Before You Vote...

"Tired of Trying, Bored 
With Lying, Scared of Dying" / 
Manfred Mann

Tomorrow we'll be forced to choose a new President. For months we've had to endure a flood of other lies of all stripes:  Plagiarisms, misquotes, false statistics, unproven allegations, paranoid fantasies, and plumb ignorance of the most hateful kind, from both sides of the political spectrum. I'm tired of it all. And so here is my eve of election soundtrack.

Remember these guys? In 1964, I owned their groovy debut single "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," a Farfisa-loaded cover of the Jeff Barry-Ellie Greenwich girl group tune. They were one of the first British Invasion groups to score a #1 hit in the US after the Beatles, and at the time I'd buy anything with a British accent.

This 1965 track, however, escaped my notice at the time. In just a year, British bands had discovered they could move past romantic pop into social commentary (led, I must say, by Ray Davies and the Kinks). At the time I don't think I would have gotten the point of this song, which was written by lead vocalist Paul Jones. But I love it now.  

Along the lines of The Who's "My Generation," it's a rebel teen anthem. ("My Generation" was released in October 1965 and this one came out in December 1965; there was definitely something in the water.) I love the juxtapostion of the verses' strict stairstep chord changes with the wild roadhouse boogaloo of the refrains. By now Manfred Mann felt free to return to the bluesy jazz that had been their original sound. It's a revelation to see how much they'd evolved in a year.

But let's let the lyrics speak for themselves:

"Oh you who try to order me and say what I'll do
I know you want the world to be exactly like you
But why bother
What's the incentive to try
You know I'm tired of trying, bored with lying,
Scared of dying."

 And he goes on and on. "You talk of mods and rockers and of street corner fights / And then you sit at desks inventing weapons at night." How 60s is that?

Verse three, however, comes eerily close to our present-day situation. "The fascists horrify you / They're a sin and a shame / Discrimination, immigration, / What's in a name?" And he even makes a plea for education reform: "You cry about the teenagers for breaking your rules / It don't occur to you you never built enough schools."

Wow.

For weeks, the sickening realization has crept up on me that the biggest problem in this American election is how dumb and poorly educated half the voters are. They'll believe anything so long as the person they admire is telling them. Check a fact? Know anything about how government works?  Why bother?

Well, I'm tired of trying to make sense of it all. I'm bored with lying. And yes, I'm scared of dying if the world continues to get uglier at this exponential rate.

Vote wisely tomorrow. And pray.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 66-70

Here in the middle of the list, we're in serious Sixties Earworm territory. From the poppiest pop to the deepest soul, here are five songs that defy you not to sing along. (C'mon, you know you know the words.)

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs].

66. "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" / Manfred Mann (1964)
Being a baby boomer is way too broad a category -- let's narrow it down a little. It's significant that I was old enough in 1964 to experience the British Invasion, yet I was still young enough that I was completely ignorant of where those British bands were stealing their music from. For me, this WAS the original.

67. "I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James & the Shondells (1967)
Sneaking around and doing things behind your parents' back -- that's what being a teenager is all about. Just because I wasn't misbehaving in 1967 didn't mean I wasn't ready to, given half a chance.

68. "Come and Get It" / Badfinger (1969)
I know what you're gonna say -- she's sneaking in another Paul McCartney song. But honestly, when this record first came out I didn't know McCartney had written it, as the theme song for his mate Ringo's new movie The Magic Christian. I should have guessed, though. As the first non-Beatles artists signed to the Apple Corps record label, Badfinger was hyped big-time as the Beatles' heirs apparent. (Watching that green apple on the label spin around and around was definitely one of this single's charms.) The Beatles, who were heading for Splitsville themselves, had a LOT invested in these guys -- no point in leaving anything to chance. Paul produced the record as well, and as insurance he renamed the band from the Iveys to the hipper-sounding moniker Badfinger (a Neil Aspinall suggestion). Ultimately I think that the Beatles legacy unfairly overshadowed Badfinger; despite their string of melodic, addictive singles ("No Matter What," "Day After Day," "Baby Blue," "Without You"), they rarely got credit for what a fine band they really were. Just listen to this debut single -- Tom Evans' buoyant lead vocals, the tight, beautifully blended back-up harmonies. (I was always torn between singing along to the high harmonies or the melody.) Sung against that bouncy timekeeping piano, the melody is always slower than I remember it, lagging lazily just behind the beat -- a genius tempo, actually, for a song about sitting back and waiting. I guess we never really knew what the "It" was that he was inviting people to take. If you saw the movie, you'd know it was money (the Magic Christian being like a hippie version of that old TV show The Millionaire), but trust me, it works equally well as a song about drugs or sex -- "If you want it, here it is / Come and get it / But you better hurry 'cos it's going fast." Wishful thinking, probably.

69. "Love Potion No. 9" / The Searchers (1964)
So much new music hit my ears in 1964, and it was definitely not all of a piece. Take this classic Leiber and Stoller number, for example -- first recorded in 1959 by the Clovers, it was already a standard when the Searchers covered it in 1964. But did I know that? No, I did not. To me, it was clever and witty and brand-new. I was still young enough to enjoy the occasional novelty tune, and this one was right on the cusp of being a novelty number. Three verses and a bridge, with a neat, if primitive, plot -- the singer asks for help with his pathetic love life from a fortune-telling gypsy ("with the gold-capped tooth," though I thought it was "gold tattoo"). He's definitely in the Loveable Loser category: "I told her that I was a flop with chicks/ Ain't had a date since nineteen-fifty-six" (in the re-recording, his 3-year celibate streak was inevitably changed to an 8-year drought). She gives him a potion, he gulps it down, and then he goes merrily bonkers, until he kisses a cop on the corner beat, who then breaks his potion bottle. This is not a song that you had to take seriously, and maybe that's what I liked about it -- plus it didn't depend on a sex-infused subtext that would shoot right over my adolescent head. This one's pure slapstick comedy -- "She bent and turned around and gave me a wink / She said I'm gonna mix it up right here in the sink / It smelled like turpentine and looked like India ink / I held my nose and closed my eyes [beat, beat] / I took a drink!" It's like Jerry Lewis meets Jekyll and Hyde. And the Searchers executed it perfectly, with their brisk drumbeat and crisp surf guitars -- a perfect Tin Pan Alley piece of pop comedy.

70. "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" / The Righteous Brothers (1964)
I remember seeing The Righteous Brothers on Shindig! and being surprised they weren't black -- not disappointed, mind you, just surprised. I'd never heard the term "blue-eyed" soul. But hey, I was already lapping up all those British beat bands' covers of Motown and girl group singles -- I couldn't deny Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield the right to sing R&B. As it climbed to the top of the charts in early 1965, no doubt American record companies breathed a sigh of relief that some American acts could still stave off the British Invasion. The ace in the bag -- as producer Phil Spector must have known -- was those booming low vocals by Medley, something no British band was equipped to compete with. Of course, a swoony Barry Mann melody helped, and Cynthia Weill's mournful lyrics -- "You never close your eyes anymore / When I kiss your lips," sung at the bottom of Medley's range, then jumping up an octave to continue, "And there's no tenderness like before / In your fingertips." By the time they got to the chorus, when Hatfield's tenor joined in on harmonies, we were already slain. "You've lost that lovin' feeling, now it's / Gone / Gone / Gone / Whoah-oh-oh oh" -- dig how those "gone's" toll away like the bells of doom. It's such a great song, and so much fun to sing. In college, my friend Mary MacManus and I did a pretty mean version of this while we worked the dishwashers in the dorm kitchen -- as I recall, the dining room would fall silent to listen, then burst into applause. At least that's how I remember it -- don't you dare tell me different.

“Doo Wah Diddy” / Manfred Mann

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

What WERE those lyrics? I couldn’t believe this song when I first it on the radio in mid-1964. Two measures of crunchy guitars and whomping drums, then it screeches to a halt for Paul Jones’ slovenly blues vocal to blurt out: “There she was, just a-walking down the street / Singing ‘Doo-wah-diddy, diddy-dum, diddy-doo’ / Tapping her fingers and a-shuffling her feet / Singing ‘Doo-wah-diddy, diddy-dum, diddy-doo.’” The back-up vocals chime in for the “Doo-wah diddies,” sounding raucous and sloppy, with jittery organ chords underneath. Whoever these Manfred Mann guys were, I could not deny the rawness and energy of this track, and its rocking sense of humor. I had to run right out and buy the single.

My favorite part is how it goes a cappella for that seesaw call and response between the back-ups and the lead: “She looked good / [Looked good] / She looked fine / [Looked fine] / She looked good, she looked fine, and I nearly lost my mind,” not to mention that jungle pounding on the drums every time the back-ups do their bit. Even better is the third version of this chorus: “Well I’m here / [I’m hers] / She’s mine / [She’s mine] / I’m hers, she’s mine, wedding bells are gonna chime.” Who cares if the rhymes are simple-minded? Jones sounds like he’s squirming with happiness, and it’s pretty hard not to get infected with that delirious joy.

Well, there is a narrative. In the second verse, he tell us, “Before I knew it, she was walking next to me” (singing doo-wah diddy etc., naturally), “holding my hand, just as natural as can be.” No long drawn-out courtship here; there’s a sexual revolution in progress, and this couple sees no reason to take things slow. “We walked on / [Walked on] / To my door / [My door] / We walked on to my door and we kissed a little more.” And in the third verse, “Now we’re together nearly every single day.” She’s still singing doo-wah-diddy constantly, but apparently it doesn’t get on his nerves. It MUST be love.

A primitive electric guitar riffs leads off the bridge, but what it’s really about is Paul Jones’ voice, howling and diving all over the joint: “Oh-oh oh-oo I knew we was falling in love / yes I did, so I told her all the things I was dreaming of.” And what things IS he dreaming of? Oh, come on, you know. (Actually I didn’t, not in 1964, but that didn’t stop me from getting the subtext.)

Very few British bands of that era had the musical range of Manfred Mann; these guys could go from jazz to blues to bossa nova without a hitch. But they were shrewd enough to launch themselves with a stripped-down rocker – not only that, but a stripped-down rocker with an unforgettable hook. It worked. It worked so well that they made their follow-up single the equally bouncy “Sha-La-La,” where once again, the guy gets the girl right away. (“Sha-la-la, say you love me too / Sha-la-la my love is true / We’ll spend our lives together / We’ll be happy forever.”) I bought that one too.

I had no idea there were TWO musicians in Manfred Mann who wore glasses (Tom McGuinness and Manfred Mann himself). I had no idea that Klaus Voormann (a.k.a. the guy who drew the Revolver cover) would later join Manfred Mann. All I knew was that these were two great singles. I still can’t hear them without being transported back to 1964. Need a time machine? Try Manfred Mann.

Doo-Wah-Diddy sample