Do you like 'Little Boxes'?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 11:41 AM

I took exception to it musically; but as commentary it was spot on. And no, it is not an attack on a class of people with aspirations. It is an attack on a civilization that commits itself to ugly. The agreements between the developers, the city managers, the architects and buyers that uglification is an optimum path is the pathetic target of Ms Reynolds sardonic lyric, not the desire of people to live somewhere.

The homes of Daly City and of other fast-flow developments in the 60's from New Jersey to San Diego were built on an equation of speed and profit over aesthetic. Like the worst of British row-housesa the problem is not that they were inexpensive but they suffered from the most moribund kind of pedestrian vision in their design.

Settling for cookie-cutter existence is a bit of a sin.


A

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: PHJim
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 11:42 AM

I wonder how Malvina would like the "Weeds" commercial.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 11:52 AM

'what I find most offensive is that you're equating a fortysomething year old piss-take on housing popular in America fortysomething years ago with "an ill-natured and unwarranted attack on the legitimate aspirations and lifestyles of a perfectly respectable and hardworking segment of the community".

I know it's an old song Jeri. But I have known it from the start & always felt that way about it. However i didn't have Mudcat to air the view on then. & the responses I've been getting on here are mainly of my way of thinking you must admit. If you look at my OP above, you will see this thread grew from another I had just posted about the TUNE ['Folk borrowing from pop'], which reminded me how much I have ALWAYS hated the bloody song, not just lately as you seem peculiarly accusing me above: so i wondered if i was alone in this. From Tom Lehrer on,[see ref to his ur-view of it in one of postings above] it seems I'm not! I explain in the OP that I made two separate threads, one on words and one on tune, to avoid 'drift'.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 11:56 AM

'that uglification is an optimum path is the pathetic target of Ms Reynolds sardonic lyric, not the desire of people to live somewhere.'

Oh, so it was ok for her to say that the people who lived there [Drs, lawyers, biz exexs] were likewise all made out of ticky-tacky & all looked just the same, was it, Amos? Personally, as you will gather, I think not...

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 11:58 AM

How about

Hey , don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise to put up a parking lot


Joni Mitchell

and the difference is ?

I swear if we could not find something to argue about we would invent it.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: matt milton
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:03 PM

Pete Seeger's songs 'Garbage', 'Cement Octopus' and 'Bless the Grass' are much better. They avoid any sneeriness while still describing a problem. Utah Phillips' 'All Used Up' is also a good case in point. Or pretty much ANY song by X Ray Spex.

Purely AESTHETIC dissatisfaction with capitalism is always naff, a bit Sting, a bit Prince Charles.

Those cookie-cutter doctors, spending all those years learning how to make people well. Robots!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:04 PM

Every since my childhood friend came home from summer camp singing it I've hated the tune of this song. Hearing that pawnshop song just reinforces that opinion. The melody is trite and sing-songy, Lawrence Welkian.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Songbob
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:08 PM

Popular culture has a lot to answer for.


Bob

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:11 PM

I think Joni Mitchell was making a completely diff point olddude; and she didn't go on to make rude, belittling remarks about the people who parked their cars in the lot, did she? Even if they did pay a dollar-&½ to see the trees in the tree-museum, it's the people who charge the money who her targets, not their victims.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:18 PM

Just curious to know how many American posters (considering it's about a particular American development) are offended by the song? As we Brits are (in the main it seems) much more bothered by issues pertaining to 'class'.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:22 PM

Those cookie-cutter doctors, spending all those years learning how to make people well. Robots!

This is an inappropriate comparison; doctors are not on public display, blasting across public landscapes. Engineering and science benefit from correctly applied uniformity, but human souls do not thrive on it unless it is very sensitively designed. Which is almost an oxymoron. Viva la difference. There are some cultures which capitalize on the similarities between people and the "we're all the same as one another" mentality to keep large numbers of people under control within tolerable limits. Allowing individual expression in housing, for example, is heavily frowned on in some complexes which have codes you must abide by not to disrupt the normality of appearances.

My opinion--and I think Malvina's--is that this is a tragic compromise of the commons and should be resisted where it may.


A

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:40 PM

when you listen to almost any song there is something in it that doesn't fit perhaps. Most song writers write in the moment. I am sure the little boxes pressed her buttons at the time. I wrote a song called "Chasing the Wind" in it is a line "when it comes to a city girl a cowboy never wins" does that mean I dislike city girls. It was a song about a make believe breakup and nothing more. I think we can find that in almost any song if we look hard enough.   This song is just bad. Never liked the melody, liked the lyrics even worse. To me it is not worth playing however it is probably much gentler than anything on the radio today. That is where the objection should be directed. Have you heard the gansta rap references to women. That should press everyone's buttons I think. Not a 50 year old song that has been long forgotten. I hear young HS school kids throwing the N word around because of their rap hero's ... to me that is sad ...

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: matt milton
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:40 PM

"Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky"

Damn right it's an inappropriate comparison. One made by that crass and stupid song! Which is why I said what I said.

Sure, the song's a product of its time. But funnily enough, there were people around then, the same age as the person that wrote that song, who were a lot more sociopolitically astute who would never have dreamed of saying anything that crappy.

You're talking about the song as if it is simply complaining about cheap housing unnecessary despoiling a countryside. But that's not even the half of it.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:44 PM

The melody is deliberately trite. The song is a satire--it isn't supposed to be nice--it is supposed to use the razor of wit to expose the truth.

And yes,, doctors, lawyers, and business executives have become cookie-cuttered commodities. You and I know that they are human beings (actually that, "We are human beings"), and Malvina Reynolds knew it too, and that was her whole point--the machine that pounds out cookie cutter houses does exactly the same thing to people.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: open mike
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:44 PM

if you see that photo that shows these houses for miles...
you might begin to understand what Malvina was referring to.

of course they are not all exactly the same -- as the verse
says there are pink ones, and yellow ones, etc.(paraphrasing)

It was a statement of the times and I find it tells a very
good story. I can[t imagine anyone taking offense at it.

I am guessing there is not such an example of urban sprawl
in UK since most who find fault with the song are "Yookers"

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MissouriMud
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:47 PM

I have always assumed that Malivina intended the song - words and melody - to be in the form of a children's song, so yes it is a simplistic trite melody with simple words.   Basically asking non adults (or others who have not yet achieved "success") is this what you really dream to achieve - in a pointed way that is admittedly critical of those who had achieved it. To me the song is dated and doesn't hold up that well but not overly offensive. It criticizes what some people felt was middle class success.   Probably could have been done more subtly but in the 60s we often criticized other people's life choices - in speech or in song - quite directly. Is there really something wrong with songs that are critical of other people?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: matt milton
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:04 PM

"And yes,, doctors, lawyers, and business executives have become cookie-cuttered commodities"

No more so than 1960s folk singers.

I'm guessing what most people find objectionable to the song is its huge arrogance.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:08 PM

I loved that film about all those American wives,having a nice day ,as they passed each other in the supermarket,What was it called?,something wives.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: TonyA
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:08 PM

'Little Boxes' doesn't criticize middle class success per se, but rather the scourge of the U.S. suburban housing development, and through that the social irresponsibility of any successful middle class people who chose to use their wealth to support such a blight.

The problem of the suburban housing development is not the bland sameness of the houses, but the degradation of both the city and the countryside, and the alienation of city dwellers from the natural world as the borders of cities are increased exponentially, plus the extreme demands it places on fossil fuels due to the long distances that suburb dwellers have to travel and the impossibility of serving such a widely spread population with public transport (not to mention the long distances that utilities and services have to travel to supply the suburban house), as well as things like the loss of valuable farmland and the transformation from a walking, interactive lifestyle to one of car-driving, social isolation, and lack of exercise, and let's not forget the racism and general misanthropy and egotism that motivated and are encouraged by the move to the suburbs, and the militant imperialism needed to supply such a culture with the resources it so wastefully consumes.

But it's difficult to express all that in a song, so people tend to focus on the sham aristocracy in the visual appearance, as Kurt Vonnegut did also, describing a development of "three thousand dream houses for three thousand families with presumably identical dreams."

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:21 PM

'Not a 50 year old song that has been long forgotten. '

Oh, right, olddude. That's why I've got, so far, close on the 100 hits on this thread in one day...

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:23 PM

Tony is capturing the actual motivation of the song more closely. The problem it seeks to underscore is one of human compromise, walking away from individual commitments to integrity and aesthetics and individual soul for the sake of mass low-dollar building, very profitable to the builders, very costly to the souls, and subscribed to by the managers of the cities, counties, and states where these rather ugly housing developments sprang up.

Compared to the housing scarcity extremes of the 40's, when people sometimes had to live in converted chicken coops because housing was so scarce, I suppose the Levittowns were a great success. But it was antithetical to human values which in the long run mighntprove to be more important.


A

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:34 PM

I think it is because most are like me, haven't thought of the song in decades until you posted it ... but ask yourself this, when is the last time you heard it performed live by anyone? or on the radio, even folk radio? if so I sure haven't but maybe it is played .. I can't think of where however. I cannot honestly think of when I ever heard it performed live by anyone but Pete a zillion years ago

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:41 PM

Sadly, the demand for 60's Folksinger Cookies has fallen below the demand for Zucchini/Chocolate Cheese Cookies.

I stopped at a traffic light the other day, right behind a car that was the same make, model, and color as mine. Then a third car, exactly the same, pulled up on the left. The driver of ahead pointed at me, then the car next to me, and then shrugged his shoulders--we all laughed--which is about all you can do--

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:42 PM

Off the topic here, but the mention of Garbage in an earlier post reminded me of a time at Festival back in the 70s (can't remember if it was Whitby - my first thought - or Sidmouth; both UK). A visiting American lady sang Garbage and at the chorus was met with resounding shouts of Rubbish, our common English word for the stuff, but somewhat unnnerving for the singer.

Mick

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:44 PM

What someone should do is write a song about every car on the highway that looks exactly alike. I can't find my stupid car half the time when I park it at the shopping center, all the same little boxes with wheels. I am part of the problem i think

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:48 PM

stepforth wives,and they all had silicon enhanced busts and shiny white teeth,and dyed hair and they all were spoke the same,and they all looked after their golf playing husbands,have a nice day.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:51 PM

The Stepford Wives
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

    For the 1975 film see The Stepford Wives (1975 film), for the 2004 remake see The Stepford Wives (2004 film).

The Stepford Wives
First edition cover
First edition cover
Author         Ira Levin
Country         United States
Language         English
Genre(s)         Horror novel, Satire
Publisher         Random House
Publication date         September 1972
Media type         Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages         145 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN         ISBN 0-394-48199-2 (first edition, hardback)

The Stepford Wives. is a 1972 satirical horror novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a photographer and young mother who begins to suspect that the frighteningly submissive housewives in her new idyllic Connecticut neighborhood may be robots created by their husbands. The novel has been viewed by some as a satire on stereotypical American housewives, as well as a study on feminism.

Two films of the same name have been adapted from the novel; the first starred Katharine Ross and was released in 1975, while a remake starring Nicole Kidman appeared in 2004. Edgar J. Scherick produced the 1975 version (as well as all the sequels) and was posthumously credited as producer in the 2004 remake.

The term "Stepford wife", which is often used in popular culture, stemmed from the novel, and is usually a reference to a submissive and docile housewife.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:52 PM

That's why they have that alarm/panic button thingie on the electronic door unlocker.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 01:54 PM

I have used that Jeri many times. It works great for locating your own little box with wheels

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MissouriMud
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 02:33 PM

I agree that the song is about compromise but I think it is about more than just housing.   It is about the group/individual values of becoming like everyone else - going to a university to think the same, coming out a lawyer or doctor or other acceptable profession, joining the country club, drinking the trendy drink and raising your kids to perpetuate the same thing - rather than becoming an impoverished itinerant folksinger, forest ranger, astronomer, or other such end that was what you really wanted to be but lost sight of along the way. The houses were just a pretty "easy to get" metaphor using a striking visual image of a real situation.   

It was cute little zinger of a song that has lost a lot of its meaning and perhaps relevance as a criticism of post WW2 US blahness, particularly if you can't visualize that hillside.   It is hard for me to sing now because I became a lawyer that lived in a housing development, sent my kid to summer camp and university etc .. How Bourgeouis! I still personally like the song, even though I dont sing it and it isnt played much these days - - it reminds me of the arrogance and idealism of my youth when I could act like I could change the world and control my own destiny - so basically the song now is about me and I dont mind the criticism.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 02:37 PM

San Francisco is 46.7 square miles at the top of a peninsula.

Land there has always been a scarse comodity and pricy.

The expansion south into South SF, Daly City and Pacifica (all San Mateo County) was done using as little land as possible.

The areas that are the subject of "Little Boxes" often had some sideyard. Many parts of "The City" have "zero lot line" housing meaning no sideyard at all. The constructuion style in San Mateo County, at that time and in that place, was reasonable under the circumstances.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 02:37 PM

When that panic thing goes off, I can't tell which direction the sound is coming from, and I panic.

When it comes to things that are all alike, we haven't gotten to the performers whose songs are all alike. I am not sure how many there even are, because they are all alike.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 02:45 PM

At least people who aspire to social conformity are being honest, what totally perplexes me are the regimented armies of "non-conformists" and "subversive" cliques that every generation pumps out on it's production line, prior to assimilation into more honest forms of conformity: We're Individuals!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 03:41 PM

Somewhere I have slides I took about 1970 from a plane window of that hillside with multi-colored "little boxes". I can well see how the image would inspire a song like Malvina wrote. I'm sure even SHE did not assume that the generalizations of the song fit everyone who lived there, but it sure made a statement about 'taste' and what often accompanies such taste.
I wonder if similar thoughts ever came to folks minds about Levittown, NY.

Why yes... I see from the article they did:

"Levittown" is also used as a derogatory term to describe suburban areas that appear overly-sanitized and constituted largely of tract housing--in other words, geographic areas that lack the apparent culture and vitality of an urban area. Later popular culture unease about the impact of these "Levittowns" on American cultural life would give rise to the idea of a damaging 'suburbia'."

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: ClaireBear
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 03:44 PM

In California in the fifties there was a certain desperate need to conform. My sisters who were in high school then (about 40 miles south of Daly City, in a very wealthy community) wanted nothing more than the matching pastel twinsets and ankle socks that all their friends wore -- but of course, the friends all had more money than we did. The individuality "forced" on my sisters by our relative lack of prosperity included Mexican peasant blouses, homemade skirts, Latin American shawls -- things that, growing up ten years later, I would have reveled in precisely because they would have allowed me to demonstrate my difference from that crowd.

I think that what Malvina Reynolds was commenting on was aspiring to lose oneself in the crowd, surrendering one's personal likes and tastes in a frenzied effort to look, sound and quite possibly think just like everybody else. It had little to do with architecture and profession, and everything to do with conformity.

My tuppence.

C

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 03:46 PM

I've watched only Season One of the Weeds television series, so I don't know for sure what they use for the opening sequence for later years - but I gather that they used a variety of artists.

This link (click) will lead you to a variety. Here are some of the more notable ones:

• Season One - Malvina Reynolds (used in every episode of Season One
  
• Season Two - Elvis Costello
  
• Season Three - Episode 05 - Billy Bob Thornton
  
• Season Three - Episode 15 Pete Seeger
  
• Season Two - Episode 4 - Kate & Anna McGarrigle
  
• Englebert Humperdinck (!)
  

This Englebert Humperdinck Impersonator says that during the second and third seasons, the song was performed by almost thirty artists including The Submarines, Rise Against, Linkin Park, Regina Spektor, The Decemberists, Engelbert Humperdinck, Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice, Tim DeLaughter, Mark Gunnery of Riot Folk, Randy Newman, Billy Bob Thornton, The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Mates Of State, Persephone's Bees, Man Man, Joan Baez, Ozomatli, Rob Thomas, The Individuals and Kate and Anna McGarrigle.
Another quote from The Impersonator:

Little Boxes was written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962. The song, as sung by Womenfolk, is the shortest single ever to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 at 1 minute 3 seconds (1:03) in length. Many big-name vocalists have recorded this song, including Pete Seeger in 1963.

---

EmmaB and Jeri quoted Nancy (Reynolds) Schimmel, Malvina's daughter, above:

"My mother and father were driving South from San Francisco through Daly City when my mom got the idea for the song. She asked my dad to take the wheel, and she wrote it on the way to the gathering in La Honda where she was going to sing for the Friends Committee on Legislation.
When Time Magazine (I think, maybe Newsweek) wanted a photo of her pointing to the very place, she couldn't find those houses because so many more had been built around them that the hillsides were totally covered"

I suppose many of us in Northern California have our "Little Boxes" areas that we think best typify the song. For me, it's Pacifica, on the Peninsula just south of Daly City and San Francisco. Highway One north from Santa Cruz is a gorgeous drive, hugging the hillsides just above the rocky shore. It's wild, beautiful, dangerous country. Then you go 'round a bend and see hillsides covered with little stucco houses in pastel colors, and the natural beauty has been covered over by concrete and asphalt and stucco.

Yes, people have to have a place to live - but why can't they build on flat land? Wild areas like Pacifica should be reserved for low-density housing, or for open space.

Much of Marin County, north of San Francisco, almost suffered the same fate. Luckily, about a third of the county is parkland. Sometime Mudcatter Riggy Rackin lives in that area and has taken some wonderful photographs of Marin. My favorite place in the whole world is Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County (Click here for more info). The area is within sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, an easy commute to San Francisco; and yet it's a wonderland of wildflowers, elephant seals, and whale watching. It was slated for development, and there are still foundations of houses that were built along the beach. Preservationists were successful in saving the land in the 1960s, and it's still there for everyone to enjoy.

Sure, there are "little boxes" developments all over the world, but few are in areas as beautiful as the Northern California coastline that Malvina wrote her song about. I'm glad that the "wild-eyed California bleeding-heart liberals" were able to prevail and preserve much of the coastline for public enjoyment. Many of us were inspired by Malvina's song.

Do I like "Little Boxes"? Well, I have to say that there's a sameness to the song that gets annoying if you hear it too often. I think that's part of Malvina's genious - she captured the annoying sameness of the houses in her song.

-Joe, proud to live in beautiful Northern California-

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 03:52 PM

"An outside bog, no bath and cold taps? Luxury! Now, when I were a lad..."

It's interesting that many people are so uncomfortable with admissions of poverty that they play artificial violins or put on imaginary Yorkshire accents.
For years poverty was something I was ashamed of and kept secret, then when it was distant enough to admit, it's brushed off as an inverted boast. It wasn't fun, it was grim and demeaning and those Little Boxes would have been a marvel in comparison.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:07 PM

Really enjoying reading the American posters comments on this thread. I think that the general "Yookers" reaction (to quote Open Mike - is that what you call us lot?) possibly say's more about the UK's ongoing sensitivity over class, than anything genuinely contained in the the song itself. I really appreciate threads like this, when they provide an intimate insight into others personal stories, history & culture.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:14 PM

"For years poverty was something I was ashamed of and kept secret,"

I don't think one needs to be 'in poverty' to feel ashamed of failing the affluence worthiness test. When I was in school (latter years of Juniors), one of the childrens favourite games was "What have you got?"
Not having a swimming pool or pony or even a microwave, I failed the worthiness test and of course was a "Pikey" or "Gyppo". Never did get must of a taste for "aspirational" thing since.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:23 PM

In 1962 I interpreted the song as being about conformity rather than architecture.

If I remember correctly, in 1962 the conformity that the little boxes represented was viewed as a symptom and/or cause of some serious problems within the society that gave birth to it. Some people felt that society was headed in the wrong direction and the only thing that could result in a "course correction" was non-confirmity. Next thing we knew there were the hippies.

It all made sense at the time.

Russ (permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:30 PM

Yes it's all relative I suppose Crow Sister, it's just now we're all middle class (like hell we are) poverty has been consigned to the history books - except where it hasn't of course.
I never got the aspirational thing either. We live on a nice road but 'only' in a Victorian cottage, though with a large garden backing onto woods admittedly. The new house people generally drive BMWs, 4 x 4s, Mercs and the like, while the really big houses on the road, Edwardian 7-bedders in their own grounds, drive 15 year old Skodas or beaten up Polos.

When you can afford whatever you like the desire fades. Easier not to desire it and live the lifestyle I say.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: sing4peace
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:41 PM

The first time I heard Little Boxes, I was nine years old, living at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, California. I was already feeling very concerned about the coerced conformity I saw all around me. I had never seen Levittown but I knew a box when I saw one - physically, spiritually, economically, artistically....

I remember sitting in my dad's car, listening to the radio as I waited for him to finish his errands. I heard a woman singing with a voice unlike any of the "pretty girl" singers that one is most likely to hear on any given day out of any given radio. This was a characteristically unique voice singing about a system where people are born, live, learn, breed and die in boxes that differ only slightly from each other. I burst into tears. I was so grateful that there was at least one other human being out there who was as disturbed by the cookie cutter mentality as I was.

Years later, I produced a tribute to Malvina Reynolds at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence, RI. (July, 1993). Pete Seeger was our M.C. and it was recorded live by WGBH - Boston Public Radio. Sixteen different acts performed two songs each of Malvina's to demonstrate the wide range of her wit and poetry and the contemporary social relevance of much of her work. When Pete introduced Little Boxes at the end, he told the same story described earlier in these posts -by Nancy (Reynolds) Schimmel, Malvina's daughter . Pete then added that Malvina later came to have some regrets about writing the song as she encountered people for whom Levittown was a personal dream.

Because of the way the song impacted me that day sooooooo long ago, I have never forgotten how a single song is capable of reaching into our psyches and souls and completely altering -or reinforcing - our viewpoints.

Malvina, like most good writers, had opinions that evolved over the course of her career. She was just as quick to examine herself (Somewhere Between) as she was the vagaries of the corporatocracy "The World In Their Pockets". For those who are not too happy with the never ending military contract stimulus plan known as War, Inc. you might get a kick out of her "We Hate To See Them Go".

I think Malvina Reynolds was one of the more astute political songwriters of the sixties and seventies. Too bad that Little Boxes got all the attention. She also wrote some beautiful ballads too - check out "I Wish You Were Here".

In my opinion pigeonholes are for the birds. I'm pretty sure that's what Malvina was getting at. At least that's what I got out of it when I was nine years old.

To MtheGM: Are you advocating a lyrics policing squad to ensure that only "correct" lyrics are allowed? I see a lot in your posts where you engage in the same sort of "them and us" thinking that you are accusing Malvina of doing. It's a wonder anybody ever writes anything or dares to perform on stage considering the critic's galleries and their razor sharp correcting pencils.

To Matt Milton: Pete Seeger did not write God Bless the Grass - it was written by Malvina Reynolds in 1964. He didn't write Garbage either. That was written by Bill Steele in 1969. I don't know the Cement Octopus song so I can't help you there.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:42 PM

At least people who aspire to social conformity are being honest

Well, perhaps and perhaps not; there is a certain dishonesty in taking on the average as your own, whether from fear, laziness, apathetic indifference or disingenuous desire to manipulate. I think, however, it is not a dishonest act in itself, but rather a solution to prior dishonesties about who one really is, and what one really sees.


A

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:46 PM

"The new house people generally drive BMWs, 4 x 4s, Mercs and the like, while the really big houses on the road, Edwardian 7-bedders in their own grounds, drive 15 year old Skodas or beaten up Polos."

I recognise that picture well..

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:48 PM

I've never heard the term "Yookers." What I have heard is "Yoopers," who are residents of the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. But I suppose it works somewhat to have residents of the UK as "Yookers" - and then residents of the US would be "USers" or "Yoosers"???

I think I'll stick with "Yoopers" and forget the udders.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 04:49 PM

I reckon Little Boxes is one of those instances of 'two nations separated by a common language'. The US in the 50s and 60s probably outdid the UK for conformity - which is saying something. I don't believe we Brits could have generated Senator McCarthy, even our fascists like Mosely were a half-hearted, narcissistic bunch compared to their european counterparts.

We're a pretty bloody-minded lot as Mudcat is evidence to.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 05:46 PM

When we moved to the new estate in 1958, (England, South Yorkshire) the houses were all built to the same design, and were painted in one of four colours - yes, pink green blue or yellow.

My father, returning from work the first day, walked into the next house up the road that was the same colour as ours.

I never equated the song 'little boxes' to our situation, because the only heavy pressure to conform came from the schools.

I wanted to be an astronaut - they wanted me to be a shorthand typist, or assistant to somebody male.

At least our roads were not laid out on a rigid grid pattern - that always srikes me as really sad.

Having seen some American TV over the years, 'little boxes' has always struck me as a perfect description of certain aspects of what we are shown of American society.

I remember a film in which a young woman decides not to marry a man who bought her a car as a wedding present, exactly the same brand, model and colour driven by all the wives of his set. I could not see any problem with that.      

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Genie
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 05:46 PM

To answer the question asked in the thread title,
hell, yes!

In fact, Malvina Reynolds's lyrics are so perfectly descriptive that, back in 1968, when driving up the California coast from near LA and approaching Daly City, I looked up at the hills and spontaneously exclaimed -- without knowing of Reynolds's inspiration for the song --
"Omigod! There are the little boxes made of ticky-tacky!"
There the were, in little rows like train cars, all looking the same except for there being a few different pastels (pink, blue, green, yellow).

I later learned that those rows of boxy pastel houses in that Daly City development were, indeed, the ones referred to in the song.

And, especially at the time, the rest of the lyrics were pretty much spot-on too.

Genie

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 06:05 PM

"Cement Octopus" was written by Malvina Reynolds.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 06:05 PM

As to the question asked in the thread title: Yes I do!