Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on Rolling Stones, hugely popular, influential and sometimes controversialist. I'm Britney Spanis and.
I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great.
Today we are going to talk about Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips. Tell me a little bit of your history with this song and how much you love it.
It's not just one of my favorite songs. It's arguably the song I've listened to most times in my life. Not once in my life have I listened to it once and not wanted to hear it again. I'm always sad when it's over. If I'm listening to it on the radio and the DJ fades it out one tiny bit early, I take it so personally, I'm like, I want every single one of those fade out like his world,
My worldli yea. It is a song so universal. Yeah, if you knew somebody and they didn't think this was a particularly good song, you'd think of them as just a lesser.
Person, right, Yeah, it should be illegal to fade out before that I've got to go at the end. You're not listening to that for the full song, it's not it doesn't count.
Yes, it's a song where every time you hear it, you're following the story all the way through, even though you know the story of the song, you know the plot of the song that you're hanging on till the very final seconds.
Yeah, it's riveting from start to finish.
Unbelievable. Yeah, Gladys Night and the Pips one of the all time great careers from beginning to end, so many amazing songs along the way, and it's wild how this one just stands out like a skyscraper.
Yeah.
So this song was on the two thousand and four list at four thirty two, and it remains on the list now at four seventy. And I mean it is a song that has become the signature song in the Glass Night and the Pips catalog. And it came two decades after they first formed. Of course, they were just known as the Pips at first. They were a family band. It was a lot of sort of them sort of reading the line up for a few years of people
starting families. There's more cousins in the band originally, and you know, Gladys left for a little bit, but the the Pips as we know it, the popular lineup includes Glass's brother, Bubba Knight, and the cousins William Guest and Edward Patten, who comprised the Pips as we know them and love them, and they would sign to Motwan in nineteen sixty six, and this was kind of a worrying signing for Gladys.
She's very, very.
Worried and had a right to be worried that they would become sort of second string on Barry Gordy's list of acts on the roster. Of course, you know Diana Ross and the Supremes and Marvin Gay huge huge acts in the sixties, and Gladys was super concerned that they would kind of be secondary and for a while it did seem to kind of be true. They felt like they were losing a lot of songs to Marvin and Diana particularly, who were kind of the breadwinners of this
label at the time. But they would have their first hit with I Heard through the grape Vine, which was their fourth single, and that song would end up being the first big hit for Glass Night in the Pips, and of course though it would be given as a cover to Marvin Gay a few years later, and that'd become the version that everyone kind of has come to know and sort of the version that would outsell a lot of that, and eventually the band would would leave
Motown altogether, not before, of course, they would bring the Jackson five onto the label. They're actually very responsible for helping bring the Jackson five onto Motown because the Jackson five would open for Glass Night and the Pips and Gladys was so taken by this boy band that had opened for them. But when it came to contract negotiations,
they decided that they need to go elsewhere. They went to Buddha Records, and their very first hit off of Buddha Records is none other than Midnight Train to Georgia.
Kind of a cosmic sign that they got to go.
They got to go and the family connection that you mentioned, it's so crucial in this song that you can hear it in their voices. These are people who have been through thick and thin together. They have one big lost big together. They will stick with each other through thick and thin. This is not just a group who formed in a talent show or something like that, and you can hear that connection between their voices and that you know they had been at the absolute bottom together, and
they had and through really hungry, scary times together. And you can hear that in all their voices, especially hers because she's the lead singer, but you hear so much lifelong adult resilience and loyalty and their voices. Here famous story when they signed to Motown. They were in New York. They were scared. They were out of towners. They were nice, well brought up Southern kids. They were in the big city. They got a call that Motown would give them an audition,
not a gig, but an audition. But the catch was they had to pay their own way to Detroit from New York. They have no money, they're broke. It's before them. They're in the city where they don't know any but don't know any other family or friends. The guitarist decides to pawn his guitar. That's the only way that they can make the bus tickets to get to Detroit for this audition. That they have no assurance that anything would come from this audition, and his guitar is pride and joy.
That's where their music comes from. And he pawns that guitar and that gets them to Detroit. Everything from their career follows from that. And you can hear so much that Midnight trainto Georgia, Right, It's like it's that trip where there's this absolute loyalty, this absolute certainty, but I always love. You can hear that in so many of the Glass Landed Pip songs, just that bond between them.
Yeah.
And also the song itself has such like a fascinating history. I did not even realize until starting to look into it. The song was originally is written by and was originally recorded by Jim Weatherley, And I mean it's originally called Midnight Playing to Houston, and it sounds completely different. I mean, just the way that Glass Night and the Pips reinvented
the song for their own version is completely different. Of course, Jim Weatherley's version is much more kind of like folky, you know, feels very like seventies folk of that time. And also really loved the story behind writing that song, which was actually inspired by Farah Flawcett and her saying that she was taking a midnight playing to Houston to
go visit her family. She had picked up the phone when Jim Weatherley was calling his friend Lee Majors, and Far and Lee were dating at the time, and she just happened to mention that she was taking a midnight midnight playing to Houston. And he loved that phrase and wrote an entire song based off it and inspired by his own experiences as a sort of failed NFL player who then.
Would get into music.
And then the song would end up being recorded by Winnie Houston's mom, Sissy Houston, and she did her own version and was the one to change it to Midnight Train to Georgia. But her version, it's like not totally what would become Glass Knight's version. Of course, the Sissy Houston version is a little bit more of the gospel infused kind of slower, still kind of the same sort of cadence of the Jim Weatherly version, but sort of
moving it more into the R and B sphere. And then we get this kind of really upbeat version as opposed to the almost kind of sadder tone that the previous two versions had. So like last Night and the Pips end up kind of taking it to this kind of kind of more a more of a step in the in the beat in everything that they end up infusing a song.
With absolutely and so much to that is Gladys Knight's voice. Because the song is so famous sometimes it overshadows what they did before. Their sixties motown runs so legendary just in terms of like the power of Gladys's voice and that when she was very young and hits like every beat of my Heart, she's got almost a girlish tone in her voice. But her really legendary motown recordings from like later in the sixties and early seventies are she's absolutely an adult in a way that it's really kind
of breathtaking. And you listen to like some for huge motown songs from before Midnight Train, like If I Were Your Woman, which is just like a song that completely shuts down everything else that happened to you that day and you're just alone with that. It's such a terrifying story in this song, and it's all just there in her voice and in the way that the Pips in Colin responds with her, and that's something that they were so amazing at. Yet they were considered washed up at
the time that they did this song. They just weren't on motown anymore. They had been through all these highs and lows together and now they were on the skids. They were starting over on Buddha Records, not Buddha as inspelled correctly, like the Buddha Buddha spelled wrong because it's a bubblegum label. It's not a taken seriously kind of label. It's seventy these bubblegum hits and brilliant ones. Nobody's knocking the legacy of you know, nineteen ten Fruit Gum Company
and the other big hits of Buddha Records. But this is a group that we're famous on motown. They're not wanting on moten anymore. They're washed up. They're starting over, and that's so perfect for them, perfect for their voices. And that's there right in the beginning of the song and the way that she sings one of the great opening lines. And all the pop music la proved too much for the man.
Yeah, I mean also, like the Pips are I feel like very still underrated as just kind of this like vocal unit that is, like you mentioned the cal and response and kind of the way that they are singing with Gladys and kind of against Gladys and kind of adding in so much to the song. I mean, the song is nothing without that combination of Gladys with the Pips.
It's a totally different thing.
If it's like, and you hear this in both the I mean, the Jim Weatherley and Cucy Houston versions are amazing in their own right. But the reason why this song took off the way it did is because that combination of kind of Gladys telling the story about a man who's kind of failing at his superstar career and the Pip's kind of adding in this kind of Greek chorus to it. And you know, it's such a perfect combination.
Honestly, I can't. It's unlike anything else in pop music that they're telling the story together. And that's why it's funny. Like you said, to listen to the earlier versions by Jim Weatherley and Sissy Houston, which are so great, but they're a lead singer telling a story. Yeah, and this is Gladys Knight telling her story. The Pips are telling
the story along with her. They're rooting for her, they're speaking to the audience, they're like, yeah, she does this a lot, you know, like which she says, you know, I'm got to be with him, and they're like, I know you will. Yeah, And you can hear all those times they've been through in the way that the Pips are there telling the story, sometimes interrupting her, sometimes adding glasses, you know, and she's like, yeah, he kept dreaming that
he was going to be a star. They're like a superstar, but he didn't get fun.
I always love that line because it just sounds like take it just a little like a little extra job at him. It's like, if I were him, I'd be really upset if I heard the pipsing it that way.
Yes, absolutely. And sometimes they're singing to her. Sometimes they're singing to the audience, you know, when she's like, I'd rather live in his world than live without him in mind, and you know, they turn to the audience and they're in third person out they're like, her world is his world, his and hers alone, and this colm response between them. It's not like any other song, and it goes all
the way through the song. Yeah, and it's amazing. You know, you decide early in your life listening to the car radio when you sing along with this song are you gladys or are you a pip? And it is a lifelong commitment yea, to be one of them.
Yeah, I mean the way that they change the tone of the song and the way that they tell the story versus like this kind of a story that could come off very sad. It's there is so much of that, like that kind of excitement about taking the midnight train to Georgia. They're kind of making such a case for this being a great decision for her to really like kind of follow follow him to Georgia and kind of
go there and like take this big risk. I mean just again, like in that combination of how Gladys sings it and kind of all this like life force that she puts into it, and kind of the determination towards the end like my man his girl, Like the way she's like singing that part. I mean, there's so much of that in throughout the song, and the Pips kind of being like, you know, we can't argue that with that.
Yes, they're not trying to change her mind. Something I love about this song. I mean, you listen to this song your whole life. Yeah, year after year, decade after decade, and it's amazing how how the story keeps deepening, how so much there's more. I mean, she's not asking this guy if he wants her to come along on the midnight train to Georgia with him. Yeah, we don't even know if he knows that she's going to be on
that train. You know. She's like, yeah, he came to La from Georgia and didn't work out from here, he bombed out. He's going back home. Yeah, he's not going back home in triumphant circumstances. He's taking the midnight train. He's going home and defeat and me, I'm going home with him. And Georgia is not her place, you know, like she doesn't know anybody there. It's very different for
her to be taking that train. And it's like the Book of Ruth or something, you know, like and it's funny how little of his voice or any is in the song. We don't know if he needs her to come back with him. I didn't even know if he wants her to come back with him. Maybe she's just like a girl that he met in La and he's like, yeah, I'm going home, going to start over, you know, like marry my high school sweetheart. You know, the road not
taken looks real good. Now She's like nope. You know where he goes I go and his world is my world. Unbelievable determination, Like you.
Said, suddenly you're on a really depressing train back to Georgia at midnight and there's none of them in glass night and the Pips just waiting for you on the train.
Yes, and she's going to be with him, and just that determination when she's like, I'm going to be with him and the Pips say, I know you will. It's really kind of beautiful that they are absolutely cheering her on and at the end when she's like on the train platform and like is she really going to do it? Is she going to go through with it? And you know, and the Pips are, you know, saying like you can do this. You got this really kind of beautiful.
And so much of the construction of the song and the way that Gladys and the Pips are kind of having that dialogue with each other and alongside each other reminds me so much of like a lot of like Alan Mankin's music for Disney, you know, reminds me of just like in Hercules, you know, like the songs with the Muses in there, and kind of the even like Low Mermaid and all those kind of early nineties Disney movies that you know, created these massive hits for Disney
and the kind of that new revival for Disney. So much of them seemed owe a lot to Last Night the Pips, and in particular a song like Midnight Training to Georgia and that kind of conversation that these like secondary kind of scening characters can have and kind of make such a big part of these songs.
You are absolutely blowing. That is so true.
I feel like it did reminds me so much of the Muses, and like you know, in Hercules particularly, it's.
Beautiful when you know that the family, the family connection. Gladys is often told the story she's very embarrassed. She's a very shy person. She's very shy about improvising on mic.
The ad libbing is very difficult for her. She talked about when she was recording this that her brother was there in the studio right standing right next to her mic whispering into her ear because she was too shy to sing all those his world, my world, as long as he's alone, and she was really shy about doing it, and she needed him to be standing there and whispering into her ear what the next line was, and just really kind of amazing that that's how she recorded it,
was her brother's standing right next to her for moral support, whispering the lines into her ear, and you can hear so much of that in the final version of the song.
Oh yeah, definitely. The ad libs at the end are the best part for me.
Like that.
Those ad libs are like the just the cherry on top of a great popcake.
Yeah. Yeah, It's like half the song and it's just unbelievably dramatic, and the whole song is building up to that, and you still you still want it to go on.
Yeah.
Are you a gladys or a pip?
I'm always a bit you know. I had three sisters, so like, you know, they were glad as sing I was pipping. I was like and that was the way it was. And there's something it's such a long and fantastic R and B tradition that you know, the female singer and the male backup singers who are kind of telling the story with her but also kind of you know,
rooting for her, cheering her on. I always think of one of the one of the great examples, Aliyah, Are you that somebody where she's like telling us her in Timbaland's there and he's like, it's a Leah's song. Timb Bland is like you got this, you could do this, don't be scared like you are that somebody, and he's like, you know, beb a girl, you know, like and that kind of commonresponse that's absolutely like another perfect example.
It is, Yeah, yeah, I wonder how much of that, like, how much of those kind of moments in pop because I made me kind of think of like the ODB version of like Fantasy right where he's kind of like totally like, I wonder how much of that is owed to the very specific and particular type of relationship the Pips and Gladys have in their music and in their discography.
You know, you think about something like another great exam that I Love is another one of the greatest songs of the twenty first century family affair Mary J. Blige, and just the way that Drey's presence in the song is an enabler and that sort of like beautiful column response in Midnight Training to Georgia is so specific to
this song. Though, It's funny that the other song I really think of is having A similar kind of approach and similar kind of emotional impact is that the Beatles song Help, Yeah, and it's well because you know, John Lennon is telling that story and it's very personal, you know, like I used to think I knew what I was doing in life. I had no idea. I'm really scared.
I have no idea what's coming next. And it's amazing when you listen to it, and the way it'd be very differentive or John just singing the song, but he's telling the story with Paul and George and they're singing along with him in very much a Gladys and Pips kind of way. Yeah, And they're telling the story along with him, they're cheering him on, they're not entering the story themselves. And that is a kind of similar impact for me in terms of listening to those songs over
the years. I think of how different Help would be if it were just John singing the song yeah, and how different Midnight Train would be if it were just Gladys even with her amazing powerful one time in human history voice, but Gladys Knight has Yeah.
I guess Hey, I feel like now I'm thinking of like the lyrics of Help and like how that song always sounds so like like uplifting, you know, like yeah, kind of like me, like here's me and my buddy.
Isn't like they're helping me, Like like when you think of it like stripped down, and the same way with Midnight Train to Georgia, Like when you strip it down and it's like the lyrics are actually like kind of sad, and like the tone totally shifts with that style of storytelling and like with kind of just like that just a little like tweak to how you it's actually delivered and how it's kind of like put in the context of all the vocalists together, it's.
Really kind of beautiful their way almost like the background singers are sort of like the angel on the shoulder saying, you know, like don't worry dot where you could do this. I hear a lot of Midnight Training to Georgia in Outcasts and especially in Andred three thousand, but that beautiful moment in international plays Anthem and the UGK song, I think is a quintessential Midnight Train to Georgia. Yeah moment.
For me, it is making me think of Roses by Outcasts, which is one of my maybe maybe my number one Outcast song actually, but yeah, that that sort of Andre being like his own but being both Gladys and the Pips on his part of the song totally. Like even the way he sings like Caroline, you know, like it's just kind of like adding that call and response for himself.
Totally. We all need to be our own pip. I mean, like it's hard to do.
Yeah, I mean even think just like a lot of Georgia born Atlanta, specifically rap artists who have come out in the last like two decades, I feel like there is so much of that, like you know, like the Migos, you know, like it's just like that col and response element of it and kind of the family band and sort of that that interaction together feels like it owes so much to Last Night and the Pips, And they probably do pull directly from.
Glass and the Pips.
They are such like fans of that era of music and such fans of kind of classic motown music.
So I wouldn't I wouldn't.
Doubt that that's like a big part of what's inspire them totally.
I think I think of a lot of Wu Tang songs have a lot of connection to Midnight Training to Georgia, like again, like just because of that, like that sense of like people have known each other and been through stuff together. Specifically the ghost Face song All That All That I Got Is You Yeah from Iron Man, one of the greatest songs ever and Mary J. Blige in that song and the way that they're telling that story
together and it's a very different kind of story. It's very sad childhood story, but the way that the different voices in the song are telling the story together very
much part of that tradition for sure, Georgia connection. But the Indigo Girls have a fantastic version of mind Night Training to Georgia, And because they're folk duo, it's you know, one voice is Gladys and one voice is the Pips, and it's the only version of the song I know like that where and it's just like the two voices acoustic guitars and they strip it down and it's funny and it's a live it's something they did live for
a while. And the live version is so interesting because when they do it at the beginning, you can hear the audience laugh a little bit and they think, like, oh, this is gonna be funny. This is like a beloved seventies old and they're doing like sort of a you know,
quasi camp version of it. Yeah, and it's funny that you hear that reaction at first, that that's what people expect, and as they're telling the story together, you can hear how it transforms them, Like no, it like the singers know like what kind of story this is, and they know it's a story that has to be told together and that they deal with just those two voices. It's unlike any other version of the song that I know, But it's just it's so moving and so powerful and so clever.
Yeah.
The furthest I could I could think of was a great thirty rock scene. Where do you tell there's some where Kenneth is going back to Georgia and he the cast starts singing Midnight Train, which is fun. It's a good time last night's in the episode. You know, it's cute, it's storing thirty rock.
Yes.
After the break, we will be joined by Ed Stacium, who was the engineer and mixer on Midnight Train to Georgia.
We are here with the production legend and stays you, Oh yeah, that's you man.
Thanks Rob I want to know how.
I know this was very early in your career, and I'm curious how you connected with Glass Night and the Pips and got attached to this record.
Tony Caamello, who was the producer of Midnight Train Camello had a partner, Tony bon Jovi, the Great Tony bon Jovi. So when I first got there, Tony was Camello's engineer. Tony was tight with Neil Bogart at Buddha Records. Tony, they had finished up their contract. They didn't want to sign back with Motown. They just had a big hit with neither one of us. And you know, of course
earlier had heard through the grapevine. So Neil, Neil Bogart loved Tony and I went into Neil's office with him several times at the Buddha offices and he would always like be pouring Kanyac and heaven knows what else happened, and he wanted to he said, He called up Tony. He says, Tony, I want you to work on some of these Gladyson Night tracks. Boom, there we go. So we cut some track. We cut it twice before we
ended up the final take. So it's Neil Bogart, loving Tony's work, thought Tony had a vibe and which he did. He was a great producer, a musical genius.
Did Gladys Knight have the song Midnight Train when she came in.
I think the song came through Neil and Tony. You know, I'm not privy to some of the dealings that went on with the record company. I do know some things.
Anyway, there was a.
Publisher, I don't know who it was, pushing the song, and Sissy Houston, Whitney's mom, who used to come down and sing backing vocals on some of the I think she sang on those Cecil Home Sulful Sounds records Sissy did. She was a studio backup singer in New York at that time, so she had a record deal and her and Sissy and her manager wanted to change the lyric from Midnight Playing to Houston to Midnight Trained to Georgia,
which was a great idea. So I saw the sheet news that that Tony had still had Midnight Playing Houston written on it. But by the time we got the demos and somebody had, you know, told Gladys that they should do the song. It was already changed to Midnight Train to Georgia, changed by Sissy Houston. That's who requested that they changed the lyric.
So Gladys Knight is the song. How did the session happen?
Right? We three sessions. I don't have a copy of the very first one, but I have a copy of the second one that would you like to hear a little bit of it? And this is take one.
Lao, you must follow the man. So he's leaving the life he's come to know, he said, he's going back to part Yeah, who what's left off his world?
So as you can hear, it's a much slower version. We don't there's no there's no strings on it yet. Tony would have put strings and horns on it. But this is interesting. A couple of spots here she sings midnight Train to Atlanta.
Check it out on that midnight train to it better?
Pretty cool, right, yeah?
Totally different thought.
Yeah, oh yeah yeah. And here's a cool little there's a scratch trap that Tony did which is emulating backing vocals. We'll play that with Gladys.
That's for fun.
It's pretty cool, you know, yes, like train Jolter.
And you'll be gone, he's going back to bun Long go oh.
Some time.
Yes with him, I'm going with train John Train your.
Wow.
He said, that was the second session.
That you worked with.
Yeah, there was one before this. I don't have the y track. So we sent this to glad As I recall sent a multi track to Gladys and then she put a vocal on it. She says, I don't like this. I don't like this version. It's too slow, and I believe that. Bubba also said, we need something that's happening. We need something that's more in the al green kind of vibe, you know, down home southern, you know, a
little dirty. So that's how they suggested it. So Tony was actually at this time he was he's getting a little nervous because you know, he really wanted to get this record done. We had to get it out there, and so Gladys. He talked to Gladys and she's like, we gotta get we got to make something better. We gotta have an al green feel. Okay, you can kind of relate to the final version and how that is.
What was it like recording Gladys's vocal, But the final session, Gladys's vocal is so great.
Well one to Detroit. You can hear the ideas that Tony had there for some backing vocals, right, Gladys went out and did a real quick vocal when I didn't you know, I wou'd never met. I had never been in that studio before. It was my first airplane flight, never been in that studio before. Here I go checked the input level. Okay, I want to sing now, go go go saying. Glass did a quick reference vocal. I
was able to twitter it a little bit. And then the Pips went out and did their backing vocals, and they pretty much did those backing vocals one line at a time, and Tony was guiding them through that. Tony and Bubba came up with a few, but like Tony Camello came up with that a super.
Bistar buddy who didn't get FA, which is you.
Know, classic and the Boo boo. I think Tony came up with that as well. I believe you know either not drained to Georgia Midnight Drain the Georgia Boo boo. So we did that each line pretty much a line at a time with Glass's guide vocal. We double tracked each one. We would do the line like a super bistar buddy didn't get far, and then we would double that line and then went on to the next line. Then we would get it, and they would do it
several times until I really hit it on. Tony wanted it to be very precise and you know, tight, and those backing vocals are tight, and they're double tracked. So we do each like I said, each line at the time, and then we finished the backing vocals and it was Gladys' turn to Okay, I want to do a real vocal.
Now here I go.
And this is funny. Gladys whould eat a lemon before you go into record. She always had a lemono whether she cut it and put in her mouth and eat it like an orange. And she went out there says I'm ready to do.
A vocal now.
Yes. She did the final vocal, one take, what's what? One take all the way through, and there was one line in the fade on the somewhere I got to go, I got to go, Hey, one of those somewhere I don't. And I listened to it in solo because I have the multi track of that as well. I could not figure which one it was that we went to Bell Sound in New York and just punched in one line, but the whole body of the song is a one take vocal. It's amazing. What a singer. There's a thrill,
there's a real thrill to work with them. Yeah, I wanted to play a little bit of the Pips on in solo because it sounds so good.
And yeah, so we can hear a little bit about a little bit of the isolated vocals from the Pips. I know you want to play for us.
Last bit night Shame George that same.
It's just great.
Yeah, going back to.
Fine whenever he takes that ride, I guess it's gonna be right by his side.
I know you will really tight, really really tight and night.
Trash George Living whoa.
Whold is his His and hers alone?
Dream man a superstar.
But it didn't get far. That's amazing.
Wow, I wasn't incredible.
Yeah, that sounds amazing. Thank you so much for all this music that you've made, especially the one we're talking about today, Midnight Train to Georgia, a classic song.
It was my pleasure great to see both of you.
Yeah, thank you, Thank you so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written and hosted by me, Rob Sheffield.
And Britney Spanos.
Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision by Eric Zeiler. Thanks for listening, Thanks for watching.