Mooned by Tin Pan Alley

If you've paid attention at all to the song-poems of the late '60's and early '70's, you'll know that one of the common themes that crops up over and over again is Astronauts. Today, I have for you perhaps the weirdest, most ridiculous of these entries, a song simply titled "Moon", and sung by the aggressively terrible singer Eleanor Shaw.

I know that many song-poem records were done, literally, as sight-reading jobs, but to do so, the labels really needed to get people who were competent (or better) at sight reading. And if Eleanor wasn't sight reading, she's even worse than I thought, given her performance about 25 seconds into this 92 second treat.

And what, exactly, is the song about? Clearly, there's a reference to Neil Armstrong, and some other moon-related thoughts, but I'm not really picking up on a story here, or even a coherent line of thought. Perhaps Ms. Shaw's vocals are just that distracting, that I can't concentrate closely enough on what she's saying.

Regardless, I think this one is an all time winner in the so-bad-it's-great school of song-poems, an area in which Tin Pan Alley, during this era, really went above and beyond.

Download: Eleanor Shaw: Moon
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The flip side, "Summer Night (Soirs D'ete), does not enchant me much at all. Indeed, it seems to go on forever and ever, although it's actually barely a minute longer than its astonishing flip side. The supper-club style backing band is shown up throughout by their lead guitar player, who seems to have 85% of all the talent involved in both sides of the record. And yet even the band is considerably better than their singer.

Download: Eleanor Shaw: Summer Night (Soirs D'ete)
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