Continue Holding

 Song 826: This week the playlist applauds Hang On Sloopy by The McCoys, written by Wes Farrell and Bert Berns, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Soon after the Fab Four rocked my world in February of 1964, their fellow British Invaders started catching my attention as well, and at the end of the summer of the following year, just before I started ninth grade, another British quartet began encouraging a sailboating female to maintain connections. I really liked singing along with the chorus of that anthem whenever it came rising from a nearby radio speaker. For a few previous years, I had felt obsessed by a female classmate who I hoped to eventually embrace passionately. She lived in a very good part of town in early 1965, but then her family moved to California, so I never did get to feel her hair ever hang down on me.

Heavy Burden

 Song 825: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on The Weight by Spooky Tooth, written by Robbie Robertson, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in the summer vacation of 1968, I would walk down the road about a mile-and-a-half from my parent's house at least once a week to visit my best friend, and when his brother wanted to part with recent top-40 singles after he got tired of hearing them, he would hand them to me for $1 apiece, which was cheaper than their original price. When I walked back into my parent's home, I would keep the 45s hidden so they wouldn't see them, and I put them in the area where the other singles sat. This hit got a place within that pile and I gave it plenty of listens during my final HS year as I often got those discs spinning on the player in the basement where my folks, on the first and second floor, didn't have to hear the devil's music. While listening down there, I went lookin' for a place to hide since my folks felt that when I played those 45s, I was with the Devil walkin' side by side.

Carelessly Toppled Into Passion

 Song 824: This week the playlist features Fooled Around and Fell in Love by Elvin Bishop, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the middle of the frigid season of early 1976 in the Windy City area, I often spent a lot of time behind the wheel, and in doing so, I got to hear some pleasing musical rambles coming from the radio speakers, including one that slyly admitted some frolicking which led to an amorous obsession. I understood and relished the implications of that tuneful confession. Back then, I could have imagined having access to a million girls if I achieved the kind of success the tune's lead singer had, which I thought I deserved, and I wouldn't have cared how much they cried if they did so in response to me treating them as heartlessly as Mr. EB had done - their tears would have left me cold as a stone.

Human Weirdness

Song 823: This week on the playlist you can hear People Are Strange by The Doors, written by Jim Morrison and Robby Krieger, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The folks I grew up with during the 1950s & 1960s did not approve of the devil's music but I still often managed to hear a lot of songs I liked when hanging out with friends, and other situations as well. During my sophomore HS year, I did get to regularly hear the first album by The Doors while working on the student newspaper, and when the fall of 1967 arrived and I began my junior year, I soon got to hear the group's second 33 disc, which included this analysis. While I didn't think that second album hit the same amazing level that their first one did, I did still like what I heard. At the time, I did regularly deliver newspapers to homes in my neighborhood, and whether I felt up or down, the streets never seemed uneven. I guess I wasn't ever that strange back then, because I never saw faces come out of the rain!

Exchanging Identity

 Song 822: This week the playlist focuses on If I Were You by Wendy Beckerman, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's identification outline comes from one of my Fast Folk colleagues. Soon after I moved from Berkeley, CA to Brooklyn, NY in the fall of 1988, I started hanging out with the FF group, usually attending the weekly meetings at Jack Hardy's apartment on Houston Street in Manhattan where we would share our new tunes. I don't think I heard her do this piece at one of those gatherings, and I think I would remember it if I had heard her do it then, because I have a song called If I Was You, so when Ms. WB's IIWY gem came along, it did quickly gather my attention. While I didn't see all the motion in the monster or all the flicker in the fire, her description made it easier to picture those movements. I had decided a few weeks ago that I would feature a Wendy ride today, and I just found out yesterday that she left the land of the living on 3/18/26. If she had changed identity, she could have told herself don't be aftaid of dying, and now it doesn't matter that there was nothing she could do to help her find her other shoe.

Turquoise Fabric

 Song 821: This week the playlist comes around to Blue Velvet by Bobby Vinton, written by Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Around the time I reached the end of my first decade, my folks gave me a transistor radio, and a couple of years later, I really liked hearing this Bobby fellow doing his descriptions of an attractive female wearing indigo apparel. Fairly soon, I learned the chorus lines and I would sing along with Mr. BV when his vivid melodic portrayal came floating from the radio speaker. At the time, I felt obsessed by a certain young woman, to the point that seeing her could make me feel warmer than May, even though we rarely got close enough to even speak with each other. About a year-and-a-half after this gem hit the charts, her family moved to California, and when she left, gone was the glow, but I still carried a memory through the years for a while after she disappeared.

Zis and Zat

Song 820: This week the playlist recognizes Zor and Zam by The Monkees, written by Bill and John Chadwick, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title.  As the spring of my junior HS year unfolded in 1968, it did disappoint me when this primate quintet who had done TV segments that I had enjoyed for a year and a half hit the end of their tube career in late March, so when their fresh chart-topper arrived soon after, it didn't take long to learn a lot of the lines that I could then sing along with when the piece emerged from a nearby radio. At the time, the U.S. leaders called for war at the rise of the sun. I read news pieces and heard news shows warn us about how the dominoes could fall, as the MIC fashioned their weapons, one upon one, ton upon ton. For no real reason, that era's war actually continued for about another 7 years!