malvina reynolds
Malvina and her husband William "Bud" Reynolds were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she should sing at a meeting of the Friends' Committee on Legislation. As she drove through Daly City, she caught the view of numberless new, small buildings and said "Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on". On arrival, this song was penned, and most probably she performed it for the first time that evening in 1962.
The term "ticky-tacky" became a catchphrase during the sixties, and is now defined in the Oxford Dictionary as "cheap and lousy building material".
Malvina Reynolds, born Milder in 1900, was a prolific, but coy singer and songwriter. Though always being interested in music and art, she started writing songs on her own first way passed the forties. In a grandma and housewife's disguise, she wrote more than 400 songs her own way: unpretentious lyrics, slightly ironical, about various social matters, from a left-wing point of view. Besides she also wrote children's songs and lullabies. Slowly she gained popularity as a plain american's spokes(wo)man, and in the beginning of the sixties she rose to a prominent person as a songwriter. Her friend Pete Seeger immortilized "Little Boxes", "Morningtown Ride" recorded by The Seekers was the first lullaby ever to reach the top of the charts, and Joan Baez - later also The Searchers - made nuclear fallout a common dispute by recording "What Have They Done to the Rain?". She contributed songs and material to PBS' "Sesame Street" as the character "Kate" until her death in 1973, and the film biography "Love It Like a Fool" was made the year before. In the sixties and seventies no songbook was printed without including at least *one* of her songs.
Then, there were silence.
Writing 2025, the world is still on fire, maybe more than ever. Autarchies are gaining power. Prejudice has become normal again. Facts have become fake. Malvina; we miss You!
little boxes on the hillside
little boxes made of ticky tacky
little boxes on the hillside
little boxes all the same
there's a green one and a pink one
and a blue one and a yellow one
and they're all made out of ticky tacky
and they all look just the same
and the people in the houses
all went to the university
where they were put in boxes
and they came out all the same
and there's doctors and lawyers
and business executives
and they're all made out of ticky tacky
and they all look just the same
and they all play on the golf course
and drink their martinis dry
and they all have pretty children
and the children go to school
and the children go to summer camp
and then to the university
where they are put in boxes
and they come out all the same
and the boys go into business
and marry and raise a family
in boxes made of ticky tacky
and they all look just the same
there's a green one and a pink one
and a blue one and a yellow one
and they're all made out of ticky tacky
and they all look just the same
For the following CHORD section, fullscreen/horizontal mobile is recommended.
Chords in brackets may be omitted.
G little boxes on the hillside Em Cmaj7 little boxes made of ticky tacky Bm Am little boxes on the hillside G D7 little boxes all the same G there's a green one and a pink one Em Cmaj7 and a blue one and a yellow one Bm Am and they're all made out of ticky tacky Em D7 G and they all look just the same
