a list of artists who recorded there, and they're not on it, but that doesn't mean... they might just not be on my list. So I am not really sure. Yeah. Goodbye. Yellow Brick Road went to number two on Billboard Number one was Top of the World by The Carpenters. Jenny (20:26): Love that song too. That was one of my dad's favorite songs. Laura (20:29): Yeah, it's nice. I think it's nice that Karen Carpenter has gotten kind of a renaissance, a new appreciation. I think in the eighties and early nineties, the Carpenters were just really not cool. Jenny (20:46): Well, they were so mellow. Laura (20:48): Yeah, mellow is never cool. Why is Mellow never cool? Jenny (20:54): It should be. Laura (20:56): Yeah. Yeah. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was one of Elton John's songs that did better in the pop charts than in the Easy Listening charts, which isn't always the case. So bona fide hit for Elton. And it sounds like we're both up to three A's at this point. Am I right? Jenny (21:13): Absolutely. Yep. Laura (21:15): So the final song is Eric Carmen's All by myself from 1975. This comes in when the character of Clara is talking to the afternoon DJ Rad. And he's talking about his technique for posting songs. And he says that what he learned from Casey Kasem is that to keep your listeners, you have to tease a fact about a song. And he points to the card for Eric Carmen's All By Myself. And Clara says, that's a really depressing song. (22:12): And he says, that's not the point. It doesn't matter what we like. Everything we play is someone's favorite song. So then he goes on to say that he flips through his books and he's showing her how he tries to get facts to talk about the song. And he says, so I get my books, I get my books, and I open them up. And this one has a blurb on the song. It says The melody is based on Rachmaninoff, but everybody knows that. He says, but Clara of course didn't know that, but she pretends that she does. Jenny (22:45): I didn't know that. Laura (23:16): And then he says that Eric Carmen taught himself guitar by listening to Beatles songs. So maybe he'll use that instead, because everybody knows the Rachmaninoff thing. So what Rad said is true, it was adapted from a melody from Rachmaninoff second piano concerto, and Eric Carmen thought it was in the public domain at the time, and it was in the United States, but outside the United States it was not. Jenny Oh, no. Laura So he ended up in litigation with the Rachmaninoff estate. So now Rachmaninoff's Estate gets 12% of the royalties of this song. Jenny (23:55): Wow. That is a chunk. Yeah. Laura (24:00): So what is your feeling about All By Myself, by Eric Carmen? Jenny (24:05): It's really long. I knew the song going in. I don't remember the big instrumental section in the middle of it. I was like, wow, this is a really long song. And I've been hearing the All By Myself part a lot lately. I think it must be having a TikTok resurgence or something. Laura (24:28): Well, there's the Celine Dion version, which I think is, most people probably listen to these days. Jenny (24:35): Yeah, probably. Does she have the big three minute long instrumental in the middle of it? Laura (24:42): No, I don't think so. But I think she's got some massive, loud, big notes like Celine Dion does. Jenny (25:12): So if she redid it, does the Rachmaninoff Estate get part of hers too? Laura (25:17): Yep. Jenny (25:19): Wow. Laura (25:21): Yeah. Rachmaninoff, the estate's doing okay, I guess. Jenny (25:25): Yeah, all from one song. Laura (25:28): Yeah. I guess Rachmaninoff is more contemporary than Carmen thought. Yeah. It kind of falls into those songs like Sting's Russians, which takes from Prokofiev and its melody. Jenny (25:47): Well, and I guess it's kind of hard to blame him. I mean, he checked the laws here where he was recording it. He didn't think to go outside and see if copyright was the same everywhere. Laura (26:00): Yeah. And I imagine, I mean, I probably would just think, oh, it's classical music. It's old. It's in the public domain. Jenny (26:08): Yeah, yeah. Because after a certain point it is. Laura (26:13): This is a song that I never liked. I always thought like Clara does that it's depressing. I kind of have it in that Terry Jacks Seasons in the Sun category of just morbid songs. Jenny (26:27): Yeah. Well, Seasons in The Sun is just awful. Laura (26:31): So to me, this would be, if I made a playlist of songs that I thought were terrible and depressing, this would be on it. But I don't do that. Jenny (26:42): Not sure why you would want to do that. Laura (26:48): I don't have songs that I find depressing, and I don't have songs that feel like fingernails on a blackboard playlist either. Jenny (26:55): It's true. I don't know. I mean, I think it's just a song that's just always been in the background. I've known it forever. Like I said, I don't remember the big instrumental section in the middle of it. It's okay. I like other songs by him a lot better. Laura (27:15): I didn't know at the time that Eric Carmen was from The Raspberries that I really liked the Raspberries, and it's such a different vibe than All By Myself. Jenny (27:26): Or Hungry Eyes. Hungry Eyes is, I think the first one I remember by him, because that was the year we graduated. Laura (27:34): I think Hungry Eyes was in Dirty Dancing, wasn't it? Jenny (27:36): Yeah. Laura (27:39): I think that Celine Dion, she had a very memorable recording of All By Myself shortly after her husband died, and she was singing in a tribute for him and got emotional and choked up, and it was moving in a way that this to me feels, I don't know. It's overwrought. It's a tragedy that he's all by himself, and the tone of the course is just, I don't want to live! Jenny (28:11): And he talks about why he's by himself. He talks about, I've always been by myself. I didn't want people around me when I was younger. I wanted to be left alone. I'm like, well, dude, you chased him all away. Laura (28:25): Now he is very sad about it, and it seems like he could either sit and write a song and moan about it, or he could join a book club or something. Jenny (28:36): He chose to sit around a moan about it. He might've tried to join the book club and they kicked him out. He was too depressed. Laura (28:46): Where he should have gone is to Lee Michaels' getting stoned to party. Jenny (28:53): Yeah, there we go. Laura (28:54): He'd meet people there. Jenny (28:56): And they wouldn't care that he was all alone. They'd be like, Hey, have a bit. Laura (29:02): Yeah. It's interesting because it's not actually a breakup song. It's not like, I don't want to be by myself because I broke up with you or something. It's just sort of a loner, and I'm all by myself, and I don't want to be. Jenny (29:18): Yeah. But like I said, he sings about, he pushed everybody away, so it's like, I don't feel bad for you, dude, you did it. Laura (29:26): Lee Michaels actually has a breakup and he's, that kind of sucks. You know what I mean? I screwed up. Sorry. Yeah. So it's the polar ends, it's the massive emoting, and it kind of fits in with that, like Michael Bolton, how am I going to live without you type of big emotion. Jenny (29:51): He was always over the top too. Laura (29:54): Well, this song reached number two. Have they all reached number two? They No, Lee Michaels didn't reach number two. He reached number six and number 106 with his two songs that we featured today. Jenny (30:05): That's kind of ironic. Laura (30:07): Don't you think. But Elton John and Eric Carmen both had number two hits and Eric Carmen was number two behind the Four Seasons. Oh, What a Night. Jenny (30:16): That's my favorite song ever. Laura (30:18): Really? Jenny (30:20): Yeah. Laura (30:20): That's your favorite song ever? Jenny (30:24): I love that song. Kids know When It Comes on the radio, I'm cranking it up. Laura (30:29): So one of the songs in this podcast is Jenny's favorite song of all time. Guess which one it is? Jenny Gee, I wonder what? Laura So what is your final take on All By Myself? Jenny (30:46): I dunno. I want to like it because I like Eric Carmen and I know the song really well, but I got to give it a C. I was not entertained. Laura (30:55): Yeah. Like I said, I guess I would be given it a D because... Jenny Ouch. Laura That's the songs you don't like. And I don't like the song. That's my first, I always want to, you don't want to say bad things about someone who went to all the trouble of creating something, but so not my favorite. Jenny (31:17): No, I just think it's funny that you're whispering it, like he's going to hear you . Laura Secret. Don't tell anybody, but I don't like this song. Jenny It's okay. Eric Carmen's gone. He's not going to come get you. Laura Okay. But maybe Celine Dion will. Jenny That's true. She's scarier. Laura (31:34): Okay. So we did it another four songs checked off the list. OK, so that was a shorter one, but fun as always. We had two Lee Michaels tracks, so we killed two birds with one stone. Regular listeners may have noticed that last week I promoted an episode that would include Arlo Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen, Rick Astley and a musical theater number. We're still going to do that this week. However, your host ended up with laryngitis. And so we delayed recording episode eight because episode nine was recorded earlier and ready to go. We decided to flip the order. So all that stuff I said last week. Tune in next week. I promise we'll cover it. Please subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode and you can catch these human flaws in real time. If you are enjoying these music discussions, please share the pod so more people have a chance to learn of our existence. Finally, a big thank you to reviewer Laura Smith for including the novel Saturn's Favorite Music in her list of best books of 2025. This book has all of the quirks of a workplace drama, the realistic dialogue between co-workers and the nostalgia. For more information on the songs you heard today, a link to our sub stack and information on the book, visit LauraleeAuthor.com. Thank you for listening to another episode of Saturn's Favorite Music.