Far Out There Character Soundtrack: Augusta

Man, I’d love to see a chart which graphs out the plot relevancy of all the Far Out There characters who’ve gotten soundtracks, because there’s gotta be some DRASTIC fluctuations from blog to blog. Last time was one of a gang of characters who all but took over the comic as soon as they arrived, but now we have a side character TO a side character whose total page appearances can be counted in the dozens. Augusta, for those who don’t even know, is the mother of Jenna and Kevin and Megaweapon, and apparently one of the wealthiest characters in the Far Out There universe. Designed to be the antithesis of the “spoiled rich brat” cliché, and thus explaining how Jenna turned out so well, Augusta is a cheerful, naïve ditz who spends all day flittering around in fancy dresses and being positive about everything and basically embodying the ideal of a Disney Princess. Don't worry, her soundtrack isn’t all Disney movie showstoppers, funny as that would have been. Instead, Augusta’s propensity for luxurious ballroom gowns sent me in a different musical direction. If she’s always dressed for dancing at a fancy ball, what kind of music would she have playing there? My limited, stereotypical understanding of sophisticated things (do I LOOK like I know what goes on at a fancy ball?) suggests “harpsichord music,” so Augusta’s music of choice is mid-60’s Chamber Pop, a.k.a “Baroque ‘n’ Roll.”

This is actually a bit of conceptual recycling on my part. Waaaaaaay back when this whole Character Soundtrack exercise first started, I’d intended Alphonse’s soundtrack to be a mix of ‘60s harpsichord songs and legit classical music. The two didn’t gel very well, though, and I wound up deciding Alphonse would be better served by an “all classical all the time” format. But I still like the whole mid-60’s harpsichord sound, and never stopped wanting to showcase it somewhere, so here we are! I really do think it’s a good fit for Augusta, even beyond the “fancy dress” aesthetic. Not only does the whole plinky-keyboard and string section carry an air of elegant sophistication, but there’s also a bright, happy feel to this subgenre that fits nicely with Augusta’s cheerful personality. Heck, that happy feel is often in direct contrast to sad, downer lyrics, which nicely illustrates Augusta’s ability stay bright and bubbly despite raising a dud like Kevin and a terror like Megaweapon. It’s a perfect fit!

Moving on to the music itself, the single biggest name in the whole “hey, harpsichords are pretty cool, guys!” fad in the mid-60’s was The Left Banke, who are all over this playlist. In fact, their shadow over Augusta’s soundtrack is even longer than the four songs present in the track list.  Obviously, we have to include their biggest hit, oldie radio staple “Walk Away Renee,” and the sparser-but-almost-as-good follow-up “Pretty Ballerina” is a lock as well.  In addition, we have later single “She May Call You Up Tonight” and album track “I’ve Got Something On My Mind,” both exercises in intricate keyboards and tight harmonies, every bit as catchy as the two big singles, and all written by keyboardist Michael Brown. That’s an important detail, as The Left Banke (ironically for a band with such an emphasis on harmonies) had a very tumultuous existence. Brown had strong I Am The Band aspirations, wanting to record everything in the studio himself, which led to all sorts of fights with the actual rest of the band, including singer Steve Martin (no, not that one). The rest of The Left Banke would eventually record a second album on their own without Brown, but that wouldn’t stop Brown from going ahead and recording his own second Left Banke album, sort of.

Augusta’s soundtrack contains three tracks by the band Montage. Michael Brown was not a member of Montage, yet in many ways he WAS Montage. Actually a group of nobodies from New Jersey, Montage were happy to let Brown swoop in and write their debut album for them, basically just serving as his session musicians. That’s probably a little harsh on my part, as vocalists Vance Chapman and Bob Steurer were freakishly good at replicating The Left Banke’s signature harmonies, to the point that Montage really does sound more like a second Left Banke album than the actual second Left Banke album. Alas, while debut single “I Shall Call Her Mary” makes an admirable effort of updating the signature Baroque Pop sound into something a bit closer to the dawning Progressive Rock complexities, that made it a lot less radio friendly than The Left Banke had been. And since the whole “I pay you to go out and play my songs” structure kind of depends on hit singles to generate funds, Montage never made a second album with Michael Brown. It’s too bad, because while “I Shall Call Her Mary” was never going to be a chart success, it does fit very well into Augusta’s ballroom aesthetic, as do the even more classical-sounding tracks “My Love” and “Tinsel and Ivy.” In particular, “My Love” sounds downright renaissance fair-esque, great for dancing in frilly shirts and big skirts and whatever.

No other single artists comes close to matching the Montage/Left Banke domination of this playlist, though incidentally, I strongly considered trying to squeeze in a track by the NEXT band Brown was involved in: Stories. They got unto some baroquish antics of their first album too, but lead singer Ian Lloyd was a lot rougher than anybody in the previous two bands, so I just couldn’t make any of those tracks fit into the flow of Augusta’s soundtrack. And you KNOW something’s serious, when even I’M thinking something related to these character soundtracks is too indulgent.

The only act to come close to matching that whopping seven-track lead is The Monkees, sort of. Technically, they only show up twice, but I can lump a third track into this paragraph to force a greater sense of structure and progression onto this blog as a whole. Because that’s how decisions get made around here. Starting off, we have the first “real” Monkees song (that is, created by actual cast of the TV show themselves and not Don Kirshner & co.) “The Girl I Knew Somewhere.” It’s probably the most hard rocking song on Augusta’s entire soundtrack, to the extent that a harpsichord-driven Folk Rock song can be called “hard rocking” to begin with. While build upon a foundation of 12-string power chords, Peter Tork’s layers of keyboards are enough to fit “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” firmly into Left Banke territory. While sung by Mickey Dolenz, “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” was actually written by Mike Nesmith, who paradoxically turns up later singing a song he DIDN’T write: “The Door Into Summer.” Low key one of my favorite Monkees songs, “The Door Into Summer” is another Folk/Baroque hybrid with lots of intricate guitar and piano interplay throughout. It’s light, breezy tune, much more than one would expect from a song about a man regretting wasting his life (I told you Augusta’s soundtrack was replete with lyrical dissonance). Although those are the only actual Monkees tracks on display, Mike Nesmith appears a third time via Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys’ cover of his “Different Drum,” which is easily better known than either of the songs here he’s actually on. This is another song you already know if you’ve ever listened to oldies radio in your life, and probably one of the most commercially successful Baroque Pop singles… ironic for a song originally written to be Bluegrass.

Moving on to artists who make dual appearances on Augusta’s soundtrack WITHOUT any bonuses tacked on, we have two songs by The Zombies, whose Odessey and Oracle is regarded as one of the seminal Chamber Pop albums, even if it kind of flopped upon release. “Care of Cell 44” is probably the bounciest, happiest song on the whole soundtrack… which is a really odd thing to say about a song where the singer waits for his girlfriend to get out of prison. (Again, lots of lyrical dissonance at work here). The more stately, classical “Imagine The Swan” sticks a bit closer to the whole “ballroom” motif, but is still a lot brighter than a song about realizing how old and ugly a former lover has become really should be. Then again, there IS something appropriate in a song about present reality failing to live up to idealized memories of the past being the last thing The Zombies ever released (nearly two years after they originally broke up, too, as befitting a band named after the shambling undead).

We also have two tracks from Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter, and somehow I managed to represent this cult legend singer songwriter with a pair of songs that feature no singing whatsoever. Bryter Layter is bookended by a set of instrumentals, the guitar/strings workout “Introduction” rather obviously kicking off both the album and Augusta’s soundtrack. Later on, we also have album closer “Sunday,” a flute-based ditty that’s honestly a bit more on the Jazz side of things, but only in a very old school Easy Listening/Elevator Music kind of way. It’s still got plenty of strings in the back, though, and flutes are still a nice and classical instrument, right? Anyway, the important thing is that it’s exactly the sort of pretty, wistful thing that Augusta would happily listen to, and that’s what’s really important.

Speaking of Elevator Music, we move on to the one track wonders via one more instrumental track: Paul Mauriat’s version of “Love Is Blue.” This is another one of those songs that you know whether you realize you do or not, sort of like fellow Elevator Music classics like “Theme From A Summer Place” or “The Girl From Impania.” Again, we’re straying a little bit from the whole Baroque/Chamber Pop motif towards Muzak, but the harpsichord is so prominent that you don’t really notice except in retrospect. And speaking of Easy Listening, we also have a Carpenters album track, “Mr. Guder.” I’ve acknowledged the lyrics on several of these songs just to point out the dissonance with the music, but in this case I have to dwell on a disconnect with the artists themselves. Beneath it’s melding of a classical waltz and more slight jazz, “Mr. Gruder” is a call out song against a square, stuffy businessman about how he needs to loosen up and be more hip. Again, a rant about how a lame guy needs to be cooler… in a Carpenters song… from the same album as Soft Rock stalwarts “We’ve Only Just Begin” and “Close To You.” I mean, I unironically like the Carpenters, but even I think that’s kinda hilarious. The only way it even remotely makes sense is if you realize Richard Carpenter wrote it to vent about getting fired from his job as a street musician at Disneyland. Truly, the only environment anyone as dorky as the Carpenter siblings could feel even REMOTELY rebellious would be late ‘60s Disneyland. And speaking of dorky siblings, to-clever-for-their-own-good Sunshine Pop innovators The Free Design provide an intricate re-working of The Beatles’ “Michelle,” turning the pastiche of Parisian coffee house music into something a group of court minstrels would sing. And speaking of clever segues, The ACTUAL Beatles turn up as well with “She’s Leaving Home.” A song about a girl running away from home is, again, a bit of a dark song for Augusta to like once you think about it, but I think the dominant theme emerging here is that Augusta doesn’t stop to think too hard about much of anything.

I, on the other hand, think too hard about a LOT of things, just look at how long these blog posts get. More specifically, watch me get waaay too deep about a song that I originally just put on Augusta’s soundtrack because it sounded pretty: The Beach Boy’s “You Still Believe In Me.” One of the lusher tracks on Pet Sounds, and very much of a kind with the much better known “God Only Knows,” “You Still Believe In Me” works just fine in that ‘60s Baroque vibe, but something deeper about the lyrics dawned on me as I was in the process of writing this. The song is about a man admitting all of his flaws, expressing his awe in the fact that his significant other continues to put up with him, and striving to do better for her. This is basically Dr. Hector’s relationship with Augusta summed up in a little over two minutes. Dude would be just another raving mad scientist if she wasn’t around to keep him grounded, and he totally knows it. “You Still Believe In Me” would probably be their song, even if only one of them really “got” the deeper implications. Again, there is absolutely NO was I could have picked a song that perfectly on purpose, I just liked the pretty choir boy vocals. It’s always nice when things work out like that, huh?

Another song that kind of just worked out despite me is the penultimate track on the soundtrack, “My World Fell Down” by Sagittarius. For the most part, this is another Sunshine Pop song with sad lyrics you don’t really notice underneath the lush harmonies and orchestration, like several other songs here. Things get weird with the bridge, though, where the music stops altogether in favor of a musique concrete blast of stock sound effects. I guess the intent was to audibly create the impression of the world “falling down,” though the end result sound more like somebody in the studio sat on a TV remote and accidentally caught a few seconds of some Cowboys & Indians movie on the song. It doesn’t really work, and I’d venture to say it’s the reason why “My World Fell Down” didn’t make the Top 40. Producer Gary Usher must have agreed, since Sagittarius’ debut album features a remixed version of the song that cuts out the whole musique concrete section… but also a very important vocal bridge that transitions out of the noise back into the final chorus. The song is better odd without the artsy bit, but becomes way too repetitive without the bridge, which presented a real problem as I tried to put this soundtrack together. I really wanted “My World Fell Down” on here, but couldn’t imagine Augusta sitting through the blast of noise, but ALSO didn’t think the album version was worth including with it’s missing bits. To make matters worse, while there are other versions of “My World Fell Down” out there (in fact, the original by The Ivy League is arguably even more Baroque-sounding than this version), the bridge I was getting so hung up on was specifically written for the Sagittarius cover. Eventually, though, I had an epiphany: Augusta wouldn’t chose to listen to a song with a noisy bit like that in it, but she would have to. That’s the bit where Megaweapon does something terrible in the other room and everybody in the house can hear the crash! It makes perfect sense now! This wasn’t a stretch at all!

Also not a stretch is the one last song I slipped into Augusta’s soundtrack: “Girlfriend” by Ox. Ox were one of the many Group Sounds bands to sweep across Japan in the late 60s, but they’re a prime example of the later days of that movement. While originally a bewildering mix of Merseybeat and Surf Rock, with some traces of early Psychedelia thrown in, Group Sounds bands got pretty heavily watered down by the pop star machine by the tail end of the decade, reduced to pretty boys in frilly clothes singing weepy ballad with big orchestral backing. Which, you know, isn’t INHERENTLY bad, if you’re into that sort of thing. I guess. (I mean, have you SEEN the stuff I've included so far?) I just wish the record companies had forced bands who’d rather be rawking out to record it. For my money, “Girlfriend” is one of the better late period Group Sounds songs, since I could see it working as a moody garage band song as much as it does an orchestral ballad. The rock/orchestra components actually complement each other, rather than the later smothering the former as so often happened with these types of songs. But more importantly, THIS MEANS I WAS ABLE TO SLIP ANOTHER JAPANESE SONG INTO THE SOUNDTRACK! GO ME!

(Honestly, there’s not a whole lot of Behind the Scenes stuff to get into down here, especially since I already rambled on about the various versions of “My World Fell Down” up above. I had a little bit of trouble finding decent quality posts of Montage’s songs that were unrestricted, having to settle for some vinyl rips with a lot of pop and hiss. But hey, that’s what you gotta deal with when you mess around with 60s rarities. Otherwise, finding clips that can be seen everywhere wasn’t all that hard. Really, my biggest annoyance was trying to find some fun TV clips, especially for the Monkees songs. After all, they were the first TV band and all that, right? Unfortunately, while “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” appeared in multiple episodes, it never seems to have gotten a full performance clip filmed for it, only getting dubbed over slapstick sequences. “The Door Into Summer” DOES have a performance clip… which is even more slapstick than anything the other song was subjected to. I almost didn’t use it for the playlist due to multiple sound effects and bits of dialog covering up the song… but just watch the thing and you’ll see why I had to throw it in. I also included a “live” clip of “Love Is Blue,” if only because I’m a total sucker for the use of primitive chromakey on TV shows. Oh, and I also stumbled onto a promo clip by The Left Banke for “Walk Away Renee,” one of what seems to be only two in existence. Given how they’re all over this soundtrack, I figured they really ought to get to appear in more than a still photo at least ONCE, right?)

Augusta's YouTube Playlist