Shake the hand that shook the hand of P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan
I love that line. This song has a cool simple guitar riff that starts it off into the Grateful Dead’s familiar shuffle beat. It’s a song that is commercial sounding and I don’t understand why it didn’t dent the charts. It’s a straight ahead rocker that has a great hook.
The song was released as a single with “Loose Lucy” as the B-side in 1974. It was on the album From The Mars Hotel. The album did peak at #16 in the Billboard Album Charts.
“U.S. Blues” grew out of a 1972 Grateful Dead song “One More Saturday Night.” Robert Hunter, the Dead’s lyricist wrote the words and Jerry Garcia wrote the music. They had a great writing partnership.
The song changed a lot through Hunter’s many rewrites. At some points it was a forceful anti-military song, but the final result isn’t so serious. It’s a fun song that the Dead frequently played live.
P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan are mentioned in the lyric.
P.T. Barnum – (1810-1891), showman, author. Born in Connecticut, Barnum began his career as showman in 1835 when he bought and exhibited slave who claimed to be 161 years old and the nurse of George Washington. Seven years later he opened his American Museum, in New York City, exhibiting the Fiji Mermaid (half monkey, half fish), General Tom Thumb (a midget less than three feet tall), and the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng. He also arranged the American tour of Jenny Lind, known as the Swedish Nightingale. After serving as mayor of Bridgeport and as a member of the Connecticut legislature, he organized “The Greatest Show on Earth,” a circus that opened in Brooklyn, New York, in 1871. A merger in 1881 created Barnum and Bailey’s.”
Charlie Chan – He is a fictional character…a pudgy, wise, smiling Chinese detective living in Hawaii who appears in a number of stores by Earl Derr Diggers. Chan has a large and constantly growing family–a son in the latter tales begins to learn the sleuthing business from his father–and Charlie is given to philosophical reflections, many of them supposedly culled from Chinese sages. … Chan first appeared in The House Without a Key (1925), later in other novels, in the movies, and in many radio sketches.”
From Songfacts
Dead co-founder Bob Weir told Dupree’s Diamond News in their 18th issue (May 1991) that the song wasn’t meant to be favorable of Uncle Sam and American culture. “We have our pantheon, and one of the figures in the pantheon is Uncle Sam. He’s sort of like the godfather figure of American culture. So we actually have a fair bit of respect for him. And he comes around in different guises, you know – in our little region, he comes around as a skeleton, but he’s still wearing the same hat.”
“Uncle Sam,” who appears in the line, “I’m Uncle Sam, how do you do?” refers to a mythological character representing the United States government. The character first arose during the war of 1812. Uncle Sam appears in many contexts of varying seriousness, but one of the most consistent is as a military recruiter. During World War II it was common to see posters with Uncle Sam’s visage and the words “I Want You for U.S. Army.”
The lyric “blue suede shoes” in the first line refers to the song of the same name.
US Blues
Red and white, blue suede shoes, I’m Uncle Sam, how do you do? Gimme five, I’m still alive, ain’t no luck, I learned to duck. Check my pulse, it don’t change. Stay seventy-two come shine or rain. Wave the flag, pop the bag, rock the boat, skin the goat. Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my. I’m Uncle Sam, that’s who I am; Been hidin’ out in a rock and roll band. Shake the hand that shook the hand of P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan. Shine your shoes, light your fuse. Can you use them ol’ U.S. Blues? I’ll drink your health, share your wealth, run your life, steal your wife. Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my. Back to back chicken shack. Son of a gun, better change your act. We’re all confused, what’s to lose? You can call this all the United States Blues. Wave that flag, wave it wide and high. Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my.
Paul is great at combining songs together. These three different songs blended together.
The song was recorded in two parts, in different sessions. The first two were taped in Lagos while the third section was recorded in October 1973 at AIR Studios in London. Paul was robbed at knife point in Lagos, Nigeria and they took the tapes that he had at the time. They were never recovered and Paul figured they recorded over them.
The song was off the album Band On The Run which was I think Paul’s best solo album. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, Canada, and the UK in 1974.
McCartney drew inspiration out of something George Harrison said in a lengthy Apple Board meeting “If we ever get out of this house” which Paul changed to “here” and put it in the song.
The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and the #3 in the UK.
I’ve read about other possible inspirations for the song other than the George Harrison line.
One source said it was about a metaphorical prison we all find ourselves in at times.
The other was bands like the Wings were running trying to escape the law because of pot convictions. Paul said: “We were being outlawed for pot … And our argument on [‘Band on the Run’] was ‘Don’t put us on the wrong side … We’re not criminals, we don’t want to be. So I just made up a story about people breaking out of prison.’”
Paul McCartney:It was symbolic: “If we ever get out of here … All I need is a pint a day” … [In the Beatles] we’d started off as just kids really, who loved our music and wanted to earn a bob or two so we could get a guitar and get a nice car. It was very simple ambitions at first. But then, you know, as it went on it became business meetings and all of that … So there was a feeling of “if we ever get out of here”, yeah. And I did
From Songfacts
Shortly after the Band On The Run album was released, McCartney told Melody Maker: “The basic idea about the band on the run is a kind of prison escape. At the beginning of the album the guy is stuck inside four walls, and eventually breaks out. There is a thread, but it’s not a concept album.”
McCartney recorded the album in Lagos, Nigeria along with his wife Linda and guitarist Denny Laine. The other Wings decided not to make the trip, which worked out fine in the end: McCartney considers the album his best post-Beatles work. He told Word in 2005: “I was on drums and guitar a lot, mainly because the drummer decided to leave the group the night before and one of the guitar players decided not to come! So we got that solo element into an otherwise ‘produced’ album.”
Paul was asked if this was a reference to Wings escaping from the shadow of The Beatles…he replied “Sort of – yeah. I think most bands on tour are on the run.”
This song was used to nice effect in the movie The Killing Fields, where a young woman with a transistor radio listens to this in the wake of a brutal US bombing of a Cambodian village when suspected rebels are being rounded up and shot. The song exemplified the contrast between the sort of druggy, frivolous Pop culture of the 1970s West and the stark realities of the Third World at the same time.
Paul McCartney explained the song’s meaning to The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine: “I wrote it as a story to sum up the transition from captivity to freedom. When the tempo changes at (sings), ‘The rain exploded with a mighty crash,’ I do that in my concert and that always feels like a freeing moment.”
Band on the Run
Stuck inside these four walls, Sent inside forever, Never seeing no one Nice again like you, Mama you, mama you.
If I ever get out of here, Thought of giving it all away To a registered charity. All I need is a pint a day If I ever get outta here If we ever get outta of here
Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash As we fell into the sun, And the first one said to the second one there I hope you’re having fun.
Band on the run, band on the run. And the jailer man and sailor Sam Were searching every one For the band on the run, Band on the run Band on the run, Band on the run.
Well, the undertaker drew a heavy sigh Seeing no one else had come, And a bell was ringing in the village square For the rabbits on the run.
Band on the run, Band on the run. And the jailer man and sailor Sam Were searching every one For the band on the run, Band on the run
Yeah the band on the run, Band on the run Band on the run Band on the run
Well, the night was falling as the desert world Began to settle down. In the town they’re searching for us everywhere But we never will be found.
Band on the run, Band on the run. And the county judge who held a grudge Will search for evermore For the band on the run, Band on the run Band on the run Band on the run
Keith would sometimes call out for this song in Who concerts. The reason for that would be because he sings parts of the song along with Roger. Keith lays on the cockney voice well in this song and talks/sings it.
The song was on Quadrophenia released in 1973. The album peaked at #2 in the Billboard Album Charts, #2 in the UK, and #2 in Canada.
After the song was dropped from the set…either Keith or the crowd would request it much to Townshend’s chagrin at times.
The album was a concept album about the mod culture in the UK in the early 60s that features a character named Jimmy.
Pete Townshend:He meets an old Ace Face who’s now a bellhop at the very hotel the Mods tore up. And he looks on Jimmy with a mixture of pity and contempt, really, and tells him, in effect, ‘Look, my job is shit and my life is a tragedy. But you – look at you, you’re dead!’
From Songfacts
This is Keith Moon’s song on Quadrophenia, which centers on a character with four personalities, each one representing a different member of The Who. “Bell Boy” is about the main character Jimmy meeting an old mod “Ace Face,” or leader. However, he finds out that the Ace Face has given up music, and now he works at a hotel (as a bell boy) that a mod gang happened to destroy a few years back. Keith Moon does some of the vocals on the song.
Keith Moon’s drumming is prominent on this track. Ron Nevison, the engineer on Quadrophenia, told Songfacts what it was like recording him. “The biggest problem with Keith on the drums was finding a place to put the microphones,” he said. “He had so many drums – two hi-hats, two kick drums, six or eight tom-toms – it was challenging just to get in there to get the snare drum covered.”
Bell Boy
The beach is a place where a man can feel He’s the only soul in the world that’s real Well I see a face coming through the haze I remember him from those crazy days Crazy days, crazy days
Ain’t you the guy who used to set the paces Riding up in front of a hundred faces I don’t suppose you would remember me But I used to follow you back in sixty-three
I’ve got a good job, and I’m newly born You should see me dressed up in my uniform I work in hotel, all gilt and flash Remember the place where the doors were smashed?
Bell Boy, I got to get running now Bell Boy, keep my lip buttoned down Bell Boy, carry this baggage out Bell Boy, always running at someone’s pleading heel You know how I feel Always running at someone’s heel
Some nights I still sleep on the beach Remember when stars were in reach I wander in early to work Spend my day licking boots for my perks
A beach is a place where a man can feel He’s the only soul in the world that’s real
Well I see a face coming through the haze I remember him from those crazy days (crazy days, crazy days, crazy days, crazy days)
Ain’t you the guy who used to set the paces Riding up in front of a hundred faces I don’t suppose you would remember me But I used to follow you back in sixty-three
People often change But when I look in your eyes You could learn a lot from A job like mine The secret to me It ain’t flown on a flag I carry it behind This pretty little badge What says
Bell Boy I got to get running now Bell Boy, keep my lip buttoned down Bell Boy, carry the bloody baggage out Bell Boy, always running at someone’s heel You know how I feel Always running at someone’s heel
I was going to pick the At Fillmore East live album but I also wanted some studio tracks…you get both with this one. This is the last album that Duane Allman worked on before a motorcycle crash took his life. He died a few weeks into making the album. The album also included live tracks that were not used on At Fillmore East like One Way Out, Trouble No More, and a 33 minute “Mountain Jam” that was built off a riff from a Donovan song “There is a Mountain.”
They had some sort of chemistry live that was incredible. I’m usually not a fan of long endless live songs but they keep intensity up…plus with this album you get the best of both worlds.
25 years ago I would not have picked this album…I’ve learned more about them in the past few years and have become a huge fan of the classic lineup. When I listen to the Allman Brothers I listen to the music as a whole more than just the songs. They clicked so well as a band that they blended perfectly when at their best.
Their best albums to me are At Fillmore East, Eat A Peach, and Brothers and Sisters. They have been labeled and credited as starting “Southern Rock” but they were totally different than most of their peers. The Allmans were more blues/jazz oriented who happened to be from the south.
The two guitar players were Duane Allman and Dickey Betts…two of the best around at the time. They also had two drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson (Jaimoe) (who played with Otis Redding). Their bass player was from Chicago…Berry Oakley (who would die in a motorcycle crash a little over a year after Duane) who was amazing. Gregg Allman would write and sing lead on many of the songs and as he said…pushed the gravy on the meat…he added texture with his Hammond Organ.
They started to work on this album in September of 1971 and laid down the basic tracks to for “Blue Sky,” “Stand Back” and “Little Martha.” Duane Allman died on October 29, 1971. So those tracks have Duane playing on them and of course all of the live material features him on guitar. After he died the band went back to the studio and recorded the rest and it was finished in December.
The album was released on February 12, 1972 and it peaked at #4 in the Billboard 100 and #12 in Canada. The original name was going to be “Eat A Peach for Peace.”
The opening song is my favorite one on the album. Ain’t Wasting Time No More…it was Gregg Allman’s song working through the grief of his brother’s death and about soldiers coming home from Vietnam. Last Sunday morning, the sunshine felt like rain,the week before, they all seemed the same
Blue Sky is a Dickey Betts song that I never get tired of. The soaring guitars and the few verses that it has are happy and upbeat. Betts initially wanted the band’s lead vocalist, Gregg Allman, to sing the song, but guitarist Duane Allman encouraged him to sing it himself… “Man, this is your song and it sounds like you and you need to sing it.” Dickey Betts wrote this about his Native Canadian girlfriend, Sandy “Bluesky” Wabegijig.
Melissa is probably the most remembered song off of this album. It’s a great song that Greg had written years before…he couldn’t think of the right woman’s name until he heard a lady in a grocery store yell for her daughter… Melissa.
One Way Out is some of the live feel that I wanted with Fillmore East and I get it on this album along with the above studio cuts. One of their best known songs.
I thought the island needed a southern touch so the Allmans will do just fine. I’ll just sit back with soul food, listen to Allmans, and watch the tide.
This 1980 song is from a Vancouver punk band called The Modernettes.
I ran across this song searching for power pop songs. This one is VERY Ramones like. It’s a fun song. They did play more than punk… they ventured into power-pop recordings.
There is a documentary about the Vancouver punk rock scene in the late 70s and early 80s with Henry Rollins and Duff Mckagan that includes the Modernettes called Bloodied and Unbowed…this is the trailer but the documentary is on there also.
The Modernettes were formed in 1979, with John Armstrong, aka Buck Cherry, and Mary Armstrong, aka Mary-Jo Kopechne (yea tasteless). John formed the Modernettes soon after drafting drummer John McAdams and Mary to form the three-piece lineup.
In 1980, the Modernettes recorded the debut EP Strictly Confidential. It was released under the Quintessence Records label. A second EP, Teen City, followed quickly. It included the band’s strongest and probably most popular song, “Barbara.” Though the group pulled together a strong following, true success eluded them.
The Modernettes only completed one full album, Get It Straight.
Barbra
there’s a new little girl in my home class you know i’m talking about barbra and everybodys thinks that she’s such a gas b-a-r-b-r-a barbra
shes the girl i love forever we’ll spend our lives together barbra
well the dogs are gonna slide so she can pass you know i’m talking about barbra and everybodys looking and thats such a gas b-a-r-b-r-a barbra i envy the guy she kiss last i just wanna skip class with barbra
there’s a new little girl in my home class you know i’m talking about barbra and everybodys thinks she’s such a gas b-a-r-b-r-a barbra
shes the girl i love forever you know im talking about barbra talking about barbra talking about barbra talking about barbra
I remember in the mid 70s staying at my grandmothers house and I would watch the Banana Splits reruns. I saw this the other day and had to pass this delightful theme on to other ears…warning it will be there ALL day.
This was a Hanna-Barbera show that ran from 1968-1970. They set out to do something really different to stand out from the pack, choosing to make characters similar to their in-house style except, instead of being animated, they’d be live-action costumed characters with real people in the suits. The costumes and sets were designed by Sid and Marty Krofft.
They consisted of guitarist Feegle the Beagle (voiced by Paul Winchell), drummer Bingo the Ape (Daws Butler), Drooper the Lion (Allan Melvin) on bass, and Snorky the Elephant (who only spoke in honks) on keyboards.
Sid and Marty Krofft would later make this type of show popular with their own shows H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, and The Bugaloos with an added psychedelic edge to it.
The theme song “The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)” was written by Kellogg’s jingle writer N.B. Winkless Jr., who also wrote the “Snap, Crackle, Pop” jingle for Rice Krispies cereal.
The song peaked at #96 in the Billboard 100. A punk band named The Dickies covered the song and took it to #7 in the UK in 1979.
The Banana Splits Theme
Tra la la tra la la la Tra la la tra la la la Tra la la tra la la la Tra la la tra la la la
One banana two banana three banana four All bananas make a split so do many more Over hill and highway the banana buggies go Come along to bring you the banana splits show
Four banana three banana two banana one All bananas playing in the bright warm sun Flipping like a pancake popping like a cork Fleagle bingo drooper and snork
Making up a mess of fun Making up a mess of fun Making up a mess of fun Lots of fun for everyone
Four banana three banana two banana one All bananas playing in the bright warm sun Flipping like a pancake popping like a cork Fleagle bingo drooper and snork
Bowie wrote this with the intention of giving it to Elvis Presley, but he reportedly refused the song. Elvis died two years later.
I’m a fan of Bowie but I do favor his seventies releases the most. Like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Bowie could shed a persona and adopt another …and do it well. His persona on this was The Thin White Duke.
Bowie performed Golden Years on Soul Train. Soul Train was a big deal to Bowie because he grew up listening to many of the American R&B who appeared on the show. He reportedly got a little drunk beforehand to take the edge off…footage does appear to show him stumbling over his lyrics.
The song was on the album Station to Station that peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100, #5 in the UK, and #2 in Canada in 1976.
Golden Years peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100, #17 in Canada, and #8 in 1976.
From Songfacts
Angela Bowie claims this was written for her. Bowie does appear to be addressing someone specific in this song, encouraging them to revel in their “golden years”: “Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere, angel, come get up my baby, look at that sky, life’s begun, nights are warm and the days are young.”
Bowie made an appearance on Soul Train singing (actually, lip synching) “Golden Years” and “Fame” on November 4, 1975. Few white performers had appeared on the show, but host Don Cornelius gave him a warm welcome, introducing him as “one of the world’s most popular and important music personalities.”
Producer, Harry Maslin, said he achieved the “round” quality of the backing voices by using an old RCA microphone.
Station to Station saw Bowie adopt The Thin White Duke persona. Dressed in a white shirt, black trousers and waistcoat, The Thin White Duke was described by Bowie as “a nasty character indeed.” Throughout this period, Bowie was consuming a large amount of cocaine, which added to the alienated feel of the character.
Golden Years
Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop
Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere, angel Come get up my baby Look at that sky, life’s begun Nights are warm and the days are young Come get up my baby
There’s my baby, lost that’s all Once I’m begging you save her little soul Golden years, gold whop whop whop Come get up my baby
Last night they loved you, opening doors and pulling some strings, angel Come get up my baby In walked luck and you looked in time Never look back, walk tall, act fine Come get up my baby
I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years Nothing’s gonna touch you in these golden years, gold Golden years, gold whop whop whop Come get up my baby
Some of these days, and it won’t be long Gonna drive back down where you once belonged In the back of a dream car twenty foot long Don’t cry my sweet, don’t break my heart Doing all right, but you gotta get smart Wish upon, wish upon, day upon day, I believe oh Lord I believe all the way Come get up my baby
Run for the shadows, run for the shadows Run for the shadows in these golden years
There’s my baby, lost that’s all Once I’m begging you save her little soul Golden years, gold whop whop whop Come get up my baby
Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere, angel Come get up my baby Run for the shadows, run for the shadows Run for the shadows in these golden years
I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years Nothing’s gonna touch you in these golden years, gold
Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop Golden years, gold whop whop whop
There are two stories on where the phrase came from…Doris Troy said that Stephen Stills’ girlfriend was in America while he was in London. Stills was at a party in London and feeling lonesome and started to talk with Doris. Troy said “Love the one you’re with, Sugar!” Stills loved the expression and asked if she minded if he used it in a song. She agreed.
Another version of the story is Billy Preston always said the phrase “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” and Stills asked him if he could use it and Billy agreed…either way Stephen had the biggest solo hit of his career out of it.
The song peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100, #6 in Canada, and #37 in the UK in 1971.
John Sebastian, Rita Coolidge, Priscilla Jones, David Crosby and Graham Nash provided the backing vocals on this track.
From Songfacts
An Isley Brothers cover in 1971 (#18 US) transformed this from a song with a free love ethos into one about a Higher Love. Other notable versions include ones by Aretha Franklin on her 1971 Live At Filmore West album, British pop act Bucks Fizz, who peaked at #47 in 1986 with their cover and UK Pop Idol winner Will Young on his 2003 album Friday’s Child.
Photographer Henry Diltz, who photographed the album sleeve for Stephen Stills, wrote in his California Dreaming: Memories And Visions Of LA 1966-1975 about the story behind the LP cover: “After Deja Vu, CSN went on a bit of a hiatus and Stephen invited me to join him in Colorado. Gold Hill was way up in the Colorado mountains. While we were there Stephen received word that Jimi Hendrix had passed away so everybody was very sad. We sat up the whole night talking, telling stories and remembering him. When dawn came up the next morning it had snowed overnight and everything was blanketed in white. I grabbed my camera and Stephen grabbed his guitar, we ran outside and I started taking pictures of him sitting on a chair in the middle of the snow. Some time later this (session) was chosen for his first album cover.”
In the 2012 movie Prometheus, which is set in the year 2093, the spaceship’s captain, portrayed by Idris Elba, sings a bit of this song after revealing that the accordion he had been playing once belonged to Stephen Stills.
Love The One You’re With
If you’re down and confused And you don’t remember who you’re talking to, Concentration slips away Cause you’re baby is so far away
[Chorus] Well there’s a rose in the fisted glove And the eagle flies with the dove And if you can’t be with the one you love honey Love the one you’re with, Love the one you’re with, Love the one you’re with, Love the one you’re with.
Don’t be angry, don’t be sad Don’t sit crying over good times you’ve had There’s a girl right next to you And she’s just waiting for something to do
[Chorus]
Love the one you’re with,Love the one you’re with, Love the one you’re with,Love the one you’re with,
Turn your heartache right into joy Cause she’s a girl and you’re a boy Get it together, make it nice You ain’t gonna need anymore advice
Thank you to everyone who tuned in all week to read about these songs…I really appreciate it.
It’s possibly the most popular rock song of all time. Stairway To Heaven wasn’t a chart hit at the time because it was never released as a single to the general public. Radio stations did received promotional singles which quickly became collector’s items. Zeppelin refused to let it be edited down for a single release.
This song was the absolute peak of Led Zeppelin. It was the crown jewel in their catalog. They would have some great albums and songs after this but this is what they were all about. The light/heavy format is what they worked for…and Zeppelin reached it’s perfection with Stairway To Heaven.
The song gradually builds from a lonely guitar and organ to the full band and then explodes along with a perfect solo from Jimmy Page…then the song ends quietly with Robert. Although I’ve heard it many times I always look forward to one part…”If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow” and that is John Bonham’s cue to makes his entrance. That part is magical to me.
Robert Plant wrote the lyrics and he has said that he drew inspiration from the works of the Scottish writer Lewis Spence, notably from his book Magic Arts in Celtic Britain.
The song eventually picked up a lot of controversy through the years. In the 80s it was rumored that the band had hidden messages in the song. Someone decided to play it backwards and probably because of Pages infatuation with Aleister Crowley, found satanic messages. Who would even think of playing a record backwards?
The song was on their album Led Zeppelin IV and the album peaked at #2 in the Billboard Album Charts, #1 in Canada, and #1 in the UK.
Robert Plant: “I was holding a pencil and paper, and for some reason I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out the words, ‘There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold/And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.’ I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost leapt out of my seat.”
Robert Plant (about the backward masking):“‘Stairway To Heaven’ was written with every best intention, and as far as reversing tapes and putting messages on the end, that’s not my idea of making music. It’s really sad. The first time I heard it was early in the morning when I was living at home, and I heard it on a news program. I was absolutely drained all day. I walked around, and I couldn’t actually believe, I couldn’t take people seriously who could come up with sketches like that. There are a lot of people who are making money there, and if that’s the way they need to do it, then do it without my lyrics. I cherish them far too much.”
Jimmy Page:To me, I thought ‘Stairway’ crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best… as a band, as a unit. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with ‘Stairway.’ Townshend probably thought that he got it with Tommy. I don’t know whether I have the ability to come up with more. I have to do a lot of hard work before I can get anywhere near those stages of consistent, total brilliance.”
Andy Johns (sound engineer): “This song arrived completed. The arrangements had been done before the band entered the studio. We recorded the main tracks upstairs, in Island, with Jimmy on acoustic guitar, John Paul on a Hohner electric upright piano, and Bonham behind his kit. I tried to have a left hand sound coming out of the Hohner piano, in order to have something to re-record afterwards. As soon as we added the bass parts and Page started recording the overdubs, we could already tell it would be awesome. I knew it was a really special track and I was proud to take part in it. I didn’t have the least idea, however, that it would become a f–king hymn for three generations of kids!”
From Songfacts
On Tuesday November 13, 2007, Led Zeppelin’s entire back catalog was made available as legal digital downloads, making all of their tracks eligible for the UK singles chart. As a result, at the end of that week the original version of “Stairway To Heaven” arrived in the UK singles charts for the first time. Previously, three covers had charted: the multinational studio band Far Corporation reached #8 with their version in 1985, then reggae tribute act Dread Zeppelin crawled to #62 in 1991 and finally Rolf Harris’ reworking outdid the other two, peaking at #7 in 1993.
Robert Plant spent much of the ’70s answering questions about the lyrics he wrote for “Stairway.” When asked why the song was so popular, he said it could be its “abstraction,” adding, “Depending on what day it is, I still interpret the song a different way – and I wrote the lyrics.”
The lyrics take some pretty wild turns, but the beginning of the song is about a woman who accumulates money, only to find out the hard way her life had no meaning and will not get her into heaven. This is the only part Plant would really explain, as he said it was “a woman getting everything she wanted without giving anything back.”
Led Zeppelin started planning “Stairway” in early 1970 when they decided to create a new, epic song to replace “Dazed And Confused” as the centerpiece of their concerts. Jimmy Page would work on the song in an 8-track studio he had installed in his boathouse, trying out different sections on guitar. By April, he was telling journalists that their new song might be 15-minutes long, and described it as something that would “build towards a climax” with John Bonham’s drums not coming in for some time. In October 1970, after about 18 months of near constant touring, the song took shape. Page and Plant explained that they started working on it at a 250-year-old Welsh cottage called Bron-yr-Aur, where they wrote the songs for Led Zeppelin III. Page sometimes told a story of the pair sitting by a fire at the cabin as they composed it, a tale that gives the song a mystical origin story, as there could have been spirits at play within those walls.
Page told a different story under oath: When he was called to the stand in 2016 as part of a plagiarism trial over this song, he said that he wrote the music on his own and first played it for his bandmates at Headley Grange in Liphook Road, Headley, Hampshire, where they recorded it using a mobile studio owned by The Rolling Stones. Plant corroborated the story in his testimony.
Headley Grange may not be as enchanting as Bron-yr-Aur, but the place had some character: It was a huge, old, dusty mansion with no electricity but great acoustics. Bands would go there to get some privacy and focus on songwriting, as the biggest distractions were the sheep and other wildlife.
This is rumored to contain backward satanic messages, as if Led Zeppelin sold their souls to the devil in exchange for “Stairway To Heaven.” Supporting this theory is the fact that Jimmy Page bought Aleister Crowley’s house in Scotland, known as Boleskine House. In his books, Crowley advocated that his followers learn to read and speak backwards.
This runs 8:03, but still became one of the most-played songs on American radio, proving that people wouldn’t tune out just because a song was long. It was a perfect fit for FM radio, which was a newer format challenging the established AM with better sound quality and more variety. “Stairway” fit nicely into what was called the “Album Oriented Rock” (AOR) format, and later became a staple of Classic Rock. By most measures, it is the most-played song in the history of American FM radio. It has also sold more sheet music than any other rock song – about 10,000 to 15,000 copies a year, and more than one million total.
Jimmy Page has a strong affinity for this song, and felt Robert Plant’s lyrics were his best yet. He had him write all of Zeppelin’s lyrics from then on.
This was the only song whose lyrics were printed on the album’s inner sleeve.
Many novice guitarists try to learn this song, and most end up messing it up. In the movie Wayne’s World, it is banned in the guitar shop where Wayne (Mike Myers) starts playing it. If you saw the movie in theaters, you heard Wayne play the first few notes of the song before being scolded and pointed to a sign that says “NO Stairway To Heaven” (Wayne: “No Stairway. Denied.”). Because of legal issues – apparently even a few notes of “Stairway To Heaven” have to be cleared, and good luck with that – the video and TV releases of the movie were changed so Wayne plays something incomprehensible. This novice guitar Stairway cliché later showed up on an episode of South Park when the character Towelie tries to play the song in a talent show and screws it up.
Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones decided not to use a bass on this because it sounded like a folk song. Instead, he added a string section, keyboards and flutes. He also played wooden recorders that were used on the intro. Bonham’s drums do not come in until 4:18.
Robert Plant is a great admirer of all things mystic, the old English legends and lore and the writings of the Celts. He was immersed in the books Magic Arts in Celtic Britain by Lewis Spence and The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Tolkien inspiration can be heard in the phrase, “In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,” which could be a reference to the smoke rings blown by the wizard Gandalf. There is also a correlation between the lady in the song and the character from the book, Lady Galadriel, the Queen of Elves who lives in the golden forest of Lothlorien. In the book, all that glittered around her was in fact gold, as the leaves of the trees in the forest of Lothlorien were golden.
Dolly Parton covered this on her 2002 album Halos and Horns – Robert Plant said he liked her version. Other artists to cover this include U2, Jimmy Castor, Frank Zappa, The Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, Sisters of Mercy, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, Zakk Wylde, Elkie Brooks, Pardon Me Boys, White Flag, Jana, Great White, Stanley Jordan, Far Corporation, Dixie Power Trio, Justin Hayward, Leningrad Cowboys, Dread Zeppelin, Tiny Tim, piano virtuoso Richard Abel, and Monte Montgomery. Neil Sedaka had an unrelated Top 10 hit with the same title in 1960.
Many critics trashed this song when it came out: Lester Bangs described it as “a thicket of misbegotten mush, and the British music magazine Sounds said it induced “first boredom and then catatonia.”
Led Zeppelin played this for the first time in Belfast on March 5, 1971 – Northern Ireland was a war zone at the time and there was rioting in nearby streets. John Paul Jones said in an audio documentary that when they played it, the audience was not that impressed. They wanted to hear something they knew – like “Whole Lotta Love.”
The song got a better reception when the band started the US leg of their tour. In an excerpt from Led Zeppelin; The Definitive Biography by Ritchie Yorke, Jimmy Page said of playing the song at an August 1971 show at the Los Angeles Forum: “I’m not saying the whole audience gave us a standing ovation – but there was this sizable standing ovation there. And I thought, ‘This is incredible because no one’s heard this number yet. This is the first time hearing it!’ It obviously touched them, so I knew there was something with that one.”
Jimmy Page considers this a masterpiece, but Robert Plant does not share his fondness for the song. Plant has referred to it as a “wedding song” and insists that his favorite Led Zeppelin song is “Kashmir.” After the band broke up, Plant refused to sing it except on rare occasions, including Live Aid.
Clarifying his position in a 2018 interview with Dan Rather, Plant said: “It belongs to a particular time. If I had been involved in the instrumentation I would feel that it’s a magnificent piece of music that has its own character and personality. It even speeds up in a similar way to some pieces of more highbrow music. But my contribution was to write lyrics and to sing a song about fate and something very British, almost abstract, but coming out of the mind of a 23-year-old guy. It landed in the years of the era of 23-year-old guys.”
This was the last song the remaining members of Led Zeppelin performed when they reunited for Live Aid in 1985. Bob Geldof organized the event, and did his best to get many famous bands to play even if they had broken up. Unlike The Who, Geldof had an easy time convincing Plant, Page, and Jones to play the show. They played the Philadelphia stage with Tony Thompson and Phil Collins sitting in on drums.
The acoustic, fingerpicking intro is very similar to the song “Taurus” from the band Spirit, who toured with Led Zeppelin when they first played the US. “Taurus” is a guitar instrumental written by the group’s guitarist, Randy California, and included on their debut album in 1968. It was part of the band’s set and Jimmy Page admitted that he owned the album.
Randy California never took any legal action against Led Zeppelin or sought compensation from them. A mercurial man who drowned in 1997 at age 45, he was described by his bandmate Mark Andes as “kind of a pathetic, tortured genius.”
The “Stairway” connection is just a small piece of the Spirit story. California was a guitar prodigy who at age 15 joined Jimi Hendrix in the group Jimmy James And The Blue Flames. Three months later, Hendrix went to England. He wanted to take California with him, but Randy’s age made it impossible.
Randy played with future Steely Dan founder Walter Becker in the Long Island band Tangerine Puppets, then moved to Los Angeles, where he formed Spirit with three friends and his stepfather, Ed Cassidy, who played drums. They got some gigs at the Whisky a Go Go, and Lou Adler signed them to his label, Ode Records. Their first album was a modest success that mustered one minor hit: “Mechanical World.” Written by band members Mark Andes and Jay Ferguson, it stalled at #123 US. California set out to write a hit for their second album, The Family That Plays Together (1969), and came up with “I Got A Line On You,” which made #25.
It would be their biggest hit. The band declined an invitation to Woodstock and fractured in 1972, with California’s already volatile mental health ravaged by drug use. The band reunited from time to time, but never got their due. By the time of California’s death, few remembered “Taurus” and its connection to “Stairway To Heaven,” but in 1999, Songfacts went online and the discussion was revived.
In 2002, a former music journalist named Michael Skidmore came into control of California’s estate, and 2014 he began proceedings against Led Zeppelin. In 2016, Jimmy Page testified in the case and said that the first time he heard of the controversy when a few years earlier when his son-in-law told him that a debate had been brewing online. Page insisted he had never heard “Taurus” before, and that it was “totally alien” to him.
The jury didn’t buy the argument that Page never heard “Taurus,” but still ruled in favor of Led Zeppelin, deciding that the chord progression in “Taurus” was common to many other songs dating back decades, and therefore, in the public domain. In 2018, the case was sent back to trial on appeal, but the ruling was upheld two years later. Here’s a timeline of the case.
Pat Boone released an unlikely cover on his album In a In a Metal Mood. Boone wanted to see how it would turn out as a jazz waltz, and opened and closed the song with soft flute playing. In a subtle reference to his Christian faith, Boone changed the line “All in one is all and all” to “Three in one is all and all” – a reference to the Christian Trinity (the Father, Son, Holy Spirit).
Before recording the song, he scanned it for devilish references. “I kept looking for allusions to witchcraft or drugs,” he said in a Songfacts interview. “And even though there were strange images, like ‘in the hedgerows’ and all these things, there were no specific mentions of Jimmy Page’s involvement in witchcraft or anything like that.”
Another notable cover was by an Australian performer called Rolf Harris, who used a wobbleboard (piece of quite floppy wood, held at both sides, arched slightly and wobbled so the arch would continually invert) and changed the line “And it makes me wonder” to “Does it make you wonder.”
In the ’90s, Australian TV host Andrew Denton had a show on which various artists were asked to perform their version of this song. Their versions were released on an album called The Money or the Gun: Stairways to Heaven. Artists performing it included Australian Doors Show, The Beatnix, Kate Ceberano and the Ministry of Fun, Robyne Dunn, Etcetera Theatre Company, The Fargone Beauties, Sandra Hahn and Michael Turkic, Rolf Harris, Pardon Me Boys, Neil Pepper, The Rock Lobsters, Leonard Teale, Toys Went Berserk, Vegimite Reggae, The Whipper Snappers, and John Paul Young. In reply to Rolf Harris’ version, Page and Plant performed his song “Sun Arise” at the end of another Denton TV show.
In January 1990, this song was added to the Muzak playlist in a solo harp version. Unlike the original, the Muzak version, arranged and recorded to provide an “uplifting, productive atmosphere” and “counteract the worker-fatigue curve in the office environment,” did not do so well, as even this sanitized version drew a lot of attention to the song, thus undermining the intention of the Muzak programming.
The band performed this at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert in 1988 with Jason Bonham sitting in on drums for his late father. Plant did not want to play it, but was convinced at the last minute. It was sloppy and Plant forgot some of the words. This was not the case when Jason joined them again in 2007 for a benefit show to raise money for the Ahmet Ertegun education fund. They performed this song and 15 others, earning rave reviews from fans and critics.
Zeppelin’s longest ever performance of this song was their last gig in Berlin in 1980. It clocked in around 15 minutes long.
Gordon Roy of Wishaw, Scotland had all of the lyrics to this song tattooed on his back. He did it as a tribute to a friend who died in a car accident.
In the late ’90s, the radio trade magazine Monday Morning Replay reported that “Stairway” was still played 4,203 times a year by the 67 largest AOR (album-oriented rock) radio stations in the US. ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, refuses to release exact figures on how many times it has been played since its release, but figure that on each AOR station in America, the song was played five times a day during its first three months of existence; twice a day for the next nine months; once a day for the next four years; and two to three times a week for the next 15 years. There are roughly 600 AOR and Classic Rock stations in the US, which means that “Stairway” has been broadcast a minimum of 2,874 times. At 8 minutes per spin, roughly 23 million minutes – almost 44 years – have been devoted to the song. So far.
On January 23, 1991, under the direction of owner and general manager John Sebastian, the radio station KLSK (104.1 FM) in Albuquerque, New Mexico played this song over and over for 24 hours, confounding listeners who weren’t used to hearing Led Zeppelin on the station. The song played over 200 times, with many listeners tuning in to find out when it would end. It turned out to be publicity stunt, as the station was switching to a Classic Rock format.
Explaining his guitar setup for the solo, Jimmy Page told Guitar Player magazine in 1977: “I was using the Supro amp for the first album, and I still use it. The ‘Stairway to Heaven’ solo was done when I pulled out the Telecaster, which I hadn’t used for a long time, plugged it into the Supro, and away it went again. That’s a different sound entirely from the rest of the first album. It was a good, versatile setup.”
The Foo Fighters did a mock cover of this song, and their version was to say that nobody should try to cover the song because they will screw it up. Dave Grohl intentionally carried the intro on way too long, asked his drummer and audience for lyrics, and when it came time for the guitar solo, he sang Jimmy Page’s part. This was done purely as a joke, and to tell people not to cover the song, as Grohl is a huge Zeppelin fan, and lists Zeppelin’s John Bonham as a major influence.
Rolling Stone magazine asked Jimmy Page how much of the guitar solo was composed before he recorded it. He replied: “It wasn’t structured at all [laughs]. I had a start. I knew where and how I was going to begin. And I just did it. There was an amplifier [in the studio] that I was trying out. It sounded good, so I thought, “OK, take a deep breath, and play.” I did three takes and chose one of them. They were all different. The solo sounds constructed – and it is, sort of, but purely of the moment. For me, a solo is something where you just fly, but within the context of the song.”
Mary J. Blige recorded this in 2010 backed by Travis Barker, Randy Jackson, Steve Vai and Orianthi. Blige told MTV: “Once you get lost in the rock-and-roll moment of it, all you can do is scream to the top of your lungs or go as low as you need to go. It’s not a head thing – it’s a spirit thing.” She added: “I am a Led Zeppelin fan. I’ve listened to their music since I was a child, and it’s always moved me, especially ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ I make songs my own by going deep inside myself and translating them to ‘what would Mary do.'” The song is included as a bonus track on the UK re-issue of her album Stronger With Each Tear and made available for download. Blige performed the song on the April 21, 2010 episode of American Idol.
In solo work or with other groups, Jimmy Page would not let anyone but Robert Plant sing this, but he did play it as an instrumental on occasion.
The ending of this song is distinctive in that is closes out with just Robert Plant’s voice. According to Jimmy Page, he wrote a guitar part to end the song, but decided to leave it off since the vocal at the end had such an impact.
Jimmy Page often called “In The Light” from Physical Graffiti a follow-up to this song.
Regarding the composition of the track, Jimmy Page told Rolling Stone: “I was trying things at home, shunting this piece up with that piece. I had the idea of the verses, the link into the solo and the last part. It was this idea of something that would keep building and building.”
Stairway To Heaven
There’s a lady who’s sure All that glitters is gold And she’s buying a stairway to heaven When she gets there she knows If the stores are all closed With a word she can get what she came for Oh oh oh oh and she’s buying a stairway to heaven
There’s a sign on the wall But she wants to be sure ‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings In a tree by the brook There’s a songbird who sings Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiving
Ooh, it makes me wonder Ooh, it makes me wonder
There’s a feeling I get When I look to the west And my spirit is crying for leaving In my thoughts I have seen Rings of smoke through the trees And the voices of those who standing looking
Ooh, it makes me wonder Ooh, it really makes me wonder
And it’s whispered that soon, If we all call the tune Then the piper will lead us to reason And a new day will dawn For those who stand long And the forests will echo with laughter
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow Don’t be alarmed now It’s just a spring clean for the May queen Yes, there are two paths you can go by But in the long run There’s still time to change the road you’re on And it makes me wonder
Your head is humming and it won’t go In case you don’t know The piper’s calling you to join him Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow And did you know Your stairway lies on the whispering wind
And as we wind on down the road Our shadows taller than our soul There walks a lady we all know Who shines white light and wants to show How everything still turns to gold And if you listen very hard The tune will come to you at last When all are one and one is all To be a rock and not to roll And she’s buying the stairway to heaven
There is one more song coming after Free Bird…and we will finish this up.
When I was playing in clubs and bars we played mostly British rock. We didn’t know many Lynyrd Skynyrd songs. There would always be one drunk jackass person in the back that yelled “Free Bird”…it never failed! I have to admit it was funny the first few times. The song is a classic. It is one of rock’s anthems.
Like the others this week it builds up and it does have an electrifying solo to close it out. I’ve heard this live before and it is one of the great live songs you can hear.
The song was usually dedicated to Duane Allman and he died in 1971, two years before “Free Bird” was released. The song was written long before his death. The double guitar solo at the end is the same style as many early Allman Brothers songs.
Free Bird was on their debut album Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd…They gave it the title because well… they knew people would not be able to pronounce their name. The album was a very solid album and it peaked at #27 in the Billboard Album Chart, #47 in Canada, and #44 in the UK in 1973. They would soon open up for The Who on their Quadrophenia tour and that helped build their audience.
This song began as a ballad without the guitar solos at the end, and Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded it that way for the first time in 1972. Guitarist Allen Collins had been working on the song on and off for the previous two years. Collins wrote the music long before Ronnie Van Zant came up with lyrics for it. Van Zant finally got inspired one night and had Collins and Gary Rossington play it over and over until he wrote the words.
At the time of recording, the song was only 7 1/2 minutes long, but throughout the next year, Collins continued to refine the song until it was recorded for the final cut of the Pronounced album in 1973. It ended up 9:08 minutes long.
MCA did not want this on the album. They thought it was too long and that no radio station would play it. Even the band never thought it was going to be a hit.
The song was released as a single in 1974 and peaked at #19 in the Billboard 100 adn #58 in Canada. In 1976, a live version was released from the One More For the Road live album. It peaked at #38 in the Billboard 100 and #48 in Canada.
From Songfacts
Frontman Johnny Van Zant discussed this song in a track-by-track commentary to promote the band’s 2010 CD/DVD Live From Freedom Hall. He said: “For years Skynyrd has always closed the show with that song and the song has different meanings for different people. This kid was telling me that they used it for their graduation song and not too long ago somebody told me that they used it at a funeral. And really it’s a love song, its one of the few that Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ever had. It’s about a guy and a girl. Of course at the end it was dedicated to Duane Allman from the band Allman Brothers because it goes into the guitar part. If you can get through that one you’ve had a good night at a Skynyrd show.”
The lyrics are about a man explaining to a girl why he can’t settle down and make a commitment. The opening lines, “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?” were inspired by Allen Collins’ girlfriend Kathy, who had asked him this very question during a fight.
The album version runs 9:08, with the last lyric uttered at 4:55 (“fly high, free bird, yeah”). Those last four minutes comprise perhaps the most famous instrumental passage in rock history. Skynyrd had three guitarists: Allen Collins, Ed King and Gary Rossington, allowing them to jam for extended periods long after most songs would peter out.
After the 1977 plane crash that killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, his brother, Johnny, took his place. Performing the song was very emotional for Johnny, and for a while, he wouldn’t sing it – the band played it as an instrumental and the crowd would sing the words.
This is a classic rock anthem. Shouting it out as a request at concerts became a rock and roll joke, and every now and then a musician will actually play it. The 2007 Mitch Myers book The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock & Roll Fables and Sonic Storytelling explores this subject in a work of fiction about the first person ever to shout “Free Bird” at a concert.
In places, the high-pitched guitar mimics a bird flying free. This is something Duane Allman did on the 1970 Derek & the Dominos track “Layla,” where at the end he plays the “crying bird.” In that song, it signifies Layla’s untamed spirit. In “Free Bird,” the guy is the elusive one, refusing to be caged by intimacy.
Like “Free Bird,” “Layla” loses most of its mojo when cut down for single release. The full version of that song runs 7:10, with the radio edit truncated to 2:43.
Skynyrd always plays this as the last song at their shows.
In the US, this wasn’t released as a single until a year after the album came out. By that time, “Sweet Home Alabama” had already been released, and the single version of “Free Bird” was edited down. The long version from the album has always been more popular.
This Southern Rock classic was produced by a northerner: Al Kooper, who discovered the band a year earlier when they were playing a gig in Atlanta. Kooper, a founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, is from Brooklyn, New York, but he gelled with Skynyrd, crafting their sound for wide appeal without diluting it. He produced their next two albums as well.
Despite having three guitarists, “Free Bird” opens with an organ as the lead instrument, giving the guitars more impact when they arrive. In early versions of the song, this section was done on piano, but Al Kooper convinced the band that organ was the way to go. He played the instrument on the track, credited on the album as “Roosevelt Gook.” Kooper had the bona fides to pull it off: he came up with the organ section on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Ronnie Van Zant thought at first that this song “had too many chords to write lyrics for.” Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington commented in an interview with Blender magazine, “But after a few months, we were sitting around, and he asked Allen to play those chords again. After about 20 minutes, Ronnie started singing, ‘If I leave here tomorrow,’ and it fit great. It wasn’t anything heavy, just a love song about leavin’ town, time to move on. Al put the organ on the front, which was a very good idea. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play – it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top of the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey.”
In 1988, the group Will To Power went to #1 in America with a mellow medley of this song and Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I Love Your Way.” The official title of that track is “Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley (Free Baby).”
While the lyrics contain the phrase “free as a bird,” the title itself (“Free Bird”) is used just once, right before the guitar solos begin: “Won’t you fly high, free bird.”
Free Bird
If I leave here tomorrow Would you still remember me? For I must be travelin’ on now ‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see
But if I stay here with you, girl Things just couldn’t be the same ‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now And this bird you cannot change Oh oh oh oh oh oh And the bird you cannot change And this bird you cannot change Lord knows, I can’t change
Bye-bye baby, it’s been sweet love, yeah yeah Though this feelin’ I can’t change Please don’t take it so badly ‘Cause Lord knows, I’m to blame
If I stay here with you girl Things just couldn’t be the same ‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now And this bird you cannot change Oh oh oh oh oh oh And the bird you cannot change And this bird you cannot change
Lord knows, I can’t change Lord help me, I can’t change Lord, I can’t change Won’t you fly high, free bird yeah
This made a huge comeback courtesy of Waynes World in 1991. In the eighties my buddies would pile into my Mustang and turn this song up to 11. We loved to see people’s reactions…so when I saw it in Wayne’s World…. in their car I had to laugh…but we didn’t have a Pacer though.
So many overdubs took place that the tape was virtually a transparent. All the oxide had been rubbed off. They hurriedly made a copy so they could preserve what they had already. They were working with a 24 track machine but they still had to bounce tracks. They used `180 overdubs… The song took 3 weeks to record. The song was on A Night At The Opera album.
The song reminds me of Good Vibrations and A Day In The Life…short melodies combined together to make one whole. The song was so different in 1975 and it’s so different today…it still holds up.
The song peaked at #1 in the UK in 1975…#9 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand in 1976.
With Wayne’s World help it re-charted. #1 in the UK in 1991. #2 in the Billboard 100, #18 in Canada, and #16 in New Zealand in 1992.
Again because of the movie it re-charted… #33 in the Billboard 100, #25 in Canada, #45 in the UK, and #20 in New Zealand in 2018-19.
Bohemian Rhapsody” had reached the Top 40 in three different decades (’70s, ’90s and ’10s).
The video was directed by Bruce Gowers, the video was shot in three hours for £3,500 at the band’s rehearsal space. Gowers got the gig because he was one of the few people who had experience working on music videos…he ran a camera on a few Beatles promotional clips, including the one for “Paperback Writer.”
Brian May:“That was a great moment, but the biggest thrill for us was actually creating the music in the first place. I remember Freddie coming in with loads of bits of paper from his dad’s work, like Post-it notes, and pounding on the piano. He played the piano like most people play the drums. And this song he had was full of gaps where he explained that something operatic would happen here and so on. He’d worked out the harmonies in his head.”
From Songfacts
Freddie Mercury wrote the lyrics, and there has been a lot of speculation as to their meaning. Many of the words appear in the Qu’ran. “Bismillah” is one of these and it literally means “In the name of Allah.” The word “Scaramouch” means “A stock character that appears as a boastful coward.” “Beelzebub” is one of the many names given to The Devil.
Mercury’s parents were deeply involved in Zoroastrianism, and these Arabic words do have a meaning in that religion. His family grew up in Zanzibar, but was forced out by government upheaval in 1964 and they moved to England. Some of the lyrics could be about leaving his homeland behind. Guitarist Brian May seemed to suggest this when he said in an interview about the song: “Freddie was a very complex person: flippant and funny on the surface, but he concealed insecurities and problems in squaring up his life with his childhood. He never explained the lyrics, but I think he put a lot of himself into that song.”
Another explanation is not to do with Mercury’s childhood, but his sexuality – it was around this time that he was starting to come to terms with his bisexuality, and his relationship with Mary Austin was falling apart.
Whatever the meaning is, we may never know – Mercury himself remained tight-lipped, and the band agreed not to reveal anything about the meaning. Mercury himself stated, “It’s one of those songs which has such a fantasy feel about it. I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them.” He also claimed that the lyrics were nothing more than “Random rhyming nonsense” when asked about it by his friend Kenny Everett, who was a London DJ.
The band were always keen to let listeners interpret their music in a personal way to them, rather than impose their own meaning on songs, and May stated that the band agreed to keep the personal meaning behind the song private out of respect for Mercury.
Mercury may have written “Galileo” into the lyrics for the benefit of Brian May, who is an astronomy buff and in 2007 earned a PhD in astrophysics. Galileo is a famous astronomer known for being the first to use a refracting telescope.
The backing track came together quickly, but Queen spent days overdubbing the vocals in the studio using a 24-track tape machine. The analog recording technology was taxed by the song’s multitracked scaramouches and fandangos: by the time they were done, about 180 tracks were layered together and “bounced” down into sub-mixes. Brian May recalled in various interviews being able to see through the tape as it was worn so thin with overdubs. Producer Roy Thomas Baker also recalls Mercury coming into the studio proclaiming, “oh, I’ve got a few more ‘Galileos’ dear!” as overdub after overdub piled up.
Was Freddie Mercury coming out as gay in this song? Lesley-Ann Jones, author of the biography Mercury, thinks so.
Jones says that when she posed the question to Mercury in 1986, the singer didn’t give a straight answer, and that he was always very vague about the song’s meaning, admitting only that it was “about relationships.” (Mercury’s family religion, Zoroastrianism, doesn’t accept homosexuality, and he made efforts to conceal his sexual orientation, possibly so as not to offend his family.)
After Mercury’s death, Jones says she spent time with his lover, Jim Hutton, who told her that the song was, in fact, Mercury’s confession that he was gay. Mercury’s good friend Tim Rice agreed, and offered some lyrical analysis to support the theory:
“Mama, I just killed a man” – He’s killed the old Freddie he was trying to be. The former image.
“Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he’s dead” – He’s dead, the straight person he was originally. He’s destroyed the man he was trying to be, and now this is him, trying to live with the new Freddie.
“I see a little silhouetto of a man” – That’s him, still being haunted by what he’s done and what he is.
Queen made a video for the song to air on Top Of The Pops, a popular British music show, because the song was too complex to perform live – or more accurately, to be mimed live – on TOTP. Also, the band would be busy on tour during the single’s release and thus unable to appear.
The video turned out to be a masterstroke, providing far more promotional punch than a one-off live appearance. Top Of The Pops ran it for months, helping keep the song atop the charts. This started a trend in the UK of making videos for songs to air in place of live performances.
When the American network MTV launched in 1981, most of their videos came from British artists for this reason. In the December 12, 2004 issue of the Observer newspaper, Roger Taylor explained: “We did everything we possibly could to avoid appearing in Top Of The Pops. It was one, the most boring day known to man, and two, it’s all about not actually playing – pretending to sing, pretending to play. We came up with the video concept to avoid playing on Top Of The Pops.”
The group had previously appeared on the show twice, to promote the “Seven Seas of Rhye” and “Killer Queen” singles.
The video was very innovative, the first where the visual images took precedence over the song. The look, with the four band members peering up into the shadows, was based on their 1974 Queen II album cover, which was shot by Mick Rock, who got the idea from a publicity photo of Marlene Dietrich striking a similar pose in the movie Shanghai Express. (Rock told Songfacts: “I showed it to Freddie and said, ‘Freddie, you could be Marlene Dietrich! How do you fancy that?’ And he loved it.”)
The two big effects used in the video were the multiple images that appear in the “thunderbolts and lightning section,” which were created by putting a prism in front of the camera lens, and the feedback effect where the image of the singer travels to infinity, which was done by pointing a camera at a monitor (like audio feedback, this is something you usually tried to avoid, but when harnessed for artistic purposes, was quite effective). At the time, the video looked high-tech and futuristic. It was also the first music “video” in the sense that it was shot on video instead of film.
This was Queen’s first Top 10 hit in the US, peaking at #9 on April 24, 1976. In the UK, where Queen was already established, it went to #1 on November 29, 1975 and stayed for nine weeks, a record at the time.
This got a whole new audience when it was used in the 1992 movie Wayne’s World, starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. In the film, Wayne and his friends lip-synch to it in his car (the Mirth Mobile), spasmodically head-bobbing at the guitar solo. As a result of the movie, it was re-released as a single in the US and charted at #2 (“Jump” by Kris Kross kept it out of #1).
In America, this marked a turning point in Queen’s legacy. The band’s 1982 album Hot Space contained a side of disco-tinged tracks at a time when disco was anathema to rock fans. The album had disappointing sales in the US, and also cost Queen in credibility. Their tour to support the album would be Freddie Mercury’s last with Queen in America, and the band was largely forgotten there for the rest of the decade. When Wayne’s World revived “Bohemian Rhapsody,” American listeners remembered how cool Queen really was, and they the ringing endorsement from Wayne and Garth to back them up.
At 5:55, this was a very long song for radio consumption. Queen’s manager at the time, John Reid, played it to another artist he managed, Elton John, who promptly declared: “are you mad? You’ll never get that on the radio!”
According to Brian May, record company management kept pleading with the group to cut the single down, but Freddie Mercury refused. It got a big bump when Mercury’s friend Kenny Everett played it on his Capital Radio broadcast before the song was released (courtesy of a copy Mercury gave him). This helped the single jump to #1 in the UK shortly after it was released.
There was a single version released only in France on a 7″, cut down to 3:18, edited by John Deacon, but beyond the initial pressing of this French single, the only version recognized is the album version, at 5:55. This little-heard French single started right at the piano intro, and edited out the operetta part. Brian May admitted that there may have been additional parts for the song on Freddie’s notes, but they were apparently never recorded.
In 1991, this was re-released in the UK shortly after Freddie Mercury’s death. It again went to #1, with proceeds going to the Terrence Higgins Trust, which Mercury supported.
Elton John performed this with Axl Rose at the 1992 “Concert For Life,” held in London at Wembley Stadium. It was a tribute to Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS the year before. In 2001, Elton John got together with Eminem, who like Axl Rose, was often accused of being intolerant and homophobic. They performed Eminem’s “Stan” at the Grammys.
When this was re-released in the US, proceeds from the single went to the Magic Johnson AIDS Foundation. Johnson and Freddie Mercury were two of the first celebrities to get AIDS. Rock Hudson, who succumbed to the disease on October 2, 1985, was another.
Thanks to this track, A Night At The Opera was the most expensive album ever made at the time. They used 6 different studios to record it. Queen did not use any synthesizers on the album, which is something they were very proud of.
In an interview with Brian May and Roger Taylor on the Queen Videos Greatest Hits DVD, Brian said: “What is Bohemian Rhapsody about, well I don’t think we’ll ever know and if I knew I probably wouldn’t want to tell you anyway, because I certainly don’t tell people what my songs are about. I find that it destroys them in a way because the great thing about about a great song is that you relate it to your own personal experiences in your own life. I think that Freddie was certainly battling with problems in his personal life, which he might have decided to put into the song himself. He was certainly looking at re-creating himself. But I don’t think at that point in time it was the best thing to do so he actually decided to do it later. I think it’s best to leave it with a question mark in the air.” >>
A Night At The Opera was re-released as an audio DVD in 2002 with the original video included on the disc. Commentary from the DVD reveals that this song had started taking shape in the song “My Fairy King” on Queen’s debut album. >>
In 2002, this came in #1 in a poll by Guinness World Records as Britain’s favorite single of all time. John Lennon’s “Imagine” was #2, followed by The Beatles’ “Hey Jude.”
The name “Bohemian” in the song title seems to refer not to the region in the Czech republic, but to a group of artists and musicians living roughly 100 years ago, known for defying convention and living with disregard for standards. A “Rhapsody” is a piece of Classical music with distinct sections that is played as one movement. Rhapsodies often have themes.
Roger Taylor (from 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh): “Record companies both sides of the Atlantic tried to cut the song, they said it was too long and wouldn’t work. We thought, ‘Well we could cut it, but it wouldn’t make any sense,’ it doesn’t make much sense now and it would make even less sense then: you would miss all the different moods of the song. So we said no. It’ll either fly or it won’t. Freddie had the bare bones of the song, even the composite harmonies, written on telephone books and bits of paper, so it was quite hard to keep track of what was going on.” Kutner and Leigh’s book also states that, the recording included 180 overdubs, the operatic parts took over 70 hours to complete and the piano Freddie played was the same one used by Paul McCartney on “Hey Jude.”
Ironically, the song that knocked this off the #1 chart position in the UK was “Mama Mia” by Abba. The words “Mama mia” are repeated in this in the line “Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go.” >>
The story told in this song is remarkably similar to that in Albert Camus’ book The Stranger. Both tell of a young man who kills, and not only can he not explain why he did it, he can’t even articulate any feelings about it. >>
You can make the case that the song title is actually a parody, and a clever one at that. There is a rhapsody by the composer Franz Liszt called “Hungarian Rhapsody,” and “Bohemia” is a kingdom that is near Hungary and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Furthermore, “Bohemian” is an adjective for something unusual or against convention, and the song is just that.
So, “Bohemian Rhapsody” could be a clever title that not only parodies a famous work but also describes the song. In a nod to the Liszt composition, Queen would go on to release a live DVD/CD package in 2012 titled “Hungarian Rhapsody,” featuring their famous shows behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest on the Magic tour in 1986.
This song was covered by Constantine M. (featuring the cast of We Will Rock You) and also by The Flaming Lips for the 2005 Queen Tribute album Killer Queen. Another popular cover is by Grey DeLisle, who did it as an acoustic ballad for her album Iron Flowers.
Queen fans, and also Brian May, often colloquially refer to the song as “Bo Rhap” (or “Bo Rap”).
The name “Bohemian Rhapsody” makes many appearances in popular culture:
Session 14 of the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop is named “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
The Jones Soda Company has a drink named “Bohemian Raspberry” in honor of this song.
In one of the episodes of the TV miniseries Dinotopia, a character cheats on a poem project by using the first part of the song as his entire project. The inhabitants, having never heard the song before, are amazed at the sound of it.
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett used some of the lyrics in their book Good Omens. The main character (Crowley) plays it in his car all the time. They also refer to other Queen songs, but mostly “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
The Mexican group Molotov sampled the chorus for their Spanish-language rap version of this song called “Rap, Soda and Bohemias.” It appears on their 1998 album Molomix.
In 2009, The Muppets Studio released a video featuring the Muppets performing this song. It was first web video for The Muppets, and it was extremely popular: the video was viewed over 7 million times the first week it was up. The furry ones changed the song a bit, omitting the lyrics that begin, “Mama, just killed a man” with Animal screaming “Mama!”
In an interview with Q magazine March 2011, Roger Taylor was asked if this seemed like a peculiar song when Mercury first suggested it? He replied: “No, I loved it. The first bit that he played to me was the verse. ‘Mama, just killed a man, dah-dah-la-dah-daah, gun against his…’ All that. I thought, ‘That’s great, that’s a hit.’ It was, in my head, a simpler entity then; I didn’t know it was going to have a wall of mock Gilbert and Sullivan stuff, you know, some of which was written on the fly. Freddie would write these huge blocks of mass harmonies in the backs of phone books.”
The song is one of Freddie Mercury’s great mysteries – according to everyone in the band, only he knew truly how it would come together, and according to some sources, its genesis could have come many years earlier. Chris Smith, the keyboard player in Mercury’s first band Smile, claimed that Freddie would play several piano compositions at rehearsals, including one called “The Cowboy Song,” which started with the line, “mama, just killed a man.”
In sharp contrast to the rest of the song’s recording and composition, Brian May’s signature solo before the opera section was recorded on only one track, with no overdubbing. He stated that he wanted to play “a little tune that would be a counterpart to the main melody; I didn’t just want to play the melody.”
It is one of his finest examples of creating a solo in his mind before playing it on guitar; something he did many times throughout Queen’s career. His reasoning was always that “the fingers tend to be predictable unless being led by the brain.”
Weird Al Yankovic took the entire song and sung it to a polka tune, called simply “Bohemian Polka,” which is on his 1993 album Alapalooza. >>
Panic! At The Disco covered the song in 2016 for the Suicide Squad soundtrack, having previously played Queen’s epic tune during their live shows. Frontman Brendon Urie told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe:
“I know right that’s a monster to tackle but it was so much fun. I love that song so much. We’ve been playing it live for a few years and it just made so much sense to try it.
It really just gave me a bigger respect for how that song was written. I mean the song was there, all the pieces were there. It was just figuring out each harmony piece by piece. But man, what a monster of a vocal song. It’s so crazy there’s just like thirty-four vocals stacked on top of each other. It’s incredible. I know right that’s a monster to tackle but it was so much fun. I love that song so much. We’ve been playing it live for a few years and it just made so much sense to try it.”
Panic! at the Disco’s cover peaked at #64 on the Hot 100. It was the fourth version to reach the chart following Queen’s original, The Braids from the High School High movie soundtrack (#42, 1996), and the Cast of Glee (#84, 2010).
In the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek stars as Freddie Mercury. In May, the trailer was released, showing some scenes where the song is discussed, including a part where they record “the operatic section.” There is also this exchange:
Record company executive: “It goes on forever! It’s six bloody minutes!”
Mercury: “I pity your wife if you think six minutes is forever.”
That record company executive is played by Mike Myers, who revived the song in Wayne’s World.
The song made its third visit to the top 40 of the Hot 100 in November 2018 when it zoomed in at #33 following the release of the Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack. , something only Prince has done before, with “1999.”
Thanks to the film Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen had a big role at the 2019 Oscars ceremony. The band (with Adam Lambert on vocals) opened the show, performing “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions”; Mike Myers and Dana Carvey introduced a tribute to the film with their scene from Wayne’s World. The film was nominated for five awards, winning four: Leading Actor (Rami Malek), Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. It lost Best Picture to Green Book.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality Open your eyes Look up to the skies and see I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy Because I’m easy come, easy go A little high, little low Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me
Mama, just killed a man Put a gun against his head Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead Mama, life had just begun But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away Mama, ooh Didn’t mean to make you cry If I’m not back again this time tomorrow Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters
Too late, my time has come Sends shivers down my spine Body’s aching all the time Goodbye everybody I’ve got to go Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth Mama, ooh (anyway the wind blows) I don’t want to die I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all
I see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me Gallileo, Gallileo Gallileo, Gallileo Gallileo Figaro, magnifico
I’m just a poor boy and nobody loves me He’s just a poor boy from a poor family Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come easy go, will you let me go Bismillah! No we will not let you go, let him go Bismillah! We will not let you go, let him go Bismillah! We will not let you go, let me go Will not let you go, let me go (never) Never, never, never, never, never let me go No, no, no, no, no, no, no Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me For me For me
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye So you think you can love me and leave me to die Oh, baby, can’t do this to me, baby Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here
Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
Nothing really matters Anyone can see Nothing really matters nothing really matters to me
If you want great power pop pick up a Big Star album…take your pick between their three original albums.
This song was on Radio City released in 1974…their second album and follow up to their debut…Big Star #1 Record. Although Chris Bell had quit the band after the release of #1 Record…Andy Hummel (bass player) stated that Chris Bell came back and helped with this song and O My Soul but received no credit.
Back of a Car slowly builds into a great song. The album got some better reviews than the first but Stax again could not distribute their album…so only around 20,000 copies were sold at the time.
Alex Chilton laid down great guitar for this song. Jody Stephens’ drums fills through the song are busy but adds to the over all sound.
Back Of A Car
Sitting in the back of a car
Music so loud can’t tell a thing
Thinking ’bout what to say
I can’t find the lines
You know I love you a lot
I just don’t know, should I not?
Waiting for a brighter day
I can’t find a way
I’ll go on and on with you
Like to fall and lie with you
I love you, too
Wo wo wo
Baby, I’m too afraid
I just don’t know if it’s okay
Trying to get away
From everything
Why don’t you take me home
It’s gone too far inside this car
I know I’ll feel a whole lot more
When I get alone
I’ll go on and on with you
Like to fall and lie with you
I love you, too
Wo wo wo
Sitting in the back of a car
Music so loud can’t tell a thing
Thinking ’bout what to say
I can’t find the lines
The main reason I like ZZ Top is the tone that Billy Gibbons gets on his guitar…especially in the 1970s. The song is on Degüello released in 1979 and the album peaked at #24 in the Billboard Album charts. The song peaked at #89 in the Billboard 100 in 1980.
The inspiration for this song came when ZZ Top would tour in cars. When they stopped at gas stations they would see cardboard displays of cheap sunglasses. They ended up buying a lot and throwing them into the crowd.
The band wrote the song on a trip to Austin, Texas as they were passing La Grange. He came up with lyrics to all three verses in the span of 20 miles.
Billy Gibbons: “The hip trip for us was to throw them into the audience as an offering. We ran out and we couldn’t get any more. So we now have to make to do with Sanford Hutton’s creations out of New York. The Ray Ban Wayfarer was the original cheap sunglasses. You could buy a pair for six bucks originally. I saw a catalog from 1959, and by then they were up to eight bucks. We had to take a bad rap from an optometrist who said ‘Don’t wear ZZ Top’s cheap sunglasses. They’re bad for your eyes.’ There was an optometrists’ convention in Hawaii and there was a huge poster – this woman with a pointing finger saying, ‘Don’t wear cheap sunglasses.’ I suppose I’ll have to agree. There is a cutoff point where optical considerations must be taken into account. At that point in time, they are not intended to be used for negotiating the entire afternoon.”
Songfacts
ZZ Top took some time off after their 1976 album Tejas. When they returned to action in 1979, punk rock had emerged, emboldening the band to cut loose, with less concern about what FM radio might play. That attitude led to songs like “Manic Mechanic” and “Cheap Sunglasses.”
The band also came back with a new look: Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill had their long, flowing beards for the first time with the album. Gibbons and Hill claim they didn’t consult each other before growing them.
Billy Gibbons played the main guitar line through a 200-watt Marshall Major amp with a blown tube, which gave him the “bulbous, rotund sound.” He told Guitar World: “There’s also a little bit of digital delay for that Bo Diddley impersonation at the tail out, and a Maestro ring modulator, which produces the strange tag to each verse. It appears three times, and it’s a pretty funny sound. That is one insane effect put to good use.”
Cheap Sunglasses
When you get up in the morning and the light is hurt your head The first thing you do when you get up out of bed Is hit that streets a-runnin’ and try to beat the masses And go get yourself some cheap sunglasses Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Spied a little thing and I followed her all night In a funky fine Levis and her sweater’s kind of tight She had a west coast strut that was as sweet as molasses But what really knocked me out was her cheap sunglasses Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Now go out and get yourself some big black frames With the glass so dark they won’t even know your name And the choice is up to you cause they come in two classes Rhinestone shades or cheap sunglasses Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
This synth driven song was a memorable one from the In Through The Out Door album. It’s not your usual love song. It’s about Robert Plant’s son Karac who died in 1977 from a stomach virus when he was 5 years old. Robert has said “It was paying tribute to the joy that he gave us as a family.”
Some Zeppelin fans didn’t like this album as much. I have always liked the album but I don’t consider it their best or worse. Like with Who songs…the drums here are a stand out.
John Bonham and Jimmy Page didn’t take to the song too well. They thought it was a little too soft for Zeppelin. Page said it was fine on the album but he would not have wanted to go in that direction in the future.
Robert and John Paul Jones wrote this song.
Robert Plant:“In Through The Out Door wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, but at least we were trying to vary what we were doing, for our own integrity’s sake,” “Of all the (Led Zeppelin) records, it’s interesting but a bit sanitized because we hadn’t been in the clamor and chaos for a long time. In ’77, when I lost my boy, I didn’t really want to go swinging around- ‘Hey hey mama say the way you move’ didn’t really have a great deal of import anymore.”
From Songfacts
Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and bass player John Paul Jones wrote this. The band had drifted apart, with guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer John Bonham hanging out together and rarely showing up on time for recording sessions. As a result, many of the songs on In Through The Out Door were put together by Plant and Jones, with Page and Bonham adding their parts late at night.
This changes key on the last chorus.
You don’t hear much synthesizer in Led Zeppelin’s canon, but “All My Love” contains a synth solo played by John Paul Jones. In Through The Out Door was recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm, which was owned by Abba. Benny Andersson of Abba had a Yamaha GX-1 synth in the studio that Jones used on the track.
This was only played live during Led Zeppelin’s 1980 tour of Germany.
Robert Plant had another son, Logan, in 1979 before In Through The Out Door was released. He has talked about how his images of Logan and Karac sometimes blur together, with his joy for Logan’s life tempered by the pain of Karac’s death. Plant’s 1993 solo track “I Believe” is also about Karac.
All My Love
Should I fall out of love, my fire in the light To chase a feather in the wind Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight There moves a thread that has no end
For many hours and days that pass ever soon The tides have caused the flame to dim At last the arm is straight, the hand to the loom Is this to end or just begin?
All of my love, all of my love All of my love to you, oh
All of my love, all of my love, oh All of my love to you
The cup is raised, the toast is made yet again One voice is clear above the din Proud Arianne one word, my will to sustain For me, the cloth once more to spin, oh
All of my love, all of my love, oh All of my love to you
All of my love, all of my love, yes All of my love to you
Yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sews time His is the force that lies within Ours is the fire, all the warmth we can find He is a feather in the wind, oh
All of my love, all of my love, oh All of my love to you
All of my love, ooh yes, all of my love to you now All of my love, all of my love All of my love, love, sometimes, sometimes
Sometimes, sometimes, oh love Hey, hey, hey Hey, hey, hey Ooh yeah, it’s all my love
All of my love, all of my love, to you now
All of my love, all of my love all of my love to, to you, you, you, yeah I get a little bit lonely
43 years ago Groucho Marx died on August 19, 1977 and the news of his death was swallowed up by Elvis dying 3 days before. Groucho was 87 years old and still was popular among college kids partly due to a resurgence of the Marx Brothers movies. He was constantly photographed with Rock Stars (Alice Cooper, Queen) and movie stars in the mid-seventies.
The Marx Brothers remain my favorite comedy team hands down. All of them were talented and Harpo and Groucho in particular never fail to make me laugh.
I’ll leave you with some Groucho Quotes.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Some people claim that marriage interferes with romance. There’s no doubt about it. Anytime you have a romance, your wife is bound to interfere.
I have nothing but respect for you — and not much of that.
Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.
I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.
I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
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