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00:00:00
00:00:01
London, New York, Paris, Munich
86 Plays3 months ago
…Everybody talk about pop music - as the song goes. In this episode of the podcast, the Woodward brothers talk about their very own version of pop music, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be all that popular.
As usual, there are tunes to consider, prompting amusing memories of 1990s lo-fi fun.
This episode features:
- An Erstwhile Friend takes us back
- Giles and Steve attempt to tell the world's funniest joke
- Nick Rhodes keyboards, drum machines and muffins
- Superheroes and blood harmonies
"I wasn’t sure about the Johnny Domino Podcast, but I gave it a chance, and now I think I love it."
Related audiovisual material is available on the This Are Johnny Domino blog
Listen to The Best of This Are Johnny Domino, Vol. 1 on Spotify
Visit the Johnny Domino website
Connect with Johnny Domino on Facebook and Instagram
Podcast artwork by Giles Woodward
Edited by Steve Woodward at PodcastingEditor.com
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Transcript
Opening with a Pop Song Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
Radio. Video. Boogie with a suitcase. You're living in a disco. Forget about the rat race. Let's do the milkshake. Selling like a hot cake. Try some. Buy some. FIFIFO form. Talk about pop music.
Introduction to Johnny Domino Podcast
00:00:55
Speaker
Welcome. Welcome to this our Johnny Domino podcast. Hello, everybody.
00:01:02
Speaker
And we're going to rock the mic. Absolutely. OK. My name is Steve. That's my brother Giles. We were saying before we started recording that I had an idea about what lyrics you were going to say and I got it wrong. What I was expecting was, see if you know what it is. Sometimes I feel like a chicken pecking my way through the trees when something aloft cuts my head right off. Now I'm dealing with decapitation.
00:01:32
Speaker
No. What? They are the words to Chicken, a new song that was released yesterday by the formerly great band Pixies. Oh wow, okay. Yeah. Oh no, that hasn't been on my radar. God, it's not good. I mean, as you can probably tell.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, I've got to give it a chance. Well, yeah, absolutely. Let's because we should always give it a chance. We've got to give it a chance. Got to give Pixies a chance. No, play the play the play the play the thing. It's the Johnny Domino podcast. Give it a chance. Yeah, that's what we do. As the man says, give it a chance. Give it a chance. Right. I've had a lot of coffee today.
00:02:19
Speaker
Okay. Just giving you a bit of warning. I've had a lot of coffee because I was feeling a bit tired. So if it goes a bit quiet, you've crashed. I might've had to rush off. Oh, right. Okay. Okay. Well, things might move pretty fast. One of the songs we're talking about today is very long. So maybe that'll be the option. Okay.
00:02:41
Speaker
This is our Johnny Domino podcast with myself and my brother Giles. Listen to old songs that we recorded up to and over 30 years ago. We talk about the memories that come up and we appraise them. The concepts we originally had for the podcast, we were putting together a track listing for a purely theoretical mixtape. However, we have now released the first volume of the best of This Our Johnny Domino and we are currently
00:03:09
Speaker
maraudering. That's not even the word, is it? We are currently, we are buffaloeing through volume two. It's a verb. Trampling. Trampling's a good one as well.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, we're on our way anyway to volume two and it's on its way. And this podcast is good if you like people just rambling on about inconsequential stuff to do with music, really. I think most podcasts are people rambling on about inconsequential stuff. So it's not just us. Good.
00:03:45
Speaker
We tend to listen to music that we have recorded. So normally we discuss before an episode what order we're going to listen to things in. But we haven't this time. So I don't know. What were your thoughts? We've got three songs lined up. Which one do you think we should listen to first? Well, I think we should outline the current engagement opportunity.
00:04:08
Speaker
Oh let's do that. The current way we are hoping to engage our dear listeners is by asking them to send in recordings of songs that were inspired or were directly from childhood.
Listener Contributions and Musical Memories
00:04:23
Speaker
So
00:04:24
Speaker
And we're going to present a recording that was sent to us by our friend Leon, aka First Wild Friend. Friend of the program. Yeah. He was the first entrant into the eternal halls of the Four Tracked Gods. He was a lot while ago. With his fabulous music by Uncle Sham and Nice Trombone. What's he got for us today though, Steve?
00:04:51
Speaker
He sent me a message, I mean this is quite a while ago, he said, I was going to get so much done this weekend, but you only went and sent another challenge, didn't you? Damn the pair of you. I spent most of last night trawling through my childhood theme tune memories and now have an idea for musical piece. Anyway, watch this space. And then a few days later, he said,
00:05:09
Speaker
The idea was to create something bittersweet and melancholy from something upbeat and happy. I thought of my favorite themes from one of my favorite telly programs as a small child. And it had to be, well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to see his whole approach can be summed up with the question. What would Leonard Cohen do? Let's give it a go.
00:05:47
Speaker
Up above the streets and houses Rainbow climbing high Everyone can see it smiling over the sky
00:06:58
Speaker
And there is erstwhilefriend and their interpretation of the theme tune to Rainbow, which was one of my favourite children's programmes when I was growing up and when I was probably too old to watch it as well. I used to watch it, used to come in from school, watch it at lunchtime.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I remember watching it. What did you think to that? I liked it. Did you? Yeah. I liked it too. Excellent. I liked it too. So it's just what you said. What did you think of that? I thought, hello, where's he going? No, I was just, it was a straight question. Tell us what your thoughts are on that. I liked it. It was nice and creepy. And the theme tune is so welcoming and joyous in its original format.
00:07:48
Speaker
Off above the streets and houses Rainbow climbing high Everyone can see it smiling Over the sky Paint the whole world with a rainbow Rainbow was a weird programme, wasn't it? There's a guy called Jeffrey and he lived with a giant bear called Bungal. He did. A one-armed hippo called George and a one-armed creature called Zippy.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that was the limitations of the puppeteers. And they were constantly being visited by some very creepy musicians. They weren't creepy. Oh, they were. You've got Rod Jane and Roger initially, and then it turned into Rod Jane and Freddie. Yeah, it was a good program. There's all kinds of stories about Rod Jane and Freddie Giles that are not safe for children's television.
00:08:39
Speaker
really oh yeah but i don't want to hear that because my memory of rainbow was purely innocent really and i did enjoy it and it was just like a very simple children's program and i didn't see any kind of weird sort of seedy edge to it at all and actually
00:08:58
Speaker
I don't think there's been any kind of like disclosures subsequently about anyone being dodgy involved in rainbow. Has there really? What kind of, what kind of things? Hang on. Let me just right.
Debunking Children's TV Rumors
00:09:15
Speaker
Hang on. How are you going to reveal, how are you going to destroy my memory? Well, unfortunately, Freddie marks Freddie. He died in 2021.
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay. Rod and Jane are still alive, but they were in an open relationship and Rod and Jane were married. And yeah, there was all kinds of stuff going on with them. Like what? Mate, hang on, hang on, hang on. This is just too much now. See, I completely forgot. This is all kinds of stuff. You've done some research. Rod and Jane had been married and divorced. I did this years ago.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah. Ron and Jane were married and divorced before the show. It remained on good terms. Jane and Freddie became a couple in 1985 and married in May 2016, seven years after Jane's divorce from Rod, who were very close and inseparable, torn together and supporting each other through difficult times. 2008, they appeared on the show 50 Ways to Live, your TV lover, to address newspaper claims that they were involved in Love Triangle. Jane stressed that there was no overlap in their relationships. Oh man, you see,
00:10:24
Speaker
This is nonsense because what happened is I got sucked into something that I read on the internet. There's a lesson for everybody. There's a lesson for everybody. I know, but I'm relieved. I'm relieved because I don't want to because, you know, it sounds like Rod, Jane and Freddie were just human beings, right? Yeah. Who had relationships. That's not such a bad thing. And yes, I mean, you know, looking at it in ironic teenage way, Rainbow was like, oh,
00:10:52
Speaker
Why is Jeffrey so friendly with Bongle, the giant bear? But it was good when he was a kid. But we should get talking about the actual song that Leon's created, a version of the theme tune. Yeah. And I think he's done something rather, rather wonderful with it.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah, because we're kind of going for a sort of a nostalgia thing. And you get that sort of nostalgia feeling because it reminds you of the rainbow theme and childhood. But then it takes you somewhere else. And I think it is a bit creepy, but it's not
00:11:29
Speaker
It's not overly creepy. It's creepy with a small C. Okay. You don't think it's creepy in a way that's like, it's a weird guy dressed as a clown down the street. No, I don't. No, it's just like, it's making you question whether it's a good idea to paint the world with a rainbow. Okay.
00:11:54
Speaker
I like it anyway look I mean it's like nostalgia right we're giving people nostalgia yeah we're given what they want but we're giving them a bit of what they need as well right which is not what
00:12:07
Speaker
punk rock factory do, you see. Punk rock factory, the people that inspired this whole idea, they're just like, oh, let's just do it as a punk version. That's not doing anything. This is more like a whole grain. This is clear in your system. It's the brand version of Rainwater. This is the brand version of nostalgia.
00:12:35
Speaker
A good clear ale. Yeah, exactly. I feel like my guts have been cleared out after listening to that. And I don't know, is it going to get the This Hard Johnny Domino collective a main stage afternoon set at a festival?
00:12:50
Speaker
I don't know. It depends on the festival. I don't know what kind of festival would do that, but I'd like it to be performed. I can imagine Leon performing it. I don't know how he would perform it. I don't really know Leon. I'm thinking he'd perform it with a tape machine and probably have a xylophone. He'd play the xylophone live and then have a tape machine. It'd be like a Sleaford mods type set up, but just one of them and a xylophone.
00:13:18
Speaker
I mean, he did send some notes about his recording process. Would you like to hear them? I would. Leon said, in the Johnny Domino spirit, I wanted to limit myself to four tracks. So we just have vocal nylon string guitar. That's a nod to Leonard Cohen.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, nice. Piano and xylophone inspired by Nottingham's famous xylophone man. He said, I think it turned out all right. Luckily, I had a cold because otherwise I would never have hit that bottom C on the vocal otherwise. Well, I think it was cracking. I thought it was cracking. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think you can enjoy that even if you didn't know what the rainbow theme sounded like. Yeah, I think so too.
Childhood Musical Influences
00:14:03
Speaker
And I think it could have been a bit longer.
00:14:05
Speaker
But most of these songs are very short. Especially we're going for a theme tune. Is it going to prod other people to have a go at recording something nice, Steve? It would be good. We're going to do one, aren't we? I think that a big thing that we loved
00:14:23
Speaker
that I think was a big part of our brotherly childhood, was one of the three records that we owned at our house. Okay, what were those three records? Well, one of them was the 1812 Overture, I believe. Was it that one? I think we might have had four. Maybe four records. I want very good at counting. What I remember is we had the greatest hits of Elton John. We did have that, yeah. I think everyone did. We got The Sound of Bread,
00:14:53
Speaker
And that album, if I remember rightly, was bought by our dad on the same day that he bought the album, which I think you're groping for, which was the Muppet Show album. It was. It was the Muppet Show album that had some really good songs on it. It's a great album and it had sort of sketches on it and like really good tunes and songs that were off from the TV programme. It was really funny. And we listened to it over and over again, didn't we? Yeah, I still listen to it.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah it's an amazing one, it's an amazing one. I wonder if we could recreate something from that album now. We could try it, we could certainly try it couldn't we for the boys and girls out there. Okay time once again for that furry fuzzy funny man fabulous freewheeling fast and frantic fuzzy band.
00:15:48
Speaker
Hey, hey, hey, hey! Wave, wave, wave, wave, wave! Froggy, not so fast! Tonight, I'm gonna use your assistance. Oh, yeah? Yes, sir! You and I are gonna tell the world's funniest joke! Is that right? Uh, this is all spontaneous. Unrehearsed, right, Froggy? It's unrehearsed, yes. Okay, okay. Froggum, my heart. You will wait until I say the word here.
00:16:18
Speaker
When you hear me say the word here, you will rush up to me and say, good grief, the comedian's a bear. Good grief, the comedian's a bear. Check. When you say the word here. Right. Gotcha. Okay. Now then. Hiya, hiya, hiya. You're a wonderful looking audience. It's a pleasure to be here. Good grief, the comedian's a bear. Not yet. But you just said here. That was the wrong here. Which is the right here. The other here.
00:16:46
Speaker
Go, go, go. Okay. Hey, folks. This is a story you're going to love to hear. Good grief, the comedians are bare. Will you stop that? You said here. Not that here. Well, which here? Another here. How am I going to know? You'll know when you hear. Good grief, the comedians are bare. All right. All right. Listen, you will know when I point to you.
00:17:15
Speaker
All right, don't cry. Never work with animals. Never work with animals. Say, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the theater. At the stage door, I passed a bunch of Muppet fans, and suddenly I hear, good grief the comedians are bare. No, he's a nun. He's a wearing a necker tie.
00:17:41
Speaker
Thank you very much, if anybody stayed with us that long. There you go. That was, that was something. I like, I particularly liked the, uh, the bunged up Fozzie. Do you like the Frank Siedmont? It was a bit Frank Siedmont. It was Franky Bear. I completely forgot what Fozzie Bear's voice was like. Oh man. It's not in my talent range.
00:18:06
Speaker
Anyway, it's still a great album. That's a great track. And we should put a link to what it actually sounds like. Right. So yeah, join in and send us some versions of something. Yes, that'd be great. Right. Shall we listen to one of our songs? I think we should move on. This one, I think we should. This is actually a request.
00:18:31
Speaker
from one of our listeners. This is a request from my daughter because she loves this track and it is a song which was not really released. It was something that we wrote and recorded around the same time as we were recording an album called Solid Ground, which was our fourth album, the last one of our albums to be physically released back in 2004. Okay.
00:19:00
Speaker
20 years ago, dude. Well, let's have a listen. Yeah, and it's a song called I Forgot What I Set Out To Do.
00:19:53
Speaker
When we watch from where we can't be seen
00:20:07
Speaker
Why do I do all the things that I do? Sat in my car, I will talk to my momma Once, maybe twice, I forgot what I said
00:20:43
Speaker
Sometimes I wait three, six, five days of time You hit me with a book, eventually I'll eat the little sauce
00:21:07
Speaker
Learn to live your parents' new name Everybody talks about it Everyone can understand it Lighter, you never suppose it Live here always, never catch your eyes
00:21:32
Speaker
Why do I do all the things that I do? Sat in my car, I will sort it to the mobile. Was maybe twice I forgot what I did.
00:22:46
Speaker
evolution when I let my mind wander to you. Learn to do your Paris meeting. Everybody talks about it. Everyone can understand it. If you ever think about it, won't keep on always thinking hard.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
Before we move on, I'd just like to offer an apology to Frank Oz and the memory of Jim Hansen. Oh yes. Just wanted to put that out there. I think that's fair enough, especially Frank Oz. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shame we can't get away with just putting the actual recording. I know.
00:25:40
Speaker
Never mind. Go on
Exploring Johnny Domino's Music
00:25:43
Speaker
then. So that's my niece's favourite song, is it? It's one of her favourite Johnny Domino songs and she did request it appearing on the podcast. Wow.
00:25:53
Speaker
Maybe it's got potential to appeal to young people. Maybe. Young people. But I was listening to it just then and there's some great bits on one of the sections where you can practically see Mark on the keyboards. Hi there, Mark. You could practically see him pulling Nick Rhodes face with those kind of swooping
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, that was the visual that's missing, isn't it? Absolutely. He would be doing that kind of bobbing shoulder movement to that bit there. Yeah, I don't know. I think that was our attempt to write a bit of a pop-type song. And it's obviously got a bit of a lyrical theft in there. Has it? Oh, London New York Paris Munich, yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yes. All the cities. All the cities. That's from the song Pop Music, which was a smash hit for M. M. M. So that was a direct lift from that. They're all places that I have been. What do you reckon? I liked it. I think it is probably one of my favorite things that we recorded actually at the moment.
00:27:06
Speaker
It goes along at a nice kind of driving pace. I like... Has it got your backing vocals on it? It's me and you singing on it. Yeah. Well, you know the thing about, they say about brothers singing together, you know? Ah, blood harmonies. There's those blood harmonies, man. You don't get them from anyone else. Yes. No, it was me and you singing. I sent you a photo of us actually performing it live.
00:27:32
Speaker
Really? Yeah, yeah. And you can tell it's that song because I'm singing and so are you. And you're looking at the finger position as well. Oh, yeah. Well, you're yes, you're hanging around on that note and and I'm doing some twiddly bits. Oh, yeah. OK, OK. Yeah, we did play it live a few times. I just don't know why we didn't we didn't include it on on solid ground. Solid ground was long enough.
00:28:01
Speaker
which was our, our album, a prog album that we made. Yeah. It's probably a bit too poppy. Maybe. Yeah. But it did get released on a artists against success compilation called Kung Fu Santa. Oh, Kung Fu Santa. And what is it? And a Christmas punch bag or something. That was it. Yeah. So it's on there. Yeah. And it is on streaming sites. It is. It's there available, which is where my daughter heard it.
00:28:29
Speaker
We did, however, attempt it with a drummer. Oh, I've got a rehearsal recording of it. Oh, I'd like to hear that. Well, I don't want to... Can you play it to me today? I'm going to play it to you now. Don't play the whole thing. No, I don't think you want it.
00:29:14
Speaker
I'm going to see what the chorus is like. Yeah.
00:29:52
Speaker
They're coming up. It's like a one note middle section. Right. I don't think we need any more of that. Let's have a few more bars of one note, yeah. Ooh. Had enough.
00:30:36
Speaker
They're not good harmonies are they? So sloppy. We needed to practice that one. Yeah well we were practicing it. We needed to practice it a bit more. It's half the length of the other version by the way.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah okay it's weird it made me think that because I think I remember when we were when we were doing this stuff and when we had a drum machine we didn't have a drummer I was always very like oh I wish we had a drummer yeah and it was great playing with Jeff yeah but actually I think that song sounded better with the drum machine yeah
00:31:22
Speaker
Because we wrote it with the drum machine, I suppose. Well, we wrote them all with drum machines, didn't we? Yeah. We wrote them all with drum machines. Yeah. But if you remember Jeff, Jeff Bot 3000, to give him his full name, he was a proper drummer and he came to see us because I knew him through someone I used to work with. And he wanted to play with us because he wanted to play like a drum machine.
00:31:48
Speaker
So, you know, he used to have like massive kits. He has various different kits for all the work that he does. But when he played with us, he had like a minimal kit. Stripped it down. He really stripped it down. He wanted to play like a machin. And we got really into the idea of messing around with rhythms and stuff like that. And it was great playing with him. But I think I agree. I think that song needed to be actually robotic.
00:32:15
Speaker
Mm, because it's got that kind of, it is a 80s drum machine led thing and with the synth and stuff. So I don't know. I think if we'd practiced it a bit more, we might have got more of the original thing in it. I don't know, maybe eventually, but we didn't. Anyway, we still got the evidence of the recorded version. Yeah. And I really like it. I agree with the unnamed daughter that you have.
00:32:44
Speaker
Absolutely my unnamed daughter and I think it's a good song and I would definitely put it forward to be on next best off because I think it is one of the best songs that we did actually. I wasn't sure about the Johnny Domino podcast but I gave it a chance and now I think I love it. Thank you. Thank you very much. She's our target audience there.
00:33:05
Speaker
That isn't your daughter, by the way. No, no, no, no. Yeah. I mean, do you want to play Devil's Advocate? What is it that you don't like about that song? I know there's stuff that you don't like about it. There's got to be. There always is. We were talking about the recorded version that actually recorded. It goes on too long. It just goes on way too long. It's like six and a half minutes. I know, but sometimes you want that. You want a long song, don't you, sometimes? It's all right. And I do like the fact it's me and you singing on it.
00:33:31
Speaker
It was like one of the first songs we wrote for the album, and for some reason we didn't include it on the album. People used to do that, don't they? They used to like, do a single. We could have released that as a single, you see, and then put it on the album. Yeah, but that's probably just too much work for us. Let's be honest. But remember, it's how not to succeed at music. Yeah, so there's another lesson for anybody listening. Yeah, just don't put one of your best songs on an album.
00:33:58
Speaker
What did Jim do on that one? He played one of the keyboard parts and Elston came alive with his squelchy keyboards and his Nick Rhodes. Yeah, I don't like to think of Jim as being unemployed. No, no, no, no. I mean, that was the thing. We jammed a lot of those songs with all of us in the room. So we had everything that we owned basically plugged in. And, you know, Jim would always further around on the keyboard.
00:34:28
Speaker
It was all good. I remember him all crouched up on the floor, playing his keyboard. Like a little elf. Demanding cups of tea. Well, the whole Johnny Domino story was fueled by tea. And, if you remember, Bobby's Cakes. Bobbies. Remember Bobby's Muffins? Bobby's Muffins. Bobby's Muffins. Bobby's Muffins were very cloying, weren't they? Yeah, they used to clag your throat up. They weren't good to have if you were going to do a vocal. No, no, no, no, no. Don't have a Bobby's before you sing.
00:34:57
Speaker
Oh, the other thing I like about the recorded version is there's bits where the music drops out and that involved me having a finger on each of the eight tracks and pressing them all and pressing them again immediately afterwards. It wasn't Pro Tools, which is why I think the last one is kind of a little bit late. I quite like that. It's very Brian Eno, you see, playing the recording.
00:35:39
Speaker
This are Johnny Domino. Can you believe that these two nerds have been wanging on about their old music for over 30 episodes now? Unbelievable.
00:35:55
Speaker
I'm a bit undecided about that one, Steve. Why? Is it too on the nose? It's got slightly erotic as well. Maybe the listener likes it, I don't know. Maybe they get some kind of thrill from that. It's all good fun.
00:36:09
Speaker
I wasn't sure about the Johnny Domino podcast, but I gave it a chance. And now I think I love it. We just want people to give it a chance. Yes. Give it a chance. Right. Should we listen to another song today? Have we got time for another one? Absolutely. Well, yeah, because at the moment we've only talked about two. Anyway, this is a song that was recorded in 2000.
Introducing 'Superhero' by Natasha
00:36:33
Speaker
No, no.
00:36:34
Speaker
It was not recorded in 2000. It certainly wasn't. It was 1994. So this is 30 years. Oh yes, back in the olden days. Back in the olden days. And it's a song which features on backing vocals Natasha, who has appeared before on one of her cover versions. She sang on our version of the Jesus and Mary Shane song, Reverence.
00:36:58
Speaker
She did. She did. And this is a song called Superhero. It's an acoustic song. Shall we have it? Let's have it.
00:37:23
Speaker
You have seen what you've been missing The whole time you wasted You were kidding yourself You were having a good time But now your eyes are opening And all you can see
00:37:58
Speaker
No one's going to touch you now You're the brand new hero in this town Faces turning I'm pleased to see you And in your ears this last year's tune As if it's new
00:38:31
Speaker
I'm a jesus man, what can you do? You're the new super hero in town No one's going to bring you down No one's going to touch you now You're the brand new hero in this town
00:39:16
Speaker
Look at the boots on your feet They have lost their currency Yeah, it's like a disease Into your credibility And you should get out of this hole Do it now or you never will Yeah, you can have a new history New people provide history
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah, no one here can see What you are and you'll see I think those just seem so clear You think that it is obscene Pissing money off a wall No one here can touch you at all Man, you should get out of this hole Do it now or you never will Look at the boots on your feet They have lost their currency Yeah, it's like a disease Beating your credibility
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah, no one here can see What you are and what you see You're looking for a form No one here can touch you at all So, despite the title Superhero That's not a song about superhero No No I sent this one to Natasha a while ago and
00:40:51
Speaker
Again, she kind of talked herself down and said that she didn't add much to either of the songs I sent her. And I think what she did on that one is she sweetened what is probably one of the nastiest lyrics. I don't know, there's quite a lot of competition.
00:41:06
Speaker
But it's quite a nasty song and it's weird. I thought it was pissed off. I mean, it's a song about somebody who basically comes back after being away and thinks they're better than everybody that they used to know. It's that kind of young person perspective, I suppose. Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
feeling like being dissed by a friend who you were close with I suppose but it's weird isn't it because the thing is we all went away you know quite a lot of us went away to university and we came back differently yeah that song could have been about me it could have been about any of us it could have been about me and maybe it maybe it was about any of us I don't know but it's written from that emotional viewpoint yeah of feeling rejected
00:41:51
Speaker
and being a bit angry about it, I suppose, and writing a bitter song. I don't hate it. I was listening to it, I think it could need some bongos on it. Can we put some bongos on it? Yeah, okay. We can do some bongos, you can put some bongos on it. Can I put some bongos on it? You can put some bongos. Then it could be a potential for the idea. Because, I mean, that's the thing. I actually really like that one.
00:42:16
Speaker
Can you remember when sometimes when I would record guitar bits, I used to sort of drive myself mad trying to get them down. I can remember you being in the room while I was doing it and you were saying, can you just leave it? And I refused. I mean, it's not perfect then, but I really like that sort of like it's got such a weird guitar sound. I think I was listening to the faces probably for the first time in my life. So I was probably channeling a bit of that. I can hear a bit of that.
00:42:45
Speaker
I like the acoustic bit, and I hear what you're saying about the bongos, but when the maracas come in, the one probably made of plastic, it lifts it completely. Yeah, it needs a bit more percussion, doesn't it? If we could record a bit more percussion on it, maybe that one could be on the best off. But I think we'd do a bit of an edit.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah. It could be good. I don't know. I don't mind the weird bit of lyrics. I think there's some quite good lines in it. Yeah. And sometimes you write songs that are a bit nasty and it can be like quite a good prompt for writing a good song. I don't know. Pissing money up a wall. No one here can touch you at all. Yeah. I like that. I don't know. It's good. It's got an energy. It's got a vibe. It's got groove. It's got meaning.
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, it was not a big hit for us though, was it? No, well none of them were, you know. I was listening to this stuff though, I'm sort of thinking, what would it be like to be the sort of person who had popular taste?
00:43:48
Speaker
Because I think when I listen to our recorders, I've been thinking about this a bit. We were trying to record things that we thought sounded good to the best of our abilities, right? And I think our taste is a bit weird compared to the popular taste, the stuff that people like. I mean, look at Chris Martin, right? I don't think Chris Martin is trying to write songs that are
00:44:15
Speaker
I don't think he started off going, I'm going to write a song that's really popular that everyone's going to relate to. He just has got the ability to do it. And he's got the sort of taste that corresponds with lots of other people's taste. What do you think? I don't know. But if you think about something like Ed Sheeran.
00:44:32
Speaker
He, you know, the algorithm called Ed Sheeran. He basically goes, OK, I've got this song on an album. I've got that song on an album. Oh, I need a country song for the album. And then I need one with a kind of banger beat for the album. So you think he does. He basically goes quite calculated then. If he's not, then I don't understand how he can do that. But it does seem not that I listen to
00:45:00
Speaker
full Ed Sheeran albums, but it does seem like if you've listened to the charts and he's got a new album out, all of the songs from the album are in the charts, and you can almost go, well, that's for that market, that's for that market. There's one for the moms, there's one for the little girls, there's one for the boys, and he's trying to hit all the markets, which is probably quite canny because he does quite well, I hear.
00:45:25
Speaker
And the same with like Coldplay, you know, like millions of people like Coldplay. Yeah. And I only like, like a couple of their songs, really. And then the rest of them I don't really like. No. But there are some that I do think are good. Yeah. But it's like, how do you write stuff like that? What must it be like to be popular? What must it be like? Imagine. But it's not like we were trying to be weird.
00:45:55
Speaker
or unpopular or do things that were awkward. It's just how it came out.
00:46:01
Speaker
I think that's fair enough. I think we were just awkward young men. But it is interesting because this is what we were trying to do and certainly with a song like that, and I forgot what I set out to do, we weren't trying to write something which
Musical Influences and Originality
00:46:18
Speaker
is weird. We've been in bands before and certainly when I was writing the music, I was thinking I want to do something which doesn't sound like
00:46:25
Speaker
all the people and obviously it sounds incredibly derivative in retrospect but I was trying to do something which is you know original but I don't think we were trying to be certainly on a song on either of the songs we've talked about tonight I don't think we were going to be writing something which is oh that's like nothing anyone's ever heard no because one of them sounds like Duran Duran and one of them sounds like like faces or something
00:46:53
Speaker
Exactly. Everyone starts off with trying to rip somebody off. I mean, everyone's got inspiration, haven't they? The people we're talking about, like Ed Sheeran and Chris Martin, they're trying to sound like they're influencers. They're not going, oh, this is completely original. So anyway, who's your favorite superhero?
Favorite Superhero: Batman
00:47:16
Speaker
Such a cliche. Probably Batman.
00:47:19
Speaker
Oh, you see, you're right as well, because that is it's my favourite superhero as well. Definitely. I was thinking about it before this episode and I was thinking, what would I say? But definitely Batman. Why is Batman the best? He just is, isn't he? Because, you know, you grow up and the 60s Adam West film is on telly all the time and the 60s Adam West series is on all the time and it's just funny. Yeah, it's like hilarious.
00:47:46
Speaker
Then in the mid to late eighties, comics get really interesting and Frank Miller brings out Dark Knight Returns and it basically it turns him into a vigilante. He's a horrible person. And then he kind of grows with you, really. But, you know, I've never really like Superman is just a bit of a sap and he's a government stooge. And Batman, you know, he always just seems a bit out of it. Yeah.
00:48:15
Speaker
I don't know. I used to read the Marvel comics and stuff, but I don't know. None of them really hit the mark as well as Batman. I just love the old origin story as well. But you know what? Last night, as research, I watched the newest Batman movie, the one with Robert Pattinson. Pattinson? Or is that called The Batman? The Batman.
00:48:40
Speaker
How was it? You know, it looks good, but it didn't. I fell asleep. It's long, man. It's long. So that's my review. I fell asleep. You fell asleep? I fell asleep. Yes. So it wasn't that good. No, can't have been.
00:48:56
Speaker
But he's a bit emo, isn't it? He's like an emo Batman. I suppose he is a bit emo, isn't he really? Well, weirdly, on one of the channels in the UK, Talking Pictures TV, on Saturday mornings, they show one episode of Batman of the 1960s Adam West. And I saw one the other day and it was just great. There you go. You got the superhero appropriate for the time you're living in. Yeah.
00:49:23
Speaker
There we go. So that's the end of the podcast. It's not the end. We've got to the end of the, I know it's going to drag on, but the whole point of it is to assemble a compilation tape of the best of this, our Johnny Domino. It is. And as seems to be the way at the moment, I think we're going to have both of them.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yes, so I think I forgot is a good one. I like it. I agree with the unnamed daughter. Thank you and I would like to put some bongos on superhero and Relive those bittersweet moments again with more percussion, please Very good. I'll send you the file and you can stick some bongos on it. Amazing. Have you got any bongos? I have excellent bongo fury
00:50:12
Speaker
Thank you very much for listening to the podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please share it. And I'm sure they are, but I just want one more thing that I'd like to just say to interrupt you again, as is tradition. Oh, beautiful. I am feeling for the people that are caught up in the madness. That is American politics at the moment. Yes. Yeah. And I'd like to dedicate a song to them.
00:50:41
Speaker
Oh, dear. OK. I've been getting quite obsessed with the Louvin Brothers. OK. The Louvin Brothers were a country and western duo from the 1950s, and they had those blood harmonies, Steve. Beautiful. They were well known for their harmonies, right? And the particular song that I would like to dedicate would be the song, Satan Lied to Me.
00:51:10
Speaker
1956, The Louvin Brothers. That's a title. They did a lot of stuff about Satan, Louvin Brothers. And it's the story of a man who's lost his way in the world. It's got a magnificent talky bit. You know that we love talky bits. I love a talky bit. And he stumbles across a little country church while he's waiting for a friend to go and party in inverted commas. But then it starts to rain.
00:51:36
Speaker
So he has to wait inside the church. And while he's inside the church, in the congregation, he receives a revelation, really. And he sees things for what they are.
00:51:49
Speaker
And I love this kind of music and I'm not religious in any way really, but it's just an amazing portrayal of somebody seeing things clearly and realizing things for what they are. That's the way I listen to it anyway.
00:52:06
Speaker
And I hope that some people in America might perhaps do that. I'm not talking about either side of the argument, really. I just think people are getting a bit caught up in their own particular madness.
00:52:22
Speaker
Yeah, but can we just say that you're not saying there are good people on both sides? Because clearly you're not saying you're not going to pick a side, but there's one side you're not picking. Well, I don't know, man. I mean, no, I'm not. I'm not going to pick a side, but I was, you know, if you want to get into this.
00:52:40
Speaker
I was listening to the Blind Boy podcast, which is a great podcast. If anyone's not listened to that yet, it's an acquired taste, but it is great. And Blind Boy has lots of interesting takes on things. And this week in the podcast, it was very forthright in his opinions about the American election.
00:53:02
Speaker
And it got an interesting view on Kamala Harris, right? And, you know, he's saying, do you want, you know, the choices between someone who's evil, but blatantly evil, and going to do evil things, or somebody who's really got pretending that they're not evil, who's going to do evil things. Which one do you want to choose? It's like Bill Hicks. Which puppet do you want?
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. But so that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that anyone's right or wrong in that respect. You know, it's just I feel sorry for people that it's just such a terrible.
00:53:37
Speaker
I'm glad I'm not living there. Absolutely. Anyway, Louvin Brothers.
Spiritual and Gospel Music Reflections
00:53:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because like you, I'm not religious in any way, but I do listen to things like country music and I listen to Hank Williams and gospel music and, you know, spirituals from the early to mid 20th century, things like that.
00:54:06
Speaker
you get taken up in things like grand parsons is a lot of his music is kind of cosmic and spiritual and in some ways you listen to it sometimes i feel a bit jealous of it because i don't have that you know what i mean but when you listen to it you get swept up in it and like blues music.
00:54:25
Speaker
God-fearing blues music. It's good music, right? Good music is good music. It's not about the ideology. It's about the music and it's about the feeling in the music. And though I'm not into organized religion,
00:54:38
Speaker
In this particular song, Satan lied to me. My interpretation of it is not literal Satan. It's just like you get lied to and you can see the truth. It's about that moment of realization, seeing things from what they actually are.
00:54:56
Speaker
Satan lied to me, Satan lied to me When he said he'd be my friend all I'd ever need Satan lied to me, Satan lied to me He told me I was satisfied Satan lied to me
00:55:15
Speaker
Ira and Charlie, and Ira sadly had a less happy life than Charlie did. They had quite a lot of success, but Ira was notorious for his drinking and his temper, for somebody who sang so many religious songs.
00:55:32
Speaker
I don't know, they were brothers like me and you. So I could see a similar dynamic here. I was married four times and his third wife shot him after he allegedly beat her. Fair enough then. And he died in a car crash. But Charlie had a good life. So there you go. Be more Charlie. Be more Charlie. Be more Charlie. There's nothing else for us to do except
00:55:59
Speaker
Please do like and subscribe to our podcast and recommend it to someone who you think might like listening to all this kind of weird shit. Send us some of your old music and enter the eternal halls of the four-track gods.