This bus is awful cold,
We've gone so many miles...
"That's Where I Went Wrong" by The Poppy Family was already a throw-back
when it hit the charts in 1969. A cute girl-- you can tell by her
voice that she's cute-- is riding on a cold bus to some unknown place, boring a stranger
with the details of how her boyfriend cheated on her. She says
I know it's not his fault
I've known it all along
I was the one who trusted him
That's where I went wrong.
That's where she went wrong!
Someone -- probably her husband (at the time), Terry Jacks--
had the horrible idea of adding some kind of weird percussive slapping
noises to the song, that I don't remember noticing in the era in which we
heard all songs on car radios.
I'm kidding
about the "cute girl" comment, though one can safely assume that any woman
in the business of performing pop songs is photogenic, at least. But
the voice is compelling. It has this clear, crystalline sheen to it--
it sounds young and innocent, and insistent. Madonna used to have a
bit of this quality to her voice, in "La Isle Bonita", for example. So
did Jackie Ralph of "The Bells". Stevie Nicks had it.
But the
coolest of the cool was Jennifer Warnes - her voice on "First We Take
Manhattan"-- I don't have a name for that quality.
"Stay Awhile" by Jackie Ralph with "The Bells"
was quite possibly the hottest song on AM radio in its day. Yes,
because the romantic couple in the song actually, delicately, go to bed
together. We were all shocked and titillated. Some radio
stations, so we heard, banned the song. Did they really? That's
really bizarre, when you think about it.
It's hard to describe that voice. I've
always liked it, though I also always found the Poppy Family's music to be a
bit cheesy, calculated, and coy. Often, Susan's voice is doubled for
effect with a pleasing result
You are my whole day
My heart and my soul babe..
and sounds like
she means it.
The Poppy Family featured a drummer called Satwan Singh--
I'll bet there's an interesting story behind that. He played the tabla
initially, but there's a full drum set on most later Poppy Family
recordings.
Terry Jacks did not like touring or performing
live, and that's why he became a producer. Apparently, he even worked
with the Beach Boys. He became aware of a song called "Seasons in the
Sun" which the Beach Boys heard but decided to pass on. Jacks recorded it
himself and it
became one of the biggest hits of the decade and makes my list of the
worst
10 singles of all time.
Goodbye Michelle, it's hard to
die
When all the birds are singing in the sky.
Yes, Terry--
it's easier to die when all the birds are singing on the ground. Or
maybe singing on the hills that were just "seasons out of time", whatever the
hell that means.
I'm adding to this. I just reread
some old newsgroup posts and there is some acquaintances on the Leonard
Cohen newsgroup insisting that "Seasons in the Sun" is a deep song.
Goodbye Michelle, my little one,
You gave me love and helped me find the sun.
Okay.
"Find the sun" isn't the most shockingly original metaphor I've heard-- not
great, but not too bad yet. Well, yes it is. But wait for it:
And
every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground
Now, is that or is
that not the lamest description of friendship you've ever heard? And
don't forget:
but the stars that we could reach
were just starfish on the beach
So the starfish join
the birds, imaginatively located right where Dr. Seuss said you would find
them.
"Which Way you Going Billy" has a few strange
twists in it. Billy's leaving and she wants to go with him, but Billy
doesn't want to tell her which way he's going. She could get lost and
would have to get onto a bus and become the character in "That's Where I
Went Wrong". She admits that now he's "free" at last, though you would think
she'd prefer to convince him he could be just as free if he stayed with her.
No, she admits it: she's a ball and chain.
It's only in the third verse that we find out
I won't forget you, Billy
For all my life
I'll always love you, Billy,
I'll stay your wife.
Until then, I
had thought they were simply going together. Didn't know they were
actually man and wife. The song is deeper for it. Thank
god Rod McKuen didn't write this lyric, or she would stay "your wife in your
house", in the "dark, where the sun it never shines".
