Tiny Tim
God Bless Tiny Tim
1968, Reprise
As the years go by, as my metabolism slows, as thoughts about mortality hit me like a bird shitting on my head everyday, as I figure out what I really care about in life, and as I enthusiastically prune my 4-5,000-piece record collection down to a modest stash of essentials, more and more do I realize that I love happy music most of all.
I guess that there’s great angry music and depressing music out there. Cool. Somebody else can listen to it.
Your humble reporter though, as he falls apart like an old Chevy Nova and spends his evenings at home tending to his two cats and his sciatic nerves, is all about the good times and sunny vibes. The occasional arty outsider thing can catch his weathered ear from time to time (watch this space for some of that in future installments, if you dare), but for the most part, he loves pretty tones that make luscious melodies that build up to timeless songs. This sordid specimen of whom we speak is your regular pop nerd and your basic freak for a hook. A real headcase. His younger music snob self would be ashamed. He’s a disgrace, this old short bald guy who never exercises. He wants to put on music and sway and sing along. He wants to play the same songs over and over. He wants to rock out and be flown around on angel wings. He wants to get out of this paragraph in which he’s stuck referring to himself in the third person.
That doesn’t mean that I only love songs about rainbows and candy (though I do love plenty of songs about rainbows and candy). Rather, I’d define “happy” music as music that exhibits a sincere love for life (sad songs can be awfully sweet on the ears when they’re beautifully written). There are many different ways do that.
And this genius first album from Tiny Tim hits a whole bunch of them. It’s a masterpiece of dreamy aural world-building and soul-soothing. I could never get rid of it. My mood lifts the moment that I put it on. I always want to be around it.
Tiny Tim is one of pop’s beautiful freaks. Was this old time music-loving, falsetto-singing, ukulele-plucking, adult diaper-wearing, probably OCD-having troubadour a happy person? I have no idea. One of the delicious ironies of happy music is that it’s often made by people who aren’t happy.
Successful, pretty people want to talk about their angst. They love to show us the dark side of winning.
Maybe, by contrast, some of the truly troubled among us want to sing about joy and fun. They want to manufacture the happiness that eludes them in real life.
I can’t tell you what was in Tiny Tim’s head when he applied his otherworldly falsetto to these old-time melodies and sumptuous dreamscapes. His performances are consistently berserk and wonderful and heartfelt. Still, to hear Tiny tell it, this album was a misstep, a psychedelic sellout from a flea circus troubadour manipulated by the record company and producer. He hated one of the best songs on it, the gorgeous, Curt Boettcher-worthy plush pillow psych-lullaby “Strawberry Tea”, written by Gordon Alexander.
In the end, producer Richard Perry is the real auteur here. Tiny is the lead in the movie, but Perry is the director. While Tiny was happy to be stuck in 1920, Perry had a vision for how to interpret that personality for the acid generation. The strings, keys and brass, arranged by Brill Building legend Artie Butler, are lush and misty and full of candy land color, but never overbearing, always tasteful (Sgt. Pepper was doubtlessly a touchstone for this record’s sound). The first song here is titled “Welcome to My Dream”, written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke for Bing Crosby in the 1940s, and Perry keeps that dream afloat for fourteen more songs, each one slathered in perfect buttercream frosting.
Perry crafted something beautiful here, a custom-made, comfortable place for Tiny Tim to rest his own innate weirdness. It’s an album that treats him like a star, giving him a lovely entrance and an even more fetching exit (the surging and string-laden swooner “This is All I Ask” by Gordon Jenkins), with plenty of theatrical pomp in between, including charming spoken intros from Tiny before several songs. Perry creates a world and puts Tiny Tim right on top of it, trilling from heavenly stratospheres to us mere mortals below.
It’s one of the most handsomely made albums of 1968 and a real misfit’s classic. You put it on when you’ve had enough of the daily noise and you’re feelin’ real out of step with the world.
Tiny Tim seems to have the same problem. Listen to this and feel out of step with him.
My old vinyl copy isn’t going anywhere, but I also sprung for the recent CD reissue put out by the UK label Now Sounds. (There was a 3-disc Rhino Handmade box set from 2006, long sold out and now fairly pricey, that I ignored at the time because I was a real dumbbell back then). The big deal about the CD is that it’s the previously rare mono mix that originally came out only as a white label promo. It sounds great, but–audiophiles, prepare to gasp–I’m fucked if I can tell the difference between the two. I’m an idiot about matters of audio quality, though. Don’t listen to me about that stuff. I don’t have an expensive stereo. I don’t have an account on the Steve Hoffman forum. I don’t have a clue. I’m a proud member of the Riff-Raff.
For me, the draws of the CD are the terrific liner notes by Kristian Hoffman (who’s made some great albums of his own that I intend to write about here eventually) and the bonus tracks. There are eleven. Six of them are select instrumental versions of the songs for appreciating the lovely arrangements, one is the 45 version of “Tiptoe Thru’ the Tulips With Me” (which sounds the same as the album version to me; please recall my audio idiocy noted above, thank you) and the other four are likable non-album singles.
Kristian Hoffman does not like Tiny’s cover of Sopwith Camel’s “Hello, Hello”, but I disagree. The song itself is no great shakes, but Tiny elevates it and owns it with some particularly soaring high notes.
Hoffman and I definitely tap glasses though over the greatness of the 1966 single “April Showers”. It’s the first team-up of Tiny and Richard Perry and it’s a low-budget contrast to the album’s opulence (it’s pretty much an audition for the record company and Perry plays most of the instruments himself), but brings every bit of its whimsy. The Leadbelly B-side is a hoot. Some versions of this song are called “In the Pines”. Others are called “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”. Here, it’s called “Little Girl” and Tiny’s low-register take holds up next to any other stab at this song’s darkness that I’ve ever heard.
Yes, I am saying that Tiny Tim’s rendition of the song is just as good as Nirvana’s. Sue me. Just don’t take away my Tiny Tim LP. Or my CD. Or my copy of his Christmas album.
These are all Things I Will Keep.