Misunderstood – "I Can Take You to the Sun" (1966)

‘Cause words are words

And they mean nothing more

(But as the brothers Gibb once said, words may be all you have . . .)

It hit me only a couple of hours ago that 2 or 3 lines is six years old today!  (By the way, today’s post is number 942.  That’s a lot of songs, not to mention a heapin' helpin' of narcissism.)

How could I have almost overlooked such an important milestone for my wildly popular little blog?

That’s a good question, and I wish I had a good answer for it.  (I don’t even have a bad answer for it.) 

Ordinarily, 2 or 3 lines operates like a well-oiled machine – especially when it comes to planning ahead.  

We usually decide what songs will be featured on particular dates well in advance of those dates – especially when the date has some special significance . . . like when it’s an anniversary of something particularly meaningful to 2 or 3 lines.  (You can click here for an example.)    

But our best-laid plans were ganged aft agley today, boys and girls.  That’s why I had to scramble tonight to come up with a post and get it online before November 1 had become November 2.

Robert Burns

I hate it when someone excuses his or her failure to complete a task in a timely fashion by saying “I’ve been sooooo busy lately!”  (If you didn’t spend so much time complaining to everyone about how busy you are, you wouldn’t be so damn busy!)

But I’ve been sooooo busy recently myself – I'm working under a tight deadline to come up with a plan to deal with a very difficult situation.  

In case you wondered, here are the songs that were featured on each of the previous five birthdays of 2 or 3 lines:

#1 – “Birthday,” by Underground Sunshine.  (This is a cover of the famous Beatles song.)

#2 – “Happy Birthday,” by Steppenwolf.  (Just call me “Captain Obvious.”)

#3 – “It’s Never Too Late,” by Steppenwolf.

Matthew Sweet with Susanna Hoffs

#4 – “Girlfriend,” by Matthew Sweet.  

#5 – “Five Years,” by David Bowie.  (Another Captain Obvious pick.)

Not to change the subject, but you’re probably wondering what an appropriate 6th anniversary gift would be 2 or 3 lines.

It turns out that the traditional 6th wedding anniversary in the U.S. is something made of iron.  That’s not very promising, is it?

In the UK, the traditional 6th anniversary gift is something made with sugar – like candy.  Now that’s a little more like it.  

Librarians at the Chicago Public Library suggest a “wood object” as a 6th anniversary gift.

(NOTE: When did Chicago librarians decide to get into the anniversary gift racket?  They should be practicing that move where they take off their glasses and let down their hair and become super hot instead of wasting their time coming up with anniversary gift lists.) 

Those same Chicago librarians suggest engraved marble or granite gifts for a 90th wedding anniversary.  (The only suitable gift I can think of that fits that bill would be a nice tombstone.)

Today, 2 or 3 lines is featuring a song by the Misunderstood, a California band that moved to the UK in 1966 to record.  Click here to read more about the Misunderstood.

The Misunderstood has been called “the greatest lost band of the sixties.”  One reviewer wrote  in 1999 that the 1966 Misunderstood single that is today’s featured song – “I Can Take You to the Sun” – still stood up to the singles that were being released at that time by Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and others.

But that’s not why I chose to feature a song by the Misunderstood today.  I’m featuring this song because – like the Misunderstood – I am also misunderstood!  Terribly misunderstood, as a matter of fact!  (It’s true . . . just ask anyone!)

If you don’t believe me, think about this: for as long as I can remember, my favorite soft drink has been Dr. Pepper, which has been notoriously misunderstood for years:

Dr. Pepper, so misunderstood

If anyone would try you

They’d know you taste good!

(The star of that commercial is indeed Carol Kane, the star of stage, screen, and television, who is exactly 19 days younger than me.)

One final note.  As you regular 2 or 3 lines readers know, I’ve been posting every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday for years.  Henceforth, I’ll be posting on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays instead.  (My staff and I have been running the numbers, crunching the data, and kicking the idea around with some focus groups for some time now, and it seemed like the right move.)

We dipped our toes into those waters this past Thursday and Saturday, when we posted our two-part interview of Michael Mariotte, the one and only drummer for the legendary Washington, DC group, Tru Fax and the Insaniacs (which my spell-checking program just attempted to change to “Insomniacs”).

We have to post something today because it’s our anniversary, but we’re going to pretend that it’s Monday instead of Sunday, which means that our conversion to a Monday-Thursday-Saturday cycle is official.  

Look for the next 2 or 3 lines to appear on this coming Thursday, not this coming Friday – I promise you that the first post of our 7th year will be a humdinger.

Here’s “I Can Take You to the Sun”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: