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- [00:02]
Janda
Welcome to the behind the Song Podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda.
- [00:11]
I'm Janda, and in this bonus episode of the behind the Song podcast, I'll get into songs that really take you places, songs where the location isn't just a part of the backdrop, it's the main character.
- [00:23]
Guest or Narrator
Welcome to the Hotel California.
- [00:28]
Janda
One of the most potent examples of the location being the star of the show comes from the Eagles Hotel California, the fictional luxury hotel on a desert highway that serves as a metaphor for the superficiality and the spiritual lows associated with chasing the big dream in Los Angeles. The lyric you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave symbolizes a deep psychological trap. Hotel California as a location is a prison, appealing on the outside, welcoming to lonesome travelers along the highway, so to speak. But once inside its doors, it reflects the darkness, the moral decay of a culture obsessed with pleasure and a glittering high stakes LA lifestyle, which the Eagles were certainly tangled up in when this song was written and released in the mid-70s.
- [01:21]
Guest or Narrator
Strawberry Fields.
- [01:25]
Janda
Strawberry Fields Forever was written by John Lennon and first released in 1967 as a double as with Penny Lane, and both songs are a look back at the Beatles past in Liverpool. Strawberry Field was a Salvation army children's home near Lennon's home in Liverpool as a child, a place with wild unmanicured grounds behind a wall that he and his friends would climb over to play in. It was for him a place to hide. He said in the Beatles Anthology retrospective that Strawberry Fields was psychoanalysis set to music and that it was one of the truest songs that he ever wrote based on his A Special Place Where Nothing is Real and nothing to get hung about, a psychedelic masterpiece. And of course, Beatles fans the world over have made the pilgrimage to New York City to visit the Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central park near the Dakota Hotel where Lennon lived his last days. Two and a half acres dedicated to the memory and the music of John Lennon.
- [02:28]
Guest or Narrator
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
- [02:33]
Janda
Flip over the Strawberry fields and we find ourselves on Penny Lane. This one was written mostly by Paul McCartney and it's about a bus terminal and street in Liverpool. McCartney has described penny Lane as the depot that he changed buses at to get from his house to Lennon's, a place they all knew and traveled through frequently. The song is part fact, part fiction. The barbershop and the bank mentioned in the song were in the actual Penny Lane, but the fire station mentioned was a little ways down the road Lennon contributed some lyrics in what McCartney described as the two of them writing about pleasant memories from their youth just recently having faded at the time. The song goes Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes Wet beneath the blue suburban skies. It's McCartney's response to Lennon's song about time and place in good old Liver. Uh oh, here comes the spaceman with a solo hit about New York City. The song was actually written by Russ Ballard from Argent and recorded by the glam rock band hello in 1975. But the version that everybody knows best of New York Groove is by Ace Frehley, who had a surprise hit on his hands when this song was recorded and released on his 1978 self titled solo album. The song went to number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, by far the most successful of any of the singles released on concurrent solo albums by Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley or Peter Chris. The rest of Kiss. It's an earworm with an undeniable beat about the nightlife possibilities that are always waiting in the Big Apple. Stop at 3rd and 43 exit to the night I'm back in a New York groove. The fact that a cover song by the guitarist had the biggest hit of all their solo albums in 1978 led to some ego problems internally for Kissing, but it didn't stop the band from performing it on their subsequent tours.
- [04:38]
Guest or Narrator
I Bless the rains down in Africa.
- [04:42]
Janda
From New York we head to the continent of Africa, a place that David Paishe from Toto had never been when he wrote the song. He was watching a TV documentary about the plight of the people in Africa, and that inspired him to write what would become a monster hit for the band. The fact that he'd never been there explains some of the geographical inaccuracies in the song. Like Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti. He got some of his references from National Geographic magazine and sort of jumbled them all up together, along with the idea of a missionary going to bless the rains down in Africa, which he remembered teachers saying to him in Catholic school. It's a chart topping, very weird song about a faraway place, a romanticized view of the continent itself that has Transcended the early 80s from when it was released on Toto4 to become part of pop culture. And here we have both a song and a band that are geographical locations. America's Ventura highway is one of the ultimate Go west songs about an older guy giving advice to a young man, a song rooted in the intoxicating sense of escape. Ventura highway is the section of U.S. route 101, or the 101 as it's known to residents running through the San Fernando Valley and along the coast of Southern California from downtown LA to the Santa Barbara county line. The road itself is inspiring, hugging the coast with incredible views all along the way. Driving it gives you a feeling of open potential, a mind clearing set of roadway perfectly paired with listening to music. The lyrics include the chorus Ventura highway in the sunshine where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine. You're gonna go I know. The location is really less about a fixed destination and more about the journey itself. A path to new beginnings, a place to go to find oneself, which is a really American mindset to begin with. Where to go to become ourselves. In the case of this song, it's a stretch of road hugging the Pacific Ocean. There are so many great classic rock songs about places. Kathmandu by Bob Seger, a tune about retreating from the glittering glad, handing in the big cities to a far flung mountaintop. And songs with historical meaning like Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Songs about places in outer space like Life on Mars by David Bowie, and songs with lyrics that include mentions of places like when the Eagles sang Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona in Take It Easy, or when the Grateful Dead mention a wife in Chino and one in Cherokee in Friend of the Devil. The relationship with place has given these songwriters the ticket to color their songs with a kind of gravity. The places provide a sort of mental shorthand, painting a richer lyrical picture, and over time, the songs become a part of the place. I personally can't think of London without thinking of the Clash's London Calling, or hear about Tupelo, Mississippi without thinking of Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey, what about you? What other songs instantly conjure up places in your mind and in turn, places that always make you think of the songs that they were written about. Let me know on the Socials and thanks for taking this little trip with me on behind the Song. If you like it, hit, subscribe and on the way, much more classic rock and roll.