Related to this week’s episode, a couple of extras. One of them I had to cut from the podcast because it was getting so long, the other I’d forgotten about until a listener mentioned it to me.
Let me do mine first, because it’s a quicker bit. In addition to the covers done of “MacArthur Park”, Weird Al Yankovic did a parody song that’s quite faithful to the original, including the fact that there are different movements with different moods, and he plays it a little straighter than usual, with a lot of little shout-outs to different elements from the film. Plus, the video is done in claymation, which was still about as complicated as it got in 1993 (remember that Jurassic Park-level CGI was crazy expensive at that time):
Here’s a weird coincidence. This is the third time that 1993 has come up in connection with this song:
- During the podcast I mentioned that Suzy Horton got married to Robert Ronstadt in 1993.
- I also noted that Maynard Ferguson did a jazz cover of the song that year.
- And now we have this Weird Al video, which was also released in 1993. COINCIDENCE? Sure, of course it is.
The other extra I have goes back to when I was a Senior in high school. I was a big fan of the show Second City Television (SCTV), which was a comedy skit series that had a fictional Canadian television station as the central conceit of the show. Everything you saw was a show on the station, or a movie they were presenting, or a “commercial” or promo for an upcoming program (which the viewer rarely saw). Later on they branched into the behind-the-scenes activity at the station. One of the shows on the SCTV Network was a satirical sendup of American Bandstand, with a host who was so incredibly uncool that he was uncomfortable to watch in this disco setting. The show was called “Mel’s Rock Pile”, hosted by “Rockin'” Mel Stirrup (played by Eugene Levy), and there was an episode of “Rock Pile”that featured a performance from Richard Harris (as portrayed by Dave Thomas). This originally aired on February 20, 1981:
I actually remember when this first aired, and it’s funny on its face just because it’s so absurd, but I recently learned that, like so many great parodies, it has a strong basis in reality. In 1972, Harris performed the song on a BBC special called “A Gala Evening of Music and Wit”. During the instrumental break, Harris sat on the stage for awhile, but then did an awkward roll with a spring to his feet, and some rather directionless dancing around. What’s also interesting is that he’s definitely singing it differently from the way he sings it on the record: a little more fully-throated, with some more actual singing involved.
Try as I might, I couldn’t find the entire performance on the Interwebs anywhere, but there are a few clips from it in this piece:
Go figure!
When Jimmy Webb got his heart broken, what did he do? Why, he did what any other red-blooded American would do: he wrote a couple of hit songs and made a million bucks off the incident!
This week we’re going to dive into famous songs that were recorded by other artists first. Some of them you’re going to know about because practically everybody knows about them, but I think there will be a few surprises in there. I know that one of them came as a pretty big surprise to me!
In 1975, George was at the Midem Music Festival, which is a trade show that’s been held in Cannes, France, every year since 1967. At the festival, he met up with a man named George Greif. Harrison remarked that Greif reminded him of the late comedian Lord Buckley (seen here at left). Coincidentally, Greif had been Buckley’s manager back in the day, and he invited George to come visit him at Buckley’s home in Los Angeles, which he referred to as “Crackerbox Palace”.
Also of note is that, in addition to the “This Song” promotional film, George made one out of “Crackerbox Palace” as well, which also aired during the November 20, 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live. If you catch the re-run that’s been cut to an hour, though, this one usually gets cut based on the time considerations. It’s also pretty whimsical, though not as obviously comedic as “This Song”. 
Directed by Eric Idle, it features future Rutle Neil Innes as the nanny (above, right) and agai his future wife Olivia appears briefly in the bedroom shot (on the left). And while it wasn’t shot at Buckley’s house, it was shot at Friar Park, George’s home from 1970 until his death in 2001. Some have said that he occasionally referred to Friar Park as “Crackerbox Palace,” but I haven’t been able to nail that one down for sure.