Here’s the Beef Edition Part 1

Summary

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Episode: Here’s the Beef Edition Part 1
Release Date: July 18, 2025
Host: Chris Molanphy

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Introduction to Beef Records

In the premiere episode of Here’s the Beef Edition, host Chris Molanphy delves into the fascinating history of beef records—songs created to diss or respond to other artists. Beef records have long been a staple in the music industry, evolving from early parody tunes to the intricate diss tracks prevalent in hip-hop today.

Early Beginnings: 1920s to Pre-Rock Era

Chris begins by tracing the origins of beef records back to the 1920s. He highlights Eddie Cantor’s 1923 single, I've Got the "Yes! We Have No Bananas" Blues, which serves as one of the earliest examples of a diss record. This song directly responds to the overwhelming popularity of Yes! We Have No Bananas by Billy Jones, marking a playful yet pointed critique of the original hit.

Notable Quote:
"We have no Bananas today." [10:50]

Chris explains that while these early beef records were often parodies or answer songs rather than outright disses, they laid the groundwork for future musical confrontations.

The 1950s: Country and R&B Rivalries

Moving into the 1950s, Chris discusses Kitty Wells’ groundbreaking 1952 hit, It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. This song directly responds to Hank Thompson’s The Wild Side of Life, addressing stereotypes about women in honky-tonk culture. Wells’ record not only became a massive hit but also signaled a proto-feminist movement in country music.

Notable Quote:
"It wasn't God who made honky tonk angels." [22:00]
"It's a shame that all the blame is on us women." [23:30]

In the R&B genre, Chris highlights the rivalry between Joe Tex and James Brown. Their musical exchanges culminated in real-life confrontation, showcasing how beef records could escalate beyond the studio into personal vendettas.

Notable Incident:
"Joe Tex and James Brown's rivalry even led to a violent confrontation after an onstage parody." [30:15]

The 1960s: Beatles’ Internal Strife and Beyond

The 1960s marked a significant evolution in beef records, particularly with the breakup of The Beatles. Chris delves into how John Lennon and Paul McCartney used their solo work to subtly diss each other, with songs like Lennon’s God and McCartney’s Too Many People laying bare their fractured relationship.

Notable Quote:
"How do you sleep? Sleep." [37:17]

Additionally, Chris touches on other artists like Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali), who released diss tracks targeting his boxing rivals, and soul legends like Joe Tex and James Brown, whose disputes exemplified the personal nature of beef records during this era.

The 1970s: Mainstreaming Beef Records

The 1970s saw beef records become mainstream hits. Carly Simon’s enigmatic You’re So Vain is discussed as one of the most famous diss tracks of all time, with its mysterious target sparking decades of speculation and intrigue.

Notable Quote:
"You probably think this song is about you. You're so vain." [46:11]

Chris also explores Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album, which is rife with personal diss tracks born out of band members' tumultuous relationships. Marvin Gaye’s Here’s My Dear further exemplifies how personal grievances could translate into chart-topping music.

Notable Quote:
"Dreams... Go Your Own Way." [50:29]

Transition to the Hip-Hop Era

As the episode concludes, Chris sets the stage for Part 2 by previewing how the hip-hop era revolutionized beef records. He hints at the intensification of lyrical battles and the strategic use of diss tracks to dominate the charts, promising an in-depth exploration of this transformation in the next installment.

Closing Insight:
"Hip hop not only powered countless rap beefs, it even schooled pop stars on how to drop bars filled with irresistible haterade." [54:35]

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Key Takeaways

• Evolution of Beef Records: From early parodies and answer songs in the 1920s to sophisticated diss tracks in the 1970s.
• Impact on Artists: Beef records often reflected and influenced personal and professional relationships within the music industry.
• Mainstream Success: Many beef tracks achieved significant chart success, demonstrating the public’s fascination with musical rivalries.
• Cultural Reflection: Beef records mirrored broader societal dynamics, including gender roles and personal conflicts.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• "We have no Bananas today." [10:50]
• "It wasn't God who made honky tonk angels." [22:00]
• "How do you sleep? Sleep." [37:17]
• "You probably think this song is about you. You're so vain." [46:11]
• "Hip hop not only powered countless rap beefs, it even schooled pop stars on how to drop bars filled with irresistible haterade." [54:35]

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Here’s the Beef Edition Part 1 offers a comprehensive journey through the history of beef records, illustrating how musical confrontations have shaped chart histories and cultural narratives. Stay tuned for Part 2, where Chris Molanphy will explore the rise of beef records in the hip-hop era and their enduring legacy in today’s music landscape.

Transcript

[Chris Melanfi]

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[Kevin Bendis]

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[Chris Melanfi]

[e-mail] hey there hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hit parade+ you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge Our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hit parade plus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series on today's show. 51 years ago, in July of 1974, Southern rock band Leonard Skynyrd debuted on Billboard's Hot 100 with what Would turn out to be their highest charting pop hit, Sweet Home Alabama. You've probably heard this classic rock staple so many times, the lyrics about Southern pride and blue sky glide right past you. But in the second verse, did you ever notice that lead singer Ronnie Vanzant calls out another hit rock artist by name, first and last name, and Ronnie is not complimentary.

[Kevin Bendis]

Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her. Well, I heard O' Neill put her down. Well, I hope Neil Young will.

[Chris Melanfi]

Yep, that's a clapback to Canadian rock legend Neil Young. In case this fact eluded you, Sweet Home Alabama is a diss record on it. The Skynyrd boys take Young to task for belittling people from the American south on his 1970 song Southern Man.

[Kevin Bendis]

Southern men better keep your head. Don't forget what your good book says, Southern chain.

[Chris Melanfi]

Now Neil Young and the members of Leonard Skynyrd settled their differences pretty quickly. A couple of years after Sweet Home Alabama peaked at number eight on the Hot 100. Young not only endorsed the song, he acknowledged that his song Southern man was simplistic and condescending. Neil Young even said he was honored to be namechecked in the Leonard Skynyrd hit. But pop's most famous beefs are not always so easily quashed. The bad blood can linger for years. Some beefs launder festering grievances between former bandmates from rock's early years right through the hip hop era.

[Kevin Bendis]

You might win some but you just lost one. You might win some, but you just lost one.

[Chris Melanfi]

You might win some, but you some diss records become legendary even when we're not entirely sure whom they're about. Sometimes the mystery is part of the fun. Rap raised the diss record to an art form filled with intricate, dazzling, and often hyperbolic or even knowingly false lyrics. Over irresistible beats, rap beef turned inside baseball grievances into radio blazing gold.

[Kevin Bendis]

But let me tell you something else about the doctor too. He ain't really cute and he ain't great. He don't even know how to operate. He came up to me with some crabbish rap but let me tell you something, don't you know it was.

[Chris Melanfi]

But these lyrical battles could lead to real life consequences when the beef leapt from wax to the streets.

[Kevin Bendis]

Grab your glocks when you see Tupac call the cops when you see Tupac who shot me but your punks didn't finish now you're about to feel the wrath of a minute sucker. I hit him up straight out on a bad boy camp.

[Chris Melanfi]

And by the 21st century, beef tracks had been so normalized through rap that even pop stars were talking shit with hip hop attitude. Today on Hit Parade, we're serving up decades of disses as we trace the chart history of haterade. Beef records go back well before either hip hop or even rock and roll. But all those years and all those beefs ago, who could have foreseen that a brutal answer record alleging queasy crimes would draw both golden statues and the biggest national audience of all?

[Kevin Bendis]

They not like us. They not like us. They not like us. They not like us. They not like us.

[Chris Melanfi]

And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending July 20, 2024, when not like us by Kendrick Lamar took a victory lap back to number one on Billboard's Hot 100, cementing Lamar's status as the winner in his musical battle with Drake and that wasn't the end of its triumphant run. How did we get to a point where such a vicious, vituperative and vilifying song could become America's favorite? The evolution of the charts explains a lot about how Beef Records went from Honky Tonk Angels to you're so vain to not like us, so join us for a journey through pop's heart of darkness and disses. We're trying to strike a chord and it's probably D major Trying to strike a chord and it's probably a minor. Stick around.

[Kevin Bendis]

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[Chris Melanfi]

Like the slang term beef itself, which is thought to date back to the 19th century, the phenomenon of the Beef record is a lot older than you might think. No, they weren't called beef records or diss tracks until the hip hop era, but bitching about another person or cultural phenomenon on wax that's nearly as old as recording itself. Consider this Eddie cantor single from 1923.

[Kevin Bendis]

And I'd like to find a guy who compose that lullaby yes, we have no Bananas.

[Chris Melanfi]

Just what was Cantor so wound up about? He was griping about the ubiquity of this novelty song, yes we have no Bananas, which had dominated the hit parade multiple times in 1923.

[Kevin Bendis]

We have no Bananas we have no bananas today.

[Chris Melanfi]

This version of yes we have no Bananas is by tenor and early radio star Billy Jones, but there were several that topped what passed for the charts back then. Yes, we have no Bananas was the mega hit of its day, so much so that it inspired a follow up record titled I've Got the yes we have no Bananas Blues. This song was written specifically for those who were sick of yes, we have no bananas.

[Kevin Bendis]

Bananas, bananas I wish I could break up on billion Pianos day.

[Chris Melanfi]

By day Truthfully, in those early Tin Pan Alley days when the song publisher was king, both records made bank and the fight between the songs was largely imaginary. Billy Jones even recorded covers of both the original Bananas and the Beef record. But still, on Eddie Cantor's best known version of I've Got the yes, we have no Bananas Blues, he sounds believably pissed off. He even theatrically pauses the song to tell his backing vocalists to stop singing the original song, we have no bananas today.

[Kevin Bendis]

Stop. You fellas better get off the corner or I'll call a cop. Why?

[Chris Melanfi]

You've got me crazy.

[Kevin Bendis]

I can't stand it any longer. What's the matter with you? Ms. I'll tell you what's the matter with me. I've got the yes, we have no banana blue I've got the blue Besides.

[Chris Melanfi]

Being one of the earliest hit Beef recordings, I've Got the yes, we have no Bananas Blues qualifies as several types of song, which will inform our discussion in this podcast episode. For one thing, it's a parody. It borrows and interpolates the melody of the original song that it's dissing, just with different lyrics. Parody is a word we normally associate with the likes of Weird Al Yankovic, whose parodies are usually sweet natured, not dis records per se. Although, hold that thought, we'll get back to Weird Al. But some dis records are straight note for note covers of the songs they're dissing, such as, for example, Sporty Thieves 1999 hit no Pigeons, a clapback to TLC's number one hit from that same year, no Scrubs. No pigeons, a number 12 hit cops the melody of no Scrubs A pigeon.

[Kevin Bendis]

Is a girl who be walking by my ramped up blue brand new sparkling five her feet hurt so you know she wanna ride but she frightened like she can't say hi. What?

[Chris Melanfi]

Back to Eddie Cantor's anti Bananas song. It's also an answer record. Not all answer records are disses, and not all dis records are answer records. Many answer records are simply riding the coattails of a prior hit, usually with a wink. They're not necessarily meant as complaints. For example, as we discussed in a prior Hit Parade episode, future Motown legends the Miracles led off their career with an answer record. Inspired by the 1957 number one hit Get a Job by the Silhouettes, Smokey Robinson's group recorded the cheeky 1958 follow up Got a Job back in 1923, listeners would have called Eddie Cantor's hit an answer record, not a diss or beef record. Those terms weren't in common parlance back then, but in hindsight, yes, his anti bananas hit also qualifies as a diss record, even though its target is a song, not a person. As we'll see later, diss records became codified in the era of hip hop. Snoop Dogg even uses the word diss in Dre Day, Dr. Dre's hit 1993 beef record against his former NWA bandmate.

[Kevin Bendis]

Easy, you're trying to check my homie, you best check yourself. Cause when you dis trade, you dis yourself, yeah.

[Chris Melanfi]

So to recap parodies, answer records and dis or beef records, distinguishing these three types of tracks is important. Some of the disses we're going to discuss in this episode weren't answer records. They didn't follow up a previous song, they're just pissed off at someone or something. But many are. The song we let off this episode with Sweet Home Alabama was both an answer record to Neil Young's Southern man and a beef record. Leonard Skynyrd wanted smoke with Neil.

[Kevin Bendis]

Well, I hope Neil Young will remember.

[Chris Melanfi]

Note also that Sweet Home Alabama isn't a parody. Melodically, it has nothing to do with Southern man, but it does call out Neil Young by name. Generally, a true diss record targets someone else, usually another celebrity, not always by name, as we'll see. Thinly veiled targets are often the most fun. But note sometimes a vague reference to someone in a song that isn't a diss. In his 1972 number one smash American Pie, Don McClane makes all sorts of coy, poetic references to Elvis Presley as the King, Bob Dylan as the Jester, or the Beatles as sergeants. But nobody is being dissed. American Pie is a hero worship record, not a beef record.

[Kevin Bendis]

When the Jester sang for the King and Queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean in a voice that came from you and me.

[Chris Melanfi]

Protest records are also their own specific category, parallel with but generally separate from dis records. They only tangentially qualify as beef when they target a specific leader, for example Crosby, Stills, Nash and Youngs. Ohio, a protest against the 1970 violence at Kent State barely qualifies as a diss record since songwriter Neil Young calls out President Richard Nixon by name. Generally, we'll focus our attention in this episode on beef hits that target individuals or specific groups, not wars, unjust laws or cultural phenomena. Generally, the more trivial the complaint, the more it qualifies as a beef. True, dis records are usually petty and personal, not principled. Beef records may be conceived and recorded in the heat of the moment, but many are oddly enduring. So let's now walk through a history of beefs both before and after hip hop. And as that 1923 Eddie Cantor song suggests, we'll even need to go back before rock and roll. Okay, well, maybe not that far back. Hit Parade is about the era of the pop charts and recorded music, and Yankee Doodle dates back to at least the 18th century. But seriously, if you're curious, look up the backstory of Yankee Doodle Dandy Sometimes Time. It's basically a pre Revolutionary War diss track sung by the British about us low bred Yanks. They were calling us pansies. It was a different time. It's also a reminder that there are more diss tracks than we can possibly cover in this episode, so feel free to write in with your favorites. Anyway, I digress. Let's play something a bit more modern.

[Kevin Bendis]

It Wasn't God who Made honky don.

[Chris Melanfi]

This 1952 country single by Kitty Wells was in a way, historic. It was the first Answer record, and though no one would have called this in 1952, the first diss record to directly follow the the song, it was dissing into the number one spot. It knocked out this earlier country number one by Hank Thompson called the Wild side of Life. The Wild side of Life is a cynical lament about women who abandon their roles as loyal wives and homemates makers to enjoy the nightlife. Heaven forbid. In the song's most famous or infamous line, Thompson bemoans loose women who spend their time in country bars or honky tonks playing dumb. Thompson sings with mock naivete that he didn't know God made honky tonk angels.

[Kevin Bendis]

God made honky tonk angels I might have known you'd never make a wife.

[Chris Melanfi]

Them's fightin words and it demanded a response. So veteran songwriter Jay Miller wrote an Answer record, also a parody. Since it borrowed the prior song's melody that Kitty Wells quickly recorded, it lay blame for society's decay on faithless cheating men. And just so you couldn't miss the point, Wells's song was called It Wasn't God who Made Honky Tonk Angels.

[Kevin Bendis]

It wasn't God who made honky Angels Donkey Donk angel as you said in the words of your song too many times, married men think they're still single on the charts.

[Chris Melanfi]

Wildside and Wasn't God were like back to back chapters in A country music telenovela in the summer of 1952, Hank Thompson's hit spent 15 weeks at number one on Billboard's country best sellers chart. And then it was immediately knocked out by Kitty Wells Rejoinder, which led the chart for another six weeks. It even crossed over to the pop charts reaching number 27.

[Kevin Bendis]

It's a shame that all the blame is on us women. It's not true that only you men feel the same.

[Chris Melanfi]

It wasn't God who Made Honky Tonk Angels was not only an unprecedented proto feminist smash, as we'll see later, Wells diss record presaged the way rap music's first major 1980s Beef War would go. A sassy female vocalist dressing down a condescending man. Hold that thought. In these pre rock and roll days, answer records and wars between the sexes were all the rage on the RB side of the radio dial as well. Big Mama Thornton's smash Hound Dog, which we've discussed on several prior Hit Parade episodes, was a million selling R B1 in 1950, years before Elvis Presley's cover version. Written for Thornton by legendary songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, Hound Dog was a feisty rant by a woman telling a gigolo to hit the road. And Hound Dog was so popular it drew an answer record from another R B great, Rufus Thomas, who took Bearcat, his manly retort to a sex crazed kitty, to number three on the chart later that same year.

[Kevin Bendis]

You know what you said about me, don't you woman? Well, you ain't nothing but a bear catching at my door. You ain't nothing but a bad cat.

[Chris Melanfi]

By the 60s there were recording artists who in a way specialized in beef. Bob Dylan, whom we covered in depth in his own Hit Parade episode earlier this year, often seemed to be addressing a clueless, capricious or corrupt you in his songs. But who the you was supposed to be always prompted speculation cause Dylan wasn't telling whether it was the out of touch Mr. Jones in Dylan's Ballad of a Thin man or the high handed woman who threw the bums a dime in Like a Rolling Stone, which some Dylanologists have claimed was directed at Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick.

[Kevin Bendis]

Once upon a time you dress so fine through the bunch of dime in your prime then you.

[Chris Melanfi]

Maybe the most pointed of Dylan's beefy hits was his 19657 hit Positively 4th street, which references West 4th street in Greenwich Village and hence is widely assumed to be a diss against the downtown New York folkies who scorned Dylan. After he went electric in 65.

[Kevin Bendis]

You say I let you down. You know it's not like that if you're so so.

[Chris Melanfi]

Dylan is often cited as a 60s precursor to the era of rap beef. So is Cassius Clay. Yes, the boxing champ later known as Muhammad Ali, ever the provocateur. In 1963, while still known as Cassius Clay, he released an album called what Else I Am the Greatest that spent nearly half a year on the Billboard LP's chart, reaching number 61 on the LP. Clay did the dozens speak, singing over music in a kind of proto rap style. And he wasn't above calling out his boxing rivals like Sonny Liston, whom he humiliated on the album's title track, which was released as a single and bubbled under the Hot 100.

[Kevin Bendis]

The fistic world was dull and weary. With a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.

[Chris Melanfi]

Before we leave the 60s. I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the rivalry on wax, on stage, and even with fisticuffs between soul singer Joe Tex and godfather of Soul James Brown. You may know Joe Tex from his biggest hit, the 1972 number two hit I Gotcha, which sounds quite a bit like Brown. But more than a decade earlier, Joe Tex and James Brown came up as soul stars in parallel. And apparently at some point they decided there wasn't room on the charts for two funky soul shouters. Tex wrote one of Brown's earliest hits, Baby, you're Right. Both men recorded the song, but only James had a hit with Baby youy're Right. It reached number two on the R B chart. And even number 49 popped in 1961.

[Kevin Bendis]

If you think I want you well, baby you're right if you think I wanna haunt you.

[Chris Melanfi]

That sparked the rivalry. But Brown also had begun a relationship with Texas ex wife Bea Ford. Not only that, James recorded a duet with Ford called you've Got the power, a number 14 R&B hit.

[Kevin Bendis]

You got the power to love together.

[Chris Melanfi]

Joe Texas response. In 1962, he recorded a single dissing both Brown and his ex wife. Ford called you keep Her. In the lyrics, Tex even calls out James by name.

[Kevin Bendis]

James, I got your letter. It came to me today. You said I could have my baby back, but I don't want her that way. So you keep her, you keep her.

[Chris Melanfi]

There was even some real life violence at a joint live show in 1963 where both Joe Tex and James Brown were performing. Tex performed an onstage parody of Brown's famous Cape routine. In the bit, Tex got theatrically tangled up in the cape and the crowd knew who he was clowning. So after the show, a furious James Brown followed Joe Tex to an after show party, burst into the room brandishing two shotguns and fired at will. Reportedly seven people were injured, but Tex himself wasn't there and hence wasn't one of them. The incident was swept under the rug, with James Brown's management paying hush money to make the incident go away. But years later, the two soul men were still taking potshots at each other. In interviews, Tex questioned Brown's soul Brother Number One nickname and claimed that Brown had tried to sabotage the chart rise of his funky, chatty 1967 top 10 hit Skinny Legs and All because there's.

[Kevin Bendis]

Some man somewhere who'll take you baby Skinny Legs and all.

[Chris Melanfi]

The and James Brown's last laugh. He copped the main lyric of Skinny Legs and all on his 1969 number one R B hit Mother Popcorn. You thought Kendrick and Drake had beef. No one threw shade like the Godfather of Soul. More in a moment.

[Kevin Bendis]

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[Chris Melanfi]

The 70s generated arguably the first major wave of beef records, petty grievances laundered in pop hits. You might say the decade was kicked off by a Pair of ex bandmates from the Beatles. When the Beatles were still together, John Lennon was known to slip shady lyrics into the occasional song, calling out specific enemies. On the white album in 1968, for example, Sexy Sadie was a kiss off to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the spiritual leader the group had recently broken with over a sexual transgression. Lennon wanted to call the song Maharishi, but George Harrison persuaded him to to go with Sexy Sadie, which had the same number of syllables. Or in 1969, on the Beatles top 10 hit the ballad of John and Yoko, Lennon recounted the twisty story of how he and new wife Yoko Ono got married while reporters dogged him and paparazzi and bureaucrats made his life hell. He still sounded pissed off at the media industrial complex.

[Kevin Bendis]

Doing in bed. I said we're only trying to get us some peace. Christ, you know it ain't easy. You know how hard it can be.

[Chris Melanfi]

But those songs came out while the group was still together. After the Fab Four's spiteful breakup, the Knives came out for each other. Lennon arguably fired the first shot, kicking off the lyrical specificity on his 1970 album Plastic Ono Band. On God, John claimed that he no longer believed in his former group. On the track, Lennon also snuck in the word yesterday into the lyrics, suggesting that he was also calling out Paul McCartney, referencing Paul's chart topping Beatles hit by 1971, McCartney decided he'd had enough of Lenin's preachiness and he subtly called out his former bandmate on Too Many People, a deep cut from his 1971 Linda McCartney collaborative LP RAM. It was also the B side of Paul and Linda's number one single, Uncle Albert. Admiral Halsey. McCartney only confirmed this years later, but when he sang Too many People, preaching practices that was directed at Lenin.

[Kevin Bendis]

Let him tell you what you wanna be.

[Chris Melanfi]

As subtle as this primitive subtweet was, Lennon didn't miss the reference. He was in the middle of sessions for his next solo album, Imagine, and after hearing Too Many People, John recorded the most scathing diss track of the whole beef. How do you sleep? Sleep. Though not a single or a hit, how do you sleep got a lot of attention when the Imagine LP topped the album chart in the fall of 71, it was impossible to miss the target of Lennon's eye. The very first line name drops Sgt. Pepper, the concept album McCartney conceived, and from there the allusions to old Beatles lore are withering. Those freaks was right when they said you was dead, or the only thing you done was yesterday or this searing review of Paul's solo output, as mean spirited as this was, Lennon was only echoing what critics were starting to say about McCartney's easy listening hits of the early 70s. But Paul bided his time and a few years later, after scoring a string of smashes with his new band, Wings, he had the last laugh. His 1976 single Silly Love Songs was directed at both his critics and Lennon, pointing out that the sort of light pop Paul was good at was also very popular. Accordingly, Silly Love Songs was Wing's biggest hit of all, five weeks at number one in the summer of 76, and Billboard named it the year's top hit. Lennon won with the critics, but on the charts, McCartney won the beef. By the way, one last note about John Lennon. He makes a cameo appearance, albeit under a pseudonymous, in another early 70s beef record, Rick Nelson's top 10 hit, Garden Party.

[Kevin Bendis]

I went to a garden party to.

[Chris Melanfi]

Reminisce with my old friends Garden Party is so mellow it barely registers as a diss record at all. All but Rick Nelson wrote it In a fit of pique. In the fall of 71, Nelson, known in the 50s as Teen Idol Ricky Nelson, was invited to play a nostalgic multi act concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. Among the classic rock and rollers on the bill were Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Bobby Rydell. But Rick Nelson and his band were not well received. The hippie crowd in attendance mostly sat on their hands. Reportedly some even booed. Nelson stormed off after just one more song and didn't even come back for the encore. And then he wrote a song about it.

[Kevin Bendis]

Knew my name no one recognized me I didn't look the same but it's.

[Chris Melanfi]

All right now the Garden in Garden Party is Madison Square Garden, and the other acts on the bill make appearances in code. Nelson calls Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Good, for example, a couple of solo Beatles were in attendance at at the concert, but only backstage, not on stage. Nelson calls John Lennon Yoko's walrus and George Harrison Mr. Hughes. Like Bob Dylan in 65, Nelson in this song is pissed at his audience, not any individual artist. It's a catchy song with very petty lyrics.

[Kevin Bendis]

See, you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself.

[Chris Melanfi]

And it was Rick Nelson's last big hit, reaching number six in 1972. Rick's Peak and pettiness paid off. Nelson may have been vague about who exactly made him angry, but later in 1972 came one of the most famous and best diss records of all. All time. And its target was intentionally mysterious. Carly Simon has spent more than half a century teasing us about who you're so vain is about. She has clarified that it's not about her ex husband James Taylor, or about Mick Jagger, even though Jagger sings backup on the song. By the way, if you never noticed that before, once you know that's Mick, you can't unhear it. Simon has told the secret to a very small circle, including one executive who paid $50,000 at a charity auction about two decades ago just to know the identity of the you in you're so vain. He was sworn not to tell. In subsequent years, Carly revealed that one of the verses, the middle one about how the vain man took advantage of the singer years ago when she was, quote, still quite naive, is about the actor Warren Beatty, but not the whole song.

[Kevin Bendis]

Such a pretty pair and that you would never leave.

[Chris Melanfi]

But you gave the genius of you're so vain two things. One, it's a meta diss. It comments upon itself. She sings. I bet you think this song is about you twisting the knife just a little bit more by reminding the target she's getting her revenge by writing a song about his monstrous ego. And two, that song turned out to be very popular. By the time Carly Simon wrote you're so Vain, she was a rising star with a couple of hits, including the top 20 singles, that's the Way I've Always Heard it Should be and anticipation. But you're so Vain rose all the way to number one in January 1973, and it sent Simon's album no Secrets to number one as well. Living well really is the best revenge.

[Kevin Bendis]

You probably think this song is about you. You're so vain.

[Chris Melanfi]

After your so vain hit, you might say it was open season on the charts. More megastars felt free to air their grievances on songs addressed to a you who had wronged them. And there were some big hits. Some doubled as protest songs, like Stevie Wonder's 1974 chart topper, you haven't Done Nothing. An unabashed rant against Richard Nixon just weeks before he resigned the presidency following the Watergate scandal. Wonders pretty clear about who that you is. The aforementioned Sweet Home Alabama by Leonard SKYNYRD and Paul McCartney's silly love songs scaled the charts soon after. And then in 1977, Fleetwood Mac delivered a whole album packed with beef. They called the album Rumors. Perhaps you've heard of it. Rumors is commonly called a soap opera, a drama fueled by the bandmates, romantic breakups and entanglements. Actually, it's more aptly called a collection of distrust tracks aimed at each other. Dreams, the LP's biggest hit, written by Stevie Nicks, number one on the Hot 100 in June of 77, features pointed lyrics telling off Stevie's ex boyfriend, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, for wanting his freedom. In return, Lindsay wrote the number 10 hit Go youo Own Way about Stevie's own yearning for freedom, him accusing her of packing up and shacking up. The B side of the Go youo Own Way single, the Stevie Nicks composition Silver Springs was so incendiary and raw, Buckingham successfully lobbied to exclude it from the Rumors lp. When Nicks later performed the song live, she sang it right at Buckingham, staring daggers at it. Even the seemingly sunny Rumor single Don't Stop, written by keyboardist Christine McVie, was a genial diss record against her ex husband, bassist John McVie. Yep, rumors might qualify as as the beefiest album of all time, at least among single disc LPs, but it would have competition from Marvin Gaye's 1978 double LP here my dear. Gaye recorded the album to fulfill a divorce settlement with his ex wife Anna Gordy, sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy. As part of the settlement from their nasty two year court battle, Gay agreed to pay Anna the royalties from his next album. Hence the spitefully titled Hear My Dear, whose tracks were all about the failure of the marriage from Marvin's point of view.

[Kevin Bendis]

Memories of the things we did, Some we're proud of, Some we hid so win to peace.

[Chris Melanfi]

Also in the 70s, there were even diss tracks against record labels. The Sex Pistols offered the punk rant EMI about the label that had dropped them after only three months.

[Kevin Bendis]

I tell you, it was all a frame. They only did it because of fame. Who? Emi.

[Chris Melanfi]

New wave rocker and so called angry young man Graham Parker dissed his record label Mercury on the acerbic but catchy Mercury Poisoning. And Hart scored an actual hit with Barracuda, a beef record disguised as a kiss off rocker on the radio. Barracuda sounded like a screed against a snake in the grass ex lover, but in fact lead singer Anne Wilson actually wrote it as a diss against Hart's former label Mushroom, which had tried to promote Anne and her sister Nancy Wilson as an incestuous lesbian couple. Seriously, Barracuda reached number 11 on the Hot 100 in 1977. As the 70s drew to a close, one of the beefiest hit movies makers on the radio was Billy Joel, who often embedded slide digs at real life characters in songs like Piano man or Only the Good die Young. His 1979 number 14 hit Big Shot, a withering diss against a fashionable New York City socialite, was inspired, he later revealed, by Bianca Jagger, the glamorous then wife of Rolling Stone Mick jagger. And in 1980, Joel scored his first Hot 100 number one with a satirical diss of rock critics and the music press who preferred cutting edge new wave to his unpretentious pop songs. Billy Play acted as a hipster scribe infatuated with new wave on his chart topper. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me.

[Kevin Bendis]

Where have you been hiding out lately? Honey? You can't dress trash until you spend a lot of money. Everybody's talking about the new sound sound funny but it's still rock and roll to me.

[Chris Melanfi]

I bring up it's still rock and roll to me because it was the wellspring for two more diss records of the 1980s. Just a few months after it dropped, a young Weird Al Yankovic parodied it as It's Still Billy Joel to me on the Dr. Demento radio show. It was one of very few Weird Al tracks whose lyrics belittle the artist he's parodying.

[Kevin Bendis]

It's so nice when you're a big name artist doesn't matter if it sounds like trash now everybody thinks the new wave of Cooper is asked whether once that or even Alice Cooper. It's a big hit, isn't it? Even if it's a piece of junk, it's still Billy Joel's a being.

[Chris Melanfi]

For that reason, Al never released It's Still Billy Joel to Me as either a single or an album cut. Feeling it was too mean spirited. He may be a parodist, but Al doesn't really do beef records. And the other diss track inspired by Billy Joel's hit that would come later in the decade as the rap era took shape and hip hop codified what a diss record meant it. We'll get to that in part two of our show. Eventually, hip hop attitude would not only power countless rap beefs, it would even school pop stars on how to drop bars filled with irresistible haterade. When we come back, rap reinvents the dis record as rappers go head to head on wax and gradually turn the charts into a player haters ball. Along the way, everyone from alternative rockers to teen popsters to multi platinum megastars learn how to beat beef like the big boys. Culminating in one Compton rapper's Grammy winning super bowl rocking and even court challenged victory lap. Step this way non slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode at the end of July. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited, and narrow, narrated by Chris Melanfi. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis, our supervising producer is Joel Meyer, and the executive producer of Slate Podcasts is Mia lobel. Check out Slate's roster of [e-mail] podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two at the end of the month. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanvi. It.