Song of the Day 6/19: The Young Rascals, “Groovin'”

To follow the news is, by definition, to doomscroll. Well, to quote a famous sailor man, that’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more, at least for one day. The weather is perfect for groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon, and so is this No. 1 song from the innocent days of late spring-early summer 1967.

Atlantic didn’t want to release the song as a single; its laid-back, Afro-Cuban groove and spare instrumentation didn’t fit the image the Young Rascals (they would drop the adjective for their next album) had established with their cover of “Good Lovin’,” a No. 1 hit the year before. Fortunately, legendary DJ Murray the K, who used the Rascals as a house band, stepped in. As bandleader Felix Cavaliere told Goldmine in 2011,

They didn’t originally like the record because it had no drum on it. We had just cut it, and [Murray the K] came in the studio to say hello. After he heard the song, he said, “Man, this is a smash.” So, when he later heard that Atlantic didn’t want to put it out, he went to see [Atlantic president] Jerry Wexler and said, “Are you crazy? This is a friggin’ No. 1 record.”

Mr. the K was right. “Groovin'” spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, though not consecutively — Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” interrupted its run for two weeks.

The inspiration for Cavaliere and co-writer Eddie Brigati was simple — Sunday afternoon was the only time they could see their girlfriends because musicians work on Friday and Saturday nights and Cavaliere, who was 25, was dating a high school student at the time.

The last verse has one of rock’s most convincing mondegreens. Cavaliere sings, “Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessy groovin’.” Most people hear it as “you and me and Leslie,” and back in the days before lyric sheets it was hard to hear it otherwise.