[78-L] The Investigator (Was: "IT", Was:Presidents on radio/McCarthy)

[Michael Biel]

Mike Harkin wrote:
>>IT = "The Investigator"

David Lennick wrote:
 > Oooooh, THAT! dl

Well, now that we know it is "The Investigator" is is Lennick who is 
tagged as it.  How about  it -- can you dig up one of those original 
complete copies?  I'd love to have it in its context with the open and 
close, and in better quality if it so happens. 

As I mentioned, I have a number of original Columbia pressings and 
several later ones including the very inferior Broadside.  What is 
interesting is that most of the original pressings I see do not have the 
liner notes -- the reverse of the cover is BLANK.  This added to the 
mystique of the record  because so many people who had it did not know 
any of its background.  It was truly underground and mysterious.  I 
think the first time I found a copy with the original back cover was a 
later black label copy with the handwritten XTV matrix numbers, the type 
made by the Everest Group that we found in the annual college bookstore 
traveling record sales. 

My background with this recording is likewise even more "underground".  
In 1956 I am 10 and in my first summer at sleep-away camp, and my bunk's 
counselor has an open-reel VM tape recorder.  As a progressive college 
kid, a couple of the tapes he had were dubs of Tom Lehrer and The 
Investigator.  (He also played a lot a recording of a military chorus 
singing "The Red Ball Express" from an Ed Sullivan program.)  As a kid I 
didn't understand all of what Lehrer was singing about--to me dope meant 
someone stupid, so The Old Dope Peddler was selling stupid people, and 
giving kids free samples of stupid people???   Even then I was watching 
the news so I did know something about the McCarthy hearings but 
certainly had no idea about the politics. 

But to answer the comment as to whether it holds up now, it does because 
even kids who did not know what the satire meant could enjoy it then.  
The best part were the running gags, especially bringing in all the 
wrong Karl Marxes.  "Oh no no no.  I'm Karl Marx the fish cleaner."  And 
sending all the witnesses "from uo here . . . . . . to down there"  and 
that great wind music swirling from up here to down there with a final 
thud.  And then the report of the devil getting pissed off because all 
of the Karl Marxes are holding rallys.  I loved it then and once I 
realized what it was all about, I love it more.  It is one of the 
greatest pieces of political satire of the century. 

It turns out (of course) that there is a good web page about it with 
audio by permission of the CBC, but my computer cannot play RealPlayer 
because it turns off my modem ever time the player is started, so I do 
not know the quality or if the open and close is there.  Can someone 
check it out and report back?  
http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/investigator/investigator.html

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com 

>
>>     
>>> Taylor Bowie wrote:
>>>       
>>>>> Michael Biel wrote:
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Mike Harkin wrote:
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> TO WHOEVER WROTE THAT THEY HAVE COPIES OF IT:  please DO make a CD of it;
>>>>>>> I'd buy it!  Mike in Plovdiv
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> What is "it"??  There were half a dozen recordings discussed in this thread.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>>>>>> _________________________________________
>>>>>>             
>>>>> I've got "it" but it don't do me no good. dl
>>>>>           
>>>> I had it,  I lost it,  and it's gone. 
>>>>         
>>> But...they can't take THAT away from me.
>>>
>>> And You Said It,  but it turns out that She's Got It. T 
>>>
>>>       
>>> And I Got It From Agnes.
>>>
>>> (Somebody's gonna be sorry they asked..) dl