"Your Auntie Grizelda": Halloween Special

I haven’t written anything for this blog in a while. I have plenty of topics lined up, but I just can’t seem to motivate myself to sit down and write a whole album review or a long essay about one of my musical pet peeves. I want to write something though. The fact that it’s Halloween seems to provide a low-hanging fruit, but I don’t have much to say about “The Monster Mash," “Thriller,” or any of the other songs commonly associated with Halloween. So instead, I’ll be writing about a song that, as far as I know, isn’t considered to be scary by...well, anyone. Even now, I find it fun, and I like listening to it every now and then. When I was younger, however, “Your Auntie Grizelda” by The Monkees absolutely terrified me and I’m going to try to figure out why.

In all honesty, to say the song “absolutely terrified me” is a bit of a stretch. However, I did always insist on skipping it when listening to the “Best of The Monkees” CD we had at home. I don’t remember the details, just that when I first heard it, I thought it sounded really creepy. No one else expressed these sentiments when I brought them up.

To be fair, “Your Auntie Grizelda” isn’t exactly a normal song. From the strange name of the titular aunt, to the lyrics dragging said aunt through the mud for two and a half minutes, to an instrumental break featuring lines of pure gibberish by singer Peter Tork, the song is certainly unique. I figure that the strange name was used because, from a marketing standpoint, when writing a song that spends its entire runtime decrying an overly-righteous and judgmental person, it’s best to give that person a name that not many others have.

I tried doing some research, and even though I couldn’t find reliable data regarding the popularity of the name “Grizelda” in the US in 1967 (when the song was released), I’m comfortable assuming it wasn't very common.

To get back to the point, the name itself has a bit of an “evil queen in a kid’s movie*” sound to it (no offense to any Grizelda's out there), but I don’t think that played much of a role in my feelings toward the song.

One aspect that definitely played a role was the instrumentals. The introduction does not sound anything like the bubblegum pop The Monkees were in the business of making at that point in their careers. I wouldn’t call it “scary" outright, but it has that kind of quality to it. The rest of the song is underscored by a fuzz guitar that seems to push the boundary between guitar and kazoo at times. I suppose the harshness of the sound might have contributed to the “creepy” sound for my younger self.

While the instrumentals were a contributing factor, it was only through researching this song that I was finally able to pinpoint the trait that I think really caused it to freak me out back in the day. A short review I found described “Your Auntie Grizelda” as a “comedy...rock & roll romp,” but also found the song’s perspective to be “slightly paranoid.” After listening to it again with that term in mind, I realized that was it. There definitely seems to be a certain paranoia in Tork’s voice as he belts out that “you look just like her, you do” and when he pleads:

“Oh no, don't look at me like Auntie Grizelda

It takes much more to be someone of your own

You've got to make it free from Auntie Grizelda

Or just like her, you'll have to make it alone”

I think the hint of neuroticism mixed with the instrumentals struck a weird chord with me back in the day and caused me to be irrationally afraid of a joke song about a hypercritical aunt for a few years of my life.

That’s all I really have to say about the song. Again, this was just a quick, light-hearted idea that I thought would be fun to write about. With that said, I hope everyone has a fun, safe Halloween, free from the judgement of Auntie Grizelda.

*After writing this post, I stumbled upon information that, apparently, "Aunt Grizelda" is the main antagonist in the film adaptation of The Lorax, possibly inspired by this song.