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The Turtles - Elenore: The Reason for the Strange Lyrics

submitted by Janine V.

(Lilithia)
9 years 6 months 1 week ago

I've always wondered about the strange/funny lyrics of this song ("You're my pride and joy, et cetera"). Now I finally know how they came about. :D

Howard Kaylan: "Elenore was a parody of 'Happy Together.' It was never intended to be a straight-forward song. It was meant as an anti-love letter to White Whale [Records], who were constantly on our backs to bring them another 'Happy Together.' So I gave them a very skewed version. Not only with the chords changed, but with all these bizarre words. It was my feeling that they would listen to how strange and stupid the song was and leave us alone. But they didn't get the joke. They thought it sounded good. Truthfully, though, the production on "Elenore" WAS so damn good. Lyrically or not, the sound of the thing was so positive that it worked. It certainly surprised me." - Wikipedia

7 Comments

*related

Happy together - the turtles 1967 has been added as a related post - related requested by Lilithia.

Parody undetected. Seems like a song about the usual stuff people were singing about back then...

...but then I listened to the rest of the album this came from (Battle of the Bands). They're taking a shot at some other popular acts of the day... See tracks like "Surfer Dan" (Beach Boys) and "Buzzsaw". Maybe this song WAS taking a shot at themselves... but out of that context, parody undetected.
I do have some renewed respect for the Turtles, though.

Moving this video to Lilithia's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter Lilithia.

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