It started, like so many profound revelations do, in the car, with a canine companion and the radio tuned to my favorite oldies station.
I’d just picked up my Cavapoo puppy, Bella, at doggie daycare, and, like usual, she’d pranced into the front seat to position herself as my co-pilot. Her big brother, Desi, a rescue mutt, stretched out in the back seat with the quiet contentment of a Buddha.
A new song boomed from the speakers, starting with a drum solo that totally ambushed me. I’m a sucker for a bouncy pop-rock beat and this one’s dum da-da, dum da-da, dum da-da intro sounded like it had discovered the exact frequency of my soul. Suddenly my head was swinging and my shoulders shimmying as the jangly guitars joined in. Then came the vocals. Whoa, how different “Bend Me, Shape Me” sounded to me as a grown woman than it did as a kid when the song came out in 1967!
“Bend me, shape me / Anyway you want me / Long as you love me / it’s alright.”
Excuse me? I nearly drove into a shrub. Who wants someone to bend and shape them like silly putty? Maybe, as a naïve hippie wannabe, I found the guy’s adoration romantic.
But now? It conjured up the sadly creepy image of a nerdy, insecure guy willing to let some femmefatale make him into her human Gumby, the TV character and action figure who looks like a stretchy, green gingerbread boy.
It was one of those April days in which the Gales of Winter stabbed the Spirit of Spring, howling at the hapless humans reeling down below. Bella’s tail wagged and her grin widened. Oh, no. Was my 17-pound swirl of fluff thinking how much fun it would be to bend and shape me like her own personal Gumby? I’d named her for Bella Abzug, the hat-wearing Congresswoman and force of nature, but, sometimes, my pup took the strong female role a bit too far – trying to rule the roost with the iron paw of Queen Isabella. Desi, who’s twice her size but wants nothing more than peace, snacks, and tummy rubs, has become the beta dog in our little pack.
As the song wound down, I found myself tugged in two directions. One part grooved on the mix of pop-rock and blue-eyed soul powered by a killer horn section. The other wondered what kind of guy would let someone turn him into “a poet, a clown, or a king,” as in the first verse of the song. A Shakespearian actor or standup comic, perhaps?
The song faded out, and, before long, we reached our destination – the path along the Mill River leading from Federal Street to Smith College. As the wind howled, Bella tugged me to our destination like a wind-swept acorn convinced it was leading a cavalry charge — a fraction of my size, but with the tactical determination of a Major General in a battle. Desi, on the other hand, walked like a gentleman right beside me.
Once off-leash, the two pups took off like they’d been shot out of a canon. The wind whipped Bella’s floppy ears into the air, making them look like the wings of an F-15 Eagle fighter jet. As she and her big brother sniffed the ground for the latest news of who peed where, I found myself replaying “Bend Me, Shape Me” in my mind.
Maybe, when the song first came out, I saw the narrator as a welcome change from the stiff, uptight world of our fathers. There, in that age of peace and love, was an emotionally open guy. If that wasn’t groovy, what was?
But spoiler alert: It’s time for my big revelation – what makes for The Perfect Relationship. You see, both members of the couple need to bend on their own accord – not because the other person is turning them into silly putty. And, while kudos to compromise, both partners maintain their own backbones. In short, bending but standing up straight, too. Of course, all this is easier said than done. Yes, relationships are complicated (but I bet you already knew that.)
So, as the two dogs munched on their favorite grass, looking like cows grazing on a hill, I decided to rewrite the chorus of “Bend Me, Shape Me.”
Don’t bend me or shape me like I’m made of clay / I’m not your Gumby / I won’t move that way / I’ve got a backbone / and so do you / Let’s bend on our own / So we can boogaloo.
Okay, it still needs work, but you get the idea. And feel free to sing the original with all the pop-rock soulfulness you can muster. Still, I encourage you to rewrite the chorus to fit your own vibe.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence and is working on a collection of essays, “Rock On: A Baby Boomer’s Playlist for Growth after Loss.” Reach her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail.com. Special thanks to Martin Elster, a former percussionist with the Hartford Symphony, for transcribing the drum solo at the beginning of “Bend Me, Shape Me” into onomatopoeia.