The Mamas & The Papas — The Papas & The Mamas

I picked up a very beat-up copy of this 1968 release at a garage sale a mere 11 years later, and remain confounded at how other people treat their records. How could you beat up a record cover that much? I’ve done it less damage in the subsequent 40 years, and I haven’t even bothered to bag this one.
I also haven’t bothered to play it. In fact, I think for a time this was consigned to the garage, where a bunch of records went to live when space in our old house was at a premiums and several hundred records were just on their way out. This was in the early 2000s, when you literally couldn’t give vinyl away. Every now and then our local library would accept records for their big fundraising book sale, and I jettisoned a lot of stuff I was no longer interested in and couldn’t sell. Why this made its way back from the garage, I don’t recall, but apparently it did.

The cover, let us say, is awful. A dumb concept (or “special fun jacket,” depending on your perspective), with a split front cover. Underneath is another picture of the band members, in different order. Lift the flap and hilarity ensues. Jeezus, I’ve been high, but not so high I thought that was a good idea. Also, the entire cover is just . . brown. Because if there’s anything that says 1968, hippies, flower power – it’s brown ink.

And the album is, as the kids said then, a bummer. Huge hit with the retro “Dream A Little Dream of Me,” the haunting but in retrospect creepy “Twelve Thirty” (we’re not down with John Phillips’ fascination with “young girls,” though at the time half the songs in the world seemed to take that as a topic), but otherwise the songs are sad and dreary, and I don’t believe I’ve played this record two dozen times in the years I’ve owned it, which raises the question of why it’s taking up space in my life. Again.