The tired old Velvet Underground saw is that only 500 people listened to them, but each started his or her own band. If someone tells this to you and you actually say, "Like who?" this person will most certainly shrug. Unless he knows his Jojo trivia: Richman sat up straight in Boston the day he heard a record from Lou Reed et al. A self-described lonely, attention-starved teen, he'd spent the last couple of years playing the guitar in the Cambridge Commons. He was 18 when he heard the Velvet Underground. He left immediately for New York.

Richman charms all without exception, and the Factory people were no exception. Andy Warhol, John Cale and Reed let their new fan soak up their vibe, hang out on their couches. "The fact that we slept outdoors in Central Park and didn't get killed tells you that it was 1970 and not a day later," Richman says. Reed was once quoted as saying that he couldn't be held responsible for Jonathan Richman. By then it was probably too late. Richman bought an electric guitar, went to Europe, came back 19 and got started.

The Modern Lovers brought the Velvets' big, droning fuzz out of New York, leaving the heroin reference behind to eventually fester as cliché. The Lovers wrote songs about not doing drugs, with all the bratty self-righteousness of a band that did plenty. They made fun of hippies and complained a little and sang about what Boston was like for young people. People loved them almost right off the bat. It was weird to be mocking hippies in the early '70s, and they did so with a catchy sound.

By the time they got an actual record out, they'd been playing almost five years, and they no longer sounded like the guys on the recording. The Modern Lovers were not even the same Modern Lovers: Keyboard player Jerry Harrison left and went on to join the Talking Heads, and drummer David Robinson went on to be in the Cars. Richman had left Boston for Berkeley's Beserkley Records, and was on the verge of disappointing people for the first of many times.

Too nice, Richman's fans began to say. They missed the angst and the self-righteousness -- their Jojo was writing songs like "Hey There Little Insect." Eventually they'd come around for the most part, even extol this new music as even truer punk for how quiet it was, but for years Richman endured complaints about his positive attitude.

Music shouldn't hurt a baby's ear, he said, and over the next 20 years not a single infant was harmed. Too bad, some griped. Indeed, when a surly punk rocker cuts his hair, brings out an acoustic guitar and starts singing lines like, "To win in love you must surrender," it's usually trouble. On the back of one album, Richman can even be seen squatting down to pet a cat. But like any troubadour worth his bus ticket, Richman is never edgier than when he's singing about love. The songs are funny, the love lyrics subtle and the cat is honest rock music.

When I say "wife," it's cause if you said "lover" every day,
You're gonna begin to gag.
But "wife" sounds like your mortgage,
Sounds like the laundry bag.

His is a revision of the rules codified by the paragons of sophisticated rock music. Slouching over a whiskey is not depth. Morose discomfort is not depth. Depth is not depth. What's deep -- what's truly deep -- is "She Doesn't Laugh at My Jokes" and "When Harpo Played His Harp."

Still, even today, old punks with good memories occasionally complain that their mentor went soft. It's true that Richman was flicking at the punk ethic long before the Sex Pistols stuck their fingers up their noses. But the idea was to fuck shit up and, in punk terms, Richman decided nothing was more transgressive than spreading happiness. In "Government Center," he wants to spread it around a building full of gloomy bureaucrats:

We won't stop until we see secretaries smile
And see some office boys jump up for joy.
We'll tell old Mr. Ayhern, "Calm down a while,
You know that's the only way the center is ever gonna get better."

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