Monday gets a bad rap, in pop culture. Garfield hates them, as do the Boomtown Rats. And yet, the Mamas and the Papas built this deceptively simple, wonderfully hooky song about them, so they can’t be all bad. Not that this is a tribute to Mondays; it’s another “the weekend is over, and so is the fun” song, despite the zingy strings in the background and lush harmonies smothering the bad news with sunshine (“Oh Monday morning/You gave me no warning/Of what was to be”). I’m a big fan of songs where the sound and the intent seem at cross-purposes, and this is definitely a prime example of that; you listen without really paying attention, and it seems like a relaxed, mellow upbeat tune and then the lyrics tell an entirely different story. Just goes to show: Two-part harmonies counterpointed with two-part harmonies make everything better. Someone should deliver the television news like that.
366 Songs 177: I Saw Her Again (Last Night)
If any musical act did any more to promote having four singers in the band than the Mamas and the Papas, I’d like to find out more about them. “I Saw Her Again (Last Night)” has this great complexity in its vocals that goes beyond simple harmonizing, or even call-and-response, although both are in there. There’s an architectural quality to the way they’re used, with voices building voices, adding up to this amazing thing, this cathedral of sounds.
It’s helped by a string arrangement that’s just the right side of syruppy; listen to the slide they start at 1:46 as the vocals do their “And it makes me feel.” There’s something in the way everything goes together than just works, even though it likely shouldn’t.
Everytime I listen to the Mamas and the Papas, I always feel like I should listen to them more, and I never ever get around to doing that properly. There’s always so much other stuff to take care of, instead. One day, one day…