TOO MANY TEAR-DROPS, TOO MANY QUESTIONS…



96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians. Obviously you know it. And even if you claim you don’t (weirdo), guaranteed once you crack open the MP3 it’ll be instantly familiar; it’s one of those tunes you don’t even consciously have to hear and pay attention to; it’s one you’re effectively born with, such is it’s simple, pre-human efficiency.

There is no point in my even bothering to describe it, or list its qualities.

Here it is.

? and the Mysterians are perhaps the definitive example of a bunch of know-nothing punks who one day stumble across that obvious yet elusive split second of light-from-heaven musical alchemy and proceed to drive its irresistible rhythmic/melodic magic within the very foundations of our world. It happened with ‘Greensleeves’, it happened with ‘In the Mood’, and it happened with ‘96 Tears’: a simple, universal, soothing, endless, nameless, an essential component of any decent party or dancing occasion (certainly of any one I have a hand in arranging!) and, in a very profound sense, a deeply satisfying piece of music.

So much so that I could easily listen to it on repeat for an hour or more, and in fact I just did. But dear god, when you stop to consider the whole seemingly perfect thing not just as an organ riff and some trashy proto-punk vox, but as a SONG with words and feelings and stuff, or as a RECORD with a cultural context… what a misleading façade ? and the Mysterians have created! As repeated exposure scratches it for all-time into the grooves of yr brain, it slowly becomes clear that ’96 Tears’ is in no way obvious, soothing or satisfying. As a stand-alone musical artefact it is deeply and inexplicably WEIRD on every level.

Let us consider;

First the big question: why *96* tears, in particular? Think about that one for a minute. I mean, hell, you’ve gone that far, you could at least make it an even 100. It doesn’t rhyme with anything in the song, it doesn’t need to be the chosen number, but can you imagine some bunch of losers itching up and singing about “74 tears” or “81 tears”..? No damn way, that would be ridiculous. They’d be laughed off the bandstand. Dick Clark would kick their ass. 96 is what it’s gotta be. It’s so RIGHT: and that’s our first inkling that there’s some serious poetic muscle being quietly pushed here, and yet… poetic muscle suggests the proximity of the dread black goose of ‘meaning’, so… what’s the significance? ‘96’ for god’s sake… what’s it all about, eh?

What IS the correct number of tear-drops for one heart.. to be cryin’? 95? 12? None? Is it the same for every heart, or does it vary? Do ? and the Mysterians know? Are they the ones doing the counting?

And how do you COUNT tear-drops anyway? And why? What a dreadful activity!

Does ? have a machine for counting tear-drops? Did he invent it??

Do you think ANY of the teenagers and hep cats and chicks or whatever who were around when ’96 Tears’ hit Number#1 back in ’66 ceased their generation-defining frugging for even a few seconds to take these matters on board…?

You know, I really hope they didn’t, partly because too much THINK is the antithesis of ’66 garage punk nirvana, and it often seems like it was drooling simpletons ceasing their fruggin’ and putting on their moth-eared thinking caps to get real deeeep into all those platitudes and goof-off shopping lists that Dylan and the Beatles were kicking around that led straight to history class atrocities like Woodstock and Santana and Kent State and the fucking bloody Incredible String Band and Pol Pot and Watergate and the Lord of the Rings revival and so on…

(phew)

…but mostly because, once you get below the surface, ’96 Tears’ is some bummer-inducing kinda nastiness.

So who the hell are these “? And the Mysterians” guys anyway? Why are they called that?? Is it because they realise their modest masterwork quietly insinuates so many questions? What thought-processes are in motion here? How come I own whole albums of material from other genius one-hit no-marks like The Count 5, The Electric Prunes, The Troggs, et al (and when it’s not great, it’s at least funny), but I have never heard so much as a shadow of a whimper of anything from (the clearly pretty rockin’ and poetical) ? and the Mysterians beyond just this one song?

And did ? and the Mysterians actually have a guitarist or what? Was he out taking a powder when they recorded the only ? and the Mysterians song that any healthy, worthwhile individual has ever bothered listening to? He must be pretty pissed off!

(Actually, you can here a few guitar chords creeping in on the “..and when the sun comes up..” middle section, so credit where it’s due.)

So anyway, back to the matter at hand: ? says that when he tracks down the girl who broke his heart, he’s gonna “put her down” to where he is at (ruined, heartbroken, vengeful etc), and make HER cry 96 tears too. He sounds like he means it. Is he going to kidnap her and strap her into his tear-counting machine, pull the big lever as things fizz and crackle all around his parents basement and stand over her counting: “ONE! TWO! THREE!” etc…?

Whoa! No! Stop! ? and the Mysterians are taking me places I never wanted to go! Didn’t I tell you this song was evil? One minute there’s a jivin’ keg party going on in your brain, the next minute… some suburban super-villain torture chamber of the soul.

Well either way, that’s the last time SHE makes eyes at a guy with a punctuation mark for a name and surgically attached shades who claims he was born on Mars, even if he is the singer in a swingin’ rock n’ roll combo.

And maybe she lived at house no. 96…. Maybe she had 96 written on her jersey when they first met… maybe they kissed 96 times…. Who knows, whatever: clearly this guy is a fucking psycho, that’s the point. Run away little girl, move to a different city, move to Europe – anywhere to escape the all-seeing pitch-black eyes of ? as he scours the Michigan suburbs like the cracked, basement-dwelling, tear-harvesting revenant he surely is.

I bet things would have worked out better if she’d dated the organ player. He sounds like he knows how to treat a lady.

But by now I daresay you’re wondering how what was once a throw-away two minute pop hit is starting to resemble Kim Fowley rewriting something Grant Morrison dreamt up for ‘Doom Patrol’… we have all too many questions marks and not enough answers.

So if you enjoy life’s questions and mysteries as much as ? and the Mysterians obviously did (having named their band after them and all), best STOP READING NOW, because unfortunately this is the internet age rather than the no-mind frugging age, and banal and disappointing real-world answers to at least half of the riddles posed above can be gained by reading the ? and the Mysterians entry on All Music Guide.

But, as Roky tells us, a perfect monster has no end, and my research for this blog-post has also yielded this utterly unexpected and somewhat saddening recent development in the Mysterians Mystery:

?’s house has burned down!

Yes, the poor guy (who has LEGALLY CHANGED HIS NAME TO ‘?’, non-believers please note) now has nowhere to live, and much of the memorabilia, archives etc relating to his band’s career have also gone up in smoke (not to mention seven puppies and a cockatoo, apparently).

So look out ladies, and in fact, look out everybody, because the frankly terrifying-looking ? and the Mysterians circa 2006 are still in action and, needless to say, the band are confirmed to play at a tribute concert being organised for ?, and the man himself is confident it is only a matter of time before other Michigan heroes such as Bob Seger, Mark Farner (from Grand Funk Railroad), Kid Rock and Eminem rally to his side and sign up too, assuming those knuckle-draggers aren’t all too over-awed by ?’s purer soul, mystic powers and vastly superior sartorial and musical style to take part. But then again, maybe they can all just bond over the general masculine surliness and off-hand disdain for / fear of women revealed in their work.

In which case, what a capital blow-out it’s gonna be! Get yr tickets now.

As you know, I’m very committed to the idea that our weird garage-rock legends deserve at the very least to be comfortably housed, fed and generally appreciated by the world to which they have given so much, so if you feel so inclined, please make a donation to ?’s wellbeing. Details to be found in the above link, or alternatively, why not visit ?'s official website?

The video currently on the front-page is inspiring stuff, and well worth watching. ? is clearly something of a reformed character, far removed from the beastly activities I attributed to his ’66 self earlier in this post: he doesn’t cry tears, HE SINGS ‘EM. Yeah. That’s progress.

Above all though, I hope ?’s tear-counting apparatus hasn’t been lost to the flames, because whilst he seems far too well-adjusted to have much use for it these days despite his recent misfortune, I’m still pretty young and torn up about stuff y’know, and after listening to ’96 Tears’ 96 times, I think I want to borrow the whole rig.