On October 15th, 1971, a “Rock & Roll Revival” concert was held at Madison Square Garden in New York. Headliners included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Rick Nelson. It would not go well for Rick.

He played some of his old hits…but when he launched into some new material, the crowd began to boo.

It got so bad, he left the stage…and the building.

The experience bothered him so much, he wrote a song about it and filled it with all sorts of oblique and snarky references to some of the people who were at the event.

These included The Walrus (John Lennon) & Yoko Ono, and “Mr. Hughes,” who according to sources, was George Harrison, who apparently used “Hughes” as his ID when traveling incognito.

The “Dylan’s shoes” lyric refers to a Bob Dylan album George was thinking about working on.

And of course, the lyric “Out stepped Johnny B. Goode referred to Chuck Berry.”

To Rick’s surprise, when “Garden Party” was released as a single, it went to #1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and #6 on the Hot 100.

Unfortunately, that was his last appearance in the Top 40. In 1985,He died way too soon in a plane crash at the age of 45.

“Garden Party” by Rick Nelson: a little bit snarky–but a Great Song of 1972.

— Mike Cook