This was one of the great songs on Sticky Fingers…which has been called their greatest album alongside Exile on Main Street.
Mick Taylor wrote this track with Jagger, believing he’d receive his due acknowledgment, but it was ultimately credited to the Jagger/Richards duo. It was the type of slight that the guitarist took in his stride in the early days but, would grow into a larger issue in the coming years.
The Black Crowes were influenced by this song heavily on their track Sister Luck… they captured the same feel. I thought of this song because of a blogger friend (Jeremy James). He doesn’t blog much any more but has a cool youtube channel. He shows how to play this slide solo. He analyzes guitar effects, and equipment, and shows how to play different songs on guitar….check him out.
Sticky Fingers was the first album The Stones recorded on their own label and the first in which Mick Taylor played guitar on nearly all the tracks. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, and #1 in Canada, and #1 in the UK in 1971. They had a lot of competition that year with The Who’s Who’s Next and Led Zeppelin IV.
On December 2, 1969, the band had begun work on what would be their first album of the 1970s, and the one upon which so much of their myth and mystique would be built.
At the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, they cut three tracks Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, and You Gotta Move in three days, all of which would subsequently appear on the band’s ninth LP, Sticky Fingers. They did this before they played at the disaster that was known as Altamont…where Meredith Hunter lost his life…on December 6, 1969.
Sway
Did you ever wake up to find A day that broke up your mind Destroyed your notion of circular time
It’s just that demon life has got you in its sway It’s just that demon life has got you in its sway
Ain’t flinging tears out on the dusty ground For all my friends out on the burial ground Can’t stand the feeling getting so brought down
It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway
There must be ways to find out Love is the way they say is really strutting out
Hey, hey, hey now One day I woke up to find Right in the bed next to mine Someone that broke me up with a corner of her smile, yeah
It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway
It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway It’s just that demon life has got me
If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.
This show was written by Gene L. Coon and Gene Roddenberry
William Shatner’s father died during the making of this episode. Please check the IMDB notes below about that.
This is the fourth excellent episode in a row. I’ve seen a video of a 1990s Star Trek convention of Leonard Nimoy saying this episode’s closing banter between Spock and Kirk was one of his favorite scenes to perform. He noted, “It was a wonderful moment which defined the relationship and defined the whole Spock character’s existence and his attitude about himself.”
I like the fact that the episode is not about one specific character but evolves around the trio handling an alien problem. Also, it’s nice to see an episode that doesn’t only happen on the Enterprise.
The Enterprise arrives at a mining colony on Janus VI in order to kill a beast called the Horta, which has been killing miners, jeopardizing the exportation of the ever-important pergium (an element for energy). As the miners continue drilling deeper, it seems to be upsetting the monster more and more. Spock soon discerns that the monster is silicon-based, not the type of life form that the crew is familiar with.
In the beginning, everyone hates the Horta… they fear it and loathe it. But Spock’s mind meld and Kirk’s understanding soon changes this tune for everyone. People are often afraid of what they don’t understand. This episode reveals to us that, if we hope to find peace with what we don’t understand or take issue with, the first step is communication.
There is not much action in this one but a compelling episode and is a very good first-season episode. During the episode, Kirk wanted the creature killed but Spock wanted it alive. Spock augured to no avail but things started to change once he met the Horta.
Just a quick note on a director. Ralph Senensky was told he was going to direct this episode and was sent the script but then told it would be another episode…yesterday’s This Side of Paradise.
The reason I mention this is that Ralph has a great site where he talks about all of the different Star Trek and other TV shows (including the Twilight Zone and Waltons) he directed. If you have time check it out…he is 99 years old but still posts on his site.
From IMDB:
In his book “Star Trek Memories”, William Shatner identified this as his favourite episode, because his father died during filming and Leonard Nimoy’s delivery of the mind meld lines made him laugh. He thought it was “exciting, thought-provoking and intelligent, it contained all of the ingredients that made up our very best Star Treks.”
Janos Prohaska, the creator of the Horta costume, actually wore it into Gene L. Coon’s office, as if to say “Look what I designed”. Coon said “That’s great! What is it?”, and Prohaska said “I don’t know. It can be whatever you want.” Coon replied “I’ll write a script around it”, and he wrote this episode in four days so the costume could be used.
Arthur C. Clarke once remarked, in 1995, that of the Original Series, the only episode he could recall was this one, stating that “It impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction then and now, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today’s politicians have yet to learn.”
When William Shatner, on the set, got the call from his mother informing him about his father’s death, the crew was ready to shut down production, but he insisted on continuing. During the rest of the day, Shatner took comfort in Leonard Nimoy, and cinematographer Gerald Perry Finnerman, whose father had died on a movie set less than seven years before.
William Shatner was in Florida for his father’s funeral while nearly all of Spock’s “mind meld” scene with the Horta was shot. His screen double is shown from behind in several of the shots and all of Kirk’s “reaction” shots were made after he returned.
This episode was the first time McCoy used the phrase, “I’m a doctor, not a (blank)” when Kirk asks him to help the Horta, finishing the line as, “I’m a doctor, not a brick layer!” An earlier version of this phrase is used in “The Corbomite Maneuver,” when McCoy says, “What am I, a doctor or a moon-shuttle conductor?”
Gene Roddenberry was impressed with the way this episode explains the behaviour of a Star Trek “monster,” citing the instalment as “a classic example of doing this right” as well as “one of our most popular episodes.” He went on to say, “The Horta suddenly became understandable [….] It wasn’t just a monster-it was someone. And the audience could put themselves in the place of the Horta… identify… feel! That’s what drama is all about. And that’s it’s importance, too… if you can learn to feel for a Horta, you may also be learning to understand and feel for other Humans of different colours, ways, and beliefs.”
In a book about Star Trek, it was reported that after William Shatner returned from the funeral, to put everyone at ease, as he was trying to do his lines following Mr. Spock’s mind meld with the Horta and his cry of “AHH! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN!”, Leonard Nimoy just spoke the words, so Shatner told him to do it again with feeling. When “Spock” again said “AHH! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! ” Shatner yelled out, “WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE GET THIS VULCAN AN ASPIRIN!”
“No Kill I” was the name of a Star Trek-themed punk rock band.
This episode includes only one actress, who appears for a few seconds and has no lines. This is the only episode with no female speaking parts.
The unbroken Horta eggs were toy bouncing balls painted gold.
NBC announced that Star Trek would be renewed for a second season next fall, during the closing credits of this episode on 9 March 1967.
This is the only episode in the original series in which the distinction is drawn between “phaser one” and “phaser two.”
This episode marks the first and only time an episode begins without the Enterprise or its crew being involved in the teaser scenes before the main credits.
Gene L. Coon’s original script featured a different material as the base of the Horta, but researcher Kellam de Forest changed it to silicon, as the original choice seemed to be even theoretically impossible.
Actor Barry Russo, appearing as Lt. Commander Giotto, also appears in Star Trek: The Ultimate Computer (1968) as the character Commodore Robert Wesley.
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) novel “Devil in the Sky” is a sequel of sorts to this episode.
This episode was originally scheduled to be filmed before Star Trek: This Side of Paradise (1967), with Ralph Senensky assigned to direct it, but during pre-production the two episodes and the directors were switched because Gene L. Coon thought “Devil” would be a tough assignment to first-time Trek director Senensky.
The clubs used by some of the Janus VI colonists during their hunt for the Horta appear to be of the same design used by Kirk during his fight with Spock in the transporter room in Star Trek: This Side of Paradise (1967).
Summary
The Enterprise travels to the planet Janus 6 to assist the mining colony there. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to the planet where Chief Engineer Vanderberg tells of a creature loose in the mine tunnels killing some of his men. The monster seems to appear out nowhere then disappears just as quickly. Finding that the creature, known as a Horta, lives in a newly opened part of the underground mining complex, Spock uses the Vulcan mind meld to determine why it is killing the miners.
Here are some CGI effects they have made into this episode
CAST
William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy Ken Lynch … Vanderberg James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott Brad Weston … Appel Biff Elliot … Schmitter George Allen … Engineer #1 (as George E. Allen) Jon Cavett … Guard Barry Russo … Giotto Lee Allen … Janus IV Miner (uncredited) Tom Anfinsen … Civilian Engineer (uncredited) Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited) Frank da Vinci … Lt. Osborne (uncredited) Dick Dial … Sam (uncredited) Robert Hitchcock … Miner (uncredited) Bob Hoy … Horta (uncredited) Monty O’Grady … Miner (uncredited) Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited) Janos Prohaska … Horta (uncredited) Al Roberts … Roberts (uncredited) Ron Veto … Security Guard (uncredited)
I want to thank Lisa from Tao-Talk for publishing this post on March 19, 2023. Every March she does a Women Music March with a post on a female artist every day. Please go visit her site and see the artists she has featured this month.
On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people, then I go home alone… Janis Joplin
When I think of female artists…Janis Joplin is the first one that comes to my mind. My top two female singers are Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. Both are legends and both unique.
I cannot express how much I love this woman. She had the most powerful voice I have ever heard. She could sing with beauty, grit, and she could sing with a sound like Southern Comfort pouring through razor blades. There was soul, confidence, strength, and vulnerability in her voice that came through in every song. She was one of the authentic singers. You can hear the pain in Billie Holiday’s and Bessie Smith’s voice…you can hear pain in Janis, yes it was a different kind but pain all the same. It all started with a Janis Joplin greatest hits album I got when I was 11 and the love affair has never ended.
You really can’t compare her to her female contemporaries. She was not like Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Mama Cass, or even Grace Slick. Janis hit you between the eyes and never looked back. Sweet ballads were not her style, but she could do them. She could hold her own against anyone…she had more in common with Robert Plant than the other female singers. She was also a kind thoughtful lady.
Bessie Smith died in 1937 but a headstone was never bought for her. In August 1970, just two months before Joplin’s own death, she and Juanita Green, who worked in Smith’s house when she was younger and went on to become the president of the North Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, pitched money to buy a proper headstone for Smith. For the epitaph, they chose the following line: “The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing.”
Her childhood was spent in Port Arthur, Texas. Janis’ mother was a businesswoman, and her father was an engineer, and as the oldest child, she was given all the care she needed but soon discovered that she was different. Being different in Texas at that time was not good.
In high school she was groped and bullied by many of the football team including Jimmy Johnson the football player, coach, and now analyst for Fox Sports. He and his teammates spread rumors that she’d slept with their friends because she “looked and acted weird.” He was a star linebacker on the football team. He said, “Janis looked and acted so weird that when we were around her, mostly in the hallways at school, we would give her a hard time…she ran with the beatnik crowd.” He continued to occasionally degrade her after she died.
She would go to college in Austin Texas, but Austin wasn’t “weird” yet at the time. Alpha Phi Omega sponsored its “Ugliest Man on Campus” contest as part of an effort to raise money for charities. Fraternities would nominate one of their members and dress them up in old clothes and they would be voted on. Someone nominated Janis and it hurt her bad. Joplin’s mother, Dorothy Joplin, admitted that her daughter wrote an “anguished letter laying out all the gory details of how the contest had affected her.”
She moved from Texas to San Francisco and became part of the San Francisco music scene with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Her influences were Billy Holiday, Bessie Smith. Big Mama Thornton, Odetta, and Leadbelly.
She played with Big Brother and the Holding Company who were as raw as you could get, and they played at the Monterrey Pop festival and broke through. She went solo with a couple of backing bands… The Kozmic Blues Band and the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She later played at Woodstock and traveled in a train to concerts all around Canada with the Grateful Dead and other artists that can be seen in the movie The Festival Express.
There are few artists who give everything they have all the time. Bruce Springsteen is one…Janis was one. On film it comes through…she gave everything she had and more. The last recording, she made was a fun birthday message to John Lennon.
Her nickname was Pearl and that was the name of her last album. Her last album is a classic. Janis with the help of the producer Paul Rothchild learned how to control her voice and not belt everything out. He wanted her to have a voice when she turned 30. It worked…it was her most successful album. It showed how great of a voice she had…she wasn’t just a screamer.
Janis would not make 30…she will be 27 for eternity. She died on October 4, 1970, from a heroin overdose after working on her album. She left $2,500 for her wake…. 200 guests were invited with invitations that read…” Drinks are on Pearl.” The guests showed up with the Grateful Dead (as she had requested in her will) as the house band. Her body was cremated, and the ashes scattered from an airplane near Stinson Beach.
I only wished she could have survived and been alive today. Much like Jimi Hendrix, I hate to think what we missed out on.
She was the ultimate take me as I am person.
Discography
Studio Albums solo and with Big Brother: 4
Live Albums: 7 (after her death)
Compilation Albums: 14
Singles solo and with Big Brother: 13
Filmography from Wiki
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin’ Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director’s Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin’ at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director’s Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Things to Share
The quantity and more importantly the quality of her work was incredible in a short window of time. In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series. In 2014 there was also a commemorative Janis Joplin stamp issued by the US Postal Service.
I’ll close this with a couple of short stories. Janis did not suffer fools gladly. At a party Jim Morrison was getting drunk and became obnoxious, rude, and violent. Morrison saw that Joplin was there and started to hit on her. Joplin had admired Morrison but not on this night. By this point, she shot him down at every turn and eventually tried to leave with Paul Rothschild (her producer) and nearly got away before Jim, wobbling along, followed her to her car and reached in, grabbing Janis by her hair in an attempt to pull her out. BAD move Jim… Janis then took her bottle of Southern Comfort and cracked him over the head with it, immediately knocking the Lizard King out cold. Now normally, this would have been the end of things…but the next day at rehearsal, Jim was absolutely smitten with Janis, begging Paul Rothschild to give him her phone number…he didn’t get it.
Her road manager John Cooke was the son of Masterpiece Theater host Alistair Cooke and the great grand-nephew of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Janis also punched Jerry Lee Lewis when Lewis told Laura Joplin (Janis’s sister) something offensive. She had to be pulled off him.
This is her on the Dick Cavett show and it says a lot about her. This was in 1969, before the Morrison party.
If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.
This show was written by D.C. Fontana, Jerry Sohl and Gene Roddenberry
This one is one of my favorite episodes. It has humor and a good story. It is a great Spock episode. Spock…is actually happy through this episode but you do feel bad for him at the end.
It begins as a mystery on a very peaceful planet, where settlers were meant to begin an agricultural colony several years ago. Kirk tries to unravel the mystery presented before him…the colonists should all be dead by this point due to what are known as “Berthold Rays” and all animals have died off…but the colonists? They are beyond healthy…even growing things back like an appendix that was taken out years before.
Everyone on the planet is beyond happy. The crew cannot figure out how these people are still even alive…much less so happy. The writing for this one I really enjoyed. Kirk asked Spock what the odds were that anyone was still alive while they were traveling there…Spock said “absolutely none” so imagine their surprise when they saw the people walking about.
They find out soon what is keeping these people alive and happy. The spores from a type of plant/flower that sprays them out. It not only makes people happy but also keeps them healthy and safe from the Berthold Rays.
To see Spock happy is odd in itself but to see him in love is sensory overload. After the spores from the flowers get into Spock…he is a new man Vulcan. A sample of the dialog between Spock and Kirk amuses me.
Capt. Kirk: We’re evacuating all colonists to Starbase 27.
Spock: No, I don’t think so.
Capt. Kirk: You don’t think so, WHAT?
Spock: I don’t think so, SIR.
For once in his life…Spock is happy. I found myself rooting against Kirk in this one just to let Spock be. I knew of course everything would go back to the way it was…but it was nice seeing that.
What is really sad is the following exchange between Kirk and Spock after everyone was on the Enterprise…
Capt. Kirk: We haven’t heard much from you about Omicron Ceti III, Mr. Spock.
Spock: I have little to say about it, captain. Except that… for the first time in my life… I was happy.
What I get from this episode and please comment if you think I’m right or wrong but Spock…does have feelings underneath but he keeps them at bay. The spores brought them out into the open.
Oh…can I have some of those flowers?
From IMDB:
The spores, in the early drafts, were a communal intelligence; when someone was possessed by them, that individual was granted telepathic abilities to link up with other possessed minds. The abilities of the spores to restore health were complete enough to enable them to return the dead to life. The antidotes for the spores were either the possession of a certain blood type or the introduction of alcohol into the affected person. Originally, Kirk leaped onto Spock and forced liquor down his throat to restore him to normal. This was presumably deemed unrealistic for various reasons. Kirk would not be strong enough to force alcohol no Spock. Even if he did, Spock could just spit it out because the alcohol would probably have to enter the bloodstream to have an effect. It is established in various stories that, while Vulcans will occasionally drink alcohol, it doesn’t affect (intoxicate) them the same way it does human. (On the other hand, in the novelisation of ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’, Spock states that the sugar sucrose, in the candies that Kirk bought to get change for the bus, has the same effect on Vulcans as ethanol does on humans.) In a surprise ending, the spores were revealed to be benevolent, conscious entities who never intended to act against anyone’s will.
Spock hints that, contrary to the common misconception that Vulcans have only one name, he has more than one name, like most humans, but when asked, all he says about it is: “You couldn’t pronounce it.”
The empty shot of the bridge, before the turbolift opens to admit Kirk, was the best available piece of film for Star Trek: The Next Generation: Relics (1992) to reuse as the holosimulation of the NCC-1701 bridge. The short snippet of film was “looped” several times and bluescreened in behind James Doohan and Patrick Stewart’s scenes. Using the stock footage in this way eliminated the need to completely rebuild the bridge – they only built a short section of the computer stations, the door alcove, and the command stations for the TNG-era actors to sit at.
In a blooper, Leonard Nimoy flubs his line about the plants acting as a repository for thousands of spores. Instead, he says the plants act as a “suppository.” The crew cracks up, as does Nimoy, who caps the fun by putting a Tootsie Pop in his mouth.
Frank Overton died shortly after completing this episode.
This is the first episode in which Spock is shown to have superhuman strength.
The title refers to ‘This Side of Paradise’ the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
At a one man show in Orlando, Florida, Leonard Nimoy said it was hard doing love scenes with Jill Ireland with her husband Charles Bronson watching off stage. However, she was in the process of divorcing David McCallum when the episode was shot. It’s possible Bronson may have visited the set, but they didn’t marry until the following year.
In the script, Kirk first spots Spock and Leila kissing passionately by the stream. There is no scene of Spock hanging off the tree limb. That facet of the episode may have been made up on the spot. Indeed, director Ralph Senensky came up with the idea of Spock hanging from the tree on location, when he found the tree and the spot closely to Bronson Canyon. Originally the scene was to be shot on a clearing. Evidence taken from a deleted scene, of Spock and Leila’s presence near the stream, appears in the episode’s preview trailer.
Ralph Senensky originally wanted to film the Kirk versus Spock fight scene from a wider angle, so the stunt doubles wouldn’t be so obvious, but the transporter room set was too small to achieve this.
According to director Ralph Senensky, the original schedule was that the first three of the six shooting days were to be spent on location, shooting at the Golden Oak Ranch (also known as the Disney Ranch), then the remaining three days indoors, filming the Enterprise scenes. However, after two days of shooting outdoors, Jill Ireland fell ill and couldn’t appear on the set. It was in question if she had measles or not. Senensky decided to film all the farm scenes which didn’t contain Leila’s character and then return to the studio for Enterprise interiors in the remaining of the day, and hope for the actress’ return. Ireland appeared the following day, as it turned out that she did not have measles. However, the crew couldn’t return to Disney Ranch as it was already booked for another production. They decided to film the remaining scenes at Bronson Canyon.
D.C. Fontana very much liked the finished episode. She recalled, “It worked out very well because the actors were brilliant for me, and had a very good director, and you know, I really like it.”
This is listed as one of the “Ten Essential Episodes” of TOS in the 2008 reference book “Star Trek 101” by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann.
Some of Spock’s family background is fleshed out in the episode with references to his half-human heritage. The episode also first reveals that Spock’s father is an Ambassador, which would be depicted in later stories. Spock’s mother is said to be a teacher, but there would be no further details or depictions of her career. However, Spock’s mother and father are also referred to in the past tense, indicating they may not be alive (which is disproved when they appear in Star Trek: Journey to Babel (1967)).
Gerald Fried’s score from Star Trek: Shore Leave (1966) is heavily featured in this episode, most notably the “Ruth theme”, successfully accompanying the lost love between Spock and Leila.
One of the basic aspects that D.C. Fontana immediately changed was Jerry Sohl’s original conception of the spore plants residing in a cave. Thus, to avoid the danger of the plants, the crew merely had to avoid the cave. Fontana put the plants everywhere around the planet, and later the Enterprise to make them a real menace.
In Jerry Sohl’s original draft (first titled “Power Play”, then “The Way of The Spores”), it was Lt. Sulu who was infected by the spores and was able to fall in love with Leila. Displeased with D.C. Fontana’s rewrite, Sohl was credited under the pseudonym Nathan Butler.
Stuntman Bobby Bass, whose character tried to break up the fight between the two officers, had his only lines of dialogue in the series here.
The buildings seen in the teaser, the first scene after and the scene in which DeSalle shows McCoy the Spores are at a different location than the buildings seen in the rest of the episode. The green farm structures were located at the Disney Ranch. The concept of Sandoval’s people refusing modern technology was intended to justify the late-19th century Americano style of the ranch.
The script featured characters named Lieutenant Timothy Fletcher and Crewman Dimont as members of the landing party. When Michael Barrier and Grant Woods were cast in these roles, the names were changed to DeSalle and Kelowitz respectively, to appear constant with the two actors’ previous appearances on the series.
According to D.C. Fontana, the episode had to be seriously rewritten because Jerry Sohl had not quite gotten it right. Gene Roddenberry told her, “If you can rewrite this script, you can be my story editor.” She thought about it and eventually realized that the story wasn’t really about Sulu, but about Mr. Spock. Leonard Nimoy, who was initially taken aback when he was told that they were working on a love story for Spock, later felt that the episode turned out to be a lovely story.
The food processors in the transporter room, placed there so Kyle could provide chicken soup for the air sergeant in Star Trek: Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967), disappeared from the room by the end of the first season. In this episode, an enraged Spock destroys one of them.
Admiral Komack is mentioned in this episode; he is seen in Star Trek: Amok Time (1967). The character was named for James Komack, director of Star Trek: A Piece of the Action (1968).
Upon arrival, Sulu and another crewman inspect the colony for “whatever doesn’t look right.” Sulu says, “When it comes to farms, I wouldn’t know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me.” As he says this, the alien plant carrying the hypnotic spores is roughly two feet from him.
Ralph Senensky recalled that directing the episode “really proved to be very, very, very well worthwhile doing. Leonard Nimoy and Jill Ireland were wonderful, as was the whole cast.”
Many fans have noted that this planet would have been perfect for the agrarian-minded hippies in Star Trek: The Way to Eden (1969).
Summary
The Enterprise is ordered to clean up the aftermath of a doomed colony on Omicron Ceti III, a planet under constant irradiation from deadly Berthold Rays. Upon arrival, however, the colonists aren’t only alive but in perfect health, with no desire to leave their new world. They are in fact under the influence of plant spores which not only keep them in good and improved health but simultaneously keep them in a placid state of happiness and contentment. Mr Spock reacquaints with Leila Kalomi, an old friend who had been (and still is) in love with him. She leads Spock into being affected by the spores, and he is thereafter, for the first time, able to express love for her in return. Eventually the entire ship’s crew is affected, leaving Kirk alone to wonder how he can possibly rescue them from perpetual bliss.
CAST
William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock Jill Ireland … Leila Kalomi Frank Overton … Elias Sandoval DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy Grant Woods … Kelowitz George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Michael Barrier … DeSalle Dick Scotter … Painter Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie Bobby Bass … Lieutenant (uncredited) Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited) Frank da Vinci … Brent / Vinci (uncredited) Walker Edmiston … Transporter Chief (voice) (uncredited) Carey Foster … Enterprise crewmember (uncredited) John Lindesmith … Engineer (uncredited) Jeannie Malone … Yeoman / Omicron Colonist (uncredited) Sean Morgan … Engineer (uncredited) Fred Shue … Crewman (uncredited) Ron Veto … Kelowitz’s Opponent (uncredited)
I was going to post this song a few weeks ago but I posted The Poacher instead by Ronnie Lane. Either way, we all win with those two songs. As with The Poacher…Ronnie Lane wrote and did the vocals for this song. It’s a gorgeous song and is one of the Faces best known songs.
This song was on the album that I would say ranks in the Hall Of Fame for names… A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse. It doesn’t get much better than that. The album was released in 1971. Debris is said to be about his East End working class roots. The album also contained their biggest hit…Stay With Me. The album peaked at #6 on the Billboard Album Charts, #5 in Canada, and #2 in the UK in 1971.
Lane didn’t seem the kind of person who wanted just fame…or for that matter money. He pretty much proved that when he left the Faces two years later to start a solo career that toured under a big top travelling around not meeting expenses most of the time.
Ronnie started his own folk-country band named “Slim Chance” and released a surprise hit single “Come On” in 1973 and it went to #11 in the UK. Ronnie had a unique idea of touring. His tour was called “The Passing Show” which toured the countryside with a circus tent and included a ringmaster and clowns.
Lane had been ripped off along along with the other Small Faces so he wasn’t drawing money from those old records. Pete Townshend tried to talk him out of quitting the Faces because as Pete told him…you are on the verge of making good royalties and money from the Face’s concerts will set you up for life. He ignored Pete and followed his heart. Lane had a lot of great music in him though and those albums with Slim Chance and Rough Mix with Pete Townshend are great.
Lane diagnosed with was Multiple Sclerosis around 1976.
In 1983 Ronnie called some of his musician friends to do some charity concerts for the Research for Multiple Sclerosis. They were known as the ARMS (Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis) Charity Concerts. Musicians such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and more came out to support Ronnie.
Ronnie Lane died of Pneumonia while in the final stages of Multiple Sclerosis in 1997
Debris
Two, three, four
I left you on the debris
At the Sunday morning market
You were sorting through the odds and ends
You was looking for a bargain
I heard your footsteps at the front door
And that old familiar love song
‘Cause you knew you’d find me waiting there
At the top of the stairs
I went there and back
Just to see how far it was
And you, you tried to tell me
But I had to learn for myself
There’s more trouble at the depot
With the general workers union
And you said, “They’ll never change a thing
Well, they won’t fight and they’re not working”
Oh, you was my hero
How you are my good friend
I’ve been there and back
And I know how far it is
But I left you on the debris
Now we both know you got no money
And I wonder what you would have done
Without me hanging around
On March 9th of this year Dave at A Sound Day published this post I wrote for his Turntable Talk series. Dave stated:Let’s look at an artist whose debut really impressed you. It can be one that just knocked you out first time you heard it when it was brand new, or one you went back & discovered later.
I went through some debut albums before I came to this. I already wrote up Big Star’s debut for another blogger but the other that came to mind was The Cars. For me, that was their best album although they had some great albums later. I then thought of Jimi’s debut…and that was that. There is more than one version of Jimi Hendrix’s debut album released. I will go by the one I first owned when I was around 11…the US version.
I think about 1967 and what people must have thought when they heard this strange new artist. It must have sounded like an alien coming down from another planet. Being at the ripe old age of 4 months old…I don’t quite remember it. His guitar playing was first felt by other guitarists. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, and the other huge guitarists back at that time. They were shocked when they saw him perform on stage. He was “found” by Animals bassist turned manager Chas Chandler in New York. He took Jimi to England and formed a band around him…it didn’t take long after that.
Jimi’s debut album was released on May 12, 1967. The tracklist is incredible. A lineup of songs that still get played over 50 years later on the radio. To make it even stronger…Hendrix wrote all of the songs but one…Hey Joe, his breakout hit in the UK.
The album had many now-rock classics. They were not rock songs easily accessible to the audience as other performers. He mixed experimental technics along with well-written and performed songs. Before Zeppelin came along, Hendrix gave rock its sonic boom. The album peaked at #5 on The Billboard Album Charts, #15 in Canada, and #2 on the UK Charts in 1967.
I’ve never heard a guitar player take the guitar to a far-off place like Hendrix. It wasn’t just his playing which was some of the best…it was his vision and the sounds he got out of the guitar that was so amazing. Every guitar player that came after him would get unfairly compared. He wasn’t just a guitar player though…he was a singer/songwriter who created 3 classic rock albums that still are revered. He was the complete package…not a traditional voice, but he got his point across and wrote his songs to fit him…and it worked.
He also evidently had a huge backlog of recordings and live concerts that keep being released. The man must have recorded in his sleep.
The “new” Jimi Hendrix tag has been unfairly placed on many guitar players. From Stevie Ray Vaughn to Eddie Van Halen, many more faded out. Hendrix would mess with this guitar…changing pickups and recording techniques. He had a sound all his own…when you hear a Hendrix record you know it’s him by just his guitar playing. Now when I listen to him…I hear the guitar players that followed…from the finger tap from Eddie to the straight-in-your-face riffs of Stevie Ray Vaughn…Jimi had done it all before.
Like Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen…they would let themselves go on stage. They would take it as far as they could and if they messed up…they messed up but the fans got to see an electrifying performance. When Joplin and Hendrix left us…they left a huge hole in rock performers and when both were peaking in making albums. Both Hendrix and Joplin left and their last studio albums peaked at #1. Jimi’s came two years before his death and Janis just a few days after she passed.
Dave is closing out Beatles Week in style with a George Harrison masterpiece.
Dave grew up in Canada, now resides in Texas and has been passionate about music for as long as he can remember. Unfortunately, a brief foray into buying keyboards during his high school years didn’t equate to making music people were passionate about doing anything with but avoiding! He writes a daily music blog, A Sound Day, looking at memorable music events from album releases to artist birthdays to important concerts and more. You can find Dave at https://soundday.wordpress.com.
Thanks Max, for inviting me to take part in this! And a good topic too.
When asked to write about a Beatles song, I didn’t take long to make my pick. There’s just something about “Something” that moves me like no other…Beatles track. Yet getting to that point has been a long road. Maybe a long and winding one, even.
A little back history about myself. I was born in the ’60s but by the time I was cognizant of it really, let alone had my own little transistor radio to listen to it, The Beatles were done. Wings or solo Ringo, John or George were more relevant to me at the time. But my mom and older brother liked the Beatles and in fact, one of my early memories was hearing Sgt .Pepper Lonely Heart’s Club Band on our big old console in the living room, liking the music and loving the colorful cover. As a kid, I liked the simple pop hooks of Ringo and Paul, post-Beatles, songs like “You’re Sixteen”, “Helen Wheels” and “My Love.” I knew a lot of Beatles songs, either from AM radio or my family playing them on the stereo, and liked quite a lot of it but it was hard for me to grasp how influential or flat out great they had been.
As I hit my teens, was buying my own records and listening to FM radio, my appreciation of them grew. I had a used copy of Revolver, though I can’t remember why I specifically bought that one. A good album, absolutely, but never my favorite of theirs. I probably found it cheap in a used store or flea market. Around that time, I was growing to favor John. “Norwegian Wood “ and “Dear Prudence” were high on my list of Beatles songs and by the time I was getting to like his solo work as much as say, Paul’s 1980 rolled around and well, I think we all know what the end of that story was. As was the case with most people, my estimation of him rose rapidly and I listened to his work more, began to love songs like “Mind Games” and “#9 Dream” that I’d missed, or nearly so when they had first come out. I loved his work for peace and outspokenness and was oblivious to the shortcomings in his character. All the while though, George was just on the periphery of my musical awareness. Sure, “My Sweet Lord” was nice, and I was one of the minority who in ’79 bought and loved the “Blow Away” single, but he was really the “quiet Beatle” to me. Nearly invisible. Really, the thing I might have been most impressed with at that point was his work funding Monty Python films, since like most boys hitting puberty, I laughed my head off at things like the “Lumberjack Song” and killer rabbits.
That changed a little in ’88 when he had his comeback album, Cloud Nine. By that time too, the Beatles were finally putting out CDs of their old catalog and I’d decided, hey, they had a lot of good tunes, I should be getting some in my collection. I bought several of the ’60s works on CD and really that’s where my true appreciation for them began. That and noticing a good portion of the bands I thought were really good at the time – say Crowded House, Aztec Camera, Squeeze for instance – were almost universally described as “Beatle-esque.”
Anyhow, then and still to this day, Sgt. Pepper... has been my favorite Beatles work, but it is a close contest. Not surprisingly then, for years if anyone asked me for my favorite Beatles song, it was “A Day in the Life”. A song like no other, with its time changes, Paul and John changing off vocals, that almighty, seemingly endless piano chord to end it, the bizarre lyrics that actually made some sense when you read of their inspirations. It still is a great song and high on my list.
But just as the Beatles changed and matured during their career, so too have I. And as the band matured, George started to take his place at the front. He brought a new sense of spirituality, and experimentalism to them, opened them up to what we’d now call “World Music”, the sounds of the Far East. Being able to incorporate that into a pop-rock setting was revolutionary and quite a challenge I’m sure. But it worked! And as I matured, I grew more and more appreciative of George’s songwriting as well as his quiet sense of peacefulness. “Something” is the epitome of that to me. And to his ex-bandmates it would seem.
Early on, George was a guitarist and nothing much more to them. Maybe his first hint of potential greatness was on Rubber Soul when he wrote and sang “If I needed someone.” A pretty good song, and presumably John and Paul agreed since they let him put three onto the next record, Revolver, including “Taxman”, one of their many “hits” that never hit the charts because it wasn’t out as a single. A decent little snarky rock tune but probably not on anyone’s list of “best ever.” The first real taste of his brilliance was still a couple of years away, and their self-titled double album. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was to me the standout on the album and really showed his talent as a songwriter…not to mention nearly got Eric Clapton in the band. Let It Be was recorded next (but released last) and though he did “For You Blue” on it, as we saw in Get Back, he was distant from the band by then and briefly quit. It was becoming clear he’d outgrown the limitations he felt were imposed on him by the two main men who clearly wanted most of the spotlight.
Which leads us to Abbey Road. Their swansong, even if it did arrive in stores months before Let it Be. I gather by then they knew it was time to call it a day but leave fans with one more worth remembering. And they did just that. In particular George. He contributed – i’ll say it – the two best songs on it, “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something.”
Here Comes the Sun” is a pretty incredible, happy-sounding song in which he introduced a synthesizer to the band and wrote a tune in seemingly impossible time signatures (changing rapidly from 4/4 to 11/8 to 7/8 and so on). It ranks high on my Beatles list too, but the crowning achievement was “Something.”
Pattie Boyd must have been “something” too. We know he wrote the song for her, his wife, and a couple of years later, his buddy Eric Clapton wrote “Layla” for her. In time he won her away from Harrison, and somehow they all remained friends. George was more tolerant than I would have been, I can tell you that. Maybe all the time with the Indian gurus really made him a better person.
Anyway, to me, “Something” is just about a perfect pop song. It’s beautifully written and immaculately played, and the lyrics are outstanding. If you’ve never been so in love, in the beginning, that the lines don’t make sense, well, I hope you’ll experience that head over heels feeling, combined with just a touch of anxiety over fear of losing it (“you’re asking me will my love grow/I don’t know/ I DON’T KNOW”). George demonstrates his love for Pattie and his slide guitar prowess all the while Ringo drums along exquisitely. The more I listen to Starr, the more I appreciate his talent. He plays for the song, not to take over the song. Then there are the under-stated strings, completing the song nicely. I think George Martin’s introducing strings to middle-era Beatles songs was one of the more under-rated things about them; how many rock & roll bands before 1965 would have thought to bring in violins and cellos? Now, it’s commonplace. There’s not really a point wrong with “Something” and it does it all in barely three minutes. Each time I listen to it, I seem to pick up on some tiny new detail I’d missed before that makes me appreciate it more.
Of course, my opinion was backed by many others. Frank Sinatra began singing it in his shows right away and called it “the greatest love song of the past 50 years”… and he knew a thing of two about love songs! (Unfortunately, he mistakenly told his audiences Lennon & McCartney wrote it.) Later Elton John would say it was “one of the best love songs ever –ever – written…it’s the song I’ve been chasing for the last 35 years!” And Ringo piped in that it and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” were “two of the finest love songs ever written” and put Harrison on a par with John and Paul. Critics tended to agree. The NME in Britain called it a “real quality hunk of pop” while Rolling Stone applauded its “excellent drum work, dead catchy guitar line, perfectly subdued stings and an unusually nice melody.” Add in great vocals and there’s not much missing there.
Happily, it was eaten up by the fans. It came out with “Come Together” as a single, but in most lands was considered the A-side. It hit #1 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and of course the U.S. where it became their 18th #1 song…which happened to surpass the number Elvis Presley had. However, it was the first #1 song credited to George…not surprising because somehow, it was the first Beatles single he wrote or sang! And that’s saying “something” – when a guy can create songs this good and somehow be seen by the band as a third-stringer… wow. No wonder we’re still talking about them a half century later.
If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.
This show was written by Robert Hamner, Gene L. Coon, and Gene Roddenberry
Imagine living somewhere where there has been a war going on for 500 years. Now along with that…no bombs drop and nothing physically is destroyed. There is a catch though…all the battles are simulated and whatever is hit in the simulations…those people in that area have to go and get exterminated…yes walk into a machine that kills them. They keep up with the numbers with both sides…if the numbers get skewed…the other side will attack with real bombs.
They do this to lessen the impact of war on the world…but if they don’t have to face the daily destruction…will they ever stop?
Enterprise visits a planet on a diplomatic mission. A clever concept on how a different society may wage their wars: totally by computers. In their supposed enlightened method, the buildings and their culture continue – the populace obediently reports to disintegration chambers to fulfill an agreement with the enemy planet after each computerized attack.
Kirk is fairly no-nonsense and aggressive in his dealings with the people of Eminiar VII and this is entertaining to watch. Scotty has his first opportunity to shine in command of Enterprise and does so with several memorable moments, such as standing up to the hideously annoying Ambassador Fox and admirably handling the threat from Anan 7.
There is one question I get from this. The one rule that the Enterprise has is to not interfere. I think how Kirk defies the Prime Directive’s rule that they must not interfere could be a divisive topic of debate for viewers. If he doesn’t interfere millions could continue to kill themselves, but is he really permitted to do so?
This is an intelligent and philosophical episode on warfare and on how human beings seek to sanitize horror and the need for peace. This episode makes you think.
From IMDB:
Crewman DePaul is played by Sean Kenney, who portrayed the injured Captain Pike in Star Trek: The Menagerie: Part I (1966)/ Star Trek: The Menagerie: Part II (1966).
Scotty’s refusal to lower the shields against orders is based on an actual story from James Doohan’s military service. As a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Artillery, he was threatened with court martial for real for saying “No sir, I will not,” to a visiting colonel when he realized a training exercise order would entail blowing the heads off some of his own men. Fortunately, his immediate superiors backed him up and, like his fictional character, he was eventually promoted to captain.
According to David Gerrold, the computer tallies of war dead in this episode was a statement about Vietnam War deaths that began to be registered on nightly newscasts in 1967.
In his memoir, “Beam Me Up, Scotty,” James Doohan described Gene Lyons (Ambassador Robert Fox), as being “out of his element” and “completely discombobulated” during filming. He added that it took Lyons many takes to get his lines right, and that they finally “went to having him speak off-screen.” Doohan speculates that Lyons, who was an experienced actor, may have been thrown off by the science fiction element, as such shows were relatively rare at the time.
Another beautiful matte painting was created for this episode by Albert Whitlock. Unfortunately, it is the last painting in the series into which live actors were inserted. This matte of the Eminiar city was re-used as the backdrop of Scalos in the third season episode Star Trek: Wink of an Eye (1968).
First episode to establish the United Federation of Planets as the principal service which the Enterprise operated under. In previous episodes, vague and often conflicting references were made to this service. Such references included “Space Command”, “Space Central”, the “Star Service”, and “United Earth Space Probe Agency” (the latter even abbreviated as UESPA, pronounced by Captain Kirk as “you-spah” in Star Trek: Charlie X (1966)). UESPA would later go on to be the principal service which the Enterprise NX-01 operated under on Star Trek: Enterprise (2001), which is set in a time when the Federation had not been firmly established.
Summary
On a mission to establish diplomatic relations at Star Cluster NGC321, Kirk and Spock beam down to planet Eminiar 7 to learn that its inhabitants have been at war with a neighboring planet for over 500 years. They can find no damage nor evidence of destruction but soon learn that their war is essentially a war game, where each planet attacks the other in a computer simulation with the tabulated victims voluntarily surrendering themselves for execution after the fact. When the Enterprise becomes a victim in the computer simulation and is ordered destroyed, Kirk decides it’s time to show them exactly what war means.
CAST
William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock David Opatoshu … Anan 7 Gene Lyons … Ambassador Fox DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott Barbara Babcock … Mea 3 Miko Mayama … Tamula David L. Ross … Galloway Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Sean Kenney … DePaul Robert Sampson … Sar 6y: David Armstrong … Eminiar Guard (uncredited) Buzz Barbee … Ambassador Fox’s Aide (uncredited) Majel Barrett … Enterprise Computer (voice) (uncredited) John Blower … Eminian Secretary (uncredited) John Burnside … Eminiar Guard (uncredited) Dick Cherney … Council Member (uncredited) Frank da Vinci … Eminiar Guard (uncredited) Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited) Alan Marston … Council Member (uncredited) Monty O’Grady … Council Member (uncredited) Eddie Paskey … Eminiar Guard (uncredited) Al Roberts … Council Member (uncredited) Ron Veto … Eminiar Guard (uncredited)
I was really happy when I asked Halffastcycling to do this and he accepted. I really appreciate his comments on songs that not everyone is going to know like Little Feat and other bands that didn’t live in the top 20. So thank you and go visit his site!
He started the blog halffastcycling.club to chronicle a coast-to-coast bike trip. Recently retired from a series of careers (in co-ops, plumbing, and health care), I spend my time riding my bike (once across the continent wasn’t enough so I quit working to do it again), paddling, writing about bikes and whatever pops into my head, and sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair. I’m old enough that I remember this music when it was new, not from oldies stations. The first hit records I remember hearing were by Little Richard (78 RPM). (I have older siblings.) My intro to live music (besides high school dances) was through BB King (followed quickly by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Luther Allison, Bonnie Raitt, Pete Seeger, and the Grateful Dead, among others). I wrote a high school term paper on the Beatles (after reading the new Hunter Davies bio in 1968) and got a D.
Beatlemania
It was the 1963-64 school year and the fifth grade talent show was fast approaching. Being only a spectator was not an option. Everyone had to have an act, a talent to display.
My friend Max at Powerpop has declared “Beatles Week” and invited others to write about “a favorite Beatle song”. (In another part of the same post he invites folks to write about “their favorite Beatles song”, an important distinction in my eyes. Who can have a single favorite from their catalog? I’ve written about the my problem of declaring favorites before.)
A classmate approached me about joining an act with a couple of friends. When I asked about the act he was very secretive. He couldn’t tell me what the act was until I agreed to be in it. Once he told me, I couldn’t back out. Note I called him a “classmate”, not a “friend”. I didn’t trust him enough to go along blindly with this. Besides, I already had my act together. What was my act? I have no idea. What was their act? That still sticks in my mind 60 years later.
Four guys took the stage. Each had a rag mop on his head, dyed black and trimmed just so. Three of them held brooms – no mere air guitar for them. The fourth was, of course, Ringo. They lip-synched to “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. It wasn’t my favorite Beatles song even then. I bought the single of “She Loves You” but I didn’t buy “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. It seemed like the sort of song that reinforced parental stereotypes about pop music (and “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” didn’t?) with its simplistic lyrics about holding hands.
Four guys took the stage. Each had a rag mop on his head, dyed black and trimmed just so. Three of them held brooms – no mere air guitar for them. The fourth was, of course, Ringo. They lip-synched to “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. It wasn’t my favorite Beatles song even then. I bought the single of “She Loves You” but I didn’t buy “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. It seemed like the sort of song that reinforced parental stereotypes about pop music (and “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” didn’t?) with its simplistic lyrics about holding hands.
(Image from WebRestaurantStore)
On February 9, 1964, the US saw The Beatles in person for the first time, on The Ed Sullivan Show. Those of us in the know had seen them a month before on grainy, low fidelity video on Jack Paar.
They had appeared in an NBC News story on November 18, 1963. The news was more about Beatlemania than about the music, though they did acknowledge that The Beatles wrote some of their own songs. Early coverage of the band was more from a sense of amusement at the phenomenon of those crazy teenagers than it was about the music.
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” was not received with universal acclaim in the US. “Esquire‘s music critic David Newman wrote, ‘Terrible awful. …It’s the bunk. The Beatles are indistinguishable from a hundred other similar loud and twanging rock-and-roll groups. They aren’t talented singers (as Elvis was), they aren’t fun (as Elvis was), they aren’t anything.’[34]”
On the other hand, it did reach #1 in most western countries (stalling at #6 in Belgium and Finland). In the US it was replaced at #1 by “She Loves You”. In the UK, the order was reversed. It was subsequently released in German as “Komm, gib mir diene Hand” – that version also received US airplay.
Contrast Newman with Rob Sheffield’s assessment in the Rolling Stone Album Guide (40 years later): “Just check out ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ which explodes out of the speakers with the most passionate singing, drumming, lyrics, guitars, and girl-crazy howls ever – it’s no insult to the Beatles to say they never topped this song because nobody else has either … It’s the most joyous three minutes in the history of human noise.[40]”
So what made them such a big deal? We were used to “singing groups” lip-synching their latest single on American Bandstand, complete with orchestration and fadeout. These were actual musicians. They played and sang at the same time. Of course, they weren’t the first, but it was still somewhat unusual in the pop music world. And they wrote their own songs. Sure, they covered American R&B (“Twist and Shout”, “Roll Over Beethoven”) and even show tunes (“A Taste of Honey”, “Til There Was You”) but the list of hit songs (and great songs) they wrote is too long to recount here. Some singers can produce great harmonies in a studio with multiple takes and overdubs, but The Beatles sounded great live in an era without monitors (and with fans screaming loudly enough that they might not have heard themselves even with monitors).
I went to a summer camp that had a carnival with games. One game involved headphones through which a few notes of a Beatles tune were played. Your challenge was speed in identifying the song. How many notes did you need? Hw quickly could you answer? With what other band would you play that game?
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” is far from the best Beatles song, it’s not my favorite Beatles song, and it wasn’t even the first Beatles song. But it was the only one that dominated the fifth grade talent show at Winnequah School and made 4 boys instantly popular. I was not one of them.
We have two more posts and we will wrap this up Wednesday.
Here is my good friend Keith from https://nostalgicitalian.com/ giving some love to Ringo. Keith and I have emailed and talked on the phone for a few years now. I like asking him questions about his radio DJ days and life…Keith is a great guy. Go visit his site!
The Starr of the Beatles
I was approached by my blogger buddy, Max, from the PowerPop Blog recently and asked to contribute something for his “Beatles Week” feature. In truth, it will probably go longer than a week as there are many talented writers participating with me. I think his original thought was to have each of us write about a favorite Beatles song, but then he allowed us to pursue something “Beatle themed.”
I think I have mentioned in the past that it would be extremely difficult for me to pick one favorite Beatles song. There are just too many great ones to choose from. I could spend hours talking about the fantastic harmonies of the group or the amazing songwriting contributions of Lennon and McCartney. I could also examine the way George Harrison’s guitar playing matured as the group got older. Instead, I chose to focus on the Beatle that I connected with as a young fan discovering the band – Ringo Starr.
As a kid, I discovered the Beatles through their cartoon series (as well as albums that my dad had). While the boys didn’t voice the characters themselves, it featured many of their songs and put them in silly situations. Ringo always seemed to be the goofball and I guess I found him to be the funniest.
As I began to buy Beatles albums on my own, I often found that the “Ringo” cut of each album tended to really stand out as a favorite. Let me be clear, it is not that I disliked the other guys, the opposite was true. I loved them! However, the “Ringo” cut just really had a different sound to it.
As many know, Ringo was not the original drummer for the band. Pete Best was the guy. The rumors were that he was pretty good looking and a fan favorite, so they got rid of him. How true that is, I don’t know. The boys recruited Ringo from another band (Rory Storm and the Hurricanes). Once the group got their recording contract and started sessions with George Martin, Ringo was dissed a bit. Martin felt that he was not a good enough drummer to do studio work. Eventually, Martin came around and not only was he in the recording sessions, he occasionally got to sing on a song or two.
In total, Ringo Starr sang lead vocals on 11 Beatles songs. The first was “Boys,” which was a cover of a Shirelles song. The song was one that the Beatles had been playing in their live shows for some time. Pete Best used to sing it in shows. Ringo knew the song and had performed it many times with his previous group. When the band was in the studio cutting the 1963 album “Please Please Me” he sang it in one take.
The group had been playing “Boys” for years before it was ever recorded. It was the only song that Ringo sang lead on and his loyal fans wanted to hear more. John, Paul, and George were getting tired of the song and when it was time to record their second album, Lennon and McCartney worked together to write a song for Ringo that would replace “Boys.” The song would be “I Wanna Be Your Man.”
Before they went into the studio, another British group approached Lennon and McCartney and asked if they had a song that they might record. They decided to give them “I Wanna Be Your Man.” That song became the first “hit” for Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones!
Carl Perkins was responsible for Ringo’s next two vocal songs. First, was “Matchbox” which Perkins had a hit with in 1957. This song (and his next vocal) was responsible for the association of Ringo with rockabilly/country music. Word is that Perkins was in the studio while the Beatles recorded his songs.
For the 1964 album “Beatles For Sale,” Ringo contributed the lead vocal to Perkins’ “Honey Don’t.” Carl Perkins influenced a lot of Liverpool bands and Ringo was playing this one in his prior group before joining the Beatles. It was another song that Pete Best sang lead on in early live performances. John Lennon began singing it after Best left, but the band agreed that it was a perfect Ringo song for the album.
Ringo had decided that he wanted to have a bit more input in the songs that he was to sing. During the recording sessions for “Help” in 1965, he came upon the Buck Owens song “Act Naturally.” He brought it to the band and said he felt it would be a great song for him. They all agreed and cut it. This would mark the first Beatles cover song that they had not already been playing at live shows.
Ringo, while not best known for his song writing, did write a few for the band. By this time, John, Paul and George were all churning out songs. The three seemed to be doing everything and Ringo felt like he was being left out and maybe even someone who could easily be replaced. He went to the group and voiced his concerns. This led to his first song writing credit on a Beatles song. The song was What Goes On. The song was not all Ringo, as it was actually a song that John had originally written and Ringo tweaked and contributed to.
Yellow Submarine appeared on the 1966 Revolver album. It was a big song for Ringo as it went to #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. In Alan Clayson’s book, “Ringo Starr: Straight Man or Joker,” he says that the song was “conceived as a song that would appeal primarily to children, while recalling the band’s roots in Liverpool.” The song was written mostly by Paul McCartney and it is said that Donovan also helped (while being uncredited).
If you had to pick a “signature” song for Ringo, it would be “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The song is the second track on the Sgt. Pepper Album. The album itself was sort of a concept album where the band is playing … well, another band. In the album’s opening track, the character of Billy Shears is introduced. Even Ringo has stated that for the cut he is “taking on” the character of Shears to sing the song. The song was one that was written specifically for Ringo by John and Paul.
Ringo’s next vocal feature was one that he wrote. “Don’t Pass Me By” was one that came to him while sitting at the piano. He claims to only know a few chords on the piano and guitar. He says that while he plays around, if a melody comes to him or some words, he just keeps playing around. This is supposedly how “Don’t Pass Me By” came to be. There is some confusion as to when exactly the song was written, and while it may have been written as early as 1964, it was never recorded and released until 1968 on the White Album.
Alan Clayson says in his book that Ringo had unknowingly plagiarized music from a Jerry Lee Lewis song. It was only when George Martin was experimenting with different effects and orchestration that the song was able to be released (now sounding very musically different from it’s original version).
The song “Good Night” from the White Album was written by John Lennon. He wrote it for his five year old son, Julian. Lennon was very insistent that the song be sung by Ringo. What is interesting is that Ringo is the only Beatle who performs on the song. The music is provided by classical session musicians under the direction of producer George Martin.
Ringo’s last songwriting credit for the band appears on the 1969 album, Abbey Road. Many compare “Octopus’s Garden” to “Yellow Submarine.” Other’s compare it to an amazing and peaceful under-the sea world. This song, however, was written by Ringo at a time when things were less than peaceful with the group.
The story goes that Ringo was so angry that he walked out of a recording session because he was angry at Paul McCartney. Paul had reportedly been making comments about Ringo’s drumming, and so he left. He spent time relaxing on the Italian island of Sardinia. While there, he became fascinated by the ocean and sea life. This led to him writing the song.
When Ringo returned to the Abbey Road studios, he found that the rest of the band had decorated his drum set with flowers and found a gift from John, Paul and George as an apology. He showed the song to them and George Harrison worked with him to get the song ready to record.
This post is by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com . John’s blog has different subjects and he will post songs that I had completely forgot about. I like talking guitars with John also…He is an internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.
The Beatles released the EP Long Tall Sally in the UK in 1964. It had one Lennon-McCartney original, “I Call Your Name,” and three covers, Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” from 1956, Larry Williams’s “Slow Down” from 1958, and Carl Perkins’s “Matchbox” from 1957. Capitol Records, who was the distributor for Beatles music in the US and Canada, took “Long Tall Sally” and “I Call Your Name” and put them on The Beatles’ Second Album, then took “Matchbox” and “Slow Down” and put them on the album Something New with the songs from A Hard Day’s Night and a couple of other songs. Capitol issued “Matchbox” and “Slow Down” as a single in late August 1964.
The single didn’t do as well as most Beatles singles that year: “Matchbox” (which appeared as “Match Box” on the single and its sleeve) only reached #17 in the US and Canada, while “Slow Down” came in at #24. It’s really a lost single, issued when music from A Hard Day’s Night was on everyone’s mind. Naturally, it was my favorite record for a very long time.
“Match Box” was the A side of the record. The Beatles were great fans of Carl Perkins, particularly George Harrison, who learned many of Perkins’s solos while he learned the guitar, and Ringo Starr, who sang two of the three Perkins songs the Fab Four covered (“Honey Don’t” was the other). Coming in at just under two minutes, it was rock ‘n’ roll, Fab Four style.
What I especially like about this:
That opening. You have two bars of George doing that figure around the A chord before everyone else comes in. That gets your toes tappin’ and your butt shakin’…
The utter simplicity. Three chords: A7, D7, E7, all played in first position. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
The solo. Like so many of George’s solos, simple and to the point, played on his Gretsch Country Gentleman.
George Martin’s piano. Just enough that you know it’s there. He added it several days after The Beatles recorded the song, but it sounds like he was in the studio with them.
Ringo’s vocal. Don’t ever tell me that Ringo can’t sing. He has a little trouble with the lyrics, but who cares?
The end. That last chord, an A 6/9, wraps everything up perfectly.
The flip side, “Slow Down,” is just as noteworthy. Larry Williams was an R&B singer and pianist whose songs The Beatles often covered, including this song, “Dizzy Miss Lizzie,” and “Bad Boy.”
Could I say the same things about this song as I did about “Match Box”? Almost. John did the vocal on this track, but the opening of the song, highlighted by George Martin’s piano, is just as memorable, it’s another three-chord song, George’s solo is, again, to the point, and you have that same 6/9 chord ending this one. Two solid sides of rock ‘n’ roll, Fab Four style.
Maybe the most perfect thing about these sides is that they aren’t perfect. George’s pick hand gets ahead of his fret hand on both solos, and the double-tracked vocal by John on “Slow Down” seems to have a few extra voices in it. They don’t make the record a bad one. If anything, hearing them screw up just underlines how much they’re enjoying themselves. That’s what makes this such a great record.
If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.
This show was written by Gene L. Coon, Carey Wilber, and Gene Roddenberry
This is a huge episode, a very important one. It would later have a very famous part II movie in the 1980s.
The villainous character of Khan Noonien Singh, played perfectly by Ricardo Montalbán in the 1982 motion picture “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan“, was first introduced in this landmark episode. The Enterprise has discovered some remnants of the late 20th century…an old fossil of a ship and its crew, who are in suspended animation.
As it happens, they and their leader Khan were genetically engineered “supermen” and “superwomen” whose need to dominate and control had led to war in the 1990s. The re-awakened Khan is soon back to his old tricks, and the crew have to fight to regain control of the Enterprise.
There is a reason they picked this one for the movie. It’s a wonderful episode. The only issue I have with this episode is the portrayal of Marla McGivers. To see her character, a well-educated, empowered female officer, turn into a person that swoons over him and turns into an emotional slave for Khan is aggravating to watch. Yes, she loved the 20th century but I don’t see her doing what she did.
The fight scene between Kirk and Khan may be my favorite fight scene for the series. Kirk put on some nice moves to avoid getting bashed by Khan’s far superior strength. With HD you can see its stunt men but other than that it was great.
The star of this episode is no other than Ricardo Montalbán. The way they shot the episode he seems huge and has a great presence. I don’t want to say much…but in the end, Kirk does something that will come back and bite him in 15 years.
It’s a very good episode. It’s fun watching this episode and then watching the movie right after.
From IMDB:
Gene Roddenberry questioned Carey Wilber’s notion of wasting a high-tech spaceship and expensive resources on criminals – just like Kirk and Spock came up with the same question in the story itself – and came up with the concept of “a bunch of Napoleons” self-exiling in space.
Being a first-season episode, Chekov (Walter Koenig) does not appear. Nevertheless, Chekov does appear in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), in which Khan not only meets but instantly recognizes him. Many fan theories subsequently tried to explain where Chekov could have been off-screen during that episode that would cause Khan to remember him. Walter Koenig himself came up with a story, which he likes to recite at conventions, that Khan, during the events of Space Seed, desperately needed to go to the bathroom, but the only toilet he could find was occupied, and when it was opened, Chekov walked out and Khan resolved never to forget Chekov’s face. The Wrath of Khan novelization by Vonda N. McIntyre does officially explain that Chekov was working in Engineering when Khan began his rebellion there (and most of that happened off-camera), and it was because of Chekov’s valiance in resisting that he was promoted to the Bridge for the series’ second season. See also trivia for Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Carey Wilber used the 18th century British custom of ‘transportation’ (shipping out convicts to the colonies, especially Australia) as a parallel for his concept of “seed ships”, used to take unwanted criminals out to space from the overpopulated Earth (hence the name Botany Bay). In his original treatment, the Botany Bay left Earth in 2096, with 100 criminals (both men and women) and a team of several volunteering lawmen aboard.
The main cast were enthusiastic about working with Ricardo Montalban. DeForest Kelley later said “I enjoyed working with Ricardo the best. I was privileged. He is a marvellous actor.”
Following positive feedback from the producers and the network regarding James Doohan, this was the first episode to feature a more prominent role for Scotty.
Ricardo Montalban called his role as Khan “wonderful”, saying that “it was well-written, it had an interesting concept and I was delighted it was offered to me”.
The first day’s filming coincided with the airing of Star Trek: Balance of Terror (1966), and Marc Daniels allowed the cast and crew to go home early to watch it. The other five days ran to schedule, to the extent that there was an early finish on the final day of filming, allowing cast and crew time to return home to watch a repeat of Star Trek: What Are Little Girls Made Of? (1966) which had replaced Star Trek: Arena (1967) on that evening’s schedule.
Ricardo Montalban plays a character who is familiar with the first chapter of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. (“Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.”) Oddly enough, that same literary passage contains the word Montalban. This name, which is old-fashioned Spanish for White Mountain, appears in the poem in context where an angels-versus-demons war is compared to a list of great military actions in Earth history. Montalban was a battle site during the Franco-Moorish Wars of the Early Middle Ages.
The creation of the Botany Bay miniature caused the episode to go over budget by more than $12,000. The episode actually cost a total of $197,262 against a budget of $180,000. By this point, the series was nearly $80,000 over budget in total.
This is listed as one of the “Ten Essential Episodes” of the series in the 2008 reference book “Star Trek 101” by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann.
Ricardo Montalban was always the first choice for Khan. He had been suggested by casting director Joseph D’Agosta, who was not looking to cast an actor of a particular ethnic background due to Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the series; Roddenberry wanted to show his perceived 23rd century values by not requiring any specific ethnicities when casting actors in guest roles.
The Eugenics Wars, and the notion of genetically augmented Humans, has also served as background Star Trek: The Animated Series: The Infinite Vulcan (1973) as well as Star Trek: Enterprise: Borderland (2004), Star Trek: Enterprise: Cold Station 12 (2004), and Star Trek: Enterprise: The Augments (2004).
Summary
While on patrol in deep space, the Enterprise comes across an ancient Earth spaceship from the 1990s, the SS Botany Bay. Aboard, they find a group of Earthlings in suspended animation as was used when space voyages might take decades. They revive the group’s leader, a magnetic individual named Khan, and the Enterprise historian Lt. Marla McGivers is obviously attracted to him. Using the Enterprise computers, Kirk and Spock learn that Khan is actually Khan Noonien Singh, once absolute ruler of more than one-quarter of Earth and the product of genetic engineering. But they are too late, Khan and McGivers have gone back to his ship, revived Khan’s crew, and returned to seize control of the Enterprise.
CAST
William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock Ricardo Montalban … Khan Noonian Singh Madlyn Rhue … Lt. Marla McGivers DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott Makee K. Blaisdell … Spinelli (as Blaisdell Makee) Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Mark Tobin … Joaquin Kathy Ahart … Crew Woman John Winston … Lieutenant Kyle John Arndt … Ingenieur Fields (uncredited) Bobby Bass … Guard (uncredited) Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited) Dick Cangey … Otto (uncredited) Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited) Joan Johnson … Female Guard (uncredited) Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited) Jan Reddin … Crewwoman (uncredited) Frieda Rentie … Enterprise Lieutenant (uncredited) Ron Veto … Harrison (uncredited) Joan Webster … Nurse (uncredited)
Liam Sullivan is a Dad, archivist, choral singer, and tour guide living his best life in Boston, MA. You can read his thoughts on books, movies, music, and more at Panorama of the Mountains https://othemts.wordpress.com.
“Got to Get You Into My Life” is a song by The Beatles that was a top ten hit when I was a small child. Except that The Beatles broke up more than 3 years before I was even born. How could this be? It was a mystery to me for a long time. I didn’t even know it was a song by The Beatles until I was a teenager in the 1980s. It puzzled me how I could remember “Got to Get You Into My Life” being in heavy rotation with the songs I heard played on the radio in my dad’s Chevy Nova back in the mid-70s.
I won’t keep you in suspense as long as I was. It turns out that Capitol Records, The Beatles label in the United States, released “Got to Get You Into My Life” as a single on May 31, 1976. Despite being a ten-year-old song at that point, it did well on the charts, peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of July 24, 1976. It would be The Beatles last Top Ten hit until “Free As A Bird” in 1995.
The single was released to promote a compilation album that Capitol Records was promoting called Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. The collection of 28 rockers culled from The Beatles’ previous releases was clearly Capitol looking to make some money off of a beloved band that wasn’t making any new music. It sold well, reaching number 2 on the Billboard album charts, ironically held out of the top spot by Paul McCartney’s Wings at the Speed of Sound.
The album cover for Rock ‘n’ Roll Music was designed to tap into the Fifties nostalgia craze of the 1970s with images of a jukebox, cars with big fins, and Marilyn Monroe. The Beatles, notably were a Sixties band, but the title track is a cover of a Chuck Berry song from the Fifties, so there’s a tenuous connection. The Fifties nostalgia probably was kicked off by the doo wop cover act Sha Na Na performing at Woodstock in 1969 (the group would get a TV show that started in 1977. I loved Bowser). The Broadway musical Grease (1972), the movie American Graffiti(1973), and the TV sitcom Happy Days (debuted in 1974), all continued this trend. Even John Lennon got into the act with his 1974 album Rock ‘N’ Roll, a collection of covers of Lennon’s favorite songs from his youth.
But “Got to Get You Into My Life” is not a Fifties song. It’s a Sixties song that became a hit in the Seventies partly because it really sounds like the soul and funk music that was dominating the charts at the time. Does it not sound like it totally fits in with the Number One song of week of July 24, 1976, “Kiss and Say Goodbye” by The Manhattans (who despite their name were a New Jersey band who played Philadelphia soul). Even better evidence that an old Beatles’ album track somehow captured the zeitgeist of Seventies funk and soul is that the Chicago R&B band released a cover of the song in July 1978 (their version peaked at #9 on the Hot 100).
But let’s go back to the Sixties, when the Beatles recorded the song. The lineup for The Beatles recording the song was Paul McCartney on lead vocal and bass, John Lennon on rhythm guitar, George Harrison on lead guitar, and Ringo star on drums and tambourine. Producer George Martin also added organ. But if you’re going to record an homage to Motown and Memphis soul, you’re going to need horns. So a quintet of guest artists were brought in.
Eddie Thornton – trumpet. The Jamaican-born Thornton, known by the nickname Tan Tan, is likely the first Black guest musician on a Beatles recording since The Beatles didn’t have many guest artists prior to recording Revolver.
Ian Hamer – trumpet. Hamer had a jazz artists who had a long career as a Liverpool big band leader.
Les Condon – trumpet. The London-born Condon was a modern jazz pioneer who played with many of the top UK and American jazz acts.
Alan Branscombe – tenor saxophone. Merseyside-born Branscombe was a sideman to numerous jazz band leaders over a four decade career.
Peter Coe – tenor saxophone. Coe was more of a pop musician and had previously played with the British R&B band Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, contributing a sax solo to their UK #1 hit “Yeh Yeh.”
Having discussed many aspects of the song, let us finish with the lyrics. It is a love song, of course. Right? Well, according to McCartney “It’s actually an ode to pot.” Legendarily, the Beatles were introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan when they met in 1964, and the band grew to incorporate the drug into their creative process leading to this love song to pot. Personally, I’m going to forget that I learned that because while I’ve never used marijuana, I have been in love. The lyrics of this song so perfectly capture that feeling of meeting an intoxicating person (or plant) and connecting with them so fully that you just want to spend every moment you can with them. Surely this is what Paul McCartney would feel when he met Linda Eastman in 1967. In fact, they are famous for spending “every single day” of their lives together until Linda’s death in 1998. You can read the full lyrics and decide for yourself if this is a love song, a drug song, or (most likely) both.
If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.
This show was written by Boris Sobelman and Gene Roddenberry
At the start of this one, you are in complete confusion. It takes a good while to get a grasp of what is happening and why. Even when the story becomes clearer, there are things that just don’t make sense, such as the 6 o’clock craziness (Red Hour) that grips the people of Beta III, or the robed guards’ electronic-sounding voices.
In the episode, Lieutenant Sulu gets beamed back aboard the Enterprise in a rather dreamy state like he was a member of some cult. When a larger away team led by Kirk, Spock, and Bones goes down they find a society frozen in time and completely submerged in a philosophy of peace and non-violence. Except of course for the ‘festival’ or Red Hour when everyone runs amuck.
The people on Beta III as this planet is known to Star Fleet are held in thrall by the will of an ancient philosopher named Landru. His teachings were carried out. What it involved was nothing less than the stamping out of individuality. It reminded me of some of the cults out there. You were not part of the teachings…you were not welcomed and get punished.
There were a few things that weren’t explained. The “Red Hour” when everyone when bonkers. My thought is…it was a way for society to release its primal urges of sex and violence in a controlled way so that it may function as Landru intends. The hooded guards had hollow tubes for wea
From IMDB:
All the regulars on the show were quitting smoking at the same time, so many chewed gum instead. Director Joseph Pevney was becoming increasingly upset, because he had to cut to remind the cast not to chew gum during the shoots. As a prank for a large scene, William Shatner went around handing out bubble gum to the cast, crew and 60-80 extras, and had everyone blow a bubble right after the director hollered “Action”. Sid Haig reported the director “almost passed out”. (Source: Sid Haig’s phone interview with “The Shlocky Horror Picture Show” for a television airing of Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967).)
Contains the first mention of the Prime Directive of noninterference, which the plot brings up only so that Kirk can violate it.
The word Archon was the title of certain Greek heads of state, most famously in the Athenian Republic. It comes from Greek root “arch”, meaning “leader, highest, chief”, which can also be found in the English words monarch, hierarchy, and anarchy; all of these are present in Landru’s society.
The location scenes for this episode were filmed at the 40 Acres backlot in Culver City, the same place where Star Trek: Miri (1966) and Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever (1967) were shot. Best known for their use as Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show (1960), the sets on this section of the backlot were originally constructed to portray 19th century Atlanta for Gone with the Wind (1939).
In the dungeon, Kirk and Spock subdue Landru’s guards, Spock punches the guard in the face with his fist instead of using the Vulcan neck pinch. Kirk even comments “Isn’t that old-fashioned?” This is the first instance of Spock hitting another character in the face with his fist.
Bobby Clark, who leaps through a window and then cries out “Festival! Festival!” has his only speaking role in the series in this episode. A frequent stunt performer on the series, he can also be seen as one of Chekov’s vaporized henchmen in Star Trek: Mirror, Mirror (1967).
When Kirk tells the Enterprise “Materialization complete” upon beaming down, this, along with the third season episode Star Trek: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (1968), marks the only time that any landing party informs the ship as a matter of course that transportation has been effected.
Just why Festival takes place, or how frequently it occurs, is never made entirely clear. However, in his novelization in Star Trek 9, James Blish describes Reger telling Tula as he consoles her during the aftermath, “It’s over for another year.”
The computer that ruled Beta III would be seen again (slightly modified) in the first season episode Star Trek: A Taste of Armageddon (1967).
The absorption console that Marplon uses appears later, with modifications, as Norman’s relay station in Star Trek: I, Mudd (1967), a control panel on Memory Alpha in Star Trek: The Lights of Zetar (1969), the housing for the cloaking device in Star Trek: The Enterprise Incident (1968), and the Elba II force field control panel in Star Trek: Whom Gods Destroy (1969).
This episode started out in July 1964, as a story outline by Gene Roddenberry entitled “The Perfect World” (later retitled “Paradise XML”, “Visit to Paradise”, and “Landru’s Paradise”), which was a candidate to be the first pilot, alongside Star Trek: The Cage (1966) and “The Women”. After the former was chosen by NBC, Roddenberry’s story idea rested for more than two years. In August 1966, freelance writer Boris Sobelman picked up Roddenberry’s original story, and developed it further, retitling it “The Return of the Archons”
Summary
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to the planet Beta III when one member of a reconnaissance party disappears and the other, Mr. Sulu is beamed up in a strange state of contentment. The citizenry appears calm and respectful except when the Festival begins – where everyone apparently goes mad and delves into wild abandon and debauchery. By the next morning, all is calm again and the elders tell of Landru, who is in control and is the lawgiver. With McCoy absorbed into the local society, Kirk and Spock set out to find just what or who Landru is.
CAST
William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock Harry Townes … Reger Torin Thatcher … Marplon DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy Brioni Farrell … Tula Sid Haig … First Lawgiver Charles Macaulay … Landru Jon Lormer … Tamar Morgan Farley … Hacom Karl Held … Lindstrom (as Christopher Held) George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Sean Morgan … O’Neil Lev Mailer … Bilar (as Ralph Maurer) David L. Ross … Guard Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited) Bobby Clark … Betan Townsman (uncredited) Frank da Vinci … Brent (uncredited) Lars Hensen … Betan Townsman (uncredited) Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited) Ron Veto … Harrison (uncredited)
I want to welcome my friend Jim to Beatles week. Jim’s site is https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com . I hope you can check it out. He has music and other subjects and…when I have a question about The Grateful Dead…Jim is THE man I go to. He tackles one of the most unorthodox songs of the Beatles today…or anyone for that matter. He also has Song Lyric Sunday that is fun to participate in…and I have on a few occasions. Take it away Jim…
Beatles in Animal Costumes
In their made for 1967 TV movie “Magical Mystery Tour”, The Beatles wore animal costumes for the ‘I Am The Walrus’ segment of the film. John is the walrus, Paul is the hippo, George is the rabbit and Ringo is the chicken. It is the third film that starred the band and depicts a group of people on a coach tour who experience strange happenings caused by magicians. The premise was inspired by Ken Kesey’s Furthur adventures with the Merry Pranksters and the then-popular coach trips from Liverpool to see the Blackpool Lights. ‘I Am the Walrus’ didn’t make much of an impact on the charts in the United States as the single only hit #56 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it stayed on the chart for just four weeks. It didn’t even make the charts in the United Kingdom. This was released as the B-side to Paul McCartney’s song ‘Hello Goodbye’, but John thought his song was better and that it should have been the A side. This song probably can probably only be understood by people that have taken an LSD trip, as it is considered to be the strangest song that the Beatles ever recorded. It is way over-analyzed, but I think it is a fun song, so I am going to write about it today for Max’s Beatles Week.
This song is said to be John’s answer to Bob Dylan being able to get away with murder using absurd, obscure, ambiguous lyrics as his style of songwriting. Previously the Beatles wouldn’t have used words because they didn’t make sense, or what we thought was sense, but Dylan taught them a lot in this respect. Lennon told Playboy years later that “I can write that crap too,” which is a reference to the nonsense lyrics in this song. John said, “The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko.” I think it is best to discuss this sing one verse at a time, so that is what I will do.
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
See how they fly
I’m crying
The first line in this song comes from the song ‘Marching To Pretoria’ which many kids sang in music class and this may be an update of an 1865 American Civil War marching song ‘Marching Through Georgia’ by Henry Clay Work. The Weavers had a hit with this song in the early ‘60s and this song is
about the Boer War in South Africa which occurred during the 1890’s. John Lennon describes policemen as pigs and says that they duck for cover whenever there is a shootout or gun-fight. The Beatles had been doing a lot of crying around this time since their manager Brian Epstein had recently died. ‘l Am The Walrus’ was the first song The Beatles recorded after Epstein’s death which happened four days earlier.
Sitting on a corn flake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you’ve been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long
John Harvey Kellogg invented Cornflakes in 1878 in the hope that plain food which was specifically created to be bland, boring and flavorless would help people to stop masturbating. Kellogg was a Seventh-day Adventist and he was allegedly against every idea of fun and he believed that sex and masturbation were unhealthy for the body and mind. I imaging that John thought it would be fun to view sitting on a cornflake as a sexual act. John never wrote about a van in this song, as he said, “Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the man to come.” This line was miswritten by Hunter Davies (the Beatles’ biographer) who thought John said “van to come”, and John liked that better so he decided to use it. “Bloody” is a mild profanity in British dialect. “Stupid bloody Tuesday” would mean you’re having a bad Tuesday, and complaining about it. Lennon thought it was ironic that people would wear the logos of corporations, because he viewed them as heartless oppressors of the masses. “Bloody Tuesday” may also refer to massacre that occurred in South Africa in 1946 when striking gold mine workers, marching peacefully, were fired on by police. Much of this song is abstracted from Lennon’s childhood memories, and this is something he would have heard about. John made a comment on the norms of “proper” behavior. Growing your face long references growing a beard, an act which was considered by many to be a sign of rebelliousness. Advice books that came out in the 1960s illustrated how men should dress right, explaining that they should conform to the dress code without explaining how or why such a code came into existence. These books explained why men should not wear facial hair of any kind, particularly beards, because men who are clean-shaven have a better chance of getting a job, and being widely and readily accepted in business.
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob
Lewis Carroll wrote The Walrus and the Carpenter which is recited by those fat twins, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, to Alice in ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ and Humpty Dumpty is also in that novel, so that may be what John Lennon is singing about when he mentions the eggman. In this book Humpty Dumpty appears as an egg, although the original Humpty Dumpty was a cannon. The eggman was a nickname given to Eric Burdon the Animals’ singer by John Lennon, because he had a raw egg paraphilia fetish. Burdon achieved this dubious distinction after he told Lennon about this wild time that he had with his Jamaican girlfriend Sylvia. He said that he was up early one morning cooking breakfast, naked except for his socks, and she slid up beside him and slipped an amyl nitrate popper inhalant drug used to enhance sexual pleasure under his nose. As the fumes produced a sensation of excitement in his brain he slid to the kitchen floor, and she grabbed an egg which she cracked into the pit of his belly. The white and yellow of the egg ran down his naked front and Sylvia showed him one Jamaican trick after another, which I won’t get into any further, although Lennon was thoroughly amused at this story.
The Walrus and the Carpenter poem describes how a carpenter and walrus gain the trust of a group of oysters only to betray the oysters and eat them. Upon hearing the poem Alice attempts to make sense of the characters actions. Alice first says that she likes the Walrus best because he expressed sorry for the poor oysters. Tweedledee says, “He ate more than the Carpenter.” The walrus held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count how many he took. Alice thought that was mean, so she changed her mind and said, “I like the Carpenter best, if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.” Lennon like Alice expressed dismay upon belatedly realizing that the walrus was a villain in the poem. John didn’t catch the true meaning that Lewis Carroll was trying to express about the capitalist and social system and later, when he went back and looked at it, he realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. He thought he picked the wrong guy and that he should have said, “I am the carpenter.” But that would never have turned out to be as good. It is written that Lennon got the line “Goo Goo Ga Joob” from the 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. However, the closest approximation in Joyce is “googoo goosth”, which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. “Goo goo ga job” is supposedly the final words that Humpty Dumpty said before he fell off the wall and died.
Mr. City policeman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I’m crying
I’m crying, I’m crying, I’m crying
Journalist and writer Hunter Davies, who had recently been commissioned to write The Beatles’ authorized biography was at John’s house in Weybridge, and they were swimming in his pool, when several streets away, they both head this police siren going and this prompted Lennon to write the line, “Sitting pretty, like a policeman”, which later turned into “Mister city police-man sitting” to the insistent rhythm of a police siren. John wrote the lyrics for this song by putting a sheet of paper into his typewriter and adding a line whenever the spirit moved him and when these fragments managed to fit, he had ‘I Am the Walrus’. John makes a reference to his trippy song, ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ after saying see how they fly. It seems like John may be describing an accident that he witnessed where where cops are dispatched, in a 911 context and cars were flying around, while the beat cops are running, and end up standing around, in a row, not needed in the capacity of that they turned out. “See how they run” could be a reference to Three Blind Mice. This also ties into the earlier reference of policemen that were described as pigs. The British saying “keep a stiff upper lip”, means that men should show restraint and avoid expressing their emotions and even when they are sad, they should not cry. Lennon defies this by publicly announcing that he’s crying and this appears at the end of a few verses.
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog’s eye
Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess
Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl
You let your knickers down
In 1967, a student from Quarry Bank High School (Lennon’s alma mater) sent John Lennon a letter telling him his teacher was conducting a class analyzing the Beatles’ songs. Lennon decided to take out his revenge on this letter and that motivated John to write a song that was beyond analysis for the simple reason that John didn’t want it to make any sense at all. The whole purpose of the song, according to John, was to confuse, befuddle, and mess with the Beatles experts. John asked his old school friend Pete Shotton if he remembered that nursery rhyme that they used to sing. Shotton gave them this rhyme, which Lennon incorporated into the song, “Yellow matter custard, green slop pie, all mixed together with a dead dog’s eye. Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick, then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick.” John incorporated all of this total nonsense into this song and said, “Let the fuckers’ figure that one out.” “Crabalocker” has no meaning, but Fishwives were known to be very tough, as they were the ones who stormed the Bastille on Paris. The BBC banned this for the lines “pornographic priestess” and “let your knickers down.” The naughty girl parallels the naughty boy, and John may have been commenting on the norms of “proper” behavior again here. Proper men were supposed to shave and not supposed to show their feelings, and proper women were not supposed to expose themselves in public.
Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don’t come you get a tan
From standing in the English rain
Lennon is joking about the wet British weather, as people in the UK are often trapped in their homes, because it’s too wet to go anywhere.
I am the egg man (How do you do sir?)
They are the egg men (The man maintains a fortune)
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob, goo goo goo g’joob
During mixing, John was fiddling with a radio that happened to be broadcasting a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. John decided to incorporate it into the song, although it is barely audible on the record. There’s a small sound that appears to be the first indication of the play before the 5th verse but it’s almost undistinguishable, and the production will be picked up again by the end of the song. During this chorus, the portions inside parentheses were added to the lyrics coming from Act 4, scene 6 from a conversation between Gloucester and Edgar
Expert, texpert choking smokers
Don’t you think the joker laughs at you (Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, hah hah hah)
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide
I’m crying
Lennon was a chain smoker his entire adult life, in spite of trying to quit. Lennon wanted to discuss the absurdities of society, and people smoking themselves to death. Lennon is talking directly to those people who were over-analyzing the Beatles songs, by calling them texperts, as they though they knew what his lyrics were about. Lennon knew that they would be wasting their time with this song, so he mocked them saying “Don’t you think the joker laughs at you.” George Martin created an arrangement of eight violins and four cellos, three French horns, and a contrabass clarinet for the orchestra. He hired the Mike Sammes singers a 16-voice choir of professional studio vocalists made up of 8 males and 8 females, known for their work on Disney films and TV themes. They sang the “Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha”, “oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper!”, “everybody’s got one”, as well as making laughing sounds, snorts and a series of shrill whooping noises. Nothing like this had ever been heard on a popular music recording. A pig’s home is called a “sty” and people think that John was inspired to add this line from by George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Semolina Pilchard
Climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe
Semolina is a kind of wheat paste and a pilchard is small fish. Scotland Yard had a famous drug squad detective who built his drug squad career targeting musicians, including Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton and Donovan named Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, and although it is not exactly the same, it has been speculated that is where “Semolina Pilchard” comes from. He wanted the publicity that came from busting rock stars and I guess John figured that he would go out of his way to do this, even if it meant climbing up the Eiffel tower. The Beat poet Allen Ginsberg started incorporating chanting the Hare Krishna mantra into his religious practice in the mid-1960s. John viewed Ginsberg as being a fake, because he was putting all of his faith in one idol going on about Hare Krishna. The words, “Elementary penguin” meant that it’s naive to just go around chanting Hare Krishna all the time. Ginsberg was influenced by Edgar Allen Poe. As he mentioned him in his poems, and in his writing about poetry. Lennon took a jab at Ginsberg because of the way Ginsberg approached the work of Poe. Lennon saw himself as the real deal, much like Poe was, but he felt that Ginsberg was faking it, and not doing Poe’s work the justice it deserved.
Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper (jooba, jooba)
Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
This phrase dates back to the Victorian prime of the British music hall tradition. It was used both literally, as a way to hold packages when you walked along, and as a slightly politer version of the American “stick it up your ass”. ‘Umpa Umpa (Stick It Up Your Jumper)’ was first recorded by comedy duo The Two Leslies in 1935, but was made very famous by Jimmy Edwards’ recording in 1950. The chorus has been a popular playground chant ever since. Some people thought they were chanting “Smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot.” Lennon, one of rock’s best vocalists, was always frustrated by the sound of his voice, so for this song, he asked engineer Geoff Emerick to make his voice sound like it was coming from the moon. As always, Emerick turned Lennon’s strange request into the perfect effect. Emerick recorded Lennon’s vocals using a low-fidelity talkback microphone which helped create one of rock music’s first distorted lead vocals.
‘l Am The Walrus’ was incredibly complex, ultimately taking 25 takes to complete. On one of the earlier takes, Lennon was playing an electronic keyboard and he was making a lot of mistakes. Ringo was having trouble keeping a steady tempo, as emotions were high due to Epstein’s recent death and George Martin was getting frustrated. McCartney jumped into action and saved the day by playing tambourine next to Ringo, acting as a human click track to keep Ringo in sync with Lennon’s keyboard.
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
See how they fly
I’m crying
Sitting on a corn flake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you’ve been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob
Mr. City policeman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I’m crying
I’m crying, I’m crying, I’m crying
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog’s eye
Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess
Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl
You let your knickers down
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob
Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don’t come you get a tan
From standing in the English rain
I am the egg man (How do you do sir?)
They are the egg men (The man maintains a fortune)
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob, goo goo goo g’joob
Expert, texpert choking smokers
Don’t you think the joker laughs at you (Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, hah hah hah)
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide
I’m crying
Semolina Pilchard
Climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob, goo goo goo g’joob
Goo goo g’joob, goo goo goo g’joob, goo goo
Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper (jooba, jooba)
Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
Everybody’s got one (stick it up your jumper)
Everybody’s got one (umpa, umpa)
when I was a small child. Except that The Beatles broke up more than 3 years before I was even born. How could this be? It was a mystery to me for a long time. I didn’t even know it was a song by The Beatles until I was a teenager in the 1980s. It puzzled me how I could remember “Got to Get You Into My Life” being in heavy rotation with the songs I heard played on the radio in my dad’s Chevy Nova back in the mid-70s.
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