Not a bad legacy for a band that only had two years in the spotlight

If you came of age in the late '60s, the odds are you wouldn't have thought of the Association as a particularly hip band.

The first song you would remember them for is "Never My Love," a No. 2 hit in the fall of 1967 that at the end of the century was honored by Broadcast Music International as the second-most popular song ever in terms of radio play in all its various versions.

The only song played more in the 20th century was "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," and No. 3 was a pretty good one too -- Lennon and McCartney's "Yesterday."

The BMI survey was called the "Top 100 Songs of the Century," and two others by the Association made the last -- "Cherish" at No. 22 and "Windy" at No. 61. Only two groups had more songs on the list than the Association -- the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel.

But you could still look at those three songs and think "Windy" was pretty cool, but the other two were sort of what Paul McCartney was later to call "Silly Love Songs." "Cherish" in particular has some irritating little noises going on in the background.

But to listen to those three songs, you really wouldn't realize that the Association had gotten off to a really cool start. Their first hit, "Along Came Mary" in 1966, was anything but simplistic. A lot of people thought "Mary" stood for marijuana, especially with lyrics like this:

"And when the morning of the warning's passed,
the gassed and flaccid kids are flung across the stars,
The psychodramas and the traumas gone, 
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars.

"And then along comes Mary
and does she want to see the stains, 
the dead remains of all the pains she left the night before
or will their waking eyes, reflect the lies,
and make them realize their urgent cry for sight no more ..."




In fact, the legendary Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, which was three days of music with a more star-studded lineup than would be at Woodstock two summers later, included the Association doing "Along Comes Mary." It didn't make the original film, but when the Criterion Collection released its version of "Monterey Pop" a few years back, it's on a disc of outtakes.

They didn't have a long time in the spotlight, with five top 10 hits released in 20-month period in 1966-68. Less than three years later, the one time I saw them live in concert, it was in the basketball gymnasium at Fort Hunt High School in Virginia.

Then they were gone.

But how many bands that had such a short run can say they had three of the top 61 songs of the century, two of them songs that have been covered time and again and again?

And all five of the songs -- the four mentioned and "Everything That Touches You" -- still bring back memories.

Steve King was right.

It's the fabled automatic.