Liner Notes "Depressive" and track listings Side A

"Depressive"

The Nineteen Sixties were filled with tragedy, anger and sadness. Everything was changing, overnight. The largest generation in world history was ripping and shredding the upholstery from the fat, comfortable American couch, and overturning everyone’s idea about what was right, what was wrong and who could point it out.

The rules about love and sex were changing, bending, breaking. But, feelings were changing more slowly. Ultimately, sad love songs blanketed the country’s airwaves, providing an outlet for both personal pain and public mourning.

The songs selected for Depressive are merely a teardrop in the oceans of grief that were the 60’s. However, they do provide a fair taste of the ‘downer’ element that was another defining portion of the era.


Yesterday – The Beatles: The most recorded song in history: proof that simplicity makes for greatness. Regret is a universal theme. In the Sixties, everyone was regretting something (“Yesterday/all my troubles seemed so far away/now it looks as though/they’re here to stay”). Was there a single person in the world unable to relate to that?

Stormy – Classics IV Featuring Dennis Yost: Windy’s big sister is this young lady who has broken the heart of the singer (“my world is cloudy and gray/you’ve gone away”). But, in typical Boomer fashion, she isn’t asked to return; she is commanded (“bring back that sunny day”). Even when mortally wounded, the Boomer Mind still stays in control, and forces the world to abide by its rules… or tries to.

Pleasant Valley Sunday – The Monkees: The Suburbs are targeted in this decidedly derisive ditty, written for the ‘Pre-Fab’ Four by Carole King and Gerry Goffin. The problems with our American culture are laid out on the lawn to see (“And Mr. Green/he’s so serene/he’s got a TV in every room”) and attack (“creature comfort goals/they only know my soul/and make it hard for me to see/my thoughts all seem to stray/to places far away/I need a change of scenery”). The Monkees, making one of the most politically charged social observations of the decade? Who knew?

Love Is Blue – Paul Mauriat: Oboes instantly evoke sadness. Harpsichords build on the effect. Add a harp that sounds like syncopated tears falling, throw in some strings and you have the basic recipe for this instrumental. Trying to be happy, but clearly not: just as many of the Boomers were feeling; just as many of the Space-Agers were becoming.

By The Time I Get To Phoenix – Glen Campbell: A brilliant Jimmy Webb composition. Cinematically, it sets up a split-screen in our minds. We ride along with the singer as he travels from city to city (“by the time I make Albuquerque/she’ll be workin’”). And we stay put with the now ex-girlfriend who, through the course of just another day, discovers that her lover has gone forever: A real kick-in-the-gut heart-wrencher.

Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird) – Chuck Jackson: Take “Phoenix” and spin it around for this lament, about a singer waiting, like a calf at a stockyard, to be slaughtered. His lover is going to leave him at the first chance (“when your restless eyes/meet someone new/oh, to my sad surprise”). There’s no surprise, really. He knows it. She knows it. But he can do nothing. He loves her too much to leave first. Another heartbreaker.

Sunday Will Never Be The Same – Spanky and Our Gang: Here is another in the series of songs trying to be happy but quite clearly cannot (“I’ve lost my Sunday song/he’ll not be back again”). Talk about a world-altering event (“I remember sunshine”)! And you thought “Stormy” was bad. Finally, the clever use of the hymn-like opening recalls the day, the faith and the loss all in a neat, bittersweet package.

Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying – Gerry and The Pacemakers: “It may be hard/to discover/that you’ve been left/for another.” There’s an understatement. But, this sentimental sentiment is only meant to cheer someone who needs it. As is typical of the Boomer mentality, it’s not done as a suggestion. That’s an order!

A Summer Song – Chad and Jeremy: “Don’t you know/that it hurts me so/to say goodbye to you.” That sums up the message delivered in this harmonious treasure box, filled with snapshot images (“trees swaying in the summer breeze…soft kisses on a summer’s day”) from a brief romance. Again, holding on to the joys of summer (and of love). The Boomers try to clutch onto the fun every time, not letting go if possible. And, doesn’t that make the rest of us want to?

Where Is Love? – Mark Lester: It’s from the Dickens book turned Broadway show turned great, big Hollywood Oscar Winning musical: “Oliver!” Imagine an orphan, purchased for the equivalent of pennies and kept in a chilly cellar during a London winter. That’s where this tearful child is vocalizing (“let tomorrow be the day/when I see the face/of someone who/I can mean/something to”). Dovetailing perfectly into Isolation Generation terms, we were all looking for the people who would give us the love and help we needed to become our best selves. Oliver found it, eventually. Maybe, so could we!

Walk On By – Dionne Warwick: Burt Bacharach has more songs in this collection than anyone else, save The Beatles. This could be the ultimate Bacharach song. With daringly defiant bravado, the singer asks you to ignore her in an almost martyr-like way (“if you see me/walking down the street/and I start to cry/each time we meet/walk on by”). With all of the break ups happening during this era, it was becoming an all too common scenario.

Everyone’s Gone To The Moon – Jonathan King: Part psychedelia, part Space Age social criticism, this song, sounding a bit like a lost verse from a Lewis Carroll work, points out the overwhelming isolation experienced (“streets full of people/all alone/roads full of houses/never home”) before dissolving into a nonsensical mind trip (“arms that can only/lift a spoon”). We were almost onto something, there.

Love Theme From Romeo + Juliet – Henry Mancini: Director Franco Zefferelli brought a lavish recreation of Shakespeare’s timeless tale to the big screen. Mancini’s music was a part of it. This ballad, (also known as “A Time For Us”) was charming in the film. But it was the Maestro himself who performed this version of the song, and gave it the chest-clutching chord drops and French horns heard here. It’s an appropriate theme for The Bard of Stratford’s most tragic of lovers.

Easy To Be Hard – Three Dog Night: This was one of the four top ten hits from the Tribal Love-Rock Musical, “Hair.” Here, the singer complains that their lover is so caught up in the big causes of the day; there isn’t time for this one little one (“do you only care/about the bleeding crowd/how about/a needed friend/I need a friend”). The Boomers were changing the world on a macro level, which made some feel ignored on a micro level.

I Am A Rock – Simon and Garfunkel: We all love subtext, and Paul Simon gives us plenty here, including a transparent narrator (“I have my books/and my poetry to protect me”). We know the singer has been hurt emotionally and is coping by shutting out the world (“if I never loved/I never would have cried”). The tougher the façade, the more easily it crumbles.

Is That All There Is – Miss Peggy Lee: A ‘life in review’ song (see also “It Was A Very Good Year”). Lieber and Stoller strike again, giving Miss Lee her final chart appearance. Done as a cabaret style personal memoir to the listeners, our world-weary singer recounts moments in her life and jadedly asks “Is that all there is?” The cynicism flows like water.