Songs in my life: Listed below are some of the songs (or music) that I have found most entertaining and meaningful in my years. However, associated with each song is a person who had some connection to the song. For example, they introduced me to the song or played some part in bringing the song to my consciousness, so whenever I hear the song, I think of that person. I have also listed the year that the song likely came into my repertoire, not that I can play any of them on any musical instrument, except my hummer. These songs I often sing or listen to with greater frequency that all the other music I have been exposed to and at the moment I have over 16,000 tunes in my iTunes library. The URL in each posting is generally my favorite YouTube version. These are presented in no particular order, just as the memory comes to me. MacArthur Park – Richard Harris – Peace Corps – Aleda – 1968 We were sweatin’ it out in the jungles of Kingston, Jamaica. We were in Peace Corps (1968 – 1970) service saving democracy for future generations. I was not in Vietnam. We lived in a duplex house in a small development in the eastern part of Kingston not far from the schools that we were assigned to in order to introduce modern methods of teaching. Our existence was very nearly Americanized: electricity, running water (though only cold), indoor plumbing, public transportation. We ate American food, except for lunch at the schools, and were pretty much divorced from the more typical Peace Corps existence experienced by other volunteers around the world. However, some things were more difficult to get such as American music (v.i. Reggae and The Israelites) as well as news from the States. However, for the latter, we were able to pick up the BBC broadcast of world news on the local JBC stations. And we were able to pick up American music, late at night when the atmospheric conditions were right, from Miami, most likely on WQAM 560 AM. This station was known in the 60s for presenting a top 40 format. One of the songs I heard was MacArthur Park, written by Jimmy Webb, and found it quite fascinating and also quite enigmatic, which it has always been and remains so to this day. MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark All the sweet, green icing flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don't think that I can take it 'Cause it took so long to bake it And I'll never have that recipe again The problem was that they played it as the sign-off song for that segment only at midnight, every midnight, so one had to wait up until that later hour to hear it. Taxi – Harry Chapin – Newtown, PA – Lois Gretzinger – 1972 I have a particular affection for “story songs”. Songs that have a narrative character, thus have a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes these are called ballads. One of the great story songs is Harry Chapin’s Taxi which was released in 1972. A curious thing about this song is that Chapin also composed a second song, or a sequel, completing the story. There are some great lines in this song that I sometimes quote: “She said, ‘We must get together’ but I’d knew it’d never be arranged” “She handed me twenty dollars for a two-fifty fare and said ‘Harry, keep the change’. While another man might have been angry and another man might have been hurt, but another man never would have never let her go. I stashed the bill in my shirt.” Once upon a time and far away Aleda had a teaching partner in a special program in Bucks County Schools. This was a program to develop and implement a teaching curriculum for preschools based upon the educational philosophy of the great Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Aleda was working at Geneva Academy in Levitttown with Lois Gretzinger. Lois was a cool customer and she had a cool car, a yellow ’71 Camaro while I was driving a green ’62 VW bug. One night, I forget the circumstance, we were going home after dinner and Lois said, “Do you wanna drive?” Wow! Soon I was in the driver’s seat. So as I pulled out onto the roadway there came on the radio Chapin’s “Taxi”. It was at that moment that I was transcendentally lifted to a higher state of consciousness, that plane of “coolness” that a nerdy guy such as myself seldom achieves in his lifetime. Si, mi chiamano Mimi – La Bohéme – G. Puccini - La Salle – Gerald Tremblay – 1961 Translated, this means “Yes, they call me Mimi”. This is a well known aria from Puccini’s opera La Bohéme where she describes herself to Rudolfo, the tenor as a poor girl hoping for spring. Will she ever see it? It is a sad opera. There are many other beautiful songs in La Bohéme. I first heard this in high school, LaSalle College High School, probably in my Junior year. I was working on the school newspaper, “The Wisterian” and we would meet sometime after school to compose the paper. The advisor or faculty in charge of the paper was Gerald Tremblay. Mr. Tremblay was quite well known as an excellent English teacher for many years. (For example, a political commentator on MSNBC “Hardball with Chris Matthews”, also a graduate of LaSalle, attributed much to Mr. Tremblay” for his development and success.) Mr. Tremblay was also a cultural avatar in this mid-20th century time of the “vast (cultural) wasteland”, as Marshall Macluhan described TV of the time. Mr. Tremblay would take small groups to New York to see a Broadway show or theater. Relevant to this topic, he would play opera on his phonography while we worked on the paper. Pictured is the album which he played and still in my collection of vinyl LP’s, though well worn. From this I learned to love opera and other “high-falutin’” stuff. At the Hop* – Danny and the Juniors – St. Leonards - Mary Ann Dougherty – 1958 Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop! Well, you can rock it you can roll it You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop When the record starts spinnin' You calypso when you chicken at the hop Do the dance sensation that is sweepin' the nation at the hop Ah, let's go to the hop (repeat x 3) Well, it must be admitted that in eighth grade, to be blunt about it, I was not a “cool” guy or a smooth dancer, not in the least, but best described by whatever the opposite of “cool” might be, maybe “nerdy”. The reason might be that I grew up without any sisters and went to a boys-only school. Now in the year noted, there were really only two styles of dance, the “slow-dance” which was basically shuffling around the floor in a one-two step fashion while trying to avoid bumping into the other couples and the “jitterbug” a fast tempo swing-type dance. Slow dancing I could do, but never knew really where to put my arms on the girl and invariably stepped on her feet with apologies. The jitterbug was described as "a frenetic leftover of the swing era ballroom days that was only slightly less acrobatic than Lindy" (Wiki). Just at this time period there were introduced some other dances, primarily through Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. These are mentioned in the verse noted above, examples: the stroll, the slop, the calypso, the chicken. I don’t think I ever saw anyone do the calypso. There were also the “Bunny-Hop” and the Cha-cha. A year later, Chubby Checker introduced “the Twist”. While “At the Hop” could be danced with jitter-bug movements, because of its fast tempo and the fact that it is talking about a “hop”, there were also particular foot movements that could be done, primarily hopping on one foot (alternatively the left then the right) while moving the opposite foot from back to front mostly in line with the other foot. It was pretty simple, so I was able to do it with some alacrity without falling over. So, there I was at a party with the other eighth graders, some closer to pubescence than myself, probably at Joe Kadlec’s house. He was the cool kid. If you remember the movie American Graffiti, my character was most closely aligned with the movie character of Terry (“The Toad”) Fields. At the party they played, “At the Hop”. Given that one didn’t really have to hold the girl in any fashion, I got up and started doing the foot-movements. And I was also alone in doing them. Well, I can’t say the crowd (about eight participants) went wild but I did get a nice complement from Mary Anne, something to the effect: “Look at Lannie (my nickname then) dance. I didn’t know he could do that”. Now what must also be understood was that Mary Anne was the heart-throb of the boys’ class, and she was the “coolest” girl in eighth grade (perhaps her movie character in American Graffiti would be Debbie). To get a complement like that from a girl like that was a memorable experience, one of those transcendental experiences that you see in the movies experienced by the nerdy-guy with the prom-queen girl. Here is a picture of our two characters in American Graffiti. *The Hop: to the uninitiated, what is the meaning of “Let’s go to the hop”? The word “hop” is shortened for “sock-hop” or “sox-hop”. From Wiki: “A sock hop or sox hop, often also called a record hop or just a hop, was an informal sponsored dance event for teenagers in mid-20th-century North America, featuring rock and roll music. Sock hops were commonly held at high schools and other educational institutions, often in the school gym. The term came about because dancers were required to remove their hard-soled shoes to protect the varnished floor of the gymnasium. The music at a sock hop was usually played from vinyl records, sometimes presented by a disc jockey – or d.j.” This video URL is from “American Graffiti” and perhaps best illustrates some of the dance moves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qogQ5-ltjP4 City of New Orleans – Steve Goodman - Arlo Guthrie – Bob Hoffman – 1974 There are few songs in which the rhythm of the song matches to mood or topic of the words and Steve Goodman’s City of New Orleans is one of them. The “rhythm of the rails” is perfectly matched by the rhythm of the music. During our second year of teaching in Jamaica, when we were at the Mico (see elsewhere) we were joined by a fellow PCV, as we were called, by the name of Bob Hoffman. Bob was from Chicago and taught Industrial Arts. But in addition to teaching Bob liked to strum along on his guitar. Several years after Peace Corps when we met him back in the States he introduced us to Goodman’s tune – he had actually known Goodman in Chicago – and I have enjoyed it ever since. It is also a good example of a “story song”, perhaps a ballad, that tells a story: it has a beginning, a middle and an end to the story. Bob also introduced us to another ditty, “Rum by Gum” or the “Song of the Salvation Army”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88bU_iSGa7E A Wandering Minstrel I – Mikado – Gilbert and Sullivan – M. Mary Cleophas – 1957 The grammar school I attended (also called an elementary school, a primary school or a grade school) in Philadelphia was St. Leonard’s Academy. This was run by an order of nuns called the Sisters of the Holy Child. The order, though founded by an American, had its foundations of teaching children in England. In consequence, there were some English traditions of teaching that were part of the school. One of these was that there were theatrical productions, both drama and musicals. There was at least one musical produced every year for the rest of the school, for the parents and for the nunsSomewhere about sixth grade, the production for that year was The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, also an English tradition. There were parts for most of the boys in the Boys School and I was chosen by my teacher, Mother Mary Cleophas (now known as Sister Mary Bryan) to play Nanki Poo, the male lead. Reggie (Reginald Corrigan) was chosen to play Yum Yum, the female lead. It was thus necessary to learn the musical numbers for the operetta, which were numerous, although I think that they had to be reduced to perhaps six. At the beginning of the first act the character of Nanki Poo wanders into the town of Titipu seeking his long lost love, Yum Yum. He then sings the solo, A wandering Minstrel I, describing his plight as an itinerant trombone player who has a wide repertoire of songs which he will sing including martial ballads, naval songs and romantic pieces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTZHC1nF6SA I received a good deal of encouragement in this, my first theatrical role, by my father, Jay Littlefield. This is because he, too, had played in a Gilbert and Sullivan production as a member of the San Diego Light Opera, in the light opera, HMS Pinafore. His part was that of Dick Deadeye (a baritone). So, not only did I learn the first verse, that which I was asked to sing, but I memorized the entire song (essentially three stanzas). Mother Cleophas was most impressed. I don’t recall is the audience was impressed at the performance and this was pretty well the end of my theatrical career. I’m a Methodist ‘til I die – Methodist Pie – Jay Littlefield – Bradley Kincaid – 1954 I have picked out the version of “Methodist Pie” by Bradley Kincaid (Supertone 9210-A) because: a) there are few recordings/videos of this song on the Web and b) it is of slower tempo that most, which are usually “picked” at a frenetic pace by a bluegrass band, and c) I have no idea where my dad “picked” up the tune, as it’s now history. The earliest date (from Mudcat Café) for Methodist Pie is 1928. It was sung by a number of early artists, for example Gene Autry and Bradley Kincaid c. 1932 (above) and Grandpa Jones. Yet, the lyrics of Methodist Pie are itself an interesting story. First of all, Methodist pie is not a singular variety or flavor of pie or a pastry but likely any pie brought by a Methodist (likely a woman) to a camp meeting. Though there are several recipes for Methodist pie on the internet some call for cream cheese, which itself is unlikely because cream cheese originated in New York or around Philadelphia and would have been relatively little known in the rural south or west. And you must understand what a “Camp meeting” is and it is also known as a “brush-arbor revival”. This explanation will be deferred to another story. However, this tradition is preserved even today in the rural Texas countryside when my dad grew up, not too far from “Rattlesnake Gap”. This is the Amity reunion held the first Sunday in June at the Amity church. In the later years of his life I would go down to visit and we would go together to this meetin’, which is a “fine example of those 'sing-all-day-and-dinner-on-the-grounds' (as my uncle Bob called it “singin’ all around and dinner on the ground”). These are places where songs that are often as much fun to sing as it is to attend the happy gatherings they describe.” The song also gives reference to several edible items although these are now lost in the mists of the past. For example, “sugar in the gourd” may not refer to an actual dish but to the custom of putting sugar in a gourd container and then, as needed, spreading the sugar on the rough flooring to make it slippery and easier to dance. “Sugar in the Gourd” is itself an old-time bluegrass tune. Of course, the last verse suggests that the narrator went in at the end of the meetin’ and ate up the sugar in the gourd. Another mention of a dish(es) is “apple sauce, butter”. However, other versions suggest that this should be either “applesass” or “applesass-butter”, not apple sauce. Apple sass is what we would now call “apple butter”. Well, the relevance of this song is that while my dad taught me to sing this song, it was the rare occasion when I could have the opportunity sing it without some raised eyebrows. For example, if I had come out with this when I was in Catholic school, I believe sister would have fainted right before my eyes. Carousel Waltz – from Carousel – Rogers and Hammerstein – the cottage – 1956 About 1950 my parents and my uncle and aunt together bought a summer house on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland, on what was called Grove Point. On the way home, driving along in the car through the rural roads of Maryland and Delaware we could pick up on the car radio station WBAL in Baltimore or WFIL in Philadelphia, both of which were/are AM radio stations which were previously on the NBC Blue network. FM radio did not catch hold until late 1960s although it had been introduced in the early 60s. Beginning in nineteen fifty-five in June there was a nationwide radio program called ”Monitor”. It was a live program. It began Saturday morning at 8 AM and continued through the weekend until 12 midnight on Sunday. Hence, we would listen to it on the way home on Sunday night. We would also listen to it during the day when at the cottage, for example when it was a rainy Saturday or Sunday. (From Wikipedia: this program offered a magazine–of–the–air mix of news, sports, comedy, variety, music, and some interviews. An enduring audio signature of the show was the ”monitor beacon”, a mix of audio manipulated telephone tones and the sound of the oscillating emitting Morse code signal for the letter M. The Beacon introduced the show and was used in transitions accompanied by the tag line “you’re on the Monitor beacon”. Now the conundrum. What I also remember but have been unable to confirm - through a brief excursion on the Internet - was the use of the theme music from the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway show Carousel, the “Carousel Waltz”. It was quite pretty and I always enjoyed listening to it. However, I have been unable to confirm its association with the Monitor radio program yet the memory is quite strong. Whenever I hear the waltz, I think of those memorable times at the cottage. Youkali - Tango Habenera – Kurt Weill – from Maria Galante, 1934 - Henry Goodgold - 1988 The music of Kurt Weill is not familiar to most Americans with the exception of a single song from “The Threepenny Opera” (1928). This song is ”Mack the Knife” which is most closely associated with Bobby Darin in the US and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958 and is considered the “definitive” version. Darin’s version, though quite dark is even darker in the original version. That is not the song however under discussion here. We moved to St. Louis in 1983, I became friends with fellow nuclear medicine physician Henry Goodgold. He was the nuclear med physician, among others, at St. Louis University Hospital where I also worked and I was the physician at Saint Louis VA Hospital, among others, where he also worked. Henry was originally from Manhattan, New York and was well-versed in musical theatre as well as other genres. Henry and I became close over the years and we particularly enjoyed talking about songs, singing together, providing insight into each other’s musical knowledge. Henry was familiar with Kurt Weill. Sometime in the late 80s there was a musical production here in St. Louis put on by the Repertory Theater which was a compendium or collection of Kurt Weill’s songs in a stage production. I have forgotten the name of such. It was quite well done and we both enjoyed it very much. One of the songs I had never heard before and immediately fell in love with was Youkali – originally designated as Youkali Tango Habanera, and written along with Roger Fernay for the opera Maria Gallante by Weill in 1934 in Paris. Youkali became a popular song for singers in the style of a slow tango or habanera. The melancholy mood of the music is reinforced by the text, which tells in two verses and choruses of the yearning of the main character of the opera, the prostitute Marie Galante, for honesty, peace and reciprocated love. The word Youkali stands for an imaginary land of desire and hope. Youkali, the land of our desire and dreams, Youkali, where everything is what it seems, Youkali, a place where one can leave all cares and regrets, A well-known interpretation with piano accompaniment is by Ute Lemper 1991 on her CD Ute Lemper performs Kurt Weill. This introduced me to the German singer, Ute Lemper, who is a well-known contemporary performer of Weill’s music. x This is my favorite version. The soprano Teresa Stratas sang Youkali in 1997 on the CD September songs. Note, the following is in the original French. You Gotta Have a Gimmick – Gypsy – Chuck Stone - State College – 1962 My freshman year in college at Penn State I lived in the dormitory called Pollock A but later called Beaver Hall. It was a male only dormitory so that name is perhaps somewhat inappropriate. It is there that I made the acquaintance of a number of lifelong friends. In the room next to mine resided Fred Kinsinger and Charles Dupuis Stone. Fred was from Camp Hill, PA and Charles “Chuck” Stone was from Aliquippa, PA. Both were one-year ahead of me, that is, sophomores. Somewhere in the time of the three semesters of freshman year, Chuck Stone and I decided to go see the movie “Gypsy”. This was released in 1962 and starred Natalie Wood as Gypsy Rose Lee and Rosalind Russell as Mama Rose, with lyrics by Steven Sondheim and music by Jule Styne. My favorite song in the movie was “You Gotta Have a Gimmick”, sung by three strippers, Tessie Tura, Mazeppa, Electra. They sang to the young girl, Gypsy Rose. This song includes famous lines I’ve always remembered such at “But to have no talent is not enough” and “If you’re gonna bump it, bump it with a trumpet”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wErVF7QwIY The significance of this was that I was so amused by this song that I stayed in the movie theater and watched the movie a second time immediately after the first showing. This was the only movie I’ve ever seen twice in a row. Even to this day, no matter how many times I’ve seen this, I still get a good laugh out of it. Cuando calienta el sol – Ray Charles Singers – PSU – Aleda – 1964 or “Love me with all your heart.” In the old days, every couple was supposed to have “their” song, as in “Listen, they’re playing our song”. Although there was quite a bit of congruence in the music which Aleda and I liked, mainly classical and show tunes, we also preferred perhaps slower and more “romantic” or contemporary tunes, especially that which is easy to dance to. So it was necessary to find a song that we could say, “Listen, they’re ….”. Exactly how “Cuando” came into our listening repertoire is uncertain. At a time appropriate with our romance, “Love me with all your heart” the English translation of “Cuando calienta el so” was No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary Chart in 1964 performed by the Ray Charles Singers. It was also covered by Connie Francis (b. Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero) on her Spanish language album “Connie Francis, canta en español” though it’s unlikely that ever came to our ears. I was sure as sure can be that a cover that was sung by Jerry Vale (b. Gennaro Louis Vitaliano) was the one we were familiar with, but I am unable to find the song with his voice. The one Jerry Vale vinyl album we have does not have the song on it. "Cuando calienta el sol" (meaning, when the sun heats (or warms) up in masachapa) is a popular Spanish language song originally composed as "Cuando calienta el sol en masachapa". Note, “masachapa” is a town in Nicaragua. The music was written by Rafael Gaston Perez, a Nicaraguan songwriter and bandleader. Beneath the Southern Cross (a.k.a. No other love – Perry Como – lyrics Oscar Hammerstein) – Richard Rogers - from Victory at Sea – Kathleen Littlefield – 1956 Beginning in 1952 and through ’53 there was a documentary series on television (NBC) of the history of the US Navy in World War II. This was, and is, quite famous though not as well known to those of a later generation. The series was conceived and produced by Henry Solomon who was a research assistant to historian Samuel Eliot Morison, who has written the definitive 15-volume History of the Univeter States Naval Operations in World War II. I have all 15 volumes. Given that my father and my Uncle Jim were veterans of World War II and given that even at this early age I had an interest in things military, naval and aeronautical, and given the fact that we had purchased a television in those years (1952 or 53), I came to watch and enjoy the show very much. Because the episodes were aired on Sunday afternoon there sometimes became a conflict with my father who wanted to watch the Phillies game. He would say, “Nah, I’ve seen all that, you can watch it anytime. The Phillies game is only on once.” Lacking a remote-control, one then had to get up and march across the room to change the channel so we didn’t click through the channels like we do now. The music for the series was composed by Richard Rogers (of Rogers and Hammerstein fame). Rogers composed 12 themes – short piano compositions a minute or two in length. Robert Russell Bennett did the orchestrating, transforming Rodger’s themes for a variety of moods, composing much more original material than Rodgers, yet he received credit for only arranging the score and conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Bennett made the familiar RCA Victor recording - the first in 1953 – which was released as a 33 rpm mono vinyl recording called “Victory at Sea” in 1953. So, I felt it was imperative for me to get the vinyl platter but then that demanded the purchase of a phonograph player. My mother, Kathleen Littlefield, was somewhat reluctant but after many pleadings we purchased the record and then the record player (a tabletop Philco with a green case), exactly where I don’t remember. I still have the record but the record player was lost/sold/given away a long time ago. Episode 10 was titled “Beneath the Southern Cross” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQiKlvsP2g and dealt with the war in the south Atlantic (aired January 11, 1953). The principle theme by Rogers/Bennett in this episode was a melody later to becomea song known as “No Other Love”. The theme and the song has a tango rhythm (referred to by Rodgers as a “languid tango”). This should not be confused with another song from the 50s also called “No Other Love” but based on Frederick Chopin’s “Etude in E major” and perhaps done best by Jo Stafford It is this music that introduced me to two principal themes in my musical knowledge: classical – or orchestral – music and Latin rhythms such as the tango. In 1953, Hammerstein was then to take the theme and use it in a song for the Broadway musical “Me and Juliet” and this was perhaps best known from Perry Como’s single: The Israelites – Desmond Decker and the Aces – Kingston – Peace Corps – Kenneth – 1969 As mentioned elsewhere, Aleda and I were lay missionaries of the U.S. Government to Jamaica while serving in the Peace Corps from 1968 to 1970. As also mentioned we were assigned to the Ministry of Education in Jamaica as teaching instructors, that is we taught teachers. This was divided into two segments of approximately one year each. The first year Jim taught methods of teaching mathematics to primary school teachers and Aleda taught methods of teaching to pre-school teachers. In the second year, both taught at the Mico College, a teacher training college in Kingston. Jim taught Science (as general science, not specifically methods, and Aleda taught general methods of teaching. This only explains why we were in Jamaica, rather than the music topic. In the late 60’s, when we were there, Reggae became the music genre that became synonymous with Jamaican music in the time we were there. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggae One could not, and I am sure, cannot pass down any street in Jamaica without the sounds of the most current reggae hit playing very loudly from a set of speakers somewhere. It was inescapable. It was sometimes deafening. One keen memory was when we lived on Oakdene (pronounced Hoke-dene) Avenue in the subdivision called Eden Gardens (pronounced Heeden Gardens) and the landlord had a gardener who did the gardening (pronounced garden-ing) whose name was Kenneth (pronounced Ken=neth). While he had a small lawnmower much of the trimming was done with a large machete (perhaps 15 inches long). He would play his boom=box as described previously and swing his machete around his head singing (swinging and singing) the following lyrics: Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir So that every mouth can be fed Poor me Israelite My wife and my kids, they packed up and leave me Darling, she said, I was yours to be seen Poor me Israelites Shirt them a-tear up, trousers is gone I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde Poor me Israelites See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxtfdH3-TQ4 Some of the songs that were on the top of the charts during our tenure were: The Tide is High, The Paragons (1968) Rudy Got Soul, Desmond Decker and the Aces (1967) 54 64, That’s my Number, Toots and the Maytals (1968) Everything (pronounced Every-ting) Crash, the Ethopians (1968) Hold me Tight, Johnny Nash (1968) Do It Twice, Bob Marley and the Wailers (1969)* Many Rivers to Cross, Jimmy Cliff (1969) Montego Bay, Freddie Notes and the Rudies (1970) Rivers of Babylon, The Melodians (1970) Pressure Drop, Toots and the Maytals (1970) One of the songs in the Top Ten for 1968 was The Israelites by Desmond Decker and the Aces. This is a classic reggae song. Another song closely associate with our time in Jamaica as above is Rivers of Babylon (pronounce Bab-beee-lon) by the Melodians (1970) , again with a biblical or diasporatic theme. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDYAqz603TE What is interesting about this song is that the lyrics are taken almost verbatim from Psalms, Ps. 137 and Ps. 19, though a curious combination of such. But as someone has said, the Bible has never sounded so good. We Gotta Get Out of this Place – The Animals – students of Father Judge H.S., Philly – 1966 Having graduated from college with a major in zoology and a minor in English, there weren’t may jobs available and the Vietnam was looking for warm bodies, or at least my draft board was. Somehow my mother was able to find an opening at a local parochial high school, Father Judge High, for a chemistry teacher. Now chemistry was probably my worst subject, except for calculus, but at least I knew more than the students. I could read ahead by one chapter, which is more than the students did. Lacking any knowledge of teaching methods, it was a rough start to a brief teaching career. I had four classes of fifty students teaching a new methodology of teaching chemistry. It wasn’t easy, either for me or for the kids. While there are many anecdotes, I will just relate the following. I had two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon, one being the last class of the day. After another lecture on some obscure topic such as stoichiometry or how to make paint, with me being covered in chalk dust from the scribbles on the blackboard, towards the back of the class they spontaneously broke out into song: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” “If it’s the last thing we ever do”. Well, that was it for that day. Blessed Assurance – Jay Littlefield – Amity Hymn Sing – 1980 My father, Jay Littlefield, was a Southern Baptist. He grew up in central Texas on a farm in what is called the sandy-land country. Their family was a strong Baptist family and they went to church on Sunday at the Amity House in Comanche County Texas. The Southern Baptists have a strong tradition of hymn singing and knowing and singing songs from the Baptist hymnal was important. Everyone in the family had to standup at some time in their life before the congregation and sing one or more songs. In later years, after my father was married and moved to Philadelphia, it was not his want to attend Baptist Church but he still had a strong persistent religious devotion expressed through hymn singing. One song he particularly enjoyed was Blessed Assurance and I think this was also an anthem of his own faith. These songs he would sing while driving in the car on any journey of more than half an hour. He always said that he didn’t believe in buying a car with a radio in it because one was supposed to sing in the car. So, that’s where I learned many of the old-time songs, both hymns and ballads. I asked him once to list for me some of the songs he enjoyed, which follows: When they ring those golden bells Old black Joe Rock of Ages Methodist Pie (see above) Old Rugged Cross Perhaps my dad’s favorite singer was Burl Ives. It was Ives sweet baritone voice that my dad tried to emulate. Here is Burl Ives rendition of Blessed Assurance. A number of country and western songs were also in his repertoire and these I learned at his knee as well. Some others he sang: You get a line and I’ll get a pole or The Crawdad Song Yellow Rose of Texas Oh the mountains don’t get any higher The Eyes of Texas are upon You Home on the Range And I’ll add another Burl Ives tune, Ghost Riders in the Sky. Ives was the first to record this classic in 1949. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2klh2cTa_Q Farewell My Own – me – HMS Pinafore – Gilbert & Sullivan – 1970s Elsewhere you will read about my association with Gilbert and Sullivan and The Mikado. As also mentioned in this blog, my father was also associated with G & S as noted from his role in HMS Pinafore. Whenever Pinafore was being staged we would always try to take him as he enjoyed it very much. Now, when we moved into our current house, it had a large living room, just right for a piano and since Leanne was taking piano lessons it seemed appropriate to get a piano for the front bay window. This was soon purchased and was used for a short while until the piano lessons stopped in high school or perhaps I should say that high school stopped the piano lessons. Well, I thought it would be nice if I could play a tune for my father when he came to visit. One I always liked was “Farewell My Own” from Pinafore. So, I found some sheet music and tried to learn it, on my own. It’s important to remember that I had previously studied piano in first grade, and even had a recital once at that time. The piano teacher at St. Leonards’ was Miss Mary Matthews, a long-suffering if not low-paid employee of the school. My recital piece was “At the Circus” or something like that. However, given that where we lived was too small to accommodate a piano, I soon gave up my career as a concert pianist. Well they say that early exposure to a foreign language and music makes it much easier to learn as an adult, but my experience belies that rule. I was unable to put the notes for “Farewell” together sufficiently to make any success of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwk4R6DyDhM Here Comes the Sun – Mary Walsh Discenza – George Harrison, The Beatles – Abbey Road (1969) – 2010’s I have to admit that I was not a terribly big Beatles fan when I was growing up. They came on the scene in 1963, after I had started college the year before, thus I was immune to Beatlemania. Their first visit to the U.S. was in February of 1964. However, my cousin Mary Frances Walsh (Discenza) was thirteen years old in ’64, so she was significantly impacted by the “Fab Four”, and perhaps remains so. Mary has been quoted to say that Here Comes the Sun is her favorite Beatles tune. Here Comes the Sun was a song written by George Harrison and first released on their 1969 album Abbey Road. It is one of Harrison’s best known compositions from the Beatles era. There’s a curious piece of trivia about this song. The song was written in the month of April at Erick Clapton’s house in Surrey. The English winter is a long one and dreary. However, in 1969 meteorologic records for stations in London show that April 1969 set a record for sunlight hours for the 1960’s, not to be beaten until 1984. So maybe there was a cause and effect relationship. We now fast-forward to some 40 or 45 years later. There is always a need for a fresh idea for a birthday present for Mary, so knowing that this particular tune was her favorite and knowing that the Beatles were also her favorite, I decided to make up a CD of entirely of covers of Here Comes the Sun. These days this is relatively easy with YouTube and iTunes and other music-sharing programs. I was able to find 19 different versions including the Beatles original Abbey Road cut. I’m sure there are many more by now. One doesn’t hear this song very often but it’s always a reminder of Mary and the Beatles. Alley OOP and In the Still of the Night – Robert Allen Lewis and Joy June Lewis –Dion and the Belmonts – 1960 It was a recurring event in my early years that my father and I, and usually but not always my mother, would return to visit his family in Texas. There were his aunts and uncles, his mother and father and his two sisters. The latter were Aunt Lou and Aunt Joy, more formally known as Ima Lou Littlefield Nabers and Joy June Littlefield Lewis. My father also had two other siblings, Uncle Hood and Uncle Bill but they both lived in California and we saw them only rarely. It is a curiosity that four of the five children of Jessie Morris Littlefield and Ada Landreth Littlefield, each had only one child and that one child was a boy. Uncle Bill had three children. He was the youngest of the siblings and his children were Billy, Susie and Danny. This particular year we drove to San Antonio and visited with Aunt Joy, her husband Bob Lewis and their son Robert Allen. In his youth Robert Allen was always called “Robert Allen”, never Robert or Allen alone. While there it was decided that the two boys, myself and Robert Allen should get haircuts. That would seem simple enough and the Mexican barbers were pretty cheap. Unfortunately, after the haircut they left some hair clippings under Robert Allen’s collar. To be honest, also under mine, but that didn’t bother me that much. But it did bother Robert Allen a whole lot. He complained and complained with great petulancy. There wasn’t much that could be done after several attempts to brush the offending hairs from under the collar so, in order to appease him, and I think this was part of the original plan anyway, we went to a record store near his house which was in a small subdivision of San Antonio called Balcones Heights. So now we had to choose a record, a single 45 rpm. Robert Allen immediately chose Alley OOP by the Hollywood Argyles. We would classify it today as a novelty song (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_song). The first verse went: There's a man in the funny papers we all know (Alley Oop, oop, oop-oop) He lived 'way back a long time ago (Alley Oop, oop, oop-oop) He don't eat nothin' but a bear cat stew (Alley Oop, oop, oop-oop) Well this cat's name is-a Alley Oop (Alley Oop, oop, oop-oop). Other novelty songs from that era included: Short Shorts, Witch Doctor, The Chipmunk Song, Yakety Yak, the Purple People Eater, Yellow Polkadot Bikini, Mr. Custer, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose it Flavor (which could lead me to another anecdote), Monster Mash, Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, Hello Muddah - Hello Faddah, and many more. I am sure that most of those of my generation can sing all of these songs. My choice was a slightly different genre, in fact, a completely different genre. It was In the Still of the Night by Cole Porter (“In the Still of the Night” (1937) for the MGM film Rosalie sung by Nelson Eddy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLR7z_ok2_M Dion covered this as one of two tunes he sang with the same title in 1960. It only went to 38 on the Hot 100. The one I liked was This was the last tune that Dion and the Belmonts charted together before their breakup. Dion DiMucci (better known mononymously as Dion) had a number of hits from the rock and roll era including “Runaround Sue”, “the Wanderer” “Ruby Baby” and “Lovers Who Wander”. This should not be confused with a synonomously titled song also by Dion and the Belmonts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SLq6CzH0S8 Which is a cover of a do-wop song by Fred Parris and the Satins from 1955 and has entirely different words and rhythm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBT3oDMCWpI Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum – Margaret “Peg” Meinhart – 1974 It was the late spring or early summer of ’74. We were just finishing up our lecture years of medical school. The subjects are now lost in the haze of distant memory, infectious diseases, neuropathology, who knows? But every week there was a Friday and every Friday had an afternoon, and as the last class ended we’d head over to a bar off of Germantown Avenue and raise a glass or two to each other, having nearly finished the two grinding years of lectures on North Broad Street. This was a small select few of those who were still in the trenches, Charles “Buddy” McManus, Gene Porreca, Gary McFadden, Jim (“the probe”) McClurken, myself, and Margaret “Peg” Meinhart. Like myself, Peg Meinhart was slightly older than the rest, having been a nurse before going to med school. With that, she knew the “ropes” a little more than the rest of us but she was wickedly funny and enjoyed drinking with the boys and telling stories. So, not long after arriving at the bar and claiming a few tables and ordering a few beers, and downing a few beers seeking sweet anesthesia, Peg would head to the juke-box, plunk in a quarter and push M – 4. The machine would hum, the arm reach over and pull out a record and the turntable start to spin as the tone-arm slowly descended and soon we would hear: We tripped the light fandango Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor I was feeling kinda seasick But the crowd called out for more The room was humming harder As the ceiling flew away When we called out for another drink The waiter brought a tray And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiter shade of paaaaaaaaaaaale. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 = Old RCA Victor vinyl – Cecelia R. Flick – 1940’s Growing up in West Philadelphia, our nuclear family consisted of myself, my parents, Kathleen Walsh Littlefield and Jay B. Littlefield, my grandmother, Victoria Flick Walsh, her sister – my great aunt – Cecilia R. Flick, and Kathleen’s brother’s family, Jim Walsh and Mary Frances and their two daughters, Margaret and Tori. Their third daughter, Mary Frances, did not come along until a few years after the events described here. Aunt Cecilia, in those days, would be called a spinster, that is, an older, unmarried woman. She was rather remarkable in her day and in her own way. She was a nurse, a social worker, a secretary and she worked with some rather remarkable and quasi-famous people in Philadelphia. However, that’s another story. Aunt Cecilia and grandmother lived next door to us in the row houses on Chestnut Street, grandmother on the first floor and “Ceelie” as she was called, on the second. Cecilia lived in essentially two rooms, a large room facing Chestnut Street with a large canopied bed and what might be best described as a Victorian decoration to the room. Given that her early years were spent in the Victoria era, perhaps this is to be expected. The adjacent sitting room was small but had table and chairs where one might entertain visitors. In the back corner of the bedroom was a large closet, dark and mysterious. Within the closet there were several things that might interest young children (Margaret, Tori and and Jim (known as “Lannie” at that time) and these included a large collection of National Geographic Magazines and a modest collection of vinyl records, mostly of the RCA label. There was also a record player in the room. Though I forget the record player make and I forget most of the records, which were all classical music, I do remember having heard and playing one particular piece, Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2. Even to this day, whenever I hear that piece, my mind wanders back to those early years – I was perhaps 4 or 5 or 6 – and how those notes would fill the room.
Music
32–48 minutes
James Landreth 