Songs you listened to growing up

[Peloso]

The first song I became obsessed with was when I was four or five. It was a 7''orchestral instrumental of "Love Is Blue". I don't remember who recorded it but it was on the Phillips label, mid sixties.

 

[Latimer]

Was reminded of this one today:

Along with this one:

Tom Lehrer, the prolific writer and singer of many humorous, satirical ballads, described Little Boxes as "the most sanctimonious song ever written." Sanctimonious it certain is, although "repulsive" is the word that first springs to my mind.

Little Boxes was written by Malvina Reynolds, who was a graduate student at the University of California campus in Berkeley at the time, having previously received an undergraduate degree there. The little boxes, all built of "ticky-tacky" and "all the same" she refers to are in Daly City, a working class and lower-middle-class suburb of San Francisco. Reynolds mischaracterizes the residents there as university graduates, doctors, lawyers and business executives who are also "all made of ticky-tacky" and also all look "just the same". They also play golf, like dry martinis, have pretty children who go to school, summer camp and the university and come out "all the same."

What she should have appreciated was that the Daly City residents were likely hard-working families of modest means who may very well have bought these modest houses with the help of the GI Bill. Few of them had university degrees, although many probably hoped their children would, imagining the opportunities they hoped the degree would bring.

As for the doctors, lawyers and business executives she disdains--well, they were probably living around the university campus in Berkeley, across the Golden Gate in Marin, or down the Peninsula in what is now Silicon Valley--in larger, more expensive houses, perhaps even beautiful houses. But how could she possibly know they were all the same? How could she possibly know the "content of their character?" Who was she to judge the very people whose taxes were helping subsidizing her university education? Whose endeavors--and those of the Daly City residents--helped make California the economic powerhouse that it was and is, and who might even have bought her recordings or attended her concerts. How pretentious of her and her ilk to imagine they knew these people, how despicable that they characterized them with such snobbery and disdain.

A vile song.

 

[Kulindahr]

The first song I became obsessed with was when I was four or five. It was a 7''orchestral instrumental of "Love Is Blue". I don't remember who recorded it but it was on the Phillips label, mid sixties.

Would that be this one?

I loved that one! This is how I remember it, though:

I've no idea why, but I associate that with hiking through knee-deep snow.

This version I remember being played on the radio:

 

[Kulindahr]

Tom Lehrer, the prolific writer and singer of many humorous, satirical ballads, described Little Boxes as "the most sanctimonious song ever written." Sanctimonious it certain is, although "repulsive" is the word that first springs to my mind.

Little Boxes was written by Malvina Reynolds, who was a graduate student at the University of California campus in Berkeley at the time, having previously received an undergraduate degree there. The little boxes, all built of "ticky-tacky" and "all the same" she refers to are in Daly City, a working class and lower-middle-class suburb of San Francisco. Reynolds mischaracterizes the residents there as university graduates, doctors, lawyers and business executives who are also "all made of ticky-tacky" and also all look "just the same". They also play golf, like dry martinis, have pretty children who go to school, summer camp and the university and come out "all the same."

What she should have appreciated was that the Daly City residents were likely hard-working families of modest means who may very well have bought these modest houses with the help of the GI Bill. Few of them had university degrees, although many probably hoped their children would, imagining the opportunities they hoped the degree would bring.

As for the doctors, lawyers and business executives she disdains--well, they were probably living around the university campus in Berkeley, across the Golden Gate in Marin, or down the Peninsula in what is now Silicon Valley--in larger, more expensive houses, perhaps even beautiful houses. But how could she possibly know they were all the same? How could she possibly know the "content of their character?" Who was she to judge the very people whose taxes were helping subsidizing her university education? Whose endeavors--and those of the Daly City residents--helped make California the economic powerhouse that it was and is, and who might even have bought her recordings or attended her concerts. How pretentious of her and her ilk to imagine they knew these people, how despicable that they characterized them with such snobbery and disdain.

A vile song.

We always thought it was satire or a critique of how universities back then enforced conformity. An uncle said it was about what America would be like if it turned communist. Our mom used it as a lesson against peer pressure -- do something just because everyone else is doing it "turns you into ticky-tacky".

 

[Araucaria]

The first song I became obsessed with was when I was four or five. It was a 7''orchestral instrumental of "Love Is Blue". I don't remember who recorded it but it was on the Phillips label, mid sixties.

This?

 

[Peloso]

This?

Yes that's it. And here's the label:



Oddly, seeing the label brought back more memories than hearing the song. I suspect I've listened to or heard it once or twice over the years. I used to have a fascination with record labels.

 

[belamyi]

Tom Lehrer, the prolific writer and singer of many humorous, satirical ballads, described Little Boxes as "the most sanctimonious song ever written." Sanctimonious it certain is, although "repulsive" is the word that first springs to my mind.

Little Boxes was written by Malvina Reynolds, who was a graduate student at the University of California campus in Berkeley at the time, having previously received an undergraduate degree there. The little boxes, all built of "ticky-tacky" and "all the same" she refers to are in Daly City, a working class and lower-middle-class suburb of San Francisco. Reynolds mischaracterizes the residents there as university graduates, doctors, lawyers and business executives who are also "all made of ticky-tacky" and also all look "just the same". They also play golf, like dry martinis, have pretty children who go to school, summer camp and the university and come out "all the same."

What she should have appreciated was that the Daly City residents were likely hard-working families of modest means who may very well have bought these modest houses with the help of the GI Bill. Few of them had university degrees, although many probably hoped their children would, imagining the opportunities they hoped the degree would bring.

As for the doctors, lawyers and business executives she disdains--well, they were probably living around the university campus in Berkeley, across the Golden Gate in Marin, or down the Peninsula in what is now Silicon Valley--in larger, more expensive houses, perhaps even beautiful houses. But how could she possibly know they were all the same? How could she possibly know the "content of their character?" Who was she to judge the very people whose taxes were helping subsidizing her university education? Whose endeavors--and those of the Daly City residents--helped make California the economic powerhouse that it was and is, and who might even have bought her recordings or attended her concerts. How pretentious of her and her ilk to imagine they knew these people, how despicable that they characterized them with such snobbery and disdain.

A vile song.

Are you sanctimoniously criticizing the song or the hermeneutics made over the song?
The lyrics do not address particular people as much as particular qualities, and whitewashing mediocrity, comformism, platitude because of the bovine toughness, meekness and guileless behind it might be consider just as much, when not more, "sanctimonious" and "repulsive".
At most, I could accept the "tragic condition" of the "little box" little people who are condemned to being used and abused in virtue precisely of the qualities they consider "right": aurea mediocritas being minted as whatever coin it is deemed more convenient when and where and how it is considered it must be done so.

 

[belamyi]

Would that be this one?

I loved that one! This is how I remember it, though:

I've no idea why, but I associate that with hiking through knee-deep snow.

This version I remember being played on the radio:

Ah, Vicky Leandros, the twenty-year-old teen...

Now you make me think of this tape I would listen constantly in my very early childhood...

 

[belamyi]

Are you sanctimoniously criticizing the song or the hermeneutics made over the song?
The lyrics do not address particular people as much as particular qualities, and whitewashing mediocrity, comformism, platitude because of the bovine toughness, meekness and guileless behind it might be consider just as much, when not more, "sanctimonious" and "repulsive".
At most, I could accept the "tragic condition" of the "little box" little people who are condemned to being used and abused in virtue precisely of the qualities they consider "right": aurea mediocritas being minted as whatever coin it is deemed more convenient when and where and how it is considered it must be done so.

Conformism going so far as to criminal collaborationism or 'mere' criminal stand-offism...

 

[belamyi]

Now you make me think of this tape I would listen constantly in my very early childhood...

Did it sound that bad? Did I really listen to THOSE versions?!!

 

[belamyi]

^ OMG, I recall a lot from that (solos, concertinos and such) but that disco-techno beat to Cole Porter!

God, I hate... "Sonrisas y lágrimas": they won't force me to say that I hate "the sound of music"

 

[belamyi]

So much better the lyrics in French... the Spanish ones made me believe this Lesbian hymn was about two women fighting over a man.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yes that's it. And here's the label:

View attachment 1828768

Oddly, seeing the label brought back more memories than hearing the song. I suspect I've listened to or heard it once or twice over the years. I used to have a fascination with record labels.

Did you listen to the other versions I posted?

The final one, the meditative piano version, reminded me of a performance where the pianist played it with heavy shifting into minor chords, turning it into a tune so sad much of the audience was crying -- there are hints of that in this piano version. I wish I could find that performance online; it's a rare melody that can be either joyful or haunting and both be memorable.

BTW, I can understand the label thing: Looking through my parents' old vinyl brought back memories that hearing the songs doesn't -- like decorating the family Christmas tree, Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's siblings and their offspring around a table that extended from dining room to living room (and one to the side for the under-fourteen set), Fourth of July mornings when the mom would wake up the neighborhood with John Phillips Sousa marches blasting from indoor and outdoor speakers and eagerness to be up and awake and through with breakfast to be cranking the ice-cream maker (we made about six gallons of home-made), New Year's Day with some college football bowl game on the tube, summer outings to a beach estuary . . . .

 

[Kulindahr]

Thinking of those summer beach outings, this song brings back those memories along with laying in the sun on the front porch (wearing as little clothes as I could get away with) and reading for the "Summer Book Club" --

trivia: that was released as a single and was the longest-playing single ever released for quite some time. it was also the first musical recording ever that had the F-word in it (not in the lyrics, but the background, someone says "F-ing Hell")

 

[Kulindahr]

Thinking of summer....

Every county fair opening was broadcast live on the local radio station, and it always started with the same song (which they played every morning when the gates opened at the fairgrounds) --

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer

Just fill your basket full of sandwiches and weenies
Then lock the house up, now you're set
And on the beach you'll see the girls in their bikinis
As cute as ever but they never get 'em wet

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
You'll wish that summer could always be here

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer

Don't hafta tell a girl and fella about a drive-in
Or some romantic moon it seems
Right from the moment that those lovers start arrivin'
You'll see more kissin' in the cars than on the screen

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
You'll wish that summer could always be here
You'll wish that summer could always be here
You'll wish that summer could always be here

 

[Peloso]

Did you listen to the other versions I posted?

The final one, the meditative piano version, reminded me of a performance where the pianist played it with heavy shifting into minor chords, turning it into a tune so sad much of the audience was crying -- there are hints of that in this piano version. I wish I could find that performance online; it's a rare melody that can be either joyful or haunting and both be memorable.

I found the piano version to be a little sad. I guess it's the timbre of the piano and how it transforms the lushness of the other versions into a delicate one. It'a a beautifully melodic song and I suspect my exposure to it at the beginning of my interest in music is why I have always enjoyed overly melodic music.

BTW, I can understand the label thing: Looking through my parents' old vinyl brought back memories that hearing the songs doesn't --

Yes, seeing the label brought back memories. I used to think the label had something to do with the type of music on the record.

like decorating the family Christmas tree, Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's siblings and their offspring around a table that extended from dining room to living room (and one to the side for the under-fourteen set), Fourth of July mornings when the mom would wake up the neighborhood with John Phillips Sousa marches blasting from indoor and outdoor speakers and eagerness to be up and awake and through with breakfast to be cranking the ice-cream maker (we made about six gallons of home-made), New Year's Day with some college football bowl game on the tube, summer outings to a beach estuary . . . .

Fucking Frank Sinatra. That's all my mother played and she played it constantly. Christmas was the worst. They still play the exact same versions of Christmas carols he recorded on those Christmas muzak stations every year and it makes me cringe.

A few years later my world opened up when my older brother started giving me his old albums and singles. It was the late sixties/early seventies which was when having a high fidelity stereo was the thing. Stereos were to kids in the 70's what cars were in the 50's. It wasn't uncommon to re-purchase often played records because the stylus did wear them down after a while. Now it seems we're back to the fifties sound-wise with the pathetic aural quality of streaming and kids listening to music on their small, tinny phone speakers. I used to have a little 10'' black and white TV in my bedroom and it's there where I first saw a lot of classic films for the first time. "Psycho," for example. Now I can watch Psycho on a 52" screen in high definition with the cuts restored. Yet here the dumbass kids are -- watching 90 million dollar epics on a 4'' screen with unacceptably poor motion flow and paying far out the ass for it. Now I read that Disney plus is starting to fiddle with the films they carry; replacing old product placements by CGI-ing new ones. I hear they're also beginning to edit for content , and the other services are going to follow suit with the content they have on license. Technology is the worst thing that ever happened to both culture and art.

 

[belamyi]

The pretty things (yes, I was such a guileless dirty young perv):
Dat azz

Dat feiç

 

[belamyi]

It has been posted above already, but this played for the whole fucking 1984 several times a day in the national public TV of Spain (the only two channels existing back then, except for a couple of regional ones):

And this one was the closest thing to that two years afterwards..:

 

[cabinfever]

I liked to listen to these when I smoked weed in HS - sounded great

 

[belamyi]

The pretty things (yes, I was such a guileless dirty young perv):
Dat azz

Dat feiç

Though yes, Bruce was prettier, and had the whole package