Goofus re-evaluated

[Vinylalbumcovers]

I'm so gonna hear about myself for this...

I GO FOR GOOFUS!​

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Yeah, I know, I know...LOL! Hear me (er...read me) out though. The rhythm arrangement is quite good (odd meter, much movement in the bass, great piano lines, excellent sax work, etc.) The vocal arrangement, too, is really very good. Really, my only beef with it is Karen. I have a tough time believing that Karen "packed her grip and grabbed her saxophone" or that she "put together a new kind of orchestree". Were I her producer, I honestly don't know what I would have done to make her sound more believable either. It actually might have made more sense to have Richard sing the verses and leave Karen leading on the choruses. That might have been interesting.​

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Either way, I can't hate on this album. I know it's popular to do so but I just can't...darn it...LOL!​

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Ed​

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[Harry]

Ed, I've never really been bothered by "Goofus" as a record. I guess I like rustic harmony!

It's not a tune I was familiar with at all, and I don't recall being surprised that it was released as a single. It was one of the songs on HUSH that I really liked. Now as for what it did for their career, well that's pretty well documented. Songs I like are usually out of the mainstream, so it didn't sound "goofus" to me at all.

Harry

 

[Mark-T]

Now that you say it, Ed- I can hear Richard doing it. Although IMHO, I'd rather hear Karen sing anything any day.

 

[LondonRobert]

I've always rather liked the track, I thought it was fun and impeccable arranged. I adore the long OOOOHHHH at the end - it's really quirky and Karen sings it beautifully. Not sure it was single material though ...........

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Good idea about Richard singing his parts, would have been interesting. It's a fun track and I've always enjouyed it. I like it so much that I bought the mono 45 single and also a columbia test pressing 45 single. I was happy to see it on the NL release and also Sweet Memory.

When the Carpenters were on the A&M lot broadcasting live across the world (that went terribly wrong) Karen had to improvise when the audio went out and someone in the audience shouted..."sing Goofus" Karen replied, oh great song!! Something like that...it was a funny moment.

 

[JAZZ4JEFF]

I am with many of you. I have always had fondness for this tune. While we sometimes look at music too seriously, this is just a happy, feel good track. It makes me smile. It really is a novelty record.

 

[BarryT60]

okay album cut - terrible single choice. Particularly, when YOU was right there waiting for radio....

 

[song4u]

The only redeeming value I thought this song had was that it showed that Karen could sing any style of song and make it work.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

The Carpenters' musicianship and production quality were rarely an issue. But they couldn't win for losing when it came to image...and releasing "Goofus" as a single was the equivalent of wearing a T-shirt that says "I'm With Stupid" with the arrow pointing up.

 

[A&M Retro]

I was 14 when 'Goofus' came out as a single, and I knew it was a bad move even then....

It's a cute little album track, and I'm glad we have it. Karen sounds great and the background vocals are cool.

But it wasn't single material. I remember Paul Grein saying in 'Goldmine' Carpenters should have recorded it and given it to Agnes and Harold as an anniversary gift, and that's all.

 

[BarryT60]

Not to belabor a point, but I thought I'd give this song another listen as it has probably been 15 years since I listened to it... Low and behold - it had a YouTube from that 1977 Space Encounters Special! I am stunned that they gave this song 3 and a half minutes on the national television airwaves too! Who am I to judge....??? They must have liked it!

But I still think YOU should most certainly have been the third single from Hush.

 

[song4u]

But I still think YOU should most certainly have been the third single from Hush.

You are so right. And of all the songs to perform on their TV special, why oh why that one!

 

[A&M Retro]

I agree 100%.

 

[goodjeans]

...maybe someday Richard will write a book. I assume that he reads this wonderful website. It could be an excellent read, answer many questions and accompany the hard back first edition with a CD of unreleased/alternate versions of recorded tracks.

 

[george_b]

The main arguments I have heard about Goofus centre on one question - did it make sense to release this song as a single?
I would say it is an interesting song, not spine-tingling, more like an album track than a single.

Ed, you question the singing of Karen on this track. It certainly is a mixture. At times it sounds like a multitracked whisper on the melody line.

The is no climax to this song and hence nowhere to take the audience. It is not out of place on "A Kind of Hush" album.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

The main arguments I have heard about Goofus centre on one question - did it make sense to release this song as a single?
I would say it is an interesting song, not spine-tingling, more like an album track than a single.

Ed, you question the singing of Karen on this track. It certainly is a mixture. At times it sounds like a multitracked whisper on the melody line.

The is no climax to this song and hence nowhere to take the audience. It is not out of place on "A Kind of Hush" album.

I think it was a pretty bold choice. Who would have thought they'd come out with a tune like that. It's a pre-cursor to the song-choice madness that would bloom on "Passage". I hear the double-tracking too. I almost always like double-tracked Karen because she could do it perfectly. I agree with that the tune has no climax but I'm not sure it needs it. It gets by on sheer oddity and it succeeds in spades where that's concerned. I also like Messenger's playing on this one.

Ed

 

[Rumbahbah]

Has Richard ever commented on Goofus and why it was released as a single? I recall reading an interview with him from the early 1990s where he was asked why he thought the Carpenters' success declined in the later 1970s and his reply was that it was mainly due to resistance from radio, but he did mention that he picked 'a couple of duds' as singles - I can only imagine Goofus must have been one of these.

Nice in a way to see that some here can find something to appreciate in Goofus. Alas I can't say the same.

Even as an album track, Goofus is at best a mildly diverting novelty. It's just not a very good song - I recently listened to the Wayne King, Les Paul and Phil Harris versions and they all sound lightweight and a bit silly. That's not to say that you couldn't pick up songs from past eras and make something great - I Can Dream Can't I? on Horizon was lovely, although again not single material. You could maybe just about justify it as an album track if it weren't for the fact that a track as stellar as Ordinary Fool was left off A Kind of Hush while Goofus made it on - baffling is putting it mildly.

But to release it as a single ... I still don't grasp the logic, unless they were trying for a 'Muskrat Love'-curveball (although somehow *that* was a hit!). Their last three singles by that time hadn't made the Top 10, they'd already released a lightweight 'oldie' with There's a Kind of Hush, radio was supposedly becoming more resistant to their output, so they really had to up their game at this point. And so to remedy things, they put this out as a single...! It's difficult to imagine a worse choice at that juncture - a song that could only reinforce the apparently growing perception of them being lightweight and completely out of touch with the current music scene. I don't think the A Kind of Hush album had a smash hit on it, but even so, You or Can't Smile Without You would surely have at least made the Top 40. A poor song and an absolutely terrible single - easily their worst.

 

[Harry]

From Richard's notes on A KIND OF HUSH in the 35th anniversary box set from Japan:

...I inadvertently got myself addicted to sleeping pills as early as 1974. As I did not take any of these during the day, I was able to function well for quite some time, but by 1976, and the making of A KIND OF HUSH - and the two albums that followed - I now feel I was not at my best, and am not pleased with some of the material chosen, such as "Goofus" and "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do."

Harry

 

[Harry]

Hits from A KIND OF HUSH according to Billboard:

#12 - There's A Kind Of Hush (All Over The World)
#56 - Goofus
"Can't Smile Without You" was released with a slight remix as a b-side to "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft"

"Goofus", for all its faults and denigration, did better in the charts than:

#63 - Those Good Old Dreams
#67 - Bless The Beasts and Children
#68 - I Believe You
#72 - (Want You) Back In My Life Again
#74 - BEechwood 4-5789

Harry

 

[BarryT60]

<<<"Can't Smile Without You" was released with a slight remix as a b-side to "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft">>>
I always had thought that Can't Smile must have been on the cusp of being released - but pulled at the last minute... in that there was a re-recording of the lead and instuments added. I wonder what the story is there.....

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I can't believe that Goofus charted better than the tracks from Made in America. That really tells you something about MIA.

Karen seemed so energetic in interviews always cracking a joke she must have thought Goofus was a fun track if nothing else. I wonder how many takes it took to record the skit Goofus on Space Encounters. I think Karen should have been playing drums on this track. I also think Goofus is in the same vein as B'wanna She No Home...both just quirky songs...that I like.

 

[Rumbahbah]

Hits from A KIND OF HUSH according to Billboard:

#12 - There's A Kind Of Hush (All Over The World)
#56 - Goofus
"Can't Smile Without You" was released with a slight remix as a b-side to "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft"

"Goofus", for all its faults and denigration, did better in the charts than:

#63 - Those Good Old Dreams
#67 - Bless The Beasts and Children
#68 - I Believe You
#72 - (Want You) Back In My Life Again
#74 - BEechwood 4-5789

Harry

There's I Need to be in Love as well of course, which made #25 before Goofus.

Goofus may not marked their lowest peak on the Hot 100 overall, but it was the lowest peak by any single up to that point (even lower than Ticket to Ride; Bless the Beasts was a B-side so doesn't really count as a full single) and way lower than what the previous singles from the same album had reached. That level of fall-off alone suggests it was a duff choice. The lower peaks of the Made in America singles could be put down to some indifferent choices (Beechwood especially) but also to radio being more entrenched against playing the Carpenters than it had been in 19 76 - something that I imagine the release of Goofus had only abetted.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

From Richard's notes on A KIND OF HUSH in the 35th anniversary box set from Japan:



Harry

Richard's not the only guy who was on drugs in the music business in the 70s. But he's absolutely the only one for whom the drugs would have resulted in "Goofus".

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Hits from A KIND OF HUSH according to Billboard:

#12 - There's A Kind Of Hush (All Over The World)
#56 - Goofus
"Can't Smile Without You" was released with a slight remix as a b-side to "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft"

"Goofus", for all its faults and denigration, did better in the charts than:

#63 - Those Good Old Dreams
#67 - Bless The Beasts and Children
#68 - I Believe You
#72 - (Want You) Back In My Life Again
#74 - BEechwood 4-5789

Harry

As a former radio programmer in the 70s, here's a bit of insight into the Billboard chart: There's a much bigger difference in sales between a #1 record and a #10 record than there is between a record peaking at #11 and one peaking at #40. Anything outside the Top 20 really wasn't a hit so much as a near miss (some weeks, it was more like anything outside the top 11 or 12). By the time you're at #56 and below, it's all academic. I can't imagine there's that much difference in raw numbers of singles sold between "Goofus" and "Beechwood".

Billboard's charts in the 70s were based on wholesale sales to distributors and rackjobbers. The first three weeks of chart numbers were stock just getting into the stores. It was around week four that you'd start to see songs either stall out and drop off the chart or pick up some momentum as stores that sold their first batch re-ordered.

Also, remember that those peak numbers are for one week...the week it got the highest. Which means, on those peak weeks, that 55 records sold better (wholesale) than "Goofus", and 73 sold better (wholesale) than "Beechwood". But depending on how hot a week it was in the record biz (and how many ties the chart guys at Billboard had to break), it's possible that "Beechwood" sold more copies than "Goofus".

Another complicating factor: Singles sales peaked in 1974 and began a fairly rapid decline from there. So by the late 1970s, it took a lot fewer copies to hit any point on the chart than it did five years before.

Finally, Billboard never adjusted for returns, which usually didn't happen for 60-90 days. Overly enthusiastic wholesalers or retailers could order a million copies of something they thought would be big, it would go to #1 in Billboard, be certified gold....and then 900,000 copies would be quietly shipped back to the label, melted down and recycled (see: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Soundtrack, 1978).

 

[newvillefan]

Finally, Billboard never adjusted for returns, which usually didn't happen for 60-90 days. Overly enthusiastic wholesalers or retailers could order a million copies of something they thought would be big, it would go to #1 in Billboard, be certified gold....and then 900,000 copies would be quietly shipped back to the label, melted down and recycled (see: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Soundtrack, 1978).

That's an amazing revelation. Unless I'm missing something, it was therefore actually possible that many of the songs (any songs) that went to #1 on Billboard and shipped gold actually did neither in sales terms? How could that be even allowed?