Friday, November 5, 2010

The Mamas and The Papas Album Cover: Equality and Mother Earth?

The Mamas and The Papas - 
TMTP, or shoud it be TM&TP?

I've looked at several album covers for the lettering in TMTP, which I used in my previous post to shorten repeated typing of  "The Mamas and The Papas", and the majority of covers capitalize both T's as in The Mamas and The Papas. This makes for a more interesting acronym "TMTP". Usually, one would capitalize just the first T, and leave 'and' and the following 'the' in lower case.

I think thes upper case t's are perhaps an "equality" thing - as in both The Mamas and The Papas are equally important. We are talking of the sixties after all. But notice that Mamas come before Papas. Do women have to get that extra bit ahead to get on an even footing? Or it could just be respect for women, as in "ladies first"? In any case, naming anything (and deciphering any name) is an interesting exercise. And design adds another dimension of meanings.

And why Mamas and Papas? I think Mother Earth might figure in there, but Father God? Somehow I don't think so. Maybe a benign sidekick, under the thumb of the formidable feminist female...