Sticking Like Glue

If pop music was witnessing a seismic shift in the early to mid-1960s I, to my present-day shame, was vaguely aware of it. I was only seven by the arrival of the Beatles to our shores in 1964, but peers of the same age have crystal-clear images of the Fab Four on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the subsequent British Invasion. Somehow the incredible surge of pop music magic – the beginnings of the Rock era as distinguished from the earlier Rock and Roll era; the ascendancy of Motown and other manifestations of R&B; the regional hits that would somehow surface; the skillful studio-driven pop confections — all that I now hold dear only made the slightest impression. There was no Beatles versus Rolling Stones for me. In retrospect, I feel like I sleepwalked my way through that whole vital period.

It wasn’t until I was nearly thirteen at the decade’s end that the music bug finally bit me and left an irrevocable mark, but that will be another tale to tell. Not that I rejected the omnipresent sounds of pop as a hyperactive youth, it’s just that the level of obsession that continues to define my rabid interest in the form was still dormant. TV episodes of Batman, and arcane interests like Scottish military history (don’t ask, I couldn’t explain it if given another lifetime of therapy) were somehow of greater importance.

What always intrigues and often puzzles me are the songs that did leave an indelible imprint. “Keep On Dancing” by the Gentrys, complete with its thrilling (at least to my preadolescent ears) false ending; the sweeping “Downtown” by Petulia Clark; and “Good Lovin’,” by the Young Rascals (another false ending!) were all certifiable hits that ate up the airwaves of the time. You couldn’t escape them even if you wanted to. But how to account for my solid recollections of “You’re a Better Man Than I,” initially released by the Yardbirds in 1965? The band’s version of that defiantly self-righteous anthem, complete with a snarling Jeff Beck guitar solo, was never released as a single in the U.S., and, trust me, the album on which it could be found, Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds, had no place in our Brooklyn home.

And why does the theme song from the 1966 film Lord Love a Duck, co-composed by Neil Hefti (who also created the immortal Batman theme) and recorded by the Wild Ones — a band now cherished with just about the same zeal as the Gentrys — still persist in my memory? I certainly didn’t see the film at the time (still haven’t, despite its cult status) and the Wild Ones didn’t get a hit out of the tune. Nor have I heard the song since. It’s all a mystery. Did I catch radio commercials for the film that used the song back then? The bigger question might be, why did the utterly forgettable chorus of this utterly forgettable song became unforgettable to me? Why did it make such a dent in my consciousness and why has it lodged there like an ingrown toenail after all these years?

Write it off to the inexplicable seductions of pop music. A melody, a lyric, a performance popped off the radio, your brain caught it and it found a permanent home. Now best of luck trying to evict it.