I Confess, or Maybe I Don’t

Song 291: This week on the playlist you can hear Midnight Confessions by The Grass Roots, written by Lou Josie. You might notice that the linked video (on the daveelder.com home page) of the band performing on a TV show sounds exactly like the record, and you’ll also hear the sound of a horn section in some places, though you don’t see any brass players onstage with the band. While it’s possible that a TV show could have a horn section playing along in a pit next to the stage, it’s not possible that a live ensemble could sound exactly like a record, especially back in that era, and most certainly when the sound includes a horn section coupled with a typical RnR instrumental quartet. Without question, the band was lip-syncing to the record here, but they do so in a truly entertaining way. This hit song from the summer of ’68 seemed like a good track to post for this week since my political blog for the week (at Politics 106 or on Daily Kos as DaveElder) concerns a confession that I’m making about the election season of 1968, which roughly corresponds with the time this cut graced the airwaves. The single peaked just as summer turned to fall, not long after I began my senior year at HS, and the varsity football team that included a handful of my classmates began what would end up being its second undefeated season in a row, and probably its last one ever. Before one of those Friday night home games, I spent some time sitting in a car parked next to the bleachers, talking with a girl who I really wanted to talk with, though the conversation did not go the way I had hoped. The radio played during our chat, and at an awkward moment this cut offered some welcome relief to an otherwise heavy silence. As much as I liked the track, I didn’t learn all the words until a couple of years later when I owned the record, and then I realized that the singer is confessing to loving a woman in his social circle who wears a little gold ring on her hand. I always enjoyed the musical bit near the end where all the other players drop out, and the singer delivers his line backed up only by the organ, which slyly hints at a kind of holy confession. While I had wanted to confess to the young woman in the car before the football game that I loved her, I didn’t  confess anything, but it would take some more time before I finally understood that, like the singer in the song, I too was wasting my time. She inspired lots of songs, and on my YouTube channel, I have referred to her as Ms. Yellow Shoes, alluding specifically to one of those songs.