“Hand me down a strong panacea – one that’s guaranteed to make me feel like Hercules”…
These are the opening lines from Me and Howard Hughes - from the 1978 mega-hit album “A Tonic For the Troops”.
What was it about Mr. Hughes that Bob Geldof was so keen to sing about???
Born on Christmas Eve in 1905, Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was an American business magnate. Perhaps best known as a record-setting pilot and film producer, Hughes became one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the world.
He dabbled in many areas including film production – with mixed results – and aviation. He set up Hughes Aircraft (a company that is still at the forefront of aviation today) and built a range of planes from world-speed record flyers to the huge Hughes H-4 Hercules (below) - at the time the world’s largest aircraft and built largely from wood.
It can only be a coincidence that Geldof sings “…one that’s guaranteed to make me feel like Hercules” but it’s a nice coincidence!!!
Howard Hughes the aviator, survived four near-fatal crashes.
But it’s his eccentric behaviour and reclusive lifestyle that must surely have been the inspiration behind The Boomtown Rats’ song. - behaviour that is now thought to have been partly the result of his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from his plane crashes and increasing deafness.
After years of mental and physical decline, Hughes sadly died of kidney failure in 1976.
I think the Rats wrote the song after being banned from some hotel owned by Hughes (who died in 1976) Bob was a big reader and likely read some of the Howard Hughes biographies that were published in the mid 70's. I think the Hercules reference was deliberate. Last night I listened to two US live versions from Hollywood and San Diego in 1979. On one Geldof introduces Hughes as a hotel magnate (not exact words) so the hotel ban was still on his mind. Possibility Is That It? might have more background on the song. Jules is right about the hotel connection but I think it was just one hotel they 'reconfigured '. I vaguely remember Geldof, on tv in Ireland ,talking about the incident possibly on the Late Late Show.
The Boomtown Rats hated Howard Hughes and used to smash up his hotels, I recall Bob saying.