Song #171: "96 Tears" by ? And The Mysterians

Date: Oct 29, 1966
Weeks: 1

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For the record, the band's name is pronounced "Question Mark and the Mysterians," they just decided to be cute and use the punctuation. Kind of annoying, but since I've seen the word "proto-punk" attached to this band, I suppose the intent was to thumb their nose at convention, albeit in this tiny, tiny way.

I was kind of shocked to hear this song start with that organ riff. I know that riff from the Smash Mouth version of "Can't Get Enough Of You Baby." I always knew that was a cover, but I never got around to figuring out whose song they were covering. Turns out the most popular previous version was by Question Mark, here. Once I found that out, I went looking for the original version, to see if Smash Mouth had been deliberately making reference to more than one song by the Mysterians. But no, it turns out that, for some reason, both songs start with the same exact organ riff. Huh. Well, whatever, It's a cool riff and at least this song used it first.

To be sure, the organ is the best thing happening in "96 Tears". I wish it had more changes and variety to it, but its use is clever and attention-getting. As far as I can tell, it's fairly unique for the era. It's good stuff. And better still, the song has more to offer. The bass is particularly compelling, especially during the part when the organ falls out. The lead guitar is a bit more subtle, but it fills the gaps well, and the drums are fine, too. There's plenty of sound and energy in this song, and I really appreciate that.

The song's biggest weakness is the vocals. A song like this doesn't require very much in the way of raw vocal talent to be good, but Question Mark doesn't really manage to meet that low bar. That first verse is really hard to take, because it's just a monotone with a tiny little pitch shift at the end of each line. He does have a good sense of rhythm, though, so that makes the vocals a little easier to take.

The lyrics don't really matter much in this one, because all my ear wants to listen to is the music. But for the sake of thoroughness, I'll cover them quickly. The lyrics are kind of depressingly cynical about a relationship that has ended, and the singer feels like he lost the breakup, and he's crying "too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin'." But he has a plan to get back together, gain the upper hand, "and then I'm gonna put you way down here and you'll start cryin'." So it's kind of exploring that nasty desire to get the upper hand in a breakup, even if you have coldly calculate a way to do it. Pretty unpleasant. At least the song ends with the singer speculating that the tables could be turned again so he winds up being the one left crying, so there's a self-awareness to the lyrics. Why he determined that 96 was the correct number of tears he wants to see cried, I couldn't say. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because that word fit the meter the best.

My verdict: Like it. The organ and bass alone make this song too catchy to resist, and the small problems with the other elements don't detract very much from that.