I lI listened to this song, and many more by the Fifth Dimension when I was just a little nipper. It blew me away then and it still does. I could never express my grattitude to my folks for turning me on to music, even before I was born. I know I'd never have been able to get into music as deeply as I do without their influence, and music is probably the greatest gift I ever got. But on to Puppet Man. This song is a motherfucker. I just listened to it three times and it was glorious...some serious mood-elevation. My oh my.
[ ]The Fifth Dimension was a "Vocal Group." As a genre, the Vocal Group no longer exists, except maybe in Vegas or on cruises for old-timers, billed as "Doo-Wop Until You Drop" or something like that. Occasionally various members would play instruments, like the Beach Boys or the Jackson 5, but mostly they all just sang. There generally was a main guy but everyone was featured. Three-part harmony is beautiful and it's usually all you need, if even that, but when you get five people who could all be bandleaders in their own right and are monster singers, the results can be spectacular, and nobody did it better than the 5th D.
[ ]This is my favorite Fifth Dimension song but for several years it pushed my buttons and kept me awake nights. Marilyn McCoo. Enuff said. I had the biggest crush on her even though I did realize that I was maybe a bit too young, plus I wasn't famous. Man she was smokin' hot and actually she still is, for someone older than I am. I grew up in the deep-ass South during segregation and worse, but I didn't grow up with a racial thing. Any traces I may have had melted away with my heart when I first saw Marilyn McCoo. I wanted to wait until I was a little older, so the age thing wouldn't matter so much, and marry her. I'd stay up past my bedtime with my little transistor radio under the covers, hoping this song would come on, just to hear her sing.
[ ]The years that this tune bothered me were the "boner in class" years. I guess third grade was the peak but it lasted for several years, and this song came out right in the middle of the spontaneous-boner period. Sometimes it'd be hard to control that rascal, and for some reason it seemed to be the worst in class. It was mostly due to having hot teachers, but sometimes out of nowhere you'd sprout a boner in class, and you'd pray that you didn't get called-on to go to the board until the swellin' went down. In fact that was what led me to believe that God was real, because I never once got called to the board if I was sporting wood. I'm kidding but it's true. I remember some poor bastard would get called up to the board when he was owning a boner. He'd have his hands in his pockets and would walk up to the front of the class hunched-over. Even the girls would laugh. I'm glad I didn't suffer that trauma. Anyway I don't specifically remember Marilyn giving me a boner but I wouldn't be surprised. She did get me all hot and bothered, for a kid anyway.
[ ]But why did this song give me a boner? Was it just because Marilyn was so fine? No, it was the lyrics. She's telling her "puppet man" (lucky son-of-a-bitch) that she'll do anything he wants. With killer lines like "I'm a puppet just for you" or "I'll be a crackerjack 'til the crack of dawn" or "Raise a finger I'll perform" or "Wind me up and let me go," who could blame me if I popped a boner? Heck it still gives me one today. But it was the hook of the song, the classic line "If you wanna see me do my thang...pull my strang" that did the trick. On that one little part she put a Southern drawl on it and it was just perfect. Oh, Marilyn McCoooooooooooooo...I got a boner for yooooooooooou.
[ ]The song is groovy and funky and happy and bouncy and "up." It starts out with a cool, Ringo-esque drum fill and then the band comes in and within seconds you're bopping your head. Seriously, you will be. Try it and see. They hired the finest session musicians of the day, and you could listen to just the instrumental tracks if you wanted to; they were always dead-on and smoking, but it wouldn't have been the Fifth Dimension. The vocals took it to another level, and beyond. The bridge or pre-chorus or whatever is a singalong masterpiece. On the chorus they just sing "puppet man" again and again, but with the most incredible harmonies. That's a sign of a great band when they can sing just two words in the whole chorus and really make it count.
[ ]As great as the rest of the song is it's the last minute or so of the tune that does it for me. It's like the clouds part and the Sun comes out and all the angels are singing. There'a a part where the whole band does a syncopated lick with the vocals. They're only singing one word, "man," but they stretch it to multi-syllables and it's just breathtaking. They're all singing "Puppet man...Puppet man-an-an-an-an-an-an-an-an-an...PUPPET MAN." To this day it's one of my favorite pieces of recorded music. When I was listening to that part I was waving my arms, conducting the entire Universe. Really, I was.
[ ]That's my take on a great song from a great band. They had so many hits. If you have any interest in hearing some spectacular music and vocals, I highly urge you to get one or more of their albums, preferably on CD, but whatever medium you prefer, just anything but YouTube. I just checked and you can get most of their CDs, brand-new, for less than $10 shipped. You'll thank me later. Boy howdy that McCoo was a humdinger. They also had a song called "Last Night I Didn't Get to Sleep at All." Funny...the same thing happened to me, from thinking about Marilyn, and the next day I'd be tired in class, but still able to cop a boner at the drop of a hat. It was Marilyn's fault. She shouldn't have been so hot.
"Puppet Man" (sorry, you'll have to copy/paste): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lohkN5f3Yo0
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