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
This is one of McCartney’s best written songs. Like a lot of other great songs it builds… from McCartney’s lone voice and piano to a giant sing a long at the end. Hey Jude is one of the most famous songs in rock history.
This was their debut single for their new record company Apple. The A side was Hey Jude and the B side was Revolution. That is a great way to start. This was one of the best double A side singles ever.
The song was not on an album at the time. Hey Jude peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, UK, Canada, and New Zealand in 1968.
Paul McCartney wrote this as “Hey Jules,” a song meant to comfort John Lennon’s 5-year-old son Julian as John and Cynthia were getting a divorce. The change to “Jude” was inspired by the character “Jud” in the musical Oklahoma! Paul went to visit Cynthia and Julian when the divorce was happening and he composed most of it then.
John wanted Revolution released as a single right away but when he heard this song he agreed to have Revolution as the B side.
It was the Beatles longest single, running 7:11. George Martin was afraid radio stations would not play it but John said ‘They will if it’s us.” When this became a hit, stations learned that listeners would stick around if they liked the song, which paved the way for long songs like “American Pie” and “Layla.”Disc jockeys loved it…they got a break.
The Beatles filmed a promotional video for this song, which was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg who directed Let It Be. He had the Beatles sing the song (the music was on a backing track) in front of an audience of about 100 people, who sang it with them. This was the closest the Beatles had come to a live performance since they had stopped touring two years earlier.
The clip first aired on the UK program The David Frost Show in 1968, and was quickly picked up by other shows, giving the song a big promotional push.
Paul McCartney:“I thought, as a friend of the family, I would motor out to Weybridge (John’s former home with Cynthia) and tell them that everything was all right: to try and cheer them up, basically, and see how they were. I had about an hour’s drive. I would always turn the radio off and try and make up songs, just in case…I starting singing: ‘Hey Jules – don’t make it bad, take a sad song, and make it better…’ It was optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian: ‘Come on, man, your parents got divorced. I know you’re not happy, but you’ll be OK.’ I eventually changed ‘Jules’ to ‘Jude.’ One of the characters in ‘Oklahoma’ is called Jude, and I like the name.”
Cynthia Lennon: “During the divorce proceedings, I was truly surprised when, one afternoon, Paul arrived on his own. I was touched by his obvious concern for our welfare and even more moved when he presented me with a single red rose accompanied by a jokey remark about our future. ‘How about it, Cyn? How about you and me getting married?’ We both laughed at the thought of the world’s reaction to an announcement like that being let loose. On his journey down to visit Julian and I, Paul composed the beautiful song ‘Hey Jude.’ He said it was for Julian. I will never forget Paul’s gesture of care and concern in coming to see us. It made me feel important and loved, as opposed to feeling discarded and obsolete.”
Paul McCartney:“I finished it all up in Cavendish (Paul’s home) and I was in the music room upstairs when John and Yoko came to visit and they were right behind me over my right shoulder, standing up, listening to it as I played it to them, and when I got to the line ‘The movement you need is on your shoulder,’ I looked over my shoulder and I said, ‘I’ll change that, it’s a bit crummy. I was just blocking it out,’ and John said, ‘You won’t, you know. That’s the best line in it!’ That’s collaboration. When someone’s that firm about a line that you’re going to junk, and he says, ‘No, keep it in.’
John Lennon:“He said it was written about Julian…but I always heard it as a song to me. If you think about it, Yoko’s just come into the picture. He’s saying: ‘Hey, Jude – hey, John.’ I know I’m sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a song to me. The words ‘go out and get her’ – subconsciously he was saying, ‘Go ahead, leave me.’ But on a conscious level, he didn’t want me to go ahead. The angel inside him was saying, ‘Bless you.’ The devil in him didn’t like it at all, because he didn’t want to lose his partner.”
John Lennon:“Well, when Paul first played ‘Hey Jude’ to me…I took it very personally. ‘Ah, it’s me,’ I said, ‘it’s me.” He said, ‘No, it’s me!’ I said, ‘Check, we’re going through the same bit.’ So we all are. Whoever is going through a bit with us is going through it. That’s the groove.”
From Songfacts
This was named as the song most often referred to in literature in a list compiled by culture interpretation website Small Demons. Amongst the 55 books the site says it’s mentioned in are Stephen King’s Wolves of the Calla (“Why do people over here sing Hey Jude? I don’t know”) and Toni Morrison’s Paradise (“Soane had been horrified – and he drove off accompanying Hey Jude on his radio”).
Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” was runner-up on the list and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” came in third place
In 1987 Julian ran into Paul in New York City when they were staying at the same hotel and he finally heard Paul tell him the story of the song firsthand. He admitted to Paul that growing up, he’d always felt closer to him than to his own father. In Steve Turner’s book The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Julian said: “Paul told me he’d been thinking about my circumstances, about what I was going through and what I’d have to go through. Paul and I used to hang out quite a bit – more than Dad and I did… There seem to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing at that age than me and Dad. I’ve never really wanted to know the truth of how Dad was and how he was with me. There was some very negative stuff – like when he said that I’d come out of a whisky bottle on a Saturday night. That’s tough to deal with. You think, where’s the love in that? It surprises me whenever I hear the song. It’s strange to think someone has written a song about you. It still touches me.”
The Beatles inner circle was shifting when Paul McCartney wrote this song. John Lennon had recently taken up with Yoko and cast off his first wife, Cynthia; McCartney had broken off his engagement with his longtime girlfriend Jane Asher. He was the only Beatle to reach out to Cynthia and Julian at this time.
The drive to the Lennon home in Surrey was one of reflection for McCartney, who thought about Julian and how difficult life could be as a child of divorce. He wrote the line, “Don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better” thinking about how he could encourage the boy.
Paul was conditioned to think up songs on this trip, as he used to drive to the home for songwriting sessions with John – there were instruments and recording equipment in the attic.
In a 2018 interview with GQ, Paul McCartney talked about how he came up with the idea for this song: “John and his wife Cynthia had divorced, and I felt a bit sorry for their son, who was now a child of a divorce. I was driving out to see the son and Cynthia one day and I was thinking about the boy whose name was Julian – Julian Lennon, and I started this idea, ‘Hey Jules, don’t make it bad, it’s gonna be OK.’ It was like a reassurance song.
So that was the idea that I got driving out to see them. I saw them and then I came back and worked on the song some more. But I like that name, Jude.”
This was the first song released on Apple Records, the record label owned by The Beatles. It was recorded at Trident Studios, London, on July 31 and August 1, 1968 with a 36 piece orchestra. Orchestra members clapped and sang on the fadeout – they earned double their normal rate for their efforts.
Paul McCartney on his songwriting partnership with John Lennon in Observer Music Monthly October 2007: “I have fond flashbacks of John writing – he’d scribble it down real quick, desperate to get back to the guitar. But I knew at that moment that this was going to be a good collaboration. Like when I did ‘Hey Jude.’ I was going through it for him and Yoko when I was living in London. I had a music room at the top of the house and I was playing ‘Hey Jude’ when I got to the line ‘The movement you need is on your shoulder’ and I turned round to John and said: ‘I’ll fix that if you want.’ And he said: ‘You won’t, you know, that’s a great line, that’s the best line in it.’ Now that’s the other side of a great collaborator – don’t touch it, man, that’s OK.”
This song hit #1 in at least 12 countries and by the end of 1968 had sold more than 5 million copies. It eventually sold over 10 million copies in the United States, becoming the fourth-biggest selling Beatles single there. Factoring in the price of records in 1968 vs. 1964, when the top-seller “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was released, “Hey Jude” might be the biggest earner.
When McCartney played this song for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John interpreted it as being about him; he heard the line “You were made to go out and get her” as Paul imploring him to leave his first wife and go after Yoko (“I always heard it as a song to me,” said Lennon). This was one of Lennon’s more narcissistic moments, as he failed to grasp that the song was written for his son.
This was going to be the B-side to “Revolution,” but it ended up the other way around. It is a testament to this song that it pushed “Revolution” to the other side of the record.
George Harrison wanted to play a guitar riff after the vocal phrases, but Paul wouldn’t let him. Things got tense between them around this time as McCartney got very particular about how Harrison played on songs he wrote.
Julian Lennon didn’t find out that this song was written for him until he was a teenager. It was around this time that he reconnected with his dad, whom he would visit in New York from time to time until his death.
In terms of songcraft, this is one of the most studied Beatles songs. It starts with a vocal – Paul’s voice singing “Hey” – then the piano comes in (an F chord). The song gradually builds, with McCartney alone playing on the first verse, then the sounds of George Harrison’s guitar, Ringo’s tambourine, and harmony vocals by George and John. The drums enter about 50 seconds in, and the song builds from there, reaching a peak of intensity with McCartney delivering the “better… better… better” line punctuated by a Little Richard-style scream, then the famous singalong resolution.
The “na na na” fadeout takes four minutes. The chorus is repeated 19 times.
“Jude” is the German word for “Jew,” but nobody in the Beatles camp knew that. In 1967 and 1968, the group owned a retail store on Baker Street in London called the Apple Boutique, which they closed around the time this song was released. On the shuttered building, an employee scrawled the words “Revolution” and “Hey Jude” to promote the new Beatles single. Without proper context, this proved offensive to Jewish residents, who read it as hateful graffiti.
Wilson Pickett recorded this shortly after The Beatles did. His version hit #16 UK and #23 US and provided the name for his album. Duane Allman played on it and got a huge career boost when the song became a hit. He spent the next year as a session guitarist for many famous singers and then formed The Allman Brothers, who are considered the greatest Southern Rock band of all time.
Thanks to the communal nature of this song, it is sometimes used to pay tribute to those who have passed. When Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr appeared on the 2014 CBS special The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles, Paul dedicated the song John Lennon and George Harrison. Musicians who performed earlier in the show joined on stage for the ending, which closed the telecast.
In America, an album called Hey Jude (originally titled “The Beatles Again”) was released in 1970 containing this and several other Beatles songs that were released as singles or B-sides. The album has not appeared as a CD because Apple Records made the decision to copy only the British LP releases onto CD. In the ’60s the American record company managed to get extra LPs off the British releases by cutting down the number of tracks, then putting them out with singles and B-sides as additional albums.
As discussed in the DVD Composing the Beatles Songbook, while Paul wrote this song for Julian, in a lot of ways McCartney wrote this song about his brand-new relationship with Linda Eastman.
After the “Oh” in the crescendo, McCartney sings “YEAH!” in a non-falsetto voice. The note he hits is F Natural above male High C, a very difficult note for a male to hit in a non-falsetto voice.
The original 1968 version was recorded in mono, and many listeners find it far superior to the stereo remake from 1970, which is much more heavily produced.
On The Beatles Anthology 3, there is a version of this song with an introduction spoken by John and Paul: “From the heart of the black country: When I was a robber in Boston place You gathered round me with your fine embrace.”
“Boston place” (mentioned by Paul) is a small London street where The Beatles’ company Apple had just installed an electronics laboratory. In a more familiar scene, Boston Street was that street in which The Beatles ran for the title sequence of their film A Hard Day’s Night. John spoke of the “Black Country,” which was the name of the old smokestack industrial region in the middle of England.
Richie Havens played this at Woodstock when he opened the festival in 1969.
If you listen at about 2:55, you hear a sound from John Lennon while Paul keeps singing. It sounds like “Ohh!” at first, but it is really him saying “…chord!” You can barely hear it, but if you listen really closely, you can hear him say “Got the wrong CHORD.” He says “chord” much louder than the other words. And about two or three counts later, you can hear McCartney say “F**king hell.”
The song debuted at #10 in the Hot 100, and in doing so it made history by becoming the first ever single to reach the top 10 in its first week on the chart.
When the Beatles music was made available for download for the first time – on iTunes November 16, 2010 – “Hey Jude” was the most downloaded Beatles song that day.
McCartney played this at the 2005 Live8 concert in London. He started with “The Long and Winding Road” and flowed it into the end of “Hey Jude,” which closed out the Live8 concert.
Paul McCartney played this at the 2005 Super Bowl halftime show. He performed the year after Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed on stage, causing an uproar. McCartney was deemed a safe and reliable choice for a nudity-free performance.
Sesame Street did a parody of this (and tribute to healthy eating) called “Hey Food.”
With hundreds of crowd favorites to choose from in his catalog, Paul McCartney mixes up his setlists when he plays live, but this one always seems to stick. “I’ll switch up the songs, but I’ve got to do ‘Hey Jude’ because it is such fun and it’s great handing that over to the audience,” he told GQ. The greatest thing is, you feel this sense of community, and in these times when it’s a little dark and people are separated by politics and stuff, it’s so fantastic to see them all come together singing the end of ‘Hey Jude.’ I’m very happy about that, so I keep it in the show.”
This appears frequently throughout Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, including the first installment, The Gunslinger (1982). The fantasy western is set in a parallel universe where a lone gunslinger is on a quest for revenge. King explained the significance of the song in a 1988 interview with The Guardian: “I see the gunslinger’s world as sort of a post-radiation world where everybody’s history has gotten clobbered and about the only thing anybody remembers anymore is the chorus to ‘Hey, Jude.'”
Hey Jude
Hey Jude, don’t make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it better
Hey Jude, don’t be afraid You were made to go out and get her The minute you let her under your skin Then you begin to make it better
And anytime you feel the pain Hey Jude, refrain Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders For well you know that it’s a fool Who plays it cool By making his world a little colder Na-na-na, na, na Na-na-na, na
Hey Jude, don’t let me down You have found her, now go and get her (let it out and let it in) Remember to let her into your heart (hey Jude) Then you can start to make it better
So let it out and let it in Hey Jude, begin You’re waiting for someone to perform with And don’t you know that it’s just you Hey Jude, you’ll do The movement you need is on your shoulder Na-na-na, na, na Na-na-na, na, yeah
Hey Jude, don’t make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her under your skin Then you’ll begin to make it better Better better better better better, ah!
Na, na, na, na-na-na na (yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude (Jude Jude, Judy Judy Judy Judy, ow wow!) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (my, my, my) Na-na-na na, hey Jude (Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (yeah, yeah, yeah) Na-na-na na, hey Jude (yeah, you know you can make it, Jude, Jude, you’re not gonna break it) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (don’t make it bad, Jude, take a sad song and make it better) Na-na-na na, hey Jude (oh Jude, Jude, hey Jude, wa!) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (oh Jude) Na-na-na na, hey Jude (hey, hey, hey, hey) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (hey, hey) Na-na-na na, hey Jude (now, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (Jude, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude (na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na) Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na (yeah, make it, Jude) Na-na-na na, hey Jude (yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!) Na, na, na, na-na-na na (yeah, yeah yeah, yeah! Yeah! Yeah!) Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude Na, na, na, na-na-na na Na-na-na na, hey Jude
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
Bruce Springsteen wrote this and gave it to filmmaker Paul Schrader for his 1987 movie starring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett as a brother and sister who lead a garage band.
Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett performed this in the movie. The song was released as a single credited to “The Barbusters” the name of the group in the film. The song is a duet with Fox and Jett, but the single was just Jett accompanied by her band, The Blackhearts.
Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played Hammond organ on this song. Light Of Day peaked at #33 in the Billboard 100 in 1987. From Songfacts
This is one of Springsteen’s live favorites. He often performs an inspirational extended version, preaching lines like “I can not offer you eternal life, but I can offer you life right now.”
Bruce performed this at a 1992 concert for MTV. Part of their “Unplugged” series, Springsteen insisted on playing electric and calling it “Plugged.” The set was released as an album in England.
The title was used as the name of a benefit concert Springsteen played at The Stone Pony, a small club in New Jersey, in 2000. Proceeds went to The Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Michael J. Fox, who starred in the movie Light Of Day, has Parkinson’s.
Springsteen performed this with Joan Jett at two benefit concerts in New Jersey in 2001. Proceeds from the shows went to victims of the September 11 attacks.
In 2000, the Light of Day foundation was formed, taking its name from this song. Music impresario Bob Benjamin started the foundation after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, with proceeds going toward the search for a cure. Benjamin organized a series of concerts to raise money, which proved very successful. Springsteen has performed at many of these events to lend his support.
Light Of Day
Well I’ve been out of the woods for six days and nights now Well I’m a little hot wired, but I’m feeling alright I got some money in my pocket and a long lean ride I got to make it down to Galveston by Saturday night, now
Well I’m a little down under, but I’m feeling O.K. Got a little lost along the way
I’m just around the corner to the light of day Well, I’m just around the corner to the light of day
Been driving five hundred miles, got five hundred to go, yeah I got rock and roll music on the radio I got a brother on a rig just off the gulf coast He says the girls down there, well they’re really the most, man
Well I’m a little down under, but I’m feeling O.K. I got a little lost along the way
Just around the corner to the light of day Just around the corner to the light of day I’m just around the corner to the light of day I’m just around the corner to the light of day
Well I got thrown out of work on the Kokomo Don’t ask me what I’m doing, I don’t know I hope he wasn’t joking when he wrote me that letter Things can’t get any worse, they got to get better
Well I’m a little down under, but I’m feeling O.K. I got a little lost along the way
I’m just around the corner to the light of day Just around the corner to the light of day Just around the corner to the light of day Just around the corner to the light of day
I’ve been listening to the Syd Barrett era of Pink Floyd and ran across this one. You can hear the later Pink Floyd in this.
This was Pink Floyd’s debut single in 1967.
Syd Barrett wrote this about a true story….a cross-dresser who he called “Arnold Layne” who used to steal bras and panties from clotheslines in Cambridge, England. Barrett lived near Roger Waters growing up. Their mothers both lost underwear to Arnold Layne.
Of course Radio London banned this song, since it was about a man who steals women’s undergarments. Surprisingly BBC played it,saying they either didn’t have a problem with this particular subject matter or didn’t understand it…probably the latter.
The song peaked at #20 in the UK in 1967.
In the promotional materials to accompany the single, the band’s record company, EMI, wrote: “Pink Floyd does not know what people mean by psychedelic pop and are not trying to cause hallucinatory effects on their audience.”
The promotional black-and-white music video displayed the band with Syd Barrett. It shows Pink Floyd goofing around with a mannequin on the beach in East Wittering, West Sussex, England in late February 1967 ahead of the song’s release the following month.
Roger Waters: ‘Both my mother and Syd’s mother had students as lodgers because there was a girl’s college up the road so there was constantly great lines of bras and knickers on our washing lines.’ In one curious incident, the bras and knickers that hung on the washing lines in the Barrett’s garden proved irresistible to a local underwear fetishist. This character, whom Barrett would later immortalize in song as Arnold Layne, made off with many of poor nursing students’ undergarments, presumably to indulge his fantasies. ‘Arnold or whoever he was, had bits and pieces off our washing lines. They never caught him. He stopped doing it after a bit, when things got too hot for him.’ ‘I was in Cambridge at the time I started to write the song,’ Syd Barrett told *Melody Maker*. ‘I pinched the line about “moonshine washing line” from Roger because he had an enormous washing line in the back garden of his house. Then I thought “Arnold must have a hobby” and it went on from there. Arnold Layne just happened to dig dressing up in women’s clothing.’
From Songfacts
The group was set to make their Top Of The Pops debut with a performance of this song in April 1967, but were dropped when it fell three places on the UK chart that week. They first appeared on the show July 6, performing “See Emily Play.”
Barrett was the group leader and an excellent songwriter, but he did a lot of drugs and lost his mind over the next year, becoming England’s first high-profile acid casualty. He was kicked out of the band the next year, replaced by David Gilmour.
Before the band came out at their shows in the late ’80s, this played while video of Pink Floyd in 1967 was shown on the giant screens.
This had a blues sound the band was known for. Pink Floyd’s name originated from Syd Barrett. His two favorite blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, appeared to him in what he referred to as a “vision,” giving Syd the idea for the name.
The song made an unexpected appearance in the live sets of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour during his 2006 tour promoting his solo album, On an Island. Later in the year, two live recordings of the song, from Gilmour’s On an Island shows at the Royal Albert Hall were released as a live single, which peaked at #19 on the UK singles chart. One version had guest vocals by David Bowie, the other by Floyd’s Richard Wright.
Arnold Layne
Arnold Layne Had a strange hobby Collecting clothes Moonshine washing line They suit him fine
On the wall Hung a tall mirror Distorted view See through baby blue He done it, oh, Arnold Layne It’s not the same, It takes two to know Two to know Two to know Two to know Why can’t you see?
Arnold Layne Arnold Layne Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne
Now he’s caught A nasty sort of person They gave him time Doors bang, chain gang He hates it Oh, Arnold Layne It’s not the same It takes two to know Two to know Two to know Two to know Why can’t you see?
Chrissie Hynde wrote this with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. “I’ll Stand by You” was released as the second single from the 1994 album Last of the Independents. It’s a beautiful song that has been covered a few times.
The song peaked at #16 in the Billboard 100, #12 Canada, and #10 in the UK.
For Hynde, working with outside songwriters was different, as she was used to writing on her own. It ended up a very positive experience that led to more collaborations.
Chrissie had said she was uncomfortable about having such a hit but felt better after Noel Gallagher say “he wished he’d written it.”
Chrissie Hynde: “When I did that song, I thought, Urgh this is s–t. But then I played it for a couple of girls who weren’t in the business and by the end of it they were both in tears. I said, OK, put it out.”
From Songfacts
“Tom and I never had a publisher, we both published ourselves. Jason Dauman was somebody who, for a commission, was willing to provide some of the service that a publisher would. He once said to me, ‘Who would you like to collaborate with?’ and it was sort of an annoyance to me. I didn’t take him all that seriously, but almost facetiously I said, ‘Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Chrissie Hynde.
I said those names because they were three of my favorite songwriters and he sort of took it seriously. He went off and I just thought, ‘Well I got rid of him, didn’t I.’ Then a little while later he called me up and he said, ‘Chrissie Hynde wants to write with you and Tom,’ and I thought, ‘Right.’ So anyway, I get a phone call and this woman said, ‘Billy, this is Chrissie Hynde,’ and I thought somebody was playing with me or something. I couldn’t imagine it, but then in a minute it was quite clear that Chrissie was on the other end of the telephone.
Chrissie is a very complicated person, a very no-nonsense person especially when she doesn’t know you. She was a little intimidating on the phone. The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering so much I could barely speak because I love The Pretenders. She said she’d like to get together and write some songs with Tom and me, and I went, ‘Woo Hoo!’ She came to Los Angeles and she was so determined. She said, ‘I want to write a hit.’ Over a period of about two weeks Tom and I wrote a handful of songs with her. The first one we wrote together was called ‘Love Colors Everything.’ Then we wrote ‘Night In My Veins’ which was also a hit single, and we wrote ‘977,’ ‘Hollywood Perfume’ and ‘I’ll Stand By You.'”
Ben E. King’s song “Stand By Me” was a big influence on this.
Steinberg: “‘I’ll Stand By You,’ like the other hits that Tom and I wrote, started out as a lyric that I had in a notebook. I had the title and the chorus lyric. Chrissie is a very, very strong songwriter in her own right. She’s very ruthless, she would get out her pen or her pencil and I remember I was fascinated the way she would write in the notebook because she wouldn’t write on the lines. I use a Mont Blanc fountain pen and I tend to write kind of neatly. She would just scribble across pages. Very few lines would fit on a page and they wouldn’t stay on the line. I remember she would just take a pen and she would cross out any lines I had written that she didn’t like, and usually the lines that she didn’t like would be ones that were too tender or too poetic. She would toughen up stuff I’d written. On ‘I’ll Stand By You’ she added lines and changed lines.”
This was written based on the piano. Tom Kelly played the piano on the record.
Steinberg: “I remember when we wrote it I felt two things: I felt one, we had written a hit song and I felt two, a little sheepish that we had written something a little soft, a little generic for The Pretenders. Whereas ‘Night In My Veins’ really felt like a great Pretenders rocker, ‘I’ll Stand By You’ felt a little generic. I know that Chrissie felt that way too to some extent. I don’t think she really entirely embraced it to begin with, but she certainly does now because when she plays it live, it’s one of the songs that gets the strongest response. It’s done really well for her and for us.” (Check out our Billy Steinberg interview.)
This song has returned to both the UK and US charts with different cover versions. In 2004 Girls Aloud achieved their second UK #1 with their version recorded for the annual BBC Children In Need charity telethon. Girl Aloud Sarah Harding explained in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner & Spencer Leigh that the fivesome “were drawn to the lyrics straight away, we’ve all been in situations where we have needed someone or been there for someone.”
In 2007, Carrie Underwood achieved the highest chart entry by an Idol contestant for a song never performed on the show in competition when her version debuted in the Hot 100 at #6. Her record was later taken by David Archuleta, whose single “Crush” flew straight into the US singles chart at #2.
She added that this song was “really a cold-blooded attempt to write something to get on the radio.”
Other artists to cover this song include Rod Stewart (on his 2006 album Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time), and Shakira, who released it as a charity single for Hope for Haiti in 2010 to help with earthquake relief. In 2009, the Cast of Glee took the song back to the charts, reaching #73.
Hynde, a resident of England, didn’t know about the Rod Stewart or Carrie Underwood covers until we told her about them.
This was used in a 2013 commercial for Progressive Insurance where their spokesperson, Flo, sings the ballad. As with all songs written by Chrissie Hynde, PETA had to approve the use and royalties from it were sent to the organization.
I’ll Stand By You
Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes Come on and come to me now Don’t be ashamed to cry Let me see you through
‘Cause I’ve seen the dark side too When the night falls on you You don’t know what to do Nothing you confess Could make me love you less
I’ll stand by you I’ll stand by you Won’t let nobody hurt you I’ll stand by you
So if you’re mad, get mad Don’t hold it all inside Come on and talk to me now Hey, what you got to hide? I get angry too
Well I’m a lot like you When you’re standing at the crossroads And don’t know which path to choose Let me come along ‘Cause even if you’re wrong
I’ll stand by you I’ll stand by you Won’t let nobody hurt you I’ll stand by you Take me in, into your darkest hour And I’ll never desert you I’ll stand by you
And when When the night falls on you, baby You’re feeling all alone You won’t be on your own
I’ll stand by you I’ll stand by you Won’t let nobody hurt you
I’ll stand by you Take me in, into your darkest hour And I’ll never desert you I’ll stand by you I’ll stand by you Won’t let nobody hurt you I’ll stand by you Won’t let nobody hurt you I’ll stand by you, won’t let nobody hurt you Take me in, into your darkest hour And I’ll never desert you I’ll stand by you
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
This is from our favorite Canadian Neil Young. It surprised me that this was released in 1989. I remember it the most in the 90s.
This was inspired by the political changes going on at the time, and was highly critical of the George Bush Sr. Some of the lyrics mock Bush’s campaign speeches: “We got 1,000 points of light, for the homeless man,” “We got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.”
Rocking In A Free World was written in February 1989, as Neil Young toured the Pacific Northwest. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeni had just issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his controversial novel The Satanic Verses and Russia had recently withdrawn its forces from Afghanistan.
Pearl Jam have performed this song from time to time with Young, who they said that Neil is their musical mentor. The first time they performed it together was at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, where the “Jermey” video won four awards. Young came on as a surprise guest.
Pearl Jam has used this as the closing song in many of their concerts. The band played several times at Young’s Bridge School concerts.
The song peaked at #2 in the Mainstream Rock Chart and #39 in Canada. The song is rated number 216 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From Songfacts
This was released a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It became kind of an anthem for the event as freedom spread through Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile Young and his guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, were musing on global events as they traveled to Portland.
“There was supposed to have been a cultural exchange between Russia and United States,” Sampedro recalled to Mojo in a 2018 interview. “Russia was getting Neil Young and Crazy Horse and we were getting the Russian ballet! All of a sudden, whoever was promoting the deal, a guy in Russia, took the money and split. We were all bummed, and I looked at him and said, ‘Man I guess we’re just gonna have to keep on rockin in the free world. He said, ‘Well, Poncho, that’s a good line. I’m gonna use that, if you don’t mind.'”
“So we checked into the hotel in Portland,” the guitarist continued. “And we needed a song. We needed a rocker. We’d written some songs and they were good but we didn’t have a real rocker. I said, ‘Look man, tonight, get in your room, think about all this stuff that’s going down – the Ayatollah, all the stuff in Afghanistan, all these wars breaking out, all the problems in America… “Keep On rockin in the free world,” you got that: put something together man, let’s have a song!’ And the next morning, we got on the bus to leave and he says, ‘OK, I did it!'”
Young used members of his former backing group The Bluenotes to record this.
Young and Pearl Jam proved a great fit, as both eschew convention when it comes to music and promotion, catering instead to their ardent fan bases. The MTV appearance was an anomaly – Pearl Jam didn’t make another video for five years. In 1995, they collaborated on Young’s 1995 album Mirror Ball.
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Young performed this at the 7th annual Bridge School benefit in 1993 with all the artists involved joining Young on stage to close the show. Young put on the concert for the school, which serves children with special needs, every year until 2017.
.Neil Young played with Pearl Jam on 1995’s Merkinball, a 2-song EP that featured the songs “I Got ID” on one side and “The Long Road” on the other. Merkinball was a case of Young returning the favor to Pearl Jam. They had served as his “backing band” on his 1995 album Mirrorball. Contractual stipulations prevented Mirrorball from being credited to both artists and recognized as the collaborative effort it actually was (The name “Pearl Jam” was not legally allowed to appear on either the album’s cover or within its liner notes). “I Got ID” and “Long Road” were actually recorded during the Mirrorball sessions.
The song is on occasion used as a pro-America anthem, which ignores many of the ironic overtones of the lyrics. While the chorus does seem to celebrate the United States, it’s juxtaposed with grim verses which paint a haunting portrait of life in modern America – the song is sometimes interpreted as a critique of the “keep on rocking in the free world” sentiment that US citizens use to ignore global problems that don’t concern them.
Much like his seminal “My My, Hey Hey”/”Hey Hey, My My” counterparts, the widely known version of “Rockin’ In The Free World” is a loud, electric reprise of a stripped-down acoustic version that opens the Freedom album.
Rolling Stone rated this #216 on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
Young is very particular about where his songs are used. He authorized this one for the 2004 Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, and also for the 2015 film The Big Short, which tells the story of the rapacious financial workers who caused the 2008 recession. It also appears in the video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.
The track was used in Donald Trump’s announcement that he will run as a Republican candidate for the 2016 presidency. Young, a longtime supporter of Bernie Sanders, said that the mogul was not authorized to use the song.
Trump’s campaign responded by saying it did pay to use Neil Young’s tune at the presidential announcement, but won’t use Young’s music at any future events. “Through a licensing agreement with ASCAP, Mr. Trump’s campaign paid for and obtained the legal right to use Neil Young’s recording of ‘Rockin’ In The Free World,'” the statement read. “Nevertheless, there are plenty of other songs to choose from. Despite Neil’s differing political views, Mr. Trump likes him very much.”
Trump later hit back, posting a photo of him and Young shaking hands, and explaining that Young asked him for financing on an audio deal and invited Trump to a concert. In a Tweet, Trump called Young a “total hypocrite,” adding, “‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ was just one of 10 songs used as background music. Didn’t love it anyway.”
Rocking In A Free World
There’s colors on the street Red, white and blue People shufflin’ their feet People sleepin’ in their shoes But there’s a warnin’ sign on the road ahead There’s a lot of people sayin’ we’d be better off dead Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them So I try to forget it, any way I can.
Keep on rockin’ in the free world, Keep on rockin’ in the free world Keep on rockin’ in the free world, Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
I see a woman in the night With a baby in her hand Under an old street light Near a garbage can Now she puts the kid away, and she’s gone to get a hit She hates her life, and what she’s done to it There’s one more kid that will never go to school Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.
Keep on rockin’ in the free world, Keep on rockin’ in the free world Keep on rockin’ in the free world, Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
We got a thousand points of light For the homeless man We got a kinder, gentler, Machine gun hand We got department stores and toilet paper Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.
Keep on rockin’ in the free world, Keep on rockin’ in the free world Keep on rockin’ in the free world, Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
Go ego trip’n again tonight Tell the same lies they work all right
Back in 1991, I was going out a lot and I really related to this song. I had the cassette of Whenever We Wanted by Mellencamp and it contained a few hits. This one was a minor hit but the one that I wore out.
It peaked at #36 in the Billboard 100 but was a bigger hit in Canada where it peaked at #8 in 1991. It did make it to #1 on the Mainstream Rock charts.
This album contained Get A Leg Up, Now More Than Ever, Last Chance, and Love and Happiness.
Whenever We Wanted peaked at #17 in the Billboard Album Charts, #8 in Canada, #39 in the UK, and #40 in New Zealand.
Again Tonight
Run in circles again tonight Hump the moon again tonight Gonna wear my dancin’ shoes out tonight Gonna have myself a big time again tonight
[Chorus:] Again tonight Again tonight Again tonight
Girl’s got lightning Underneath her skirt Boys try to touch it For whatever it’s worth In the morning She’s just gonna be hurt She wonders is it worth it again tonight
[Chorus]
Gonna catch that cloud tonight Nine, cloud nine Gonna try and catch that cloud tonight Nine, cloud nine Again tonight
Can you hold me baby again, again tonight Can you sing Can you dance baby Can you sing Can you hold me again tonight Baby can you sing
Go ego trip’n again tonight Tell the same lies they work all right Gonna wear my dancin’ shoes out tonight Probably make a fool of myself again tonight
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