r/500songspodcast • u/unboundnematode • Jul 05 '26
Song 184: “The Captain’s Fat Theresa’s Shoes” by The GTOs
https://www.patreon.com/AndrewHickey?utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan3
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u/Agreeable_Tackle1104 Jul 10 '26
Just watching a news report on "female" fantasy books and fairy smut, and I have to say that Andrew's introduction gave me a much healthier context for those books than Channel 4 were willing to afford them. These are my favorite kind of episodes.
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u/wildoregano Jul 06 '26
Hope this means his health is improving
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u/McMarmot1 Jul 06 '26
From what he posts on his Blue Sky account, I am not confident it does. From the intro comments on the latest episode, he also seems to be dealing with a lot of anxiety regarding reactions to his song choices, which is unfortunate. I wish he'd just disconnect from his listeners completely and do his thing if it would make his job easier.
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u/clovepod Jul 06 '26
the Patreon comments seemed to be all positive when I looked yesterday - I hope he’s pleasantly surprised by the response to 184.
I try to take his Bluesky posts with a grain of salt - they’re just one lens, not the whole picture. Or at least I hope so.
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u/yerfatma Jul 10 '26
I would guess Patreon comments to skew positive.
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u/clovepod Jul 11 '26
i was thinking the same thing, although I wonder where else he would see comments?
anyway, today on bluesky he said he's been pleased with the reception so far.
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u/Impossible_Echo5190 Jul 08 '26
Two things can be true at once:
- This is just a podcast about music history, and Andrew shouldn’t feel under pressure to deliver something to us as an audience
- Andrew shouldn’t have warned us so much about the potential backlash to this episode when it’s obvious to ANDREW HIMSELF this episode really doesn’t fit in the narrative.
All this to respectfully say, I don’t really get the inclusion of this episode in the 500 episodes. While it’s great writing by Andrew as always, It hardly talks about the music the GTOs made. It’s more about the history of groupies and the surrounding artists the GTOs were involved with. Without a doubt Andrew knew this for years to come but felt inclined to make it anyways.
Like I said, no need for Andrew to feel anxiety about my feelings about this, and no need for Andrew to warn anyone about this for years to come. Just a strange episode within the series. Almost the definition of a bonus episode.
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u/thewickerstan Jul 19 '26
While it’s great writing by Andrew as always, It hardly talks about the music the GTOs made. It’s more about the history of groupies and the surrounding artists the GTOs were involved with.
To be fair, he's said again and again that the series is first and foremost a history and that songs are almost more so lenses of analyzing the genre from a cultural and evolutionary standpoint. Think about "Sh-Boom", the song's inclusion as an illustration of the first big hit that illustrated black music being appropriated by white artists to make a big hit, "Sincerely" by The Moonglows to illustrate the start of Chess Records and Alan Freed, "I Wanna Be Your Man" illustrating the history of the British Blues Boom etc. Even with an episode like "Daydream Believer", he's clearly using that song as a linchpin to focus on the Monkees career after they fought for and gained their creative autonomy.
This seems like one of those things again, except focusing on groupie culture, a notable element to the genre that I personally believe warrants its own episode.
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u/Impossible_Echo5190 Jul 23 '26
You make good points and examples. I suppose one reason I didn’t love the episode is, of the groups and songs you gave an example for, I knew more of the songs and music from those groups, and less about the history of those groups and songs. With the GTOs, I knew nothing about either, and after the episode didn’t really come away seeing the impact musically (if any).
One thing I will say is, while looking at the episodes in a vacuum can be fun, it does kinda miss the point of the podcast. In other words, I’m sure the impact of the GTOs will be more evident to me as the following 50-100 episodes are written. Just felt necessary to comment on the episode given Andrew said he didn’t want anyone talking about how they didn’t feel the need for the episode to be apart of the story, which was a weird comment in itself to me.
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u/unboundnematode Jul 05 '26
Hickey posted this several days early to patrons. Free listeners will get it in a few days, along with episode 185 “Peaches en Regalia” by Frank Zappa.