Episode 224: French Words and Fake Zombies
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
On today's episode, we talk about the fake zombies with Daniel Ralston.
We also take a trip back down memory lane to the Prohibition era, as well as the late
60s.
All this, plus music from the Archies.
This is Time Crisis, with Ezra Koenig.
That reached number 15 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
So not quite as dramatic as the FR David, but it was number one all throughout Western Europe and Canada.
There's a Neil Young song called "Words" too, right?
Oh yeah, wait, what's, how does that one go?
Let's, let's see.
Words!
I think it's kind of like heavy. Is it like words?
Oh yeah, is that on Harvest?
Yeah.
This is like deep side B of Harvest.
Yeah, this song rules.
Is this song literally called "Words"?
It's called "Words" parentheses between the lines of age.
Oh, right.
Words!
Recorded September 28th, 1971.
Words! Words!
Words! Between the lines of age.
Words! Words! Between the lines of age.
Oh, you get the idea.
Good song.
Throw an FR David one more time.
Yeah, let's just, like, let's get a clean, a clean palette here.
Circle back.
Oh yeah, that feels good.
Oh yeah.
Words! Words! Don't come easy to me.
There's something I, also, so compelling to me about
Tunisian French guy singing in English
about how words don't come easy to him.
Oh yeah.
It feels real.
Maybe he's trying to flirt with a CIA agent stationed in Paris
whose French isn't that good.
She's still learning French.
Listen to the verse.
I'm just a music man.
Melodies are so far my best friend.
That's pure.
But my words are coming out wrong.
I hope that you believe it's true.
See, that's like, it's somebody who's not a master of English,
but who's still expressing themselves so poetically and beautifully.
Just, like, I'm sorry, my English is terrible.
Listen, I'm a music man.
Melodies are my best friend.
My words are coming out wrong, but I reveal them in my heart to you.
Words don't come easy to me.
And she's in love.
Yeah.
He's just got a great vibe.
It's like sometimes you meet people all the time
who haven't mastered English or something,
and you can still tell that they're so smart.
Oh yeah.
Because the way that they're using the English that they have is like genius.
I like this part too.
Nice and short.
Words don't come easy to me.
I'm adding this to my 2024 playlist.
A way to make you see.
I can hear, like, a Jake acoustic version of this.
I feel like this is, like, something The Weeknd would cover.
Oh yeah.
Totally.
Yeah, or it'll be kind of like the basis for the next big Weeknd song.
Yeah.
Words don't come easy to me.
How can I find a way to make you see?
So were you walking into various kitchens and living rooms in L.A., New York,
and other bohemian enclaves and hearing "FR David"?
I was hearing this more and more.
And then, you know, of course I, like, asked a few friends from other countries.
They're like, "Oh yeah, of course. You don't know that song?"
Words don't come easy.
It could have been a hit.
I mean, these things are a little bit arbitrary.
Yeah, especially back then.
I mean, like, "99 Red Balloons" or, like, there's other songs that remind me of this, palette-wise.
Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't be crazy if this had been a hit in America.
You know what? I just thought of one more song I've been wanting to talk about on Time Crisis.
I just keep thinking about the, you know, listening to "FR David's" words
in some sort of, like, late Cold War environment involving a CIA agent.
And it just reminded me-- I should have texted you, Jake.
I kept thinking about, like, we need to talk about this.
Again, I don't know exactly the extent to which this is true.
I don't know if it's, like, a TikTok thing.
Seinfeld, I don't know if you can do a number crunch of this somehow.
I somehow feel like the Hollies song, "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress"--
Oh, man. Please.
I think it's having a moment.
It is?
Basically, one day I was bored, and I was just scrolling the top YouTube music videos in America.
And it was all the stuff you'd expect, just, like, huge-- what, a Bad Bunny or something?
And I was just going deep, and it was, like, "Number 67, 'Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress' by the Hollies."
And I was like, "Is this a glitch?"
And then I was looking at the YouTube, and there were a lot of comments just being like,
"I love this song. Who's here in 2024?" All that kind of stuff.
That's amazing, because you know what that reminds me of?
I've always thought this song was like a weird kind of weirdo Credence.
Yeah, it's like a fake Credence song.
It's like fake Credence, but it's really good.
But remember I sent you recently--
An article about how Credence is just still crushing it.
Credence Clearwater, the Chronicle, which is kind of like their Bob Marley legend.
It's their greatest hits collection, which I had on CD.
Right. It's on the Billboard charts, like, every week lately.
And their streaming numbers are pretty much neck and neck with The Beatles.
Too bad John Fogerty doesn't get a piece of that.
But yeah, right. We all love Credence, but the idea that they would be--
the profile has been lower.
Well, and yeah, John Fogerty's not a celebrity in the way that Paul McCartney or Mick Jagger
or even Robert Plant is. You know what I mean?
Yeah. There was no "Bohemian Rhapsody" movie about Credence.
I just think it shows that the people want just some good, tough, simple American rock and roll.
Some good shugle.
Yeah, Chad Cheapy T says that "Long, Cool Woman in a Black Dress" is having resurgence
because Alan Clark recently revisited the track as part of his return to the spotlight,
releasing new material and performing it live.
Hmm. I don't buy that.
Yeah, I don't think that's why.
Oh no. Could the omniscient Chad Cheapy T be incorrect? It says it searched five sites.
All the Zoomers were like, "Yo, you hear that Alan Clark performance?"
Who?
Like, you know, the Hollies. You know, "Hey, Carrie Ann."
Yeah, I always thought of this song as being kind of like-- yeah, like a fake Credence song.
Like, I like it, but--
Yeah, as a kid, I always knew it wasn't-- I'd hear it on the radio a lot.
And I knew it wasn't Credence, but I was like-- I still loved it.
I was like-- then I found out it was the Hollies, who have a very weird '70s career. Yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't sound like their other hits. But the opening line just floored me.
Sat out all night, I went downtown
Working for the FBI
Yeah, can we just pause it right there?
Let me bring up these lyrics. Hold on.
Just-- because first of all, there's something about-- this song's '72,
but it sounds like a Credence song from the late '60s.
And there's just something about that--
And just Saturday night, I was downtown working for the FBI,
just immediately, I was like, "This song is chaos.
This is pure Charles Manson chaos."
And there's just something so weird and eerie about this, like,
eternal classic rock song by an English band doing a fake Credence song
that just opens at the height of the counterculture.
Saturday night, I was downtown working for the FBI.
And I imagine for the Hollies, they're picturing--
maybe when they think of the FBI, they're not thinking of the weird J. Edgar Hoover stuff.
They're picturing just like whatever-- like some-- the G-Men versus the Untouchables or something.
Right, like the clean-cut 1950s version of wholesome law enforcement.
Yeah, a little bit. Basically, like, I was a cop, and I was just at a bar.
And maybe this is hindsight because we know about all the various alphabet organizations
getting so deep into weird domestic politics and counterculture and undercover shenanigans.
Like the COINTELPRO.
Yeah, exactly. You can imagine the Hollies wouldn't have written,
"Saturday night, I was downtown working for the CIA."
But there's something about it where it almost feels that way,
where it's like, "Bro, who the f*** are you? F***ing op. What are you doing?"
On the phone to Jolly West, working on the MKUltra project.
Saturday night, I was downtown dozing dudes with LSD.
Yeah, there's something just so eerie about it.
But anyway, so that opening line, just immediately, I was like, this whole song, long--
there's something so weird about this song to me.
Yes.
But I love it. Okay, let's go back to that verse one. Let's play through.
Okay, Saturday night, I was downtown sitting in a nest of bad men.
Whiskey bottles piling high.
And he's talking about bootlegging boozers. I feel like they're mixing eras. Yeah.
I mean, I guess they had the FBI in the '20s. He's going to call the DA.
Oh, wait. I've never actually looked at these lyrics before.
Just 5'9", beautiful and tall.
So wait, pause it for a sec.
A pair of 45s made me open my eyes. My temperature--
So someone's pointing a gun in his face, right?
Mm-hmm.
She was a long, cool woman in a black dress.
Just a 5'9", beautiful and tall.
I'm almost like, is this like a Lola situation?
A what?
Is this like a dude cross-dressing?
Is the long, cool woman in a black dress a guy? I'm just like--
Oh, and that's why he's like, you know, she's a bit tall.
Yeah. Okay, we'll keep going.
I love how the drums just are out for so long.
Here they come.
Even though this is after 1969, this also has big
once upon a time in Hollywood energy.
Oh, yeah.
Everybody started to run.
So someone opens fire.
Well, the DA was pumping my left hand.
She was holding my right.
I love that phrasing in there.
I don't know, maybe he was in some sort of weird
undercover sting, and he fell in love with a woman at the bar.
And it's not much of a story, really.
Yeah, and then he grabs her and says, "Don't get scared,
'cause you're gonna be spared."
So he already knew what was gonna happen.
I've gotta be forgiven if I wanna spend my living
with a long, cool woman in a black--
I love how he crammed so many syllables in there.
I tried to do this karaoke once, and just--
I got just destroyed by the song.
I could not make heads or tails--
and I know the song well, but I just could not make heads or tails.
[Singing]
Apparently this is set during the Prohibition era.
Okay, yeah, so that does make more sense. 1920s.
The lyrics, "Sittin' in a nest of bad men and whiskey bottles
pilin' higher," meant to reflect the tough-guy language known to be used
in old gangster movies. All right.
Yeah, the FBI was established in 1908.
So it checks out.
Although it was called the Bureau of Investigation,
then when did it become called the FBI?
The following year, 1933, da-da-da...
It became an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935.
In the same year, its name was officially changed
from the Division of Investigation to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Okay, Hollies, I got your ass.
And I think J. Edgar Hoover was the first director of the FBI
and ran it for, like, 40 years or something.
Yeah, he served as director from 1924 to 1972.
That's insane.
A combined 48 years with the BOI, the DOI, and the FBI.
So unfortunately for the Hollies, during Prohibition,
it was not called the FBI.
So, but just to back up a sec,
you were saying this is having a moment on TikTok.
I'm intrigued. I mean...
I don't know if it's true, but I feel like it's having...
All I know is that I saw it on the top 100 music videos in America.
Maybe I misread it.
That's amazing.
I was seeing Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Morgan Wallen,
and then I see long, cool woman in a black dress.
I searched Google Trends, and I will say the line is pretty steady.
There's no real spiking recently in terms of search volume.
Then maybe I just somehow I forgot that this is one of the most popular songs of all time.
Yeah.
It's just always been...
It's evergreen.
Yeah.
All right, well, then I think we're going to give it a moment starting right now.
We're going to take it to the next level.
Yeah, there's something else about this song.
Maybe because it is a vaguely historical song, but it's kind of confused.
It also just seems like a lot of people double-crossing each other.
Maybe the long, cool woman in the black dress works for another agency.
Right.
I feel like we're heading towards some sort of Mexican standoff.
Then also, there is something funny about with this kind of music,
it just doesn't sound like Prohibition music.
[imitates Prohibition music]
Well, that's what I love.
Yeah, it's like you were saying.
It's like a British band imitating Cretans,
which is some guys from suburban Bay Area
who are doing their interpretation of various idioms of American rock,
whether it's Southern or country.
It's like we said on a recent episode, it's a memory of a memory.
Yeah.
You know what the memory of the memory was?
It was the Pumpkin Spice in Arizona.
Actually, I thought about it because it was 106 today,
and I thought about it.
Should I go get an iced Pumpkin Spice?
No, you wanted your hot black 12 ounces.
I got the hot black 12 ounces.
Just f***ing rolling into a f***ing Pasadena coffee shop or some s***.
It's 111 degrees outside.
Walking in.
I want a hot black 12-ounce coffee.
Wait, hold on.
I just discovered something very freaky.
Yeah.
Long, Cool Woman in a Black Dress by the Hollies came out April 17, 1972.
J. Edgar Hoover stepped down from the FBI.
Oh, sorry.
He didn't step down.
He died.
J. Edgar Hoover died two weeks later, May 2, 1972,
ending his effective 40-plus-year tenure at the FBI.
That's kind of weird.
I wonder if he heard it and died.
Yeah.
I wonder if there's just some deep undercover FBI agent somewhere who is like--
First of all, J. Edgar Hoover famously breaking the rules,
doing all these unacceptable things.
There's no way that there wasn't a hidden division within the FBI
of people who reported directly to him.
Classic.
Just like the CIA has stuff like that.
For all we know, there might have been hundreds of people in America
who reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover,
deeply embedded in the hippie movement, Black Panthers,
Buddhist meditation retreats, you name it.
Somewhere in May '72, there was a Ronin, masterless samurai,
heard J. Edgar Hoover died, can no longer report to him,
and this dude's [expletive] sitting in a car outside a hippie commune
in West Texas.
[imitating drumming]
There's no way that didn't happen.
Yeah.
The timing is eerie.
He hears on the news.
I mean, he's not hearing from anyone at the FBI.
He's hearing it just on a radio bulletin.
Yeah.
Just [expletive] Donnie Brasco-esque dude,
or Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed.
Just this dude has been literally embedded in a hippie commune
for eight years, and he hears that he died,
and then this song comes out, and he's just like,
that's how that dude knew he was living in a simulation.
[imitating drumming]
Also, play the beginning again.
Such a fascinating little intro that has nothing to do
with the rest of the song.
Oh, yeah, that arpeggio part.
Yeah.
It never comes back.
Oh, yeah.
What a tone.
Almost kind of reminds me of Use Your Illusion.
Yeah, totally.
This is the part where the dude just found out
J Edgar Hoover died.
And then the hippies come out to the car just like,
hey, man, aren't you going to come back to the party?
He's like, [expletive] it.
And then he's also, as the vocals are, he's like,
wait a second, is this Credence?
Yeah, right.
No, man, it's the new single from the Hollies.
I thought Credence broke up or something.
Of course not, Jim.
This is the new single from British rock group the Hollies.
Yeah, I could have sworn that was John Fogerty,
but I don't know.
Wait, you're telling me that's Alan Clark on lead vocals?
I wonder what John Fogerty thought of this song.
Could you do a quick number crunch?
John Fogerty.
Oh, yeah, that's a good question.
John Fogerty's take.
I'm also picturing the FBI agent finding out J Edgar Hoover's dead.
He has like five children with five different women in the hippie commune.
Oh, my God.
He hears it on the radio.
Or maybe it's like they're so out in the middle of nowhere
he doesn't find out until a few weeks later.
And as soon as he reads it in this old newspaper,
he's like, I'll be right back.
Gets in the car and never comes back, blasting, "Long cool woman."
You guys are going to love this.
Okay.
John Fogerty actually sued the Hollies over this song
because he thought it infringed on their trademark sound used on Green River,
and they ended up settling.
I mean, he's not credited as a writer.
They're on Green River.
I mean, they definitely bit his style,
but I don't think they bit his songwriting.
No, there's no specific Green song that sounds like that.
[singing]
Well, and also Fogerty did not invent [singing]
You know, this.
[singing]
I mean, I like "Long cool woman" in a black dress better than Green River.
I mean, I love Cree, and so don't get me wrong,
but this is not one of my Creedence go-to's.
[singing]
But, I mean, there is something to it.
Like, they were definitely--
Oh, they bit his whole style.
Yeah, but I don't know if it's--
You can't sue someone for aping your style.
Yeah, I don't think it's actionable.
That's kind of lame.
I mean, I wonder if John had a lawyer whispering in his ear.
Well, and then famously John later got sued for sounding like himself.
Right, I mean, the whole Fogerty story is just brutal.
Apparently he received half the proceeds of the song as part of the settlement.
John got half the proceeds?
Whoa.
Apparently.
I wonder if Alan Clark and the Hollies ever ran into Fogerty later,
like backstage at some benefit concert or something in the '80s.
[singing]
I mean, "Long Cool Woman" is more of like a hit.
Yeah, it's poppy, yeah, it's hookier, more going on or something.
Like I said, this is kind of a skip track for me, I've got to say, with the Creedence songs.
What's your favorite Creedence song?
I mean, jeez, one of those ballads, like, "Long as I Can See the Light" or "Who Will Stop the Rain" or--
I don't know, "Look Out My Back Door." There's so many, you know?
[singing]
"Wrote a song for everyone." You know that one? That's a good one.
I don't think so.
Really?
Play it. What's it called?
"Wrote a Song for Everyone." It's actually weirdly not on Chronicle, but--
[playing "Wrote a Song for Everyone"]
Met myself coming county where fair land
I was feeling strung out, hung out on the line
Saw myself going down to boy in June
What I want, what I want is a ride in my steel motel
Wrote a song for everyone
Wrote a song for true
Wow. I'm looking at these lyrics.
Do you know this song, Ezra?
I don't know, it doesn't sound-- I don't know if I do.
It's definitely not one of the radio hits, but--
Anyway, it's about a guy going to war, basically.
Fogarty was one of the only '60s rock stars who actually went to Vietnam.
He went to Vietnam?
Yeah. I didn't know that.
[singing]
Before Credence.
Oh.
Early days.
To see the answer
Now's the time to say
What I want, what I want
Okay, I'm reading he was drafted, but he was never deployed to Vietnam.
Oh, my bad.
He was-- Stolen Valor.
My bad.
Jake, that's Stolen Valor.
He's a rock star, man.
He worked as a stocking clerk at Fort Knox.
Oh, so he did do some--
He was never deployed to Vietnam, but he was in the military.
Yeah.
He did basic training and stuff.
That's something.
That's something.
It's more than Mick Jagger.
Yeah.
That's more than Jerry Garcia.
[guitar solo]
Wrote a song for everyone
Wrote a song for truth
Wrote a song for everyone
And I'm singing it over you
Saw the people standing
A thousand years in chains
Somebody says it's different now
Look, it's just the same
Pharaoh's been the man--
Anyway, yeah, this is a great song.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Rock stars who were deployed.
Yeah, I mean, there's the sort of fake celebrity ones like Elvis.
Yeah, this is a hard one to search because you search--
There's a lot of people who served in the military.
Larry David served in the military.
What, was he in the Coast Guard?
I don't know, Seinfeld?
I think it was--
Hang on, I want to get this right because it's Larry David.
He was over and actually in--
He was in Vietnam, wasn't he?
No, I think he also did basic training.
Oh, wait. Oh, no, no.
Sorry, yeah, he joined the Army Reserves to avoid Vietnam.
Then he had a psychiatrist write a letter
and fake a psychiatric episode to get up early.
Okay, very George, perfect.
Even Jerry in 1960 joined the Army, did basic training.
Jerry Garcia did.
Yeah.
I wonder if that was just required of young men at that era.
Yeah, because Jerry was born in '42, so he was 18 and 60.
That makes sense.
Yeah, he wasn't trying to go fight overseas.
Anyway, Credence, Hollies, good bands.
All right, everybody, if anybody has any information
about the possibility that Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress
is having a moment, please let us know.
Even if it's just been having a moment in your life
and you're kind of like, "Whoa, I can't believe they're talking about
on Time Crisis because actually I was just jamming it
for the first time in years."
Just let us know.
Anybody's got their ear to the ground, what's happening?
One fun fact I know about Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,
supposedly it's the first song Phish ever performed in concert.
Wait, what?
Yeah, when the band started in the '80s.
They opened their first show with a Long Cool Woman
in a Black Dress cover?
Yeah, like--
At Nectar's?
At the Harris Mills Cafeteria at UVM.
The rules.
Yeah, supposedly that's their first show.
I don't know if there's a recording.
Yeah, supposedly they opened set one with Long Cool Woman
in a Black Dress, then busted into Proud Mary.
Okay.
Yeah, and then in set two they did a Scar Fire.
Scarlett Begonias in a Fire on the Mountain.
I think they should get back into Long Cool Woman covers.
Yeah, let's see.
They did play it at Pepsi Arena in 2003.
So it's been 21 years we could use a Long Cool Woman
in a Black Dress bust out.
Does Paige sing that?
I think you should.
Yeah, I guess their friend Jeff Holdsworth played it with them.
We need a full--
I saw they busted out Sabotage by the Beastie Boys
the other night.
No thanks.
We need a Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.
Yeah, that's more your speed, guys.
All right, should we get to our guest?
Yeah.
Now let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
[phone ringing]
So we're going to call Daniel Ralston next.
He's been on the show before, a longtime friend of the show.
He has released a podcast, which I binged today,
called The Real History of the Fake Zombies.
Is that the right title, Daniel?
No, but that's okay.
What's the real title?
What's the real title of your real podcast?
It's called The True Story of the Fake Zombies,
but I think most people just call it The Fake Zombies.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies.
I love this show.
Maybe we've touched on this before in the other times
you've been on the show, because it's based on an article
you wrote years ago.
Long story short, what, the guys from ZZ--
Well, there were two--
I don't even know where to start with this.
It's set in 1969, basically.
Daniel, why don't you set that up?
Welcome to the show.
Yeah, welcome back to the show, Daniel.
I love your Oasis shirt, Daniel.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'm hyped for the reunion.
But yeah, first of all, I don't know if Jake shared with you--
can we back up for a second?
Yeah, yeah.
Until April of this year, I was Forklift certified,
but I did let it lapse this year.
It lapsed?
So, it lapsed.
I'm sorry, guys.
I'll get it back up.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, I know.
I'll get it back up.
Two former certified Forklift operators
in the state of California.
You're not going to get that on a lot of internet radio shows.
You know that for sure.
What was the reason for the certification?
I worked a lot of crazy jobs during the pandemic
when I couldn't bartend, including a weird job
where I built furniture.
And I had to drive a truck to Dallas, Texas.
And I had to load it up with a forklift,
so I had to get Forklift certified.
That was the short version of that story.
That was like 2021.
And it lasts for three years.
Did you just operate the Forklift that one day in Dallas
and then never again?
I did it a few times, but not a ton.
Wait, because you were picking up a Forklift in Dallas
to bring back to California?
I had to load a truck up with a forklift
and then drive that truck to Dallas.
Oh, I see.
So, because when you were going to pick up the furniture,
there was not a Forklift certified person on the ground
in Dallas to help you load?
No, he loaded in LA.
He unloaded in Dallas.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, but without saying too much about it,
it was a very weird job.
There were not a lot of other people who were certified
for a lot of things there.
So, it was helpful to have a Forklift certification.
Can I ask, do you just renew it or do you have to recertify?
I think you have to go back.
You go to a place at like 7 in the morning,
and they basically take you on the driver's test,
but with a Forklift.
So, the whole process restarts?
Yeah.
Right, because actually getting certified,
do you have to study up before you get there,
or it's pretty easy?
A little bit.
I did study a little bit.
There's a written test.
I didn't have a written test.
I just had to drive the Forklift in front of a guy
who knew how to operate a Forklift.
I did have to raise something up and down in front of him,
and then you have to back up.
And when you're Forklift certified, that's federal, right?
That's not state by state?
It was not federal.
It was like just a company that certifies you to drive a Forklift
the same way somebody can certify you to be a notary public.
So, you couldn't then, when you were in Dallas,
you couldn't man the Forklift?
I think I could have.
I didn't have to do that.
There were people waiting there for you.
With a lot of stuff like that, the states have reciprocity
for various types of licenses.
It's not like passing the bar.
No, no.
A very low bar to pass.
So, I'm going to get it back up.
Get the Forklift certification back up.
By the way, sorry, this is going off the rails already.
I literally just got back from Detroit today,
and I'm like insanely tired.
This is pure time crisis.
So, you loaded the truck with a Forklift in LA,
you drove it to Dallas, and then you unloaded it also with a Forklift.
Three years ago.
Yeah.
All legal, all legal.
The truck I was driving was one foot under what you need for a commercial license.
So, but when you get to Dallas, they're like,
you're going to pull up to a warehouse, there will be a Forklift,
the keys are in it, you use the Forklift.
On this particular instance, it was being unloaded at a condominium complex
that had purchased a bunch of furniture for outdoor seating
that had to be built in Dallas.
Okay.
I'm dying to know more about this job.
That's basically it.
The best story for that job is that for a long time,
I just cut picture frames on a saw.
And at one point, a guy worked with sliced his finger down the middle,
like his middle finger, and then he did it again later on that day.
No.
Wait, he did the other finger?
He was still working.
He wrapped it up.
He went to the emergency room, he came back.
With stitches?
He put a glove on and he did it.
And the glove got cut and he did it again a second time.
No, man.
You do that once, you hit the shower, man.
Day is over.
So you have to go back to the same.
You didn't even clean all the blood off the saw for the first one.
God.
So he shows up at the same ER hours later.
He's like, I'm back.
I did it again.
The good news is you guys already started it.
So this should be fine.
Yeah, weird job.
Had a lot of weird jobs.
I bartended a place down in San Pedro for a while during the pandemic.
None of the LA places were open, but San Pedro, they were like,
we're staying open.
I remember that.
Love it.
Did you ever come down there, Jake?
You never came down to that spot?
No, I never came down.
Yeah, it was a weird, weird place.
Okay, and then at some point you create this podcast.
You've already written about this story.
I was thinking how long we could go without talking about the podcast.
We were going to at the end just do a play the trailer or something.
So basically, this is about this infamous incident where the zombies,
the British rock band from the '60s, were being impersonated by a bunch of
American people basically just going on tour as the zombies,
and hence the true story of the fake zombies.
Exactly right.
There were some fake zombies hitting the road, playing concerts.
Correct.
Two fake zombies.
Interesting.
With the same manager.
And was this all down in Texas?
No, it all was centered in Bay City, Michigan.
Oh, right.
The place where this all took place, the town of Bay City,
has some pretty important people close by who played there as teenagers
on the Michigan Teenage Nightclub circuit, like Iggy Pop and Bob Seger.
And Stevie Wonder's born in Saginaw, not far from Bay City.
Yeah, it's kind of an interesting place.
And this management company in Bay City said,
"We're going to start a version of this British band, the Zombies."
And the Texas connection is that they found four guys in Texas,
including two of the guys who went on to be in ZZ Top,
to be the first fake zombies.
They called themselves the Original Zombies.
Because these zombies had broken up, the real zombies in the U.K.
They flopped with their album, Odyssey and Oracle,
which is now considered one of the best albums ever made.
A classic.
It totally bombed.
And by some chance, Time of the Season became--
the third single off the album became a huge hit in America,
and this guy in Michigan was like, "Well, there's no British band."
And actually, he had a partner who was a younger, cool guy
who worked for Sun Amplifiers.
So he probably knew that the Zombies had broken up,
and they put together this first fake zombies from Texas,
and then another one made up of a Beach Boys-type band from Michigan.
Right, and the first band from Texas with the guys from ZZ Top,
I was interested to hear, they would do Time of the Season,
and then the rest of the show would just be like Texas blues.
They didn't even pretend to sound like the Zombies.
And then the second Zombies band, which was the Beach Boys-style band
from Michigan, they were more like a credible Zombies cover band.
Yes.
And they would speak with British accent--
or at least the one guy would speak with a British accent.
And they would play-- because the Zombies had other hits.
She's Not There.
Ezra, I've got to stop you there.
It's such a bummer, but 90% of the people I talk to are like,
"Oh yeah, they're that one-hit wonder band."
I mean, obviously people know that's not the case
who really know about music, and it's sad that people don't know it.
They don't know She's Not There?
Yeah, She's Not There, I guess, is on like oldies radio probably.
No, no, but I see what you mean, because they almost--
outside of the voice, they feel like such different eras.
Time of the Season is like their one kind of eternal late '60s hippie song
where She's Not There is like British Invasion.
Yeah, and then there's The Odyssey and the Oracle stuff,
but that's all like you said, after the fact.
Only now does the average music aficionado know those songs.
Yeah, but a lot of people who influence what we like about music now love them.
Like Susanna Hoffs from the Bengals, she's in the show.
She inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Tom Petty and Mike Campbell both were zombies obsessives.
Mike Campbell's in the podcast for like five minutes,
which was amazing to get to talk to him.
That's awesome.
And yeah, like it was just kind of chasing after this crazy story
and then finding out that these fake zombies cross paths
with like a lot of musical history other than just the ZZ Top guys.
You know, I ended up, yeah, finding a lot of strange Michigan history on this.
Well, and like, yeah, they were playing like one of those, I forget which,
I think it was like the Beach Boys, more like credible zombies cover band,
like played, like opened for like the doors and like,
it just sounded so strange.
Like it just really drove home like this would be impossible now for obvious reasons.
Yeah.
Well, no one told me about her, the way she lied.
Well, no one told me about her.
How many people cried.
But it's too late to say you're sorry.
How would I know?
Why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her.
She's not there.
Well, let me tell you about the way she looked,
the way she had tan, the color of her hair.
Her voice was soft and cool.
Her eyes were clear and bright.
But she's not there.
What's also funny too, I guess it recalls to mind the way that they had this big hit
happening right when the band breaks up.
To me, it calls to mind the massive success of Sublime right after Bradley Noel died.
You know, he dies the week the big album comes out.
I was listening to what I got, Santeria, all over the radio, all over MTV.
And in the years that followed, there was a massively successful Sublime cover band.
There might have been a bunch, but there's one that I always heard about called Bad Fish.
Yeah.
That would do like real numbers, and they would go to parts of the country that Sublime had never gone to before.
I imagine they probably aren't selling as many tickets now that there's the Sublime reunited
with Bradley Noel's son.
But I guess in that context, there's something really established about tribute acts by the '90s.
So they probably understood that they didn't need to trick anybody.
Just by faithfully doing the music, there really was a market for cover bands.
But maybe in 1969, it wouldn't have crossed this guy's mind to just be like,
"Hey, guys, this band's not touring, and they got a hit. Let's put together a tribute to the zombies."
Or like, "Time of the season, a zombies tribute coming to you live."
There needed to be an element of deception.
Yeah. I think we ended up cutting it from the podcast, but I found this guy named Gordon Thayer
who was in this incredible, really heavy Michigan rock band.
They opened for the fake zombies. His band was called Dick Rabbit.
Insane name.
It was a three-piece band, him and his two brothers, the Thayer brothers.
And they opened for the fake zombies.
And they toured in a limousine and all this crazy stuff, like on this fake zombies tour.
And he told me if they had just called it "zombies tribute," none of this would have happened.
The whole thing would have been fine, but nobody had really come up with that concept yet.
Right. Nobody even probably suggested it to this dude.
And so what's the story with this manager who was cooking all this stuff up?
Well, about a month before I started making the podcast, my friend Melissa, who produced the podcast,
Melissa Locker, she's this amazing producer, and she asked me to go meet up with a friend of hers
who really liked the article that I wrote about the zombies.
And when I met up with him, he was like, "I think the thing, stuff about the Texas zombies is really cool,
but I want to know more about the manager."
And then like a month later, I got the chance to make the podcast.
So I started to dig in really hard.
And it was, so there's two fake zombies, fake animals.
They tried to start a fake Flying Burrito Brothers.
And then they ended up getting caught because they have, and the whole show is out now.
So this is like a spoiler if somebody actually gives a shit about that.
But they also started a fake Archies, who were not a real band.
They were a cartoon who were owned by Don Kirshner.
And that is actually kind of why the fake zombies, the whole thing falls apart because of the fake Archies.
And I found Veronica in the fake Archies and talked to her about her experience in the last episode.
I love that part.
And she's cool.
She's like, she was a teenage girl trying to make her boyfriend jealous.
So she joined the fake Archies and was told that it was a real band.
What I loved in the pod, I mean, the whole story, but like, I love your like diligence as a reporter.
You're like pounding the pavement in Michigan, playing like cards with people.
This is such like a weird, obscure history.
And a lot of the people involved in it are already dead.
You're talking to like the last people in the final years of their lives, basically before this entire story is just lost to time.
I just, I love that element of it, of like this weird, very obscure, but it's kind of oddly significant history.
And like, you're just talking to these guys in Michigan that they sound so old.
And then you like, will play clips of their music from 55 years ago.
And you like hear the youth and vitality.
And then you cut back to like them now being like a 78 year old guy in Michigan.
And it's just like, I don't know, there's some like weird, like poignant passage of time that is captured in your show.
That's insanely nice of you to say.
And thank you for listening to it.
But yeah, I mean, like some of this was about the history I couldn't find.
Like, you know, there were people I wanted to talk to who feel like they got burned 55 years ago by this situation.
And just still don't want to talk about it.
Including Frank Beard, the drummer in ZZ Top.
I was surprised by that.
How like people were like emotionally, like weirdly, instead of just being like, oh yeah, that was a funny lark.
Yeah.
Well, there seemed to be like a lot of like emotion and like, like when you talk to Mark Richardson's brother and like, it's just like, you just opened up this whole kind
of like world of like people that were like, I guess, I don't, I don't want to say also rans, but just people who are like adjacent to the guys in ZZ Top.
Who are maybe like peers with them.
And then, but then sort of just like went in such different directions and I don't know.
It's just very like sliding doors feeling with like, and then you like cover this enormous like 60 year chasm or something.
I don't know.
Well, I found out that there's just like so much music history happening in Michigan at that time.
Like one of my favorite things about this is I was never a huge Bob Seger fan.
Now I'm all in on Bob Seger because he of all the Michigan artists, he seems to be like the patron saint.
Like he's the one everybody loves.
Yeah.
And yeah, like, you know, early in the show, I talked to the guitarist in the band Question Mark and the Mysterians.
I knew absolutely nothing about outside of the song 96 Tears and then talking to them and finding out that, hey, they're all, they're the first Mexican American band to
have a number one hit in America.
And they recorded it in Bay City, Michigan, and they went on Dick Clark twice.
And they got kicked off of the Ed Sullivan show for trying to curse.
And there's all kinds of interesting musical history out there.
And I'm happy to say that I just got back from visiting Question Mark in rural Michigan.
He wouldn't talk to me for the podcast, but I just went and spent two hours filming with him.
Wow. How old is he now?
He's pushing 80.
Wow.
But Question Mark has been born many times over, as he will tell you.
He has lived a life as a woman many times before and can tell you all about his past lives and likes to tell you about them.
Wow. But what about isn't Rodriguez from Michigan too, searching for Sugar Man?
He is, but I think I might have told Jake this.
The best way I can describe Question Mark's personality is like Miles Davis in the 80s.
Oh, wow. Right.
If you say to him, what do you think about Rodriguez? He says, that guy stole everything from me.
And that was after I told him that Rodriguez had died.
He was unmoved.
He just doesn't care. He feels like he's been burned by the music industry.
Getting to talk to him has been really interesting.
And meeting people through Question Mark and The Mysterians has been really cool.
I've been digging into them more now.
That's amazing because there's something about that single of all Garage Rock singles that seems to have been like this kind of touchstone for punk in the 70s.
I think I read that the early Talking Heads or Proto Talking Heads used to cover that.
They did. Yeah.
There's something about that single, you know, in my studies or whatever, I've noticed how large that looms for like the generation that became like the, you know, the
punk and new wave icons.
Well, I want to just give a shout out to Robin Hatch who did the score for our podcast.
She's an amazing keyboardist.
Yeah, it was awesome.
She just got off tour with Porno for Pyros.
Yeah, she told me before and other keyboardists have told me that that song is a huge song for keyboard players.
And that riff at the beginning, the 96 Tears riff was played by a 13 year old.
Oh, we got to throw this on.
Throw that on.
Question Mark is going to be so psyched about this.
I think just everything about this song, the name of the song and the band is so weird.
So how old is the singer here?
Is this 16?
Wow.
Since you left me
You're always laughing
Way down at me
But watch out now
I'm gonna get there
We'll be together
For just a little while
And I'm gonna put you
Way down here
And you'll start crying
96 Tears
Cry
It's also definitely worth watching video of them playing this in the early days too.
They look like they're from Mars.
You'll be right down there
Looking up
It's like Stone's part.
Come up here
But I don't see you
Waving down
I'm way down here
Wondering how
I'm gonna get you
But I know now
I mean you can also listen to this part and just, like the guys in Suicide just like zooming in on that.
Yeah.
The drone.
Yeah.
Well, my favorite little thing is, um,
Do you remember in like, I wanna say '03 or '04,
Brinstein was doing a tour where he was taking requests on signs?
Yeah, he's known for taking requests from signs.
Yeah, and he, um, somebody holds up one that says 96 Tears and it's on YouTube but he introduces it by saying,
"You're telling me that you don't think Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band know 96 f***ing Tears?"
Like he's indignant that of course they know it.
Oh yeah, I'm sure, like,
And then they play it.
You can just picture that, like, down the Jersey Shore, early 70s, little Steven and Bruce sitting around, he's like,
"I'm telling you, Bruce, 96 Tears, man. That's where it's at."
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, Steven."
Pure rock and roll, man.
Yeah.
There's a song, I can't remember if I ever played this on the show,
I know it because Kanye either sampled it or based a song off it,
but it's the Royal Jesters' "Take Me for a Little While."
So this is a cover that they did.
They were from San Antonio, like mid-60s, organ-heavy,
I don't know if you call it garage rock, but you know, like, local, mid-60s local band.
I always thought this was such an incredible recording.
I think it's "Ghost Town."
Yeah.
Drums are so funky.
Drums are so funky.
♪ To make you love me ♪
♪ But everything I try ♪
♪ Just takes you further from me ♪
♪ You don't love me, no, no ♪
♪ So you treat me cruel ♪
♪ Maybe I need you ♪
♪ But no matter how you hurt me ♪
♪ I'll always be a fool ♪
♪ If you don't want me ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ If you don't need me ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ If you don't love me ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ If you don't love me ♪
♪ I've got to make you love me ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ Yes, I've got to make you love me ♪
♪ I've got to stop it ♪
I love that, like, 60s, just loud-ass organ.
Yeah.
That's San Antonio?
You said they're from San Antonio?
They're local legends in San Antonio.
♪ I feel so helpless ♪
♪ Baby, I need you now ♪
This arrangement is so cool, too,
just, like, how it drops out so much on the verse.
Texas Tornadoes?
No.
Oh, Sir Douglas Quintet.
Yeah, Sir Douglas Quintet.
Wait, "Thrown Mendocino" by Sir Douglas Quintet.
That's a great song.
I always thought it was like,
oh, Mendocino, California?
Nope.
Mendocino, Texas.
Nice.
♪ Mendocino ♪
♪ Sir Douglas Quintet is back ♪
♪ We'd like to thank all of our beautiful friends ♪
♪ all over the country ♪
♪ and all the beautiful vibrations ♪
♪ We love you ♪
♪ Teeny bopper ♪
♪ My teenage lover ♪
♪ I caught a cold wave last night ♪
♪ It's in my mind and words ♪
♪ You're such a brute ♪
♪ Leave your room ♪
♪ Please stay ♪
It sounds like it's straight out of
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Organ-based rock.
♪ I was talking to you ♪
♪ Stranger now ♪
I was bummed to see that my favorite
Seger song was already in
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
He is Rambling Gamblin' Man.
Oh, yeah.
♪ We don't know ♪
♪ Please stay here with me ♪
♪ in Mendocino ♪
I used to be like, really interested in like,
getting these compilations of 60s garage rock,
like, regional stuff.
And then there are these great compilations
that were, um,
this one called 30 Seconds Before the Calico Wall
that was trying to explore like,
like the years '67, '68, like,
when garage bands, like local garage bands
were transitioning into psychedelic music
but were still kind of scrappy.
Before it was like full-on.
Mm-hmm.
Flower Power had fully made it into like,
every local scene.
And you hear these bands that were,
like, local bands getting into some like,
pretty heavy stuff in '67, '68,
and so much of it had very prominent organ.
And it's always crossed my mind
that like,
one of Black Sabbath's huge innovations
was just to not have organ.
Like, you think about all these other bands
that some of who, who are still important bands
like Deep Purple or something,
just had more keyboard.
And that part of like, why Black Sabbath, like,
became the true godfathers of metal,
I mean, for, there were a lot of reasons,
but one of the reasons is that they were just like,
they saw the future.
Sparse.
Like, there's no future.
And that's why you listen to like,
some other, even some like,
great other bands from that era,
and there's the dude shredding on the organ,
and it's cool, but it's, it's dated in a way
that early Sabbath feels more visionary and fresh.
I mean, even Les Zeppelin had the organ
on a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, not to bring it back around, but like,
there are very few guys like Ron Argent
in the Zombies where he's like,
he can actually, he's like a virtuoso piano player
and also plays organ parts in songs.
Yeah, I mean, yeah,
I had never thought about that consciously
until I listened to your show, like,
the Zombies really were like a keyboard-led band.
(sings)
Songs, yeah, all written on piano,
all written on keyboards.
The early hits and then the,
and then the Odyssey and the Oracle stuff is all,
(sings)
Yeah.
Yeah, and that, yeah, and it's amazing too,
like, time of the season, it's like,
it's like, it rips a long solo.
Is that on like, Rhodes or something?
The solo on time of the season's out of control.
(sings)
Yeah, time of the season also is like,
there's like a micro-genre of
A Few Doors songs and time of the season
that like, go together
and nothing else quite sounds like it.
Yeah.
It was a short-lived period.
Riders on a Storm, time of the season.
It's, it's 1967, basically.
If you need to show it's 1967 in a movie,
you put on one of these songs.
It was crazy in the pod,
like how close time of the season
was to not being released as a single.
And it's such like a,
it's like Credence in terms of it's like
era defining, like, you know,
yeah, exactly.
Like you want to show it's 1967,
you put on a Credence song
and you put on time of the season,
but it was like, really just down to like,
Al Cooper really going to bat for them.
Yeah.
And the record label being like,
I don't know, man, just climb up.
Man, just classic.
Yeah.
Well, they tried with Carousel 44,
which is a great song, but.
Oh, dude, dude, the first single,
that was the weirdest choice.
Oh yeah.
Butcher's Tale.
Yeah, in retrospect, this actually seems
like the only obvious single on Odyssey and Oracle.
Matt, can you throw it on?
And just such like perfect production.
Also, dude, closing track of the album.
So strong.
It's the time of the season.
Eminem sampled this.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, what is he,
what was his song called?
Called In Your Head.
Michigan legend.
Understandably, he thought the zombies
are from Michigan.
Sure.
To take you in the sun,
to promise lands,
to show you everyone,
it's the time of the season
for love me.
I mean, I got to say,
in terms of the like the heavy duty,
like Baroque pop records
from the era of you got
Pet Sounds, Sergeant Pepper
and this album.
This is the album I reach for.
I mean, yeah, the high points
on Pet Sounds are maybe higher,
but this song, like this album
is just like pound for pound,
like.
I mean, I mean,
it's just kind of untouchable.
I'm so curious what
the fake zombies sounded like.
This seems like an extremely
hard song to pull off live.
We did find video of them,
but they're lip syncing.
Oh, so there's no recordings.
Not yet.
But Daniel, we've been hearing
from a lot of people, though,
over email that claim they have
a recording.
We put an email address at the
end of the show.
We couldn't clear we couldn't
afford to clear it.
Right. That was in the show.
And two different people emailed
us and were like, I have that on
a VHS tape. I'll send it to you.
Sick. Wow.
Which is great.
I was so annoyed with that guy
in the show.
Yeah. This guy that ran some
like video archive and like
the second fake zombies,
the Beach Boys rip off
band who
were more accomplished musically
maybe in terms of this Baroque
pop stuff like they were
on a local TV show
and there's some video archive
has a
video of this, but they wanted
to charge Daniel
insane fee.
And it's like, why?
Like, it's just going to sit
there.
Nobody wants this tape of the
fake zombies, but me.
Like, right. That's one thing I've
learned about doing this project
and the other projects I've done
over the past few years is like
there is always going to be a time
when I'm the only one who cares
about this thing.
And it was just weird to have
somebody be like, no, you can't
have it. And I'm going to charge
you an arm and a leg.
Yeah.
Cool, dude.
Well, I hope people send you those
tapes, man.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I'm one.
Have you seen any set list or
anything from that from that second
band? Because we know the first band
would just would do this song and
then just do a bunch of blues songs,
which must have been very confusing.
Not a specific set list.
There is a review of one of the
fake zombie shows where they play
with question mark in the
Mysterians.
But the closest I got
to it was
Dusty Hill from the fake
zombies and ZZ Top.
He was in a band called Lady Wild
in Dallas when he was a teenager
and their lead singer was a British
woman who had moved to Dallas
from London.
And they did a whole set of British
invasion covers, including
She's Not There.
So he knew a lot
of these British invasion songs
already.
Well, as we're popped up for a
second with a Beach Boys shirt,
which is a little bit of a
weird.
What do you mean?
You have a straight shirt on.
I like it.
Oh, Beach Boys type shirt.
Oh, yeah.
I can see.
Right. Like if they're all wearing a
matching.
Yeah, I can totally see that.
You're a Beach Boys of one.
Looks cool.
That'd be cool. Somebody just came
out and their artist name was Beach
Boy. Just a solo artist.
Oh, that's so good.
What's up on Beach Boy?
Your wife.
Have you ever crossed paths at a
festival with that artist who plays
it in the name Mike Love?
There's another Mike Love.
Oh, who's not my glove.
Yeah.
What is it like a DJ or
something?
Reggae.
Oh, that's cool.
I saw him on a poster for like a
chili cook off in Malibu.
I was like, Mike Love for the Beach
Boys is playing the chili cook off
of Malibu. But it was the other Mike
Love.
I've heard about that chili cook
off in Malibu.
Crazy.
Famous chili cook off.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, I'm reading that I'm
friend of the show. Dave Matthews
has covered time of the season.
A decent amount in concert.
In there.
Can we throw on a.
Yeah, throw one on.
Oh, geez.
Here we go.
Have an open mind.
This guy's coming with the Dave.
If anything like is all on the
Watchtower, we're in trouble.
Pretty faithful.
It kind of suits his voice.
Yeah.
I just want to hear those harmonies
on the chorus.
Who's going to do the harmonies?
Carter Buford?
Not bad.
We'll use it out.
Pretty good.
I kind of want to do this in
Richard Pictures now.
Just kind of take a Jerry solo
here.
Yeah.
I wonder.
Well, hearing him do that just
makes me think like Colin from
the zombies still does this in
the original key and sounds
incredible.
Wow.
Amazing.
He's got amazing voice.
And he's 80.
♪ You watch me to live ♪
♪ Take me to me slowly ♪
♪ Tell you why ♪
♪ I really want to know ♪
♪ What is the time of the sea ♪
Who's going to rip a solo,
you think?
Saxophone, violin, keys?
All of the above.
Oh.
I've heard this over.
Pretty fierce snare there.
Is this on like a live album
or something?
Yeah.
♪ Oh, I'm so mad ♪
All right, we get the idea.
Let's get that third verse.
I bet there's another long solo
at the end.
Yeah.
I was just wondering if it was
going to be like some 10 minute
like.
Yeah.
But he held it down.
It really does suit his voice.
Daniel, what do you know about
the Hollies song "Longest Day
Ever"?
I think it's a great song.
Well, when I was working the weird furniture-making job, I was making another podcast about another
crazy rock and roll true crime story.
So hopefully that'll be coming out soon.
Is that the Malibu one?
Yeah, the Iron Butterfly.
Oh, yeah, right.
Yeah.
Amazing story.
All right, sick.
We'll be looking forward to that.
Thank you, guys.
Thanks so much for coming back on the show, man.
Great to see you all.
You all look great.
It's been a long time.
Likewise.
You too, bro.
See you later.
See you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
So this is kind of a heady month, dude.
September '69, we're a month out from the Manson murders.
Case is unsolved.
We're three months out prior to Ultima.
Yep.
Summer of '69 just ended.
Woodstock just ended.
Brian Adams got his first real six string.
That's true.
He's up in Canada just learning how to make it talk.
He bought it at the Five and Dime.
Yep.
I don't think I know this one.
I feel like we've listened to it on this show.
No, this is from the Temptations psychedelic era.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I know Psychedelic Shack.
I mean, I know some of--
Yeah, same era.
Green River by CCR also came out in '69.
There you go.
Nice.
Yeah, that drum break is very familiar.
This part's sick.
Same conga pattern as Sympathy for the Devil.
Pretty classic.
Big Needle Drop and Dead Presidents.
I don't know if you guys are fans of that movie.
But it's sick.
That was a classic soundtrack to find in somebody's CD collection in the '90s.
It was.
It was definitely a type of person.
Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Dead Presidents.
I think you're looking at that person.
Yeah.
Did you have the Judgment Night soundtrack, too?
Oh, absolutely.
Hell yeah.
I mean, I honestly--
Because I had listened to mostly hip-hop then.
I mean, that was--
We probably talked about it.
That was definitely my introduction to Teenage Fan Club.
To what?
To Teenage Fan Club.
Oh, yeah, Dallas Olde Teenage Fan Club.
That was probably the first time, and then getting deep into them,
because that was like a breakout song.
All right, the number four song this week, 1969,
Three Dog Night with Easy to be Hard.
Easy to be hard.
This was a Needle Drop in Zodiac, Jake's favorite movie.
I remember.
As soon as I saw this title, I was like, oh, Zodiac.
Yeah, it's the very beginning.
The slow shots out of the car window in Vallejo, July 4th, '69.
Zodiac killer running around.
You think the whole top five will be Big Needle Drops?
Could be.
Oh, it's written for the musical Hair.
It's one of my favorite tracks.
This is the earnest and kind of square version of the--
of like, you know what, man, things are changing.
Yeah.
Let's write a song about how can people be so heartless and cruel
in the most theatrical and square way possible.
I need a friend.
How can people be so heartless?
You know I'm hung up on you.
Is it to be proud?
Easy to say no.
Especially people who care about justice.
People who care about evil and social injustice.
Do you only care about the needy crowd?
Oh, I need a friend.
We all need a friend.
Oh, is he saying to the friend, like, you care about strangers,
you care about evil and social injustice,
but what about the dude standing right in front of you?
I need a friend, man.
All right, that's a little more interesting than I thought.
Yeah.
It's not just like, oh, we care about social injustice
and these other people are heartless.
He's kind of calling his friend a poser.
Like, you leech onto these really broad social justice concerns.
What about the guy in the corner who's hungry?
Or what about your friend that is going through a tough time?
I mean, honestly, it's a tale as old as time.
Obviously there's people who call that out.
These days people are very concerned about real injustice,
but very far from home.
You know, you like the classic coastal liberal,
not helping anybody in their own city,
but very concerned with injustice happening far away.
There's a phrase that, according to the internet,
Charles Dickens coined, which is telescopic philanthropy.
Wow, he coined that?
I guess so.
Interesting.
I guess going back to the Victorian age,
he's already calling out a type of person in that era
who would be very concerned with raising money in England
to send to people who may very well be suffering
in other parts of the globe.
But meanwhile, their Victorian era factory
employs seven-year-olds.
Yeah, exactly.
Or like the person walking to the gala to raise money
for the starving orphans somewhere halfway around the world
as they pass some down-on-their-luck people
in their own city, and they're kind of like, "Ew."
I mean, in a way it still happens.
And I guess if you want to be--
not trying to be ironic, but if you want to be charitable,
I guess you could say that a lot of people do have this instinct
that they want to help other people,
but the mess of emotion and human instinct that comes in
when people are right in front of you,
they'd rather give it to somebody they don't know
that's blameless versus the dude who bothers them
for some money on the way to work every day
because they're looking at that dude kind of like,
"You know what, man? You probably don't need to be here.
You probably could get a job, and if I give you this money,
what's going to happen tomorrow?"
So they want to give it far away.
But yeah, anyway, I guess the idea of a hippie dude
who really needs a friend,
and he's going to his super engaged activist buddy
who's just like, "Man, I know you care about people so much,
but what about just your lonely, slightly annoying friend
who doesn't really want to go home alone tonight?
And I know you got to work tomorrow,
but will you just crack one more brew with me?"
"Get one more drink, bro."
"Yeah, what about that kind of charity?"
"Dude, it's easy to be hard, man."
"Have a heart, man.
My girlfriend just broke up with me."
"Easy to be hard."
"You won't crack one more brew?"
"One more, bro. Come on, it's on me, dog."
"So you want to end the Vietnam War so bad, man,
but you can't crack one extra brew for a heartbroken homie?"
"You got a fallen soldier right here."
"It's easy to be hard."
Okay, number three.
I feel like we heard this one before.
Bobby Sherman, "Little Woman."
I'm looking at the notes.
In 1999, he became a reserve deputy sheriff
with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.
We've definitely heard this before.
That sounds familiar.
Hey, little woman, please make up your mind
You've got to come into my world
And leave your world behind
Come on now
Na na na na na na na na na na na
You've got to come down from that cloud, girl
And leave your world behind
Come down from that cloud and leave your world behind?
When you're with me
I feel sunshine even when I'm standing in the rain
Something happens that I can't explain
When I hear your name
But you can't help it that you're always
Chasing rainbows in your mind
There's so much I want to say to you
And there's so little time
Hey, little woman, please make up your mind
This is pretty thin soup.
"A Little Woman."
You've got to come into my world
And leave your world behind
Come on now
Na na na na na na na na na na na
Kind of wild this was a hit.
Come down from that cloud, girl
And leave your world behind
What do you see
When you're walking down a busy street
And I'm not there
Is my picture hanging in your mind
Walking with you there
That's how it is in my world, girl
Even like the vocals are just like...
Don't you come into my world
And leave your world behind
I don't know.
Like, not really resolved in the verse.
Yeah, it's not even just like the lyrics are bad.
It just...
Just...
Yeah, something seems kind of wrong about the songwriting.
Like, it seems like he's just kind of making it up.
But the lyrics are bad.
The lyrics are insane.
Come into my world and leave your world
Come on now, girl, and leave your world behind
He seems like...
It's not that he's singing like he's drunk,
but the whole song has the quality of being drunk.
Yeah.
And that it's just a little bit off.
A little like...
It's kind of like when you talk to somebody
who like doesn't slur their words,
but still gets sh*t-faced.
Uh-huh.
So it like takes you a little longer to realize that they're sh*t-faced
just because what they're saying is so weird.
You know, they're not like...
And you're like, "Whoa, you had too many."
You're talking to them, and you're like, "What's up?"
And you're like, "Hey, man.
I'm a little woman."
You just like...
You start to little by little realize like,
"Oh, damn, you're hammered."
That just reminded me.
There's a kink's deep cut.
I seem to recall when I became obsessed with the kinks,
probably around 1998,
and I was buying like the kink CDs,
and there'd be bonus tracks,
that they had a song called "Little Women."
This must have been some like thing that never came out.
They just threw it on a CD in the '90s.
I believe it was an instrumental.
I just want to hear what that sounds like.
I don't know this one.
[playing piano]
There's something I just like love about this,
and it kinks instrumental called "Little Women."
Like, were they gonna put vocals on it?
[playing piano]
Probably.
They just never got to it.
Maybe we should finish it for them.
[playing piano]
♪ Hey, little women ♪
[laughs]
♪ Leave your world behind ♪
♪
♪ Little women ♪
♪ Little women, will you ♪
♪
Is this '60s?
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
♪
This definitely had that vocal part
that was just never resolved or something.
These are just chords.
♪
Yeah, this rhyme is always stuck in my mind.
There's something so weird about it.
It's just like this unfinished kink song.
Anyway, you get the idea.
It sounds like a 1967 unfinished kink song.
Yeah.
Sounds like an instrumental track
that might have been on "Odyssey" and "The Oracle."
Yeah.
"I'm a Jew" song this week.
Okay, I don't know if I know this one.
Oliver with the song "Jean,"
written by Rod McEwan
for the movie "The Prime of Miss Jean Brody."
I've never heard of that one.
I've heard--these are all these things like,
"I know Rod McEwan was a famous person in this era.
I know that's a famous movie."
♪ Jean, Jean ♪
Well, the album is "Good Morning, Starshine,"
which I know that song.
That might have been another hair number.
♪ All the leaves have gone green ♪
Oh, God, this is depressing.
♪ And the clouds are so low ♪
♪ You can touch them and so ♪
♪ Come out to the meadow ♪
♪ Jean, Jean ♪
While working on the album,
Oliver decided to record "Jean," adding,
"We had no idea it would be a single.
It was a 3/4 ballad in the psychedelic era."
Exactly.
We've talked about this before.
This is the classic weird square song
that's completely out of step with the era.
Yeah.
Rod McEwan was an American poet,
singer-songwriter, and composer.
He was one of the best-selling poets
in the United States during the late '60s.
He did a lot of translations of Jacques Brel songs.
He did the English-language lyrics
to "Seasons in the Sun,"
the kind of early '70s hit.
♪ We had joy, we had fun ♪
♪ We had seasons in the sun ♪
♪ And find me alone ♪
But I think he was considered kind of like a square dude.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, this reminds me of just, like,
some weird, not-very-good movie from that era
that ends on, like, a freeze frame,
and then, like, the closing credits song comes on,
and it's this.
Mm, yeah.
Right, very depressing.
Yeah.
♪ While the hills are ablaze ♪
♪ With the moon's yellow haze ♪
Oliver.
♪ Come into my arms, honey gene ♪
It seems like all the cool people
hated on Rod McEwan's poetry.
Really?
Yeah, poor guy.
What, Ginsburg and stuff were just like,
"This is the sc--"?
No, I'm just reading, like, yeah, critics,
a lot of unkind.
♪ And run, if you will ♪
I imagine Ginsburg would not have been a fan.
♪ Come into my arms, Bonnie ♪
♪ Gene ♪
But yeah, I'm just on first listen.
It's the arrangement that's so schmaltzy.
I don't know if there's anything to say about the lyrics.
Okay.
Well, here we are.
Oh, wow.
The big number one in 1969, wow.
We were just talking about them.
Perfect.
The Archies, fake band.
This was a song, a band that was created
for a Saturday morning cartoon,
and this was their big hit, "Sugar, Sugar."
It was number one for four weeks in 1969.
I did not know that until I listened
to Daniel's show today.
Like, the Archies were a reference to, like,
you know, like...
the Archie cartoons.
♪ Honey, honey ♪
♪ You are my candy ♪
Oh, so the cartoon was about, like, Archie and Veronica?
Yeah, like, what's-- and there was, like, a show.
Like, wasn't there, like, a '90s or 2000s show?
♪ Honey ♪
"Riverdale" or whatever?
Like, that is that universe.
Yeah, that's--
I didn't know that, like, "Sugar, Sugar"--
Just a few years ago.
When "Riverdale" was on TV,
did they ever drop, like, a dark reimagining
of "Sugar, Sugar" sung by Billie Eilish?
They probably tried to get her to do that.
Great idea.
This song was, um...
just to go full circle back to the beginning of the episode,
this-- I learned on Daniel's show today,
this song was massive everywhere in the world.
Like, this was, like, the song of '69.
We're talking Philippines, all over Europe,
just, like...
everywhere.
This song was just a huge, just massive, massive hit.
Yeah, I know, this was totally the song of '69.
But so, in the fictional universe,
like, the singer of the Archies is Archie?
Like, we should imagine this is redheaded Archie's voice?
I guess.
♪ When I kissed your girl ♪
♪ I knew how sweet a kiss could be ♪
♪ I know how sweet a kiss can be ♪
♪ Like the summer sunshine pour your sweetness over me ♪
♪ Pour your sweetness over me ♪
♪ Oh, sugar ♪
♪ Pour a little sugar on me, honey ♪
♪ Pour a little sugar on me, baby ♪
♪ You make my life so sweet ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Pour a little sugar on me ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ Pour a little sugar on me, honey ♪
♪ Pour a little sugar on me, baby ♪
♪ I'm gonna make your life so sweet ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Pour a little sugar on me, honey ♪
♪ Oh, sugar ♪
♪ Oh, honey, honey ♪
♪ You're all my candy, girl ♪
♪ And you got me wanting you ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
- There is a dark reimagining of "Sugar, Sugar."
- For the Riverdale?
- In season one, episode seven of "Riverdale."
- Oh, my God. - I mean, we got--
- Can you find this? - It's too easy.
All right, let's hear-- wait, who sings the dark reimagining?
- I'm looking.
- It's the cast of the show.
- Oh, is there a recording we can listen to?
- That's-- [laughs]
They wait until episode seven.
- ♪ The kind with the swirls ♪
♪ Oh, so good, baby, out of this world ♪
♪ Look so sweet, fell in love with your curves ♪
♪ Every time you speak, conversation like, "Sir" ♪
♪ S-U-G-A-R-E ♪
- This is the Riverdale version?
- ♪ Put money on that bird ♪
♪ Let's keep it in a circle, you everything I deserve ♪
♪ Baby, want your sugar ♪
- I know you were hoping for, like, a Lana--
you were hoping-- oh.
- Yeah, I wanted, like, the Lana Del Rey version.
- Yeah, almost something more Twin Peaks-y.
- Or, like, bad horror movie trailer.
- Yeah. - ♪ Sugar, sugar ♪
- Bum, bum, bum. - ♪ Honey ♪
- ♪ Sugar ♪ - ♪ Honey ♪
♪ Oh, sugar, sugar ♪
- Okay, this sucks. This is unpleasant.
- ♪ You are my candy girl ♪
- Yeah, you wanted, like, a Julie Cruz, Billie Eilish,
something moody.
That's not a bad show.
- Dude, like a-- like a Blumhouse movie
called "Sugar, Sugar." - Yeah.
- ♪ 'Cause I need a candy girl ♪
- Speaking of dark movies,
have you missed, if I didn't point out,
that this song is featured in a B-movie,
Jerry Seinfeld's animated classic.
- Oh, really? - B-movie, yeah.
- It's a dark anime. - Also dark film.
Many senses.
Because how is the B gonna consummate
the relationship with the human woman?
- ♪ Tell 'em, "Mama, won't you do me that favor?" ♪
♪ I really wanna taste your 36, 24, 36 ♪
- What happens-- can we get a spoiler?
Does the B and the woman get together?
- Uh, the B and the woman do-- do get together.
They actually, um-- she actually breaks up
with her boyfriend, played by Patrick Warburton,
and they do-- they do form a relationship.
- Beautiful.
And they consummate it? I can't remember.
- They don't show it on camera, but it's implied.
- Oh, boy.
- When she gets pregnant.
[laughter]
- Well-- - I'm picturing, like,
a Trent Reznor version of this.
- ♪ I just never knew how sweet a kiss could be ♪
♪ You are my candy girl ♪
- 1969, hell of a year.
Congratulations to the Archies for their big number one.
I assume everybody's in the band.
Archie's the singer, like, Jughead's on bass.
- I'm-- - No, Jughead's probably the drummer.
- Didn't see the episode.
- Tambourine, probably.
- Wait, there's an official animated video.
It looks like Archie-- yeah, Jughead's on drums.
[laughter]
Jughead's on drums, um, Veronica's on keys.
Um, some other Archie-esque dude I don't know is on bass.
Yeah, Betty's on, uh, tambourine.
- Oh, Reggie? That's Reggie.
- Reggie's the guy from the Archies--
from the Archie universe?
- Reggie's one of the Archie friends.
He's, like, the arrogant one.
He's, like, good-looking and, like, football player.
- I have, like, zero familiarity with this universe.
Never read the comic, never saw the show.
- Oh, I used to love Archie as a kid.
- Oh, you should get in, Jake.
- But you understand the--
like, you've heard, like, Betty and Veronica,
just even the blonde for that. - No.
- Like, I don't-- - You've never talked about
a Betty or a Veronica. - You don't know who Betty and Veron--
do you know who Jughead is?
- I mean, I think I can picture--
no, I--no, I really, like, don't know
any of the mythology or archetypes of the show.
I've heard of Jughead, I've heard of Betty and Veronica.
- But you know--you know that Archie's the redheaded dude.
- I guess, sure.
He looks like Tin-Tin?
- Yeah, yeah, he does look like Tin-Tin.
- Much more familiar with Tin-Tin.
- You gotta do an Archies reread, Jake.
- It's not even a reread.
- It's a read.
- Go right from the start.
- Next time somebody asks you what you're watching,
Riverdale, dude.
I'm not watching sh--.
I'm working my way through 70 years of Archie comics.
- Yeah, I think that comment--I think he said on the show
that Archie is from, like, the '20s or something.
- 10,000 issues.
- Wait, all right, Seinfeld, let's get a number crunch.
When did Archie drop?
- 1941.
- Archie first appeared in Pep Comics #22.
- Okay.
That's gonna be cool if we can live, you know,
only another 17 years.
I think we're gonna start to see a lot of, like,
100-year anniversaries of iconic characters.
Like, Batman's from, like, the '30s, right?
- Yeah, that tracks.
- That's gonna be funny.
- Oh, my God.
100 years of Gotham.
- Yeah, Batman, 1939.
- 1939?
- He first appeared in Pep Comics--no, no, it's his own comic.
A lot of these things are gonna hit public domain
in our lifetimes, too.
- All right, let's start working on our Batman movie.
- That sounds fresh.
[laughter]
- Well, we'd put, like, a TC spin on it.
- True.
- Batman becomes the CEO of--
- Apple, like.
- Starbucks.
- We work long and hard for 15 years
to do this whole thing where Batman--
where Bruce Wayne becomes the CEO of Starbucks,
and we've been, like, waiting for the day for Batman
to go into the public domain,
and then we're, like, about to announce it,
and we're like--our lawyer informs us
Starbucks will not be in the public domain
for another 50 years.
You guys seriously [bleep] up.
Can you change the name of the coffee company?
No.
It's too late.
We put way too much work in.
- Ten years from now, 2034 is when Batman
will ostensibly become public domain.
If we start now, I think we could just
have already written, I don't know,
15 movies around the Batman--
the new Batman franchise.
- Somebody did that with Winnie the Pooh, right?
Like, the day that Winnie the Pooh
went into the public domain.
- Yes, they made, like, a horror--
- They announced a Winnie the Pooh horror movie.
- Yeah.
- And there's a Pinocchio one now.
- But also, didn't Mickey Mouse go into public domain
like a year ago?
- Well, Steamboat Willie did.
They figured out some way to hold on to the character.
Steamboat Willie is the first cartoon that he was in.
- Hmm.
I'm just saying that we have ten years to make
I don't know however many movies,
tons, you know, comics.
Full reimagining universe.
Drops first day 2034.
- We create our new Batman who's the CEO of a
to-be-named coffee company.
And then the first movie drops in the 2030s.
And then in 2041,
Archie and Jughead join the universe.
- I mean, it is really funny that Bruce Wayne--
the first one is Bruce Wayne's made the new CEO of Starbucks.
That's--
[laughter]
That's a fresh look.
That's original.
- He's in Bruce Wayne Empire or whatever.
And it's just first day he's taken over.
- And then Wayne Enterprises.
- He's not willing to leave Gotham City.
He's only going to commute to Seattle three days a week.
- From Gotham to Seattle.
- Well, how many Starbucks are in Gotham?
How many company-owned stores are there?
- Oh, that's sick.
We could have like a winter-type character.
[laughter]
- Oh, you know, that's how it would sort of start.
It would start with a winter-type character.
- I can barely keep up.
They're opening so many Starbucks in Gotham City.
- And he somehow becomes the big bad.
He's the Two-Face.
- He's Mr. Freeze.
- He's Mr.--
- Mr. Freeze, right?
Would be winter.
- You mean all the ice beverages?
[laughter]
- He makes the hot beverages ice.
It's like he has a pouch.
- Right.
- I don't know why he would do this.
- He falls into a vat of--
- Of cold brew.
- Of cold brew.
- Of pumpkin spice, dog.
- Of frozen pumpkin spice.
[laughter]
- And somehow this transforms him.
And honestly, his name is just Pumpkin Spice.
- Wait, I think there is a Batman villain with a pumpkin.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Is his name called Pumpkin Head?
- No, he--
- Is there Pumpkin Head?
- No, that's like a horror movie franchise.
- No, there's a guy named Mervin Pumpkin Head.
I don't--
- What?
- We're off the rails.
- This is some weird DC Universe stuff.
Anyway, we got plenty of time to think about this.
Okay, you know what?
I've been looking for kind of like a cool long-term project.
[laughter]
I've grown a little bit weary of, you know, the short-term stuff,
like making albums and touring and, you know, even TC.
I want something big picture that we can work on for decades.
And I think launching our own Batman
and especially looking forward to 2041 when Archie can join.
Archie becomes the chief marketing officer
at our Starbucks-type company.
Anyway, thanks for listening to Time Crisis.
We'll be back soon.
Thank you to our guest Daniel Ralston.
Please check out his podcast.
One more song for you.
Here's Words by F.R. David.
Great song.
♪ Words don't come easy to me ♪
♪ How can I find a way to make you see ♪
♪ I love you, words don't come easy ♪
♪ Words don't come easy to me ♪
♪ This is the only way for me to say ♪
♪ I love you, words don't come easy ♪
♪ Well, I'm just a music man ♪
♪ Melody's so far my best friend ♪
♪ But my words are coming out wrong ♪
♪ And I, I reveal my heart to you ♪
♪ Hope that you believe it's true ♪
♪ 'Cause words don't come easy to me ♪
♪ How can I find a way to make you see ♪
♪ I love you, words don't come easy ♪
♪ This is just a simple song ♪
♪ That I've made for you on my own ♪
♪ There's no hidden meaning, you know ♪
♪ And I, when I say I love you, honey ♪
♪ Please believe I really do, 'cause ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Words don't come easy to me ♪
♪ How can I find a way to make you see ♪
♪ I love you, words don't come easy ♪
♪ ♪
♪ It isn't easy ♪
♪ Words don't come easy ♪
♪ Words don't come easy to me ♪
♪ How can I find a way to make you see ♪
♪ I love you, words don't come easy ♪
♪ Don't come easy to me ♪
♪ This is the only way for me to say ♪
♪ I love you, words don't come easy ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Words don't come easy ♪
♪ ♪
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