Behind the Lyrics: ApologetiX
Thu., Oct. 20. 2005 4:43am EDT
One of the many hidden treasures of ApologetiX.com is the journal entries for many of the songs on the lyrics page, where lyricist J. Jackson tells the stories behind the spoofs.
We don't want to give the surprises away to folks who haven't bought the CD yet, but once you prove you have done that, you can get the lyrics to every song on the CD, and download the MP3 to many that you haven't bought yet. Poke around the MUSIC section and see.
The Journal entry for "He Really Got Mad" on "Isn't Wasn't Ain't" is:
A lot of people think the Bible says that money is the root of all evil. That's not true. It says "THE LOVE OF money is the root of all SORTS OF evil." We wanted a song that could address that and get the scripture verse in.
Furthermore, I had discovered that Jesus' cleansing of the Temple is one of the few events that is mentioned in all four Gospels (although many scholars would say He cleansed it two different times, in keeping with a parallel to what Jeremiah did, with the one in John being much earlier than the one in Matthew, Mark and Luke). Consequently, I figured it must be pretty important.
Unlike many people of my generation, the first time I heard "You Really Got Me," it was the Kinks' original version and not Van Halen's. In fact, I would go on to become a huge fan of the Kinks, particularly "The Kink Kronikles" and their albums from 1977's "Sleepwalker" through 1985's "Word of Mouth." Ray Davies is an incredible songwriter, much more cerebral than "You Really Got Me" would suggest.
I didn't hear Van Halen's version until I had to learn it for my audition for my first rock and roll band, a hard rock group called Terminal. They were going to perform four songs ("You Really Got Me," "Sweet Emotion," "Johnny B. Goode" and "Gimme Three Steps") for a coffee house at our high school, and they needed a singer. I knew the first three songs really well, but I had to learn "Gimme Three Steps."
Anyway, we opened up with "You Really Got Me," with me singing the Kinks version I was familiar with and the rest of the band playing the Van Halen version they were familiar with, and the crowd went nuts! I used to have a cassette of the performance, and it sounded like an old Beatles concert; all you could hear was screaming girls, some muffled guitars, drums and vocals.
But the first time I heard "You Really Got Me" it was just that line included in a promo for a radio special about the history of rock and roll, and I mistakenly thought they were singing "She really got mad!" I remembered that years later when we decided to spoof the song. I tried to do a combination Kinks/Van Halen on the vocals. I like David Lee Roth's style, but it always drove me crazy that he changed "You really got me going -- you got me so I don't know what I'm doing" (which rhymes) to "You really got me now -- you got me so I don't know what I'm doing" (which DOESN'T rhyme), so we kept some of the original and some of the Van Halen remake.
That's the drummer, Keith Harrold, counting us in at the beginning of the song, by the way. Since this song was the last song on the original "Isn't Wasn't Ain't," Karl carried on the tradition on our next CD, "Radical History Tour," by having our next drummer, Rick Servocky, count us in on the last track on that project, "Midnight Hour Pt. 2."
J's been adding his Journal entries here and there, and there are now 66 songs with J's thoughts attached.
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