At a time when heteronormative “love”–or, more to the point, the oversaturated propaganda about all the benefits of such a nonexistent thing–was at its peak, The Shangri-Las were at the helm of detailing teenage melodrama as centered around the primary goal of being someone’s girl, ideally a rebel’s. And the only aspect of teenage life more scarring than first love is parental subjugation (which usually, per The Shangri-Las’ tales, somehow contributes to the downfall of a romantic relationship).
So it is that the bulk of the quartet-turned-trio’s catalogue centers on tragedy as ultimately puppeteered by dispassionate, non-understanding parents (likely merely subconsciously jealous of all the sex their own children could have while they were relegated to getting the height of their jollies from TV dinners and episodes of Bewitched).
“My folks were always putting him down/They say he came from the wrong side of town,” Mary bemoans to her cohorts on the group’s most famous single, “Leader of the Pack,” continuing to say that, “They told me he was bad.” Naturally, this probably meant they could tell Jimmy wanted to deflower their precious little girl (likely already deflowered anyway, if she, like The Shangri-Las, originated from Jamaica, Queens–long before Nicki Minaj–at least), thus putting the kibosh on an intensifying rapport. And Mary, or her alter ego in the song, being the good, docile and obedient girl that all girls are supposed to be even beyond their teens, took heed, describing, “One day my dad said, ‘Find someone new’/I had to tell my Jimmy we’re through/He stood there and asked me why, but all I could do was cry/I’m sorry I hurt you, the leader of the pack.”
But alas, it’s what Mommy and Daddy wanted, pain to the fragile male ego (more important than the miraculously resilient male heart) be denied. Other songs, such as “Give Us Your Blessings,” explore a similar narrative in terms of essentially placing all the blame on the parents without directly blaming them. Like victims of Scooby-Doo and his crew’s sleuthing, the two young lovers might have gotten away with their love…had it not been for the meddling involvement of one set of progenitors. Once again treating herself as the subject yet somehow also the dissociated narrator telling it all (because this is how most writers must process their trauma), Mary recounts, “Mary and Jimmy were both very young/But as much in love as two people could be/And all they wanted was to share that love eternally.” But do you think they could? Hell no. Because Mama and Papa had to intervene. Had to belittle their love as nothing more than the passing infatuation that comes with having supple skin to allure the opposite sex (because the same sex was forboden then unless you were in New York or San Francisco). So it is that Mary bemoans, “They went to their folks, they told them that someday soon they’d be wed/Their folks just laughed/And called them kids.” If only Lana Del Rey had been there to say, “It’s enough to be young and in love” (incidentally, Del Rey was heavily influenced by The Shangri-Las during the recording of Lust for Life). But in the 60s, one supposes that wasn’t the case, which seems antithetical to the barrage of advertising tailored to making you believe you were nothing without an “other.” Especially as a woman.
As “Give Us Your Blessings” culminates in that predictable Shangri-Las way (with someone getting into an accident involving a cliff [“they didn’t see the sign that read ‘detour'”]), it truly does give one pause to think about just how much the need for parental approval–at any age bracket, really–can fuck us all up for the rest of our simultaneously too short and too lengthy time on earth. Like, if Mary and Jimmy had just eloped and run away full-stop without even bothering to question whether or not their love was “sanctioned,” they might have lived long enough to ultimately hate each other and break up without their parents forcing them to. But no, this emotionally–and subsequently physically–crippling desire to seek the “blessing” of the only two people who never really can despite being the only two people who should is what destroyed their love…and their lives.
The Shangri-Las’ torment as a hyperbolized mirror of the teen scene at the time–all oppressed and a-changin’ as it was–wields parents as a grander representation of society at large, with Mary using vaguer terms like “they” and “people” on tracks such as “The Boy,” during which she sings, “So proud, so bold, so strong and I belong/Do you think that people are being fair/’Cause they fear we’re too young to care?/But I don’t care what people say/My love will grow stronger with each passing day.” The “people” Mary is referring to can, in this instance, apply both to parents and other authority figures in their lives who write off the love they share as the frivolous sentiment that comes with the “raging” hormones of adolescence. It isn’t just a matter of not having their feelings accepted, but, additionally, being told that what they feel isn’t real–even though anyone with sentience is aware that what we feel is often far realer than anything we tell ourselves that we believe.
That The Shangri-Las’ second and last album before gradually disbanding amid legal battles (with, quelle surprise, the members of the group barely seeing a dime from any of their hit singles and success) was released smack dab in the middle of the decade–amidst a seismic political and socioeconomic shift in the U.S.–told of just how much unrest there was between “juveniles” and their “caretakers.” How vast the cleft of calamity was becoming with regard to the philosophical language barrier betwixt the Silent Generation and their offspring.
The pronoun “they” signifying parents as a symbol of middleman stifling in between child and society also reveals itself in “The Dum Dum Ditty,” wherein Mary sings, “They say stay away, don’t talk to him ’cause he is no good (run-run ditty, run-run ditty/He’s a rebel without a cause/He doesn’t do what everyone does/And he makes my heart go run-run ditty.” Well, clearly. Because the more “no good” and deadbeat a guy is to parents, the more the panties come off as he walks down the street.
Then there is the epic guilt that comes with finally having the courage to do what you want (in most of the Shangri-Las and their listeners’ case, that meant fucking a boy). The song being referred to points to the fact that the record label must have intervened to put a concluding statement on a career that was built upon undercutting vitriol for parental despotism, bringing us “I Can Never Go Home Anymore.” A cautionary tale about how giving in to pleasure can result in your mother’s death, this time Mary insists, “Now my mom is a good mom and she loves me with all her heart.” The only problem is, “She said I was too young to be in love and the boy and I would have to part. And no matter how I ranted and raved, I screamed, I pleaded, I cried, she told me it was not really love but only my girlish pride.” Again, the motif of the “child” being told by the adult that her thoughts and feelings are wrong is at play, leading her to act out in such a manner as to express these urges and instincts in a more self-destructive fashion.
So naturally, she “packed [her] clothes and left home that night. Though she begged me to stay, [Mary] was sure [she] was right.” Yes, if The Shangri-Las gave us anything–apart from some of the best music of the twentieth century–it was an unwitting psych book on how not to interact with a teenager. For the more you try to repress, the more they will rebel right back. However, “I Can Never Go Home Anymore” was the most blatant instance of the Shangri-Las not more than slightly shading authority and instead pandering to parents (“showing respect,” if you want–which is a concept millennials are told they know nothing about when it comes to paying gratitude to the parents that ultimately led them to buy a “Namaste in Bed” shirt). This much is made clear when Mary encourages, “Do you ever get that feeling and want to kiss and hug her? Do it now, tell her you love her. Don’t do to your mom what I did to mine. She grew so lonely in the end. Angels picked her for a friend.” Well, shit, talk about a boner killer. As a single added to the repackaged version of Shangri-Las-65!, it was certainly a pièce de résistance on the “a few words of wisdom” front. Yet one that, at its core, still essentially blamed parental judgment for all the many routes we take to self-loathing or, if not that, premature death.
Will Smith would, of course, synthesize all of this information by putting it more bluntly in the form of, “Parents just don’t understand.”
