Recorded by The Jaynetts. Written by Zell Sanders. Produced by Abner Spector. Hit #2 on the charts for two weeks in the fall of 1963. One of the weirdest singles in pop music history.
NPR devoted a couple of hours to it a few years ago (I missed the show). Jeff Pike wrote a full chapter about it in 1993’s THE DEATH OF ROCK AND ROLL:UNTIMELY DEMISES, MORBID PREOCCUPATIONS, AND PREMATURE FORECASTS OF DOOM IN POP MUSIC. But what’s the straight dope?
The song itself seems simple: an uncomplicated melody and rhythm, a story seemingly about a girl who finds that her boyfriend is cheating on her and who gets upset about it.
But halfway through the song there are allusions to some “secret” of Sally’s. And near the end the ghostly chorus urges her to “let her hair hang down.”
Without actually ANSWERING any of his own damn questions, Pike offers hints of interpretations ranging from a suicide scenario, Sally’s moment of truth about her own homosexuality, and a spiritual epiphany of some kind, maybe one powerful enough to bring about madness.
What’s going on with this song? Who’s been analyzing it? Is it another case of rock critics and undergrads wasting time?
The song actually was written by two persons, Zell Sanders and Lona Stevens. Since both are dead, it’s unlikely we will ever get a final answer.
Wayne Jancik, in his One Hit Wonders, gives a good summary:
“'Sally, Go ‘Round the Roses’ is a timeless wonder of a song, featuring an odd, hypnotic rhythm and soft voices seductively rising and falling. The lyrics seem to portray Sally in an alluring field of roses, catching an eyeful of her lover with another. But differing interpretations abound. Some listeners read the roses and the hushed throbbing of the music as expressions of a young woman’s troubled acceptance of homosexuality. Others think the song is about a religious experience, or possibly a mental breakdown. Still others remember ‘Sally’ as nothing more than a silly nursery rhyme.”
Great song–I have no idea what it means. Independent record companies like Tuff records have pretty much disappeared, so great songs like this have also pretty much disappeared.
The roses, they can’t hurt you. (No, the roses, they can’t hurt you.)
I can’t STAND that song. Droning, repetitive, unmelodic. I have a cassette of Girl Group hits, and I always have to fast-forward through that one, right from ‘Leader of the Pack’ to ‘Chapel of Love.’
Heck, Flora, dontcha like it any better when you realize it could actually be about a staring mad teenage girl LOCKED IN A PADDED CELL…?
“Sally baby cry, let your hair hang down
Sit and cry with the door closed
Sit and cry so no one knows”
Is that Gothic or what?
PS: I have the same disc…aside from the Insane/Lesbian/Suicide/Religious VIsionary cuts, the highlights are definitely “Party Lights” by Claudine Clark and “I Can’t Stay Mad at You” by Skeeter Davis.
Well, thanks a lot. I had never heard this song so I went to the site and listened - then it was stuck in my head the rest of the day!
Sorry, Uke - I think it’s just about Sally tellin’ her troubles to the roses. They won’t tell anyone about her humiliation - her guy with another girl - and she can let her hair down and have a good cry. The spookiness comes mainly from the arrangement - was Abner related to Phil do you know?
Ah, what sheltered lives you have led. “Open a rose”, “Open the rose”,"Opening the rose"are phrases I have heard some of my lesbian friends use for uhm digital manipulation and cunnilingus “going around the rose” refers more specifically to cunnilingus. I once heard a musician say the best way to get a song out of your head is to play it backwards, the only things I can play are the Jew’s harp and the nose flute so it don’t help me. Nice quote, chuck ,who did you say said it?
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
Abner and Phil Spectors were not related, according to Pike’s book. Good point about the arrangement…it’s damned eerie, and very different from the typical “girl group” sound. The instruments are overdubbed, several pianos, guitars, bass and drums added last, not to mention the funhouse organ that wheezes in and out between choruses. Over twenty singers were used, too. And then echo was overlaid. They couldn’t do it again that was if they tried.
The lines about Sally’s betrayal are neatly vague as to gender: “The saddest thing in the whole wide world/Is to see your baby with another girl.”
Whitetho: According to the lyrics site I checked, the line about the closed door (imprisonment in a state asylum? Bwahhhh-ha-hahhh!) IS in the song.
I vaguely remember reading some columnist (Walter Winchell maybe?), when the song was a hit, saying that the haunting sound in that record was caused by a defective part (capacitor maybe?) in the audio board!
Yes, the AOL-powered internet of 1999 often offered us inadequate lyrics sites. I was a FOOL to trust them. And I didn’t check them against the actual song because in 1999 it took 99 minutes to upload a three-minute 1950s single. And also, it gave me the shivers. Still does.
Anyway, ANALYZE! I trust your intellect over a large percentage of our fellow Dopers.
Analyze the lyrics of a rock song? Isn’t that like analyzing the seeds of a seedless watermelon? All you have are those tasteless white bits to work with.
I didn’t realize that “Zell” Sanders was short for Zelda. Zelda Sanders has a, um, colorful history as an owner, manager, writer, and producer. Interestingly, none of the actual Jaynettes sang on the recording, but her daughter Johnnie Louise Richardson did.
There’s nothing in Sanders’ history that seems like a base for reading the song as a commentary of any kind. Sure, you can interpret “the saddest thing in the whole wide world/Is to see your baby with another girl” paired with “They won’t tell your secret” as a double meaning for a lesbian relationship, but half the songs in 1963 were about a girl losing a guy to another girl.
There isn’t much meat to the song. A few lines ringing changes on a few lines. The mystery of Sally’s secret (Sally/Zelda - meaningful?) comes entirely from Artie Butler’s eerie production. Which Abner Spector hated, according to Wiki. Strip out the mystery, as Pentangle and Tim Buckley do, and nothing is left. (Or Donna Summer’s disco version[!]) (Holy smoke, there’s a version by ? and the Mysterians from 2008[!]) Only Grace Slick with the Great Society understood the song. Of course, Grace could make any song sound like a threat.
People need to make patterns out of random dots. I think that’s what we have here.