AIR DATE: October 2018

Hey everybody, it’s Eric Church back for the forty-fourth episode of “Outsiders Radio.”  It’s been a few weeks since I released my new album “Desperate Man,” and I hope you’ve been able to hear it.  This week we’re going to focus on one of the songs called “Hippie Radio.”  

Great memories of a boy & his dad in a Pontiac listening to the Hippie Radio.  We all have those songs we remember from when we were kids.  I named about ten songs, mostly from the 70s, in that song.  It’s likely that NONE of those songs have ever been played here on The Highway.  You probably have to tune to 70s on 7 or one of the other channels to hear them.  Some of you may be too young to know them.  So I thought we’d play them in this edition of Outsiders Radio.  Hopefully, you’re traveling in your car as we play our OWN version of Hippie Radio…starting with THIS one.

That was the first hit for a band called Kansas from 1977, the year I was born.  It wasn’t their first single.  They had 5 songs before it that didn’t even chart.  And it wasn’t a #1.  It wasn’t even Top 10.  But it was a song people still remember.  The cool thing about Kansas is they were the underdogs.  They weren’t on a major label.  They played all their own instruments.  That song was written by their guitar player Kerry Livgren by himself.  No co-writers.  There were a lot of bands around the country that were inspired by Kansas.  There’s a documentary DVD of the band that’s out now, and one of the guys featured in that documentary, who says he was touched by Kansas is Garth Brooks.  So they even had an impact on country music.  

In my song Hippie Radio, I mention “flower babies and the birth of rock & roll.” There’s an actual song called The Birth of Rock & Roll, and it was written by a guy who was there at the beginning: Carl Perkins.  He wrote Blue Suede Shoes for Elvis Presley. He & Elvis recorded at in Memphis at a place called Sun Studios.  It’s still there.  If you go inside, you’ll see a picture on the wall of four legends: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.  They were called “The Million Dollar Quartet.”  Anyway, here’s Carl Perkins and The Birth of Rock & Roll.

There you have it…the story of rock & roll from a guy who lived it: Carl Perkins. 

The same year Carl, Elvis, Johnny & Roy were making records in Memphis, a boy named Billy Broad was born in England.  Nobody knew it at the time, but young Billy would grow up to be known as Billy Idol.  He was in a band known as Generation X in the 70s, and went solo in the 80s.  His first big hit was a monster, and we name-check it and the follow-up in our song Hippie Radio.  Here’s the original from Billy Idol.

A couple songs you probably have never heard on The Highway from Billy Idol.  Those songs were out in 1982.  You’d hear them on Hippie Radio, you’d hear them on Top 40 radio, and you’d SEE them on something brand new called MTV.  You could watch music 24/7 on TV. It was something that hadn’t been done before.  It opened up the world to a lot of new music.  Around that same time, another channel debuted on TV called CMT: Country Music Television.  So whether you watched MTV or CMT, there was music on TV.

Meanwhile, California was becoming a mecca for something called country rock. There were The Byrds, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne.  They were all writing their own songs, and working together.  Linda Ronstadt recorded a song called “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me” written by Warren Zevon.  The success of that song gave Warren a chance to record an album called Excitable Boy, which featured another song I name-check in Hippie Radio: Werewolves of London.

Some familiar names in the band for that record: Mick Fleetwood playing drums and John McVie on bass… also known as Fleetwood Mac.  The song was produced by Jackson Browne.  Written & recorded by Warren Zevon in 1978.  The song was used in the Tom Cruise movie The Color Of Money in 1986.  Kid Rock sampled the piano riff in his 2008 hit All Summer Long.  So the song has touched a lot of people in a lot of ways.

 I’m Eric Church and this is Outsiders Radio on The Highway, spotlighting the songs I reference in my song Hippie Radio.  There’s a line in the second verse that goes: “I was a Werewolf in London, and she was Lady Marmalade’s soul.”  You have to go back to 1974 for that one.  The girl group Labelle, led by Patty LaBelle, had the hit with it.  Back then everyone was trying to figure out what she was saying in French.  I think we all know.  Anyway, here’s LaBelle.

That song was featured in movie called Moulin Rouge in 2001.  The soundtrack included a version sung by Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, and Pink.  Their version won a Grammy in 2002.  Anyway, back to my song “Hippie Radio,” the third verse follows a boy & a girl to a hospital waiting room in October of 2011(about 7 years ago) as they await the birth of their first son.  The line goes, “My hands were shaking as we were leaving, taking our little boy home. My heart was full and in my head I could hear a long gone song. Cats In The Cradle & a Silver Spoon on a hippie radio.”

There’s an actual radio station here in Nashville called Hippie Radio. They play a lot of older songs, but they may not play that one by the Jackson 5.  The last verse in my song Hippie Radio goes “ABC, 123, don’t blink or he’ll be grown.”  There’s a song that my good friend Casey Beathard had a hand in writing that became a hit for Kenny Chesney about ten years ago.

That’s it for this edition of Outsiders Radio.  A reminder that all tickets are now on sale for my Double Down Tour, kicking off January 18 & 19 in Omaha and running through May.  But in just a few days I’ll be in New York City taking part in a very exciting benefit show called Stand Up For Heroes.  The show features comedians Jon Stewart, Seth Myers, Jim Gaffigan, and Jimmy Carr. Plus two musical guests: Me and THIS guy.  Can’t wait.  I’m Eric Church.  See you next time on Outsiders Radio.