On October 15, 1971 Rick Nelson and his band were booed off the stage of a rock n’ roll revival concert at Madison Square Garden. Nelson, with long hair and bell bottom jeans, played some of his band’s newer material along with his 50s hits like “Hello Mary Lou.” It was a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman” which turned the crowd against him.
He wrote the song “Garden Party” about his experience, which was his first hit in nearly a decade.
Ironically, by the end of the decade his live sets again included most of his early hits (he had 52 songs on Billboard’s singles chart before “Garden Party”). Regardless, the simple message of his last hit single is the same: You can’t please everybody, so you got to please yourself.
Of course, Nelson did a lot of pleasing himself in those days and after — his personal problems and drug use were probably a big part of why record buyers weren’t interested in his countrified persona with the Stone Canyon Band. Listeners quickly tire of the troubled artist who isn’t able to keep it together, just as we all get weary of the narcissist in our lives, whether its a friend or a family member: they’re the people who can’t seem to survive without help, yet are quick to tell you what to do. They relish in your failure and strike at you when you succeed — the only way they can express themselves is through snarky remarks, just as Nelson does in deriding George Harrison as “Mr. Hughes in Dylan’s shoes.”
We love Ricky Nelson’s hit songs — they were a regular part of our rockabilly sets when we DJed at the Turf Club for years — but from a different perspective his behavior on that October evening was a case of such narcissism. Nobody came to a rock n’ roll revival show to hear a set of country music. The other artists on the bill — Bobby Rydell, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley — all offered solid sets of rock n’ roll hits, as promised, even though each had recorded new material (even some country songs) in the years since their collective peak. Sulking backstage and refusing to step out and bow with the others solidifies his selfish behavior.
The message of “Garden Party” goes both ways, and the audience was under no obligation to please Nelson by indulging his new interests. From this different perspective, the song reminds us that there’s no reason to have a narcissistic person in your life. They will never change. When Nelson died in a plane crash in 1985, investigators found traces of marijuana, cocaine and painkillers in his blood. As much as we love those classic singles on Imperial which made Nelson a star in the 50s, we could do without the person he became.