Fight or flight?

I mean, whaddaya gonna do when you wake up and the song stuck in your head is The Cowsills’ version of “Hair”? This is not a random occurrence, it was completely caused by Sirius satellite radio’s ’60s Vibrations channel. And I know I should have changed the channel before a song I haven’t even thought about in 20 years became lodged within my skull, but my daughter was in the car and I thought maybe she’d react to it. And she did, a little, but it didn’t turn into a massive discussion of the hippie life or anything like that; she just thought it was odd that anyone would sing about hair. It was. But it was the sixties, man! Hair was everything. Can you imagine? (Hey, at least hippies wore clothes they didn’t have to hold up. I am so sick of looking at the boxer shorts of strangers.)

Some of which set me to thinking about the tragedy of the Cowsills. A family band (first four brothers, then adding Mom and Sis), driven around to gigs by their parents — a very Beach Boys story that came just at the time the rock explosion was occurring and their kind of pop (some call it bubblegum, but I wouldn’t go that far) became very uncool. They had big hits nonetheless (“The Rain, The Park and Other Things” and “Hair” both got to #2). Then their story was developed into “The Partridge Family” — the fictional members of which are far better remembered than any of the Cowsills. The band broke up in ’71, and that was that. The mom, Barbara, died back in 1985. Last year, Barry Cowsill died in Hurricane Katrina, and Billy Cowsill died early this year. Their fans have told much of the story here. And yesterday, it just struck me as strange that this odd little pop unit might best be remembered for covering a bizarre song from the weird musical that brought the revolution to Broadway and turned it into entertainment.

(Meanwhile, Danny Bonaduce, who played Danny Partridge, seems to have failed to get a second season of his brilliant show “Breaking Bonaduce” on VH1, so it’s not like the Partridges are without tragedy, too.)