Here are 10 such songs, each the feel-bad hit of its respective summer. And built into them were the seeds of self-doubt, regression, ugliness, repression and resignation, all the pesky emotions boomers will never admit to feeling. Just keep this list for handy reference to shove under the nose of the next snooty boomer that tries to tell you it was all downhill after “The Age of Aquarius.”
1960
'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,' Brian HylandIssues: agoraphobia, reverse aquaphobia, body shamingMost listeners of this cha-cha-charmless song recall a poor traumatized bikini wearer who was afraid to come out of the locker, then afraid to come out of the water, and misdiagnosed her with the first two phobias. What she really was afraid of was plain coming out, or more specifically, dishabiliophobia, the fear of undressing in front of others. This would not bode well for the “let it all hang out” ethos of the latter half of the decade. If you can remember "The Honeymooners" episode where Ed Norton explains to Ralph Kramden the difference between an itsy-bitsy slice of pizza and a teenie-weenie one, you can imagine all the evil forms of body dysmorphia this record launched when females looked in a mirror and could not decide if this revolutionary two-piece made them look itsy-bitsy or teenie-weenie.
1961
'Daddy’s Home,’ Shep and the LimelitesIssues: Daddy issues ... what else?!James “Shep” Sheppard was the writer and lead singer of both The Heartbeats’ 1957 R&B hit “A Thousand Miles Away” and this uncomfortably similar sequel, which reached #2 on the pop charts five years later. When the latter song did so much better commercially than the earlier one, it couldn’t help but remind countless offspring of what it feels like when their estranged patriarch goes back to the drawing board and starts a second, far less dysfunctional family living “a thousand miles away.”
1962
'The Stripper,' David Rose and His OrchestraIssues: see opposite of Itsy Bitsy dishabiliophobiaDaddy, you had one simple job: To keep your little girl from the stripper pole. But no, you had to bring home this bawdy instrumental to compel your wife to disrobe with a little more flair, and it inadvertently turned your daughter into a Gypsy Rose Lee wanna-be. Lord knows this salacious chart-topper indoctrinated more good girls to strip their way through college than outstanding student loans. Or how many local ordinances were violated when this was piped loudly into supermarkets. It boggles the mind that something so unwholesome could come from David Rose, the same guy who gave us “Holiday for Strings” and the “Theme From Bonanza.”
1963
'Sally Go Round the Roses,'The JaynettsIssues: Anthophobia (fear of flowers) In the same summer where “Surf City” promised “two girls for every boy,” this cryptic girl group platter floated the possibility of two girls ditching every boy entirely and bringing a third girl in the equation. “Saddest thing in the whole wide world/see your baby with another girl” has been widely interpreted as Sally stalking her cheating lesbian lover. Others maintain the secret the roses were keeping could be a terminated pregnancy, some illicit drug use, or a bee sting in an unmentionable place. This number two summer hit might’ve become an anthem for something, but it’s just too inscrutable to make out. It’s like each of the mysterious Jaynetts took a solemn pledge not to sing within 10 feet of a microphone.
1964
'Don’t Let the Rain Fall Down (Crooked Little Man),' The Serendipity SingersIssues: Ombrophobia (fear of rain), an aversion to leveling straightedgesMost anyone who lived through the early days of Beatlemania will describe it as the point at which the world went from black and white to Technicolor. And Summer 1964 is when The Serendipity Singers tried to convince us to change it back to black and white. Mostly white. Acting as if the folk boom of the late Fifties and early Sixties was still going strong and banjo sales hadn’t abated, The Serendipity Seven thought singing imbecilic children’s songs would expand the folk purists’ demographic, which was in fact rapidly shrinking. It worked; this made it into the Top Twenty when the Beatles held the Top 5 spots on Billboard’s Hot 100 and made it to number 6 not long after that. And Number 2 on the Adult Contemporary charts, if you can believe it. This ruse would not work a second time when they release “Beans in My Ears” as the follow-up. This proved too controversial for radio play as kids were putting beans, you know where. No, really, even The Ed Sullivan Show told them they had to sing something else.
1965
'Eve of Destruction,' Barry McGuireIssues: Nuclear annihilation, the Vietnam War, the voting age, the Middle East, the draft, what else you got?“Too many protest singers, not enough protest songs,” sang Edwyn Collins in 1994, but it could’ve been a phrase coined in 1965. By this time, Dylan’s records were charting in the Top 5, but they were more like social gripes than protest songs. Self-admitted Dylan copyist P.F. Sloan was more than happy to fill a marketing void with a protest song that pressed everyone’s buttons, even he who holds the nuclear codes. When the Byrds passed on recording this ersatz Dylan number, the Turtles recorded it. Then Barry McGuire, late of the New Christy Minstrels, took it to number one. McGuire had trouble following it up, but not so for the dozen or more hawkish right-wing hawks who recorded such pro-Vietnam War answer disks to “Eve” such as The Spokesmen’s “Dawn of Correction” and Johnny Sea’s “Day of Decision.” When the opposition starts releasing protest songs, they stop being cool.
1966
'They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!' Napoleon XIVIssues: mental illness, dehumanization, dog insultsUnder the guise of Napoleon XIV, recording engineer Jerry Samuels created this unsettling soundscape of Vari speed vocals and sirens mated to the repetitive beat of Dylan’s “Rainy Day Woman #12 and 34.” Worried that a song about a man driven insane by his woman leaving might be offensive towards those with mental illness, he changed the last verse so the man was driven insane by a runaway dog. This looney tune trifecta manages to offend the insane, womenkind who were already convinced this was about them and are now being called mangy mutts and dogs whose defamation league was immediately notified when this went to number 3. That’s better?
1967
'Windy”' The AssociationIssues: Ancraophobia, violating the Buggery Act of 1533Ancraophobia, also known as anemophobia, is an extreme fear of wind, drafts or sudden changes in the weather. That the Association can cloak such troubling undercurrents in a bubbling froth of sunshine pop shows how subversive this male glee club really was. As far as hipness was concerned, this six-man band couldn’t catch a break. They dressed like accountants for the first two albums to their detriment, and when this ditty went all the way up to number one, they played the opening set at the Monterey Pop Festival and could have stayed home for all the attention their pitch-pipe-perfect performance garnered. Their opening song was called “Enter the Young.” No one thought anything of it. Ditto for their closing song “Windy,” which included an invocation to anal sex like “Who’s bending down to give me a rainbow,” and people just thought they were being garden variety groovy.
1968
'Reach Out in the Darkness,' by Friend and LoverIssues: neighbors not respecting other neighbors’ boundaries, fear of Friend and LoverKnowing this was originally titled “Freak Out in the Darkness” (you can hear them singing that in the choruses beneath the lead vocal), it vindicates the creepy Manson Family vibe I felt whenever Friend and Lover backed us into a corner to admonish “Don’t be afraid to love…” Then the dude (I’m guessing he’s Friend), says “don’t be afraid” in his gentle voice like he’s talking to a baby ocelot before snapping out of it and saying “listen to me” in his baritone like he’s dropping the hippie shit and will become violent if you do not comply. Of course, they split up not long after, probably happened when one called the other ‘lover’ and then got friend-zoned.
1969
'In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus),' by Zager and EvansIssues: Daddy issues. Big Daddy issuesIs this a protest song about mankind’s shameful showing in the humanity sweepstakes or just a diss track to a lazy God who procrastinated 10,000 years to do anything about it? Zager and Evans run out of terrible things mankind has done to itself (and run out of words that rhyme with five by the year 6565). The rest of the time, from 7510 till we hit 9595, is just waiting for the Big Guy in the sky to make up his mind about when to add the finishing touch and pull the plug. Either way, this unholy hymn stayed number one for 6 weeks, spanning the week of the moon landing till the week of Woodstock. And in the process, it bummed out everyone from the little kids hoping we’d get jet packs by the year 1970 to evangelicals who were frankly rooting for the end of times to come a lot sooner than that.
