Song of the Day 10/2: The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Do You Believe in Magic”
There’s been some speculation recently that Donald Trump’s “advisers” (a more accurate term would be “manipulators”) are feeding him a steady diet of fake videos to influence his “decisions” (a more accurate term would be “ragegasms”). The latest evidence: Medbeds.
As Wikipedia has been forced to explain, medbeds are “a type of nonexistent medical technology present in a conspiracy theory alleging that they can cure any condition, but have been kept secret from the general public.” The key word there is “nonexistent.” If it sounds like something out of the Weekly World News, that’s because it basically is – it’s yet another bit of crack-brained lunacy that started in the QAnon universe.
Though it’s obviously nonsense – if such a thing existed, Donald Trump wouldn’t be in the shape he’s in – the notion gained enormous traction a few days ago when Trump himself posted an obviously AI-generated video touting the technology on Truth Social. Interest exploded exponentially.
How could people be so gullible? As science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke postulated in 1968, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so a lot of the modern world must seem magical to the sort of people who would believe a pedophile ring operates from a Washington DC pizzeria’s non-existent basement.
The magic John Sebastian wrote about on the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 1965 debut single was musical. He must have had a little of that magic in him – how else could he have made the electric autoharp a thing? His inspiration came from a teenage girl who was dancing during the band’s set at Greenwich Village’s Night Owl Cafe. He later recalled,
We were playing pretty steadily for the local people from Greenwich Village who were part of the jazz scene or part of the kind of downtown ‘in crowd.’ They were ‘finger poppers,’ guys who played chess, beatniks. But there was this one particular night as we were playing, I looked out in the audience and saw this beautiful 16-year-old girl just dancing the night away. And I remember [guitarist] Zal [Yanovsky] and I just elbowed each other the entire night because to us that young girl symbolized the fact that our audience was changing, that maybe they had finally found us. I wrote ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ the next day.
Sebastian started with the opening chords from Martha and the Vandellas’ 1963 hit “Heat Wave,” changed a major 7th chord to a minor 7th and wound up with a No. 9 hit.
Quite a few people have covered the song. Teen idol Shaun Cassidy reached the Top 40 with it in 1978, two years after a young singer named Johnny Cougar recorded a more rock-oriented version for his debut album, “Chestnut Street Incident.” He eventually ditched that cringe-worthy stage name for his real one, John Mellencamp.
The tune has been used in lots of commercials, including an ad for one of Donald Trump’s casinos.
