Tag: John Sebastian

Lovin’ Spoonful – Do You Believe In Magic

All it took was for me to get a greatest hits album by the Lovin’ Spoonful and I was a fan. This song was their debut single and it’s still heard today on the radio and in advertisements. The song peaked at #9 on the Billboard 100 and #3 in Canada in 1965.

They turned down a deal from Phil Spector because they didn’t want to be swallowed up under his name, that was probably a smart move. The Lovin’ Spoonful signed to a new record label called Kama Sutra. This was the first song they recorded for the label, and it was the first of a string of hits for the group

Sebastian said the autoharp intro was inspired by Martha and the Vandellas Heat Wave.  “It had an ascending chord sequence that I was fascinated with. By chance, I was playing the autoharp, experimenting with electrifying it through this big amplifier. I realized that if I turned a few of the major 7ths to minor 7ths, I would have those chords. I also wanted that groove from  ‘Buzz Buzz Buzz.'”

This was written by John Sebastian, who formed The Lovin’ Spoonful with his friend, Zal Yanovsky. Sebastian and Yanovsky were in a group called The Mugwumps and made a name for themselves playing clubs in Greenwich Village.

When the other Mugwumps – Mama Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty – moved to California and formed The Mamas And The Papas, they formed the band and Sebastian began focusing on songwriting. The Lovin’ Spoonful started playing electric instruments to get away from the folk music sound and attract a younger contemporary rock audience.

As the ’60s drew to a close, The Lovin’ Spoonful disbanded and Sebastian started working on a variety of projects. He wrote music for the Care Bear series, published children’s books, made harmonica instruction videos, and, he wrote the theme song to the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter, which was a #1 hit. Dave’s site has a post about this song. 

John Sebastian: “We were playing pretty steadily for the local people from Greenwich Village who were part of the jazz scene or part of the kind of downtown ‘in crowd.’ They were ‘finger poppers,’ guys who played chess, ‘beatniks.’ But there was this one particular night as we were playing, I looked out in the audience and saw this beautiful 16-year-old girl just dancing the night away. And I remember Zal and I just elbowed each other the entire night because to us that young girl symbolized the fact that our audience was changing, that maybe they had finally found us. I wrote ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ the next day.”

Alan Merrill who wrote I Love Rock and Roll: “This was mid-’60s. The Lovin’ Spoonful were starting, and Laura Nyro said, ‘Why don’t you audition for the Lovin’ Spoonful? Now you know how to play bass, they’re looking for a bass player. But you’d have to quit school.’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to quit school.’ So I went over to her house after school one day, and she put this record on, and it was ‘Do You Believe In Magic.’ She just looked at me and said, ‘This is what you didn’t go to do.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, s–t, it’s gonna be a #1 record. I blew it. I could have been the 14-year-old bass player in the Lovin’ Spoonful.'”

I wish I had this set…yea I would love to have it at home…the wife wouldn’t like it but I pick my battles well. And this one I would pick…and I’d take the Saint Bernard that appears also.

Do You Believe In Magic

Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her, whenever it starts
And it’s magic, if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie
I’ll tell you about the magic, and it’ll free your soul
But it’s like trying to tell a stranger ’bout rock and roll

If you believe in magic don’t bother to choose
If it’s jug band music or rhythm and blues
Just go and listen it’ll start with a smile
It won’t wipe off your face no matter how hard you try
Your feet start tapping and you can’t seem to find
How you got there, so just blow your mind

If you believe in magic, come along with me
We’ll dance until morning ’til there’s just you and me
And maybe, if the music is right
I’ll meet you tomorrow, sort of late at night
And we’ll go dancing, baby, then you’ll see
How the magic’s in the music and the music’s in me

Yeah, do you believe in magic
Yeah, believe in the magic of a young girl’s soul
Believe in the magic of rock and roll
Believe in the magic that can set you free
Ohh, talking ’bout magic

Do you believe like I believe (Do you believe in magic)
Do you believe like I believe (Do you believe, believer)
Do you believe like I believe (Do you believe in magic)

Lovin’ Spoonful – You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice

The Lovin’ Spoonful’s songs seem so effortlessly written and performed. They were popular for a short while in the mid-sixties. They influenced many bands including The Beatles who released Good Day Sunshine as a nod to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s song Daydream.

In the 1980s I really got into this band. I purchased one of their many greatest hits. I first heard of John Sebastian in the 70s when he wrote and sang the theme song of  TV show Welcome Back Cotter called “Welcome Back” which went to #1.

They were considered by TV producers to be in a television show but they were dropped over a conflict of song publishing rights. After an audition process, the producers figured it was more trouble than they expected. For one thing, the Spoonful were writing their own music at this point, and the show was not interested in giving up the publishing rights to the songs written for the show, so it really did not make sense for either party, and the producers instead turned to open auditions for the show. The Monkees were found soon after that. 

Brian Wilson said this song influenced one of the Beach Boys’ best songs…God Only Knows. The group was only active from 1965 to 1968, which John Sebastian described as “two glorious years and a tedious one.” John Sebastian wrote the majority of their songs. He had a #1 hit as a solo artist in 1976 with “Welcome Back,” the theme song to the TV series Welcome Back, Kotter.

This song was written by John Sebastian and bassist Steve Boone.

Lovin’ Spoonful played what they called “jug band” music and like the Rascals, they were more of a singles band than an album band. In 1967 Zal Yanovsky left the band citing musical differences. In 1968 Sebastian left for a solo career and the band carried on until 1969 without a significant hit.

The song peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100 and #4 in Canada in 1965.

John Sebastian:  “We started off in a world of 45 singles, so our only game still was three minutes of heaven every time out. That was all. We thought of it as four-man Phil Spector music. We wanted it to have that big quality, but we didn’t want to hire the Wrecking Crew.”

“Our producer Eric Jacobsen understood something about this funny hybrid that we were working on,” “Things like the chimes on ‘You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice’ were our attempts at creating that kind of vibe: harmonica, slide whistles and penny whistles. I hate calling it folk-rock. They called The Byrds folk-rock and then they were too lazy to come up with something else for our band, but we weren’t really drawing from the Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan catalog. It was a time of a lot of seriousness, and a lot of fake seriousness and people talking about Important Things. And Loving Spoonful didn’t really go for that. We were just trying to entertain.”

You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice

You didn’t have to be so nice
I would have liked you anyway
If you had just looked once or twice
And gone upon your quiet way

Today I said the time was right for me to follow you
I knew I’d find you in a day or two
And it’s true

You came upon a quiet day (ooh)
You simply seemed to take your place (ooh)
I knew that it would be that way (ooh)
The minute that I saw your face (ooh)

And when we’ve had a few more days (when we’ve had a few more days)
I wonder if I’ll get to say (wonder if I’ll get to say)
You didn’t have to be so nice (be so nice)
I would have liked you anyway (would have liked)

Today I said the time was right for me to follow you
I knew I’d find you in a day or two
And it’s true

You didn’t have to be so nice (didn’t have to be so nice)
I would have liked you anyway (would have liked you anyway)
If you had just looked once or twice (once or twice)
And gone upon your quiet way (quiet way)

Lovin’ Spoonful – Summer In The City

This is one of those transport songs. It takes me to a time when I wasn’t around…the mid sixties…at least my interpretation of it.

They were a great singles band but had a short window. From 1965 to 1967 they had 7 top 10 hits. This single peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, #11 in the UK, and #3 in New Zealand in 1966.

The song was a collaboration between John Sebastian, Steve Boone (bass player), and John Sebastian’s brother Mark. Mark was 15 years old when he wrote a poem that John used as the basis for the song – John especially liked the line that went, But at night there’s a different world.

Steve Boone came up with the middle eight, which John thought sounded like the Gershwin composition “An American in Paris,” where the orchestra implies the sound of traffic and city noises. This gave him the idea of incorporating car horns and other city ambiance into the track

Things started to fall apart due to repercussions from guitarist Zal Yanovsky and bassist Steve Boone’s 1966 pot bust in San Francisco. They were pressured into a deal where they agreed to introduce an undercover cop to partygoers in the city, one of whom got busted. A backlash ensued that damaged their reputation in the counterculture.

In 1967 Zal Yanovsky left the band citing musical differences with John Sebastian. Yanovsky would later become a  Chef in Kingston, Ontario, Canada in his restaruarnt Chez Piggy. His daughter Zoe Yanovsky took over the restaurant after Zal’s death in 2002 and still runs it.

In 1968 Sebastian left for a solo career and the band carried on until 1969 without a significant hit.

The original group (John Sebastian,  Zal Yanovsky, Joe Butler and Steve Boone) reunited briefly in the fall of 1979 for a show at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills for an appearance in the Paul Simon film One Trick Pony.

John Sebastian: “That song that came from an idea my brother Mark had, he had this great chorus, and the release was so big. I had to create some kind of tension at the front end to make it even bigger. That’s where that jagged piano part comes from.”

From Songfacts

This song contrasts what it’s like to live in a large city during the day and during the night. According to the song, it’s difficult to walk around a crowded and hot city during the day, but it’s great at night because you have plenty of opportunities to chase women. This particular city is New York, where the band formed. 

.The band was rather particular about the traffic sounds. Instead of just using what was available on the sound effects records in the studio, they found an old-school radio engineer – a guy who used to create the soundscapes for shows, so if a guy was riding a horse, you’d hear the hooves hitting the ground and the wind whistling by. This guy, whom John Sebastian referred to as a “hilarious old Jewish sound man,” came in with a huge library of street sounds, which the band went through for hours. They wanted the scene to build, so it starts softly (the horn at the beginning comes from a Volkswagen Beetle), and grows to a gridlock nightmare. To close the scene, they used a pneumatic hammer pounding away at the pavement.

This was recorded over two days: At the first session, they put down the instruments: guitar, bass, autoharp, drums, organ, electric piano and percussion. The second session was for vocals and sound effects.

The sound of car horns and traffic was the first time these sounds appeared on a hit song. A year later, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff used the idea when they produced the Soul Survivors track “Expressway (To Your Heart).”

Appropriately, this song was released in the summer of 1966 – July 4, to be exact. It quickly climbed the chart, reaching #1 on the chart dated August 13, where it stayed for three weeks.

This is used during the looting sequence on The Simpsons episode “Poppa’s Got a Brand New Badge.”

The song served as the theme song for German art-director Wim Wenders’ first film, 1970’s Summer in the City. It plays during an incongruous scene in which the protagonist Hans is seen walking on a brutally cold day, surrounded by snow.

This was used at the beginning of the movie Die Hard: With A Vengeance. The song plays throughout the opening credits, showing different scenes of New York City until a building blows up. 

From 2006-2007, the piano portion was used in various Gatorade ads depicting the history of the sports drink, which was created in 1965.

Summer In The City

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity?
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

But at night it’s a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come on, come on and dance all night
Despite the heat it’ll be alright

And babe, don’t you know it’s a pity
That the days can’t be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Cool town, evening in the city
Dressing so fine and looking so pretty
Cool cat, looking for a kitty
Gonna look in every corner of the city
Till I’m wheezing like a bus stop
Running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop

But at night, it’s a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come on, come on and dance all night
Despite the heat, it’ll be alright

And babe, don’t you know it’s a pity
That the days can’t be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity?
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

But at night, it’s a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come on, come on and dance all night
Despite the heat, it’ll be alright

And babe, don’t you know it’s a pity
That the days can’t be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Lovin’ Spoonful – Darling Be Home Soon

In the 1980s I had a Lovin’ Spoonful Greatest hits on vinyl made by a small Nashville record company my friend worked at called Gusto Records. After listening to their many hits…this is the one that I zeroed in on. They had bigger hits but this is one of my favorite songs by the Lovin’ Spoonful.

John Sebastion sings it so desperately and sincere that it hooked me.

John Sebastian wrote this ballad for Francis Ford Coppola’s You’re A Big Boy Now, a coming-of-age film. Sebastian was responsible for the whole soundtrack but was tasked to write this specific song for an important love scene. He started thinking about all the songs that dealt with lonely musicians on the road and decided to flip the concept and write about a guy waiting for his girlfriend to come home.

Unfortunately, the movie was largely ignored. The song was mostly forgotten until Sebastian revived it during his performance at Woodstock in 1969.

The song peaked at #15 in the Billboard 100 and #44 in the UK in 1967.

From Songfacts

“From the singer’s perspective, the verses are pleas for a partner to spend a few minutes talking before leaving,” Sebastian explained to Marc Myers for the book Anatomy of a Song. “What made the song interesting is that you never knew if the other person was actually there listening or was already gone.”

After hitching a ride with the helicopter carrying The Incredible String Band’s equipment, Sebastian arrived at the Woodstock festival thinking he’d just be a spectator. But an early afternoon downpour flooded the stage and it needed to be cleared of water before Santana’s amps could be set up. Michael Lang, the concert’s producer, asked Sebastian to fill in. He took the stage in a tie-dyed white denim outfit and sang five songs, the fourth being “Darling Be Home Soon.” He recalled: “The audience didn’t identify the song with the movie, since most probably hadn’t seen it. Instead, they sort of quieted down and took it in as a love song. My job wasn’t to incite but to mellow everyone out until the stage was swept. When I finished, the applause from so many people was loud and wide, and knocked the wind out of me. The feeling was delicious.”

The Lovin’ Spoonful recorded this with a studio orchestra in just one day. The next morning, however, Sebastian was horrified to learn his vocal take had accidentally been erased and had to be re-recorded. “I did that right away, with the wound still fresh,” he said. “What you hear on the record is me, a half hour after learning that my original vocal track had been erased. You can even hear my voice quiver a little at the end. That was me thinking about the vocal we lost and wanting to kill someone.”

Zal Yanovsky, the band’s lead guitarist, hated the song. He thought it was too sappy and accused Sebastian of losing his rock edge. During one live performance, Zal can be seen clownishly mocking the frontman as he sings the heartfelt lyrics.

This was used on the CBS crime drama Cold Case in the 2010 episode “Free Love.”

Several artists have covered this, including Bobby Darin, Joe Cocker, Slade, The Association, and Bruce Hornsby.

Darling Be Home Soon

Come
And talk of all the things we did today
Here
And laugh about our funny little ways
While we have a few minutes to breathe
Then I know that it’s time you must leave

But, darling, be home soon
I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
My darling, be home soon
It’s not just these few hours, but I’ve been waiting since I toddled
For the great relief of having you to talk to

And now
A quarter of my life is almost past
I think I’ve come to see myself at last
And I see that the time spent confused
Was the time that I spent without you
And I feel myself in bloom

So, darling, be home soon
I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
My darling, be home soon
It’s not just these few hours, but I’ve been waiting since I toddled
For the great relief of having you to talk to

So, darling
My darling, be home soon
I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
My darling, be home soon
It’s not just these few hours, but I’ve been waiting since I toddled
For the great relief of having you to talk to

Go
And beat your crazy head against the sky
Try
And see beyond the houses and your eyes
It’s okay to shoot the moon

Darling be home soon
I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
My darling, be home soon
It’s not just these few hours, but I’ve been waiting since I toddled
For the great relief of having you to talk to

 

Lovin’ Spoonful – Nashville Cats

In 1966, Bob Dylan did something extraordinary when he went to Nashville to record an album. He left his band behind, in order to record with session players known as the Nashville Cats. That album he made was a masterpiece, ‘Blonde on Blonde”.

John Sebastian apparently held Nashville musicians in high esteem. According to one account, the song developed after the Lovin’ Spoonful was in Nashville for a concert, and while sitting at a bar, were blown away by the guitar playing of Danny Gatton. Sebastian wrote the song and it peaked at #8 in the Billboard 100 in 1967.

John Sebastian on writing the song…it is a bit long but interesting:

It happened to me quite by accident. First of all I was a tremendous fan of the music coming out of Nashville and the south at that time. Sometimes it was Memphis or Muscle Shoals but I didn’t know that, I was just responding to the music. I knew that when you cut records here, you could finish an album in a day in a half! But the ‘Spoonful played in Nashville in ’65 or so. We finished our show at the Fairgrounds Auditorium–the biggest thing in town. We felt pretty good about it and went back to the Holiday Inn and to the beer bar in the basement and get some beers and this guy comes in–goes and sits in the corner. There wasn’t even a stage. He pulls out a guitar and he is absolutely stunning. He starts off with something Chet Aktins-y and then he starts to get these bends and pedal steel tones and then multiple bends and then more jazz chords. Now we’re in “hillbilly jazz.” By the time this guy finished, me and (Lovin’ Spoonfuls) Zal Yanovsky we went up to our room. In those days, the ‘Spoonful were still sharing rooms, and we sit on the edge of our beds and go ‘How could this be?’ We are playing the big joint in town and this guy is in a beer bar. He can play rings around us. How does this work? Are we just four guys with long hair? It was years before we figured out that the kid had been a young Danny Gatton making spare change. But it traumatized us for a while.

The song actually was written a couple of weeks after our Nashville encounter. I was in Long Island somewhere. I saw an album cover –years later–Zal and I were in a record store–and I go “Oh my God, this is the guy from the beer bar.” Danny Gatton fans have sent me a stack of his cds and I can’t understand how he did the first damn thing (laughs).

 

From Songfacts

This song is a celebration of the remarkable musicianship of Nashville, Tennessee guitar pickers who have been “Playin’ since they’s babies.” John Sebastian held for the Nashville musicians in very high esteem.

The lyrics refer to the Sun Records company. While Sun was best known for first recording Elvis Presley, it also released songs by Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison

Nashville Cats

[Chorus]
Nashville cats, play clean as country water
Nashville cats, play wild as mountain dew
Nashville cats, been playin’ since they’s babies
Nashville cats, get work before they’re two

Well, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two
Guitar pickers in Nashville
And they can pick more notes than the number of ants
On a Tennessee ant hill
Yeah, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two
Guitar cases in Nashville
And any one that unpacks ‘is guitar could play
Twice as better than I will

Yeah, I was just thirteen, you might say I was a
Musical proverbial knee-high
When I heard a couple new-sounding tunes on the tubes
And they blasted me sky-high
And the record man said every one is a yellow sun
Record from Nashville
And up north there ain’t nobody buys them
And I said, “But I Will”

And it was

[Chorus]

Well, there’s sixteen thousand eight hundred ‘n’ twenty one
Mothers from Nashville
All their friends play music, and they ain’t uptight
If one of the kids will
Because it’s custom made for any mothers son
To be a guitar picker in Nashville
And I sure am glad I got a chance to say a word about
The music and the mothers from Nashville

[Chorus]

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