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Happy Birthday, Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary. He wrote "Puff, The Magic Dragon" (which is not about drugs) but you've heard that 1000 times. How about something else from PPM:
posted by LAGuy @ 12:19 AM
Pajama Guy
"You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at ‘60 Minutes’] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.”
-Jonathan Klein, former CBS Executive
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4 Comments:
Gordon Lightfoot did this song originally. (I had to look up which of them was first -- I had guessed it was PPM, but I was wrong.)
I like both versions, don't know which is better.
Lightfoot wrote it. PPM were always on the lookout for good songs from others. They certainly made Bob Dylan a lot of money in the early days.
The song was inspired by Lightfoot seeing a friend off at LAX. Interestingly, a later big hit of PPM was "Leaving On A Jet Plane," written by a little-known songwriter named John Denver.
I prefer the Lightfoot version, but enjoy PPM as well.
A question, if anyone knows the answer. I recently rewatched "A Mighty Wind," a satire of folk music revivals done by rthe Christopher Guest crew. Some of the satires are obvious (The Kingston Trio and New Christy Minstrels). I've been trying to figure out if Mickey & Mitch is a parody of PPM, even though it's a couple. Was there a famous on-and-off love interest in a folk duo that I've forgotten about - or was PPM as close a parallel as they were shooting for?
Actually, I'd say the parody of PPM in A Mighty Wind comes at the end when one of the Kingsmen has a sex change.
I think the parody of Mitch and Mickey is more general. There were plenty of man/woman duos and none stand out as the clear leader. Maybe the closest is Ian and Sylvia, but there's also Richard and Mimi Farina, Bob Dylan and Joan Baex and even Paul and Paula and Friend and Lover. A little further afield, you have Richard and Linda Thompson, Johnny Cash and June Carter, and a bigger act than all of them, Sonny and Cher.
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