“She is Still a Mystery” (The Lovin’ Spoonful)

Today’s classic song of the day takes us back to the Summer of Love and that fun group of cats called the Lovin’ Spoonful. “She is Still a Mystery” was released at the end of October in 1967 and peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot 100 just a few weeks later.

“She is Still a Mystery” would be the last Top Forty single for the Lovin’ Spoonful. It was the lead track off their Everything Playing album, their first since founder Zal Yanofsky left the band and the last before John Sebastian would leave for a solo career in mid-1968. The rest of the band would break up a year later.

Everything Playing was one of the first albums, period, recorded on a 16-track tape recorder—in this instance, a prototype machine custom-built for Manhattan’s Mirasound Studios by Ampex. This enabled the band to layer more instruments on individual tracks rather then recording or overdubbing them onto shared tracks. For “She is Still a Mystery,” that translated into extra tracks for Baroquely psychedelic strings and horns; this is one of the most heavily produced singles from the band.

“She is Still a Mystery” was written by John Sebastian, who also sang lead. It’s all about the mystery of meeting a new lady, then getting to know that lady and discovering that there are parts of her that will always remain a mystery. The lyrics go like this:

She smiles your way through a window
You smile right back, she runs away
You wish little girls’d sit still just a little bit longer,
Longer

And she’s still a mystery to me
I thought I’d grow up gracefully
I’d understand my woman thoroughly
But the more I see
The more I see there is to see,
There is to see
And she’s still a mystery to me
She’s still a mystery to me

The song is in the key of F and the chords in the verse start out IV – bIV – I – V, or Bb – Bbm – F – C. (It’s that flatted IV chord that’s interesting.) That segues into an interesting little bVI7 – V7 (Db7 – C7) bit before settling into the chorus, the catchy part using a simple I – IV – V7- I progression. It’s a slightly unusual sound that fits the mood of the song quite well.

The Lovin’ Spoonful formed in 1964 when John and Zal, both active in the Greenwich Village folk scene, recruited Steve Boone (bass) and Joe Butler (drums) to fill out the quartet. They had a good run of catchy folk-rock hits, including “Do You Believe in Magic” (#9 in 1965), “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” (#10, 1965), “Daydream” (#2, 1966), “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” (#2, 1966), “Summer in the City” (#1, 1966), “Rain on the Roof” (#10, 1966), “Nashville Cats” (#8, 1966), “Darling Be Home Soon” (#15, 1967), and “Six O’Clock” (#18, 1967). This basically meant you couldn’t turn on the radio from mid-65 to late-67 without hearing a Lovin’ Spoonful tune or two, which was just fine.

For your bonus listening and viewing pleasure, here’s John Sebastian and the band miming their way through “She is Still a Mystery” on The Ed Sullivan Show on October 15, 1967. The band just wasn’t the same after Zal left.