p. 712 // veering off into NP commentary on "Little Boxes"

[Michael Bailey]

On 1/31/08, grladams
> gearing up for or going through with. I once had the "Little Boxes" opener
> to _Weeds_ stuck in my head for days. I just gave in and kep' it going.
>

that was a minor AM hit for Pete Seeger, I think -
yeah (having checked, it was in 1963)
and our family heard it on the car radio driving the blue
Ford Galaxie to Grandma's probably...
Seeger's plaintive yet winsome voice is still among my faves.

Wikipedia quotes Tom Lehrer as saying it's the "most sanctimonious
song ever written" (cf his "Folk Song Army") and I remember
my Mom playing with the lyrics and conveying partial agreement
with the lyric, and partial agreement with what Lehrer would say --
getting us to think it through: who has the right to criticize
people's whole lives? what alternative do they offer? and yet,
the damn song does make a tenable point...and the way Seeger
(and the other artists who performed it) sings "ticky-tacky" sticks
in the lyrical lobe.

Like so many things in modern culture*, the use of it in
"Weeds"  - which my fogeyish viewing interprets as trying
to celebrate how the counterculture has been completely co-opted** -
seems contrary to its original positioning as a gentle lampooning
intended to steer folk-music lovers into what was then
a (sorta) strong coalition of anti-war, anti-consumer, pro-environment
people who questioned authority and cherished diversity

* for instance, the 1964 Chevy Impala convertible that my
folks let me drive in the early 70s and was somewhat of a
"beater", a car you could throw up out the window of or
drive over a curb...has re-appeared as a model suitable for pimping***

** not that there's anything wrong with that

*** ditto