Glen Campbell – "Wichita Lineman" (1968)

And I need you more than want you

And I want you for all time

After he reads a question, my favorite trivia host plays music to fill the time that teams are allowed to think about that question before turning an answer in – which is usually two minutes. 

One of the reason that my favorite trivia host is my favorite trivia host is his playlist – which includes songs like “Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers, “88 Lines About 44 Women” by the Nails, “People Who Died” by the Jim Carroll Band, and “Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger.

But my favorite of the songs that this host plays regularly is “Wichita Lineman” by the late Glen Campbell.  

You didn’t see that coming, did you?

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As much as I like that record, it wasn’t on my original short list for this year’s class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.

“Wichita Lineman” made it all the way to #3 on the Billboard “Hot 100,” so it certainly qualifies as a hit single.  (Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” held down the number one spot that week.)

And “Wichita Lineman” had a hall-of-fame-worthy pedigree: it was written by Jimmy Webb, who was one of the truly great pop songwriters of all time.  (That statement would be true even if the only song he had ever written in his life was “MacArthur Park.”)

But the real reason I chose to include “Wichita Lineman” among this year’s group of “Golden Decade” hit singles hall of fame selections was that I learned recently that no less a cultural icon than Bob Dylan himself has called it “the greatest song ever written.”

(Oh yes he did!)

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Of course, Dylan’s other favorite songs include “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles and “Pretty Maids in a Row” by the Eagles . . . which proves that his musical judgment is a little suspect.

But while it’s fair to discount Dylan’s enthusiastic endorsement of “Wichita Lineman,” there’s certainly no reason to discount mine.  If 2 or 3 lines tells you that a record is great, you’d best believe that record is great.

And those of you who don't agree that "Wichita Lineman" is a great record can just form a line to kiss my ass!

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Click here to listen to “Wichita Lineman.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Cowsills – "The Rain, The Park & Other Things" (1968)

I saw her sitting in the rain

Raindrops falling on her

She didn't seem to care

At our weekly trivia competition last night, the host played brief snippets from three pop records and asked us to identify the groups that recorded them – each of whom consisted entirely of siblings.

I immediately thought of the Cowsills.  But the host didn’t play “The Rain, the Park & Other Things,” or “Indian Lake,” or any other Cowsills recording.

Then it hit me.  While there were six Cowsill siblings in the group – Bill, Bob, Barry, John, Paul, and Susan (but not Bob’s fraternal twin, Richard) – their mother Barbara joined them just before they recorded their first album, which included today’s featured song.

The Cowsills inspired “The
Partridge Family” TV show

So the group didn’t consist entirely of siblings (like the Jackson 5) – meaning they couldn’t have been one of the answers to that trivia question.

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Several of the Cowsills siblings pursued post-Cowsills musical careers after the group broke up in 1972.

Susan – the youngest member of the Cowsills – joined the Continental Drifters in 1993, and quickly demonstrated that she was a talented songwriter as well as a gifted singer.  

Ex-Bangle Vicki Peterson – who married John Cowsill – was also a member of that group. 

Susan Cowsill and Vicki Peterson in 2018

Click here to hear “Who We Are, Where We Live,” which the Continental Drifters released on their Vermillion album in 1998.

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Bob, Paul, and Susan are still touring as the Cowsills.  John occasionally joins them.  

Sadly, Barry drowned in New Orleans in 2005 as a result of the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Bill died of natural causes on February 18, 2006 – the day before his siblings gathered for Barry’s memorial service.  

Click here to listen to “The Rain, the Park & Other Things,” which made it to #2 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in December 1967.  (“Daydream Believer” by the Monkees kept the Cowsills out of the top spot.)

Click here to buy that recording – the newest member of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME – from Amazon.

Strawberry Alarm Clock – "Incense and Peppermints" (1967)

Incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns

Turn on, tune in, turn your eyes around

The Strawberry Alarm Clock performed in Joplin, Missouri – my hometown – on March 7, 1969, when I was a junior in high school.  To my everlasting regret, I didn’t go to the show. 

The band was on its last legs by then.  Today’s featured song, “Incense and Peppermints,” had hit #1 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in November of 1967, and the group’s debut album – also titled Incense and Peppermints – sold well on the strength of its title track.  

But it was all downhill for the Strawberry Alarm Clock after that.  Their follow-up single – which was titled “Tomorrow” – didn’t do badly, but none of the singles they released after that made it into the top forty.  Their subsequent albums were flops as well.

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What brought the Strawberry Alarm Clock to Joplin?  They were last-minute replacements for the Buckinghams – whose “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” is also a new inductee into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME. 

In the words of Chappell Roan, the Buckinghams were hot to go in 1967, when they had singles that reached #1, #6, #5, #12, and #11 (respectively) on the Billboard singles charts.  But nothing they released after that year sold worth a damn – which may explain why they initially accepted a Joplin gig.

Back in the day, I heard that the Buckinghams had to cancel because their guitarist had broken an arm in a car accident.  I have no idea if that was true – at the time, I assumed it was bullsh*t.

(You got that right!)

But while my hometown wasn’t good enough for the Buckinghams, it was more than good enough for the Strawberry Alarm Clock, who drew a crowd of about 1800 to Joplin’s Memorial Hall (where I had seen Paul Revere and the Raiders perform live two years earlier).

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From an article about the Strawberry Alarm Clock concert that appeared in the Parkwood High School student newspaper, the Spectator:

The group’s appearance was made possible through Mr. Ed Varner of Mar-Scott Associates.  The goal of Mr. Varner and his company is to provide the young adults of Joplin with a well-known singing group or band every eight weeks.  With the proper support from the young people of Joplin, this worthwhile goal can be accomplished.

I guess Ed Varner didn’t get the “proper support from the young people of Joplin” he wanted because we sure as hell didn’t have a well-known band popping up in Joplin every two months.

More from the Spectator article:

The Spectator staff was on the scene to meet the Strawberry Alarm Clock at the [Joplin] airport.  Although they were tired, the group consented to answering our questions.  One member of the group noted, “We haven’t had any sleep since 10 o’clock yesterday morning.  We never went to bed. . . . [Mr. Varner] called at 8 o’clock and we packed and then left.”  When asked what they had planned for the day, they replied, “We were going to sleep.”

But sleep never came.  After a busy morning of unpacking, the Strawberry Alarm Clock had an autographing session from 4 to 5 at May’s [Drug Store].  From there a brief rest, and on to Memorial Hall.

That account raises more questions than it answers, doesn’t it?  (With all due respect, the Spectator was not exactly the New York Times when it came to the quality of its reportage.  It wasn’t even the Joplin Globe and News-Herald.)

It sounds like the group woke up at 10:00 AM on March 6 and never went to bed that night.  Varner called them the next morning at 8:00 AM – when the band members were certainly sleep-deprived and probably intoxicated to a greater or lesser degree.  

Somehow they pulled themselves together and got to the airport in time to make it to Joplin in time for a 4:00 PM meet-and-greet at a local store.   That would have been almost impossible if they had been in Los Angeles – which is where the band was from.  (There were no nonstop commercial flights from LAX to JLN in 1969 – or in any other year, for that matter – and I doubt that Mr. Varner sprang for a private jet to bring our heroes to Joplin.  So maybe they were on tour and got the call in a city not too far away from Joplin?)

The group must have been exhausted by the time they took the stage – I’m surprised they could keep their eyes open long enough to finish the show.

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Click here to listen to “Incense and Peppermints.”

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.

Every Mother's Son – "Come On Down to My Boat" (1967)

Fish all day, sleep all night

Father never lets her out of his sight

Every Mother’s Son knocked it out of the park with “Come On Down to My Boat,” which climbed all the way to #6 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in July 1967.  

The success of that single – which is being inducted today into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME – earned them a guest shot on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the second-best television show of its era.  (What was the best show of that era?  The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., of course.  David McCallum was pretty hot, but he wasn’t as hot as Stephanie Powers.)

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Based on a careful analysis of the lyrics of “Come On Down to My Boat,” 2 or 3 lines has concluded that it’s a very odd song indeed.

Here’s the first verse, which is straightforward enough:

She sits on the dock a-fishin’ in the water

I don’t know her name, she’s the fisherman’s daughter

But things get weird in the second verse:

She smiled so nice like she wants to come with me

But she’s tied to the dock, and she can’t get free

Are we to conclude that her father has tied the fair maiden to the dock?  Apparently so.  (I was once the father of young daughters, and it’s not surprising that her father “never lets her out of his sight.”  But keeping her tied up to the dock?  That seems a bit extreme, mate.)

Every Mother’s Son

The singer of the song could call the po-po and report the father’s cruel and unusual behavior, but decides instead that he will take matters into his own hands when the time is right:

Soon I’m gonna have to get my knife

And cut that rope

Then we can go fishin’ in my little red boat

I have my doubts that fishing is really what’s on the singer’s mind – but maybe I’ve misjudged the fellow.

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Here’s a fun fact about Every Mother’s Son: the group’s keyboard player, Bruce Jay Milner, was in the process of becoming a dentist when “Come On Down to My Boat” was recorded.  

If you live in the Woodstock, New York area and are in need of a dentist, Dr. Bruce is still working.  He calls his practice “Transcend Dental.”  (Get it?)

Dr. Bruce Milner of Transcend Dental

From the Transcend Dental website:

It doesn’t matter whether you listen to classical, rock, folk or jazz.  Bruce listens to it all and sings a Buddhist chant or two on the side.  In the office a gentle flow of music makes its way to ears of every patient.

Being a musician has given Bruce the empathy to make an affordable path for creative people to have dental work performed.  Bruce loves his work and the people he treats.

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Click here to listen to “Come On Down to My Boat,” which was co-written and produced by the late Wes Ferrell – who also co-wrote “Hang On, Snoopy,” which became the official rock song of the state of Ohio in 1985 as a result of the adoption of House Concurrent Resolution 16, which reads in part as follows:

WHEREAS, “Hang On Sloopy” is of particular relevance to members of the baby boom generation, who were once dismissed as a bunch of long-haired, crazy kids, but who now are old enough and vote in sufficient numbers to be taken quite seriously . . .

and

WHEREAS, Adoption of this resolution will not take too long, cost the State anything, or affect the quality of life in this State to any appreciable degree, and if we in the legislature just go ahead and pass the darn thing, we can get on with more important stuff. 

Click here to buy “Come On Down to My Boat” from Amazon.