THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
957) The Fabulous Four — “Rotten Rats”
’66 “classic fuzz pop” (Nostalgoteket, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1v0eUUANk1o) — “[t]hat fuzz…. can never get enough!” (eektherigo, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fAFd1G5hlaE&pp=ygUdVGhlIGZhYnVsb3VzIGZvdXIgcm90dGVuIHJhdHM%3D). This song is a cosmic riddle — a band that hit it big with covers of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and other such songs releases an absolute killer fuzz garage A-side. To add to the mystery, they put the songs on the same album. And the ultimate enigma — the band was from Sweden, and their version of “Puff” (which Richie Unterberger calls “awful” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-fabulous-four-mn0000788637)) was produced by Benny Andersson (see #929), who also played the piano. Yes, ABBA’s Benny Andersson! “Whoa! The wildest garage track to ever come outta Sweden! Obliterating fuzz.” (Popsike.com, https://www.popsike.com/Fabulous-Four-Rotten-Rats-1966-60s-Garage-Fuzz/150575099333.html)
I am far from the only one intrigued. Nostalgoteket writes that “Rotten Rats” “is not representative of . . . Fabulous Four . . . . This is like another band kidnapped them and recorded Rotten Rats for them.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1v0eUUANk1o) Micke (who owns a record store in Stockholm (Mickes Skivor (Micke’s Discs)) says (courtesy of Google Translate) “Now, it almost sounds like some obscure American garage band from the middle of the decade. . . . It is highly unlikely that it is the same band” as the others on the album. (http://www.mickes-cdvinyl.se/wordpress/2011/01/12/svenska-lp-skivor-91-fabulous-four-after-all/)
As to the Fabulous Four, Micke tells us that:
[T]hey had a couple of slightly soft hits in the years 66-67. . . . Puff The Magic Dragon, Island In The Sun, Rhythm Of The Rain and Don’t Go Out In The Rain were the four songs that the group got to [to the top of the charts] in the span of a year. . . . It’s undeniably difficult to talk away a song – Puff The Magic Dragon – which was number one for three weeks on Tio I Topp. But still . . . four covers of four songs that are pretty boring from the start. Is it a band worth wasting any time on? . . .
[T]hey were a really open and raucous live band; something that only sporadically manifested itself on vinyl and then predominantly on the group’s b-sides. . . . Somewhere in 1966, film producer Janne Haldoff got into the action. At some point, before the guys had their first hit, he had heard the fabs’ song After All and concluded that this gang would fit perfectly as songwriters for the soundtrack of his upcoming film Lifet Är Stenkul, a film about being young around the latter half of the sixties. The boys accepted, Lalla [Hansson] and Uffe Arvidsson sat down behind the writing desk to put together something that would be both good and end up within the frame of the film. . . .
[The band’s album was s]hall we say a fragmented record to say the least . . . . The two-headedness is interspersed with soft ballads performed in a way that makes the Hootenanny Singers appear as a party band. The gravely serious is replaced by turkeys, and game-wise top achievements are interspersed with purely amateur efforts. . . . [I]t is hard when impossible to understand that it is one and the same band that fronts the twelve tracks that make up the record. Sure, variety is fun, but this borders on pure schizophrenia. . . .
The common perception of the Fabs – from those who “were there” – is that the group had hits with covers of well-known songs that did not at all reflect the charisma that the guys displayed live. There are many descriptions that I heard from the group’s perhaps not wild, but obviously loud and heavy gigs in the Stockholm area before they broke through . . . .
http://www.mickes-cdvinyl.se/wordpress/2011/01/12/svenska-lp-skivor-91-fabulous-four-after-all/
Makes the Hootenanny Singers sound like a party band? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!
The back cover of the Swedish 45 adds (courtesy of Google Translate):
“Rotten Rats” or “View from Each Garden Window”, as the composers Lalla Hansson and Ulf Arvidsson like to call it, was originally written for Svensk Filmindustri and Jan Halldoff’s feature film “Lifet ar Stenkul”. But when the set was finished, the[y] wanted to release it on disc . . . . [In a deal, Svensk Filmindustria] got “After All” . . . and six more original compositions [in exchange]. The lyrics for “Rotten Rats” were written by the Fabulous Four’s tour manager Urban von Rosen.
Finally, from Svenskpophistoria (courtesy of Google Translate):
Fabulous Four was a pop/rock band from Stockholm. . . . [whose name] was probably inspired by . . . The Beatles . . . . Ulf Arvidsson and Björn Magnusson started the band The Sharks in 1962. Lalla Hansson and Jan Sandelin joined and they changed their name first to The Beatmakers and then to the Fabulous Four. In 1965, the group debuted with the song Boom Boom. Unusually, the Fabulous Four first broke through in Italy with their own song After All from their first and only LP of the same title. The success of After All led to the group being offered to write the film music for the Swedish film director Jan Halldoff’s film Lifet er stenkul. The Fabulous Four themselves appear in the film with a small scene sequence. That same year, in the fall of 1966, the group broke through with Puff (The Magic Dragon), which became the Fabulous Four’s first Top Ten chart hit. The songs on this single are recorded on The Hep Star’s own record label Hep House. The producer is none other than Benny Andersson. He also plays spinet piano on both songs. Island In The Sun, Rhythm Of The Rain and Don’t Go Out Into The Rain were other songs that made it into the Top Ten. In 1968, when the pop wave in Sweden began to ebb, the group disbanded.
https://www.svenskpophistoria.se/FAB/info.html
Here is “Puff”:
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