Posted on 01/03/2021 10:54:00 AM PST by SamAdams76
When Lee Hazlewood died from renal cancer in 2007, his obituarists had a complicated story to tell: his enormous success as a hitmaker for Nancy Sinatra in the 1960s, his relocation to Sweden in the 70s, his neglected solo career, his long semi-retirement and his belated return to the music industry, feted by the likes of Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and Sonic Youth. The pieces didn't quite fit together. He was funny, charismatic and supportive but he could also be cold, vengeful and mean. Like Serge Gainsbourg, he made both exquisitely subversive pop music and cynical kitsch, and gave the impression that he regarded his career as a private joke with financial benefits. The only niche he inhabited was the one he carved for himself, and that could get lonely.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
...when I’m straight.
I’m gonna open up your gate.
And maybe tell you ‘bout Phaedra
How she gave me life. And how she made it in.
Some velvet morning when I’m straight...
“You’re listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time on Coast-to-Coast A.M...
I always liked “Ladybird”.
It was on the radio a lot for a time. It got a lot of air play where I lived. Even though it was a creepy song, it was just a small part of the general psychedelic movement that was going on at that time. Various songs by the Doors were also getting lots of airplay then, as were strange and unsettling songs by Arthur Brown and others. And who can forget Timothy, performed by The Buoys, the only song about cannibalism ever to make the top-40.
“Some Velvet Morning,” which got a lot of airplay at the start of 1968, is truly a weird song.
It was exactly 50 years ago this week that "Timothy" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 charts (Jan 2, 1971).
It was written by Rupert Holmes, who would have a bit of fame at the end of the decade with songs such as "Escape (The Pina Coloda Song)" and "Him".
“These Boots (Are Made for Walkin)” and “Something Stupid” (duet with her dad) are my favorites of Nancy Sinatra. “Some Velvet Morning” starts well enough but then the switches back-and-forth ruin it. It doesn’t really go anywhere.
Yes, if I remember the story correctly, the song was written on a bet. Rupert Homes asserted that he could write a hit song about anything, and someone who was participating in the conversation challenged him to prove it by writing a hit song about cannibalism.
Rupert Holmes is an incredibly talented guy who came along at a time when there was a lot of remarkable talent at work in the entertainment business. He was a successful composer and performer, demonstrating versatility over a long career. He never rose to the superstar level; he was instead content to stay somewhat in the background and let others handle the limelight.
Others of that type include Bill Champlin and Dean Friedman. Perhaps Laura Nero might be included in that group as well.
Another guy who's talent has long impressed me was Mason Williams, who was a terrific musician who wrote and performed a huge hit song Classical Gas, while simultaneously functioning as the head comedy writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
I was an expat military brat living in SE Asia when Summer Wine came out, that was Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood and I got to tell you I heard that song for 6 months straight on every jukebox in just about every little hole in the wall wherever we went.
Strawberries, cherries, and Angels kissing spring... oh... what Schmaltzy sticky sweet... Nancy & Lee
"Meanwhile, back in the States....."....one of my favorites from Dr. Demento.
“...an idealistic teenage girl and having nasty thoughts, but I couldn’t understand why he would have such thoughts”
Define “nasty thoughts”? If it means disfigurement of some kind then ok but if it means sex, then you gotta be kidding me.
The name Phaedrus comes up in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Pirsig so I always thought there was some sort of esoteric philosophy association with Phaedra.
It could be that the lyrics are intentionally vague so they can simultaneously refer to the intoxicating effects of women and drugs.
Disfigurement would have been more like "evil thoughts," to my way of thinking.
And when Frank Zappa wrote the line only thirteen and she knows how to nasty, he wasn't talking about an eighth-grader cutting herself.
Context.
Before the Hot 100 chart which premiered August 4, 1958.
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