04 July 2016

Song Swarm





GOODBYE, GOODBYE (& thanks for all the fish)

I am not a Monkees fan, & never cared for their TV show or the movie Head.  But I love the theme to the movie, "The Porpoise Song".  I guess it's the sad & spacey mood, the lovely chord progression & the odd harmonies that got me hooked. 

Carole King & Gerry Goffin wrote "The Porpoise Song".  I think they were aiming for the elegiac psychedelia of "Strawberry Fields Forever". They hit their mark.  The producers pulled out all the stops for the 1968 soundtrack recording:  church organ, string section, tubular bells, & the sounds of our fine flippered friends.  An overdub has no choice, & there is a surfeit of them here.  Maybe "It's All Too Much" (as George Harrison sang on another movie soundtrack), but I find it sublime.

Twenty years after the Monkees movie, "The Porpoise Song" was covered by Bongwater on a 1988 single (with Roky Erikson's "You Don't Love Me Yet" on the flip).   An outpouring of Porpoise Song covers began in the 90s. I have netted enough of them to fill a CD.  Some are faithful to the original while others add splashes of modern electronica or metal (!)


Carole King demo
Head soundtrack instrumental
Monkees (soundtrack LP version)
Bongwater (1988)
Wondermints (1996)
Lightning Seeds (1997)
Oranger (1998)
The Church (1999)
The Grapes Of Wrath (2000)
Nobody (2004)
Lola Dutronic (2005)
Trail of Dead (2005)
Trouble (2009)
Goblin Cock (2010?)
Heavy Friends (2011)
Django Django (2014)
Polyphonic Spree (2014)
Monkees (alternate mix)
Monkees (rough mono mix)
Monkees (mono 45 mix)

Carole King's demo recently surfaced online, and it is included here (minus her introductory Gregorian chant).  Track 2 is the studio instrumental from the 2010 three disc reissue of Head.  Tracks 18-20 are also from that reissue, which was shared by Willard in one of his wonderful Wormholes.  Tracks 1, 14, and 17 are web rips.  Track 7 is my own noisy vinyl rip.  The rest are from various sources and in various bitrates.

From underneathica the sea(thica),
jonder

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