When I wrote that notice of Dawn Eden Goldstein's book with that title, it didn't occur to me that anyone reading this blog would not know that it's taken from a 1967 hit song. But that's the assumption of someone who not only heard the song on the radio a thousand or so times when it was popular, but has a rather greater than normal interest in pop music. At least one, maybe both, of the reviewers whose opinions I linked to were unaware of it. So for the benefit of anyone else who is not, here it is:
The group was called Spanky and Our Gang, which is yet another pop culture reference, an even older and perhaps more obscure one now. Our Gang was a series of short movies involving a group of mischievous and lovable children, one of whom was named Spanky. Actually in my world (i.e., after-school TV) the series was called The Little Rascals, a name change which, according to Wikipedia, happened when the Our Gang movies were syndicated to TV in 1955.
I was not much interested in this style of music at the time–"sunshine pop," it's called–so I never heard any more of the group's music than the hit singles. Listening to this one now though I see they were really quite talented. I seem to remember a reviewer who hated rock insisting that they were the best thing around. I guess he had kind of a point.
Light On Dark Water 
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