GARY PUCKETT AND THE UNION GAP – “Young Girl”
Girls ‘turning out to be’ underage was doubtless a very real concern for your gigging rock star of the 60s and 70s, though I suspect a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy would be closer to the truth than Gary Puckett’s horrified self-denial. Puckett lays out the classic Lolita defense – grown man no match for deceitful nymphet with her skirts and make-up and “come-on look”. There’s something breathily weak, tearful almost, about Puckett’s vocals on the verse which makes the whole thing sleazier: his struggling for control is all too convincing. The sleaze has a strong setting: Puckett’s songwriters were highly regarded and the chorus especially is the sort of thing I might find myself bellowing along to in the pub, leaving me with a feeling of nervous shame the next day. A good match of content and effect, then.
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Re 75: I’d be surprised if anything less than about 85% of people who knew the track also presumed it was Cypress rather than Cyprus – I certainly did. You live and learn.
#74: Can’t remember where I said that but here’s something I wrote (privately) about the song five years ago which is a lot more generous than I would be inclined to feel now:
Few singers of chart-topping songs have, I think, ever sounded as scared as Puckett does on “Young Girl.” The key line here is the first: “Young girl, get out of my mind” – note, not out of “my life” – and although there are references to “that come-on look…in your eyes” and entreaties to “hurry home to your mama,” the really disturbing factor in the song is that it gives no evidence that protagonist and girl (or victim?) have actually met. Puckett’s rather strained voice consumes itself in potential terror, as though he’s observing the girl through his bedroom window, or from the opposing street corner, or through the school playground railings – “’cause I’m afraid we’ll go too far.” Meanwhile the song alternately insists with Motown chorus beats and glides on mistakenly serene seraphims of strings, like an intercepted Gaudio and Crewe backing track. But nearly everyone who bought it and/or danced to it treated it simply as a tremulous, slightly beefier mid-tempo update of “Go Away, Little Girl.” And, to complicate matters further, the band were apt to dress in Civil War uniforms. So did “Young Girl” simply represent a 1968 Ashley Wilkes, anxious about Scarlett?
You said somewhere on a Popular ’68 entry that a particularly bad Top 3 was Young Girl, B Goldsboro’s Honey, Eng Hump’s Man Without Love.
Good call on the Gaudio/Crewe prodn. I wonder if the latterday antipathy towards Young Girl would be eased if Frankie Valli was singing it, rather than the physically bigger sounding Puckett? He was often tortured inside a doomed relationship (the adulterer in Bye Bye Baby, the wronged serviceman in Toy Soldier, the boy from the right side of the tracks in Rag Doll). Or Del Shannon? I can’t think of an obvious lyrical precursor, bar Go Away Little Girl, but you wonder what’s behind the paranoia in Keep Searchin’ and Stranger In Town. Better to keep the mystery caged.
Not sure that the man and girl haven’t met, though – how does he know she’s younger than he initially thought? “Get out of here…” suggests the setting is the singer’s family home. The stricken sound in his voice is what lifts this away from the patronising, sickly Go Away Little Girl (and I write that as someone who can put up with a LOT of middling Goffin & King) in which the protagonist barely puts up any resistance.
Well, there’s “Only Sixteen” which is more in the irony olympics for “oh, I was 16, I’ve aged a year since then!”
(however, not “Just Thirteen” by The Lurkers, which was not about jailbait but the frustrations of not being old enough to get into gigs, etc, but got banned by the beeb just to be sure)
Remember the Regents’ “7Teen” – “… and not yet a woman”?!
There are a few girl group 45s from the other point of view (which puts me on thin ice, so I’ll tread carefully): Goffin and King’s Just A Little Girl by Donna Loren , and the campy Is Thirteen Too Young To Fall In Love by The Petites.
Best of all is Piccola Pupa’s awesome Put Two Extra Candles On My Cake (cos she’s only 14 and wants to go out with an older boy, you see), written by Neil Sedaka’s regular co-writer Howard Greenfield and Toni ‘Groovy Kind Of Love’ Wine, who must have been about 16 at the time.
Piccola also did a terrific version of Breakaway , which is much closer to Tracey Ullman’s cover than the Irma Thomas original.
#80, yes, and I know a story about that song, but it’s probably libellous so I’ll have to say no.
#82 Ooh, is it anything to do with the band’s appearance on one of those short-lived Saturday morning’s kids’ TV shows? Gary Crowley was the presenter, and in his usual intensely irritating Cockney geezer style he did a quick interview with the lead singer. He asked (and even as he asked it I thought it was an odd question) “So how did you get the money together to do the record?” Singer (looking embarrassed): “Well, we did this, er, job in London.” Crowley: “Oh yeah, you’ve got a bit of a dodgy past aintcha?” And carried on with the show as though nothing had happened.
Googling “Gary Crowley” and “The Regents” brings up lots of references to him and the band both having a bust-up with Devo on a show called Fun Factory in 1980, so perhaps it was then.
@77 Methinks lines such as “And though you know that it’s wrong to be/ alone with me/ that come-on look is in your eyes” make it fairly plain that he’s directly involved with the girl. A similar ‘stalker’ theory has been postulated about “I’m Not in Love” (mischievously fuelled by Eric Stewart himself). In neither case does the suggestion stand up to scrutiny.
I’m not sure where the criticism of “stalker” lyrics of songs from another era is leading. Should the songs be banned or the offending passages edited out? Each age has its censorship – for example, in the 1950s the BBC would not play “religious” pop songs or songs that mentioned brand names. Certainly, not even the mildest swearing in songs would have been broadcast. At the same time, Cliff Richard’s Living Doll could go to no.1 containing the lines “I’m gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk /Can steal her away from me”. Elvis Presley’s Dirty, Dirty Feeling has the verse:
I hear you’re pretty good at runnin’/ But pretty soon you’ll slip and fall/ That’s when I’ll drag you home with me girl /I’m gonna chain you to the wall.
In a world that has experienced the activities of Josef Fritzl and others would such lyrics would be acceptable in mainstream pop now? I think the discussion of the lyrics of Young Girl, taken in isolation, leads nowhere.
#84: In your final sentence you missed out the word “my” between “to” and “scrutiny.”
I would suggest that “Out Of Time” trumps “Go Away Little Girl” but also understand the difference. The latter is telling a dolled-up, lovestruck early teen to push off, whilst the former involves a sneering bloke rounding on his cheating bird in a more adult setting. Poor old Mick. What did he do to deserve that?
I don’t think that’s right about either song. The first doesn’t mention ‘cheating’ as such, only that the girl has been ‘away’. In Jail, on tour or back with her mum, who knows.
And the latter isn’t sneery, is it?
#88 – I don’t actually mention cheating as far as “Go Away Little Girl” is concerned.
As for “Out Of Time”, I think the aggrieved man is sneering all day long but naturally that’s just my opinion.
I was at a 50th birthday party last year where 80s music was the go – someone asked the DJ to play “My Sharona”, but was rebuffed with “I don’t play songs about paedophilia.”
@86 Thanks for pointing that out. No doubt a quick perusal of your own posts will show that you apply a similar qualification each time you express a viewpoint.
#89, I think you have your “former” and “latter” mixed up, or maybe I do…
#92 – I think we’ve both hit the buffers now, Mark. Let’s quit while we’re ahead.
#90 – The DJ could have avoided the puzzling comment about “My Sharona” by simply declining to play it on account of it being from the 70s rather than the 80s.
@93: The DJ was presumably thinking of that uber-sleazy line about how the narrator “always get[s] it up for the touch of the younger kind”. A harsh interpretation perhaps, but I can see where he was coming from…
Maybe we should just ban every piece of music that offends anybody.
Exactly. And the corollary of this, of course, would be that we would never play anything ever again. The day the music died would be upon us.
Well, we wouldn’t be allowed to sing “American Pie” …
surely the sacrifice is worth it
Yeah yeah, always with the Don McLean slagging!
Which makes me realise I never thought to check what Tom made of John Denver. I shudder.
I too have never understood the serial toeing poor old Don always gets from the brass here. Any more of this and the poor bugger may well take his life as lovers often do.
THEY’RE NOT LISTENING STILL! PERHAPS THEY NEVER WILL! <– this means us
His popularity in Britain did wane following the inexorable rise of his near-namesake, zany Brummie funnyman Don Maclean, pronounced as in opposite of dirty, viz. “Maclean!” “Yes I had a bath this morning.” What chance did Playing Favourites stand against his classic renditions of “Golden Years,” “A Glass Of Champagne” etc.?
So how does the pronounciation differ? Aren’t they both “clean” ?
No, Don “American Pie” McLean rhymes with “wane.”
I’m going to resist the severe temptation of plunging in to another discussion with punctum regarding Crackerjack Don and the way he and dear old Peter Glaze used to present bizarre versions of chart hits of the day. Peter’s rendition of Boz Scaggs’ “Lido Shuffle” was and is legendary.
The less pleasant side of Don arose when he presented the God slot show for Radio 2 (now in the hands of the perfectly decent Aled Jones) and seemed to suggest that George Harrison’s passing would provide George the opportunity of atoning for his part in “Life of Brian”.
Shades of Rowan Atkinson as the Devil welcoming souls to Hell: “Everyone who saw Monty Python’s Life of Brian? – Sorry, I’m afraid He can’t take a joke after all…”
Andy Partridge said in Smash Hits that he knew he was a proper pop star when Peter Glaze sang Making Plans For Nigel.
I wonder if Don Maclean had a go at Don McLean’s Crying a few months later?
This “singing a pop song of the day” lark was replicated on a truly dire pop show from the end of the seventies on ITV called “Get It Together”. One of the presenters was Roy North, one time oppo of Basil Brush. The spot in question opened the show unlike in “Crackerjack” when it arrived in a costume sketch piece towards the end.
Roy once stuck a peg at the end of his hooter and treated us to a rendidtion of “Ma Na Ma Na”. The look he received from fellow presenter Linda Fletcher, a sturdy good time-looking gal, echoed the thoughts of us all in suggesting that North should have been sectioned.
@85: Interesting comment about “Dirty, Dirty Feeling” and how such dodgy lyrics didn’t appear to bother the censors of the day, although they were happy to ban popular songs that they saw as in any way blasphemous or sexually immoral. Another example of this phenomenon is ‘You Been Torturing Me’, a minor US hit in 1961 both for the Four Young Men and for Gary “Alley Oop” Paxton. As far as I know, neither version was banned or censored in any state, yet the lyrics are possibly the most unpleasant I’ve ever heard in a mainstream pop song. Herewith in full:
“I’m gonna stomp you on the top of your foot
And hang you from a big long fishing hook
And drop you down to the bottom of the sea, hey-hey
Let the sharks eat you all up
If them mean old whales don’t interrupt
Cos baby you know how you been torturing little ol’ me
Hey-hey
“I’m the judge, the jury too
Judgement has been brought upon you
You been convicted for the crime you’ve done
You made me feel like a little ol’ crumb
“You know it’s wrong to torture me
You love my friends the same way you love me
And like Tom, I don’t wanna hang from a big oak tree over you
When I say hop, I mean make like a frog
And when I say bark, you better sound like a dog
Cos I’m gonna torture you
The same way you been torturing little ol’ me, hey-hey”
The song is too stupid to be in any way ironic, although the singer’s goofy drawl (in either version) presumably signifies that it’s meant to be humorous, playful even. It doesn’t sound that way.
Examples such as the above, the Elvis lyric cited by Mutley and, of course, the (in)famous line “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man” as featured in numbers by the King and later the Fabs – all of which were untroubled by bans of any kind, AFAIK – seem to show how, notwithstanding their general overweening piety and censoriousness, the moral authorities of the day weren’t too bothered about suggestions of rape/murderous revenge for female infidelity appearing in music for kiddies and juveniles. I’m not remotely suggesting that such songs should have been banned (indeed, the use of the “see you dead” line in ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ gives the song a deliciously dark undertone), merely that they reflect the misogynistic “angels or whores” attitude to women that was so common in those days and so rarely challenged at the time.
Then there’s Goffin and King’s “He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)”…
He hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
But it didn’t hurt me
He couldn’t stand to hear me say
That I’d been with someone new,
And when I told him I had been untrue
He hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
And I knew he loved me
If he didn’t care for me
I could have never made him mad
But he hit me
And I was glad
Yes, he hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
And I knew I loved him
And then he took me in his arms
With all the tenderness there is,
And when he kissed me,
He made me his
Goffin & King also wrote Please Hurt Me for Little Eva.
Their psychological S&M tendencies, presumably drawn for their own relationship, make them my favourite Brill Building team.
People REALLY objected to He Hit Me at the time, though. Even though it fell between two of the Crystals biggest hits (Uptown and He’s A Rebel) it didn’t chart and didn’t get airplay.
The flip side of He Hit Me, No One Ever Tells You, is almost as bleak, but with a resigned wrist-slashing lyric, and a valium-fuelled arrangement. Great!
A shout out, surely, at this point for Spiritualized’s “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)”!
Hard to imagine Carole King being involved with a song like that.
#111 but did they? It sits on their debut album without outrage (the album wasn’t banned).
I’m more of the opinion that it was not a hit because the track is slow, morose, and has no good-time vibe like “He’s a rebel” and “da doo ron ron” (don’t know “Uptown” off-hand) so probably didn’t get airplay for all sorts of reasons.
A more up-to-date example would be Florence and the Machine’s, “Kiss Like A Fist” which was inexplicably used as a continmuity ad on BBC TV for a time. Does it get away with it because it’s a happy wee tune…. or because it’s being sung by a female?
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate
Over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate
Over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
My black eye casts no shadow
Your red eye sees no pain
Your slaps don’t stick
Your kicks don’t hit
So we remain the same
Blood sticks and sweat drips
Break the lock if it don’t fit
A kick in the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better than none
A-woah, a kiss with a fist is better than none
Broke your jaw once before
Spilled your blood upon the floor
You broke my leg in return
Sit back and watch the bed burn
Well love sticks, sweat drips
Break the lock if it don’t fit
A kick in the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better than none
A-woah, a kiss with a fist is better than none
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
Possibly because she gives as good as she gets.
Mark, I think the fact the lyric on He Hit Me is so bare – with the stark, blunt arrangement suggesting brute violence – just meant that everyone heard the lyrics, and felt queasy. I didn’t say it was banned.
I’m sure there are quotes from Lester Sill on how no radio station would touch it. It didn’t even merit a UK release. When copies turn up on ebay they are almost always promos – no one bought it.
For the record, I think it’s amazing, so shocking it feels like it stops time.
Songs like Dirty Dirty Feeling or Run For Your Life are upbeat and danceable, so the impact of the lyric is considerably lessened. How often to you hear people say “I don’t really listen to lyrics that much”?
Wiki has a source (from allmusic.com – so take that for what it is worth) claiming that He Hit Me is grounded in truth – that Goffin and King found out that Little Eva’s boyfriend was abusing her and asked why she stayed with him and got the gist of the song as a response. I suspect them writing this and giving Please Hurt Me to Little Eva might well have been them trying to get her to wake up (although this might be charitable – I can’t for the life of me imagine why else you would give her songs to sing about her own domestic violence situation, so I assume it is intervention by song).
Yes that sounds familiar, maybe it’s in the Alan Betrock Girl Groups book or Always Magic In The Air. G&K’s autobigraphical songs tend to be more psychological torment than physical.
TPL offers yet more thoughts on “Young Girl” and nineteen other pieces which come together to form an unexpectedly moving picture:
http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2011/06/various-artists-20-flash-back-greats-of.html
Re the discussion above (around late March 2011)about censorship and banning records, this is an appropriate spot to mention the recent death of Carl Gardner, lead singer of the Coasters, who produced a string of rock’n'roll Leiber and Stoller classics in the mid to late 50s, including Charlie Brown, which was banned by the BBC because of the use of the word “spitball”. I believe the BBC later rescinded its ban following popular protest.
And if you think this song’s bad; well, let’s just say at least she’s alive: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.com/2011/12/laugh-until-you-cry-bobby-goldsboro.html
Ta for reading, everyone!