Sappy And Proud Of It...

When I was a kid we used to have this Gary Lewis & the Playboys album (my big sis was a big fan - she had a crush on Gary) called This Diamond Ring. It had "Dream Lover" by Bobby Darin, and "Forget Him" by Bobby Rydell, and "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" by Bobby Vee. I never knew the original of those until so many years later.

We also had a Herman's Hermits album that my parents bought for us when my youngest sister was born. I think I still have that. It had "I'll Never Dance Again." That's also by Bobby Rydell.

I used to sing those songs to my kids. All my kids were cranky babies and they never slept. Sometimes I would hold them and we would listen to music and they would fall asleep on my shoulders. I remember one time listening to the Doors (YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!!!!) and I remember one time listening to Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic playing Brahms' 4th Symphony.

Often I would hold them and walk around and sing. I would also sing "Rock and Roll Lullaby" and "Flying On The Ground Is Wrong" and "Count Me In."

Those are all songs I think that are transcendently sappy. They never make it into the books of great recordings (except "Dream Lover" which was in Dave Marsh's book The Heart Of Rock And Soul). But check out YouTube and you can see where the truth lies…

"Because" by The Dave Clark Five is another one. It's not to be confused with "Because" by the Beatles, which was on Abbey Road and which was pretty, but not nearly as innocent. I remember playing the DC5 version to my wife, who wasn't my wife yet, back when I was wooing her. A lot has changed between then and now, but that song still belongs on that long-gone couch, in that far-away-and-never-seen-again living room, in that $130 / month apartment.

That sappiness doesn't exist anymore. Oh there is sappy alright, but it's plastic sappy, not from-the-heart sappy, not like the Phil Spector brand of human-spritual-salvation-through-teenage-romance sappy. Do people sing the Backstreet Boys to their babies? I feel sorry for them if they do. I feel sorrier for the babies.

This all comes to mind because I grabbed a Bobby Rydell album from the library this week. All those Cameo Parkway recordings were unavailable for so long, and now here it is. I have most of it on tape anyway, and how I got it, well that's a story that deserves a post of its own. But I got this CD, and the truth is that most of it is, I hate to admit, pretty lame, but then towards the end of about 70 minutes worth of music comes on "Forget Him" and all the lameness is forgiven.

(Forget him)
(Forget him)
Forget him, if he doesn't love you
Forget him, if he doesn't ca-a-a-a-are
Don't let him tell you that he wants you
'Cause he can't give you love which isn't there
Oh, little girl, he's never dreaming of you
He'll break your heart, ya wait and see-e-e
So don't you cry now, just tell him goodbye now
Forget him and please come home to me

(Forget him, if he doesn't love you)
(Forget him, if he doesn't care)
Don't let him tell ya that he wants you
'Cause he can't give you love which isn't there
Oh, little girl, he's never dreaming of you
He'll break your heart, ya wait and see-e-e So don't you cry now, just tell him goodbye now
Forget him and please come home to me

No, don't you cry now
Better tell him, goodbye now
Forget him, and please come home to meeeee

Personal Reflections and Echoes...

Pink Floyd played Winnipeg on July 1, 1994. I didn't go. Even had I liked Pink Floyd enough to go, I wouldn't have gone, if for no other reason than that Roger Waters was gone, and the band was left more or less headless.

I came to Pink Floyd not via Pink Floyd but via Chilliwack. Now Chilliwack was a Canadian band, and they may be still around; I can't tell. They have been recording top 40 wallpaper since about 1972, but I remember their second album. It was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press by Andy Mellon.

Mellon was a Winnipeg music-type-guy; he wrote music columns in Youthbeat, then in the Free Press, he did a brief stint as a DJ at CFRW FM, Winnipeg's "underground" station, and managed a record store for a while. Well he reviewed the second Chilliwack album, which happened to be called "Chilliwack," which also happened to be the name of the group's first album, and that can be confusing.

Their second LP was a double, and following the pattern set by The Rascals on Freedom Suite and Canned Heat on Living The Blues, side 1 and side 2 had "normal" music, and sides 3 and 4 were experimental. Remember, this was 1971, when bands could do that.

Side 4 was occupied entirely by a piece called "Night-Morning," which Mellon compared to Pink Floyd. He said it sounded reminiscent of what Pink Floyd had been doing recently. And there's the nexus. I bought the album, and noticed, among other things, that Mellon got the details wrong. He wrote of Bill Henderson's guitar on "Night-Morning" when there was no guitar on the track. Oh, that Andy Mellon.

And there I was one day listening to CFRW FM, that was Winnipeg's "underground" station, remember, and I heard this music that sounded like "Night-Morning." I said that must be Pink Floyd. And I was right. It was "Echoes."

That, for me, has been Pink Floyd ever since. I have, I think, every album they've done, at least those with Syd Barrett and Roger Waters. I even have a bootleg, Live At Pompeii . I am partial, not surprisingly I suppose, to the earlier stuff, especially the tracks with the over-the-top song titles like "Careful With That Axe Eugene" and "Several Species Of Small Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict." But "Echoes" will always be my favourite. Keep Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall. I will keep "Echoes" - which, by the way, they did not perform at their Winnipeg appearance…

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.

And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can

And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sun

Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inciting and inviting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

And no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky