Mercy “Love (Can Make You Happy)” / “Fire Ball”

Oh, I know this song. When I saw the 45 on a heap of neglected freebies, I picked it up as a potential mystery—I’d never seen the “Sundi” label. But as soon as I heard it, it came right back, courtesy some challenged memory cells. Where would I have heard this? On the radio, I suppose, 1969, on the AM radio, WLEC at breakfast and CKLW on my portable transistor. I imagine some airtime. There are any number of old songs, from the beginning of time until the present, that bore me, don’t do anything for me, annoy me, nauseate me—but this isn’t one. I love this song! It starts out slow, with guitar and piano, and then the singers, “Wake up in the morning…” A beautiful, sunny, summer morning with nothing on the horizon except a day of doing only what you feel like. Maybe reading a book for entertainment. Subtle, actual drums, and then a great chorus, “Love can make you happy…” And the song stays right there, doesn’t try to go off to another planet or anything. It’s merely saying that “love can make you happy.” Not a tremendously original statement, and it’s followed by the big “IF”—if you find that person. But it doesn’t dwell on that, and it fades out.

“Wake up in the morning” is a great way to start a song, by the way. I’m going to get out a piece of paper right now and write that down, as the potential beginning to a potential song that I might potentially write. The B-side, an instrumental called “Fire Ball” (two words, for no good reason), starts with a fuzzy guitar, medium fast tempo, and sounds like a surf song—or, if there’s no surf anywhere handy, it still may have been stolen from some surf song, or borrowed, I mean. If it’s not surf, it’s most certainly about a hot-rod, or a fast car of some kind. Some nice guitar in there. It doesn’t sound remotely like the same band as the other side—nothing connecting the two at all—but there’s no rule that says every song by a band has to sound enough like every other song by that band so that any moron could identify it.

And then, I noticed, via the internet, that this song (“Love”) was in a movie in 1968 called Fireball Jungle (fantastic movie poster), so now it’s all making sense. I look for it—it’s on YouTube, and it’s about car racing and crime, and there’s a scumbag named “Cateye.” Could be a mislaid classic. And the band, Mercy, are in a scene, singing their hit song in a diner—the whole song—right about at the 15-minute mark (the standard place where you normally throw in some nudity for exploitation purposes). If you’re a teenager at the movie, and a couple, this will get you in the mood for a little handholding, making out, even, and you can maybe even then ignore the next hour of tough-guy posturing, blustery threats, brutal violence, and car accidents.

3.7.25