When I happen to hear a less frequently played record from the 60’s, I check to see where it peaked on the Billboard Hit chart. This one is from ’66, the ultimate year for Pop music. The opening bass notes seem to have been borrowed from “Blue Bayou”.
Surely this perfectly romantic, swoony delight must have been a #1 hit. Boys liked it, girls loved it, and their moms undoubtedly did too. And yet “Mr. Dieingly Sad” only reached #17! Why? The answer is that it faced some very tough competition.
https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/1966-10-05/
I suppose mothers may have been wary of the possibility their kids would go to the library to find out what “Kama-Sutra” on the record label meant. 😉