For today’s classic song of the day, let’s travel back to the summer of 1966, when the Mamas & the Papas released their latest single, “I Saw Her Again.” This one peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 on the Cash Box Top 100. It went all the way to #1 in Canada.
“I Saw Her Again” was written by Papas John Phillips and Denny Doherty. The song was inspired by Denny’s brief affair with Mama Michelle Phillips, John’s wife. (That little fling, along with a similar dalliance between Michelle and Gene Clark of the Byrds, resulted in Michelle briefly being expelled from the group; they eventually let her back in.)
The recording was produced by Lou Adler and engineered by Bones Howe, using members of the Wrecking Crew as the backing band; Denny Doherty sang lead. The track is notable by Denny’s false start at the beginning of the third chorus (“I saw her…”). That happened because Bones Howe accidentally punched in the vocals for the coda too early. They would have edited it out, but Lou Adler liked it and left it in. In Bones’ words:
“We were punching vocals in, and when we came to that part where the rhythm stops and the group goes, ‘I saw her again last night,’ I just punched in early. They came in early, and so we stopped. And then we went back and started again, and I punched in at the beginning of the vocal, they started two bars later or whatever it was. And when I played it back, the vocal went, ‘I saw her – I saw her again.’ It was a mistaken punch. And Lou said, ‘I love it! Leave it in.’ It was an error, it was a mistake. But Lou was wise enough, it caught his ear and he left it. And I learned something from that. You go with your gut. If something catches—they could be—there are wonderful mistakes that happen in the studio and you have to learn to catch those when they happen and use them.”
Indeed.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, a promo film the group made for “I Saw Her Again.” It’s very mid-60s.
