from the 7” single, Plymouth Records, 1963It’s been raining steadily for the last 3 days, and seeing as how I’ve been obsessively watching the music video for Ariel Pink’s cover of this song on GvsB lately, it seemed like the perfect sour-grapes antidote for another grey misty day; yes, this area needs the moisture badly, so no genuine complaints here, just eager for some sunshine already. The sometimes ‘Rockin’ Ramrods (they dropped the prefix for this single, which they occasionally did) were a foursome from Boston whose claim to fame was an opening slot for the Rolling Stones on their 1965 tour of North America, but in my humble retrospective opinion, their original material rises far above the din from the countless other Beatles & Kingsmen imitators dotting the US at that time. This song is sure a pop charmer, all handclaps & sparkly surf-rock chords; the melancholic wit of those words comes across rather heady for ’63, “…what’s in this thing, I call my mind; I look for the things, I can’t find…bright lit, blue sky, you’re all full of lies…” It’s definitely worth checking out the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIjwZecUeaw) as it’s both a solid adaptation of the original song & the film is hilarious.
