The Doormat Singers
In the years 1964-1966, listeners to MIT campus radio station
WTBS
were sometimes privileged to hear the songs of the Doormat Singers. The
Doormat Singers were Matt Fichtenbaum, MIT '66 and Dan Murphy, MIT '65.
Both were closely associated with WTBS both as engineers and announcers.
Dan Murphy notes "We both did vocals, and we both played guitars.
As Matt was a much better guitar player, sometimes it was only him playing,
as on "Talking McCormick". Matt adds, "And since Dan was a far better singer,
sometimes audiences were privileged to hear him solo, or double-tracked
on 'Earth Sciences Building Song.'"
For more on Dan Murphy's post-Doormat-Singers folksinging, see "The
Outpost and Other Odd Places"
The Songs:
Note: These are in .mp3 format. Each is about 2 megabytes in size.
"Earth
Sciences Building Song" (tune and lyrics by Dan Murphy, performed by
Dan Murphy singing with himself, double-tracked). [The Earth Sciences Building
(later called the Green Building) was designed by the famous architect
I. M. Pei. The configuration of the building in its surroundings caused
huge blasts of wind to roar through its so-called "breezeway" (why an architect
would believe that a building subject to Boston-area winter conditions
needed a "breezeway" remains a mystery). The huge glass entry doors were
very tall (to maximize their surface area) and had vertical handles strategically
placed at the center of the door rather than the edge (to minimize the
length of the lever arm). Consequently, on windy days, often even strong
people could not open them. Pictures of the building here
and here
fail to show the plywood barriers erected every winter to block the wind.
It was said at the time—I don't know whether it's true—that the architect's
office objected strongly to the radomes and antennas, which may have had
some incidental utility to the building's supposed purpose but which spoiled
the sleek architectural lines. The multiple windowledges of the building
created an interesting acoustic effect: when heard from the right locations
at ground level, sharp sounds echoing off the building would be transformed
into a rude noise.--DPBS]
"Talking
McCormick Hall." Dan Murphy comments: "no tune; the guitar line was
typical of talking blues as done by Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and
others." Words by Matt Fichtenbaum. [As the song relates, McCormick Hall
was the first womens' dorm built at MIT. Prior to McCormick, co-eds were
a rarily; I think the class of 1966 had about four. Shortly after McCormick
opened, a sign reading "Co-Techs" made a brief appearance, demonstrating
the male chauvinism, insensitivity, and lack of originality of MIT undergraduates
of the day. I thought it was funny, and I think "Talking McCormick" is
funny.--DPBS]
"The
Institute Screw" (tune: Captain Woodstock's Courtship as recorded by
Ian and Sylvia; lyrics: Dan Murphy and Matt Fichtenbaum) Dan Murphy comments:
"Our words were reprinted in "Boston Broadside", the folk magazine of that
era. The editor asserted that we were actually'folk'. Imagine
that." See below for explanations of references, if needed.
"Old East
Campus" (tune: Lizzie Borden as recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio.)
[Most of the song is self-explanatory. The dorms had no cooking facilities
for residents. Refrigerators were allowed, subject to inspection, but hotplates
were strictly forbidden. At the time we didn't believe the explanation
that the wiring wasn't adequate. In retrospect I find it very easy to believe,
and it is a little frightening to think of the extent to which the regulation
was flouted. Some students were very ingenious at disguising hotplates.
One student had found a hotplate that had a cover; when closed, it became
a fairly nondescript box with dials on it. He simply replaced the factory
dials with radio knobs labelled "Bass" and "Treble." The reference to "signing
the little card" refers to the regulation whereby all visitors had to be
signed in at the front desk. "In loco parentis," and all that.--DPBS]
There were three later Doormat songs, the "Student Center Song," "Boston
Breakdown", and "Desolation Sigma" but I have no recordings of them.
The Institute Screw: Probably 99% of the people who bother to
download this song were at MIT in the mid-sixties and need no explanation
of the things it is referring to, but just in case...
Julie Stratton: Julius
Adams Stratton (1901-1994), President of MIT from 1959 to 1966, referred
to by students as "Big Julie" (after the gangster of that name in Guys
and Dolls).
Dean Wadleigh: Kenneth
R. Wadleigh, Dean of Student Affairs from 1961-1969.
Nitrate Ring:Brown ring formed in a test tube, when testing for
nitrate in qualitative analysis.
Integrate log x dx: See page background.
CRC Book: CRC
Standard Mathematical Tables, published by the Chemical Rubber Company.
Originally part of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, an expanded version
became available as a separate volume. Amazingly (to me), this book is
still in print. However, I doubt that the tables of logarithms and trigonometric
functions are used much any more.
Slide Rule: A standard working tool in the sixties. Those of
us who owned Pickett and Eckel aluminum slide rules (in Eye-Ease tinted
yellow) scorned those who owned Keuffel and Esser models, and vice versa.
The pucks don't bounce: In the fifties, some educational genius
invented the "frictionless air puck," a circular metal puck with a CO2
cartridge. The CO2 created a thin layer of gas on which the puck could
slide with almost no friction, allowing very good demonstrations and experiments
of basic physics principles.
Cum (pronounced "cyoom"): Cumulative grade; average grade over
the student's time spent at the Institute.
Avogadro's number: 6.0221367 x 10^23, the number of molecules
in a mole.
Daughters of King Lear: All MIT students were required to take
a certain number of "humanities" courses, and King Lear was required reading
in the introductory courses. Oh, yeah... they were Goneril, Regan, and
um, uh, er... I forget...
McCormick Hall: See "Talking McCormick."
Tool: MIT slang; v. "to study;" n. "one who studies a lot."
Bible: Collections of problems and quiz questions and their answers.
1700 down the drain: Annual tuition at MIT in the four academic years 1962-3, 63-4, 64-5, and 65-6
was $1700, possibly the only four-year period within living memory with no tuition
increases. Spring tuition riots occurred whenever tuition was raised, and
the (unimaginative) slogan "Seventeen hundred is too damn much" was a slogan
during that four-year period, along with "IHTFP" and "Tech is Hell."
--Dan Smith.