A Song From My Childhood

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Partridge Family.”

My sister was a big Partridge Family fan when she was about 8. Her love of All Things Cassidy may not in reality have lasted too long, but I was 5 at the time and as far as I was concerned she was the diviner of all pop knowledge. She read Mickey magazine (does anyone know anything about that worldly tome?) and she knew all the lyrics to all the songs. If she liked something, then it ill-behoved me not to like it, too.

Actually, is that true? Even though she went through an Osmonds phase, I knew Donny Osmond was wimpy even back when I was a little kid, (though obviously I loved Crazy Horses – if ever a song was created to appeal to 5-year olds, it’s Crazy Horses. I just tried it on my almost-4-year old – it still works!) so I must have some sense of some things she liked were quality while others weren’t as appealing to me. So I think I just knew that I Think I Love You was a good song.

I still love this song (as well as How I Can Be Sure?) I love that it’s a minor key masterpiece, and that it’s called Baroque Pop on wikipedia, giving it a certain gravity when it was probably scoffed at by the hipsters of the day. And I love that the backing is played by the Wrecking Crew, the team with the greatest track record of all session musicians. It’s a great piece of pop music and I commend it to the house.