Was C&T's Muskrat Love really a hit?

It was popular as they were for a while. I wouldn’t exactly call it a huge hit and they weren’t.

America covered it better.

Indeed it was, OP. The 70s had some nutty novelty songs, but they were usually from one hit wonders.

My favorite story about the song

[QUOTE]Then I said to Daryl, ‘We really should do ‘Muskrat Love,’ too.’ It was a huge hit and I thought everyone would get a kick out of it. I thought they seemed like a fun group!”

[QUOTE]But with their synthesizer – which Daryl uses in the song to recreate the sound of love-making muskrats – speakers and keyboard set up in the East Room, the volume was high – and not everyone was pleased.

[QUOTE]Kissinger in particular seemed miserable throughout the performance, says Tennille (she good-naturedly dedicated the song to him for years after), while the Queen simply nodded off.

They did have two major hits--Love will keep us together and Do that to me one more time

They took a LOT of drugs in the seventies. They sang about short people too

Personally, I flat-out deny ever having been through the 70s, and I was born in '62.

and turning Japanese (1980 but close to the 1970s)

.

Even more embarrassing than their music - try their variety show!

It's cute song.

Imagine it as a song in an animated film, in a Disney film.

It's a very pretty melody and the lyrics are sweet.

So was Disco Duck. The 70s were a fun, carefree, druggy time.

Mrs Ford was serenaded by Toni Tennille singing Muskrat Love

AND Shop Around

This was a perfectly fine pop song.

It sounds like a masterpiece compared to the crap we have today.

Finger my pussy and ass one more time….

It’s a sweet song that fits in fine with its era. I love that she gives credit to the songwriter before the performance.

Toni Tennille has a warm, confident, pleasant voice well suited to the song, which she sings straightforwardly with no ironic distancing, despite the ludicrous lyrics.

Seems like another lifetime ago.

I like Toni’s voice and I enjoyed all of their albums.

R15, true about her voice. A few years later they scored their last big hit, Do That To Me One More Time which went slow like Muskrat Love but with lyrics that were actually sexy, not stupid.

Shop Around, Lonely Night (Angel Face), The Way I Want to Touch You are other of their hits. R17

For anyone bemused by this song, I challenge you to watch the Brady Bunch Variety Hour disco medley. Alice and Rip Torn doing Disco Duck in costume--it doesn't get much better than that.

OP, for you...

Omg, I HATED this stupid song and I never could stand them either. Her husband just seemed creepy and her hair aggravated me.

Just wait until you hear Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new hit single, MAGAT LOVE! It’s an exciting new career for Marge.

And money

R22 - MGT prefers the rap genre.

r24 Omg that was just... I can't even think of words

God, I hated that song even when I was a kid back in the 70's.

[bold]It was so Boomer, Elevator, Disneyesk, Vanilla, Pop, Mainstream, Generic Garbage.

"Disneyesk"

Oh, dear!!!

Didn’t make me cringe as much Do It To Me One More Time.

Very unnerving to be so much in agreement with Henry Kissinger for once.

"Captain" Daryl Dragon had a big hot ass but couldn't live forever.

I remember their talk show when I was a gayling

Shame she secretly disliked him all those years.

I liked the C&T but even I recognized as a child how putrid Muskrat Love was, and still is.

R11, it’s my memory that the song was played while Pres. Ford danced with Queen Elizabeth at a state dinner in her honor.

C&T gave us the trifecta of gay sex songs.

(I Never Wanted To Touch A Man ) The Way That I Want To Touch You

You Never Done It Like That

Do That To Me One More Time.

Did anything happen between 1975 and 1980 that wouldn’t make you want to vomit?

Just finish the fucking song!

Toni Tennille had a fine voice but was pigeon-holed by the crappy songs they put out. She and the "captain" became a punchline.

They tried to class it up but nobody was buying. They even got Bob Mackie to do Tonis' dresses.

And later we found out that Daryl Dragon really was as big of a freak as we had always suspected.

Daryl Dragon. Stupid. I have someone in my family named Daryl. He called here New Years Eve and asked if my husband was still beating me. He's fucking nuts. Thelmas husband was named Daryl, too.

Toni is a talented musician…Daryl was too. But oh the SCHLOCK!

[quote](I Never Wanted To Touch A Man ) The Way That I Want To Touch You

R35, I always thought that was a lesbian song!!

Daryl was truly on the spectrum and quite cold with her.

They had 2 number ones and 4 top 5 songs including muskrat love. All 6 were million selling singles.

Didn't they get a divorce so that he could get on Medicaid because they couldn't afford health insurance? Like in the mid 2000s or so?

I don’t understand it at all. Who thinks about muskrats so much that they think about their love lives and then write and record a song about it? Why not chinchillas? Capybaras?

What were they trying to do here? Who let this happen? I need an oral history to make any sort of sense of it.

Lots of drugs

I didn't listen to that shit. The 70s had a lot of great music and theirs was muzak to my ears.

It was a different time. Difficult to explain. You had to be there.

The Captain was OUR Justin Bieber

R44 No, he was getting increasingly erratic and paranoid. Toni finally said the hell with it.

Nibbling on anus chewing on foreskin…

It was about 69'ing, Rose

I remember playing on the radio a lot

I wanted the Captain in me quite deeply.

They are one of those acts who had a bunch of hits but never scored another after their last #1.

I liked Lonely Nights (Angel Face).

Firstly, Love Will Keep Us Together wasn’t just a hit. It was No. 1 for 4 consecutive weeks that summer and was the No.1 song of the year on the Billboard chart. If we’re honest, a lot of this had to do with Toni Tennille’s voice, the great production and, of course, Sedaka’s songwriting. All three components were solid, obviously, but Tennille’s voice and the production made it endlessly listenable.

And I think their late career No. 1 with Do That To Me One More Time demonstrated the kind of mettle Tennille’s voice had because 5 years on from their career peak, which included a Grammy for Record of the Year, the song was a total showcase for her warm, intimate vocal styling.

The summer of 1975 was also really big for Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy and Donna Summer’s Love to Love You, Baby. It was a great time to be 9 years-old and alive. :)

[quote]And I think their late career No. 1 with Do That To Me One More Time demonstrated the kind of mettle Tennille’s voice had because 5 years on from their career peak, which included a Grammy for Record of the Year, the song was a total showcase for her warm, intimate vocal styling.

And the sad fact is that no one sings that way today. I miss it.

I always wondered what "that" was.

The lyrics …. Good god “ living on bacon, chewing on cheese …” repulsive .. and yet my demented brain remembers them .. and his stupid fucking hat … the captain ???

At least 75% of the public understood this was a gimmick novelty song and many liked it's cheesiness, in that context. Irony did not develop after the 1970s, folks.

r59 "Just stop"

Um,. sweetheart, they already did - years ago

A lesbian friend fantasized that “The Way that I Want to Touch You” exposed Toni’s Sapphic desires.

its, not it's 😱

That experimental keyboard in the instrumental break was fucking weird.

i digress, but Toni Tennille wrote a memoir a few years back after The Captain died, revealing their marriage was pretty much a sham and he was a total ass.

I always assumed said 'muskrats' were a euphemism for Toni and the Captain's ginormous pubic bushes

Also didn't Toni come out as dipping more than just her toe in the lady pond late in life?

R65 I remember reading that "muskrats" was a euphemism for penis and vagina in that song

[quote] many liked it's cheesiness

Its!

R61 … sweetie pie… I meant just stop to all these unfortunate thoughts of mine that get dredged up here… but yet I love it …”… whirling and twirling and …”

R67 did you not see the grammarian input at R63?

Captain was all body hair and musk

Musk-rat love (love of pubic hair scent)

I love the clarity of her voice, much like Karen Carpenter’s

Toni Tennille sings the line "nibblin on bacon, chewin on cheese" with conviction.

"bacon" as in BACON STRIP!!!

Lots of dumb songs around that time. It was painful to listen to the radio.

America was still performing the song quite late into their career.

(You’re) Having My Baby is another atrocious song from that era.

Stop listening to that shit and lick my asshole!

America had been through some rough times with Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, etc. The late 70s were a time to do some drugs, go braless, and shake your ass to Disco.

[quote]America had been through some rough times with Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, etc. The late 70s were a time to do some drugs, go braless, and shake your ass to Disco.

There was all that, no doubt, but it was also a reaction to the hippy/crunchy granola/earth -shoe era of the late 60s early 70s. The later half of the 1970s was a return to glamour, nightlife, dancing.

"In 2016, Toni Tennille, Tennille's memoir (co-written with niece Caroline Tennille St. Clair), was published. In it, Tennille painted an unflattering picture of Dragon and their years together, writing that he was controlling and emotionally distant. "I can say without exaggeration that he showed no physical affection for me during our very long marriage," she wrote, claiming that the couple always slept in separate bedrooms."

I'm wondering if the Captain had any shipmates he was swabbing the deck with.

So, he wasn’t doing that to her even one time?

Love did not keep them together.

This is interesting to click through, The Captain & Tennille TV show.

The Captain is a dud but you can see what a trouper Toni Tennile was, how she keeps the ball rolling trying to make up for his failings.

She's actually pretty amazing in a "dance" number at 34:00. Moves really well and looks spectacular.

She does a joyous over-the-top performance of "Until You Come Back To Me" that's wonderful (at 50:00).

I experienced 70s culture like a sexual assault victim - as an out of body experience that was happening to someone else.

Did not know this but Daryl Dragon was Italian-American.

R83, I used to love that show. I'd watch after school with my mom