Extreme Harmonicking

Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love" and  Blues Traveler's “Hook” settle their differences in our sixth matchup of the Jacktical Magic tournament.

Cooper finally decides to stand up to Amelia’s bullying. Cooper also demonstrates how every song ever has stolen from somebody named Pachelbel, and Amelia presents a psychological profile of a killer giving the law enforcement the runaround. Oh- and British people are being stupid again.

Which song will be declared the winner and move one step forward to the title of having the most Jack FM energy?

Your vote decides.

Cast Your Vote: Each week, vote for the song you think has the most Jack FM vibes at instagram.com/jackticalmagic/

Call the Hotline: Tell us which song you think should win next week’s matchup. Leave a voicemail at (424) 666-1711.

Email Us: Send your Jack FM stories, questions, memories, or music anecdotes to jackticalmagic@gmail.com.

Theme Song: ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ by The Chills. Used with permission.

Chapters

• 0:30 Introduction
• 1:50 Renumbering Episodes
• 3:43 Cooper’s Den
• 4:36 Recap of Last Week
• 4:46 Good For You Thirty Two
• 5:23 This Week’s Matchup
• 6:16 Cooper’s Grievance
• 9:35 Alvin and the Chipmunks
• 11:36 Soft Cell, “Tainted Love"

Transcript

Amelia Scannell (00:00)
It's very strange when voice notes just name themselves after the location.

someone who lives in the apartment named an LLC and put their address and now like Maps knows it. And I'm like, you're not us, what are you doing

Cooper (00:11)
Yeah

Amelia Scannell (00:31)
Welcome to Jacktical Magic, a critical examination of North America's most baffling radio station, Jack FM.

My name is Amelia Scannell, and as always, I'm joined by my co-host, Cooper Willis.

Cooper (00:48)
Hi Amelia, how are you?

Amelia Scannell (00:50)
Alright, that

was a jaunty little intro.

Cooper (00:52)
And I also just want to say ⁓ Willkommen by Jectical Magic to our listener in Germany who definitely didn't accidentally download our podcast.

Amelia Scannell (01:02)
⁓ I just figured it was a VPN.

Cooper (01:05)
you think?

Amelia Scannell (01:07)
I don't know. But Germany is into things that we think nothing about, like John Tesh so thanks, yeah, Willkommen.

Cooper (01:13)
Right.

Yeah, maybe

they searched 99 left balloons and caught that it was in

Amelia Scannell (01:23)
That's

absolutely it. Well, if you're the German or Germans, please email us at JacticalMagic at gmail.com. Let us know. Say hi. yeah, we want to see what your life's like. We want to know what led you to listen to Jactical Magic. Where did it go wrong for you?

Cooper (01:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (01:45)
Okay, a little business up front. Well, one, we're having 64 songs compete for the title of most Jack FM Vibes. The first episode of Jacktical Magic, we revealed all 64 songs of the tournament. It was our first episode, so we called it episode one. The following episode, we began our tournament with the first match, but that was called episode two.

Episode 3 had match 2, episode 4 had match 3, and on. I think you get where I'm going. the match will never catch up to the episode numbers. So... It's caused me a headache. ⁓ Maybe you. ⁓ So maybe we just retroactively number the first episode as zero, and then...

Cooper (02:25)
Yes.

Mmm.

Amelia Scannell (02:34)
And then episode one has match one, episode two has match two, so this, so last week was episode six, but now it's five and this is six.

Cooper (02:45)
Boy, this is like a reverse George Lucas going back and fixing the order.

Amelia Scannell (02:48)
It is, but not

as brilliant, not as out.

Cooper (02:54)
Yeah, not as brilliant at all.

Amelia Scannell (02:57)
Boy, that was planned meticulously. Star Wars, I mean. Have we gone?

Cooper (03:01)
Yeah, right. Yes, I definitely have the idea for

those first three movies. I definitely know exactly what's going to happen in those.

Amelia Scannell (03:07)
You

C3PL being built by Anakin's definitely makes sense to me and will soon to you. ⁓ Is this our first time bringing up Star Wars? No, we did...

Cooper (03:19)
I do wish just-

Maybe, maybe it's because I'm in

my Star Wars room.

Amelia Scannell (03:27)
We did Luke, ⁓ I'm your dad. ⁓

Cooper (03:28)
yeah, Luke I'm your dad.

Luke I built C3PO too. Hey I built you a little gold friend. It would have been great if they added, in the special editions they added Darth Vader doing a double take when he sees C3PO. What?

Amelia Scannell (03:46)
Wait a

minute. what room are you in? you're in your little study or your little.

Cooper (03:52)
little den.

Amelia Scannell (03:53)
Best most awesome, comfortable, well-decorated room.

Cooper (03:58)
Yes, this is my favorite room.

Amelia Scannell (04:01)
throw a little paint on the wall. Maybe a little color. Yeah, it's a "Selling the House Grey."

Cooper (04:03)
painted agreeable gray.

Yeah, a little paint job would be nice. It is also, unfortunately, the coldest room in the house. And in Chicago, we are in this Arctic polar vortex or whatever they're calling it. So I'm a little bit I'm a little bit chilly today, but I'm in here for a reason. And we'll get to that later.

Amelia Scannell (04:30)
Isn't

it just winter? why is it a polar vortex?

Cooper (04:34)
Yeah, I mean, it's just very cold winter. It was negative 30 the other day. ⁓

Amelia Scannell (04:42)
When I was a kid, we just called it winter. okay.

Cooper (04:44)
Yeah, every

everything has to have a woke name now can't even just have

Amelia Scannell (04:48)
Yeah

So last week, Train drops a Jupiter, Black Crows, hard to handle. Train is moving on to the Sweet Teen 16, which is another bit of business I need to address.

Cooper (05:04)
Mmm.

Amelia Scannell (05:05)
next round, it won't be 16, it'll be 32. So we can't really call it that anymore.

Because 32 teams, this round, 64 teams are standing. There's 16 matches, So we gotta do 32. We gotta call it.

Cooper (05:17)
But

Right.

Amelia Scannell (05:23)
We gotta call it the Good for You 32.

for you, you made it. You're here. Good for you, Don't get, Don't, yeah, don't get a big head

Cooper (05:28)
Yeah.

This is the only pat on the back we're gonna give you in this whole tournament. After this, you're on your

Amelia Scannell (05:40)
We got a sixth matchup. Tainted Love by Soft Cell versus Hook by Blues Traveler. This is an exciting one.

Cooper (05:49)
I'm excited to get into this for a lot of reasons. I think I messed up on the poll for what I voted for. I'm not sure if you count our votes in the votes, but I think I didn't vote for the the thing that I meant to vote for.

Amelia Scannell (06:03)
Okay, I count your vote. I don't vote but I count yours I see the tally so I let you vote I count yours How did you do it wrong?

Cooper (06:09)
Hmm.

I see.

had an idea of why I felt a certain way, but it wasn't fully developed when I voted. It was just a concept that I wanted to bring up. all the way through.

Amelia Scannell (06:30)
Well, you don't get to go back and vote for Trump because you think he's doing a great

Cooper (06:35)
Amelia, I do have a bone to pick with you because I don't know if you remember, but in what is now called episode zero, you told me that I didn't know what the song Hook was about. Let's go ahead and roll that clip.

what do you have to say for yourself?

Amelia Scannell (07:05)
Okay, well, I myself was going to bring it up. I was going know, address the elephant. I was going to bring myself to the woodshed. And I knew this was coming from the minute that happened. I think we cruising through all the matchups. Yes, you mentioned.

Cooper (07:09)
Okay.

huh.

Amelia Scannell (07:28)
It's about songwriting and I was dismissive. And I noticed this.

I'm an empath.

This is something at the time I noticed. You were a little passive aggressive and said under your breath, like, I guess I don't know what that song's about.

I felt that

immediately.

Cooper (07:45)
have a Jack FM of those two. Yeah, that's not for me. I'm not a critic.

Amelia (07:46)
That's for another. Yeah.

⁓ okay. And then I...

Cooper (07:52)
I don't even understand the Hook apparently.

Amelia Scannell (07:54)
Which is very uncharacteristic of you. you would usually give me shit and stand up for yourself

I thought like as we were moving on, was like, ⁓ he's keeping that one in his pocket. He's holding onto that

Cooper (08:05)
you had

questioning my knowledge of Hook for one thing, and I was like, do I not know what this song is about? Like, I'm pretty sure I do, but so at the time, I didn't want to derail the draft. I just wanted it to keep going. And I said, yeah, I'll just hold on to this and let it fester for two months. And then I'll bring it up when we get to that episode.

Amelia Scannell (08:16)
When.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, I was going to bring it up today. I apologize. But also, I'm not an on anything. What do I know?

Cooper (08:38)
Right.

You're only human.

Amelia Scannell (08:41)
So anyway, I mean, I'm not 100 % convinced it's about songwriting, but I I know that I know that everyone thinks it is and maybe blues traveler says it is

Cooper (08:55)
yeah, thank you. not gonna fully own this, but

Amelia Scannell (08:59)
No,

definitely understood why you let it go.

Cooper (09:03)
I'm glad we can finally get it out in the open because this has really been hurting our friendship.

Amelia Scannell (09:08)
This show has definitely suffered, sex and the city, two of them hated each

Cooper (09:17)
Which two?

Lawrence of Mylabia?

Amelia Scannell (09:20)
Yeah, the good like the healthiest one. then Carrie.

Cooper (09:25)
Right. She's Samantha,

right?

Amelia Scannell (09:29)
Yes, Samantha. I think I'm a Carrie as far as my life is messy. really like messy. I like to talk and make weird choices. But then style-wise, I'm a little Charlotte. Nobody wants to Mirandas.

Cooper (09:46)
Hmm.

But that's because the Mirandas of the world know that they are Mirandas. They just don't want to admit it.

Amelia Scannell (09:57)
Yeah, they're just not invited to lunch.

Cooper (10:01)
Right.

being Alvin and the Chipmunks. Ain't nobody wanna be the Theodore.

Amelia Scannell (10:07)
No, nobody wants to be Simon.

Cooper (10:09)
I kind of like Simon. I like Simon. I think Simon's cool. Simon's smart.

Amelia Scannell (10:14)
No, Simon wears glasses. I'm not saying he's smart.

Cooper (10:17)
Well,

that's why I wear glasses.

Amelia Scannell (10:20)
Theodore's a fun little guy.

Cooper (10:22)
loves he loves snacks.

Amelia Scannell (10:24)
Yeah, and I've just been thinking this all my life. The Alvin and the Chipmunks, three Chipmunks adopted by a human man named He's manager, they're like a singing group, they're a rock group, they're huge stars. Dave yells at them a lot.

no one told you, to adopt these chipmunks. Two, you've decided to make them, pop stars. What are you mad about? You're rich because of these little guys.

Cooper (10:56)
That's true. I never thought about that. Did Dave, did he discover them as singing chipmunks or did he already adopt them before that? And that was just kind of like a happy accident that they stumbled into.

Amelia Scannell (11:11)
⁓ no, I think he, I think he saw dollar signs the minute he laid eyes on these little guys. made some big shirts for them to wear and gave one of them glasses

Cooper (11:15)
Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I guess he just didn't anticipate that one of them would really give him such a hard time.

Amelia Scannell (11:29)
Yeah, would just temper. yeah.

Cooper (11:36)
That should

be an episode or a movie where Chipmunks make Dave go to anger management training.

Amelia Scannell (11:42)
Mm-hmm.

social services takes them away or something. Or like a long drawn out emancipation battle. ⁓

Cooper (11:45)
Yeah.

I'm sure David Cross is available. David.

Amelia Scannell (11:55)
God, he played like a henchman.

Cooper (11:58)
I think he played three different parts in all three movies. I think he was just like, yeah, fuck it, I'll do it.

Amelia Scannell (12:02)
He was...

yeah.

should we get on to soft sell tainted love?

Cooper (12:11)
Please.

Amelia Scannell (12:12)
All right, pretty cool story. Our story, like every cool story, begins in the early to mid 70s Northern England. Some industrial towns. Imagine, you know, Manchester, Leeds, your Stokes, just the ugly Liverpool,

just I'm picturing smoke stacks, factories, kids with dirty faces. I'm picturing rusty, those rusty big girders with like a chain and a big hook on the end, that goes up and down and probably grabs stuff.

Cooper (12:45)
Yeah.

the 1870s.

Amelia Scannell (12:49)
Yeah, this is the industrial revolution. there were like mines, there were factories. I'm thinking round faced women with big red faces. We're not gonna talk, gonna make fun of English this time, but you know, it's gray.

Cooper (12:52)
Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Amelia Scannell (13:11)
It's like Allentown. got a pretty good shot to at least as far as their old man got.

These kids don't have much of a future.

Except on Saturday nights, these kids birthed a movement. Have you ever heard of Northern Soul?

Cooper (13:32)
No.

Amelia Scannell (13:33)
get comfy. So it's like a DJ club culture. It's a, but it's a synth pop with a weird mashup of like Motown and Black American soul. So Northern soul. They don't take your popular Motowns, your.

Cooper (13:34)
sitting.

Okay.

Okay.

Amelia Scannell (13:53)
⁓ what's his name,

Phil Spector, they don't need the hits. They want the flops, the ones that are super obscured, never went anywhere in America. These English DJs would travel to America and just dig through Detroit, Chicago.

just looking for these 45s, these flops that never did anything or from from like a record company that shut down after making a couple albums or a couple singles.

holy grail of flop Motown is Frank Wilson's Do I Love You? Indeed I Do. there's only like two copies in existence now. it is on Apple Music and it's flop material.

not one of the good ones. no, and I can tell why it wasn't a hit. It just didn't sound right. ⁓ Northern Soul loved it. It was their Mona Lisa.

Cooper (14:45)
good? is No.

Okay.

Amelia Scannell (14:57)
the floppier the better and the speed of these songs

Cooper (15:00)
Okay.

Amelia Scannell (15:02)
the ones that are 100 BPM,

actually led to

early break dancing before before the Bronx honestly. these kids so they would go all night long.

since these were factory folks they were on a lot of amphetamine speed crank

You know, the things that like keeps the working class going.

okay so you know how English people wear like a mesh tank top not all of them but you know I'm talking about.

Cooper (15:33)
I do know what you're talking about. I didn't know that that was specific to English people.

Amelia Scannell (15:34)
and

No, I guess it's not anymore. And it's a little queer culture, and they had like these big wide Jinkos, Junkos pants, these weird outfits because they were break dancing. They were spinning. They were on the floor. These ballrooms, there's a ballroom called the Wigging Casino, but it's a ballroom.

Cooper (15:53)
interesting.

Amelia Scannell (15:59)
from like midnight to 8 a.m. the next day, these places would be covered in talcum powder for the spinning it was so cramped and sweaty that it created condensation on the ceiling, but of nicotine and tobacco. it almost created like a little.

climatron or

created like a terrarium of sweat and nicotine and probably cum probably some feces piss blood who knows but

These ballrooms would not sell beer or liquor because you can't dance all night with a belly full of pints. But they did sell coffee, tea, and soup.

I love these club kids having some soup in the middle of the night.

So two kids, Mark Almond and Dave Ball, they met at a trade school in Leeds. Dave was a little shy and more like head down playing with the machines. Mark was the face. Mark was the voice.

Yeah, they were both part of Northern Seoul. Mark was like, let's make a band let's make these songs and stuff, but I'll sing. So they took another flop called Tainted Love.

by Gloria Jones

they slowed it down, made it electronic, got a really cheap recording of it.

Smash hit in the

Cooper (17:30)
So I had read that they were already so they were already signed at this point as a band, but their label was about to drop them prior to.

this release. that true? Did you find that in your research?

Amelia Scannell (17:44)
I only knew that they paid for a little EP. I couldn't really... Also that kind of stuff isn't as interesting to me. should probably look into it, but I don't know about that. I'm sure that's true.

Cooper (18:02)
I was.

Amelia Scannell (18:03)
Anyway, real quick, okay, so then Soft Cell released an album with Tainted Love on it, and it's called Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. It's

Cooper (18:15)
Yes.

Amelia Scannell (18:15)
absolutely the filthiest thing I've ever heard. It's... Yeah!

Cooper (18:19)
It's so filthy.

Amelia Scannell (18:21)
By this time, people were busing from all over the country to Wigan Casino and similar places up north that would have these Northern Seoul all night raves. so this was a smash hit in the UK, but the cool kids knew about.

They knew where it came from. they also gave the Northern Soul kids a little gift. So on the radio, it cuts off, Tainted Love cuts off at the end of the song. they knew radio wouldn't play a long song, two songs smashed together.

they knew it didn't matter to clubs, so they made a big longer mashup that's nine minutes long. it's an extended mix of tainted love, and then it transitions to the Supremes, where did our love go?

it was Motown, it was electronic, it was enough for England to love it. so they put that longer mix out in clubs, out in discos. It was huge. ⁓

And we, today, we listen to a four or five minute version called the promo version. they just put it out to American radio and that's the one we hear.

Cooper (19:41)
OK, and yeah, I. I was very familiar with Tainted Love as a kid. I would always listen to 80s at eight and Tainted Love was on that. That was on just whatever the mix station would turn into 80s at night. And my whole life I knew Tainted Love. But I will say very specifically.

I had never heard the extended version of Tainted Love until Jack FM.

Amelia Scannell (20:10)
So the part you heard always stopped at tainted love. Okay.

Cooper (20:14)
Yes, I had never

heard that extended version until moving to LA and listening to Jack FM because they played it and now I can't separate them in my mind. That's how I think the song goes. ⁓ So it's really interesting that that was interesting to me that that Jack FM would play it or I guess they're playing that promo version you're talking about.

Amelia Scannell (20:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, well I do want to say in 1996 there was a Levi's commercial directed by Spike Jonze. an emergency room. A bunch of doctors and nurses are trying to revive this guy on the table. The heart monitor is going quickly.

then the heart monitor goes down to the do do do and one of the doctors just bursts into singing it and then like the whole operating room kind of starts singing all the doctors and nurses and

Cooper (21:00)
Boom.

Amelia Scannell (21:12)
And then the patient sings And it was a big commercial. I do believe that's when the extended, the five minute like a little bit of tainted love, a little bit where'd our love go.

Cooper (21:14)
Yeah.

I see. I feel like I remember that commercial.

Amelia Scannell (21:28)
And yeah, was a very, it was a commercial that was on for three or four years. It was it was almost Santa? He does exist.

Cooper (21:37)
do exist.

Amelia Scannell (21:39)
Santa?

Cooper (21:40)
God, I wish they would just give us an update of that. Like, just give us a little polishing on the animation if going to keep showing it.

Amelia Scannell (21:46)
Mm-hmm. did

Hershey's did update the the bells the Hershey's kisses with the like Yeah, a couple years ago. It was stop-motion. Now. It's computer

Cooper (21:53)
⁓ really?

⁓

I must have seen it updated it, and I don't think I recognized anything different seems...

Amelia Scannell (22:07)
well, I've got

an eye for stop motion for animation.

Cooper (22:10)
Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (22:11)
Now last week I had a problem with the Black Crows, this mediocre white man syndrome where their first hit is a cover. This song is two covers put together basically. And it's their pretty much their only hit.

Cooper (22:26)
Right.

Amelia Scannell (22:30)
it still applies. It kind of still like, yes, it had like more pedigree and more cred,

still kind of pisses me off.

Cooper (22:41)
Yeah,

don't think it's better than the original. Pretty cool.

Amelia Scannell (22:44)
Yeah. You know

she joined T-Rex later?

Cooper (22:48)
Really?

Amelia Scannell (22:49)
who's the lead singer? Like Mark Bolan? died in a car accident and she was driving.

I think she came to England after Tainted Love became big she knew where her bread was buttered. Or her toast was beans were put on it.

Cooper (23:05)
Her toast was marmaladed.

Amelia Scannell (23:07)
okay so

that album

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.

there's Seedy Films which is I I think it's about giving another guy a hand job in a porn theater

Cooper (23:20)
Nice. Probably.

Amelia Scannell (23:21)
it is. It

absolutely is, Say Hello, Wave Goodbye is about a prostitute that he sees everybody loves a prostitute. Everybody wants to just take them away from this.

Cooper (23:33)
Yeah. Right.

of something everybody loves, I hope you're about to talk about my favorite song next.

Amelia Scannell (23:42)
are you referring to Sex Dwarf? Okay, so I believe Sex Dwarf is about having a dwarf follow you around to join in your sex adventures. Is that right?

Cooper (23:44)
Yeah, I love Sex Drawf

Yep, that's about it.

Amelia Scannell (23:58)
Yeah, just being friends with a dwarf or making him or her come along to join in your your little capades.

Cooper (24:08)
That song is their fourth biggest song or something hilarious.

Amelia Scannell (24:15)
Yeah,

it had a video that was so the local constables, heard about it and they raided the production office and, smashed, equipment and took the reels. they thought it was a crime because it featured,

featured a lot of dwarves with chainsaws and I'm not a fan exploitation of dwarves for comedy but I mean if it was about a Sex Dwarf like those things those things those people exist those little

Cooper (24:53)
degrading people, but those things.

Amelia Scannell (24:55)
Those

things, those disgusting little goblins.

they confiscated it and that just made it more legendary. It did end up on YouTube. it wouldn't have been a very good video. was kind of crappy and not very impressive. But the Bobbies doing brought attention to it.

Cooper (25:09)
Sure.

Amelia Scannell (25:16)
it's like that cheating couple caught on the Jumbotron at Coldplay. just play it cool and no one would, people would have just been like, ⁓ there's a lame white couple who likes Coldplay. And then, the camera would have gotten off them in three seconds.

Cooper (25:21)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Amelia Scannell (25:34)
There's no reason to freak out. It's not like his wife was at home, watching a live, Jumbotron Network. Yeah, watching... Let's see what the cameraman at one of the Coldplay concerts is up to right this minute. Honey, I was just watching the Jumbotron Network on DirecTV.

Cooper (25:41)
Goodbye.

Well let's see what's on the Coldplay tonight.

Yeah, that's so true.

Amelia Scannell (26:00)
And I saw someone You're dead, mister. You're dead meat. I'm gonna own

So yeah, they took the money, made some even more inaccessible albums, broke up

that song. It's just solid. it's not a...

well came out in 81. It's just not a song that people Have strong negative emotions about it. It's kind of like tears for fears. Everybody to rule the world no one gets sick of it. it's not Exciting or it's not provocative. I mean, they're both good songs

Cooper (26:22)
Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (26:39)
no one's like, I can't hear this again. don't know. That's as far as I got with Softcell. That's as far as Softcell got with themselves.

Cooper (26:44)
an earworm.

Yeah, that's true. so then Tainted Love. So then Marilyn Manson covers Soft Cell's cover of Gloria Jones's Tainted Love in the 90s. Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (27:01)
I didn't know that. I know he did

sweet dreams.

Cooper (27:06)
Yeah, he was kind of like, I'll do all those kind of off beat new wave

I think it's a great song. like I said, I have such a strong association with Jack FM and Tainted Love. That is probably the song that I feel like, not that I spent a ton of time listening to Jack FM, but I did. And that feels like the song that was always on.

Amelia Scannell (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Cooper (27:29)
I don't think that I ever had Jack FM on and didn't hear that song that day. So I have a very strong association with that song and Jack FM.

Amelia Scannell (27:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yes, I agree.

I'll save my opinions to the end, but I'm with ya.

Cooper (27:45)
Okay, well let's talk hook, shall we?

Amelia Scannell (27:49)
Mm-hmm.

Cooper (27:50)
Okay, so Blues Traveler from Princeton, New Jersey. ⁓ A couple of the guys went to Princeton University and I guess John Popper just hung around campus ⁓ playing his old harmonica. ⁓ I will say about Blues Traveler, first and foremost, they're one of the few bands on this bracket and maybe one of the few bands that I've heard in my life where

Amelia Scannell (28:03)
I'm he's a Tony.

Mm-hmm.

Cooper (28:19)
they come onto the scene with something that's incredibly impressive. he is so musically talented at playing the harmonica. For my money, he's probably the best harmonica player in the world. I really don't know. ⁓

Amelia Scannell (28:36)
what about... I

came up with zero harmonica players.

Cooper (28:41)
Just try one. What about Billy Joel?

Amelia Scannell (28:44)
yeah, and Beck plays a harmonica.

Cooper (28:47)
that's definitely the thing that broke them through because they came up in jam band culture. They were contemporaries of Phish and Dave Matthews in the eighties.

Amelia Scannell (28:55)
boy.

Cooper (29:00)
They're just part of this jam band ecosystem and they have nominal success with their first album. I believe, But Anyway, because I'm the first album, is ⁓ Might be on the second album. But Anyway is their first radio song, at least college radio. I definitely remember But Anyway. Do you know that song?

Amelia Scannell (29:12)
hmm

Do you

think that's why they call themselves Blues Traveler? Because they just traveled around with Phish

Cooper (29:30)
Yeah, I kind of do. they just were a jam band and don't know why it was surprising for me to learn that their album Four was their fourth album. I just never put that together.

Amelia Scannell (29:33)
Yeah.

Cooper (29:44)
when I would see it in the Columbia House ad or magazine for CDs you could order. I so remember seeing it all the time. I never owned this album, did you?

Amelia Scannell (29:49)
Mm-hmm.

Cooper (29:55)
They, you know, so it takes them

Amelia Scannell (29:57)
Yeah.

Cooper (29:58)
albums. But

Amelia Scannell (29:58)
But it was

for runaround. was... it was because of runaround. Yeah.

Cooper (30:04)
Because it was Runaround, yeah.

It just takes them four albums to get to a place where they're actually breaking through to the top 40, and it's with Runaround. And this song that we're talking about today, Hook, which is so... I have a lot to say about Hook, but I wanna start with...

Amelia Scannell (30:25)
Okay.

Cooper (30:26)
Hook feels like a song that a music exec was telling them, like a note that they were given. you have to write a radio song. You have to write something we can play. You can't have these 10 minute harmonica solos. Nobody cares. Nobody's going to listen to that. So

they write Hook and the whole premise of Hook is we can say whatever we want as long as it follows this

structure. You're gonna love it. It's very much like you said with Jack FM, the piggies will eat it up.

Amelia Scannell (31:02)
Okay,

Cooper (31:03)
it's based on...

one of the most famous chord progressions in Western music, Pachelbel Canon, which by the way, Pachelbel, that makes me hungry.

Amelia Scannell (31:15)
What is Pachelbel?

Cooper (31:16)
Taco Bell, right?

Johann Pachelbel is his name, but give me a cheesy gordita right now, please. I can't say Pachelbel and then just move on But so Pachelbel canon is emotionally manipulative because it's so universally persuasive in

Amelia Scannell (31:27)
Absolutely.

Cooper (31:39)
what it delivers. It gives an emotional build without tension and it resolves constantly. So we always know where we are in the progression. is kind of what made it one of the most popular things for pop music. Like every song uses this chord progression, some element of it. I want to play a bit of it.

Amelia Scannell (31:59)
Okay,

please do.

Cooper (32:02)
you ⁓

So that's in C, and that gives you Let it Be, or it gives you Don't Look Back in Anger, on Me, Forever Young. The list is endless of the songs that use this progression. And Blues Traveler

Amelia Scannell (32:28)
Wow

Cooper (32:32)
is 100 purposely using this progression to say, this is the formula, we're showing you the magic trick, we're telling you we're doing the magic trick. They're like Penn and Teller They're saying, watch us, we're gonna do this magic trick and it's gonna work even though you know that we're telling you about it. They're doing, so they have it in A.

Amelia Scannell (32:37)
Okay.

Ow.

Cooper (32:57)
yes. Ready?

Like literally every pop song in the world uses this. Some version of Canon.

And so they are literally just saying, it doesn't matter what we say. You're going to put meaning behind it. Halfway through the song he says, I'm not being genuine. to make matters even more confusing, I'm going to start bringing up literature figures and relate this to

Amelia Scannell (33:26)
The apparently.

Cooper (33:27)
Peter Pan,

because there you have Captain Hook, and the hook will bring you back. And he means the hook will bring you back. So to get a little nerdy, the structure is, in terms of numbers, one, five, six, three, five, four, One, five, six, three, five.

One, five, six, three, four, one, four, five. That's the progression. Means whatever your bass note is, that's where your chords are in the progression.

Amelia Scannell (34:02)
fucking dork.

Cooper (34:05)
So the magic of Pachelbel Canon is when you break the progression to come back to the three right here. That's your emotional build. And then you resolve positive.

Amelia Scannell (34:15)
.

Cooper (34:19)
And like I said, you always know when it's coming around. Hook never has a bridge. Hook never has a pre-chorus. Hook stays within Pachelbel's canon the entire time and plays it the

full extent of the emotional range, so on purpose.

Amelia Scannell (34:38)
that suck it in is the bridge?

Cooper (34:41)
no, I'm saying it's technically not. It's called another verse. But typically in a bridge, back to Don't Look Back in Anger, you have... Well, that's pre-chorus, but... What's the words to Don't Look Back in Anger?

Amelia Scannell (35:00)
Take me to the place that you know where nobody knows if it's night or day?

Cooper (35:06)
So I started revolution from my bed. So that's, that's a change in the chord progression. And then you get this, stand up beside the fireplace. Take that look from off your face. And this note is totally dissonant. You don't know where it's going to go. Blues Traveler never changes from the entire song. yes, the

Amelia Scannell (35:09)
that, yeah.

Cooper (35:26)
The lyrics are changing, but the music is staying exactly the same because the hook will always bring you back.

Amelia Scannell (35:34)
God, I didn't even realize that.

Cooper (35:37)
Yeah,

it's really interesting and I think it's so intentional that they're playing this chord progression because they are saying, listen, we can play forever. We're a jam band. We can just go on and on and I can play a million harmonica solos, but that's not what they want for the radio. They want these tight three minute songs.

that all follow this exact same thing. And so we'll give it to you, but we're gonna do it in a way where we're completely shitting on you for listening to it. And then it becomes, and then it becomes just a giant smash hit for them. Between that and run around, that puts them into...

Amelia Scannell (36:05)
Yeah, we're being clever.

Cooper (36:23)
those two songs completely break them out and You know then there's not really much after that for blues traveler.

Amelia Scannell (36:26)
Mm-hmm.

They're not answering Phish's calls anymore. Phish out of jail.

Cooper (36:36)
Well, I will say that John Popper goes on to make a solo album eventually with a little buddy from the Dave Matthews band, Carter Buford, that drummer that we talked about. So two of the most proficient instruments.

Amelia Scannell (36:46)
Ugh. Yeah, I'm-

Yeah,

two masters of their craft. Okay.

Cooper (36:56)
And I want to talk about John Popper for a second. famously he's got that vest of harmonicas and it started out as a fishing vest and just because it had enough pockets. He organizes it by scale. He doesn't think of songs as Having sections or lyrics versus he thinks of them as the modes that he needs to know. So each pocket has a harmonica.

that's in a different scale and he knows where they are. He does this specifically so that he never misses a part of the solo and he has to switch between them. It's kind of smart. ⁓

Amelia Scannell (37:22)
Mm-hmm.

Wait, so he

uses multiple harmonicas for a song?

Cooper (37:33)
Yeah, because

every harmonica is, or mouth harp, is tuned to a specific range of notes. And so, you know, within even a solo, he might have to switch to get to another register of notes.

Amelia Scannell (37:49)
why do they call it a mouth harp? Harps have strings and are played by cherubs

Cooper (37:52)
Yeah,

Yeah, I've never understood why they call it a mouth.

Amelia Scannell (37:58)
Yeah. ⁓

Cooper (37:59)
but he's very

specific that he always calls it a mouth harp. Yeah, so he started out having to, I guess it's sometimes pretty fun if he accidentally puts one in the wrong pocket and he'll grab it during the middle of a solo and hit a squeaky note. That doesn't sound that fun.

Amelia Scannell (38:18)
does yeah that would trigger just an explosion of anger with him I'm a little scared of John Popper

Cooper (38:24)
Yeah, ⁓ I'm.

Yeah, let's get into it.

Amelia Scannell (38:28)
Well do you have anything to say about run around?

Cooper (38:33)
I like Runaround. I think it's, I mean, that's the song that we definitely know them from. I like Coke more than Runaround though. For sure. But.

Amelia Scannell (38:44)
I love

run around.

Cooper (38:46)
I like hook in the way that I'm supposed to like it, so I feel manipulated because I know that I'm the person who he's targeting because I didn't ever listen to lyrics growing up, really. ⁓ So I didn't pay attention to it and I I love the hook. The hook brings me back. Runaround is really good.

And I actually, but anyway, is maybe better than both songs.

You know, but anyways, he's like, I don't know any of the lyrics. Yeah, you know,

Amelia Scannell (39:21)
You know what I

tried listening I tried listening to the album but honestly couldn't get past run around the song was running around on repeat. I was running around telling everybody I love run around

Cooper (39:28)
That was it.

Like I said, I never owned this album. I never really got into Blues Traveler. I knew the video for Hook. I don't remember the video for Runaround.

Amelia Scannell (39:44)
Nothing special. It was just them performing on a stage. Yeah.

Cooper (39:48)
Yeah,

about his vest, it's like 20 pounds. His vest is, he's just carrying around 20 pounds of harmonicas. Yeah. it is interesting to me that they were able to break out into the top 40. You know, I think they predated Dave Matthews doing that, I would say.

Amelia Scannell (39:58)
Metal.

Cooper (40:13)
⁓ well, maybe around the same time.

Amelia Scannell (40:15)
No,

I think... I don't know why, but I...

what's that second album where it's red and blue on the cover?

Cooper (40:24)
That's Crash.

Amelia Scannell (40:25)
Well, I don't know if it's the second album, but the one with the carnival ride, that came first.

Cooper (40:31)
Yeah, that's under the table in dreaming. What year is that?

Amelia Scannell (40:35)
I don't know, but that had that friggin they had that the clarinet.

Cooper (40:41)
yeah, ants marching.

Amelia Scannell (40:43)
Yeah, and would you say?

Cooper (40:47)
yeah, that album had a lot, but what year did that come out? Is because...

Amelia Scannell (40:51)
That

came out before... C R

Cooper (40:56)
Well, yeah, that came up before Crash, but did it come out before ⁓ Blues Trap?

Amelia Scannell (41:01)
Well, I think four, Blues

Traveler, was 95.

album Four came out in 1995. Yeah. ⁓

Cooper (41:10)
Okay.

I'm looking it up

right now. By the way, they have a new song that came out in August with the Jim Blossoms and the Spin Doctors.

Amelia Scannell (41:20)
I love when Apple does you look for an old song or band and they'll tell you in two months, they got something coming.

Cooper (41:29)
So four came out in 1994.

Amelia Scannell (41:33)
⁓ okay.

Cooper (41:35)
But I do think Under the Table must have come out before.

Amelia Scannell (41:37)
I guarantee.

Cooper (41:39)
Waddle Woodgles, no 1994, so same year. I think, yeah, they very much are tied in my head. I think of Dave Matthews and Blues Traveler as kind of one in the same thing. Probably because they both broke at the same time. I still remember seeing Dave Matthews on Saturday Night Live for the first time and being like, who is this old?

Amelia Scannell (41:49)
⁓

Cooper (42:01)
looks so old. ⁓

Amelia Scannell (42:04)
He looked like my gym teacher in grade school. He was the only non-nun who taught and he was just a real scumbag. It was nuns and it was this one guy who looks like Dave Matthews.

Cooper (42:20)
so I don't know. just think it's interesting that they are really tapping into this idea that most modern pop music uses this chord progression that's from the late 1600s. And for some reason, we as a culture have decided that's what we like. That's what we want to hear.

that progression because it comes back around. We know when to expect the chorus. We don't want it to be fancy. And it feels to me like John Popper is saying, we're being told that we can't be a jam band and be famous. So what we'll have to do to be famous is make this really tight three minute package using this thing that's so universally overused.

but you're gonna love it.

Amelia Scannell (43:11)
I was gonna ask, do you think it's from an anthropological standpoint, were we told?

this is good or is there something in our brain that it feels good or it sounds right? Like, yeah.

Cooper (43:24)
It feels good.

That's the thing about it is it resolves, I was trying to say, it resolves without tension. There's never a moment where you don't know what's happening in that chord progression. That's why it's used weddings. That's, that's, that's, that's canon. So.

It's all that. I'm of course not playing. So, you know, we get these notes and we know exactly what comes next in our brains. There's never a moment where we're like, what is this tension note? we're never on edge because it conveys emotion without tension. So I think it is just something that we

emotionally attached to without even recognizing that we were doing it. And when it

Amelia Scannell (44:20)
Yeah!

Cooper (44:22)
came to making a radio pop song, they really went for it. They really said, this is what we want. Some version of this. I mean, you get, do you have the time to listen to me? Why? Nothing and everything all at once.

It doesn't even matter genre. It just works and it's going to be on the radio. All of Taylor Swift's songs are based in that. It's really interesting. And I was thinking about that compared to Tainted Love, which is the complete opposite. but then when you get to Where Did Our Love Go? that

Amelia Scannell (44:43)
That's.

Cooper (45:03)
uses this structure.

Amelia Scannell (45:05)
Got it, yeah. ⁓ I never knew it was a method.

Cooper (45:09)
So kind of looked at this week more

as analyzing the kind of trying to analyze what would have been in blues travelers mind making the statement that you guys want this very basic thing and we'll package it and give it to you and we'll throw in references that seem like they matter like Rin Tin Tin and Anna Voiland but

there's no connective tissue of why that's there other than to sound important. like we talked last week about Beck having nonsensical lyrics. This week they are also nonsensical lyrics on purpose. They're saying it doesn't matter as long as the hook is right, it doesn't matter what the rest of the song says.

Amelia Scannell (45:37)
No. Yeah.

Well buddy, that was two weeks ago.

Cooper (45:58)
Back was two weeks ago?

Amelia Scannell (45:59)
Yeah, black crows in train were last week. I know, right? Before we know it, there's gonna be Halloween decorations in the stores.

Cooper (46:02)
⁓ right.

Amelia Scannell (46:10)
that's how it works. That's how life is now God, I mean I I just never thought to read lyrics and I guess I default for all pop songs to be about

girl or be about a boy or love in some way whether it's jealousy or breakup or heartbreak or I want you or We're together and I love you it's just usually about that and I didn't think that

Cooper (46:24)
Mm-hmm.

Amelia Scannell (46:45)
I thought the hook was ⁓ kind of a little sociopathic. it doesn't matter. I know how to manipulate you. I can get you to I can tell you what you need to hear and you're going to fall for it.

also Since I've read the lyrics to run around and I am convinced well having read the lyrics to hook and reading the lyrics to run around What I'm going to present is not a credible allegation ⁓ Everything I'm gonna say is a strong hype

Cooper (47:25)
Okay.

Amelia Scannell (47:29)
Hypotheses can be proven wrong. Me saying that keeps us legally in the clear. Yeah, John Popper is a serial killer.

Cooper (47:30)
Sure.

Thank you for that.

Yep, Let's go. Let's unpack it.

Amelia Scannell (47:46)
⁓

Let's have it. You got me. I believe he is leaving clues to detectives in his lyrics playing some sick cat and mouse

I, let's see, I wrote some lyrics that just imagine him killing women. no, this is misogynistic, I shouldn't say this, when I saw through the voice of a trusted friend, he saw through this human, well first he's seeing voices, what is that?

Cooper (48:01)
Okay.

Yeah, a son of

Sam shit right there.

Amelia Scannell (48:21)
synesthesia?

Yeah, is that son of Sam? but I want more than a touch. I want you to reach me and show me all the things no one else can see, like her internal organs.

I'll keep going. I'll continue. So what you feel becomes mine as well. Again, her organs. ⁓ And soon, if we're lucky, we'll be unable to tell what's yours and mine. The fishing is fine. He's chopped up multiple victims through those body parts in a lake and is

Cooper (48:35)
Okay.

Amelia Scannell (48:58)
haunting the detectives, go fishing. I'm telling you where they are. And then there's just, I think like the run around. All it does is slow me you're not going to stop me. So I'm giving you clues

yeah, that's what it's, a letter to the police about his victims. but also I do feel like a woman was giving, at some point a woman was giving him the runaround because she was afraid of him. He doesn't strike me as someone who takes rejection.

Cooper (49:13)
the police run around.

Amelia Scannell (49:35)
well.

And then, like a nervous magician waiting in the wings of a bad play?

Cooper (49:42)
is still the lyrics of Runaround?

Amelia Scannell (49:43)
Yes, but less serial killer coded.

Cooper (49:44)
Okay.

Amelia Scannell (49:46)
Are actors also magicians? Are magicians in place?

Cooper (49:50)
Ha ha ha.

Well, maybe some plays have a magician understudy who's like, ⁓ God, I hope I don't have to go on tonight. Please, please finish the performance without there being a

Amelia Scannell (50:00)
I

mostly learned this cool trick rather than the lines.

Cooper (50:08)
Yeah, ⁓ no, I totally studied the wrong part.

Amelia Scannell (50:12)
I think maybe the fact that you pointed out that or that they traveled with bands and they're called blues travelers. Like I said, serial killers.

Cooper (50:18)
That's a perfect cover for us.

Amelia Scannell (50:23)
are probably semi truck drivers because they are gone. they choke out these poor truck stop prostitutes

Cooper (50:33)
Or

or sex dwarfs.

Amelia Scannell (50:35)
No, they keep the sex dwarves. become partners.

Cooper (50:38)
they keep them, okay.

dig- do not like that was insulting to our dwarf community.

Amelia Scannell (50:45)
Yeah, you had to.

You had to. Why I order. ⁓

Cooper (50:50)
Let me at this one.

we touched on it at the end of last week. It doesn't, are you done with your popper? We touched on it. He is also a prepper. He has a very big collection of weapons, firearms, including a working Civil War cannon.

Amelia Scannell (51:01)
Yeah,

Cooper (51:13)
He moved out of New Jersey because of their strict gun laws. it's not a far stretch to think that the guy with the military vest filled with harmonicas has an artillery at home. Yeah,

Amelia Scannell (51:25)
Right.

Cooper (51:32)
He claims he's a libertarian and he's not so much a doomsday prepper, ⁓ just more like...

Amelia Scannell (51:34)
Hmm.

Leave me alone.

Cooper (51:44)
Yeah, leave me alone. I'm busy, busy chopping up people.

Amelia Scannell (51:45)
Give me my liberty. Yeah.

Leave me alone.

Okay, I get that. Yeah, that does track.

I had a roommate a couple years ago. She was a dominatrix, but also a prepper. we had buckets of, a year's worth of food and stuff. there was a gun in the house. I thought it was initially kind of weird, but I was starting to become...

a little more suspicious of the government, which I was before, but her and John Popper just had some foresight.

Cooper (52:25)
Yeah.

They had that clear eye vision, yeah.

Amelia Scannell (52:36)
Because

we all need to be preppers. We all need to be Second Amendment. Now.

Cooper (52:41)
Yes,

absolutely. 100 % agree.

Amelia Scannell (52:45)
before second amendments gone, which I've always thought or I hated it. I thought it was the worst thing until recently.

Cooper (52:47)
Right.

Yeah. in that case, John Popper, you know, we're sorry for slandering your good name here. I will say just real quick about in the lyrics of that fast part of Hook,

Amelia Scannell (52:56)
Kudos.

Cooper (53:02)
then you'll begin to see what you've done to me. This MTV is not for free. It's so PC that it's killing me. I'd so much rather be singing about love and yes, rage and hate and all these emotions, but that's not what you want. He's basically saying but that's not what you're after. You're after.

Amelia Scannell (53:24)
I'm gonna put

these on the shelf while I sell these records to you. That's manipulative and almost anti-social. Like just being so upfront about the way he views humans and society, but also good for him. Maybe you're right about something.

Cooper (53:36)
Yeah.

Well, and

yeah, and I think, you we've talked about it a couple of times now. It does make sense that Jack FM fully embraces this. is kind of Jack FM's vibe towards their listenership, just a lack of concern for an actual emotional depth or connection. It's just kind of like, yeah, eat the slop, piggies.

Amelia Scannell (54:12)
got some new slop. Come on out, come trot on over.

Cooper (54:14)
⁓ huh.

yeah, mean, in that way, this song is very much Jack FM.

Amelia Scannell (54:22)
Okay, in summation for hook.

I like it. the lyrics are a little concerning. ⁓ It's a little too clever for its own good, but it sounds great.

Cooper (54:37)
Yeah,

it's very clever. like I was saying, it's even the choice to play Canon in its entirety. Most artists will kind of pick a section to loop, four notes. But they are like, we're going to do the entire emotional run of Canon and it will never change throughout the entire song. even that is...

Amelia Scannell (54:42)
Go on.

Cooper (55:03)
deliberate and clever, more clever than too clever for their own good. But at the same time, it blows them up.

Amelia Scannell (55:10)
like

Yeah, maybe that song came out a little too soon for them. I just wonder how, but God, run around, I'll be damned if it's maybe one of the best pop songs I've ever heard. my default for great pop has always been the Cardigans. They're just Swedish pop or like whenever a great-

Cooper (55:27)
Hmm?

⁓ me too. ⁓ it's perfect.

Amelia Scannell (55:37)
Yes, whenever a great song comes out, I'm always reminded, I'm like, this would be a Cardigan song, yeah, or like, can you imagine the Cardigans doing this? it's those Swedes that like, I think, run around is up there with a love fool. think.

Cooper (55:56)
Mmm.

Amelia Scannell (55:58)
I don't know, it's great. ⁓

Cooper (56:01)
Runaround is great. I didn't go back and listen to it. This time I didn't bother with the album. I just stuck with Huck. yeah, Runaround is great. I'm thinking now back to... I mean, was when I heard it the first time I was like, whoa, what is this? this is so different. then the solo is all in a harmonica, but how do you play a harmonica like that? I had never heard a harmonica sound.

Amelia Scannell (56:07)
Nah.

Cooper (56:27)
like this when they came out.

Amelia Scannell (56:29)
No,

it was extreme harmonicking like it was harmonicking. he's got a great voice the little clip I put in the stories like I'm not telling you no lie. That scream is incredible.

Cooper (56:32)
Yeah, was extreme.

Amelia Scannell (56:44)
He is a force. I do believe that the other members are afraid of him, yeah, just what a talent, what a pure songwriter, what a hell of a musician, John Popper.

Cooper (56:57)
Yeah. And they kind of cash the checks and just go back to doing their thing because they don't have another big radio hit. They established themselves as a great touring band and they obviously have a huge fan base, but they never graced the radio again, as far as I know, maybe once. But I feel like it was

Amelia Scannell (57:02)
Mm-hmm.

Cooper (57:18)
Let's cache

Amelia Scannell (57:18)
Now.

Cooper (57:19)
this check and get out of here.

Amelia Scannell (57:22)
I think maybe they had a single from their next one and it just did not go anywhere. That's okay though. when people say one hit wonder, it's always with judgment. well, it's not them, it's you. they have an album. Have you listened? you've no, you've moved on because you little piggies.

Cooper (57:28)
was no bueno. Right.

Amelia Scannell (57:42)
are full, you don't want to eat a salad. You don't want to try a new thing. you've made them one-hit wonders. It doesn't mean they're untalented or they only had one song in them. Although sometimes people only have one song in them.

Cooper (57:58)
Right, but I've never once thought of them as a one-hit wonder because I still think of them as a band that's together. I know that they have a lot going on. I don't know it, I'm not familiar with it, but yeah.

Amelia Scannell (58:04)
⁓

Okay, well, hook. Very, very, very good.

Yeah, it is a good video. it was when videos, yeah, had some money behind it. I remember Hook. I remember, I loved that Citizen Kane banner behind, like... I'm pretty sure that's real Paul Schaefer. Oh, okay.

Cooper (58:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It is, yeah.

Amelia Scannell (58:39)
He like shows his eyes for a second. I don't think we've ever seen Paul Shaver's eyeballs. That's always weird when someone's got a a thing they never do. for a long time, LL Cool J would always wear a Kangol.

Cooper (58:43)
Shocking.

Mm-hmm.

Amelia Scannell (58:56)
He probably saw Kevin James wearing one and gave it up. ⁓ that's over. Yep. ⁓ What do you think of songs that acknowledge it's a song like Elton John your song there's a little something.

Cooper (59:01)
He's like, all right, well, it was a good run. It was a good run.

Amelia Scannell (59:17)
Don't love it.

Cooper (59:19)
Yeah, it becomes untrustworthy or something.

Amelia Scannell (59:23)
Yeah, manipulative or

this is a song here. yeah, I'm sure there are ton of others. the Magic Numbers has a song called This Is A Song. It's beautiful, of, Hallelujah. It goes like this, the four, I know that, I know that he's referring to a secret chord.

minor fall, the major lift

You gotta say that? ⁓ So what do you think of... What's your pick this week?

Cooper (59:48)
Sure.

⁓ I, you know, I, when I said that I picked the wrong thing on the poll, I picked Soft Cell, just because my feeling of my relationship with that song is very much tied to Jack FM, specifically the long version. But after doing the research and really spending time with it, that hook is

kind of intentionally the more Jack FM song. it's doing the thing that we're saying Jack FM is about. And it's doing it deliberately, which is a little bit different than the thesis of our podcast. But I still think that because of that, that's ultimately where I'm landing. That I think Hook is the more Jack FM vibe.

Amelia Scannell (1:00:24)
Mm-hmm.

Cooper (1:00:37)
I think that in crafting the thing that we're supposed to like, they made the radio song that is doing exactly what it set out to do. It's being just something consumable.

Amelia Scannell (1:00:48)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I still believe Hook. It's totally Jack FM. It's absolutely Jack FM. But Tainted Love, it's a song that like, it's just never it's lasted a long time, but it's never irritating. just endures endures whatever

Cooper (1:01:01)
Mm-hmm.

Amelia Scannell (1:01:16)
genre it's placed on like it went through. Northern soul it went through a bit of disco it went definitely through new wave then. it had a new life in the nineties it had. It and then and a big thing about jack fm is they're cool with new wave they like the cure they like the pesh mode to render and.

Cooper (1:01:26)
Mm-hmm.

Amelia Scannell (1:01:40)
that's one of their big genres and I think this one just really felt solid and it yeah it just has endured there's talking about what are they called a resolution or a resolve or a yeah

Cooper (1:01:55)
Resolve.

Amelia Scannell (1:01:57)
it's two Motown songs smashed together. it's pretty nothing to chafe or nothing to rub up against that's, but it's not hollow or it's not empty. It's not disposable. Like everybody wants to rule the world by.

tears for fears. It's just something it is around and no one can a bad thing about it. I just feel like this song is like an oak tree on Jack FM solid, it's there.

Cooper (1:02:28)
Thank you.

Yeah, you know.

Amelia Scannell (1:02:42)
I am going to vote for tainted love.

Cooper (1:02:44)
That's really nice analogy and I would say that tainted love feels like it found its home on Jack FM.

Amelia Scannell (1:02:50)
Mm-hmm. Yes,

it was a perfect time and place for it was Jack FM

Cooper (1:02:56)
Right,

yeah. And the fact that that's the first time I had ever heard that extended cut It is very much tied to Jack FM in my brain. It very much feels like it fits that and yeah, you know, I do think that...

Hmm. Might be wavering. I might be sticking with my initial gut vote on the poll then, because I do think...

It kind of belongs to Jack FM more than Hook does.

Amelia Scannell (1:03:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it does. It's not too late. I mean, our opinions don't ultimately make a difference, but...

you got a choice to make.

OK, so we do have a listener voicemail. Let's play it.

Becca what a sweetheart what a lovely voicemail Becca yes

Cooper (1:06:19)
Yeah, that was great. And I love that she kind of touched

on some of those things like Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (1:06:26)
she absolutely did. just really, such a

we've known Becca for a long time, just absolutely great. I like that our friends are calling and leaving voicemails, cause it's like a really, a nice little, not a roast, a toast.

Cooper (1:06:46)
Yeah, it is. It is nice. It's been very pleasant having

Amelia Scannell (1:06:47)
I'm going it.

Cooper (1:06:50)
calls. They're appreciated.

Amelia Scannell (1:06:53)
⁓

yes, I'm gonna say that, as a trans woman back in the day, back before it was a thing, Becca was an absolute I- I disclosed, you know, my gender dysphoria and she was so supportive and sweet and

I'll never forget. She was an ally before there were allies. So, yeah. Wait a minute. So she voted... Yeah. she cancelled herself out, so... Because... she voted for Taged Love, but let's see. ⁓ But she gets... She gets two votes! ⁓ Okay, so let me do...

Cooper (1:07:21)
Way to go, back.

That's what I did, essentially.

yeah.

Amelia Scannell (1:07:40)
Okay, Have the winner of this week's Jackedacle magic event which was soft sell tainted love versus traveler hook with 58.33 percent of the vote

Blues Traveler Hook Is the winner. Blues Traveler Hook is the winner. real fighter. moving on, they have a very unique

Cooper (1:08:03)
Wow.

Amelia Scannell (1:08:19)
a Jack FM energy that very few songs I think. do think of Jack FM with that song. That's why I voted for it, but you know, it's up to listeners.

Cooper (1:08:23)
Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (1:08:34)
Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for voting. you for the voicemail.

Cooper (1:08:40)
Mm-hmm.

Amelia Scannell (1:08:41)
keep voting in the polls on our Instagram account. stories are convenient, but the reels have reach for the Reels get a little further, so I'm kinda opening it up.

to both. I also believe you should text your vote to 424-666-1711. Again, you can't do both unless you leave a voicemail. Same number. 424-666-1711. So yeah, text your vote, stories.

and reels, but do one. You get one. unless you do the voicemail. And then you can also please email us any relevant anecdotes or questions. You got questions for us? We've got to be fascinating to you. Like what is up with us? Who are these awesome hosts? Well you can ask us.

Cooper (1:09:39)
Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (1:09:45)
at JacticalMagic at gmail.com.

Cooper (1:09:47)
Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (1:09:48)
Also in the show notes of the podcast now on Apple and Spotify, there's a little link up top that you can leave us. It's called Fan Mail, but you can just use it to talk to us.

Cooper (1:10:02)
All right, so for our next episode, even though I'm sitting at the piano, we are going to let Amelia do her thing with those melody matchup, we have Foo Fighters Learn to Fly.

versus cake, short skirt, long jacket.

Amelia Scannell (1:10:56)
Okay.

Cooper (1:10:56)
Okay, that one was actually pretty good.

Amelia Scannell (1:10:58)
That, well,

I didn't know quite where, what part of the song, because it's kind of spoken word, or it's kind of.

Cooper (1:11:06)
It's helpful

if there's a horn part. So you were just like, I'll just do the horn. Yeah.

Amelia Scannell (1:11:09)
That's why I started with

the la la la la la. Alright, well, Cooper, once again, great seeing you explained Hook so beautifully, and play the piano beautifully. Well done. I hope we see more, not every week, of course, but I hope we see that.

Cooper (1:11:26)
Thanks.

Amelia Scannell (1:11:33)
more. ⁓ like, perfect, perfection. Thank you. What you got? Anything else?

Cooper (1:11:37)
Well, thank you. Thank you.

I, I,

Amelia Scannell (1:11:43)
Okay. I don't think I cussed at all this episode, so good for me. I might add one or two back next episode. We'll see. I also am going to review this episode to make sure. ⁓ yeah, think I went the whole episode without saying the F word or the S word. I even avoided saying, what's up with your box? Because I mean, boxes...

Cooper (1:11:48)
Very nice.

Amelia Scannell (1:12:08)
But with that, will... I certainly did say come. And I said hand job. But those are... Like, I got a hand job when I was 11. That's not true. hand jobs are for kids. They're PG-13. Yeah, that's true.

Cooper (1:12:10)
You did say come. You did say come a little during the... Yeah.

Doesn't count if it's your hand.

Amelia Scannell (1:12:32)
we're gonna talk about our first masturbation experiences next week. All right, so my name is Amelia Scannell.

Cooper (1:12:41)
My name is Cooper Willis.

Amelia Scannell (1:12:43)
And this has been Jactical Magic. Goodbye.

Cooper (1:12:45)
Bye!

Amelia Scannell (1:12:53)
fucking dork

Or should I say, fucking dork?

Cooper (1:12:57)
Fucking dork.

Amelia Scannell (1:12:58)
okay

Fucking dork. Fucking... fucking dork. Thanks. I pay for this time here in the studio. No. ⁓ Yeah.

Cooper (1:13:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's good.