Wednesday, Dec 22, 2021 • 11min

A Look Back At 2021: Revelatory Moments in Classic Rock from Behind The Song

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Over the past year, the Behind The Song podcast has explored some of the most interesting backstories and lyrics in classic rock. From Tom Scholz’s fantastic caper in making Boston’s debut album to the accidental lyrics in Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” here’s a look back at the most revelatory moments in 2021’s lineup of Behind The Song episodes. Watch the video episode on the Behind The Song Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/2DBF4wJ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Janda Lane

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00:00

97.1 FM

The Drive presents the Behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda.

Janda Lane

00:11

Hey, it's Janda and this is a look-back into surprising moments over the past year, from Behind the Song episodes. Tidbits about the music and the history and the lyrics.

00:22

First up, from episode number seventy one, the accidental lyric in

Guns N' Roses'

Sweet Child O' Mine

, a song written by

Axl Rose

for his girlfriend at the time, Erin Everly. When the song ends with the line: ’Where do we go now? ’, we're left thinking that that's about wondering if the relationship will be able to sustain, as so many others in

Rose's

life hadn't. But it was partly, a studio accident.

00:50

When the band rehearsed and recorded it, at one point, the line came up as a real question, ’where do we go next’ within the context of this song as they were playing it. It's one of the happy accidents that makes rock songs so interesting. Similar to how the stutter in

BTO's

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

was also unplanned. That's rock and roll for you!

01:13

Next up, when I dove into the lyrics of Boston's ’Foreplay / Long Time’ and the incredible history of how Boston mastermind,

Tom Scholz

really pulled the wool over the record executives' eyes to make Boston's debut album sound like he wanted it to. A sleight-of-hand that he played with the producer, with drummer Jim Masdea and with singer

Brad Delp

. You told me that you loved this story.

01:38

The record label pressed

Scholz

to re-record the demos in a professional studio, which of course, did not sit well with

Scholz

He knew the amount of work that went into recording those songs and he was not too keen to record them any other way, especially under pressure from executives in an unfamiliar studio environment.

01:59

So, he came up with a plan to fool the executives. He and producer

John Boylan

sent the rest of the band to Los Angeles to make the record label think that they were all hard at work, re-recording the songs there; when in reality

Scholz

was toiling away at his own home studio in

Boston

, re-recording most of their debut album, playing all the instruments himself with the addition of Masdea who the label had fired, back on drums for the song, ’Rock and Roll Band’.

02:30

Scholz

and

Boylan

arranged to get the tapes to Los Angeles,

Delp

added the vocals in the studio that the label had booked there and

Boylan

mixed the album; all of which the executives that

Epic

were completely in the dark about. And of course

Scholz's

trick worked because Boston's debut album was one of the most successful and best-selling debuts in all of music history.

02:54

Next up, episode sixty was about

Stevie Nicks'

song

Leather And Lace

from her debut solo album

Bella Donna

. Lots of folks were surprised to learn that she originally wrote the song for someone else, a pretty famous country singer. It's hard now to imagine anyone else but

Stevie Nicks

and her one time boyfriend,

Don Henley

sharing verses on the song

Leather And Lace

. But that's not how the song started out

03:21

Waylon Jennings

, the outlaw country star who turned the Nashville music business on its year several times over during his long career with his resistance to what he considered to be the confining aspects of country music was a big fan of

Fleetwood Mac

and of

Stevie Nicks'

songwriting in particular.

03:39

In fact, back in 1978, he and

Willie Nelson

recorded a cover of

Gold Dust Woman

for the

Waylon & Willie

album, which was a number one album on the country charts for ten weeks, and it was not the first or the last time

Jennings

would reach into the rock world for song material.

Jennings

was at the height of his fame at this time and had previously asked

Nicks

to write a song for him that could be sung as a duet between he and his wife, the singer

Jessi Colter

04:07

Nicks

agreed and spent a lot of time putting together the lyrics for

Leather And Lace

as a duet between a man and a woman who were involved together and who were performers. A duet between singers and bands and how hard it can be to maintain relationships under the spotlight; a subject that

Nicks

knew all too well.

04:28

The song was written during her time dating

Don Henley

and finished with

Henley's

insistence that she keep at it and not give up on it according to

Nicks

. And by the time she did finish the song, a surprising thing had happened;

Jennings

and

Coulter

had split apart due in no small part to

Jennings'

well-publicized drug abuse. So,

Stevie Nicks

kept the song for herself and asked

Don Henley

to duet on her with her, and the rest, as they say, is history.

04:58

And speaking of

Don Henley

, lots of folks were surprised to find out that he didn't write

The Boys Of Summer

, and it was actually written by

Heartbreakers'

guitarist

Mike Campbell

and intended for

Tom Petty

to put lyrics on and sing. I got into that story in episode seventy three.

05:14

Campbell

put the music together for a demo and played the music for

Tom Petty

and producer

Jimmy Iovine

, and was discouraged when they both were underwhelmed with what they heard.

Iovine

suggested a change to the chords in the chorus to make the demo sound a bit more uplifting, which

Campbell

did. Little did he know that

Iovine

had something else in mind for the song.

05:35

And

Campbell

was surprised when he suggested that he should try to play it for

Don Henley

who was looking for songs for his new solo album. At the time,

Petty

was preparing songs for the

Heartbreakers

album ’Southern Accents’ and

Campbell

knowing that if

Petty

liked what he heard, he would have said so. So, he agreed to play the demo for

Don Henley

and he did at

Henley's

house. He left, not knowing if anything would happen with it, and was surprised to get a call later from

Henley

who told him that he had just written the best song of his life to the demo that

Campbell

had recorded.

06:11

When

The Boys of Summer

was released in the summer of 1984 as the lead single on the

Building the Perfect Beast

album, it went to number one and

Tom Petty,

reportedly, did regret passing on that song

06:24

And then there was episode number fifty eight, a deep dive into

Where The Streets Have No Name

, a fan favourite from

U2's

incredible album,

The Joshua Tree

. It wasn't a song that came about very easy and it almost drove producer

Brian Eno

crazy.

06:42

There are so many weird time changes, echo effects, impossible patterns and rhythmic couplings in

Where The Streets Have No Name

but it almost was destroyed.

Brian Eno

who co-produced it with

Daniel Lanois

was physically stopped from scrapping all of what he called the screwdriver takes, painstakingly recorded in parts and pieces by

Flood

and fellow engineer

Pat McCarthy

because

Eno

was so frustrated with it. And in a fit of almost madness, decided that it would be better just to start the whole thing fresh.

07:14

The story goes that

Pat McCarthy

caught

Eno

attempting to erase the takes when he came into the control room at

Windmill Lane Studios

in Dublin with a tray of tea. And then, seeing that spilled the entire tray on the floor in his effort to get, you know, to stop what he was doing. Over 40% of the total studio time spent on

The Joshua Tree

album was spent on getting this Song completed.

07:41

And speaking of producers, there was that moment when

Georgia

rockers

The Black Crowes

who at the time called themselves ’Mr. Crowe's Garden’ got into it with

Rick Rubin

, who suggested a name change for the band that really offended lead singer

Chris Robinson

. This moment is from the episode about the lyrics and history of

She Talks To Angels

. The subject of the band's name change is interesting.

08:07

The story goes that

Rick Rubin

did not like the band's original name and thought it would be provocative if they changed it to something that could be shortened to allude to an ugly side of the history of the band's home state.

Rubin

suggested they renamed themselves as ’Kobb Kounty Krowes’. Each word starting with a ’k’, which would then be shortened to ’KKK’, suggesting that the name would grab people's attention.

08:36

This did not sit well with ’The Brothers Robinson’ and

Chris Robinson

shot back that it would also get people's attention if the band beat

Rubin

up for even suggesting such a thing, fortunately

Rubin

back down and they eventually morphed into ’The Black Crowes’.

08:53

In episode sixty two, we learned a surprising fact about

Paul

and

Linda

McCartney's

’Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, a quirky little song from the

Ram

album, released in 1971. The second solo effort from

McCartney

, after The Beatles broke up. When the song ’Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ was released, it became

Paul McCartney's

first number one hit on the

Billboard

chart as a solo artist.

09:19

This wonderfully odd song that was described by some as an interesting hodgepodge of sounds and by others, including the writers at

Rolling Stone

, as virtually unlistenable, rose to number one. The song and this album represents some of

Paul McCartney's

most experimental work and at times, you feel like you're listening in on someone else's private conversation. It's that intimate. But, it struck a chord with fans and eventually, the critics had to agree;

Paul McCartney

had once again arrived.

09:51

And finally, from episode number sixty six, a deep dive into the lyrics and history of

Cheap Trick's

’Surrender’. Many fans were delighted to learn that ’April First’ holds special meaning for the band, the most famous band out of Rockford Illinois. And it's absolutely perfect that in 2007, the State of Illinois named ’April First (April Fool's Day)’ ’Cheap Trick Day’ in the state.

10:18

It could be no more fitting than a band that rose to stardom and raised our spirits with their incredible songs, live shows, be anointed on a day that speaks to their wonderful sense of humour as well. There are so many awesome moments in rock and roll history, so many things to learn and share.

10:36

Thank you for being a part of ’Behind the Song’ this year for listening to the episodes and commenting on them and sharing them around and for being a part of ’Behind the Song’ family. As always, special thanks to

Christian Lane

for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. I'm Janda and on the way, more episodes about the lyrics and history of classic rock and roll.

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