The Association: "Cherish"

October 3, 1966 (1 week)

Depending on your age you may associate (pun intended) the title "Cherish" with one of at least three different songs. Baby Boomers will no doubt think of the present single, early Generation Xers will mention the Kool and the Gang number and those of us who edge ever so closely to Millennials would pick Madonna's. I am very much the latter. (There doesn't seem to be many credible subsequent Cherishes; looking the title up on Wikipedia, there are individual pages for the above but not much else, though it does appear to have been a popular title for East Asian singers) Fun fact: all three topped the charts in Canada - don't ever say we aren't a country of sentimental old drips.

It isn't the most commonplace of titles but it's hard to argue with how songs called "Cherish" have resonated over the years. (By comparison, "Stay" is far more common, especially back in the early nineties, but there have been fewer chart toppers by that name) In part, there's how beautiful and delicate the word is. If you were to tell a loved one that you "can recall so many fond memories" or that you "cherish these precious memories", you'll likely get a more positive response to the latter. The sentiments are the same but the poetry of "cherish" is something else. (It speaks to its potency that both The Association and Madonna sing of how "cherish is the word...")

As a Generation Xer, I'm going to come right out and say it: The Association's "Cherish" is nowhere close to as good as the other two. Is it because I grew up on them and only associate (there's that word again) the original with K-Tel ads for sixties' compilation albums? It could be, even if I don't really have much of an attachment to Kool and the Gang's contribution either (joyful dance bands do not need to bother with well-made if overly syrupy love songs if you ask me). Ultra-smooth soft rock isn't something I'm against per se but it needs to have more biting lyrics or Karen Carpenter on vocals to really keep my attention. A song called "Cherish" is already at a disadvantage when it comes to matters being too soft so it's almost a no-win situation. Still, Madonna managed to pull it off okay but, then again, with all due respect to The Association, they weren't Madonna.

Veteran folkies had some decisions to make with the arrival of the British Invasion. Those who acted as if they didn't give the matter much thought were probably better off because the rest chose to go pop. A lot of folk music in the fifties hadn't been as cutting edge or as politically charged or as threatening so it might not have been as radical a leap as we might assume. Still, John Phillips maintained at least an appearance of his folk background, the pure-bred, milk-fed Associates looked like a pack of vocal harmony dorks who seemed far more comfortable in pop. Had The Association sold out or had they simply found their true calling in an easy listening genre that better suited them?

Jon Savage has pointed out that some of the success of "Cherish" may have been down to the "sense that things had gone too far" and that the "mainstream audience was turning away from pop art explosions". The Rolling Stones' highly accomplished, hugely thrashy single "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" was one of those extremist records that was turning people away from the fringes and back to the centre. As someone who likes the Stones quite a bit and doesn't really think much of The Association in general, I've got to agree. I might admire "Have You Seen Your Mother..." but I'd sooner listen to "Cherish".

Score: 4