Behind the Song - WDRV-FM Chicago
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Behind The Song: Pet Shop Boys "West End Girls"

Dig into the lyrics of classic rock songs and the storytellers that created them in "Behind The Song," a podcast of essays by The Drive's Janda Lane. Hear what was happening behind the scenes while some of the most iconic songs in rock history were being written.

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Music History

Workplace romances can be challenging…especially when your job is being part of a rock band. That was certainly the case with the band Heart. In fact, their first Top 10 hit in the US was written about the beginnings of what became an intra-band relationship. Get into the story of “Magic Man” in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast.
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Who was Heart's "Magic Man?"

By 1983, John Mellencamp had finally gotten the upper hand on his career. After the success of his breakthrough album, 1982’s American Fool, he had all the cards in his deck to change the game when it came to his relationship with the music business executives who had tried to control him from the start, over six years earlier. 
For his seventh studio album, Uh Huh, he did just that. Released in the fall of '83, t is the first album that bears his last name, an important step toward freeing himself of artistic shackles. Uh Huh was another success for Mellencamp on the charts, and one of its charting singles could be viewed as his mission statement: a song that encapsulates not only his battle with the folks in the corner offices who tried to dictate his career but the very spirit of the man himself. Let’s get into the story of “Authority Song” in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast. 

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The year John Mellencamp took control

The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd stands alone in many ways. By dealing with the uncomfortable concepts of life, death, greed, and mental illness, this body of work chimes with the human experience on a real level, which is remarkable considering that Roger Waters wrote the lyrics when he was just in his late 20’s. The content resonates so completely that The Dark Side Of The Moon holds the record on the Billboard 200 chart for being the longest-charting album in the chart’s history - over a thousand weeks and counting. It is one of the best-selling albums in the world, one of the most important in the entire rock genre. And when it comes to “Time,” track four on side one, we have a song that confronts us with our very path of existence. It traces the whole pattern of life, from youth to death and the great beyond, in six minutes and 53 seconds of pure poetry and amazingly creative audio imagery - ticking clocks and all. Get into it in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast. 

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The timeless appeal of Pink Floyd’s “Time”

ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” is one of the best examples of Jeff Lynne’s particularly bouncy brand of symphonic rock, a song that holds several surprises and reveals itself more and more with each repeated listen...including the very last line of the song, which is actually an often-misheard request! It has been proven to fit a “Feel Good Song Formula” by a scientist who tested it to find the world’s happiest tune. And for such a bright, happy song, would you be surprised to know that it all came about after Lynne had been suffering from a weather-induced writer’s block, a mental funk, while holed up in Switzerland? A funk that literally ended when the sun came out. Let’s dig in to the awesome story of “Mr. Blue Sky” in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast. 

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The ELO song scientifically proven to make you happy

The song is the biggest hit of Pete Townshend’s solo career, an infectious tune that the songwriter behind The Who has called “just a little ditty.” It’s a Hollywood favorite, used in charming romantic scenes in movies and TV shows. But like most things about this artist’s work, “Let My Love Open The Door” has a more complex and deeper meaning than what it sounds like at first. Let’s get into it in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast. 
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Behind The Song: Pet Shop Boys "West End Girls"

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