Snow Queen of Texas

Oh yeah, we're getting into dangerously low pulse territory here.

I'm sure John, Michelle, Denny and Cass weren't strictly lude and weed types, but they did some pretty mellow stuff. The cover of People Like Us shows just how glassy eyed the Mamas and Papas had become...and today's selection was surely a product of those sessions. Be that as it may, Snow Queen of Texas has a special place in my musical heritage. The boys and me (Peace, Wilder, T. Durham, Reid, etc) used to get together in my Augusta Road apartment and sing like drunken fools to the M&P's; and Snow Queen became a favorite of ours...and most likely cause for my neighbors to roll their eyes and turn up the TV.

The first time I heard Snow Queen was on a local AM radio station (WFBC to be exact). The DJ for that station was a local TV/weatherman/kids show/radio guy name Monty Dupree. Thinking back, I doubt if Mr. Monty was hip to the obvious drug references in SQOT; he was, after all, a pretty square peg. I think, like me, he just dug the song. He may have figured it out if he had bothered looking at the Album cover that depicted the M&P's in various altered states of mind. You would think the lyrics would have been a dead giveaway:

Snow Queen of Texas
Left Paris in a cloud of smoke
They say she may be beaten
But I say that shes not broke
She's living in a cool green farmhouse
If you go to Houston, be quiet as mouse

In any event, when Denny Doherty died last year, I couldn't help but think back to my living room in 1984, stereo turned up considerably past neighborly consideration, and Peace styling out Denny's smooth baritone:

She's living a fairytale

Mending her heart (ooh, ooh, Deborah forever)

That's a good motto

For some junk man's cart

For the record, Peace can do a mean Johnny Cash as well. He'd have us rolling on the floor with his rendition of A Boy Named Sue.

The Mamas and Papas Snow Queen of Texas