Groovy Rock N’ Roll with a Message for Today’s Young People

The single “Once You Understand” was put out in the seventies by a band called Think. That was a 70’s rock project featuring Bobby Susser who is predominantly known for children’s music. This single, which remarkably was a minor hit in the early 70’s, is a heartwarming song that deals with family conflicts between adults and children that set out to reach America in a profoundly moving way. There are little sound bites of parents arguing with teenagers and then at the end you hear a voice that is supposed to be a cop telling a father that he’d better come down to the station house, his son has died of an overdose. All with crappy seventies music and the repeated lyric “things get a little easier, once you understand”.
The whole album is available to listen to here:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/01/365_days_18_thi.html

The rest of the album is similar material attempting to deal with and talk through teen-parent conflicts especially involving drugs. It does so in very weird ways. Ironically, the music sounds, well, very drugged out.
I don’t think either the single or the album that went with it was meant to be a joke at all.
Years before that, there was “Moulty” by the Barbarians. This was the touching story of a boy that lost his hand, but didn’t lose his hopes and dreams…

“Moulty” by the 60’s garage band The Barbarians is a similar case. The drummer for the band had a prosthetic hand, and they ended up releasing a single in which Moulty gives a motivational speech for all those teenagers to keep believing even if they might think they are “ a little bit different, or a little bit strange”.
I don’t think “Moulty” was meant to be a joke at all either. The drummer really had a prosthetic hand.