The Grass Roots, prefab though they were in ways, were underrated insofar as the product they produced. Some of my very favorite songs of the 1966-1972 pop goldmine era came from them, from "Where Were You When I Needed You" to "Two Divided By Love." With their double-barreled vocal pair and the highly unorthodox (to my eyes) drumming of Sean Penn dead ringer Rick Coonce (seriously, he plays the drums as if he's twirling a Chinese yo-yo), they came up with a lengthy string of trash-single (and I use that term lovingly) pop gems.
Of them, "I'd Wait a Million Years" is my favorite (and a topic for another day), but the most interesting is
"Midnight Confessions," an admission of desire for an unattainable other, a feeling we've all had at one time or another. I've worn that T-shirt more than once or twice myself. My friend Mike called my attention to Meatloaf video vixen
Karla DeVito's version, but I'm afraid I have little use for it: she turns a genuinely painful situation into camp, in an unfunny way (she's crushing on a guy who beat up "Weird Al" Yankovic for his mustache and glasses? Really?). Like Toni Basil without the gleeful overlighting, Jane Wiedlin without a mission, Cyndi Lauper without a tool to pleasure herself: Just somehow missing the point.
And that's more than enough parentheticals for one day.
Happy 40th birthday, Sesame Street. You were my favorite block to hang out on through most of the '70s.
