Harper Valley PTA: A True Soild Gold Classic

You hear that guitar twang and memories from over five decades come flooding back and you begin singing along.

"I wanna tell you all a story 'bout

A Harper Valley widowed wife

Who had a teenage daughter

Who attended Harper Valley Junior High"

MeTV aired excerpts from The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday night February 20 and one of the featured performers was Jeannie C Riley. singing her hit 1968 song Harper Valley P.T.A." This Country Music single was written by Tom T Hall and became a major international hit and was Riley's debut record.

The song sold over six million copies as a single, and it made Riley the first woman to top both the U.S. Hot Country Singles and the Billboard 100 charts with the same song although it was not simultaneously. This did not happen again until Dolly Parton recorded her hit 9-5,13 years later in 1981.

Well, her daughter came home one afternoon

And didn't even stop to play

And she said, "mom, I got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA"

It was also Riley's one and only Top 40 pop hit. This song is a true classic and brought back so many memories as I listened to Riley sing on Ed Sullivan. I recall my cousins and I singing this to each other and having classmates sing it at school. This song has danceable music and the lyrics tell a tale of a hypocritic town that judges a widowed mother when they all had skeletons in their closet.

"Well, it happened that the PTA was gonna meet

That very afternoon

And they were sure surprised

"When Mrs. Johnson wore her miniskirt into the room"

In 2005 Tom T Hall explained the motivation behind his writing the hit song. He says a personal childhood experience inspired him to pen Harper Valley PTA. Hall explained that when he was a child in Olive Hill Kentucky in the mid-1940s; the mother of one of his classmates had drawn the attention and ire of local school board members because of her "modern ways."

And as she walked up to the blackboard

I can still recall the words she had to say

She said, "I'd like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA

The school began taking out their frustrations about this woman on her daughter and the mother eventually went to the school and gave the officials a piece of her mind. This was something that at that time was unheard of and just was not done.

"Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there

And seven times he's asked me for a date

And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lotta ice

Whenever he's away"

Riley was working as a secretary in Nashville at the time for Country music songwriter Jerry Chesnut, which placed her in a position to hear the song and she recorded it herself. In late August 1968 The single became a massive hit and jumped from number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart to number 7 in its second week.

And Mr. Baker can you tell us why

Your secretary had to leave this town?

And shouldn't widow Jones be told to keep

Her window shades all pulled completely down.

This was the decade's highest climb by a single into that Top Ten. Riley's version of the song won her a Grammy for the Best Country Vocal Performance, Female. It was also nominated for "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year" in the pop category.

Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here

'Cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again

And if you smell Shirley Thompson's breath

You'll find she's had a little nip of gin

Jeannie C Riley as of this writing is 76 years old and still going strong. The world thanks her for this one of a kind hit song that has lasted so long in pop culture.

And then you have the nerve to tell me

You think that as the mother I'm not fit

Well, this is just a little Peyton Place

And you're all Harper Valley hypocrites"

Harper Valley PTA has one of those tunes that is catchy and you know all the lyrics. Those of us who might not remember why we walked into a room can sing along and recall every word of this 1968 hit thanks to long-term memory.

"No, I wouldn't put you on because it really did

It happened just this way

The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA

The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA"