For any of you unfamiliar with The Cowsills, they were a clean-cut, seven-member family unit that would later serve as the inspiration for TV's The Partridge Family. They scored their first hit in 1967, and their material was along the lines of their 1968 Top Tenner "Indian Lake," a proto-Osmonds number that was not unlike the Yogi Bear theme. The male members sported Beatles moptops, which were controversial in 1964 but were slightly more accepted by 1969 when the Fab Four themselves were flaunting facial hair and neck-to-shoulder-length 'dos. That year, Carl Reiner (of all people) thought it would be fun for the band to shake off their conservatism and asked the band to perform "Hair" from the hippie rock musical of the same name for a TV special he was producing. Here's the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFy-yzj02FE
The song was a huge success, peaking at #2 for 2 weeks in May 1969, kept from the top by The 5th Dimension's cover of "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" from...wait for it... Hair.
The band was approached at an Italian song festival by jazzman Remo Capra about recording his song "The Prophecy of Daniel and John the Divine (Six-Six-Six)," a Biblical tale drawn from the Book of Revelation. It was recorded, released as a single and hit the charts in June 1969. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WLoX6Rd6-Q
By July it had peaked at #75. The apocalyptic subject matter was possibly a turn-off for radio programmers and the band's teenybop fan base, although I would find it somewhat hypocritical if broadcasters didn't like it considering that they had made The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's "Fire" ("I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE!!!!") a #2 hit less than a year previous. The Cowsills would only chart one more song, a cover of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" that lodged at #74 in November 1969.
I had never heard "Prophecy" until yesterday and thought it was pretty awesome. It certainly is catchy with the harmonized "six is the number" chorus and background chants of "six...six...six," and the demon is defeated in the end so nobody could say it was glorifying Satanism or anything like that. Maybe if it was released a few years later it would've found a sympathetic ear with an open-minded Black Sabbath fan. After all, by 1972 even The Osmonds had incorporated some hard rock into their act with their Crazy Horses album.