The Cars "Heartbeat City" (1984): Track by Track!

<v Speaker 1>Hey, this is Jim and Lindsay from the Children of
<v Speaker 1>the Eighties podcast, and.
<v Speaker 2>You are listening to the Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast,
<v Speaker 2>hosted by our friends Dee and Jason.
<v Speaker 1>Hello, Hello again, Hello, Hello again. Welcome back to Shirley listeners.
<v Speaker 1>We are back for the second part of a nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty four album matchup. First part was last week. It's
<v Speaker 1>Brian Adams and Reckless, a mind endingly awesome album, and
<v Speaker 1>now we have its contender, Heartbeat City by the Cars.
<v Speaker 3>Two great albums. D this is gonna be tough. We
<v Speaker 3>gotta go track by track to figure this one out.
<v Speaker 1>It is a great matchup. So I had somebody ask me, like,
<v Speaker 1>why these two albums, and I was like, well, they
<v Speaker 1>both came out in nineteen eighty four, they're both forty
<v Speaker 1>this year. This one just passed its fortieth birthday back
<v Speaker 1>in March, and I mean, why not with hits.
<v Speaker 3>They're absolutely loaded with him and had some great videos
<v Speaker 3>on MTV.
<v Speaker 1>We hear stories about all kinds of bands, you know,
<v Speaker 1>outside of the bands themselves, but these are a couple.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, Brian Adams and his band and the Cars
<v Speaker 1>are a couple of groups that they just kind of
<v Speaker 1>fly under the radar. They are bands that like everybody
<v Speaker 1>loves you know, you can be a cowboy.
<v Speaker 3>Aiks Blood Blood, we be Yes.
<v Speaker 1>Everybody loves them, right, everybody loves them. That's right, and
<v Speaker 1>and it's true for both, you know. They just they
<v Speaker 1>make good music and they mind their own business and
<v Speaker 1>they kind of get overlooked because of it. And so
<v Speaker 1>why not compare these two killer albums from nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>Yeh, I've got another connection, which I know you know,
<v Speaker 3>but I'm gonna put it out there for our listeners. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>So what do Brian Adams, the Cars, Shania Twain, ac DC,
<v Speaker 3>and def Leppard have in common?
<v Speaker 1>They have Mutt Langa in common.
<v Speaker 3>Mutt Lang produced Heartbeat City. He actually produced Waking Up
<v Speaker 3>the Neighbors, which is second album after Reckless of Brian Adams,
<v Speaker 3>which sold a bazillion copies in the early nineties. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and so they both have gone to school with Mutt Lane.
<v Speaker 1>The University of rock and Roll, if you will. So
<v Speaker 1>let's get started talking about this album track by track,
<v Speaker 1>first song out of the Gate. Hello again, My gosh,
<v Speaker 1>these guys have such a unique sound. And now Mutt
<v Speaker 1>Lang's fingerprints are all over it.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely, so this is pop rock, new wave, all stuck
<v Speaker 3>in a blender with Mutt Lang, and you get those
<v Speaker 3>sounds and those layers.
<v Speaker 1>That first Hello, Hello again. It is the Mutt Lang
<v Speaker 1>whisper effect, right he has. You know, he'll have his
<v Speaker 1>artist sing a line, singing again, sing it twenty more times,
<v Speaker 1>and layer all of those, then do it an octave lower,
<v Speaker 1>and then he'll come back and he'll go, Okay, now,
<v Speaker 1>whisper it like you're the roar of a crowd.
<v Speaker 2>Hello.
<v Speaker 1>And that's how you get that whisper effect that Mutt
<v Speaker 1>Lang does. But this is the perfect song to begin
<v Speaker 1>the album because this was a comeback album for them.
<v Speaker 3>It absolutely was.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so hello again, here we are. Don't forget us yet.
<v Speaker 1>We brought Mutt with us this time. So when we
<v Speaker 1>did our Best of nineteen seventy eight, we did our
<v Speaker 1>Top five of nineteen seventy eight. I hit the Car's
<v Speaker 1>debut album and I was like, holy crap, these songs
<v Speaker 1>came out in seventy eight. This is the sound of
<v Speaker 1>the eighties and like it was hit hit after hit.
<v Speaker 1>I was like, just what I needed. My best friend's girl,
<v Speaker 1>good times role how do I pick which one of
<v Speaker 1>these I love the most? Right? Sure? So that was
<v Speaker 1>a great debut album for him. That was in seventy eight,
<v Speaker 1>seventy nine, that came out with Candy O right album
<v Speaker 1>artwork by Alberto Vargas. Keep that in mind for a
<v Speaker 1>later tipbit. Okay, yeah, that one hit number three that
<v Speaker 1>did better. It was a number three album that which
<v Speaker 1>was better than their debut album had Let's Go on
<v Speaker 1>It And then they did Panorama and Cricket Crickets right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Panorama didn't have anything. They kind of lifted the needle
<v Speaker 1>again in nineteen eighty one with shake It Up, which
<v Speaker 1>had shake it Up, but that was the only song
<v Speaker 1>on that album to hit the top forty and it
<v Speaker 1>barely hit it. If you're the record company, you're like, okay, guys,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's been a while.
<v Speaker 3>We really liked your first album. Could you make some
<v Speaker 3>more hits for us, please?
<v Speaker 1>Exactly? And so this was this was going to be
<v Speaker 1>a make it to break it album for them, right,
<v Speaker 1>and so hey, let's call it munt Langer. Because Robert
<v Speaker 1>Thomas Baker, who had produced all of these first four albums,
<v Speaker 1>was not available.
<v Speaker 3>I got a story for you on that.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so, like you said, Robert Thomas Baker is not
<v Speaker 3>available to do Heartbeat City, which by the way, was
<v Speaker 3>originally titled Who's Going to Drive You Home? That was
<v Speaker 3>the I think we can figure out where that's where
<v Speaker 3>that's from. But so they interviewed producers and they almost
<v Speaker 3>settled on Steve Lilly White.
<v Speaker 1>Is the name ring a Beltie, Yes it does.
<v Speaker 3>So he did a lot with you too. Dave Matthews,
<v Speaker 3>he's a big Dave Matthews guy. He did Rolling Stones album,
<v Speaker 3>he did frieda go back to our Patreon episode on
<v Speaker 3>There's Something going On, but they instead chose Muttling because,
<v Speaker 3>my goodness, this guy did Back in Black, he did
<v Speaker 3>Highway to Hell. Of course, he did Pyromania in eighty three.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so that was the second album that he had
<v Speaker 1>done for def Leppard. He had done High and Dry,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, I mean he had done a bunch of albums,
<v Speaker 1>but he really kind of came into his own with
<v Speaker 1>Highway to Hell, which was the last ACDC album with
<v Speaker 1>Bond Scott, and then he did Back in Black, which
<v Speaker 1>I mean everybody was wondering what was going to happen
<v Speaker 1>bringing in Brian Johnson and then holy cow, let's blow
<v Speaker 1>the doors off a rock and roll.
<v Speaker 3>Let's sell a bazillion copy as while we're at it.
<v Speaker 1>He does four and four four and four Man that
<v Speaker 1>has some great songs on it, and then does High
<v Speaker 1>and Dry. He does Pyromania, and then he was gonna
<v Speaker 1>do Hysteria, but we talked about this in our Hysteria episode.
<v Speaker 1>He wasn't available because why Mutt.
<v Speaker 3>Lang was not available because he was busy doing Heartbeat City.
<v Speaker 1>There you go if you want to jump back to
<v Speaker 1>that one. They used another guy for a little while,
<v Speaker 1>Jim steinmon It did not go as they wanted it to,
<v Speaker 1>but that's all right. You go back and check out
<v Speaker 1>the def Leppard episode. We're not here to talk about that.
<v Speaker 1>But man, you hear this. I mean, he has built
<v Speaker 1>his own sound and you hear it, especially all over
<v Speaker 1>this first song.
<v Speaker 3>Gosh, there's so many layers and layers of noise and
<v Speaker 3>sound and music notes. It almost broke the band up,
<v Speaker 3>like they were so done with Mutt Lange. I don't
<v Speaker 3>think Rick ric Ocassick has said I never want to
<v Speaker 3>do an album like that again.
<v Speaker 1>They gave their body, they gave their best.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, they did. Benjamin Orr said it was the most
<v Speaker 3>precise album he's ever made. They traveled to London to
<v Speaker 3>make the album, and Rick Ocassik asked Mutt Lang, how
<v Speaker 3>long do you think this is gonna take? Man? Like
<v Speaker 3>where we were moved our whole lives to London. Mutt
<v Speaker 3>Lang says a couple months. What he really meant was
<v Speaker 3>as long as it takes.
<v Speaker 1>You know, he kind of gets a bad rap of
<v Speaker 1>being so meticulous about things. But you listen to guys
<v Speaker 1>who have you know, when we talked about Rick Allen
<v Speaker 1>waiting and waiting and waiting to play some drums and
<v Speaker 1>then he's like, okay, Rick, hit the high hat for us,
<v Speaker 1>and Rick's like pop and he's like, okay, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>quite getting the sound. Wait. Wait, Rick's finally like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>as the drummer, maybe I can help, and He's like,
<v Speaker 1>I'll ask for your help when I need it, Rick,
<v Speaker 1>And so Rick chunks the drumsticks at him. Yeah. But
<v Speaker 1>you listen to an interview of Rick and he's like it.
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't that he was a task master, it was
<v Speaker 1>you wanted to be a better drummer because of him.
<v Speaker 1>He had this style and this technique. Brian Adams said
<v Speaker 1>the same thing. When he worked with him, it was
<v Speaker 1>like he drove him to be the best that he
<v Speaker 1>could be in a way that made him appreciate it.
<v Speaker 3>I remember the story. We talked about it when we
<v Speaker 3>did our Hysteria episode. The guys had gone to lunch.
<v Speaker 3>They came back and much like, hey, guys, listen to this,
<v Speaker 3>and he played him like thirty seconds of what he
<v Speaker 3>had put together on Rocket and they were blown away.
<v Speaker 3>And if you know, I mean, just look at his resume.
<v Speaker 3>Highway to Hell, Back in Black, High and Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria,
<v Speaker 3>Waking Up the Neighbors, Heartbeat City. These are a great
<v Speaker 3>selling albums. So the record company is going to be
<v Speaker 3>patient with Motley.
<v Speaker 1>Arguably the best producer of music in history. Someone has
<v Speaker 1>described him, and this is for you, buddy, as the
<v Speaker 1>James Cameron of music producers.
<v Speaker 3>Sweet I love it all right, Okay, before we go
<v Speaker 3>in for the we got to talk about the music
<v Speaker 3>video for this. Oh my gosh, it's nuts man, Yes,
<v Speaker 3>before we do that. Hello Again was the fourth single,
<v Speaker 3>released October fifteenth, nineteen eighty four. It reached number twenty.
<v Speaker 3>This is the fourth song off this album to be
<v Speaker 3>a top twenty hit. So the music video is directed
<v Speaker 3>by Andy Warhol. You have this weird PSA announcement at
<v Speaker 3>the very beginning where they got like teen beat talking
<v Speaker 3>about sex and violence and music videos like, oh my gosh,
<v Speaker 3>I see more sex and violence at high school than
<v Speaker 3>I do in music videos. It's really dumb. But you
<v Speaker 3>have a very young Gina gershawn in this music video
<v Speaker 3>showing you her tongue. She is tongue in the heck
<v Speaker 3>out of that guy which is more tonguey this or
<v Speaker 3>the karatey kid when they're at the golfing.
<v Speaker 1>Set or whatever.
<v Speaker 3>Gina Gershawan, who you might remember from Show Girls. I
<v Speaker 3>know you're gonna say, but Andy Warhol brings all of
<v Speaker 3>his weirdos into this music video. There's all these weird people.
<v Speaker 3>One girl named Diane Brill, she's rubbing her boobs all
<v Speaker 3>over everybody. And this other guy, his name is John Sex.
<v Speaker 1>He's got a snake.
<v Speaker 3>He's got a snake he's playing with. It's really a
<v Speaker 3>wild music video.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, So if you guys don't know who Andy
<v Speaker 1>Warhol is, he was one of the pre eminent pop
<v Speaker 1>artists of the sixties and seventies, and you can see
<v Speaker 1>his pop art weirdness all over this video. There is
<v Speaker 1>another pop artist that we need to talk about. His
<v Speaker 1>name is Peter Phillips. So, Peter Phillips was from England.
<v Speaker 1>He came over to the US saw what was going
<v Speaker 1>on with pop art there and was like, hey, I
<v Speaker 1>really like this. I'm going to do something with this.
<v Speaker 1>And one of the pieces of art that he created
<v Speaker 1>had a picture that Alberto Vargas had done of a
<v Speaker 1>pin up girl, Vargus girl, if you will, and it
<v Speaker 1>also had a nineteen seventy one plymouth duster on it.
<v Speaker 1>And so when the Cars were picking out their art
<v Speaker 1>for their album cover for Heartbeats, they said, hey, we
<v Speaker 1>like the Vargus girl. I mean they used one on
<v Speaker 1>candy O. We like the car because we're the Cars.
<v Speaker 1>How about we pick this piece of art by Peter
<v Speaker 1>Phillips And that is the cover. And this cover is
<v Speaker 1>freaking awesome. I love it. It's the style that and the
<v Speaker 1>makeup of the piece of art is fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>It's really cool. I love it too. By the way,
<v Speaker 3>have you ever seen the movie Hello Again with Shelley Long.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I actually saw it in the theater,
<v Speaker 1>and I think I forgot it after I walked out
<v Speaker 1>of the theater.
<v Speaker 3>Wow, that was what she left cheers for. Yeah, Gabriel
<v Speaker 3>Burns first movie.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>He said the experience almost caused him to walk away
<v Speaker 3>from movies. So not all movies from the agies were great?
<v Speaker 1>Right?
<v Speaker 3>All right?
<v Speaker 1>We done with this one, yep, all right?
<v Speaker 3>Song love it?
<v Speaker 1>Time to move on. Song number two, looking for Love? Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So Rick o'cassick tapping his inner lou Reid on this one.
<v Speaker 1>He's got all kinds of velvet underground tones on this one.
<v Speaker 3>I love it, okay, all right, this one sounds like
<v Speaker 3>it belongs in a John Hughes movie to me. Yeah
<v Speaker 3>for sure, you know that new way. I know John
<v Speaker 3>Hughes like new wave stuff. But this is like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>Sloan and Ferris kissing right before Faris starts running back
<v Speaker 3>home night.
<v Speaker 1>It's got that great kind of talkie verse to it,
<v Speaker 1>and then it comes into a very hooky chorus. Great
<v Speaker 1>great song, great makeup to have your perfect eighties song? Yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 3>Do you remember Austrian rock singer Falco of.
<v Speaker 1>Course, Amadeo's Almade's.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so you remember rock Mama Davis? Of course. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>let me play a song for you. This song is
<v Speaker 3>called Munich Girls.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, hey, does that sound familiar to you?
<v Speaker 1>I would like to keep the faith and kill the light.
<v Speaker 1>But Derek Carmer sar, that's a dagum stolen song right there.
<v Speaker 1>He even says, it's all right?
<v Speaker 3>What's it's like? A redo of looking for love?
<v Speaker 1>Did I mean did they ask for permission? Do we did?
<v Speaker 1>Did Falco go? Hey, that's my song?
<v Speaker 3>I mean I don't know the full story on it.
<v Speaker 3>I do know that this came out in nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 3>five on Falco three, which that's where Rock Mayamadas is on.
<v Speaker 1>Oh so Falco is the one that stole it from
<v Speaker 1>the Cars. Yes, oh see, I thought you were playing
<v Speaker 1>me like an old Falco No no, no, okay, okay,
<v Speaker 1>so Falco stole it?
<v Speaker 3>Yes, all right? Yeah, even does the sugar Sweet. This
<v Speaker 3>song is written by rick O ric Ocassick writes most
<v Speaker 3>of the stuff we probably should talk about. The members of.
<v Speaker 1>The band Yeah, so yes, ric Ocasik wrote all of
<v Speaker 1>the songs on this one, seven of them. Greg Hawks,
<v Speaker 1>who is the keyboardist, gets a co writing credit, So
<v Speaker 1>We have two lead singers in this band, Rick Ocassick
<v Speaker 1>and Benjamin Orr. Yes, Rick Ocassick also plays rhythm guitar.
<v Speaker 1>Benjamin Orr also plays the bass. Greg Hawks, as I said,
<v Speaker 1>was on keyboards. You have David Robinson on drums and
<v Speaker 1>drum programming a lot for this particular album, right, and
<v Speaker 1>then you have their lead guitarist, Elliott Easton, who underrated guitarist.
<v Speaker 1>He's a fantastic rock guitarist who kind of gets overlooked
<v Speaker 1>because he's in this new wave sounding band. When you
<v Speaker 1>get so much you get heavy keyboards and heavy programmed drums,
<v Speaker 1>people don't really pay attention to how good some of
<v Speaker 1>these leads are, and they are incredible.
<v Speaker 3>Ric Ocassick started writing songs at age ten.
<v Speaker 1>So here's here's here's a tidbit. Ricu Kassick's dad was
<v Speaker 1>a systems analysis with NASA. What yeah, like like you know,
<v Speaker 1>he was the it guy back when before you know,
<v Speaker 1>computers were simple things. He was. He was a computer
<v Speaker 1>for Runner. If you will, I wonder if you knew
<v Speaker 1>Jack Blake's mom, right, you know who knows? Maybe?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so how did these guys get together?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? So Ocassick when he was a kid writing songs.
<v Speaker 1>Happens to see Benjamin Orr as a house band on
<v Speaker 1>this TV show A Beat. Yeah, I think it was
<v Speaker 1>also called like the Big Five Show. But Benjamin Orr
<v Speaker 1>had a band called the Grasshoppers, and they were the
<v Speaker 1>house band for this show. Right, it's like a local
<v Speaker 1>broadcast kind of show. And so they meet each other
<v Speaker 1>in Cleveland and then they do other bands and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, we didn't mention that Benjamin Orr's last
<v Speaker 1>name is not really or it is Orzi Showski, which
<v Speaker 1>is easy for me to say. When he was a kid,
<v Speaker 1>his friends used to call him Bennie eleven letters.
<v Speaker 3>I love it so funny.
<v Speaker 1>He By the way, his mom was not a scientist, Vanessa,
<v Speaker 1>but she was a devout Byzantine right Catholic and she
<v Speaker 1>would not let him drive his car until the local
<v Speaker 1>clergy blessed the car.
<v Speaker 3>So who would drive him home?
<v Speaker 1>Nice? Thank you nice. So anyway, I'm sorry, let me.
<v Speaker 3>Get my that joke has thrown you off the set
<v Speaker 3>right there.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, right, right right. So Rick and Ben are
<v Speaker 1>in various bands. They both moved to Boston in the
<v Speaker 1>early seventies and they formed this band called Milkwood. They
<v Speaker 1>put out an album, but it fails to chart. Next
<v Speaker 1>group that they put together is called Richard and the
<v Speaker 1>Rabbits and that's when they get joined by Greg Hawks
<v Speaker 1>on keyboards. Now Greg has to leave because this big
<v Speaker 1>band on him to come tour with them. Big band
<v Speaker 1>is Martin Mull and his fabulous furniture. Like mister mom,
<v Speaker 1>Martin Ull, like one, whatever it takes that Martin Moull. Yes, whoa, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so I guess he. I mean Martin was an accomplished musician,
<v Speaker 1>but he had a comedy act that involved a band.
<v Speaker 1>It was a musical comedy act, and so he had
<v Speaker 1>a touring band. He went on tour with the band,
<v Speaker 1>and Greg Hawks was the keyboarders for that.
<v Speaker 3>Nugget right there. Man, Yeah, I did not come across that.
<v Speaker 1>So then Rick and Ben formed this band called okasikan
<v Speaker 1>Ore and it's like them playing acoustic guitar at the
<v Speaker 1>local Idler coffeehouse there in Cambridge.
<v Speaker 3>Saw a picture. Rick's mustache was pretty pretty amazing.
<v Speaker 1>At that time. Was it a real mustache or It's
<v Speaker 1>a good question, so tell me why.
<v Speaker 3>Well, because rumor has is that he has alopecia and
<v Speaker 3>that he is completely bald. I do know, like it's
<v Speaker 3>been verified in my MTV book over here that recocassicks
<v Speaker 3>a wig all the time.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, Well they don't only do the you know, Simon
<v Speaker 1>and garfunkl acoustic duo. They form another band after they
<v Speaker 1>meet Elliott Easton, and the band is called cap'n Swing.
<v Speaker 1>Captain Swing, not Captain Swing, but cap'n Swing like cap'n Crunch,
<v Speaker 1>You got it. They make a demo tape. It's like
<v Speaker 1>a two track demo tape, but it's got some of
<v Speaker 1>the songs that they came up while they were doing
<v Speaker 1>came up with while they were their duo, which ended
<v Speaker 1>up being on the Car's debut album.
<v Speaker 3>Six their their classic rock classics YEP.
<v Speaker 1>And they catch the ear of a local DJ there
<v Speaker 1>in Boston named Maxine Satori, and she loves cap'n Swing
<v Speaker 1>and so she starts playing some of these songs on
<v Speaker 1>the radio, which is kind of unheard of, and so
<v Speaker 1>that catches the attention of record companies. Electra Records is
<v Speaker 1>the one they end up signing with, and then this beautiful,
<v Speaker 1>beautiful thing happens. Electra Records says to Roy Thomas Baker, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>this band's pretty good. You should go check them out. Well,
<v Speaker 1>they're playing at a high school gymnasium, like that's where
<v Speaker 1>they are in their career, right, And there's a snowstorm
<v Speaker 1>going on, like a blizzard going on, and like thirty
<v Speaker 1>people show up to this concert. But Roy Thomas Baker
<v Speaker 1>pushes through, drives through the snow, watches them play, and
<v Speaker 1>that night he says, let's make an album. Wow. Now,
<v Speaker 1>if you don't know who Roy Thomas Baker is, he's
<v Speaker 1>the guy that produced Queen's first five albums, just say
<v Speaker 1>Bohemian Rhapsodies, and you know what kind of chops this
<v Speaker 1>guy has, right, And he shows up and says to
<v Speaker 1>the cars, let's make an album. Wow, that's incredible. A
<v Speaker 1>few days later, they're flying to London. They have plenty
<v Speaker 1>of songs in their arsenal because they've been playing for
<v Speaker 1>a while. By this time, Greg Hawks has started playing
<v Speaker 1>with him again into the tour with Martin mull. So
<v Speaker 1>they all fly out to London and in twelve days
<v Speaker 1>they create one of the greatest albums of the seventies.
<v Speaker 1>Twelve days, twelve days.
<v Speaker 3>But laying takes twelve days to get one verse of
<v Speaker 3>a song right.
<v Speaker 1>Can you play that chord again and again? Right?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right, let's move on to song number three.
<v Speaker 3>This song is called Magic.
<v Speaker 1>So I cannot hear this song without thinking about the video.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's I mean, it's played all the time on MTV.
<v Speaker 1>I think you know of this album. There are two
<v Speaker 1>videos that if you were raised in the eighties you
<v Speaker 1>think of. This is one of those two.
<v Speaker 3>They played this in the summer of eighty four. This
<v Speaker 3>was on Every fifth.
<v Speaker 1>Time Definition of Heavy Rotation. But it's great, it's funny.
<v Speaker 1>It's a funny video. You know where they shot it?
<v Speaker 3>I do know where they shot it.
<v Speaker 1>Tell me.
<v Speaker 3>So they shot this at the Hilton's house, like Paris
<v Speaker 3>Hilton's parents house.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I don't think Paris was born yet, but.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, she was at school.
<v Speaker 1>Shut up. How old is she?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, and she's.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, hold on, huh. Born in eighty one, so this
<v Speaker 1>is eighty four. She's three. So she's like at pre school,
<v Speaker 1>her nursery school.
<v Speaker 3>They're rich people, I mean, they do weird things. They
<v Speaker 3>send their kids off to pre school or whatever when
<v Speaker 3>she's three years old. Yeah, here's what I do know
<v Speaker 3>about this video. So it's it's a really cool video.
<v Speaker 3>Ricocastick is walking on the swimming pool like Jesus the
<v Speaker 3>entire time. It's really cool. And as a as a person,
<v Speaker 3>as a young kid watching this, I'm like, how did
<v Speaker 3>they accomplish this? Like, how did they do that? It's
<v Speaker 3>really cool effect. Well, it turns out it's a plexiglass shield, right,
<v Speaker 3>so he's walking around in this plexiglass thing. But so
<v Speaker 3>they had it all set up, they had the cameras ready,
<v Speaker 3>they had the actress ready, they had the lights ready. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>here we go. Take one. As soon as he steps
<v Speaker 3>on the plaxic glass shield, it breaks and he falls through.
<v Speaker 1>Oh gosh, was he hurt?
<v Speaker 5>No?
<v Speaker 3>Just first take breaks, the whole thing breaks. They've got
<v Speaker 3>a like change his clothes, restart, like delayed the whole thing, Like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>somebody grabbed Rick's wig.
<v Speaker 1>You get a dry wig please.
<v Speaker 3>Here's the other thing. Do you know I sent you
<v Speaker 3>a video clip. I don't know if you remember this.
<v Speaker 3>It's been a little while. Okay, what movies closing scene
<v Speaker 3>was shot around this swimming pool?
<v Speaker 1>Closing scene Blind.
<v Speaker 3>Date with Bruce Willis and Kim Basis.
<v Speaker 1>I got you, yes one are your favorites? I still
<v Speaker 1>haven't seen that movie.
<v Speaker 3>Oh it's so good, so good. So yes. The Hilton
<v Speaker 3>Family Home nice. By the way. David Robinson, the drummer
<v Speaker 3>we talked about. His mother watched the video and she's like,
<v Speaker 3>why aren't you in a Dave. He's like, I am
<v Speaker 3>in it. She's like, I didn't see you. So he
<v Speaker 3>had to like record it on a VHS dape, pause
<v Speaker 3>it and say see this guy right here barely off screen.
<v Speaker 3>That's me.
<v Speaker 1>Well the I mean, if you remember the video, like
<v Speaker 1>the pool is surrounded by all these wacko characters, right yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and then they're all like kind of marveling in him
<v Speaker 1>walking on water, and toward the end of the video
<v Speaker 1>they're like you know, Peter, They're like, oh, I'll come out,
<v Speaker 1>and they just go right in.
<v Speaker 3>Drop in that's right.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm like, well, how do they fall in? And
<v Speaker 1>he didn't fall in? You know what it was? What magic?
<v Speaker 3>That's right. Yeah, this video has the feel of some
<v Speaker 3>of those early davidly Roth videos. Yeah, you know the
<v Speaker 3>goofy not in my story, you don't, you.
<v Speaker 1>Know, right right, it's if you saw weird you know,
<v Speaker 1>the weird Al Yankovic story. It's very much like the
<v Speaker 1>Pool Party. It's it's kind of a cross between It's
<v Speaker 1>kind of a cross between the Boogie Night's Pool Party
<v Speaker 1>and the Car's video for Magic. Right.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So this was the second single released May seventh,
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty four. Yep, right around my twelfth birthday. It
<v Speaker 3>reached number twelve on the Hot one hundred. Okay, please
<v Speaker 3>tell me I got it?
<v Speaker 1>I got right, all right?
<v Speaker 3>So, and this is a who's who because summer of
<v Speaker 3>eighty four was packed with great music, right yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it's my contention. This is one of the best songs
<v Speaker 3>of nineteen eighty four. In fact, I had it on
<v Speaker 3>my list, but we marked it off because we knew
<v Speaker 3>we were doing Heartbeat City Gotcha?
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Number twelve is Magic. Number eleven is Let's Hear.
<v Speaker 1>It for the Boy, right off a foot Loose Gotcha.
<v Speaker 1>Number ten is legs zz Top covered It yep. Number
<v Speaker 1>nine is hard a rock and roll here we loosened
<v Speaker 1>the News covered it. Number eight is almost Paradise, also
<v Speaker 1>off of Footloose covered It.
<v Speaker 3>Number seven Time after Time by Cydey Lauper.
<v Speaker 1>That is a big hitter that we have not yet,
<v Speaker 1>right Yeah, Her and Madonna probably need to do a comparison.
<v Speaker 2>We do.
<v Speaker 3>We do Number six Eyes without a Face.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, Billy Idle just got done with that one, compared
<v Speaker 1>it to zz Top. That's right.
<v Speaker 3>Number five the Reflex Duran Duran.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, we talked about that one at least, and we
<v Speaker 1>didn't cover I mean, that was on a different album.
<v Speaker 1>But that's one of my favorite Duran durand songs.
<v Speaker 3>Number four self Control by Laura Brannigan.
<v Speaker 1>That was on my top. That was on my list
<v Speaker 1>on Best of eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Number three Jump for my Love Sister.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Number two Dancing in the Dark.
<v Speaker 1>Bruce Springsteen covered it next to Huey Lewis, Keep Going,
<v Speaker 1>Keep Going.
<v Speaker 3>Number one Windows Cry.
<v Speaker 1>Oh of course I was waiting for Prince. I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>where the heck is Prince? Yep, there he is?
<v Speaker 3>There you go, Okay, love it one of my favorite
<v Speaker 3>songs I did. This is probably my favorite song in
<v Speaker 3>the entire album.
<v Speaker 1>Really, I love it. Yeah, it is a great It
<v Speaker 1>is a great tune.
<v Speaker 3>Darts for that in my eyes Love Darts in my eyes. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>we ready to go for like maybe the biggest hitter
<v Speaker 3>of all.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's time.
<v Speaker 3>The song is called Drive.
<v Speaker 1>I want to listen to the whole song. That so good, right,
<v Speaker 1>and we got a nice change up. We've had these
<v Speaker 1>new wave poppy hits, we've had Rick singing and then
<v Speaker 1>you come in with Benjamin or I mean forgive me.
<v Speaker 1>But whenever you had to differentiate between the two singers,
<v Speaker 1>you said, you know, there was the ugly one and
<v Speaker 1>the good looking one. Right, Yeah, yeah, I'm and he's
<v Speaker 1>got and he's got a beautiful voice. And in the
<v Speaker 1>interviews that I mean, he doesn't seem to have a
<v Speaker 1>big hit, you know, even though he's he's a good
<v Speaker 1>looking guy who's got this amazing voice. And this song
<v Speaker 1>is I mean, if you had to play a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of car songs, my kids would be able to identify
<v Speaker 1>this one. They were like, they would know this shirt.
<v Speaker 3>This is the one, right.
<v Speaker 2>Who's gone?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it has the lasting power these There are
<v Speaker 1>so many great songs on this one, but this one
<v Speaker 1>has stood the test of time from generation to generation.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So the cool story on this is that Rick
<v Speaker 3>UKs wrote this song in like nineteen eighty two. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>he o it and was gonna include it on his
<v Speaker 3>solo album. I mean when he took it, he knew
<v Speaker 3>this is the best song I've ever written, but he
<v Speaker 3>looked at it and he said, I think Benjamin Or
<v Speaker 3>can sing this better than I can. Yeah, so he
<v Speaker 3>held it for the next Cars album.
<v Speaker 1>It's it is truly the right decisions, as sacrificial as
<v Speaker 1>it was the right decision for him to make, because
<v Speaker 1>I heard Rico Cassick singing this song like I heard
<v Speaker 1>that version. Yeah, and it's there. He's got the tune,
<v Speaker 1>but there's just something about Benjamin Orr's voice that makes
<v Speaker 1>this song melt your heart.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So we got to listen to the demo. Let's
<v Speaker 3>listen to it, and without that magic mutt ling touch.
<v Speaker 2>You can't go on thinking nothingntroll.
<v Speaker 1>There nothing compared to the final product, that's right.
<v Speaker 3>So this was the third single released July twenty third,
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty four, reached number three on the charts.
<v Speaker 1>This is their highest charting song. Yeah, we are talking
<v Speaker 1>about a band that was an icon from seventy eight
<v Speaker 1>to eighty eight, right Rocketbell Hall years they never had
<v Speaker 1>a number one hit. What is wrong with the world?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So let me let me tell you what blocked
<v Speaker 3>this song from number one? Okay. So on September twenty ninth,
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty four, you had Missing You by John Wade
<v Speaker 3>at number two, Son of a Bitch, the biggest weenie song.
<v Speaker 2>Of the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, I mean that he came up when
<v Speaker 1>we talked about Journey.
<v Speaker 3>And then number one was Let's Go Crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Well, stupid Prince ruled that year with that song. So good,
<v Speaker 1>but at least they could have gotten a number two. Right.
<v Speaker 3>Then the next week number two song is I Just
<v Speaker 3>Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder.
<v Speaker 1>Listen, I like that song and I know I like
<v Speaker 1>it more than you do because you hate Stevie Wonder.
<v Speaker 3>Right, second biggest wienie song of the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>But this song's better than that song, Okay.
<v Speaker 3>And that week number one was Let's Go Crazy. And
<v Speaker 3>then finally the third week at number three was Let's
<v Speaker 3>Go Crazy at number two, and I Just Called to
<v Speaker 3>Say I Love You.
<v Speaker 1>At number one.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, wow, that sucks crazy. So you know who is
<v Speaker 3>a big, big fan of this song. Paul McCartney.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, okay.
<v Speaker 3>Paul McCartney cited this song as an influence for the
<v Speaker 3>upcoming album he was writing.
<v Speaker 1>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>I mean when one of the Beatles says I listened
<v Speaker 3>to Let's Dance by David Bowie and drive by the Cars,
<v Speaker 3>and I knew that's where I wanted to go.
<v Speaker 1>That's fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>This is the Designated Driver theme song. Have you heard?
<v Speaker 3>Have you heard the urban legends around this song?
<v Speaker 1>No?
<v Speaker 3>So supposedly their urban legend is that Rico Cassik met
<v Speaker 3>and was talking to a girl at a party.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yes, I have heard this. Yeah, I can't keep
<v Speaker 1>going mouse.
<v Speaker 3>She had too much to drink. He offered to drive
<v Speaker 3>her home, she said no, and she died in a
<v Speaker 3>car accident on the Whitehouse. I don't know if there's
<v Speaker 3>any truth to it, but it makes a great urban legend.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna say, I think the version that I
<v Speaker 1>heard was that the girl had the boyfriend, and the
<v Speaker 1>boyfriend was too drunk and he was trying to talk
<v Speaker 1>her out of writing home with the boyfriend. Oh okay,
<v Speaker 1>as the version of the story that I heard. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>But as you pointed out, this is really just an
<v Speaker 1>urban legend, like he's he's just he's made up a
<v Speaker 1>song because he's a creative artist. That's what they do, right.
<v Speaker 1>But I said earlier, if you think of one of
<v Speaker 1>two songs, the video of one or two songs, but
<v Speaker 1>this video is pretty freaking memorable as well.
<v Speaker 3>Well, we got to talk about Paulina Proskovit at this point,
<v Speaker 3>don't we.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, absolutely so. The video, if you'll remember, it's got
<v Speaker 1>this beautiful woman in it. She's only nineteen years old. Ah,
<v Speaker 1>and she was one of like one of two people. Now,
<v Speaker 1>she had already fallen in love with ric Ocassik from
<v Speaker 1>prior videos, but she didn't know who he was. She
<v Speaker 1>didn't know that he was in the cars. She just
<v Speaker 1>knew of this guy and was in love with him.
<v Speaker 1>She gets the part, and all of her scenes are
<v Speaker 1>with him. Benjamin Or is sitting in a chair singing
<v Speaker 1>the song. She is face to face with ric Ocassick.
<v Speaker 3>You're telling me that one of the Haws girls in
<v Speaker 3>the eighties is in love with a guy that looks
<v Speaker 3>like an upside down exclamation point.
<v Speaker 1>We could call it the Billy Joel effect if you'd like.
<v Speaker 1>That's it. That's it. Yeah, she had totally fallen for
<v Speaker 1>him before she even got the part in the video,
<v Speaker 1>and it was just dumb luck. Now, as it turns out,
<v Speaker 1>they started dating and they got married, and they were
<v Speaker 1>married for over thirty years. Tragically, they were in the
<v Speaker 1>middle of a divorce in twenty nineteen when Rick passed away.
<v Speaker 1>What made that even more tragic was after thirty years,
<v Speaker 1>he said, she gets nothing because she abandoned me. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Back to this video. Yeah, I watched this again. I'm like, holy,
<v Speaker 1>I called you up. I'm like, dude, I don't know
<v Speaker 1>why she didn't do more in the acting world, but
<v Speaker 1>she is amazing. I mean, she's playing somebody who obviously
<v Speaker 1>has some mental health issues that she's dealing with, some
<v Speaker 1>strong emotional issues. But there is a scene where she
<v Speaker 1>transitions from one emotion to another emotion to another emotion
<v Speaker 1>that she is dealing with some big, heavy stuff, crying, laughing,
<v Speaker 1>all this thing, and it'll she does such a good job.
<v Speaker 1>It'll tell her your heart open. I mean, it's amazing
<v Speaker 1>what she does. Wow.
<v Speaker 3>Now, before we get into her, Yeah, I gotta tell
<v Speaker 3>you the story behind the director of this music video. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I called you up, and I'm like, you know who
<v Speaker 3>directed this? Timothy Hutton from Taps from Taps and Turk
<v Speaker 3>one eighty two, Yeah, and a million other things.
<v Speaker 1>In the eighties.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he lived next door to the car's manager his
<v Speaker 3>name was Elliott Roberts, and they were hanging out and
<v Speaker 3>Elliott Roberts brought over like an early edition of Heartbeat City.
<v Speaker 3>I was like, here, let me play the New Cars
<v Speaker 3>album for you. See what you think. And Timothy Hutton
<v Speaker 3>really zoned in on Drive. He said, man, that is
<v Speaker 3>a great song right there. In fact, you really need
<v Speaker 3>to make a music video. And if you're gonna make
<v Speaker 3>a music video, here's what I would do. I would
<v Speaker 3>do in black and white, and I would have the guys,
<v Speaker 3>you know, sitting in chair or whatever, and he like,
<v Speaker 3>cast this vision on the video. The manager of the
<v Speaker 3>Cars is like, I'm gonna tell Rick Okasik your ideas
<v Speaker 3>and if it's okay with him, I'd like you to
<v Speaker 3>direct this music video. So he goes to Rick. Rick's like, hey, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>let's do this. So Timothy Hutton, star of Turk one
<v Speaker 3>eighty two, is the director of this music video.
<v Speaker 1>If not for Timothy Hutton, Paulina Porskova and Ricukassik might
<v Speaker 1>never have met.
<v Speaker 3>How about that?
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy.
<v Speaker 3>So we've got to talk just a touch about Pauline Porskova.
<v Speaker 3>She was born in nineteen sixty five to Anti Soviet
<v Speaker 3>dissident parents, okay, which essentially they were living in Czechoslovakia.
<v Speaker 3>They had spoken out against the Soviet Union. Well, the
<v Speaker 3>Soviets invade and they've got to run for their lives,
<v Speaker 3>Like they escape to Sweden. They leave her with.
<v Speaker 1>Her grandmother in Czechoslovakia.
<v Speaker 3>In Czechoslovakia, okay, okay, this is the Warsaw packed invasion.
<v Speaker 3>They moved to Sweden and they expect, you know, she'll
<v Speaker 3>be coming along shortly. Well, they don't let her go.
<v Speaker 3>The Soviets are like, no, she's staying. So when she
<v Speaker 3>was seven, her pregnant mother sneaks back into the country
<v Speaker 3>to rescue her and like bring her out of Czechoslovakia. Well,
<v Speaker 3>they found her, captured her placed her under arrest. But
<v Speaker 3>because there is so much like political pressure, they actually
<v Speaker 3>let Paulina go with her mom. Oh my gosh, how
<v Speaker 3>about that.
<v Speaker 1>That is a heck of a story.
<v Speaker 3>When she's thirteen, a friend who wants to be a
<v Speaker 3>makeup artist says, you're kind of pretty. Could I try
<v Speaker 3>out You're kind of pretty? You're kind of pretty? Could
<v Speaker 3>I try out my makeup styles on you and take
<v Speaker 3>photographs of you? And so the friend makes her up,
<v Speaker 3>takes photos, sends it to a model aid agency hoping
<v Speaker 3>to get hired as a photographer, and they're like, who's
<v Speaker 3>the girl in the pictures? And so she was discovered
<v Speaker 3>by John Casablancas. She goes on to be on the
<v Speaker 3>covers of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 3>four and nineteen eighty five at age eighteen and nineteen,
<v Speaker 3>and goes on to be the highest paid model of
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty eight six million dollars.
<v Speaker 1>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>Married ric Ocassic in nineteen eighty nine, had two sons.
<v Speaker 3>How about that crazy?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? That brings us to track number five. This one's
<v Speaker 1>called Stranger Eyes. Okay, So you start off with this
<v Speaker 1>almost Debo esque whistley kind of synth lead right, a flute, Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's you got to get the whosh sound like you're
<v Speaker 1>blowing into something, right, Greg Hawkstudent, which is one type
<v Speaker 1>of music. Then Elliott Easton comes in with this almost
<v Speaker 1>like golden earring style of lead guitar riff, which I
<v Speaker 1>don't know how you put those two things together and
<v Speaker 1>get this song, but this was a this was a
<v Speaker 1>discovery for me. I had not heard this song before.
<v Speaker 1>I really like it, like this, this was a nice
<v Speaker 1>little oh kind of dig this and then he starts singing.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, Okay, this is kind of cool, and then
<v Speaker 1>the chorus comes in. Dude, this is a really kick
<v Speaker 1>butt song. I'm surprised this was not on the singles chart,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I mean, why didn't they throw this one
<v Speaker 1>out there as a single?
<v Speaker 3>Well, I'll tell you I like it too. I think
<v Speaker 3>it's great. I love the chorus on this. There's an
<v Speaker 3>urgency to the beat of this. This was the song
<v Speaker 3>that they attached to the earliest versions of the trailers
<v Speaker 3>for Top Gun.
<v Speaker 1>Oh it's perfect for that. It is perfect for that.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 3>They didn't have danger Zone ready, they didn't have to
<v Speaker 3>take my breath away. None of that stuff was ready.
<v Speaker 3>So they had to pick a song, and they're like,
<v Speaker 3>how about Stranger Eyes for by the Cars?
<v Speaker 1>Fantastic?
<v Speaker 5>I love it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay.
<v Speaker 3>I was gonna tell you, I got this great quote
<v Speaker 3>from Vernon Reed, Vernon Reid of Living Color, Yes, of
<v Speaker 3>Living Color, Okay, and he was talking about the videos
<v Speaker 3>for the cars.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Okay, So this.
<v Speaker 3>Is what he said, if you weren't beautiful and hip.
<v Speaker 3>You had to be quirky in some particular way. In
<v Speaker 3>those cars videos. Rick is just too tall, too thin.
<v Speaker 3>That was the hook. He was a gangly scarecrow with
<v Speaker 3>great tunes.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. That nails it. That nails it.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, very memorable face. Okay, So let's talk about Benjamin
<v Speaker 3>Or for just a second. Yeah, I believe he is
<v Speaker 3>the singer on this song.
<v Speaker 1>It sounds like him. I mean, it is difficult to
<v Speaker 1>tell their voices apart in certain songs, and this one
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't. He's not as melodic as he is in
<v Speaker 1>like Drive, But I believe that this is still. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I believe this is Benjamin Or.
<v Speaker 3>Actually, when I first heard this, I would have given
<v Speaker 3>my last paycheck that Mike Reno of Loverboys this song.
<v Speaker 3>But anyway, Benjamin Or aka Benny eleven Letters, in April
<v Speaker 3>of two thousand was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Yeah, but
<v Speaker 3>I mean he continued to sing and tour and.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah up until lay days before he died.
<v Speaker 3>He died October third, two thousand, at age fifty three.
<v Speaker 1>The day I turned there you go.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but he did have one big hit song in
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty seven called Stay the Night and Rick Ocassik
<v Speaker 3>wrote the song silver as an homage to him.
<v Speaker 1>Nice. There's a that it was nice. They got the
<v Speaker 1>band together for like one last interview where they kind
<v Speaker 1>of talked about the good old days and their career together.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, Ben, you can tell he's been fighting cancer.
<v Speaker 1>He's so thin and not look good. He did not
<v Speaker 1>look like his normal self. But and he didn't. He
<v Speaker 1>was not very vocal during the process. But it was
<v Speaker 1>nice to see them get together together again before the end.
<v Speaker 3>All right, hit stop in your tape player, kick it out,
<v Speaker 3>flip it over for side two. Let's kick it off
<v Speaker 3>with the first single.
<v Speaker 1>You might think, can we say perfect pop song?
<v Speaker 3>This is a great pop song.
<v Speaker 1>It I mean, this is kind of a throwback to
<v Speaker 1>what they were doing on their debut album. It's so
<v Speaker 1>hooky and then perfect for nineteen eighty four, they create
<v Speaker 1>one of the coolest videos of all time.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, the story here is really the video, right, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>one of the very first videos to use computer graphics.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>This video, I don't know if you know this or not,
<v Speaker 3>is based on a National Inquirer commercial.
<v Speaker 1>Has Wayne Newton split with his wife and hit the
<v Speaker 1>jack pop with his new romance inquiring minds.
<v Speaker 2>One, hold, I want to know.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's right, you told me about this.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, So they would do all these weird like Princess Diana.
<v Speaker 3>I was doing this and they'd have little cutouts and
<v Speaker 3>they'd it would move around the screen. The National inquirer
<v Speaker 3>is what gave them this idea?
<v Speaker 1>Right? Well, it gave the director of the video the idea, right, okay.
<v Speaker 3>So this music video was directed by Robin Sloane of
<v Speaker 3>Electro Records Creative after director Jeff Stein showed her samples
<v Speaker 3>from the New York based visual effects company Charlex.
<v Speaker 1>That's weird, okay, because, like I looked up the video,
<v Speaker 1>there are four different directors listed, including Jeff Stein Charlex,
<v Speaker 1>also including Alex Wheel and Charlie Levy, but no Robin Sloane.
<v Speaker 1>So I don't know why what's going on with IMDb
<v Speaker 1>on that deal, But I would think of all the
<v Speaker 1>videos in the world, this one you would have an
<v Speaker 1>accurate listing on director because this one video of the
<v Speaker 1>year in nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>Wait a minute, now, are you telling me this video
<v Speaker 3>beat thriller?
<v Speaker 1>Yes?
<v Speaker 3>And every breath you take yes and rocket yes. Yes.
<v Speaker 3>This one video of the year was the first MTV
<v Speaker 3>Music Awa winner.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they gave him the moon Man. Yeah, well I
<v Speaker 1>didn't even know were they moon Man at that point.
<v Speaker 3>In fact, I read a story that ric Ocassi used
<v Speaker 3>that Moonman as a doorstop.
<v Speaker 1>Well they didn't. They thought the idea for the video
<v Speaker 1>was stupid.
<v Speaker 3>Right, There's like King Kong and one guy's a dentist
<v Speaker 3>and he's drilling this. You know, the pretty girl is
<v Speaker 3>getting her teeth drilled. They're like singing and playing on
<v Speaker 3>a bar of soap. And when they brought this to
<v Speaker 3>the band, they're like, here's what we're gonna do. Guys.
<v Speaker 3>One guy said, why don't you just have us play
<v Speaker 3>on a turn in the toilet bit. This is one
<v Speaker 3>of the most memorable music videos of all time.
<v Speaker 1>It absolutely is and throw back to our Karate Kid
<v Speaker 1>episode was used as inspiration it and raising Arizona, primarily
<v Speaker 1>for the sweep the Leg video that William Zappacac director.
<v Speaker 3>Oh wow, hey, speaking of karate Kid, the actress in
<v Speaker 3>this music video, her name is Susan Gallagher.
<v Speaker 1>Yes and us off.
<v Speaker 3>Right Well, IMDb has her listed as being homeless Linn
<v Speaker 3>in Cobra Kai. That's right, and I'm like de do
<v Speaker 3>you know who that is? And you're like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>you know homeless Lynn.
<v Speaker 1>I'm started. I was like, I've gave you the mind
<v Speaker 1>blown thing, right, I was like, oh my gosh, I
<v Speaker 1>can't and I keep looking and I'm like, that doesn't
<v Speaker 1>really look like her and.
<v Speaker 3>All pretty ladies.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, So there is another Susan Gallagher who was
<v Speaker 1>in the video. She ended up marrying some big time
<v Speaker 1>MTV executive and you know, had a happy life being quiet.
<v Speaker 1>And the other Susan Gallagher, who's in Cobra Kai, didn't
<v Speaker 1>really start her career until later on. They're both kind
<v Speaker 1>of close to the same age. But yes, two different
<v Speaker 1>Susan Gallaghers.
<v Speaker 3>Screw you, IMDb for screwing that up. Okay, so this
<v Speaker 3>song only got to number seven.
<v Speaker 1>Please tell me you get another list, Okay.
<v Speaker 3>I do, so you might think is number seven? This
<v Speaker 3>is February of nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Number six is Loved Somebody by Rick Springfield.
<v Speaker 1>Really.
<v Speaker 3>Number five is missed Me Blind by Ultra Club. What
<v Speaker 3>number four is Hold Me Now by Thompson Twins.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I can go there.
<v Speaker 3>Number three is Footloose, Sure. Number two is Hello by
<v Speaker 3>Lionel Richie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's big.
<v Speaker 3>And number one maybe the best song of nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 3>four against all odds by Phil Collins. Shut up, I
<v Speaker 3>love that song.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, well yeah, like four of those seven
<v Speaker 1>need to have lost to that. That's right, that's terrible.
<v Speaker 3>You ever seen the movie The Sure Thing John Cusack,
<v Speaker 3>Daphne Zuniga. No, oh, it's so good. They featured this
<v Speaker 3>song in that in that movie.
<v Speaker 1>Oh awesome.
<v Speaker 3>All right, we're done with this one.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, great song, incredibly memorable video.
<v Speaker 3>I did want to tell you one last thing.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry, yeah.
<v Speaker 3>To the sun filled one last thing. There are two
<v Speaker 3>versions of this music video. Apparently it grows some people
<v Speaker 3>out when Rick Ocassick like removed his face and like
<v Speaker 3>water came out of it at the end, okay, and
<v Speaker 3>then like at the end they splat the fly and
<v Speaker 3>it says the end.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>So some of them end with the face pull off
<v Speaker 3>and some of them do not. Apparently that was upsetting
<v Speaker 3>to some people.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to take his face off. John wu was inspired.
<v Speaker 3>All right. Next song on the album is called It's
<v Speaker 3>not the Night.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, nice arpeggio beginning to this thing, but honestly, I'm
<v Speaker 1>a little bored. Really yeah, I like this one, well
<v Speaker 1>until the chorus.
<v Speaker 3>The.
<v Speaker 1>Arpeggio goes away and you get some and you get
<v Speaker 1>more of a rock to it, and so to me
<v Speaker 1>the song is I would be worried. As a kid,
<v Speaker 1>I would probably be like boring and skip it. If
<v Speaker 1>you hold out and you wait for the chorus on
<v Speaker 1>this one, you will be rewarded for your effort.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, okay, I like this song. It's good.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's not a big hit for a single, but
<v Speaker 1>it's good. Yeah. But I young nineteen eighties me would
<v Speaker 1>have called it a skipper, but today's me held out.
<v Speaker 1>I was grown up. I linkeded my attention span. I
<v Speaker 1>listened to the chorus. I'm like, Okay, this song has
<v Speaker 1>some promise to it. It kind of reminds me of
<v Speaker 1>a song a little bit, but rob reminds me of
<v Speaker 1>a song off of the debut album you know the
<v Speaker 1>Big Three that I already mentioned from the Cars?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Have you heard of a song called moving in stereo? Okay,
<v Speaker 1>play it for me. I will play it for you, sir,
<v Speaker 1>I will play it for it. Thank you, thank you,
<v Speaker 1>And I guarantee you're going to remember the song, but
<v Speaker 1>the question is will you remember where you remember it from?
<v Speaker 5>Okay, here it comes in.
<v Speaker 2>Except.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I recognize it, but I can't place it.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Well, I would say probably one hundred percent of
<v Speaker 1>our male listeners recognize it as well, and about half
<v Speaker 1>of them are in the same boat that you are.
<v Speaker 1>That they're like, where do I this?
<v Speaker 3>Rod?
<v Speaker 1>Dirty movie was I I'm about to blow your mind? Okay, okay.
<v Speaker 1>It involves a swimming pool and a red bikini and
<v Speaker 1>the most memorable dream sequence in early eighties music history
<v Speaker 1>with Miss Phoebe Cates.
<v Speaker 3>You're blowing my mind. There you go, Fast Times Origement High.
<v Speaker 1>You got it? Wow?
<v Speaker 3>Perfect.
<v Speaker 1>I have been sitting on that for this entire episode.
<v Speaker 1>I was so excited. It's just like, oh my gosh, she.
<v Speaker 3>Blew my mind.
<v Speaker 1>Good job, Yeah, good job.
<v Speaker 3>I want to talk for just a minute. The Cars
<v Speaker 3>broke up in nineteen eighty eight, goes on to be
<v Speaker 3>a record producer, and he takes what he learned from
<v Speaker 3>that mutt laning experience. I mean, he produces some big names.
<v Speaker 1>Listen to this list.
<v Speaker 3>He produces albums by Bad Religion, YEP, Guided by Voices, Suicide,
<v Speaker 3>Bad brains.
<v Speaker 1>Bro He produced No Doubt, We just who Just James
<v Speaker 1>Buckley sent us a video of them. The band is
<v Speaker 1>back together performing at twenty twenty four Coachella. Right, Gwen
<v Speaker 1>Stefani looks the same as she did back in the nineties.
<v Speaker 3>She's drinking from the same fountain of youth somewhere.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Tom Cruise is but.
<v Speaker 1>He produced Weezer like the Blue Album and the Green
<v Speaker 1>like the biggest Weezer albums of all About that.
<v Speaker 3>That is so cool. Okay, let's move on to the
<v Speaker 3>fifth single. This song is called why Can't I Have You?
<v Speaker 1>So this was the last single released in the US,
<v Speaker 1>but it was only the second to the last single
<v Speaker 1>released in Okay, that's right, Which is weird that they
<v Speaker 1>would release another single in the UK because even the
<v Speaker 1>band has said this, Basically, UK hates them, like their
<v Speaker 1>songs never do as well over there. Really Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>don't remember what the what the story was, but basically
<v Speaker 1>they didn't like them, which is also kind of weird
<v Speaker 1>because a lot of people think that the cars are
<v Speaker 1>from the UK. They just kind of, I guess, have
<v Speaker 1>a style or whatever that David Robinson influenced what their
<v Speaker 1>fashion style was like. Okay, and I guess it kind
<v Speaker 1>of brought a UK vibe, so I think a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people thought they were from the UK. Or maybe
<v Speaker 1>it's just because Ricocastack looks like a Chimney sweep.
<v Speaker 3>Jim Jimminy, Jimmy Jimmy, just Lord.
<v Speaker 2>Time to tell you my mind?
<v Speaker 3>So yeah. This was released January seventh, nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 3>This only reached number thirty three. I think this is
<v Speaker 3>a great song. I think this is single worthy. I
<v Speaker 3>think it's makeout worthy.
<v Speaker 1>That's what was gonna say if you were a deep
<v Speaker 1>dive cars fan. This was on the Makeout Mixtape of
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, but man, in eighty five, there's so much competition.
<v Speaker 3>I just want to roll through the top five. And again,
<v Speaker 3>this only made it to number thirty three. Yeah, number five,
<v Speaker 3>as we are the World, okay. Number four is lover
<v Speaker 3>Girl by Tina.
<v Speaker 1>Marie, which we talked about.
<v Speaker 3>Top Gun soundtrack.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, yeah, Tina Marie.
<v Speaker 3>Number three Can't Fight This Feeling by Ario Speedwagon.
<v Speaker 1>I was huge.
<v Speaker 3>My son's girlfriend, Gracie and her mom went and saw
<v Speaker 3>Ario Speedwagon the other night. Gracy and Tracy, Gracy and
<v Speaker 3>I told I asked Cracy the other day, I'm like,
<v Speaker 3>how were they She's like, they were awesome. They're like
<v Speaker 3>seventy years old, amazing, So apparently, are you Speedwagon's still
<v Speaker 3>worth going to see?
<v Speaker 1>Okay?
<v Speaker 3>Then number two Material Girl by Madonna, Yeah, and number
<v Speaker 3>one One More Night by Phil Collins. We're covering Phil
<v Speaker 3>Collins next summer. Okay, okay, I like this song. It's great.
<v Speaker 3>Move on to the next one. Okay, Okay, moving on
<v Speaker 3>to the next song. This song is called I Refuse.
<v Speaker 3>I like this one. I think the verses are better than.
<v Speaker 1>The chorus, though I do not like the chorus. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's a very nice melody on the verses that I
<v Speaker 1>do refuse. I mean, I think if you just pick
<v Speaker 1>some different words, it might be better. But it's just
<v Speaker 1>it's not pleasant to listen to.
<v Speaker 3>I don't like it, right, So it kind of loses
<v Speaker 3>its steam in the chorus. But this is the sound
<v Speaker 3>of the mid eighties. I can deafin see this as
<v Speaker 3>in the soundtrack of some domb eighties movie like Gotcha
<v Speaker 3>or Breaking All the Rules.
<v Speaker 1>Or Your Science. Yeah. Yeah, it is a bummer about
<v Speaker 1>the chorus on this one, because in all other respects
<v Speaker 1>it's good music, it's good sound, it's good fun. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but not my favorite. This is probably my least favorite
<v Speaker 1>song on the album. Okay.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think there's a skipper, but if there is, this.
<v Speaker 1>Might be it. Yeah, it might be it. So we
<v Speaker 1>kind of mentioned the members of the band. We didn't
<v Speaker 1>talk about how they got their name. Yeah, tell me so.
<v Speaker 1>The name came from David Robinson. Okay, Now, I thought
<v Speaker 1>maybe he was a car guy, right, and I did
<v Speaker 1>some research and just back in twenty twenty, he was
<v Speaker 1>actually on an episode of Chasing Classic Cars, which how
<v Speaker 1>appropriate is that? And they restore I'm not sure if
<v Speaker 1>it was a sixty nine or a seventy, but it
<v Speaker 1>was a de thomas O Mangusta. I showed you this car.
<v Speaker 1>It is bad, sweet, Yeah it is. It is like
<v Speaker 1>a seventies era Lamborghini slash Ferrari, cool lines. It's very
<v Speaker 1>much of spy hunter kind of car. I think he
<v Speaker 1>is into automotive stuff, but I don't know that that
<v Speaker 1>had anything to do with choosing the band name. Do
<v Speaker 1>you know the story on this?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So, as I understand it, they were looking for
<v Speaker 3>a name for the band. Yeah, and David Robson. Everybody
<v Speaker 3>came up with a list of four or five things,
<v Speaker 3>and he came up with the name The Cars. And
<v Speaker 3>they just kind of read through everybody's suggestions and they
<v Speaker 3>were like, Hm, the cars short, it's memorable, we like it,
<v Speaker 3>let's do it.
<v Speaker 1>Well, there you go. Sometimes it's it's just as simple
<v Speaker 1>as that, right, Yeah, so they you know, I mentioned
<v Speaker 1>that they had been Captain Swing before, but Rick Ocassick
<v Speaker 1>just felt like that most of the band was not
<v Speaker 1>the right fit for his music. I mean, he was
<v Speaker 1>writing all of the music and Benjamin Orr wasn't playing anything,
<v Speaker 1>he was just singing. But Rico Cassik fired, the drummer fired,
<v Speaker 1>the bass player, had ben Or takeover on bass, fired,
<v Speaker 1>the guitarist, brought in Ellie Eastman, and then that's how
<v Speaker 1>they became the new band that decided they needed the
<v Speaker 1>new name of the Cars.
<v Speaker 3>Hey. You know, they actually make a conscious effort to
<v Speaker 3>not include like car related things on their videos or
<v Speaker 3>make references everything.
<v Speaker 1>But drive. Well, think about I was gonna say they
<v Speaker 1>didn't have a car and drive. It was just the
<v Speaker 1>name of the song, right, Who's going to drive you home?
<v Speaker 3>There you go? Yeah, Okay, last song on the album.
<v Speaker 3>This song is called Heartbeat City.
<v Speaker 1>So the name of the song was originally Jackie, right,
<v Speaker 1>which seems like a more appropriate title to me.
<v Speaker 3>It's not as cool, but it's not as.
<v Speaker 1>Interesting, that's right. Heartbeat City is an interesting name, and
<v Speaker 1>I can see why they chose that as the album name.
<v Speaker 3>Ye, Jackie falls flat a little bit, a little bit, Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 3>I changed my answer. This is my skipper.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>This was the sixth single. This was released only in
<v Speaker 3>the UK. This doesn't really do a lot for me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean again, it's got it's got a polished
<v Speaker 1>sound to it, and it's got a good melody, but
<v Speaker 1>it is just kind of dry. Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Now, they performed four songs at Live eight.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you might think banger right, drive all time, huge, right,
<v Speaker 1>just what I needed in heartbeat City, right right? Well,
<v Speaker 1>I think that there is I think there are some
<v Speaker 1>people who enjoy this song. It's just not my bag
<v Speaker 1>man right now. We of course have the Mutt Laying
<v Speaker 1>sound on it. It's very clean, very precise, and we
<v Speaker 1>mentioned before that a lot of the guys who worked
<v Speaker 1>with Mutt, you know, even though he was very obsessive
<v Speaker 1>about how good the sound had to be they enjoyed
<v Speaker 1>working with him. I don't think that was the case
<v Speaker 1>for the.
<v Speaker 3>Cars, No, definitely not now as I understand it.
<v Speaker 1>They basically did most of the work with him, but
<v Speaker 1>finally just kind of had enough and they're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we're good. We're just going to take what we've got
<v Speaker 1>so far and head back home.
<v Speaker 3>I saw that too. That really kind of surprised me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so they've got I don't and I don't know
<v Speaker 1>where they end and ended up finishing the album City
<v Speaker 1>It was in New York City, okay, because they have
<v Speaker 1>their own studio. Like early on, like in nineteen eighty one,
<v Speaker 1>they bought a studio there in Boston is called Intermedia Studios,
<v Speaker 1>and it looked pretty cool, like they redid it and
<v Speaker 1>they did it the way they wanted it. Like I
<v Speaker 1>watched this old weird documentary that I sent you that
<v Speaker 1>was like Cars Drivers and Elliott Eastman, like Easton. I
<v Speaker 1>was like, was Elliott Easton the star of this movie? Right?
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, they'd go into great detail about how they
<v Speaker 1>built this studio, but the only Cars album that they
<v Speaker 1>recorded there was Shake It Up. So I think it
<v Speaker 1>ended up just being like a hangout place they would
<v Speaker 1>talk about, how, you know, like Iggy Pop would showup.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, hey, let's go over the studio and just
<v Speaker 1>they just sit around and play music and just have
<v Speaker 1>fun in this studio, which pretty cool idea, It is cool.
<v Speaker 1>But I guess they did not finish the album up
<v Speaker 1>in Boston. They finished it up in New York City.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, okay, it's time for final judgment.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my goodness, we're done with the album already. Now
<v Speaker 1>we have to decide is it this Heartbeat City or
<v Speaker 1>is it Reckless? By Brian Adams. Yes, okay, I told
<v Speaker 1>you when I knew that we were doing another mud
<v Speaker 1>laying album. I didn't want to just use my at yourbuds.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't just want to use my car stereo. I
<v Speaker 1>bought myself some over the ears noise canceling headphones, and
<v Speaker 1>it was worth the money to buy them. This is
<v Speaker 1>what I did when I listened to Pyromania for the
<v Speaker 1>first time, and it was worth it then as well.
<v Speaker 1>It's just I just pretended like it was nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>four and I just bought the album sticking this thing on,
<v Speaker 1>and my mind was blown. Like he makes so much
<v Speaker 1>use of stereo and panning and volume, and it is
<v Speaker 1>a pristine work of art. Okay, I love it. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I love so many of the songs on this album,
<v Speaker 1>but walking out the Door, I cannot overcome the rock
<v Speaker 1>beauty of Reckless Summer sixty nine. Run to You, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>just run to you. Just That's all I want to say,
<v Speaker 1>over and over is run to You and banger after
<v Speaker 1>banger after banger. There is not a skipper on that album.
<v Speaker 1>And it was an album that it wasn't very familiar
<v Speaker 1>with before we started doing this episode, and it could
<v Speaker 1>be different on it in any given day, but right now,
<v Speaker 1>as I'm sitting here, it's the winner for me. It's
<v Speaker 1>Reckless by Bryanos.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So I think I was the one who came
<v Speaker 3>up with this matchup. We were talking about what were
<v Speaker 3>we going to compare Reckless to. We talked about doing
<v Speaker 3>Phil Collins, we talked about doing some other things, and
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, you know, a album packed with hits from
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty four is really what we're looking for, and
<v Speaker 3>that was Heartbeat City. And I own this album and
<v Speaker 3>I love this album, and I love Mutt Lang. He's
<v Speaker 3>like James Cameron of album producers. So anything he does
<v Speaker 3>I love. There are no skippers on Heartbeat City. There
<v Speaker 3>are some that are less than others, but there's no skippers.
<v Speaker 3>There's no skippers on Reckless either. So the question then
<v Speaker 3>becomes what songs do.
<v Speaker 1>I like better?
<v Speaker 3>I would love to disagree with you, but I cannot.
<v Speaker 3>Reckless is the better album based on the sheer rock
<v Speaker 3>beauty that Reckless puts forth. However, the video game for
<v Speaker 3>the cars is much stronger. The videos for you might think,
<v Speaker 3>and Magic and Hello Again are better really than anything
<v Speaker 3>anything Brian as put out. True, he didn't concentrate on
<v Speaker 3>music videos. He concentrated on the songs, and that's fine.
<v Speaker 3>The songs are better, but the cars videos are much better.
<v Speaker 3>That's where I come down.
<v Speaker 1>Wow. So this is one of those few times where
<v Speaker 1>we're in agreement.
<v Speaker 2>Age.
<v Speaker 1>They seem to be happening more and more of these days.
<v Speaker 1>Baker streeted this one again. We ran together. Well, guys,
<v Speaker 1>tell us what you think. Hit us up on Twitter
<v Speaker 1>or x or whatever it is now at Shirley Podcast,
<v Speaker 1>hit us up on Facebook, or you can email us
<v Speaker 1>simple email or remember Shirley Podcast Surely Surely Podcast at
<v Speaker 1>gmail dot com. We've had so many people emailing us
<v Speaker 1>and giving us ideas and thoughts. We had a great
<v Speaker 1>email from a guy named Chuck Bryan, who's now going
<v Speaker 1>to come co host an episode when we compare Phantom,
<v Speaker 1>Menace and Star Trek the Motion Picture as you know,
<v Speaker 1>a couple of well were these of swinging a miss?
<v Speaker 1>Or should you revisit these movies and take a look
<v Speaker 1>at them again?
<v Speaker 3>I want to know what our Canadian friends thought about
<v Speaker 3>Reckless versus Heartbeat City. So that's Cameron Eckert, That's Tim App,
<v Speaker 3>that's Atti Know, that's.
<v Speaker 1>Your buddy Chris Hancock. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Do you guys love Brian Adams as much as we
<v Speaker 3>think you do?
<v Speaker 1>Right? Right? Do we have any fans in Boston? I
<v Speaker 1>don't know anyway.
<v Speaker 3>Doug Huggins from Boston.
<v Speaker 1>There you go, Doug, what do you think of the
<v Speaker 1>cars Man?
<v Speaker 3>There you go? Okay, Next week we are diving into
<v Speaker 3>the best of nineteen eighty nine Top seven Songs of
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm just gonna tell you, I feel like there's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a lot of rock ballads going on, a
<v Speaker 1>lot of soft rock going on, a lot of love
<v Speaker 1>songs going on.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, definitely kind of the peak of hair metal, but
<v Speaker 3>a lot we had to eliminate from our list because
<v Speaker 3>we already covered him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, come back for that.
<v Speaker 3>It's gonna be a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I can't wait. Thank you guys so much. We
<v Speaker 1>will see you next week. It's the track team that's
<v Speaker 1>not even practicing anymore. They have texted no less than
<v Speaker 1>thirty nine times in the last five seconds. What the heck.