On topic: model trains and The Who in the same article

[uwe]

I have no idea what you're talking about. What songs?

Never underestimate the political sentiments of a manufactured pop group, Dave! That's how true subversives work: They sing about trains to places like Clarksvillel to pick up there girlfriend at the station (one last time) because they will be "leaving in the morning" the next day, not knowing if "I'm ever coming back". "Leaving in the morning" not with another train to college or so, but in battle fatigues with a troop carrier transport plane on the way to Nam. Sort of the end scene of Hair. It's not the most overt political messaging (the Monkees did not turn into the MC5), but if you give the lyrics a closer listen it's clear - this was 1966 and angst was high, rightfully so as the future casualities would show.

[uwe]

That's so Rob, he's ashamed of Shocking Blue, so he hastily posted some "cooler" Dutch band to make the bad taste go away!

Have I ever been ashamed of the Scorpions?

[Basvarken]

That's so Rob, he's ashamed of Shocking Blue, so he hastily posted some "cooler" Dutch band to make the bad taste go away!

Haha, why should I be ashamed of Shocking Blue?
And I doubt if Bodine qualifies as cooler. 

Oh and by the way:
Did you already post a Ritchie Blackhole Train song today? 

[lowend1]

Have I ever been ashamed of the Scorpions?

If not, maybe you should be...

[Basvarken]

 

[uwe]

Admittedly, Klaus could have used a little self-tanner, but the white boots more than make up for it!

[lowend1]

I always wondered who the genius was that said "That's it! You guys look fantastic! Keep that hand right where it is, Mr. Lenners."

[uwe]

Rudy was Belgian, even Flemish***, you gotta make allowances for that. 

***essentially a Dutch guy who has lost his way

I believe the only promo shot the boyz from Hannover ever regretted was the one from the early 80ies where they got talked into wearing WW II German uniforms in the US, one of them even sporting a gas mask (might have been Rudolf). They have long ago succeeded in wiping it from the digital world, I only saw it once in an 80ies Scorpions biography where they mentioned it as "the picture that should have never been taken", profusely apologizing. It was kind of cartoonish (think Hellboy) and not any more militaristic than the outfits Accept would sport not too much later, but the Scorpions are more sensitive about such things.

[Pilgrim]

Geez, alla youse guys are missing one of the originals....but not exactly hard rock.

[uwe]

I guess it was high time for rock'n'roll to be invented back then!

And it wasn't far off either ...

1956 version:



Quite a bit rockier a few years later already:



For the more rootsy inclined among us:

[Dave W]

Never underestimate the political sentiments of a manufactured pop group, Dave! That's how true subversives work: They sing about trains to places like Clarksvillel to pick up there girlfriend at the station (one last time) because they will be "leaving in the morning" the next day, not knowing if "I'm ever coming back". "Leaving in the morning" not with another train to college or so, but in battle fatigues with a troop carrier transport plane on the way to Nam. Sort of the end scene of Hair. It's not the most overt political messaging (the Monkees did not turn into the MC5), but if you give the lyrics a closer listen it's clear - this was 1966 and angst was high, rightfully so as the future casualities would show.

Bullshit. The Monkees didn't write the song, Boyce & Hart did. I realize that Hart claimed it was a protest song 40-plus years after the fact (and only after Boyce had died) but that claim has about as much credibility as Dick Dale waiting until after Leo Fender died to make bogus claims about how he influenced Leo's amp designs. If you could travel back in time 50 years, you wouldn't find anyone who thought it was a protest song. And The Monkees didn't have a choice in the matter anyway.

[Pilgrim]

Oh, goodie! 

Now let's debate "Puff, the Magic Dragon!"

[lowend1]

Never a big fan of political messages in music, but if nobody realizes it's a protest song when its relevant, what's the point?
"If a tree falls in the forest..."

[4stringer77]

Some mention of trains in this tune.

They did what could be considered a protest song about Eldridge Cleaver. Not sure how many people were hip to the meaning of the song at the time either.

Maybe Gail was the one more interested in the Black Panthers at the time. Even Eldridge renounced the radical group in his later years. I think Felix meant well but his thinking at the time may have been compromised by substances in that day and age.

[uwe]

Bullshit. The Monkees didn't write the song, Boyce & Hart did. I realize that Hart claimed it was a protest song 40-plus years after the fact (and only after Boyce had died) but that claim has about as much credibility as Dick Dale waiting until after Leo Fender died to make bogus claims about how he influenced Leo's amp designs. If you could travel back in time 50 years, you wouldn't find anyone who thought it was a protest song. And The Monkees didn't have a choice in the matter anyway.

Music and/or a lyric can work in wonderous ways. The Nazis despised Lili Marle(e)n (the spelling varies), they thought the longing lyric about a woman waiting near military barracks (who was she, a prostitute, a young widow?) for her significant other who might or might not return was inherently defeatist and morally questionable. The fact that Lale Andersen, the artist, was a single mom who liked a drink, had Jewish friends (she wouldn't give up) and wasn't easily courted by the Nazis didn't help. But the song became quickly so popular and was requested so often, they had to give in, Goebbels bemoaning the fact that it had "ever been recorded in the first place". In 1942, after a visit to Jewish friends in Switzerland, she was banned from performing. The ban was only lifted when Allied radio claimed that she had been "put in a concentration camp" and began power-playing the song. The Nazis relented, and Lale could do low key performances again in 1943, but not sing Lili Marle(e)n, her biggest hit and at this point the best-sold German single ever.



Given the times and what must have been on people's minds who were drafted, I find the Clarksville lyrics pretty angsty, I don't think that people thought the author was worried about a railroad accident either:

"'Cause I'm leavin' in the morning
And I must see you again
We'll have one more night together
'Til the morning brings my train.
And I must go, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home."


BTW, the Lili Marle(e)n lyrics were written initially as a poem by a WW I (not II) soldier waiting for his transport to the Russian front and worried whether he might ever return - not such a different scenario to the one of Clarksville (as alleged by me, of course!).

Next thing, Dave is gonna say that High Noon wasn't a veiled rallying call agains McCarthyism either!