From Professor of Rock.
Coming up, we just hit 1.5 million subscribers! And to celebrate I’m giving some love to a “lost art” in the music biz, the Greatest Hits Record… but with a twist! Back in the day, these compilations were a vital part of our collections: Beatles Red and Blue, Eagles (1971-1975), Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Journey,… we all loved having all the hits in one place. Today I’ve got my picks for the 9 greatest song stories in rock history. I went with 9 cuz it’s my favorite number. You could call it a Professor of Rock Greatest Hits episode. Some of these stories have been told but today I’ve dug up some completely new details. And I gotta tell ya, it was so hard to narrow down thousands of stories to just 9. So maybe we’ll have to do a POR Greatest Hits volume 2. But for this one, I’ve got the story of the most cursed song in the history of music Gloomy Sunday, written by Rezso Seress, a former trapeze artist who survived a death-defying fall. Plus, there’s the story of Strawberry Alarm Clock trying to record their hit song, but Nobody in the band could nail down the tough vocal…Finally, a random kid watching the session jumped in and tried it and blew everyone away! It became a #1 hit and he wasn’t even in the band. Then there’s the story of a teenager who was told by his dad to write the stupidest song ever… and it led to one of the most iconic themes of all time, M*A*S*H! Let’s get into it.
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Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal
Honorary Producers
Holly Hammet, Remnarc, Kevin riley, Paul Moore II, CharleyAnne
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#classicrock #80smusic #vinylstory #onehitwonder
Hey Music Junkies Professor of Rock Always here to celebrated the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time. Make sure to subscribe below. Well, through the twists and turns, the highs and lows of this channel we just hit 1.5 Million Subscribers. and in celebration of you the audience who makes this all possible I wasnted to give you may ten favorite song stories of all time. Some are new some are old but the old ones have new details. Let’s do it. Kicking off our POR Greatest Hits countdown at #9, it’s the story of Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. You know, some of rock’s greatest songs come together when nobody was paying attention. And "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is proof of that. The song was written by the band’s organist Doug Ingle one night in 1967 — fueled by an entire gallon of Red Mountain wine. By the time he’d finished the bottle, Ingle had written the song and was ready to share it with drummer Ron Bushy. He played it through and sang the lyrics, but there was a small problem.
Ingle was so far gone that when he sang the phrase "in the Garden of Eden," what came out of his mouth was a muddled mess that sounded something like "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." But Bushy, dutifully transcribed the lyrics, writing down exactly what he heard. When they sobered up and looked over what they had, the line made absolutely no sense… but nobody wanted to fix it! The garbled title sounded better than the real one. It was exotic, mysterious, and perfectly in tune with the era. Eastern spirituality was having a major cultural moment, with the Beatles heading to India and the Stones weaving Indian instruments into their recordings. "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" fit right into that vibe and their record label loved it. The song itself was actually written early enough to appear on Iron Butterfly’s debut album Heavy, but the guys ended up holding it for their second record. And what happened in the studio when they finally recorded it was completely unplanned.
While waiting for their producer Jim Hilton to show up, the band launched into an extended jam during soundcheck just to help engineer Don Casale set his levels. But what nobody realized was that Casale had the tape rolling the entire time. When they finished and listened back, the decision was unanimous — that was the take… all 17 minutes of it! The finished track had everything a progressive rock fan could want — neo-classical organ with Eastern influences, a riff-driven guitar, and a monster two-and-a-half minute drum solo from Bushy… followed by an organ solo. The lyrics are brief and simple — a love song set in the Garden of Eden — but honestly, nobody was listening to this 17-minute track for the poetry.
