Love You To – Andrew Vladeck
Love You To
Roger 3.0 Version recorded March 27, 2011; original version recorded April 11, 1966.
Andrew Vladeck: Vocal, Slide Banjo, Lead Guitar
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Bass, Drum
Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn.
Essay by Roger Greenawalt
About the Song
Europe, 1966. You could feel it in the air. There was something rotten in Denmark. And Germany, France, Italy, England…The men in charge, and they were all men, just seemed not to get it anymore. Hitler had been dead for 20 years. You couldn’t blame the bad vibe on him forever. Europeans standing between Cowboy America and Cruel Russia and all their nukes on hair trigger were in an impotent and untenable position. How could you cheer for an agenda of mutually assured apocalypse? Where is the chivalry in incinerating an entire city in seconds?
Patriotism was a joke. Jesus was boring. School was for suckers. Even Gods like the Kennedys were seen to be only urge driven primates whose heads could explode at any moment.
And yet, we humans can not give up on the group, so hard wired are we to belong. It is encoded in our very DNA to be insecure. We are born lonely. Connection is a craving. Look around you at everyone typing furiously on their phones. Belonging to the digital cloud is just the latest manifestation of the baboon troop, of the high school clique, of our entire society. This is our nature. To follow. Like sheep. Except the brave first few who say no. The Beats in the 50′s. The Beat Groups of the 60′s.
To escape successfully is just another way to lead. And in Europe in 1966, the leaders weren’t the old men who had killed Hitler and built the atomic bomb. It was now The Beatles and The Rolling Stones who led. People in 2011 look and act a lot more like George Harrison than Charles DeGaulle. We live in The Beatles’ world. Every deep breathing hipster with a yoga mat owes George Harrison a debt of gratitude. He and a few Hindu Entrepreneurs like the Maharishi got there first. Now You Too can be enlightened. Just do what WE SAY. Be like us. Say goo goo ga ga over and over again. Get some of that new improved spirituality.
Deep thoughts are the corpse rotting in the shallow grave of pretension. These days all things Hare Krshna makes me cringe, but in 1966, this was hot, occult stuff. Magnified by acid, enlightenment seemed attainable. Kids had something cool to believe in again. And vitally, all the cool kids were doing it. And no one will ever be as cool as The Beatles again. Mystery no longer exists. Fame has evolved into a self immolating vortex of cruelty, where all The Lindsays Go Sheening. We know too much.
Love You To was the leading edge of the new sensibility. Maybe there is more to life than money? Perhaps pitiless competition is not necessary in every sphere of human existence. The free market may not be the most enlightened way to organize 7 billion people. Love You To is one of the first sparks in this debate over meaning that the 60′s represents today. This battle is still being fought all around us. Rupert Murdoch, Rich Arabs, and the cops stand steadfastly against the 60′s. Hell, in North Korea they just stopped counting after 1950, they never even had a 60′s. But the 60′s are here to stay. everyday, somewhere in San Francisco, there is always a girl with flowers in her hair singing Be Her Now for the first time. She we lose her virginity on ecstasy while loud music is playing. The Summer Of Love is now a permanent niche subculture of associated sustainable and illegal products. Powered by drugs, wind, yoga and sunshine, Hope is a billion dollar Shepard Fairey poster on the Berlin Wall. We believe in Chai Latte paid wirelessly by an iPhone designed by Banksy.
Love You To is the first major Western Pop Song to be based on a third world classical form. It’s like Shakespeare doing Kabuki. This alone makes it noteworthy. Duly noted. Lennon and McCartney are not on this song. From this we can deduce what the inner circle thought of Love You To.
Each Day Just Goes So Fast. You turn around it’s Past. You don’t get time to hang a sign on me.
That is not a terrible lyric. The pun of passed and past is nice. “Each” is a yucky sounding first word. “Today will go so fast%2