It Was 50 Years Ago Today: The Turtles Elevate “Happy Together” With a Dose of Irony
April 11, 1967
“Happy Together” by The Turtles
#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, March 25 – April 14, 1967
By the time the demo of “Happy Together” made its way to the Turtles, the acetate was worn out. Roughly a dozen bands, including the Tokens, the Happenings, and the Vogues, had rejected it.
Even given the degraded sound quality, it wasn’t much to write home about. The demo — recorded by songwriters Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon of the Magicians, whose “An Invitation to Cry” would turn up on the original Nuggets — consisted of nothing but vocals and guitar. Some reports insist it even lacked guitar, with handclaps providing the only accompaniment.
It probably wasn’t the low-fi recording that had failed to spark much interest, but the simplistic, syrupy lyrics: “the only one for me is you, and you for me,” “baby, the skies will be blue for all my life.” For a generation of pop groups enthralled with Bob Dylan, this sort of saccharine was hard to swallow.
The Turtles knew their Dylan, of course — their debut single was a version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” that rocketed them into the Top 10, where they’d been struggling to return ever since. But the Turtles also had a mischievous streak. As a band with a history of shape-shifting (the original incarnation played surf rock), and which had long favored comedy and showmanship over folk-rock “authenticity,” the idea of turning these corny lines and cliches into the quintessential earnest, artless, dopey love song must have seemed worth a laugh — and, given the pop audience’s taste for inane schmaltz, maybe even the ticket back to the top.
But the brilliance of the Turtles’ reading of “Happy Together” is that it isn’t just a parody; it’s also a sublimely transcendent vision of the ultimate pop recording. It exaggerates the weaknesses of those trite love songs that aim to wring emotion from the same tired phrases and easy motifs, yet also bests them by being lusher, more elaborate, more swooningly moving. It stretches the contrast between the loneliness of being apart and the thrill of being together to bipolar extremes.
The depressive back-and-forth pacing of the verses, with their muted dynamics and minor-key, repetitive arrangement reflect the unhappy reality of the lovestruck narrator. “Imagine me and you, I do,” he pleads to the object of his desire, but there’s no evidence the relationship has progressed beyond his imagination.
And yet, the more the narrator insists that “the only one for me is you / and you for me,” the more he seems to believe it, until suddenly, the drums break out of their dull shuffle and whisk him away to the Technicolor rainbow paradise where he’s with the girl he loves. The chorus explodes in a shower of horns and harmony vocals, Howard Kaylan’s voice ratcheted up from the restrained, pensive tone of the verses to a full-throated burst of joy.
Then the bubble bursts, and we’re back to the swirling eddies of uncertainty and despair. But as the song progresses, the verses grow shorter, the choruses longer and more elaborate, and the line between the two gets fuzzier.
By the last go ’round, the world of the chorus starts intruding as soon as the verse starts — at first, those sunshiny “ba-ba-ba” harmony vocals, then the electric guitars revving up and the cymbals chiming away. The layers of vocals multiply exponentially, joined by the chirp of trumpets until nearly every instrument in the orchestra pit has united into one great swell of optimism, big and cheerful enough to crush any last niggles of worry and doubt.
“We’re happy together,” Kaylan finally croons. It’s up to the listener to determine whether the narrator has succeeded in winning over the girl, or if he’s just retreated into his fantasy world for good.
Listeners also had the choice between taking “Happy Together” at face value or picking up on the band’s ironic intent. But regardless of how they interpreted it, they bought it — enough to not only return the Turtles to the Top 10 but to put them at the #1 spot for three weeks.
The following year, the band would push the joke even further with “Elenore” and score nearly as big of a hit. But no matter how blatantly tongue-in-cheek the lyrics — “you’re my pride and joy, et cetera” — like “Happy Together,” the surge of rainbows and sunshine and symphonic splendor in the chorus was still more affecting than so many of the supposedly sincere love songs cluttering the airwaves.
A version of this essay previously appeared on No Hard Chords.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
