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Chapter 1: What is the significance of 'Drops of Jupiter' 25 years later?
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Charlie, I'm going to name some things, and you tell me what they make you think of, okay? Okay, okay. Mozart, Taibo, fried chicken, and the best soy latte that you've ever had. Powdered wigs, kickboxing, gross. You're not a fan of fried chicken? Oh, fried chicken. No, no, I forgot the fried chicken. Scrumptious and disgusting. Soy latte. Okay, well. I'm an almond guy.
So you have an individual reaction to all the scenes, but when you put them together, what does it make, Charles? Drops of Jupiter.
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance, five-hour phone conversation, the best soy latte that you ever had?
And today on the pod, we're going to talk to Train's lead singer and songwriter, Pat Monaghan, about why we can't stop listening to this song 25 years after its release. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And before we dive into my conversation with Pat, I want to give a quick crash course on this band, okay? Train.
They form in San Francisco in 1993, and their first hit comes five years later, 1998. It's a song called Meet Virginia. Very good. Oh, yeah.
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Chapter 2: How did Pat Monahan come to write 'Drops of Jupiter'?
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all fading? And that heaven is overrated. Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star? One without a permanent scar. And then you missed me while you were looking for yourself.
It's a timeless classic. If I could play piano just like that and have strings support me... I'd be set for life. That pianist is none other than Chuck Lavelle, who's played with everyone from John Mayer to the Rolling Stones. We'll get into that a little later in the show. But yeah, this song was massive. It went diamond certified.
But things weren't all Milky Ways and shooting stars after the song for Train. The band actually had a period of commercial and critical decline after this. And it wasn't until... Eight years later, in 2009, that they reclaimed some kind of foothold in the music industry when they released a little song called Hey Soul Sister.
Hey Soul Sister, ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio? Stereo, the way you move ain't fair, you know. Hey Soul Sister, I don't want to miss a single thing.
That song single-handedly responsible for more ukulele sales in the 2010s than any other. Maybe except for Zooey Deschanel. You might throw Jason Mraz in there as well. There was a little moment where the ukulele was a thing again. And Hey Soul Sister was definitely a part of that. This became another massive hit for the band. And since then, 2009, they've released a string of albums.
They've had additional hits, including Drive By, Play That Song. And right now they have a new single out. But even with all their success, they're also a band that gets a lot of criticism. Yeah. Which kind of fascinates me. Like, how do we square being at...
the top of your game, having some of the biggest commercial smashes of the 21st century, and also have people sipping on haterade whenever you release a new song. You don't have to square it. You just skewer it. Everyone loves to take people down at the top. I mean, just look what's happening to Chaperone.
You know, just every moment people are looking for an opportunity to take down those who are who are riding high. I mean, I think that Train appeared in our Worst Lyrics Ever episode. People have made fun of lyrics like the best soy latte that you ever had. In a certain way, that song very much dates Drops of Jupiter. Soy lattes, very popular in the 90s.
Now we have every kind of alternative milk, not just soy. And so... Oat milk, what, pea protein. Yeah, right. Everything is possible. And yet, we've probably talked about this many times on the show, but Taylor Swift got away with a misheard lyric about Starbucks lovers and everyone had a great time with that. I have no problem with highly specific lyrical content.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Train face after the success of 'Drops of Jupiter'?
Two Grammys approaching RIAA diamond certification.
No, it's already. It's already. Already diamond, yeah.
Diamond.
I got the plaque at home to prove it. I'll sell it to you for 600 bucks.
We believe you. Oh, that's a good deal. Excuse me, 1 billion Spotify streams? Is that right? More now, maybe? Yeah, it's more, but it doesn't matter. Here, I'll tell you exactly. 1.2 billion. Wow. It's all lies. It remains a cultural touchstone with megastar fans from Miley Cyrus to Taylor Swift and Luke Combs, who have all covered the song on tour.
Yeah, it's fun.
It's cool. Yeah. So 25 years of this song. I wanted to put that in context a little bit. If Drops of Jupiter was a young adult, the song could legally rent a car. Yeah. 25 years, that's a long time. If you can think back to 2001 when you wrote, recorded, released the song, did you ever imagine it having this kind of longevity?
No. No, not at all. I've never made anything that I... saw was a future movement in humanity. Because when you write songs, you try to touch something in yourself that makes you go like, oh, that feels something. And I felt something, but it was like a three and a half minute song with strings and nobody cared. It was not the era for that, but people cared. It was a weird time.
Performing this song for two and a half decades, do you have a sense of what that thing is, what that spark is that people connect with, or is it still kind of a mystery?
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Chapter 4: Why is 'Drops of Jupiter' considered a timeless classic?
And then it was at a time when Almost Famous was out. Yeah. And so he was loving this movie and loved all of the Elton John stuff and Paul Buckmaster was still alive and Paul Buckmaster was the, he was the string arranger for Elton's music. So he got Paul through Columbia Records to write the string line. Wow.
And then my guy Donny Einer who said you didn't have what it took and then he said now you do. He really made it happen and we became a band that could travel all over the world.
So some artists might not like having that kind of pressure to deliver something. But was there something productive about having that deadline? Of course.
I mean, my theory about music, that is not music theory like you teach, but my theory about music and musicians is that if you don't have a deadline, you'll never finish. And if you do, you'll get the shit done. And we got it done. We got it done later than our deadline, but it got done because we were like, we have to keep going.
Yeah. So as you mentioned, I teach music theory. And one of the reasons I'm really excited to talk with you about this song is it makes some really clever musical choices. I think that might be part of the reason it's been so resonant for so long.
So I'm really excited to have this chance to you to really unpack a lot of the... I'm not going to know nearly as much as you know about this song, but I'm happy to go down it with you.
All right. We could start with the chord progression, maybe. There's a moment when we get to the chorus that I think is so effective. We're in the key of C major with this song. The people's key. The people's key, indeed. The white keys, as many pianists know it. And when we get to this line about being swept off your feet, we get this- Did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did the wind sweep you off your feet?
The wind is the second chorus.
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Chapter 5: How does the song's musical structure contribute to its popularity?
It actually evolves. I say drops of Jupiter one time in the entire song.
Now that she's back in the atmosphere with drops of Jupiter in her hair.
So this was another problem at the time of releasing a song. Yeah. That's why in the beginning for the first 15 years, it was called Drops of Jupiter Tell Me. Parentheses. Yeah. Because the idea was if someone goes in for this song, they're going to say, do you have the song Tell Me? Yeah. Because I say tell me several times, but Drops of Jupiter one time. But it's a pretty memorable lyric.
And so I think that's why it was able to hold up. So that was a bit of a negotiation between you and- Oh, there were many negotiations. Like they didn't want soy latte in there. There were other negotiations and I go, I'll try different things everywhere. And I was like, I'm not trying.
What were their objections to those lyrics?
The soy latte was at the time not very popular and it was said to me that it was a feminine drink. And to me, I was like, it's kind of the only thing. I don't even drink coffee at the time, but I would drink a soy latte once in a while.
I feel like time has vindicated you. Those lyrics are some of the most indelible parts of the song today. Yeah.
I'm going to look up indelible, and I think it's going to be great when I find out what that means. Some of the most memorable parts of the song.
There's also a lyric about Tybo, I think.
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Chapter 6: What are the lyrical themes present in 'Drops of Jupiter'?
Like I love it. Like such heavy guitar and such jam and singing and everything. But when Zach sits down and plays piano and he like dedicates a moment to old friends of his, That's a very meaningful moment. Without that, then the rest doesn't make sense anymore.
You know what else that reminds me of? Is Mozart, who gets name-checked in these lyrics.
She checks out Mozart while she does child.
Very different from Zach Wild. I'm a big Mozart fan. Me too. Really.
Oh, yeah. But you would know some, like if you start asking me for names of songs and, but the melodies that Mozart created were, I mean, how old are they?
Yeah, he died in 1791, I think. So, yeah. That's insane. Yeah, it is. That's different than anybody. I think there's something about Mozart where, because it made me think of what you were just saying. There's, There's a lot of grief and pain, but there's also a lot of joy and exultation.
It's the Greek tragedy. Yeah. It's the, what is the sad face and the happy face?
Oh, the Giannis face. Yeah.
That's every song, every piece of art you see should be that to me.
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Chapter 7: How has 'Drops of Jupiter' influenced other artists?
When I mentioned to my students that I was speaking to you this morning in my class, they knew Drops of Jupiter through Taylor Swift. They didn't know.
Some of them didn't know it was a cover. She covered Hey Soul Sister as well.
She covered Hey Soul Sister as well.
And then I performed Drive-By with her years ago at the Barclays Center in New York.
Could we listen to a little bit of Taylor's version of Drops of Jupiter? This is live from the 2011 Speak Now tour. Pretty nice.
She's got a good-ass voice.
Yeah.
She got the lyric right, too. Fall for a shooting star.
Oh, really? Is that a common blunder?
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Chapter 8: What insights does Pat Monahan share about fame and songwriting?
And I heard him do a live performance and he talked about what a shitty band Train was and everything. And I was really bummed out because I was a Patton Oswalt fan. And then I realized- You know, I'm just going to outlast it. And I promise you he wouldn't say that today. And so, like, you know, I don't want to be mad at people for feeling the way they feel about certain things.
And they should express themselves however they like and without me getting weird about it. Like, I have opinions about people. And then, you know, I also... There are certain comedians that if they did like Train, I'd be bummed out. You know what I mean? It doesn't fit their profile. You're supposed to hate us.
That's an interesting way to think about it, yeah.
Like comedy wins in my band. It wins over music. Yeah. Like if somebody came in and they're like, dude, did you hear this song? I'd be like, who cares? Yeah. You got any good jokes? Like that's, it's just like life is too short to not laugh all the time.
Like you were saying earlier, it's the romantic comedy approach.
Yeah.
Is there a limit to that, though? Like, you're telling me people take your music, they do what they will with it, but would you ever draw the line? What if there was a techno remix of Drops of Jupiter?
Oh, we've done techno remixes of, like, Hey Soul Sister and stuff. That would have been pretty fun and successful.
All right, so no objections.
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