Your Baroquely eccentric classic song of the day is “Morning Girl” by the Neon Philharmonic. The group Neon Philharmonic was really a guy named Tupper Saussey, who did the composing and arranging, and vocalist Don Gant. Despite Gant’s vocals, this is most definitely a Tupper Saussey production, and it’s every bit as eccentric as he was.
“Morning Girl” was released in March of 1969 and went all the way to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100. It did even better in Canada for some reason, hitting #6 on the RPM 100 and #2 on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart. It deserves every sale and bit of airplay it got; the track is a brilliant and brilliantly odd piece of Baroque pop.
The song itself is a rather cavalier reflection on the morning after a night of love making. The singer obviously had a fairly good time with a previously innocent young lady, but dismisses the whole thing pretty much out of hand. “You’re several ages older now,” he says, not quite subtly implying that it was the young lady’s first such endeavor. “You know that love is more than kisses, a whole lot more.” Shades of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap!
Musically, the song is a treat. As I noted, it falls under the aegis of Baroque pop, a minor genre also used to describe tunes like the Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee,” Marianne Faithfull’s “As Tears Go By,” and Love’s “She Comes in Colors.” The genre is defined by its use of form and instrumentation from classical music, typically string quartets, chamber orchestras, oboes, and French horns—which “Morning Girl” has in spades.
Despite its overtly sexist lyrics, the bulk of “Morning Girl” sounds like a sunny pop song, albeit with somewhat ornate orchestration—until you get to the bridge, or maybe it’s the outro. Here the strings and horns, supplied by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, take over and, after restating the melodic theme, take the song in some unexpected and really kind of batshit crazy directions. The whole thing goes a bit atonal for a few moments before everything somehow comes back to the tonic for the final note. It almost sounds like the guy doing the arranging didn’t really know much about arranging and just spurted out a bunch of random notes on paper, unless that whole lovely mess was purposeful, which it might have been. All I know is that it’s both charmingly simple and unbelievably complicated, totally off the wall in terms of both instrumentation and arrangement, and it all takes place in just two minutes and seventeen seconds. It’s trippy.
“Trippy” is probably the right way to describe Tupper Saussey (and, yes, that is his real name), the brainchild behind both “Morning Girl” and the album from which it hails, The Moth Confesses. Mr. Saussey was born in Statesboro, Georgia, grew up in Tampa, Florida, and graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, a background that no doubt informed some of his outside-the-mainstream thinking and beliefs. He has been variously described as a musician, artist, author, theologian, restauranteur, advertising executive, dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, anti-government pamphleteer, and conspiracy theorist. Of that last thing, Mr. Saussey was an avid follower of various Martin Luther King conspiracies (both before and after Mr. King’s assassination), the ghostwriter of James Earl Ray’s autobiography, and a believer that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by Dick Cheney and the Pope. (Yes, Dick Cheney and the Pope. Working together.) In 1985, Mr. Saussey was convicted of failing to file his tax returns for three years (he didn’t think the federal government had the authority to collect taxes) and spent the next ten years on the lam before finally turning himself in and serving 14 months in federal prison.
None of that diminishes the brilliance that is “Morning Girl.” The song was the last track on side one of The Moth Confesses and was bookended by the last track on side two, “Morning Girl, Later.” On the latter track, the singer, now partnered with a woman inexplicably named Catherine, meets up with his former lover, whose clothes have gone from nylon to lace; “my, you’ve been around,” the cad remarks, apparently after another one-night stand with the young lady. “Morning Girl, Later,” shares the same melody and orchestration with and is even more Baroquely insane than the original. It’s so nuts you can’t help but keep listening.
If you haven’t heard The Moth Confesses album, I recommend you do. It is wild, full of lots more strings and a good number of off-the-wall orchestral arrangements. I mean it, it’s just wonderfully crazy. Probably the best way to experience the insane genius that is Tupper Saussey is to get Rhino’s Brilliant Colors: The Complete Warner Brothers Recordings boxed set, which contains both The Moth Confesses and the follow-up album, The Neon Philharmonic. Fire up the incense, turn on the blacklight, and brew up some herbal tea while you listen to 38 wildly psychedelic tracks through your best set of closed-back headphones. There’s nothing like it.
The Neon Philharmonic—Tupper and Don, that is—released only those two albums and a handful of later unsuccessful singles. Mr. Saussey kept performing, however, in-between all his various anti-government activities, releasing his first solo CD, The Chocolate Orchid Piano Bar, in 2007. Unfortunately, Tupper had a heart attack and passed away two days before the album release, aged 70. Don Gant, the voice of the Neon Philharmonic, had a later career as a Nashville songwriter and record executive. He passed away in 1987 due to the complications of a serious boating accident; he was just 44 years old.
