Rich here. A few of you may recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about the ubiquity of "Hey Joe" in the Sixties. The song was literally recorded by dozens, if not hundreds, of different artists. And virtually every garage band within shouting distance of L.A. played some version of the urgent song about a vengeful, jilted lover. (Why L.A. particularly? -- because that's where the song's popularity exploded after The Byrds begin including the song in their set when they spent several months as headliners at the most popular teen club in L.A., the Whisky A-Go-Go.)
But a few bands also borrowed "Hey Joe's" template in order to create their own grievance-filled garage rockers. Two songs, in particular, became minor national hits by borrowing the essentials of "Hey Joe" -- a repetitive 5-chord sequence that always ended on either an A-or-D chord.
If you've a mind to, you could sing/speak the lyrics of "Hey Joe" over either of these two records:
First, in early 1966 there was "(Hey) Little Girl" by San Jose's garage-rockers, the Syndicate of Sound. (Although the song is sometimes called "Hey Little Girl," the official title is "Little Girl.") Like "Hey Joe," "Little Girl" featured a singer berating a former girlfriend, and started his accusation with the same attention-seeking "Hey!" In fact, if anything, the song's lyrics sound as if they could be the prequel to "Hey Joe" -- "Hey, little girl, you don't have nothin' to hide no more . . . you thought you'd get away with goin' out on me!" And just like in "Hey Joe," "Little Girl" featured a catchy 4-bar instrumental passage that was proximate to the one in "Hey Joe." "Little Girl" was the Syndicate of Sound's one and only hit song, which was largely characterized by its similarities to "Hey Joe."
And then later in 1966, there was "Seven and Seven Is" by Love, an L.A. band that at the time was second in local folk-rock popularity only to The Byrds. Like The Byrds, Love also served a tenure as headliners at the Whisky A-Go-Go, where their set list prominently featured "Hey Joe." But when Love's lead singer Arthur Lee wrote "Seven and Seven Is," his own "Hey Joe"-influenced piece, he discarded the folk-rock guitar jangle and the aggrieved-lover sentiments. Instead, the guitars in "Seven and Seven Is" are imbued with relentless aggression, and from the song's enigmatic title to its shouted lyrics, the song is full of surrealistic images that owe more to Dylan than to teenage heartbreak. Despite the obvious use of a somewhat similar repeating 5-chord sequence as "Hey Joe," "Seven and Seven Is" adds original touches to its arrangement than a simple follow-by-the-numbers "Hey Joe" mimicry would suggest, transforming "Seven and Seven Is" into a classic pre-psychedelic garage-rock masterpiece.
