Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 422] Did the CIA Write “Wind of Change”? Songs That Changed the World with Andrew Clarke

Transcript

[EP 422] Did the CIA Write “Wind of Change”? Songs That Changed the World with Andrew Clarke · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: Scorpion's wind of change there's a really fascinating conspiracy theory
0:04
Speaker 1: that the cia may somehow have been behind the song
0:07
Speaker 1: as a form of cultural propaganda is there any credible
0:10
Speaker 1: evidence behind it we're.
0:14
Speaker 2: Totally booked rock and roll well i think i'll leave
0:17
Speaker 2: you to your reading little hand says it's time to
0:20
Speaker 2: rock and roll we are totally booked.
0:28
Speaker 1: Welcome back to booked on rock conversations with authors, musicians,
0:32
Speaker 1: and insiders revealing the stories behind classic rocks, greatest songs, albums,
0:37
Speaker 1: and artists. I'm Eric Senech. If you would like to
0:41
Speaker 1: get a great deal on some merchandise at old glory.com,
0:45
Speaker 1: make sure you use the promo code booked on rock,
0:48
Speaker 1: go to old glory.com. Look what they got there. A
0:50
Speaker 1: lot of great stuff, merchandise, t-shirts, hats, you name it.
0:53
Speaker 1: It's all there. 15% off when you use the code
0:56
Speaker 1: booked on rock. So you can, uh, Click the link
0:58
Speaker 1: in the show notes or visit bookdownrock.com and head to
1:01
Speaker 1: my deals. All right, now on to the show. Music
1:05
Speaker 1: has always had the power to do more than entertain.
1:09
Speaker 1: It can challenge ideas, give people a voice, and sometimes
1:13
Speaker 1: even inspire change. In his book, Songs That Changed the World,
1:17
Speaker 1: Andrew Clark explores the artists, songs, and movements from Billie
1:21
Speaker 1: Holiday and John Lennon to Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, and
1:24
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga. that helped shape generations and became the soundtrack
1:28
Speaker 1: to pivotal moments in history. Welcome to the podcast, Andrew.
1:32
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
1:33
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Eric. It's good to jump on
1:36
Speaker 2: board in America and have a bit of a chat.
1:38
Speaker 1: Let's start with the idea behind the book, because you
1:40
Speaker 1: say that the idea really began when the Sex Pistols documentary,
1:45
Speaker 1: The Filth and the Fury, made you realize that lyrics
1:49
Speaker 1: could be more than stories. They could actually become catalysts
1:52
Speaker 1: for change. Talk about why that film and how it
1:56
Speaker 1: made you understand things about music that you hadn't understood before.
1:59
Speaker 2: I think you've always paid attention to lyrics in songs
2:03
Speaker 2: and you always try to analyze them like what it means.
2:06
Speaker 2: But I think unless you're living in somewhere where something's happening,
2:09
Speaker 2: it's really hard to get a full grasp on why.
2:12
Speaker 2: So the Sex Pistols, you know, in 76, 77, they
2:14
Speaker 2: were confronting music. It was, you know, it was a violent,
2:18
Speaker 2: almost a violent anti-establishment type thing that was going on.
2:22
Speaker 2: And you sort of said, well, I love the sound
2:24
Speaker 2: of it. I love the music. I love the lyrics
2:26
Speaker 2: and things. But when I watched that documentary, it was like, hey,
2:29
Speaker 2: now I understand where they came from. Now I understand that,
2:32
Speaker 2: you know, when you're walking around and there's a garbage strike,
2:35
Speaker 2: I don't know, piles of garbage bags appear in houses.
2:38
Speaker 2: There's no employment for young people. There's no prospects around
2:41
Speaker 2: the board. That was this whole impetus to what happened.
2:45
Speaker 2: And they were out there singing, you know, God Save
2:47
Speaker 2: the Queen, the fascist regime. And all the people were
2:50
Speaker 2: starting to gravitate to it. Not all the people, but
2:52
Speaker 2: a bunch of young kids were saying, hang on, we
2:54
Speaker 2: understand this. We know what this is all about.
2:57
Speaker 3: And then it got them to ditch their typical English
3:00
Speaker 3: conservatism and become punks and to become outspoken rebels to
3:05
Speaker 3: find a cause to go and do something So to me,
3:09
Speaker 3: that was the enlightening thing.
3:10
Speaker 2: So watching the Julian Temple film, because he was just
3:14
Speaker 2: studying at university when he started filming the Sex Pistols.
3:17
Speaker 2: He walked past them in a laneway and heard them
3:22
Speaker 2: playing and went in and started filming. So it's got
3:24
Speaker 2: some great archival footage. But for me, it was to say,
3:27
Speaker 2: here's the reason, and then this is what happened. They
3:31
Speaker 2: actually did change the way people behaved and acted.
3:34
Speaker 1: You make an important distinction between a song changing the
3:37
Speaker 1: whole world and changing one particular community or part of
3:40
Speaker 1: the world. So how did you decide when a song's
3:43
Speaker 1: impact was significant enough to belong in the book?
3:46
Speaker 2: Well, that was really measuring what it did. So there
3:49
Speaker 2: are certain songs from Algeria and Tunisia and so forth,
3:53
Speaker 2: which I'd never heard of before. But then we go
3:56
Speaker 2: and research what they did. And when you're pleading to
3:59
Speaker 2: the president of your country to treat people with respect
4:01
Speaker 2: and not treat them like dogs, and people on the
4:05
Speaker 2: whole in that country start unifying behind it, you know
4:08
Speaker 2: you've made a big impact. And so it was trying
4:11
Speaker 2: to find all of those little pockets. And I'll guarantee
4:13
Speaker 2: there's another 200 songs out there like that that have
4:16
Speaker 2: done the same sort of thing, but we can't find
4:18
Speaker 2: everything necessarily. We only had 42 songs in the book anyway.
4:22
Speaker 2: So hopefully we get to do a second book, by
4:24
Speaker 2: the way, because I think there's some great stuff sitting there.
4:26
Speaker 1: You will be doing a second book?
4:27
Speaker 2: I hope so. I'd love to, yeah. Well, we've had
4:30
Speaker 2: a list of over 100 songs, and we cut it
4:32
Speaker 2: down to them. was going to be the top 40,
4:34
Speaker 2: because in Australia we always did the top 40 charts,
4:37
Speaker 2: not the Billboard 100, so we did the top 40.
4:40
Speaker 2: But it got too hard to get it down to
4:42
Speaker 2: that last 40, so we left an extra two songs
4:45
Speaker 2: with him. So Van Halen is one of the ones
4:47
Speaker 2: that would have been cut if we'd dropped it, so
4:49
Speaker 2: it's quite good to have kept it there. But yeah,
4:52
Speaker 2: so anyway, it was about measuring the change and the
4:54
Speaker 2: size or the nature of the change. And hopefully all
4:59
Speaker 2: of the books impacted positive change. I mean, there's plenty
5:02
Speaker 2: of songs that can create negativity in the world, but
5:04
Speaker 2: this was all about, yeah, Venom and moving society on
5:08
Speaker 2: and either doing that little ball where you are versus
5:13
Speaker 2: the entire world.
5:14
Speaker 1: 42 songs. So obviously we can't get to all of
5:17
Speaker 1: them here today. So what I did was pick out
5:19
Speaker 1: songs that lean a little more towards the rock side
5:22
Speaker 1: for our audience. And that's not to suggest that these
5:24
Speaker 1: songs are any more important than the others. They're a
5:26
Speaker 1: starting point basically for exploring the bigger story, which Andrew
5:30
Speaker 1: tells us, about how music can actually change the world.
5:33
Speaker 1: So let's start with Elvis Presley's Hound Dog from 1956.
5:37
Speaker 1: And you make the interesting argument here that Hound Dog
5:40
Speaker 1: didn't change the world because of its lyrics, but because
5:42
Speaker 1: of what Elvis did while performing it. What was it
5:46
Speaker 1: about that performance that made it such a cultural flashpoint
5:49
Speaker 1: that year?
5:49
Speaker 2: Well, for him, initially it was the blending of that
5:52
Speaker 2: gospel rock style and the blues type music that was popular.
5:58
Speaker 2: endemic in black America at the time. And this was
6:00
Speaker 2: a white boy singing like that. Um, but then you
6:03
Speaker 2: combine that, which was radical in itself, but you combine
6:06
Speaker 2: that with his dancing style and, uh, you know, Elvis,
6:09
Speaker 2: the pelvis and all those kind of, he's like, you know,
6:11
Speaker 2: one stage, the TV show, we're only allowed to film
6:13
Speaker 2: him from the waist up because they didn't like his
6:15
Speaker 2: pelvis thrusting. Um, and he said afterwards, yeah, it wasn't
6:19
Speaker 2: anything drunk trying to be suggestive. It's just the way
6:21
Speaker 2: his body moves when he listened to the songs that
6:23
Speaker 2: people perceive it in a certain way. Um, And certainly
6:27
Speaker 2: a lot of people loved it. His fandom amongst young
6:30
Speaker 2: females was massive. And they'd be standing there screaming. I
6:34
Speaker 2: think there's a photo in the book of him performing
6:36
Speaker 2: at a country fair. And there's women screaming out, trying
6:39
Speaker 2: to reach him and do all that sort of stuff.
6:41
Speaker 2: So his impact at that time was about a couple
6:44
Speaker 2: of things. One was the blaming of black music and
6:47
Speaker 2: white music. But it was the society that changed around
6:50
Speaker 2: him that all of a sudden we started to see
6:52
Speaker 2: that you can do these things. And you can perform
6:56
Speaker 2: the way you want to perform and still be okay,
6:58
Speaker 2: even if they do want to put you in jail
7:00
Speaker 2: for it.
7:01
Speaker 1: When the Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand reached
7:03
Speaker 1: America in 1963, the country was only weeks removed from
7:07
Speaker 1: the assassination of John F.
7:09
Speaker 2: Kennedy.
7:09
Speaker 1: How important was that timing? Did the Beatles provide a
7:13
Speaker 1: sense of excitement and optimism that young Americans were especially
7:16
Speaker 1: ready for at that moment?
7:18
Speaker 2: It was a perfect storm, wasn't it? I mean, America
7:20
Speaker 2: was in mourning, clearly, but the Beatles gave them something.
7:24
Speaker 2: the screaming nature of Beatlemania had such a massive impact.
7:30
Speaker 2: And obviously, I want to hold your hand. I mean, lyrically,
7:32
Speaker 2: it's not going to challenge anyone, is it? But, you know,
7:35
Speaker 2: it was their first big single in America. So the
7:37
Speaker 2: first time that they hit the charts and then they
7:39
Speaker 2: did that short tour, you know, with only short shows, but,
7:42
Speaker 2: you know, a... They kind of had this whole phenomenon
7:46
Speaker 2: happening around them. And that was one that was global.
7:49
Speaker 2: Like everywhere they went, it did the same thing. I mean,
7:51
Speaker 2: we've got a city here in Australia called Adelaide, which
7:54
Speaker 2: was at the time only 800,000 people, but 300,000 people
7:58
Speaker 2: hit the streets to just see the Beatles. Not to
8:01
Speaker 2: see them in concert, but to just see them. You know,
8:04
Speaker 2: so taking popular music and creating that mass fervour, I think,
8:08
Speaker 2: is why it obviously made the book. Yeah. But he'd say,
8:12
Speaker 2: at the time, you know, it was just the perfect
8:13
Speaker 2: thing for America when they landed. It was, you know,
8:16
Speaker 2: take us out of our misery and give us something special.
8:19
Speaker 1: As Bob Dylan sang, the times, they are a-changing. And
8:22
Speaker 1: that song is in the book, too, from 1964. Speaking
8:26
Speaker 1: directly to parents, politicians, and people in positions of authority,
8:30
Speaker 1: what made that generational challenge so powerful and potentially threatening
8:34
Speaker 1: at the same time?
8:35
Speaker 2: I think it was certainly threatening for those in power
8:37
Speaker 2: because it was– was trying to say that we're not
8:40
Speaker 2: doing a good job here. But the brilliance of that
8:43
Speaker 2: song is how pointed he is and how he's actually
8:46
Speaker 2: singing to those people and then naming them. They're politicians.
8:49
Speaker 2: All those people get named in their groups, not by
8:54
Speaker 2: their name, but as an entity. And you have to
8:57
Speaker 2: pay attention because they're changing. And if you don't change
9:00
Speaker 2: with us, we'll change underneath you and you won't know
9:02
Speaker 2: the world that you're going to have. So get on board.
9:05
Speaker 2: come and join in with us and be part of it.
9:08
Speaker 2: And it was just brilliantly pointed. And I mean, Bob
9:10
Speaker 2: Dylan could have filled the whole book in many ways.
9:12
Speaker 2: So we did have a limit of one song per artist.
9:16
Speaker 2: And it was either that or blowing in the wind
9:18
Speaker 2: for him, I think. But I just love the lyrical
9:21
Speaker 2: content and the poignancy of it and the very clear
9:24
Speaker 2: statement that was made.
9:26
Speaker 1: Creedence Clearwater Revival is in the book. Fortunate Son from 1969.
9:29
Speaker 1: There's a great irony that surrounds this song Here's a
9:33
Speaker 1: song criticizing flag-waving privilege. It's been repeatedly used as if
9:39
Speaker 1: it were a straightforward patriotic anthem. Why do you think
9:42
Speaker 1: its message has been misunderstood so often?
9:45
Speaker 2: I think only people who listen to it on a
9:47
Speaker 2: shallow basis would ever misunderstand it. I mean, the song
9:50
Speaker 2: is very strong about what it's believing and what it
9:53
Speaker 2: stands for. The story behind the writing of it, I mean,
9:55
Speaker 2: from John Fogarty, it started when he was a young
9:57
Speaker 2: kid watching you know, the Eisenhower inauguration was when the
10:01
Speaker 2: whole concept of privilege started. And then when Vietnam War
10:04
Speaker 2: and he saw, you know, people going off to war
10:07
Speaker 2: and the president, you know, the sons of senators and
10:10
Speaker 2: so forth weren't going. They were being protected. So, you know,
10:13
Speaker 2: hence the fortune of some part of it. But, you know,
10:16
Speaker 2: it's got the line in there, Hail to the Chiefs.
10:18
Speaker 2: which is a, you know, it's like a cynical piss
10:20
Speaker 2: take of what's going on. And that's made it very
10:23
Speaker 2: easy to misunderstand. I mean, you know, Donald Trump used
10:26
Speaker 2: to use it in 2020. There was the song that
10:28
Speaker 2: played when he came on stage because of that Al
10:30
Speaker 2: Huber chief line. Clearly didn't listen to the rest of
10:33
Speaker 2: the lyrics because it was very much against what our
10:36
Speaker 2: politicians are and what they do. And so, yeah. So, Yeah,
10:41
Speaker 2: there could be certain things in there that grab people.
10:43
Speaker 2: I don't know what we're going to talk about in
10:44
Speaker 2: the USA later, but that's another one that's exactly the same.
10:47
Speaker 2: When that came out, it was like it was a
10:49
Speaker 2: fist-pumping anthem where we could wave the flag and say,
10:53
Speaker 2: how great is America? But what Bruce was saying is.
10:56
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan misinterpreted it, yep.
10:58
Speaker 2: Yep, and Bruce was saying, hang on, we could be good,
11:01
Speaker 2: but we're not. There's a whole bunch of people who've
11:03
Speaker 2: gone off and fought for our country that we're treating really,
11:06
Speaker 2: really poorly. You know, and that is the underpinning of
11:09
Speaker 2: the song. So you had to actually get past the
11:11
Speaker 2: initial impression, which was, you know, because it's got a
11:15
Speaker 2: big beat coming into it and everything. It's like it's
11:17
Speaker 2: a real anthem. So you've got to get past that
11:19
Speaker 2: and then start to listen to it. But some of
11:21
Speaker 2: those songs won't have their impact the first time you listen.
11:24
Speaker 2: It might be the fifth time or the 10th time
11:26
Speaker 2: and then the 20th time. But eventually the meaning grows
11:29
Speaker 2: and you start to understand when you're singing along, you know,
11:32
Speaker 2: that the message fits in your head. I always remember
11:35
Speaker 2: when I was at school, I said, yeah, if you
11:36
Speaker 2: want to understand what's going on in a lecture, take notes.
11:39
Speaker 2: And it's the same thing with music. If you, yeah,
11:42
Speaker 2: you might not necessarily want to understand it straight away,
11:45
Speaker 2: but as you're sitting there singing the lyrics in the
11:47
Speaker 2: car or the shower or the concert or whatever, you know,
11:49
Speaker 2: they're getting into subconscious and, you know, eventually they get
11:52
Speaker 2: into where they need to get to.
11:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, how the song is delivered is important. And that's
11:58
Speaker 1: where I'm leading on the next song here. Joni Mitchell's
12:00
Speaker 1: Big Yellow Taxi from 1970. Now here's a song it
12:03
Speaker 1: reduced a huge environmental issue to the unforgettable image of
12:07
Speaker 1: paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. More than
12:09
Speaker 1: half a century later, it's warnings about development, pesticides, taking
12:14
Speaker 1: nature for granted, still recognizable. How much of the song
12:18
Speaker 1: staying power comes from the simplicity of that message? And
12:21
Speaker 1: were you surprised by, I guess how contemporary it still feels?
12:26
Speaker 2: I certainly wasn't surprised by that because it is an
12:28
Speaker 2: absolutely brilliant song. Um, The imagery that she creates when
12:31
Speaker 2: she's writing the lyrics, as you say, the paradise and
12:35
Speaker 2: the apples and all the sorts of things in there,
12:37
Speaker 2: it's a brilliant, brilliant songwriting. But the funny thing about it,
12:40
Speaker 2: or not the funny thing, it's how upbeat it is
12:43
Speaker 2: and how happy it is when it's talking about such
12:45
Speaker 2: a solemn topic. And so that's one that you really
12:48
Speaker 2: do kind of sit there. I mean, the lyrics are
12:49
Speaker 2: very obvious. I don't think you can ever mistake what
12:51
Speaker 2: it's about. You're not going to do the Bruce Springsteen learning,
12:56
Speaker 2: but you will know exactly what this is. But the
12:58
Speaker 2: interesting thing is, and it didn't sell all to start with,
13:01
Speaker 2: but its staying power has been amazing. Since 1971, it's
13:06
Speaker 2: just been there. It's always been there. And I don't
13:09
Speaker 2: think there was anybody who listens to music on any
13:11
Speaker 2: radio anywhere in the world that doesn't know that song.
13:15
Speaker 1: Counting Crows brought it to a new generation as well.
13:17
Speaker 1: They had a hit with their cover.
13:19
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone magazine, I think, rated it the worst song
13:21
Speaker 2: of the year when it came out. You know, it's
13:24
Speaker 2: great to see people reinterpret and do things in their
13:26
Speaker 2: own way. You know, and that's the great thing about
13:29
Speaker 2: music is that, like, it's written the way it's written,
13:31
Speaker 2: but it doesn't mean you can't do your own interpretation.
13:34
Speaker 2: You know, like, if you take Johnny Cash's version of
13:36
Speaker 2: versus Nine Inch Nails, you know, one's about taking drugs
13:39
Speaker 2: and the other one is about the pain of losing
13:41
Speaker 2: your life. And, you know, and it's the way it's
13:44
Speaker 2: delivered and what it means to me gives it something. And,
13:47
Speaker 2: you know, from the way we reinterpret things, you know,
13:50
Speaker 2: even Fortunate Son, it feels in the dead babies thing.
13:53
Speaker 2: They turned into a huge rock anthem. And it still
13:57
Speaker 2: works because the lyrics are there and the basic song
14:00
Speaker 2: is there as well. So we can interpret it. We
14:02
Speaker 2: can put our own spin on it and make it
14:04
Speaker 2: something special again.
14:06
Speaker 1: The song Imagine by John Lennon from 1971 speaks to
14:09
Speaker 1: the brilliance of his songwriting because same thing here. It's
14:13
Speaker 1: how it's delivered, right? Because you describe it as a quiet,
14:15
Speaker 1: almost lullaby-like song, but it's carrying these very radical ideas
14:20
Speaker 1: about religion and nationalism, capitalism and borders. Do you think
14:24
Speaker 1: people embraced the song partly because of that melody? It
14:26
Speaker 1: made those ideas feel less confrontational, right, than they really were.
14:31
Speaker 1: And was that Lennon's intent, do you think?
14:33
Speaker 2: Oh, I think it was absolutely his intent. It's a
14:35
Speaker 2: very soothing song trying to get change. You know, it's
14:40
Speaker 2: anti-consumers and it's anti-war, it's anti-religion, it's anti-control. But it's
14:46
Speaker 2: just such a gentle song. song that you feel comfortable
14:49
Speaker 2: with it and it makes you feel comfortable to stare
14:52
Speaker 2: and listen to it you know over and over again
14:54
Speaker 2: you know imagine there'd be people who imagine people would
14:58
Speaker 2: just turn it on because they just love sitting there
15:01
Speaker 2: it makes them feel calm it makes them feel good
15:03
Speaker 2: you know so i think it's a great thing to have.
15:05
Speaker 1: Bob marlene the whalers get up stand up from 73
15:08
Speaker 1: inspired in part by the poverty and political oppression that
15:12
Speaker 1: he witnessed during a visit to Haiti. What did he
15:14
Speaker 1: see there that affected him so deeply and found its
15:17
Speaker 1: way into that song?
15:19
Speaker 2: Well, that was another place where the wealthy people in
15:23
Speaker 2: power were just oppressing the minorities. So people were dying
15:27
Speaker 2: in the streets from hunger or all sorts of things.
15:30
Speaker 2: But I think what he actually worked out was that
15:33
Speaker 2: it's not just Haiti where this is happening. It's actually everywhere.
15:36
Speaker 2: Every country in the world at that time was pushing
15:39
Speaker 2: more towards one powerful being and leave people losing their power.
15:43
Speaker 2: And that's why it resonated so widely across the board.
15:47
Speaker 2: His Rastafarian concepts of equality and egalitarianism were all kind
15:51
Speaker 2: of written into the song so that we had to
15:53
Speaker 2: think about, well, how are we treating other people while
15:56
Speaker 2: we do all of these things? And today we can
15:58
Speaker 2: look at it and think, well, yeah, and I'm not
16:00
Speaker 2: saying anything negative. It's like Elon Musk who's making so
16:04
Speaker 2: much money If he had the same sort of beliefs
16:08
Speaker 2: as Bob Marley, imagine how much good would be being
16:10
Speaker 2: done in the world if some of that wealth was
16:13
Speaker 2: actually saving other people. And I think that's the thing
16:16
Speaker 2: that got to Bob Marley was to see that the
16:18
Speaker 2: president of the Atheum, all those other countries, had the
16:21
Speaker 2: power to do things, but decided instead they wanted the power.
16:25
Speaker 2: They wanted to keep the power and the money instead
16:27
Speaker 2: of sharing it around a bit.
16:29
Speaker 1: That's the last song that Marley played.
16:33
Speaker 2: Ever. Live, right?
16:35
Speaker 1: He used to use it to close his concerts. But
16:37
Speaker 1: knowing that gives the song an even greater significance, right?
16:40
Speaker 2: It is, isn't it? The concert was in Pittsburgh, and,
16:44
Speaker 2: you know, he was battling cancer at the time, and
16:47
Speaker 2: it sort of accelerated after that show, and they cancelled
16:49
Speaker 2: the rest of the tour, the next tour, and all
16:51
Speaker 2: the space that comes. Yeah, the very last song that
16:53
Speaker 2: he played, and interestingly, as you say, it is probably
16:57
Speaker 2: the most significant song in terms of what it gave
16:59
Speaker 2: and how it's lasted.
17:01
Speaker 1: Andrew Clark, the author of Songs That Changed the World.
17:04
Speaker 1: Sex Pistols, you talked about them. We talked about them
17:07
Speaker 1: up top. When they released God Save the Queen in 1977,
17:11
Speaker 1: during Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, Britain was celebrating the
17:16
Speaker 1: monarchy while unemployment and frustration among young people were growing.
17:20
Speaker 1: How much of the song was really an attack on
17:22
Speaker 1: the Queen and how much was an attack on the Britain.
17:26
Speaker 2: That she represented? Oh, I think it was all about
17:28
Speaker 2: the Britain that she represented. I mean, Johnny Lime and
17:31
Speaker 2: John Rock have spoken about how you don't write a
17:34
Speaker 2: song like that unless you love Britain. A lot of
17:37
Speaker 2: people were interpreting it as if you didn't love it,
17:39
Speaker 2: but he's saying, no, I love Britain, I love its people.
17:41
Speaker 2: But again, it's the same as the Bob Marley message,
17:45
Speaker 2: where we're putting all of this stuff into one little
17:47
Speaker 2: corner and all this wealth and all this power and
17:49
Speaker 2: all this privilege while people don't. and living on the streets,
17:53
Speaker 2: and people were dying out of cold. And Britain was,
17:55
Speaker 2: you know, there was no difference to Haiti in that sense.
17:58
Speaker 2: It's just that we didn't pay attention to it. And
18:02
Speaker 2: they say that the, you know, the timing of the
18:04
Speaker 2: song was coincidental to their silver jebeli, but I'm not
18:07
Speaker 2: a big believer in that. I actually think it was
18:09
Speaker 2: very carefully crafted on time for that. And if not
18:13
Speaker 2: by the band, certainly by the management that put it
18:16
Speaker 2: out there. But very much to me, it's not an
18:19
Speaker 2: attack on the Queen. It's an attack on the....
18:26
Speaker 1: You bring me back to my MTV, early MTV days
18:29
Speaker 1: when I was a kid with Nina's 99 Luftballons. And
18:33
Speaker 1: I had no clue what the song was about. MTV,
18:35
Speaker 1: I think, played both versions back in the day from 1983. Now,
18:39
Speaker 1: this tells the almost absurd story of balloons drifting across
18:42
Speaker 1: the sky and triggering a military response that ends in
18:46
Speaker 1: a global destruction a scenario that reflected the very real
18:50
Speaker 1: cold war fears of divided germany when it became 99
18:55
Speaker 1: red balloons in english this is interesting you write about
18:59
Speaker 1: the some of the some of its sharper political commentary
19:02
Speaker 1: was softened what made that original story so powerful and
19:06
Speaker 1: then what was lost in the translation.
19:08
Speaker 2: Well the original story wasn't trying to appease anybody in
19:11
Speaker 2: a way and uh And maybe the German language allows
19:14
Speaker 2: you to be a little firmer, a little harder with
19:16
Speaker 2: the way you're doing things. And then the translation just
19:20
Speaker 2: felt softer. It felt like it was sitting on the
19:23
Speaker 2: fence a little bit more. It wasn't as poignant. You know,
19:26
Speaker 2: the whole idea, as you say, of the 99 red
19:28
Speaker 2: balloons flying up into the air and being mistaken for
19:33
Speaker 2: something that they needed to bomb. And when starting a war,
19:36
Speaker 2: and the Cold War tensions were pretty high at that
19:38
Speaker 2: particular point in time. So yeah, it did soften, lyrically soften.
19:43
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it was necessarily deliberately softened, but it
19:47
Speaker 2: certainly did that in the way. So, you know, when
19:50
Speaker 2: you translate the lyrics of the original song from German
19:53
Speaker 2: to English, it's much sharper, but not as poetic.
19:59
Speaker 1: U2' s Sunday Bloody Sundays in the book from 1983 as
20:02
Speaker 1: well confronts the troubles, the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland
20:05
Speaker 1: involving Irish nationalists. British Loyalist and British Security Forces. The
20:10
Speaker 1: song looks back in particular at Bloody Sunday in Derry
20:14
Speaker 1: in 1972 when British paratroopers shot and killed 14 unarmed
20:18
Speaker 1: civil rights marchers. You too face criticism from different sides
20:22
Speaker 1: of the conflict. Were they criticized specifically for refusing to
20:26
Speaker 1: take a side?
20:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and it is very much about being
20:30
Speaker 2: neither side is good. It's like, why don't you, why
20:33
Speaker 2: don't we stop this war? Why are we fighting? You know,
20:36
Speaker 2: that line, how much, how long must I sing this song?
20:39
Speaker 2: You know, it's just out of frustration. It's out of
20:41
Speaker 2: frustration and watching that pointless war. And cause it really
20:44
Speaker 2: is a pointless war that we think about. Um, although
20:47
Speaker 2: I'm going to be in trouble for saying that, but, uh,
20:49
Speaker 2: You know, the whole concept behind what was going on
20:51
Speaker 2: was strange. So, you know, Zombie from the Cranberries, for instance,
20:55
Speaker 2: was very partisan. It was talking a stand. But U2
20:59
Speaker 2: came in and just said, you know, let's stop it.
21:01
Speaker 2: Let's stop the door. And people were criticizing them because, oh,
21:04
Speaker 2: didn't you take a side? But that was very deliberate.
21:07
Speaker 2: You know, he introduces, this is not a rebel song.
21:11
Speaker 2: That sensational video from U2 Love at Red Rocks, which
21:16
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it. You shouldn't see it. Classic. Yeah,
21:19
Speaker 2: it's a classic. And it just introduces it and it
21:22
Speaker 2: tells you what it's about. And it's like, you know,
21:25
Speaker 2: how long must we do this? Can we just stop fighting?
21:27
Speaker 2: And it's kind of still got its power today when
21:29
Speaker 2: you think about what's going on in the world with
21:31
Speaker 2: different things going on, whether it's Russia and the Ukraine,
21:34
Speaker 2: Palestine and Israel. You know, like, do we really have
21:37
Speaker 2: to have a wolf?
21:38
Speaker 1: A year later came Born in the USA from Springsteen.
21:41
Speaker 1: I love how you call it a Trojan horse. It's
21:44
Speaker 1: a protest song hiding in plain sight. People sing along
21:47
Speaker 1: to it as a patriotic anthem, missing its criticism. We
21:51
Speaker 1: talked about that. Do you see that as a strength
21:53
Speaker 1: of the song, the misinterpretation, or a failure of its message?
21:57
Speaker 2: I think the power of it is that eventually the
22:01
Speaker 2: message is going to sink into your hands. So it'll
22:05
Speaker 2: tuck you in and make you think that it's one thing,
22:08
Speaker 2: and then you'll eventually discover that it is something else.
22:11
Speaker 2: In some ways, you question, did it need to be blunter? But,
22:16
Speaker 2: you know, if it was Blunter, we wouldn't have been
22:18
Speaker 2: able to be so successful. We wouldn't have carried the
22:20
Speaker 2: message in the way that we've carried the message. And
22:22
Speaker 2: obviously the challenge for a song that changes the world
22:25
Speaker 2: is that it has to have enough reach. You know,
22:28
Speaker 2: it's got to get out there. There's a lot of
22:30
Speaker 2: bands I listen to today, they've got like 100 followers
22:32
Speaker 2: on Spotify. They're not going to change the world no
22:35
Speaker 2: matter how good their song is because they don't have
22:36
Speaker 2: the reach. So you've got to have a certain ability
22:39
Speaker 2: to reach your audience. And, you know, born in the USA,
22:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was the number one symbol. It was huge.
22:45
Speaker 2: And the album itself, you know, will resonate with him
22:47
Speaker 2: as well. So, yeah, you've got to have that part
22:50
Speaker 2: to it. And so I think this brilliant side of
22:52
Speaker 2: it is, you know, I can suck you in with
22:54
Speaker 2: something that we think is one thing, and I'd love
22:56
Speaker 2: to actually find out when that was its intention, because
22:59
Speaker 2: I've never read anything of that on the coast anywhere. But,
23:04
Speaker 2: you know, one day maybe he'll talk to me and
23:05
Speaker 2: I can ask him. But, you know, it would be
23:07
Speaker 2: great to know that part of it. But the way
23:09
Speaker 2: it sucks you in, I think, is just brilliant. So
23:11
Speaker 2: we'll save the Trojan horse for that. You say one,
23:14
Speaker 2: but you're getting something else.
23:16
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
23:18
Speaker 2: Interesting.
23:18
Speaker 1: We're recording this episode on October 6th, and it was
23:21
Speaker 1: six years ago today that Edward Van Halen passed away.
23:25
Speaker 1: Panama from 1984. It had nothing to do with the country,
23:29
Speaker 1: inspired by a drag racing car that David Lee Roth admired.
23:33
Speaker 1: But five years later, during the U.S. invasion of Panama,
23:37
Speaker 1: American forces blasted the song toward the compound where Manuel
23:42
Speaker 1: Noriega had taken refuge. How did this completely apolitical rock
23:45
Speaker 1: song become part of a real military operation? And what
23:48
Speaker 1: does that tell us about the strange power that music
23:51
Speaker 1: can have when taken completely out of its original context?
23:55
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting, isn't it? I love that story because
23:58
Speaker 2: it's just something you don't expect. And the fact that
24:02
Speaker 2: I think the Vatican, because he was in a Vatican
24:04
Speaker 2: enclave where Noriega was arming, and they called up the
24:07
Speaker 2: president and said, you know, this is cruel and unruly torture.
24:10
Speaker 2: The city outside effectively set up like a rock concert,
24:15
Speaker 2: blasting songs at them, and Panama was the one on
24:17
Speaker 2: most of the peak, simply because it had the line
24:20
Speaker 2: in there. Because what the American government or the army
24:23
Speaker 2: wanted him to understand was that Panama is a city,
24:26
Speaker 2: a country that deserves respect, and you weren't giving them respect.
24:29
Speaker 2: So we'll blast you to Panama, even though you can
24:32
Speaker 2: say it's about a drag racing car. So it's a
24:35
Speaker 2: critical example of how a song can be taken completely
24:38
Speaker 2: out of where and what it was intended for, but
24:41
Speaker 2: still used for something really different. I just love the
24:44
Speaker 2: whole story behind it. It just blew me away when
24:46
Speaker 2: I was reading it.
24:47
Speaker 1: It's a great story. I'm so glad you included it
24:48
Speaker 1: in the book because it's a great take on a
24:51
Speaker 1: song that can have this type of effect, a political effect,
24:55
Speaker 1: when that was never the intent in the beginning.
24:58
Speaker 2: And a lot of the songs in the book were
24:59
Speaker 2: clearly written with intent. They were written to do something
25:03
Speaker 2: and to make something. But three or four of the
25:06
Speaker 2: songs in there weren't, which is truly one of them.
25:08
Speaker 2: So it's just great.
25:10
Speaker 1: Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning from 1987. What a fantastic song.
25:14
Speaker 1: Written about the Pintupe people of Australia. The Pintupe people
25:22
Speaker 1: of Australia's Western Desert who had been displaced from their
25:25
Speaker 1: traditional lands for, by the way, you can tell I'm
25:28
Speaker 1: from the States, right? I got it close. I got
25:31
Speaker 1: it close. For listeners who may not know that history,
25:35
Speaker 1: what happened and what specifically inspired Midnight Oil to tell
25:39
Speaker 1: their story?
25:40
Speaker 2: If we give it a little bit of history around it,
25:41
Speaker 2: so the Indigenous Australians, and we call them the First
25:44
Speaker 2: Nations because there's about, I think it's 195 different nations
25:48
Speaker 2: made up Australia, but it's the oldest known surviving civilisation
25:52
Speaker 2: in the world. I've been here living on Australian land
25:54
Speaker 2: for 65,000 years. And then a white man came in
25:59
Speaker 2: 250 years ago and displaced them. They came out and
26:03
Speaker 2: we took their land, we did all of these things.
26:05
Speaker 2: But the Indigenous Australians have an amazing connection to the land.
26:09
Speaker 2: You know, the land is something that's so important to them.
26:11
Speaker 2: And all of the stories that they've told over those 65,000
26:14
Speaker 2: years relate them to their land. And in Australia at
26:19
Speaker 2: the time, I mean, we had one prime minister 10
26:21
Speaker 2: years before this song who went out to one of
26:24
Speaker 2: the Aboriginal camps and, you know, passed dirt through his
26:27
Speaker 2: hand into another Aboriginal, into Vincent Lingiari was his name,
26:31
Speaker 2: and said, you know, he was giving back the land.
26:34
Speaker 2: And it took a long time for us to get
26:35
Speaker 2: to that point. But Midnight Oil went out and they
26:38
Speaker 2: saw what was going on there and they started to
26:40
Speaker 2: understand the connections from an Indigenous Australian to their land.
26:44
Speaker 2: And that's where the genesis of the song came about.
26:47
Speaker 2: And it's very poignant. You know, it's their land, give
26:50
Speaker 2: it back, which doesn't mean much if you don't understand
26:53
Speaker 2: what's going on. But in Australia, we've never spoken about
26:57
Speaker 2: Aboriginal land rights. We didn't even talk about reconciliation rights.
27:01
Speaker 2: And none of this was on the table at that time.
27:03
Speaker 2: But Midnight Oil brought it into our radios and to
27:06
Speaker 2: our railways, and we had to listen to what was
27:08
Speaker 2: going on. And it changed the conversation. And it took
27:11
Speaker 2: quite a few years before a thing we call Mabo.
27:16
Speaker 2: But Eddie Mabo was an Indigenous Australian who launched a
27:19
Speaker 2: high court case to get his land back. And he won,
27:22
Speaker 2: and they gave him back his land. But this was
27:24
Speaker 2: many years before that. So what it did for us
27:27
Speaker 2: as live Australians, we had to start thinking about this.
27:31
Speaker 2: And a lot of people still reject it. I mean,
27:33
Speaker 2: I had an article in the Pope the other day
27:35
Speaker 2: and people were coming in there and criticising the song
27:37
Speaker 2: because of what it's all about. But for most Australians,
27:40
Speaker 2: we thought about what it meant and we knew we
27:42
Speaker 2: had to do better. And the interesting thing is that
27:45
Speaker 2: it had reached outside of Australia. I mean, it was
27:47
Speaker 2: the number one single in Canada. And arguably, even so,
27:51
Speaker 2: the Canadians were pretty good about being with Eskimos and
27:55
Speaker 2: looked after them. And not a lot of countries have
27:57
Speaker 2: been good to their Indigenous ancestors. Yeah, we all need
28:01
Speaker 2: to do better. And that's what the song was about.
28:03
Speaker 2: And it made us think.
28:07
Speaker 1: Scorpion's Wind of Change is another great one. 1991 arrived
28:10
Speaker 1: as communist governments were collapsing. Germany was reunifying and the
28:14
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was nearing its end. There's a really fascinating
28:19
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory that the CIA may somehow have been behind
28:23
Speaker 1: the song as a form of cultural propaganda. Where did
28:26
Speaker 1: that story come from? And is there any credible evidence
28:28
Speaker 1: behind it?
28:29
Speaker 2: Oh, there's certainly plenty of credible evidence. There's an entire
28:31
Speaker 2: podcast series on that alone, which I loved. I loved
28:35
Speaker 2: listening to the podcast, just the way it rolled around.
28:38
Speaker 2: But it went through, you know, does the CIA use
28:40
Speaker 2: music as a propaganda tool was the basic question. And
28:43
Speaker 2: the clear answer came back, yes, they do. And we
28:45
Speaker 2: saw it in Panama. You know, Panama, they use music
28:48
Speaker 2: as a propaganda tool, but they hadn't written that song.
28:50
Speaker 2: But in this case, the story is that, you know,
28:52
Speaker 2: the CIA wrote it and gave it to the Scorpions
28:54
Speaker 2: to do. Well, they chose a band that was, you know,
28:57
Speaker 2: in the, in behind the the iron curtain um and
29:01
Speaker 2: to do this thing and it you know the little
29:03
Speaker 2: whistle at the start and all the things all the
29:06
Speaker 2: little tricks to catch your attention catch your imagination and
29:08
Speaker 2: then talks about the wind of change which is you
29:10
Speaker 2: know again you know we've been living in poverty we've
29:13
Speaker 2: been living like this um but the wind of change
29:15
Speaker 2: is that we're going to go somewhere else um and
29:17
Speaker 2: it was such a critical time was what's going on
29:20
Speaker 2: like it's before the wall fell um and yeah it's
29:23
Speaker 2: a precursor to it it helped the whole process and
29:26
Speaker 2: probably didn't make the change necessarily because it was going
29:28
Speaker 2: to happen, but it certainly sped it up and it
29:31
Speaker 2: gave the youth culture in Germany and through that whole
29:34
Speaker 2: Eastern Bloc, through to Moscow, a purpose. Wow.
29:38
Speaker 1: Has any member of the band Klaus, any of those guys,
29:40
Speaker 1: responded to the questions about it?
29:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, they say it didn't happen, but yeah, so would
29:46
Speaker 2: I if I'd been there. Right. I would have been there.
29:49
Speaker 2: You might have to give up your songwriting royalties.
29:52
Speaker 1: Yes. And I do remember that podcast. I can't remember
29:55
Speaker 1: the name of it, but I remember when.
29:56
Speaker 2: It was out. Well, it's called Wind of Change.
29:58
Speaker 1: It's called Wind of Change. I think it was like
30:00
Speaker 1: five years ago, maybe more. Yeah, it's a terrific podcast.
30:05
Speaker 1: The lyrics say beautifully, you know, the irony behind it all.
30:08
Speaker 1: So it's one of my favorite podcasts to listen to.
30:11
Speaker 1: That same year, 1991, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, and
30:14
Speaker 1: it makes your book. It's often described as an anthem
30:17
Speaker 1: for Generation X. Yeah, Kurt Cobain's lyrics are deliberately fragmented,
30:21
Speaker 1: difficult to interpret. So how does a song without a
30:23
Speaker 1: clear political or social message come to represent an entire generation?
30:29
Speaker 2: It's about that hope that it creates for people. And
30:32
Speaker 2: people started to understand that I'm not the only person
30:35
Speaker 2: who feels this way. You know, there are millions and
30:38
Speaker 2: millions and millions of other people feeling the same way.
30:40
Speaker 2: And so we've had this concept of depression or whatever.
30:44
Speaker 2: I mean, we know Kurt Cobain supposedly killed himself. You know,
30:48
Speaker 2: so we know he was battling mental health demons and
30:51
Speaker 2: all those things. And mental health's become such a bigger
30:54
Speaker 2: thing over time, you know. It's growing. Back in 1990
30:57
Speaker 2: when the issues were first on the rise, some people
31:01
Speaker 2: with mental health problems were still treated as like a
31:04
Speaker 2: leper colony. We're going to push you off to there.
31:06
Speaker 2: But all of a sudden it was like we can
31:08
Speaker 2: talk about these things. So we've got a sense of
31:10
Speaker 2: unity amongst all of our people watching an Havana concert
31:13
Speaker 2: and listening to the song and doing it through there.
31:17
Speaker 2: And you listen to the song itself. I mean, it
31:18
Speaker 2: starts deliberately hollow. I mean, that guitar at the start,
31:21
Speaker 2: it sounds, cheap and tinny and nasty before the big
31:24
Speaker 2: song part kicks in. So it's kind of lulling you
31:28
Speaker 2: in through that emptiness that you can feel. But then
31:31
Speaker 2: you can grab some unity from the song itself and
31:33
Speaker 2: from the people around you. And so it was a
31:35
Speaker 2: song of hope. It generated hope amongst people and gave
31:39
Speaker 2: them a good sense of purpose.
31:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting to look at it that way as far
31:43
Speaker 1: as the song and the way it's structured. Yeah, Green
31:46
Speaker 1: Day's American Idiot, 2004. A response to post-9-11 climate fear...
31:52
Speaker 1: the Iraq war and what Billy Joe Armstrong saw as
31:56
Speaker 1: a media driven hysteria. Was the song aimed primarily at
31:59
Speaker 1: the Bush administration or was Armstrong attacking a much broader
32:03
Speaker 1: American culture of fear and conformity?
32:06
Speaker 2: I think it was definitely the broader culture. Um, yeah.
32:09
Speaker 2: And you listen to the lines in there, which is,
32:11
Speaker 2: you know, change friendly, the red net culture to the
32:13
Speaker 2: mega culture, you know, um, is very much targeting a
32:17
Speaker 2: group of people who he felt weren't paying attention.
32:21
Speaker 1: That Lynyrd Skynyrd story is crazy. And I saw an article,
32:25
Speaker 1: and I believe it came from your book, that he
32:28
Speaker 1: was listening to Red, White, and Blue, right?
32:32
Speaker 2: It was the Skynyrd song.
32:32
Speaker 1: No, I'm sorry. It was Unbroken. It might have been Unbroken.
32:37
Speaker 1: It was a lyric from the Skynyrd song that he
32:40
Speaker 1: kind of took issue with.
32:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was that whole concept that everything's great
32:45
Speaker 2: in this country, everything's good, rah, rah again. And he
32:48
Speaker 2: found that offensive. And so it was like, well, I
32:51
Speaker 2: need to talk to these people in some way. And obviously,
32:54
Speaker 2: big bands have a big audience. They had great reach.
32:57
Speaker 2: And so they go in there and they write the song.
32:59
Speaker 2: The American Idiot's a very pointed thing. It's actually one
33:02
Speaker 2: of the greatest albums of all time, I reckon, by
33:04
Speaker 2: the way. Really clever. But the song itself, it gets
33:08
Speaker 2: right to the heart of everything. And as I say,
33:10
Speaker 2: the fact that they've changed the lyrics from the redneck
33:12
Speaker 2: to the MAGA agenda, and that created a lot of angst. Like,
33:16
Speaker 2: there were a lot of people who turned on them
33:17
Speaker 2: over that, and Billy Joe after a long time said,
33:19
Speaker 2: I don't care what you think. You know, the song's
33:22
Speaker 2: been written, and it makes a statement. And the good
33:25
Speaker 2: artists will always say that, you know, politics and music,
33:28
Speaker 2: it's so interrelated. It's tied together. And the two shouldn't
33:32
Speaker 2: be separated. They should never be separated. You know, if
33:34
Speaker 2: I were to write a political song, I could write
33:36
Speaker 2: a political song, and you shouldn't be able to stop me.
33:39
Speaker 2: And I think this is what Peter Joe Armstrong was
33:41
Speaker 2: saying when people reacted to narrative. It's like, well, have
33:44
Speaker 2: a listen to the lyrics. It's always been there. All
33:45
Speaker 2: I've done is change one word to another. But it
33:49
Speaker 2: shows that over time, you can make a change and
33:52
Speaker 2: you can have impact and you can do things. But
33:54
Speaker 2: unless people are continuously telling the story, it can disappear
33:58
Speaker 2: and you can go back to where you were. And
34:00
Speaker 2: I think with American Idiot, it adds power initially and
34:04
Speaker 2: it's gained some power again, which is the longevity of
34:07
Speaker 2: it is really good.
34:09
Speaker 1: And here in your book, you say it's the song,
34:11
Speaker 1: That's How I Like It. That's off that album, Vicious Cycle. Yeah,
34:15
Speaker 1: so you write, Armstrong wrote it after hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd's
34:18
Speaker 1: That's How I Like It recoiling at its pride in
34:21
Speaker 1: redneck identity.
34:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is very clear. Yeah.
34:27
Speaker 1: So you research all of these songs from different eras, countries, genres,
34:31
Speaker 1: and causes, and What did you ultimately learn about music's
34:34
Speaker 1: ability to actually change the world? And do you believe
34:37
Speaker 1: a song can still have that kind of impact today? Absolutely,
34:40
Speaker 1: I think it can today.
34:42
Speaker 2: It's a bigger challenge though now, you know, because the
34:45
Speaker 2: way we digest our music is very different. You know,
34:47
Speaker 2: we're waiting for the younger people that are waiting for
34:50
Speaker 2: a 15 second grab on TikTok, you know, or, you know,
34:53
Speaker 2: it could be a YouTube clip. And then there are
34:55
Speaker 2: these stories there, like the Saul King song, Liberty, you know,
34:58
Speaker 2: was released on YouTube. because they couldn't get it into
35:01
Speaker 2: the record stores or anything in Algeria. So he made
35:04
Speaker 2: a video clip on YouTube and it's gained you $ 450 million.
35:08
Speaker 2: So you know you're gaining reach. So if you know
35:10
Speaker 2: how to play the social media algorithms, you can actually
35:13
Speaker 2: get your message out there really strongly. But in terms
35:17
Speaker 2: of can music change the world? Absolutely it can and
35:20
Speaker 2: far from the horizon for continuity forever. It just means
35:23
Speaker 2: that we just need to change the delivery mechanism as
35:27
Speaker 2: to how it gets out to the world. And you
35:30
Speaker 2: look at the big stars, you know, like at the moment,
35:32
Speaker 2: you know, everything seems to be kind of moving into
35:34
Speaker 2: little smaller pockets, you know, where the few stars dominate
35:37
Speaker 2: the world, whether it's Taylor Swift or Harry Styles or
35:42
Speaker 2: Ed Sheeran or a lot of sort of people will
35:43
Speaker 2: dominate the charts and dominate the record sales. But they're
35:47
Speaker 2: not the only people with a message. And I love
35:49
Speaker 2: the fact that, you know, Bruce Springsteen is still riding
35:52
Speaker 2: songs off streets in Minneapolis. You know, U2 is giving
35:54
Speaker 2: back into it. Brandon Carlyle's got a great song, Church
35:57
Speaker 2: and State. There's lots of other things coming out at
36:00
Speaker 2: the moment. The challenge is how do you get it
36:02
Speaker 2: to people? How do you play the Spotify algorithm, for instance?
36:07
Speaker 2: Do you rely on the fact that people will hear
36:10
Speaker 2: it and pass it on? Because we don't buy records
36:13
Speaker 2: the way we used to. We don't consume the way
36:16
Speaker 2: we used to. So the challenge is harder, but they're
36:18
Speaker 2: still there. And hopefully, you know, people doing podcasts like
36:22
Speaker 2: yours and people doing other podcasts, they've all got the
36:25
Speaker 2: ability to sit there and embrace messages that are coming
36:28
Speaker 2: out to them.
36:29
Speaker 1: And books like yours that are out there too, Songs
36:31
Speaker 1: That Change The World. It's out now.
36:34
Speaker 2: Hopefully we'll sell them the same sort of numbers as
36:35
Speaker 2: Tyler Swift and then I can retire or just write
36:39
Speaker 2: another book.
36:40
Speaker 1: Well, then there will definitely be demand for a second
36:43
Speaker 1: book if that happens.
36:44
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, yeah. The publisher would love me for that one. Right? Yeah.
36:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a great book, and it's packaged beautifully,
36:52
Speaker 1: great layout, the whole thing. It's an excellent book, so
36:55
Speaker 1: thank you so much for writing it and coming on.
36:58
Speaker 1: And where can people find you, Andrew, online?
37:01
Speaker 2: Yes, 1842media is my handle on everything that I do.
37:06
Speaker 2: If it doesn't appear, I don't give up particular social media.
37:10
Speaker 2: But we've got a website called songsthechangetheworld.com, It's got a
37:14
Speaker 2: little bit of a bugging at the moment that we're fixing,
37:15
Speaker 2: but you can actually go in there and give me
37:18
Speaker 2: your thoughts on the songs in the book or give
37:20
Speaker 2: me some songs that I hadn't thought about, you know,
37:22
Speaker 2: so that you can then go in and when I'm
37:24
Speaker 2: doing the next book, we can start to take into
37:26
Speaker 2: account the views of other people. Because the challenge is
37:30
Speaker 2: hearing everything and finding all the songs. And, you know,
37:33
Speaker 2: it's great for this book because my publisher is Portuguese.
37:37
Speaker 2: And so she brought a whole different viewpoint to it
37:40
Speaker 2: with some of the foreign language songs. I hadn't even
37:43
Speaker 2: really thought about it for time. So the more people
37:46
Speaker 2: can give me ideas, the better we can get this
37:48
Speaker 2: in and we can start to get, yeah, volume two
37:51
Speaker 2: can have a whole different slant to it because the
37:54
Speaker 2: people's choice, in effect, will tell me what's changed the world. Fantastic. Yeah,
37:58
Speaker 2: Gelding Street Press. Yep, Gelding Street Press is the publisher. Yeah. Yeah,
38:04
Speaker 2: so I've done, yeah, and it's good because, like, I've
38:06
Speaker 2: had this book in my head for a long time.
38:09
Speaker 2: And so my last four books were done through the
38:11
Speaker 2: Eldon Street Press and they were on car racing and
38:14
Speaker 2: Australian football. And then I tossed this one at them
38:17
Speaker 2: and they thought about it for a little bit and said,
38:19
Speaker 2: let's go, which was great. So they've taken a bit
38:23
Speaker 2: of a gamble on it. And so I've done a
38:24
Speaker 2: couple of rock books here in Australia on rock anthems
38:27
Speaker 2: and great Australian rock songs and that sort of thing.
38:29
Speaker 2: So they went far into the music world, but they've
38:32
Speaker 2: got into it and reached out to people like you,
38:35
Speaker 2: for instance, to help me talk about it. Because for me,
38:38
Speaker 2: it's not just about the book and selling the book,
38:41
Speaker 2: it's actually selling the message. You know, I really, I
38:44
Speaker 2: deeply believe in the concept of change and that, you know,
38:47
Speaker 2: we've got to keep on progressing and trying to make
38:50
Speaker 2: the world a better place for me, for my children,
38:53
Speaker 2: for you and for everybody else in there. And I
38:55
Speaker 2: think we can do a lot better job. And if
38:57
Speaker 2: music to me is the catalyst that helps us, then
39:00
Speaker 2: let's embrace the music and go for it.
39:02
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I'll put the link to the website in the
39:05
Speaker 1: show notes and also your social media. And again, your
39:08
Speaker 1: handle is what again now on social media?
39:10
Speaker 2: It's AD42. AD42 Media.
39:15
Speaker 1: Media.
39:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just one word, no spaces, thoughts or anything. So
39:19
Speaker 2: AD42 is my business. So we ended up in the
39:22
Speaker 2: 42 songs and fitted well. Yeah, that's what I was wondering,
39:26
Speaker 2: the 42. That's perfect. Yeah, that was a coincidence. That's
39:29
Speaker 2: from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Oh, it's a coincidence?
39:31
Speaker 1: Oh, I got you. I got you. Now, you're on
39:34
Speaker 1: your way to a race right now, is that?
39:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Bathurst 1000. So it's the biggest car race
39:40
Speaker 2: in Australia every year. It's a bit like the Daytona 500.
39:43
Speaker 2: And so, well, it's a big week for us in
39:47
Speaker 2: terms of the car racing magazine that I own. which
39:49
Speaker 2: is called Auto Action. We take a big crew up
39:53
Speaker 2: there and it's our biggest week of the year in
39:54
Speaker 2: terms of web traffic and stories and all that sort
39:56
Speaker 2: of stuff. So it's huge. It's the reason why car
40:00
Speaker 2: racing in Australia is what it is. That's cool.
40:02
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much. Yeah, you pulled over at the
40:05
Speaker 1: nearest McDonald's.
40:06
Speaker 2: I love it. Yes. The McDonald's there is.
40:09
Speaker 1: Free publicity.
40:10
Speaker 2: The great thing about McDonald's, the two things I learned
40:12
Speaker 2: when I travel a lot is that McDonald's always has
40:14
Speaker 2: Wi-Fi and clean toilets. There you go. You might not
40:18
Speaker 2: like the food or anything like that, but clean toilets
40:20
Speaker 2: and Wi-Fi.
40:21
Speaker 1: I love it. Andrew, thank you so much.
40:24
Speaker 2: Thanks, Eric. That's it. It's in the books.