Friday, July 29, 2011

Awful then, awful now



I don't know if it's brain damage from smoking too much nutmeg or what, but some poisoned synapse of my brain just released this from the dark dungeon of memory. It was one of those things I hoped I had only imagined, or just had a horrible dream about. When I found this video, I groaned with agonized delight: it was even worse than I thought! They'd done a video for this song in 1967, the music sounding sort of like a cross between a spaghetti Western and Romper Room.

Here's this guy talking about wanting to be straight (and hey, wouldn't Tony Perkins have done a good job here?), "straight" in the sense of being a non-druggy I guess, and rambling on about this mystical chick called Phaedra penetrating the great fortress of his heart, or something. He's on a horse, for Christ's sake, rambling around on beaches being Remote but Sensitive, a kind of dollar-store Neil Diamond (or Neil Zirconia?).

Then Nancy Sinatra, yes, THE Nancy Sinatra, the same Nancy Sinatra whose boots are made for walking, the same Nancy Sinatra who spent all that time in Shu-Shu-Shuuuh, Shu-Shu-Shuuuh, Shu-Shu-Shu-Shu-Shu-Shuuuh Sugartown, is here telling us about flo-o-o-o-owers, flo-o-o-o-o-wers e-e-e-e-e-ev'ry-whe-e-e-e-e-errrrre, how you can lo-o-o-o-k at them but do not touch, etc. etc. And in case we forget, she repeatedly tells us that Phaedra is her name.

So who's this Phaedra? I was just looking for clips of a movie by that name starring Tony Perkins and Melina Mercouri, one of the many films where he is paired with a man-eating monster. I guess I have to go get all mythical here and go on Wikipedia and see if this Phaedra stuff has any real Significance to it.
But until then, don't enjoy this video, it's too excruciating. But do appreciate the fact that it's a definite front-runner for the worst song ever written.

2 comments:

  1. Isn't Phaedra the witch who drove Robert Pirsig to poop on the floor in his pants in Zen and Art of Motorcycle Fetishism?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I never got through that one. Some guy gave me a copy of the original book and said it was his bible. More like babble.

    ReplyDelete

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