1962.

The inner jukebox does amaze me sometimes. I first heard this song about fifteen years ago, when it was used as the theme for the TV series Weeds, but only watched a few episodes so never heard the song again (except in my own head)…and yet here it is again this morning, out of nowhere.

Written by US folk singer Malvina Reynolds, this was a political satire inspired by the development of low-cost ‘Tract Housing’ suburbia in the US in the 1960s, where all the houses just looked the same no matter what colour they were painted.

Although Reynolds’ version first appeared on her 1967 album Malvina Reynolds…Sings the Truth, and wasn’t released as a single, friend and fellow folk singer Pete Seeger released a cover in 1963 that reached number seventy on the US charts.