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What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?


1) "It Ain't Me Babe" (1965) 0 votes

2) "Happy Together" (1967) 7 votes

3) "She'd Rather Be with Me" (1967) 0 votes

4) "Elenore" (1968) 4 votes

5) "You Showed Me" (1969) 1 votes

6) Other (Please specify) 1 votes

Edgy MD
Dec 11 2019 08:48 PM

The Turtles are mostly remembered as a peripheral act. I can't remember any serious argument anybody's made for them for the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, but they cracked the Hot 100 16 times from 1965 to 1969, including nine times in the top 40 and five times in the top ten. Their lush harmonies and countermelodies were not quite as pure as The Beach Boys, but not quite as heavy-handed and produced as The Mamas and the Papas or The Fifth Dimension. Their semi-trippiness was more than Bubble Gum, but less than Psychedelia, planting their flag somewhere in Sunshine Music, a sub-genre that wouldn't really be defined until a generation or two later, but one that still draws attention because, despite the title, usually featured hope and melancholy deadlocked in an existential standoff.



Their legacy lived on through former members Flo & Eddie (neither actually named "Flo" nor "Eddie") joining Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, and then touring as a duo or fronting a substitute group seemingly into perpetuity, and working on the side as raconteurs and radio hosts when not on the road. And that living legacy is probably deserving of something more than dismissal, if something less than enshrinement.



In other words, they make a great subject for a Very Important Poll.



If you don't see your favorite Turtle track above, please click "Other" and fill us in.



1) "It Ain't Me Babe" (1965)



[YOUTUBE]jrfpj9P_Mys[/YOUTUBE]



2) "Happy Together" (1967)



[YOUTUBE]Tvu3xiFmfDU[/YOUTUBE]



3) "She'd Rather Be with Me" (1967)



[YOUTUBE]hEP2trJhPks[/YOUTUBE]



4) "Elenore" (1968)



[YOUTUBE]WXwUC2wJcac[/YOUTUBE]



5) "You Showed Me" (1969)



[YOUTUBE]vneA658BTJE[/YOUTUBE]



6) Other (Please specify)

whippoorwill
Dec 11 2019 09:06 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Wow. I'll have to think about this

Double Switch
Dec 11 2019 09:19 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

I didn't need a moment to think and voted immediately for Elenore.

Edgy MD
Dec 11 2019 10:01 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

I chose "Ellie" too, but you should still click the vids, if only to see Volman getting at least half the lead vocal on the last song, while wearing chaps or some shit.



A touch of reggae in that one.

Double Switch
Dec 11 2019 10:11 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Edgy MD wrote:

I chose "Ellie" too, but you should still click the vids, if only to see Volman getting at least half the lead vocal on the last song, while wearing chaps or some shit.



A touch of reggae in that one.


Of course I watched all the vids (more than once) and then started thinking about other songs from that time. Great selections!

Johnny Lunchbucket
Dec 12 2019 10:22 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Yeah Elenore is a big win. David Partridge was obviously heavily influenced by the Turtles

batmagadanleadoff
Dec 12 2019 11:12 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Nice write-up. Edge. Is there anyone who's having more fun in their music videos than Mark Volman? Elenore for me too. Didnt even have to give it half a second of thought.



Sunshine Music -- is that really a thing? Never heard of it before.

kcmets
Dec 12 2019 11:28 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Took Happy Together... like the Weezer cover of it better than the original though.

Edgy MD
Dec 12 2019 11:51 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Yeah, Sunshine Pop (rather than "music") is totally a thing (though, you know, a retroactively named thing). Sometimes, the bands featured actual sunshine on their covers, and named themselves after the sun.



https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dxi9ZscRL._SY355_.jpg>



I think the most representative song from the genre may be "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things." (Note: Not a Turtles song.) The name alone gets you half way there.



[YOUTUBE]BiMCTjO_dHI[/YOUTUBE]

batmagadanleadoff
Dec 12 2019 12:01 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Interesting. When I was first discovering pop music, I used to lump together The Turtles, The Rascals and the Lovin' Spoonful.

Double Switch
Dec 12 2019 12:04 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Is this Sunshine Pop or Bubblegum?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Vz-z4PEkk

Edgy MD
Dec 12 2019 01:21 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Counting myself as one of The Lemon Pipers' most loyal active followers, I'd say it's probably closer to the latter, but not totally. Songs about tambourine buskers and flowersellers and old dancing men in the park — seemingly living off the change tossed to them by the bourgeoisie — is a real Sunshine Pop staple, don't you think? Dylan may have invented that type of song but the Sunshine Pop artists made an ethic out of it.



The Pipers wanted to be trippy, with a more adult target demographic, and their deeper cuts are filled with Mothers of Invention-type experimentation and absurdism, but they were recording for Buddha Records, and produced by Paul Leka, and those guys were targeting the bubble gum marketplace.

Double Switch
Dec 12 2019 01:25 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Edgy MD wrote:

Songs about buskers and flowersellers and old dancing men in the park — seemingly living off the change tossed to them by the bourgeoisie — is a real Sunshine Pop staple, don't you think?


Which is why I seek your opinion.



Sometimes it's hard to tell a film noir from an ordinary b/w movie. Caveat: I just finished watching Chinatown for the umptieth time and wondered, as I always do, if it would have been more effective in b/w.

Edgy MD
Dec 12 2019 01:33 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

A part of our minds crave categorization — I think for men, especially — but art obviously will always transcend it. And that's great.



We can still use such categories to frame discussion. I think we probably should. But we shouldn't sweat it if there's more than one argument about which drawer to file something in at the end of the night.

RealityChuck
Dec 12 2019 01:44 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

"Happy Together" and "Eleanore" are neck and neck, but I went with the bigger hit.



Though I've always liked "I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're The Royal Macadamia Nuts)."



[YOUTUBE]2CpWiE86vXw[/YOUTUBE]

whippoorwill
Dec 12 2019 05:49 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Love them all



Voted forYou Showed Me

whippoorwill
Dec 12 2019 05:51 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

God you want to talk about a walk down memory lane for me, as a little sister to a teeny bopper

Edgy MD
Dec 12 2019 10:37 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?


Love them all



Voted for "You Showed Me"


Whoah, good for you.

G-Fafif
Dec 13 2019 10:42 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Flo & Eddie were a New Year's staple at the Bottom Line. Saw them perform there in very early ‘87, when they did not only the Turtles hits but “Hungry Heart” (on which they sang background) and the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme (they were big fans). They also groused about how the Jets had blown that afternoon's playoff game in Cleveland.



Went with “Happy Together” in a close call. Less happy together: the Turtles and SiriusXM.



https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/02/17/515770648/the-turtles-lose-case-over-rights-to-their-oldies-in-new-york

G-Fafif
Dec 13 2019 10:50 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

A beguiling arrangement of “HT” from the C and T.



https://youtu.be/f62aOvKsLbI

Edgy MD
Dec 13 2019 12:54 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

As goofy as Vollman's hamming comes across, Kaylan kinda looks like Johnny Cash in a hippy wig.

RealityChuck
Dec 13 2019 04:50 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Dec 14 2019 01:10 PM

Edgy MD wrote:

Yeah, Sunshine Pop (rather than "music") is totally a thing (though, you know, a retroactively named thing). Sometimes, the bands featured actual sunshine on their covers, and named themselves after the sun.



https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dxi9ZscRL._SY355_.jpg>
The flip side of that record, Noollab Wolley



[YOUTUBE]x6g9nC5NG5I[/YOUTUBE]

Edgy MD
Dec 13 2019 07:59 PM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

God bless you sunshiney fruitcakes.

whippoorwill
Dec 14 2019 06:39 AM
Re: What's Your Favorite Turtle Wax?

Let's see, Happy Together came out when I was 7 or 8, and my brother and sister and cousin Ken were in their early teens

I can remember the four of us sitting in our dining room listening to that record and Kenny doing a wink-wink thing “I wonder what he means by ‘how is the weather'”