Year Of Decision: “Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?” by The Lovin’ Spoonful

In America this is practically the Lovin’ Spoonful’s signature song, but in Britain it is little-known; it appeared on their 1965 album Do You Believe In Magic? and as the lead song on a four-track E.P. but was never a single. Nevertheless it is a charming little ditty adding to the gradual spaced-out-ness of the imminent summer of its year with careful electric piano, Zal Yanovsky’s scratchy guitar solo and an almost vaudevillian gait to both music and lyrics as John Sebastian muses over having to decide the better of two options, or pathways, to pursue. Since there was never any subtext to the Spoonful’s songs any metaphorical notion of politics or war is not really supported, and this is just about love and girls (we even get the same mock-stentorian adult commentary that we find in "Summertime Blues"); but the record is worthy and studiously goofy enough not to sound out of place on Beck’s Odelay. Or on any of the first four albums by the Monkees, who are about to happen and whom this record in part anticipates (Peter Tork having come out of the same Greenwich Village folk scene as Sebastian & Co.).

Date Record Made Number Two: 11 June 1966

Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 2

Record At Number One: “Paint It, Black” by The Rolling Stones

UK Chart Position: Not released as a single in the UK

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