Turtles – "Happy Together" (1967)

Imagine me and you

I do!

Do you remember the movie Dumb and Dumber?  In that movie, Jim Carrey’s character – who is named Lloyd – is a limo driver who is hired to drive a character named Mary to the airport.  Between the time he picks her up and the time he drops her off, Lloyd falls in love with Mary.

When they meet again shortly thereafter, he declares his feelings for her and asks if there’s any chance of them having a future together:

Lloyd: What are the chances of a guy like you and a girl like me ending up together?

Mary: Not good.

Lloyd: Not good like . . . one in a hundred?

Mary: I'd say more like . . . one in a million.

Lloyd: So you’re telling me there’s a chance . . . YEAH!

(You can click here to watch the scene.)

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I quote this conversation because it has great relevance to my junior high school band, the Rogues.

The Rogues were formed in 1965.  While there were probably a zillion similar bands in the U.S. in those days, I’m confident that the members of the Rogues were more talented musicians than most of those bands.  

The Rogues (circa 1967)

But were we good enough that we might have eventually got a record deal and become big stars?

Obviously, the odds were not good that any 1965-era band would make it big.  But I’m confident that the Rogues had a better chance of making it big than Lloyd had of winning over Mary.  So my answer to the question I asked in the previous paragraph is a resounding YEAH!

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Every so often, I’ll hear a song on the radio and realize that it was one that the Rogues played.

The first song I remember rehearsing with the band was Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound.”  (Not exactly a toe-tapper, is it?)   

“Good Lovin’” by the Young Rascals was another one of the songs we covered.  (I was the band’s keyboard player, so I loved that song because it had a nice organ solo.)

I was picked to be the lead singer when we played the Animals’ classic, “House of the Rising Sun.”  I’m not sure why I was chosen to sing that song – I had a low voice, and I think I had to sing most of the song an octave lower than Eric Burdon sang it.  But I do remember handling the lead vocal when we performed it at a pool party at the local country club in the summer of . . . 1965?  Or was it 1966?

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Of all the songs the Rogues covered, “Happy Together” – which was a #1 hit for the Turtles in 1967 – was our biggest crowd-pleaser.  

That comes as no surprise.  “Happy Together” was a great song, and I have no doubt that our version of it was a stick of dynamite.  (Perhaps even better than the original – although there are some who will question that.)

Our snazzy white dinner jackets and ascots didn’t hurt, of course.

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The Rogues and I had a parting of the ways in 1967.

I could say the cause for the split was artistic differences.  (The favorite recording artists of the leader of the Rogues were Herman’s Hermits and Simon and Garfunkel.  My favorites were the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.  Your Honor, I rest my case.)

But the real reason was my inability to persuade my parents to shell out a few hundred bucks to buy me a Vox Continental or Farfisa Compact Combo organ to replace the $29.95 dimestore piece of crap that I played.

Vox Continental organ

There was no big blowup or anything – the other Rogues just stopped telling me when and where the band’s practices were going to take place.

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Click here to listen to “Happy Together.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: