Inside Tracks #26: Sylvia Tyson, "You Were on My Mind"-Ian & Sylvia & Covers by We Five, The Bangles, Joe & Eddie, Crispian St. Peters

How does a song go from original acoustic folk song to an energetic pop rock hit? Inside Tracks: The anatomy of an arrangement.

“You Were On My Mind” was on my mind. But, only because it was covered with such clarity in a recent post by Michael Acoustic. Here ‘tis:

The Regular Friday Post

What caught my attention about the song written by Canadian singer/songwriter, Sylvia Tyson née Fricker (and performed with her husband, the late Ian Tyson—who passed away at 89 in December 2022—as the duo, Ian and Sylvia, above), is that her song exists as a perfectly serviceable of-the-era folk song (as she and Ian recorded it), but then was completely transformed into a chart-topping pop song a year-and-a-half later that hardly resembles the original.

In fact, the song, for its nearly 70 covers recorded over 6 decades, only receives the pop song arrangement made popular by We Five in 1965. How was that arrangement birthed, and who’s responsible?

Recorded in late 1963 (and released January 1964 on Vanguard Records), here’s the original, as written by Sylvia and performed by Ian and Sylvia. Players on the track include Eric Weissberg on bass, the late John Herald (former Greenbriar Boy) on guitar (Ian on lead guitar), and Sylvia, autoharp:

The song, Sylvia says, was written in a bathtub in a suite at the Hotel Earle in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1961. Sylvia wrote it - her first composition - in the bathroom because “it was the only place the cockroaches would not go.”

A live performance from August 1986:

In blogger, Jim Fitzpatrick’s opinion, “The Ian & Sylvia original starts off with a guitar lead-in that is very similar to the lead-in to the Rooftop Singers’ 1962 song, “Walk Right In,” which is catchy but, to me, irritating and cheesy.

“And, I’ve got to say, the Ian & Sylvia original version of ‘You Were on My Mind’ also strikes me as irritating and cheesy. Almost worse, it’s flat. Instead of increasing in intensity, it drones along and ends with the anti-climax of a tied soccer game.”

A rather harsh assessment, to be sure, but if nothing else, it helps create the starting point for what we’ll find is a radical and stark departure from this “basic” folk arrangement to the eventual barely-controlled, runaway train of a pop tune.

To her credit, Sylvia stays true to her original arrangement, as shown in this live performance at the Home County Music & Arts Festival in London, Ontario in July 2015 (she was 74):

It’s the 5 dozen or so covers in that 50-year span that tell a story. We’ll look at a small handful.

The Last “Living” Sylvia Cover Arrangement Was Spotted in ‘64

Later in 1964, Chicagoan Jo Mapes recorded the first cover of the song, and it’s the same pleasant arrangement as Sylvia’s. Mapes died in 2018 at age 86, but not before cementing her legacy as a prominent contributor in the folk music revival of the 1950s and ‘60s, who later became an ad copywriter and nightclub critic for the Chicago Sun-Times!

Mapes was described by Shel Silverstein as “the best female folk singer and guitar player around, with unique singing style and stage presence.” In 1964 she released her And You Were On My Mind album on the short-lived FM Records label; Stunningly, the company went bankrupt before the album could be distributed. Thankfully, some tapes remain:

Her presence here adds even more provenance to the arrangement niche “You Were On My Mind” eventually settled into with We Five, a group who slots comfortably into what came to be known as Sunshine Pop, the late-’60s sub-genre inhabited by the likes of (but nowhere near limited to) The Association, Millennium, The Sunshine Company, Spanky & Our Gang, The Mamas & Papas, The 5th Dimension….any act with a sunny disposition, layered harmonies, and instantly hummable melodies within a soft (even folk) rock and/or soul foundation.

Ms. Mapes, it turns out, was a major contributor to that sub-genre by writing the following: “Come On In” (which she recorded for her ill-fated ‘64 album, and seemingly unavailable) recorded by The Association, and appropriately opening their 1968 Birthday album on Warner Bros. Again, just as in “You Were On My Mind,” who was responsible for this radically new and different arrangement?

No credits for arranging are available, but Bones Howe produced, as he did many times in the Sunshine Pop arena, for The Turtles and The 5th Dimension. It’s likely the band, themselves, arranged:

In Our Minds Again: “You Were On My Mind”

We Five in a wee hive (l-r, clockwise): We found him….The arranger, Mike Stewart (banjo, guitar, and brother of The Kingston Trio’s John Stewart, a longtime solo singer/songwriter), Pete Fullerton (bass), Bob Jones (guitar), Jerry Burgan (acoustic guitar), and the huggee in orange, lead singer (and rhythm guitar), Beverly Bivins.

Following Mapes’ late ‘64 folkie recording of the Sylvia song, We Five released their newly-re-arranged, energetic pop cover in June 1965 on A&M Records, produced by Frank Werber, Kingston Trio manager and producer:

Live performance on Hollywood Palace, 1965:

As related by Joel Whitburn in his 2002 Top Adult Contemporary: 1961-2001, “the song was covered in an up-tempo version, with slightly altered lyrics and melody. Their recording reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in September 1965, and topped the Billboard Easy Listening chart for five weeks.

Billboard eventually ranked the record as the #4 song of 1965, behind “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, the Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones. In Canada, this version reached #4.

“The performance by We Five is noteworthy for the gradual buildup in intensity, starting off somewhat flowing and gentle, increasing in intensity in the third stanza and remaining so through the fourth stanza. The fifth and final stanza starts off gently and concludes very intensely, ending with a series of guitar chords.”

☎The Arrangement’s Coming From Inside the Band!😱

From the We Five website (we’re closing in!): “We Five’s million-selling version of ‘You Were On My Mind’ marked the beginning of a musical transition by adding drums and an electric 12-string guitar to a traditional acoustic folk song.

“Simon & Garfunkel, the Mamas And Papas, the Association--many others followed, but We Five helped lead the way.

”Unlike The Byrds, who went straight to hard rock versions of Bob Dylan songs, We Five kept polished vocals and a cross section of contemporary material in their repertoire.”

Back to blogger Fitzpatrick: “In 1965, Michael Stewart (above), the founding member of We Five [who graduated from L.A.’s Pomona Catholic High School before attending the University of San Francisco], saw the song’s potential. He slightly changed the lyrics and melody and came up with an arrangement that transformed the song from blah to combustible.”

From a 2009 Charles H. Smith (Western Kentucky University) essay, “Ode to a Sometimes-Maligned Song”:

“There has been a growing tendency over the years from various sources…complaining that their adaptation of [Sylvia’s] song cheapened it. Indeed, the group did take a lot of liberties with [her] original composition, changing words here and there, substituting all sorts of chords, and generally transforming it into a new product.

“Some have castigated the group, for example, for leaving out a section in the second verse where [Sylvia’s] original protagonist gets drunk and sick before coming home: that is, for ‘cleaning it up’ so as to be ‘more appropriate’ for a mass market.

“I completely disagree with this appraisal. While [Sylvia’s] original version works perfectly well in its country/folk setting as a simple story of a failed relationship, We Five’s manipulation of its starting point raised the product to a wholly new level.”

Smith: “The musical arrangement and exact words as sung by We Five cleverly contribute to the drama: The instrumental lead-in on drums and bass is barely an uneasy shuffle, perhaps designed to mimic a disturbed, hypnogogic dream state.

“But then the final note, punctuated on guitar, intervenes, and the protagonist is rudely awakened. The description of events begins in the past tense, but then the confessional quickly switches into present tense: ‘I got troubles, woe, oh woe’... I don’t know where the ‘whoa-oh’ came from in most transcriptions of their reading of the song, but they are actually singing ‘woe, oh woe,’ as clearly can be heard, and besides, this wording better suits both the immediate setting and a reference to the old lament ‘woe, oh woe is me.’”

The Covers: Cementing the Hit Template

Two months after We Five released their hit, Gospel-folk duo, Joe & Eddie released their similarly-arranged cover in August 1965 (see YouTube audio clip by clicking here), from their Walkin’ Down the Line album on GNP Crescendo Records, and produced by Snuff Garrett, A&R head of Liberty Records at the time. Leon Russell, still a regular Gold Star Studio session keyboardist for Phil Spector productions, arranged.

Brit Crispian St. Peters slowed it down just a hair in November 1965, but, with a single harmony voice, organ, tambourine, and sax accompanying, still replicated the We Five arrangement. He scored a #2 UK hit with it in 1966. His version was also released in the U.S. in 1967, and went to #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #29 in Canada:

That same month, The Surfaris gave it a shot, with The Vogues giving it their vocal best in December ‘65, as well. Over 60 covers followed over the decades, with nearly all following the rockin’ We Five blueprint, including The Lettermen, Jay & The Americans, Susannah Hoffs (who apparently taught it to her band!), Nanci Griffith, The Rainmakers…even Mrs. Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson!

Even Sylvia re-visited it in the studio in 1989…yep, her original arrangement, albeit a little more electric, and upbeat enough to two-step to!

Even Ms. Hoffs and her Bangles thought enough of it to work out a cover for their 2000 reunion:

Back to Fitzpatrick and his blog: “The other key member of We Five was lead singer Beverly Bivens. Although her voice blends in with the voices of the four males, the song would be nothing without her energy and captivating presence.

“Unfortunately for We Five, she left the group in 1966, and that was essentially the end of We Five.

“Bivens did not sing publicly again until the opening of an exhibition revolving around the rock scene in the Bay area in the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. She is now 77, presumably still living in California.

“Michael Stewart went on to become a record producer and a developer of music software. He died on November 13, 2002 at age 57.”