Another Turn Comes Around

Song 259: For this week, Tomorrow is My Turn by The Fifth Estate, written by Wayne Wadhams and Don Askew, rocks the playlist. In that long ago era before you could own a movie, the once-yearly broadcast of The Wizard of Oz become an annual event for my school mates and me, well enough established by 1967 that some of my chums, knowing it so thoroughly, might even choose to skip the annual viewing ritual, though it never lost its magic for me. However, when The Fifth Estate released their updated hit version of Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead in the summer of '67, I had no interest in it -- I liked the movie soundtrack and, despite my passion for '60s-style music, I didn't feel that any of the Wizard material needed an update. I had similar feelings about TFE's hit version of Heigh Ho! that followed some months later, so I had no great expectations at that point about liking anything the band did. The following spring, I somehow managed to talk my parents and grandparents into allowing me to buy a small box of rock and roll 45s -- they didn't approve of my interest in the devil's music, but I persuaded them to make a solo exception to what had previously been an unbending rule. The box contained 10 singles, for a very good price, and though I recognized less than half of the titles, I thought it would make a very good start for a record collection, and it did, although not in the way I had anticipated. I already had a small record player set up in my own basement area that could play 45s, and I soon discovered that most of the titles I didn't recognize also didn't thrill me. The existence of that box of singles gave me cover, though, as I began smuggling in 45s that I bought from neighborhood friends when they got tired of their golden oldies, and before long I owned 2 or 3 dozen, but my parents never knew the difference, since my records all sounded the same to them, and I kept most of my vinyl collection hidden except for a handful that I would be playing at any given time. My parents and grandparents said more than once that they regretted allowing me to buy that box of records, but as far as I know, they never caught on to how I had greatly expanded on the original 10 singles. Among that first bunch, though, there was one that I really liked, and that I played a lot, and it was this track, which was actually the B-side of the Morning, Morning 45. I liked and played the A-side as well, but this B-side track left a deeper mark on my musical landscape, to the point where I knew it well enough to sing along even when it wasn't spinning on the turntable, and I understood exactly what the singer meant about when the circle comes 'round.