Which brought this fabulous song to mind.
How did people see
In the 14th century
When no one had invented glasses?
Walking all around
Were they more tuned into sound?
Did everything they set their eyes on
Seem to merge with the horizon?
In a wild orgasmic frenzy
Blending into All is Oneness
Or did they just squint
To read the finer print?
Scores on scores of squinting people
Kneeling at the groping steeple
Please, oh God -- give me glasses.
Priceless.
I should add that said song derives from the fabulous 1972 The Night is Still Young, which is pretty much the only Sha Na Na album worth owning. Most of the songs are very sharp originals, plus there's a drop dead gorgeous cover of "In the Still of the Night" that beats the original, and the whole thing is produced to a fare-thee-well by the great Jeff Barry. You can -- and very definitely should -- order the reissue CD over at Amazon HERE.
5 comments:
Ok. Can I get someone to explain Sha Na Na to me? I never really got it. As a kid I remember seeing the TV show they had in syndication (late 70s?). And I never understood if this was comedy, a real doo-wop group, or what? Sorry to be dense, but I can't understand what they were going for in 1972. It actually seems pretty edgy to do doo-wop when the rest of the world was drowning in Tales from the Topographic Ocean. (OK that was later, but you get my point).
As far as dilated eyes at the eye doctor songs go, I've always liked
"Ultimate Shades" by The Naughty Sweeties: https://youtu.be/3_s-XjgO50k
Sha Na Na was equal parts throwback (to doo-wop), exaggeration (in 1959s-era clothing and on-stage moves), parody (of 1950s NYC street cred), and 1950s jukebox. The original members of Sha Na Na were from Columbia University (and one, Henry Gross, he of Shannon fame, was from Brooklyn College), and first achieved big notice at Woodstock (after opening for Canned Heat at The Fillmore earlier in August 1969), because they were fun onstage. At Woodstock, there may have been a lot of great music, but there was a a hell of a lot more mud than entertainment. Or food and toilets, for that matter.
Why anyone WANTED to revive the 1950s less than ten years after they ended was beyond me, but the success of the film, American Graffiti, in mid-1973 (a film set in the early 1960s and not the 1950s) cemented the entertainment revival of the 1950s by using mostly 1950s hits for the film's backdrop and soundtrack.
I always thought that the 1950s revival in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s set the ... ahem ... stage for the mass adulation of our first Gipper-President, who to me was a disaster for this country in the long run.
And since Sha Na Na emerged, no sooner does one decade end than a fondness for it is marketed. As Tweety Bird would say, SO SAD!
Thanks for the context Mark. That confirms much of my speculation. And yeah, weren't the 1950's the best! I am sure they were great for straight white males. So, are you blaming Sha-Na-Na for Reagan and Trump? That's a heavy burden. LOL.
I gotta hand it to them for having the guts to go so against the tide. And I do like doo-wop music.
Just a little more context on Sha-Na-Na, they came in to being and fame just as rock was being infested by Prog-Rock and James Taylor, etc. Sha-Na-Na knew that rock-n-roll was supposed to be FUN. If you can sit through Woodstock again, they are about the only band that has that fuck it all fun attitude about them. In their own little way, they were precursors to punk.
Then they got their own tv show and sucked.
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