Words &music

'HAPPY' HOWARD: Howard Kaylan of the Turtles and Flo & Eddie fame is happy indeed. "Happy Together," the timeless 1967 No. 1 Turtles hit penned by Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon, has been revived again by its key usage in the acclaimed movie Adaptation—not to mention two plays in The Simpsons this season and another in the upcoming Freaky Friday film remake.

In Adaptation starring Nicolas Cage, the main character's fellow screenwriter brother uses "Happy Together" as a means of juxtaposing a soundtrack song against the story's mood, à la "As Time Goes By" in Casablanca.

But the Carlin America-published song, which later charted for Dawn, Captain & Tennille, and the Nylons and has also been covered by scores of artists, including Mel Torme and Flo & Eddie associate Frank Zappa, remains a commercial staple as well.

Recent national commercial placements include Florida Orange Juice, Marshall Fields, Red Lobster, and SunCom Wireless. Kaylan reports that he and his longtime Turtles partner, Mark Volman—who own the original "Happy Together" master—have just licensed it for an international Heineken spot starring Jennifer Aniston.

"We got more money for that usage than we've ever received for it or any song we've ever done," he says. "The song will not die—and neither will our careers!"

True indeed, but the song's inclusion in Adaptation has also spurred the solo side of Kaylan's career. "When I saw the film, the audience started singing along with it," he relates. "It indicated to me that this thing had a life of its own—and that it was time for me to get off my butt and finish my solo album."

The disc will contain "Easy Street," a new song penned by High Concept Music (BMI) writers Kaylan and Volman. The latter moonlights as a college teacher and is writing a musical revolving around the music of his late Academy Award-winning uncle Leo Robin; his hits include "Thanks for the Memory" and "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend."

Otherwise, "every song is a cover of an album track or B-side that I've been infatuated with since the early '60s," Kaylan adds, "from the Verve Folkways catalog and [its] Jim & Jean songs to British imports and unheard songs by Michael Brown of the Left Banke. I could write songs about middle-aged angst or the state of the world—or 'you and me, baby,' [but] I've had 38 years of doing that, and no one wants to hear a 55-year-old clown with an album intended to compete with Aaron Carter."

Meanwhile, Kaylan's autobiographical film, My Dinner With Jimi, for which he received the best screenplay nod at the 2003 Slamdunk Film Festival in Park City, Utah, garnered favor at its recent showing at the Santa Monica Film Festival. The Bill Fishman-directed flick chronicles the night in 1967 when Kaylan met Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles.

"It's an absolutely true story," Kaylan recounts. "It was our first trip to London, and we met Graham Nash, Donovan, the Stones, and the Beatles—who played us Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band before it was released—all on the same night! I wound up eating dinner with Hendrix at 4 a.m. and getting violently ill and puking all over his red velvet suit!"

Ah, those were the days—which brings us back to "Happy Together." "It's set up as the greatest 'lonely song' of all time—yet it's very 'up,' " Kaylan says, noting that the lyric actually concerns someone imagining being "happy together" with another.

"We had guys returning from Vietnam saying that it got them through the war, and then they got back home and used it as their wedding song," he continues. "It was an incredibly emotional experience for people, and there was something magical about the sound. I'm not really sure why, because it's a simple melody and production, yet there's something transcendent about the record that I very much doubt could be duplicated today—and not just because it's something that's etched in our collective memory bank."