Songfacts®:

• "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" is an ode to individuality and self expression. The title alone makes a very clear statement that's reinforced in the lyric, offering loads of encouragement. You've gotta sing your own song, even if nobody else sings along.
  
  The message could apply quite literally to musicians who find themselves following trends and conforming to norms instead of making the music they want, but the metaphor is relevant to anyone making their way through life.
• The singer here is Mama Cass Elliot, a mighty vocalist best known as a member of The Mamas & the Papas, a seminal '60s group that had hits with "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'." When the group broke up in 1968, Elliot stayed on their label (Dunhill) as a solo artist. Her first single was a cover of the standard "Dream A Little Dream Of Me," with her fellow Papas and Mama on backing vocals. It was a hit, launching her as a solo artist. "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" was released a year later and was a modest hit.
• "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, a formidable husband-and-wife songwriting team whose compositions include "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," and "Kicks."
  
  They started writing for movies and stage productions in the late '60s, but around this time also wrote two songs that Cass Elliot turned into chart hits: "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" and "It's Getting Better." In the '70s, their songs were recorded by B.J. Thomas ("I Just Can't Help Believing") and Blood, Sweat & Tears ("So Long Dixie") and Mann released some solo albums.
• Cass wasn't the first to release this song. A vocal trio called the Will-O-Bees got to it first, putting it out in 1968. Their version went nowhere, so Cass recorded it.
• This is one of those songs that's a lot more popular today than when it was released. That's because it was featured in various episodes of two popular TV series: Dexter and Lost. In both shows, it's used incongruently, lending stark juxtaposition to scenes where the characters are in dire circumstances. Later, it was used in several movies, including Free Guy (2021), and it became quite popular on TikTok as a soundtrack for various memes.
• The song was the subject of a 2023 Saturday Night Live skit that imagined the recording session for the song and pokes fun of its delayed popularity and incongruent media uses. Emma Stone plays the producer at the session who tells Cass, "This song is going to be everywhere, then everybody's going to forget about it for a long, long time."