No teen idol ever cared more about his fans than Bobby Sherman, and his marketing team was in lockstep with this notion. Why else would the gatefold sleeve of his Here Comes Bobby album open to a life-sized poster of Bobby if you were three feet tall? Or why would his With Love, Bobby album come loaded with a scrapbook album of the world's most maddeningly dull photos and captions ("At Age 6 He Liked To Pose Next To Flowers," "Telegram Sent To Bobby From His Baseball Coach" — there's even an Elementary School Safety Certificate of Merit! Why? So you the ever-lovin' fans could show your moms and dads, "See, he's a dullard just like us!"
The closest thing to a dark side of Mr. Easy Come, Easy Go was revealed in his 1995 autobiography Still Remembering You, on the day his wife and kids left him. And yet he still manages to make this catastrophic event sound like a polite, well-mannered 16 Magazine Dream Date: "I drank a lot of Scotch and the next thing I remember I woke up under the pool table. I don't remember how I got there and that scared me." Sorta sounds like Keith Richards' best day, don't it?
Alotted two songwriting slots per album to express this inner Bobby that could lead to one drinking binge per century, Bobby decided on his debut LP to tackle two of the most weightiest subjects you could think of to counterbalance the yelping after a St. Bernard ennui of "Hey Little Woman" —"Love" and "Time"!
Here's Bobby on "Love": "I told you to be my bride/Still you're near my every side/We'll just love each other till all the signs of love are gone" ...
Apart from making himself sound like an octagon, it still pales to the density of Bobby expounding on the properties of "Time":
"We all die from Time/No matter who you are, you answer to Time/ Chucka-chicka-chucka-chicka, chucka-chicka-chucka-chicka." That's Bobby imitating a clock! Even Bowie never thought of doing that on his 1973 song about "Time." When Bobby later groans "I bet in a year we all run out of time," he could've been speaking about his colleagues in 16 Magazine. In one year, he'd have David Cassidy and the Osmonds breathing down his neck and in time they'd have the Fonz and the Bay City Rollers to worry about. Chucka-chicka-chucka-chicka? Believe it!
