R.I.P. - Don Kirshner

Don Kirshner (left) with Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

Don Kirshner died at the age of 76 on January 17th. Don was perhaps best known as the musical impresario behind the Monkees and later the Archies. At the time some joked that after the Monkees fired him, Don decided to work with a cartoon band because they couldn't (fire him, that is). But looking at Kirshner's career through this sort of rockist prism sells the man and his genius for spotting and nurturing songs and talent short.

First of all, there was much more to Kirshner's career than his role as a bubblegum impresario. He started off working closely with his friend, and fellow Bronx High School of Science alumnus, Bobby Darin. He co-founded (with Al Nevins of Three Suns fame) Aldon Music, one of the most important "Brill Building" music publishing companies. Writers employed by Aldon included Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weill, Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller. A few of the hits that originated at Aldon include: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "Up On The Roof," "The Loco-Motion," "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do," "One Fine Day," "Walking In The Rain," "Stupid Cupid," "Uptown," "On Broadway," "We Got To Get Out of This Place" and (last but certainly not least) "Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)." Had he done nothing but co-found Aldon Music, Kirshner would be an important figure in 20th Century popular music.

But of course he did do more. Much more. He was hired by the producers of the Monkees to provide the pre-fab four with songs (which would be needed quickly due to the demands of television). The songs he provided them with, including "Last Train To Clarksville," "I'm A Believer," and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" are rightly remembered as some of the greatest hits of the era, regardless of who actually preformed on them. And while much has been made of the fact that, yes, The Monkees did actually have their own songwriting talent (especially Michael Nesmith), it is unlikely anyone would care were it not for the outstanding material Kirshner brought to the band in the first place.

The Monkees fired Kirshner after he released "A Little Bit Of Me, A Little Bit Of You" as a single without the band's permission. Arguments about artistic integrity aside, it should be pointed out that it was a great choice for a single and one of the best songs released under the band's name. And rockist revisionist history aside, it should also be pointed out that the Monkees' sales slid precipitously after they fired Kirshner. They may have released some fine music post-Kirshner, but the the hits mostly dried up.

Kirshner's next project, The Archies, never got any respect from the rock establishment (not that it needed any), but I would still put "Sugar, Sugar" on a short list for greatest songs of the sixties. And despite the fact that the Archies failed to have as many big hits as The Monkees, many of their songs ("Jingle Jangle," "Bang-Shang-A-Lang," "Everything's Alright," etc.) hold up better than much of the "serious" rock music that was being championed by the rock music critical establishment at the time.

From 1971 until 1982 Kirshner hosted ABC's Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, which introduced such punk and new wave acts as The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Devo, The New York Dolls, and The Police to American television audiences at a time when few other U.S. television and radio outlets would touch them.

Here is what Kirshner had to say about his days helping produce hits in The Brill Building:

"I believe that after I'm gone, my grandchildren will be whistling these tunes. Whether they know that I published them or not - they will be whistling these tunes the same as they do songs from My Fair Lady and Camelot, and these tunes will be part of American culture - they'll be used in movies and so on. Of all the legacies that I have given, personally to me it's very important that I was able to come out of the streets of Harlem, out of my dad's tailor shop, and have the ability to create an environment where this sound will be part of American and international culture forever."

Don Kirshner is survived by his wife of 50 years, Sheila, two sons and five grandchildren. Whistle one of the many tunes Don Kirshner helped bring to the public's consciousness in their honor.

Different Drum

I remember hearing "Different Drum" by The Stone Poneys (featuring a young singer named Linda Ronstadt) on AM radio a lot when I was a kid. Released in 1967, the Stone Poneys' version of the song would not have been new at the time, but it would not have been old enough to be an "oldie" either. As far as I can remember our local AM station (WNAV in Annapolis) did not change their heavy rotation very often. When they found a song they liked, they stuck with it for ten to fifteen knots years.

I have a specific memory of hearing the song in my Mom's old Rambler station wagon (the Rambler only had AM radio) and being intrigued enough by it to ask what the lyrics were about. My Mom explained the meaning of the saying "marching to the beat of a different drummer," and told me the song was about two people who had different outlooks on life so their relationship couldn't work. The concept made an impression on me, and although I think I understood the metaphor, somewhere in my childhood mind I still had a vision of two people marching in different directions followed by two different drummers playing a different beat.

"Different Drum" was penned by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees, but never recorded by his band (although I have the feeling some knowledgeable Monkeeologist will chime in to tell me that in fact the Monkees recorded an unreleased demo of the song during the Pool It sessions). The first recording of the song to be released was by folk revivalists the Greenbriar Boys for their 1966 album Better Late than Never! on the Vanguard label.

Written and sung from the male perspective, the song is a gentle kiss off with an age old theme; boy meets girl, girl wants to settle down, boy wants to sow his wild oats, relationship ends. This is not to say that in this form it's not a good song; the lyrics are well constructed and the melody is highly memorable. But in this first version it's not a zeitgeist capturing song as it would be when Ronstadt interpreted it, and it wasn't a hit. Nevertheless, "Different Drum" in its original version (or as sung by Ronstadt or later Nesmith himself in a country-rock style) is as good a riposte as any to the critics who claimed the Monkees had no "real" talent of their own. "Different Drum" is as good as, or better than, the tunes the hired Tin Pan Alley guns were writing for the Monkees at the time.

There are some songs where the gender of the singer doesn't make much difference. You can change a "she" to a "he" or a "boy" to a "girl" and the meaning of the song doesn't change dramatically. "Different Drum" is not one of those songs. The gender of the singer (and the gender pronouns they chose) is central to the song's meaning.

As such, an interesting dynamic has evolved as the song has been interpreted and re-interpreted by different artists over the years. As previously noted, in the versions by the Greenbriar Boys and later Nesmith, the song has what you might call a traditional gender dynamic; it's sung from the perspective of a male who doesn't want to commit to a female who is looking for stability.

But it's a totally different song when a woman sings it. Ronstadt turns the tables on the boy, and now it's the girl who wants to sow her wild oats while the boy just wants to settle down. Further, the object of Ronstadt's lack of affection ends up being feminized by the gender shift; he's "pretty," and he "cries" and "moans" over the end of the relationship. But at the same time, there is a slightly more sinister connotation to the lines about trying to "pull the reins in" then when it was sung by a male lead. As sung by Ronstadt, "Different Drum" implicitly becomes a song about casting off the shackles of traditional gender roles.

This sexually liberated female perspective was not often heard in popular music up to that point, and the song makes Ronstadt something of an archetype shattering figure. Neither virgin nor whore, she's simply not ready to settle down and sees no reason why she shouldn't enjoy herself until she is.

It should be noted that this shift in popular culture was made possible to a large degree by the introduction of oral contraceptives to the U.S. market in 1960, which for the first time in human history made it possible for choices about reproduction to be easily and reliably made solely by the woman. Female contraception (despite repeated attacks on it by reactionary forces) is so taken for granted today that it is easy to forget the extent to which "the pill" helped revolutionize gender relationships in the later half of the twentieth century. It is within that context that in Ronstadt's hands "Different Drum" becomes more than just a break up song, but also a celebration of liberated female sexuality.

For my money the most interesting of the later covers of the song is the 1990 version by the Lemonheads off their Favorite Spanish Dishes EP. Evan Dando sings the lyrics exactly the way Ronstadt did in her 1967 hit version, declining to shift back to the traditional male gender role as most male singers do when covering it. It's an interesting decision, and it creates layers of gender ambiguity in the song. By addressing the song to a "boy" is Dando singing the lyrics from the female perspective? Is he singing it one gay man to another? Or is it sung from the perspective of a straight man declining the advances of a gay man (maybe that's what he means by traveling to the beat of a different drum)? All these things are left ambiguous by Dando's choice of gender pronouns. These qualities are amplified by the the image Dando projected during the early 90s: Young. Pretty. Self-destructive. Sexually ambiguous. All of these elements collide in the song to create a fabulous artistic tension that is missing from other later-day covers such as the very nice versions by The Pastels and Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs (who stick pretty closely to Nesmith's and Ronstadt's interpretations respectively).

I'm sure all of these thoughts were far from my mind as I enjoyed listening to the song in the back seat of my Mom's Rambler sometime during the early 70s. But there is little doubt in my mind that it was AM radio staples like "Different Drum" that sparked my life-long love of popular music.