Music of the Day, 12 September 2023
reaching out to capture a moment
Today’s featured song came to mind via our recent weather, and is probably my most welcome earworm. Both the music and the lyrics are relentlessly upbeat.
The Association seemed omnipresent on AM radio during my childhood, so I don’t remember the first song I heard by them. My guess is “Along Comes Mary,” from their 1966 album titled And Then… Along Comes the Association, caught my attention because an aunt has that name. Being both very young and naïve, the possible marijuana reference sailed right over my head and stayed there for at least a decade.
“Windy” is said to also allude to drugs,1 which I absolutely refuse to consider because it would spoil the song for me. Young Jackie adored the personification of weather as a benignant and righteous force, and current me still cherishes that interpretation.
Luscious vocals and harmonies, a pretty recorder melody, bongos, and a simple but driving bass guitar riff ahead of the bridge (“And Windy has stormy eyes”): it’s pop rock heaven for me… and also for loads of people back in 1967, as “Windy” hit number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 list.
The Association’s third album Inside Out contained another hit—”Never My Love.” It’s a sweet ballad that I remember hearing quite often too. But what may be my favorite song by the band is one I didn’t initially realize was by them until I saw it on their 1968 Greatest Hits! album, which I think my parents owned. “Requiem for the Masses” wasn’t just completely different for the Association—it features a different lead singer. Larry Ramos Jr. was lead for “Windy”2, and Terry Kirkman sang lead vocals on “Requiem,” which he also wrote. I found a moving performance of it from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
For those who don’t know, the Smothers Brothers were a very popular comedy act. Their Comedy Hour program was a short-lived hit due to its political content, connecting more with younger people than the establishment that didn’t appreciate being satirized.
The Association’s greatest hits album is the only one I currently own, which is fine since it captures the talented band’s range pretty well. But I would like to explore more of their creations at some point.
This, er, association has apparently been bolstered by the song’s use in an episode of Breaking Bad.
In 1963 as part of the New Christy Minstrels, Ramos became the first Asian American to win a Grammy award.
Windy! An earworm indeed, although one that for my taste is a bit too twee, as the Brits would say. Lesser-known fact: when Jon Anderson and Chris Squire formed Yes, they saw it as a kind of progressive/experimental analogue of The Association with lots of vocal harmonies. Thus by association I'm playing the first Yes album to wash out that earworm!
My god, I haven't heard this in probably 40 years if not a lot more.
Now I am thinking of Peter Paul and Mary