Little Boxes

Reynolds was a folk singer-songwriter and political activist in the 1960s and 1970s. Nancy Reynolds, her daughter, explained that her mother wrote the song after seeing the housing developments around Daly City, California, built in the post-war era by Henry Doelger, particularly the neighborhoods of Southern Hills on San Bruno Mountain:{{cite web |url=http://music.homegrownseries.com/?p=5 |work=HomeGrown Humor |title=Artist Spotlight: Malvina Reynolds |publisher=Showtime Networks |date=July 2007 |access-date=2007-10-16 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071222231203/http://music.homegrownseries.com/?p=5 |archive-date=2007-12-22 }}

My mother and father were driving South from San Francisco through Daly City when my mom got the idea for the song. She asked my dad to take the wheel, and she wrote it on the way to the gathering in La Honda where she was going to sing for the Friends Committee on Legislation. When Time magazine (I think, maybe Newsweek) wanted a photo of her pointing to the very place, she couldn't find those houses because so many more had been built around them that the hillsides were totally covered.

Reynolds later released her version on her 1967 Columbia Records album Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth,Reynolds, Malvina. Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth, Columbia Records, 1967. CS-9414 and it can also be found on the Smithsonian Folkways Records 2000 CD re-issue of Ear to the Ground. However, Pete Seeger's 1963 rendition of the song is known internationally, and it reached No. 70 in the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1964, his sole charting single.{{cite book |title= Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles, 14th Edition: 1955-2012 |last=Whitburn |first=Joel |authorlink=Joel Whitburn |year=2013 |publisher=Record Research |page=749}} Also a political activist, Seeger was a friend of Reynolds, and, like many others in the 1960s, he used folk songs as a medium for social protest.

The effectiveness of the satire was attested to by a university professor quoted in 1964 in Time magazine as saying, "I've been lecturing my classes about middle-class conformity for a whole semester. Here's a song that says it all in {{Frac|1|1|2}} minutes." However, according to Christopher Hitchens, satirist Tom Lehrer described "Little Boxes" as "the most sanctimonious song ever written".{{cite journal |first=Christopher |last=Hitchens |title=Suburbs of Our Discontent |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/12/suburbs-of-our-discontent/307131/ |journal=Atlantic Monthly |date=December 2008 |accessdate=January 22, 2025}}

Historian Nell Irvin Painter points out that the conformity described in "Little Boxes" was not entirely a bad thing, indicative as it was of "a process of going to university to be doctors and lawyers and business executives" who "came out all the same" and then lived in "nice, new neighborhoods with good new schools. ... Suburbia may be monotone, but it was a sameness to be striven toward."Painter, Nell Irvin (2010) The History of White People. New York: Norton. p.369. {{isbn|978-0-393-33974-1}}

The term "ticky-tacky" became a catchphrase during the 1960s, attesting to the song's popularity.{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873851,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071027114831/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873851,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 27, 2007 |title=Tacky into the Wind |magazine=Time |date=February 28, 1964}}

The song has been recorded by many musicians and bands, some of whom have arranged and translated the song to meet their styles. Perhaps one of the most well-known covers is by The Womenfolk, whose 1964 version of the song was (until 2016{{cite web |title=Piko-Taro's 'PPAP' Is the Shortest Song Ever on Billboard Hot 100 |url=http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7549143/piko-taro-ppap-shortest-song-billboard-hot-100 |access-date=20 October 2016 |work=billboard.com}}) the shortest single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, at 1 minute 2 seconds, peaking at No. 83.{{cite magazine |title=The Womenfolk Chart History (Hot 100) |url=https://www.billboard.com/music/The-Womenfolk |magazine=Billboard}} Spanish songwriter Adolfo Celdrán wrote the first Spanish version of the song, called "Cajitas", which was released in 1969 and had several successive reissues. Another Spanish version of the song, "Las Casitas del Barrio Alto", was written by the Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara in 1971, depicting in a mocking way the over-Europeanized and bourgeois lifestyle of the residents of the "Barrio Alto" (high-class neighborhood) in Santiago de Chile.{{cite book |title=Music, Politics, and Nationalism In Latin America: Chile During the Cold War Era |page=94 |last=Mularski |first=Jedrek |date=2014 |publisher=Cambria Press |isbn=9781621967378}}

• 1964: The song was performed on the NBC satirical television program That Was the Week That Was on April 13, 1964, sung by Nancy Ames and accompanied by a film montage by Guy Fraumeni and Lou Myers depicting tract housing and other related images.
• 1975: In the novel Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach, describing a secessionist ecological utopia in the western United States, the protagonist (visiting the country as a US journalist) is informed that "cheaply built houses in newer districts" are scornfully referred to as "ticky-tacky boxes" by the population.{{cite book |last1=Callenbach |first1=Ernest |author-link1=Ernest Callenbach |title=Ecotopia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GTeMGW2kalcC&q=ticky-tacky+boxes&pg=PA14 |format=Google Books |year=1975 |page=14 |publisher=Banyan Tree Books |isbn=978-0-9604320-1-1}}
• 1980s: Russ Abbot took the music to the song and its general theme to satirize The Spinners, a contemporary popular folk group whose songs apparently "all sound the same", as a parody act "The Spanners" on his 1980s London Weekend Television Madhouse series.Abbott, Russ (ndg) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLpOpTgQLQA "The Spanners - We're A Folk Group"] YouTube
• 2005–2012: The song was used as the opening theme song for the Showtime television series Weeds. The first season used Reynolds's version. In the second and third seasons, various artists and celebrities performed covers of the song for the different episodes. The song was not used regularly during seasons four through seven, but was covered by various artists in the eighth and final season. See also: opening music of Weeds.{{cite web|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/weeds-theme-steve-martin-kevin-nealon-348686|title='Weeds' Revives 'Little Boxes' Theme With Ben Folds, Steve Martin|work=hollywoodreporter.com|date=12 July 2012 |access-date=20 October 2016}}
• 2005: The song is sung by both Keith Carradine (as "Elton Tripp") and Kate Mara (as "Zoe Tripp") in the film The CaliforniansThe Californians Soundtrack [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByXxL_Nie6E&list=PLfLnSEJd3Za3Ceqs5VfQLAtBo5WFO6F-N&index=13 "Little Boxes"] YouTube
• 2006: A book about Westlake, Daly City, California, Little Boxes: The Architecture of a Classic Midcentury Suburb, is named for the song.{{cite book |title=Little Boxes: The Architecture of a Classic Midcentury Suburb |first=Rob |last=Keil |location=Daly City, CA |publisher=Advection Media |date=October 2006 |isbn=978-0-9779236-4-9}}
• 2013: A re-worded version of the song, written by Sniffy Dog, was used in a UK TV commercial for mobile telephone operator O2. Three versions are known to have been broadcast: one sung by Adrienne Stiefel{{cite web|last=Brown|first=Paul|title=O2 – Things Are Changing|date=8 March 2012 |url=http://www.tvadmusic.co.uk/2012/03/o2-things-are-changing/|publisher=tvadmusic.co.uk|access-date=22 April 2012}} and another by Jedd Holden,{{cite web|last=Brown|first=Paul|title=O2 Priority Moments – Things Are Changing|date=23 March 2012 |url=http://www.tvadmusic.co.uk/2012/03/o2-priority-moments-things-are-changing/|publisher=tvadmusic.co.uk|access-date=22 April 2012}} while the third is an instrumental version.{{cite web|last=Brown|first=Paul|title=O2 – On & On|date=13 April 2012 |url=http://www.tvadmusic.co.uk/2012/04/o2-on-on/|publisher=tvadmusic.co.uk|access-date=22 April 2012}}
• 2014: A variation of "Little Boxes" appears in the film The Boxtrolls, performed by the band Loch Lomond.{{cite magazine|last1=Rooney|first1=David|title=A villainous troll catcher sets out to eradicate the underclass and join the cheese-eating elite in the latest from the animation house behind 'Coraline' and 'ParaNorman'|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/boxtrolls/review/729292|access-date=8 March 2015|magazine=The Hollywood Reporter|date=30 August 2014}}{{cite news|last1=Pagan|first1=Beatrice|title=BOXTROLLS - LE SCATOLE MAGICHE: LA COLONNA SONORA|url=http://movieplayer.it/articoli/boxtrolls-le-scatole-magiche-la-colonna-sonora_13422/|access-date=9 March 2015|publisher=Movie Player|date=5 October 2014|language=it}}
• 2019: A remixed portion of "Little Boxes" appears in the trailer for the film Escape Room, and its tune is used in the film.{{Cite web|url=https://www.what-song.com/Movies/Soundtrack/102784/Escape-Room|title=Escape Room (2019) Soundtrack - Complete List of Songs {{!}} WhatSong|website=What-song|language=en-us|access-date=2020-02-11}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.ihorror.com/robitels-escape-room-trailer-is-a-tricky-treat/|title=Robitel's 'Escape Room' Trailer is a Tricky Treat|last=Rawles|first=Timothy|date=2018-10-20|publisher=iHorror {{!}} Horror News and Movie Reviews|language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-11}}

{{Portal|San Francisco Bay Area}}

• Love It Like a Fool (1977 documentary about Reynolds)
• "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania", Bob Merrill's 1952 song, that uses a similar but not identical tune
• Suburb
• Urban sprawl

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite web |first=Charles H. |last=Smith |author2=Nancy Schimmel |url=http://www.wku.edu/%7Esmithch/MALVINA/mr094.htm |work=Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems |title=Little Boxes |access-date=2007-06-23 |archive-date=2009-10-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091022023110/http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/MALVINA/mr094.htm |url-status=dead }} With a list of recordings.
• {{Cite web |url=http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/music.do |work=Weeds |title=Music |publisher=Showtime Networks |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120919100428/http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/music.do |archive-date=2012-09-19 }} Full list of music used on the show.
• {{Cite web |url=http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2006/11/americas_most_p.html |title=America's Most Perfect Ticky-Tacky Suburb |publisher=Telstar Logistics |date=November 7, 2006}}
• [http://www.adolfoceldran.com Adolfo Celdrán]—Spanish language homepage
• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20071210224213/http://www.westlakeresource.com/ Rob Keil's website]}} for Little Boxes: The Architecture of a Classic Midcentury Suburb.
• [https://soundcloud.com/bity-booker/little-boxes-malvina-reynoldss Bity Booker "Little Boxes" (Malvina Reynolds's cover) LIVE]

{{US housing by state}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:1962 songs

Category:Comedy television theme songs

Category:Housing in the United States

Category:Music of the San Francisco Bay Area

Category:Pete Seeger songs

Category:Protest songs

Category:San Mateo County, California in fiction

Category:Songs about consumerism

Category:Songs about economics

Category:Songs written by Malvina Reynolds

Category:Works about suburbs