Episode 154: The Dog Days of Summer
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Transcript
Time Crisis. So much to talk about. We're talking soul movies, Luke Holmes, Luke Bryant, all this.
Plus, the word deep, the word groovy, and the phrase far out. This is Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Time Crisis, back again. Jake, what's up? Not much. Just getting situated here. Just crushing a turkey sandwich.
You know, I remember hearing stories about radio professionals that would show up
20 seconds before they went on air. Yeah. And just be like, immediately just like get into gear and
just like go. Well, it's kind of like that movie talk radio, just like all this going on behind the
scenes and just being like, no, I'm not going to do it. No, you tell him I'm not doing it. All right.
Welcome back here. All right, Matt. Like, yeah. And you're on in three, two, one. And then like, yeah,
I'm not that. But yeah, I'm just finishing a turkey sandwich, settling in. Excited for some
old school banked Epps. Yes, this is a banked Epp, full disclosure, but that doesn't mean it's any
less fresh. You have no idea when we recorded this, it could have been any time in the past
30 years. This is, there's like a Neil, did you listen to that Neil Young album? That was like,
he had a banked album from the mid seventies called Homegrown. Do you check that out?
I did. Yeah. It's like a full lot, like album. He chose not to release. Is it good?
Yeah. I'd heard a few of the songs. I think they crept on the other things.
Oh, okay. But yeah, it's any good. I mean, honestly, I don't, it's, I listened to it once,
like when was that? Two years ago, it came out. That's always a psychotic thing of like recording
a full album and just being like, nope. I can't even imagine that. But I guess if you're Neil
Young, you'd like bang out an album and you'd write the songs over like three weeks and then
you bang it out in like three days. If it's truly just like a month of output,
then I guess that's not a big deal. I mean, yeah, he was releasing like at least an album a year
in that era. Now I'm very curious about that record. Should we throw it on?
Yeah. Let's listen to some Homegrown.
So just to be clear, this bank time crisis was recorded in 1975 and using our kind of music
industry show biz connections, we're listening to an album that Neil Young just made, which he told
us he's not going to release. This is recorded in a cabin in the hills above Malibu, June of 75.
Neil said we could play some on our internet radio show. He said, whatever the f**k that is,
as long as it's a banked up for minimum 46 years.
Well, this was released in 2020.
Yeah, no, full lost album.
Uh, material recorded between June of 74 and January 75.
Okay.
The album was recorded after the release of On the Beach and before the sessions for Zuma.
Great run for Neil.
Oh, man, a hell of a run. The album was compiled and prepared for release in 75. Instead,
Tonight's the Night was released in its place and Homegrown remained unreleased for decades.
That could be an interesting banked up. I don't know how we do it. I don't think me and Jake
would be able to keep up the shtick too long, but if we actually made like a retro time crisis,
where we were like, because we've joked about it in the past, we're just like,
oh yeah, in time crisis in 1991 when we had Jerry on.
Yeah. Like when we...
Public community radio in Berkeley.
Exactly. We used to be on the Berkeley station. What is it like KALX or something?
Or KPFA.
KPFA. Maybe we'd have to like hire some actors and just be like, uh, this is a sweet chili heat
world premiere of a full lost time crisis episode. It would actually be funny if our voices were
older. We get to like crunchy old dudes in like 91. They're just like, what's up brother?
Now to do what we're going to say, like, how would you do voices in 1991? I guess you could
do it as like old heads. Cause if we were doing like a fictional episode from the mid seventies,
we'd be like, oh, right, man. Like, right.
Yeah. I think they'd be old-ish. Yeah. But the funny thing is they wouldn't even be that old.
Yeah. So they'd be like, they'd be like my age now. Yeah. Basically guys in their mid forties
in 91. Yeah. Not too old, but actually my dad was 44 in 91.
Oh, perfect.
Cause he's 30 years older than me.
Is your dad's name, John?
Yeah.
Just like you technically.
I am a junior.
Maybe the backstory is that your dad started it. Your dad started time crisis.
Well, we've talked about how this is a legacy, uh, show. So it was hosted by our parents. You
know, my dad, my dad was the, uh, you know, on air producer Seinfeld's dad was doing social.
I don't, I guess what would social.
Seinfeld's dad, Jerry Seinfeld did social media. He's pretty busy in the nineties.
He was designing all the newspaper advertisements that would run in the local.
Right. I think manning the phone lines to probably the letter based fan mail that would come in.
And he was sending out the newsletter, the quarterly newsletter.
So he was just recording record. Like he'd recorded tonight's night, uh, in 73 and it
was unreleased until 75.
Really?
He recorded tonight's the night before on the beach, but released it after.
Whoa.
I think you're right. I think he would work quickly.
Yeah. I mean like how many takes do you think they were doing of like the song tonight's the
night that could be like one take.
Yeah. Not, not a lot.
Crazy horse was dialed in, man. Show him the song, run it a few times. Like let's record this.
And also like he, uh, yeah, he's such a great singer too. I was listening to
a live album from the seventies that they just put out this year called young Shakespeare.
Oh wow.
And just listening to him. It's just like Neil with an acoustic guitar, like early seventies.
He's like cracking jokes with the audience and just voice sounds excellent. You could
see him just being like, like a one take dude.
Bruce Barry was a working man. He used to, I love that.
Yeah.
That's a great song. I never really got into the rest of that album.
Oh really dude?
I love on the beach. I love Zuma and I love the song tonight's the night.
Clearly I'm missing something.
Yeah. Tired eyes is the one that really trips me out on that one.
I was listening to a little tired eyes.
Well, he shot four men in a cocaine deal.
He left a mine in an open field.
Full of old cars, bullet holes in the mirror.
He tried to do his best, but he could not.
Please take my advice.
Neil Young is very, he's a very fascinating vibe. It's a very specific world.
Yeah. Where do you even start? I mean,
I guess he's like a lot of people where he had, he had those like early
giant songs, like heart of gold, like classic rock radio staple,
but he is just like a weirdo at the end of the day. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
He really rides that line well, just being like a classic, great North American songwriter,
but then also just like really on some different.
I mean, he didn't seem to really care about hits. I wonder like after like,
like his harvest was like a huge album, maybe like a number one record. And yeah,
exactly. Like you said, heart of gold and old man were big hits,
but it's like, I wonder if he was like trying to generate hits late in the later decades.
I mean, on the beach and tonight's the night really don't feel like it. He was trying to like
repeat the success of harvest. I mean, comes a time is very palatable and domestic.
Maybe by the late eighties, he, at least after making his kind of genre albums,
he at least had a feeling of, I want to get back to basics and keep on rocking in the free world
and that stuff. But yeah, it was, he trying to have hits.
I think harvest moon was very much like deliberately, like I'm going to
plug into that vein that people love.
Right.
Cause he made harvest moon in like early nineties. That's like 91 or 92.
And obviously it like references his huge record from 20 years prior. And it's like in that mode.
Back to the harvest.
Gorgeous songs.
Harvest moon is one of the great, like late period signature songs of like,
you know, a true career artist. Beautiful song. And also like, you know, there's like that kind
of like club version. Have you heard that Jake? That gets, that became like, kind of like a modern
classic. The band's called poolside. They did this kind of like clubby slow version of harvest
moon that I feel like for a few years I would hear everywhere. Like at a party, obviously by a pool
at a smoothie place.
I'm picturing you poolside at the Roosevelt hotel.
Yeah. Some like that. It's like feeling kind of uncomfortable and just being like,
just saying to some random person, you know, this is a Neil Young song.
Who?
You know, the original, that meme of like the dude, like man's to the girl.
This is actually originally a Neil Young song, but you know, it's a late period Neil Young song,
which is pretty fascinating. Some people think this is from the seventies, which obviously is
not true because of the production. But this is a kind of return to some of those harvest themes
that he explored on his hit album harvest.
And actually it's crazy to think about now that harvest moon is actually older
now than harvest was when he made harvest moon.
We are now further away from harvest moon than harvest moon was from harvest.
Trip out on that.
You ever heard this?
No. Poolside is the perfect name for this kind of band.
I mean, shout out to poolside. They really did their thing with this. Like
this really had like a life of its own.
Feels good.
Yeah.
So it's Neil's vocals?
I don't think so. I think.
Or something doing a Neil impression?
Something's doing a Neil impression, but maybe they felt they didn't want to make it too loud.
Last year they did a cover of a shakedown street.
Oh really?
Yeah. Maybe we're throwing on.
Oh, absolutely. After this, we will.
It's the dog days of summer. You're listening to time crisis.
We'll be playing you all the clubby poolside versions of classic rock that we can find.
Wait, they use this?
No, they use the Neil Young version on the closing credits of one of the episodes.
And I usually don't remember like music cues,
but for some reason that one really stuck with me.
It's a good call.
That's what you want to hear when you're sitting poolside.
This is their shakedown street.
Now, obviously with this song, it already is a dance song. It's already a disco song, so
not quite as far to travel from the original.
It's a little slower than the original.
Yeah, it is a little slower.
Alright, yeah, it's not bad, but again, it was already disco.
This one's pretty straightforward, actually.
Well, yeah, it's less surprising.
But it's a nice vibe.
Since we're talking about dance music versions of Neil Young songs, I'd be remiss not to
throw on my favorite from the 70s, the Boney M disco Heart of Gold.
Oh, it's actually going Nicolette Larson on this.
Oh, did she do a disco Heart of Gold?
No, she did a lot of...
It's gonna take a lot of love.
Oh, yeah, okay. We'll have to do that next.
You're listening to the Neil Young disco hour, the dog days of summer on Time Crisis.
I don't know if I know this.
Boney M was kind of like this, they're based in Germany, almost like an ABBA, like...
That set harmonica, like, where's this going?
Oh, yeah.
This is sick.
Wait, this is German, you said?
Yeah, I think that some of the members were from other places, but they came together
in Germany, kind of put together as like... and they were huge in Europe.
I guess this isn't quite disco, it's like disco Jason.
Heart of Gold is an interesting song.
Like, really think about it, like, what's that song really about?
Just like, man's search for meaning.
I've been a redwood, I've crossed the ocean for a heart of gold.
Yeah, I don't know, that's like a very like...
Sneeze expressions of teeth.
Yeah, I don't know what it means.
Love?
Look, it's searching for love?
Love or meaning?
And I'm growing old.
Time's running out.
Not getting any younger.
I throwed that Nicolette Larson.
So this is the disco version.
And I'm pretty sure she sang with Nia La.
Oh.
I feel like, hold on, let me look this up.
It's gonna take a lot of love to change the way things are.
It's gonna take a lot of love, we won't get too far.
So if you look in my direction and we don't see eye to eye.
My heart needs protection and so do I.
Yeah, she sang with Nia La on American Stars and Bars.
She sang on Comes the Time.
She worked with Linda Ronstadt and stuff.
So she was definitely in that SoCal country rock vibe,
but then she does this disco version of this song.
Went disco, that's what was popping.
To make this work out right.
So if you are out there waiting, I hope you show up soon.
You know I need relating, not solitude.
It wasn't the plan, but we're going full on Neil Young for the beginning of this banked app.
Neil's music really lends itself to disco.
A little disco.
Maybe we need a whole disco.
What's the backstory is with this?
Because she was so in the pocket with all of the 70s country rock guys.
And then I just, I don't know.
I mean, it's just like someone at the label was just sort of like,
"Disco's hot right now. Let's get a disco version. Nicolette, you sing it."
I think there were just tons of covers back then and people were always,
there used to just be more openness just being like,
in fact, there used to be, you always look up these songs from the 60s and 70s and there'd be like,
"Yeah, the song stalled out at 25 with this person's version in 72,
but then somebody else three years later took it to number one."
So there probably was a lot of feeling of like, "That's a solid Neil song.
Didn't really do numbers. Let's get a disco version for Nicolette."
Since we've unexpectedly gone in this Neil Young direction.
Jake, have you heard this song, this Elise Weinberg song called "Houses"?
Oh, hell yeah. I love it.
We got to throw this on because this is a beautiful song.
She was kind of like a slept on singer songwriter.
She made an album in the late 60s and then she kind of like,
lived her life and didn't really record for a few more decades.
And she made some music later in life and I guess Neil Young produced it and he plays guitar on it.
And this is like, maybe a top 10 Neil Young guitar performance.
Just like shredding all over the song and she's got a really cool voice and she's a great songwriter.
Not disco, but a cool underrated Neil performance.
Covered by a lot of people, including Vediver.
Yeah, this song kind of had like a second life in the 2000s.
Yeah. I feel like I would hear it a lot at like cool bars.
So you might be at a cool bar hearing this song and then you go to like a cool
pool party and you'd hear the Harvest Moon.
Poolside version.
Poolside version.
You're at like a cool bar and then you're like,
"Oh, I have to go to this work event and it's at this weird hotel."
Just turn to some random person like, "Man, I've just been hearing Neil all day."
Cool, man.
All right.
Such a good like groove too.
Yeah.
I love her voice.
Slow as hell.
I love the drummer, whoever it is.
I wonder if it's the crazy horse drummer guy.
Oh, yeah.
The drumming on Neil's stuff is always so understated.
So tasteful.
Even the stuff that really rocks.
It's like the drummer is just like so chill.
This reminds me of like Fairport too.
Totally.
That's a good call in the Fairport, dude.
It's like American Fairport.
This is like a good Dog Days of Summer song too.
So she put this one record out and then stopped for a while and then...
Stopped for like decades.
With renewed interest in her work in the 2000s, she made another record.
Is that the story or...
Something like that.
Yeah, she dropped one last record in 2009.
Interesting.
I feel like there's like a few people in that mold.
Do you know that singer Linda Perhacks?
No.
Similar story.
Somewhere if I put out one record in '70 and then put out a record in 2014.
Man, I would love to walk into like a crunchy coffee shop.
Get a giant cup of coffee.
Big fat blueberry muffin this is playing.
Pop open that Macbook.
So start crushing some emails.
Yep.
Dude with a silver ponytail.
What can I get you brother?
Working the espresso machine.
I'll tell you what, that's a hell of a summer day.
You roll into the crunchy coffee shop.
They're playing Elise Weinberg.
You say to that dude, like the dude behind the counter just like,
"Neil on guitar."
And he's like, "Hell yeah, brother."
You know it, man.
Dude, I met...
Okay, so I met this like contractor dude recently.
Yeah.
For some work that we're doing.
And this dude's epic.
I have that term brother on the mind because he just kept being calling me brother all the time.
He's like, "Oh, brother."
And he was telling me that he's a musician.
I was telling him about Richard Pictures and Mountain Bruce.
Oh, tight.
And then he was telling me about he had a Doors cover band called Mojo Rising that was based in
Anaheim.
I think we need a full banked up with this dude.
Dan?
Yeah, I mean, I got his number.
I can...
You probably love it.
I mean, he was just like, he was talking my ear off about Mojo Rising.
And he was the Jim Morrison of this Doors cover band.
And he said, "Made Zeric into a gig."
He said, "Densmore came to a gig."
Oh, so they were like...
This was all like...
Their major.
25 years ago.
Do you say to him like, "It seems like the Doors have kind of like lost a little bit of their
cultural prominence in the past 25."
I didn't drop that on him.
I didn't think that would land.
But on the flip side, the Grateful Dead have risen to even greater prominence.
I was like, "It's funny you mentioned classic 60s California cover bands,
because I'm in a Dead cover band."
I'm kind of the Bob Weir.
He's like, "Oh, right on, brother.
Right on, brother."
Hell yeah.
I love this dude.
He's a powerful kind of hippie contractor guy.
Anyway, yeah.
I mean, that's something to think about.
He would...
Gotta love a hippie contractor.
We'd probably struggle to get him off the phone.
Maybe we'll get his whole life story.
I mean, that could be epic.
A hippie contractor is a great vibe because that's somebody who probably took a bunch of acid,
but was also like, "You know what?
I want to really create something.
I want to learn a trade, a skill, be a craftsman."
Oh, totally.
But you know what's interesting about this guy is he wasn't truly...
Because he wasn't in his 70s.
He wasn't a baby boomer.
I mean, I think he's probably...
I bet he's in his late 50s or early 60s.
Because he also was very versed in hair metal.
I don't remember why we were talking about this, but we were talking about
The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2, which is the doc about the sunset strip scene.
And he was in LA in the mid 80s.
And he's like, "Oh yeah, I knew all those guys."
Sounds like you guys had a pretty epic music conversation.
You're about 45 and Hannah's like, "So anyway, kind of need a new roof."
It was...
Having some leaking problems.
Yeah, yeah, no.
He was talking my ear off, but I was there for...
I mean, yeah.
So interesting vibe.
He was in that inner generation where he knew all the hair metal 80s stuff.
And I think probably was at least on the periphery of that scene.
But obviously, it was a true 60s classic rock kid.
Right.
Thus, the Mojo Rising cover band.
Brother is a great way to address somebody.
You have to say it in a voice like, "Brother."
Oh yeah, yeah.
No, it was full, "Brother."
Well, there's the Hulk Hogan version.
(laughs)
Yeah, that's true.
And yeah, and also like, bro has really been on a journey.
Bro has been on a journey.
Remember Bernie Bros?
Oh yeah.
Thank God they stomped them out.
I feel like that's early TC when we were Bernie Sanders fans.
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden it was like, "Wait, everyone's calling them Bernie Bros."
And then my joke that didn't really catch traction was in 2020, I was a Joe Bro.
And you may know this, but the new iteration of bro on its journey is "Brah" now.
Have you heard that?
Like brah?
Yeah, like brah.
No, brah.
B-R-E-H.
This is what Mack says.
Oh yeah?
Your son?
Yeah.
And everyone.
I like how your son is like slowly, give it another year or two, he's going to just be
like fifth Mike.
Well, I mean, if you want him, it is every one of his friends.
I mean, well, he's going to, he inherits this, right?
Haven't we talked about this?
He inherits it.
Youth correspondent.
Yeah. I mean, all of these children are taken over.
So at some point we have to integrate them a bit.
And I believe in our future.
So on this journey of bro, it is now, it's not brah.
It is brah.
And if you get around anyone, I don't know if it comes from Minecraft or gaming.
I mean, actually Seinfeld might know it's literally every one of his friends is just
brah, brah, brah.
Come on, brah.
It's I mean, it's, it's one of those things where now I feel old.
You know what I mean?
Sounds problematic, but I can't say for sure.
Brah sounds like something that you could imagine somebody saying in like a regional
thing.
It says it's short for brethren, but it's when I look it up online, but it's just more
like casual word.
Thank you, brethren.
I do wonder if it has.
Yeah.
What's up, brah?
I get it.
It's just a new version of, but it is bro then brah then brah.
It makes sense, but it is, you know, the, it's the next iteration.
I just, it is.
And it's ubiquity is, you know, it's one of those things where you start going, wow, I
probably I'm sure, you know, bro or brah had this moment where it sort of every, you know,
like was up, you know, like that kind of thing.
It's, it is a very specific breath.
I wonder for like a kid, like max, if they're calling each other breath, wherever it comes
from.
Cause sometimes I've wondered, cause obviously generationally, it makes sense that one of
my go to is dude, I'll text somebody like, Hey dude, you know, we still on for whatever.
Or I might meet somebody and just be like, Hey, what's up dude?
I've received so many texts from you.
Yo dude.
But I wonder if for like the brat kids, if they hear me saying, yo dude, if that'd be
like me hearing somebody when I was growing up, like call something groovy.
You know what I mean?
Like when you meet like a, an older adult, my parents never said this, but you know,
I you'd meet somebody like of my parents' generation.
You'd just be like, like it could be a teacher, somebody else just be like, Mr.
Whatever, uh, is it cool if I have a butterfinger?
Yeah, man, it's groovy.
Go grab one.
Like, and just groovy was such a funny word to hear an adult say in that era.
But pretty rare.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
Rare, but not uncommon.
If you're still saying groovy in the nineties, you were like very committed.
Yeah.
I've, I've noticed an uptick in, in groovy though, actually in the last couple of weeks
with people I've been dealing with, uh, I've heard it probably three or four times.
Have you been dealing with something specifically like in a professional aquarium?
Yeah.
Professional friendships, just, you know, in just general interactions,
I've probably heard the word groovy.
I want to say about four times in the last six weeks.
It's not like you've been scooping up, uh, original pressings of Elise Weinberg records.
And not, not in this case.
Like, so what age are we talking?
People say your age younger.
Uh, I think we're talking a little younger.
I think we're talking like not quite silverback millennial, but like,
you know, late twenties to early thirties would be the sort of average age.
I'll tell you in one case, it was referencing something from the seventies,
but it was very indirect.
It wasn't like, oh, that's groovy.
It was just like used in the context of talking about something from the seventies.
Maybe that one doesn't count.
Was it like groovy, man?
Like sort of like when you're like, you're like describing like a list of things for work
and we have to deal with this.
Can you send me over that PDF?
Can you email that guy back?
And he's just like groovy, man.
Yeah.
Like the opposite of groovy.
Kind of like the, it would be like a substitute for like, sounds good.
Like copy that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Definitely got a couple of texts with just like a single word.
Kind of like a dry groovy.
I think I'm getting, yeah.
So dry groovy.
Postmodern ironic groovy.
It's the desiccated husk of groovy.
No heart, no meat there.
And this was the desiccated husk of the sixties idealism.
Groovy.
It was the desiccated husk of groovy.
Yeah.
If anybody ever actually used it, like straight up, like old school, just like, that would be crazy.
Sincere as hell.
Like Seinfeld, just like at the office and just like, somebody's like, hey, Seinfeld,
do you see the friends reunion?
It was groovy.
That would be insane.
Nobody says that.
It's just like, oh, no, that's like Bo Burnham special was just groovy.
Oh man.
It was just like, that guy's really far out.
That's like pure, pure Brady bunch.
Like, I guess what about far out?
Far out's like, far out goes down a little easier.
What would you think?
And I know you guys are texting about it.
I'm the only one who hasn't seen it yet, but if I was talking to you and I was just like,
you see the new Bo Burnham special, it was far out, man.
Would you like think twice about that?
Or I would take it literally.
I think I'd be like, oh, he means it's like trippy.
Like he said some crazy, like some crazy.
It was far out.
Like he was really going out on a, you know,
it'd be out of character for Ezra to text that to the group thread.
The Bo Burnham special.
I wonder if I could just say it.
Wait, okay.
What was that?
I think this is a wrong use.
Out of sight.
What if you said it was...
I think it's a wrong use of far.
I think that because I feel like I've texted far out or said it.
I think it has to be if it's like something's crazy.
Like if you can't be like, oh, that was like, yeah, out of sight.
That's I mean, I don't even know that.
But I think that if I'm crazy, like, man, that's far out.
I feel like in the 60s, well, yeah, I know far out.
It means like, but sometimes I think people use far out just to basically mean like cool
or just like unique.
Like you could picture in the 60s, somebody just being like, like Jerry being like,
oh man, you know, this Bo Burnham guy's been hanging out.
He's far out, man.
You know, he's like, he's talking about that, you know, like.
Here's what Oxford, Oxford dictionary is saying unconventional or avant-garde.
And then informal excellent is what they say.
Okay.
So it kind of works.
Excellent.
So I haven't.
It's a groovy.
So it seems like all you guys think that the Bo Burnham special is excellent.
And what was the first definition?
Oh, unconventional and avant-garde.
So was the Bo Burnham special far out in both senses?
It is a little far out.
It's getting a lot of hate, but it's getting a lot of hate families.
Everybody I heard said they liked it.
Oh, that's cool.
I've seen on like Twitter, which is a neg head cesspool that newsflash newsflash.
It was a neg head cesspool, a desiccated husk groovy.
Oh my God.
A neg head cesspool.
Yes.
The idealism of Silicon Valley and the California ideology has manifested into this neg head
cesspool.
Let's get Bo Burnham on the phone.
Hey Bo, everybody I heard thinks your special is far out.
Jake said that some people in that neg head cess over on Twitter were hating, but everybody
I know thinks it's groovy, dude.
So keep your head up, man.
You're far out, dude.
Stunning 8K resolution meditation app.
In honor of the revolution, it's half off at the Gap.
Deadpool self-awareness, loving parents, harmless fun.
The backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun.
There it is again, that funny feeling, that funny feeling.
There it is again, that funny feeling, that funny feeling.
I feel like instead of saying far out or groovy, I say deep a lot.
I already use the word deep.
Like deep is deep, dude.
Deep is like almost like cool in terms of kind of always like being a perennial
slang term.
I feel like deep never went out of style.
Well, when you say deep, you might mean...
No, but I feel there's a specific way that you and some people use it where it's like...
Well, because you'll use it just to be like kind of almost like highly specific, almost
like with Elise Weinberg.
Like, dude, you know that Elise Weinberg record really slept on Neil Young?
Like Neil Young plays guitar.
Like if you didn't already know that, which you did, you might just be like deep.
Just like literally, like that's a deep cut of knowledge.
You say it like that a lot.
Yeah.
Doesn't he also...
Jake uses it as a synonym for heavy too.
But also heavy.
Yeah, no, that's true, Nick.
I mean...
Jake, a bunch of people were taken hostage at the American embassy in Tehran.
Would you say deep?
No, I would say that's gnarly.
That's not deep.
Well, that's a specific heavy, right?
Come on.
Or brutal.
It's brutal.
There'd be something kind of mystical about like hearing some like intense news and going
deep that actually sounds like you sound like a prophet or an oracle.
If somebody's like Belarus just grounded that plane with the journalist on it and you're
just like deep.
If you said deep to some like weird news, like heavy news, it would almost seem like
you're saying like, ah, yes, as the prophet, as was foretold by the prophet.
Right.
I saw this coming.
We saw this coming deep.
The universe is deep.
No, I'll use deep in like a positive context.
Like groovy.
Yeah, exactly.
Deep is my groovy.
Like if somebody came up to you at the office, Jake, and said, oh, Jake, you got to check
out the friends reunion.
It's so groovy.
You might go deep.
No, see, I was going to say that there's no way that I ever like it would ever call it
friends reunion deep.
Right.
If you're speaking about art, that would get confusing because then people would think
like you're saying like they really like got into some heavy.
I'm not trying to like parse this out because it's funny how you can use language in an
unconscious way.
I don't know what the thing I'm going to say next is.
So it's like I will say deep like involuntarily.
Right.
Because I could see someone being like, oh my God, that friends reunion was so good.
I like, I love that show so much.
And like, honestly, seeing them back together was really emotional.
And I could see myself being like, that's deep.
And then just walk away and be like, was Jake making fun of me?
You could call everything deep and people would never know where they stood with you.
Yeah.
Just be like, oh my God, seeing that friends reunion was just like seeing them.
They're all they're all aged.
And like, just made me think about my own life.
And just like, that's a no brainer deep.
If somebody said to you, I was watching the friends reunion special and it made me think
about like how short life is.
And you went deep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Everybody would know what you meant.
I know.
I guess I have used deep ironically too.
If someone was just sort of like, I mean, that friends reunion was like really funny.
It was like so good.
Like, I love that show.
What an achievement that they got back together and like made that show.
I just be like, that's deep.
That's deep.
And that would be like somewhat ironic.
What if somebody was like, I watched the friends reunion.
It was like the, it was such trash.
Like it was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.
Like I hate that show so much.
I can see you being like deep word.
Okay.
Deep.
This could be like Jake starts teaching like an ESL class and it's like, all right.
English infamously complicated language.
You got to develop a feel for it.
I'm going to give you five examples of the same conversation where one person mentions
the friends reunion special.
And then the person they're speaking to responds with deep and all five of them have a very
different meaning.
So stay with, stick with me.
Okay.
Yes.
Everyone in the class is just looking at you with the most blank expression.
If you can unlock this, this is the difference between being merely fluent in the English
language versus thriving.
You'll really be able to express yourself.
It's also, I should say that 95% of English speakers would not follow what this all means.
All right.
Here's a scenario.
I can't be working out in Australia.
You're going to run into some trouble out in Australia, New Zealand, that part of the
world, probably a lot of the South and the Midwest.
Yeah.
Maybe it's not going to play too well, even in Northern California, but this is specific
to SoCal.
Okay.
Nick go.
Well, I can see a conversation exactly.
And tell me if this straight where someone says to Jake simply, I loved the friends reunion
and Jake's response is deep.
Yeah.
And not even knowing what exactly he means.
Because you're saying something that is critical, right?
You're saying, you know, because it's saying obviously that you think is sort of
universally bad, you know, for you.
I haven't even seen the reunion.
No, but you understand, but just the idea that someone would just say, I loved it.
And your response would be.
I'd be like, that's deep, dude.
Which would be basically a way of saying that's messed up, man.
Right.
Like why are you saying that?
That's it.
Okay.
Well, is there also a version of it now?
This is getting really confusing, but is there a way that you use deep?
That also means kind of like far out.
I think so.
Like what would be a far out?
There's something about somebody saying deep.
There's something about that version where somebody says, I love the friends reunion,
especially when you went deep where I'm picturing almost not that you're like on drugs much,
but I'm picturing like almost like if you were at a party and you were like tripping,
somebody said some just like kind of basic ass just like, oh my God, I just watched the
friends special.
You're almost just like looking at that totally normal thing to say, but because you're in
some like cosmic zone, you're just like deep.
Like, just like the world is strange, man.
People out here just really watching friends reunion specials and getting excited about
it like deep.
Well, I think it's like me getting cosmic and like the drive-thru of a Taco Bell.
I think it's a similar scenario.
I'm just like, this is deep, dude.
You're sitting in the backseat of a car trip and pulling out.
You're just like looking at you're like, what?
This is, this is like unbelievable what's happening here.
You pull up to this thing.
You hear this like disembodied voice through this like tinny speaker.
You ask them for a seven-layer burrito and you're thinking about this place was started
by a guy named Glenn Bell in what year?
1962.
It's like deep.
Just like this is far out.
This is deep, dude.
Taco Bell is deep.
Deep.
All right.
Well, I think, I think we got to the bottom of that.
Great.
Any of our ESL listeners, you've just leveled up in terms of your mastery of the English
language.
Some restrictions may apply, but I think you probably get it now.
This is a loose, fun, dog days of summer banked up.
So, it's already taken some twists and turns.
All right.
Well, now we're going to get into the real meat of the episode because, you know, we're
trying to keep things evergreen.
Somebody hit the thread.
I think it was our producer, Matt, with a tweet.
One of these Twitter prompts that you see a lot where basically somebody asks a question
designed to go viral.
That's, you know, usually just kind of like a simple question about what kind of music
you like or in this case, what song was number one when you were at a certain age and what
does that say about you?
Just like, you know, it hooks people because it asks a question or makes you look something
up about yourself.
You know, like back in the day, there used to be like, people were always doing like
these like surveys.
I don't even remember what platform that was on.
Was that on like AIM?
People would like do these surveys.
Oh, yeah.
Or like MSN Messenger.
Yeah.
Or was that just like an email?
God, I don't even remember.
But anyway, we decided that we would kind of...
What was the tweet in question that kicked off this whole concept for us?
So it's Questlove.
He tweeted the song that was number one on your seventh birthday defines 2021 for you.
Do you think Questlove just like created that formula himself or he's sharing something
somebody else did?
It looks kind of like a screenshot of a meme.
Is it a meme or is this like official?
Is this like a Joe Biden executive order?
Well, that's just it.
It's what it's so it's so arbitrary, which is kind of the key to a lot of these these
engagement type of tweets.
Joe Biden releases executive order stating that the song that was number one on your
seventh birthday defines 2021 for you.
Yeah, it's one of his his programs.
Listen, Jack, I don't care what was number one when you were eight, nine, six, seven.
That's what I'm talking about.
Your seventh birthday.
Look at number.
Look it up.
OK, so this is just one of these random social media things, totally arbitrary.
We're going to start with this Questlove/Joe Biden official prompt.
We're going to look at the song that was number one on each of our seventh birthdays and see
how that defines 2021.
So, Jake, we're going to start with you.
Your seventh birthday was February 3rd, 1984, which, by the way, that's the tail end of
the days between because I was born April 84.
I was born two months after this.
So this is the very this is the very end of the days between the seven years between our
births.
The number one song for Jake's seventh birthday was Culture Club, Karma Chameleon.
Oh, hell yeah.
Did we listen to this recently?
I feel like we were like talking.
Yeah, I think we did.
Like a few months ago.
Yeah, this is a great song.
Yeah, so good.
It's more great harmonica work.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
We went deep on this.
A man without condition.
Go.
Yeah, it's so funny, this like beautiful, glossy pop sheet with these lyrics about a
guy that's lost and is just a complete like enigma.
Like, who's a nowhere man?
Nowhere man.
Boy George said he wrote the song on vacation in Egypt.
That's tight.
I wonder how he wrote it.
If he had like a travel guitar with him or like there was like a piano in like the hotel.
He was staying in a hotel in Cairo.
Maybe he had a little cassette recorder.
Just pure vocals.
I can see coming over that chorus with no instrument.
Just like.
Right.
Like, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
Just like singing that into a little Walkman.
I can see that.
Oh, gotta write that bridge.
Oh, yeah.
You're my lover, not my rival.
So much personality in the harmonica on this song.
I know.
I wonder if they like, if from the beginning they were like, oh, let's have some harmonica
on this or if that was like a late in the game, like production breakthrough.
Oh, like that's one of the, yeah, right.
One of those stories where you're just like, guys, we need to finish this.
And it's like, it's just not working.
And then you add that little thing that brings it to life.
Yep.
I wonder who played harmonica on it.
It was played by Judd Lander, who had been a member of Mercy Beat Group,
The Hideaways in the 60s.
Oh, you come and go.
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams.
Red, gold, and cream.
Red, gold, and cream.
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
You come and go.
You come and go.
You come and go.
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams. Red, gold, and green. Red, gold, and green. Did we talk about what the red, gold, and green was?
It came up, because yeah, I was surprised.
I didn't realize that was the lyric.
I always thought it was something about...
Is that what the Egyptian flag is?
I don't even know.
Um, no, Egyptian is, well, is black.
It also makes me think of like Rasta.
Yeah, those are the Rasta colors.
What a great song.
That's a good one for you, Jake.
Does that feel like 2021 to you?
Oh, definitely.
This isn't arbitrary at all.
That's just an evergreen song.
No, it is. It's absolutely an evergreen song.
I made like an... I don't know why I did this.
Like five years ago, it's still on my phone.
I made like an 80s playlist.
Yeah.
I was just like inspired.
I don't know what I was doing.
And that's track one.
Really? Okay.
So it actually is... then it's truly a Jake fave.
Oh yeah, no, that song has long running resonance for me.
You know, and I actually remember being like a young kid.
Like maybe I was seven.
Yeah, and hearing that song and being like, "This is excellent."
Yeah, hearing it a lot.
Like hanging out with like...
Because like, yeah, as discussed on the show,
I used to go to this woman Eileen's house after school
when I was in elementary and middle school
because my parents were working late.
And she had like an older son.
He's probably like three or four years older than me.
And he was really into music.
He was really into like Springsteen and stuff in the 80s.
But I remember hearing like Karma Chameleon at that house a lot.
Just like older kids.
This is like a new...
Hey, Jake, come here.
I hit song, I got...
This is about to change your life.
That was the first time I heard Karma Chameleon.
You'll be talking about this in 37 years.
I might've said this last time we listened to this,
but I have this vague memory of finding some like,
I don't know, this is like a little book or something
that my parents had partially filled out.
That's like some little memories of like when your baby was born,
you know, like for a kid to look at later.
Yeah.
Which should probably get on.
Anybody with a kid should probably get on that soon
if you haven't done it yet.
But I remember a couple of the questions
were about like just like culture in that moment.
And it's a little kind of like worksheet or something
that's framed as like,
here's some information for you to know about when you were born.
And one of the things was like, when you were born,
some popular singers were...
I just have this memory, like looking at this when I was like 12.
And it just said, Michael Jackson and Boy George.
And I realized they were very correct.
It was a mere two months before I was born.
This was number one.
So they wrote that down.
They wrote that down.
Yeah.
It just stands out to me.
So I can't even remember.
Boy George was in your parents' consciousness.
I guess so.
So I think, yeah, I'll have to say like,
mom, why'd you write Boy George and not Culture Club?
Well, maybe the question was which singers?
Yeah.
I guess they knew who Boy George was.
I doubt they had MTV.
It seems like your parents were kind of hip with like music there.
Because I remember you were saying that your dad's last record he ever bought was Run DMC.
Run DMC.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right up to the point.
Which is actually weirdly perfect for TC.
That's the first record I ever bought.
Whoa.
The first Run DMC tape.
That was the true handoff.
True handoff.
Robin Koenig is like, I'm out.
It's 84.
I hope there's another.
I hope there's a kid somewhere here in the tri-state area.
Kind of pick up the slack.
Maybe one day he'll do a radio show with my son.
Well, Jake, just because you just had a child.
You're the most recent person with a child on the show.
If just like right now I handed you a worksheet to fill out for like
your kid to look at in the future.
And just like some popular singers when you were born were.
You can't do any research.
Really putting down.
I would say Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo.
All right.
Yeah, that's pretty.
First two that come to mind.
That's pretty good at capturing the spirit of the time.
Because if you were like a little more tapped out,
you could like maybe not quite nail it.
And you just be like, uh.
Taylor Swift.
Well, she still is very popular.
But I was going to say if you just wrote down like, um, Drake and Justin Bieber.
Right.
And then she's looking at and she's just like, you know, dad, I did some research.
And while they were extremely popular the year I was born,
I just feel like you didn't quite catch the zeitgeist.
Like, how did you not put Olivia Rodrigo?
Although Olivia Rodrigo was not that popular when your daughter was born.
That's true.
She wasn't popular on February 24th.
Hey, dad, I was kind of like going.
I don't want to split hairs here.
But I was just on Wikipedia and like, what the are you talking about?
Drop to like.
Wait a second, though.
Driver's license came out on January 8th.
OK.
2021.
All right.
Thank you.
So I think I did.
All right.
You nailed it then.
Stand.
There should be a country version of that.
That would sound good with a southern accent.
Stand.
FGL get on it.
Nick, your seventh birthday was September 26th, 1986.
Oh, so you and Jake were both born in the 70s.
Word Gen Xers were right.
Wait, Seinfeld.
What year were you born?
82.
OK, right.
So you're a silverback millennial like me.
I'm like right on the.
This show is a very delicate balance of a couple Gen Xers, a couple silverback millennials.
So, yeah, so on my seventh birthday, the number one song was Huey Lewis in the news.
Friend of the show, Huey Lewis.
Stuck with you.
This topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks.
Wow, TC is killing it so far.
I love this song.
So according to Biden, this is defines my COVID.
This defines your 2021.
My reentry into culture.
Yeah.
I like this.
Stuck with you was written after Huey Lewis and the news manager, Bob Brown,
told guitarist Chris Hayes that the record still needed a single.
Hayes went into the studio with a six pack of brew and came up with the melody for the track.
Lewis then added the lyrics.
Wow.
I should try that.
It's a great story.
Strolling in with a sixer, coming out with a song.
I need a hit here.
That could be a good a good song that's about that.
It's called When Six Becomes One.
And it's about when you go into the studio with a six pack of brew
and come back with one song that becomes a number one hit single on Nick's seventh birthday.
Tonight is the night when six become one.
So this is like kind of two upbeat 80 songs in a row.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I like that.
That is Biden is sort of insisting.
Yeah, he's in it.
It's going to be a positive year is what I'm hoping.
Right.
Is this song actually positive?
What are the lyrics?
Stuck with you seems very Biden.
Oh, yeah.
You could see him coming out to this.
Oh, yeah.
You're stuck with me, dude.
It's like nostalgia.
Right.
Feel good.
Oh, yeah.
The chorus is literally I'm happy to be stuck with you.
Yes, it's true.
I'm happy to be stuck with you.
And it's like referencing an era that was like the height of the American empire.
So dark.
It's like a fake 50 song.
Yeah.
This is his his dude.
This is his next four years.
This is what is it?
Twenty twenty twenty four.
Candidate campaign song is you're stuck with me.
Hell yeah.
What are you going to do?
You're stuck with me.
Brutal.
Biden's America again with sympathy for the devil.
Stuck with you and Biden's America.
It's true.
Yes, it's true.
I'm so happy to be stuck with you.
Because I can see.
I can see Huey out there playing for Biden.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like this has like 90s sitcom vibes, like Perfect Strangers.
Oh, yeah.
Or Miller Boyette Productions.
Late 80s.
All right.
Maybe an outtake from Springsteen's The River album.
Oh, yeah.
They got they got some shared sensibility.
Yeah.
Bruce was definitely listening to sports.
He took some pages from Huey's playbook.
All right.
Let's get into the next one, which is Seinfeld.
Your seventh birthday was August 6th, 1989.
Oh, I didn't know you were Leo Seinfeld.
Oh, yeah.
So you're wait, that's funny.
So that's tight, Ezra, that you know that.
Well, I know it because Jerry's a Leo and he was born August 1st.
So Seinfeld, your birthday is actually in the days between.
Oh, my God.
That's how this has never come up.
How's this never come up?
And for anybody who doesn't remember what we're talking about,
the days between are the days between Jerry Garcia's birthday and his death day,
which I believe is August 1st and August 8th, August 9th.
Seinfeld, let's get a number crunch.
Yeah.
Eighth or ninth.
I feel like the ninth.
Maybe the ninth.
Is it a full eight days?
Jerry Garcia's birthday was August 1st.
Yeah, and what was his death day?
And then when did he die?
Got it.
Yeah, he's August 9th.
Okay, right.
Eight days.
It's like Hanukkah.
That's a good way to remember it.
So yeah, the days between are the between August 1st, his birthday, and August 9th, his death day.
And we didn't know this Seinfeld, you're really quiet on the matter,
but your birthday is August 6th, which is right in the days between.
Yeah, I guess so.
I mean, I guess there was never really like...
It would have just been random, like if it had occurred to me at some point,
and then I just sort of said it apropos of nothing, it might, you know,
I guess, you know, I never found that avenue, but I'm glad that it's all coming out now.
This explains why you're so tapped in to the universe.
You were born in a very specific vortex,
although you were born in 1982 before Jerry died.
So I have to consult the Oracle on how that fits in.
But your seventh birthday was August 6th, 1989.
And it's Richard Marx, "Right Here Waiting."
It's a big song.
Another big hit here.
I like that the album that this is off is called "Repeat Offender."
That's a weird album title.
Just this like... I know, it also just like, that could be like a metal album.
It's like a bad boy album.
This is just like...
Yeah, like, "Sammy Hagar solo record."
Yeah, right. It's just... yeah, totally.
Guys, what was up with those like David Lynch,
like those Twin Peaks synth notes that preceded the piano on this song?
That was a little weird.
Oh yeah, this is very Twin Peaks.
I feel like Richard Marx is very active on Twitter too.
Oh yeah, he's like...
I feel like I kind of remember seeing him.
He's like one of those... I feel like that's like a real type is like a
older musician, just like getting on Twitter, arguing with conservatives.
Arguing with Trump fans.
Fighting the good fight.
This is interesting.
Richard Marx had originally pitched "Right Here Waiting" to Barbara Streisand.
But she had a few issues with the lyrics.
She called and said, "I love this music. This melody is gorgeous."
I agree, Barbara.
But if I'm going to record it, I'm going to need you to rewrite the lyrics,
because I'm not going to be right here waiting for anybody.
Do you think this came out and she was like, "Oh, I could have had like a Billboard smash
if only I hadn't been so particular."
No, maybe she's just like, "Richard, my character wouldn't do that."
Fair.
Which character?
Character of Barbara Streisand, as she exists in the public consciousness.
It wouldn't have been a big hit if she had done it.
Just wouldn't have been.
It's funny you bring that up, because I was just thinking, listening to this song,
this song could have been a hit in any decade.
I can picture a version in the 60s, the 70s, obviously in the 90s.
There's so many songs that were still big like this as late as like '98.
And then even now, there's a version of it.
But this type of ballad is truly...
This could have been an NSYNC song 14 years later.
I feel like Celine Dion would have probably killed this in the 90s.
Oh, yeah.
I just don't think Barbara Streisand would have had a hit in '89.
I just don't.
Would have stalled out at number nine.
She's just a figure from an earlier era.
And like Richard Marks, his look was sort of like metal.
He had this kind of mullet and a jean jacket.
He was kind of like, you know, repeat offender.
He was like...
Oh, this has like the little Spanish guitar solo.
This is like very...
This really set the stage for a lot of 90s power ballads.
Yeah, that nylon string.
Yeah.
I just feel like even if Barbara Streisand had recorded this,
would anyone give a sh*t in like 200 years?
Absolutely not.
It's a great question.
I'm like forgetting it already.
I'm sorry, even Richard Marks, in 200 years, who's going to be talking about Richard Marks?
Right?
They're going to be talking about...
He might be like...
He's going to be a historical footnote compared to Brian Adams.
Not like today.
I'm sorry, but in 200 years, nobody's going to be talking about
"Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marks.
I don't care how much money he's made off this song.
He'll be a historical footnote compared to say, Barack Obama.
I was also just thinking like, imagine Richard Marks and you gave that song.
And like, maybe he really considered it for a second.
Just like, Barbara Streisand's interested in my song.
All I have to do is change the lyrics.
But you have to change the whole spirit of the song.
Like, wherever you go, whatever you do,
I won't be right here waiting for you.
Like, that's probably where your mind would first go.
I'm on my own trip.
I don't give a sh*t.
I won't be right there waiting for you.
You might think I will, but you better chill.
I won't be right there waiting for you.
Yeah, that barely even makes sense.
Like, you wouldn't...
If you're not going to be there, just say like, I won't be there.
All right.
Well, Seinfeld, be careful in the rest of your 2021.
Because...
I mean, what is this?
-What are you saying about 2021? -I don't know.
I would say don't enter into any sort of negotiations or deals with Barbara Streisand
until 2022.
That's my advice to you.
Hold off.
I think that's good.
That's solid advice.
Like, you know, at any time ahead of 2022, I would say.
That would have been good advice in 2018, 2014.
Avoid Ms. Streisand until 2022.
Okay.
Now, my birthday.
I'm the only one of us here.
I have a unique perspective because I'm the only one whose seventh birthday was in the 90s.
You guys are all 87th B-Day cats.
I hit number seven, just kind of entering that new phase of life.
And seven is an interesting number of years because it's kind of like biblical.
There's something about people going into bondage for seven years.
And isn't every seven years your body has a whole new set of cells?
Seven's kind of a mystical number.
So anyway, my seventh birthday was April 8th, 1991.
And I don't think I know this song.
I at least don't recognize it right off the bat.
The artist is London Beat and it's called "I've Been Thinking About You."
Does anybody know this?
Yes.
-You do? -Not by the title.
I'm familiar with the song, yeah.
I feel like this was a hit in Canada when it was out.
I mean, I guess it was a hit in the US too.
It's part of that Euro dance, Hathaway, "What is Love?"
I mean, I love Hathaway, "What is Love?"
Beautiful song.
Great song.
Yeah.
There was always one Euro rapper with the deep voice.
Yeah.
I'd talk, talk, I'd talk to you.
Again, another weirdly intense album title, "In the Blood."
"In the Blood."
Where are these guys from?
"I've Been Thinking About You."
"I've Been Thinking About You."
The most anodyne statement, "I've Been Thinking About You."
Good thoughts, I hope.
It's funny.
It's like, this song, it's so familiar to me because I know all the other big hits that
this kind of same genre, early 90s kind of Euro dance,
but it's not burned into my consciousness like those other ones.
So I am kind of asking myself, do I really know this song?
Yeah, I don't think I actually know this.
This was a number one hit.
I feel like the Richard Marks song before this is like a weird logical progression
from the spirit of this song.
I like this chorus.
"I've been thinking about you."
"I've been thinking about you."
Very catchy.
"I've been thinking about you."
"I've been thinking about you."
Why?
You left your sunglasses at my house.
All right, I get the idea.
Dude, can I borrow your car next week?
My car's in the shop.
It needs a whole new suspension and transmission reworking.
Can I borrow you?
Is it cool?
I know you got that spare car.
I've been thinking about you, man.
I've been thinking about you and your extra car.
Can you pick me up from the airport, dude?
"I've been thinking about you."
You know, it's like when someone just crosses your mind and then you run into them shortly
thereafter.
I feel like that's the very mundane sort of literal version of it.
I was just thinking about you.
Hey, yeah, what are the chances?
I was just thinking about you.
I was at a coffee shop and they played the Lees Weinberg.
You put me out of that song.
Oh, yeah.
Anyway.
How are you, man?
Another day, another dollar.
All right, take care.
"I've been thinking about you."
One thought I had, Seinfeld, when you mentioned Hathaway, What is Love?
Just a beautiful song, a haunting beautiful song.
One of the best singles of the 90s.
What is love?
I mean...
Also the basis for an entire SNL franchise.
That's what I was thinking.
And I'm a huge fan of Will Ferrell.
He's also one of the best things to come out of the 90s.
Excellent comedic actor.
But it's kind of unforgivable that they turned that song into a f***ing joke.
They literally made it a joke because SNL, that's a comedy program.
So they made it a f***ing joke.
And I never...
I guess I thought that sketch was funny back in the day.
It's not top five SNL Ferrell.
But it was popular.
It was iconic.
But I think that song is like...
Now they associate it with these crazy guys shaking their heads.
It's a beautiful moving song.
We'll do a deep dive on that.
Maybe we'll do a whole backstab on What is Love by Hathaway.
That's a great lyric.
What is love?
Baby, don't hurt me.
Don't hurt me no more.
Just what is love?
Yeah, no disrespect to London Beat, but you compare that to "I've been thinking about you."
Like, it really is like haunting because it is like...
They're feeling hurt by this person and betrayed or something.
It's got them questioning just like literally, "What is love?"
Then you compare it to like that kind of slightly corny Black Eyed Peas song, "Where is the love?"
You know, which is like, "Where is the love?"
But what is love is like, it's metaphysical.
What is love is like heart of gold.
It's like...
Yeah, it's deep.
I wonder if there's a...
That was the first time Jake ever said deep.
It was when you were 14, heard "What is love?" at a Burger King.
Just like, "Deep.
Dude, this is deep."
I feel like a lot of those Euro dance songs have like low-key, profound titles and statements.
Like, Ace of Base, I feel like had some pretty deep songs.
I saw the sign.
Right?
And it opened up my eyes.
Life is demanding without understanding.
I mean, it's like...
It's pretty profound.
What do people always say?
Joseph Conrad, he was a ESL writer.
He wrote "Heart of Darkness," which is a very influential novel.
Based Apocalypse Now off of it.
Many times people who are not native speakers have like unique and profound things to say
in that language because they're tapping in in this like totally different way.
Although, yeah, obviously Ace of Base is Swedish.
I actually don't know about Hathaway.
Oh no, Hathaway was Trinidadian German.
He was born in Trinidad and Tobago.
Okay, he might have grew up speaking English.
Did he write "What is Love?"
I saw the sign, makes me think of like some weird cult or something.
Like...
"All That She Wants" is a heavy song.
Oh, that is very heavy.
♪ All that she wants is another baby ♪
I agree with you, Seinfeld.
There's a lot of profundity in some of that early 90s European dance music.
♪ What is love? ♪
♪ Baby, don't hurt me ♪
♪ Don't hurt me ♪
♪ No more ♪
♪ Baby, don't hurt me ♪
♪ Don't hurt me ♪
♪ No more ♪
♪ What is love? ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪
♪ I don't know ♪
♪ You're not there ♪
♪ I give you my love but you don't care ♪
♪ What is right? ♪
♪ What is wrong? ♪
♪ Give me a sign ♪
♪ What is love? ♪
♪ Baby, don't hurt me ♪
♪ Don't hurt me ♪
♪ No more ♪
All right, President Biden, we did our civic duty and we did the officially mandated rundown
of the number one singles on all of our seventh birthdays.
But I thought, like, why stop there for arbitrary bulls**t?
Why not maybe break it up a little bit and let's get outside of music for a second.
So one thing I threw at the crew was,
"Let's find out the number one movie on everybody's 10th birthday."
And I didn't like the Biden thing about how he said that
it's going to determine your 2021 because that adds this whole other element.
I think it's cooler just to be like,
"What is that thing that was popping at that period of your life and what does it mean to you?"
So anyway, we're just straight up doing the number one movie in America on your 10th birthday.
So we'll start with you, Jake.
Your 10th birthday was February 3rd, 1987.
Do you have any memory of it?
Great year.
I have memories of '87.
I don't have many memories of my 10th birthday.
Yeah, what was going on in '87?
Touch of gray year, right?
That's true, man.
Def Leppard, "Hysteria," "Joshua Tree," "U2."
Oh, yeah.
Big year for me.
"Dinosaur Jr.", "You're Living All Over Me."
You wouldn't discover that one until a little later, I imagine.
Later, but, you know, very near Def Leppard in '87.
Okay.
So, Jake, the number one movie on your 10th birthday was "Platoon," which was-
Good one.
Oliver Stone directed and it was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
I don't think I've ever actually seen "Platoon."
Have you, Jake?
Yeah.
Is it a moving portrait of the Vietnam War?
If memory serves, it is.
It's been a long time since I've seen it.
But yeah, I remember loving "Platoon."
It's not my favorite Oliver Stone.
I definitely do prefer JFK and Wall Street.
Talk radio.
And talk radio.
I think Oliver Stone has a new JFK doc coming out this year.
Oh, yeah.
JFK assassination, that is.
Oh, yeah, because he's going to prove the conspiracies are true.
He's going to prove it.
What's funny for me is that somehow my entry point to "Platoon" was the NES game,
because I probably would have been like, you know, in the years, not in '87, I was too little,
but you know, in the early '90s, go over to somebody's house, and they just have like,
all these like old NES games.
And so I remember playing "Platoon," although now that I'm thinking about it,
even though I don't think I've seen "Platoon," it's like, I'm looking at the poster,
and I guess the tagline for the movie was "The first casualty of war is innocence."
So it's pretty like strange that they were like,
"All right, let's turn this into a video game for children."
Especially because in NES, like, you couldn't really make any claim
that the games were actually like elevated art for adults, just the way they looked.
I know not today, somebody could be like, "No, we make war games that these are,
they actually teach you something, and there's moral questions."
Then you're just like, "Prrr."
But that was an NES game.
That's funny.
I bet Oliver Stone hated that.
He didn't hate those royalty checks.
His whole vision is like, questioning the morality of the American empire, you know,
that's his whole deal.
It's so funny that you say that, because I'm looking at a screenshot of the actual gameplay,
and on the bottom, you know, where it has all your status bars,
it says "ammo," of course, like in any video game.
"Shooting video game," it shows how many, which is denoted by bullets.
And then there's just like a bar for morale.
Interesting.
Maybe they thought it would be like too dark just to be like...
Kills.
Or just to be like, what would it normally say in a video game from that era?
Like, "Life?"
Like, how much life do you have left?
I think health was the big one.
Health!
That's a hilarious euphemism.
I mean, I know we talk about these scenarios a lot, about just like,
people from like the kind of baby boomer era, and what was happening with them in the 80s.
But straight up, there must have been many Vietnam veterans,
who probably had a child with an NES in 1987,
who might have come in and watched them play Platoon, the video game.
That must have been pretty f***ing weird.
Just rolling in, just like, "What are you up to?"
And just like, your son's just like, in the jungles of Vietnam,
on this like weird 8-bit newfangled system,
and you just see like his morale getting low.
Like, that's insane.
That's an insane thing to walk into, if you'd served.
My dad did not go to Vietnam because he was deaf in one ear.
Whoa.
He like had an ear infection when he was like two years old,
and he lost hearing in one ear.
So, I don't know, the draft board didn't want him.
But I do remember like growing up, one of my friends, Jared,
like his dad was a Vietnam vet.
And I got the sense that like, he had really like been in some gnarly s***.
Hmm.
I remember watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Jared's house.
Wow.
And he'd be like, "Dude, keep the volume low."
Because my dad does not like to hear like violence in a movie.
He doesn't.
Oh my God.
Yeah, I was like, "Really?"
Can you imagine?
And he was just like, "Dude, nom."
"Dude, my dad, like nom f*** my dad, but like hard."
And I was like, "What?"
Oh God.
I know, it was so crazy.
This is in like, you know, like '89.
You know, I'm like 12.
Right.
And we're just like 12-year-old boys watching horror movies.
And my friend is just like, "Yeah, no, my dad's like, he's intense about it.
He doesn't like that stuff."
Oh man.
Nom, dude.
Yeah, seriously.
I know, it's intense.
I had the same experience.
Really?
At a Vietnam vet's house?
Yeah, my Charles Withers, C.A. Withers' dad was a Marine in Nom and he wouldn't sleep.
He couldn't sleep.
He would get these night terrors and wake up screaming.
Oh God.
And like he would, and so he'd basically sleep on the couch.
And I mean, we were the same.
It was like early '90s, you know, late '80s, early '90s.
And he would often like just get up and like make sweet potato pie.
That's what I remember.
He would just be making pie like in the middle of the night because he just couldn't sleep.
And so he'd wake us up and it was just, yeah, but it was a, you know, it's a heavy situation,
which I think most, well, not most, but obviously we all know people that it doesn't feel like
there's maybe kids growing up post-Iraq war, but there's definitely like, I feel.
Well, yeah.
I imagine that you like, you had like PTSD coming back from like Afghanistan and then
so your son playing like a hyper-realistic Call of Duty game.
I mean, maybe there's even something therapeutic.
I don't know.
But I also imagine, I would hope that now there's like way more options for everything,
including PTSD, you know, in terms of like treatment and various techniques and whatever.
I'm picturing like late '80s.
Yeah.
You couldn't even, it wouldn't even be like to Google.
PTSD was not in like the cultural lexicon.
Right.
In the same way as it is now in the late '80s.
Yeah.
Although it has existed as long as there's been war.
Of course.
But yeah.
But it wasn't like.
What do they call it in like World War I that people had like,
well, I guess that's where Shellshocked came from, right?
Yeah.
Right.
Don't you think that this morale bar is way, is darker than anything else?
I mean, I know you said that maybe doing like life was too dark, but it feels
significantly more depressing to be like, oh man, I'm out here in war and I'm just getting
really depressed.
My morale is really low.
You're probably leading a platoon and like, what's the morale in the platoon?
And it's like low.
Low.
As I'm saying that sounds so much more realistic.
God, and if your morale gets really low, you get, you get fragged.
Couldn't you see like a late period Oliver Stone movie just called Morale?
Morale.
That'd be a good name for a war film.
Yeah.
When your morale goes to zero, like goes all the way to the bottom in this game, do you die?
Is it like the equivalent to hell?
This is crazy.
So, uh.
When your morale goes to zero, the U S withdraws.
Dude, it's, this is, this is real.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Here we go.
The game tries to capture the movie's anti-war message by including morale bar, which goes down
whenever you kill a civilian in the first level, but fails to properly adapt its story.
So that's the review, but that is, oh, that's far out.
Well, that's deep.
Very deep.
If you kill a civilian.
Not groovy.
Wow.
Jesus.
But dad, this game is actually anti-war because if you kill civilians, your morale goes down.
Google like the game platoon NES and like what this game looks like.
It's just so, it's a kiddie game.
Like also getting into this where it's like, yeah.
How could Oliver Stone even approve of that?
Cause like, imagine you were talking to somebody who'd served or just anybody who was alive then
and was anti-war and you're just like, oh, I killed a civilian morale's down.
And then like, imagine you're talking, like if your parents are like old hippies and they just
be like, son, you shouldn't be killing any of these people.
There's absolutely no reason why you should be there.
Kids like where I'm trying to kill the bad guys, not the civilians.
And it's like, you shouldn't be there, man.
Go home.
You shouldn't be fighting any of these people.
Play Bugs Bunny's haunted mansion.
Deep.
One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.
And the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice when she's 10 feet tall.
And if you go chasing rabbits and you know you're going to fall, tell them a hooker,
smoking caterpillar has given you the call.
It's funny.
My household was not a video games household, but I remember my parents were like,
not into the video game energy.
They knew that I would play like Commando or whatever at Lonnie's house.
Famously.
Did Lonnie's dad serve?
That's a good question.
I don't, I didn't, I didn't get that vibe.
But anyway, yeah, I seem to remember my parents as being like, yeah, if you're playing like
cool fan, like, you know, Super Mario or whatever, what, that's fine.
But like, yeah, like the really like gnarly.
And I mean, if I had a, if my daughter wants to play like first person shooter games in
10 years, I'm not going to be that psyched on that.
I honestly, I might be like, no, not in my house.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Like if your son Ezra is just like, well, actually, as I mean, Nick, like you're, you've
got a nine year old who's been on the front of the show who actually does play video games.
Is he into first person shooter games or do you not allow that?
I don't like none of the Call of Duty.
I mean, to be honest, there's, he plays Fortnite, which is that first person shooter.
I mean, just like expression, first person shooter.
Is that considered?
It's a first person shooter, but it's also, it's a battle Royale.
It looks like Fortnite was not originally a first person shooter.
You're right.
It was a battle Royale game, but I think they added a first person mode a little bit into
the release and it has a sort of, um, it's definitely more like cartoony or not realistic.
Yeah.
Fortnite, you're like, you're like building staircases and you're like, you're chasing
after people and it is, but at the end of the day that you do dances and stuff.
I mean, I think that there's, I'm not wild about him playing it, but it certainly feels
like he's not in war.
Right.
And I think that I'm not, I don't, I mean, I've been really clear that he like Call of
Duty is not something that he's going to be playing.
First of all, I can't.
Although in Call of Duty, don't you learn a lot about history?
I remember on a tour bus once we had like an Xbox with Call of Duty and I was just like,
I feel like I was like a Russian soldier in like Stalingrad or something.
It was like, it gets really like historical in Call of Duty.
I mean, if that may be the case, but that's definitely not how I feel he needs to learn
about history.
So you're putting your foot down and you're like, no Call of Duty.
Well, I don't know the Call of Duty beyond the sort of violence of it all.
And the just gamer culture.
And I do believe, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but even to play Call of Duty, like
you're talking to other people.
And like at this age, we shut that down.
It's way too deep, too deep.
But I do think that everything around that, it is just like, it's like the intensity of
it is I've put my foot down.
Now, look, if there's going to be a point where he's gonna, you know, he's going to
make his own decision.
And I just hope he's not like that into that game.
But he is definitely like he's a he's a gamer.
Like he really digs video games.
And so I could see him definitely wanting to try to do, you know, sure.
But just out of curiosity, I just I just looked up Vietnam video games and there's a Wikipedia
article list of Vietnam War games.
It simply says the Vietnam War has been depicted in many games.
And then you open it and it's like insane.
It seems like there's probably like 100.
Wow.
Shell Shock, NAMM 67, Rise of Nations, Thrones and Patriots 2004, couple Rambo games, MIA,
Missing in Action 1989, Konami arcade game, Men of Valor 2004.
It's like endless.
These titles.
And then there's all these like subcategories, action adventure game, top down shooter, rail
shooters, arcade shooter games, tactical shooter games, military simulations, jet simulators,
helicopter simulators, real time tactics, real time strategy, war game.
Well, it's a lot.
So, Nick, your 10th birthday was September 26, 1989.
And the number one film was Black Rain, starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia,
directed by Ridley Scott.
I've never seen this movie, but it's about like American cops who go to Japan.
They get mixed up with the Yakuza.
I've never seen it actually either, but I've opened the tab on like.
On the Wikipedia Prime or Netflix.
Oh, you've got Wikipedia like I mean, like, should I watch this?
They just have never hit play.
Hans Zimmer did the score.
I mean, this is crazy.
I've never seen it.
You'd think that at that age at 10, you would have seen the number one movie in the country,
even if it's like a year or two later, you know, I mean, unless it's like such a hard R.
I think it's a pretty hard R.
I mean, you know, it's number one for three weeks.
So, but no one on no one huge seen it mixed reviews, but it was a huge hit.
OK, no one's seen it.
Nick Conklin is a New York City police officer facing possible criminal charges, blah, blah,
blah.
At a restaurant, he and his longtime partner observed two Japanese men meeting with mafia
gangsters.
And then I guess they end up in Osaka.
All right.
I mean, sounds OK.
I bet it's one of those movies like the first like 40 minutes are pretty tight.
And then the last hours is sort of like interminable, like chasing through like a weird abandoned
warehouse.
All right.
I don't think we can go that deep on Black Rain.
But Nick, you got to watch that.
That's your soul movie.
That's that's going to be what I'm going to call this.
The movie that was number one when you were 10.
That's called your soul movie.
It's very important that you watch it.
Now, listen, Jack, the movie that was number one when you were 10.
That's your soul movie.
Just go, go watch it.
Come on, go watch it.
That's your soul movie.
Go down a blockbuster, get the VHS and watch it.
Listen to me.
I'm your president.
This is your soul movie.
It's very important that before 2021 is over, you watch your soul movie.
You understand what I'm saying?
So what if OK, here's my idea.
What if Biden turned the POTUS Twitter handle into like an Eric Appler?
Where Trump had sort of his own sort of, you know, voice.
And I think that Biden's whole POTUS Twitter.
Your movie when you were 10 years old is your soul movie.
Right.
Let me see it in the thread in the comments.
You can have dinner with two deceased rock stars.
Who is it?
40,000 retweets.
Other world leaders.
Boris Johnson quote tweets it.
Hendricks and Morrison, no question.
Um, Biden's like, uh, Tom Jones and Roy Orrison.
All right, Seinfeld, your 10th birthday was August 6th, 1992.
Listen, Jack, listen very closely.
This is your soul movie.
It's very, very important that you watch this.
I don't care if you saw it before.
It's very important to President Joe Biden that you watch this film
before 2021 is over.
And any American that doesn't watch their soul movie by the end of 2021,
I don't want to say what's going to happen, but it's going to be bad.
And it's going to be bad for America.
And it's going to be bad for the future of this country.
It's you need to watch your soul movie.
All right, Seinfeld, we probably should have found out what was number one in Canada.
But let's assume it was the same.
The number one film on your 10th birthday was Unforgiven.
Starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.
Yeah.
Ever seen it?
Honestly, no, never seen it.
Also, I mean, it says here that this won multiple Academy Awards,
including Best Picture that year.
I have to tell you, this film has such a generic title that I almost like in my mind,
I feel like it could be like eight or nine different films.
It just seems like there was a lot of sort of vague, masculine kind of action drama
type of things like this that just like had similar titles to Unforgiven.
But it's a Western, right?
You're right.
Yeah, it's a Western.
I think at age 10, I would not have been like, this would have just gone over my head.
It's a hard R.
It is.
There you go.
That too.
Yeah, you wouldn't have been seeing it.
Although I do find it interesting to think that about a year before this film came out,
one of the biggest albums of the early 90s was released.
And that's Metallica, the Black Album that's self-titled.
When one of the most iconic songs after Ender Sandman on that album is
"Una Dably Unforgiven"
Beautiful song.
And also like back then, obviously now albums, people always say albums have like shorter
shelf lives, at least in terms of like real public prominence.
But back then, a giant album like Metallica, the Black Album, a year out, it still felt fresh.
They're releasing singles off that for like two years.
That's cooking, I was going to say for two or three years.
So summer '92, Unforgiven in the theaters, Unforgiven on your stereo.
That was a very unforgiving summer.
♪ Super joins his stir and quickly he's subdued ♪
♪ Through constant pain, disgrace, the young boy learns their rules ♪
♪ With time the child draws him, this whipping boy had done a wrong ♪
♪ Deprived of all his thoughts, the young man struggles holding on his doom ♪
♪ A vow unto his own that never from this day his will he'll take away ♪
♪ What I felt, what I've known, never shall I do what I have shown ♪
♪ Never be, never see, won't see what I have been ♪
♪ What I felt, what I've known, never shall I do what I have shown ♪
♪ Never free, never be, so I dug the unforgiven ♪
All right, let's keep moving.
I'm gonna try not to get too bogged down because we want to get to one more category.
Unforgiven is one of like the best Metallica songs.
I mean, but yeah, let's keep moving.
It's a beautiful Metallica song and the pick for...
I know this because I know a guy that I went to summer camp with,
shout out to Scott, who's a huge Metallica fan.
And I remember hearing from my cousin, from cousin Asher, who's at his wedding
when he was getting married and telling me a little bit about the wedding.
And I know he's like such a big Metallica fan that I was like...
No way.
It's not unforgiven, but I just, I just want to throw this out.
There's a Metallica anecdote that I was like...
Walking down the aisle.
Well, not down the aisle.
♪ Ba-na-na-na-na ♪
Well, actually, I don't remember if it was down the aisle or first dance,
but I remember saying to my cousin like,
"All right, when you're like a massive Metallica fan or any fan,
you're going to represent somehow at your wedding an important day in your life."
But Metallica is like, what song can you use?
And I think they went for, I think the first dance or something was Nothing Else Matters.
And I have a feeling that Unforgiven is a little too harsh,
but Nothing Else Matters has a similar energy, but it's a little sweeter.
So I think that's interesting to me.
I think Nothing Else Matters is like a go-to wedding song for Metallica fans.
And think about it, Metallica is one of the biggest bands in the world,
so there's many hardcore Metallica fans.
Like a real Metallica couple getting married.
I think they're going to go with Nothing Else Matters.
Yeah, and you can spin it like, you know,
nothing else matters besides our love.
Yeah, exactly.
♪ And nothing else matters ♪
I did not twist Hannah's arm to have GBV or The Dead represented at our wedding.
Wait, did you get, well, yeah, you guys had a very small wedding.
We had a tiny wedding.
I did make a playlist and I think they love each other by Jerry Garcia.
Oh, that's sweet.
But was there any part of your ceremony that specifically used a song?
Yeah, we did a first dance and it was The Wonder of You by Elvis Presley.
Oh, that's sweet.
Classy.
Well, you know, early 70s Elvis, very classy.
Oh, that one that song is from?
Yeah.
It might even be like mid-70s.
Oh, towards the end.
Most people actually at the wedding were just sort of like, what the f***?
Really?
Like, oh, that seems like very Jake to have mid-70s Elvis at his wedding.
Is Hannah a fan of that song or is that your call?
It was my call.
Day of.
During the first dance, you just like whispered to her, just like,
all right, so this is 75.
So just picture Elvis, he's two years out from his death.
Just like.
No, that morning I was like, are we going to do a first dance?
And she's like, I don't know.
I was like, oh, I have an idea.
If we do a first dance, let's do Wonder of You.
It's like two minutes.
It's very short.
Oh, OK.
Kind of up tempo.
It's perfect.
And she's just like, cool.
Yeah. She's like, I don't know that song at all.
Our first dance was Leather and Lace.
That's sick.
Heavy though.
That's Don Henley and Stevie Nicks.
Stevie Nicks.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, it's a beautiful song.
Love that song.
Good first dance.
Seinfeld.
That's right.
And nothing else matters.
Mashup.
It was a mashup.
There's something pretty tight about like.
How far?
About using like a heavy song where it's like we're entering the.
Sacred bonds of marriage.
Hell yeah.
We're not here to party.
This is not about like puppy dog love.
This is like heavy.
This one reminds me of like middle school dances, like being at like a middle school
dance in like 89 when Injustice for All was out.
And like the DJ, I don't know who the hell the DJ was.
Maybe it's some like local like 19 year old dude.
Started playing One, but like no one knew the song.
So everyone thought it was like a slow dance like.
I don't know now.
Just like start walking up to girls.
Um, would you like to dance?
Yeah.
And I remember the war is through with me.
Yeah, I remember slow dancing with this girl at the beginning of one.
I can't remember anything.
It's like, OK, is this and then like smash cut to like four minutes later.
It's just like.
Amazing, like the entire dance floor is like broken up.
You played the whole song.
Oh, hell yeah, dude.
Well, I feel like I kind of recall that era of dances where they would take requests.
So maybe there was just like some metal kid who's like, you please play Metallica song.
He's like, all right, I got you.
I've been playing a lot of like soft rock and pop music.
Yeah, all right, let's keep moving.
My soul movie, April 8th, 1994, my 10th birthday.
D2, the Mighty Ducks.
Haven't seen this one.
I think I saw it.
Obviously, I'll rewatch it before 2021 is out.
I remember Kenan is in it.
Who's went on to be in Kenan and Kel and SNL.
Yeah, remember this?
This is just like a movie you went to go see kids playing hockey.
Emilio Estevez back again.
All right.
Not much to say about it.
Let's get into the final category.
So the last arbitrary one that we picked, we should give it a name like kind of like
soul movie, but the last arbitrary category we picked was the number one country song
on your 35th birthday.
That's funny.
The number one country song on your 35th birthday is the song that kind of like
summarizes what your midlife is going to be like, what your midlife crisis, your
middle age will be like.
So Jake, we'll start with you.
You turned 35 on February 3rd, 2012.
And any memories of that?
Kind of a rough period.
It was right in that period when I was leaving New York to move to LA.
You're burned out on the...
Yeah, relationship ending, just sort of like a rough period.
And it's funny, I moved here in 2012.
And I remember like Ezra, like you maybe visited LA later that year.
And we were like, we're driving out to the beach to that weird like beach club.
Oh, yeah, that was a fun day.
Hung out with Eugene.
Yeah.
And we were like in like your rental SUV or whatever.
Yeah.
And you were like, how old are you?
And I was like, 35.
And you're like, okay, you got like five years.
And I was like, that's deep, dude.
I wonder what I meant by that.
I think you got five years to pull together.
Oh, because maybe you were saying like...
No, I did not bring up like 40.
You were just like, the conversation went like this.
How old are you?
35.
Okay, you got like five years.
You got about nine years till the friends reunion.
You're like, how do you know that, dude?
You're like, you got about three years till we start this internet radio show.
I don't know if we're just like talking about life.
Maybe I'm not like, yeah, maybe once you're 40.
Yeah.
You're in this different zone of life.
30s are kind of amorphous.
I remember when I moved to LA and I like stayed, I like slept on my like cousin,
like I have a kind of like second cousin that lives in Silver Lake, who I don't see that often.
I slept on his like couch the first week I was in LA.
Trying to find out where I was going to live.
And he was like, he was probably like in his 50s at that point.
And he was sort of like, how old are you?
And I was like, 35.
He's like, oh, that's like a real ass age.
I thought you were like 27.
And I was like, okay, yeah, cool.
You're right, man.
That's a real ass age.
You're 25.
I thought you were 27, man.
I didn't know I had a 35 year old crashing out on the couch for a week.
Dude, 35 and you're crashing on my couch?
Come on, bro.
Well, you pulled it together, man.
I'm at my 53 year old second cousin's house.
Just be like, whatever, man.
You're just a 53 year old second cousin.
You know what 35 also reminds me of is the Bruce Springsteen song, My Hometown.
I'm 35.
Got a son of our own now.
He like name checks that he's 35 specifically.
Well, he probably was around that age.
I think he was 34.
He's born in 50, I think.
Yeah.
Okay, so he was imagining.
Well, Jake.
I think we should call this your five years left song.
Okay, yeah, this is your five years left.
It's got to be country.
So Jake, your five years left song, Luke Bryan, I Don't Want This Night To End.
According to Bryan, it's about a guy meeting a girl and it's the first night that they're
hanging out.
It's a magical night and he doesn't want it to end.
That seems like a perfect title for your five years left song.
Yeah.
You didn't want your...
Pretty good album title too.
Tailgates and Tanlines.
Tailgates and Tanlines.
Girl, I know I don't know you, but your pretty little eyes so blue are pulling me in
like the moon on your skin.
I'm so glad you trusted me to slide up on this dusty seat and let your hair down
and get out of town.
Kind of dark musical.
You know, these minor chords.
And all I know now is it's going good.
You got your hands up, you're rocking in my truck.
You got the radio on, you're singing every song.
I'm set on cruise control, I'm slowly losing hold of everything I've got.
You're looking so damn hot.
You're looking so damn hot.
Here's a good quote from Luke Bryan when talking about this song.
He said, "This is a cure song or something."
Oh, he said this is like a cure song?
That's awesome.
Shout out to Luke Bryan.
That's cool.
Gonna cuss the morning when it comes 'cause I know that the rising sun ain't no good for me.
I almost know what he means.
Here, here's the longer quote.
Yeah.
I love the melody.
I mean, all that melody is just really kind of cool there.
A buddy of mine came and said it best.
He said, "Luke, it sounds, you know, a track.
It's like a cure or something."
It's probably the furthest thing I've went from country sounding, a country sounding track ever.
It's really not a country track.
But then you got my old country voice on it and that'll simmer down to the most craziest of tracks.
So it's fun to have that kind of music behind it.
I like his buddy.
His buddy sounds...
His buddy's like, "Yeah, it's a cure, man."
His buddy sounds great.
Sounds like something off Disintegration or something, man.
'89.
You think it's a little too goth for my fan base?
Luke, when you get your old country voice on, it doesn't matter.
You get your country-ass voice on that, it's fine.
That doesn't sound like Robert Smith playing that guitar, though, let me tell you that.
Now, Luke, you're a lot of things, but you do not sound like Robert Smith.
So you're in the clear.
All right.
There'd be like a funny SNL skit of like, real country bros talking about like,
80s British goth music.
I mean, I'm sure a lot of the country dudes or the country people know it well because
country's all about songs and they recognize good songs wherever they may come.
And Luke Bryan's probably our age.
So he grew up like, just like, hearing like, those big cure hits like, in bowling alleys or
cars or wherever.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I would love to hear Luke Bryan cover like, yeah, like, Pictures of You or something.
I think any cure song could work as a country song.
Yeah.
"I've been staring all night at these pictures of you."
And then Love Song gets covered a lot.
That'd be an easy country cover.
Yeah.
"And I almost believe that they're real."
"Almost believe that they're real."
Oh yeah, totally.
That.
"Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick.
The one that make me scream, she said.
The one that make me laugh, she said.
Friday, I'm in love."
These are all country songs.
Dude, this would be a good...
A compilation album?
Yeah, TC produced a record.
Ezra and Jake produced...
Oh yeah.
The Stars of Nashville cover The Cure.
I think we'd get some actual hits out of it.
And I bet we'd find like, you go to the Luke Bryans and you just be like,
or yeah, who's our guy?
Sam Hunt.
Just be like, "Hey guys, this is kind of a weird request.
Do you happen to be a Cure fan?"
I bet we'd get a lot of like, "Hell yeah."
Oh yeah, man.
"You guys think we only listen to country down here?
F*** out of here, man.
We love The Cure."
I bet it's true.
Next time The Cure goes and plays Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, let's go to that one.
Luke probably loves The Cure.
Garth Brooks probably is a big Cure fan.
That's very true.
Oh yeah, no, because you know what it is?
It's real recognized real.
If you're like a real country dude, even a lot of these people aren't songwriters
because they get the songs from the writers, but they need to know how to pick them.
So they're going to respect Robert Smith, excellent songwriter.
Hell yeah.
All right, Nick, your 35th birthday was September 26, 2014.
You weren't couch surfing then.
You had a kid, right?
I had a kid.
I was running that animation company, I think it may be the year that I met you.
Oh yeah, probably around then.
Nick was holding it down.
Yeah, I was a grown up.
Yeah, I feel like I was pretty settled at that point.
Were you working on Rick and Morty at this point?
I had already, yeah, well, that had already been developed.
Like I developed that at Adult Swim.
You were in and out on that.
Yeah, I mean, really, like I did the pilot of that.
So that happened in probably 2012 and we sort of finished it up.
So that, yeah, by this point I would sort of moved on from Rick and Morty.
But we had made the first one.
Like I remember during the pandemic, we watched some Rick and Morty.
Occasionally we watched the one where he turns into the pickle, which is a classic.
Pickle Rick.
I remember being like, what's the deal with this show?
And like looking up the Wikipedia of that show and then seeing your name there.
Oh yeah.
It was like, oh damn, weird.
Yeah, especially early on.
I mean, for another day.
But yeah, I was definitely like very heavily involved in that and then moved on to start
this company.
And that's when I met Ezra and we started working on Neo Yokio and other stuff.
But I mean, I think I had bought a, like I just bought a house with a mantha.
Damn.
I think it was probably, yeah.
So I feel like I was in a very different, it was definitely not a forgettable year.
You know what I mean?
I think it was probably a big year, but it was one of those where I'm just like heads
down and I'm working.
You're grinding.
I'm grinding.
So it'd be interesting to know, although I'm listening to a lot of music then I think that,
you know, I try to keep my head in the game.
So I'm interested in what my five year song is.
Yours was Jason Aldean.
Another big name with Burning It Down.
Oh, Burning It Down.
You know this song?
You know it?
I love this song.
It sounds like an usher.
I'm a huge fan of this song.
This sounds like an usher song.
Listen to this.
It's this is the first time I feel like you had that trap country.
Oh yeah, man.
I love us.
He started this.
So listen.
I can picture us.
Oh yeah.
This is like, this is my confession.
You're stuck in my head, girl.
Riding the lines.
Couldn't sing a song without you.
If I tried.
Let's light it up like it's our last.
We're just hanging around.
Burning it down.
Sipping on some cold Jack Daniels.
Jam into some old Alabama with you, baby.
Laying right here.
Naked in my bed.
I just do it.
When I heard this, this is when I realized the sort of confluence of country and R&B.
Basically, the only difference is that.
The references.
It's the accent and the references.
That's it.
They're drinking Jack Daniels and listen to Alabama.
But like, this doesn't sound like this could be a.
It's so clean production.
So clean.
Al Dean told CMT that he considered this song to be baby making music.
By the way, is that I mean, you could absolutely hear.
As you say that.
Let our shadows dance and light it up like it's our last.
We're just hanging around.
Burning it down.
Sipping on some cold Jack Daniels.
Jam into some old Alabama with you, baby.
Country albums always have great titles.
This album is called Old Boots, New Dirt.
I know.
I'm so happy this is my this is my five year song.
So maybe this song means that, you know, you were you're kind of a family man.
Got a new job.
But this reminds you, you know, you can always throw on some Alabama, drink some cold Jack
Daniels, still have fun.
You might be grown up, but you still got five years left to party.
This is a this is a great quote.
I didn't listen to this quote when the song was pitched to Aldine.
He was sold on it by the reference to the band Alabama.
And here's the quote.
This is so good.
It mentioned Alabama.
I'm a huge fan of Alabama and anything that makes a reference to something I'm a fan of.
It's cool to have in there.
OK, Mr. Aldine.
All right.
Well, we got to just go look up some he likes and we can probably sell him some songs.
Yeah, we can start writing songs for him.
All right.
What's Jason Aldine's favorite thing to order at Taco Bell?
All right, Nick, that's your five years left song.
OK.
Oh, wow.
Burning it down.
Wow.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Seinfeld, your 35th birthday was August 6, 2017.
So this was the days between 2017 and your five years left song, Sam Hunt, Body Like a Back Road.
Wow.
Friend of the show.
Yeah, seriously.
Look at that.
Oh, nice to hear this again.
It's weird.
I have like time crisis nostalgia for this song.
Yeah, I'm picturing the studio in Culver City eating pizza.
Early days.
Way back like Cadillac seats.
What a good song.
This holds up.
Yeah, this is a TC Hall of Famer.
I've put it up to the shape of you.
Florida Georgia line.
Oh, yeah.
Those early TC hits.
Sam Hunt said, I try to think of titles or lines that will cross my mind and I'll put them in my
phone. I do that too. And this is one that I wanted to write for a while. The title.
Oh, so you started with just the idea of Body Like a Back Road.
The back of my head. 15 and 30. I ain't in no hurry. I'm taking slow just as fast as I can.
Oh, yeah. This little riff.
It's true.
This song feels so connected to time crisis.
It just came out February 2nd, 2017.
That early Trump era.
America is filled with optimism. Body Like a Back Road on the radio.
This came out the day before my 40th birthday.
For you, this is actually when you made it to 40.
You probably really had a sense of like, you know what? I made it.
I made it through those five years. I'm a real man now. 40 year old man.
This is like a feel good country song like Body Like a Back Road's crossing over.
Trump's in the White House. It just felt good.
Things are looking up. Things are looking up.
Okay, so I turned 35 back in 2019. April 8th, 2019. The number one song then was
a different Luke. Luke Combs with Beautiful Crazy. I don't know if I know this song.
Well, I got a ballad. I think it's a love ballad.
Her day starts with a coffee and ends with a wine.
She's forever getting ready so she's never on time for anything.
When she gets that come get me look in her eyes.
Well, it kind of scares me the way that she drives me wild.
She drives me wild.
Beautiful crazy. She can't help but amaze me.
The way that she dances ain't afraid to take chances and wears her heart on her sleeve.
Yeah, she's crazy, but her crazy is beautiful to me.
He's saying she's crazy. There's nothing in the song that sounds crazy.
She wakes up and drinks a coffee.
Then she ends it with a wine.
Over the edge, dude. What's next?
She makes plans and then she changes her mind and says,
"Let's just stay home and watch TV," and then falls asleep.
Dude, are you serious?
Like the opposite of crazy.
That's effing nuts.
Maybe this is like kind of ironic. It literally sounds like the opposite.
No, I don't think it is ironic.
If you were dating somebody and they said, "Hey, let's have a quiet night
and maybe just watch some TV and go to sleep," and you're like, "I'm down. Great."
And then it was like 9 30 and they're just like, "You know what, man?
This is boring. Let's go get loaded at the party."
You'd be like, "Whoa, no, no, this sucks. We're going now. I just called an Uber."
Like, "All right."
This is a very strange song.
Let me tell you something I just found out.
This is interesting because the only person that seems crazy is him.
Is that he said he wrote "Beautiful Crazy" about his wife,
Nicole Hawking, before they had officially started dating.
He said that the song earned him some "serious brownie points," with Hawking adding,
"I wrote it two days before I played it for her and I made sure that one of her
friends was there while I played it." So her friend would be like, "Oh, so nice," and everything.
Luckily, that worked out and here we are. So he wrote this song before he knew her.
What a weird song. I mean, it's a pretty song,
but when you really look under the hood, it's very strange, Luke. Strange song.
Also, yeah, her day starts with a coffee and ends with a wine,
takes forever getting ready, so she's never on time for anything.
He didn't know her. So he kind of had to write some sort of generalities.
You know, yeah, it's cool to be punctual, but it's not necessarily crazy when you run late.
It should have been the opposite. It'd be pretty crazy if somebody
started the day with wine and ended it with coffee.
That'd be just kind of weird.
I'm really curious. Is there anything--
We literally heard all the verses. I guess there's a bridge where she--
Is there anything in there that truly is just out there?
No, this song is very strange. That was all the details.
Chugs a bottle of wine for breakfast, drinks a cappuccino at midnight.
She eats dinner for breakfast, and breakfast for dinner, she wears socks on her hands,
men's on her feet. She's real weirdo, but I love her.
Yeah, one of the verses is literally, she makes plans for the weekend, can't wait to go out,
till she changes her mind and says, "Let's stay on the couch and watch TV," and she falls asleep.
Maybe you're right, dude. Maybe this is ironic. She's the least crazy person.
She's a very normal person.
She's unpredictable, unforgettable, it's unusual, unbelievable.
How I'm such a fool, yeah, I'm such a fool for her.
Okay, so he's being like, "I'm a fool, because this doesn't make any sense."
That time that you canceled plans and then fell asleep on the couch
with some crappy reality show playing on Netflix, that was so sick. That blew my mind.
That's when I knew I loved you. That's what I knew.
It would be the friends reunion.
What the hell, man?
This really just doesn't follow the fairly easy to follow rules of classic country songwriting,
which is come up with a concept and then support it with details in the verse. Come on, man.
Her crazy is beautiful to me.
I most likely need to get Luke Combs on the show and just be like, "Dude, what the hell
were you thinking, man? Luke, this is my five years left song, man. I got questions."
All right, guys, we got-
Nothing crazy about this.
Coming up, we're going to dig into Luke Combs'
soul movie and ask him some questions about Beautiful Crazy.
You know what their first dance was?
Metallica?
Wait, did they get married?
They got married. This worked. They got married.
It worked?
Um, is it a country song?
Something came up. Did it come up earlier?
I'll just say it's Beautiful Crazy.
Oh, wait.
Wait, what?
At their whole wedding?
Their own wedding, their first dance was to Beautiful Crazy.
Maybe it's an inside joke they have together where Luke's like,
"You know how much money I made?"
Where she's so normal.
"I made off this song." Yeah, like, just like the best man at the wedding be like,
"All right, when Luke first told me about her,
first thing he told me is she drinks coffee in the morning, has a glass of wine at night."
And I said, "Luke, I think you finally met your match, man,
because this guy's f***ing crazy, too. I mean, we had some nights back in the day.
All right, Luke."
All right, well, that's a good note to end it on.
This has been a banked episode of Time Crisis.
I think we got a pretty good way in now for future banked episodes.
We just create a random Joe Biden executive order and then just dig through them.
We can have guests in the future.
But really, I encourage everybody, don't be a dummy, Jack.
Go find your soul movie.
You gotta watch it before the end of 2021.
Those are the rules, Jack.
Now I understand you feel like you're busy, COVID's ending,
you want to go party with your friend, you don't got time to watch the soul movie.
But listen, you gotta watch the soul movie.
You gotta watch your soul movie by the end of 2021.
It's important to me, your president.
It's important to Vice President Harris.
And it's important to the whole country.
I'll try to work on that impression.
All right, guys, see you in two weeks.
Peace.
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig
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