Merry-Go-Round

"Live" was one track on the Merry-Go-Round demo. A&M employee Russ Shaw brought the demo to A&M producer Larry Marks. The band was signed in January 1967. A&M added more instrumentation and overdubs to the demo to create the album. It would be the only album ever recorded by the band.

Emitt Rhodes told Cash Box that the band chose the name because, "We all felt that life is a sort of merry-go-round of emotions...." Bill Rinehart added, "We are not producing songs of protest or message music. We sing about things that happen to young people--that have happened to us." All four members of the group were between ages 18 and 20.

The single "Live" was a Billboard breakout hit in Los Angeles in April 1967.

The band continued recording several more singles for A&M. The Merry-Go-Round disbanded and was dropped from A&M in 1969.

From Interview From the Emitt Rhodes Songbook. Russ Auwerter, 1971:

Q. How did "You're A Very Lovely Woman" begin?

A. I was playing drums in the Palace Guard when I was exposed td Hollywood in its heyday and I didn't like it at all.

Q. How did you get going on "Time Will Show The Wiser"?

A. "Time Will Show The Wiser" is just probably the best track and the best produced song on the entire "Merry-Go-Round" album because it was the only one done for the album. The rest of them were just dubs - done when we were just cutting tracks to see what the songs sounded like. I wrote it because I realized, there again I had learned something, that for everything I do there are several different reasons why I do it. It was more or less about personal conflicts going on inside me.

Q. "Live" was the hit single from "The Merry-Go-Round" album, wasn't it? Tell me how you wrote that.

A. Yeah. I wrote that late at night in my garage. I dreamed it and so got up and wrote it. It's just really about life. It's a happy song, you know. Go out and live and all that. I really don't know if I believe in it anymore.

Q. How about "Come Ride, Come Ride"?

A. I don't know really why I like that one so much. It's, like, semi-classical, the arrangement of it. I started writing it when I was in a car. I was driving back from some gig out in Thousand Oaks, or somewhere.