"Elenore" is a 1968 song by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pop-rock group The Turtles

The Turtles

The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...

, originally included on the album The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands. Its writing was co-credited to the five members of the band, Howard Kaylan

Howard Kaylan

Howard Kaylan is an American rock and roll musician, best known as a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s band, The Turtles, and "Eddie" of 1970's rock band Flo & Eddie.-Early days:...

, Mark Volman

Mark Volman

Mark Volman is an American rock and roll singer, best known as a founding member of the 1960s band The Turtles. At times during his career he has used the pseudonym "The Phlorescent Leech"...

, Al Nichol, Jim Pons

Jim Pons

Jim Pons was a bass guitarist and singer for several 1960s rock bands, including The Leaves, The Turtles, and The Mothers of Invention....

 and John Barbata

John Barbata

John Barbata is an American drummer, born in Passaic, New Jersey, active especially in pop and pop/rock bands in the 1960s and 1970s, both as a band member and as a session drummer.-Biography:...

. The song was written as a satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 of one of their earlier pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 hit

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

s, "Happy Together

Happy Together (song)

"Happy Together" is a 1967 song from The Turtles' album of the same name. Released in February 1967, the song knocked The Beatles' "Penny Lane" out of the #1 slot for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the group's only chart-topper. "Happy Together" reached #12 on the UK Singles Chart in...

".

By 1968, The Turtles had had a number of successful pop records on the White Whale

White Whale Records

White Whale Records was an American record label, founded in 1965 by Ted Feigin and Lee Lassiff in Los Angeles, California, and probably best known as the record label of The Turtles....

 label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

, including Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's "It Ain't Me Babe

It Ain't Me Babe

"It Ain't Me Babe" is the title of a 1964 song by Bob Dylan, first included on his album Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song's opening line is allegedly influenced by musicologist/folk-singer John Jacob Niles' composition "Go 'Way From My Window." Niles is referred to by Dylan as an early...

", "Happy Together

Happy Together

Happy Together may refer to:In music:* "Happy Together" , a 1967 song by The Turtles that has been covered several times* Happy Together * Happy Together * Happy Together...

" and "She'd Rather Be With Me", both written by Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon

Alan Gordon (songwriter)

Alan Gordon was an American songwriter best known for songs recorded by The Turtles, Petula Clark, and Barbra Streisand...

. The band members wanted to diversify their musical output, in parallel with more innovative musical groups of the time, and to record their own material. However, their record company were reluctant to allow them to do so.

As a demonstration of their musical versatility, The Turtles recorded the album ...the Battle of the Bands, which featured performances in a wide variety of different musical styles. The band recorded "Elenore" as a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of the type of happy-go-lucky pop songs they themselves had been performing, but with deliberately clichéed and slapdash lyrics such as: "Your looks intoxicate me/ Even though your folks hate me/ There's no-one like you, Elenore, really"; and "Gee, I think you're swell/ And you really do me well/ You're my pride and joy, et cetera.."

Howard Kaylan later said:

"Elenore was a parody of 'Happy Together.' It was never intended to be a straight-forward song. It was meant as an anti-love letter to White Whale, who were constantly on our backs to bring them another "Happy Together." So I gave them a very skewed version. Not only with the chords changed, but with all these bizarre words. It was my feeling that they would listen to how strange and stupid the song was and leave us alone. But they didn't get the joke. They thought it sounded good. Truthfully, though, the production on 'Elenore' WAS so damn good. Lyrically or not, the sound of the thing was so positive that it worked. It certainly surprised me."

The song was produced by Chip Douglas

Chip Douglas

Douglas Farthing Walter Hatlelid, better known as Chip Douglas, is a songwriter, musician , and record producer, whose most famous work was during the 1960s...

 and released as a single (White Whale 276). "Elenore" reached # 6 on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Hot 100, and also reached # 7 on the UK singles chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

, # 6 in Canada, # 8 in Australia, and # 1 in New Zealand. It has since featured on many anthologies, and as part of the soundtrack of the 2009 film The Boat That Rocked

The Boat That Rocked

The Boat That Rocked is a 2009 British comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis, with pirate radio in the United Kingdom during the 1960s as its setting. The film has an ensemble cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh...

.