Playlist: https://spoti.fi/33bwO3N

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There’s yet to be an Animals renaissance.

Most of the acts of the British Invasion were sunny, optimistic, or if dangerous, not too much so. Whereas the Animals…

By time they had success in the U.S. these British acts were featured on TV, so we saw Eric Burdon and his bandmates and…they were scruffy, Eric had a less than perfect complexion in the era of Clearasil, there was a darkness and danger to the band’s sound, they seemed to exist outside the British Invasion, but were still members of it. And they had a slew of hits.

It started with a rendition of the traditional “House of the Rising Sun,” a song known by older folkies but so few younger baby boomers, the Animals’ version was the first one they heard, at this late date it’s the most famous one, it’s got 597+ million streams on Spotify. It’s got nowhere near that play count on YouTube, proving that oldsters don’t need no visuals and the green icon service is where true music lovers live.

At this late date, the second most remembered Animals track, with about a tenth of the streams of “House of the Rising Sun,” is “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” which somehow seemed to have more cultural impact. Because now it was 1965, music had truly taken over youth culture, music was the paramount cultural medium, if you wanted to know what was going on you turned on the radio, and if you didn’t you were left behind, like the old people with their Perry Comos and Dean Martins.

And “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” was a weird blend of pessimism and optimism, the verses were downbeat, but the choruses were upbeat. But one thing is for sure, the star was Eric Burdon’s voice, the way he enunciated sent the message irrelevant of the lyrics, the Animals were STARS!

But my favorite Animals track is “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which had that curious difference between verse and chorus, but in this case the chorus was an incantation to his beloved not to…bring him down.

But really it was the organ, akin to “96 Tears,” and the fuzztone guitar, Burdon’s vocal was the cherry on top. “Don’t Bring Me Down” had a darkness, a grittiness that was palpable, that could not be resisted. In the era of the war between the collegiates and the diddys, this was one thing they could agree on, this track, all of the Animals’ music. “Don’t Bring Me Down” was primal, you didn’t need to get good grades to understand it, and if you were striving in school you were entranced by its danger, this is the life you wanted to live, you wanted to feel this emotion, this passion, this was not teenybop, but adult music. And despite their focus on their studies the grinds’ hormones were raging, and one thing youngsters can’t deny is their hormones, and in the sixties we got our sex on the radio, not online, and it wasn’t really until late in the decade you could go to the theatre and see boobies, that was enough of an incentive to go, few spoke about the plot of “I Am Curious (Yellow).”

But earlier in the band’s career, back in ’64, the Animals had a hit with “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” But they didn’t cut the original version.

That was one difference between the Animals and their competition, they sang covers, they didn’t write the material. But their rendition of the Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil composition “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” was the first popular one.

This was not always the case. Although the Animals were the first to record the Carole King/Gerry Goffin composition “Don’t Bring Me Down.” Yet “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” was first recorded by Nina Simone, whose star has risen once again, primarily because of a documentary, then again Simone is dead, whereas Eric Burdon is not.

But Hilton Valentine is gone. Chas Chandler too. And Mickie Most, the architect of the band’s sound, he’s the one who chose the material, pushed the band over the transom, made their records hits. Although “Don’t Bring Me Down” was produced by Tom Wilson, and maybe that’s why I love it so much, it’s got a bit more of a New York feel, equally dark, after all at this point so many of our images were in black and white.

And for a minute there, Alan Price got press as a result of his film work, most notably Lindsay Anderson’s “O Lucky Man!,” but that was fifty years ago.

And Chas Chandler famously found, recorded and promoted Jimi Hendrix.

And Eric Burdon is still plying the boards. The man who sang the hits, who switched it up by working with War, bringing that act to prominence, the man who even had a psychedelic hit with “Sky Pilot,” have you heard the long version?

And I thought of all this when I heard “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” in Harlan Coben’s “Stay Close” on Netflix.

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I watch all of Coben’s work. And although one must be prepared for the twists at the end, “Stay Close” is one of the better ones, set in the U.K., however you do have to overlook some ridiculousness, most notably the pastel assassins.

But when we’re deep into it, in the final episode, with its twists and turns, a song starts to play in the background, it’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” But it’s not the Animals, it wasn’t anyone I recognized.

Now it turns out “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” has been covered by everybody from Lady Gaga to Joe Cocker. The Moody Blues did a version. Even Elvis Costello. But which version was used in “Stay Close”?

Now the truth is this information is usually readily available online. I don’t know who the faceless people providing these details are, but they’re busy at work but sometimes it takes a while, there’s a delay, you have to wait for the information to appear.

But now one can read that this rendition of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” is by Eliza Shaddad. Who?

Shaddad’s version is completely different from the Animals’, it’s slowed down. And in truth, so is Nina Simone’s. But Simone’s is more of a period piece, with lush strings and Nina dominating, owning the track, whereas Shaddad’s version is more subtle, and it works perfectly synched to images, quiet, in the background.

And there’s a montage of images. And the music adds to the images and the lyrics penetrate.

“Baby, do you understand me now

Sometimes I feel a little mad

But don’t you know that no one alive

Can always be an angel”

Whew! Apologetic, but really an iron fist in a velvet glove, subtle in a way today’s bop you over the head sexist lyrics are not. Today everybody has to appear an angel, even though as the song says, no one can be, certainly not all the time. We hide our warts, we don’t own our faults, but in “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” the singer does.

“When things go wrong I seem to be bad

But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”

We’re talking about relationships here, one’s private life as opposed to public. And if you have no arguments, no difference of opinion with your significant other, that just means they’re not expressing their true feelings, or maybe you’re not, and that is a recipe for disaster, because eventually they come out and dissension is escalated.

“Baby, sometimes I’m so carefree

With a joy that’s hard to hide

And sometimes it seems that all I have to do is worry

And then you’re bound to see my other side”

There’s always a yin to the yang. No one is happy all the time. Sometimes you’re elated, other times you can’t get rid of your angst, and when you show this other side will you be rejected?

“If I seem edgy I want you to know

That I never mean to take it out on you

Life has its problems and I get my share

And that’s one thing I never mean to do”

Now this song was written in a different time, before not only the woke era, but the women’s movement. When men ruled the roost and could get away with physical violence and…I’m not endorsing it, just detailing it. But the truth is both sexes can lose control.

“Oh baby, don’t you know I’m human

Have thoughts like any other one

Sometimes I find myself long regretting

Some foolish thing, some little simple thing I’ve done”

Regrets, I have a few, don’t you? You’re running on instinct and then you calm down and see the bigger picture and worry about the fallout. You want a significant other who can tolerate your ups and downs, however not violence. Then again, words can be violent too.

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Now the truth is listening to Eliza Shaddad’s rendition of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” reinforced how a great song is timeless.

But it was a different era, it was all about the song. The Beatles ushered in a new model, where the acts wrote their own material. The Animals were a bridge between old and new. And soon the new superseded the old nearly completely, and now the paradigm has flipped back. There’s too big a risk, the label wants a hit, get a cowriter, do a cover, the suits no longer trust talent, but the truth is the suits can never completely understand creation. And although some cuts are certified smashes, so many other ones that top the charts are a complete surprise. And then there are the tracks that were never singles that everybody seems to know, although frequently this isn’t realized until decades later. I thought I was the only one who loved the Beach Boys’ exquisite “‘Til I Die” from 1971’s “Surf’s Up” until I saw Don Was’s Brian Wilson documentary “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” in 1995.

And the truth is Brian wasn’t, made for those times, and in these times he can’t recapture what he once had, although every now and then a glimpse comes through, especially when he works with Joe Thomas.

And the Animals were a product of the period too. Today everybody puts money first, they want those songwriting credits. Bands fall apart because there’s not enough money once you split up the royalties, assuming there are any. Then again, making music in the mid-sixties was a completely different endeavor. Pop was seen as disposable. Here today, not worth too much tomorrow, which is why Peter Grant sold Led Zeppelin’s royalties to Atlantic. if you were lucky you could continue to play music, but ultimately you were going to have to get a day job. As for a pension from your music, that’s a laugh.

But maybe that’s why the music from that era was so great, all you had was the performance, the penumbra was outside the act’s purview, other than the sex and the dope. You had no idea how much money you were due, you were too busy working to earn it. And everything was less precious, you couldn’t stay in the studio for months spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get it right.

And in truth, artists have given up getting it right. Oh, they shine the production, but the building blocks… Hell, you can buy your beats online, it’s about making a hit record, oftentimes there’s no melody at all.

But it was different. And the Animals were part of the change.

But an equal partner was their songs.

“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” was written by Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott and Sol Marcus. The first and third were not well-known then and are not today either, if it weren’t for the internet and Wikipedia their names would have fallen through the cracks, lost to the sand of times.

But this song…

“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” is forever. Seemingly anybody can sing it. And no matter who does, the darkness, the underbelly, is evidenced, because it’s right there in the words and the changes.

The truth is we’re all misunderstood. It’s amazing people can understand each other at all. Miscommunication is the bane of relationships. We feel so alone, the only thing that seems to get us is these songs, they understand us, they soothe us, they give us hope, make life worth living, that’s their magic.

It’s not easy to create that magic. But when you achieve it…it’s undeniable.

“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”

Tune in today, January 11th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

This is a chance for the organization to get up to date.

What I’m proposing is an 86 night extravaganza on social media highlighting the nominees in each and every category.

Let’s speak English. The Grammys can’t afford to piss off CBS, its benefactor. Without that big check the Grammys are SOL. But when you’re beholden to the dying old you’re behind the 8 ball when change finally arrives, and it’s hard to catch up. As it is the Grammys are out of touch with the public. As are the Oscars. You leave the public behind at your peril, you must keep people INVOLVED!

So it’s an 86 night pre-game show, a run-up to the actual ceremony, and it takes place on YouTube. Why YouTube? Because it has the most eyeballs and it’s free. Sure, some other platform will offer a big check, but that defeats the purpose. Sometimes you have to leave money on the table in the furtherance of your goal, which in this case is exposing the most people to the most music.

Let’s be clear, the public is flummoxed, they don’t know where and how to find new music. Did you read that MusicBusinessWorldwide story about 82% of the U.S. market being catalog? That’s right, over three-quarters, and it keeps going UP! Turns out the public is tuning out new music, or doesn’t know where to tune it in, so this is where the Grammys and YouTube come in.

Every night it’s a new category. That’s right, for 86 days straight a Grammy category is going to be featured. An explanation of the category, maybe even some history, and then the nominees themselves. And sure, it can be one half hour long stream, but even better is to break it up. This is how you do it. You can consume the whole thing straight, or you can consume the bits you want to, which are featured conspicuously on the Grammy YouTube page AND LIVE THERE FOREVER!

Now of course  you can just play the recordings, or the music videos, but with people paying attention, nominees will clamor to present new renditions. Which the Grammys will embrace. Cut it acoustic, do it live, make a new video, it’s the artist’s choice, and it’s at the artists expense.

Now the big categories are spread out through the three months. And maybe the big categories even get two nights in a row. And one of the reasons we do this is because we’re going to tie-in TikTok. For each big category we’re going to have a TikTok contest/challenge. With the winner flown out to the ultimate Grammy ceremony where they get to meet and and create a TikTok video with the act whose song they created the clip to. And, of course, pictures will be on the Grammy Instagram account. The Instagram account will be an endless stream of information and photos for the 86 days. 

The key is to create a destination people return to on a regular basis. One and done is history. Like too many albums. They promote them and they’re over in a weekend, if not a day. That’s the wrong paradigm in today’s culture, you keep yourself out of the public eye at your peril. And one long Grammy show on CBS filled with commercials at an appointed time is so last century it’s almost not worth staging. Then again, there’s that contract with that big payment. Only 56% of Americans still watch satellite and cable TV. Think about that, Dan Bongino’s YouTube channel reaches more people than CNN. You’ve got to go where the people are, and make it easy for them and ON DEMAND, so they can watch it when they want to.

If other outlets want to get on board… 

No. Everybody needs to know to start at YouTube, you can’t muddy the water here.

And let’s hope that this Grammy extravaganza causes outsiders to participate, not only on TikTok. We want naysayers to create their own videos complaining about who has been left out. And if the Grammys are smart, and they rarely are, an award must be added that is voted for online. I know the ballots are in, so we’re going to create a new category, Entertainer of the Year. I’m not married to the moniker, the hipper the better, but let the fans vote.

Make it available and get the fans involved. It’s not a difficult concept.

And CBS will have no complaints, this will drive traffic to its ultimate awards telecast. And as far as CBS having its own streaming platform… They can give the show away for free there, they can capitalize on the show, but they get none of the run-up on their outlet, because they’ve got too small a footprint and no buzz.

And in truth the awards ceremony should be on Netflix. Which can afford to pay for it and would. But then there’s that old CBS contract to contend with. Once again, you’re married to the past at your peril. But in this case the Grammys have some options and they should grasp them and try to save the organization, because they’ve done a good job of streaming straight ahead into irrelevance.

This is a victory for the little guy.

You see there are two tiers of justice in America, one for the rich and one for the poor. The rich skate while the poor plea bargain and go to jail.

And everybody knows it.

It’s not like this paradigm has been hidden. That’s what the O.J. Simpson trial was all about. Forget whether he did it, the Black man has been treated unfairly by the justice system, and Simpson’s acquittal was pushback.

But both of them were guilty.

And O.J. is about race as opposed to money. He had the best defense money could buy. Which ran circles around the prosecution. Hell, Elizabeth Holmes had the best defense money could buy and she didn’t even have to pay for it! Yes, an insurance policy delivered her defense. Does your employer have such a policy for you? I highly doubt it.

Now if you read all the press, the analysis has been what the effect of Holmes’s conviction will have on behavior in the tech world, in Silicon Valley, BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT! That just demonstrates the myopic elitism that has people voting for Trump. Do you know what it means to be a member of the underclass today? And just about every American is a member of such group. And it’s not only about money, it’s about power, it’s about being in control of your own destiny. It’s been disheartening.

Let’s see, the banks blow up the economy and no one goes to jail. But it gets even worse, these same banks are rescued by the government by one of their own on the inside, Timothy Geithner. It’d be like having a member of the gang as judge when you come up for trial. Imagine that!

And it wasn’t only 2008, it was Covid too. If you were a member of the underclass you had to go to work, expose yourself to Covid, and this was before vaccines were available, Worst offenders? Meat-packing plants and Amazon warehouses. Which paid poorly for work done under heinous conditions by people who couldn’t afford to quit. Meanwhile, those with a desk job could work safely from home, and while the government helped out some of the underclass financially, that paled in comparison to all the bread made by the truly rich. Imagine that, profiting from a disaster! But it’s not only Covid, but Afghanistan, the rest of the Middle East wars. Forget whether we won or lost, the truth is the contractors made a fortune. But building infrastructure overseas is not as sexy as TikTok, so almost no one one knows. And if you think these contracts are open, fair bids, you also think American executives never bribe foreign officials to smooth business operations in their countries. Hell, the OLYMPICS is a hotbed of illegality. You want the games, you’ve got to bribe the officials!

And for a while there, being a tech entrepreneur was the new American game. Popularized everywhere. Hell, that’s the genesis of “Shark Tank”…how do you think those sharks made all that money? And the show is never canceled because there are an endless number of people creating in their backyard trying to get rich, it’s easier than working for the company that has no investment in your future and will fire your ass.

And for a while there, Elizabeth Holmes was the poster child for tech entrepreneurship.

Now here’s where it gets dicey, when I talk about sex. After all, so much of the blowback about this trial and its conviction centers on the fact that Holmes is a woman. But the truth is the conventional venture capitalists in Silicon Valley wouldn’t give her any bread. No, her investments were made by dirty old men reeled in by an attractive young woman. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but Elizabeth Holmes knew exactly what she was doing. When confronted by an employee of the fraud at Theranos, Holmes said…I’M TOO PRETTY TO GO TO JAIL!

That’s a quote.

And that’s another reason we want her behind bars. No one is above the law. Except when they are. Like Trump and his cronies. I mean we live in a banana republic. Roger Stone is convicted for helping Trump get elected and then is pardoned by Donald Trump. This looks bad on the surface, forget the details. And let’s not even mention Steve Bannon.

And Holmes has shown no remorse. Zero. Even worse, she and her team fought the truth every step along the way. She hired David Boies and his impeccable reputation to intimidate John Carreyrou and the “Wall Street Journal” from publishing the truth. They tried to get Tyler Shultz, one of the two main whistleblowers, to sign a document shutting him up. And with this and the Weinstein scandal, Boies’s reputation has taken a hit, then again, this is just the kind of representation bad actors desire.

So Holmes is awaiting trial and…

She’s living a life of glory. With a rich boyfriend in a big house with a new baby. She runs into old Theranos employees at lunch and wants to converse like nothing has happened. Meanwhile, their tours at the company impacted their careers, negatively, and no one is rescuing them.

So it’s this hubris that drives the public wild. Like Elizabeth Holmes is better than us, that she’s above the law. And I’ve got to tell you, if you’re playing the home game, it’s hard not to feel this is American reality. If you’re rich and connected you live a completely different life, not only in lifestyle, but when it comes to laws. WE WANT A CORRECTION!

As for her abuse by her boyfriend…this is like 1/6. We can see the video of the insurrection, but they tell us what’s on the screen is not truthful. That these were heroes quietly protesting. And if you don’t believe that, it was Antifa. And if you don’t believe that, we’ll come up with another cockamamie explanation. Because facts are fungible, there are multiple truths, isn’t that what Kellyanne Conway said when she spoke about alternative facts? Meanwhile, Kellyanne had to quit the Trump administration to save her marriage and her family. Then again, Trump has been married three times with children by each wife. Once again, if you’ve got enough money the rules don’t apply to you. AND TRUMP IS PROUD OF THIS! Being duplicitous and not paying taxes. As for Elizabeth Holmes, the boss with ultimate power, the buck stopping with her, being held back by a boyfriend underling…next we’re gonna hear from Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos that their wives caused their philandering, caused their divorces, that all their bad behavior was attributable to their spouses!

So you watch the game and it’s much more interesting than sports. Then again, we’ve got Formula 1, which rigged its seasonal championship so Lewis Hamilton wouldn’t win once more, to make the sport look more competitive. I don’t know if I can watch anymore, Formula 1’s credibility has been sacrificed. Then again, Formula 1 is no longer owned by racing fanatics but Liberty, which is interested foremost in dollars, not rules. This would be like moving the fences a few hundred feet back while Babe Ruth’s ball was in the air so he would not hit a home run. This would be like the Babe hitting it over the fence between the foul poles and calling it foul instead of fair, making up the rules on the fly to make it a more competitive game.

Everything is done for the money and there’s no fairness. Colin Kaepernick is an American hero but he’s banned from playing in the NFL by rich old white men. They’re taking away his right to earn a living. But racism is the scourge of America. That’s right, when the Black underclass revolts against senseless murder it’s equivalent to trying to topple the government. That’s what white people who watch Fox believe. There’s just no truth I tell you.

As for Silicon Valley…OF COURSE this will have a chilling effect on lying/obfuscation/fraud. To say otherwise is also hubris, working the refs. Believe me, the “Blurred Lines” decision had a chilling effect on music creation. But you create a take, stand with your brethren and push it down people’s throats.

But Elizabeth Holmes has a BABY!

Yeah, right. If you knew you were possibly going to jail you wouldn’t remove your IUD, thinking about the potential child first and foremost. It’s hard not to see the pregnancy as a cynical effort to sway the jury and reduce the term of any potential sentence.

And then Holmes takes the stand and paints an alternative universe of Theranos.

And it’s not like Holmes is some unknown tech insider. If you paid even minimal attention to the press…she was all over it, LAUDED, making you wonder about the veracity of what you read, maybe all those heroes paraded in front of our eyes are actually zeros.

And it’s not like she turned down Harvard when they made her a member of the Board of Fellows of their medical school. And when corporations did not give her the pass/contract she wanted, she just used their logos anyway, she faked it. As she did by constantly saying the army was using Theranos’s systems.

Used to be honor and morality were paramount. But now if you’re accused of something you deny it and fight it, you don’t own up to your faux pas unless you’re an entertainer, who goes to rehab to try and salvage their career.

And today it looks like the Supreme Court will invalidate vaccine mandates.

Read about that antivax 46 year old lawyer in Orange County, the Republican doyenne? She didn’t get vaccinated and she died. Meanwhile, the sick believe they can just get antibodies or a pill if they get Covid when the truth is the supply is so minimal that the treatments are essentially unavailable. Even worse, in the triage, if you got three shots you go to the back of the line, irrelevant of your comorbidities. Meanwhile, those who spurned the shot and got really sick are getting your treatment instead.

I’m just telling you the truth here. And the truth is I’m happy Elizabeth Holmes got convicted, joyous in fact. I don’t like seeing someone’s life ruined, but think of all the lives and fortunes she ruined! She’s got to serve time, enough to hurt. Not like the brief terms of Lori Loughlin and the rest of the college admission manipulators.

Then again, Loughlin has become a pariah, she can’t work, especially not in the wholesome movie field that was her bread and butter. The producers are afraid of the public reaction. But once again, that’s entertainment, the opiate of the masses, the bread and circuses they consume while the people who run this world play by different rules and go unpunished.

Finally, someone has hit the wall. Finally, there is justice. And it’s got nothing to do with the fact that she’s a woman. She broke the law, her sex is irrelevant!

As for her appeal… The public doesn’t realize that an appeal is not a complete retrial, it looks for errors in the original trial, and if there were none, the appeal is denied. But who knows, Holmes may stay out of jail until her kid goes to college, while she has another one or two along the way. Delay, delay, delay. When she could just bite the bullet, go to jail right now and serve her sentence, get out and have a life.

And who could live with the prospect of jail over their head?

Elizabeth Holmes and the rest of the delusional bad actors who think the rules don’t apply to them…

BUT THIS TIME THEY DID!