{"id":1356,"date":"2008-04-11T00:24:15","date_gmt":"2008-04-11T04:24:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-04-11T00:24:15","modified_gmt":"2008-04-11T00:24:15","slug":"get-a-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/get-a-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Get a Life, You Nancy Sinatra-Lee Hazelwood Collectors!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How hard up are you Nancy Sinatra-Lee Hazelwood collectors for something cool to show off at your next gathering of rock nerd friends or to spin on your college radio show? Granted, this rant is a good 20 years overdue, dating back to the time when we all started feeling warm and fuzzy about this stuff, but it&#8217;s gone on too long. Suddenly, the joke&#8217;s on us. Let&#8217;s review the supposed &#8220;greatness&#8221; of these collaborations.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/X9_6onb5sy4&amp;feature?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe groovy camp appeal of <strong>&#8220;These Boots Are Made for Walking&#8221;<\/strong> is undeniable. The tune is pretty cool. Nancy&#8217;s looking good. Women feel empowered. And all that jazz. An unforgettable treat.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Sb-SVPJM4L4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nCertainly, I get the hipster, so-bad-it&#8217;s-great appeal of <strong>&#8220;Some Velvet Morning&#8221;<\/strong>. When we first discovered this song in the &#8217;80s and cool bands started covering it, this <em>was<\/em> the appeal, right? It&#8217;s like a musical equivalent of <strong>Mandom<\/strong>. Honestly, though, beyond the giggle factor of of this song and the associated images of these two clowns, what&#8217;s there to dig? Isn&#8217;t this kind of stuff best left to the French, who excelled at making melodramatic, semi-lame, semi-laughable, semi-groovy &#8217;60s pop music? Plus, those French women were much hotter than Nancy. Sorry, Frank.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iHtPvUHjZfU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nHere&#8217;s the Hazelwood-Sinatra collaboration on <strong>&#8220;Summer Wine&#8221;<\/strong>. First of all, what&#8217;s going on in the opening shot? I know this clip is a little grainy, but is Nancy a hunchback? Is her head screwed on backward?<\/p>\n<p>Now tell me, if you&#8217;re not laughing through this clip, what <em>are<\/em> you digging? Are into the canned music, their voices, the lyrics? Do Hazelwood and Sinatra represent some archetypal American characters that I&#8217;m not seeing? Are they cool simply because they&#8217;re a bad version of something S<strong>onny and Cher<\/strong> might have done?<\/p>\n<p>In the &#8220;Why bother with Nancy Sinatra past &#8216;These Boots for Walking&#8217;?&#8221; poll, someone mentioned <strong>&#8220;Something Stupid&#8221;<\/strong> as a reason for hanging in their with Old Blue Eyes&#8217; mascara snake of a daughter. Give me a break. Frank&#8217;s doing all the heavy lifting. It&#8217;s like crediting Yoko for warbling along an octave highter in the choruses of &#8220;Give Peace a Chance&#8221;. Novelty appeal? Sure.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rnkuRQ8tjIE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nHere are Lee and Nancy doing <strong>&#8220;Jackson&#8221;<\/strong>. I know almost nothing about country music, but this is a cover of a real country song, isn&#8217;t it? Here&#8217;s the version I know best:<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ELpk3NfqIg4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The song itself is what it is, but does the Nancy-Lee version send chills up anyone&#8217;s spine? Do either of these clowns possess a fraction of the personality and spark that Johnny and June display in their version? Nancy and Lee, in their produced clip, are seen strolling through the neighborhood where The Brady Bunch live. I expected to see <strong>Ken Berry<\/strong> and his mixed adopted family picking up Nancy at the end of the video rather than <strong>Frank Jr<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/V7LEKvhkXXI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThere&#8217;s no need to torture you anymore, is there? You&#8217;re people of good taste, fully aware of when the joke ends, no? It used to be cute, but I&#8217;m afraid it&#8217;s gotten out of hand. I know rock nerds of a generation younger than my own who know more about these Sinatra-Hazelwood collaborations than they do more substantial music from the same time, like <strong>Marvin Gaye<\/strong> and <strong>Tammi Terrell<\/strong>&#8216;s string of duets. What&#8217;s going on? Is this love for Nancy and Lee still all shits and giggles, or has the playing field been leveled, are they as valid a representation of &#8217;60s pop culture as anyone from that time?<\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/get-a-life\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/get-a-life\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/get-a-life\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How hard up are you Nancy Sinatra-Lee Hazelwood collectors for something cool to show off at your next gathering of rock nerd friends or to spin on your college radio show? Granted, this rant is a good 20 years overdue, dating back to the time when we all started feeling warm and fuzzy about this <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/get-a-life\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}