Something You Should Know - How to Decide to Stay or Leave & Songs That Changed Rock & Roll

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, how getting a haircut can make you look younger, even if you don't actually cut your hair. Then, how do you decide whether to stay or to go in a job or a relationship? It can be a hard decision. I think it's helpful to remember something that a friend of mine, Holly Good, said to me when I was questioning a situation that I was invited to be a part of. And little tiny red flags started to show up.

Starting point is 00:00:58 And she said to me, tiny red flags rarely shrink. They only grow. Also, how retailers appeal to your sense of smell to get you to buy. And a look at some of the most iconic and important songs in rock and roll. They changed music history. Each one of these had a fundamental role to play in either influencing everyone else or becoming an influence on those who came after. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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Starting point is 00:02:13 And we're going to start today with something that's just kind of cool. It turns out that a trip to the salon to get your hair cut can cut years off your looks. A study was done by Harvard and MIT. They sent women to a salon to get their hair cut and colored, and the results were astonishing. After the hairstyling, before and after photos were scored by strangers, and in every case, the age of the women were guessed lower in the after shot. But what's so remarkable about this is that the hair was cropped out of both photos.

Starting point is 00:02:53 So it turns out that the new hairdo had nothing to do with the youthful glow. It was the pampering and that sense of change that gave women a boost of confidence in their appearance. And that's what made them look younger. And that is something you should know. There comes a time in everyone's life, probably multiple times actually, where you have a choice to make. Do I stay or do I go? Could be a job or a relationship or a friendship or where you live.

Starting point is 00:03:28 You have to choose to continue as is or walk away and move on. And it can be a very difficult choice to make. Here to discuss how to tackle this life situation is Emily Freeman. She's host of a podcast called The Next Right Thing, and she's author of five books. Her latest is called How to Walk into a Room, The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. Hi, Emily. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. It's so good to be here. So let's start with you explaining this issue a little deeper, this dilemma of should I stay or should I go and why it's so difficult.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Well, first, I think why it's so difficult is big picture. As long as we live, we will be making decisions. And I know you're intelligent and curious. Listeners want to make really good ones. I think the decisions that give us the most trouble are often the ones where we're deciding whether or not it's time for us to move on from a space or to stay put. And I think, I mean, this idea of decision making, every one of us has the responsibility to some degree or another to continue to do this decision making. We can't graduate from it, retire from it, age out of it or delegate it. And so this idea of, okay, I'm the one who needs to decide this to move on or to stay.

Starting point is 00:04:53 And a lot of times we feel really lost to know where to begin. And I think one of those reasons is because when we are holding that decision about, is this a space for me now, still, or next, that is often tied deeply to our identity. It's tied deeply to our sense of belonging. And oftentimes, it's something or some place that we may have worked really hard to get to. And so when we start to question it, it feels like the stakes are really high. So let's get really real with this and talk about the situation. Should I go or should I stay

Starting point is 00:05:34 from what? What kinds of things are we talking about? Stay or go from things like a job or even a particular vocation, a faith community, even a volunteer position, stay or go from maybe even a friend group. Relationally, there can be questions about whether or not I should stay here or go. And again, some of these have higher stakes than others. But I think they all are questions that, you know, in my conversations with people over many years of being someone who talks a lot about decision making and discernment, I have found that those are the types of questions that give people the most trouble. When I think about the times in my life where I have had that struggle to figure out, do I stay or do I go? I hear this voice. I think it's my father telling me, you know, quitters don't, you don't quit. No, you've got to see this through. You've got to

Starting point is 00:06:33 push your way through this. You don't just walk away. That's the chicken thing to do. And that's a very strong voice. You just perfectly illustrated a narrative that you have. And it's a script that you've been handed or one that has developed over time. We all have them. And it's not bad us because they those scripts those narratives of for example what it means to quit or leave and what it means to stay at least to be able to look at those can give us a really great starting point so that our narrative of either leaving being a leaver or being a stayer isn't the only thing that determines our next right thing.

Starting point is 00:07:26 When you talk to people, or maybe there's research about this, that generally speaking, do people make the right decision or do they regret that later on, do they regret the decision they made in these kind of situations? You know, that's an excellent question. And I don't have a research answer, but I will say, I think that the fear of regretting the decision, when I've talked with a lot with people and, you know, I interviewed my, I surveyed my own audience and ask, like, do you consider yourself to be a decisive person or an indecisive person? 30% of them said, I consider myself decisive. But the rest said, no, I'm indecisive. And the number one reason they cited was, I'm afraid I'm going to regret my decision. I'm afraid I'm going to make the wrong decision.

Starting point is 00:08:20 And oftentimes, it was because their decision was going to impact not only them, but someone else or a group of someone else's. And that can be really scary. And that's when the stakes do feel really high. I remember hearing a long time ago someone say, and I've always liked this advice, that it's not so much the decision you make to stay or to go or any decision. It's really your commitment to the decision. Do you make it and run with it? Or do you always second guess and look back and wonder what if you had done something else? That's a big factor.

Starting point is 00:08:59 I think that you're really onto something there. I think we tend to think it's about a binary choice. It's between, and the choice is something that's right and something that's wrong. And I love the phrase, just do the next right thing. It's one that I have hung my hat on for many years. It's something I have borrowed from others. I didn't come up with it. We know many have said that before us, but I think a lot of times we get hung up on that word, right? But I would love to encourage us to think about the word next. And when we just think about what is the next thing, even if it's a large, big decision

Starting point is 00:09:35 to make, a lot of times we're not really tasked with making the final decision right now. We just need to do one next thing, one next right thing. And you're right. I think it is in hindsight, when I look back over my own life and I look at the decisions I've made, the rooms I've entered in and out of, if I think about all of life is like a house and every room has a story and some rooms we're in and we're in forever. And other rooms we begin to question and we decide maybe we ought to leave or it's time to try something different for various reasons. But when I look back on those and I think, you know, maybe there wasn't a specific right or wrong. Perhaps it was less about the final decision in the end. And it was more about both, like you said, committing to the decision that you choose, like, this is what we're doing. We're going to move forward with it. But I would also add to that, it's also about the person who I am becoming. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that, that it's not just, do I do this or that? Do I go here or there? But it's also, who am I becoming in the process of making that decision? I think one of the struggles people have when they have these decisions to make, you know, to quit this job or not quit or to stay or to leave this friendship or relationship or stay is they don't know what to base it on. They don't know what

Starting point is 00:10:58 criteria to use. And just because, you know, I've got that voice in my head, I don't know that that's worth listening to in any one decision. I don't know what the criteria is. What should I be considering? How do you make an answer reveal itself in those kind of situations when you don't know how to do it? Well, I think a few things come to mind. I think it's helpful to have a simple framework. I think it's helpful to have some questions that you always ask yourself. I think it's also helpful to remember something that a friend of mine, Holly Good, said to me years and years ago when I was

Starting point is 00:11:35 questioning a situation that I was invited to be a part of. And in that situation, little tiny red flags started to show up. And I was like, oh, I don't know if I should enter into this commitment because I'm starting to see a few things that make me uncomfortable. But they're small and little. And maybe I should ignore them. And maybe it's just me. And she said to me, Emily, tiny red flags rarely shrink. They only grow.

Starting point is 00:11:58 And I have found that to be quite true, not only in my professional life, but in my personal life. But what I've also found, I've added to that statement because it was so helpful for me. Okay, tiny red flags rarely shrink, they only grow. But every hesitation is not a red flag. And so I think that can be the first step when you are like, I'm having a question about the space or this group of people or this commitment, but I'm not sure what to do with it and I'm not sure what to do with it. And I'm not sure what to base it on.

Starting point is 00:12:30 I think the first thing to do is to notice and name where the flags are, but don't immediately call them red. Just name them yellow. This is a caution flag. This is something that I want to slow down and I'm going to question and I'm going to spend some time with and just assume that it's a yellow flag at first. And yellow flags, this is my flag math, yellow flags can become green flags. But once you recognize something as a red flag, even if it's very tiny, it's rarely going to shrink. It's almost always going to grow.

Starting point is 00:12:56 So I think it's important to pay attention when we do find a red flag, to pay close attention to those and let those be an important arrow, at least, as we consider what to do next. We're talking about those life decisions we all have to make to stay or leave. And my guest is Emily Freeman, author of the book, How to Walk into a Room, The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings

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Starting point is 00:13:54 Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now, in-store, or online at BestBuy.ca. Exclusions apply. So Emily, you said a moment ago to pay attention to those red flags, and I don't really know what pay attention to them means. I mean, do I follow them? Do I just file that information away in my brain? What do you mean pay attention to? Well, I think it's the first step of a framework that I like to use. And that's the first step is point and call. And that's based on, and this is a way of paying attention. It's based on, James Clear talks about it actually in Atomic Habits,

Starting point is 00:14:38 but it's based on the railway system in Japan. It's one of the best in the world, thanks at least in part to its safety system of what they call pointing and calling. And it's where every detail of the operation of the train is identified, pointed out, and named out loud, almost like what you would see a toddler do if they're playing like, oh, there's a ball, there's a dog. It's soft. This is fun. Just very simple things. But these train operators, they identify, they point out, and they name out loud using various human senses. And the purpose of doing all of that is to minimize mistakes. And it actually works We can do the same thing in the various spaces and relationships in our lives, raising our level of awareness of attention. Okay, here's what's true right now. And the reason why paying attention, you know, that does sound kind of nebulous,

Starting point is 00:15:37 but the reason why I think it's important as that's a first step is because oftentimes we make our decisions about staying or leaving based on a feeling or based on maybe one or two hard things that happened there. And we don't take the time to evaluate the whole room. I'm just using room as metaphor here, but the whole room of that space, whether that's a job or a vocation. And so we kind of hone in on the squeakiest wheel. And maybe we might rush out of that room too quickly because we haven't actually point and called to the whole thing. And so I

Starting point is 00:16:12 think that's when I say paying attention and it can be like, well, do what with it? Well, I think first you name it. And then second, I think rather than trying to look ahead into the foggy future and figuring out, okay, so what's my next thing? Instead, when making decisions, I say our best indicator of our next right thing is to pay attention to our last right thing. And that's remembering our path is looking back and thinking about, well, what has my life taught me already? What decisions have I already made that can help me inform what decisions I'm going to

Starting point is 00:16:44 make next? Because in many ways, the path, the only path we have available to us is the one we've already walked. So there's a lot we can learn there. And once we do that, the third step in this framework is to acknowledge presence because we can't, we are not always meant, sometimes we're required to make decisions alone. But man, we have communities around us. We have families around us who can really come alongside of us and help us to discern,

Starting point is 00:17:11 okay, here's what I've pointed and called. And here's what I've discovered about myself in the past. So, okay, friend or family member who I trust and who knows me, what do you see happening here? What do you see that I don't see? And can you support me as I move forward into my next thing? And that sort of brings us to that final piece of the framework, which is yield to the arrows. And what I mean by arrows is, you know, when we have a decision to make, so often we have a decision and we want an answer,

Starting point is 00:17:42 and we're looking for the straight line, step one, step two. But so many times in life, when it comes to deciding to go or to stay, it's more like I live in North Carolina. And if I'm going to travel to Florida, I can't leave my neighborhood and see a sign that says this way to Florida. Instead, I see a road sign that I'm familiar with. And then maybe I'll get to the highway and I see a road sign that I'm familiar with, and then maybe I'll get to the highway and I see a road sign that might take me to Charlotte. But I'm not going to see the final step. I have to follow arrows along the way. And so that's sort of what I mean by yielding to the

Starting point is 00:18:15 arrows, that we may not know today or tomorrow whether or not it's time for me to leave. But these are some things we can pay attention to. We can look back at past decisions. We can depend on people around us who know us. And then we can discern, okay, what's my next right thing now? Well, I like what you said about depending on people around us. Because isn't it interesting how if somebody else had the same decision to make and they came to you for advice, often the answer is just so crystal clear. Like, why are you even asking? Why are you even saying this out loud?

Starting point is 00:18:50 And when it's your decision to make, it gets all fogged up and it's hard to see on the other side. Well, and listen, I feel like, I mean, I've hosted a podcast for almost seven years now called The Next Right Thing. And people are like, oh, you're the decision making person. You must make great decisions. Absolutely not. I feel like sometimes I know too much and I think about this stuff so much that I so often have to go to some of my closest friends or to my husband and be like, what do you see that I don't see? Help me to, and they'll say to me, honestly and truly, line for line, things I've said to them, but you're exactly right. There's just something about our, and we just can't, we can't read our own label. We can't see it for

Starting point is 00:19:36 ourselves. So it's so helpful to have those people you feel better? But, you know, what happens to everything else that all the cascading of events that happen from the decision you make, you're going to lose a friend or you're going to something's going to happen. You're going to have to move. I mean, there's a lot to consider. And it isn't just the decision. It's all the other things that fall as a result. That's exactly right. And that's what often keeps us procrastinating our decisions is because we are so aware of either the fallout, the repercussions, the whatever comes on the other side of it. I have found a few practices to be helpful for me when I'm considering or when I've gone through my own endings. You know, I sold a business I helped to start.

Starting point is 00:20:43 We left a faith community that we loved and thought we would be at forever. We've made school decisions for our kids. My husband left a job about 10 years ago. So we've done this a lot. And I'm sure many of us have done this at various times in our lives. I've found a few things to be helpful. And one is to kind of reframe my idea of closure. I think a lot of times we imagine that an ending didn't go well because it didn't feel good or it was difficult or hard. And I think we often hope that our endings, the endings of things will look a lot like the final episode of our favorite sitcom where like the people get married or they have a baby and they leave their apartment and close the door and the music plays and all the loose ends are tied up and all the storylines have a lovely bow. And we know that's not true in life. Like we could we know that's not true. But when we feel that disconnect of an ending where we didn't get to explain ourselves or

Starting point is 00:21:47 the finances were tougher than we thought they would be, or people think we made a bad decision, even though even if we feel good about it, there are things we can't take with us when we walk out of rooms. But there are a lot of things we can take. And so for me, I have found it to be helpful to make literal lists, like on a piece of paper with my hand, make a list of here are the gifts I'm bringing with me

Starting point is 00:22:13 as I leave this room, whatever the room is, and write them down. Here are things that wouldn't be true if it weren't for this room that I had. And then writing a second list of things I'm going to leave behind. I would bet that just about everybody

Starting point is 00:22:29 has some decision in their past that they made that they wonder what could have been. If they had done something different, what could have been? And that's hard to live with, I think, sometimes. That what could have been,

Starting point is 00:22:46 it's such a trap. Because once you've chosen and taken your step forward, it's almost like you have to pretend like there was no other option. Because this is where we're at now. And that's really hard for particularly some personalities. That's harder for others. Other personalities, they never look back. And I would say, I would invite that person to maybe practice a regular habit of reflection, see what you can learn when you reflect.

Starting point is 00:23:14 But then there are those of us who live in the past and we're constantly evaluating and reevaluating what could have been. And I think that's equally not helpful, I would say, as not looking back at all. Right. Because any story you create in your head about what could have been is always going to be wonderful. It's never going to be real. It's just going to be, oh, imagine how great it would have been if I married Susie instead of Betty. And, well, you don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:38 Susie could have been a real nightmare. I don't know. I mean, how do you know? Susie could have been a nightmare. That's exactly right. Well, as you've been talking, I have, well, and maybe other people have been doing this too, thinking of times in my life where, you know, those stay or go moments and thinking about the choices I made.

Starting point is 00:23:55 And some I think were the right choice and maybe others weren't, but we'll never know. I've been speaking with Emily Freeman. She is host of the podcast, The Next Right Thing, and she's author of a book called How to Walk into a Room, The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Emily. Awesome. Thank you so much. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

Starting point is 00:24:33 Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit FlyPorter.com and actually enjoy economy. Everybody has their favorite rock and roll songs or pop songs. And some of those individual songs actually had an impact on music and on the world. As a former disc jockey who played rock and roll music on the radio for several years,

Starting point is 00:25:35 I love talking about music and what went on behind the scenes of some of those iconic songs. And someone else who likes to talk about rock and roll is Mark Myers. He's a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, where he writes about music and the arts. He's author of the critically acclaimed books, Anatomy of a Song, Why Jazz Happened, and his latest book, which is called Anatomy of 55 More Songs, the oral history of top hits that changed rock, pop, and soul. Hey, Mark, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey, Mike, great to be with you. So first, I should say, and I'm sure most people know, that we are restricted from playing the music that we're about to talk about

Starting point is 00:26:18 because we would have to obtain the rights to play that music, which would be a monumental task. But actually, the songs we're going to talk about, I bet most people know anyway. You picked 55 songs, and obviously we can't talk about all 55, but we can talk about some of them. And so why did you pick these songs? Because how iconic or how important a song is can be pretty subjective. So why the ones that you picked? They changed music history. Each one of these had a fundamental role to play in either influencing

Starting point is 00:26:53 everyone else or becoming an influence on those who came after. So let's start with Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, because that is an iconic song. It sounds different than any other song you had ever heard up to that time. There were stories going around that it took forever to record. It was recorded in several different studios. So talk about that. It was the most costly single ever to have been produced prior to that time. It was something like $400,000 for one single. The thing that makes it so interesting is that it's not so much the many different studios where they recorded, but the amount of layering and the amount of overdubbing and the shifts that are going on in this particular song it's it's quite fascinating

Starting point is 00:27:47 when you hear how many times this song changes mood quite interesting do we know is this is this one of the songs that the wrecking crew people played on or did the beach boys actually play on it uh the beach Boys themselves appeared on the covers of their albums and they appeared on stage in concerts. But in the recording studio, when you listen to the records, the people who are playing on there aren't the Beach Boys. It's the so-called wrecking crew, which was a euphemism or a nickname for studio musicians in Los Angeles who got things right the first time and could invent new things on the fly. That's why Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys decided to use these guys because his, for lack of a better word, hero or his mentor, Phil Spector,

Starting point is 00:28:41 was using these guys. And Brian felt that if he was going to produce, he needed things to be just right, and he didn't want to spend endless amounts of time trying to get it right. So by using the Wrecking Crew, he had pros in there. And that was true of many of the songs of that era, and may still be true, I don't know. But, I mean, there were lots of stories of artists who didn't play music on

Starting point is 00:29:06 their own records. And to some extent, it is still true today. I mean, you have, you know, it's true to the extent that a lot of what you hear is done by studio musicians. But back then, groups, most kids back in the 1960s thought that the people whose faces appeared on the record and whose name appeared on the record were actually playing and they weren't. And I guess the first group that exposed that accidentally in an article in Look magazine were the Monkees. It turned out none of the Monkees were playing on those records and kids were, I think parents were more aghast than kids. I don't think kids cared one way or the

Starting point is 00:29:50 other. It just sounded good and that's all that mattered. Yeah. And interestingly, they got to be halfway decent musicians so they could tour. Eventually, correct. How about a song that maybe is one of your favorites or, you know, a song that really changed music history? Look at the Spinners, I'll Be Around, which I think is a favorite of yours as well. Right, Mike? Yeah, well, I've always been a big Spinners fan. And I got to know them back in my disc jockey days. I got to know them really pretty well.

Starting point is 00:30:20 And they were really terrific guys who struggled. I mean, they were with motown records for a long time and really didn't do much they had one pretty good size hit with motown but but really until they moved to atlantic records and got hooked up with their producer tom bell that that's when their their careers took off and and did pretty well And in fact, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. Yeah, I mean, I'll Be Around comes out in July 1972. It goes to number three. It was actually began as a challenge. Tom Bell was challenged by Vince Montana, who said, I bet you music is getting so complicated, Tom. I bet you can't create a hit with just three chords.

Starting point is 00:31:07 And Tom took up that challenge and wrote I'll Be Around, wrote the music for it. The lyrics were by a guy named Phil Hurt, H-U-R-T-T. And the whole point of the song, which was sort of radical for the time, is that, you know, in the song, the guy who's singing, his girlfriend wants to see other people. And instead of blowing his top, he says, sure, go ahead. And if things don't work out, I'll be here for you. Now, what's interesting is the lyrics are written by Phil while he's watching a 76ers game with the volume turned down, he's watching basketball and writing the lyrics. But the biggest game changer here, Mike, the biggest game changer is Earl Young's drumming. Because what you hear on this particular song, when you hear Earl Young playing the drums, he came up with this native american beat on the drums and it became really is the very first

Starting point is 00:32:08 disco beat prior to the disco movement this is what i mean by changing music history what a fool believes is one of those songs that as soon as you hear that those first whatever whatever that is you know here it comes and i don't know anybody who doesn't like What a Fool Believes by the Doobie Brothers. It's one of those songs, it's like Up, Up and Away by the Fifth Dimension. It's like one of those songs when it comes on the radio, nobody would ever turn it off. In other words, you just listen to it to the end, even if you've heard it a million times. It's just so good and catchy and fun and changes in just the right places. What was interesting about this particular song is that Michael told

Starting point is 00:32:52 me, this is Michael McDonald, the co-composer of this song and a member of the Doobie Brothers, that when he was writing this song in 1978, he came up with that introduction that you like so much, Mike, but he only had the verse and the melody and the lyrics that he came from somewhere back in her long ago. That's the first verse. That's all he had. And he couldn't get beyond that. And instead of constantly trying to rework it and rework it and rework it, he said, why don't I team up with Kenny Loggins? Let me see if Kenny Loggins will write with me. And maybe we can move this thing, you know, to another point. So he calls up Kenny.

Starting point is 00:33:35 Kenny comes down to write with him. And the whole point of that song is that a guy, the guy in the song, believes because his ex-girlfriend had coffee with him, she was going to get back with him. But the point of the song is that's never going to happen because it's not a breakup and it's not a makeup song, but it's a fool trying to get back together when it's so apparent that it's never going to happen.

Starting point is 00:34:02 And both the Doobie Brothers and Kenny Loggins each released it as a single. Kenny Loggins was the co-writer, as I just mentioned, right? So Kenny decides to release this song, his way, on his album Nightwatch, six months before the Doobie Brothers released it in December of 79.

Starting point is 00:34:23 So in July of 79, Kenny Loggins releases it on Nightwatch and the song goes nowhere. And when it came out in December, I said to Kenny, how did you feel when that song came out? You know, when you heard Michael's version and Kenny just paused and he said, I, when I heard Michael's version, I wished I could have re-recorded my song. I totally got it wrong. I mean, Michael had it right on the nose. Come and Get Your Love by Redbone is, you know, my 14-year-old son a few years ago loved that song. And I think because it was in a movie that the kids were watching or something.

Starting point is 00:35:04 But there's something so timeless about that song. And I think because it was in a movie or that the kids were watching or something. But there's something so timeless about that song. People, it's catchy. People love it. You can group made up entirely of Native Americans. And Pat Vegas wanted to show that Native Americans were about love, not the stuff of Westerns, of scalpings, of all the stuff that was being portrayed, that he wanted to show the peaceful love side. And when you hear that opening, most people don't know what that first word is that is being sung. And it's actually hail, H-A-I-L, hail, what's the matter with your hair, right? So it's kind of interesting what the lyrics are because it's coming from this Native American perspective. But the whole point of that song just illustrates all of the trivial things that women worry about in relationships like their hair or their astrological sign.

Starting point is 00:36:13 And the point of that song is, forget about all that junk. Just how do you feel? Come and get your love. If you feel the love, come and get your love. And there's a lot of fascinating, as you point out, in terms of instrumentation, there's a lot of fascinating you know as you point out with in terms of instrumentation there's a lot of interesting instrumentation on there if you listen carefully there's an electric sitar the indian instrument that you hear um it's electrified and it's matched against a fender telecaster which is another type of guitar. So as I look at your list of songs, I agree and I like most of them. It's kind of my taste in music. But with one exception, well, it's not really an exception.

Starting point is 00:36:54 I just never thought it was much of a song, and that is Smoke on the Water. I just thought it's kind of, eh, it just didn't do much for me. So I want to hear how it changed music history because I never was a big fan. I remember when this song came out in 1973. And other than a couple of groups that were starting to play a little bit hard, harder than pop rock on the radio, keep in mind, all you had in the 1960s was AM radio. And even into the early 70s, all you had was AM radio. It wasn't until the import of Japanese component systems like Pioneer and Sony, where they started including the FM band on the integrated receiver or that part that you turn on and turn up the volume,

Starting point is 00:37:40 there was suddenly an FM band. Much of what you heard was AM radio. So American Woman was harder, slightly harder. But no, hard rock didn't exist yet. Didn't exist yet to the extent that it would in the 70s. Smoke on the Water, that was the first hard rock song I heard on AM radio. It was a complete game changer. And it too opened the door for harder stuff like Led Zeppelin and The Who. So you pick one. You pick one that has a good story that might surprise me. Let's look at September, Mike, by Earth, Wind & Fire, which came out in 1978 and went to number one. There's something magical about the chemistry of that thing where you're constantly uplifted. And there's a reason why people use it at weddings.

Starting point is 00:38:28 And, you know, there's just something about it. And at this particular time in 1978, Earth, Wind & Fire was going to put out its first Greatest Hits album. And they wanted to add one new song so that people would buy it. That was kind of the trick back then. Greatest Hits albums would come out, but the group would add one song, and that would be a new song, and hopefully it would be a hit. And this is the song that they wanted to put out. And Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire had some notes in terms of the lyrics. The music was already written, but he needed a co-writer. And he turned to a

Starting point is 00:39:06 woman by the name of Allie Willis to come in and help him write the song. Now, when she took a look at the lyrics, and she's a pro, but the fascinating thing is that when she takes a look at the lyrics, she says to him, oh, so badia, that's just holding space. You want me to put lyrics in there. And Maurice White says, no, Badia stays. That's not going. And she goes, yeah, but it's just not happening. He said, leave it in. I really want it in. So she writes the lyrics, the lyrics that you hear on the song. She wrote the lyrics. And when it was time to record, she went into the studio, dropped to her knees, grabbed him by the legs and said, please, Maurice, please let me put words to, to body. It's just, it sounds like yada, yada, just filler. And he goes, leave it. And the song turned out to be a huge hit and ali said the lesson she

Starting point is 00:40:07 learned there is never get in the way of the groove as a lyricist if the groove works it doesn't matter what the lyrics are don't try to change what's there which is kind of funny there is or there was you can probably clear it, some mystery over the lyrics and the date in the lyrics. Talk about that. I think the most fascinating thing that nobody knew prior to my interviewing Ali and then Maurice White's widow, nobody quite understood what the 21st day of September meant in that song, the lyric. Yeah. in that song, the lyric. And when I asked Allie, Allie said for the longest time, she just thought it just sang better than the 23rd or the 20th. Like it just had a better sound.

Starting point is 00:40:53 And when I interviewed Maurice White's widow, she said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, there was a definite meaning to that. And I said, what was it? She said, I was due. We were due to have our first child on the 21st of September. And I kept reminding Maurice, look, whatever you're doing, whatever you're touring, whatever you're in the studio, you've got to remember the 21st day of September is when your baby is due. You've got to be freed up. You've got to be around. And that's the lyric line.

Starting point is 00:41:26 Do you remember the 21st day of September? Don't forget. Isn't that fascinating? Rocket Man, Elton John. Well, what's interesting for me about this is the timing. It's 1972. And you have to remember, people think of Americans landing on the moon in 1969 as a one and done. But what many probably don't remember, I do, I lived during this period, is that the Apollo program had six manned landings. So after 1969, there were five more. And what fascinated Bernie Taupin as he wrote the lyrics, because with Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Bernie Taupin being the lyricist, Elton John being the composer, is that the lyrics always came first. Bernie would write these abstract poems or he'd put these lyrics together without any sense of music in his head and then go into the next room and hand the sheet of words to Elton John. And Elton John would read the words and get a feeling for how he wanted to express that music. And he'd add the music.

Starting point is 00:42:31 So Bernie wrote these words at this particular moment in time, partially inspired by Ray Bradbury's short story, The Rocket Man, science fiction story from the early 1950s. That's important because that Rocket Man story is about the drudgery of being an astronaut. You know, that it was almost like, you know, back then in the 50s, being outer space was so fascinating. Everything was about outer space. It was about Martians. You know, America was captivated by outer space. And what Bradbury was saying at that particular moment in time is eventually astronauts are

Starting point is 00:43:15 going to be like truck drivers. It's going to be just boring to have to go off into space and leave your family for extended periods of time. People who do it aren't going to enjoy doing it, but they have to because that's how they pay their bills. So this whole concept that space travel, as fascinating as it was in the early 1970s because it was actually happening, that it would become drudgery is what prompted Bernie Taupin to write the lyrics that he did, and Elton felt it as a power ballad. I mean, keep in mind, this is one of the great power ballads of the early 1970s.

Starting point is 00:43:51 This is a slow song that builds and builds and builds and just explodes in energy. Well, one of the... It's not for me to say, but I like Elton John. I've always liked Elton John, but he does not enunciate. Out with it, Mike, out with it. He does not enunciate lyrics very well. I don't have any idea what he's saying in many of his songs because of the way he sings. It's hard to hear the words.

Starting point is 00:44:24 And so Rocketman- Completely agree. Completely agree. But you want to know something? That's part of the charm of a lot of British rock. In other words, do you really know what Bowie is singing without looking at the lyrics? And do you understand half the Beatles songs after 1966? Probably not without knowing the lyrics.

Starting point is 00:44:43 So part of the charm of some of these is that as a kid listening to the radio or listening to the music you most people just sang they sang lyrics they came up with their own lyrics to the songs based on what they think i mean does anybody know the lyrics to benny and the jets without looking at a sheet of paper? Right, that's my thing. Like, if you're Bernie Taupin, you gotta be thinking, come on, Elton, I spent all this time writing these. Could you say them clearly so people can

Starting point is 00:45:14 hear the words I wrote? Hey, you know, I say it a little differently, Mike. It's part of the sculpture. You know, it's part of the cubist interpretation of it. It doesn't matter. You know, it turns out people didn't, you know, if you look at of the cubist interpretation of it. It doesn't matter. You know, it turns out people didn't, you know, if you look at a list of songs that people bought and didn't buy over a hundred year period,

Starting point is 00:45:33 it had nothing to do with the words because many of the biggest hits, the words are unintelligible. Elton John wouldn't have been as successful as he was and is if all that mattered was, can I understand what he's saying? So it's the expression, it's the emotion combined with the music that matters most. Everybody I know, and I'm sure the same, just came up with different lyrics for it. Well, I get what you're saying, but to me, Elton John is

Starting point is 00:46:06 kind of beyond the limit of even if you try to understand what he's saying, and even if you look at the lyrics and listen to him, it's like really? That's what he's saying? It's a little past acceptable to me, but everybody's different, and it

Starting point is 00:46:22 certainly has worked for Elton John. I mean, what a career. This has been fun, Mark. I've been speaking with Mark Myers, who is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, where he writes about music and the arts. And the name of his book is Anatomy of 55 More Songs, the oral history of top hits that change rock, pop, and soul. There's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:46:44 I appreciate you coming on and talking about all this, Mark. It was fun. You're excellent at what you do, Mike. It's just a joy to do this with someone who brings a level of sophistication and familiarity and closeness to the music that makes it that much more interesting. And it pushes me to be as articulate as I possibly can. You may have noticed that some stores and even the merchandise

Starting point is 00:47:13 that they sell in those stores are smelling better than they used to. Savvy manufacturers have figured out that many of us are suckers for sweet smells and they're adding scents to some everyday items. You can smell some of those trendy teen stores a mile away. But there's a more subtle approach, too. Some manufacturers even use scented embroidery thread woven into their product.

Starting point is 00:47:40 Research shows that items like scented pencils and facial tissues have increased sales. Scent is one of the best ways to make a product's name and shape linger in your memory and increase the chances that you will buy it again. And that is something you should know. I'm sure you have a very long to-do list, but if I could ask you to just add one thing to it, and that is to tell somebody about this podcast, a friend, a neighbor, a family member, and ask them to listen.

Starting point is 00:48:11 You can share by using the three little dots on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and just share a link to an episode. It'd be greatly appreciated. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney?

Starting point is 00:48:27 Do you love top 10 lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you

Starting point is 00:48:52 didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures? You got this. No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either.

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Something You Should Know - How to Decide to Stay or Leave & Songs That Changed Rock & Roll

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