NONKINSENSE

Adventures of an Analog Man in the Digital Universe, with a little help from my friends and relations.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

The Mamas & the Papas - California Dreamin' Ira,
I wanted to do this last night but didn't have the opportunity. R.I.P. Denny Doherty. I've always loved his lead vocals with the Mamas and the Papas (which The New York Times Obit aptly described as a "clear, friendly tenor"). Yes, Monday, Monday is still my fave. I remember being at a party at Eliot's (Bay Parkway Palace) where he played If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears in its entirety and asking him the name of the album. It was just that incredible.
Donny
 I'll beat Ira to it.

Denny Doherty of the Mamas and Papas died yesterday. In the 60's the Mamas and the Papas were one of the my three or four favorite groups. And they have remained so until this today. With Denny's passing, the only one left is Michelle Phillips.

What are your favorite Mamas and Papas songs? Here are some of mine.

1) I Saw Her Again
2) California Dreaming
3) No Salt on Her Tail
4) Monday Monday
5) My Girl
6) Safe in My Garden
7) Strange Young Girls
8) Twelve Thirty
9 ) Midnight Voyage
10) Dancing Bear
11) Trip Stumble and Fall
12) Go Where You Wanna Go
13) Dedicated to the One I Love

I was going to list a top 5 but there are just too many. So I went for a lucky 13.

In death, entertainers are given extra credit. But I've always agreed with what is now being said after he died: it was Denny Doherty's voice along with John Phillip's song writing, that really carried the band.

Rob.... I always enjoyed the part in "I Saw Her Again" where he comes in too early on the line "I saw her again" but they leave it in. That song was written by John Phillips in response to Doherty sleeping with Michelle Phillips. #24
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As our own Dennis the Bespectacle One can attest, I've spent a great deal of my life wondering about that, and we spent many a bull session a bull session discussing this very issue, putting aside lesser matters for the moment, such as the existence or non-existence of God. Dennis believes that Denny was guilty of premature anticipation. I believe that Denny's so-called premature arrival was intentional. But if it was an error, it was certainly a fortuitous one, since it served to heighten the excitement of the song.

 As for the origin of the song: I can see it orginating in the affair between Denny and Michelle Phillips, John Phillip's wife. "I saw her again and you know that I shouldn't..." "I don't want to live in a lie...: But it goes in a whole different direction with lines, "What can I do, I'm lonely too..." "Now she thinks that I love her..." With those lines it became a song about a man stuck with a woman he didn't love, in part because he didn't know how to let her down, and in part because he had no one else anyway. A very unusual topic for a pop song, particularly back then.

Rob

posted by NONKINSENSE @ 2:52 PM


"Dennis believes that Denny was guilty of premature anticipation. I believe that Denny's so-called premature arrival was intentional."

Well, I'm forced to come to the conclusion that Denny was traumatized by the discovery that "words of love, soft and tender, won't win a girl's heart anymore."  


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