This week I’m starting a new feature, posting entries from my archive of questions emailed to Cher Scholar which have trickled in over the years. I’m doing this in the hopes that it will enable better Cher scholarship worldwide. Consider this zen koan I just cooked up:
the question is the answer
Note: This is not the same as my advice column: Ask Cher Scholar. Below are factual inquiries not sage answers to relationship issues.
On Feb 10 2003 Eileen L. wrote:
What is on the superpack album? Thanks Eileen.
Well, first of all this set of albums was intentionally misspelled Superpak, a fact that really grates on the harried nerves of my Massachusetts-State-Spelling-Bee-Champion friend. Why have rules with such blatant breakage of them? The Vol. 1 album was also the theme of my first Cher Zine. It’s such an odd compilation, so mammoth in scope and packaging, with peculiar photos basically soft-focusing on Cher’s schnoz. The second volumne had pictures of Cher looking European and fashionable.
Double albums were so classy in the 70s. We only got one double Cher album: Sonny & Cher Live, Vol. 2. But imagine: a double concept Sonny & Cher album! It could have been called The Duet Remains the Same or House of the Gothic Sconces or Sonny & Cher IV. Instead, we only have double compilation albums. So sad.
Here are the song lists for Superpak Vols 1 and 2.
Vol. 1
Album 1: Side 1
All I Really Want to Do; The Bells of Rhymney; Girl Don’t Come; Come and Stay With Me; Blowin in the Wind; Needles and Pins
Album 1: Side 2
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down); Elusive Butterfly; Time; Where Do You Go; Until It’s Time for You to Go; Will You Love Me Tomorrow
Album 2: Side 3
Alfie; Homeward Bound; Catch the Wind; Reason to Believe; A House is Not a Home; You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me
Album 2: Side 4
You’d Better Sit Down Kids; Sunny; There But For Fortune; Do You Believe in Magic; Mama (when My Dollies Have Babies) [I just mistyped this doilies—the LOL goes without saying]; The Click Song
Vol. 2
Album 1: Side 1
Our Day Will Come; The Times, They Are A-Changin’; Come to Your Window; I Wasn’t Ready; Hey Joe; Milord
Album 1: Side 2
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright; She Thinks I Still Care; The Cruel War; A Young Girl; Song Called Children; The Girl from Ipanema
Album 2: Side 3
Ol’ Man River; The Impossible Dream; Cry Myself to Sleep; Carnival; Twelfth of Never; Like a Rolling Stone
Album 2: Side 4
It’s Not Unusual; I Want You; I Will Wait for You; Take Me For a Little While; Sing for Your Supper; Go Now
It’s interesting to see how Cher music compilers organize her songs. You can almost read a found poem in the list above, especially on Album 2: Side 4 which reads like a twisted infatuation affair gone wrong through the course of one short evening.
The absolute enormity of the song list begs the question why not just re-release all the freaking Imperial albums? Is it me?
