#rod mckuen

[nobeerreviews]

Love is a sweet thing caught a moment and held in a golden eye.

-- Rod McKuen

(Manarola, Italy)

[perkwunos]

There’s something about bad poetry that’s perhaps more painful than any other bad art. It’s so open and yet so empty. It reveals the yawning banality at the center of all our souls. I read McKuen’s poems and I think, Ugh, that’s a B-minus Hallmark Card. And, in fact, in the mid-1970s, McKuen actually signed a deal with Hallmark. It was for a series of greeting cards that included semipersonalized recordings for the 150 most common first names of the time. I’ve got the tape from his recording session. “Hi Stacey. Thank you, Stacey. Thank you for being you,” he says. “Hi Tammy. Thank you, Tammy. Thank you for being you.” And so on.

Dan Kois, “Rod McKuen Was the Bestselling Poet in American History. What Happened?”

[gameraboy2]

Beatsville - Rod McKuen

[apoemaday]

The Need

by Rod McKuen

It’s nice sometimes to open up the heart a little and let some hurt come in. It proves you’re still alive.

If nothing else it says to you– clear as a high hill air, uncomfortable as diving through cold water–

I’m here. However wretchedly I feel, I feel.

I’m not sure why we cannot shake the old loves from our minds. It must be that we build on memory and make them more than what they were. And is the manufacture just a safe device for closing up the wall?

I do remember. The only fuzzy circumstance is sometimes where and how. Why, I know.

It happens just because we need to want and to be wanted, too, when love is here or gone to lie down in the darkness and listen to the warm.

[brokehorrorfan]

Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease will be reissued on vinyl on October 4 via Real Gone Music. The 1974 electronic album is composed by poet Rod McKuen under the pseudonym Heins Hoffman-Richter.

The LP is pressed on vinyl with two color variants: glow-in-the-dark ($30; limited to 100) and sea glass with black swirl ($22; limited to 750). It's housed in a jacket with liner notes by The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese.

[elektraflowers]

Here's my apocalyptic take on the beat generation. It's a cover of an old Rod McKuen song; I've changed the lyrics a little. I'm still working my way through the Ableton tutorials, so it might sound halfway professional someday—not today, though.

I like this one a lot. Lyrics, and a link to the original, below the cut.

I looked over the mountain and saw a lamb insane With seven eyes and seven horns and tongues of writhing flame The same old ancient story The same old ancient song The central holy fact is that the weak should fear the strong

Come alive in the regeneration brand new body and a troubled new mind Come alive in the regeneration, and everything is gonna be fine!

I cannot hear the music I cannot stand the smell As little baby's little souls fall screaming down to hell It does not have a moral It's never ever fair When babies cry forevermore while angels darn the air

Come apart in the degeneration soul on fire with a troubled new mind Come apart in the degeneration, and everything is gonna be fine!

a crowd came to the mountain it seemed to be the place they saw a stranger standing there, a mask upon his face The softness of a serpent The wisdom of a dove enthralled with holy terror at this great unholy love

And people fall like pebbles And people rise like smoke forever up to heaven like some great eternal joke The punchline leaves you gasping The rhythm's out of joint With God of this you can be sure the cruelty's the point

Come alive in the regeneration brand new body and a troubled new mind Come alive in the regeneration, and everything is gonna be fine!

You wonder what the game is it can't be just for fun As angels build a castle in the center of the sun A million stores deep A million stories tall And that's about the only thing they really dig at all

Burn in hell, call it heat generation brand new body and a troubled new mind Join the band, call it beat generation, and try to hit the right note on time…

Come alive in the regeneration brand new body and a troubled new mind Come alive in the regeneration, and everything's gonna be fine!

Original song: "The Beat Generation" by Bob McFadden and Dor (Rod McKuen--Dor is "Rod" spelled backwards)

[oldshowbiz]

1962.

I Dig Her Wig by Rod "Oliver Twist" McKuen

[henk-heijmans]

Poet Rod McKuen played a record on his stereo set while a pet Siamese cat nuzzled his face affectionately, 1967 - by Ralph Crane (1913 - 1988), American

[leguin]

Barry Alfonso told me that despite everything, he ended up feeling forgiving toward Rod, because “it seemed like he didn’t harm anyone” with his “white lies.” And maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s harmless, even kind of charmingly brazen, to say you invented the phrase “make love, not war” or “midnight cowboy”—another one McKuen claimed was his. Or to write your own fan letters. But when you’re telling people you have illegitimate children, and meanwhile the man you love is standing next to you pretending to be your brother—you don’t seem so unharmed yourself. 

don’t think i’ve genuinely recommended a slate article in years, but i really enjoyed this one by dan kois! an interesting look at rod mckuen, someone i’d never heard of before this, and his mass appeal in the 60s and early 70s.

[100gayicons]

GAY ICONS: ROD MCKUEN

When I first began this tumblr, I wanted to profile gay (LGBT) people who have had an influence on gay rights or impacted our culture. Often a person’s sexual identify is obscured by time and we’re left with a straight backstory. If possible I want to shed light on their gay past.

One of the people I’ve had on my to-do list since the beginning is poet and singer-songwriter Rod McKuen. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s and sold over 100 million recordings worldwide. Today he is largely forgotten.

McKuen described a difficult childhood, abused by his stepfather. In his teens he ran away from home, drifting from job to job, eventually arriving in San Francisco. There he read his poetry in clubs that also featured Beat poets Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. By the late 1950s he was performing at the famed “Purple Onion”. Decca Records signed McKuen after he began incorporated his original songs into his act.

During 1967’s Summer of Love, McKuen gained a large youth following after he published his books of poetry. He won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1968. The next year his song "Jean", written for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” was nominated for an Academy Award. In all McKuen work was translated into 11 languages and sold over 60 million copies worldwide.

But McKuen was not universal loved.

Newsweek dubbed him "The King of Kitsch”

Mademoiselle magazine called him a "Marshmallow Poet."

Literary critic Nora Ephron wrote, "For the most part, McKuen's poems are superficial and platitudinous and frequently silly."

McKuen never identified as gay, straight, or bisexual, but once said:

"I can't imagine choosing one sex over the other, that's just too limiting. I can't even honestly say I have a preference."

In 1977 he actively campaigned against Anita Bryant’s anti-gay campaign - even writing a song called "Don't Drink the Orange Juice", (referring Bryant as commercial spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission). And he later gave benefit performances supporting LGBT rights organizations and to fund AIDS research.

Perhaps his gayest act was the release of his 1977 album “Slide... Easy In” that had a photo of a man's arm gripping a handful of Crisco – (then used by as sexual lubricant, in particular for fisting).

The difficulty in researching Rod McKuen is that despite of his fame (or because of it) he regularly embellished (lied about?) his past.

McKuen claimed to have a son who was raised in France by the boy’s mother. But his own biographer Barry Alfonso said:

“There is no information that confirms that Rod McKuen ever had children.”

(This reminds me of actor Raymond Burr who also claimed to have a son without any evidence).

Another example, while defending his writing to a Chicago Tribune reporter (1975), he said:

“… if I wasn’t a damn good poet, why would I be in the Oxford Book of Verse?”

That claim was researched and there was NO Oxford Book of Verse (nor an Oxford books of English Verse or American Verse).

Regarding Edward Habib, his “partner” of 50+ years, the two lived together and McKuen referred to him as a brother. In response to a gay fan letter, McKuen implied he and Habib were biological brothers, and suggested to have had sex together “… wouldn’t that be incest?”

McKuen died of respiratory arrest in Beverly Hills, on January 29, 2015. Edward Habib died in May 12, 2018.

Raymond Burr’s profile:

[weneverlearn]

Here's a pretty excellent article digging into the somewhat forgotten superstar poet of the 1960s-70s, Rod McKuen.

He was sort of a gateway poet for me, as his shmaltzy love/wonder stuff did jibe with that early teen life moment when I was figuring out who I was. He was already pretty forgotten when I first came across him. One passage here happened to me exactly, as my first girlfriend, Sondra​, bought me one of his books for a birthday present and inscribed it.

"That ability to express emotions that might otherwise go unsaid seems key to a phenomenon several people I interviewed noticed: that lots of their old Rod McKuen books sport handwritten inscriptions in the front. Think of them as the mixtapes of their day, said Erik Noftle, also a professor at Willamette: “They were given, you know, to men, to help them understand the internal world of feeling, or they were given to women to acknowledge that world.”

I seem to recall liking the way, mentioned in this article, McKuen didn't always reference exact gender, and I tried to do that in my lyrics, though there were a few influences for that, though this article shook that cobweb out...

I always loved that Beatsville album McKuen did, and heard Richard Hell's "Blank Generation" song about the same year I first heard McKuen's "Beat Generation" novelty track. I got the first CD release of that during the flood of "bachelor pad music" reissues in the latter '90s, and it came with cool downloadable "beatnik" fonts.

The second-to-last paragraph is a good encapsulation of the increasingly lost art of stumbling on weird shit, like I used to do a lot more at thrift stores...

[giant1956]

Rock Hudson sings the songs of Rod McKuen, ‘73.

[gameraboy2]

Amor, Amor - Rod McKuen

[disneyprint]

Scandalous John

1971 theatrical release poster

[jorgesanson]

Some of my favourite Rod McKuen’s album covers

[mrdirtybear]

Rod McKuen (1933-2015) was a singer-songwriter in the mid 1950's, well before the the simpering sensitive 1970's singer-songwriters arrived and created all conquering markets for serious but sensitive music. He was a jobbing song writer and writer of his own poetry from 1953, when he was drafted to serve in the Korean war. Later he was a DJ on Californian radio where he would quote his poems between songs. He appeared with the beat writers when they performed live locally. Long after his fifteen minutes of fame passed he remained a well organised and effective promoter of his work, both new and old work.