2003 JULY 29 #210
If Mike Post isn't a household name, he should be. He's
one of the most successful composers in TV history, having
composed music for many series including The Rockford
Files, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue. His
official bio charts the beginning of his career in 1969,
when he was appointed music director for "The Andy
Williams Show" at the age of 24.
Nowhere in any of the numerous websites devoted to Mr.
Post is there a single mention of this obscure single
from 1964 (he would have been 19 at the time). On first
listen, he sounds like yet another singer-songwriter smitten
with Bob Dylan. His snarling, nasal vocals and occasional
lines with too many syllables in them were de rigeur for
folkie protest songs of the era. However, if you pay attention
to the lyric, you find that it is indeed a protest song,
but not of the garden variety. It's a right-wing protest
song with all of the trappings of the other kind.
What better label to snap up this fine, upstanding, patriotic
songwriter than Frank Sinatra's Reprise, at a time when
Sinatra had just switched political allegiances, furious
when JFK "snubbed" him by declining an invitation
to stay at his Palm Springs home (because of Sinatra's
reputed Mafia connections).
For those who may doubt that this is the same Mike Post
who composed the top 10 hit theme to "The Rockford
Files", note that the same unusual musical figure
- a rapidly alternating repeating tonic and sub-dominant
- occurs in both pieces. In "For My Home", it
occurs right after the wham-bam drum beats in the intro.
- Stormy Hunter, http://tstormhunter.iuma.com/
TT-4:08 / 3.3MB / 112kbps 44.1khz
Reprise single #0406 (1964)
(Image courtesy of Stormy Hunter)