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Occasionally during a performance, audience members will show their enthusiasm by standing and dancing, or may approach the stage, especially when encouraged by the performers to do so. Please know that AMT will make every effort to ensure the safety of all guests, while presenting an enjoyable experience for everyone. With this in mind, AMT staff reserves the right to require patrons to remain seated. Toto's keyboard player explains the true meaning of "Africa" and talks about working on the Thriller album.
I saw GFR last week with my teenage son, they were the first band I ever saw in concert way back in the early 70's. Even though there is a definite riff between Mark and the remaining two members I must say the current line up is phenominal. When Max Carl touched his chest during this song I thought "what would Mark say"? Then I remembered how lead singer-sonwriters like Mark, John Fogerty, Steve Perry etc push the limits of their greatness too much. Don and Mel are out there - smiling, playing perfectly, having a good time and kicking a$$ for audiences young and old, they earned that right and keep GRF alive.
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Weird how songs seem to have different meanings when you listen to them through the lens of different times... I haven't heard this song in many years but I ran into it today in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.. And it captures the isolation and anxiety of those of us high risk individuals kind of trapped in our homes indefinitely are feeling.
Due to the last half of the song saying "I'm Getting Closer to My Home", people assumed that the song was "Closer to Home" and mistakedly called it by the albulm name, hence the confusion on the title. Some records (i.e. various song albulms)still list the song incorrectly due to the confusion. I do not know what Mark's original intentions were for the song but like a lot of great songs the words come out easily and the song gets written in a short period of time. I like Kitty from California's comment about this being a spiritual song. I started praying just now and this song started to play in my mind.
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It received standing ovations when Farner played it as part of the third edition of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band in 1995, and a similar reaction greeted it during the 1996 reunion tour of Grand Funk Railroad. When the Grand Funk variant without Farner tours, the singing on the song is taken by lead vocalist Max Carl. The song conveys the pleas of a captain on a troubled sea voyage and facing a mutiny from his crew. Its use of an orchestra during the long repeated refrains of the closing movement served to differentiate it from much of Grand Funk's work. Several interpretations of the song have been given; most revolve around the Vietnam War, and "I'm Your Captain" is popular among veterans of that conflict. As my friends listened to pop radio, I was banginging away lol...
Had him on the show last week and although he'd have a few, for GFR to perform at the high level they did, "we were stone cold straight," he said. I always thought the lyrics were pretty straight forward. The isolation of life at sea, especially for a captain who rarely ever leaves his ship, ends up warping the mind.
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Authors have seen the song as an "epic of paranoia and disease" and as a tale of a man who had lost control of his life in a fashion strong enough to invoke childhood nightmares. It has been used as the subtitle for a chapter of a novel dealing with war and addictions. Comparisons have been made to Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!" in its use of the rank to mean Abraham Lincoln. Unusually for him, Farner wrote the lyric of the song first, with the words coming to him in the middle of the night after saying prayers for inspiration to write something meaningful.
This soon changes into a strummed acoustic guitar paired with a distinctive lead bass line from Mel Schacher, set against a steady drumbeat from Don Brewer accompanied with occasional wah wah guitar flourishes. Meghan Trainor and her producer Kevin Kadish originally wrote "All About That Bass" for another artist to record. However, after Epic Records boss LA Reid heard Meghan play a demo of the song on a ukulele, he signed the young songwriter to his label and told her she should sing it. My dad told me one of the band members had a heroin addiction and this song was a metaphor relating to that. The lyric "are you really scheming, To take my ship away from me" is about the other band members trying to get him to quit. The lyric "Everybody, listen to me, And return me, my ship" sounds like a demand to leave him alone with his addiction.
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I am so glad they didn't worry about making the song short for airtime. This song is right up there with Starship Trooper by Yes. It was later released in July 1970 on the 'Closer To Home' album, with the full orchestra version.
A truncated version of the song was a modest hit single when first released, but the full album track achieved greater airplay on progressive rock radio stations of the time. It has since become a classic rock staple and has appeared on several audience-selected lists as one of the best rock songs of all time. Released as a single with the title "Closer to Home", it was modestly successful in early fall 1970, reaching number 21 in Canada and number 22 on the U.S. pop singles chart as the group's first top 40 hit single. It was far more successful on progressive rock radio stations, such as those in New York, where its length and epic feel were an asset and where it became a mainstay that appealed to a broad spectrum of rock fans outside Grand Funk's immediate listener base. Its airplay helped the album reach the Top 10 of the U.S. albums chart within a month of its release. When a friend of mine gave me the album "Closer to home", he said that it sucked and I thought it would but when I put it on my sears turn table, I loved it.I was in high school and the truth is, I learned how to improvise by listening to Grand Funk.
This album reached RIAA gold record status in 1970, making it the group's third gold record in one year. The album's inside artwork shows a live photo of the band performing at Madison Square Garden in February 1970. Tamara is 100% correct as Mark was never addicted to heroin.
The Village VoiceBCloser to Home is the third studio album by American rock band Grand Funk Railroad. The album was released on June 15, 1970, by Capitol Records. Recorded at Cleveland Recording Company, the album was produced by Terry Knight.
Has anyone ever tried to suss out the conversation/lyrics beneath the final string section? I just heard it on headphones for the first time and heard it underneath the music. There was a "stop it, stop it" I could make out, it the rest is a mystery.
I am a professional musician today in part because of his influence. But these guys had a rawness that defines what rock should be, like Chuck Berry young,not too polished and dangerously fun. Decades later, "I'm Your Captain" remains a staple of many classic rock radio stations.
I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)
"Closer To Home" remained a fan favorite and staple of their setlists. The orchestral ending was a last-minute inspiration, the song having no good close after some time of working on it. Grand Funk Railroad were consistently despised by the rock critic establishment, and "I'm Your Captain" got some of the same treatment. American Music Theatre is proud to welcome all types of shows and concerts to our stage.
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