Althouse: "I can no longer keep my blinds drawn/And I can't keep myself from talking."

April 4, 2022

"I can no longer keep my blinds drawn/And I can't keep myself from talking."

"Vibrations bounce in no direction/And lie there shattered into fragments."

Just a song that came to mind today. It looked great on "Ed Sullivan," but the single version is sweeter. Here, I found it on Spotify and made a playlist based on it:

15 comments:

wild chicken said...: Ooh nice mix. Along Comes Mary was the only Assn song I liked and it's never played enough.; 4/4/22, 6:41 PM
RAS743 said...: Great harmony — all faked in this one — with great voices — Mama Cass could really belt it out — and the most beautiful face in that era of pop music, Michelle Phillips.; 4/4/22, 6:51 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: "Twelve Thirty" is my favorite Mamas & Papas song, because it has the nicest harmonies and the best interplay between the lyrics and the background music. My second-favorite is their little-known version of "My Heart Stood Still."

Sixties. Groovy.; 4/4/22, 7:02 PM
Iman said...: Excellent playlist. My fave M&P song and version of “out of time”. Although it came out in 1975, there was a superb live version of “Goin’ Back” done by Nils Lofgren (on piano) & band.; 4/4/22, 7:50 PM
Curious George said...: "Ooh nice mix. Along Comes Mary was the only Assn song I liked and it's never played enough."

The recorded version is just a little two fast. I like this live version better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqDfi7HfxdM; 4/4/22, 8:00 PM
David Begley said...: I have never heard this song. Nice.; 4/4/22, 8:00 PM
Narr said...: Not one I knew--very fine pop singing, and that band was rocking underneath. I wonder who they were?

I bet someone here knows!; 4/4/22, 8:47 PM
Whiskeybum said...: Ha! I was just playing this song yesterday, thinking back to a few weeks ago when my wife and I were driving up Laurel Canyon Road!; 4/4/22, 9:21 PM
Michael said...: Ah, and young girls are still going to the canyon. I have seen them.; 4/4/22, 9:43 PM
Michael said...: Althouse. Check out Legacy of the Canyon on Spotify; 4/4/22, 9:47 PM
Marcus Bressler said...: Nice list.; 4/4/22, 10:49 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Althouse. Check out Legacy of the Canyon on Spotify"

Thanks. I did. It's not ideal for me because it's got a lot of Jackson Brown and The Eagles. Carly Simon. America. I've got better playlists with the artists on there that I do like — The Byrds, The Mamas and the Papas, The Monkees, James Taylor.

I really don't care that people were located in "the canyon." I care about where it appeared on my personal emotional landscape when I first heard it on the radio. That is, I'm interested in "the legacy of Packanack Lake."; 4/5/22, 5:47 AM
Ann Althouse said...: And "the legacy of East Quad."; 4/5/22, 5:49 AM
Narr said...: Prof has emotional memories and associations for particular songs, as do a lot of people apparently.

For all my love of music I don't. I can't think of anything, even among my favorites, that triggers anything more than a vague sense of time and place without much specificity.

Of course I can recall the first time I heard some of them clearly, but I don't think of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy as the legacy of being in Chapel Hill to be a groomsman in a wedding.; 4/5/22, 12:02 PM
guitar joe said...: I just love the Mamas and the Papas. Nothing else like them.

"a lot of Jackson Brown and The Eagles. Carly Simon. America." Jackson Browne made 3 or 4 good records, then a lot of mediocre ones. He's done some good ones recently, though. I used to like the early Eagles recs, always hated the last two, now hate them all because they've had such a negative influence on country music. Also, repeat exposure to their songs makes their weaknesses apparent. Carly Simon...never got her. What was America even doing in that show? I like "Ventura Highway," though.; 4/5/22, 3:45 PM