Tag: 1961

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeemistic

Sunny blue skies greeted me in my home in Ashlandia, where orange barrels block streets as paving, repairs, and improvements continue and the roads are above average.

Already November 3, 2023, some folks are marking their calendars for next year’s elections. It’s also Friday, end of the work week for some and beginning of the weekend fun for others. Those of us in a quasi-, semi-, or permanent retirement state mostly look at the door with an eye toward social engagements. ‘Work’ except as volunteers, has mostly been dismissed.

As I prepared the floof royalty’s meals this morning, a glance out the window found gray smudges defacing the blue-sky fall scene. At least, I hope it’s fog, I thought with a chortle, and then imagined other possibilities, entertaining myself as I went about my business. Another glance out, and I perceived a wall of fall stealing in from the northwest quadrant. Six minutes later, the fog presented a solid front and the sky was gray. An hour after that, the fog is gone.

While it’s 48 now, we’re expecting our high to be in the upper sixties, ingredients for a enjoyable autumn day.

Moving on toward the theme song, a friend queried a group of us by email, do you remember this song? Who sang it? He was just playing around, of course:

He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
A polka dot vest and man, oh, man
He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
And a big Panama with a purple hat band

It’s Dodie Stevens with “Pink Shoe Laces” from 1961, of course. That started a firestorm of memories for the group and their wives. One spouse was really excited because it was her and her sister’s favorite song. They played it all the time while dancing around the house. Remember this, she began singing it and dancing around the house, and then called her sister, and they had Siri playing the song on the phone while they danced and laughed.

That opened the door on a vault in my head, where certain songs I know but am not crazy about resides. Reaching in, The Neurons pulled out a 1958 novelty song, “Beep Beep” by the Playmates and have it on loop in my morning mental music stream (Trademark dashing).

Behind the song is a car, a Rambler, product in my lifetime of a now defunct US car company, the American Motors Corporation. I had a friend with a Rambler. Although old, we used it to sneak people into the drive-in theater in the little car’s spacious trunk in the early 1970s. It was just like the one in the photo.

Also featured in the song was a Cadillac, a car much more expensive than the Rambler. More expensive, the Cadillac had a larger engine and was more powerful, capable of greater acceleration and top speed than the Rambler. That forms the song’s gist as the Rambler tails the Cadillac and the Cadillac keeps speeding up to get away, but can’t, astonishing and amazing to the Caddy driver. As this unfolds during the song, the song’s tempo keeps increasing until the punchline when the Rambler driver pulls alongside and asks, “Hey buddy, how do I get this car out of second gear?”

While riding in my Cadillac, what, to my surprise,
A little Nash Rambler was following me, about one-third my size.
The guy must have wanted it to pass me up
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.

Refrain:
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

I pushed my foot down to the floor to give the guy the shake,
But the little Nash Rambler stayed right behind; he still had on his brake.
He must have thought his car had more guts
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.

Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

My car went into passing gear and we took off with dust.
And soon we were doin’ ninety, must have left him in the dust.
When I peeked in the mirror of my car,
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The little Nash Rambler was right behind, you’d think that guy could fly.

Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

Now we’re doing a hundred and ten, it certainly was a race.
For a Rambler to pass a Caddy would be a big disgrace.
For the guy who wanted to pass me,
He kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.

Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

Now we’re doing a hundred and twenty, as fast as I could go.
The Rambler pulled alongside of me as if I were going slow.
The fellow rolled down his window and yelled for me to hear,
Hey, buddy, how can I get this car out of second gear?

h/t SongFacts.com

What a hoot, when I was young. I would sing it in the car with Mom as we drove along, driving her a little nuts.

Stay pos, be strong, and keep leaning forward and reaching for the stars. Coffee is being consumed and the sun is shining. And away we go.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today is Wednesday, March 23, 2022. I’m still processing my friend’s death yesterday, Mike. It’s remote and abstract to me at this point, astonishing and bewildering. My neurons follow paths for what it must be like in Ukraine as people lose their friends and loved ones suddenly to gunfire and explosion. That life is so treasured to us, that people’s deaths leave such gaping holes, that we work so hard on medicine and health, exercising and dieting to prevent sickness and death, and then that humans kill one another for bizarre fucking reasons when other avenues of co-existence are available, renders me to sighs and head shaking.

A faded azure sky embraces the sun. Full spring is in effect. Sunrise came at 7:09 AM and sunset will take at 7:26 PM. It’s 56 degrees F right now, on its way to a 68 F high. Should be a lovely day.

My beer group is meeting tonight. Mike was a large part of that. Plans had been made for me to hand off a book that was loaned to me, giving it to Mike because he was visiting with the book’s owner. Now, change.

Meanwhile sick cat steadily declines. Eating is next to impossible for him due to tumors. I have the back door open, and he made his way out to sit in the sunshine on the patio. Papi has made a solid recovery. I had the door open yesterday afternoon, and that boy galloped in and out, tail up, playing hide and seek with me. Tucker is solidly recovered, too, reclaiming his space on the bed by my head last night, talking to me this morning about his food and drink requirements, and eating with gusto.

My cheeky neurons are playing Del Shannon’s “Runaway” from 1961 in the morning mental music stream. I was five when it came out, but it was a big hit and part of the AM rock and roll rotation for years.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

As I was in the bathroom cleaning up and doing things (I farted the opening chords to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”, for which I’m pleased, proud, and embarrassed), another song kicked into my head. Don’t know why it started. As it won’t leave, I’m sharing it to drive it out of my mind before I go out of my mind.

Here is Dion with “Runaround Sue” from 1961.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s song penetrated the stream with no obvious reason. No memories or brain cells are standing up to say, “I did it. It was me.” Investigations and research have ended with no solid leads.

The song came out in 1961. I was five. Don’t know if I heard it that year, but I’ve heard it a buncha times later. You probably know it, too. It’s still in my head, and I need to get it out, so I’m foisting it on others.

Here’s Del Shannon with “Runaway”.

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Today’s Theme Music

“Two drifters off to see the world, there’s a lot of world to see.”

Today’s theme music is “Moon River” from Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Why not? Based on Truman Capote’s novella, the movie was released in 1961. The song came out the same year. I was five, so I don’t remember much of that, but Mom loved music and movies, and she exposed me to these things. After In Cold Blood came out, I read it and then read other Capote works, including Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

The song and movie are an emblem of the times. Johnny Mercer wrote the song’s lyrics, and Henry Mancini composed the music. Those are some big names in that business. George Pepard and Audrey Hepburn starred in the movie, which was directed by Blake Edwards. Pepard’s character was gay, gay in 1961, and the world didn’t come apart. Hell, Capote was gay. Yet, now, a zillion years later, some in the world want to turn back time, back to the way things were. Did they forget that gays existed back then?

(*snark alert* Yes, I know, they haven’t forgotten, but gays and the coloreds knew their place, then, didn’t they, in this white mythical world where everyone was happy as long as everyone was kept in their place.)

What the movie was and what it was supposed to be, like the novella, like our times, and our memories of those times, depends upon your baggage. I thought that song was perfect in many ways, romantic, hopeful, and smooth, tidying up an image and glossing over deeper struggles. The song and movie came out right before the explosions of the 1960s. When we think of it, we don’t think of the grace of Breakfast At Tiffany’s and “Moon River.” We’re more likely to remember riots, demonstrations, the civil rights movement, protests, and the expanding Vietnam War. Really, 1961 was still part of the fifties.

Many sang or recorded “Moon River” but Mom liked Andy Williams, so that’s the version that I know best.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s a blustery but pretty Saturday, which somehow inspired me to start streaming an old Albert King number. Maybe it’s the frequency of news about California, due to the fiery destruction of NorCal wine country, that brought the song to mind. Here’s “Travelin’ to California.” It’s from nineteen sixty-one, but I encountered it looonng after that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OATJpTAnuA

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