Elephant's Memory – "Jungle Gym at the Zoo" (1969)

Baby, you’re an animal

And I guess I’m just a cannibal

“Old Man Willow” by Elephant’s Memory was featured on the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning movie Midnight Cowboy, which was the subject of the last 2 or 3 lines.  

After re-watching that movie recently, I realized that I had the entire Elephant’s Memory album that included “Old Man Willow” on my computer – and that I used to listen to that album on my iPod years ago.  

I had a silver one and a green one

I still don’t understand why Apple stopped selling iPods.  (I LOVED my iPod Shuffle – it was perfect for bike rides.). As late as 2008, the iPod was Apple’s best-selling product.  It was responsible for 42% of Apple’s revenue in the first quarter of that year – more than Apple realized from computer sales. 

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No one remembers Elephant’s Memory today, but their eponymous debut album – which was released in 1969 – is GREAT!

Here’s what rock music critic Richie Unterberger had to say about that album:

An elephant’s memory is legendarily large, and so was the size and scope of the New York band that went by the same name.  Unlike some other horn-rock ensembles of the late-‘60s that took advantage of the freedom to expand rock’s size and sound, however, Elephant’s Memory weren’t merely a rock band with jazz overtones.  

There was plenty of pile-driving rock’n’roll, and a good deal of jazz of both the free and big band varieties.  But there was also soul, spaced-out psychedelia, and pop – not just over the course of the entire album, but sometimes within the space of a single song – and what can only be described as downright strange lyrics about hot dog men, yogurt, love as a jungle gym, and “Old Man Willow.”  [NOTE: I don’t think “The Yogurt Song’ was really about yogurt.]  

Some of it was written by [Tony Visconti,] who’d go on to produce David Bowie, some of it would end up on the soundtrack to the classic movie Midnight Cowboy, and the whole shebang was produced by [Wes Farrell,] who’d go on to produce the Partridge Family.  

If Elephant’s Memory were a strange band, they were certainly no stranger than their surroundings, with second-degree-separations between the careers of not only Bowie, Midnight Cowboy star Dustin Hoffman, and the Partridge Family, but also the Beatles and Carly Simon.  [NOTE: Simon was the group’s original lead vocalist, but left before their debut album was recorded.]

Even by the standards of the late 1960’s, which saw some of the strangest and most genre-bending rock albums ever, Elephant’s Memory is a strange animal. . . .

Even the relatively straightforward R&B-soaked tunes were apt to take weird left turns, like the guttural nonsense chanting and siren-like scatting that interrupt “Don’t Put Me on Trial No More”; the “Baby, you’re an animal/And I guess I’m just a cannibal” refrain of “Jungle Gym at the Zoo”; the low moans on “Takin’ a Walk” that sounded like the mating of a vacuum cleaner with an actual elephant; and the hippie marching-band anthem ethos of “Band of Love.”  

And there was “Hot Dog Man,” where actual street conversations between the band and hot dog vendors were interlaced with hot funk licks and cheerleading-like chants from the band mimicking the hot dog men's sales pitch.

The music on Elephant’s Memory is weird, but it’s also very listenable.  If my iPod hadn’t given up the ghost a decade or so ago, I’d strap it on and listen to it right now.

[NOTE:  It is much easier to quote a lot of sh*t someone else wrote than it is to write sh*t yourself.]

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Click here to listen to “Jungle Gym at the Zoo,” which is featured on the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack.

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.