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Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - Sylvia's Mother

Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - Sylvia's Mother Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
Released: 1971

Sylvia's Mother Lyrics

Sylvia's Mother says Sylvia's busy, too busy to come to the phone
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's trying, to start a new life of her own.
Sylvia's mother says "Sylvia's happy
So why don't you leave her alone?"
And the operator says : "Forty cents more, for the next three minutes."

Please Mrs. Avery, I've just got to talk to her
I'll only keep her a while
Please Mrs. Avery, just want to tell her
Goodbye.

Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's packing, she's going be leaving today.
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's marrying, a fellow down Galveston-Way
Sylvia's mother says "Please don't say nothing...
To make her start crying and stay."
And the operator says : "Forty cents more, for the next three minutes."

Please Mrs. Avery, I've just got to talk to her
I'll only keep her a while
Please Mrs. Avery, just want to tell her
Goodbye

Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's hurrying,
She's catching the nine o'clock train.
Sylvia's mother says: "Take your umbrella,
Cause Sylvia it's starting to rain."
And Sylvia's mother says "Thank you for calling.
And sir won't you come back again."
And the operator says :" Forty cents more,
For the next three minutes."

Please Mrs. Avery, I've just got to talk to her
I'll only keep her a while
Please Mrs. Avery, just want to tell her
Goodbye

Tell her goodbye
Please, tell her goodbye
Goodbye

Writer/s: SHEL SILVERSTEIN
Publisher: T.R.O. INC.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Sylvia's Mother

Like most of the early songs recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, this was written by Shel Silverstein. Silversteen was a brilliant storyteller with a vivid imagination, but this story was real.

In the song, Sylvia's mother is Mrs. Avery, and while that wasn't her real last name, the rest of the story - exaggerated a bit - was true. Silversteen told Rolling Stone in 1972: "I just changed the last name, not to protect the innocent, but because it didn't fit. It happened about eight years ago and was pretty much the way it was in the song. I called Sylvia and her mother said, 'She can't talk to you.' I said, 'Why not?' Her mother said she was packing and she was leaving to get married, which was a big surprise to me. The guy was in Mexico and he was a bullfighter and a painter. At the time I thought that was like being a combination brain surgeon and encyclopedia salesman. Her mother finally let me talk to her, but her last words were, 'Shel, don't spoil it.' For about ten seconds I had this ego charge, as if I could have spoiled it. I couldn't have spoiled it with a sledge hammer."

The real Sylvia kept her secret to all but a few family and friends. Remarkably, it was a Dutch public television producer named Arjan Vlakveld who found not only Sylvia, but also Sylvia's mother. Arjan told us: "The search for Sylvia was a big coincidence. I was having a glass of wine in the garden of my brother. He had quests and there was an American woman who after I explained what kind of things I produced, told me the story about Sylvia and her mother, who she knew. It was an old story because it was about her mother working on a high school with "sylvia's mother." She was already old in the time of her story. She didn't knew if it was true but the woman had claimed ones that she was the mother in the song. I only had a few names to go on and ended up in a telephone conversation with Sylvia Pandolfi, who at that time was a museum director in Mexico City.(Down galveston way in the song meant in het real life that she was getting married to a mexican and moving there).

So I asked her the question: Are you by any chance the Sylvia in the song 'Sylvia's Mother?' She was very surprised because nobody knew, it was a personal and family story, she never told anyone. I filmed the interview with her mother in Homewood, Illinois. The same house where she had the telephone call with Shell Silverstein, probably even the same telephone number. She was 95 years at that time."

Here is the segment on Sylvia and her mother .

The band had two lead singers: Ray Sawyer (with the eye patch) and Dennis Locorriere. It was Locorriere, then 20 years old, who sang on this one, delivering the vocal with sincere sorrow. Many of Shel Silverstein's songs for the band were works of comedy ("Roland the Roadie and Gertrude the Groupie," "The Cover Of Rolling Stone), and Dr. Hook had a bawdy stage show that wasn't to be taken seriously, so not everyone picked up that this was a serious song about heartbreak. "A surprising number of people thought it was a parody but I always saw it as a truly heartbreaking story and I did my best to portray the anxiety and sadness that I knew that poor guy in the phone booth would be feeling," Locorriere told us. Dr. Hook's next single, "Carry Me, Carrie," was another serious heartbreak song written by Silverstein.

Silverstein was a popular author and songwriter, who wrote for both children and adults. He was a writer and cartoonist for Playboy magazine, and a best-selling author of children's poems. He wrote "A Boy Named Sue" for Johnny Cash and another hit song for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: "Cover Of The Rolling Stone." He died of a heart attack in 1999 at age 68. Learn more about Shel Silverstein in our interview with Mitch Myers.

After this song became a hit, audience members would sometimes throw coins at the band Rocky Horror-style at the line "40 cents more." This could hurt quite a bit, especially when they were launched from the balcony.

This was the first single released by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, who later became simply Dr. Hook. While they were playing bars in the New Jersey area, they got a gig appearing in the movie Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, and signed with Columbia/CBS Records, which is the label that released the soundtrack for the film. "Sylvia's Mother" was their first single; it made the Hot 100 at #99 for one week when it was first released, but months later, after CBS (led by Clive Davis) started promoting it, it took off and became a hit.

After the band had been performing this song for a while, Shel Silverstein wrote a new version for them called "Sylvia's Father." Only the end of the song was different, with the last verse changed to:
Sylvia's father says Sylvia's pregnant and you went and made her that way
Sylvia's father says you motherf--ker I'm gonna kill you someday

At this point, Dennis Locorriere would do a rant about the no-good scoundrel that knocked up Sylvia. This version was never recorded.

In the UK, this was kept out of the #1 spot by Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love."

Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - The Cover of "Rolling Stone"

Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - The Cover of "Rolling Stone" Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Sloppy Seconds
Released: 1972

The Cover of "Rolling Stone" Lyrics

Well, we're big rock singers
We got golden fingers
And we're loved everywhere we go (that sounds like us)
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten-thousand dollars a show (right)
We take all kinds of pills that give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll gitcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone

(Rollin stone) want to see my picture on the cover
(Stone)Wanna buy five copies for my mother (yes)
(Stone)Wanna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone (that's a very very good idea)

I got a freaky ole lady name a cocaine Katy
Who embroideries on my jeans
I got my poor ole grey haired daddy
Drivin' my limousine
Now it's all designed to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll gitcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone

(Rollin Stone) want to see our pictures on the cover
(Stone) want to buy five copies for our mothers (yeah)
(Stone) want to see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone
(talking) Hey, I know how
Rock and roll

Ah, that's beautiful
We got a lot of little teenage blue eyed groupies
Who do anything we say
We got a genuine Indian Guru
Who's teaching us a better way
We got all the friends that money can buy
So we never have to be alone
And we keep getting richer but we can't get our picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone

(Rollin stone)Gonna see my picture on the cover
(Stone) Gonna buy five copies for my mother (wa wa)
(Stone) Gonna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone
On the cover of the Rollin'
Stone) Gonna see my picture on the cover
(talking) I don't know why we ain't on the cover, baby
(Stone) Gonna buy five copies for my mother
(talking) We're beautiful subjects
(Stone) Want to see my smilin' face
(talking) I ain't kiddin', we would make a beautiful cover
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone
(talking) Fresh shot, right up front, man
I can see it now, we'll be up in the front
Smilin, man
Ah, beautiful.

Writer/s: SHEL SILVERSTEIN
Publisher: T.R.O. INC.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Cover of "Rolling Stone" Song Chart

This was written by Shel Silverstein, a best-selling author of children's poems who was also a contributor to Playboy magazine and writer of many Country hits, including A Boy Named Sue. His books include Where The Sidewalk Ends , Giraffe and The Giving Tree . Silverstein also wrote Dr. Hook's first hit, "Sylvia's Mother."

This is a parody of the rock and roll lifestyle. It pokes fun at all the things that rock stars indulge in when they're successful: groupies, shady characters hanging around, limo rides, etc.

The group had a funny side and a serious side, but it was the funny side that came out on stage and framed their image. The pirate theme added to the novelty of the group: originally known as the Chocolate Papers, they took the name Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show after the character in Peter Pan, which also played up the eye patch worn by their singer Ray Sawyer, who many people assumed was "Dr. Hook." Sawyer wore the eye patch as a result of a car accident.

The group made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on March 29, 1973, 3 months after this song was released. The text next to their picture read: "What's Their Names Make The Cover." The song was great publicity for Rolling Stone magazine, which was only five years old.

For the story, reporter Jim Cahill followed the band on tour, portraying them (accurately) as a ragtag band of misfits who were making it up as they went along. Early stage shows for the band were a bawdy affair, with a lot of improvisation and revelry.

Dr. Hook singer/guitarist Dennis Locorriere never took a stage name, which made it tough on journalists before there was Google. In the Rolling Stone article, they spelled his name wrong.

Mitch Myers, who is Shel Silverstein's nephew and wrote the book Silverstein Around the World , explains: "I think that he was already hanging with Dr. Hook when he did it, but if he didn't, he had been around musicians, and he understood what people wanted. And he understood how every musician's dream was to be a star. To be a big star. To be on the cover of a big magazine, and what magazine epitomized music? And Shel lampooned the whole rock and roll lifestyle in that - groupies and Indian gurus - at the time. The Beatles and everybody, Donovan, and all those people were wearing Indian garb and going to see Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and coming back supposedly enlightened - or not. And everybody was still hustling, was all hustle. I'm not saying that anyone was insincere, I'm just saying that you can see people for what they are. And he did that, and made it funny, too.

Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show became such prolific interpreters of Shel's material for some reasons which would completely include their sense of humor. They were just a bar band from New Jersey, as much as Columbia Records tried to make them some crazy Cajun band that came out of the swamps. I mean, Ray Sawyer was from the South, maybe one or two of the other guys. But they were just a bar band, and were blessed with two great singers, both Ray and Dennis had fantastic voices. Dennis' was the one that was a little raspier and rougher, and similar to Shel's in grit, and Ray was a little bit more lascivious and a little bit more playful, and the chemistry between the two of them - although it did not last forever - was a perfect foil for Shel to use. And if it was a sweet love song, you know, Dennis might just do something very straightforward. Like "I Can't Touch The Sun For You" off the first record. And not all their songs were novelty, and not all their songs were humorous, and not all their performances were gimmicky. But they also were not afraid to go over to Europe and perform on stage and get naked. I mean, they were just a bunch of maniacs." (Learn a lot more about Shel Silverstein in our interview with Mitch Myers.)

This was featured in the 2000 movie Almost Famous, about a 15-year-old reporter writing an article for Rolling Stone. The band he is writing about sings this when they find out they made the cover. The director, Cameron Crowe, was once a reporter for Rolling Stone.

The BBC refused to play this because it violated their rule stating that songs could not mention trademarked products by brand name (the Kinks had to change "Coca-Cola" to "Cherry Cola" in their song "Lola" to get around the rule). CBS Records responded by setting up a phone line that would play the song to anyone willing to dial in, which helped build the buzz. The BBC was only able to play the song after some of their DJs edited themselves shouting the words "Radio Times" over "Rolling Stone" (Radio Times was a show on the BBC). Rumor was that Dr. Hook recorded the "Radio Times" version, but they never had to.