In May of 1968, The Mamas and the Papas released their fourth album, The Papas and The Mamas.
Recorded entirely in the insular setting of John and Michelle Phillips' hillside mansion, the record was a real diversion from earlier Mamas and Papas efforts. While the harmonies were still lush and beautiful, there is a weariness throughout this album, and the songs reflect it: "Too Late," "Rooms," "Mansions," and this tune, "Safe In My Garden." John Phillips says in his excellent 1986 autobiography, Papa John, that "Safe In My Garden" was about being let down by fame, about being disenchanted by what one finds when they reach the top of the heap, that "having it all" can mean nothing and everything.
Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge...
On The Smothers Brothers Summer Show in July 1968, Bobbie Gentry performs her hit "Ode To Billy Joe" live.
It captured the mood that had engulfed the nation at that point: Bobby Kennedy had been murdered a mere month before, Martin Luther King, Jr., had been gunned down in April, racial unrest continued to tear the very fabric of the United States apart, and disenchantment among young and old alike about the Vietnam War continued to spread. And roughly a month after this broadcast, Chicago would erupt in violence at the Democratic National Convention.
"Ode To Billy Joe" was a smash hit in 1967, this odd little song with just Bobbie Gentry's sweet voice and her guitar accompaniment. There is speculation even today as to what the narrator and Billy Joe were "throwin...off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Some say it was a veiled antiwar anthem; that the girl and Billy Joe were throwing his draft notice into the murky waters, and that Billy Joe committed suicide rather than be deployed to Vietnam.
A more common interpretation is that it is a tale of love gone wrong; that the narrator had had an illegal abortion, ostensibly Billy Joe's child, and that after throwing the aborted fetus off the bridge into the murky waters that would keep their secret, Billy Joe committed suicide in remorse.
Whatever the scenario, whatever the song's meaning, the ending is just perfect:
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge
One of the coolest toys I have ever seen. I of course am dreaming about all of the now-defunct airlines that must have been included in this toy: Pan Am, Eastern, Piedmont, Allegheny, Braniff, National...this is a real must-have for a vintage aviation freak like me!
This haunting song, a lament by John Phillips about the emptiness of fame and the Hollywood scene, as well as his increasing unhappiness that he was starting to blot out with heroin, is considered to be oddly prescient of the Manson murders, which would take place roughly one year after this song was released.
Indeed, the group was inextricably linked with the crimes. John and Michelle Phillips, along with Cass Elliott, were part of the same social circles to which the Tate victims, save for Steven Parent, belonged.
And shortly before the slayings, Michelle had a brief affair with Roman Polanski in London.
The first three mansions shown in the clip: the Italianate horror that currently stands, abandoned (again), on the site of the Tate murders (the former 10050 Cielo Drive); Jay Sebring's house, which was the former domicile of Jean Harlow and her husband, Paul Bern (who committed suicide there); and finally Sharon Tate's "love house," 10050 Cielo Drive.
"If you play the game, you pay the price...purchasing our piece of paradise..."
Jenny Boyd posts are always among the most popular on this blog. Here is a particularly lovely one from 1968, when she was in India studying with the Maharishi. It was here that she met Donovan, who fell madly in love with her.
I guess the "frosted meat loaf" could be considered a variation on shepherd's pie. And look, someone let a Bundt cake do the talkin'...with meaty goodness!
