Talkin’ Music with Jack – Miss Ya Mary

Miss Ya Mary

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary Fame

By Jack Coll

     I seem to spend a lot of time in my third floor office writing and researching numerous projects, sometimes I’ll have my highly sophisticated music box playing in the background unless the Phillies are on. Every once in a while I’ll reach up and grab one of my many music documentaries or concerts on DVD and pop that into my hi-tech DVD player, over the years I’ve managed to collect an assortment of music rarities on DVD.

I have a couple of Peter Paul & Mary DVD’s and I recently popped one of their concerts in for some background music, I’ve always enjoy PP & M’s music, and their message.  As a kid growing up in Philadelphia in the early 1960’s, and moving to Upper Merion in the summer of 1964 I had a transistor radio strapped to my ear for as long as I can remember.  I was eight or nine years old and I remember these great sing-a-long songs recorded by PP & M like “Lemon Tree,” “If I Had A Hammer,” and of course “Puff The Magic Dragon.”  I also remember “Puff The Magic Dragon” being banned from the radio, making this a really cool song, we could sing this song knowing it was illegal.  Isn’t it funny how the adults and politicians looked down on this music? And in particular this song, “Puff”, (Along with “Louie Louie”) they decided it was a drug infested song and the minds of our children were being polluted, and the future of our youths were in jeopardy.  The decision to ban “Puff” from the air-waves is part of the reason I love rock & roll music, “Screw ’em.”  Ain’t life funny, I recently walked into a major book store, and purchased a copy of a children’s book, one I would enjoy reading to my grand-daughter Nora, the book is called “Puff The Magic Dragon,” it turns out the song really was about a dragon, not drugs, them jackasses. The book “Puff The Magic Dragon” is a word for word account of the song, illustrated for children. It’s fantastic!

I had the pleasure of meeting Peter, Paul and Mary back in 1991, at the Valley Forge Music Fair, I was on assignment to photograph them and write a short article on the benefit event.  Peter and Mary were extremely happy to chat with anybody and everybody, Paul seemed a little off his game that night.

I always had a thing for Mary, when I was twelve years old I simply loved her, she was blond, good looking and could sing, I figured in my twelve year old mind that we would go out dating and she would just sing to me throughout the evening, I wasn’t asking for much.  However as I got a little older I realized that I loved her for her voice, she could sing the s#!t out of anything, she could sing the phone book and I would listen from A-to-Z.

I really got hooked on their music when they came out with Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and “The Times They Are-A-Changin.”  It turns out that Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman was also Peter, Paul and Mary’s manager, Grossman simply fed Dylan’s folk songs to PP & M, as they were getting airplay on the radio before Dylan. One of my more favorite PP & M’s songs came in 1967 titled “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” written by Paul Stookey, James Mason and Dave Dixon.

The funny thing about the song is it actually ridicules rock and roll music.  By 1967, the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix and Joplin set the nation into a rock and roll frenzy pushing the more meaningful folk scene further into the background.  The song references contemporary “rock and roll” artist including The Mamas & the Papas, Donovan, a former folk singer/songwriter who in 1967 went electric with “Sunshine Superman,” and even took a shot at the Beatles.

In the first verse of the song you’ll notice the backing vocals in the style of “Monday, Monday” a number one song for the Mamas and the Papas back in 1966.  PP&M make reference to the Mamas and the Papas in a sarcastic tone for the group’s lyrical shortcomings as they sing, “They got a good thing goin’/When the words don’t get in the way.”  (If you listen to the song “Monday, Monday” the lyrics really don’t make a lot of sense, it sounds good and we all sing along, but if you listen to the lyrics, “Monday, Monday it’s a sad day, Monday, Monday, don’t go away.”  PP&M ride the Beatles accusing them of singing just for the money.  “When the Beatles say love, they mean money, for instance, PP&M sing (And when the Beatles tell you/They’ve got a word “Love” to sell you/ They mean exactly what they say”) The song’s final verse states or suggest that hidden messages can be included in rock and roll songs, but they must be hidden, “between the lines” in order to make the song suitable for commercial radio airplay.

Mary Travers once said in an interview back in in the mid 1960’s, sometime before the song “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” came out, about rock music vs. folk music, “It’s so badly written, when the fad changed from folk to rock, they didn’t take along any good writers.” Isn’t it funny that one of the very groups they mocked in the song, the Mamas and Papas covered the song, “I Dig Rock and Roll Music.”

I remember talking to Mary on that night at the Music Fair more than 20 years ago, she was very pleasant, smiled a lot, and still beautiful, I don’t remember our exact conversation but there was a number of other people around her after the show and the question or statement, or somehow it came up in the conversation about “Puff the Magic Dragon” song to which Mary replied in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice “no the song was always about a dragon,” I remember it like it was yesterday.  It wasn’t a main topic of discussion, nor was it a big deal, I just remember her talking to another person in the group and she made that statement.

I was sadden by the news back in 2009 when I heard she passed away from complications with cancer chemotherapy at the age of 72, still beautiful, still had a great smile.  Besides meeting her in person I think I’ll best remember her for her outspoken support of the Civil Rights and antiwar movements.  In 1963 the group performed at the March on Washington where Martin Luther King gave his “I Have A Dream” speech, and Mary later marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.  The group later performed a benefit in the mid 1970’s to oppose nuclear power.

Ahh Mary, if only we could have gone out when I was twelve years old.

I Dig Rock and Roll Music

I dig Rock and Roll music

And I love to get the chance to play. (and sing it)

I figure it’s about the happiest sound goin’ down today

The message may not move me,

Or mean a great deal to me,

But hey! It feels so groovy to say:

I dig the Mamas and the Papas at “The Trip,”

Sunset Strip in L.A.

And they got a good thing goin’

When the words don’t get in the way.

And when they’re really wailing.

Michelle and Cass are sailin’, Hey! They really nail me to the wall.

I dig Donovan in a dream-like, tripped out way.

His crystal images tell you bout’ a brighter day.

And when the Beatles tell you,

They’ve got a word “Love” to sell you,

They mean exactly what they say.

I dig Rock and Roll music

I could really get on in that scene.

I think I could say somethin’ if you know what I mean

But if I really say it, the radio won’t play it

Unless I lay it between the lines.

Mary Travers  1936-2009

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Below

Mary Travers in 1991 at the Valley Forge Music Fair

Paul Stookey, Mary Travers and Peter Yarrow at

The Valley Forge Music Fair in 1991

Photos by Jack Coll  All Rights Reserved

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