The Guess Who: American Woman : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Teddy has spent the warm January afternoon at Sugar Marlow's place rolling finger-sized joints out back in the rec room where Sugar's dad sometimes played pool and had executive parties. (He was big in Long Beach real estate.) Sugar and Marlow and their friends had taken to smoking dope and listening to the heavy sides on the MacIntosh stereo that Sugar's old man had installed for "backyard get-togethers." This afternoon, a Saturday and allowance day, natch, Teddy, Sugar, and Marlow had gone down to Discount Records and dropped a bundle on some new sides: Grand Funk; Cold Blood; Catfish; Zephyr; Aum and a few others guaranteed to knock their brains out. An hour later they were back at the rec room and were ripped out of their heads on the couch listening to the new albums. It was a typical Saturday for any normal sixteen-year-old group of friends.

When Teddy finally arrived back home at six, he was leveling out. Perhaps he wasn't as mellow as he should have been, but then the Grand Funk wasn't up to it today, nor were any of the others he'd heard earlier, and it was a rather disappointing sigh he fashioned as he dropped into the overstuffed chair in the living room.

Teddy could hear his twelve-year-old sister, Martha, laughing and playing her phonograph in her room, and talking excitedly and nonstop "probably to that weird little cunt, Diane Mueller." The music was new to him ("Strange," he thought), and the girl's chatter kept rising above it. He sat for a long time in the shadows listening to the strains of the distant music filtering through the giddy voices. Finally he stood up and walked to his sister's room at the top of the stairs.

"What's that you're listening to?" he asked, pushing the door open.

"Oh, nothing," Martha said absently. She and Diane were lying on the floor looking at an album cover. Martha and Teddy argued often about music. He claimed he was a "blues freak" while she kept the bubble gum brigade in gear.

Teddy leaned against the doorjamb looking down at the girls, but they ignored him.

"Isn't he just a doll," Diane said as both girls poked their heads together over the album pictures. "His hair is so curly!"

Teddy listened as the music played on.

'Cause it's a new Mother Nature taking over

"Burton Cummings. What a cutie pie." Diane rolled over on her back, her eyes closed, her long legs just slightly open.

It's the new Splendid Lady come to call

"You should have seen them on Bandstand last week," Martha said. "You'd have died, simply died."

It's the new Mother Nature taking over

"I could die that I missed them. He's so beautiful."

She's gettin' us all

"Is that, by any chance, the Guess Who?" Teddy finally asked, a certain tenor in his voice.

"Yes, it is the Guess Who," Martha said coldly.

"The Guess Who." Teddy smiled. "Well, if you like all that Top 40 bop-bopshoobop crap. I mean, if you ..."

"If you don't like it, then you can leave!" Martha snapped.

Teddy looked at her and shrugged. But he didn't move.

"Well?" she continued.

"I was just trying to help you out, get you over that shuck stuff. I mean everybody knows that the Guess Who is a hype. Just read their ads in the Stone."

"You can leave anytime," and she turned over and was again into the album cover.

Teddy stood for a long moment, and then walked back to the living room. He left the door open.

It's a new Mother Nature taking over

She's gettin' us all

Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, Teddy lay on his bed listening to the headphones of his portable KLH. He was still mildly stoned and was again trying out Grand Funk and Zephyr, but again the loudness and excessive driving beat only made him nervous. And besides, there was something else, something indefinite nagging him in the back of his head, some strange and compelling tune that kept running softly across his lips. He caught himself humming something altogether different as Grand Funk beat on, but it wasn't until twenty minutes later that he finally put his finger on it.

"It's a new Mother Nature takin' over," Teddy sang quietly, searching for the words. And, after a few minutes, he stood up and slowly made his way through the dark to his room. Once there, he stealthily removed the top album from her stack of bubble gum, and then stole back to his room.

On his bed again, the earphones in place, and again rolling another giant joint, Teddy waited quietly as the half-gram arm dropped onto the album.

And it was that night that Teddy overcame the hype and finally learned to love the Guess Who as he knew he should, and the next day he was proud to admit it.