tooyound comment revisions

Too Young
Too Young was originally written at the request of a major investor in the first record label that Tom
worked for (Jet Set).

Tom was living in Santa Barbara, and the investor lived on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He had
made his money in oil, and was retired, but he had a 13-year-old daughter who wanted to be a pop star (at
least she did that particular month).

Her attention span and talent were as limited as her father's money was unlimited. Then again she was only
13. That was probably the only reason the dad put money into the label. So Tom tried to come up with
something for her.

I had never written for someone else, but I was up for the
challenge. The original lyrics for Too Young were written from the point of view of the under-aged girl
who was being pursued by an older man.

While the girl was tempted, she resisted. saying to her suitor that she was "Too young … Too young to love
… Too young to love you."

The investor lost interest in Jet Set when the daughter's interest waned, and her recording career was, to
paraphrase another old song, ended before it began.

Several months later, when Prufrock was choosing songs for its Ojai / Two-Dot Studio Project Visions, Too
Young was just too much fun to let die. Since I'd be singing it, I re-wrote the lyrics from the guy's point of
view.

In the original Prufrock67 version, we imagined that the guy has before him a Lolita type, and he
musters-up about as much resistance to her temptations as Humbert Humbert, the middle aged,
nymphet-obsessed scholar. You might recall he was so conflicted over Lolita that he went mad by the end
of the story.

I think the solo guitar on Too Young is one of the best on the Visions album. Jim, the guitar player, lived in
Santa Barbara. Once everything was recorded, Tom would drop off a 1/4" tape of the track at Jim's home.
Jim would work out his part and just show up to play the lead. He was in and out of the studio in less then
30 minutes for this one.

Again there is a studio discussion at the beginning of the song. This one always gives us pause. John Hall was
getting bored with sounding like an old man and made the sound of an elephant. We cracked up, and John
Capanna adlibbed the final line, "You'll be dead next February." It was a harbinger of the near future as John
Hall would commit suicide the following year.

John decided to sing it sitting down, and everyone in the control room made sure he couldn't see them as
they were laughing so hard. But as it turned out it was the song that found its way on to European radio 40
years later.

Tom loved the song, and wanted to try it again in the 1981-82 Revisions album. Chuck still liked the song,
but wanted to take the rhythm track in a quite different direction. The rhythm pattern with lots of
up-strokes and off-beats was one that a lot of LA bands were using at the time. This also made the vocals
more staccato in the verse. The chorus rhythm shift to a straight beat of full chords. The harmony guitar
solo above the upbeat rhythm is wonderfully simple.

In the reprise of Too Young we finally got the girl in the same room as the guy.

On the day the Too Young vocals were recorded, during the final playback at the end of the session, a girl
that Tom had booked for the next session came into the control room. She started making comments to my
recorded ranting, and everyone was cracking up. Tom suggested she do it on mike. The control room was
full of people busting up as she adlibbed through the song. We've included the track that she did right after
the Too Young adlibs. Tom just found it recently. It's called Hot and Bothered. Tom can't remember the
band's name, but the singer may have been named Barbara.

Probably because he and I were rapidly approaching our 38th birthdays at the time, Tom decided to call the
1985 rendition of Too Young, the "Mid-Life Crisis" version.