0:00

Hi, this is

0:03

Rachel McElroy.

0:18

Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And

0:21

this is Wonderful. Welcome to Wonderful, a podcast

0:23

where we talk about things we like

0:25

that is good that we're into. We've

0:27

been first in the game and last

0:30

in the game of talking about stuff

0:32

that we're into in a podcast format.

0:34

No one else is out here doing

0:36

the kind of like wild shit that we're

0:38

doing. Because most people don't like things, turns out. No,

0:40

most people, or they

0:43

like one or two things. Yeah. But

0:45

look at the scoreboard, folks. We like

0:47

so much more stuff than anyone else.

0:49

A ridiculous amount of things. Way more than

0:52

anyone else has any right to. And

0:55

we really, really like this stuff. A

0:57

lot of people, again, I hate to keep bringing

1:00

up the haters, but they say there's no way.

1:02

It's true. We like all this stuff. And

1:06

that's just the wonderful difference.

1:09

Wow. I guess. Ooh, TM, maybe.

1:12

I don't think so. No. I think you

1:14

can TM that. No. Okay. I'm

1:17

not like a legal guy. I'm

1:21

like everybody else who lives in this incredible

1:23

district of ours. This is very true. I'm

1:25

not really much for legal stuff and laws,

1:27

but I don't think we can TM that.

1:30

Do you have a, hey, small

1:32

wonder? I'm going

1:35

to say, and I haven't started doing this yet.

1:38

I am mid job shift.

1:41

I have accepted a new position. And

1:44

with this position, I'm going to

1:46

take the train to work occasionally.

1:49

And I feel like I'm really excited about it because I

1:51

think I'm finally going to feel like a real business

1:53

person. I feel like I will

1:55

be on the train with other business people. And

1:59

you know, I'll. talk about the train

2:01

sometimes. I'll have train stories. I

2:04

feel like this has opened up a whole new world for me and

2:07

I haven't started yet, but I feel pretty good

2:09

about it. Rachel is the new CEO of Jimmy

2:11

John's. Maybe

2:14

we shouldn't say that. It's

2:16

real fast paced. It's a fast

2:18

paced world. It's like, get me

2:20

those numbers so fast I'll freak.

2:22

Yes, she was corporate headhunted from

2:25

Jersey Mike's. She was

2:27

the CEO there for a while. Rachel

2:29

runs shit in the sandwich game. Not a

2:31

lot of people know that. I'm

2:33

not just a sandwich artist.

2:35

I am a sandwich master.

2:39

I don't know what would be above that. You

2:41

started that sentence so confidently and I was

2:43

like, certainly there's a payoff. I wanted to

2:45

say a sandwich maestro, which

2:48

maybe? Yeah, I mean you can conduct

2:50

a sandwich, a symphony of sandwiches. Symphony

2:54

of ingredients. A symphony of ingredients, that's

2:56

very good. Thank you. That's been

2:58

some ad copy for some thing that we've

3:00

had. I said advertiser on this show before.

3:03

I'm going to say something at the end

3:06

of this sentence that is going to be

3:08

the small wonder that I'm going to do.

3:10

So get your ass ready for that. Because

3:12

here it comes right down the pipe. It

3:15

is. Looking around the room. Looking around.

3:18

Boxes, rug, feet.

3:23

No. You

3:29

know what? We got this thing.

3:32

There's a company called Fat Brain

3:34

Toys that makes sort

3:36

of dim related kids toys

3:39

mostly. Yeah, they're just

3:41

supposed to be I think more well made and

3:43

educational than a lot of the stuff you would find

3:45

at a big box kind of store. They

3:49

also sell a lot of stuff that

3:51

you could maybe potentially find at a

3:53

children's museum and their most recent product.

3:56

This is not sponsored at all.

4:00

and it's the thing that they have at

4:03

a lot of kids science museums where it's

4:05

like a suction tube system

4:07

like one might send a check up

4:11

you think our listeners even get that reference?

4:14

Wow shit I've never thought about that

4:16

before you know I have not been

4:18

to a bank in a really long

4:20

time I went when we moved

4:23

here because I forgot

4:26

my pin? That sounds right

4:30

anyway it's like a little air pump and you

4:32

can connect to different tubes to like build different

4:34

structures with it and you put balls in it

4:36

and it shoots it through

4:38

the tubes and the kids are just wild

4:41

about this shit they are loving it and

4:43

I am too because yeah I use it as

4:45

a sort of like makeshift t-shirt cannon yeah

4:47

the Griffin actually introduced that

4:50

pretty early on to our children yeah and

4:52

it felt like maybe a bad

4:54

idea but so far it's turned out okay it's been

4:56

great it's basically turned into

4:59

a lot of games

5:02

that you play with your kids especially when

5:04

you're trying to wear them out do start

5:06

to resemble fetch to some

5:08

degree yeah right which is a bit

5:10

demeaning works real well for a little

5:13

fun really really good for him so

5:16

that was my small wonder do you go first

5:18

this week I would love to hear

5:20

what you've prepared for you for the class I'm

5:23

curious how you'll feel about this so Griffin

5:26

gave me a heads up on what his small wonder

5:28

was going to be sure his big wonder rather

5:30

a huge wonder and

5:33

my big wonder was

5:35

inspired by his okay

5:38

now we don't usually and what's interesting is that

5:40

you're gonna go first and so now a

5:42

lot of ways you're swooping you're swooping in

5:44

here I'd like to think I'm giving

5:46

listeners a hint okay

5:49

cool if you can follow the

5:51

clues of Rachel's ARG that she's

5:53

got laid out here my

5:58

topic this week is cover Okay,

6:01

cool, yes. Okay, yeah, cool. So it's

6:03

like a hint, but I'm not giving

6:05

anything away on yours. Now,

6:07

you were talking about the musical type of

6:09

cover. You're not talking about sort of the

6:11

concept of things going over other things to

6:13

protect them from the elements. No,

6:16

I'm not talking about blankets. We could.

6:18

We could talk about blankets.

6:21

We could, but I don't know that it

6:23

would be at all interesting to anyone. There are

6:26

probably people who'd be interested in our blankets. I

6:28

don't know that I want to get pulled into

6:30

blanket discourse, though. There's

6:32

a lot of people with a lot

6:34

of really strong feelings vis-a-vis fleece

6:36

versus quilts. Do you go big

6:39

box store? You know, do you

6:42

go bed bath and beyond? I can't

6:44

make these decisions for you. Now

6:47

we're basically doing a segment on covers. But

6:49

the kind of cover I want to talk

6:52

about is when an artist takes an existing

6:54

song and does their own version of it.

6:56

Yes. And

6:58

I never really knew how this worked.

7:02

Like, I didn't know the

7:05

process for it. Like, I knew that

7:07

if you went to a live show and somebody played

7:09

somebody else's song, that was pretty much easy

7:11

breezy. But I didn't know like how you put

7:13

it out in the world and made money off of it

7:15

and that was okay. That's a

7:17

good point. I don't know that

7:20

either. I looked it up. Now,

7:22

I don't know how reputable this source is. I

7:26

got it from digital music news dot com, which

7:28

sounds good to me, man. Sounds like a real

7:30

thing. And

7:32

the article was called How Do

7:35

You Legally Cover A Song? So

7:37

first, you don't need permission. You just do it real

7:39

quiet. You just do it super

7:42

duper, duper quiet. Or you hum

7:44

it. You hum it. Or you change one word.

7:48

Like Skibbity Fortnite. Yeah, like

7:50

Skibbity Fortnite or like nine

7:52

days a week. It

7:57

can be a one that you can kind of step your

7:59

way around. Hey dude, don't

8:02

make it sad. But

8:05

then it does say... Okay,

8:09

so you don't need permission directly from the artist.

8:11

It's nice though, I bet. It

8:13

probably is a nice thing to do, especially if you're

8:15

like super well known and it's going to be a

8:17

big deal if you release it. But

8:19

you do need what's called a mechanical license.

8:22

Okay, you got to go to technical college

8:24

for four years to get

8:26

your hands on one of these bad boys. So

8:29

this is what it says about a mechanical license.

8:32

It is a process that ensures

8:35

the songwriter and publisher get paid and

8:37

credited and it also covers you

8:39

legally. Okay. So

8:42

there are different places you can go and

8:44

do that. This is what was interesting about

8:46

the article is it gives you like actual

8:49

websites you can go to. So apparently there's

8:51

a site called EasySong where you

8:53

can get a mechanical license for under $15, usually in

8:55

one to two business days. Okay.

8:59

Now if you want to make a music video, you

9:01

need a sync license, which

9:04

unlike a mechanical license, you do

9:07

need prior permission to obtain a

9:09

sync license. That makes sense. But

9:12

there again, there are sites where you

9:14

can get a sync license. There

9:17

are also sites where you can

9:19

choose a music distributor like

9:22

Sounddrop or DistroKid. There's probably

9:24

also a lot of websites. That's true. Again,

9:27

I don't know a lot about digital music news.com. But

9:30

all of this seems reasonable. Like it

9:32

makes sense that in this world where everything you want

9:34

is online that you could do this process remotely by

9:36

yourself. And

9:40

then they also recommend registering

9:42

your cover song so that you can earn royalties.

9:44

So it's not just the songwriter, but also you

9:47

getting a piece of whatever you want. I

9:50

spent a lot of this segment trying to remember, and you may

9:52

talk about it. about

10:00

this later on, the AV Club series that

10:02

they did where they brought people in and

10:04

they would like pick a song off of

10:07

a list to cover. No, I

10:09

don't know about this. Oh shit, man, I'm not

10:11

gonna be able to pull the name of it

10:13

unfortunately, but they would bring in an artist and

10:15

they would have like the same list of songs

10:17

for the whole season. And so by the end

10:20

of it, I think it's called Undercover. That

10:23

is, I was just Googling it as you were talking.

10:25

AV Club Undercover, delightful. I

10:29

really loved that series a lot. So

10:31

I wanted to share with you some of the most

10:33

covered songs of all time. The

10:35

most covered songs or like the most famous

10:38

cover song? Well, I have two

10:40

lists. I have the most covered

10:42

songs and I have the best

10:44

cover songs. Okay, cool. Depending on what... Best cover

10:46

songs is gonna get wild because there's a lot

10:49

of songs that are cover songs that not a

10:51

lot of people know are cover songs. So

10:53

on this list I'm looking at and this

10:56

article is from June, 2023. Of

10:58

course, this probably changes all the time, but

11:00

that wasn't too long ago. Number

11:03

one, Yesterday by The Beatles. Now...

11:06

It's interesting because I can't like off the top of my

11:08

head, I can't think of a lot of covers that have

11:10

been done, but apparently Joan

11:12

Baez, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley,

11:14

and Vogue, Boys to Men

11:16

have all done versions

11:19

of Yesterday. And I think

11:21

mostly wild because those are all

11:24

older now at

11:26

this point. I don't think that people are...

11:28

I don't think a lot of people are

11:30

currently covering The Beatles very much. Yeah,

11:33

I mean you wouldn't think so, but... Just

11:36

because I imagine the hoops that one has to get through

11:38

in order to... Apparently Yesterday

11:40

has been covered more than 2,200 times. Wow.

11:44

Yeah. That's not even like

11:48

a very good Beatles song. I don't

11:50

like it. I mean they're all

11:52

good, right? It's all the Beatles, but like... It's

11:54

not like your fav. It's not even my top

11:56

25 fav, I don't think. Unsurprisingly, there are other

11:58

Beatles songs on the list. number five, Eleanor

12:01

Rigby. Which I think is a better

12:03

song, yeah. Number

12:05

two, I Can't Get No Satisfaction by

12:07

the Rolling Stones. Yes, for sure.

12:11

We're talking Jimi Hendrix, we're talking

12:13

Devo, we're talking Vanilla Ice. Apparently,

12:16

Britney Spears did it at

12:18

the MTV Video Music Awards.

12:23

Which I thought was, again, real fun

12:26

song to cover. But

12:28

it was also, I mean, was it Otis Redding,

12:31

who did the famous

12:33

version of that? I

12:36

think so, wasn't it? Yes,

12:38

Otis Redding did a cover of that song that absolutely

12:40

whips ass. Oh, okay. Other

12:45

ones on the list, I'm not gonna

12:47

go in order, but ones that probably

12:49

won't surprise you. Ain't

12:52

No Sunshine by Bill Withers. Oh

12:55

my God. Another great song. Hallelujah,

12:57

Leonard Cohen. Yeah, I mean, Jesus Christ.

12:59

Watch VOC, you'll see more than one different kind

13:01

of cover of that song on it. I

13:05

Walk the Line, Johnny Cash. Cry

13:09

Me a River, Silly London. Hurt

13:11

by Johnny Cash, I believe. Oh,

13:14

well, it's not by Johnny Cash. Right, did

13:16

a cover of, who is

13:18

that, Nine Inch Nails? Yes,

13:20

okay, yes. Gosh, we're real

13:22

music heads. Listen to us. Okay,

13:25

so there are two different sources that

13:27

listed their best cover songs of all

13:30

time. I have timeout.com and

13:32

I have AV Club. Number

13:36

one on AV Club, Jimi Hendrix

13:38

All Along the Watchtower, which

13:40

is Bob Dylan's original song. Again,

13:43

very, very cool version, arguably

13:45

much cooler than the original. The

13:49

other one that I didn't know was

13:51

a cover is

13:54

Sinead O'Connor Nothing Compares to You.

13:57

Oh, that's not her song. Who did that originally?

14:00

Here's what the AV club says. It

14:03

says, Prince didn't treat his nothing compares

14:05

to you, especially seriously. Certainly not when

14:07

compared to Shanae O'Connor, who delivered the

14:09

song as if it were a matter

14:11

of grave importance. He relegated the song

14:14

to the family, a group of Prince

14:16

proteges from the mid 80s side project

14:18

that gained no reputation outside of the side

14:20

group. That is so interesting. Yeah.

14:22

God, that song is so good. Her version

14:24

is so incredible. It's like haunting whenever

14:27

I hear it. I

14:29

mean, there's a bunch of other ones, but

14:32

it's just, it's proud Mary,

14:34

proud Mary on there. Yes, of

14:36

course. Another one on the list is respect.

14:39

Aretha Franklin is a cover. It's

14:41

Otis Redding, right? Otis Redding is

14:43

all over this shit, man. I think

14:45

he did. I think he was the original. I

14:48

think he, I think he wrote. You're right. You're

14:50

right. Otis Redding originally released it

14:52

in 1965, but two

14:54

years later, Aretha Franklin. Dolly Parton had

14:56

a huge one. Yeah. The Whitney Houston.

14:58

I will always love you. I will

15:01

always love you as Dolly Parton. Dolly

15:03

Parton wrote it originally and then Whitney Houston. Yes.

15:05

Okay. Hallelujah. I mentioned earlier, Jeff Buckley's

15:11

version. Incredible. You mentioned

15:13

Hurt, Johnny Cash,

15:17

which was another, I mean, it's just, it's fun

15:19

to look at these because I, you know, like

15:21

half the time you don't realize it's a cover.

15:23

Yeah. The artist has made it so much their

15:25

own. But it's one

15:27

of those things, I think when you're a musician starting out,

15:29

you feel like covers are like a cheap,

15:32

easy way to like, you know, make

15:35

yourself known. Yeah, sure. But maybe not like

15:37

the most artistic thing you could

15:39

do as a, as a musician,

15:41

but ultimately it's, it's real life

15:44

changing some of these versions. Yeah,

15:46

absolutely. And there's something about like,

15:48

I don't know, there's something powerful about

15:51

like contributing to

15:53

the like greater

15:55

landscape of the medium

15:57

of music in this way. Like there, I

15:59

would really, really appreciate whenever, and we're

16:02

about to, again, talk about this

16:04

in my segment, but like when

16:06

a musical artist approaches a song

16:08

with a level of like reverence that is

16:11

like cool to see. We feel like they

16:13

are tapped into some other like musical

16:15

wavelength that you get to kind of like

16:17

visit and be a part of for a

16:19

little bit, and that is a very neat

16:21

sensation when it is sort of executed artfully.

16:23

There was a version,

16:26

you remember the artist, Nickel

16:28

Creek? Yeah, sure. They did a version

16:30

of Britney Spears Toxic, which I love.

16:32

I mean, Nickel Creek is infamous for that.

16:34

They did their cover of Spit on a

16:36

Stranger by Pavement. Oh, I bet. Have you

16:39

not heard it? I don't know that I have. Oh,

16:41

I think you have. I have to play that for

16:43

you. Probably. Because you're the one who turned me onto

16:45

Pavement, and then I was like, oh, we'll check this

16:47

shit out. Yeah. Boy,

16:49

I am frothing at the mouth to do

16:51

my segment. Can I steal you away? Yeah.

16:53

Thank you. A

17:01

lot of people look at the internet, they think,

17:04

well, that's other people's

17:06

playground. I can only stand back at

17:08

a distance and watch all

17:10

the fun that everybody else is having making

17:12

their own websites and doing business and stuff

17:14

online. Well, guess what? Stop

17:17

it. Stop thinking that way and

17:19

think differently with Squarespace. Squarespace

17:21

is the all-in-one platform for building

17:23

your brand and growing your business

17:25

online. Stand out with a beautiful

17:27

website, engage your audience, and sell

17:29

anything, your products, content you create,

17:31

even your time. It could not

17:33

be easier to make a website

17:35

with Squarespace that looks professional, attractive,

17:39

sexy, even. That

17:41

is actually the three things under my

17:44

picture on my website. That's right.

17:46

That could not be easier to make

17:48

that website with Squarespace with the Fluid

17:50

Engine, a next generation website design system.

17:53

It's never been easier for anyone to

17:55

unlock unbreakable creativity. You can make your

17:57

website do all kinds of things. They got all this third person.

18:00

you can have like a little members only section, you

18:02

can sell stuff, you can do whatever the heck you

18:04

want to. Could I have like a picture of

18:06

a dinosaur? You can have two pictures of two

18:08

different dinosaurs. That's crazy. It's the

18:10

future and channel this power. Head

18:13

to squarespace.com/wonderful pod for a free trial and when

18:15

you're ready to launch use offer code wonderful pod

18:18

to save 10% off your first purchase of a website

18:20

or domain. Hey Griffin.

18:22

Yes. You know I

18:24

like subscription services, right? You're wild about these things.

18:26

There was a period of time when I was

18:28

a kid particularly during the pandemic when I signed up for

18:31

things to be

18:33

delivered to our house because it was difficult to

18:35

get them otherwise. True. And now

18:37

we're out in the world man. Yeah. We're

18:40

real just. And some of those subscriptions I don't

18:42

need anymore. Yeah. And

18:45

that's why Rocket Money has really come in handy.

18:48

It sure has. There are some services

18:50

I signed up that were just kind of convenient but

18:52

I didn't love them and now I want to get

18:54

rid of them and Rocket Money helps

18:56

me do that. Rocket Money is a personal

18:58

finance app that finds and cancels your

19:00

unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps

19:03

lower your bills so you can grow

19:05

your savings. Rocket Money

19:07

has over 5 million users and has

19:09

saved a total of 500 million in

19:11

canceled subscriptions saving members up to $740

19:14

a year when

19:16

using all of the app's features. Cancel

19:19

your unwanted subscriptions by going

19:21

to rocketmoney.com/wonderful. That's

19:24

rocketmoney.com/wonderful. rocketmoney.com

19:28

slash wonderful. Max

19:33

Fun Drive 2024. Max

19:36

Fun Drive? What about it? It'll

19:40

be the best time for someone to support

19:42

the podcasts they love. Oh yeah. Drive exclusive

19:44

gifts, special events and of

19:47

course all the amazing bonus content.

19:49

Yeah. So

19:51

what's on your mind? Check. It

19:54

starts March 18th and it's only two weeks long.

19:58

And check. Well,

20:01

what if they miss it? Well,

20:04

they should follow MaxFun on social media.

20:06

Or sign up for the newsletter

20:08

at maximumfun.org/ newsletter so they don't

20:10

miss it. Otherwise, checkmate.

20:17

Who guests on Jordan Jesse Go? I

20:20

mean, we could just list Pat Nausewald,

20:22

Kumail Najani, Maria Bamford, whatever. We couldn't

20:24

remember all of them. So we

20:27

asked my kids. Famous

20:29

people? How famous? I

20:31

don't know. Pretty famous. Ahhhh.

20:34

Ahhhh. Really

20:37

tiny celebrities who would go on

20:39

this train wreck instead

20:41

of like a big talk show. There's

20:45

just a bunch of people on your show. Jordan

20:54

Jesse Go. A comedy show for grownups.

21:00

So cover songs are great. I'll

21:03

be the first to say that and admit that. I'm

21:06

going to talk about a specific

21:08

one. It is a song that

21:10

has had a monumental impact on

21:13

sort of music, nerd,

21:15

YouTube in the

21:17

last week or so. Oh yeah? Oh

21:19

yeah, I'm going to get into it. When you shared it with me,

21:22

I hadn't heard anything about it. It is. Yeah,

21:24

I think you have to sort of be on the ground

21:26

floor of that to necessarily understand that impact. Even

21:28

if you don't, it is remarkable. It

21:31

is a cover of the

21:33

Simon and Garfunkel song, Bridge Over Troubled

21:35

Water by Jacob

21:38

Collier who I've talked about on

21:40

the show before. He is a

21:42

sort of music theory YouTuber guy.

21:44

He did

21:46

a series of videos about like

21:49

explaining harmony to like people of different ages

21:51

and levels of expertise. He had that like

21:53

wild run where he showed how you can

21:56

combine any chord with any other chord

21:58

to like make it... sense in

22:00

a progression. He's a

22:02

genius. It is his

22:05

version of this song featuring three

22:08

incredibly talented

22:10

vocalists named Yebba, Tori

22:13

Kelly, and John Legend. I

22:16

didn't realize the last one was John Legend. Yeah,

22:18

John Legend is actually in the middle. I don't know why I read

22:20

the name. In the order that I did. I

22:23

can't remember the last

22:25

time a song has physically

22:28

impacted me as hard

22:31

as this did. I heard it for the

22:33

first time last night. I was just lying

22:35

in bed with my AirPods

22:38

on, trying to fall asleep,

22:41

swiping around YouTube, trying to find chill

22:43

music. And I saw this pop

22:45

up, and it is

22:47

a staggering achievement in

22:50

music and the singing.

22:52

Yeah. So

22:54

four years ago, Jacob Collier,

22:56

who has been doing music

23:00

theory YouTube stuff, he has also won

23:02

a bunch of Grammys. I think he's

23:05

won four Grammys. He

23:07

is an absolute

23:09

genius. He posted a

23:11

short, a YouTube short, that

23:14

was sort of in the vein of a

23:16

TikTok collaboration with a gospel singer named Yebba.

23:19

In it, Yebba sings this

23:22

incredible, just run-filled, acapella version

23:24

of Bridge Over Troubled Water,

23:27

which is in its own

23:29

right, one of the most beautiful

23:33

songs I think ever written. And

23:36

in this short that he

23:38

made, Jacob Collier accompanies Yebba

23:40

with this 12-part choral harmony

23:42

sort of behind her, presented in this

23:44

like picture in picture in picture in picture in picture style.

23:47

And people went ape

23:50

shit for this 45 second long video

23:55

because it was so gorgeous and it was

23:57

so powerful. And also because of the time.

23:59

time length restrictions of shorts

24:02

cuts off halfway through the

24:04

first chorus. And so there

24:06

are people like, this is the most beautiful thing

24:08

I've ever heard. And you, it just stops in

24:10

the middle, like, like a brick. And it just

24:12

stops. And so for four years, people are like,

24:15

I would sell my soul for

24:17

a full version of this song.

24:20

Uh, the, the short has like tons of comments on

24:22

it from people like, I can't, I listened to this

24:24

10 times a day. I'm obsessed with this. And it

24:26

breaks my heart that it is not real and

24:29

not, not a full song. Four

24:31

years later, he

24:33

delivered on, on

24:35

this song, uh, last week, uh,

24:38

with a full version that belongs

24:40

in like a shrine, like, like

24:43

shoot this song into space. It

24:45

is the Sistine Chapel of, uh,

24:47

of vocal performances. Um, so,

24:50

so this song cover the Simon and

24:52

Garfunkel song. It is separated into three

24:54

parts. Each one assigned to sort of

24:57

a different lead vocalist with Jacob Collier

24:59

providing all of the acapella backing vocals

25:01

that run like dozens

25:03

of layers deep underneath it.

25:06

Uh, I think a few days ago he posted a video

25:08

to his YouTube channel. It was actually a live stream for

25:10

two hours where he just walked through the, uh, logic,

25:14

uh, uh, like, like workshop file,

25:17

like showing like how, just how

25:19

deep and intricate and detailed, uh,

25:22

of a, of a project it is. Um,

25:25

so the first part starts with Yebba and

25:27

this is the section from the original clip,

25:29

but it's been sort of reorchestrated, uh, with,

25:32

with his own sort of vocal accompaniment. And

25:34

it also runs through the whole, like

25:36

first verse and first chorus. It is

25:39

incredible. I had never heard of, uh,

25:41

Yebba before. She has, uh, she

25:43

has a remarkable voice, uh,

25:45

this very soulful gospel voice.

25:48

Um, I'm going to play a clip of the song here in

25:51

a little bit. I can't play the whole song for a reason.

25:53

I know. I was wondering how you were going to

25:55

do that. Yeah, but the, the Yebba song was like the original the OG

25:57

and maybe you've heard it before. Maybe you haven't, but

25:59

it is, it is a cool. way to start out. Just

26:02

the harmonies behind it are just so

26:05

soulful and so powerful. And then you

26:07

get to part two, where John Legend

26:09

steps up as the lead vocalist and

26:11

things slow down a bit. John

26:14

Legend has amazing range,

26:17

going just from these very deep,

26:19

resonant baritones to just these soaring,

26:21

falsetto head voice. I'm familiar with

26:24

his work. Yes, of course.

26:27

All while just an army of Jacob Colliers

26:29

in the background provide this very

26:31

rich vocal backing. We

26:35

can play a clip now from the John

26:37

Legend part. The vocals are amazing, but what

26:39

I really like about this part is that

26:41

the chord progressions start to just go absolutely

26:43

ape shit at this part. They start to

26:45

go bananas. Yeah, this

26:47

bit is gorgeous, but in this second bit,

26:49

it gets way more experimental in terms of

26:52

the chords and everything behind John Legend's performance. So

26:54

here's a clip of that part of the song.

27:16

And darkness calls.

27:47

I will

27:51

take it. So

28:04

John Legend's bit is just, it's

28:06

gorgeous. And then

28:08

it ends and it's quiet and you think like, oh, well

28:10

that's it. That's the end of

28:12

the song, right? And then Tori Kelly steps

28:15

up to the plate. Another

28:17

singer who I was not familiar with, but

28:19

she does the voice of the elephant in

28:21

the sing movies. Oh, I didn't know

28:23

that. Which is sad, but that is my main sort of

28:25

point of contact. You do an eye. I'm saying,

28:28

yeah, of course. The sing movies. Of course, the

28:30

elephant from the sing movies. Now

28:34

I want to become very familiar with her

28:36

work because this is one of the single

28:38

best vocal performances I've maybe ever heard. It

28:41

starts off just like, it starts off

28:43

very soft and quiet and controlled and

28:46

the, you know, the background vocals are

28:48

similarly like very reserved and very restrained.

28:51

And then it ends with,

28:53

not a joke, two straight

28:55

minutes of just

28:58

stunting, just absolute, just going

29:02

off. Is this the clip that you sent me? I

29:04

think it was. Or was that Yebba? No, the clip that I

29:06

sent you, yeah, was Tori, was Tori Kelly. Where

29:08

he, like she and him are going

29:10

back and forth during these runs. Yeah. He

29:12

posted a lot of videos of sort of the making

29:14

of this, including that to our live stream. But then

29:16

he showed a clip of him, apparently him and Tori

29:18

Kelly recorded like her vocals in like a couple hours

29:21

in a hurry, like before having to go off and

29:23

do a show with Lawrence. And so this

29:25

clip is like Jacob Collier saying like, so it's going to

29:27

be like, oh,

29:29

like walking your dreams. Like, oh,

29:31

shit. You see her like this

29:33

incredibly talented vocalist, just like nodding,

29:36

like eyes wide at this woodland

29:39

elf who has come to, to

29:41

show her all of this like incredible stuff. And then

29:44

she just absolutely

29:46

kills it. This is

29:48

the clip that I feel like when you look

29:51

at the YouTube comments, it's all pointing to the

29:53

same time, like, holy shit, this

29:55

big puppy in the ground. So

29:57

this is a little bit of Tori Kelly's

29:59

part. I'm feeling

30:02

it, and I'm watching Me, I'm

30:04

feeling it Oh,

30:13

I'm watching I'm

30:18

breathing Oh,

30:21

I'm watching Water

30:28

I will lay down Maybe,

30:35

maybe Lay down Lay

30:42

down It

30:46

is just staggering It

30:49

is absolutely, it is like

30:53

An unrestrained, maximalist

30:57

composition of what a bunch of

30:59

voices singing together can sound like

31:03

And it also does the thing that Jacob Collier

31:05

is really known for in the world of music

31:07

theory in that he's very enthusiastic about how

31:10

flexible a composition

31:12

can be, how flexible you can be with

31:14

things like chord

31:16

progressions, and specifically how

31:18

a theme can resolve. That's his big

31:20

deal, and it's been a huge point

31:23

of understanding of music for me that

31:25

I did not even possess at all, maybe I

31:28

would have if I had taken more proper musical

31:30

training or music theory training But this idea of

31:32

when you are hearing a song, your mind is

31:34

filling in the blanks, and your mind wants to

31:37

maybe get back to the key of the song,

31:39

it wants like, wherever you're going in this chord

31:41

progression, I know that you are going

31:43

to take me home to the root chord

31:45

of whatever section that you're in, and that

31:47

is where I'm going to relax and feel

31:50

comfortable and things are going to resolve. The

31:52

last minute and a half of this is

31:54

just him almost I

31:56

don't want to call it musical edging because

31:58

I feel gross and reductive But it really

32:00

is you going like okay, and then almost certainly

32:02

you're gonna stop now right like almost certainly now

32:05

This is the end of the song and you're

32:07

gonna like finish up the chord progression No, you've

32:09

got more huh you got more shit coming down,

32:11

huh? That's wild Yeah, I

32:13

kept kind of waiting for the drop Like

32:15

I thought this was gonna be some kind

32:17

of crazy techno remix that was gonna like

32:19

happen Nope, just singing. There's just building and

32:22

building and I was like what what what

32:24

is it? It does resolve like at the

32:26

end of it But no joke they make you work

32:28

for in the whole time. You're like Jacob, please Resolve

32:31

it. Tori Kelly's just like Doing

32:34

like kickflips in the background With

32:36

with just the most one of the

32:39

most incredible voices I have ever ever ever heard

32:41

my favorite thing that I've been doing today other

32:43

than like sending everybody that I know Like

32:46

this song I sent it to dad and Justin

32:48

and Travis like you guys gotta I just felt

32:50

extremely like dad's shit and sure Enough like it

32:52

hit him real good But the

32:55

other thing I'd be doing is watching

32:57

videos of singers and vocal teachers reacting

32:59

to the song Yeah,

33:02

normally I don't get those kind of reacting

33:04

videos, but in this case definitely I see

33:06

that reaction videos I think are a

33:08

touchy subject because there's a lot of people who see

33:10

it It's just like straight uplifting content, but I actually

33:12

I do enjoy it when it is coming from a

33:14

place of like Expertise explanation,

33:17

but in this case I just

33:19

like watching these musical professionals make

33:21

some of the gnarliest

33:24

stink faces I have ever ever ever

33:26

ever like as soon as Tori Kelly

33:28

hits that run like at the end

33:30

just like Physical

33:35

agony of like how unexpected

33:37

and powerful and beautiful at all I was

33:39

this one where this guy was like I'm

33:41

a huge fan of I did a video

33:43

on the the Yebba short from four years

33:46

ago I've been looking forward to this for

33:48

a long time and he like presses play

33:50

and like as like it gets through the

33:52

other section and then John Legend comes in

33:54

like You feel any immediate? It's

33:56

just like pause cry beauty

34:00

of the song. It is

34:03

a phenomenal song that is

34:06

genuinely in every way

34:08

that one can consider

34:10

music like a masterpiece. It is

34:13

incredible. And I'm going to listen to this

34:16

song a whole, whole lot. And that's very

34:18

exciting for me. I always really like that

34:20

feeling. But there's something else to this specifically

34:23

that is especially kind of touching, which is

34:25

this phenomenon of like, there are lots of

34:27

people who have been waiting for this song

34:30

for a long time, who have

34:32

been waiting for this completed vision of

34:34

this song, that this, that this one

34:37

dude and these, you know, guest vocalists

34:39

can can deliver and to

34:41

see that actually land

34:44

and be better and more

34:47

experimental and like playful and emotional

34:49

and powerful than I think anyone

34:52

could have even imagined is like

34:54

really, really cool to, to witness.

34:56

Yeah. I don't, we, it's the

34:58

whole song, it's like almost six

35:01

minutes long. It's just six minutes

35:03

of good singing. And I

35:05

would heavily encourage you to seek it out.

35:07

And yeah, I've done a album that he

35:10

just put out called I believe Jesse volume

35:12

four is the name of it, but you

35:14

can find it on YouTube or wherever you

35:16

wherever you get music. And then if

35:19

you like me, like are as moved by it

35:21

as as you are, there's like other videos that

35:23

he has put out sort of explaining the making

35:25

of the song that are similarly very fascinating, but

35:27

that's bridge over troubled water by Jacob Collier, a

35:30

very, very, very special song, I

35:32

feel, I'm happy to have

35:35

discovered. You want to

35:37

know what our friends at home are talking about?

35:39

Yeah. Faith says my small wonder is waking up

35:41

a few minutes before your alarm being on time

35:43

without that jerk awake is a great start. I

35:46

do like that. It doesn't ever happen

35:48

for me. It used to

35:50

I feel like sometimes I would wake up

35:52

before my alarm, but not not any longer.

35:54

I don't really wake up to any alarm.

35:56

I mostly wake up to to

35:58

Rachel waking me up. because he's

36:01

been awake with Gus for a

36:03

bit. But I do really, I

36:05

do like, maybe with a nap, when you set

36:07

a timer for a nap, not having that alarm

36:09

like, hey, get up. I

36:12

don't know, that's nice for my heart rate, I

36:14

feel. Yeah, I have not really had

36:16

to set an alarm in a very long

36:18

time. I mean, when we're like taking a

36:20

plane or something, I have, but

36:22

like day to day, like I just,

36:24

the boys always wake me up

36:27

before seven. So it's like, why would I

36:29

set an alarm? Yeah, Dakota says, my wonderful

36:31

thing is the way that babies learning to

36:33

talk will have some words down pat for

36:36

minute one. Love to hear my little son

36:38

shout, hey. That's

36:41

really good. Gus is going

36:43

through like a language explosion right

36:45

now that is really, really great,

36:47

really, really great. A lot of

36:49

very emotive like thumbs down like,

36:51

no, thank you. Like

36:54

outrageously precocious. Thank

36:57

you to Boann and Augustus for these for

36:59

a theme song, Money Won't Pay, another musical

37:01

masterpiece, if I may be so bold. And

37:04

thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the

37:06

network. Go to maximumfun.org, check out all the great stuff

37:09

that they have going on over there. While

37:12

you're doing that, maybe you start getting pumped

37:14

up about the MaxFun drive. It's

37:16

gonna run from March 18th to the 29th. We

37:19

have lots and lots of super fun

37:22

stuff coming your way from all the

37:24

shows. We'll announce

37:26

what we've got coming down the pipe for

37:28

wonderful maybe next week, maybe we can

37:31

start teasing. Yeah, I was wondering when we should start

37:33

teasing it. I'm very excited for it to come out.

37:35

It is a fun and nostalgic little

37:37

romp for Ray-Cob-A-Nye. So

37:42

I'm excited for you all to hear that. We

37:44

got merch over at macquariemerch.com. You can

37:46

go check out some new fun galore stuff. There's

37:48

a little sailor boy Griffin pin. Oh,

37:51

there is? There is, it's adorable. Oh, I want it. A

37:53

lot of great stuff over there. I think that's it. Thank

37:56

you all so much for listening. Oh, and

37:59

you and your brothers. and your dad are going to be

38:01

in Chicago. Yes, we are. We're going to be

38:03

in Chicago at the end of April. We're

38:05

going to be doing shows. We're doing Mabimbam

38:07

and Taz in the days leading up

38:09

to C2E2. And then we're going to be doing

38:11

appearances there. So you can find

38:13

links to all that stuff and get tickets,

38:15

I believe. I believe they

38:17

might be on sale now over at Macroy.family.

38:20

That's it. That's it. Thank you. Thank you so

38:22

much for boosting my live shows.

38:24

I forget a lot. Yeah. Well,

38:27

I think a Macroy live

38:29

show is always a delight.

38:31

I've never been to one and been like,

38:33

boolereen. Because I would. I mean, if

38:35

it was like that, I would come up to you afterwards

38:37

and I would be like, boolereen. You

38:40

would? No, I definitely wouldn't. But

38:42

I don't think it will ever happen, honestly. I'm even

38:44

imagining Mean Rachel. Can

38:49

you give me some more Mean Rachel? What else? It's

38:52

just like me and the audience going

38:54

like, you stink. The whole

38:56

audience is on Mean Rachel's side? No,

38:59

I'm leading the audience. Oh,

39:02

OK. Interesting. I

39:05

turn backwards to the row behind me and I'm

39:07

like. You stink. You stink.

39:10

Yeah, awesome. Yeah. All

39:12

right. And then I worry that it's

39:14

not specific enough. So then each

39:17

individual brother, I lead different

39:19

chants. About what's wrong specifically.

39:21

Specifically. Give me some examples. Justin

39:24

stinks. No, it's just stinks.

39:26

Oh, OK. Stinks is the whole

39:28

crush. So she's not very good at being mean.

39:30

It's just in stinks. And then I would go on

39:32

to Travis stinks. And then I would end with Griffin

39:34

stinks. But you would be anticipating it then?

39:36

Yeah, it wouldn't hit me as hard. You would be

39:38

like, you do it with that. Like you're mean and

39:40

you think I stink, but you're still like, you

39:43

have my feelings like that. And that's

39:45

what's so nice about Mean Rachel. Thank

39:48

you. I won't fall, but get on board. I

39:52

won't fall, but get on

39:55

board. I

39:57

won't fall, but get

39:59

on board. I

40:01

won't go, but you

40:03

can. I won't go,

40:06

but you can. I

40:09

won't go. I won't go. I won't go. I

40:13

won't go.