Sawbones: Lisztomania

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine.

I'm your co-host, Justin Mackerel.

And I'm Sidney Macrell.

I'm actually, you know what I'm going to do, Sid?

I'm going to lower my microphone volume just to a skosh because that's the level of my energy, of my excitement to be recording this podcast with my wife.

We were on vacation.

We had a beautiful time in

South Carolina, rejuvenated by the sun, the surf, the sand,

and the doing of nothing.

The doing nothing.

But here we are doing things again because we can only keep up the doing nothing for about five consecutive days.

That's it.

That's it.

No, it's good to take a break and do nothing every once in a while.

I think for all of us, turn your brain off for a little bit.

I didn't do nothing.

I did nothing from the perspective of the capitalist machine.

I actually did important work on my soul.

Right.

I read a book.

Yeah.

And I rested and I stared at the waves and contemplated

existence.

Yeah.

So it was a great, it was a great week of relaxation, but it's time to get back to business.

There was a

now a big event.

Crime doesn't rest and neither do we.

A big event happened all over, but especially here in our house the other night, we had some friends over to

watch a podcast.

To watch a podcast.

To watch a podcast because it was a very special podcast.

Yeah, about Taylor Swift.

And I recreated, we recreated that on this week's My Brother, My Brother, Me.

Did I tell you that?

I just

took down the questions that Jason asked.

So because I figured that's going to be the most popular podcast ever, so I could learn to defeat the masters.

So I was just asking, I just use those exact questions to.

I believe I told you not to do that.

You did, but

we made it fun.

Uh-huh.

You got to be careful.

Listen.

The football men will never listen.

Well, no, the football men won't listen.

But here's...

Captain Haddock from Tintin can't find me, CD.

Listen,

we have a Swifty in our house.

Yep.

We have a daughter who's a Swifty.

I have a sister who's a Swifty.

We have many dear friends who are Swifties.

And you do not irritate them.

Don't irritate them.

That's kind of my role for all the women in my life, but yes, especially the Taylor Swift Foods.

Yes.

But it was a big event here in our house because of all of our adjacent Swifties.

Not that we're not.

I appreciate her music.

Yeah.

But I knew she was drunk when she walked in.

Yes.

But I think that like we're talking about like the fandom.

Yeah.

you know, and that this was a big moment.

And this is adjacent to our topic.

This is where I'm going with this.

Yeah, you're looking at me like, what are you doing, Sidney?

Why are you talking about it?

Okay, okay.

And I was taught, and I just think it's important to notice that this wasn't just about like, we like this person's music, she's like a cultural phenomenon, right?

And so it's a moment.

It was a moment.

So anything.

It felt, I was embarrassed.

Here's how big it was.

I wasn't, I, a professional podcaster, was embarrassed it was happening on a podcast.

I was like, we shouldn't do this here.

We need a larger podcast.

This is bigger than podcasts.

I think I stood on the couch and said, this can't be a podcast.

I make podcasts.

If this is a podcast, what do we do?

No,

listen, everyone has a podcast and there's space for all of us to do what we do.

I mean, in this exact moment, I cannot have you quoting the title of my failed podcasting book at me.

I beg of you right now.

This is, I'm so vulnerable.

You do not understand how bad the green-eyed monster is running rampant in my soul honey you can't talk about the book right now there there we got an email from a listener kate thank you kate about a topic that i and i'll be honest as i delved into it i thought oh this will be a fun little medical weird historical thing and it's maybe not as medical as our usual topics but it's it's interesting it was treated as a medical issue at the time okay and i think it's relevant to uh things like you know fandoms like the swifties so we're going to talk about Listomania.

Have you heard of Listomania?

Okay.

When you said that, the only thing, and it's like probably a,

I don't know, I hear the one part in that one Phoenix song

where they say List of Mania.

Right.

But you don't know what they're referencing.

Remember the song.

I remember that was the name of a song on the album as well.

That's like literally when you say Listomania, I hear Listomania.

It's Listomania.

Yeah.

It's interesting because because the, to me, the idea of like a fandom, like a collective that's more than just like, hey, do you like this band?

Oh, me too.

Cool.

But like,

you know, like as a, as a force.

Yes.

It feels like a very modern idea because I kind of connect it with the internet.

Like, how do you coalesce that

without the power?

of the World Wide Web.

That's, you know what I would say, Sid?

I think that what the web has enabled us to do is make those sorts of connections at that level of enthusiasm about smaller things.

You know what I mean?

Like

Beetle Mania, obviously the one that pops in.

I think that that can happen on that scale because of the size of the thing, right?

And then you can have smaller and more niche fandoms because it's easier for them to find each other these days.

Which is...

Evidenced by the fact that occasionally TikTok will surface to me a clip from Greece 2.

Yes, it's also evidenced by the fact that I have a career where I'm gainfully employed doing what I do, where in a much more just age, I would have been some sort of

street clown or a

poorly regarded dock worker.

But this is not, this is not merely a modern convention.

The idea of fandoms obsessive, and when I say obsessive, I'm not, that can be like a critical term.

I just mean

something that would your love for something would become so emotionally overpowering that you would demonstrate that in a very like public dramatic fashion.

Sure.

Does that make sense?

Where do we go from this is the kind of music I like to this is the only thing that I'm thinking about?

Right.

Right.

Okay.

So let's go back to October 22nd.

1811.

Kingdom of Hungary.

Sorry, I was thinking about doing more of a

time tunnel.

Like a time tunnel.

I was thinking about more of a time tunnel on Sawbones that we could start doing.

Oh.

Okay.

So can you say?

Okay.

So let's go back to October 22nd, 1811.

Oh, do I have to do it with you?

I would love you're in

the time tumbler with me.

I'd rather not.

Sorry, what?

Okay.

I would just.

I appreciate your accent so much that I'm not going to make you get the time tumbler with me.

I'll steer the time tumbler and you're cool, calm, and collected.

Okay.

Okay.

You can steer, actually, and you're like focused and I'll just like grab the walls, like, whoa.

Okay, I'm programming in the date.

This is the last time.

Tap, tap, tap.

October 22nd, 1811.

Okay, we're in the kingdom.

Oh, we're still going.

We're still going.

Okay.

We're in the kingdom of Hungary.

Franz List is being born.

I don't have a lot of details about the birth, but that's where our story starts.

He's been born, and so everything can come from there.

His father was an amateur musician, and so he encouraged Liszt to pursue music because he loved music he wasn't making a career off of it that's gosh some things are just careful the things you say children

but it turned out he was a prodigy hmm lucky 10 000 hours i see no i do i you have to wonder it is like it turns out it turns out you know what's crazy guys i made my son play piano all the time and he's a prodigy it turns out i'll be darned he's a prodigy and he was he was performing publicly by the age of nine should we tell our kids this?

Honey,

you joke, but every time I read a story like this, I'm like, six, we're hosed.

No way.

We're done.

It's over.

We missed it.

He was composing by 11.

Charlie just turned 11.

We're hosed.

And there was a...

She was proud that she made her bed today.

We've screwed up.

She was.

It was so sweet.

They're reading a book in class about the importance of making your bed or something.

I don't know.

Anyway,

so, and there, there's a story where he did a public concert where he was 11 and Beethoven was there.

And afterwards, he like came up on stage and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

Like,

yes.

Talk about a different era.

Excuse me.

Excuse me?

Although.

Mr.

Beethoven, what are you?

That's my son.

It is possible that this story is untrue.

Anyway, the point is he was celebrating.

I'm going to end the anecdote after I've already done the jokes.

That's much better.

No, that's good.

That's good.

I like to, I always like to note that on Sawbones.

We try to only spread truth.

And so when I tell a story that, like, historians debate this, like, it may be, but probably not.

But, like, it's not, the point is, he was celebrated.

Um,

after his father passed away, he had like this period of his life where he was sort of like introspective and wandering and drinking and smoking.

And he wasn't sure what, I don't know, music.

Is this my thing?

You know, you know, we all go through it, right?

Like that, yeah, right.

And then he saw the great violinist Paganini perform in 1832, and he realized he is great at that.

And I want to be great like that.

But we should start a band.

No, he didn't start a band.

No.

He just said, like, I want to also be a virtuoso, a genius.

Dang, if that's all it took, huh?

And so he started practicing a lot more and, you know, composing a lot more and performing a lot more.

He married a countess and that was a big deal.

He challenged another pianist, Thalberg, to a public.

Sorry, say it again.

He challenged what?

Another pianist.

Oh, okay.

Sorry, go ahead.

Sorry, I misheard.

This is sawbones.

And I misheard.

Yeah.

We don't do genital jokes on sawbones.

I wasn't even.

I just misheard.

I know that on some of your other podcasts, that sort of humor, that sort of toilet humor.

Puerile energy, squid.

Sorry, it's not me.

So challenged another pianist, Thalberg, to it.

Thalberg.

Thalberg.

Thalberg.

Thalberg.

That was his name.

That was his name.

I was just hearing

to a public piano duel

because he had criticized him.

He had said some stuff like, I don't know, I think it's kind of boring.

And the other guy was like, excuse me, just because you're all dramatic doesn't mean I'm boring.

I'm just really good at this.

And so then they had a public duel, like where they played pianos.

They tried to see who could play the quietest it was a pianissing contest

you feel good about that yeah actually i do all i could think of as i was picturing this a public piano duel and you know in who framed roger rabbit 100 now daffy versus donald yes one of the craziest scenes that it even exists is honestly kind of a wild thing but yes 100 honey it's frame by frame burped into my memory yes that's and that is exactly what i'm picturing these two doing.

It, if you're interested, because I was reading like who won, like, who did, who did critics think was better between these two guys, whose music, by the way, I was not familiar with prior to researching this episode.

Who, who was better?

And it seemed like it was kind of a draw.

Like, there were people who said Thalberg is like the more

trained, like better, like, classically better

of the craft, but that list brings this sort of like new dramatic energy to it that was intriguing and so he's doing stuff with the face you wouldn't believe he pulls these faces He's like ah Whoa, it's amazing This isn't far off from why it was popular.

We're gonna get into this So anyway, I guess it was kind of a draw everybody was like I don't know they're both good at piano.

Why did we do this?

That was kind of the because we like piano and everyone was like yeah and someone's like somebody please invent TV

But then after this, this is when his life started to change.

So he was, like I said, he had had married this countess and things weren't going well.

So he had separated from the countess.

He was out there on his own.

He's a single guy again,

you know,

composing and

you don't need to tell me how it is when you're a single guy out there composing on the town.

And he's touring Europe and he does all these concerts in Berlin in the winter of 1841 into 1842.

And at this time, he becomes very popular.

Like as he's touring a lot and performing a lot,

people really start to notice him.

So I don't know if it's his new like single guy energy.

Maybe it is,

you know, the piano is such

a sexy instrument, a romantic instrument.

You have to have extremely long fingers, from what I understand, to be really proficient at it, and people love that.

And then that could be it, the mystery of that.

So

I don't know that it was that.

It might not have been that.

There were lots of, I I mean, at the time, obviously, the idea of somebody like touring and playing piano would not be weird, right?

There were lots of, you know, composers.

There were lots of people doing that.

Yeah, but he wasn't.

So why was he attracting so much attention?

And so it's interesting if you read about his performances.

First of all, like, I mean, I guess he is just coming off of this like broken marriage.

So maybe it is sort of like that, I can do it with a broken heart energy.

Okay, we love that.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I could be the next Miss List.

But there also is a lot written about the way he performed.

So at the time, performing your classical music, you would sit and you would play your songs and it was all very buttoned up.

And, you know, I mean, it was a, it's a conservative affair.

Like you're not, you dress nicely, you sit.

It's chamber.

It's chamber music.

Yes.

This is a chamber.

And this was not the way List performed.

Oh, no.

So it is noted that he was very handsome.

Oh, my.

You can look up pictures of him and and decide who you are.

You know I am right now.

He was thought to be very handsome.

He had long hair and very nice features.

And as he would play,

it was described that he would toss his long hair back frequently

and run his hands through his hair.

Oh, this looks like kind of your kind of your type of guy, Cindy.

He's like kind of

oh, I didn't think he looked like you.

No, no.

Oh, thank you.

No, like your kind of guy where it's like that dark broody guy.

You like that kind of like effeminate broody guy

he did have a dark i mean look at this man look at this man he looks like uh you may i mean like what would you say like a sad okay kind of like um i don't know he's got tamlin energy it's like a little bit he does look like tamlin like kind of like a roger daltry in his in like his older era and younger he's kind of like

a little bit draco malfoy coated i would say if that makes sense so he's got he's got kind of kind of like the aristocratic yeah yeah yeah

you know?

Very elegant.

He looks cool.

He looks like a cool dude, honestly.

Even in his older years, his hair just kind of got like wilder.

I don't know, man.

Yeah.

So he's got like, yeah, he's got like the long hair and he would like, as he would play, he would, first of all, he would make, like, he would look at the crowd.

He would make eye contact.

He would make faces in reaction to his music.

It wasn't just sort of like the like

grimly

focused, like pounding away at the core.

He was like, yeah, it was from like putting his whole body into it.

It was like bump, bum, bum, bum.

And he made it more like bum bum bum bum.

Yeah, a little, yeah.

He put a little spice in it.

And he would like toss his hair around.

You've made it.

And he would make eye contact.

He's like tossing his hair so many times.

People

talk about it.

Like if you read in the articles about it, like he would, that was a big thing.

The fact that he would like, and like people would write about watching the performance and how many times he like ran his fingers through his hair and then began to play again.

And as he began to do these concerts all over Berlin,

he got a reaction that previously we had not seen to other, you know, great pianists and performers of the time.

Okay.

And hence the beginning of listomania.

So I want to tell you about this cultural phenomenon, listomania, and what, you know, what we sort of draw from it today.

But before we do that, we got to go to the billing department.

All right, let's go.

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So far, this...

Honey, you said it was light on the medical, but like, I do not know why this man could possibly be medically related.

So people began to attend his concerts in droves because they heard about, you know, how great his music was, but also how like...

handsome he was.

That was a big thing.

And they started to observe, especially women, reacting in a a way that at the time would have been very inappropriate and odd for women to act in public,

especially at a piano concert.

Right.

So women began to

fight over like getting closer to him, trying to get to the front row,

trying to get his attention during the performance.

Oh, trying to jockey for positions.

He noticed this and would begin to like sort of stoke that by leaving his gloves or his handkerchiefs.

Oh my gosh, I love that.

Where women could like fight to get to the stage.

Or so inclined men, Sidney.

This is an enlightened era.

Certainly, certainly.

But women began to like fight over these things that he would leave behind.

And I mean, to the point where they described situations where like he left a handkerchief on the piano and women like, tackled each other, grabbing at the handkerchief and ripping it to shreds so they could each get a piece of his handkerchief.

I do appreciate it.

There was another performance where he had a glass of water, and he, he, at the end of the performance, he left some of the water still on stage, and women rushed the stage to take a sip from the glass

that his lips had touched.

I love that.

And again, I know that this sort of like behavior, like kind of, you know,

fans of a musical artist or like at a concert people kind of going wild this doesn't sound odd by today's standards right like we all go to concerts and we see our favorite artists and we're screaming and we're yelling now I have never attempted to rush the stage at a Weezer concert to like

grab Rivers glasses or something like I wouldn't do that but no I would never I would never I would never but I can see where like again by today's standards the idea that a fan would would really try to get close to some.

I mean, like, we know that happens.

We can't.

See, Travis is that Fallout Boy.

He isn't thinking it's an arms race or a scene.

He's thinking it's a concert and I'm enjoying it.

But I'm not going to try to go up there with my best friends, Pete and the gang and the gang.

Join him on stage.

I wondered how many names you were going to be able to drop there.

You would think because of the Teen Titans episode, I would, I would know more, but

I don't know.

There was

a people noted that he would smoke cigars, and so it was not uncommon for him to like toss his cigar stubs out for women to like battle over to keep as a souvenir i mean can you which i mean that's a little grody to me like

can i take home your hey let me have your stubbins cigar stub

um

and uh women began to like i i love this to wear uh little cameos of him so like merch yeah this is like merch no literally like that he there was merch made around him which again at the time this was very odd this is not i mean my man

it is 18 early 1840s yeah but my man's

in the enamel pen game like represent like i did i respect you my friend thank you for that thank you for those pens that put a lot of food on my kids plates thank you can you imagine that that was the origin of this where all of these ladies dressed in their finery you know usually very demure

very mindful and instead they are screaming and yelling, throwing things at the stage, tearing at his handkerchiefs, and wearing dainty cameos with his face depicted on them

to

his concerts.

You even think about, sorry, brief aside, just about the demure thing.

You think about language and how

ideas get attached and how hard it is to trace the origins of language because it's so malleable.

And obviously, things have not been on the TikTok scale of like virality where we can spread the idea so quickly.

But like

it's wild to think that there will be a time, and it may not be permanent, but there will be a time where like as a culture, if someone mentions the word demure, it will be tied to the word mind.

Like someone else will say mindful.

And in 50 years, we may still be doing it and not know why we do it.

It's just like, I don't know, man.

We just always say demure and mindful together.

I don't know why we do it.

That's just the way I feel.

It feels weird if someone says demure and i don't also say mindful at some at some point uh one woman famously gathered one of his cigar stumps this was a common thing and put it in a locket

and had it monogrammed that's cool like diamond encrusted fl

that's cool franz list

and wore around

which again by today's standards this is very like i'm not i don't honestly by today's standards i'm jealous we don't get anybody like this you know what I mean?

Like, because you don't, well, I mean, this, I, and I think, I don't know, that would be, I guess you could generate that energy with a live podcast, but like, he's playing piano, and again,

there's something, there was something very physical about his performance that I mean, that's clearly communicated.

There was something about it that elicited passion and all the respect.

I don't actually need my wife to sit here and just explain to me why playing piano is so much more sexy than podcasting.

I do get it, but I would love to move on.

So,

in response to all this, in response to these performances, the excitement around him, there were fainting spells, there were ladies not acting the way ladies act.

So, there was a writer, Heinrich Hein, who would write these,

there were these inserts that would kind of go in like newspapers of the day to like fill you in on

popular culture, things that were happening.

And he wrote musical, they were called, this is a French word,

fiutons, fieldens,

fiutons, fiutons.

So little, little inserts about, like, hey, I saw a concert and here's what it was like, kind of thing, right?

Like review, little reviews, little reviews.

I get the sense reading them.

I read through a bunch of his about different composers.

And they're like, there's a little bit of like, I don't know, e-news energy to them.

You know what I mean?

And just a little, a little caddy, just a little.

Catch a little bit.

Yeah.

And in them, he coined the term like, he watched Franz Liszt perform and he said it has invoked a listomania.

That's really good.

And I think what's important to understand about that, because when you hear listomania in this context, and then, of course, you think Beetle Mania, because we exist now, and it doesn't feel like, okay, so what's the big deal?

Everybody really loved it.

And he said listomania.

To use the word mania at this time and place in history

was a big deal.

Right.

If I had to guess,

it's sort of one of those things where, like, the mania, the, the teeth have been taken out of the word because it has been used in this pop sci sense

for so many years.

Is that

right?

Yes.

Nowadays, we can say mania at the end of anything, you know, like because of this.

I mean,

you know, probably in part because of this, like, obviously, there's different, like appending mania did not begin with list of mania, I would say, but like for sure.

Yes.

And so you can say, you can say that at the end of something now, and it doesn't necessarily mean something major.

Now, at the time, the idea of a mania was a lot, I mean, it was a medical condition.

The idea that someone was manic, experiencing mania over something or experiencing just the concept of mania would mean that they were acting in a way that was irrational, maybe,

confusing,

maybe dangerous,

dangerous to themselves, perhaps, acting in a way that could cause themselves harm, acting in a way that might bring harm to others.

I mean, if you said someone was experiencing mania, you would take that very seriously.

If you got a, well, you wouldn't get a phone call, but if you got a

letter, like, I'm so sorry, dear lady, your cousin is experiencing mania, you would be very upset by that, right?

Like, that would, that's not something she was listomania, but still,

a mania.

But the other, the other connotation with mania isn't just that it was a medical medical condition that would need to be treated in some way.

And perhaps, especially among women, not just treated, but maybe we needed to put you somewhere to keep you away from people, right?

So, like, a woman experiencing mania at this time in history may be institutionalized.

because she is a danger to the fabric of society at that point.

Because the other thing about mania is that it was thought to be contagious.

So

if I, as a big list fan, show up at the concert and I am a woman and I am, you know, I probably not throwing underwear.

I don't, I didn't read any reports of that.

Probably like throwing my handkerchief, right?

Like I don't know.

Teddy Fords, all those old.

And I'm wearing the cameo and I'm screaming and I'm, I'm, I'm doing unseemly things for a lady of the time.

Perhaps the lady next to me, who otherwise is an upright citizen, would do the same thing.

And so when when he wrote that there's a listomania, this was a big deal because what he is saying is he is invoking something in society that will change the way people act, specifically women, and other women will also become infected with this.

And we will begin to see changes among the way our ladies behave.

And this is a call to action in a sense.

We must stop this.

We've got to stop people.

Yeah.

And And I will say, I mean, I would be interesting to test the contagious theory in a just like get a List fan in a room with someone who's never heard his music before and just see if she could like

just stand near her long enough.

Like, you get it, right?

List,

right?

Franz List?

Look at his hair.

Right?

No, no, no.

You can't have any.

Oh.

It's got to be contagious, right?

So she can't be reacting to the business.

You just have to be near.

You just have to be near the person who has listomania just to see if they like get it.

It's like being a Doors fan.

You know what I mean?

They're not made.

They're born.

You know, you just are a Doors fan or not.

Maybe it's like that.

It's just like you're around the person.

You're like, I don't know who Franz List is or what he does, but I am crazy about it.

But I am sold.

Get me a lithograph.

Get me a lithograph and an enamel cameo.

I'm crazy for this guy.

I'm in for it.

Where are his cigar butts?

So,

and if you look at some of the critics of the time, they, a lot of them talked about how his music was different.

Sometimes it was discordant.

Like he was experimenting with different styles and different compositions that were unique.

And not everybody liked him.

Like if you read a lot of the music critics, they will all say, and again, these are largely men.

So I don't know if that.

if that colors their review, but they would say like, it's not really for everyone.

This isn't as easily digestible as a lot of the music of the time, which everyone would say, like, that was beautiful.

It wasn't always beautiful.

Sometimes

it was challenging.

And some, and, and that spoke to the culture of the time.

A lot of people think that it had to do with the attitude of

people in northern Germany and the Berliners and that they had a different, like that we were changing society at this point.

They were looking at like challenging conventional ways and that this was sort of a counterculture.

List represented a counter and so the the mania that evolved around him was it's like we're using this as an excuse to be new and different and change.

And so we're using the mania as a way to like tamp down this like social shift that we're not maybe crazy about.

But people took that really seriously.

There was a

in a Munich paper in 1843 one

One reporter said, List fever, a contagion that breaks out in every city our artist visits and which neither age nor wisdom can protect, seems to appear here only sporadically and asphyxiating cases such as appeared so often in northern capitals need not be feared by our residents with their strong constitutions.

So that you see Munich, southern Germany saying, we will not be infected by the contagion.

List mania, listomania like the northern Germans will.

But I think that it, if you then like fast forward, so eventually, and I will say like

List was very popular for quite a while.

He ended up with this sort of tortured romance where he fell in love with a married woman and she had to go get her marriage annulled by the Catholic Church.

And then they eventually refused.

And so then he entered like a monastery for the last of his life and just composed away in a monastic cell somewhere writing his tortured songs all by himself.

And so he was this very romantic figure.

You know, people were interested by that, intrigued by that.

Eventually, obviously, his popularity waned, and there were other musical artists, but it does sort of give us a roadmap for when you fast forward to like Beatle Mania, where you saw, you know, people at Beatles concerts famously acting much the way that we described these people at Lists concerts, you know, behaving.

And I think what it just sort of underlines is this

idea of mania being used as a way to stoke fear about cultural change and shift.

People are acting in a new way.

And we can use popular culture to help explain that for us or give us like a cover.

I'm only acting that way because I'm so wild about this music.

When really we're acting that way because we're, we're changing, we're moving forward, we're progressing.

And I think that's really fascinating.

Nowadays, we don't hear the word, you know, if we, if I don't think anybody says Swiftomania about Taylor Swift.

I bet you could Google it.

There's got to be something, right?

But I mean, it's the same idea.

People were super excited to watch that podcast, who would never watch that podcast

because they love her so much and so but when you hear that you don't think like oh my goodness they're dangerous although although i would say echoes of this during the election when taylor swift famously came out and told people to vote and then you heard a lot of voices from the conservative side saying like Taylor Swift is indoctrinating people and she's dangerous.

It's the same idea.

It's the same.

I mean, we're calling on that same idea that people really loving something and using it as a way to explain them moving forward and progressing and changing culture and society.

There are always going to be establishment voices who say, this is dangerous.

Hey, I have a question as we were looking at the, you were talking about some of those individual anecdotes, and they're very specific.

And it made me wonder, like, this is somebody who

was, you know, making merchandise, had different ideas about like

how to grow grow his career.

Do you wonder about if

the his people or him himself were like

fanning these flames?

Like were these stories encouraged?

Like you think about who is in charge of history for this stuff.

I wonder if some of these specific stories were preserved because he or like the people managing him like wanted the the narrative.

I definitely and I'm not an expert on list certainly I've read so I've read a lot about him to research this episode, but I'm certain there are people who know a lot more about him than me, obviously.

But I got the impression from what I read, from quotes from him, from people writing about his performances, that he was,

if not encouraging, certainly not discouraging this sort of discourse around him.

I think he did understand that

he was doing something beyond playing music, that performing and becoming a cultural figure is more than just whatever your craft or skill is that that you can build something around it

that can

change the way people see you and see music and see culture I think he understood that and you know I think in the in the grand scheme of artists and performers there are differences in that right like there are some people who just grind away and are super skilled and do what they do so well, but aren't necessarily trying to build a culture around them.

And then there are other artists who pursue that.

I I always think of Jimmy Buffett when I think that.

Yeah.

Jimmy Buffett was beyond a musician.

He built a lifestyle.

And Franz List did it too.

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

We hope you've enjoyed yourself.

I sure enjoyed having you here, if I'm being honest.

Yeah, and

I'll get more medical next week.

I was just so fascinated once Kate told me about Listomania, and then I started reading about it.

Whatever you want, it's your show.

I think the idea of

if the Kelsey brothers can do an episode about Taylor Swift on their football show, certainly we can do one about Listomania.

We'll get more medical next week.

Don't worry.

I'll get something gory or gooey or bloody for you.

Thanks so much for listening.

Thanks to taxpayers for use.

Their song Medicines is the intro and outro of our program.

Thanks to you for listening.

That's going to do it for us.

Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy.

I'm Sidney McRoy.

As always, don't drill a hole in your head.

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