For a solid decade, Rod McKuen was the most sincere man in America.

October 11, 2022 5:18 AM

“As a teenage boy, I felt sad about lots of things,” McCloud told me. “Life seemed to be sad. And by George, Rod McKuen was sad too, and we could be sad together.” Rod McKuen sold millions of poetry books in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a regular on late-night TV. He released dozens of albums, wrote songs for Sinatra, and was nominated for two Oscars. He was a flashpoint in the battle between highbrow and lowbrow, with devotees revering his plain-spoken honesty and Dick Cavett mockingly calling him “the most understood poet in America.” Every year on his birthday, he sold out Carnegie Hall. But by the time I was a teenager, he had completely vanished from the cultural landscape. - By Dan Kois, Slate Magazine
posted by MrVisible (74 comments total)

I listened to this as a Decoder Ring podcast episode, and it was riveting. Kois doesn't sneer at McKuen, but also casts a dry eye over the incredibly wet 1970s milieu he was part of. Like many of us, I love a dissection of "forgotbuster" culture, why some things stick and others don't remains endlessly fascinating to me, even if we can't ever really know why.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 5:33 AM on October 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

I never knew what to make of him. I own a couple of his old lps, and they're kinda just gah! I enjoy old easy listening and beautiful music, but his poetry music is kinda cringy. I knew nothing about him, other than he must have moved a lot of records back in the day, judging by how plentiful the used records are. So it was delightful to hear that Decoder Ring podcast.

Sadly, it doesn't make the records any more listenable.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:45 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I also listened to that podcast episode! To me, Rod McKuen was a '70s joke, up there with Love Story, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and other equivalents of harvest gold. By the end I truly felt for him, though, especially because I always feel for those whose beloved objects and/or life's work end up unwanted at cheap sale. And it was a real achievement to be a gay man who lived a public life of self-expression without either being aggressively manly or relegated to a jester's role.

I wish I could say I was driven to reconsider his work, but alas. "Seasons in the Sun" alone was too much to forgive.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:53 AM on October 11, 2022 [21 favorites]

Perhaps it seems cruel to dig up this forgotten poet who is only remembered by people who love him.

A line that could probably be used in re 99% of all published poets ever.
posted by chavenet at 5:58 AM on October 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

It's probably too complicated for my brain but I feel there's a direct line between the wars in the 50s followed by the rebellion in the 60s then the "harvest gold" (thank you Countess Elena) easy-living nostalgia of the 70s. Like, "we're comparatively rich white dudes in our 30s and 40s who didn't get killed in the wars and got tired of taking drugs and now we have nice cars and nice houses and stable incomes in a society that caters to our every whim, so life is good, except we've got some very slight angst and guilt about how shitty the world really is for everyone else, so here's some media that allows us to be ever so slightly maudlin for a few minutes while we have our second-of-the-evening scotch-n-soda." I feel this represents my father very strongly as a very smart and yet very entitled asshole who would only allow the tiniest bits of critique about the world that he inhabited as long as he could turn them off / walk away as soon as he actually started to feel something negative about himself.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:13 AM on October 11, 2022 [12 favorites]

My mother (born just after the Depression started) loved Rod McKuen. For her sons, cutting their teeth on the poetic musings of the Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, etc, it was just another thing we were rebelling against. When I started cleaning up the house, I came across a few albums and books by McKuen. They weren't in collector's shape (like so much of the stuff in that moldy basement) so they went into the trash with the majority of her record collection. I do remember him appearing on talk shows and variety programs. Then again, so did Dr Joyce Brothers. The 60s and 70s were downright weird.
posted by Ber at 6:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

somehow the fact that i’ve literally never heard of this guy once before in my entire life makes me feel better about all the tiktok and youtube stars with 10 million followers that i’ve also never heard of. also the disco/crisco cover art for his “Slide… Easy In” is just incredible
posted by dis_integration at 6:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

What to Make of Rod McKuen? was a similar article published in 2020 by Brad Bigelow, that takes a closer look at McKuen's actual poetry (spoiler: it isn't great). I thought it had already been posted, actually.
posted by rollick at 6:25 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

At the Dawn Treader bookshop in Ann Arbor, the owner was keenly interested in poetry... but forbid any books by "Rod McPoet."
posted by doctornemo at 6:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

I have not read TFA but the teaser para made me think "I know that name, why?" Growing up a '60s child, the name was in the air, but the records were never in our house and we tended not to watch the TV that he was on, when he was on it.

Anyway, I read the Wikipedia article, and listened to a youtube of him singing "Seasons in the Sun" way back in the days when the world was black-and-white. I never knew there was such a backstory to that song, which I only ever heard in the 1-hit-wonder '70s cover. If that's representative of his work I see why highbrow critics and artists dismiss it as indigestibly smarmy kitsch.

Anyway, considering where he came from (according to Wikipedia anyway) he did OK for himself and presumably died reasonably content, if he had the wisdom God gave an oyster.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I only know of him because I spent the entire 1990s in thrift stores and used bookshops

Relatable.

Is there a reliable list somewhere of the bestselling poets in the US? A little quick googling suggests the champ might be Rumi, unless it's Amanda Gorman, unless it's Jewel.
posted by box at 7:09 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

To me, Rod McKuen was a '70s joke, up there with Love Story, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and other equivalents of harvest gold.

Don't forget Kahlil Gibran!
posted by TedW at 7:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

I only know of him because I spent the entire 1990s in thrift stores and used bookshops

...or that one throwaway line in a Luna song that made you go to the aforesaid bookshops in order to figure out WTF the song referred to, finding some of his materials, and going "Ooooooohhhhh, riiiiiight, of course that song would mention this guy"
posted by aramaic at 7:20 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I only know of him because I spent the entire 1990s in thrift stores and used bookshops


I think I read about him in one or more old Doonesbury collections, which filled in my cultural knowledge of the times shortly before I joined the planet.
posted by praemunire at 7:49 AM on October 11, 2022 [13 favorites]

I only know of him cause Gene Ween/Aaron Freeman's first solo album after briefly quitting Ween was an album of Rod McKuen songs. It was an... Interesting choice. Not bad but I don't think it's what anybody was expecting.
posted by downtohisturtles at 7:55 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Is there a reliable list somewhere of the bestselling poets in the US? A little quick googling suggests the champ might be Rumi, unless it's Amanda Gorman, unless it's Jewel.

Rupi Kaur has got to be up there. (I think she is the Rod McKuen of generation Z, or perhaps young Millennials - poets who are incredibly best-selling, extremely earnest, extremely relatable to a certain fraction of people, and - alas - not very good.)
posted by Jeanne at 8:07 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

the "harvest gold" easy-living nostalgia of the 70s.

I lived through them (best years of my life) and I'm not sure what this is about.

In 1977 I moved in to a group house and somebody'd left behind LPs nobody wanted anymore; naturally I checked 'em out. Several Reprise-era Frank Sinatras which I really got in to and played so much other room-mates started digging the Chairman as well... plus a Rod McKuen record or two, which I'd put on, but couldn't actually process: there was nothing to latch onto, there. Time passed, there were ocean sound effects, a voice was talking... but there was no beat, it all went in one ear and out the other, never bothered with those again.
posted by Rash at 8:13 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

young Millennials

'@RoddieMacASMR.ttv'

Here's Rock Hudson doing his "Open the Window & See All the Clowns" which is aiming for mild world-weary gravitas but lands more in the underwhelming bathos. His Live in London version (spotify) is approaching Shatner Rocketman levels. Still, I can get the appeal in its time. Sorta.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:30 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Unhappy to report that for a good portion of the millennial British Commonwealth of a certain inclination, we probably would know Seasons in the Sun, thanks to this Westlife cover.
posted by cendawanita at 8:32 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

Metafilter: "You know, the Rod McKuen–Minor Threat connection is previously untheorized...but it’s nonetheless valid.”
posted by jquinby at 9:29 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

So, I read some Rod McKuen as a kid and a teen. Our school and local libraries were small, and the tiny "poetry" shelves always had some McKuen books in there, probably holdovers from back when they got them in the 70s. And I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I liked poetry, and therefore I read his stuff.

And yeah, on the one hand he's...well, actually, I wouldn't say bad. I would say....kitsch. Simple, instead. For whatever reason, thinking of Rod McKuen today reminds me of something I read a rock journalist say about one of Paul McCartney's albums with Wings: "It's sta-prest, ready-to-wear stuff, to be enjoyed in a room with plaster ducks on the wall." And after I discovered Anne Sexton and Edna St. Vincent Milay, and then some of the stuff by the Beats, I slowed down on reading McKuen's stuff. By the time I discovered W. B. Yeats in college I'd stopped altogether.

But on the other hand, "simple" can often be an important on-ramp for people when it comes to discovering stuff. There is no way in hell I would have understood something like The Ambition Bird or Dirge Without Music or Among School Children when I was only twelve; nor any other headier poet's work. I still struggle with Keats and other Big Names In The Canon. But - McKuen got me reading, and reinforced that habit - so in time, when I stumbled upon other more complicated stuff, I would be ready.

But what of the people who still read McKuen after moving on to "complicated stuff"? Well - sometimes people like comfort food. Or they're too distracted for other stuff (I struggle with longer-form poems these days, so shorter stuff is more my speed). Or maybe they want to revisit it with an older eye. Or maybe they want to understand what a loved one sees in it.

Kitsch is okay. Earnestness is okay. It's okay to have read it, it's okay to move on, it's okay to check back in.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [31 favorites]

By the way, thank you for this post...I'm almost approximately old enough for McKuen to have crossed my cultural radar at some point, but nope, he somehow escaped notice. His name pops up as an occasional reference in Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins, which I just re-read. Unfortunately, I had mentally conflated his name with Jon McEuen of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The general wackiness of the book made this not-at-all-weird, relatively speaking.
posted by jquinby at 9:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Having suffered through the seventies - Mr McKuen, pyramid power, etc. - there was an antidote provided then courtesy the National Lampoon which featured a collection of Rod McKutesy poems. But, I will confess that the original bard of banal does pop into my head frequently as I pass by a street near my home in San Francisco that was featured in the title of one of his “poetry” collections - Stanyan Street and other Sorrows. No, I’ve never even held the book in my hands. It’s just the name, and my brain’s unforgivable habit of remembering things that should be forgotten.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:46 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I was a part time employee, aged 19, at Waldenbooks. Remember them? Anyway, whenever I worked the front cashier spot, many people requested his books. Various ages as I recall. My ego,was always puffed up when customers would ask for my recommendations.
posted by Czjewel at 9:49 AM on October 11, 2022

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes cover of Seasons in the Sun
posted by eviemath at 10:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Was Jack Handy meant to parody McKuen in part? I always thought it was just skewering inane affirmations from 80s/90s pop-psych (including the hand job reference) but maybe something of a callback?
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:06 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

Like, "we're comparatively rich white dudes in our 30s and 40s who didn't get killed in the wars and got tired of taking drugs and now we have nice cars and nice houses and stable incomes in a society that caters to our every whim, so life is good, except we've got some very slight angst and guilt about how shitty the world really is for everyone else, so here's some media that allows us to be ever so slightly maudlin for a few minutes while we have our second-of-the-evening scotch-n-soda."

I really like this, but wish to make a few tweaks. If it was Sinatra singing McKeun, then yes, those dudes were getting sloshed at lunch or after work in a bar. New consoles that played stereo records was a major purchase before credit cards, spawning Elvis and the Beatles and an entertainment empire for their teenagers. As for income, they barely had enough to buy music lessons for their 3-7 kids, and they lived in cramped houses with no room for a piano. ( Here is an upper class home in 1935, which by 1960 would be upper middle class, one bathroom). Clothing was also expensive, and passed down to the next kid until it was used as a rag. Drugs were prescribed pills, which teens discovered before anyone ever smoked weed. Cars were a status symbol, and a new station wagon was very impressive, but bland company cars were also a thing because second cars were not common. Of course, the world was starving then, including parts of Europe, but education and democratic values were assumed to be the way out. Proud veterans naturally wanted to topple warlords and dictators when possible, their entitlement of the day, but lacking an evolved legal framework in most countries, corporations owned by the invisible rich made deals with corrupt leaders to appropriate land, oil and labor. This produced angst and regret, but mostly among their kids. I predict that the next generation will be likewise critical of those who did nothing to slow population growth among the poorest today. I think McKuen's success was due to his early life being so traumatic that he kept a journal to cope, which honed his delivery. Melancholy was more in demand at various times, maybe replaced by drugs and rock and roll.
posted by Brian B. at 10:15 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Not having been around in the 60s and 70s, I have a tendency to confuse him with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan.
posted by atoxyl at 10:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

"did nothing to slow population growth among the poorest"

I may be misinterpreting this.
posted by tigrrrlily at 11:21 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

All morning I‘ve been trying to remember where I’d heard the name, but it turns out the lyric I was thinking of was “I've got mad hits like I was Rod Carew,” which is pretty close and almost works?
posted by theclaw at 11:29 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

I don’t think he had the same type of hits as Rod Carew.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:32 AM on October 11, 2022

Check the record. (or was it 'that's a record'?)
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:34 AM on October 11, 2022

I remember some searingly boring weekend with my girlfriend's Grandma a while back, she was a Greatest Generation divorcée who was pretty bitter about how all her kids and grandkids ended up so different than her. I randomly pulled a book of Rod's out and tried reading it. It was titled Listen to the Warm (ROFL), and I found an underlined passage that read something along the lines of "lets not grow our hair so long...that it covers our eyes."


Much like njohnson23, I am wondering how the hell this stays stuck in my brain.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 11:39 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

Listen to the Warm

I keep reading this as “Listen to the Worm” which is honestly a much stronger title.
posted by atoxyl at 11:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

Rod is not nearly as popular a name as it used to be.

Who's the most famous living Rod? Stewart, right?

Who's the second-most?

Steiger and Serling are no longer with us. Blagojevich's fame drops off quickly the further you get from Illinois. Carew might have a shot at it. He's probably bigger than Laver (in the US anyway) or Woodson.
posted by box at 11:54 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

In my child-in-the-'60s/'70s head, McKuen is completely mixed up with Richard Harris moaning about cakes in the rain and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. For most of my life, they were just some big harvest gold swirl of text and sound and I could not have separated them if I tried. (yes, thank you, countess elena!)
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:59 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

A long-running segment on Harry Shearer's 'Le Show' tells of global warming. It's called News of the Warm and he traditionally plays a few seconds of 'Listen To The Warm' as its introductory musical theme.
Sample from 2013.
posted by Rash at 12:11 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

As an 80s child, I once happened upon a copy of Listen To the Warm while rummaging through some shelf in my parents' old house. I remember reading the poem Stanyan Street and finding it almost impossibly sad and poignant. Of course, I was maybe 10 years old at the time. Anyways, I remember asking one of my parents about the book, and got the distinct impression that it was a gift from one of them to the other; that it was vaguely an artifact from the world of adulthood; and that it definitely pre-dated the existence of my brother or myself.

Anyways, when I read the line, "If you’re between 45 and 55, there’s a pretty good chance you were conceived to this album," that definitely rang true. And for a moment, I felt the strangest sort of melancholy — my parents were very flawed people who ultimately didn't make great parents or even great spouses; my mother died young; my brother is largely a failure; I've done mostly okay, I guess, although every year it's looking less and less likely that I'll ever have children of my own; my father is now an old man with a lot of regrets, although perhaps fewer these days since his children started talking to him again.

That copy of Listen to the Warm, that I found on a shelf in our old house — where is it now? Did it even make it to our new house when we moved to the suburbs? If we're being honest with ourselves, probably not. It was an artifact from an earlier time, when my parents were still young and in love and had no idea what would happen to them — or eventually the world. They were full of hope, or at very least, expectation. They had no idea what they were getting into.

Rod McKuen may not have been a great poet, and my parents were definitely not great parents — but all the same, I'm glad that I was born. It is a great thing, to be born. Thank you, Rod McKuen, for maybe playing some small part in that.
posted by panama joe at 12:25 PM on October 11, 2022 [15 favorites]

I was aware that McKuen existed, but I knew he was considered a kind of schmaltzy joke, so I never read or listened to any of his work. I'm still not a fan, but it's an interesting story.
posted by freakazoid at 1:17 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

There were a couple of bits in this piece that really jumped out at me. One was, '“If you’re between 45 and 55, there’s a pretty good chance you were conceived to [The Sea]”', which sure is a testimonial. The other is the bit describing Nora Ephron's piece on McKuen:

Future Hollywood writer Nora Ephron wrote a McKuen takedown in Esquire, called “Mush,” that observes the audience at a D.C. show: “You won’t see any of your freaks here, no sir, any of your tie-dye people, any of your long-haired kids in jeans lighting joints. This is middle America.” When Nora Ephron calls you middlebrow: sheesh!

Few people are as unforgiving of middlebrow artists as those who aren't that far removed, if at all. If you'd told me that someone could have best-selling poetry in the 20th century, in America, I'd assume that it was either something like "best-selling, for poetry", or that it was some parallel universe with a completely inexplicable point of divergence. If it was mediocre to downright shitty, well, at least people were trying to get in touch with their feelings.

I guess what I'm saying is, say what you will about harvest gold, at least it's an aesthetic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:19 PM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

"...at least it's an aesthetic."

Could be worse. And frequently was.

I lived those times. And this was pretty mild compared to a lot.

Maybe that was (part of) the point?
posted by aleph at 1:31 PM on October 11, 2022

I'll bet even Rod McKuen couldn't draw a cows leg!
posted by oneirodynia at 1:32 PM on October 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

The 70s were so weird, and so very uncool, people who weren't there have no idea. That's how you got Star Wars Holiday Specials and Little House on the Prairie and Happy Days and Lawrence Welk on TV. If things were good, it was by accident.
posted by emjaybee at 1:34 PM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

I actually like harvest gold. And avocado green.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:42 PM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

A lot of people did. And don't forget the Shag rugs.
posted by aleph at 1:51 PM on October 11, 2022

In the bathrooms.
posted by aleph at 1:54 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

My Oster blender is harvest gold! It's from the 70s.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:56 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

...or that one throwaway line in a Luna song that made you go to the aforesaid bookshops in order to figure out WTF the song referred to, finding some of his materials, and going "Ooooooohhhhh, riiiiiight, of course that song would mention this guy"

For those not familiar with the song, the line is:

He asked her "Please stop quotin' Rod McKuen in your postcards, can't understand it anymore.
And if you're gonna read your poetry aloud to me I'll have to show you to the door.."

Luna - California (all the Way)

posted by Nerd of the North at 1:56 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was born in 77, and remember being profoundly bummed out as a little kid by all the many artless artifacts of the 70s that persisted into the 80s.* (No, I hadn’t watched The Conversation or listened to Here Come the Warm Jets yet.) Not sure if my parents owned any of McKuen’s works or not, but if they did, I’m sure it bummed me out too. **

Dear God or whatever, please tell me that I was the product of an immaculate conception. I’ll continue to assume my sister was a foundling.

*The 80s sucked too.

**I may have always been a difficult and depressed little shit.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:06 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I have my Mom's old Kitchenaid; which is not sure whether it is avocado or harvest gold.
And an Osterizer with a flaking front panel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:08 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Having repressed all memory of the savage trauma of having to be exposed to him in the first place and thereafter, now I have to recall it all in bland-on-bland detail.
Damn you Mr.Visible, damn you.
posted by y2karl at 3:46 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

The article, and a few folks above, considers his repurposing of Brel’s heartbreaking Les Moribonds into the merely maudlin Seasons in the Sun. Thanks to Terry Jacks and the Poppy Family (and CanCon regulations), every Gen-X Canadian has this song stored in their DNA now. No mention, though, of McKuen’s bigger Brel project — the first jukebox musical I ever saw, as a teenager: Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

This is the climax of the magisterial waltz “Amsterdam,” as Brel wrote it:

Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui boivent
Et qui boivent et re-boivent
Et qui re-boivent encore
Ils boivent à la santé
Des putains d'Amsterdam
D'Hambourg ou d'ailleurs
Enfin ils boivent aux dames
Qui leur donnent leurs jolis corps
Qui leur donnent leurs vertu
Pour une pièce en or
Et quand ils ont bien bu
Se plantent le nez au ciel
Se mouchent dans les étoiles
Et ils pissent comme je pleure
Sur les femmes infidèles

A literal rendition might be this:

In the port of Amsterdam
There are sailors who drink
And who drink and drink again
And who drink again
They drink to the health
Of the whores of Amsterdam
From Hamburg or elsewhere
Finally they drink to the women
Who give them their beautiful bodies
Who give them their virtue
For a gold coin
And when they've had a good drink
They stick their noses in the sky
And blow their noses among the stars
And they piss as I cry
On these unfaithful women

McKuen’s rendition lacks a certain je ne sais quoi:

In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who drinks
And he drinks and he drinks and he drinks once again
He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam
Who've given their bodies to a thousand other men

They’ve bargained their bodies, their virtue long gone
For a few dirty coins, and when he can't go on
He plants his nose in the sky and he wipes it up above
And he pisses like I cry for this unfaithful love

posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:51 PM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

Perhaps it seems cruel to dig up this forgotten poet who is only remembered by people who love him.

A line that could probably be used in re 99% of all published poets ever.

Unfortunately all too true I suspect.
posted by y2karl at 3:54 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

In the late 60s another poet wrote a work that began: "How ya doin'/Rod McKuen?", but I can't locate the piece nor remember the name of the poet.
(Richard Brautigan was a contemporary poet who was recognized as a poet -- for better or for worse. Contrast his life with McKuen's.)
posted by CCBC at 4:07 PM on October 11, 2022

I looked it up so you don't have to: his appearance in Doonesbury, early 70s.

Rev. Sloan, the fighting young priest who can talk to the young, is talking to Soviet poet Yuri Yetsky at the coffeeshop. "You ought to find some dynamite material for your poems. There's lots going on here— people getting into each other's heads... You know, the kids have really dug your poetry, Yuri. The way they talk, it seems you're practically in the same league as some of our big boys... like Rod KcKuen!"

Last panel, Yuri looks like he's swallowed a toad. Sloan: "Hey! You've heard of him, huh?"

Anyway, this was a really interesting story, thanks. There's an enormous fascination in people who were enormously popular in one narrow stretch of time, then forgotten.
posted by zompist at 4:22 PM on October 11, 2022 [12 favorites]

the idea of ron mckuen stepping away from the organ, giving a nod to jerry as he takes a front microphone, staring at the audience with a studied, woeful expression of world-weariness, and emoting in a lukewarm monotone, "without a warning, you broke my heart, taken it baby .... torn it apart" ...

phil turns to bobby - "man, i think i took too much this time"

---

oh, and your best selling poet might be ellen hopkins - in a way, she defines her age the way mckuen did his

---

an english translation of the original lyrics by brel

another page that deals with the different versions - apparently terry jacks was the one who really toned it down

and rod mckuen - it's not that that i ever hated him but i read william blake when i was 7 or 8 and that kind of left me immune to what he was trying to do

my friend the sea - there are a couple of risque pictures - you may need to stick toothbrushes in your ears to get all the sugar out - i will not be held responsible for any children anyone conceives because they clicked on this link
posted by pyramid termite at 6:10 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Ah, the wicker and fondue era.
posted by clavdivs at 6:31 PM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

In two words: cheese stickly.
posted by y2karl at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Even at age 10 I knew Rod McKuen was supposed to be corny and didn't read him, yet somehow, I managed to read every book by another best-selling poet from an even more ancient era- Ogden Nash. Nash, though, started out as a decent poet (see this poem) and only got sloppy because people read him no matter what.

Anyway, I found that article interesting, particularly the connection to Jacques Brel.
posted by acrasis at 6:50 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I will not stand for this Ogden Nash slander!

Especially because I love this poem in particular.
posted by emjaybee at 7:24 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

This episode of Music! in The 1970s has been brought to you by Rod McKuen, Chic, and the Clash. Update your outmoded mp3 collection today!
posted by not_on_display at 7:24 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Anyone bringing up comparisons to Ogden Nash in a thread about Rod McKuen has been reflecting too much on ice-breaking.
posted by groda at 1:36 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

Though The Simpsons in its golden age is probably most to blame for my knowledge of pop culture detritus that predates my birth, the sole item filed under Rod McKuen in my brain is his brief appearance in an episode of The Critic (though I didn't realize until now that he'd provided the voice).
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 6:02 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

shag rugs....In the bathrooms.

I was helping a friend fix a toilet in their recently inherited home, and the mostly unused and original bathroom had that thick white shag carpet, like Doc Browns hair in Back to the Future - in the bathroom! Yuck!
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:46 AM on October 12, 2022

When I was a kid in the 70s, we sang Seasons In The Sun as

We had joy, we had fun, we were streaking* in the sun
But the cops came along and shot us in the buns

My parents never had any Rod McKuen stuff, oddly, considering that my mom's taste's tended to run to easily digested and anodyne. The kitschiest thing I remember in the house was Neil Diamond's Jonathan Livingston Seagull album.

* Are there young people out there that don't know what streaking is? It's one of the decade's many weird fads, where an adult human, clad in nothing but sneakers (and maybe those striped athletic socks), would go running across the field during a sporting event. This fad even had an entire novelty song dedicated to it.
posted by LindsayIrene at 4:58 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Here's a nicer video of Rod McKuen reciting A Cat named Sloopy on the Mike Douglas Show. He pays the Cat-tax at the conclusion with an old photo of him snuggling with Sloopy. It's a heartbreaker for anyone who has ever felt all alone except for their feline companion.

It's an interesting artifact of the era. I grew up in the 70s but McKuen was pretty low on our personal radar compared to something like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Which is also kinda awkward and mawkish, but I actually don't hate them. They're both artistic and kitschy expressions of emotions which are unsophisticated yet have deep personal meaning in context.
posted by ovvl at 5:22 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

pyramid termite: apparently terry jacks was the one who really toned it down

I used to have a blood vendetta against Terry Jacks and Rod McKuen for mangling one of my favorite songs, Jacques Brel’s Le Moribond, but it’s good to know I have one less killing to do when I get to hell.

Also, to switch registers for a second, but I think the article and podcast underplayed his gay rights activism. It’s remarkable that not only did he found a Mattachine chapter, but also put his name and money out there in the 70s.
posted by Kattullus at 5:25 AM on October 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

(hides Ogden Nash stash)
posted by clavdivs at 2:39 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

...and the mostly unused and original bathroom had that thick white shag carpet, like Doc Browns hair in Back to the Future - in the bathroom! Yuck!

A peach tree dish from Hell indeed.
posted by y2karl at 7:57 PM on October 15, 2022

This fad even had an entire novelty song dedicated to it.

Which made it to number one on the US charts, much to the chagrin of Tom Breihan.
posted by TedW at 8:00 AM on October 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

A peach tree dish from Hell indeed.

This is a charming typo for "petri dish" I haven't encountered previously.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 AM on October 17, 2022

Ahhhhhh! That makes much more sense now.
posted by eviemath at 9:56 AM on October 17, 2022

A peach tree dish from Hell indeed.

This is a charming typo for "petri dish" I haven't encountered previously.


This is technically known as an "eggcorn", one of my favorite language qurks.
posted by dis_integration at 4:36 PM on October 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

No, mistakenly it's an eggcorn.

But technically?

It's a Marjorie Taylor Greene washing.

And popularly?

It's an avocado dressing favored by the gazpacho police.
posted by y2karl at 6:20 PM on October 17, 2022 [2 favorites]