guilty pleasure monday: stephanie (the partridge family)

those of us ladies of a certain age — and we know who we are, don’t we, now? — were big fans of the partridge family (aka the pretend cowsills) back in the day. sure, even at age 5 i knew that no one was playing their instruments — duh! — but i didn’t care, cos i had my very first crush on this man:

yes, there i was, a preschooler, deciding that david cassidy was the cutest guy alive. (well, second to paul mccartney, of course, back when he still could be called cute… although i suppose you can refer to some older people as cute, but then it means something entirely different.) even then, i knew i had to keep a thin veneer of cool about me at all times; but i had a few of their albums (thank G-d for Hal Blaine, huh?), a few comic books, and a scary knowledge of the shows.

the latter doesn’t seem remotely interesting except for one little detail: this was in the era before VCRs. in fact, this was the era before prime time shows were syndicated, much less repeated, save for 1950s gems like i love lucy. i had to depend on my photographic memory to remember the songs, especially since not all of them ended up on the albums.

one in particular was my favorite song of all. stephanie was actually from a very special episode guest starring (say it with me now)…ooohhh. ahhhhh. bobby sherman!!! (nope. bobby didn’t do anything for me, either. while i am sure sherman is a good person, even at age 5, i knew i didn’t like anyone who might call me little woman.) after some breaking and entering that would normally land a dude in jail, bobby sherman and a dorky, tone-deaf guy named lionel poindexter (whose mother obviously didn’t love him when they saddled him with that sucker) end up getting their music and lyrics together (courtesy of the partridges, of course.)

what amazes me to this day (if i may say so myself…and i will) was that after hearing that song during that one episode in 1970, i never forgot it. in fact, i did what any self-respecting preschooler freak of nature wunderkind little kid would do: the minute we got a piano, two years later, i sat down and figured the song out. only, too bad for me: the only parts i remembered were: stephanie, whose eyes are blue/what would life be like with you… skip ahead to the chorus: and i’m doin’/all i can do/all but the growin’/that’s up to you. yes, i was mystified as all hell trying to figure out what growing had to do with anything, but i was even more frustrated that i wanted to hear this song again… and i couldn’t, except for in my head or through my fingers on the piano.

thank G-d for youtube.

so dad, if you’re out there (and i know you are), now you know why i just had to sit at the piano and play a stupid set of chords, over and over. this may sound familiar to you now.

and i’ll dedicate this guilty pleasure monday to my beautiful cousin stephanie, even though her eyes aren’t blue. and she doesn’t need to grow.

can someone please unglue susan dey‘s fingers from the keyboards?