Happy Together (song)

"Happy Together"

7" French release
Single by The Turtles
from the album Happy Together
B-side "Like the Seasons"
Released February 14, 1967
Recorded January 2, 1967
Genre Sunshine pop, psychedelic pop
Length 2:55
Label White Whale
Writer(s) Garry Bonner, Alan Gordon
Producer(s) Joe Wissert
Certification Gold (RIAA)
The Turtles singles chronology
"Can I Get to Know You Better"
(1966)		 "Happy Together"
(1967)		 "She'd Rather Be with Me"
(1967)

"Happy Together" is a 1967 song from The Turtles' album of the same name. Released in February 1967, the song knocked The Beatles' "Penny Lane" out of the number one slot for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.[1] It was the group's only chart-topper in the United States. "Happy Together" reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart in April 1967 and #13 on Top 100 Singles of 1967 in Canada [2][3] The song was written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, former members of a band known as The Magicians.[1] The song had been rejected a dozen times before it was offered to The Turtles, and the demo acetate was worn out.[4]

Composition

The song is in the key of F-sharp minor, with the chorus in F-sharp major. The song ends on a Picardy third.

Television performances

When performing the song on television, Mark Volman commonly "played" a different instrument not present in the song for each appearance. On Ed Sullivan he "played" a trumpet, on the Smothers Brothers a piano, and on others a French horn. This could be seen as a wink to the audience that they were lip-syncing, a common practice for 1960s television.

Personnel

Additional personnel

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Chart (1967) Peak
position
Canada RPM 13
New Zealand 2
UK [5] 12
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [6] 1
U.S. Cash Box Top 100[7] 1

Year-end charts

Chart (1967) Rank
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [8] 2
U.S. Cash Box [9] 6

The Turtles performing "Happy Together" on The Ed Sullivan Show, May 14, 1967.

Film

The song has been featured in many movies, including:

Frank Alamo's French cover of the song was featured in the 2010 movie Get Him to the Greek and the Halloween TV special Scared Shrekless. The original song was featured in one of the trailers for the 2013 film The Great Gatsby.

Television

The song has been used in many episodes of The Simpsons (such as "The Way We Weren't" and "Trilogy of Error") and in episodes of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, That '70s Show (sung by the cast), The Muppet Show (sung by guest star Florence Henderson with a set of Muppet Monsters and Frackles), Oz, Cupid (sung by Lisa Loeb), Scrubs, ER, America's Funniest Home Videos, The Wonder Years, the My Name Is Earl episode "Faked His Own Death", and the series finales of Daldalita, Two and a Half Men, and You, Me and the Apocalypse.

The song appeared in the "Bride of Hannibal" promo for the third season of Hannibal, focusing on the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and his psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier.

Advertising

The song was used in 1980s Golden Grahams adverts. In 1999, the song was used for a Super Smash Bros. advert where Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, and Yoshi suddenly start fighting in a field of flowers. In New Zealand, Toyota used the song for its promotion of the Toyota Rav4 in 2006.[10] In 2009, Ford used the song in Brazil for the promotion of Ford Focus.[11] However, the Ford commercial featured its "employees" singing the song while they designed and manufactured the car rather than the original version of the song. Since the early 2010s, the song has been a feature of Mexican Airline AeroMéxico commercials, both in television and radio advertisements. In 2013, the song was used in the Dead Rising 3 video game commercial. In 2015, the song was covered in advertisements for the Plenti card. In November 2015, Coca-Cola featured the song from the commercial in the Philippines using their revised version.

Sport

"Happy Together" is the official song of football club Melbourne City FC.

Books

In Stephen King's novel Gerald's Game, the psychotic burglar, necrophile, and cannibal Raymond Andrew Joubert is described to the protagonist Jessie Burlingame as singing this song in the back of a police cruiser after being apprehended breaking into a mausoleum.[12]

Cover versions

"Happy Together" has been covered by artists as diverse as Mel Tormé, The Piano Guys, SPiN (band), Weezer, Petula Clark, Captain and Tennille, Jason Donovan, The Nylons, Simple Plan, Caterina Valente, The Dollyrots, Blue Meanies, Donny Osmond, T.G. Sheppard (who would take his version into the country Top 10 in early 1979), Tahiti 80, Filter, MStar, Buck Wild, Flobots Tally Hall and Miley Cyrus, whose version samples the original. There is also a Spanish cover, sung by Roberto Jordan, called "Juntos y Felices". In 1999, BMI named "Happy Together", with approximately five million performances on American radio, the 44th most-performed song in the United States of the 20th century,[13] placing it in the same league as "Yesterday" by The Beatles and "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel. Frank Zappa's performance on Fillmore East - June 1971 is especially notable, as his band at the time included Turtles vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman and bassist Jim Pons.

Kaylan and Volman also did a reggae remake of the song for the last Flo & Eddie album Rock Steady with Flo & Eddie. Hugo Montenegro's cover version was released as a single in 1969 and reached number 29 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.[14] More recently, the song has been covered by B. E. Taylor for his latest album, Love Never Fails, and by the Flobots. The song has also been sung by the Red Army Choir and the Leningrad Cowboys, as well as the English rock band Johnny Panic. It was also performed on the show American Idol on February 19, 2008, by David Cook, and on February 20, 2008, by Brooke White. Both performances were released as live singles "Happy Together (American Idol Performance) - Single" on the iTunes Store in 2008. In 2007 the song was used as a sample on the song "Ooh Ooh Baby" from Britney Spears' album Blackout.

French singer Frank Alamo also covered the song in 1967 in the French version entitled Heureux Tous Les Deux (Happy Together). On May 5, 2011, it was performed as a group performance by the top 5 contestants on the tenth season of American Idol. On January 21, 2015, the song was featured on the CBS TV Series Stalker (TV series) arranged and performed by the band SPiN (band).[15] On May 19, 2015, Miley Cyrus performed a cover version of "Happy Together" with the Backyard Sessions band. The performance was organized by The Happy Hippie Foundation.

References

  1. 1 2 Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of #1 Hits, 5th Edition (Billboard Publications), page 221.
  2. ↑ "Top 100 Singles of 1967 in Canada | Canadian Music Blog". Musiccanada.wordpress.com. 2015-10-29. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  3. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-10-11. Retrieved 2009-06-12.
  4. ↑ Wayne Wadhams, David Nathan (2001). Inside the Hits. Berklee Press, p. 254. ISBN 0-634-01430-7.
  5. ↑ "Top 100 1967". top-source.info. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  6. ↑ Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2002
  7. ↑ "Cash Box Top 100 4/08/67". Tropicalglen.com. 1967-04-08. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  8. ↑ "Top 100 Hits of 1967/Top 100 Songs of 1967". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  9. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
  10. ↑ "Toyota Rav4 - Happy Together - (2006) :30 (New Zealand) | Adland ®". Adland.tv. 2006-02-23. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ "Gerald's Game". StephenKing.com. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  13. ↑ "BMI Announces Top 100 Songs of the Century". BMI. December 13, 1999.
  14. ↑ Hyatt, Wesley (1999). The Billboard Book of #1 Adult Contemporary Hits (Billboard Publications), page 66.
  15. ↑ "Stalker Music - S1E13: "The News"". TuneFind.com. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
Preceded by
"Penny Lane" by The Beatles		 Billboard Hot 100 number one single
March 25, 1967 (three weeks) 		Succeeded by
"Somethin' Stupid" by Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra
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