What's Making Us Happy (1970s Version)

We're traveling way back in time to 1971 -- when Richard Nixon was president, the Beatles were newly broken up, and Fiddler on the Roof was one of the biggest movies at the box office. Today in this encore episode, we’re revisiting a special edition of What's Making Us Happy, recommending pop culture from the 1970s – including Isaac Hayes’ Shaft soundtrack, Carol King’s Tapestry, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and The Monster at the End of This Book. Looking for more pop culture from the past? Check out these episodes: The American dream according to ‘The Wire,’ ‘Apollo 13’ and more https://www.npr.org/2026/06/30/nx-s1-5872268/the-american-dream-according-to-the-wire-apollo-13-and-more ‘Jaws’ is still stuck in our teeth, 50 years later https://www.npr.org/2025/08/28/nx-s1-5518187/jaws-is-still-stuck-in-our-teeth-50-years-later 'Shrek' – a weird, flatulent and beloved franchise – turns 25 https://www.npr.org/2026/05/14/nx-s1-5818294/shrek-a-weird-flatulent-and-beloved-franchise-turns-25 Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  We're traveling way back in time when Richard Nixon was president, the Beatles were newly broken up, and Fiddler on the Roof was one of the biggest movies at the box office.

• 0:28Speaker 02

  If you have any lingering 70s nostalgia, we've compiled a special edition of What's Making Us Happy this week, as we might have offered in 1971. I'm Stephen Thompson.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  And I'm Linda Holmes. And on this encore episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're bringing you an episode of What's Making Us Happy in the 1970s.

• 0:52Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and a big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and more. No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. This message comes from NPR sponsor, the Capital One Venture X Business Card. Every business owner needs a serious business travel card that can keep up with their needs. With the Capital One Venture X Business Card, you earn unlimited double miles on every

• 2:06Speaker 03

  purchase, no matter where your business may take you. Plus, big purchasing power means you can spend more and earn more. The Capital One Venture X Business Card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Joining us today are our fellow Pop Culture Happy Hour hosts, Glen Weldon. Hello, Glenn.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Feeling groovy, Lynda.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  And Aisha Harris. Hello, Ayesha.

• 2:29Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm feeling solid myself.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Now, we should mention, when I say, as we would have done it in 1971, I do not mean that we are going to adopt the lingo, nor the false sense of when it is as that.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I will actually be speaking to you as I would have in 1971, which is as a tiny, inaudible gurgle in the womb.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Oh, nice. Awesome. We are not doing that. We are simply going to talk about some things that come from 1971. And we're going to start with Stephen because it's awesome. Stephen, what did you pick?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Well, when you look at what came out in 1971, you look at the movies, you look at the TV shows, you look at the music, one of the first things that will jump out at you is that an absolute onslaught of incredible albums came out in 1971. It was an unbelievably great year for music. But I wanted to pick something whose tendrils extended a little bit beyond music. And I picked the soundtrack/score to the 1971 movie Shaft.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  I want to note, we're all chair dancing, except Glenn, which is the most chair dancing you ever get to.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  One thing that has really jumped out at me, revisiting both the movie and the soundtrack album, the kind of double-length sprawling soundtrack album, is just what a fantastic piece of music it is. And Isaac Hayes, he had that often imitated voice. You think of him in more recent years as the voice of Chef from South Park, and you think of him as a vocal talent. But my god, when you spend some time with the instrumental pieces on this record, just listening to the instrumental score of the song theme from Shaft, it is a fantastic melange of these punchy horns and strings and that perfect guitar line.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  There's so much going on throughout. And yet, you can put on that album, and there are occasional pieces with vocals in them, but a lot of it is just instrumental. And it is a fantastic piece of instrumental music. Not only did the theme from Shaft hit number one and was kind of an instantly iconic song, but that whole album hit number one. People spent a ton of time just reveling in that music. It is so fantastic. And I just think Isaac Hayes doesn't always get enough due as a composer, because he was not only a great singer, but a great, great composer.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  Stephen, can you help me put something in context here? That spoken dialogue, the "shut your mouth, I'm just talking about Shaft," that choice, even though it's become kind of background, that choice still seems weird to me. It happens in pop songs now, Gaga does it a lot. But at the time, were a lot of artists doing it? Because to me, that has the sound of, like, when you hear dialogue over a track, I think novelty song, I think comedy song. Were a lot of other artists doing it?

• 5:41Speaker 02

  I think there were girl groups that were incorporating that. And I think that's a lot.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Plenty and leader of the pack.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's what a lot of that, I think, is drawing on. But it also, and watching, I just rewatched Shaft very recently, and that song kind of rolls over the opening. It's establishing who he is. But it's also, like, it's establishing so much personality. There's so much of him that's coming through in it, but also just this note of playfulness that is so welcome. Oh, I love it.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  He's a complicated man.

• 6:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think that's part of what makes this song such a marvel, is the way it layers the cheese with the utter cool. It is just, like, it is so cheesy. And that was something that Isaac Hayes did in a lot of his other songs, although it wasn't always quite as cheesy. He would talk over a lot of his songs. I think of something like his version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," which has like a multi-minute intro of him just telling a story and talking. But I just love the way in which it has this sort of can-be feel to it, while also being so utterly sexy and cool. And I don't know, I think it works. In the same way, Barry White, that worked. I just love it.

• 6:59Speaker 05

  And I think the movie, I recently just rewatched it as well, and the movie actually holds up pretty good 50 years later. Like, John Shaft, also the fact that the name of the movie is Shaft and the name of this character is Shaft is also just super funny. But he is, he's still cool. That leather jacket, I want one.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  That jacket is fantastic.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Outstanding. So Stephen's pick is Shaft, music and film. Ayesha, we are going to go to you. I think you also chose music.

• 7:30Speaker 05

  I did choose music. So I was not even a speck in my parents' eye when this came out. But because my parents were young, in their teens at this time, I grew up listening to so much of their music. And you know, when you reach a certain age, when you're around 12, 13, and you start to think like, oh, I'm going to take on this air of, I love this music and none of my other peers like this, but I'm cool, I understand. Music is so deep. It was so deep back then, and I wish I could have lived back then, and that could have been my time. And for me, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On was that album. It was my introduction to being the sort of annoying kid who you didn't want to talk

• 8:13Speaker 05

  to, who was always like, oh, I can't believe you don't understand how good this album is. It's so deep. It's talking about real issues, and you're just listening to Britney Spears. How dare you? I was that kid, and I don't think I fully appreciated the album until I grew older, and I grew into understanding why it's so good, and it wasn't just me putting on these airs. But when I think about this album, to me, it is the quintessential social issues, political pop album that doesn't feel like it's preaching to you, that doesn't feel like it is sappy and John Legend-y, I should say. It doesn't hedge into that territory. Yes, I said John Legend. I have so many issues with that man, but much of it is just the way he just always

• 8:56Speaker 05

  seems so smug in every time he's singing. Marvin does not have that. And there's obviously What's Going On, the song, the title song. But what I love about the album as a whole is the way in which it layers all of these different moments from What's Going On into the other songs. It feels like one entire opera or one entire piece. There's so much continuity, and yet each song is very distinct and is dealing with different issues. I want to play actually a little bit of What's Happening, Brother, which is the song that immediately follows What's Going On on the album. And if you listen to the first opening moments of it, you can hear what's going on kind of just dripped into it. If you listen to it back to back, it just all moves in this one fluid motion.

• 9:40Speaker 06

  Hey, baby, what you know good? I'm just getting back, but you knew I would. Boy, as hell, when will it be?

• 9:53Speaker 05

  He also kind of switches from perspectives on each song. That song in particular was drawn from his conversations with his younger brother, who went to Vietnam and the horrible stories he had from that experience. And I just think it's such a really great album, and I encourage people to listen to the entire thing again if they haven't in a while, because there's so many different things going on besides the bigger hits. And "Younger Me" was super, superficial about it, but now I can admire it as a masterpiece as an adult.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I mean, I think in some ways, like, it has, you know, funny enough, as we talked about with Shaft, having the cheesiness and also the cool. I think this song has the, kind of, the meaning and the purpose that he had in mind with the lyric, but also these songs have such fluidity and they're so kind of melodic and pretty, in a way. I think the word groovy was invented to get at the quality that these songs, this album, possess.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I'm hearing connective tissue between what's going on and the soundtrack from Shaft, what you're hearing is just absolute technicolor mastery in the production. Everybody involved in that production is working at the absolute top of their game. And so every second of the song, whether the singer is singing or not, everybody in that orchestra, everybody in the studio, is just turning out something indelible. It is a masterpiece.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I'm gonna tell ya, I also chose music. We're just a bunch of music heads today. Carole King was still a teenager when she became a songwriter for the pop music factory at the Brill Building with her husband, Jerry Goffin. She wrote a really genuinely ridiculous number of popular songs, you know, which really run the gamut. Like, she wrote "They Wrote," "One Fine Day," "They Wrote Up on the Roof," "The Locomotion," "Chains," which the Beatles later did, "Take Good Care of My Baby." But her solo efforts didn't initially take off.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  And then in 1971, she puts out the album Tapestry, which immediately becomes a massive, and by massive, I mean massive, commercial success. You know, it set a bunch of different charting records, depending on what charts you like to look at. It also won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, won Record, she won Record of the Year for "It's Too Late," which she was the first female solo artist to win that. On Tapestry, you hear a few different things, right? One thing you hear on Tapestry is a song that became the theme to the Gilmore Girls that she later rerecorded.

• 12:40Speaker 07

  Where you lead, I will follow anywhere that you tell me to. If you need.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  So that, to me, sounds a little bit like the kind of light pop of the Brill Building, some of the other stuff that she was writing for other artists. You also get a couple of really different takes on songs that she had written that had already been hits for other people, one of which is a little song called "Natural Woman," which you might know as an Aretha Franklin song. Obviously, that is by far the iconic version, but there is a Carole King version that is on Tapestry. There is, she also has a version of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" that is very, very different from the original.

• 13:23Speaker 07

  But will you love me tomorrow?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  If you think about the way that the lyric of that song captures a real anxious sadness around whether somebody that you're sleeping with is still going to care about you the next day, it's interesting to hear a kind of a slightly more downbeat take on that or a more kind of meditative take on that. But what I really love the most is some of the stuff that is on this record that was just her stuff, that she wrote and that she sang, my favorite of which is a song called "Home Again."

• 13:59Speaker 07

  Snow is cold, rain is wet. Chills my soul right to the marrow.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  I saw a little smile from one of my co-panelists when she said, "Snow is cold, rain is wet," because it does sound like a silly line, but then she glides into that "chills my soul right to the marrow." And to me, when that kind of lands, it is such an enormously pretty line. So I love this album because, both because I love the music on it and because I love the explorations of songs that people might know in other contexts, and because I love her story as somebody who was writing a lot for other people, you know, who I think maybe thought that solo success was not in her future, who, who made this album that just was monumentally enormously successful, and she continues to have her influence felt

• 14:57Speaker 01

  in things like Gilmore Girls and the like. So Carole King, Tapestry, man.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is a remarkable album. It's all hits, no skips. And while it is timeless in one sense, in another sense, it is so redolent of its time. I don't have synesthesia, but anytime one of these songs comes on, I'm like, oh, that is Paisley the song, right? That is, that note is avocado gold, and that note is a burnt oka refrigerator, and that note's a macrame plant holder. Like, it was unavoidable, and I didn't want to avoid it, but it was all over the 70s, man.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, I have a very soft spot for this type of music. This, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, like, all of that. Joni Mitchell, I love it. I also love just, Carole King's voice has just the slightest bit of a husk to it. It's not overbearing, but you can kind of hear it in her, the timbre of her voice. And I just think it's really sweet. Yeah, I love Carole King. Give her all her flowers.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with everything you guys have said. I also just want to mention briefly, trying to pick an album to talk about, you guys mentioned Cat Stevens and Joni Mitchell. Cat Stevens put out "Teaser in the Fire Cat" in 1971. Joni Mitchell put out "Blue" in 1971. We haven't gotten into Led Zeppelin IV, or "There's a Riot Going On" from Sly and the Family Stone. I mean, hit after hit after hit, but also really ageless classic after ageless classic. It is a remarkable year for music.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's just, it's one of my favorite, very favorite albums and stories. All right, so that is my pick. Glenn, we are down to you. You, wait a minute, you broke the rules, you did not pick music.

• 16:36Speaker 04

  Yes, I picked something different. And I get why you all chose music. I mean, it's very evocative of its time, you know, at its best, it reflects, or at least it speaks to, I guess, the, the national mood. But one of us must represent nobler pursuits, the world of literature, the written word, the life of the mind. For while the year 1971 was notable for those amusing little ditties you've cited, we cannot ignore the fact that a great work of towering, enduring significance was first published that year. And attention must be paid, it's a work of post-structuralist meta-narrative, after the fashion of Foucault and Derrida.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  It takes as its subject nothing less than the gnawing, inchoate fear that some have rightly dubbed "the human condition." Our base festering eternal need toward othering that which we do not understand. It's a harrowing descent into desperation, terror, rage, and despair. It's a chronicle of soul-sick woe and extended cri de coeur, one might say, of raw anxiety that chills the blood. It is a work of Kierkegaardian existential dread, really. Dread and fuzziness. I, of course, can only be speaking, as you've likely already surmised, of the monster at the end of this book, starring lovable, furry old Grover, written by John Stone, illustrated

• 18:02Speaker 04

  by Michael Smallin. This book, you guys, powerful, seminal, life-shaping. Talk to me about it.

• 18:09Speaker 05

  Thank you, Oscar Wilde.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  You're not entirely wrong.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  I'm not, right?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love this book.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  The funny thing is that you're not entirely wrong. This book taught a lot of kids about fourth-wall breaking. And, I mean, it serves a number of purposes. Also, speaking as a parent, it is a really fun book to read.

• 18:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, and to read aloud is, yes, especially. I remember this book. Yeah, we had lots of Sesame Street books. This was probably in my top two of Sesame Street books, including another book about Ernie, who is my favorite, one of my favorites. But Grover is just one of the best Muppets, and this is one of the best books by a Muppet, about a Muppet. So kudos to you for bringing this up.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  I agree with the part that, about how it's a meta-narrative. I didn't follow about three quarters of what Glenn said, but I do agree with that, that it's a meta-narrative full of fourth-wall breaking, et cetera, as Stephen said. But I think it's also a book about being scared. It's a book about what it's like to feel dread. And I think with little kids, it can be really hard to hit the right balance where you're talking about how it's normal and okay to have fears and to worry about things. It's partly a book about a form of anxiety and nervousness and fear of what's coming, which I think is something that can be hard for kids to talk about. So I think it's a really good book about that, in addition to being about a lovely, fuzzy monster who doesn't, like, you know, who, who doesn't love him.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's, let's, I mean, I guess we need to do the NPR explanatory comment, what the book's about, even though that feels like explaining what breathing is. But like, in the book, Grover is addressing the reader directly. He's warning you that, he's heard there's a monster waiting at the end of the book, and in this book that you're holding in your hands right now, he's begging you not to turn the page, which, of course, you do, again and again. And he gets into a greater and greater panic. He is begging you, he's cajoling you, he's admonishing you not to just stop.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Hold up, I think this is where we need to add spoiler alert.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  So spoiler, when you get to the end of the book, right, you and he both realize at the same time that the monster is Grover himself. But that's not the last words of the book. Do you guys remember what the last words of this book are?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  It's something about how he feels better or something.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  No, it's, oh, I'm so embarrassed.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  So that is the arc of this book, from dread, fear, panic, relief, but not relief alone, with embarrassment. Yes, this is baby's first Foucault. It's an introduction to like self-awareness, where the characters realize their characters and the fourth wall gets pulverized, as you mentioned, Stephen. But you also get, as you mentioned, Lynda, you get a very concrete sense of how stories are structured as you read it, because the ending is coming and with each page you turn, it's growing nearer. This is, and again, the subject is so frightening. If they made a little golden book out of No Exit, you'd have something of kind of what this book is. But, you know, and what everybody talks about, parents, academics, booksellers, what the people talk about is the power it confers upon the reader, right? You are defying, actively defying someone's instructions. But that's not all it is, right?

• 21:13Speaker 04

  Because as the book goes on, you start to defy their pleas, their cries for mercy. And sure, it's empowering, but it's also a little sinister, right? Because it is kind of a kid's version of the Milgram experiment in reverse.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  You decide, out of your own volition, to keep torturing your prisoner because you want to. And again, this is probably reaching, not that I haven't been, but this is probably reaching. But the whole idea of this book is that he's afraid not of Grover himself, but of the concept of a monster. There is something in here about self-loathing, about reflexively buying into how others see you and how incredibly self-destructive that is.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  There's something in there.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think also, another thing that's in there is the idea of beginning to separate kids from narratives in order to explain the difference between fiction and reality, right? Because in the book, he's saying, don't turn the page, don't turn the page. And you're not just turning the page to torture Grover. You're turning the page because you understand that Grover is a fictional character and this is just a book. And so I think one of the things it starts to do is help kids separate. You exist separate from a book. It's only a book, it's only a story, which, you know, is a step that I think everybody has to take. So I think it's partly that, too.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  If we want to take this even further, we could say that this could be a metaphor for McCarthyism or for any, any sort of witch hunt where we're like, watch out, don't do this. It's all the kids, don't dance to that rock and roll music.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Trouble in River City.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Moral panic. And then at the end, you realize, oh, it was me. It was me, I'm the monster.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  It was me all along. Planet of the Apes.

• 22:58Speaker 05

  Yep. It's all in there. I think we have done a fantastic job finding in this book only what is in it and keeping to a very, very strict interpretation.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Well, that brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris, Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon. Thank you all for being here. I love it when we're all together.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you. This episode is produced by Jared M. Gare and Candace Lim and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes and we'll see you all next time.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets and more. No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at g o o dot g l e slash Workspace with Gemini.

• 24:11Speaker 08

  I'm Rich Mar, host of a new podcast called RVA's Got Issues. Because we've all got issues, right?

• 24:18Speaker 09

  For sure. Oh, definitely. Everybody has issues. What are you talking about?

• 24:21Speaker 08

  And do you think Richmond's got issues?

• 24:23Speaker 09

  I think every city, every county, every town has issues.

• 24:26Speaker 08

  Listen to RVA's Got Issues from VPM, part of the NPR Network.