Do you like 'Little Boxes'?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 03:05 AM

Ditto Lonesome E.J. there BTW. Lovely post Elijah Browning.

"Joseph Beilhart, a scarcely known spiritual philosopher, with a small group of friends and family, established a commune that continued for many years after his death, built a large and comfortable home where they all lived together, and believed in the early 1900's,"

Wasn't there something of a flush of those kinds of 'alternative' spiritual (albeit essentially Christian) communities at that period?
I'm sure Kellogg himself created one. I wonder what the general ferment was that inspired them?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 06:36 AM

sorry to interrupt this thread with an off point question - but does anyone have all the lyrices for the Mary Baker City Mix?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 07:05 AM

Sorry guest I can only remember the first 2 verses

Take your Mary Baker City Mix and mix yourself a city to a plan,
Full of instant plastic palaces, homogenized, untouched by human hand.
Add a central plate glass precinct where pedestrians can stroll around and cry
As they see the blackened embers of an older and more richer city die.

In the Mary Baker City Mix the teak lined supermarkets meet your eyes
Where the open market stood you'll find the atmosphere is now deordorized
And the bacon buttie stall has disappeared and in its place you'll find a bar
With high speed brunch and crispy lettuce yoiu can eat from heat sealed wrappings in your car

BUT!

this is one of 25 songs on a CD SONGS VOL 1 & 2 Alex Glasgow (which I came across) while trying to find the rest of the words and contains such humourless leftie tracks as
As Soon As This Pub Closes
and
My Daddy Is A Left-Wing Intellectual

and, of course, Close The Coalhouse Door

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 07:13 AM

Was it not you, MtheGM who said: if i feel it has caused needless offence to a recipient I don't regard it as censorship to suggest that an apology might be forthcoming: esp, in this instance, as we are told above [by someone quoting daughter, IIRC] that M Rnlds came to 'regret some aspects' of the song; which would I presume be the personal rather than the architectural, wouldn't you agree?"

As to the song, it is about the houses--here is the verse:

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

The point recurring point being that it is the boxes that are made of
ticky tacky that all look just the same--one could read it either way, of course,
owing to the fact that, from a writer's point of view, the scansion in such ditties
takes precedence over clarity of meaning--

My tea is done, and I have lost the chance to nap before getting my son ready for school,
but I am glad that I hadn't endeavored to explain the Hardy verses to you--

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 07:29 AM

"and contains such humourless leftie tracks as
As Soon As This Pub Closes
and
My Daddy Is A Left-Wing Intellectual

and, of course, Close The Coalhouse Door"

Aye, I'm sure we've all been lampooned at some point in the history of modern song-writing. Thinking further on a question earlier posited, I imagine if I were to seek it out that I could find something fairly fittingly cutting written all about 'me', by someone like Jarvis Cocker, Momus or Morrissey.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 07:32 AM

many thanks Emma B

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 08:28 AM

Quite possibly there will now be a rash of apologies from songwriters who have made points in their songs and then had second thoughts about said points. Might run into hundreds, if not thousands, of apologies.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 08:45 AM

Well Ted, I can't accept your interpretation of that verse only applying to the boxes not the people they contain — a pronoun like 'they' clearly refers in English grammar to the noun most nearly preceding it — nor your assertion that I seem to have said she should have apologised now,when anyone can see she can't; when you admit I had referred back to the time she accepted she had some regrets.

See my response to Emma B's at 2.20 on 9 Sep, & her subsequent copping out of arguing further — as I feel you have done to my challenge to show whom & where I had 'browbeaten'; when all I had done was maintain the position I had stated in the OP against opposition which had occurred — & I repeat, why shouldn't I? when it's my thread — you haven't, as i asked, provided any precedent for the view that an OP should be a neutral chairman rather than an active participant in the thread he himself has started; or for your view that such participation constitutes 'browbeating'. I thought you were, as I said, being peculiarly prescriptive in your statements as to how i should conduct MY thread.

So, I ask again, who could have felt 'browbeaten', & where, by anything I have said?

And if you find such terms as 'lefty' & 'humourless', in the context of an adult discussion, so offensive 'hereabouts' where you are, I must say you must be such a sensitive lot 'thereabouts' that I can't imagine how you ever get thru the day.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 09:39 AM

'How i should conduct MY thread' / 'I repeat, why shouldn't I? when it's my thread'

I'm sorry sunshine, whatever proprietal assumptions you may make and seek to impose there's no such thing hereabouts - these threads have a habit of taking on a life of their own however controlling you may wish to be.

'See my response to Emma B's at 2.20 on 9 Sep, & her subsequent copping out of arguing further'

I sincerely meant that you could 'count me out' out of your childish point scoring of who was for your statement or against it; in no way do I 'cop out' of any argument that serves any purpose; but, I had hoped this was an adult discussion not a game for a retired hack -   I hope you are not too 'sensitive' to find such a term offensive

and
a hearfelt 'thank you' to Elijah Browning for raising this thread somewhere else.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 10:15 AM

Well, Emma, it seems to me a bit pathetically Private·Eye to fall back on the word 'hack' when addressing any journo, 'retired' [& is that perhaps a bit ageist!] or otherwise; but I daresay I shall survive, as they would say, the Shock·Horror - tho, again as they would say, it might be thought a bit of the sort of abuse that would only be resorted to by a Boring·Old·Fart.

But - serious question[s] - at what point does trying to defend one's position become: a. *mere* point·scoring, &/or b. [Ted, can you hear me talkin' to yah] 'Browbeating'? I should sincerely like to be told. As I say, I believe greatly in the Socratic injunction to 'know thyself'. If you won't come clean & tell me & give some examples, then, I say again: I don't care what anybody sez, you are copping out.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 10:17 AM

oh, er, almost forgot — S U N S H I N E ....

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Elijah Browning
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 10:42 AM

Thanks for the kind words, but I always figure out a way to screw up where it counts. In my grand rhetoric, I got his name wrong! JACOB Beilhart was the man's name. Posthumous appologies, sir. Some researcher I am...

And yes, he started with Post, Kellog and the Seventh Day Adventists but found extremism in any form to be too inflexible to be practical.

WWJD if he saw what's become of his last resting place? I have a feeling he'd tell all his neighbors what lovely homes they have and invite them for a picnic by the lake.

Off subject for sure, so I'll leave this link and leave it at that. PM me if you're interested in more.
Go to Sept. 5, 2009 post
Thanks,
E.B.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 11:47 AM

Incidentally, EmmaB - I wasn't claiming any particular rights in the content of the thread just becoz I had happened to OP it: I was just wondering why you & Ted were so intent on PRESCRIBING & DICTATING to me how I should conduct myself within it, when surely that was something for me, as OP, to judge for myself. No-one still has managed to indicate any regulation or convention or precedent of impartial chairmanship, of 'shepherding of contributors', being required of an OP.

You seem to me to be one of those who delight in turning any thread on which you post snotty and ill-natured: you are deficient in any sort of cordiality or courtesy, but your tone appears to be perpetually truculent & irritable & sarky & snarky. There seem to be rather a lot of such around on Mudcat. I just wonder what satisfaction all of you get in carrying on like that.

Sunshine ...

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 12:21 PM

"You seem to me to be one of those who delight in turning any thread on which you post snotty and ill-natured: you are deficient in any sort of cordiality or courtesy, but your tone appears to be perpetually truculent & irritable & sarky & snarky. There seem to be rather a lot of such around on Mudcat. I just wonder what satisfaction all of you get in carrying on like that."

Project much?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 01:03 PM

Eh?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 01:09 PM

This, MtheGM, is exactly what I was talking about. You're being absolutely tedious!

Stop and think--why does this silly point drive you to such excesses? Doctors, Lawyers, and Business executives have never cared about it--if they had, they would have made themselves heard long ago.

Assuming that they are in fact accused of being ticky-tacky, they are accused, as a class, of many many more terrible things on a daily basis. Also, it is hardly a libelous accusation. Mediocrity, as a great writer once said, is not a major sin.

You had the good fortune to speak with Ms. Reynolds about it, though have not chosen to share how she responded to you.

Most of us never have a chance to air our grievances face -to-face in that manner, and, since that, which must have occurred at least forty years ago, did not satisfy you, you should come to terms with the fact that you will never find satisfaction on this point.

Furthermore, since you have invested your self so deeply in this issue, a further outrage awaits you. The fact is that this song is enjoying a sweeping revival. Many new recordings have been made(more, in fact, than there were when it was initially popular)--so history has taken it under its wing, and it has been embraced by new generations--

And before leaving, I will suggest one last time that, in making and defending your point, you have made characterizations that are far more offensive than the one that you
objected to, and that, not your opinion, is what we are talking about here.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 02:49 PM

Well, obviously, Ted, I am going to find your contributions pretty tedious too, so we are even there - the way you keep accusing me of browbeating and offensiveness & so forth but when urged for examples you only repeat the accusations with no attempt at specification: look at your last para for example of what I mean.

But I honestly do hate quarreling - whatever you may think, I am not a contentious person; rather something of an obsessive taxonomist: I am aware of this as a fault in myself, & do try to control it, & my dearest wife used to be very good at judging when to tell me when to shut-the-hell-up but alas she is dead and things will I suspect have got worse since she left.

So, please: Pax - enuff quarreling which I genuinely don't enjoy. OK?

As to my brief conversation with MR: I didn't mean to be evasive or make a secret of it. It was, as you say, long ago; but as best I recall: I made my point, in what I hope were mild and civil tones, about, didn't she think her view on ordinary lifestyles maybe a bit unwarrantedly severe and contemptuous?; she replied in reasonable tones that I wasn't the first to have said so. It was at a friend's party where we were both guests and had neither of us any wish to sour the occasion; so we just smiled slightly, left it at that and drifted off to talk to other people. & that was the sum of our acquaintance.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:00 PM

I am afraid that my bemused and droll tone has not been as evident as I thought it was--my own tendencies are toward being slightly tongue-in-cheek most of the time. I thought the fact that I   I am also afraid that if you miss it, which is more likely in print than in person, I can come across as murderous rather than mirthful.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:03 PM

Ant truth to the rumor that TickyTacky was the copyrighted name for a product developed by Boise Cascade in the early 60s, which consisted of a melamine-coated polyethelyene extrusion building material, found to be resistant to weather, able to function as a structural support, bulletproof, but unfortunately to also cause cancer in lab mice?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:12 PM

"Tacky"--meaning in poor taste or without quality --has a long history in ENglish.

tacky

    "in poor taste," 1862, adj. use of tackey (n.) "small or inferior horse" (1800), later "hillbilly, cracker" (1888), of uncertain origin.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Elmore
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:15 PM

If the song is about conformity, we could use a little conformity these days; conformity on establishing an honest to God health care system, conformity on ending war, conformity on being compassionate.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:16 PM

Sorry, that went off before I was finished--the "I thought the fact that I" should finish,"posted manners for children would have been I tip off that I meant that things should be taken somewhat lightly. We'll leave it there. No hard feelings intended.

I wish you my most sincere condolences on the loss of your wife. It cannot be easy to lose
your partner, and I wish you the best, both in managing the pain of your loss, and in building a different sort of life without her.

As I get older, I realize how much I need my wife's companionship, and her moderating influence, even in the smallest things. I wonder how she has put up with me, and than God that she has.   In that spirit, I hope that you can take comfort in the many memories that you have. All the best.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:19 PM

That last for you MtheGM--in only a few seconds, those others managed to pop in--the miracle of instant global communication--

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 04:58 PM

I'd forgotten Little Boxes was a BBC children's radio favourite, thanks whoever it was upthread for giving it a context. Ed Stewpot Stewart's voice with Sparky the Piano and Puff the Magic Dragon bookending it.

Where would we be without FolkLite? Did the singer look like the chap who presented Fingerbobs? I do hope so.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 05:01 PM

..not forgetting The Runaway Train of course. And he blew, blew, blew, blew, blew.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 05:43 PM

...Yes unless I have something really big to put in them!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: pdq
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 06:07 PM

Here is a story about one of Henry Doelger's designers...

                                                                                                             Ed Hageman

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 09:12 PM

I am not going to bother to read the thread since it is not song I am overly fond of. Do I like the song? No. I don't hate it either. It seems smug to me. Most people, given a choice between a ticky tacky house and a beautifully crafted house of their own design and/or input would choose the latter. They have other considerations, such as putting a roof over their family's heads. mg

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 31 Jul 10 - 09:13 PM

I've always liked Little Boxes. It's a great description, to quote an earlier post, of "People following pre-ordained career pathways, aspiring to nothing beyond the material"

I know that when I was growing up becoming one of the "doctors, and there's lawyers, and business executives" defined our worth---and if you weren't aspiring to become one of those, there was something wrong with you.

I must confess that I also love Dick McCormack's (Sept 9/08) post, because it's another group that defines success as having certain rigid paramaters. (mind you, there does have to be something wrong with anyone who doesn't love Kurt Vonnegut).

It's a terrific song, cleverly written, and now I'm inspired to learn it!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 03:58 AM

No

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 04:56 PM

I liked the beginning of it, but it got played far too often and then the criticism of the people in the boxes started to jar.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 05:01 PM

To answer the thread title's question: Not very often!

The mind numbing melody is the perfect companion to the message, which to my family and friends who sang it in the 1960-70s was, "resist monotony, beware the encroaching cookie-cutter world." Being far from California, as we sang it we no doubt pictured the then-new suburb of Kanata (west of Canada's capital) where the colour rule was not pastels but brown and more brown, where the painting of other colours on exteriors was quite forbidden at the time (I don't know about now). Perhaps we were even a little envious of those who got to drive past a whole palette of 4 count 'em 4 colours in an otherwise repetetive view!! It's good to know the source of a song but usually once it's written and out in the world, it wears new meaning for each person who hears it.

As I recall it wasn't only monotonous housing developments on our minds; we were equally suspicious of pervasive sameness in clothing, music, political thought, in everything not just architecture. Something else too: this song made us think about the conflict between the need to be fit in and be like everyone else versus the need to express individuality. So at the same time we were poking fun at the 'burbs we understood the comfort & safety those 'burbs purported to offer.

Obviously the lyrics don't rub me the wrong way as they do so many. In my world back then the song held commentary on at least the two levels I've described. I haven't sung it in ages--there are so many others I'd rather sing because, damn, that tune grates after a mere half-verse!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 04:12 AM

Well, I've owned two of those California stucco houses in my lifetime. One we bought in Fresno in 1976, and it had almost the same appearance and floor plan as the house my ex-wife bought in Sacramento in the 1990s. We painted the house soon after we moved in, so it didn't stay pastel for very long. There must be tens of thousands of houses in California with that floor plan. Urban planners call them "snout houses" because the garage door sticks out closer to the street than the rest of the house. When you drive down the street, all you see are garage doors. But hey, it was a fairly comfortable and serviceable house.

The other stucco house was in a small tract, and I haven't seen any houses like it outside that tract - so that one didn't have the sameness of the Fresno house.

But the Daly City houses Malvina sang about, were an extreme example. They were built on land that had once been breathtakingly beautiful, and they were of very poor quality and extreme sameness.

The California land developers sold the people a bill of goods. They could have and should have made much better use of the precious land in this beautiful state. I just can't see the song as snobbish. The developers did a dirty deed, and they deserved to be criticized. They destroyed miles and miles and miles of the Golden, Rolling Hills of California - and it's a shame.

And yes, there is much of that sameness in the people of urban California. When I worked temporarily in Los Angeles in the 1990s, I was amazed that so many well-paid, professional people had no life outside their job, their commute, and their time spent with their personal trainers. Why bother earning all that money if you don't have a life?

The people Malvina described in "Little Boxes," don't live in little boxes any more. They live in big, expensive boxes, which is why they can't afford the time to sing or hike or enjoy unstructured time with their children. The opening of Weeds, which uses the Malvina Reynolds song, is a perfect depiction of modern, urban California.

That's why I moved away from Los Angeles.

-Joe, in the Sierra Nevada foothills-

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 05:13 AM

I, for one, find it amusing and appropriate that this thread is currently sharing the list with a thread titled, "Song that's so bad it's brilliant".

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 06:55 AM

A few years ago I bought a new house on a new development and friends living in another part of town sneeringly called them Lego houses.
They themselves lived in a 70 year old house, one of thousands of identical terraced houses in hundreds of identical terraced streets. Somehow they thought the age of their house was enough to exempt it from such criticism. Just like some songs.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 09:28 AM

Sure, I like little boxes.   But I never know what to put in them!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 01:15 AM

Same problem, Uncle Dave. I have a fairly large pile of Altoid boxes that I've accumulated over the years. Metal, seem to be well-made and durable, too good to simply throw away.

Oughta be good for sumpin'. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 01:18 AM

I keep my Altoid boxes with my 35 mm film canisters, Don. Some day, I'll find a very good use for them. Both, of course, are made of ticky-tacky.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 02:44 PM

With a little ingenuity, there are various uses for Altoid boxes. This may not be ethical, but you can use an empty Altoid tin to carry around a supply of M&Ms.

Or in the sad event of your goldfish passing away, if you can't bring yourself to flush it down the toilet, you can use an Altoid tin as a coffin and bury it in the potted ficus.

Or (my favorite!) if you have enough Altoid tins (and I'm sure I do), with the tins and a roll of duct tape, you can make yourself a suit of armor.

Don Firth

P. S. With this last option, you may never actually have to engage in combat. Your adversary might simply laugh himself to death!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Snuffy
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 06:42 PM

But what did you do with all the Altoids?

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 09:26 PM

Hmm. . . .

There seems to be some controversy about the efficacy of this method, Snuffy. I would say this calls for some extensive research. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 06:26 AM

It was one of those little songs along with 'Tubby the Tuba, Sparky' etc. that I listened to on the Ed Stewpot radio programme and I did like it and didn't pay too much attention to it until the early 70's when housing developments started to spring up in nearly every availlable bit of green-belt land space all looking the same with postage stamp sized gardens.

Milton Keynes springs to mind now when I listen to it which was a new 'invented' town. When firm that I was working for moved there we the employees had an option to move with the firm to a new housing development in Milton Keynes the other option was redundancy. I am sure it is a really ok place now but we looked at the plans and not many people went for the idea. The prospect of concrete cows did not appeal to many either!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Apr 16 - 04:21 AM

Refresh re 'Worst Song Ever Heard' thread

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 04 Apr 16 - 11:57 AM

Maybe. But I prefer useful pots for putting things in.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: AlbertsLion
Date: 05 Apr 16 - 12:17 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM8JhvfoqdA

Simply brilliant!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Apr 16 - 12:23 PM

Was always fond of the song, but THAT'S BEYOND BRILLIANT!! Malvina would have this version!

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Apr 16 - 12:24 PM

Ooops. "would heve liked".

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: GUEST,silver
Date: 05 Apr 16 - 03:17 PM

I have loved "Little Boxes" from first hearing - it was the first time I heard Pete Seeger, and indeed my introduction to American folk music. The bounce and good humour in Pete's voice on that record is priceless,

Thanks, M.Ted, for the link to "There's a Pawnshop..." Like that one,too. Incidentally, Swedish entertainer and satirist Karl Gerhard (1891-1964) used that tune for his song "En katt ibland hermelinerna" (A Cat among the Ermines) in 1955. Also rather sneery towards certain haughty ladies. I have always wondered why it reminded me of "Little Boxes".

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Apr 16 - 06:10 PM

little boxes is a great song,ITS ABOUT CONFORMING.I am surprised at mike who is the epitome of non conformity.

Subject: RE: Do you like 'Little Boxes'?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Apr 16 - 02:52 AM

Nonconformist? Moi! Jamais de la vie!

〠