I was inspired to write this review after trawling through the back pages of this site and discovering that another contributor had already had the good sense to address the Unsung status of The Turtles. The 5/4 garage blast ‘Grim Reaper Of Love’ is indeed a classic single, showing the darker side of a band best known for sunny pop ditties such as ‘Happy Together’ and ‘She’d Rather Be With Me’. I’d add their version of lost Byrds classic ‘You Showed Me’ and the soaring, Ray Davies-produced, ‘Love In The City’ to their list of great 45s, but the one I’ve plumped for here is one of those rare records on which an excellent a‑side is backed by an even better b‑side.

‘She’s My Girl’ starts off in the style of a Henry Mancini spy theme: circular walking bassline, fingerclicks, sinister piano notes and brief bursts of percussion setting the scene for a ‘Where was I last night?’ scenario. The song explodes into life for a chorus that, in a way typical of much of The Turtles’ music, is both celebratory and sour-toned at the same time. The mixture of ecstacy and pain in Howard Kaylan’s lead vocal suggests that while the girl of the title is a more attractive proposition than the one described in the classic Tom Lehrer song of the same name, there is also an undercurrent of decadence and wrong-doing. The brilliant vocal arrangement is complimented by a searing string arrangement that creeps in as the third chorus pounds away in waltz time. Released in the final month of 1967, it shows the band taking full advantage of the advances in production techniques learned during that seminal year. Flip the record over and you get something even more inventive.

An embryonic version of ‘Chicken Little Was Right’ appeared on the LP ‘The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands’, a concept album which saw the group take on a different musical persona for each track. Originally a pleasing trot in a C&W style, the remake ups the ante in every way possible and the result is a barnstorming hoedown, complete with fiddle, electric banjo, blistering drumming, superb harmonies, a novelty chicken voice accentuating the brief musical nods to Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and a general exuberance which makes every ingredient leap right out of the speakers. For a song that nods towards the band’s sillier side, it is a surprisingly intense, visceral recording. Never has a novelty record contained such an undercurrant of panic, but then Chicken Little (or Chicken Licken as we knew him in the UK) was something of a barnyard Nostradamus. This version is available as a bonus track on the Repertoire CD of ‘Turtle Soup’ (the album which had Ray Davies at the helm), while ‘She’s My Girl’ has most recently been released on the ‘Save The Turtles’ compilation. Both tracks also appeared on the 1986 LP ‘Chalon Road’, compiled by Rhino Records from a selection of non-album cuts. 

Under the guise of Flo & Eddie, lead Turtles Howard Kaylan & Mark Volman went on to seal their place in the history of rock’n’roll by joining the Mothers Of Invention and singing backing vocals on T‑Rex’s ‘Get It On’. Their own band may be less iconic, but, as these two tracks prove, they certainly cut some damn fine records.