My Melodic Milestone Playlist

And Arnie said, “kids the hits just keep on coming”. During the summers of 1958 & 1959, music was the magic and the non-periodic element that was the building block of all our lives. No longer were we drinking milk and toasting the 34th President of the United States (“I Like Ike” Dwight David Eisenhower) with Big Brother Bob Emery. No sir, we were no longer small fry, we had moved to AM radio and to https://youtu.be/anZYqaFdoIw the Arnie (Woo-Woo) Ginsburg Show and the latest hits on his WMEX “Night Train Show” (I can still hear a train whistle in the background). If I had been old enough to drive, I would have driven any distance to get to Adventure Car Hop on Route 1 in Saugus for a big juicy “Ginsburger”. “La Bamba”-Ritchie Valens https://youtu.be/Jp6j5HJ-Cok and https://youtu.be/Uyl7GP_VMJY ”Tequila” by The Champs and Bobby Darrin “Splish Splash”’d the nights away and all the Everly brothers had to do was “Dream Dream Dream”, “I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine any time night or day.” https://youtu.be/JnpbzmjcxQM This same year (1958) David Seville introduced us (before Alvin, Simon and Theodore) to his friend https://youtu.be/xwGwl-ktuNA “The Witch Doctor” (ooh eeh ooh ah aah, ting tang walla walla bing bang) and Sheb Wooley, yup he would later drive cattle in “Rawhide” https://youtu.be/PeUvQkaCSIY sing of a one eyed, one horned “Flyin’ Purple People Eater”. Almost a teen, and observing my contemporaries, we were about to embark on a path leading to the possibility of actually having to speak to girls; Oh, the humanity! Peggy Lee sings fever and everyone in the room felt the temperature rise. https://youtu.be/REryc1TpeY8 Ricky Nelson sings Poor Little Fool https://youtu.be/R12H8QWnwvE and I felt badly, and because I was Catholic, a little guilty too. The Skyliners did “Since I don’t Have You” https://youtu.be/JKbAPnqo_QM and the Capri’s “There’s A Moon Out Tonight” https://youtu.be/JrsNYIno8Ns and The Elegants did “Little Star”, https://youtu.be/hqOn4W9yK0o all I knew then, was I had to be home before the moon or stars even thought about appearing or my flipside would have had some hurt attached to it. Deep inside, Connie was singing “Stupid Cupid”, “quit picking on me”. https://youtu.be/7EQX70weW8o 1959 brought more mixed feelings as we couldn’t help but move to “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles. https://youtu.be/HAjeSS3kktA The Flamingo’s “I Only Have Eyes for You” had me using my eyes to view girls for the first time. https://youtu.be/nrzusdilnKQ Dion and the Belmont’s sang “A Teenager in Love” https://youtu.be/2pwgswchPDo and Phil Phillips’ “Sea of Love” caused some more stirring questions within, https://youtu.be/lrkNRcyvtF4 but just as I thought I might be on to something “Along Came Jones” and the Coasters, with “Charlie Brown” and everyone’s botanical fear https://youtu.be/yE90wyqILOA “Poison Ivy”. ”Sleep Walk” by Santo & Johnny and Bobby Darrin’s “Dream Lover” https://youtu.be/aSZQrM54qUI only brought the negatives of Ricky Nelson’s “It’s Late” and “Never Be Anyone Else for Me” more into focus. A few pre-teen parties and The Fleetwood’s “Mr. Blue” and “Come Softly to Me” https://youtu.be/ABxtkaeC18Q began making some sense to me. Going to sleep with things (non-sports related on my mind) was new. I liked the idea of The Clover’s “Love Potion #9” and I got the feeling that behind Brenda Lee’s “Sweet Nothin’s” https://youtu.be/Vs2h18M6ky8 were sweeter somethin’s. I remember learning and dancing the “Shag” to Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon’s “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” https://youtu.be/1XVStjH1frs at a Mary Mahoney house party and having, for the first time, a good time with girls. If I betrayed the boy’s code it was too late; the ice was broken, forever. Everly Brothers (‘Til) I Kissed You” and “Let It Be Me” and one for mama by Sarah Vaughn called “Broken Hearted Melody” led 1959. https://youtu.be/vLgvFzVKK5o Dave Baby Cortez’ “Happy Organ” and Johnny Horton’s” Battle of New Orleans” https://youtu.be/1s51IVwqcKo along with Connie’s “Lipstick On Your Collar” kept our feet moving, while hearts were moved by “Lavender Blue” and Sammy Turner’s and Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” (Venus, Goddess of love that you are, surely the things I ask, can’t be too great a task). https://youtu.be/jbP_DFiKqfo The hormones lifted off with “Lonely Boy”, Paul Anka, as he sang “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” https://youtu.be/9DAAYwO_7j4 and others like The Mystics as they sang “Hushabye” (Hushabye hushabye guardian angels up above, take care of the one I love). https://youtu.be/BNcpkmrYWTU Looking back, to a home where Benny Goodman Ella Fitzgerald and Glenn Miller reigned supreme (before there even were Supremes) the changes were very subtle, but like the one-foot-tall maple trees that Chris and I planted in front of our house when we moved to 361 Spring Street, West Bridgewater, MA. in 1957, we were growing fast, all of us. We were content for that moment to be under the protection of parents who loved and wanted us to be happy. There would be plenty of time for songs and girls and love.

In 1959, family, music, sports, that was the book on what I knew. 1960, my 13th year, arrived with a healthy and growing interest in girls. It did not take long to learn, well, what I didn’t know. https://youtu.be/jZB-qIZShrE Paul Anka’s “Puppy Love” made moments feel right, yet, there was something missing, more correctly, someone missing. I was not alone; there were other guys who were trying to figure it out too. Every time I heard those little arrow sounds when “Apache” was playing https://youtu.be/2izTbEyxg0A I thought of all us guys and how we could avoid an arrow to the heart. Songs of and about love abounded, they yielded mixed signals, and left us on our own. My heart went out to Patsy Cline when she so sweetly sang “I Fall to Pieces”, but after all she was “Crazy” https://youtu.be/MbnrdCS57d0 thanks (Willie Nelson). Roy and “Only the Lonely” https://youtu.be/uGTipzpBqc4 compared with https://youtu.be/tHvoNmBLhVI the Shirelle’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” “But will my heart be broken, when the night hits the morning sun?” I didn’t know the answers; I only had more questions, which were not helped by Phil and Don asking https://youtu.be/dmtzQjS9Z2A “When Will I be loved?” I had my friend Jerry Krebs and our neighborhood friends to commiserate with and we’d cautiously feel each other out as to our next steps in the pursuit of the opposite sex. It was so much easier to tease and steal their hats and run around like a nut as we did only a year or two earlier. There was no “How To” book but there should have been. How do you say hi, or ask a girl to a dance, or say how great she looks in that dress or sweater, or that you even liked her. Too “tres” awkward. Perhaps watching “The many loves of Dobie Gillis” could net some sound advice. Maynard G. Krebs, Dobie’s friend, did not help much and I remember wanting to go down to the old Endicott building and watch the big ball knock it down, or Chatsworth Osborn Jr.’s mother telling Maynard, “you dirty dirty boy”. We watched “My three sons” trying to gain some insight, “Perry Mason” and “The Untouchables” to stay out of jail, “Andy Griffith” to get into jail. Again, we were left with so many questions. 1960 saw a lot of action, John F. Kennedy elected near the end of the year, Cassius Clay and Wilma Rudolph win “Gold” at the Olympics, in Rome; Floyd Patterson knocked out Ingemar “the Swede” Johannson to become heavyweight champ though our next town over Brockton, MA Rocky Marciano would be our forever undefeated champ. Caryl Chessman was finally executed after years of appeals and Clark Gable died. Psycho came out in 1960, the U-2 Pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was shot down over Russia, Fidel Castro was not playing well with others, and Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth inning home run and led the Pirates to a 4-3 World Series win over the unloved New York Yankees, that alone, made it a very good year. Other tidbits from 1960, Sputnik, with 2 dogs went into and back from space, the first study linking smoking to heart attacks began, Teflon pans were first sold and the first oral contraceptive was made available to the public; why did I need to know these things, I just wanted to have a girl I could call friend, a “puppy love”. Looking back, it was music that settled we boys down and played the next role in the boy girl relationship saga. https://youtu.be/0FO9GgysXlw Elvis asked “Are You Lonely Tonight” and revealed that “He was stuck (boomp boomp) on you” and as the summer party circuit became the newest fad, we began dancing slow songs with actual girls, in back yards and basements all over West Bridgewater. I remember getting up the courage to ask Kathy Brown to dance, at a Mike Lounge party over on Vital Avenue, at the time I was really “crushing” on her, though I’m sure I never indicated it to her then, why would I, I was 13, and while Kathy Young sang “A Thousand Stars” https://youtu.be/_Fri2I16x88 and Percy Faith played the “Theme from “A Summer Place” https://youtu.be/fRV0yHiEua8, I was holding my first real girl, if she only knew; well, she does, now. For me, memories are as yesterday and though it was also the last time we ever danced, that moment is still sweetly seared into my heart and soul. The music for all of us moved along as the Drifter’s sang https://youtu.be/KOAuhjb2e1Y “This Magic Moment” and begged us to “Save the Last Dance for Me” https://youtu.be/n-XQ26KePUQ and Buddy Holly was lamenting “True Love Ways” https://youtu.be/QjFRHIhSvwc and the Ventures admonished us to “Walk, Don’t Run” https://youtu.be/WW21rcHiVU0. I have so many songs and lovely memories, all with a piece of me and someone else attached.

In 1961 and 1962, while Ray Charles was both having his heart “Unchained” https://youtu.be/PVA1SguDM-g or hitting the road “Jack”, we Jr. high men were undergoing changes; “Hello Mary-Lou” goodbye heart https://youtu.be/zLkCWT2neuI. Subtle changes like the loss of fat which was replaced by defined muscles (still smaller than the upper-class guys, but headed in the right direction), voice cracking, ugh, how embarrassing, and hair in places we shan’t talk about now (though in fairness, I now have hair growing on my nose, not in it, and on my ears, what’s that all about?). Roy Orbison was officially alone and “Crying”, and Ricky (not yet Rick) Nelson was a https://youtu.be/eZiSuKLOKeM “Travelin’ Man” but also in the “Ozzie & Harriet” TV show with his brother David. I’m not sure but I think some of the older kids took some cues from that show and similar, dress of the day, haircuts too and maybe just the idea that whacky things can happen to your parents and children and friends but everything ends up well at the end of the day. Can you imagine “stay at home mothers” today? “Mama Said” there’d be days like this and once again The Shirelle’s were right, cause “Baby it’s you” sha la la la la la, “what can I do, when it’s true I don’t want nobody but you” (lousy grammar, great song). https://youtu.be/py-CgG2mln4 Songs of persons held our attention like Gene Chandler and “The Duke of Earl” https://youtu.be/AkwM3GLW8BQ or Don & Juan asking “What’s your name” “is it Mary or Sue” https://youtu.be/QkqVU8PQOgE and Dion and his “Run around Sue”, not to be confused with Del Shannon’s “Runaway” “I’m walkin’ in the rain, tears are fallin’ and I feel the pain, a wishin’ you were here by me, to end this misery.” Sam Cooke hit the target with “Cupid” draw back you bow, and let your arrow go, straight to my lover’s heart for me”. https://youtu.be/S28tILqie1o Guys like Andy Ouderkirk and Stephen Reed (another Spring Street alum) and Wayne Dufault added to the cast of the years to come (holy wick!). I vividly recall being sent by Mrs. Prescott in 6th grade to the office when I couldn’t stop laughing over Wayne’s mispronouncing of the Greek historian Thucydides’ name, what I and many others heard was “Thuck-Sides”, my response was automatic and uncontrolled. As an aside, Thucydides reported on the Peloponnesian war, specifically 411 BC, final score Sparta 1, Athens 0. Songs of places like Dick & Deedee’s “The Mountains High” https://youtu.be/LU2rjoSXI34 and The Peppermint Lounge’s Joey Dee & the Starliters doing a new dance and it goes like this, a little thing they call the “Peppermint Twist” meet me baby down on 45th Street. https://youtu.be/x1W3a2SO858 Gene Pitney sang of a “Town Without Pity” https://youtu.be/ZCRSB8o3CN4 , which reminds me that he also sang “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, both of which were movies, but did not have either of his songs in them, strange, no? As 1961 moved onward, and we mourned the passing of our Olympic Figure Skating Team in a horrible February plane crash, and tried to forget about the Bay of Pigs invasion in April, and to enjoy Alan Shepard’s 20-minute flight in Freedom 7. Brenda Lee pleaded to “Break It to Me Gently” https://youtu.be/F3r24WmN5xA and the Drifter’s wanted us to “Please Stay”. We just couldn’t do it because we were “Tossin’ and Turnin’” with Bobby Lewis, and “Bristol Stomp”ing with the Dovells, “The kids in Bristol are as sharp as a pistol, when they do the Bristol Stomp, really somethin’ when the joint is jumpin’, when they do the Bristol Stomp.” https://youtu.be/xC1rYmc5ggI We transitioned to 8th grade, much the same, but fully aware that summer of 1961 was coming first. A summer that included Ray Kroc taking over for the MacDonald Brothers, and Yo-Yo’s making the scene, and Roger Maris hit 61 to help those “Damn Yankees” win yet another world series. The summer plan was to attend as many parties as we could, which meant you had to be popular enough to be asked. I was not always asked, but attended my fair share always with the positive thought that I could maybe manage a dance or a meaningful conversation with a girl, and always with the thought of a kiss and a caress and then to be married before I had to return to 361 Spring Street that very same evening. As I’ve heard so often in “war” movies, confidence was high as the Sensation’s “Let Me In” whee-oop https://youtu.be/zE-bF2jnEnw song pulled me time and again into skirmishes I never seemed to win. I was met with Fat’s singing https://youtu.be/haUzFIu8fA4 “I Hear You Knocking” but you can’t come in, but for the music, I may have given up and studied for the priesthood, YIKES! In a couple of years, as a freshman, I would find that I actually sucked at Latin, and that St. John’s Seminary would be for others, not me (sorry gramma Sheehan). Oldies like Pat Boone were singing “Moody River”, while the west coast had some interesting sounds coming our way soon. That year, 1961, the first Beach Boy’s song I remember, “Surfin USA”, would make a splash https://youtu.be/2s4slliAtQU but the Marvelette’s “Please Mr. Postman” https://youtu.be/425GpjTSlS4 stayed on top a long time, while the Fleetwoods “you’ve gone from me, oh no, “Tragedy” https://youtu.be/1bohMPplkpY described and defined this 14 year olds love life.

I write of memories of a boy growing up in a relatively small town, and learning the ropes one knot at a time. Along with all those post WWII children trying to figure it all out, one awkward step at a time, I have been blessed with clear memories with music as it’s backdrop and inspiration. God has been good to me these 76 years and a song by the young trio Girl Named Tom called “I’m Alright” fits my 2023 mood really well https://youtu.be/ThYmdWYtVOY .