Rod McKuen Was the Bestselling Poet in American History. What Happened?

Can't help but like the guy.

May this thread have a long life...... Thanks OP . Who knew him? Who had him? etc....

Rod judged the Miss America pageant that Vanessa Williams won. He said even if I knew about the photos I still would’ve voted for her she was the best one.

Nirvana doing McKuen's "Seasons in the Sun".

Rod's stuff was so sincere and unironic it was made for punk treatment but by then Rod was in self-exile.

I remember reading Rod Mckuen. I had no idea then that he was gay. Or that i was.

R5 Same here!

That was a great article R1 , 🙏

[quote] Bestselling Poet in American History

TS Eliot disagrees. TS Eliot has never been out of print.

[quote] "he exposed the banality at the core of our souls".

Should we praise him for that?

Nothing says "I don't believe in labels" like a fistful of Crisco!

R10. That's AMOR!

R3 The pinnacle of his cultural contributions, apparently

[quote] The pinnacle of his cultural contributions, apparently

No, this is:

I get off on you.

Really.

I don’t know if it has to do with age or getting older or what.

But for a while I thought I was never going to find anybody who was tuned in on the same wavelength as me.

Or maybe somebody I could tune in with.

It sure feels good.

I had this 45 as a kid. Probably one of my father’s tag sale finds.

Now who doesn’t love some ‘Disco’ FFun?

Men loving cats? This poem about his lost cat Sloopy went a 60s version of viral. On a side note, McKuen claims authorship of the movie title Midnight Cowboy. He also had several imaginary sons.

His books were in every single thrift store in the US in the 90s.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown - great voice!

From Rod's oeuvre...."I once knew a man, who worked from nine to five, just to pay his monthly bills was why he stayed alive, so keep your country cottage, and your lawn so green, I just want a one-room pad where I can make the scene. I belong to the Beat Generation, I don't let anything trouble my mind. I belong to the Beat Generation and everything's goin' real fine.

R16. Um, wouldn’t that be James Leo Herlihy…who wrote the damn novel?

R20 Rod lied and embellished so compulsively he paid no attention to what could easily be fact-checked, and neither did his fans apparently.

Hey R19.....here it is....Lyrics by Rod

At the Oscars.

Spoiler alert

He was a pansy and always enjoyed a cockatoo. Mine and my boy toy of the month

I loved the Theme from “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” “Jean, Jean roses are red All the leaves have gone green …”

He had a bonnie rod.

R23 He's quite handsome in that clip. And Marlo was still pretty.

He wrote the English lyrics to Brel's "If You go Away". A classic.

His poetry was the inspiration for Suzanne Somers's.

This is actually a good song - although I never knew what it had to do with the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The words don't seem to have anything to do with the film. Horrible poet. Easy on the eyes for the time period, though

That article at R1 is fantastic.

I have no idea who this guy is. None. And I'm pretty up on pop culture, past and present. But I've have never heard of him. Not even a whisper.

Now I must learn everything.

Dusty Springfield - If You Go Away

It really is a pretty song.

Oliver singing "Jean".

With dream sequence.

So fabulously 1969.

"Listen to the warm" What?

'and the hills are ablaze with the moon's yellow haze' sounds dire

Thank you guys for posting “JEAN” - that is one of those “.makes your heart hurt songs” - it’s like jumping in a time machine and sitting in the backseat of my parents car on a long trip and they have the radio on.

What a blast from an early Gen X childhood. In my mind, his soft-focus poetry volume is next to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I don't remember ever seeing him on TV and had no idea he wrote songs, let alone that cheesy gem Seasons in the Sun. Or that Nirvana covered it.

When I was a kid, I'd listen to KHOW (that's 630 on your AM dial) late at night. Sometimes they'd ask a trivia question about the song they'd just played and if you were the first caller with the correct answer, you'd win some miscellaneous record. I ended up winning three or four. One of the times they played *Jean* and asked who wrote it. The problem was that my mom got off work at 11:00 and would be driving home and would hear my name on the radio and know I was still up.

Re: the article at R1 . There must be something wrong with me, but I don't hear much similarity at all between "The Blank Generation" and "The Beat Generation." Certainly not enough for me to believe Robert Christgau's jaw dropped when he heard them in succession.

I read this article last night and it has stayed on my mind today - so many years shut away between fame and death. Why is it that I can picture Pete and Trudy Campbell on “Mad Men” sitting by the fire in Cos Cob digging on some “Rod McKuen.”

Rod's record collection...... approx 17 min in

......

Even as a send-up that Nirvana cover is terrible.

Elder gay here. Haha. My sister still has a copy of his first book of poems ….Listen to the Warm…. Like excerpts of journals from whiney middle schoolers…

A favorite line we still use « …… you remember the name of your favorite candy bar but not the day your best friend died . »

George C. remembers Twix, but not when Susan died.

Another fave line: « …… and if in bed you never turn away .. w »

[Quote]Of course he wasn’t out,” said Stephanie Burt. In that era, she said, a queer person who wanted to become, and stay, famous, had three choices.

He wasn't queer, bitch. He was a gay man.

R33 I consider it poor lyric-writing when you stress the same word 'Jean' four times in two lines.

Rock topped Rod in the 70's.

R42 Petula Clark is in that video at 25 minutes saying he writes shallow, sexist, demeaning lyrics.

Oh, dear.

So, was he really kinky?

He had joy, he had fun.

R45. I wonder if she actually said queer, it's not in quotes. From Burk's wikipedia page:

In 2017, she transitioned to female.[12] She has since been active in LGBTQA+ rights and awareness campaigns.[13]

I never heard of this guy until today. How awful this is and the album was at the top of the charts for ages. A drag show could make good use of this tripe.

R53 I'll take that kitsch-fest any day over no-talent Amanda Gorman

R37, I'm R31.

I had no idea this guy existed before this thread, but I was a HUGE Nirvana fan when I was young! (Still am). I remember their cover of Seasons in the Sun, and being amazed that the coolest band in the world covered such a cheesy song. I also remember secretly loving that cheesy song!

I'm lowkey obsessed with McKuen now. This is exactly why I love this place. You can learn so much here on DL.

Another one who was huge in the 1960s and completely forgotten today is Richard Brautigan.

Wrote poetry and every college student in the late '60s read "Trout Fishing in America".

Rod McKuen wasn't a poet. He wrote verse.

[quote] 'and the hills are ablaze with the moon's yellow haze' sounds dire

It does, but that's not the actual lyric.

It's "And the hills are ablaze/ With the morn's yellow haze" which makes much more sense.

Frankie recorded a whole album of his songs.

OOOPS.

I'll get it right one of these days.

One mo' time: Italian heartthrob Sergio Franchi sings "Jean" .

Here it sounds very Broadway, like a Burton Lane melody, a tune from "Finian's Rainbow" or something like that.

Thank you R56. Richard Brautigan had a huge influence on me way back then.

[quote]Rod McKuen wasn't a poet. He wrote verse.

But WAS he verse?

R55, I was into Nirvana, too, and think I must've seen them pre-fame on the Pacific Northwest I-5 circuit.

Seasons in the Sun is a touchstone. It was such a big hit, I can still see the 45 label, and then we became ironic teenagers/college kids and it was a love/hate joke. Of course Nirvana covered it.

I can't decide if he was attractive or not but he did have a nice twink body.

Rod & Robert Wagner dressed up nicely

Was Jean meant to be Gene? And Michelle in Seasons in the Sun code for Michel? Did McKuen have a Gene and a Michel in his life who went up him and cause Sloopy to leave him?

[quote].It's "And the hills are ablaze/ With the morn's yellow haze" which makes much more sense.

Nope. It's moon. And 'morn's yellow haze' doesn't make sense either, unless they're aerial spraying pesticides and fertilizers maybe.

In early 1969, my older brother, who was a very minor film critic, took me to a press screening of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in New York. McKuen was there for a post discussion. Lean man, tousled sandy hair, casually dressed, open shirt showing a hairy chest. Spoke with a raspy voice, as if he’d smoked a lot.

Looking back, he seemed like a kind of Bohemian free spirit. I was never that much interested in poetry anyway, even though his books were popular more among college girls. This was about 6 months before Stonewall; so gay was not a widely used term.

I remember feeling attracted to him. I was 20, and very unsure of myself. But, somehow that raspy voice seemed out of place. He seemed to be older than he wanted to look. He was 35 at the time.

P.S.: I thought the song was pretty, but had nothing to do with the film. Serious story about a fanatic teacher. Nothing romantic about it. Weird placement.

So Robert Wagner had Rod as well?

My favorite McKuen line:

I have never known a cat that couldn't calm me down just by walking slowly past my chair.

In his time, serious literary people had nothing but contempt for him.

They resented and envied his popularity.

He's wretched.

I so loathe queer-speak when referring to gay men, particularly gay historical men to whom the word queer had quite a negative and threatening connotation. That aside this is an interesting read.

McKuen's comments are typical of the period in which he lived. He suggests he was bi (untrue), he lied that he had a bio son, he referred to his long-term partner as his "brother" (in a spiritual rather than bio sense), etc.I don't fault him for any of this.

At the same time he was active in many gay organisations.

One more article and it's veeery long but pretty much sums up all you need to know about this strange, enchanted boy, Without being insufferably dismissive, It explains the difference between the simplicity of McKuen and a poet like Mary Oliver, also known for using simple, straightforward words by comparing two poems with the same subject, dogs. You read both poems and know which author really HAD a dog and which merely looked at one and discussed his feelings about looking at it.

Includes an exhaustive account of McKuen's lies and evasions. I think my favorite whopper is when he told a journalist that critics hated him so irrationally that they negatively reviewed a book of poems he hadn't even written yet.

His choice of words was in no way profound.

R42 and R48 shows that plucked words out of the air if they contained the right number of syllables.

the article at r77 points out that RM lied that he had 2 bio kids in France which is classic DL. He's dating in Europe.

Can’t help but love his type of wispy easy listening late 60’s pop

R1, wonderful article. Thank you for sharing. Gotta love him