When I was very, very young, I actually kind of liked this song, even though it was country, and obviously a little cheesy.
The Harper Valley PTA sends a note home with a little girl. It’s addressed to her mother. The Harper Valley PTA has decided to take it upon itself to correct Mrs. Johnson’s approach to parenting. Mrs. Johnson, it seems, has been going around with men, drinking, and just generally “going wild”. She wears her dresses “way too high”.
The PTA just happens to be meeting that afternoon and Mrs. Johnson struts right over to the meeting and walks up to the front and lays it on the line for the Harper Valley PTA:
Well, there’s Bobby Taylor sittin’ there and seven times he’s asked me for a date
Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he’s away
And Mr. Baker, can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn’t widow Jones be told to keep her window shades all pulled completely down?
Well, well. I really do like the wrap-up:
And you have the nerve to tell me that you think that as a mother I’m not fit.
Well this is just a little Peyton Place and you’re all Harper Valley Hypocrites.
I liked that “as a mother, I’m not fit”– punchy and thunky. Wow. You almost feel sorry for this mythical institution, the Harper Valley PTA. I liked the song. Everybody did– it was a huge cross-over hit. I dare say I thought, there, that will be the end of hypocrisy in the world. Now that we’ve all agreed about how contemptible it is.
The funny thing, you just know that the thousands of Harper Valley PTA’s across the country all loved the song too. They all probably sang along, snapping their fingers, and shaking their heads at those hypocrites.
It calls to mind Jon Stewart’s joke at the Oscars in 2008: listing the films that dealt with important social issues, he closes with “and none of those issues was ever a problem again.”
Or fat, pant-suited, middle-aged women in Las Vegas joyfully singing along as Kenny Rogers contemplates putting Ruby “in the ground”.
There was a brief flurry of songs about hypocrisy in the early 1970’s and Joe South– improbably– won a Grammy with “Games People Play” in 1968. There was “Signs” by Five Man Electrical Band and “Indian Reservation” by the Raiders. There was “Billy Don’t be a Hero”. and “One Tin Soldier”.
It was a veritable orgy of righteousness and purity.
It was real trend!
Don’t forget– this is the year the “Little Green Apples” beat “Hey Jude” as “Song of the Year”.
The New Seekers had a worldwide hit with a Coke jingle (“I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”). How sad is that? Wow. Makes me wish I could go back in time just so I could hate that song even more than I did.