Song 597: This week on the playlist you can hear The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens, written by Solomon Linda, Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, George David Weiss and Albert Stanton, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Once again, just like 8 of my last 10 blogs here, tonight marks the premier of The Tokens in my favorite song bunch. I probably did not hear this ramble for the first decade after it appeared in 1961, because, growing up in a family that opposed the devil's music, I knew next to nothing about RnR until the Fab Four rocked my world in February of 1964. As an independent young adult in the early 1970s, though, a lot of the older gems that I had missed caught my ears, including this engaging sparkler, as the rock radio stations went through a pre-Beatle revival. While I generally leaned towards guitar-centered arrangements, whether electric or acoustic, a few jaunts like this one expanded my appreciation for multi-layered vocal-driven ventures. This being the part of the year with shorter days and longer nights, we can easily believe that The Lion Sleeps Tonight, even if the animal has approached the peaceful village, so don't fear my darling - there's no need for anyone to lose any sleep this evening.
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