The Tallest Rock

some other oddities. Two of them had the phrase the Tallest Rock on them, and another one said t R several times, which I took to probably mean tallest Rock, which is a piece of this has never been written about. The Tallest Rock is a song about the Sears Tower. You can tell these are people that are working on the Sears Tower, which was going to be the tallest

building in the world when it was finished. Every now and then there's a bit of talking about how they're negotiating with the folks building the Sears to hour to be able to play this song when it's dedicated and opened. When I looked it up many many years ago, I did find a hit for a story about how some electricians that helped build the Series Tower performed a song

called the Tallest Rocket. Its opening ceremonies. On May three, seventy nine, the Chicago Tribune read today's ceremony was almost postponed. The weather was raw and windy. The final girder contained the signatures of the twelve thousand people who had worked on the project. The construction chief was worried that the pound beam might smash into some windows on the way up, but a few hundred people had already gathered at the site. The girdon was hoisted and set in place. That was

the signal. A chorus of electrical workers burst into song. He's gott understand. I listened to the tallest drack tapes once, probably nine, so that's almost twenty years ago. I still have them, I could, I could pull them out in less than two minutes. Well down in my game up there's nothing higher, not the dulcet tones of Marigael Moreland. But regardless of your opinion of the material, it's a fascinating record of four friends in a band with one song.

If you, like me, have ever been in what we'll call an ephemeral band, you'll appreciate both the exuberance and the tremendous amount of work demonstrated on these tapes and with ambition there are thirty takes of the full song plus false starts. And then we got steadily working out single sections BA punches of just the ending. Okay, we got to practice the ending we know outside that. All right, let's do the tapes begin sometime before Christmas en two

with five acapella takes plus a horrific screen. It seems like they have yet to pitch this idea to the Sears people. All right, now what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start, maybe even tomorrow night, but one of these nights I'm going to start writing. We'll let it and then I want all you guys to look at before I mail it. And I figured, if well, how the rest of holidays go by about the middle of January, we'll get the thing to him. Now, are you better?

You better? You're better? Make a get smoked. Some urgency has felt because not everyone is sure they'll still be on this job by the time the dedication ceremony rolls around. Well, I mean someone does get Oh no, no, it's somebody gets smoked. But we'll do We'll just say, Mr mc jazz, we gotta come back there. The dedications thing. This guy, Damn, we gotta be working on the job, right. We worked in the job at one time or another. Yeah, we've bled our hearts out for that, andyer, that's right and

all of that. Consequently, if you're gonna smoke us off the job, you're bad people. That's it. So we'll shame Amanda keeping us there. You want to put on the last six thirty two screw on the last flex receptacle, right, John, Now we'll make some copies of this whole message, right, Okay, we gotta vy him here, We've gotta buy him all. Right. In three ish months a lot has changed. So now it's March three and we've heard from Sears. You guys

have all read the letter. Sears is okay to performance of the tallest rock at the dedication, And this is our rehearsal in preparation for the topping out ceremony, which Serious wants us to do. The approach of the song will be a little different. We've decided now, of course, that we're going to get a drummer and a guitared and we're gonna put this thing into rock beat. They all know the tune fairly well. We know the words by heart. The endeavor itself looms a little larger in

everyone's mind. I never taught this thing will go that far. The fellows are changing their mind's a little too now. They don't talk like that anymore. Is like they would have if they would have mentioned it to him. They had been keeping it a secret. It's a good thing we didn't mention. That never happened in I think we kept a pretty good secret to myself. I think, guys, and I think it's a credit at all of us, kind of. I opened up a little bit around the

neighborhoo where I know it wouldn't hurt her yet. Right that we've we've we've all. It's kind of hard to hold something like that excited about it, you know. I always kept it with the thought that well, even if it never went anywhere, we did have a good time. Yeah, we had a good time. Even four four heart nosed electicians will be kept it like that all the way through. It sounds like they anticipated getting some flak from their coworkers.

I didn't even tell Bruno, you know. And the other day he gave me a little shot and I said, well, now you see why I didn't spread it around adapting the new rock and roll sound meant a lot more takes come down even though we know the words. It's like a reconversion. We're gonna it's different at different, but there's nothing. I'm going to a rock and it's slower and it's well, it's the thing. I believe your kids

are gonna like it better. They're gonna like it. They're gonna like they're gonna very much better, guys than I figured. If we do the first time, like you's kind of a staccattle, you know, it is a sattle. That's right, It's okay, that's staccattle. All right. Now let's listen to our songs. Wait, bab, what are you doing a race in the series? Yeah, you got it. You gotta go up to three fifty. You're you're you're racing something. You're recording.

If we even get to sing it at the tapping out, it will be well worth while and it will Yeah, that's right, that's right. And I'll tell you if if it doesn't do anything else, but let someone realize the talent of this guy that he can write songs pulse. So now you just hope he keeps us on mind for later on. For Moore Records. Yeah, there you go. You want to be able to pretty, that's right here. Sure I look shaby MyD be able to beat the year old men. I wrote you know one of my

first rock things. You know what. The name of it was Backfire, Backfire as performed with Don Morland's the Flip Side of the seven Ascetate with reputation on it and fire. Exactly how that song came together remains on the tar. You But after a little more practice and when some p they're ready for their first audience, let's shut it off and let's let the woman come down a listen. All right, very good market. Let's okay, move the chairs again.

I'm gonna stand here, right, I'll get we're everything down the work hi and bye. There's nothing uh. And even though they're still making adjustments rose from and performance. Now, we're gonna get a little bit more on the gyrations later because they have begun to make plans that go beyond the topping out ceremony. Now, if they accept us for a commercial, like for a television commercial, we can always change awards to put series in their day insisting

there's no sweat there. That's that's that's very simple. And even tell Howard he should keep his summer open. You don't know what's gonna happen. They may say, Hey, God, damn it, we need you people to make a recording such and such a date now for we're set for a vacation. We gotta wipe it out. That's it. I'm down in. There's something roup of country and still game by five for what and doe where is that tradis? And when them yeah said by word back and with

some crime grows. It seemed she was playing sunshine and rain dur her pain over columns, rain the winds, never so head to see her slaying. We're so high de grave me this guy who ain't the smaller fun bill the smallest fun. He had a handmaid run. So she's ahead right, went through FI through through five FI through a B. In the only other mention I could find of the Tallest Rock retrospective about the Sears Tower, also in the Chicago Tribune, it seems that they went with

the stripped down version after rock. Finally, a quartet of acapella electrical workers called the Tower Bums lifted an original ditty called the Tallest Rock She stands like a rock, a whole city block. She hovers over the Flock Special Thanks to Bob Purse and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. If we only had this on video tape instead of

audio tape, it would be something else. Today is to getting the food of the rocks more than anything. For hour, you ain't nowhere, Collars time, This collars time. He had a handmade round. No man d right ro