Parker captions the clip "You're my pride and joy, et cetera...." The "et cetera" in the song "Elenore" is sometimes pointed to as if it's just inexplicably lame. What kind of love song stops abruptly in the middle of a string of praise and says "et cetera"? But I'd say the kind of love song that is making fun of love songs. The whole thing is a hilarious romp (and I associate those 2 Turtles frontmen with the Frank Zappa of "Fillmore East — June 1971," so it makes perfect sense to me that it's a satire of pop music).
I enjoy Rex Parker's carping, let me assure you. I especially liked "ELENORE, gee your folks can't spell!" (quoted in the post title). It's a twist on the actual song lyric, "Elenore, gee I think you're swell." Notice the silliness of that line too. It's making fun of pop love songs. "Swell" is a very lame compliment.
I'm also amused by the couplets "Your looks intoxicate me/Even though your folks hate me" and "I really think you're groovy/Let's go out to a movie." The whole thing's a big joke.
The Wikipedia article on the song quotes Howard Kaylan (the lead singer who wrote the lyrics):
Elenore was a parody of "Happy Together." It was never intended to be a straight-forward song. It was meant as an anti-love letter to White Whale [Records], who were constantly on our backs to bring them another "Happy Together." So I gave them a very skewed version. Not only with the chords changed, but with all these bizarre words. It was my feeling that they would listen to how strange and stupid the song was and leave us alone. But they didn't get the joke. They thought it sounded good. Truthfully, though, the production on "Elenore" WAS so damn good. Lyrically or not, the sound of the thing was so positive that it worked. It certainly surprised me."Fillmore East — June 1971" — one of my all-time favorite records — is also a satire on "Happy Together." Wikipedia:
Frank and the Mothers then portray stereotypically egotistical members of a rock band "negotiating" with a groupie and her girlfriends for a quick "roll in the hay." The girls are insulted that the band thinks they are groupies and that they would sleep with the band just because they are musicians. They have standards; they will only have sex with a guy in a group with a "big, hit single in the charts – with a bullet!" and a "dick that’s a monster." In "Bwana Dik", singer Howard Kaylan assures the girls that he is endowed beyond their "wildest Clearasil-spattered fantasies." And, not to be put off by the standards of these groupies, the band sings the girls the Turtles (of which Kaylan, Volman, and Pons had been members) hit "Happy Together", to give them their "bullet".
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For you youngsters out there who have any interest, you may search under the heading "Flo and Eddie".
Think of a vegetable Lonely at home
Call any vegetable And the chances are good
That a vegetable will *respond* to you
Like today, these were strange times. I credited much of this to my own age at the time, but in retrospect it was the times more than the man.
@mezzrow
I started the second video so it begins with the comedy lead-up to "Happy Together," but if you scroll back to the beginning, there's a long version of "Call Any Vegetable" (which I think is a parody of that Beach Boys song "Vegetables"
"I'm gonna be round my vegetables
I'm gonna chow down my vegetables
I love you most of all
My favorite vege-table
If you brought a big brown bag of them home
I'd jump up and down and hope you'd toss me a carrot
I'm gonna keep well my vegetables
Cart off and sell my vegetables
I love you most of all
My favorite vege-table..."
You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs
I look around me and I see it isn't so
I can really hear 'Happy Together' in the chords as 'Elenore' starts.
When my wife got a new car, she got free satellite radio for three months. We were driving somewhere, listening to Little Steven's Underground Garage and the Turtles' "She'd Rather Be With Me" came on. I said, wow, I haven' heard this in 40 years. I used to love this song when I was a kid. And it turns out I still love it. It's just a perfect little pop song. It's even got cowbell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEP2trJhPks
Rutabaga.
Flo and Eddie are also prominent in Just Another Band From LA, which reprises Call Any Vegetable and Teenage Prostitute, and gives us the early 70's Zappa magnum opus Billy The Mountain, which was Zappa's commentary on the rock opera phenomenon rampant in the early 70's.
Billy was a mountain. Ethel was a tree growing off of his shoulder.
Eat your greens
Don't forget your beans & celery
"Eleanor" is probably the most common spelling, but when my name is misspelled, it's usually spelled "Elinor". Lots of Jane Austen fans, maybe. My parents spent their lives having to spell their names for everyone so they deliberately chose the most common spellings for us.
I have a total man crush on Mark Volman now.
Eleanor-gee-I-think-you're-swelleanor!
i never understood Any of the lyrics to Elenore, in fact i always assumed that it was about eleanor rigby
But, if we're talking about crazy love songs, someone has to mention THE BEST
Steel Panthers' If You Really Really Love Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAvXHpLwJA4
THe Mothers Live at the Fillmore was one of my favorite albums in the 70s. I was stationed in Germany 72-75. I used to use Studebaker Hawk as one of my pseudonyms on blogs a few years back.
I didn’t get the joke either but I remember thinking the “et cetera” line was peculiar. Most of all I remember really digging, if you will, this song. When my grand-niece received the name Eleanor, I sang it to her often.
Nice to finally be in on the joke.
jerpod,
I just listened to your "She'd Rather Be With Me"
and it seemed nice...
But needed More Cowbell
“Surfer Dan” on the B side which is another silly, semi-parodic song. But it rocks (at least by Turtle standards)!
Love the dude playing lead tambourine.
rehajm said...
Eleanor-gee-I-think-you're-swelleanor!
Exactly @3:06 what I thought of from long ago but never connected it to the Turtle's song.
Thou swell, thou witty, thou sweet, thou grand!
Wouldst kiss me, pretty? Wouldst hold my hand?
It depends on who is using the word.
They needed something to rhyme with "bett-a" and came up with etcetera
A cynic's song.
The whole thing is a hilarious romp (and I associate those 2 Turtles frontmen with the Frank Zappa of "Fillmore East — June 1971," so it makes perfect sense to me that it's a satire of pop music).
The Turtle frontman with the tambourine reminds me of Dave Grohl's Orthopedic Doctor (hilariously singing 7 Nation Army).
Another pretty good song that was meant as a goof.
Are you hung up?
They needed something to rhyme with "bett-a" and came up with etcetera
At least they thought of a word that rhymes:
Well we got no class
And we got no principles
And we got no innocence
We can't even think of a word that rhymes
Alice Cooper
I had these Zappa classics on my 8-track tape and listened to them often. Glad to know a little more context behind them.
And seeing Dave Grohl's doc singing cheered me up immeasurably on what is turning into a shitty day. Apart from other things, our second cat's going into the vet within the hour. The first died earlier this month, and the prospect of losing the second (and my brother earlier this year) is shaping this year up into a struggle. Even a momentary release of the pressure is most welcome.
Oh great. Now I've got 'The Idiot Bastard's Son' playing in a loop in my head. That'll be here for hours. I'll probably be standing at the check-out counter at CVS later today, waiting behind an old woman with a cart FULL of Pepsi and cat food, while the somber CVS employee stares at her through glasses that are slipping half-way down his nose. It'll be totally quiet except for me humming the tune to 'The Idiot Bastard's Son'.
I hope I don't unexpectedly start singing it.
Temujin said...
Oh great. Now I've got 'The Idiot Bastard's Son' playing in a loop in my head.
I thought their only "catchy" tunes were "Electric Aunt Jemima" and "Cheap Thrills".
Bill Peschel - I'm sorry for your losses and the difficult time you are experiencing now.
Flo and Eddie continue to tour and can be seen (and heard) this summer along with various other acts including The Association, The Cowsills, Mark Lindsay (from Paul Revere & The Raiders).
And let's not forget the Dylan connection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrfpj9P_Mys
Bill Peschel - That's difficult on all counts. Thoughts and prayers with you.
Thanks for clearing that up. Until this moment, i would have sworn it was "Ellen - Oh gee think your swell . . . ", not Elenor[e].
Never really liked anything that the Turtles or Flo and Eddi[e] did. Other than that cool oboe part in Happy Together. And, that was just some producer's flourish, I suppose.
Reminded me of e.e. cummings (he used lower case) poem: my sweet old etcetera -
my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent
war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting
for,
my sister
Isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that
I would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
That explains a lot. A factor that we habitués of the blog have in common. It sounds like the percentage of people here who have a connection to Zappa's Filmore East album is staggeringly high. Real futuristic . . . I dIg the fins.
Wow crosswords and 60's pop history in one post! Happy Together overtook Penny Lane to top the music charts, and it stayed there for several weeks. No wonder the record company was riding them for a repeat.
This came out when I was 17, and I remember finding the hastily resolved ending (etcetera) to a string of facile compliments made by a love struck teenager amusing. The Turtles weren't cool like the Stones, but I liked their pop sensibility with a twist of irony.
It is good to learn that Elenore was deliberate joke aimed at the record company- I had just always assumed it showed the band had a limited writing ability- as a commenter above noted, you can literally hear the older song in the opening chords and rhythm.
Of course, Happy Together is probably one of the top 10 pop songs of all time- a true classic.
My memory is that "Elenore" was on a Turtles album called "Battle Of The Bands", all the songs on which were parodies of then current rock acts.
The Beach Boys "Vegetables", originally meant for Smile, exists in many forms (some with alternate spellings). Most of them can be found only on bootlegs, but it was one of the many re-purposed Smile tracks that surfaced in stripped down versions on the oddball Smiley Smile album. The full Smile version eventually came out on the Smile Sessions box set. There is a persistent legend that Paul McCartney was in the booth with Brian during the sessions.
Brian was also obsessed with a record called How To Talk Hip and really wanted to make a Beach Boys comedy album. This never happened (luckily from what examples of Brian's skit humor survive), but it did inspire him to make a comedy promo for "Vegetables" featuring super drummer Hal Blaine as a grumpy gardener and Brian as a free-loading vegetable lover.
Dean Torrence also recorded a version of "Vegetables" under the name of, iirc, "Laughing Gravy". This version surfaced on the Jan & Dean compilation album "Gotta Take That One Last Ride" (and later elsewhere).
In deference to us west coasters, it's worth considering a spoiler alert before referencing the puzzle or mad Rex. Esp a Fri.
I read once that Elenore's chorus was Happy Together played backwards. There's a funny movie out there about the Turtles called "My Dinner with Jimi". Highly recommended for a glimpse of the mid-sixties rock/pop world. And that's Johnny Barbata on drums, one of the greats.
Speaking as a true believer in the Mothers. I leave this treasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TItmXT8DkM
Fire Breathing Frank!
I always thought the Turtles were like the Grass Roots. A revolving door of studio musicians all well coifed.
Today, I find that the Turtles were a high school garage band.
I'm impressed. Have you ever tried to organize a bunch of guys to play guitar.....together??
I loved "Elenore" when I was a kid, and I still do, for pretty much all the reasons already mentioned. The lyrics are silly, but work so well (or maybe "swell") as both a love song and as a parody of love songs. "Etcetera" fits so perfectly, and makes the song so stupidly brilliant.
My wife and I spent several pleasant minutes listening to Turtles music and watching clips on YouTube. Mark Volman simply couldn't take the Turtle's TV appearance's seriously! There's a video on YouTube of the band 'singing' Happy Together and they've given Volman a French horn to hold during the take. He spins it wildly and puts it on Howard Kaylan's head when they sing in harmony. It's hilarious! Fun stuff.
But the plastic all melted an so did the chrome.
"Elenore".
Really?
Elanore! Elinore! L-inore! Ellen or? Eleanore!
This song brings to mind great memories from my teenage years in Indiana...all fun and innocent. The C word was not in my vocabulary then or now.
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