I can't count how many times I've played Dirty Water with various garage and club band incarnations over the years. Rari and Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White made it into the set list here and there, and of all things we grooved mightily to a couple of cool Standells covers of the Stones (19th Nervous Breakdown and Paint It Black) well after the fact. However, a couple of Standells tracks that may or may not exist in releaseable form intrigue this fan of garage rock. I refer of course to the tracks the Standells performed on the Munsters.
The episode, entitled "Far Out Munsters", featured the Standells renting the Munsters' home to avoid trashing a hotel, with the family arriving home just as the Standells were kicking off Connelly and Mosher's vision of a wild party. Herman, Lily and company walk in to find the Standells rocking out on a cool little ditty apparently called depending on various sources, "Come On And Ringo" or "Do The Ringo". A catchy, typical mid 60's pop effort obviously designed to cash in on rampant Beatlemania. Amusingly enough the other song played in the episode is "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (not a bad cover, but not quite as fierce as the Stones covers in their future). The interesting thing about these covers is that they are absolutely nowhere to be found. The discographies out there indicate nothing that sounds close (although there's a 1964 single on Liberty called "Peppermint Beatles", but I'd bet that isn't it).
So, was this something the Standells would've done just for the show, or was it a canned track sitting in Liberty, MGM or Vee Jay's vault? I checked the song databases offered by the various performing rights organizations, and no mention. The Library Of Congress's online records don't go back to the '64-'65 timeframe yet. Google produces a lot of references to the episode and song, but no specifics on the actual recording. Was it a throwaway? I can think of more than a few garage rock fans who would like to hear this song in its entirety (and to be honest, I'd really like to put it into my current band's set list, we've goofed around with it based on the tiny fragment that's out there and want to try it with an audience).








Article comments
1 - Barry Schwartz
I've been searching for years for the Standells version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and I could never find it. I've given up and just recorded the version that appears on the Munsters and loaded that into my PC. It includes some chit-chat from the show but overall, I can live with that chit-chat because I think this is a great cover of IWTHYH
2 - thorsoni
We remember that episode ahn the munster. After the band played the lead singer said "we really dig you guys" to the munster family. Herman's sardonic reply: "someday we'll return the favor."
3 - franco
does anyone have an mp3 of the standells come on and ringo from the musters episode FAR OUT MUNSTERS??