Start Anywhere
Welcome to this episode of the “How to Tour America Through Her Music” podcast. You can listen to just this one episode, or if you prefer, start the tour from its beginning.
A Gentle Reminder
Although I add a lot more content in the show notes, the real “meat” of the show is in the audio. Remember the hot dog from last week?
So if you are short on time, please just listen to the audio and skip the show notes.
Show Notes
I featured “So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star,” by the Byrds. This music video from 1967 is very cool. A young David Crosby introduces the band, and although the video is synced with the studio recording of the song, you get a sense of how tight the Byrds were live.
I also like the lyrics to this song, which shed light on the inauthenticity of the music industry, plus call for the listener, as Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.”
Where the agent man won't let you down
Sell your soul to the company
Who are waiting there to sell plastic ware
And in a week or two
If you make the charts
The girls’ll tear you apart
The price you paid for your riches and fame
Was it all a strange game?
You’re a little insane
The money, the fame, the public acclaim
Don't forget what you are
You’re a rock ‘n’ roll star!
“Mr. Tambourine Man,” written by Bob Dylan and performed here in 1965 by the Byrds on the Ed Sullivan show. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Ed Sullivan, who looked like a total square but who had an open mind and a good ear for talent. I heard many great rock bands on his show, including The Beatles, Elvis, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, and The Jefferson Airplane.
Sullivan’s show was also racially integrated, frequently featuring Motown stars such as The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and The Jackson 5. Well done, Mr. Sullivan. Thank you.
I know I went a bit heavy on The Byrds in this episode, so in addition to featuring their version of the song “Turn, Turn, Turn,” allow me to direct your attention to another version by Judy Collins and Pete Seeger, who composed the music. The lyrics are based on the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three.
I was a bit hard on Ms. Collins and her contemporaries in my last show about the music of Texas when I unfairly compared her to Janis Joplin. As I said in that show, that’s like comparing a Kawasaki to a Harley-Davidson, or apples to hand grenades. It just ain’t fittin’!
I played part of “My Back Pages,” also written by Bob Dylan and made famous by The Byrds. Here are two versions to choose from: the original Byrds recording, remastered, with a fun video of scenes from the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, including a rare inside shot of Ken Kesey’s magic bus.
But for something fun and different, check out this updated version of “My Back Pages” featuring Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison, each of whom sings a verse. Those voices sound so familiar and comforting to me, like a favorite pair of slippers.
For you guitar nuts, notice that McGuinn is still playing the same blonde 12-string Rickenbacker he used in the ‘60s, and that gave The Byrds their signature jangly sound.
Did I play the theme song from the Brady Bunch? Yes, I did.
At the risk of tearing a rift in the space-time continuum, I shifted from the Bunch to DJ Premier x Snoop Dogg and their “Can U Dig That?” featuring Daz Dillinger.
I couldn’t get enough of the Dogg, so I also featured his “Gang Signs” featuring Mozzy. While there are plenty of half-naked women in this video, it was the restored old cars that sent a blast of smoke down past my wrinkly old gozzle. A 1972 Chevy Caprice? I want one, preferably a jacked-up lowrider with a leaping front end. I could be gansta.
Although I wasn’t a huge Beach Boys fan, they do a damn good job keeping their complex harmony tight and in tune in this live version of their song “Surfer Girl.” They mention the “Woody” car in the song. I also want one of those.
I close out the show with Jackson Browne’s “You Know the Night,” which was brought to my attention by new friend and listener Bill Boultbee, whom Fabi and I met in Thailand in March 2025.
Coming Up Next!
On next week’s show, we’ll move north to San Francisco along California’s picturesque Route 1 highway. I lived in Northern California for a spell in 2019 and wrote about that experience in my book “Blue Skyways.” Here’s an excerpt:
Can you dance, my friend?
Then travel inwardly and outwardly until you hear something, a distant and unfamiliar melody, sung in a foreign tongue around a strange fire. Break bread with those you find there, the “others.” Listen to their stories. Pay tribute to their gods and warriors. Honor their ancestors. Feel their hearts.
You can read, or listen to my reading of, the whole chapter from here, and below are a few photos I took not far from the cabin where I lived in Sebastopol.
I also lived in Los Angeles in the mid-60s, and wrote about that experience in my book “Making the Second Half Man: How I Became the Ogre-King.”
That book is normally for paid subscribers only, but for a season, I freed up the California chapter, “Dead Man’s Curve,” in reference to a Jan & Dean song I liked then. Here’s an excerpt:
JFK’s death was the end of an era, the end of Camelot and the hope it imbued, the end of 1950s innocence and naiveté. Then dark clouds appeared on America’s horizon — a warning of things to come.
And they did come. First one assassination, then another, then another. It was a turning point for America, reminding me of that moment in the afternoon of a blistering summer day when the wind kicks up, just a bit, but enough to flip the maple leaves so you see their silver underbellies. The family dog starts to pace, and a whisper of coolness is in the stiffening breeze. Those are subtle changes, but enough for those paying attention to know — a storm is coming.
Thanks for joining me. I’ll see you… next time.
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