Iron Butterfly – "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (1968)

Oh, won’t you come with me

And take my hand

Silence of the Lambs was a huge hit with moviegoers and the critics alike.  It is only the third movie in history to win all of the five most significant Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay.

The most memorable character in Silence of the Lambs – which was adapted from Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel of the same name – was Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who just happened to be a cannibalistic serial killer.  Anthony Hopkins clearly deserved the Oscar he won for his extremely disturbing portrayal of Dr. Lecter.

But Silence of the Lambs wasn’t the first Harris novel that featured Hannibal Lecter.  That honor goes to Red Dragon, which was published in 1981.

And Silence of the Lambs wasn’t the first movie that Lecter appeared in.  That honor goes to Manhunter, a 1986 movie based on Red Dragon, which was directed by Michael Mann (of Miami Vice fame) and featured Brian Cox as “Hannibal the Cannibal.”

I saw Manhunter the night before my twin daughters were born.  As good as Silence of the Lambs was, I think Manhunter was better – in large part because of Mann’s use of today’s featured song in that movie’s climactic scene.

Click here to watch that scene.

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The album version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” – which means “In the Garden of Eden” – is just over 17 minutes long.  It takes up the entire second side of the Iron Butterfly album of the same name, which eventually sold over 30 million copies.  (I bought a copy of it in 1969.  I think it was on sale for $2.22 at my local Walmart.  I doubt that I played the first side of that album more than once.)

The lyrics to the song consist of a total of 31 different words – and that’s counting “In-a-gadda-da-vida” as five words.

Here’s what the liner notes to the reissue of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album has to say about the origin of the song’s title:

Doug Ingle [Iron Butterfly’s keyboards player and lead vocalist] was in his apartment on top of Bido Lido’s nightclub in Hollywood, writing music in 1968. While he wrote a song around a “Garden of Eden” hook, he was working his way through a gallon bottle of Red Mountain wine.  By the time he committed the idea to tape, he was quite a bit drunk.  Later, when Ron Bushy [Iron Butterfly’s drummer] got home from working at the Galaxy Club, Ingle had consumed 2/3 of the bottle.  Bushy asks Ingle what the title of Iron Butterfly’s new song was, and Ingle slurs out “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Bushy says, “I thought it was catchy so I wrote it down.”  The next morning, Bushy reminds a hungover Ingle how much he liked the title of their new song.  Ingle would hear nothing of it, but Bushy had written it down and it stuck.

That account doesn’t make a lot of sense, but you could say the same thing about much of the sixties.

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Iron Butterfly was suppose to appear at Woodstock, but they got hung up at LaGuardia Airport.  

From Wikipedia:

Their manager sent a telegram demanding that Iron Butterfly be flown in by helicopter, whereupon they would “immediately” take the stage. After their set, they would be paid and flown back to the airport.  According to drummer Bushy, “We went down to the Port Authority three times and waited for the helicopter, but it never showed up.”  Woodstock production coordinator John Morris claims he sent the manager a telegram reading: “For reasons I can't go into / Until you are here / Clarifying your situation / Knowing you are having problems / You will have to find / Other transportation / Unless you plan not to come.” 

Write down the first letters of each line of John Morris’s telegram.  What do they spell?

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One final note about Iron Butterfly.

Mike Pinera, who wrote and recorded “Ride Captain Ride” – another member of this year’s 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME class – left Blues Image and joined Iron Butterfly before “Ride Captain Ride” became a hit.  Years later, Pinera released a solo album titled In the Garden of Eden.

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The single version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” clocks in at just under three minutes.  It peaked at #30 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in the fall of 1968, but it’s got to be the most famous #30 single in history.

And that’s why I’ve decided to include it in this year’s class of new inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.

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Click here to listen to the single version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

Click on the link below to buy that version of the song from Amazon:

Who – "Won't Get Fooled Again" (1971)

There’s nothing in the streets

Looks any different to me

And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye

And the party on the left

Is now the party on the right

And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution

Take a bow for the new revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around

Pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I’ll get on my knees and pray

We don’t get fooled again

Those words were written fifty years ago, but they might as well have been written yesterday.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you did get fooled again – and you’ll continue to get fooled in the future.  That's the way it works.

Meet the new boss, boys and girls – same as the old boss.

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When I sat down to decide what records would make this year’s class of inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME and the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME, I put the Who’s “My Generation” on the short list of possible hit singles and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” on the short list of possible album tracks.

But then I did my always-thorough vetting process and learned that “My Generation” peaked at only #74 on the Billboard “Hot 100” – which seemed to disqualify it from being considered a hit single.

I was further surprised to learn that the single version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” made it all the way to #15 on the “Hot 100.”  

2 or 3 lines isn’t afraid to pivot when pivoting is necessary, so that’s what I did – “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is going into our hit single hall of fame, while “My Generation” (SPOILER ALERT!) will be honored by being inducted into the album tracks hall of fame next month.

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The last few times I took my kids to the old Yankee Stadium, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” was played over the public address system as the Yankees took the field at the beginning of home games.

To be specific, the Yankees played the synthesizer solo that begins at about 6:30 of the album version of the song.  But they always cut the music off before it got to the famous Roger Daltrey scream at 7:45 – which Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone once described as “the greatest scream of a career filled with screams.”  (I always found it tremendously frustrating that the Yankees cut the song off when they did.  If that didn’t give you a bad case of musical blue b*lls, nothing would.)

That scream leads into the song’s coda, which features these two iconic lines:

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

Say no more, Pete Townshend – you’ve said it all.

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Click here to listen to the single version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” a very deserving member of the 2020 class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.

Click here to listen to the album version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which would have been a very deserving member of the 2020 class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME – if the rules allowed the album version of a hall of fame hit single to be included in the album tracks hall of fame.  (Rules are made to be broken, they say.  Hmmm . . .)

Click on the link below to buy the single version of the song from Amazon:

Grand Funk Railroad – "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)" (1970)

I'm your captain, I'm your captain

Though I'm feeling mighty sick

NOTE:  In 1970, incoming Rice University freshmen – including yours truly – reported for orientation a week before classes started.  I associate two songs that were on the radio that week with my first days as a college student:  Free’s "All Right Now," and the last track of  Grand Funk's Closer to Home album, "I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)."  

As it turns out, my memory is pretty good.  Both those songs first appeared on the "Hot 100" singles chart in the September 5, 1970 issue of Billboard magazine.  It would have shown up on newsstands about a week earlier, which is when I was getting oriented.  I forget important sh*t all the time, but you’d best believe I remember the exact week that I first heard "All Right Now" and "Closer to Home" on the radio – even though that was almost 50 years ago.  

Both those songs are being inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES "GOLDEN DECADE" HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME this year.  I wrote about "All Right Now" in the previous 2 or 3 lines.  Today I’m presenting a somewhat shortened version of a post featuring "I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)" that was originally published in 2010.  It was the eighth of eight posts featuring songs from the Closer to Home album, which I accidentally stole from my freshman suitemate.  (It’s a long story – like all of my stories.)

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Part Eight -- "I'm Your Captain" Is a Very Long Song (and Eight Posts on Grand Funk Railroad Songs Was Probably Four or Five Too Many)

We've finally reached the last song on side two of the Closer to Home album.  Believe me, I'm just as happy about that as you are.

Grand Funk Railroad performing live

But before I discuss this song, I need to fulfill a promise I made in the first post in this series (I am a man of my word, at least when I remember) and spend a few minutes discussing my favorite soap opera from the late 1960's and early 1970's – "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing."

I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house when I was growing up, and she was a soap opera fan.  (She watched "As The World Turns" religiously.) 

"Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing" – which I will abbreviate as "LIAMST" – aired on CBS for five-plus years while I was in high school and college.  I bring it up because we were speaking earlier of Richard Nixon and Watergate, and I have a vivid memory of watching Senate Watergate hearings and LIAMST on summer days when I wasn't working. 

Senator Sam Ervin

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The summer of 1973 – when the Watergate hearings took place – I was working two jobs.  One paid considerably better, but was much more irregular in terms of hours.  Eventually, I had to choose between the two, and chose the better-paying one – loading and unloading trucks at a freight dock in Baxter Springs, Kansas.

A lot of the shifts I got were at nights or on the weekend when the regular employees didn't want to work, so I spent quite a few weekdays at home in my pajamas, watching soap operas and game shows and enjoying Senator Sam Ervin grilling John Dean et al.

If we've learned anything from this blog, it's that my memory is never to be trusted.  The Watergate hearings began in May 1973, so I was certainly watching them in the summer of 1973 – the summer before my senior year of college, which was the summer I had the irregular work schedule.  So that part is correct.

But LIAMST went off the air in March 1973.  So I couldn't have been watching it that summer.  I must have watched it in previous summers -- maybe the summers before college.  (It first aired in September 1967, when I was a sophomore in high school.)



This is inexplicable.  I would have sworn on anything you asked me to swear on that I watched the Watergate hearings and LIAMST the same summer.  

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LIAMST had an implausible and convoluted plot line – like most soap operas of that era.

You had a character named Laura (originally played by Donna Mills, who went on to fame and fortune as a star of "Knots Landing") who had started out as a novice nun before falling in love and marrying the boyfriend of her sister Iris.  

Iris later became pregnant – the father was a married U.S. Senator, who later left his wife and married Iris – was seriously injured in a private plane crash, and gave up the baby to Laura because her injuries were surely going to kill her within a matter of months. 

But then Iris underwent experimental laser surgery, was cured, and demanded her baby back – which caused Laura to go insane and kidnap the child.  

Anyway, you get the picture.  (BTW, all that stuff happened in just one season.)

Donna Mills and Leslie Charleson

I remember two things about LIAMST.  One was the actress who played the sister named Iris – a Kansas City native named Leslie Charleson (who has been a member of the cast of General Hospital for the last 43 years).  I had a major crush on Iris.

Here's the second aspect of LIAMST I remember.  (It really intrigued me for some reason.)  Laura's husband (the one she left the convent for – Iris's former boyfriend) was named Mark.  Iris's husband was named Spence, and Spence's stepmother was named Jean.  

Mark (played by David Birney, who married Meredith Baxter after they co-starred in Bridget Loves Bernie) had an affair with Jean during the 1969 season of LIAMST.  In other words, Mark had an affair with his sister-in-law's (and former lover's) mother-in-law.  I couldn't quite get my mind around this.  

It may have been that the man in the relationship was one entire generation younger than the woman.  (We didn't have any Ashton Kutcher-Demi Moore couples back in 1969.) 

The original cougar, Demi Moore

Of course, because she was a stepmother, Jean might have been younger than her stepson Spence -- and younger than Mark as well.  (Laura and Iris and Mark and Spence all appeared to be about the same age.)  So there might have been no age difference – or at least not a significant one.  

The other thing that got my attention about the affair was its quasi-incestuous element.  I realize we're talking about in-laws and a stepmother -- so there are two degrees of separation between Mark and Jean.

But I had rather simple tastes when I was in high school.  (As far as I know, none of the parents of any of my high-school friends were divorced.)  

The people on LIAMST were much more advanced when it came to love and family.  They might as well have been French.

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I recently read a review of a new biography of Cleopatra of Egypt.  We know the European royal families of the 1800's were the products of a lot of cousin intermarriages – that's why many of the royal sons (including the would-be heir of Russian Emperor Nicholas II) were hemophiliacs.  

But the Egyptians – who were obviously not acquainted with the laws of genetics –  did them one better: their rulers usually married their siblings.  

For example, Cleopatra (who was born in 69 B.C.) was married to her younger brother Ptolemy XIII when she was 18 and he was 11.  When he was 14, Ptolemy – no doubt his regent Pothinus did the heavy lifting for him – attempted to depose Cleopatra, and a civil war ensued.  He drowned in the Nile a year or so later.

Cleopatra immediately married her next younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, when she was 22 and he was 13.  After Cleopatra's lover, Julius Caesar, was assassinated in 44 B.C., Cleopatra supposedly poisoned that Ptolemy.  

"The Death of Cleopatra"
(1892 painting by Arthur Reginald)

Cleopatra had given birth to a son three years earlier, who was called Caesarion – she insisted that Caesar was the father.  After Ptolemy XIV's death, she named the three-year-old king of Egypt.  (At least she didn't marry him.) 

So I shouldn't really make fun of LIAMST for having a too-fantastic plot.  Cleopatra's history certainly proves that truth is stranger than soap operas any day of the week.

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I was reminded of the Mark-Laura-Iris-Spence-Jean situation and the Ptolemaic dynasty years later when I heard the Oscar and Lorenzo hit from 1947, "I'm My Own Grandpa."  

That song tells the story of a man who marries a widow who has an adult daughter – who eventually marries the man's father – making the narrator his own grandfather – sort of.  

Both couples then have children.  (Oh, my!)

Here are the words to "I'm My Own Grandpa":

Now many, many years ago
When I was twenty-three

I was married to a widow
Who was pretty as can be

This widow had a grown-up daughter
Who had hair of red

My father fell in love with her
And soon they too were wed

Oh, I'm my own grandpa

I'm my own grandpa

It sounds funny I know,

But it really is so

Oh, I'm my own grandpa

(The plot soon thickened.)

This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life

My daughter was my mother
'Cause she was my father's wife

To complicate the matter
Even though it brought me joy

I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy

My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to Dad

And so became my uncle
Though it made me very sad

For if he was my uncle
Then that also made him brother

Of the widow's grown-up daughter
Who was also my stepmother

(Another baby means more complications.)

Father's wife then had a son
Who kept them on the run

And he became my grandchild
For he was my daughter's son

My wife is now my mother's mothe
And it makes me blue

Because although she is my wife
She's my grandmother too

(Think about it.)

Now if my wife is my grandmother
Then I'm her grandchild

And every time I think of it
It nearly drives me wild

For now I have become
The strangest case I ever saw

As husband of my grandmother
I am my own grandpa! 

If you ask me, this song is one of the great artistic achievements of the 20th century.

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A lot of people have tried to explain the song graphically.  Here's one example:

If you're confused, you can click here to watch a video of the inimitable Ray Stevens – my parents took my kids to see him perform in Branson many years ago – that will make everything perfectly clear.

Still confused?  Click here and the Muppets will straighten you out.

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I don't know if you realize this, but they didn't have to stop where they did.  They could have kept on and on until things got really complicated.  (The narrator could have eventually become his own great-great-grandfather.)  Thank heavens they stopped when they did.

This is REALLY good stuff – don't you agree?  With content like this, it's no wonder that I am hitting new highs in visits and page views almost every day!

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Let's wrap things up with a discussion of our featured song -- the 8th and final (yaaaay!) cut on the Closer To Home album. 

"I'm Your Captain" was not at all characteristic of Grand Funk Railroad songs, which were typically less sophisticated and more bombastic. 

For one thing, it’s a compound binary song -- really two songs joined into one (like "Hey Jude," "Layla," and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking").

The first half of the song is rather plaintive.  It is ostensibly sung by a ship captain -- seemingly incapacitated by illness -- who is facing a mutiny.

Things go from bad to worse, and by the end of the first segment of the song, the captain is in extremis:

I can feel the hand of a stranger

And it's tightening around my throat

Heaven help me, heaven help me

Take this stranger from my boat

I'm not sure how an actual stranger would make it on to a ship that is presumably out of the middle of an ocean.  Maybe the stranger isn’t a real stranger, but the grim reaper – or maybe the captain is too delirious to recognize that it’s a crew member who is about to murder him.

In the second half of the song, the captain sings one phrase – "I'm getting closer to my home" – over and over again.  Presumably the captain is singing posthumously, or knows he is dying, or is simply hallucinating.  

There are a lot of different interpretations of this song.  Some people think it has to do with drugs – not a bad theory for just about any song from 1970 that you can't make heads or tails of.  

But most people think it has something to do with the Vietnam War – that the captain who is lost at sea represents the United States, which was lost in Vietnam.

Here's a link to a discussion of the song on Songfacts.  Songfacts is a website with a zillion facts about thousands of songs.  Carl Wiser, a Hartford DJ, created Songfacts in 1997 as a database for other DJs, and took it online in 1999.  (Carl has graciously agreed to write about a particularly interesting song for 2 or 3 lines, so look for his guest post later this month.)

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Whenever "I'm Your Captain" came on the radio, I'd always try to count how many times the "I'm getting closer to my home" phrase was repeated before the song finally faded out, but I'd always get distracted and lose track of where I was in the count.  (The same thing used to happen with "Hey Jude.")

But 2 or 3 lines is all about getting to the truth – not to mention spending inordinate amounts of time on things that any normal person would find trivial – so I've just listened to the song very carefully, taking detailed notes.  Here's what I learned.

The second part of the song begins at about the 4:30 mark.  The singer sings "I'm getting closer to my home" four times.  Then there's an instrumental break that lasts about a minute. 

The singer then sings "I'm getting closer to my home" exactly 24 times – the song starts fading about 30 seconds before it ends, and fades out entirely just as he finishes repeating the line for the 24th time. 

So 28 times altogether – four times, then a break then 24 times.

That's the album version.  On the single version, the singer sings "I'm getting closer to my home" four times.  Then there's the instrumental break.  And then the singer sings "I'm getting closer to my home" exactly 12 times before the song fades away and ends. 

By the way, Wikipedia says the orchestral part was played by the world-renowned Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.  I've been unable to verify that, and I doubt that it is true.

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Now it's time to bid a fond farewell to Grand Funk Railroad.  You may feel that eight posts about one album was too much of a good thing – or just too much, period.  I beg to differ.

And if reading those eight posts have exhausted you, imagine how I feel after writing it.  My desk is covered with my blood, sweat, and tears.  (Actually, I don’t think that’s blood -- I think I spilled a little red wine.)

Click here to listen to "I'm Your Captain":

Click here to watch a fabulous short film of Grand Funk performing the song at Shea Stadium in New York City in 1971 – the band sold out Shea in 72 hours, which was faster than even the Beatles had.

Click here to read an interview with Mark Farner, Grand Funk’s frontman, about that Shea Stadium concert.

(It seems that the single version "I'm Your Captain" isn't for sale.  Sorry about that!)

Free – "All Right Now" (1970)

I took her home to my place

Watching every move on her face

She said “Look, what’s your game?”

This month’s posts feature songs that I’ve chosen to include in this year’s class of 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME inductees.

Next month, we’ll be featuring the new members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.

I originally defined the 2 or 3 lines “GOLDEN DECADE” as spanning the years 1964 to 1973.  But I’ve decided to tweak that definition slightly.  (My blog, my rules.)

From this day forward, the “GOLDEN DECADE” is officially declared to have commenced in mid-1964 and ended in mid-1974.  

Why?  Because those years represent the decade when the best pop music the world has ever known was released.  

It also covers the time period that spans my years in junior high school, high school, and college.  (I entered the 7th grade – not to mention puberty – in August 1964, and graduated from college in May 1974.)

By the way . . . everyone thinks that the best music ever recorded was the music that was popular when he or she was a  teenager. 

I’ve got news for you: the best music ever recorded was the music that was popular when I was a teenager.  (That’s a fact, Jack!)

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The music I loved in high school was dramatically different from the music I loved in college.

Before my senior year in high school, I mostly listened to singles on the radio – often a car radio.

After I graduated from high school, I mostly listened to albums on my stereo.

Not surprisingly, most of the records that have been inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME were released while I was in junior high or high school, while most of the members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME were released when I was a college student.

But that’s changing with this year’s class of inductees into the hit singles hall of fame.  Today’s post is the first of three featuring hit singles from the seventies that I think of primarily as album tracks.  Those songs are very different from “I Get Around” and “Venus” and the other new 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME inductees that have been featured on 2 or 3 lines over the previous several weeks.

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In 1970, incoming Rice University freshmen – including yours truly – reported for orientation a week before classes started.

Rice University's Lovett Hall

I associate two songs that were on the radio that week with my first days as a college student:  Free's "All Right Now," and the last track of  Grand Funk's Closer to Home album, "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)."

As it turns out, my memory is pretty good.  Both those songs first appeared on the “Hot 100” singles chart in the September 5, 1970 issue of Billboard magazine – which would have shown up on newsstands about a week earlier, which is when I was getting oriented.  

I forget important sh*t all the time, but you’d best believe I remember the exact week that I first heard “All Right Now” and “Closer to Home” on the radio – even though that was almost 50 years ago.

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When Free played its first gig at London’s Nag’s Head pub in 1968, its members were 15, 17, 18 and 18 years old.

The group’s first two albums didn’t sell very well.  But their third LP, Fire and Water, was a big hit on the strength of “All Right Now,” which was a #4 hit in the U.S. and a #2 hit in the UK.

The week I was being oriented (orientated?) for my freshman year of college, Free was performing at the Isle of Wight festival, which attracted well over half a million fans.  

The other Isle of Wight acts that year included Chicago, Donovan, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, Sly and the Family Stone, Ten Years After, and the Who.  (Not too shabby.)

Click here to listen to “All Right Now.”  

Click here to listen to the album version of the song.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Blues Image – "Ride Captain Ride" (1970)

Seventy-three men sailed up 

From the San Francisco Bay,

Rolled off of their ship 
And here's what they had to say

[NOTE: There’s no rule against one-hit wonders by otherwise obscure bands being selected for the 2 OR 3 LINES "GOLDEN DECADE" HALL OF FAME, but I prefer to pick songs by groups that have a more substantial body of work than a single great single.  However, "Ride Captain Ride" is just too perfect a record to overlook.  Blues Image frontman Mike Pinera's account of how he was inspired to write the song makes you think that "Ride Captain Ride" was a slapdash affair – written under duress in a matter of minutes, and hurriedly recorded because bigger names were waiting to use the recording studio.  But today's featured song is as well-crafted a production as any single from that era – the arrangement is perfect, and the instrumental tracks are so nicely done that it makes you wonder if they weren’t performed by a bunch of "Wrecking Crew"-level studio musicians.  Throw in the fact that the song peaked about the same time I graduated from high school and turned 18, and you can understand why I chose to include  it in this year"s class of 2 OR 3 LINES "GOLDEN DECADE" HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME inductees.  Here's what I had to say about the song in a 2012 post.]

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Mike Pinera was in a tough spot.

His band, Blues Image, was recording their second album in Los Angeles in 1970.  Their first LP hadn't done diddly-squat, and the band's record label was going to dump them if their second album didn't produce a hit single.

Their producer obviously wasn't impressed with what he had heard so far.  He had told them that unless they had some other songs, it was time to pack their guitars and clear out – Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night were waiting to use the recording studio.

The 21-year-old Pinera was up to the challenge:

I said, "Oh, I have a song," which I didn't have exactly.  So I went into the bathroom, and I shut the door, and I just meditated.  I calmed my mind, and I started hearing music.  I went out and sat at the piano, which was a Rhodes model 73, which had 73 keys.  So I said, "OK, I need a first word."  And what came into my mind was 73. . . . The song sort of just wrote itself from there.

Rhodes electric piano with (count 'em) 73 keys

The result was "Ride Captain Ride," which sold a million copies and made it all the way to #4 on the Billboard "Hot 100."

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"Ride Captain Ride" song has been a favorite of mine since it was released, but I always wondered what the song's lyrics meant.

I've finally figured it out – they don't mean doodly-squat.

Mike Pinera had to write a song toot sweet or his band was going to get dumped by their label.  After meditating in the bathroom – translation: after rushing to the bathroom so he could throw up from the stress of his situation – the first thought that came into his mind was that his electric piano had 73 keys and "the song sort of wrote itself from there."  Do you really think a song written under those circumstances is going to actually mean anything?

Some people have tried to find a meaning in the song's lyrics.  Wikipedia's entry on "Ride Captain Ride" says the following: "It has been purported that the historical context for this song refers to the 1968 capture of the USS Pueblo by North Korea, but it is not substantiated."  (The "not substantiated" is an understatement – as is the "[citation needed]" note appended to this text.)

The USS Pueblo

That sentence is not only execrable English, it makes no sense.  For one thing, the Pueblo had 84 crew members – two were killed during the taking of the ship, while the other 82 were taken captive – not 73.

The Pueblo was a spy ship, so maybe the song's reference to a "mystery ship" could refer to it.  But the rest of the lyrics don't match up with Pueblo theory.  For example, here's what the 73 men "had to say" in verse one:

We're calling everyone to ride along 
To another shore

Where we can laugh our lives away 
And be free once more

A bunch of guys leaving to spy on North Korea from a US Navy ship might well say they were going "to another shore," but I don't think they would expect to "Laugh our lives away and be free once more" on such a mission.  But that's just me.

By the way, did you know the North Koreans never gave the Pueblo back?  Instead, they parked it in a river in Pyongyang and turned it into a museum ship.

"Welcome aboard USS Pueblo, which was
taken from running-dog American capitalist 
lackeys by brave Korean patriots"

*     *     *     *     *

This is the first song is yet another 2 or 3 lines series – one-hit wonders from 1969-1970.  It will be a short series – no more than half a dozen songs, I think – and I'm not going to drag it out for months and months and months.

Click here to hear "Ride Captain Ride."

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: