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We Read Your Mail
Dear Hit Parader: I usually find myself on the other side of this argument - I know a lot of Van Dyke Parks freaks - but Brigitta's comments on Parks were so willfully ignorant that I have to say some thing. To begin, Parks not only wrote "Come To The Sunshine" (not "Come Into The Sunshine," Brigitta dear) but he also plays piano on the cut and (truth be known) helped out a bit with the production. It is the only thing you can listen to on the first Harper's Bizarre album. I seem to recall that HB’s most exciting gig was backing Patti Page in Vegas. Something like that. As for Song Cycle, well, right, each separate cut doesn't have a "thing," a little hook you can hang your brain on - and I'm not putting that down, either; it's an important aesthetic component of a lot of great rock - but they are still incredibly various on a more subtle level. Brigitta is smart enough to hear the good in the Cowsills, which indicates, I think, that she likes simple rock and roll and doesn't want to be bothered with subtleties on Parks' level. Good - I feel the same way. But I don't say: "The Brandenburg Concerti sound like the first eight bars of 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' played on the upper registers of an electric organ for six-and-a-half hours." I say: "Bach isn't my thing."? Van Dyke Parks, Brigitta, isn't yours. Why don't you say so? Best, Bob Christgau, Esquire Magazine
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