Month: November 2006

Somehow, in my youth, I owned one album by the Royal Guardsmen. Yeah, yeah, the group that did all of those Snoopy songs. I don’t remember buying it, so maybe someone bought me “The Return of the Red Baron”, which had the distinction of being the only one of the four albums they put out that the time that didn’t have the dog from Peanuts on the cover.

Actually, by that time, I had become slightly annoyed with the Snoopy-fication of the newspaper strip, so maybe that’s how that particular LP ended up in the collection. Or maybe it’s that the group had the same initials as I do, I don’t know.

It was an OK album. But it had one song “Wednesday”, a/k/a “Any Wednesday”, that I really liked. It had lovely harmonies. You can hear about 30 seconds of it here. Also, it fit my day of the week collection:
Friday on My Mind- the Easybeats
Another Saturday Night – Sam Cooke
Sunday Will Never Be The Same – Spanky and Our Gang
Monday, Monday – the Mamas and the Papas
Ruby Tuesday – the Rolling Stones
(I didn’t have a Thursday song. Actually, I wrote a Thursday song. It was terrible. And off topic.)

Like most of their non-Snoopy songs, “Wednesday” stiffed on the charts, getting up to #98. I like it so much that I went to iTunes to buy it. Alas, only some Snoopy song there.

So after the failure, and in spite of the Florida band’s resistance, their producers got them ANOTHER Snoopy song. I got this description in an e-mail dashed off by Grand Comics Database board member, and more specifically in this context, FoF (Friend of Fred), Mike Catron:

Laurie Records released “Snoopy for President”, which started out with a spoken word introduction of a German-accented newscaster (the Red Baron himself) announcing the candidates for President in the United States during that primary season, among them, of course, “Kennedy”.

As this site notes, the song was released mere days before RFK’s assassination. (It also describes the record label’s off-again, on-again relationship with Peanuts creator Charles Schulz.) OK, here’s something weird. According to my Billboard bible, Snoopy for President first charted on 7/13/68, a full month AFTER RFK was killed. Of course, it was only on the charts for two weeks and only got to #85, w/ the B-Side, “Behind the Lines” on Laurie 3451. Then, this note: “a slightly different and shorter version issued on Laurie 3541 (A),” which failed to chart. But I wonder if some radio stations switched versions.

Mike Catron recalls: I have no idea whether it was still getting airplay at that point but I continued to listen to my little 45 from time to time and it always made me a little sad to be reminded of such a dark moment — and the melancholy of what might have been — on what would have otherwise been a silly little song with an especially uplifting moment at the end.

I was fascinated to find this on the Royal Guardsmen blog:
In 1966 the United States Government was in the mind to send troops to defend the idea of Democracy, in a country divided. The men and women of our armed forces needed understanding from the folks back home, but they didn’t get much. They seldom heard good news, the times were turbulent and home was far away. The Royal Guardsmen gave them a song to scramble to.

Seriously, I’d love to hear from any Vietnam-era vet and hear if you thought the antics of Snoopy and the Red Baron were songs to scramble to.

Independently, Mike and I both found a neat little tie-in that relates directly to Fred’s piece. Check out this excerpt from an interview with members of the Royal Guardsmen:
ET: I think “Mother, Where’s Your Daughter” is one of the best songs you ever recorded.
BILL: That was written for us by Dick Holler. He also wrote “Abraham, Martin, and John”, which was originally supposed to go to us. According to Barry, that song was written for us but they reneged and gave it to Dion so Dick Holler wrote “Mother, Where’s Your Daughter” for us. It was any attempt to get us away from the Snoopy thing.
BILLY: It was an attempt to pacify us.
BARRY: I liked that one and I think that was an interesting time, too. I’m not really sure about all the politics of it but Laurie Records was pretty fat cat at that time, we had really helped them get back on their feet. I did the original demo of “Abraham, Martin, and John” with Dick Holler and Phil said we could have the song. Two weeks later, I came back down and Dion was doing it. That really broke my heart. We had three years of making lots of money for Laurie and we were hoping we could get out of the bag but it just wasn’t going to happen.

The Abraham, Martin & John that Dion did, that Tom Clay and Moms Mabley(!) covered, was supposed to be a Royal Guardsmen song, maybe that non-Snoopy hit they so craved. Since it didn’t happen, soon thereafter, the group and the label parted ways, all of which is documented in the article.

Which brings us to Snoopy vs. Osama, “The new Royal Guardsmen 40th anniversary Snoopy recording.” List Price: $3.95. Somewhat ironically, given their disdain for being trapped in Snoopy-land in the 1960s, the song was written by members of the reunited band.

From the Royal Guardsmen blog:
Our guess is when the soldiers heard Snoopy vs. The Red Baron, it became a song to rally around. Today is no different, our fighting men and women have the same needs, even 40 years later. We want to give them what they need in a song. Compassion for the underdog, the feeling of usefulness, confidence and the motivation of success will go a long way in helping morale and lifting tspiritsprits. When you couple it with the American iconic humor of a heroic dog named Snoopy, you can’t go wrong. The formula was successful 40 years ago. With a fresh sound, why not today?

You can read the lyrics here. Maybe you can even hear an excerpt, though I cannot. Here’s the chorus:
Osama Bin Laden keeps runnin’ away
Snoopy’s gonna find him…..one of these days
And when he does… (and when he does)… ya know we’re all gonna sing
Good bye Bin Laden and the end of your terrorist ring.

And the final verse:

Then up ahead…. in a cloud of dust
Stood ol’ Bin Laden just lookin’ at us
Snoopy smiled and aimed….. then he fired his gun
TAKE THIS Bin Laden now you…. won’t have to run

This is NOT the dog to whom the Red Baron said, “Merry Christmas, my friend.”

Last word to Mr. Catron, because it pretty much mirrors my own sentiment:
Snoopy vs. Osama I don’t get. In the song trilogy (for you it’s a trilogy, for me it’s a quadra-something), the Red Baron turns out to be a decent guy, even a likeable character. I can’t see the same thing happening for Osama Bin Laden…
Bin Laden is just too grim and is current, instead of being a mythologized figure from a previous generation. (This was the era of Enemy Ace and Hogan’s Heroes, after all.) Pairing Snoopy with Bin Laden, to me, is just nasty. Very un-Peanuts. Very un-Schulz.

While he had worked on a number of shows before, Mr. Schwartz first became known broadly for Gilligan’s Island a 1964-1967 program that may have been terrible – I almost never watch it in reruns – but which, like many folks at the time, used to view religiously. Its cultural impact has never entirely subsided. Not only did Sherwood Schwartz produce Gilligan’s Island, he co-wrote its iconic theme, which, I’ve learned is in ballad meter, “commonly found in ballads, has stanzas of four iambic lines. The first and third typically have four-stresses; the second and fourth have three-stresses and usually rhyme (Horton, 1995).”

Of course, I’ve provided links for both opening and closing themes (audio and video) for 1964 and 1966. The significance of the theme is reflected in the number of times it has been parodied. Here’s one in the style of N’SYNC. Another is called Dracula’s Isle. And, of course, the king of Gilligan reference, Weird Al Yankovic.

But my favorite was a single that I actually own, a song by Little Roger [!] and the Goosebumps called Stairway to Gilligan’s Island – there’s link to an MP3 of the song there.

I’ve been reading about the disappearance of the TV theme. (Grey’s Anatomy, which USED to have a theme, is a prime example of the lost art.)

While Gilligan was still on, Sherwood Schwartz created It’s About Time, a show about astronauts landing in prehistoric times. It lasted only one season, 1966-1967, yet I remember the lyrics, also by Mr. Schwartz.

Given that, I have to make another confession: NOT ONCE did I ever see a first-run episode of The Brady Bunch, the 1969-1974 program that Sherwood Schwartz produced and for which he co-wrote the theme. I’ve caught it sporadically in syndication.

As much as I watched Gilligan, I never watched any of its goofy-sounding follow-up TV movies – the Harlem Globetrotters? – but I HAVE happened upon some Brady-related reunion fare, though I couldn’t tell you what.

Anyway, happy 90th birthday, Sherwood Schwartz!

You Are 12% Capitalist, 88% Socialist

You see a lot of injustice in the world, and you’d like to see it fixed. As far as you’re concerned, all the wrong people have the power. You’re strongly in favor of the redistribution of wealth – and more protection for the average person.

I THINK I got this from Chris Black, but I could be wrong. I DO see a lot injustice in the world. And until recently, all of the wrong people DID have the power. (And some of them are still around.)

You Are Likely a Second Born

At your darkest moments, you feel inadequate. At work and school. you do best when you’re evaluating. When you love someone, you offer them constructive criticism. In friendship, you tend to give a lot of feedback – positive and negative. Your ideal careers are: accounting, banking, art, carpentry, decorating, teaching, and writing novels. You will leave your mark on the world with art and creative projects.

This is very interesting, actually. I’m a first born, but any number of people who have met me and my sister Leslie together think that she, who is 16 1/2 months younger, is the first born. Also, my parents lost a child a couple years before I was born. In any case, the first four lines are pretty dead on. But I’ll NEVER be a carpenter or decorator.
***
And lest, I forget:

Some guy wrote me: “I was thinking about how cool it would be if you did a feature like Gordon highlighting an album a month that you may love (and who knows, only have on vinyl).” At first, I was resistant to the idea; I mean, Gordon already does a fine regular piece. Then I thought, “Maybe it should be “Albums in my vinyl collection that I used to play a lot, but haven’t played in a while,’ which would be quite a mouthful as a title.”

Thus was born “Underplayed Vinyl”. Oh, yeah, I decided the once a month would fall on the birthday of the artist, or at least a member of the group. And maybe I’d look at more than one disc.

First up, Neil Percival Young, who turns 61 today, and his first album, cleverly titled Neil Young. OK, that’s a little cheeky, but after being in a band as contentious as Buffalo Springfield apparently was, maybe an eponymous title was called for.

Confession time: I learned about the existence of this album through Three Dog Night. “The Loner” appears on their first album, the one with “One” on it. I had already purchased Neil’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and “After the Goldrush”, and quite possibly “Harvest”. I noted the “The Loner” did not appear on any of them, and so I hunted this album down, bought it, and played it.

Was I disappointed.

After hearing the instantly accessible subsequent LPs, I was rather confounded by this moody, low-keyed album. Even “The Loner”, which TDN really rocked, sounded strange. But then repeated listens brought out the stark, fragile beauty of the album. “The Old Laughing Lady”, while possibly done better live a quarter century later, caught my ear, as did the lengthy last tune, “Last Trip to Tulsa”. Then “I’ve Been waiting for You.” Eventually, the whole aural pastiche started making sense to me, and I grew to appreciate this album all the more. Still, it would have fared better in my collection’s playlist had I heard it before albums 2 and 3, and possibly 4.

By 1981, I was used to following Neil wherever his muse took him. Still, I’m not sure what to think when I heard re.ac.tor. It was raw. It was rough. It was intentionally distorted at times. I liked it immediately, especially “Opera Star”. I thought the lyrically minimalist, grunge-inspiring “T-Bone” was especially a hoot. The aural assaults, and his use of synthesizers (horrors!) were tempered by some short sweet tunes.

I started reading the reviews, which, as I recall, were pretty brutal. I began to wonder if maybe my tastes had gone south.

Then I thought, “The heck with it,” and played it all the more, as loudly as possible.
***
These are the answers to Lefty’s Friday Three Questions for November 10th, which I attempted to post at 4:30 pm Friday, but couldn’t because of some techno-glitch:

1. I was born in Binghamton, NY, spent my first 18 years there, plus for a few months in 1977. I’ve lived in Albany since 1979, or 27 years. Albany’s more my home, in part because the highway construction has altered Binghamton to where it’s no longer second nature to get to places.

2. Islands: Manhattan, Long, Barbados, probably others.
Grand Canyon: not yet.
The desert: seemingly so, but I’m not remembering specifics.
The two oceans: yes.
Outside N Am? no.

3. I have no idea. The sunset RIGHT now is pretty spectacular.

On Armistice Day
The philharmonic will play
But the songs that we sing
Will be sad
-Paul Simon

Three events from last weekend color my view of this Veterans Day. One is a Friends of the Albany Public Library luncheon commemorating the release of Portrait of War: the U.S. Army’s First Combat Artists and the Doughboys’ Experience in WWI by Peter Krass. What was evident in the book from the author’s presentation is that the U.S. government, which hired eight artists to go to Europe, wanted the war depicted in a certain, heroic, way. (American general Jack Pershing, though, sided with the artists’ desire to be more realistic.) This mindset of war has been around for a very long time. Remember the source of “killing the messenger”, when the leaders would literally have struck down the soldier who would bring bad news from the front. The glorification of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman is hardly new.

Another item was a speech by Phyllis Trible at my church who spoke about how stories of domestic violence permeate the Bible. One example was Judges 19, where a man throws out his concubine to save himself, and she ends up being be gang-raped and killed. This reminded me that in so many wars (Darfur comes immediately to mind), there is a different sort of war violence placed on the women. This is done presumably to terrorize. But then what explains things such as American soldiers raping and then killing a teenage girl, and then killing her family?

The third is a sermon I read about Abraham and Isaac. It cites Bob Dylan’s Highway 61, reason enough to mention it, but it’s this quote that got me: “warfare is a form of child sacrifice, where nations offer up their children because, like Abraham, we believe that’s what we’re called to do.”

I suppose my point is that “War IS hell”, should be avoided at almost all costs, for even wars that most people would consider “just”, unintended consequences abound.

Which leads, inevitably, to these questions:

1. What circumstances, if any, would justify a “just war”?
2. What wars would you say were “just”?
3. What can WE do as individuals to stop or prevent war?