9. Sally, Go 'Round the Roses

The Jaynetts (Recorded 1963; released on Tuff 369, b/w “Instrumental Background To Sally, Go 'Round The Roses”);
composed by Lona Stevens & Zell Sanders

Arguably, this one hit single inspired much of what people now think of as “the Sixties.” Ostensibly a “girl group classic” – as if that made it a trifle by definition – it influenced just about everyone with any kind of mystic bent. It blew teenage Neil Young’s mind. Grace Slick did it pre-Airplane. Pentangle covered it on an album of old folksongs. Can turned it into “Yoo Doo Right” on their neuer-deutscher-rock debut. Donna Summer covered it when she was still Donna Gaines. So what is it? Basically, a drone – just one chord with a quiet but tense jazzy vamp – as an untold number of overdubbed female voices weave around the chord, incantorily warning the title heroine not to “go downtown” lest she encounter “the saddest thing in the whole wide world . . . to see your baby with another girl,” evidently unleashing evil spirits. It went to No. 2, but the recording cost far too much for even the record honchos to get paid (right away, that is) - the hired producer had gone on an obsessive tear – adding the voice of every woman who came near the studio to the mix, while always keeping the sound strangely uncluttered.

Note: 25 secular essays about 25 songs, each one exactly 200 words long, appearing one per day during Advent (approximately).