"Love is Blue" sure had staying power. As Ray noted in an earlier post, most records at this time were lucky to spend eight weeks on the Boss 30. And yet here "Love is Blue" hits its 11th week, several weeks after it was No. 1.
Sex was starting to show up more in lyrics on KHJ songs, although I didn't recognize it at the time (being only 10). "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp" and "Young Girl" avoid directness, but it's clear what the topic is (and boy, Gary Puckett's songs just kept emphasizing that point -- but what great records). Debuting later in the spring will be "Angel of the Morning," which took a remarkably mature approach -- it was the woman, not the man, who was making her intentions clear. All the more interesting because the song was written by a man, Chip Taylor, who also wrote "Wild Thing." (Talk about contrasts.)
That reminds me of when I asked my parents what the word "excitations" meant. They asked how it was used. "Well, there's this song where they sing 'I'm picking up good vibrations, she's giving me excitations.'" "Oh."
They then fed me a line about how the girl was giving the guy some citations for doing good in school. Didn't make much sense to me but if your parents said it, it must true ... right?
I'm impressed your parents came up with an "explanation" that quickly. Since that song was SO popular, you couldn't have been the only kid wondering what those "excitations" were. I can only imagine what kind of explanation kids had for Gary Puckett's songs. "Why is the telling the young girl that his love for her is way out of line? Did he do something bad?"
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"The Real Don Steele. The picture says it all..."
Oh so true. And with apologies to Bill Drake, The Real Don Steele is "Number one then, and number one now!"
"Love is Blue" sure had staying power. As Ray noted in an earlier post, most records at this time were lucky to spend eight weeks on the Boss 30. And yet here "Love is Blue" hits its 11th week, several weeks after it was No. 1.
Sex was starting to show up more in lyrics on KHJ songs, although I didn't recognize it at the time (being only 10). "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp" and "Young Girl" avoid directness, but it's clear what the topic is (and boy, Gary Puckett's songs just kept emphasizing that point -- but what great records). Debuting later in the spring will be "Angel of the Morning," which took a remarkably mature approach -- it was the woman, not the man, who was making her intentions clear. All the more interesting because the song was written by a man, Chip Taylor, who also wrote "Wild Thing." (Talk about contrasts.)
That reminds me of when I asked my parents what the word "excitations" meant. They asked how it was used. "Well, there's this song where they sing 'I'm picking up good vibrations, she's giving me excitations.'" "Oh."
They then fed me a line about how the girl was giving the guy some citations for doing good in school. Didn't make much sense to me but if your parents said it, it must true ... right?
I'm impressed your parents came up with an "explanation" that quickly. Since that song was SO popular, you couldn't have been the only kid wondering what those "excitations" were. I can only imagine what kind of explanation kids had for Gary Puckett's songs. "Why is the telling the young girl that his love for her is way out of line? Did he do something bad?"
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