"Things I Should Have Said" #23 9/16/1967

The last Top 40 record from the Grass Roots until "Midnight Confessions" came out the following year. They were becoming a pretty strong live band by now. Lead singer Rob Grill was a force on their records as well. They still depended quite a bit on the Wrecking Crew in the studio, however. Never uncool to rely on the best.

"Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)" #20 9/16/1967

Here's one of the first songs Papa John Phillips wrote shortly after the Mamas and the Papas relocated from Greenwich Village to L.A., but took two years to make it onto a record. He'd seen drunk and/or stoned girls wandering out of the fancy homes in the canyons after some wild parties. Papa John built a state of the art recording studio at his and Michelle's house in the Hollywood Hills, but those sessions didn't go well. A disastrous 1967 concert tour of England started out badly with Mama Cass being arrested on trumped-up charges over an old unpaid hotel bill. That led to discord, backstage shouting matches, cancelled shows, and the group desperately needing time away from work. They never quite fully recovered.

"There Is A Mountain" #11 9/16/1967

Donovan based this on an old Zen proverb which stated, "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." I suppose it meant if you look at an obstacle long enough, it disappears from one's conscious self, so you can then surmount said obstacle when it reappears. That, or they had some damn good weed in the studio. The meter of the song is very free-form.

"San Franciscan Nights" #9 9/16/1967

Lots of flower power over the next few days. Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," so it seemed a little odd that Eric Burdon and the Animals would write a song about a warm night in the City by the Bay. It contained all the Love Generation themes, like peace, love, strobe lights, moving walls, and an anti-cop message, too. Sorta touched all the hippie bases.

"You're My Everything" #6 9/16/1967

The tenth Top 20 entry for the mighty Temptations, and one of the rare singles by this point where Eddie Kendricks mostly handled the lead vocals. David Ruffin is out front during the bridge and near the end, though. Written by Roger Penzabene, who was a tragic footnote in Motown's history. He wrote this uplifting love song for his wife but found out later she was messing around on him. Roger composed a couple more tunes for the Temps with an unhappier tone, then committed suicide.

"The Loco-Motion" #1 8/25/1962

From August of 1962, another #1 written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. They just hired Eva Boyd as a nanny and upon discovering she could sing, had her do a demo of this song. They offered it to Dee Dee Sharp ("Mashed Potato Time") but she turned it down, so the newly-christened Little Eva re-recorded it herself and took it to the top. Grand Funk took it back to #1 in 1974, and Kylie Minogue had a Top 5 with her version in 1988. Ms. Boyd left the business, wound up on welfare, and passed away from cervical cancer in 2003. Video is from "Shindig."

"Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" #1 8/11/1962

As teenagers, Neil Sedaka dated Carole King and even wrote "Oh, Carol!" about it. They eventually married others (Neil proposed to his future wife over the phone), but they both became prolific songwriters at the Brill Building in NYC. Today's tune became Neil's first #1 in August 1962. He re-did this with a much slower arrangement in 1975, and joined the Ventures with "Walk, Don't Run" as the only rockers to reach the Top 10 with two totally different versions of their own song. Video is from a "Bandstand"-type show called "Saturday Hop" on the former WLBW-TV in Miami, now WPLG Channel 10.