Joni Mitchell: Blue (1971)

[00:00]in 2020 four friends decided to listen to every one of the greatest 500 albums as decided by rolling stone magazine this resulted in a text chain that celebrated the music excoriated the order and led us to making this podcast we are far from experts we promise to do almost no research all opinions are our own unless you disagree please sit back and enjoy beck did it better this is the third album on the list of 1971's blue by joni mitchell you know what guys today i'm going to switch it up a little bit i'm going to play the title track from this album and i'm going to tell you right now i was shocked with how much i love the music but i thought the lyrics to be honest on this song were a little bit basic here i'll show you the part i really like it's beautiful oh yeah yeah i would say she's ahead of her time this is third i mean if it's time way ahead of its time it's so good perfect my body my body is grinding uncontrollably i wish i would have said that when you want to hear about the greatest albums

[01:05]of all time i totally stole russell's joke from last time but that episode has not been published yet oh yeah rob no one ever makes it to the end of the podcast anyway so no one will know you stole the joke but i appreciate the credit i've got the perfect podcast for you jack beck did it better oh yeah i do not like starting like that everybody podcast land welcome to back to the better where we are going through the 2020 rolling stones greatest album list of all time and we are up to number three blue by joni mitchell and you know what we don't need no piece of paper from city hall keeping this tied and true we're here because we're straight up losers we have nothing else to do at night say hi to my co-host i got russell in minneapolis russell how are you doing acid booze and ass needles guns and grass lots of laughs rob lots of laughs i'm drinking sweet i got the headphones up hi i feel like we're doing a guns and roses album man for that one

[02:03]that was a good one i got uh matt in minnesota how are you doing matt i'm feeling blue after listening to this album so i'm doing well otherwise happy to hang out with you guys i'm blue extremely happy to hang out with you guys all right so matt is the one who's going to get this canceled on this episode so i'm looking forward to that and aaron who is currently in tahoe uh he's got a big sign on that says bear bait um aaron how are you doing i'm in california i'm coming home california oh you're taking russell's bit uh that is i couldn't i could not do it with this stealer next thing you know nobody likes a bit stealer next thing you know aaron's gonna do a list during this podcast and i'm just gonna be looking for new work soon he would never do that though not i would never i would never do such a thing i think that's my problem is i do think about this as work like i've got like test to grade and like stuff to write i don't know what i'm teaching on tuesday and i'm like you know i better put together this list of you know best songs by people that start with the letter j for the podcast that's what i do now i do think

[03:04]this is a job all right so that yeah this is this is my passion this is my work exactly uh we're like joni mitchell except nobody listens to us uh everybody we are uh recording on a sunday to uh dom capora started so easy fast everybody who observes it and congrats to my co-hosts here on a thousand downloads to celebrate i'm gonna sniff this smelling salt oh yeah we never thought we'd make it this far started from the bottom now we're here you know what i i i uh i believed in us so it's a shame you said when we started this podcast that all you wanted to do was what you want to do 100 downloads per episode we're up to a thousand downloads per episode right uh well yeah well okay so if you took all of our episodes and combined them into one using some sort of audio stitching thing into a giant 20-hour podcast then yes we would definitely have a thousand downloads per episode and we would be able to do a thousand but no right now the key is is that you release a hundred episodes and get 10 downloads each and

[04:03]then you're up to a thousand automatically it's not a it's not a thousand per episode it's a thousand total thousand total listen we have a thousand total downloads why do i have to explain it more than that geez louise uh gosh you guys are like the police over there mathematics and uh i just also want to um so congratulations to us for having a thousand downloads hey congrats guys i think we're about 500 of those downloads actually so that uh no matt definitely does it for us not download or listen to this podcast i try not to he'll pass along the back line better than any of us but that's about as far as he's willing to go matt both matt and his wife they see the podcast show up on their phone and they both look at each other go no and by the way i shook my head there so that was a visual zoom joke that nobody else and i said zoom visual zoom joke that's tough to say that's a it's a hard one but i am a professional that's what she said red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather i do my vocal warm-ups on sunday night instead of

[05:02]sleeping all right and this is not going to get cut oh so i want to say uh congratulations to us because guys the beck line is blowing up to the point where i have to actually pick and choose what i'm going to play and not just beg people to leave messages so if people call in they got to come they got to come with it right yeah they got to bring the they got to bring the funk they got to bring the ruckus or whatever how can you get a hold of the beck line rob or matt how do you get a hold of the beck line you're the you're the two who advertise this matt generally interrupts like matt is the last few episodes had his phone up while we're talking and supposedly he's texting the beck line to people and you know what i did i texted that person who asked for him and i said did you get a hold did you call in they said no you gave me some number in ontario so after all this time i still can't get it right so what's the number rob the number is 802-277-BECK that's 802-277-2325 so some version of that gets you to ontario somehow so yeah call that version too who

[06:00]cares they want to hear what's going on with what you guys think about the episode from three weeks ago it sucks that that was the the one caller that was going to compliment me on my brilliant takes on music and life but it turns out they called some some voicemail in ontario instead this is a bunch of bullshit uh yeah no russ i get actually i get like three or four voicemails every time complimenting you and i delete those instantly not good content for the podcast uh all right so let's get to our first episode guys you might be shocked with who this is from oh hey it's krista again kristen um first of all i should say i am actually really enjoying the podcast i feel like i do call in with a lot of criticisms from time to time but i am enjoying it i listen to it on my runs um each week and i'm inspired to listen to different music i will say that i think you should go for it with a new updated list and if you want it to be best albums of all time it should include albums from all time and their

[07:02]old list left out several years of albums i'm just saying that but then also um i am a little confused by the chore that matt says he doesn't like to do which is folding laundry because because he doesn't actually have to fold the laundry and neither does his wife wait a minute i suggest wait a minute now matt and see who actually does wait a minute now rob is like twisting in his chair he is so excited wait a minute now i'm so excited krista brought this up but rob is like physically when you finally get her name right so good work russell yeah kirsten makes a good point uh last episode i was made fun of for having somebody a friend who helps out around the house okay and basically the purpose of my friend is to try to make my wife less angry at me at all times which is uh she's feeling spectacularly but she's trying so matt what is going on this is the laundry this is laundry 20 laundry 2020

[08:05]mystery if matt what's going on if i remember right the question was what chore do you hate the most no no no that's not what the that's not what the what was the question it doesn't matter did we ask johnny cocker question was which is johnny cochran and beck did it better today is this robert kardashian joining us yeah is bill clinton what depends on what the meaning of is is yeah matt i am at your house i am watching the laundry get folded what am i seeing a little maury povich you know i don't know so this is a multi i categorically deny this yeah so the question was what chore do you hate the most i hate folding laundry nobody asked if i actually folded the laundry what's the solution what's the solution so the solution is and we also talked about and i don't think my mom knows what podcasts are so i don't think she's gonna catch up with this unless my wife shares why are all your shirts so wrinkly

[09:02]that you're wearing i bet matt just throws away all his clothes after one use and goes with podcast revenue guys these paper pants are revolutionary that's why you buy so many champion double knit sweatshirts he's like other folks just buy like the one i got on right now nice vikings 38 bucks ebay it's nice all right let's let's wrap this up yeah we're very busy so two things my mom comes over watches my kids for about three hours a couple times a week she's retired she makes the kids got nothing going on she she comes over she folds my laundry my mom comes over and folds my laundry i'm 39 years old i'm a millennial my mom comes over and folds my laundry wait wait excuse me a second it's it's it's it's time for one-on-one with matt oh yeah and when i say one-on-one what i mean is that she's finding

[10:04]one sock and then another sock and putting them together and meanwhile matt was yelling at her about the list god damn it mom rolling stone change a list oh and by the way you you didn't put away the shirt in the right drawer put it in the wrong shelf so no it started out as a thing where she you know we had laundry i was gonna fold it she's like well i'll just fold it i mean this is years ago now though right so i mean we're talking this has been going on for a very long time so and krista knows that it's a big joke christopher minneapolis knows it's a ha ha krista you got me kristen whatever your name is but now you're calling her by the wrong name is that just me oh or whatever he or whatever you know this is mad man i love it no so my mom does it she's very nice in return i get i i all i asked for for my birthday all i asked for christmas no no no every year is nothing just keep folding my clothes and i'm happy so thank you so i could go i could go i

[11:00]got a i got a thing in my right over there in that drawer in my in my kitchen that says one year's worth of laundry folding for my mom so that's what we got we're uh you know go ahead all these weeks of me being ripped down for not being a fully functioning adult not knowing how to pick out properly live flowers and it turns out i can do my own laundry and let and let my grass grow too long and matt can do that but he can't do his own laundry his mom also i feel like i should issue uh beck did a better apology for all the people who have contributed to the go fund me i started for a laundry folding service for matt so everybody who contributed uh maybe let's take some suggestions for what else you'd want to give that money to because i started this go fund matt and uh turns out yeah i didn't need to matt matt's bought four sweatshirts to the list and all he gives to his mom is a homemade paper certificate hey on the back side it says free back rub i mean it sounds like when i get my wife for anniversary man give me a break it's gold star

[12:01]every week keep it up mom i'm gonna email your mom a copy of this podcast i think she'll love it that's jones thank you very much we appreciate it you do a great job thank you for everything thank you so there is that better it's not that i don't know how to fold my laundry i hate folding laundry though my mom knows it she folds it for us so no i'm not i'm not going to apologize for it i'm uh i'm just going to eat that one and go well you certainly didn't fully disclose it last time that's yeah that was noticeably you guys you guys didn't you didn't say what is the chore you don't like to do what is we just said you also mom to take care of yeah right yep yeah so lie all right it's a lie by omission thanks kirsten from minneapolis well no wait i don't know if we're done with this yet i can i have your mom's address because i have a certificate here for two years of free laundry folding that i want to send her i think that would help all right all right that's enough break it up you two that was one-on-one with aaron

[13:06]that's good i don't think we've had a mom i don't think we've had a one-on-one the moms for a while it's been a minute it's been a minute but hey let's say krista appreciate you listening always appreciate you calling in so appreciate all of our listeners no doubt yeah i don't they're dumb as shit to listen to this shit get a life you guys oh my god yeah and you know what i'm above our listeners oh i'm a listener i like to you know what we're making the content you guys are adding like two minutes a week we're doing the heavy lifting here but please keep calling in i'm sorry i'm gonna edit that out just get mad just get mad at the listener all right double voicemail that's right it's a double voicemail so let's check what's going on and this voicemail caller might surprise you all right little andy calling with take two of the aaron anecdote of the week so earlier this week uh the day before the blonde on blonde episode came out i went over to pick up some artwork

[14:02]that i bought from a local artist went to his house to pick it up and when i picked it up i said yeah is your brother aaron the trombone player i shit you not that's what he said uh so aaron's uh trombone try was reached as far and wide the thing about this too is that this gentleman is from our hometown it turned out but he was not in high school at the same time as aaron so somehow uh aaron you know trombone playing even though he wasn't the first chair uh was was transcending even uh even the high school classes as well so moral of the story i guess i didn't realize until this week that my brother was the trombone shorty of anthony iowa uh thanks for everything you do guys i do listen to every episode front to back and uh and look forward to everyone take care so he was the trombone shorty of anthony iowa uh thanks for everything you do he's the one he's the one let me apologize for making fun of our listeners i understood less of that than i've understood of bob dylan lyrics he was just rambling about something with aaron and his trombone i have no clue what he was saying let me let me sum up let me sum up that that was a classic aaron's family type story where it lasted very long uh basically the story

[15:05]was that he went in to get a piece of art uh from an artist that nobody's ever heard of and then he uh somebody said oh it's not the last name which i'm probably going to edit out and said oh are you is is aaron your brother i went i remember him playing trombone did not go to school with him this is from some years later so there's some sort of plaque with aaron with a trombone that says people just know aaron as a trombone player yeah best tromboner aaron biggest tromboner ever in iowa stuff like that i tried not to play this up too much but i was really good at the trombone and in junior high and high school i don't want to like obviously i'm a legend in certain circles hey it i don't know if you guys know this but people know yeah it might not run in the family either your brother calling in just so you guys know when i was going in to buy some artwork last week like what the hell is that i'm going to call him right up and see what that artwork was i'm curious to see what the artwork was because i've been trying to buy him some artwork i don't want

[16:03]to buy the same one so this is like when matt goes into a store and they ask like hey is you're the you're the mom who does all the laundry oh shit oh yeah matt the one who's mom has all the laundry the back line is just a pot of gold uh that just keeps on giving so essentially you're a famous trombone player but you acted like you weren't a few weeks ago i don't think i mean maybe i didn't i i well would you call yourself the trombone shorty of ankeny iowa yes except grant dickinson was first first year well how is that possible that somebody remembers you for playing trombone and you sucked you weren't even better than grant ickinson maybe it was more about panache than you know technical proficiency maybe i just had style maybe grant's working in the art store now i'm working in the art store i gotta call him i gotta

[17:01]call my brother up and figure out i gotta get to the bottom of this i worked really hard in school i practiced my trombone i was first chair over probably the most i was first chair over this kid who had purple john lennon glasses on and i uh not working an art store in iowa so hey are you interested in this picture of a field i also have this picture of a barn oh wait no that's not a picture that's a window sorry i was trying to sell you this window i apologize it's just an entire wall of paintings of the field of dreams like there's just one wall dedicated to the field of dreams in dyersville and then everything else is you know variations on the theme so uh yeah so i like that when the uh the voicemails don't make sense i like that make fun of russ and i nice job voicemails keep that up i like it when you guys haven't heard from barry in a while but disappointing i hope barry's okay i uh i don't think barry ever got published period actually the backline is ever tonight i think barry barry hit the edit point yeah barry hit the cutting room floor did he okay i can't i actually can't remember i don't listen

[18:05]to the episode so i don't know what did it god so i was with a co-worker in a zoom call and they referenced the podcast and i was like oh yeah when did we do that i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know we talk about that like i i really guys i have no idea what we've talked about most of these episodes like if you said what were what did we talk about episode zero do you have any idea what we were doing big bopper no that was like two episodes ago that was like a dream white album we were you know rosie and i were saying how great it was and all of a sudden rolling stone comes in and just completely rips our heart out white album up to like 30 something now matt obviously has some things to discuss on this podcast this is when you know we have lots of content planned up old episodes that literally happened about six weeks ago we're like remember that that was so great self-referential yeah exactly uh rolling going everybody we're gonna get into rolling going as soon as i find the sound clip oh my god there's so many sound clips i mean guys if you listen okay you want to see this play the honky tonk man one play the honky tonk man

[19:01]my hair slicked back and i've got this and then i've got this like none of this is any good warning warning cannot find the right sound clip this is all useless there's too many sound clips rolling going let's see what's happening uh everybody rolling going how's it going tell me how's it going uh russell rolling going how's it going for you rolling going sometimes the days are good sometimes the days are a little rougher i can never tell with this online dating world if things are going well or not going well and part of me just wants to give it up and try to just start meeting women in the real world again i'm curious from your guys perspective if i'm at a grocery store or i'm in public can i just go approach someone and say hey i noticed you over there like you know i was looking for the coffee section can i go or is it the mask thing that does it away or or are we not allowed to talk to people in person anymore as somebody who's living in new york city right now do not i would never ever talk

[20:05]to somebody in a public space right that is a good way to find out that somebody has a brick in their purse and they're looking to hit you with it it's that would be enormous i couldn't even tell you what a faux pas that would be and it's almost impossible when i'm in minnesota all summer and i come back here and i find myself looking at everybody's eyes and they immediately look at me like what the fuck are you looking at and i'm like oh i'm so sorry i'm just looking at my shoes i don't know russell can you can you really go out and meet people just does that even happen i mean i think that's just a movie thing right i don't think it happens but sometimes you think you may have to go back to the basics because when the first thing you have to ask like are you married i don't know like that's and that's not a good opening line trust me i think that's on them to volunteer that information like you're just at the grocery store you're there buying your coffee you strike up a conversation i feel that the mask has a lot of freedom it reminds me of my thoughts about pretending everyone is high i just feel that when you're

[21:00]wearing a mask people only hear about 60 percent of what you say so just like you know be free throw it out there say what you say and see what everybody can see what comes back you know rosie that's a good point i think when everybody's wearing a mask i think they really only hear about 60 percent of what people say so i think that's a good thing um i don't have anything further to go with that joke i like what are you going to do in the grocery store like go up and be like nice melons like i what do you what can i help you carry your watermelon to the car or like oh i see you've bought 25 pounds of ice perhaps you're having a party would you like someone to attend and can i come thank god this is pathetic guys i don't know i mean wow you're buying a lot of bacon like what i mean nothing you what can you say at a grocery store that's actually a good pickup line one of my buddy's moms will do your laundry oh no no wait wait we're not we're not no that we're not going to uh

[22:03]pour that out the laundry stuff i gotta save all that for me i can't we're not gonna allow that to happen well i thought you weren't gonna let us do that as a running bit and i was like no that is this week's running bit that's a running bit i like rob's idea like if you see uh if you see someone you're interested in buying a lot of bacon i think that is a point of conversation and you could talk about you know i think i think you know in advance you could read up on the best techniques for you know mass cooking large quantities of bacon you could say like oh hey i see you're buying a lot of bacon i have thoughts about how to cook you know bacon for a crowd or you know how to freeze bacon they're getting a little uh you're getting a little wieners we'll go with them so you got the bacon wrapped smokies you know what about the little wieners i would do that we have a lot of things to say about groceries and russell if they're putting if they're putting little wieners and huge meatballs into a cart i got the perfect pickup line for you and like taco shells or something

[23:00]i was really just talking about groceries oh i so you have a great double stuff oreo joke i haven't even said yet well we might be right we might be right maybe i just need to stick with the online failure as opposed to the in-person failure so we might need to just move on this doesn't seem like a good idea at all we weren't actually in the corner but we should hop out time's up get out of the corner that was russell's advice corner oh yeah so russell more good advice i hope you you can do with that advice what you want you're getting tons and tons of good advice rolling going man how's it going going it's going good it's going you know i think i've settled down like i said from last episode i've settled down a little bit um i realized that there's some really really i can never tell when matt's angry matt is exactly the same episode well that was furious last episode apparently i did not notice yeah that was the one where they changed up uh the list on us oh okay you know and so we started talking about these i don't know i can't believe it still a little bitter but

[24:02]you know i i i'm fascinated by the new list and rosie's got me even more fascinated um by talking about it and how excited he is that you know they've they've extreme they've just changed it up big time i still think there's a few artists that have been left off and i just want to ask you a couple of them to get your guys thoughts on it all right i like a quiz i like yes yeah uh the first one i've got is uh who no hootie and the blowfish and cracked rear view their album from 1994 your thoughts i thought this was a phenomenal album just from a front to back new kind of way of doing music and it kind of changed that song that's a hard one for me to say because darius rucker's voice is just so good that i just can't imagine having 500 albums and not including him i don't think the music is groundbreaking in in any way but yeah like i mean he's got to be a

[25:05]top well i don't i mean the whole idea of a list is crazy but i don't think the music is groundbreaking in in any way but yeah like i mean he's got to be a top he's a great voice so i think if he made a great album uh i think it should be on the list especially if it's going as far as 500 by the way their website is hootie.com that's just a that's a can i tell you guys how did they get hootie.com that's how you know you're a band that came out right when the internet was starting yeah that's probably like this the coolest hootie moment i've ever had as i saw garth brooks live at the viking stadium a few years ago and hootie and the blowfish or darius rucker whatever you want to call him or his country band opened for garth and they played purple rain by prince oh geez i would have lost my damn mind i would have absolutely lost my mind yeah i think he's one of he's a great voice you really are going nuts about hootie i can't believe it i mean i don't love the band or the music i just i think he's got a great voice and it came out in 1994 like i was a freshman in high

[26:01]school 1994 so so you're saying he came out for music of all time anything that came out in 1994 so hootie hootie uh bush no doubt all that stuff is gonna like hit me in the nostalgia bone like i i'm not the right person to answer the like i'm i'm extremely biased when it comes to things from that that era i think nostalgia bone was a band we listened to on one of these lists one of these times i don't think it's all right so i'm gonna play what is obviously the best hootie in the blowfish song of all time it's gonna be a little loud i'll turn it down this is is this the one with dan marino in the the video or not oh my god i've forgotten the videos remember how big those videos were it's patrick and all the espn guys and right oh totally but matt and aaron and i just sing it oh yeah but here's what i don't get about hootie i mean this like this is the corniest shit ever but his

[27:04]voice is so great that like i think it belongs in the top 500 albums just to have this voice in there like really wow when you talk about the top 500 albums of all time something has to be in there about you know they sold x amount right i mean there's the ones who are like groundbreaking and new wave and all that stuff but there's also just straight up they just sold a ton of albums right to be fair this would get like into the garth brooks conversation right so that i mean so garth brooks is on my list of uh we'll just go to that there's there's a number of them but how is the country artists that are on here miranda lambert somebody else from 2011 uh some guy i never heard of no offense but no miranda lambert's the one where if she's at playing at a garth brooks concert that's where everyone's running to the the bar to get a drink when she's playing well i think eric church i think eric church was it but like including garth

[28:00]how is the hell out of here with eric what the hell he's on the list but how how is how is there not a garth brooks album on this list when he sold a gajillion number of them i mean he's so influential he was a force too i mean i don't think people realize like if you grew up in that time you you knew garth brooks songs whether you listen to country or not like it's crazy i only know friends in low places because of people we went to college with i i'm you've got to know more garth brooks songs erin yeah i guarantee you have to know more garth brooks songs than that i know the one um to make you feel my love which is actually a bob dylan song off of time out of mind which we've discussed he even knows random he knows like legit random garth brooks songs that we've never heard of no i'm saying like i don't i don't hate on garth but uh i that's where i i would i would i would agree with hootie but not with garth but i'm that's i'm just one dork with an opinion so whatever yeah and it's a dumb shit opinion you think hootie should be in before garth brooks i kind of do that doesn't make any sense i know that's terrible you have to you have to recognize

[29:05]like if garth brooks comes to a city he can sell out 15 concerts over two weeks like there are no other artists in the world who can do that yes oh yeah i mean i don't like and he had and he had actual albums and if garth showed up like sellers and great on this porch i'm sitting on i would kiss him right on the mouth and i'd be like let's play some tunes but i don't i don't know any garth albums that would like really you know move me to be fair his wife looks exactly like garth brooks she even has a shirt with the four things on it i was gonna say something but i didn't want to kind of slightly wait where's the shirt with like the tucked jeans and everything and the boot yeah i don't i don't want to come off like i'm hating on his head looks like it's just a little too big i don't know of an album that would work in the top 500 but like i i think garth is a force of nature erin doesn't know any garth brooks albums but he knows that i stole my dog album whoever that was by captain ox that's what we're dealing with yeah that's what we're dealing with uh okay what else is on

[30:02]the list of mad that got i got a lot i got a lot of them we'll save some for the next man i love it let's bring it on let's bring it on now the last one let's talk about is lincoln park in hybrid theory came out in 2000 now this absolutely in my opinion kind of shifted from the grunge era yeah to much more of a i don't know it's not it's not like it's like a rap it's like a rap rock right rap rock but it's even a little more like uh studio-ish where they kind of you know composed everything in a studio as opposed to live but they kind of you know composed everything the live stuff is absolutely phenomenal if you did it better i don't know that particular kid rock kid rock lib biscuit is that the type of same type of thing as i feel like i'm back in eighth grade reading what somebody has written on the desk in the class before me it's like i don't know that particular lincoln park but i have i have a take on lincoln park that you guys aren't gonna care about but i'm gonna say it anyway which is before don't hype it up too much aaron never stopped me

[31:03]i i don't think i think that the that i think lincoln park and by extension fort minor were a big influence on hamilton the musical and so i gotta give lincoln park their props because i'm i can i know lynn lynn when mel lynn manuel miranda was a big fan of uh it right he's a big fan of the far side and also east coast hip-hop but like when you when you watch and listen to hamilton you know he listened to lincoln park in fort minor so i i gotta give props to them i don't know that particular album i i i agree they were they were a major cultural force in the in the aughts oh that was aaron's left field come on that's like are you fucking serious just brought lincoln park did a bear eat part of your brain that makes a logically connection you just connected lincoln park and lynn well met manuel miranda damn it now you got me saying it

[32:00]like that sorry i fucked it up i guarantee he he has listened to lincoln park but don't let me stop you from playing matt's song i was trying to fill the time until you can pull that song up it was getting intense i cannot and then you get mad about me playing the sound bit guys this might be the end of the podcast we made it all the way somehow we made album nine and three that's the farthest we got technically we made it to three albums that's a bunch of crap by the way to all four women who are listening to us to finally talk about like jody mitchell just wait we're talking about lincoln park here for just a second i was i was really trying to agree with matt here i'm sorry that i didn't come sometimes on that i'm not that articulate with my thoughts yeah dumb as hell all i want to be with you oh yeah i mean this is a jam hamilton i'm hamilton i'm a guy with a gun or something the tickets are too expensive fiscal policy my wife wants to go to this show but i don't want

[33:00]to get way into fiscal policy in that show no doubt i'm aware no matter how hard you try to keep guys i want to go play hacky sack i don't know about you guys i was really trying to read into you know how how do they come up with this list right and you know there's there's 300 people that they asked to vote okay and the editors basically said that if it's a best album of all time if you hear it the first time you hear it the 101st time you're learning something new i completely get it i'm not gonna do it again i'm not gonna do it again i'm not gonna do it again get that with like pet sounds i completely get that with sergeant pepper i completely get that with a ton of these albums you know it's so it's hard for me you know like garth brooks are you gonna get something the 101st time you hear garth books maybe not but i still think there's got to be a place on this list for best-selling albums of all time even if they are somewhat simple because maybe their country i'm not gonna say that it is simple um but i think you know commercial

[34:04]i think it should if you're talking about the best albums of all time like people put their hard-earned money down bought it right and so that's where i think we're going to talk about uh blue and how this is number three on the list and you know we'll get into that later but you know i just i i was trying to find someone's that that's the wrong one it's the damn it it's the other blue rob again i'm sorry guys i have to make a political joke if commercial success mattered we wouldn't have an electoral college the number of the number of if the number of people buying your crap meant something then you know then all that would matter am i in hamilton right now you know i'm saying like so i feel you but like well the number of people who bought something is first of all whatever and secondly but aaron don't you think i didn't say i didn't say that was like the number one thing i said it should be considered okay don't you think that like 10 hour episode don't you think that

[35:00]consumer satisfaction you're the one who said hey i'm gonna work tomorrow i'm ready to go yeah let's do this no no i knew guys i knew we were going to talk about lincoln park and uh hamilton or whatever the show is trying to talk and i'm listening okay we're listening to russell he's got something very important to say russell i have nothing important to say roll and go on aaron move on to aaron i've made him mad i'm sorry so aaron's been listening to a lot of lincoln park no you didn't make me mad at all and i just we've hit a point of complete uh debacle no going back i do think garth brooks garth brooks should be on the list i mean he he there's the number of people that got into country music because of garth brooks i mean it's it's insane anyway i'm rehashing old stuff or i'm gonna edit all this shit out okay what am i up to rolling going matt did you have anybody else on the list no i gotta give me one more list well one more one more um this is slightly aaron's gonna aaron might reach through and punch me but i love it i love when mad and arrogant mad at each other normally everyone's mad at me russell you and i are bff right now yes

[36:04]i think matchbox 20 yourself and someone like you should be a top 500 album of all time that thing sold the shit out of it and it had it was great it was a great album i think they still perform at mystic lake casino too yeah i saw matchbox 20 open for the rolling stones on the voodoo lounge tour and they got booed off in 10 minutes you know they didn't yeah they did absolutely everybody got booed off in 10 minutes you know that it was gonna because they played kind of life is like their second song because they knew like nobody survives in front of the rolling stones you think a bunch of rolling stones fans are excited to see matchbox 20 they've they sat down the whole concert well that's fine i don't think they got booed off in 10 minutes though well we all know that my memory is very good because i definitely remember them opening with that cricket song as i talked about earlier so this is uh rolling going aaron how's it going uh it's going good it's going pretty good uh i just want to say i'm confused because i feel like i

[37:00]agreed with matt and at least half of his choices so i don't i don't think matt and i are mad at each other at all no it's been decided you guys are mad respectfully disagree with the two most reasonable and smartest people on the podcast don't agree and rob and i just kind of sleep by like nobody notices that we're the idiots here yeah so so i think i think uh matt and i respectfully disagreed on a couple of those fight but i agree with you we're gonna have to have it right after episode talk again i love it i can't get enough but uh i'm uh i'm rolling pretty good uh we're in lake tahoe again uh because there was a heat wave in oakland this weekend so we thought let's get out of town uh so we went to a new went to a new lake today which was really nice and uh i swam around in an alpine lake wait a new leg you're at lake tahoe but there's lots of little alpine lakes all around that are really beautiful and tahoe was too windy and cold today so we had to find another spot this all just sounds terrible the way i say but i do want to say what i'm into is i bought a

[38:02]jar of tomato sauce which i haven't done for a long time i usually try to make my own tomato sauce and it's terrible and so i bought a jar of tomato sauce rouse tomato sauce and uh put it on some ravioli tonight for dinner are they paying you i felt like a really wonderful chef it was great and i'm gonna start buying more tomato sauce because uh trying to make it yourself is just not not right so that's where i'm at i'm good so tomato sauce yeah we all we're all we're all just completely if i went out of state and started talking about my homemade tomato sauce i i i should probably be canceled from online dating but i feel like it would probably be better than any of my opening material anyways right now like would this work for me can you imagine aaron at the grocery store picking up a woman like yeah hey buying tomato sauce i normally make mine but i started buying it it's really good hey what's that pepper spray bottle in your hand the whole point of the story

[39:03]is that buying it is way better than making your own well i've been getting my tomato sauce sent to me by matt's mom so i don't know i think it's pretty good this is a we had this joke on the you guys were at your chicken joke right your chicken in a can thing right and you're you said hey here's my chicken here's my can here's a chicken in the can right so you sent in the text this week right i did rob said by the way a metal box metal box yeah this is this is a secret look into our exciting texts that we send each other it's just references back to the podcast but everybody but rob's like how do you cook a chicken i was like well there's six bucks in the grocery store like i mean it's the same thing with tomato sauce the the chicken to me is different because it's a it's a ritual i enjoy making the chicken every week it's good for me draws a star on the ground break it down he takes the chicken out he prays to the god of another world so that to me is then he slices the chicken five times speaking in ancient greek i'm in tahoe i'm talking about a place where the beer flows like wine where the women instinctively flock to the salmon

[40:02]like a capistrano you know i didn't know that it was the swallows of capistrano until i actually drove through capistrano about four years ago so until i was like 35 i thought it was literally the salmon of capistrano i was like oh the swallows if you're watching dumb and dumber and you watching that as a non-fiction movie you're probably going to be surprised a lot throughout your life did you pick up any homemade tomato sauces on that trip matt or not no uh no matt's been matt's been ahead of the curve he's been buying jarred tomato sauces for years have you ever bought a jar of tomato sauce and then finished it well that's that's gonna be the next challenge i don't know if i'm gonna make it i don't think i don't think i ever have i bet i bought 100 jars of tomato sauce and finished zero of them every time aaron brings up one of these things i kind of laugh and question it and then i think well maybe he's doing everything correctly and i'm doing it incorrectly and it's like i don't have a compost bin i don't have homemade tomato sauce i go through kfc when i want fried chicken i want to know how much aaron works it seems like

[41:01]one hour a week is that a cougar or a cat or what the hell is that cat coming in on the zoom there's a a a fucking cat in the zoom call right now yeah and it could be like a cougar i didn't want to mention it it's like it's a i don't know it's a neighborhood cat who seems to have adopted us it's not even your cat no you're not even in your own neighborhood no it lives down the street we texted the owner and she was like oh yeah he's kind of far away from home but he's very friendly so i think he'll be joining us for the rest of the episode i don't know his name but he's now he's sitting on my lap and purring very loudly so i hope yeah you should steal the cat and bring it home to stop that rat orgy that's going on in your garage all the time the rats are living in this just jars and jars of pasta sauce that's out in aaron's garage the neighbors are all mad this cat like left the deck a long time ago and has now come back so i don't know i guess it's my new best friend aaron's like aaron is literally like

[42:02]all the animals are flocking to him we're gonna see a big bear next to him by the way i know that you're sitting out in tahoe and that you don't want there has been like bears going into cars and grocery stores and you're worried about bears eating you at night but i will say this if you hear anybody saying um uh the chinese chicken that means that instead of a bear it is the naked ladies coming in and i didn't know how to put in that joke but i've been thinking about it for a half hour number four on the list but what i'm really curious about is how it's really going with rob that's what i want to know how's it really going with rob okay so uh basically uh i have uh been doing um i've been doing a lot of work over zoom and i have a couple different computers i have my work computer and my home computer but then my daughters are also taking their classes now they just started classes over zoom so my oldest daughter amelia has been doing all of her classes she just started a brand new middle school so she's new in school and the way this works is that it's all new kids from different elementary schools going into

[43:02]a middle school because in new york you actually have to like get drafted into a middle school it's very complicated so these are all kids that she doesn't know she doesn't know the teachers they've never met her in person it's only been zoom calls so of course when she's using she's she'll use my computer out in the living room she'll use my work computer to do her zoom call because she likes the fact that my work computer is a laptop you mean the podcast computer uh well no well yes this is the podcast computer and it's so that is a questionable thing what if my work finds out i've been using the podcast computer and it's so that is a questionable thing what if my work finds out i've been using the computer to make the podcast and then they demand that they have to keep all the podcasts themselves rob we just need to delete this immediately for all of us right now oh no i was thinking they would like it's like you know it's like this is a this is a non-non-discussionable point this needs to be deleted like they own the podcast now so they can do what they want and they just send it out and it gets downloaded like a million times and we just are totally iced out oh my god continues to make jokes not realizing this needs to be deleted anyway is that here on my work computer

[44:01]and here's the school i work for and here's the address here's my room number uh is that i once had a meeting with some friends from college and so to make the meeting more fun i put in a humorous name okay that was respectful to some women uh and so then it turns out that when i start a meeting on my computer that name doesn't come up but if i were to join a meeting started by somebody else which i don't do on this computer very often in fact i don't think i've ever done it because i really had to think about it after the story but my daughter does do that in a new middle school so it turns out that she has been logging in to her school classes for two weeks no under the name norma and then the last name is s-t-i-t-z so the name that i picked is norma norma stitz wait how does that say that again

[45:00]norma stitz norma stitz so i so she has been going to every class and the teachers have asked her why does your screen say norma stitz and she goes i don't know and of course they won't let her change it she goes i don't know it's not a family name it's not anything so they have been she has been going to school as norma stitz and then when i explained to her why that was even funny she was like what norma stitz and i was like yeah norma stitz and she was like norma stitz and i i like she didn't even get it then but then to make me really proud when this all when we laughed about it for probably 10 minutes and realized what terrible i mean i have to go to conferences and i have to say yeah this is my daughter amelia oh you mean norma yeah norma stitz my daughter and i am also a teacher oh yeah the teacher and so i can tell that all the teachers are lame because none of them caught on to the joke because if a kid logged into my class as norma stitz i would know that immediately my daughter did turn to me and this made me very proud she goes to school and i said

[46:00]dad you have to talk about this on the podcast it's very funny and i was like yes that's what i'm talking about you know i need content so bad so yeah no matter how bad your day is going my kid has been going to school under the title norma stitz so that's good stuff that's how it's rolling going for you and that is how it's going that pretty much sums up uh how it's going for me and it's going great all right so we are an hour and 20 minutes into the podcast and we are going to talk a little bit more about joni mitchell uh any experience with the band or album uh i'll go first i'll say i i never listened to joni mitchell ever until we did this uh the top 500 the first time and i was listening through and this was the first album on the list that i listened to that i listened to more than once i listened to it once and then um when my wife was around i said we got to hear this album it's just the kind of music we you'd love because we've seen i don't know if you guys know regina spector at all we've seen her in concert two or three times and she's just wales

[47:00]beautiful beautiful same kind of music just piano and voice and we i just love it there's something about that folk voice with just one instrument i just cannot get enough of that stuff uh and and i played the album and jenny and i now love the album i think it's great and so now i'm super excited to be talking about it as high up as it is i just am addicted this album i think it's great uh russ any experience with joni mitchell or blue before this before i listened to this album admittedly i do not recall ever hearing any of these songs on like the radio or on a playlist or anything i don't think these are like big commercial hits um when i listen to it it's kind of it feels very simple it's this piano it's guitar it's her telling these stories and it really the first time i listened to it it felt like someone i would hear at a coffee shop or at a small bar while i'm waiting for my date who's never going to get going to show up oh no and but the one thing that jumped out to me is i didn't hear these like holy moments that we've heard on some of these other albums so far and i started wondering like why is this in the top 10 when i've heard all these other albums where they there's

[48:05]these huge musical moments on these other albums that i wasn't hearing on this one but i did a little research i watched a documentary and i listened to this more and more and i started kind of understand why this album resonates with people and had a greater appreciation for it so i look forward to hearing more about what you guys think of it too i'm gonna go to aaron next aaron any thoughts on this album or joni mitchell in general yeah my experience with joni mitchell in general um is that i my brother um who is a uh caller to the backline i gotta i gotta i gotta go grab my piece of artwork by the way while i'm doing this art pickup i'm gonna call into the beck line yeah he's our little by the way most brilliant color to the beck line uh actually gifted me uh song to a seagull which is joni's uh it turns out it's her first studio album uh and i it's a it's a good album i've listened to it a lot um but it it's a

[49:05]little bit meandering in in some ways and so um i do also own blue on vinyl and i've always listened to blue um on occasion and not always but i would say over the last you know 15 years probably not that long maybe 10 years i've listened to blue on occasion i think case of you is maybe one of the great love lost songs of all time um so so i have some experience with with um joni and this album um really didn't experience it in the way i think it's that it uh would change my mind uh until we were listening for the for the podcast so i'm excited to talk about it i have a lot of uh a lot of thoughts about it but my experience with her is probably limited to uh song for seagull and um and this album all right and i wasn't able to go to matt earlier because i did notice he muted himself he was yelling at his mom for folding some pants but matt what are you like over right like left over right you know how you got like you you got like

[50:05]it says minnesota vikings across your shirt like you can't fold that half no crease down the middle you got to fold it to third and the third until you see yeah yeah no and they need to know that it's it's important prepare that meatloaf medium rear while you're at it mom yeah my okay you're gonna ask what my experience i have zero experience with joni mitchell this is the stuff i typically run from um the full kind of one one person at a guitar and talking about their feelings and so i came in absolutely just dumbfounded how this is number three i listened to it a couple times did a bunch of research i i'm coming out of it into this podcast understanding it a little bit better having very high respect for it it's still not my thing but you know i think i i get it i get why people like it it's just not for me so i had zero experience coming into it this is one of the

[51:04]first albums where i got a text from a listener a female listener who said how important this album was to her uh growing up and how how great it was i i do think we are missing out being four uh males talking about this album i think there's definitely something uh extraordinarily feminine and at and but at the same time it's like it's it's like a female singing about and being vulnerable and not just talking about love like i don't know what what how what i'm trying to say i'm very dumb it's universal i think i think one thing i would say is i think her message is very universal it can apply to all types of people right it can apply to men women it can apply to all types of people of different races like if you listen to what she's singing about it's very personal yeah and so i can see why that it would resonate with a lot of people it's a female voice singing so so as a as a dude growing up it probably wasn't what we reached for or were uh encouraged to reach for but but what she's singing about applies to all of us as russell said

[52:05]so i i agree that it's a universal message it is bizarre though isn't it when i when you when i was doing research for this every single piece of research talked about every song and what relationship with some guy she was in and how that related to the song i haven't seen that for any other artists that we've talked about like when when the beatles are singing i want to hold your hand they don't say well oh this was written because john was dating them and they don't say this woman or this but joni mitchell every single one of them was like oh this was about graham nash or this is about james taylor and i know that's because those guys are famous compared to like who the beatles were talking about but you have to think there's some sort of sexist double standard here going on where every single song of joni's was related back to a man right like isn't that ridiculous i i kind of disagree i disagree to some extent i think i think she's singing about herself whereas if you listen to a lot of beatles albums there's a lot of nonsense in there there's a lot of songs about fucking rocky raccoon or whatever like there's there's weird songs about

[53:03]the beatles but to be fair ringo did date a yellow submarine i think it is the difference between what what they're actually singing about and what somehow gets documented and what we read about and yeah somehow the beatles bob dylan whomever were able to keep that private and mysterious and somehow those stories get out about joni and that's what's recorded and i don't i don't honestly know if that's what she wanted or not i mean but all that stuff is out now and and now we know this is personal and it sounds double standard yeah the double standard is probably all these uh different reporters or whatever asking her well what does this mean you know this had to be talking about so you know where they just the you wouldn't ask jimmy hendrix about his love so who are you talking about you know they all what great guitar jimmy you know stuff like that but don't you think that a bob dylan song they asked like hey is this about joan bias it's not much different than this with with james taylor or graham nash right but i mean the other thing is bob dylan to his credit just said nothing about

[54:03]nothing right he just absolutely blew everything off said i don't need to talk so i'm not saying joni mentioned the stuff you read it's like well in 1998 she finally said that this was about so and so and things like that yeah i mean like so i don't know i think the double standard it just seems to me when this is the first female artist that we've done and the first female artists i've done any research for and it just seemed to me it was really still somehow male-centric when she's a solo female act i i just thought that was bizarre but i do think it's a good point of yeah she's not singing about them she is singing about herself in a way that we haven't heard like we haven't heard the beatles sing about how they're scared about what happened or or how they got dumped and they're really sad about it or you know how what it's like to be dating somebody who's addicted to heroin i i just think she does it in a way and this was the first one where i looked at the lyrics and i was absolutely blown away to the point where i i copy and pasted some lyrics into this it's just like poetry and and i don't get how come some people

[55:02]can write poetry and some people can't have you ever tried to read have you ever read like poetry that like a middle schooler writes okay that's a weird question if you're not a teacher let me rephrase that why is so much poetry why why are some people good at this and some people aren't like if i wrote poetry and i showed you that compared to a good poet would you be able to tell the difference why can why can some people hit a home run and some people can't and why can some people you know run a 4 4 40 and some people can i mean it's just kind of your skill set right you find out what you're good at you you you attack it but why can some podcasts get 1000 total downloads and some get 1000 per episode right yeah idiots i so you think it's like a muscle that like you you were either good at or you're not or you're born with like is this something like if i worked hard at it could i write a song like joni mitchell well no no come on guys some people have a way of connecting with people and some people don't and she clearly does well that's a fucking dumb thing to say i mean clearly clearly i mean if you

[56:03]read kind of her history she clearly struggled for a good four or five six years kind of touring up and down the you know canada and stuff like that i mean if it's one of us i mean i give it a year and i'm done i'm saying oh we're gonna get a real job right i mean if you have a passion and you chase it i mean those are the people in the end that come out on time it's just it's with anything yeah and some people say editing this podcast could be a passion that you have and sometimes if your family says oh we want to do family things you just sit there editing your podcast i'm kind of like the joni mitchell of editing podcasts no i read joni mitchell's wikipedia page and she definitely got birthday candles for graham nash's cake two to three years in a row so you're not the same rob i didn't i i admit i did not see any lyrics where she said i'm gonna drive home so fast i'm so sad so let's put this album in context a little bit this is joni uh this is she i'm sorry this is her fourth album the first after the first three she had quite a bit

[57:02]of success uh especially after the the second and third one she decided to give recording music a break which is kind of a theme in joni mitchell's life right like she she's pretty quick she said that she's a she's an artist who got sidetracked like a visual artist who got sidetracked and she came out and she had some huge songs with um both sides now big yellow taxi and i wanted to play this for you actually this is her song woodstock and and there's a great youtube clip where she plays this this is live from the bbc but she talks about how she wrote this song and basically she was hanging out with crosby stills nash at their first professional like the first gig that they got paid for and then everyone went up to woodstock and she wasn't able to go because she was stuck on some tv show that they wouldn't let her go and so she had to watch it on tv but i just want you to listen to this voice this is live can i walk beside you i have come here to lose

[58:00]and this has become like and i feel this is the story of woodstock right and it's amazing because when you watch her talk about it you kind of like you know she's like oh this is it and she starts saying it's so powerful it's just unbelievable how talented she is i saw an interview on a documentary with crosby stills and nash and or a couple of those guys and they were essentially saying she decided her manager essentially told her not to go you need to be on this interview yeah and then that other band flew in and got in and out and made the same interview so she missed out on it which you could tell destroyed her oh because she should have been part of that but when when those other bands look at that event they look at her song providing a summary of the event and they say that's the real story of the event is her telling the story of it which is pretty amazing she went uh to europe and was vacationing and at the time

[59:02]she was dating graham nash uh and this is they knew they all knew each other because david crosby had actually produced her first album steven stills had played bass on it and while on vacation the vacation was going so well that she sent a telegram to graham nash saying we're done i've never gotten a breakup telegram normally i just get flat ghosted i have never gotten a breakup telegram what have you done i've never gotten a breakup telegram i've never gotten a what's the worst anybody have a good breakup story i've already told mine i've not dated enough to have a ton of good breakup stories but anything better than telegram relationship over stop if matt or eric can pipe up now it'd make me feel a lot better about my life if you could just explain one time i got like it doesn't have to be a telegram i got dumped for jesus once it's hard to argue with that i guess like a guy was that like a guy you worked with or what was just a girl who went to bethel and you know she said just you know she kind of had a feeling

[60:01]that god was telling her that we shouldn't be dating anymore so i feel like any comment here what is going to go bad john lennon once made a comment about this and yeah they tried to cancel him for this podcast is bigger than jesus there's no doubt about that oh yes um so if you're gonna get dumped for anybody might as well be jesus i guess but i got dumped once for the holy ghost so i think that's worse that would be way better matt than if you found out like she dumped you to go out with russ that would be much more that's a bummer all right uh so then she that guy was like number three fiddle on the podcast what do you mean this is the only podcast with with four third fiddles somehow we're all second seat trombones on this podcast uh so she she was writing this song as she was going across europe and you can hear that in a lot of the songs uh she does a lot of alternate tunings on the guitar which is why you get this interesting sound it's the same that bob dylan does there's a lot of open chords um so there's a lot of chord changes that you don't normally hear in other music and a lot of interesting notes uh and then uh basically

[61:05]throughout this whole thing she was dating james taylor he plays guitar on a lot of this album and really really into him like really thought that she had found a soulmate and it apparently just totally destroyed her when he got big after this album and guess what he took off and dumped her and that was like a huge part of her life and uh so disappointed in her life and she's like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i'm disappointed with her he was also into heroin i didn't realize like when i was listening to james taylor's greatest hits from my parents vinyl collection i did not know first of all what a badass guitarist he is and secondly that he was a heroin addict who left joni mitchell behind what a weird existence it's so wild i i love this quote from joni mitchell then we'll move on to some other stuff but the blue album there's hardly a dishonest note on the vocals at that period of my life i had no personal defenses i felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes i felt like i had absolutely no secrets in the world that couldn't pretend in my life to be strong or happy but the advantage of in music is there's no defenses there either she played this

[62:04]for uh chris christopherson and he said damn joni you got to hold something back like you don't have to tell everybody anything and you hear it over and over and over i mean that sentence that i just read of her saying is 100 better than anything i've said on this podcast period a thousand downloads that's the best thing that anyone has said i mean she just is like a inherently a poet and this i know we're going to get into this track by track but the more we get into these albums the more i'm going to mentally and emotionally compare them to love supreme which i know is well down the list but love supreme to me is uh the john coltrane i'm a love supreme is one of the greatest artistic expressions of all time and it's a loss of room is a prayer it's a meditation and that whole stretch on this album from carry through a case of you to me is a and i'm really excited to talk about it because yeah she is going to a place that other artists just don't go and you said religious meditation matt flinched he had a flashback to getting dumped

[63:03]i can't believe she picked russ over me yeah uh he doesn't he doesn't even mose lawn in the regular so aaron that makes a lot of sense that talking about this album where we're talking about the poetry and of the lyrics what's your favorite lyric from that john coltrane album uh love supreme yeah aren't there no lyrics on the whole thing no they say i love supreme that's the only words they say you're more of supreme no it's a jazz album right but they sing they chant to love supreme on the album rob all i want is to listen to this first song right now all i want it's true he chants all i want love supreme all i want to be editing this thing like crazy i am on a lonely road and i am traveling traveling traveling traveling looking for something what can it be oh i hate you some i hate you some i love i love this opening

[64:04]i've got nothing i'll say about the song but i'd love to say like i hate you some but i love you some the simplicity but the complexity is such great balance it's like how aaron feels about tomato sauce yeah i hated some but i love it some i have to echo what aaron's saying like one thing i've said on a lot of these albums so far is i don't really know what they're singing about and if you listen to this it's very clear what she's singing about right she brings it yeah yeah totally by the way i love that this is not a double album getting ready for this i was like oh yes a regular album this is great it's lean it's tight yeah 35 minutes matt's mom could fold like eight loads of laundry in 35 minutes my old man how beautiful i mean listen that voice it's just like a it's just like an instrument that's a whole separate thing it's floating up and down like that i generally find myself more drawn to the guitar tracks on this

[65:01]album than the piano tracks but this this song is just undeniable as is blue i mean it's her vocals are undeniable so this was another song inspired by uh graham nash i did do some lyrics for this one i just wanted to read you these lyrics and imagine me writing this as a poem and then giving it to a girl in uh elementary school which i did do by the way once and then driving away very fast very fast yeah and actually i wrote like a poem for a girl once and it was like if you don't check yes to this box i'm gonna drive away very fast i would say at what point does a poem become a manifesto because this poem i wrote was four pages long i think if you have to ask you've already crossed the line and then what does it mean speaking of getting ghosted i put it in her locker never said anything to me so i'm hoping that she just like dropped out of her locker and she never saw it that's best case scenario now that i i haven't thought about that in years and now i feel terrible uh he he's my sunshine in the warmest chord i ever heard play the warm chord play and stay baby we don't need no piece of paper from the city hall keeping us tight and true my old man keeping away my blues if you had a chance

[66:04]to date joni mitchell knowing that she would write a song about the relationship would you do it i mean i would just love any woman to email me back or write anything about me so yeah if she's gonna write a song about me that would be fantastic oh my god all right matt what about whatever about you would you date her knowing that they'd write a song about you no say it into the microphone man say it like you mean it uh no how about you aaron i mean i'll try anything once the one thing that i the one thing i noticed i mean my wife is gonna be listening to this podcast so no i wouldn't date joni mitchell but uh i think i'd be i'd be interested to see what her take was on our life together because you never when you're in something you don't always know how someone else is perceiving it so i think it would be interesting to hear her her thoughts on your life together russell joni mitchell had this way with words though when rob was talking about how she sent

[67:00]a telegram to break up with the dude like i suppose maybe people broke up with telegrams very often back in the day it wasn't just a straight ghost or a text you had to do a telegram like a singing telegram where people would break up with you hello hello hello it's not happening you're ugly you're ubu you're ugly but functional i i think we should just be friends but one thing i think the craziest thing is she had a way with words about everything and when she broke up with him he even said this that the telegram said if you hold on the sand too tightly in your hand it will run through your fingers like she even broke up with him in a way that is like an amazing poet right so you can learn something just from being broken up with by joni mitchell you know i never mentioned that but that is what i said to that girl before i said that i'm gonna drive home real fast hello hello we should just be friends if you keep holding up this too tight it will run through sand like your fingers yeah i was like

[68:01]that's what i said and then i took off crying all right little green here we go so this song this turns out low points on the album personally but rob might have something better to say let me explain what the song is about before you say that yeah let rob let rob hammer this one out he does his research she had a baby in 1966 couldn't afford it gave it up for a batch this is what this song is about never told anybody about it never said this is what the song was about really powerful when you read the lyrics i agree and i have to echo that when you when you read the lyrics and you understand what she's singing about it adds a whole new dimension to how this song connects with you he went to california hearing everything's warmer there so you send him a letter saying her eyes are blue he sends you a letter saying her eyes are blue and he sends you a letter saying her eyes are a poem and says she's lost to you little green he's a non-conformer and basically she was like i was stuck in canada uh pregnant this guy left me three three months in and basically she wrote

[69:07]this song about it never told anyone and then in 1993 some roommate of hers from the 60s calls up a tabloid and goes hey guess what i know about joni mitchell and then it releases the whole story publicly that's just stunning and joni mitchell went and met her child and at that point she said he's giving up songwriting because the reason she got into songwriting in the first place was the pain and the anguish but then but she says like in the lyrics too you're sad you're happy you're not ashamed like it's this whole it's amazing like for her to talk about something as life changing life altering is as deciding to give a child up for adoption and then say in a song you're sad you're happy and you're not ashamed like it really is absolutely the peak of the song writing that we've seen so far when it's a stunning thing because as i i can't believe aaron hates a song what a jerk i didn't know that until you told me that and it was always to me a

[70:02]song that kind of goes by without uh without much thought on the album there are other things that really grabbed me more and i didn't know that story and you think about all the songwriters who've ever written something that we we don't know where the inspiration came from and to learn that now is that's just stunning yeah guns and roses has a very similar song i think all right next song my absolute this wins this is rob's and this goes on rob's mixtape of the week oh it's bad of the week this is the first you're a mean old daddy and i uh and this is very creative of me because it was also the first single so obviously everybody agrees with me this was about a guy named carrie that she met on a greek aisle who basically she said was a big redneck on this island i think this is where matt was starting with like commercial hits earlier and like this single reached 93 on the way up there or we're crushing it commercially right yeah we need to go to matt matt's been suspiciously silent matt we know you don't like the hammer

[71:06]negative stuff you really don't like this song matt like you wouldn't want to listen to this again well this song's great but like you talk about all these other ones and don't you just want to tell her like bro get some better people around you i mean like she's getting broken up by this guy this guy got her pregnant left her she's got friends that are selling stories around her i mean like she's got a tragic life to be fair she dumped graham nash and to be fair this carrie guy was just some dude she met that's what i'm saying yeah no care there's like this song's great so i i want to ask a serious question this might get edited out okay the song before right is talking about her deepest darkest innermost troubles yeah right like giving up a kid yes how do you how do you put that on an album out there for the world to see i think that's i think that's what like like think of like the deepest darkest things you've got in

[72:00]your in your brain right now okay my kid signed up for school as norma stitz so i'm there right now you know what i mean like if that's the worst it is like great put that out there you know but like that's bad i just i don't but no one knew i mean no one knew that's what she was talking about so that was therapy but that's all right she just needed to do it she needed to get it out and maybe that's yeah i would also say that's why people connect with joni mitchell is that she once said that um songwriting for her was an exercise in finding her own clarity and finding her own truth and when you get to the truth you really have to decide do i want to tell this to the public it's no different than like me deciding hey do i want to tell you guys that i bought some woman fake flowers like i know it's much it's like not even on the same plane as that but it's like do you want to put yourself out there to for everyone to hear yeah and she did that to the 10th power and i think that's why she resonates with people yeah you're gonna go you're gonna go to i mean you're gonna go to a concert you're gonna sing this song i don't know if she played you know if she played this at concerts or whatever but like i mean you're

[73:04]rehashing that every time this song comes up and i don't know it's just it's not something i would ever do maybe that's what she maybe she does you know maybe she does it's not something yeah it's not how my brain thinks at all alive or whatever she needed i mean she she got burned out on this whole thing i mean part of it was the music industry but maybe this is like maybe it's hard to talk about or maybe it's the kind of thing where once you sing it 100 times you're not even thinking about what it's about anymore right like i thought we were going to spend way more time talking about the mean old daddy on this one yeah i know rob's favorite line so just to be clear i did uh text russ i would guess about 10 times over this week saying russ russ is a mean old daddy and uh i added that to my profile it didn't help so i did just add the sound clip so anytime we refer to somebody being a mean old daddy i can play that

[74:02]although i don't see when how often we have never done that before and i don't think we're going to do it after but guess what it's on the sound clip it's ready just in case it's ready fill it up fill up that board make it very complicated for me i'm bummed that you didn't add to the end of that one that i'm a mean old daddy but i'm also out of sight rob no you're just a mean old daddy to me what the hell yeah it's true i'm out of sight i'm out of sight actually mad i think is the mean old daddy he doesn't even want to be friends with this kid all right so it doesn't want to be his their buddy doesn't want to be their buddy that's right i'm sorry blue won't you ever forever hear eiffel 65 after this no it's not oh okay this is like just me practicing beautiful and haunting this is amazing like if this doesn't if any song on this album doesn't almost bring you to tears this has to be it this this turn of phrase where she talks about the crown

[75:02]and anchor which are classic tattoo images and she's saying anchor me i just got a blanket test too i feel like i mean an anchor is a classic tattoo so she's saying songs are like tattoos and then she says crown and anchor me and the crown or an anchor are classic tattoo images but then she's saying anchor me in our love or sorrow whatever it is it's like she's turning phrases that are on top of phrases it's incredible how does this relate to the sublime tattoo that's across my shoulder aaron you have you're the only one of us i think that has tattoos okay i don't want to get too personal with everybody how did you pick out what tattoos you want to get like how much time went into that thing because i know just just from who i am i know i would make a terrible terrible mistake if i chose a tattoo like i saw somebody who had a tattoo below his belly button with the two hands going like this you know for a long time and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry from the wwe guys who were saying suck it across shop yeah they had that tattoo and i was like i was like that'd be a good idea like that's the dumb ideas i have i have one tattoo that i don't

[76:04]love um mostly because i don't i think the line work is too thick on it um i think that like it was decent like it's a decent conception but i don't love it but but you can't tell the guy right like that line work is too thick it's too late it's a tattoo it was too late it was too late and it was what was weird was it wasn't an artist that i knew it was a guy i had followed his work he was from australia and he was going to be at a studio in oakland so i was like yeah let's let's hook this up uh and then yeah it doesn't look like any of their stuff that i've of his that i've seen but uh yeah my policy became like after that wait wait wait this is a guy you met like this is a guy you met online right and you're just like oh yeah tattoo me now well i looked at a lot of his tattoos and i like sure you get it on the right ass cheek and nothing like i liked a lot of his work but i definitely after that went only went back to the one guy that i trust dustin i hope you're listening i hope you're okay uh i haven't been able to buy any work from dustin since uh this covid shut down uh yeah i just had

[77:01]to go back to the artist i trusted where i could say like hey let's do some more flowers or let's do whatever but i did decide i should i should sleep on tattoo ideas for longer uh after a couple that i was like yeah that wasn't my favorite what's the one where you you were like oh that was a mistake um none of my feeling mistakes but there's a butterfly on the inside of my left forearm that i just i think the line work is too thick it's just a huge it's just a one solid line how can a butterfly be okay i don't know this is probably like a sensitive thing that i should not be bringing up no it's fine i mean i don't mind talking about it like i mean i have i don't know a dozen tattoos maybe it's like i'm obviously gonna have some that are my favorites and some that are not but uh yeah russell you were gonna talk about music no speaking of favorites i was wondering where do you guys think this ranks on the best title tracks of the albums we've listened to i know we had to restart our quest because just completely said screw you guys we're doing a new list in six years but so if you were to go through and you if you listen to title tracks you're thinking of what's going on pet sounds

[78:04]london collin sergeant pepper's lonely heart club band and highway 61 where does this rank in those title tracks it's how many was that it's right below tax man i would know tax man is not a title track that's an opening track this is different i would put this below what's below what's going on definitely above pet sounds uh london calling that sounds sucks ah it's close with i think it's better than everything except for what's going on but this is what i was trying to like clumsily say in the opening is that this is an album that to me defies lists because it i just you can't i can't rank this album because it's a prayer it's a meditation for me so well i mean i don't want to give away my takes at the end but it's hard for me to like say where this ranks compared to something else so this is number two on rosie's list of things he can't rank oh yeah uh this is number one on the list of rosie's things musical things he cannot provide

[79:01]musical input on even though he's the only person on the podcast who has any musical experience whatsoever including first trombone player even though he claims to not be a first trombone player yeah oh yeah so that song what i read on wikipedia is that song is about a sweater she needed for james taylor and how he was addicted to heroin that's crazy that's wild that's deep but who knows i i don't i don't trust wikipedia uh all right california this is james taylor playing guitar in this one right yeah he's i'll even kiss a sunset pig i don't know what a sunset pig is you're an idiot it's a tattoo i have you're an idiot it's a tattoo i have yeah so i have some thoughts on this song as you guys might imagine

[80:02]no yeah if you might i mean if you'd permit me some thoughts i will i will be 100 honest we heard this song when we were driving on i-80 with our u-haul driving to california moving from minnesota to california we heard this song on the radio when we crossed from nevada into california i am not lying so it has since 2010 been a song that has always been for me an important song uh i think it's an anthem i think it's an anthem for people who are transplants to california obviously johnny wasn't from california but she loves california and for me for me being also a transplant to california and being someone who has fallen in love with it uh i think that it's the california transplant anthem but i do think there are several other options for california anthems and being a person who lives in california and loves it i made a list of california anthems and i hope you guys would let me to do a little countdown wait i thought i was supposed to make the list i am so excited i am so excited to hear a bunch of songs that we all definitely know oh yeah

[81:05]this is the second most excited i've ever been on this podcast since captain slobber bone all right can you imagine this list? that's coming up and this is the first time it's not like that one where we had to do the episode twice here's all right here is here is a bay area anthem if you live in the bay area and you've been to a baseball game a basketball game or a rap show and you didn't grow up here you have that experience where you realize oh my god everyone in this arena knows this every word to the song except for me from the first drop this is this is greatest california songs or what is this list this is california anthems so this is the bay area anthems this is a bay area weed anthem let's hear it rob this is the loonies i got five on it remix oh i got five on this shit i love looney tunes i'm telling you to be fair if i were doing a california list this would not

[82:02]have been in my top five on it but it would have probably been number six on it i went to hear warren g at a jazz good one russ i got it and i and i'm in the audience and this is a song where the the warm-up dj is playing this song you've never heard this every single person in the world to this song except for me and i realized i if i'm gonna live in the bay area i have to learn the five on it remix by the loonies now isn't it weird though that we're we talked about tattoos and now we're talking about the looney tunes how many people in the generation before us got looney tunes tattoos tons i knew so many people that had like tweety bird tattoos right yeah i have a friend who's like he always joked that he was gonna get a tattoo of taz jumping on a tennis racket because that was like the most tattoo of the generation above us of like you guys don't you guys never saw looney tunes tattoos huh not all right so now i'm gonna take it from the from the macro barrier to the micro

[83:02]oakland and the oakland at least uh the east oakland i gotta pause i don't know what the hell is going on here like are these songs like do they say california or are they about california are they just california bands what's going on this is a california thing you don't get it these are california acts it could be it could be yeah so all these are they could be uh someone who's from california making the music so the loonies are from california uh on that remix you got spice one e40 uh shock g richie rich uh so so it could be bands from california it could be songs about california we're gonna get some songs about california but it's just like various anthems so the bay area weed anthem is i got five on it now you got the east oakland anthem too short blow the whistle oh this one's classic my cousin had a too short album that his parents would not would be pissed if he knew he had it so he like kept it in a drawer and would only play it when the parents

[84:01]left and we just pump it right and too short is a is an oakland legend and yeah he was the ultimate he was one of the ultimate dirty rappers and this is actually one of his clean-ish songs just wait wait was that joni mitchell whistle blow the whistle is the oakland anthem so then i i mean i live in the bay area i have to also include a san francisco anthem and if you've ever been walking on the embarcadero after a san francisco giants game where they won about every other week i do that yeah i would say most of our listeners do the embarcadero tony bennett i love my heart i normally take the 103 when i'm heading out there rob i'm more of a bart guy i normally take the bart and then i do the embarcadero after the bart but yes i've been on the bart with russell he can't front oh i definitely heard this at the comstock saloon in san francisco see russell knows i know

[85:07]this is an anthem it's an anthem it's a san francisco anthem this is one of the few lists that has gone loonies too short and then 20 bands beside aaron's wedding this is the only time this playlist has been put together like this i have to be honest with you i really wanted to play the bobby womack cover but the the tony bennett one is the uh the definitive uh recording i think the next before before we move to the next one i have to say that when when i you know a few of us can see we can see the songs that are up on the list and when i said that the bobby womack cover wasn't on this list earlier i about threw a shit yeah and then i just said that i would relax and be like okay if we don't do bobby womack cover i'll be fine yeah i think he's five on the list anyway so we're getting to bobby and it definitely is a guy and not a girl i'm not quite sure about that bobby married sam cook's widow it's a great story

[86:04]you should look it up uh next track the protest song of the summer 2020 this is uh this is a party song but is what was going off at all the protests if you watch protest videos uh in the bay area in 2020 it is feeling myself by bay area legend rest in peace mac dray wait what's a protest video when you like videos of people protesting at lake merit the cool part about it is that this is a party song and it was like 2020 had a lot to you know be sad about but people were dancing feeling themselves you know while they were protesting she's feeling herself so this is mac dray i thought the song was about me in middle school they're feeling themselves and i had to i had to russell for you i cut out some of the choice lyrics the most choice lyrics about treating ladies like an atm card now here's the thing about about california

[87:01]why am i getting looped into this on the joni mitchell episode too russell how could you now here's the thing and russell i'm gonna need your help on this next one because i got you i got your help here there's a point in california where you might need to you you might have to leave like it might be burning you don't know yeah or you might get whacked and so you might have to play this anthem if it's your leaving california anthem wait if you're getting whacked maybe you need to play this one again all right all right here we go oh you know what this song is from if people are hbo fans this is the song that is playing when adriana gets smoked in the sopranos oh spoiler alert i was just to the episode before that one man you're a you're a tv guy remember adriana gets smoked this is the song from that yep yep it's a good one this is leaving california russell i like i like the idea that russell thinks

[88:02]somebody's an hbo fan like just they're just like oh man i love hbo so much hbo it's so good and then the last box office the california anthem i'm feeling myself fan or i left my heart in san francisco or too short fan this is where i turn around and show you guys that i'm wearing a cinemax letter jacket and he hits hbo with a folding chair i think we officially just dropped under the 1000 download list we got negative downloads oh give me that back give me that i'm surprised aaron has a letter jacket too it says it says scam demick on the back of it well that's okay the obvious you can't and this is not just because i'm hoping rob will hashtag our our episode hashtag tupac i did informally survey a number of california natives and the number one california is the obvious one california loved by tupac and dr dre oh this has to be number one this is also i would

[89:01]i would argue i know you guys love hooting the blowfish videos with dan marino i would argue this video was cooler okay and that's a controversial statement but we're there with they're driving around like it's fucking mad max out there i thought that would be this this album this song is mad max 20 years before it right 20 years before the redo oh yeah so good and the best part about this has to be number one when i sent rob the timings for the album i just know you can drop the needle on the first second of california love and it's going to be a jam it's going to be a rocker right from the beginning aaron how much did that song influence you moving out to california was it like 50 75 100 about about 90 yeah about 90 percent why did you move to california aaron um i like the weather here i wanted to be able to ride my bike year round and um what i like the people man i did not see that coming i you know you can ride your bike in a lot of places i don't know although i do agree with the weather that i riding your

[90:04]bike in iowa would be tough in december i have to say aaron i have an extra california song that i want to put on the list that i think is very good wait was that aaron's number one or is there another number that was it that's the california california left he hasn't quite got the idea down that you'd make us vote and then do a gag one uh but here's he doesn't figure that out because i'm trying not to steal russell's whole bit like i'm trying to do like my own if you're gonna steal it steal it right i do my own uh here is the hidden here is the hidden song from tenacious d's album by the way one of the most listened to cds in my life of all time this is the hidden track at the tenacious ds hidden tracks i didn't know that yeah who doesn't guys it's at the end of city hall you have to wait like 10 minutes then it plays are they on the list you know i saw tenacious d in brooklyn oh my god it was a good show it was so great except some guy barfed right behind me but

[91:00]other than that it was great if you want to see a crowd of people by the way that look like me tenacious d concert is the place to go it was like i was in a mirror the whole time aaron i like the list i think that it's definitely the tupac california love is clearly number one it's it's the clear california anthem no doubt but i had to play some sub anthems as well we're talking about joni mitchell again this song california but guess who covered this song you recognize these wilson phillips that's definitely wilson pickett if i've ever heard it when i saw that they this is that opening song from the that show the oc right was that the was that the opening for the oc was that with lauren conrad was that that one yeah no i don't know what you're talking about all right this flight tonight hey guys guess what it's another song about james taylor's

[92:02]heroin addiction this is about her being on a plane leaving a lover regretting it okay this song bangs it's so good it totally bangs and this is one that's grown on me the more i've listened to this album it's just it's so clever musically it's really interesting the phrasing you can't sing along with it you try to sing along and she messes you up every time man what do you think about this one man i'm not gonna let you let you get there i can't sing along with any song i'm not a very good singer and so it's just just strumming and noodling up and down to me can we rob rob can we go to i mean that's two minutes left to this song you know you know we can russell here's two minutes left russell pointed out russell say what you're gonna say i was gonna say like this whole this whole album like to some extent i agree with what's matt saying it's kind

[93:01]of like admittedly when i hear this i feel like it's just some uh acoustic guitar player singing these songs it's not all that impressive first of all you guys are right look at the lyrics there's more to it but like there's this really brief like five second part here where it's like it turns into a complete rock band and rob maybe you can just play this like 10 seconds here why why is this happening james taylor he's like please let me play some rock i'm a steamroller baby and it doesn't even last five seconds it's very brief you know what would be awesome though is have you ever heard this song and said you know what i wish this was a heavy metal song i mean i can feel that yeah i'd like to hear it as a heavy metal song this is nazareth coming at you on k-rob k-r-o-b matt can you get behind this one

[94:01]oh i can blow better there's a couple more instruments in it this guy what are you talking about this rocks my face off this is off their album loud and proud which is the perfect name of an album but i would say like russell's like the the thing to point out about what russell noticed is not just that it's like a bang in five seconds of them it's that joni did produce this album so all of those choices were hers so if you hear something yes james taylor might have played it or maybe he was like please let me play this but she had final say on what went into those songs right so that was her choice and she's like i'm gonna play this song and she's like i'm gonna and it's a rocking choice this is joni this is joni mitchell river this is her second most covered song ever with 432 covers uh and this is a called river it is now it they claim on wikipedia a modern christmas standard you can tell from the beginning listen to this it's got jingle bells in the beginning yeah and at the end

[95:03]all right i've also discussed the very fine fox sitcom new girl uh in which this song features prominently for one episode in season new girl episodes yeah i was wondering where you're going when you start talking about foxes and then i was it was new girl uh a case of you holy shit more about graham nash so did they meet in canada is that where they met no they did not meet in canada they met who's the crosby stills and nash guy who has the mustache so crosby's the guy who introduces nash and her and they eventually hit it off but the interesting thing is neil young they all knew neil neil young they all hung out smoke doobies but this if you really look at this song this this album is is a

[96:01]breakup album but did you guys know that the namesake of our podcast beck also has a breakup album uh-huh oh wait a minute he actually after he broke up with his long-term girlfriend after nine years he produced an album called sea change in 2002 so the first song that sea changes the golden age and maybe rob you can pull up that yeah his first song is called i want my dog back again no i skipped the dog back song but sea change golden age give me my dog but one one really interesting thing about this is back set about this album that they're honest and simple songs and they're trying to capture the universal experience that anybody goes through it's taking something sad and trying to turn it into something that will be hopeful in the end and he went on to say that he wanted this album to be a depressing album like what joni mitchell or leonard cohen did because they help people get through tough times

[97:02]and recover so like he took inspiration from joni mitchell to create this album sea changes that's better than what i do which is eat an enormous amount of ice cream that's the difference between me and beck and joni mitchell now now i would never claim that rolling you know if rolling stone is going to put this album this breakup album by joni mitchell's number three i can't really claim that sea change would be better it would be unrealistic it's not fair but the really interesting thing here rob is that beck was recording this album sea change his recordings were going over time and it was lasting into the weekend i wonder what that's like they thought they weren't going to be able to do it and so the the really interesting thing is that joni mitchell was coming in to record after them and joni mitchell was very civilized in the way she was recording at the end of her career she

[98:00]never recorded over hours she never recorded on the weekends and so beck and his band were able to come into the studio and record their album sea changes and record their album sea changes on the weekend because joni mitchell would not record on the weekend so beck came in and finished this album sea changes on the weekend so i have to ask you if you're going to record an amazing album about a breakup on the weekend who did it better beck definitely did it better and guys listen we're doing it better than joni mitchell right now we're recording on the weekend sunday and who cares because we don't have to work tomorrow and the weekend's got some bangers man that guy actually i think he is russell i got one more song did you want me to play this one too or is that for later yeah you could have played that about five minutes ago but it's all good i don't give a shit oh my god this is depressing though like this is no this is like this is right in the line of what we're listening to though it's the only beck album that i know it's great yeah do you

[99:04]yeah exactly man you listen to this yeah it's a great this is the one you know yeah out of all of them this is the one you know i mean it shouldn't surprise you but don't you think if you listen to the lyrics of this blue album these beck lyrics are kind of right in line with that they're very personal exactly man maybe i'm too happy maybe that's why i can't write poetry i've got too much good stuff going on when it comes to the case of you the the lines i'm going to get this wrong but the lines have been running through my head is when she says part of you flows for me in these lines from time to time and that to me case of you is such a great song anyway and then just those couple simple lines just knock me on my ass every time i hear it but i'm not the only person who felt that way i remember that time you told me you said love is touching souls surely you touched mine because part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time if a woman ever wrote that about me i would break up with my wife and dump my family