Muse

First time at the program, I can always spot a newbie. It's my fifth year with wings. I guess Paul McCartney's got nothing on me, huh? Love, take me down to the streets. It's not a wings song. Yeah, it's one of their hits from the 70s. I'm not sure which one. It's not a, it's not. It isn't? No. I think it might be. That's not, nobody sings that song. I don't know about that. I'll have to Google it. The TBTL. So then I said to Woody Allen, well, Camus can do, but Sartre is smart-tra. So original.

Yeah, well, Scooby-Doo can do-do, but Jimmy Carter is martyr. I feel like we're just like in that tired mode where you're delirious and you're laughing at silly things.

What's that drop that's like?

You're doing a good job, sweetie. What you do is so important. Sweetie, have a good show. What you do is so important.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich?

My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. They suddenly realized I was talking to them. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above, Portland, Oregon, where I've been lamenting the end of summer all week, and yet every time I go outside, like today on my little morning ramble, it's very warm.

I feel warm and I'm levitating.

I know it's going to be a hot day here in Portland in the 503 when I get an email the day before from the power company trying to encourage me to use less power trying to incentivize me telling me i'll get some kind of rebate if i don't blast the ac it's funny because i actually had the thought yesterday when i got that email from like it's png or something how do they know what the temperature is going to be tomorrow are they magical it's like oh no there are apps for that. Those are things that we can know. Anyway, it's a warm day here in Portland and a fun day to stage episode 3,507 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Turns out hard seltzer sales were down this summer. Drunk people are so mellow. At least the people that make Truly, which is actually Sam Adams, they have something like a hundred million extra cans of hard seltzer or something like that. I guess you could say that a hard seltzer sales really fizzled.

I cannot believe he just told that joke.

Let's do the numbers. That's something straight out of Marketplace. Also, neuroscientists have isolated. Isolated sounds like they're quarantining them. They've identified the 10 happiest songs ever made. A lot of energy, a lot of motion, a lot of fun, a lot of high-fiving, a lot of smiles. We're going to play them for you today in their entirety. It's going to take two hours. You're going to be so sad at the end of it. Now, we are going to tell you what the ten songs are that supposedly will make you feel happy. The happiest. Coming up also, this always makes the listeners happy. The Blur's Day messages, because today is Thursday.

It's my birthday today.

So we'll do that. All of it with the help of this young man, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He has, I would say, almost overly optimistic expectations for how today's show is going to go.

I think I'm looking forward to cracking up. I hope I can totally crack up. So I haven't totally cracked up in a long time.

He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke.

I am relatively confident that I am not spoiling your big happy music segment later on in the show. Okay. At least... I hope I'm not spoiling it. I'm going to assume that the scientists who did this study about happy music were not yet hip to this song that came out earlier this summer by two artists. Those scientists better check their hypotenuses, dude. Alan Walker and Iman Beck. Does that ring a bell from your research? Alan Walker and Iman Beck. Are they the scientists or the singers? I believe that they are the musical acts who partnered up for this song, which listener Jeff heard when he got into his car after leaving the Ace Hardware store earlier this week, and he thought of us for some reason. This is a brand new song. Well, because we talk about Ace Hardware a lot on the program, too. Yes, exactly. He said he was not buying a battery daddy.

But he really wanted to tell me he was buying a battery, Daddy. But really, he was just buying some wood stain.

I've yet to put any batteries in my battery, Daddy. Oh, really?

My God, it's the first thing I did when I got home. I don't even understand that. I don't understand how your brain works. But anyway, this song is called Sweet Dreams. Take a listen to this and try to figure out why you think Jeff thought of us at a certain point. Ah, there it is, man. When the beat drops and it's Scatman John, you got to share it with your imaginary friendos. That's the rule. Scatman's world. I mean, this song has legs

Sure does

It's been sampled quite a bit

I was driving with Becca And somehow scatting came up And I said Or maybe the original The Scatman John song came on And she was like Yeah, everybody knows this song And I was like Andrew and I Somehow did not know about it Until about two years ago And became obsessed with it But it was an international phenomenon I know It just sort of missed us somehow

I ran into that too Because when I went through my obsessive phase And of course when I went through my obsessive phase It was just going through my head like crazy The original song And I had a lot of conversations about it And the more I talked about it the more I realized I was kind of the one on the outside of this conversation It's like going around saying Have you heard of this television show Sesame Street It's going to revolutionize the way kids interact with the television And it turns out it's been around since the 70s

but that song the one that the listener sent in yeah sweet dreams like could you possibly rip off more different songs in one song first of all sweet dreams it's well covered as a topic you have the eurythmic song you have i think there's probably a patsy klein song i know there's other sweet dreams songs out there which of course i can't think of because there's a different song playing but so and then you're and then you're doing a scatman john riff in the middle of it Like, does the estate of Scatman John have some kind of a claim to that song? I mean, we see people getting – I feel like we see musicians getting sued for much less. Oh, they got paid.

Are you kidding me? So that's what it was. You think that they – No, I don't know. I'm sure that's a cleared sample. I mean, that's not an accident. That's not a, hey, I wrote a song that sounds somewhat like –

But it's not a sample. It's not Scatman John. It's them singing a riff from a Scatman John song.

Does that have to be cleared as well? I think it does, yeah. And I do think it's technically considered a sample, even if you're doing it. In fact, I was looking at the Wikipedia page. This song has a Wikipedia page. It's only a couple of months old. But it says, the song samples a Scatman John track, Scatman, Ski-Bah, Bop-Bah, Dop-Bop, and was a hit in both Norway and Sweden. So there you go. Wow. And what is that song called? It's called Sweet Dreams. Nice. British-Norwegian DJ Alan Walker and Kozak Emembek. Got you. Okay. Came out on June 20-something, 2021. June 11th, 2021. So that song was not on the list, but weirdly, this one is. Oh, yeah. That's a real happy song right there.

Would you say that among the many things of the last like year that have been unpredictable or couldn't have been predicted, you know, like, I don't know, global pandemic, I don't know, an attempt to an armed insurrection attempting to overturn the will of the American voters. I mean, these are all things that I didn't see coming. The rise of the Gabagool meme is also something I didn't see coming. And it's maybe provided me with my happiest moments throughout the pandemic. It's just been variations on the theme of Gabagool.

And this song that you're playing now, this was the kind of origin of the meme-ification?

This was, I think, the first thing that I saw that was just weirdly about Gabagool. But then you've got, of course, where's the freaking gabagool And then you've got the, you've gobbled your last ghoul Right Which, let's see, I don't know if I, do I have that? No, I don't have that in my little sounds

I think we were just passing that around as a

I know As a ticky-tocky I had an interesting experience last night Well, that might be overstating it I was driving home and I was listening to Fresh Air And it was an interview with the late actor Michael K. Williams And why I say it's interesting is because We sort of eulogized him On

think it was a Tuesday when we were back doing shows um of course he passed away over the weekend it was very sad and I was sad because I really liked his acting and but I had never actually heard the dude talk like I'd never heard him in conversation when he wasn't portraying a character and he was so unbelievably thoughtful like in both senses of the word like he was a very thoughtful person like really kind to other people and also thoughtful about life and I I felt I had this like new wave of sadness about him dying you know what i mean because it was like and so many people that had met him and that knew him were on twitter and social media and just saying you know we've lost someone really special and i thought well yeah he was your friend i i can understand why you would say that i sure liked his acting but in listening to him talk to terry gross and they did a cool thing which is they played an interview that they did with him i think kind of early on in the wire And then after the wire was over So they'd interviewed him two times And just an amazingly Lovely Person who just I mean It was just it was sort of it was like I found Myself grieving the whole thing on a new Level from just hearing him kind of Talk you know about his life and about His thoughts on things then They finish and I mean I'm not to Over dramatize it but I was a little choked up You know at the end of the interview was just it was Really beautiful the guy was a really beautiful dude And then Terry Gross goes next up our review of doogie hauser md the reboot and i wrote on twitter that's the hardest pivot in the public radio game it's like we are all like i can't i imagine most other listeners are having the same experience i was just profound sadness about this beautiful person passing away and just in this kind of moment of reflection of just you know life and and loss and things like that and then it's like coming up a review of the reboot of doogie hauser and my thought was why don't we hold that till tomorrow is there could we i mean is there a different day we could play david biancouli talking about the doogie hauser reboot maybe we can just play four minutes of music here how about that even if you were gonna say like jazz you know actually did jazz critic kevin whitehead pass away as well somebody who did reviews for that show music reviews passed away a while ago but i feel like of the things you have how about this not nine more minutes of michael k williams like he was so good i was like i did the i did the the thing where i got i was like sitting in my car idling at laughing planet which is this like kind of healthy food place that i go to a lot these days and then like like i was waiting to see them bring my order out it's the kind of thing where you you go in they have it all blocked off so you you you order from like afar and then you go outside and wait and then they bring this bag of food out and kind of place it down for you. And so like when they placed my food and I ran and grabbed it and then ran back to my car and then I got home and I was listening in the parking garage and then I jumped out of my car and ran upstairs and then I turned it on on Sonos.

Like I was very, very into this conversation. And so I was like, great, there's nine minutes of this left and then they bring it to a close and they say, and now it's time for the Doogie Howser reboot review.

As at the risk of really interrupting our flow, here to the to the degree that we ever have one this hits very close to home with something that I did as a public radio producer a long time ago that Genevieve still makes fun of me to this day and I'm just blanking on a couple of important details here do you mind if I can can I just try calling Genevieve very quickly to see if she will pick up now I think this is one of those things where you will not be able to hear her. Or I'm sorry, she will not be able to hear you. Oh, sure. Please pick up. Hello? Hey, Genevieve, you're on TBTL. Do you have a second? Oh, yeah. Hey, Luke is talking about, and Luke's on the line here. I don't think you'll be able to hear him, but he was just talking about a pretty awkward pivot for a forward promo on Fresh Air, going from a very, very sad moment to a promo for the new Doogie Howser reboot. And that seems kind of tonally inappropriate, which reminded me of that thing I did on the front porch a long time ago. But I can't remember what the two segments were.

I'll never forget it.

Okay.

Atheism and Buzzy, the funeral home cat.

Okay.

That's right.

The first one was atheism. So a little bit of background here. I'll keep you on the line, Genevieve. That's what it was.

i could so i inherited i used to have a cd of it that i kept in my office so i could just look at the title sometimes and may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships that's exactly it

luke so i was working on the show the front porch which we have talked about before on the show i inherited this show and it was an evening culture program focused on new hampshire artists but it It was usually like, it was always. one interview one half hour interview with somebody who you know usually had about five minutes of content related to their art and so and so i inherited this show and there was a new program director and they said we want you to kind of you know spiff this up a little bit spoof it up a little bit spiff it up um add some dynamism i think at least that's what i that's that's that was my takeaway so i started introducing this idea of more than one segment per half hour show So and yeah, one day we started with a very, very serious conversation about modern atheism based on some local writer's research or book on the matter. And then we took a short break and then we came back and we talked to an author of a kid's book called, was it Binky the Funeral Home Cat?

I think it was Buzzy.

Buzzy the Funeral Home Cat. And then when this show, whenever we produce these shows, Luke, it was still during the era where listeners could order a CD of the show. Yeah, listeners like Genevieve, apparently. Yes, exactly. And so we would always have to put the orders through this older woman who worked the front desk named Doreen. And she had a CD maker and a label maker up front. And she would make these CDs with the NHPR logo. And there was something – it was like I didn't realize how bad my programming decision was until I saw the CD that said Atheism and Buzzy, the Funeral Home Cat.

Buzzy Jellison, by the way, the Funeral Home Cat. Oh, you actually found it. It's on Amazon. You can buy it in hardcover for $7.40.

Aviv, you can still buy that book on Amazon in hardcover. Okay, thank you. Oh, thank goodness. I couldn't remember what the first segment was. I knew it was something somewhat serious. Thank you for completing me as always

Yeah you got it

Okay bye

That was great You know there's also I mean maybe this is obvious And I just arrived at this thought late But not only are those just topically Kind of sort of weird to have them abutting But also you sort of have some thematic thing Which is like there's no heaven You're not going anywhere And then when you die I guess there's a cat at the funeral But it's like talking about atheism Before talking about a funeral home Also feels somehow kind of connected

Yeah you know what Maybe my mistake there was not finding the connective tissue that was automatically there. You may or may not believe in God, but you've got to believe in cats coming up. Right.

The transition is, I mean, listen, when you're dead, it's all over for you, but it's going to be hard for your loved ones when they visit the funeral home, and that's where Buzzy Jellison comes in, the funeral home cat.

So I guess Jellison didn't probably fit on the CD, right?

Right. Wait, I actually, no, I mean, I feel like Buzzy the Funeral Home Cat is a snappier name than Buzzy Jellison. Yeah, I think so, too. I think a little bit of a little bit of editing. Oh, wait, is the person named Buzzy Jellison? I thought that was the name of the cat, but I don't know. I'm getting, okay, Jellison Funeral Home and Cremation Service. No, Buzzy Jellison is, I believe that is the name of the cat. So, and I'm now on their website. The Jellison Funeral Home and Cremation Service is a pretty decent website there in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Okay, so it's – I see. So they named the Cat Buzzy Jellison after the Jellison Funeral Home. That's right. I see. Gotcha.

Okay.

Well, there you go. Free promo. We'd like to welcome new sponsor, Jellison Funeral Home of Peterborough, New Hampshire, for all of your funereal needs.

I'm looking for – unfortunately, again, this was an era when we were burning CDs and not apparently posting things to the internet. So this must have been very early 2000s, which seems like I don't know. It's hard for me to realize that even in the early 2000s, not every radio show I did went up on the Internet, that that that these are just that was a big part.

That was a big part of of producing a radio show back in the day was that spindle of CDs. And you're always like burning things to CDs and like archiving them. And that was the big archive for a lot of those, you know, a lot of shows. It was like – and when you needed to play a segment from a previous era – in fact, somewhere there's a spindle of TBTL CDs. Really? Oh, yeah. Sean may have it still. I'm not sure. But like after every show, Sean used to burn the whole show onto CD. That was a whole thing. You know who else is still doing that? Our friend Nora McInerney of Terrible Thanks for Asking. I was recording a little segment with her. I had already mentioned this the other day. But she was at her home In Arizona Where we actually had to do The last day of the TV telethon After our van broke down And she had a spindle of CDs And I was like what is that And she goes my 95 year old uncle in Wisconsin Doesn't have a You know smartphone or anything And he wanted to hear my radio show So I burn him CDs of the show And send them to him in Wisconsin

Oh I love that so much

Isn't that just the most adorable thing ever? Yes. I'm also glad that you're able to help Nora out. I know that you guys have a good friendship and I'm sure you guys help each other out in a lot of different ways. But I'll tell you what, Luke, I'm being serious about this. Every now and then I'll just be going about my business and then I'll remember how much Nora saved our bacon in Arizona and how gracious she and her whole family were when we like really kind of threw a bit of a wrench into their plans before they were going on a big road trip, which isn't something that we said at the time. But like that was such an awkward moment for them just to invite us into their house as they're leaving and just hand us the keys. And I always literally and yeah, literally handing us the keys of their house. And in the moment, I'm like, we are going to do something so nice for Nora. We're going to blow her mind with an appreciative gift. And I never thought of anything. And then I just went on with my life. And I still feel guilty about that. Listeners, if you can think of something that I could do for Nora that would just really show the deep appreciation that we have, hit me up at andrewattbtl.net. I'm clearly not coming up with any good ideas.

Right, because imagine – yeah, we didn't want to say it at the time because we weren't going to be like, hey, guess who's not going to be at their house for a month? Nora's family. But they were, in fact, leaving that day for like a two-month road trip slash summer vacation. And, you know, they got a ton of kids. It's a lot. I mean, I'm not saying this to throw you under the bus, Andrew. Let's just imagine. Yes, I think the turtle made an appearance on the show. I think I misreferenced the turtle.

Is it a tortoise? Is that what we got in trouble for?

I somehow messed up either the name or the kind of animal it was. And I think that Nora and her family ended up listening to the episode somewhere on their drive. And they were like, the kids were throwing their phones. The kids were barring their parents' phones and then throwing them out the window. But like, not to throw you under the bus, Andrew, but let's imagine you and Genevieve were about to go on a week-long road trip. it's the morning of and someone calls you and is like hey could I just come over to your house and do my show from your studio right like how much that would mess with you because and me too you know what I mean like when you're in a mode of like this is what we have to do today for someone to be like actually could we just totally throw that plan out the window and for for Nora and her husband and her kids to just be like yeah sure come over it'll be fine like it was the

nicest thing they could have possibly done yeah and you know it's funny you give that example and as high strong as I am I'm just being honest here it kind of depends on who it was and like what their level of you know their level of knowledge about how to run this equipment in my office like what that is like if it was you or even like I'm thinking like my friend Nikki or other people who I'm very familiar with who are familiar with this setup I actually wouldn't have any issue just saying okay here's the key you know where to leave it and feel free but what we were doing was even more than that it wasn't like we're just like hey Nora has a studio we're just gonna hop in and use it quickly because we're radio professionals it was can we come in and set up like with a bunch of equipment that we're bringing set up some cockamamie scheme outside on your patio it was just like it was so much more disruptive than that too you know what I mean it would be like if somebody came over and said okay we need to bring all this equipment we're gonna do it on your roof deck which really you're not supposed to do because you the landlord is below you know what I mean like it was just I just felt like we came in as a whirlwind and then I also carry this extra guilt of remember I left a box behind after having like four days of pretty successful shows then you know we're scrambling our van is broken down and I left an important box in the van and so we had to start borrowing I kept saying like okay we're gonna come in we're not gonna we're not gonna ask them for anything and then like I'm asking Norris husband I'm like I'm not gonna ask you for anything except an extension cord except for this very specific um adapter that goes from this to this except for a tripod except i could use somebody could just rub my shoulders a little bit because i'm about to go live like i just kept asking for things and they're literally trying to

walk out the door well i came up with the perfect gift for norris i'm way ahead of you i mailed her a spindle of tbtl cdrs so she and her family have entertainment for years to come it would be more valuable if they were cdrw so she can overwrite them with her own show and send it to her uncle yeah exactly all right uh let's take a quick break and when we come back uh we're going to play uh the 10 happiest songs and we'll do the blurs days as well stay with us this year this is tbtl time to thank some donors of the day these are the wonderful generous people making today's episode possible with their donation we really do appreciate folks like cheryl axel out there in Bellevue, Washington, Andrew's top five most visited place in the last month, Bellevue, Washington. Yeah, that is true.

It's funny how that works, man. There can be a part of town that you don't visit for years, and then suddenly you find yourself.

there in the exact same place like three days in a row meet you at gilbert's on maine cheryl and thank you for the donation yes angela barrera is in corpus christi texas beautiful corpus christi texas body of christ a town that looms large in my mind from the time that i was there when dick cheney shot someone in the face they spent a week just in a field waiting for someone to come out of the hospital and make a statement they never did were you aren't i was not i mean i was armed with a microphone and a sat like a sat phone and a producer but uh ironically you might have had a shotgun microphone probably did that was probably in the kit somewhere it's weird to think about god this is a very like radio specific day for us like this is not we're not even by our standards Really not broadcasting today But it's weird to think of how much gear We used to have to lug around To just do like Something that you can definitely do From your phone now Like if you were going to do A live hit on ATC Or Morning Edition Or all things considered You needed this giant suitcase satellite phone That had like a tri-fold thing That was literally communicating With a satellite So that you would sound like You were like Not in the same room Because you're standing outside somewhere But so you would sound like you were in full fidelity when Melissa Block was asking you questions.

Did you I mean, you were a reporter for NPR. So at times you must have gone out with like a producer who was actually holding the microphone for you. I will say that when I saw that, I always thought that was because I was, you know, a local public radio producer. And I always thought that was a little extra, especially if like a reporter would like maybe try to do that at the local level. But I guess I understand it a little bit better now. Like if you're if you're like a serious reporter and you're out there interviewing somebody like having your brain free not to be checking the levels and making sure that like every two minutes you got to look down to make sure that you're still rolling. I understand how that could be distracting at the time when I was a producer. I was like seriously you can't hold a microphone and talk at the same time.

You know that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that. But yeah I had a number of I mean it sort of depended like if the story was big enough then they might assign you a producer. But then there were also many stories where you didn't have a producer You just were sort of out there doing your own thing Like when I was standing in a parking lot in Virginia Trying to get people to comment on what was going on with the governor And I was in a Home Depot and everybody thought I was panhandling And it emotionally scarred me to this day I didn't have a producer then I wish I would have I wish I would have had Angela Barrera there helping me How about Marcus Hum in Seattle, Washington Marcus, thank you so much for the donation Cindy Laudermilk is in Maple Valley, Washington. Nicholas Lay is in Pottstown, PA. Classic. Pottstown, Pennsylvania. I actually think I might have a cousin that lives in Pottstown. I got cousins spread all over PA. Is that Pottstown? I don't think so, but who knows? Like Cooperstown? Cooperstown? Yesterday was the Hall of Fame induction ceremony Like Derek Jeter went in Also Larry Walker from the Colorado Rockies I mean, I think Larry Walker was a good player But I was like, wow, Hall of Fame material? And anyway, all I could think of was Cooperstown

Yeah, I know And that whole thing started with me just I wasn't trying to make a joke, right? I legitimately misspoke

It was just a small little thing You said Cooperstown instead of Cooperstown And then as we do on the show, we made a big mountain out of that molehill. I think it may be because I was was that back when I was doing that weird, impromptu cross country trip?

I think it was. And I think that I mean, it's just like it's Cooperstown. Like, it's not just I mispronounced a name of a city like it's Cooperstown represents so much more. It's not the name of the city. It's a it's a it's where baseball players go. You know what I mean? I just mean, it's literally an iconic name. You beat up on my friend Andrew. I'm not even beating up because I think it's one of the funniest mistakes I've ever made. Like, it just is funny. Cooperstown. Someday, Luke, I'll make it to Cooperstown at the Podcasting Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Ontario. How great would it be?

Right? There is a Cooperstown somewhere, and that's where the Podcasting Hall of Fame is, and that's where we're going one day. And then Ann Vu is right here in Portland, Oregon. Ann, thank you for supporting the show. Thanks to all of our donors. Thanks for making it a thing that we can do for our job, this here, TBTL. We really do appreciate y'all. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right, this is actually a sort of a slightly older article.

but it just made its way into my, or across the wires for me. The question of what makes a song, why do certain songs make us feel happy? And there was actually a band called Alba, not Abba, Andrew, but Alba. They're a Dutch band, and they wanted to find out how to basically write a happy song, a song that's going to make people feel good. And so they reached out to a scientist named Dr. Jacob Jolige, and this Dr. Jacob Jolige, who's a neuroscientist, put the call out to people to basically send in the songs that made them the most happy. And then this doctor took that list of songs that had received the most nominations, I guess, and then studied those songs. He found that the happiest tunes are slightly faster than your average song. So between 140 and 150 beats per minute on average Songs that are written in a major key So I guess a song that's not in a minor key Which that sort of checks out You know, a minor key is obviously going to give you Kind of a downbeat feeling And then songs that are either about happy events Or complete nonsense Those are all the characteristics, I guess Of songs that tend to make people happy

I was getting a little bit nervous here because I really don't want to ruin this segment. This reminds me, and it sounds like this is very different, but this reminds me of a This American Life episode that I loved, but this is going back like 15 years at least, where they took a bunch of characteristics of happy songs and then I believe This American Life hired somebody to incorporate all of those sounds into a single song, but it also broke it down by instrumentation. And, like, children's voices were supposed to be part of it. And certain, like, and, like, I want to say, like, not bassoons, but tuba. I remember this episode.

And then they played the song, and it was just, like, it was from the depths of hell.

It was so bad. It was like when you use every crayon. Yes, yes. You know, and, like, it just ends up being this weird brown color that's sort of, like, the worst. Actually, I found this on the This American Life website. They actually have this song. Can you play it?

I'll play it for you. Yeah. Oh, my God. I knew it. I knew you did that too quickly. I realized as I said, can you play it?

Anyway, I do remember that episode, though. This, I think, is slightly – is a different piece of research, if you will, if we can call this research or call this a scholarly article. Basically, they also then went and picked songs that were very popular, already popular. Let's see. He combined these factors into a formula for the happiest song possible, then went searching for existing hits that matched the template. So if you don't like this list, I'm just explaining that this is how we got to these songs. So this scientist said, like, it's certain beats per minute. It's in a major key. It's about happy topics or complete nonsense. And then it kind of made this framework for what kind of song makes people feel happy and then went out and found popular songs that had these characteristics. Okay. Okay. Is Yellow Submarine on the list? It is not on the list. The number 10 song, according to science, that makes people the most happy is... Oh, yeah, okay. That took me a second. Walking on Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves. By the way My computer is doing that thing Where when I play Spotify It's very like kind of The audio quality is low Is this going to be annoying? Do I need to go get my other laptop?

I didn't notice in that case So let's keep going here It might be bassier songs or worse So what era is this song? I know this song It feels like it's just always been around Is this 80s or is this 70s maybe?

Katrina and the Waves I remember when this song came out Oh you do? loved it i was very young i must have been like i'm i'm on spotify now so maybe you can google it

but my guess would be like 83 83 is exactly it my friend off the album walking on sunshine because don't uh don't hide your light under a bushel there yeah man i um i yeah this was one of the

i feel like this is one of the first pop songs that i was aware of being you know released and loving it and the video too i mean it's i think it's katrina from katrina and the waves is just is just kind of um you know vibing and having a good time and i just remember thinking this might be the best song ever written wow so that is the number 10 song on the list that makes people feel happy the number nine song on the list is I don't think I knew how much funky guitar there was at the beginning.

You know, as the song was starting, I was gonna say I've never really liked This song that much But it's just because It's overplayed And overperformed At karaoke But I think If I'd heard this song For the first time Right now I think I would have to admit This is a pretty dope song Yeah

You have to I mean that sort of

Happens to songs sometimes Like they're a victim Right? Of their own success Like the Sopranos Gabagool song

Yeah Exactly This is not the one That was covered By that Oh, shoot, man. I can't even think of the name of the band. A one-word band. Buzzy the Cat. Buzzy. It was Buzzy. No, what was the band that was annoying? They had a song about a fast car, I think, and also I feel like they covered this. Never mind. Tracy Chapman? I'll work at it. I just heard those sentences come out of my mouth, and I realized that that's not enough information. I'll figure it out.

Oh, yeah. You're thinking of cake.

I'm thinking of Cake Yes, I'm thinking of Cake We have been doing this show too long I mean, if we ever go on one of those types of Team-em-up game show situations I mean, more than Although, Genevieve's pretty good at Interpreting my nonsense, too But if we had Password or something But what did Cake cover? Didn't they do something like this?

Well, they had a song that was like He's going the distance, he's going for speed That's exactly what I meant there And they do a cover of this song as well, I believe.

They do cover I Will Survive.

And I know we have listeners that love cake, so the band and the food. So I don't want to harsh anyone's vibe. But yeah, it's not probably my favorite music either. Okay, the number eight song that neuroscientists, this one neuroscientist one time, decided— He's a very young, cool neuroscientist. It's going to make you feel happy, the number eight song. It starts off a little slow. It takes me right back to Daniel Bagley Elementary School.

It's funny, both of these songs start off ominous. I know, right? Good point. You recognize this, right? I know what I'm having trouble placing. It's not Def Leppard. Once you start singing

He's going the distance

Le Bon Jovi, Living on a Prayer.

Yeah. I'm surprised. This doesn't seem to have the attributes that those scientists were talking about, right? This has a bit of an ominous fear.

I think it's more when you get into this part of the song. When it starts key changing and it's very anthemic and it's very, like, you know, this part. I'm with you, though. The overall song, I mean, it's very, like, you know, sing-alongable, but it has a kind of a little bit of a wistful kind of, I mean, you know, Tommy used to work on the docks. Yeah. Union went on strike. He's down on his luck. It's tough. So tough. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. Sheena dreams of running away. And it takes a long time to get to the happy part. Yeah.

I, man, I loved this song when I was a kid, though. I loved Bon Jovi so much. I told you, my cousins, speaking of people that are spread all over PA, why does that sound dirty? My cousins had, I don't think, not one, but two different dogs that were named for Bon Jovi.

I don't know if I knew this. Is one called Bon and the other one Jovi?

No, one was named Jovi, and then, like, Jovi died, and then, like, the next one was named, like, something else Bon Jovi-related. Slippery when wet. Yeah, yeah. Get in here, slippery when wet. Now, that does sound dirty. All right, so that's the number eight song, the number seven song to make you happy.

This makes me happy. Sure does. And it gets right into the happiness, too. I also had no idea how much Cyndi Lauper was suffering from psoriasis until I started seeing those Cosentics out. Oh, right. I feel like Cyndi Lauper is a little slept on, like, for how many amazing songs that she... I mean, you know what I mean? True Colors, this song.

Oh, I love True Colors so much. Makes me cry. It really does I don't know much by her I only know like the big hits But I love them so much It doesn't make sense that I have not explored her back catalog Because it seems like stuff that I would be into

Yeah, I bet you I could see you having a Cyndi Lauper phase Like one of these days you're going to be like You know what, I was at Teddy's And I was working the jukebox And I got into a Cyndi Lauper thing And now all I listen to is Cyndi Lauper But like the deep cuts

Yeah, I need to do that I'm putting that on my list But I'm really glad the song is on there

I know Also just an incredible performance by Captain Lou Albano The wrestling manager As her kind of harried father I think In the video for this Remember Captain Lou Albano He had like rubber bands through his face No

Did you watch pro wrestling much when you were a kid No no I didn't I watched my friend Was it not allowed in your household Or were you just not interested I don't think I was super interested in it I mean, I remember it being a cultural phenomenon. I remember those rubber action dolls that didn't really bend. Like, I never quite got the attraction to them. They were, what, like four times bigger than a G.I. Joe and didn't have joints, you know? And then I remember, I think, my friend Don Moore, like, pulled his nipples off of his Hulk Hogan. Anyway, that's a detail for you. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So there was this wrestler who then became, like, a manager that was big in kind of, like, the WWF. Back before WWF lost the rights To call themselves WWF To the World Wildlife Foundation Now they had to be the WWE There was this guy Captain Lou Albano Who his big shtick was He had like stuck rubber bands through his face Or he had like a piercing in his cheek That he would hang rubber bands from Which I just thought was the most just like I mean I didn't even know how he was still alive After doing that But then he also plays I think he's like Cyndi Lauper's dad In the girls just want to have fun video And all the girls are just having fun And I feel like my memory is he's, like, confused or just wants the girls to not have fun. He wants everyone to calm down, but they're not having it.

I got to say, I understand why girls want to have fun. But I also, generally speaking, in my life, feel like everybody needs to calm down. So I can kind of see both sides of this. I'm kind of scrubbing through the video as we speak. I was not as familiar with this. I realized when you started to talk about her dad, my brain automatically went to the video for Papa Don't Preach by Madonna. And I think that's a famous actor who I'm just blanking on his name, right? Oh, really? Let me see.

Yeah, who plays her dad in it.

Yeah. And that, what a weird song if you think about it. So Papa Don't Preach is basically a pro-life song? You know, I'm now just thinking about this for the first time. Yeah, because she's saying I'm keeping my baby. But, like, is she keeping her?

In Texas, you can get $10,000 if you report someone not liking the song Papa Don't Preach.

That is sad but true. Dark. It is sad. You have to laugh. Through the pain But I believe that was Majority opinion by the Supreme Court so yeah Yes it was But in this case Does my baby mean my lover That's a good question

No you know what I think he is Because daddy daddy If you could only see I'm going to keep my baby Maybe that's what she's Singing about I don't know But also she is Madonna was like famously Sort of Catholic in Her earlier days That's true yeah So who knows I'm sure some listener Knows the real story there Okay the number sixth song, Andrew, that's going to make you feel happy on this Blur's Day is

Smash Mouth. This is sunshine in a bottle right here. I love this song. I love the monkeys. Did you have a favorite monkey? No, but I feel like this was probably was this one of the Neil Diamond written ones? Oh, I bet.

This is one of those songs that if you sing it in Neil Diamond's voice, it makes sense. Then I saw her face. Yeah, right? Like, oh, yeah, I can hear that. Like Red, Red Wine or whatever. There are those songs that once you realize Neil Diamond wrote them, you can just totally hear Neil Diamond singing them.

It was Danny Aiello in that Papa Don't Preach video, by the way. Oh, Danny Aiello. And this 100% was written by Neil Diamond. I just fact-checked that, too.

Nice job. You're my fact-checking cuz. That's right. All right, so that's the number six song, the number five song that neuroscience says will make you happy. I don't know. This one is kind of like. It's more like Bon Jovi. It's more like we'll make you pumped. I also feel like intros used to be longer in the 80s.

Yeah, I know, right? Like the credits to a TV show

Exactly We just had more time or something It's just like I have no attention span anymore It's like, come on, Survivor Get to the Play the working overtime workout part what's interesting this is from rocky four really i would have thought that was the first rocky rocky four rocky four that's i mean that's what that's what Spotify says that's crazy I would have assumed this was literally like you know that he's run well I guess he's not running up the steps to this music he's running up the steps to this is the part of the song part of the show where I just sing music I don't have it in front of me so he's definitely in Rocky one he's doing something else but this is so identified with Rocky to me I'm surprised it took till Rocky four for them to make it let me fact

check that. I mean, only because you're seeing that on Spotify and it could be just the way it's categorized. It might just be the album they released it. Yeah, yeah. Let me see here, because Rocky... Rocky 3. So later than I thought, but it's actually... Yeah. It was the theme song for the 1982 film, Rocky 3.

And then, didn't they do... Didn't Survivor do that song, In the Burning Heart, which was like a kind of a... It's like a knock-up of their own song, and I feel like that one is in some other movie that Camaro Kev loves that he has on Blu-ray.

Burning Heart is a song by Survivor. It was sung by Jimmy Jameson and it appeared in the 1985 film Rocky IV. Oh, so basically they were like,

this went well for Rocky III, Survivor. Can you write a different song that sounds pretty much like Eye of the Tiger? And they were like, absolutely, can do.

It's actually, I believe, True Blood Part III, Rocky IV is the actual thing. Okay, that's the one. Yeah.

That's the one. There's this scene in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Danny DeVito's character is just talking about something that happened to him. He was like, I was hitchhiking through Oregon. And then the military comes. And he's basically just describing the plot of Rambo. It takes like five minutes. And we're like, that's just Rambo. You're just telling us the story of Rambo now.

All right. Hey, I found a really interesting. This is an actual headline. I love that the New York Times, unlike New Hampshire Public Radio and Buzzy the Funeral Home Cat, the New York Times did, you know, go back to its archives and upload all of this stuff. I'm actually looking at an article from 1986 about Papa Don't Preach. The headline is Madonna's new beat is a hit, but songs message rankles. And it is, you know, they're talking to people like in the pro-choice community who are saying, like, this is a bad this is a this is a bad message. It's message, said the executive director of Planned Parenthood, is that getting pregnant is cool and having the baby is the right thing and a good thing. And don't listen to your parents, the school, anybody who tells you otherwise. Don't preach to me, Papa. The reality is that what Madonna is suggesting to teenagers is a path to permanent poverty. So that is a lot of peas, dude. It really is. So that is Planned Parenthood, colon, paths to permanent poverty.

Could you get I need you to get that pee popper on your mic. Wow. OK. So I had like a kind of a fuzzy – I'm sorry. I had like a buzzy memory of that from my childhood, of that being kind of a – I remember we had this one student in second grade. We used to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and she was like – she came to the school like midway through the year, which just gave her cachet anyway.

You know what I mean?

Like a new kid. You're like, oh, OK. What's their story? And when we would finish the Pledge of Allegiance She would say born and unborn Like just herself She was clearly coming from I think she was very Catholic Her parents were very Catholic But I seem to remember I don't know if it was her or somebody else I remember there being a conversation around that song So I'm glad to know I didn't totally imagine it Yeah Alright, the number four song, Andrew That's gonna get you going On a Thursday morning And feeling happy Oh, goddammit Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh This is a thing for me, because I know it's like people like to dunk on Billy Joel, and I'm not a big fan of just like dunking on whatever society wants to dunk on in the moment. You know, like I just think that's a stupid bandwagon to get on. But somehow in the past couple of years, I have gone from being basically net neutral on him to negative. And I think the reason is Kixi Radio. I turn on my Kixi Radio, which is supposed to be music is cool now as it was then, or their new slogan, which I don't know if I've told you about this. but their new slogan for Kixi Radio is music that will make you feel cool again, which is just so deflating. Wow, that's great. No, that's good. I mean, it's kind of great, but also it's kind of like, it makes you start to wonder, when did I stop feeling cool? I mean, it is implied that everybody who's listening at some point stopped feeling cool, and now we're going to make you feel cool again. It makes you think about your life more than I would like to in that moment. But I will say that I'll be bopping along to some great hits from the 50s and 60s and then they'll just throw a Billy Joel song in there from the 80s or 90s because he sounds like that and it's just like it's it's just it's not okay it doesn't rest well with me it totally it totally ruins the vibe and it's kind

of made me dislike him well I'm I'm gonna get the email address for this professor in the Netherlands who made this list and you can email him and tell him this song is not making you happy now when we were out uh camping last weekend with becca's family somebody had the idea because i told you that like both her brothers actually like dj things events parties weddings the like so they have like a real pro her brother jeff has this like real pro setup and so we ended up both nights just doing karaoke in this field which was super fun actually and somebody had the idea just we're only doing billy joel songs and so there were more billy joel songs i mean also i had been drinking and it was fun to just kind of sing along in this field. But I was actually, as a person who doesn't, I don't self-identify as a Billy Joel fan per se. I was sort of surprised at how many songs I actually really liked by him. Because I have in my life kind of dunked on Billy Joel a little bit because I saw a tweet once that I thought described it pretty accurately. And I know, listen, I'm sure we have listeners who love, love, love Billy Joel. So I'm not trying to get on the wrong side of them. But somebody said, Billy Joel, a lot of people who think they like rock music because they like Billy Joel just like musicals. which is kind of describes it like Billy Joel. I think he writes great songs that most of which could be in a musical and it's maybe less rock and roll music. Although ironically, he does say it's still rock and roll to me in one of his hit songs. What's that? What's the matter with the clothes I wear?

Is it only rock and roll to me?

It's still rock and roll to me. I believe is the lyric. I'm not sure. But anyway, I was, I was like, Oh, he did this song and I was like singing along. I like, And also, you know, I'm kind of into that Zanzibar song now.

Oh yeah. That one didn't, Didn't it come on when you were shopping, and at first you didn't like it? Oh, no, no. He's had another song about a ship that you hate.

That song I still hate. I heard that in a quilting shop in Hamilton, Missouri, or somewhere in Missouri, and I had to shazam it so that I never hear it again, so that I know to avoid it at all costs. To avoid it. Exactly. Okay. The number four song, excuse me, the number three song that's going to have you feeling good, Andrew, is... Where do you land on the Beach Boys?

I, you know, the Beach Boys had various iterations and vibes.

And so, like, I generally... How do you feel about the Mike Love-helmed Beach Boys with John Stamos on the drums? I'm unfamiliar with that era.

This song, it's funny. That's the modern era. Maybe it's because Pet Sounds is the album that was kind of attractive to more indie fans like me back in the day, but there's so much sadness kind of baked into that record, and the sound, and Wouldn't It Be Nice, that even hearing this song, it still gives me that sort of, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's funny that this doesn't feel like, even though it's a happy song, it's literally good vibrations. It doesn't feel like a happy song if you're only picking 10 out of all of the songs in the world.

I don't know if I've ever listened to the song God Only Knows without tearing up a little bit. Yeah. Like, that is one of the most emotionally, like, wrenching songs. Even though it's, I mean, it's a generally positive song, right? It's like, you know, celebrating. somebody who's really appreciative that they have someone in their life. But it just, that song just guts me.

Yeah. Also, that's the one that's used in the Michael Moore documentary, Roger and Me, or no? Oh, is it? He uses one of those Beach Boys songs in a, I believe it might be the rabbit killing scene. I'm not sure. He uses a Beach Boys song in a very, very powerful way in that movie that I just forever kind of changed the way I hear their music.

All right, the number two song, Andrew. This one will not disappoint because it is very upbeat and actually kind of timely right now because of the news. It just occurred to me. I mean, we mentioned Abba the other day because they're getting their avatars together to do these shows in London. And I also mentioned that our friend Bean was very excited about that. He lives in London. Yeah, that's right. I wonder if he's getting tickets.

Actually, I need to come like several episodes behind on his show, but I'll bet he's talking about it. That's what I should do. Yeah. Listen to the dang show. Cup of Tina chat.

So does this song make you feel happy?

Yes, although I'm kind of looking. I'm wondering if this would be the ABBA song that I would have picked as far as happiness is concerned. They have a lot.

I mean, they have just so much. I know I just talked about it yesterday, but Waterloo, I think it is. Although, again, the topic of Waterloo, because remember, part of the framework for this is that the song was supposed to be about a happy topic or nonsense. Oh, right. Yeah. And so, I don't know, Waterloo is a specific topic That we just talked about the other day

And also, you know, I might go with this one If I'm doing ABBA

Super trooper beams are gonna blind me But I won't feel blue

You know this? No Like I always do Let it kick in

Cause somewhere in the crowd there's blue

I know where Prince got Manic Monday from. Is that what this sounds like? It sounds very much like the beginning of Manic Monday to me.

I like this song, though. I don't know if I've heard it. Yeah, it's called Super Trooper. And you know me. I like soup. So, yeah.

I'm saving up for a Supercrackers myself. I know you are. To be my own boss. Yeah. All right. Any guesses as to the number one song? I would be shocked if you guessed it. It's kind of a rant. I mean, if you picked this, I would be totally shocked because it's like, I mean, it could be one of one million different songs.

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to say, okay, let me just do a little bit of process of elimination, okay? Yes. I'm going to say Not Black Sabbath. Okay. We're getting closer. How much time do we have? I'm going to say Not Pink Floyd. Okay. That's pretty good. How about this? It is. Probably Not the Chemical Brothers. How many bands do we have left? How many have I eliminated? Three.

There's seven bands left.

There's seven bands left. Total. Okay. In the world.

How about this? It's a British band. Mm-hmm.

People love trotting out the Beatles. Is it the Beatles? I hope it's not the Beatles. It's not the Beatles. Okay, good. I'm kind of glad. I mean, no, I'm not trying to dunk on the Beatles.

I'm actually surprised the Beatles didn't make this list. That is weird, right? If you're the scientist and you're like, these are the things that make people happy when they hear them in a song, and then you ask people to nominate songs. Like, how did, like, Octopus's Garden or some shit not end up in it?

Yeah, I was thinking, like, those Ringo, like, those doot, doot. That's why I said Yellow Submarine. When I'm 64. Yeah, or Yellow Submarine is kind of a nonsense song. But, okay, so a British band.

They're not together anymore because the lead singer has passed away. They were the subject of a hit biopic from a few years ago.

Oh, it's a Queen song. Yes. which one just play it i'm not good with all right here we go

oh there's the distortion there you go by the way so spotify is really spotify is really

bringing the pain on these albums this is just off of an album called jazz apparently by queen which i do not think was a queen record

I will say when this song gets going, though, it's pretty.

And sorry about the distortion. It's terrible. I mean, can we just talk about Freddie Mercury for a minute? I'll give you two. I'm not adding anything to the discourse by saying Freddie Mercury was talented, but geez Louise, this guy. I mean, if you woke me up from a dead sleep and you were like, Luke, top ten bands. I don't know if I would think of Queen as being on that list, but when I hear a Queen song and I start thinking about all of the Queen songs that I just love deeply, they've got to be in my top ten. Jazz is a record.

Really? Yeah, and it's got a lot of it. They had an album called Jazz. Yeah, it was their 11th studio record. It wasn't the greatest hits or anything, and it had Fat Bottom Girls on it and Bicycle Race, which I think is another pretty famous one by them. I'm not a big Queen person. I didn't listen to a lot of Queen growing up. I'm pretty agnostic on Queen. I know that's not a very popular opinion. I don't dislike Queen. It's unpopular with me. Never really got into it much, but yeah.

Wow. So that's their 11th album. Because those are some, I mean, those are Fat Bottom Girls, Don't Stop Me Now, and Bicycle Race are all, like, those would be very popular Queen songs.

Yeah, and that's 1978. So their 11th record in 1978. So they were doing a lot before then that I didn't realize.

here's my hot take just because i don't think i've sufficiently annoyed the listeners today i feel like bohemian rhapsody is not even in the top 10 of queen songs i mean bohemian rhapsody is kind of a marvel and it's just like in its ambition and its epicness and its kind of weirdness so i sort of have to tip my cap because it's almost just like he just wrote like a i don't know a mini opera or something like it's a feat of songwriting to me and singing but it's like not my favorite song by Queen not even close you know what you know what I'm not good at

reading it's their seventh record not their 11th now in my defense that rhymes but and 7-11 is a thing 7-11 is a thing but if we're going to be very kind of strict about the facts here 7 and 11 are different numbers this would be their seventh album okay so there you go that is the

complete list of the songs that will make you the happiest unless you're andrew in which very few of

those songs make you happy yeah you know i'm trying to think what i would put first i need to think about that i'll come back tomorrow with that i mean i'm not a scientist obviously so what do i know about music but um yeah i don't know that i would have put queen at the very top of the list

but again you know these things are subjective i'm trying to think i'm trying to answer that question for myself which is like what song just makes me feel most predictably oh i know just

fills me with happiness what about my boy lollipop by millie small do you know this song this is often credited this is like a very early song i'll have to look up the details i'm going to play it here off of spotify though okay this is a very early song that some say like introduced the idea of that um kind of ska sound i mean this is very early it's you have to it's not a ska song it's an oldie um bart scompson but that kind of introduced a little bit of that beat to popular culture here in the state here this is my boy lollipop by millie small okay

oh no you don't know this song i don't

I love this song, and I used to play it a lot. It turns out, in my friend group, I'm one of the only people who likes this song a lot.

Well, at first, I said, oh, no, because I found the voice to be sort of weird. Uh-huh. But then I kind of liked it. Yeah, I legit like it. Yeah. And this makes you happy, right? Have you? This is a... It does make me happy. I like this kind of stuff, though. Yeah. There you go. Have you listened to Donda or the new Drake album, Certified Loverboy?

I have not listened to the new Drake at all. I'm hearing good things. I tried listening to a little bit of Donda. I had a friend over here, though, and, like, we just kept saying, like, everybody keeps trying to listen to it. Like, I made it through the first track, which is him just – or to somebody just saying the word Donda over and over, apparently, to the – I learned later that it's supposed to be replicating his mother's heartbeat. And then the second song Which is just like It's just It's the sound of Kanye that I do not like Which is just like long whiny electric guitars Kind of droning on over a quasi beat I was just like I really wanted to try And I still will But like I just keep on hearing stories of people who keep trying And then giving up on listening to it

I don't know if this is a lyric from Don I'm sorry.

or this is just something that Kanye was doing somewhere in a performance? Because, again, I haven't listened to Donda, and the creation of that album was so just sort of tortured and forever-taking. But there is this clip kind of going around the Internet of Kanye performing the line, they should have never let Michael Jordan play for the Wizards. He's just singing. He's just being Kanye. He's real in his feelings, I mean, to borrow a Drake line. And then he just, like, part of it is he's just like, and also they should have never let Michael Jordan play for the Wizards, which I feel like it's one of the most genius lines in music ever because I very much agree with the sentiment. And also, yes, I love the specificity of that. So if that is a track on Donda, I am going to look that up and listen to it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I tweeted way back in March of this year because I knew I had a Billy Joel tweet related to rock and roll, and I tweeted – I don't know why I'm sharing this with you. It's just like, as we've been talking, I've been Googling and searching a bunch of things. On March 26th of this year, I did tweet, there's something comforting about knowing that it's all still rock and roll to Billy Joel. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really give you a lot to work with there.

You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but one

I like to think that somewhere deep in the headquarters of HBO Max somebody is looking at the numbers and saying why are the numbers for mouse hunt ticking up all of a sudden i got a tweet from listener bett who says that mouse hunt is indeed on hbo max and is planning on watching it we were talking with a colleague who's also a listener john in a in a business meeting yesterday we hadn't honestly got business meeting yesterday he knew a lot about mouse hunt and he says he wants to revisit it again like i like to think that somebody notices these little blips and has no idea where they're but on to the blurs day magic did i send you the blurs days luke do you have them yes i've got them right in front of me you want me to kick it off oh sure if you're ready to do it to it my dude

yeah first of all the first one comes from our friend hey lloyd a formerly of medford oregon now in cool comma california is that to say our friend lloyd literally lives in a place called

cool california that is indeed the fact we were mad at lloyd i think recently for moving i remain angry at Lloyd. Right. But when you find out that he moved to a place called Cool, it's like, oh, yeah, right. Who wouldn't? Right? There's probably a bunch of, like, Snoopies

with sunglasses. They just ran out of names in California. You got Weed, California. You got Cool, California. You got Don't Harsh

My Buzz, Man, California.

Exactly. Lloyd says, please wish a happy Blur's Day to my IRL friend and the only other ten I know, Summer in Issaquah. She's great, and I will never forget nearly crashing the bike I was riding when I heard her name as a donor of the day a few years ago. I barely knew her through work, but now that we know we're both 10s, it's awesome. Happy birthday, Summer. Cool.

Cool. California. Cool. Hey, how about this? And I gotta say, I got a late night text message from this Blursdayer earlier this week, too, with a photo attached. Sam in St. Petersburg, Florida says, I want to wish A very happy day of blurs to my wonderful brand-new son, Griffin. And he told me in the text message, Griffin Henry is the name. I love that name so much. Cute. Sam says, Griffin was born on Tuesday, and his mother and I could not love him more. He is perfect in every way, and I can't wait to see the person he becomes. So happy blurs day to Griffin. Congratulations to Sam and Kim. The person better be a 10.

Yeah. Start him early. Carolyn from Chicago I want to wish a very happy birthday To Condi

This is blowing My mind This is a long time listener And friend of the show Who I have been calling Candy In Chicago I believe Condi even gave me my hot dog pin One of my hot dog pins

Yeah it was at the jog that we did at Greenland And I must have probably Mispronounced Condi's name

I feel so bad Condi I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt, Luke. Is that short for Condoleezza? Well, it's still spelled with an A, though.

Hmm. Okay. Well, Condi is in Chicago.

And Carolyn from Chicago says I've been listening for years Because Condi knew I would quote Get you bros bro-ing it up And she was right It's awesome being able to share TBTL lingo And not just get a blank stare back Only true tens understand Jalapeno Condi, have a great day Wow, yeah, that's That's late breaking news Considering how many times we have talked about Listener Condi on the show And totally mispronounced that

Sorry, Condi I'm sorry, Condi And also, I apologize in advance because I have a feeling, Luke, you have a really good, I feel like you're much better than me. You'll remember that. I will 100% forget. I've just been seeing that name, Candy in Chicago, for so long. I mean, from emails and just like, it's just so emblazoned in my brain.

Didn't she come on one of the Zoom things? I think so. And she had like a purse, some kind of involved purse.

See, you do remember details.

And I probably like introduced her by the wrong pronunciation of her name then too. I feel like we should. Sorry, Candy. Oh, I see. I already forgot.

Happy Blur's Day. Jerome says, I'm kindly submitting a Blur's Day message for my five. Lily, really, she's more of a seven and a half, as she'll trash talk you guys relentlessly. I take back my awe of cuteness. Until we're in the car together, then she asks to listen. Oh, okay. So then you get the awe back. Thursday the 9th is her golden birthday. Golden birthday. That means you're turning the age you turn on the date it is, right? So that means she's turning nine and her second day of school at a new school. Also, if I can get one of you to say turtle furt, it will make her laugh very hard. Now, Luke, I don't want to speak on behalf of you, but I refuse to say turtle furt. Like, that's not, I'm not going to say it. We actually have had a meeting with our bosses asking us not to say turtle furt on the show. And I won't say it in a funny voice like turtle furt. Like, I would never. Are you kidding me? What do you think we're doing here?

What is the oldest golden birthday that is possible on this planet, Andrew? I guess 31, right? All right. Okay. I was proud that I was able to do that math in my mind.

I guess it was less hard than I thought.

Rachel, a former Snoqualmie, Washington tent, and currently Cape Canaveral, Florida tent, says...

Stop moving.

I know. We've been very clear. We can barely remember how to pronounce your names. Stop moving around, people, because then we don't know what city you're from. It's really hard to keep track of all of this. Rachel says, I'd like to send an early Blur's Day message to myself. My actual birthday is on Sunday. Since I'm trying to convert my fiancé to an 11, he will get a kick out of this.

Whatever it takes, Rach. Now, do you think that is in relation to the conversation that I had yesterday? Because I said that nobody younger than me ever uses the phrase get a kick out of something. Oh, there's a smiley face.

Oh, I bet there's a little emoji, a smiley face emoji in the message. And I bet you that's Rachel referencing the fact that she's saying, get a kick out of it.

Maybe this there's also a chance that that came in before we had that conversation, in which case I called Rachel old. I apologize. But happy Blur's Day, Rachel.

Michael says, can you please wish Carolyn a happy 50th birthday? I am her 11, and I love her very much. She totally sends me. Thank you. Wait, you added that last part. I did.

But it was nice.

Also, I say this often during these moments of the show, but there's just nothing sweeter than somebody who doesn't probably really listen to the show taking the time to email us a Blur's Day message for their significant other or someone in their life who they know loves the show. I always find that extremely endearing. You know, when an 11 or somebody just reaches out and says, hey, I don't know what the hell you're doing, but this person I care about cares about what you're doing. So please say happy birthday to them.

Yeah, I I don't want to I don't want to dox Michael here, but Michael wrote in originally and just said, hi, can you wish Carolyn a happy birthday? And I said, yeah, do you want to have a do you want to like a longer message or anything? Like, here's a couple of examples. He said, well, you can say that she's turning 50 and that I love her very much. I'm like, OK, I think we can work with that. So I kind of turned it into those sentences. So did you add I'm her 11? No, I think he said I'm her 11. I think I added the very much. I'll be honest with you. I think he said tell her I love her. But I felt like I'm sure they're in paradise. You know, I mean, that's very sweet. But I thought like as an editor, I could punch up their love a little bit. Isn't that one of the happiest songs? Punch up my love. Punch up your love. Yeah. By Patti LaBelle. Oh, speaking of, why did I?

Isn't the human brain weird? You know why Patti LaBelle was in my mind? Because the next Blur's Day message is from listener Patti. Oh, yeah. Patti B. Patti B. Patti B says, I would like to wish Jenny a super-duper birthday. She is my best friend and also happens to work at the...

the same company as I do. We listen to the podcast every day. I love running into her office and cracking up together over something you guys say. We've been to many TBTL events together and look forward to seeing you guys again soon. Awesome. Aw, Patty, thanks for sending in the nice message for Jenny. Yeah, I love that. I love

it when co-workers also share TBTL together. And finally, John from Grand Rapids, Michigan says, Hi, I wanted to get into the Blur's Day action but i don't know any tens irl so happy blurs date to me on monday p.s if luke does the story about jimmy chin tell him hi from me we were friends in college carlton 96 so there's your minnesota connection to talk to him about too i'll tell you what john the only thing that luke is gonna say during this interview is jimmy you need to stop climbing walls you're putting yourself in

danger please stop just stop well you know what's funny andrew about that uh of course i mentioned on the show that there's a chance i might do a tv profile of him and then the producer said maybe we'll have you rock climbing or you know high up in the air somewhere doing part of the interview and i said sure because i hadn't really thought about it and um and then upon reflection i was like actually that does make maybe could be kind of scary i'm looking at a person who's window washing a different building here in portland and he so this guy was at the uh on the roof of the building on it's the same roof where they were shooting the like some kind of safety photography but the people were not actually safe safely roped in that i was talking about a few weeks back this is the same roof except this guy is very safely roped in he's got like double uh double ropes going but he had this moment where he had to just go over the edge of the top of the building so he's like he's all safety harness but there's still i mean because some really huge skyscrapers will have built-in machinery that's like a scaffolding type of thing that people just get in and then kind of lower themselves down like it's almost like an elevator of sorts but this was just a guy with a couple safety ropes that he hopes he tied correctly easing himself over the edge of a building that if he didn't tie it correctly he did and I was watching that happen while we were doing the show and I was like A I hope he tied the ropes correctly because I don't want to witness this and also I thought I don't think I could do that no I mean I know you Couldn't that's not even up for debate But I actually think I couldn't do that I don't Think I could have enough faith and he's Fine I'm watching him wash these windows Actually he did two things he dabbed up he Sort of touched up some paint because this Building has these like very involved murals On it he touched up Some paint and then he washed the windows I was like wow this is a full service dude

I was gonna ask does it look like he's I mean The important thing I mean safety is Important but number one is how cleaner these Windows getting is he doing a good job they look Leaving very clean from here streaks from what I can tell.

It looks like he's doing a great job. But yeah, just that moment of and anyway, if I have that moment with Jimmy Chin, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. If they're like, OK, you're all safe and harnessed. And now now here's where you ease yourself over the edge of El Capitan.

I really might lock up. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you're going to be on El Capitan, but like maybe could you make it a spoof where you're just like it looks at first like you're going over something big. but then the camera comes out and you're just like literally three feet off the ground, that would actually be kind of funny. That actually would be

kind of a funny spook.

Do I get an associate producer credit

if you do that? I got to talk to the union about that. They're pretty, you know, there's a lot of pretty strict rules in place, but I'll talk to the shop steward and see what they can set up. Great, thanks. I appreciate that.

What song should we go out with? Let's go with the full version of Love Take Me Down to the Streets that was on the role model soundtrack because we started with that intro tape about Love Take Me Down to the Streets and they did end up making a full song about it. Nice. Now, is this really Paul McCartney? No, no. It's just the absolute perfect parody of a Paul McCartney song. It's amazing.

All right. This is how we'll wrap things up today. Thanks for listening, folks. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. Stay safe, take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Love take down. Love, take me down where I'm longing to be Love, take me down to the streets

Love, take me down to the streets Cause when you don't get fed at home So gotta give the dogs home Take that love into the streets Come on Yeah, we stand Open and honest

my 11 has turned into a casual 10 and now he won't stop singing playing and just referencing that gabagool thing so thanks power out