Far Out There Character Soundtracks: Tarkus (Patreon)

We’re back to the Short Pants Squad again for this soundtrack, and to a very specific sliver of the world’s population, this is going to be the most misleading character soundtrack yet. For reasons long lost even to myself, Tarkus is named after the Emerson, Lake & Palmer song. That “Tarkus” is a dense, twenty-minute prog rock epic about an armor-plated armadillo-tank that fights a manticore, with lots of unconventional time signatures and intense keyboard solos. Anyone expecting Far Out There’s Tarkus to be a fan of heady, difficult progressive rock will be sorely disappointed, though anybody WITH that expectation must be a person who only saw the character’s name and never a single comics he’s in. Anyone who HAS read Far Out There knows that this Tarkus is a timid, hypochondriac worrywart who gets scared by literally everything. This kid would never willingly listen to anything even remotely intimidating, he probably gets a rash if he’s around a minor chord for too long.

So what DOES Tarkus listen too? Why, precociously gentile 60s sunshine pop, of course! I mean, come on. It’s ME. There’s always a one in three chance that ANY musical choice I make will be 60s-related somehow (though my OTHER trend of including at least one Japanese song failed to kick in here, so that’s a rare fluke). And I don’t mean the hippy-dippy stuff Trigger likes, or the obnoxious bubblegum that was sprinkled through Tax’s soundtrack. No, this is the OVERWHELMINGLY commercial, intricately arranged pop stuff. There was a whole mini-industry of studio artists in the min-to-late-60s, often people too dorky to cut it in regular rock bands, dedicated to reproducing The Beach Boys at their most delicately orchestrated. The kind of almost-but-not-quite-easy listening music that tended to pop up on soundtracks and commercials a lot more than it ever got played on the radio. This is some of the most toothless, harmless, aggressively gentle music ever performed by human beings. I’ve heard actual, literal elevator music that was tougher than most of this stuff, but that’s the whole reason Tarkus likes it. It’s a rare thing indeed to find any for of entertainment that even Tarkus can’t be startled by.

Actually, there is a second, meta reason making Tarkus a sunshine pop enthusiast, though even by MY standards it’s a bit obtuse. In case you couldn’t tell from all my snark up above, Sunshine Pop like this is NOT considered cool. I mean, I like it, but a LOT of people thought it was just the lamest stuff imaginable, and as a result a lot of it kind of got pushed to the side when the first big wave of oldies revivalism came around. Hip stuff like the British Invasion and Psychedelia got exhaustively analyzed and immortalized in a relatively mainstream manner, just look how many books there are chronicling every single waking moment of The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix or The Rolling Stones. Oh, Sunshine Pop got exhaustively catalogued as well, but it had to rely more on amateur collectors and fanzines and blogs to write all that history down. And you know how much bloggers like to ramble, insert self-aware act of self deprecation HERE. The point is, there’s a lot of 60s music I first encountered as just songs on the radio, only finding out any meaningful information on the artist yeas later and after deliberately seeking it out. When I started poking around the depths of Sunshine Pop, however, every single song came with a five paragraph history of it’s recording and release, since the only people keeping the songs in circulation were obsessive collectors. There’s plenty of other subgenres out there where this is the case, but I first encountered it here, so that’s the impression that stuck. And when I started working out Tarkus’ character, I couldn’t help but draw a connection between these record nerds carefully documenting the catalog number of every promotional copy of a single and the way Tarkus exhaustively studies the manufacturing info on every single food he encounters to avoid eating any bug parts. ESPECIALY since all that work was being devoted to songs that most people blatantly don’t care about.

Well, I shouldn’t really say that, because Tarkus’ soundtrack is actually one of the more hits-heavy of the bunch. There’s SEVERAL oldies radio staples on display here, like Climax’s “Precious and Few,” The Association’s “Cherish,” The Beatles’ “Here, There, and Everywhere,” and The Beach Boy’s “God Only Knows.” Lots of intricate vocal harmonies or lush orchestration or both on display here. “God Only Knows” is particularly significant, as The Beach Boys truly do cast a long shadow over this entire sub-genre. “Cherish” is an INCEDIBLY blatant Beach Boy pastiche, and Paul McCartney straight up admitted that “Here, There, and Everywhere” was written to sound just like a Brian Wilson composition. Even beyond all the jokes about how harmless this music is, I feel like a kid as obsessed with things that could go wrong as Tarkus would really appreciate music with this many levels of sounds working together. They guy probably appreciates a little harmony in his life, especially with somebody as bombastic as Avi always drowning him out the rest of the time.

Next we have a pair of borderline “oldies staples,” songs that were certainly regular fixtures on MY oldies station when I grew up, but seem to have been relegated to the “forgotten obscurities” bin by pop culture: “Smile A Little Smile For Me” by The Flying Machine and “Love (can make you happy)” by Mercy. I can totally see how these fluffy bits of easy listening would fall off the playlists as Oldies Radio gave way to Classic Rock, especially the latter. Somewhere, years ago, I read that muzak pioneer Percy Faith had something to do with the making of “Love (can make you happy)”, though I think this was somebody misremembering that Faith covered the song after the original had become a hit. I can totally see why anyone would assume one of the grand masters of elevator music was involved in a song like this from the get go, though. Heck, fellow old person music maestro Ray Conniff covered “Love” too, and somehow his wildly dorky version actually rocks HARDER than the original.

Next, we transition into a different level of obscurity, songs by ARTISTS who are oldies radio mainstays, but for other songs than these. The Monkees are easily the best known in this category, appearing twice with “Someday Man” and “Sometime In The Morning” (and I only just know noticed the similar titles). “Sometime In The Morning” is one of the better known album tracks their early days, thanks to some prominent features on the TV show. One of many pretty Goffin/King ballads The Monkees recorded, “Sometime In The Morning” probably would have wound up being released as a single by a band with a less stacked song selection. “Someday Man” actually WAS released as a single, and I maintain that it’s the single greatest shoulda-been hit of The Monkees career. An early composition by future Muppets songwriter Paul Williams, this is one of the few Davy Jones vehicles to embrace his theatre backgrounds without going overblown to the point of being obnoxious. “Someday Man” definitely has the structure of a Broadway showtune, but the delivery is juuust subdued and relaxed enough to fit in with the rest of the easy listening fodder here. “Someday Man” had its chart performance sabotaged by disagreements over whether radio stations should push it or its flip-side “Listen To The Band,” to say nothing of the fact that it came out well past the point when most stations wanted to play The Monkees anyway. If there were any justice in the world, however, it’d be a mainstay on oldies radio to this day.

Speaking of showtunes, we next have Spanky & Our Gang: best known for their I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Mamas & The Papas first hit “Sunday Will Never Be The Same” but represented here by their LAST hit “I’d Like To Get To Know You.” When I first heard this song, I was absolutely certain that it must be a cover of some vaudeville standard or something, but nope! It’s a totally original band composition that just SOUNDS like something a Vegas lounge act would cover. A soundtrack entry that actually IS a cover is “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” best known as an early doo wop hit by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, but present here as a much smoother sunshine pop version by The Happenings. Back in the day, The Happenings actually had a number of pop hits, but pretty much the only one anybody remembers today is the Four Seasons sound-alike “See You In September,” with the more easy listening likes of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” being all but forgotten by anyone but the most dedicated 60s aficionados. The some goes for “Everything That Touches You,” the second song here by The Association, and one nowhere NEAR as well remembered as the previously mentioned “Cherish” despite being a Top Ten hit in its time. It’s amazing how quickly something can go from mainstream ubiquity to obscure curio, isn’t it?

And that’s a segue into our final collection of songs, not just because they’re most obscure, but because mentioning The Association again give me a reason to bring up Curt Boettcher. Although not involved with the recording on “Everything That Touches You,” Boettcher produced The Association’s debut album and was heavily involved in the arrangement of “Cherish,” even going so far as to perform the high, Frankie Valli “whoooo”s on the last verse himself. Boettcher was one of those studio pros who brought a lot of success to other performers (among other things, producing several hits for Tommy Roe) but never managed to score any hits of his own. It wasn’t for lack of trying, though, as Curt Boettcher has multiple solo projects that either never got released or went straight into the rarities bin when they did. Chief of these efforts was The Millennium, who contribute the songs “I Just Want To Be Your Friend” and “There Is Nothing More To Say.” The Millennium’s sole album Begin is the prototypical Acclaimed Flop, a major commercial disappointment (especially bad for what was allegedly Columbia Record’s most expensive album ever at the time) but regularly cited as one of the all-time great sunshine pop albums by modern critics. In fairness to 60s record buyers, I can see why most of these songs weren’t bigger pop hits: they do use their layers of immaculately twee production to mask a lack of that one, big, catchy pop song hook. Still, in this context, that immaculately twee production is itself worth the price of admission, and definitely fits the general vibe of Tarkus’s soundtrack. Ironically, the closest Curt Boettcher would come to a solo hit was his later involvement in fellow Maker Of Other People’s Hits Gary Usher (probably best known as an early collaborator of Brian Wilson) in one of HIS studio projects: Sagittarius. I say “ironic” because Sagittarius’ one minor hit, “My World Fell Down,” was recorded before Usher brought Boettcher on board. He’s all over the rest of Sagittarius’ first album Present Tense, however, including the song "Song to the Magic Frog (Will You Ever Know)" represented here.

And thus, we start to dig DEEP into the rarities pit, the nobodies who never managed a single hit, and even further down. These are the kind of obscurities that only the most obsessive of record geeks come across, the stuff that wasn’t going to get played on the radio outside of being used as an advertising jingle. These are the kinds of songs that some mid-70s educational film strip would use in a severely outdated attempt at sounding “hip” …and given that dorky educational film strips are exactly the kind of thing Tarkus would spend his free time watching, maybe that’s another reason why he likes this kind of music? Anyway, the LEAST unknown of this crop of artists, and the only one to get more than one song on the soundtrack, is The Free Design, a pack of harmonizing siblings who also stand out for coming from the New York college folkie tradition rather than the Californian good times music that dominates the rest of the soundtrack. The Free Design could be rather dense and literate by sunshine pop standards, occasionally boarding on complexity of early prog rock, though neither of the songs featured here are that convoluted. “Kites Are Fun” and “You Could Be Born Again” (which, incidentally, are the title tracks of the respective albums) are both easily digestible slices of airy harmony that really deserved to be more successful at the time of their release. “Kites Are Fun” could easily be pictured as covered by The Cowsills, while “You Could be Born Again” is a dead ringer for one of the cheesier Carpenters songs. In my world, either of these songs would be regularly playing on oldies stations, right after the daily airing of “Someday Man,” but alas, that’s not the world in which we live.

Further down the obscurity list is The Gordian Knot, who are not to be confused with the modern day progressive metal project. Rather, THIS Gordian Knot is actually another in the line of unsuccessful acts for people who turned out to be more successful behind the scenes, as lead songwriter Jim Weatherly would go on to write the likes of “Midnight Train to Georgia” for Gladys Knight. Ironically, Weatherly would NOT write their one song present here, “We Must be Doing Somethin’ Right,” with that instead being the work of Leland Russell and future TV director J.D. Lobue. Even further in the direction is the The Love Generation, the rather painfully named vehicle of brother Tom & John Balher that is probably best known for backing David Cassidy on numerous Partridge Family songs. I like contribution to this soundtrack, “Love Is A Rainy Sunday,” a lot better than any Partridge Family song, though. Even further down the pecking order is The Groop, and not the moderately successful Australian band of that misspelled name, either. Rather, this is the American “Groop,” who are only really remembered for having one of their songs on the soundtrack to Midnight Cowboy… and their one song here, “The Jet Song (When The Weekend’s Over)” isn’t even that one song. (That song, “A Famous Myth” is pretty much what counted as Award Bait back in the day. “The Jet Song” sounds like a rather warped advertising jingle) Next is The Sundowners, who are ANOTHER band where I have to specify which of several claimants to the name I mean, in this case “the American one from the 60’s… who weren’t Country.” (You know you’re not famous when nobody notices if you name gets stolen) This particular Sundowners are probably best known for palling around with The Monkees in their latter years, and their single present, “Always You,” was actually co-written by Roger Nichols, who also co-wrote “Someday Man” with Paul Williams. And the OTHER co-writer was Tony Asher, who wrote “God Only Knows” with Brian Wilson! So this song is pretty well connected for a single that was never a hit anywhere. And speaking of never being a hit anywhere, we have “Mister Sunshine Man” by The Shannons, a girl group I can find almost NO information about. All I know is “Mister Sunshine Man” was previously recorded (to far lesser effect) by equally obscure garage band The Sound Sandwich, who just might have one of the dumbest names I’ve ever heard. Finally, we wrap things up with “Heigh Ho!” by The Fifth Estate. And yes, it’s exactly what you think it is: a 60s pop adaptation of that song the Seven Dwarves sing in Snow White. If you think that sounds like an unlikely recipe for a smash hit… well, it is. But believe it or not, The Fifth Estate had just enjoyed an almost-Top Ten single by covering the even MORE unlikely “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” from The Wizard of Oz, so I can see why they’d risk following that up with more of the same. I actually like “Heigh Ho!” an awful lot better than “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” but it sank without a trace upon release. Too bad, because this is exactly the sort of song I could see actually getting played around Disneyland back in the day, and a great way to top of Tarkus’ soundtrack.

(I’ve said before that I prefer to fill these soundtracks with more obscure songs, because I’m a pretentious geek like that, but it also because of the whole YouTube conundrum. Since I’m deliberately trying to avoid region-locked official posts, some songs of too high a profile can get rather hard to track down. In other words, There’s a Beatles song on this playlist, so of COURSE I had trouble with it. “Here, There, and Everywhere” was an absolute BEAST to track down in a usable capacity. It came out just as the band was giving up live performances, so there’s no live videos floating around out there, but it was never a single so there’s no TV clips either. To make matters worse, there IS an early take of the song from a rarities collection that everybody in the world seems to use as the audio for lyrics videos, presumably because Apple Corps is less strict about flagging that version. Problem is, said early take doesn’t have any of the vocal overdubs of the album version, and all those vocal harmonies are sort of the POINT. In the end, I technically never did find an actual posting of the “real” version of “Here, There and Everywhere,” just some kind of amateur remixing experiment that’s supposed to make the song sound “more live” if you listen too it with headphones on. It had also just been posted to YouTube when I found it, so to be honest, I half expected the to be nuked by copyright bots by the time I got the blog finished. Still there at the moment, though, so hopefully that “8D” audio is enough to confuse the bots. Also, I went out of my way to use TV performances where I could, audio quality permitting… though that didn’t always work out. Apparently, no one on earth has thought to post the video of “Smile A Little Smile For Me” since 2009, and it really shows. Still, I wanted to preserve the gloriously dorky “I’m Totally Hip Now, Kids!” fashion on some of these bands. It honestly explains a lot about the fashion choices on display in Far Out There if you pay enough attention. I especially love the video for “I’d Like To Get To Know You,” which is supposed to look like the band playing at a fancy party. The group is up on stage in the background, while the partygoers are the band AGAIN, chromakey’d in front and dressed up like generic rich people. The whole thing looks like a sketch from The Muppet Show, except felt puppets would probably have looked a bit more dignified.)

Tarkus' YouTube Playlist