(Credits: Far Out / KRLA Beat / Flo & Eddie INC)
Sat 20 September 2025 13:00, UK
The blessing and the curse of the much-loved single stung The Turtles as much as Marc Almond’s eternal ‘Tainted Love’ requests or Devo’s baffling one-hit wonder labelling after ‘Whip It’.
It was a fantastic song. Dropped early 1967, ‘Happy Together’ is a sublimely sunny and joyous surge of bubblegum pop rock, soaking up the innocent end of psychedelia with its wistful pang of unrequited love. Written by The Magicians’ Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, ‘Happy Together’ would stand as The Turtles’ defining hit, shooting to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
But then came the label pressure. Eager for another ‘Happy Together’, White Whale pestered frontman Howard Kaylan and The Turtles for a carbon copy of their big hit. Finally, he cracked. One night, while staying at Chicago’s Astor Towers during the “decadent periods” where there was plenty of “sweets” at hand, Kaylan locked himself in his room and racked his brains to come up with the ‘Happy Together’ sequel the label was demanding. Presaging Neil Young’s future Geffen shenanigans, Kaylan struck upon the capital idea of giving White Whale exactly what they were asking for.
Analysing ‘Happy Together’ within an inch of its life, cracking its chords and arrangements like a science experiment, and reconstructing his pressure piece yielded what was essentially a reassembled version of that coveted number one. Feeling extra cynical, Kaylan slapped a load of cliché lyrics to his sappy romance song, naming the titular love interest after an old-fashioned and wholly ungroovy name, slipping in mawkish lines like “Gee, I think you’re swell”, and even adding an eye-rolling “et cetera” when praising his “pride and joy”. ‘Elenore’ was born.
Hints of Kaylan and backing vocalist Mark Volman’s future comedy rock career as Flo & Eddie were present in the preparations for their follow-up album to Happy Together. Conceiving of a fictitious musical competition for their fourth record, 1968’s The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands, accompanied each track with its own bespoke imaginary band, from The Atomic Enchilada, Fats Mallard and the Bluegrass, and Chief Kamanawanalea and his Royal Macadamia Nuts.
‘Elenore’, however, was curiously credited to Howie, Mark, Johny, Jim & Al, the informal nicknames of all band members, as if shoving their satirical efforts in White Whale’s face: “Look! We did this!”
The biggest joke? ‘Elenore’ was another smash, not eclipsing ‘Happy Together’s success but climbing to a respectable number six on the US charts. Any good? Aside from a nice little Moog line, ‘Elenore’ exists exactly as intended, a pastiche pop song that’s funny upon scrutiny but doesn’t hold a candle to their former Billboard smash.
At least it shut the label up. “It was my feeling that they would listen to how strange and stupid the song was and leave us alone,” Kaylan confessed in the Solid Zinc anthology’s liner notes. “But they didn’t get the joke. They thought it sounded good. Truthfully, though, the production on ‘Elenore’ WAS so damn good. Lyrically or not, the sound of the thing was so positive that it worked. It certainly surprised me”.
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