The Mamas and the Papas: "I Saw Her Again"

August 8, 1966 (1 week)

If there was ever a song that epitomized why The Mamas and the Papas were doomed to implode it was "I Saw Her Again". While their dysfunction went well beyond the confines of a three minute pop song, no band has ever aired as much of their dirty laundry in one go as they did with their second Canadian number one hit.

Consider the circumstances: John Phillips had been a folk singer and songwriter in The Journeymen when he met seventeen-year-old Michelle Gilliam in San Francisco. His nibs would soon leave his wife and the pair would end up getting married on New Year's Eve, 1962. Folk was a dead end so John decided to go pop. They eventually recruited Denny Doherty and Mama Cass Elliot, forming The Mamas and the Papas. "California Dreamin'" gave them a memorable first hit and "Monday, Monday" followed. Everything was going well.

But then trouble began to crop up. John not only looked like a total creep but he behaved that way too. Michelle was young and pretty and just about every heterosexual male at the time desired her. One of them was the ruggedly handsome Gene Clark who had recently left The Byrds and was attempting to carve out a critically acclaimed but commercially disastrous solo career. More troubling was that another suitor happened to be in the same band as John and Michelle. While Cass pined for Denny, he had his sights set his bandmate who should have been unavailable — that is until she very much wasn't.

The Denny-Michelle affair seems to have been brief but the damage was considerable. John's first move was to throw his wife out of The Mamas and the Papas, albeit only briefly. He then turned to Denny and said something along the lines of, "feel like smoking some weed and writing a song?". The two collaborated on an account of the tryst so you might say that Denny Doherty came out of it okay. Or perhaps not. As with many of the early hits, Doherty takes the lead vocal so he's the one singing about how he's "lonely too" and he "never thinks of her" and that he told her that he's in love with her even though he doesn't feel that way at all.

In what was arguably the poppiest they'd ever sound, the Motown-esque "I Saw Her Again" sounds so positively euphoric that you'd scarcely notice its dark side. It would be a perfectly acceptable offering from just about any other act but coming from the folky Mamas and Papas it sounds too much like they had done just enough to make it a quality listening experience while denying the public another "California Dreamin'" or "Monday, Monday". Given the circumstances, it would be understandable if Michelle, Denny and John's hearts weren't in it. That said, the latter could've just gone ahead with a different single to release instead of choosing to air out a very private band crisis in public.

The premature break up of The Mamas and the Papas meant that they never had the chance to put out a proper divorce album (the kind that would become big in the seventies with hugely popular and deeply influential titles Tapestry, Blood on the Tracks, and Rumours). Then again, the good-not-great "I Saw Her Again" suggests that marital strife may not have been a great muse for the manipulative and vindictive John Phillips. He had the extraordinary vocals of Denny and Mama Cass Elliot to help him weave the fantasy world of peace and love he so craved, even when he was capable of some horrendous acts.

Score: 6