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: