Showing posts with label 1960s pop music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960s pop music. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

"Kinda Wild and Free": the Good Little Bad Girl in '60s pop music





This is one of those posts that has been kicking around in my mind forever. There is a certain genre of vintage pop that can only be described as "class distinction morality tales". Songs like Down in the Boondocks and Dawn ("go away, I'm no good for you")  are nothing but self-pitying screams from "poor boys" who can never be good enough (economically? Socially?) for the wispy, likely virginal maidens they yearn for.

Then there's that other kind of girl.

Not on a pedestal. She don't have no money, her clothes are kind of funny, her hair is kind of wild and free. . . You know the kind. 




Windy. Eleanor. Rosemary. Sloopy. And those others, literally nameless, the "rag doll" and the "brown-eyed girl", immortalized in song and trapped forever in the fiery amber of 1960s youth.

There's something sweetly loose about these girls, the swingin' hair and slightly raggy, thrift-shoppy clothes, a free spirit who might be a little more than free with her sexual favors. It's there, not spelled out, but implied. In some ways this is only a celebration of non-conformity and breaking free from the dreadful shackles of convention. It's as if these guys (whoever they are - there must have been a lot of them) can only find personal freedom through these barefoot waifs who wade right into the public fountain and don't mind getting their (long, swingin') hair wet.

I can't possibly get into all the lyrics of these things - you can play them if you want! But there are themes which can be gleaned from taking a closer look at them.




Windy (The Association)


Who's trippin' down the streets of the city, smilin' at everybody she sees? Everyone knows it's Windy. It's a strange name, and I wonder if she was actually called Wendy in the first draft. This is the quintessential free-spirited-girl anthem, and it's fairly unremarkable except for a couple of truly memorable lines: "And Windy has stormy eyes/That flash at the sound of lies." This is startling, and reveals the core of morality in this raggedy girl who cannot stand phoniness and posing. Windy is going to be a bit of a challenge to anyone who can't see past her out-at-the-knees jeans and split ends. She'll find you out, catch you out, even as she reaches out to capture the moment. 





Eleanor (The Turtles)

This is kind of a strange one: "Eleanor, gee I think you're swell, and you really do me well, you're my pride and joy, ET CETERA". This is the ultimate blow-off of someone you care about: "I love you, etc. etc." - but it's also uniquely '60s, that offhandedness which is a thin disguise for a profound yearning to be captivated and captured by a free-spirited girl. The title of the movie Love, Actually seems to borrow from this sentiment. 




Love Grows (Where my Rosemary Goes)

"She ain't got no money, her clothes are kinda funny, her hair is kinda wild and free. . . " Oh yeah. You might not take this girl home to meet your mother, but you'd take her to the park, maybe even in the dark, smoke up, and get down to basics. "She talks kinda lazy, people say she's crazy, and her life's a mystery" - a common element among these characters, later immortalized in John Lennon's magnificent line: "It's a love that has no past." Like a lot of these girls (and by the way, they ARE girls, not women), there is an element of magic power and even mysticism about them: Rosemary  "really has a magical spell/And it's workin' so well" - that he can't get away.




Hang On Sloopy (The McCoys)

This is the true nitty-gritty, a real wrong-side-of-the-tracks scenario in which Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town, and "everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down". Sloopy reminds me a bit of "sloppy", of course, but a sloop is also a boat, and thus a symbol of freedom (remember the Beach Boys' sublime Sloop John B?). For some reason, in picturing Sloopy, I think of a girl in a torn grey sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder, and jeans so tight they look painted on. Long black hair and thick Cleopatra eyeliner, like very early Cher. 




The most provocative line, "Sloopy, I don't care what your Daddy do" makes you wonder: just how bad IS he, anyway? A thief, a pimp, a drug dealer, or just the local rag-and-bone man doing a dirty low-status job because somebody has to do it? The repeated chorus of "hang on, Sloopy/Sloopy, hang on" is a strange one - does he mean "hang on to your self-worth", or what? A loose girl hanging on - to what, we can never be sure. 




Along Comes Mary (The Association)

This one has a VERY interesting lyric, which I will actually reproduce here because to me, it has elements of Mariology (the study of apparitions of the Virgin Mary). The tune is basically one note, which is intriguing as the lyrics tumble over each other in one long blurt. But the words are unusually complex, a long skein of poetry with a subtext that is almost disturbing. This song was quoted in one of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts as an example of the Dorian Mode, though I doubt if The Association was thinking in those terms when they wrote it. You know you are NOT in typical pop-music-land when you hear lines like these: 

And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains she left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more







Every time I think that I'm the only one who's lonely
Someone calls on me
And every now and then I spend my time in rhyme and verse
And curse those faults in me

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to give me kicks, and be my steady chick
And give me pick of memories
Or maybe rather gather tales of all the fails and tribulations
No one ever sees

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks
Whose sickness is the games they play
And when the masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes
As who is most to blame today





And then along comes Mary
And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality
From where she got her name
And will they struggle much when told that such a tender touch as hers
Will make them not the same

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch


And when the morning of the warning's passed, the gassed
And flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains
She left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch 




Brown-eyed Girl (Van Morrison)

This one is literally about "makin' love in the green grass/Behind the stadium," which doesn't get much more nitty-gritty than that. It's all about having sex on the ground, outdoors, in public. The brown-eyed girl automatically has connotations of a girl who ISN'T blue-eyed/blonde (Aryan? Just kidding) - in fact, this may even be a way to racialize her in a subtle way, or paint her as a little exotic. Hey where did we go, days when the rains came? Down in the hollow, playin' a new game. Laughin' and a-runnin', skippin' and a-jumpin'. . . You know the rest. 




Rag Doll (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons)

We're not even pretending that this girl is respectable. She's nicknamed "Hand-me-down" by the mean, judgemental folks in town, and is likely called much worse things. "Such a pretty face," Frankie Valli croons in that supernatural falsetto voice of his, "should be dressed in lace". This song has elements of fairy tale about it, portraying a sort of hidden worth that transcends rags and tatters, an inner purity and nobility which. . . well, maybe not. Cinderella this girl ain't, in fact she sounds kind of iffy to me. 


The rest of the town sees her as "easy", but Frankie insists she's so much more than that, and does not even want to change anything about her: "I love you just the way you are." But the last verse takes a pretty dark turn: "I'd change her sad rags into glad rags if I could/My folks won't let me 'cause they say that she's no good." It doesn't get much more graphic than that.




Baby Don't Go (Sonny and Cher)

This is one of my all-time-favorite songs by a vastly underrated pop duo, Sonny and Cher. Sonny wrote most of their hits, including Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, Little Man, Bang-Bang, and A Cowboy's Work is Never Done - all sharply witty, even edgy songs with smarter lyrics than people seem to realize. He's just dumb old Sonny Bono, isn't he? But without Sonny, there never would have been a Cher. 

He created her, Pygmalion-like, and she even acknowledged the fact long after they parted. She practically climbed up on his funeral pyre when he died skiing into a tree, and completely hijacked the funeral with her sobbing histrionics, embarrassing his widow who was sitting right there watching the production. At any rate, this time there's a twist to it and the song is from the girl's perspective, a teenage girl who has been traumatized by unspoken abuse. She comes across as an orphaned waif who "never had a mother" and hardly knew her Dad, and (of course) buys her rags and tatters at the second-hand store. 




The plaintive chorus "baby, don't go" seems to come from a phantom lover in response to her truly poignant and soul-baring soliloquy. It's as if she must spell out or even insist that "you're the only boy I've had" to try to defend her tattered reputation. The tight chords in the chorus with their astringent dissonance have the plaintive pull of a train whistle in the distance, the train she's about to catch as she leaves that intolerable place, that town without pity (to quote another classic). "When I get to the city/My tears will all be dried/My eyes will look so pretty/No one's gonna know I cried." Those are great lines, along with her promise to "be a lady some day". 

So what IS the scenario here? She has to go away - where, and why? To have an abortion? To evade a vagrancy charge? To get away from an abusive stepdad, or maybe just to prove that the town is wrong about her? It's never spelled out, but like Sloopy and Rag Doll, she has been surrounded by judgement and disapproval all her life just for being who she is, and must escape, must run for her life.



But the melancholy half-promise to that phantom lover adds another level of poignancy: "Maybe I'll be back some day." The implication is that she can't return until she has made herself worthy. I love this particular video from a '60s pop music show in which the dancers, all doing the jerk and the shing-a-ling, are photographed in a kind of kaleidoscope effect, while Cher, eyes rimmed in black Cleopatra kohl, sings this knockout song with a kind of expressionless deadpan. But my oh my, how Cher could sing back then, before she ruined her voice with that godawful forced-sounding vibrato. She sang with warmth, clarity and passion. As with the best poetry, so much is left unsaid, and we must fill in the blanks with our own yearnings. 





SPECIAL BONUS VIDEO! This is the clip with Leonard Bernstein playing an excerpt from Along Comes Mary, a song he was said to have admired for its dynamic chord structure and complex lyrics. Sweet as the punch!


Tuesday, June 6, 2017

I read the news today, oh boy





A Day in the Life

I read the news today, oh boy 
About a lucky man who made the grade 
And though the news was rather sad 
Well I just had to laugh 
I saw the photograph.









He blew his mind out in a car 
He didn't notice that the red lights had changed 
A crowd of people stood and stared 
They'd seen his face before 
Nobody was really sure 
If he was from the House of Lords.




I saw a film today, oh boy 
The English army had just won the war 
A crowd of people turned away







But I just had to look 
Having read the book 
I'd love to turn you on.




Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, 
And looking up I noticed I was late.






Found my coat and grabbed my hat 
Made the bus in seconds flat 
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke, 
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream.








I read the news today oh boy 
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire






And though the holes were rather small 
They had to count them all 
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. 
I'd love to turn you on.





Friday, November 18, 2016

New Girl in School: an illustrated guide




The New Girl in School





Papa do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de, oo
I got it bad for the new girl in school, 
The guys are flipping, but I'm playing it cool.
Everybody's passing notes in class, 
They really dig her now she's such a gas.






Pappa, pappa, pappa, do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de
Do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de, oo
I got a fad, pappa do ron-de ron-de, oo.





The chicks are jealous of the new girl in school.
They put her down and they treat her so cruel.
But the guys are going out of their minds
Cause she's the cutest chick you'll ever find.




A pa pa pa pa do ronde ronde, do ronde ronde, do ronde ronde 
Do ronde ronde, do ronde ronde ooo, I've got a fad for the 
Do ronde ronde ooo 
Papa do ronde ronde, do ronde ronde, do ronde ronde ooo






It won't be long till were having a ball, 
We'll walk n talk n we'll hold hands in the hall.
Never thought I'd make it through this year, 
Sure was a drag till she transferred here.




Pappa, pappa, pappa, do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ronde
Do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de, do ron-de ron-de, oo.
I got a fad, pappa, pappa, do ron-de ron-de, oo.




Little girl if you want me to... 
I got a lot going
Little girl if you want me to... 
I got it bad, pappa, do ron-de ron-de.



Saturday, September 17, 2016

Really stupid things about the '60s



As with most of my posts, this one started off as something else: '60s phrases that are still in common useage today. This is unusual, given that by the '50s, most of the lingo from the '30s and '40s was kaput. Nor do we say "Daddy-o" or -. I cannot think of ONE more phrase from the 1950s still in use.

Likewise, the '70s: who remembers catch-phrases from that bland polyester era? All I can think of is "stayin' alive, stayin' alive," and that isn't really a catch-phrase at all.

But I do know that in the '70s, nobody said "23 skidoo". Nobody said "I love my wife, but oh you kid". And most especially, no one said that syllable that everyone used to preface EVERY sentence: "Saaaaaaaaaaay!"

Likewise, "I think you're swell". Or, "Are you sore at me?" Those phrases only exist in late-night movies on TCM.




But it never ceases to surprise me how often expressions from the 1960s still crop up in ordinary conversation, usually among people who didn't live through that memorably confused era. It was, shockingly, 50 years ago, and hanging on to catch-phrases like that never happens - never has before, and never will again. These are, in alphabetical order, as follows:

Boggles the mind
Blows my mind
Bummed out
Bummer
Do your own thing
Far out
Freak(ed) out
Freaky
Guilt trip
Hangup
Laid back
Lay a trip on
Mind-blowing
Mind-boggling
(not) my bag
(not) my thing
Oh wow!
Ripoff
Spaced out
Trip
Tripped out
Turned off/on
Uptight
Wiped out
Wired

Add your own, but these are the ones I skimmed off the top. Most of them are lame, and seem creaky and anachronistic, even inappropriate, in a setting like 2023 when most people aren't talking much at all any more (not even into their phones - they talk with their thumbs now, which is why we evolved with opposable thumbs to begin with). But still they pop up with alarming regularity, every day.


Having run out of ideas about this, I started thinking about related lame '60s things that somehow never go away.  And oh boy, there are a lot.

Item: 1960s pop songs with unintelligible lyrics. I already covered the Dada-ist mishmash Nikki Hoeky in another post (and I don't want to go there again). In some cases, there is just ONE line you can't decipher, a line that drives you absolutely crazy and leads to one bizarre mondegreen after another.

Like so:

A Hard Day's Night

It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright

You know I work all day to get you money to buy you things
And it's worth it just to hear you say you're going to give me everything
(so what's the next line, what's the next line, what's the next line?)




So why on earth should I moan,
 'cause when I get you alone
You know I feel OK

(etc. etc.)

OK, what did YOU think it was? It was just an unintelligible blob of words to me. I don't know if anyone got it. No one asked, because even then, nobody listened to the words anyway, until Bob Dylan came along.

She Loves You

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad

You know it's up to you
I think it's only fair
 (next line, next line, next line)




Pride can hurt you too
Apologize to her

Because she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad, ooh

That one, I thought, was "frighten her to do", which doesn't make much sense unless you take into account John Lennon's shocking possessiveness with women ("I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than see you with another man").

And then there are a few songs that are just plain stupid, that make NO sense or are so dumb we can't quite believe they made the Hit Parade.




Little Green Bag

Lookin' back on the track for a little green bag,
Got to find just the kind or I'm losin' my mind
Out of sight in the night out of sight in the day,
Lookin' back on the track gonna do it my way.

Lookin' for some happiness
But there is only loneliness to find
Jump to the left, turn to the right
Lookin' upstairs, lookin' behind!

Lookin' back on the track for a little little green bag,
Got to find just the kind or I'm losin' my mind,

Alright.

(Note: the rest is just endless repetition).




Little Black Egg

I don't care what they say
I'm gonna keep it anyway
I won't let them stretch their necks
To see my little black egg with the little white specks

I found it in a tree
Just the other day
And now it's mine, all mine
They won't take it away





Here comes Mary, here comes Lee
I'll bet what they want to see
I won't let them stretch their necks
To see my little black egg with the little white specks

Oh, goldurn, what can I do?
The little black egg's gonna tell on you
I won't let them stretch their necks
To see my little black egg with the little white specks

The little black egg... [repeat to fade]

The "little black egg". Right. Knowing the '60s, people probably argued all night long in an altered state  of consciousness about "what does it mean?"





Beautiful People

Beautiful people
You live in the same world as I do
But somehow I never noticed
You before today

I'm ashamed to say
Beautiful people
We share the same back door
And it isn't right






We never met before
But then
We may never meet again
If I weren't afraid you'd laugh at me

I would run and take all your hands
And I'd gather everyone together for a day
And when we're gather'd
I'll pass buttons out that say




Beautiful people
Never have to be alone
'Cause there'll always be someone
With the same button on as you

Include him in everything you do.
Beautiful people
You ride the same subway
As I do every morning




That's got to tell you something
We've got so much in common
I go the same direction that you do
So if you take care of me

Maybe I'll take care of you
Beautiful people
You look like friends of mine
And it's about time

That someone said it here and now
I make a vow that some time, somehow
I'll have a meeting
Invite everyone you know




I'll pass out buttons for
The ones who come to show
Beautiful people
Never ever have to be alone

'Cause there'll always be someone
With the same button on as you
Include him in everything you do
He may be sitting right next to you




He may be a beautiful people too
And if you take care of him
Maybe he'll take care of you
'Cause all of the beautiful people do

And you're all beautiful people too




OK now, where do I start? It's just the general sappiness that I object to here. Melanie Safka DID have some good songs, I'm pretty fond of the "brand new rollerskates", Candles in the Rain was OK, and she wrote one - I just found out - called The Nickel Song that I heard Nana Mouskouri do decades ago, and loved. The lines that leap out and assault me are "'Cause there'll always be someone/With the same button on as you". I think of Eldridge Cleaver and "Kill All the White Men".

It's just that general, swampy, I-love-absolutely-everybody sentiment that sticks in my throat. "I'd gather everyone together for a day" for some reason reminds me of the afternoon I was held prisoner by some Jesus freaks in the 1970s. To this day I remember the mindlessness, the void I saw in their eyes, and I wonder whatever happened to them all. "Everyone" could include pimps, serial killers, Neo-Nazis, or . . . am I just too jaded by the horrors of 2016? No! This thing is DISGUSTINGLY naive! It's just. . .sorry, Melanie, I can't buy it. I don't have the same button on as you.




Any Guy

I was bored
I would not compromise
Wanted more
So I looked in your eyes
But it could have been any guy's
It could have been any guy's eyes
But your eyes were there
And they started to stare
But don't think that I care - No.




Now you got
The feeling you're great
'Cause we shared
A few looks
And I made one mistake
But it could have been any one
I was looking for that kind of fun
And you were right there
In love, all is fair
But don't think that I care




Now you got
A new friend I know
So I'm packing my things
And I'm going to go
Please don't make a scene
Don't cry
You can't stop me if you try
I love being free
It's the best way to be
Is she as pretty as me, huh?
Is she as pretty as me, huh?
Is she as pretty as me, huh?
Is she as pretty as me, huh-huh?
Is she as pretty as me, huh.

I included the whole lyric here because the ending is so obnoxious/nonsensical. I first heard Melanie perform this on The Mike Douglas Show, except that I didn't know it was Melanie because unless you read fan magazines, you didn't know what pop stars looked like, and I missed the introduction. It was the "huh, huh" stuff that drove me crazy, and the INTENSE way she did it. Before singing it, she explained to Mike that it was "kind of torchy". I didn't know what that meant.





ADDENDA. Hey, guess what! I found out some stuff here (on Wikipedia, so it MUST be right) that makes SOME sense of these lame lyrics. As with Nikki Hoeky, Little Green Bag might be a mixup in translation:

"Little Green Bag" is a 1969 song written by Dutch musicians Jan Visser and George Baker (born Hans Bouwens), and recorded by the George Baker Selection at the band's own expense. The track was released as the George Baker Selection's debut single by Dutch label, Negram, with the B-side being "Pretty Little Dreamer".

The track's original title was "Little Greenback", in reference to the color of the US dollar. The first line of the lyric, "Lookin' back on the track for a little greenback", has three rhymes (underlined); "green bag" would not be a true rhyme. However, the single was given the erroneous title, "Little Green Bag", which some took to be a "bag of marijuana". The "Little Green Bag" title was then retained for all subsequently released versions of the single as well as the group's 1970 debut album, also titled Little Green Bag. This is an example of a mondegreen.

I realize this explanation is a lot longer than the song. Sorry. But if you want to prove this to yourself, just listen to the recording of The Little Green Bag. It's very plain he isn't saying "green bag" at all, but "greenback". The k sound is very distinct. But we don't hear it that way unless we're expecting to. Makes me wonder about all the other things we accept on faith, because everyone else is doing it, or because we've been told it's the way it is - even though "they" are plainly wrong.




The Little Black Egg

"The Little Black Egg" is a song first performed by Daytona Beach, Florida garage band The Nightcrawlers in 1965. It was a minor hit in both the US and Canada, reaching number 85 on the US Billboard charts in 1967, while doing slightly better in Canada, where it hit number 74. The song has been since covered by multiple artists including Inner City Unit, The Lemonheads, Tarnation and The Cars. It was The Nightcrawlers' only hit, though many have claimed it was the first guitar riff they learned during the mid-'60s. The song was written in 1965 for an Easter concert, in which the band opened for The Beach BoysAllmusic reviewer Matthew Greenwald describes the song as a "slightly bizarre nursery rhyme", with lyrics about a rotten bird's egg. Other explanations claim the song referenced miscegenation in segregated Florida.

Ohhhh. . . kay.  "I found it in a tree, just the other day." Miscegenation. Sorry, guys, it just does not work.

I do remember my friend Carmen's mondegreen on this song, so potent that everyone in the schoolyard went around singing it wrong:

"To see my little black apron with the little white specks."

At least it makes a bit more sense.