Today’s music came out in 1965, when I was nine. I lived in Wilkinsburg, PA, around that time. A group of us liked going into one girl’s basement and pretending we were musicians, singers, and daughters. The Outsiders, Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, the Turtles, and Paul Revere and the Raiders provided us with our music via forty-five RPM records. We’d take turns performing. It was a way to spend time. I don’t know who provided us with that record collection.
Anyway, “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders, was one of those songs. Later, after reading the book, and then much later, when I saw the movie, I wondered if the Outsiders had taken their name from the novel. Then I found that the band existed before the novel. Oh, well.
As an aside, the movie was interesting. Francis Ford Coppola directed it. The cast was an amazing ensemble of young stars. Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Diane Lane, and Matt Dillon all come readily to mind.
One final aside, I read the novel around 1970, when a teacher recommended it to me. The novel is controversial and remains one of the most frequently challenged books in America.
Michael Seidel, writer 
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