Muskrat Love

"Muskrat Love" is a soft rock song written by Willis Alan Ramsey. The song depicts a romantic liaison between two anthropomorphic muskrats named Susie and Sam. It was first recorded in 1972 by Ramsey himself for his sole album release Willis Alan Ramsey. The song was originally titled "Muskrat Candlelight" referencing the song's opening lyric. A 1973 cover version by the rock band America—retitled "Muskrat Love" for the lyrics that close the chorus—was a minor hit reaching number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 1976, a cover by pop music duo Captain & Tennille resulted in the song's highest profile, peaking at number four on the Hot 100 chart. It also reached number two on the Cash Box chart, which ranked it as the 30th biggest hit of 1976.[1]

America version
"Muskrat Love"
Single by America
from the album Hat Trick
B-side"Cornwall Blank"
ReleasedJune 28, 1973
Recorded1973
GenreFolk rock
Length3:06
LabelWarner Bros.
Songwriter(s)Willis Alan Ramsey
Producer(s)Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek
America singles chronology
"Only in Your Heart"
(1973)		 "Muskrat Love"
(1973)		 "Rainbow Song"
(1973)

Background

America recorded "Muskrat Love" for their 1973 album Hat Trick, marking the second time the band had recorded a song not written by a member of America. In putting together 10 songs to comprise the eventual Hat Trick album, America's members Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek had agreed to each contribute three compositions with a mutually agreeable cover song being recorded as the 10th track. David Dickey, who played bass for America, brought Ramsey's "Muskrat Candlelight" to the group's attention; according to Beckley, "to us it sounded like a very bluesy, quirky tune. We just felt it was quirky and commercial, and we worked it up."[2]

Release and reception

"Muskrat Love" was issued as an advance single from Hat Trick in July 1973, although Dan Peek would recall that America's label Warner Bros. "hated" the track and "begged us not to release it as a single...We were stupid to press the issue, but we liked the song for its easy, acoustic, harmonic beauty, not realizing that perhaps it was badly cast for us in order to retain the fairly hip image we had eked out". Peek adds that the single "easily hit the Top 40 on the strength of our past successes"[3] although "Muskrat Love" in fact marked a downturn in America's popularity with a low peak on the Hot 100 in Billboard at number 67; the single did better on the Billboard adult contemporary, chart reaching number 11.

In a 2012 interview, Gerry Beckley said of "Muskrat Love": "It's a polarizing little number. After concerts, some people tell us they can't believe we didn't play it, while others go out of their way to thank us for not performing it."[4][5]

Track listings
  1. "Muskrat Love" – 3:06
  2. "Cornwall Blank" – 4:19

Chart performance
Chart (1973) Peak
position
Canada RPM Top Singles[6] 68
Canada RPM Adult Contemporary[7] 30
US Billboard Easy Listening 11
US Billboard Hot 100 [8] 67
US Cash Box Top 100[9] 33
US Record World [8] 69

Captain & Tennille version
"Muskrat Love"
Single by Captain & Tennille
from the album Song of Joy
B-side"Honey Come Love Me"
ReleasedSeptember 1976
GenreSoft rock[10]
Length3:28
LabelA&M
Songwriter(s)Willis Alan Ramsey
Producer(s)Captain & Tennille
Captain & Tennille singles chronology
"Shop Around"
(1976)		 "Muskrat Love"
(1976)		 "Can't Stop Dancin'"
(1977)

Background

Captain & Tennille recorded "Muskrat Love" for their 1976 album release Song of Joy. According to Toni Tennille, who formed Captain & Tennille with her husband Daryl Dragon, the duo had added the song to their nightclub set list a few years earlier after hearing the America single on their car radio: "I said to Daryl: 'Did you hear that? I swear they're singing about muskrats.' I had to know what the lyrics were so the next day we went out and found the sheet music. I said to Daryl: 'This song is hysterical; why don’t we add it to our club-act?' And [the audience] went nuts for it." Being short one track for Song of Joy, Captain & Tennille made an impromptu decision to record "Muskrat Love", including the synthesizer generated sound effects that Dragon had created for the song's performance in their nightclub act, these sound effects meant to evoke the imagined sound of muskrats mating: the eventual 7-inch single version of Captain & Tennille's "Muskrat Love" would feature an "endless loop" of these sound effects created by having the song's end run into the locked groove of the 45.

Despite Captain & Tennille's stated disinterest in highlighting "Muskrat Love" as an item in their repertoire, it was the song they chose to sing at a July 1976 White House dinner honoring Queen Elizabeth II: the press subsequently ran a statement from a dinner guest who opined it was "in very poor taste" to sing of mating muskrats before the Queen. Toni Tennille responded to this charge saying: "only a person with a dirty mind would see something wrong. It's a gentle Disneyesque kind of song."[11]

Release and reception

Purportedly there were no plans to issue a third single off Song of Joy following the Top Ten success of "Lonely Night (Angel Face)" and "Shop Around"; however, A&M Records decided to issue "Muskrat Love" as a single after WISM, a Madison, Wisconsin radio station that had been airing the album cut, reported phenomenal listener response to the song in September 1976. Captain & Tennille's "Muskrat Love" reached a number 4 Hot 100 peak that December, and number 2 on Cash Box. It became their biggest Easy Listening chart hit, spending four non-consecutive weeks at number 1.[12] It also reached number one on the Canadian pop singles chart.

Based on the Captain & Tennille version, "Muskrat Love" has become a staple on "worst song" lists, including a 2006 poll by CNN.com.[13] Gerry Beckley of America cited "Muskrat Love" as "a fine example of where the closer you go back to the original seed, the nicer it is. Ours was once removed, and the Captain & Tennille's was even more removed."[2] In a 2001 interview with Reno News & Review, Toni Tennille said of Captain & Tennille's "Muskrat Love": "I don’t know why people are so polarized about this tune. People either love it or they loathe it."[14]

The song was also featured in "The Annotated History of American Muskrat," a 2014 production of the Circuit Theatre Company in Boston, Massachusetts.[15] It appears in the 2013 film Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.

Track listings
  1. "Muskrat Love" 3:28
  2. "Honey Come Love Me" - 2:57

Chart performance

Other versions

The first cover version of "Muskrat Candlelight" was an abridged version entitled "Sun Down" recorded by Lani Hall for her 1972 album Sun Down Lady: with composition credit to Willis Alan Ramsey with "additional lyrics" by Lani Hall and her husband Herb Alpert, "Sun Down" recasts Ramsey's original song as a straightforward romantic ballad omitting Ramsey's motif of muskrats courting. It was on A&M Records, which Herb Alpert founded and ran, that "Muskrat Love" with its original lyrics would become a major hit for Captain & Tennille in 1976.

Parodies
  • A parody version of "Muskrat Love" entitled "Hamster Love" was written and performed by Big Daddy and included on Dr. Demento's 30th Anniversary album.[26]
  • Another parody called "Muskrat Gloves" was recorded by comedian Tim Cavanagh.[27]
  • The song was performed in the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode "Sequel" (which featured Captain & Tennille as guests) with added vocals from Space Ghost and Birdman. In the episode, Birdman claimed the song to be him and his wife (Gravity Girl)'s song.

See also
  • List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1976 (U.S.)

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from CASH BOX Year-End Charts: 1976, December 25, 1976 the original Check |url= value (help) on October 20, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "Lyrics: Muskrat Love". Accessbackstage.com. 2007-01-02. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  3. Peek, Dan (2004). An American Band: the story of America. Xulon Press. pp. 174–175. ISBN 1-594679-29-0.
  4. "Q&A with America Singer Gerry Beckley". ShermanOaks.patch.com. Retrieved November 8, 2013.
  5. Warne, Jude (May 15, 2020). America, the Band: An Authorized Biography. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538120965. Retrieved July 25, 2020 – via Google Books.
  6. Canada, Library and Archives (July 17, 2013). "Image : RPM Weekly". www.bac-lac.gc.ca.
  7. Canada, Library and Archives (July 17, 2013). "Image : RPM Weekly". www.bac-lac.gc.ca.
  8. Whitburn, Joel (2015). The Comparison Book Billboard/Cash Box/Record World 1954-1982. Sheridan Books. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-89820-213-7.
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20150609220756/http://tropicalglen.com/Archives/70s_files/19730929.html. Archived from the original on June 9, 2015. Retrieved 2017-01-23. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. Fontenot, Robert. "The Ickiest Soft-Rock Hits of the '70s - Oldies Music". Oldies.about.com. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  11. Windeler, Robert (October 18, 1976). "Year of the Dragons", People vol. 6 no. 16.
  12. Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961–2001. Record Research. p. 45.
  13. "The Worst Songs of All Time, Part II". CNN. 2006. Retrieved 2009-01-10.
  14. "Toni! Toni! Toni!". NewsReview.Com. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
  15. "The Annotated History of the American Muskrat". CircuitTheatre.com. Retrieved August 15, 2014.
  16. Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955–1990 - ISBN 0-89820-089-X
  17. "Adult Contemporary Chart". Billboard.
  18. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-22. Retrieved 2017-01-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  19. Canada, Library and Archives (July 17, 2013). "Image : RPM Weekly". www.bac-lac.gc.ca.
  20. Canada, Library and Archives (July 17, 2013). "Image : RPM Weekly". www.bac-lac.gc.ca.
  21. "Top Singles – Volume 26, No. 14 & 15, January 08 1977". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on March 19, 2016. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  22. Bac-lac.gc.ca "Top 200 Singles of '77 – Volume 28, No. 14, December 31 1977" Check |url= value (help). RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
  23. "Chartjunkie Top Songs Of 1977". Chartjunkie.com. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  24. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-22. Retrieved 2017-01-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. Billboard. 1977-12-24. p. Front cover. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  26. "Hamster Love by Big Daddy". The Mad Music Archive. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
  27. "Muskrat Gloves by Tim Cavanagh". Retrieved 21 October 2012.
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