September songs, part two 

Moving forward with the Top 40 music of September 1964 through 1968: 

SEPTEMBER 1965

1.  HELP – Beatles
2.  LIKE A ROLLING STONE – Bob Dylan
3. EVE OF DESTRUCTION – Barry McGuire
4.  YOU WERE ON MY MIND – We Five
5.  CALIFORNIA GIRLS – Beach Boys
6.  HANG ON SLOOPY – McCoys
7.  CATCH US IF YOU CAN – Dave Clark Five
8.  UNCHAINED MELODY – Righteous Brothers
9.  THE IN CROWD – Ramsey Lewis Trio
10.  I GOT YOU BABE – Sonny & Cher 

This was a burst of unprecedented creativity. The evolution of lyrics and abstract concepts, compared to one year ago, is mind-boggling. 

In twelve months, we’ve moved from “I like bread and butter/I like toast and jam” to the line often trotted out to represent the Beatles’ growth as artists, “My independence seems to vanish in the haze.”

The words to “Hang On Sloopy” weren’t exactly Cole Porter, and there always has to be some silliness on the charts, but “Like A Rolling Stone” was, to an 11-year old listening to the radio, impenetrable, a rhyming alphabet soup that you couldn’t stick a spoon in. But it sure sounded cool. 

“Eve of Destruction” was too specific to 1965 to age well, but its lyrics beamed a light of global awareness to kids who weren’t exposed to the news much, save the hourly three-minute headline broadcasts on Top 40 radio. (And taking the song’s title literally, the Doomsday Clock read 11:48 in 1965. Today it’s at 11:58).

Taking in this sudden literary curriculum was like discovering the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man on the newsstands after reading Superman and Jimmy Olsen through much of your childhood. 

The Ramsey Lewis Trio’s version of the “The In Crowd” was the epitome of cool and the second popular jazz number to make the Billboard Top Ten, preceded the year before by “The Girl From Ipanema” at #5. Before that, Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” – two years before he scored A Charlie Brown Christmas – went to #22 in 1963, and “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck hit #25 in 1961. “The In Crowd” album won Lewis, who died earlier this month, the 1965 Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. 

Finally, there’s the troubled “California Girls,” the first 45 I ever bought. Brian Wilson wrote the music at his piano, coming down off his first acid trip and playing over-and-over the same four notes that would eventually form the foundation for “California Girls.” 

It is a record that has had to overcome 1) Mike Love’s ogling lyrics; 2) an embarrassing 1985 cover and accompanying video by the clownish David Lee Roth; and 3) deejays talking over the song’s unrelated-yet-connected 22-second instrumental introduction -- almost an overture -- that set the stage for Pet Sounds, which would come out the following year. 

The brief introduction was unlike anything heard before in a pop song and Wilson later said, “I'm still really proud of that. It has a classical feel.” It also served notice that things were changing and that many of the old rules about making records were quickly falling away.