Pre 'Boomers', "Moments to Remember"

[amicus]

I had a song playing gver and over again in my head yesterday, just enough lyrics that I could search a few key words and find it. Omce I did that, memories and other songs came cascading into me noggin, so I thought I would share them and a brief commentary.

January to December, we'll have moments to remember

The New Year's Eve we did the town
The day we tore the goal post down
We'll have these moments to remember

The quiet walks, the noisy fun
The ballroom prize we almost won
We will have these moments to remember

Though summer turns to winter
And the present disappears
The laughter we were glad to share
Will echo through the years

When other nights and other days
May find us gone our separate ways
We will have these moments to remember

The drive in movie where we'd go
And somehow never watched the show
We will have these moments to remember

Walking my baby back home

Gee it's great after being out late,
Walking my baby back home.
Arm in arm over meadow and farm,
Walking my baby back home.

We go along harmonizing a song,
Or I’m reciting a poem.
Owls go by and they give me the eye,
Walking my baby back home.

We stop for a while, she gives me a smile,
And snuggles her head to my chest.
We start in to pet, and that’s when I get
Her powder all over my vest.

After I kind of straighten my tie,
She has to borrow my comb.
One kiss then we continue again,
Walking my baby back home.

NO NOT MUCH

The Four Lads

I don't want my arms around you, no not much

I don't bless the day I found you, no not much

I don't need you like the stars don't need the sky

I won't love you longer than the day I die

You don't please me when you squeeze me, no not much

My heads the lightest from your very slightest touch

Baby, if you ever go could I take it maybe so

Oh but would I like it, no not much

Like a ten cent soda doesn't cost a dime

I don't want you near me only all time

You don't thrill me when you hold me, no not much

My brain gets hazy from your cool and crazy touch

Baby if you ever go could I take it maybe so

Oh but would I like it, no not much

No not much

Heart and soul

Heart and soul, I fell in love with you
Heart and soul, the way a fool would do,
madly
Because you held me tight
And stole a kiss in the night

Heart and soul, I begged to be adored
Lost control, and tumbled overboard,
gladly
That magic night we kissed
There in the moon mist

Oh! but your lips were thrilling, much too thrilling
Never before were mine so strangely willing

But now I see, what one embrace can do
Look at me, it's got me loving you
madly
That little kiss you stole
Held all my heart and soul

Early Autumn

When an early autumn walks the land and chills the breeze
and touches with her hand the summer trees,
perhaps you'll understand what memories I own.

There's a dance pavilion in the rain all shuttered down,
a winding country lane all russet brown,
a frosty window pane shows me a town grown lonely.

That spring of ours that started so April-hearted,
seemed made for just a boy and girl.
I never dreamed, did you, any fall would come in view
so early, early.

Darling if you care, please, let me know,
I'll meet you anywhere, I miss you so.
Let's never have to share another early autumn

~~~

I think that last song by Johnny Mercer, subconsciously prompted me to poetry which remained dormant for years before emerging.

Through high school in the 50's, the music, which my children call, "Moldy Oldies", there was a Soda Fountain, with boothes and a dance floor and milkshakes and malted milk and chocolate cokes. A lot of romances and crushes happened. It wasn't the 'Hip, bebop' scene, but the mainstream where everybody who was anybody gathered to see who was dating whom and why.

There is something lost yet something gained, I suppose, as time goes by and trends change. Popular music, 'Pop' from the 30's & 40's was about to give way to Eolvis Presley and rock 'n' roll, but there were still the 'big band' sounds lingering from the 40's.

I was introduced to Jazz via Dave Brubeck and 'Take Five', which stimulated me not just emotionally as music can, but intellectually, but that is another story.

I imagine some will view the lyrics I offered as pure 'corn', cheesy and what not, thas okay, I feel that way sometimes also.

Then again, those lyrics harken back to a more innocent time, I think, where there was, we thought, more good than bad and music was not a protest, but an entertainment and inspiration to love and gentle thoughts.

I don't live in the past, I don't even look back very often, children, as they grow, introduce parents to a new generation and new trends. There was good music, in its'own way, in the 60's and every decade to the present time, but still, the 50's were unique, at least to me, and perhaps others who came of age during that decade.

No questions or assertions here, just an invite for those of you who grew up in the 50's to add your thoughts.



Amicus (an old softy at heart)

 

[Loring2]

Memories are made of this Amicus

.. especially for old men like me. Men who always look forward but know the distant past too well. That past isn't what it seems to be, nor what it might have been

The year is 1946, I am 16; I have given the Valedictory and the world is mine. We "swing and sway with Sammy Kaye" and dance cheek to cheek at the Saugatuck Pavilion on warm summer nights. Sex later on that night is not out of the question, especially for me because my girl friend is 18 as were most in my HS class.

Our music was smooth and soft and hopeful and sexy because it had to be. The war was over now but Dad wasn't coming home and neither was Uncle Julius nor a neighbor Teddy G who was only 2 years older than me, to the day; but the band played on. It had to because if it didn't, the world would surely stop and would never start again.

Then off to New Orleans and college; and the band played on. I would make sure of that, Johnny Mercer, Bix Beiderbecke, Tommy Dorsey's trombone and his brother Jimmy's tenor sax and Harry James' trumpet and Vincent Lopez and "Nola".

It was not to be; war showed its fearsome fangs once more and one day in 1952 I found myself pulling back on the stick of an F-86 and lifting rapidly off the runway at Hamilton AFB in Novato, CA. Destination Seoul and then Saigon and whatever other godforsaken place I've been.

I'm tired now Amicus ... but the bands play on ... thank God ... or whoever

JELoring

 

[Huckleman2000]

Oh geez... get a room.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm a Boomer, and nothing Ami lists predates me.

 

[amicus]

Curious.

Thank you for sharing, Loring, you have a few years on me, but you indeed, fill the bill for what is called Our Greatest Genration...for however that is taken.

I am fond of Classical music, a platform for expressing grand and universal emotions. I am more fond of music that broke away from the classical bonds and became more individualistic and more personal.

The learning process for being able to select, explain and play a history of Jazz and Big Band music, was one of the most enjoyable pursuits I ever attempted.

Just a few years ago, I had the privilege of playing Big Band music and vocals in a small Oregon coast fishing village...to some it was a trip down memory lane, to some others, younger, it was their first experience with the music and they seemed pleased with the offerings.

There is still an dance venue in many areas that feature a once-a-week big band night for all us old fogies...we always thought the music would come back again...but it never did.

regards...

ami

 

[Stella_Omega]

I go to visit some very elderly friends in a convalescent hospital.
The staff has a lot of songs like these that they play over the intercom. It keeps the inmates quiet and happy.

 

[amicus]

That is mean...and sad...and shows your total lack of sensitivity to just about everything.

Your generation has opted out of having parents and grandparents and great grandparents who honor and cherish the past...their youth.

The modern liberal/progressive parasite has no past and no future, and it is affirmed by your lack of compassion for all of America's past accomplishments.

How utterly dreary you really are.

Amicus Veritas

 

[sr71plt]

Oh? When I think of dreary, I think of a radio political hack neverwas who is reduced to haranguing folks on a porn discussion board with his Neandrathal political views because he's become totally irrelevant and impotent to fit in in an appropriate discussion venue.

 

[amicus]

How compassionate of you to show concern for this old dinosaur.

Even Neandertal's 30,000 years ago did not kill and eat their young(as in abortion and foetal stem cell research...which is where all those dead babies go.

And while the concept of unalienable human INDIVIDUAL rights, is only a few hundred years old and Adam Smith, as Aristotle, did actually have some Universal Truths that have survived through time, tribal, communal societies come and go.

You couldn't be more wrong even if you were focused and lucid. Freedom is here to stay, your brand of slavery is about to become a thing of the past. My thoughts will live on; yours will die, as they should.

Amicus Veritas

 

[sr71plt]

Yeah, sure, Amicus. I guess it's senility that's overtaken you first.

 

[JackLuis]

Ah nostalgia for the songs of our youth. Looking back at what seemed to be that best times of our lives. You are a bit older than I, Ami, but I remember those songs and like them. They represent a time when Music was music and not rhythm and cymbal crashes.

For a bit of modern music Diana Krall's, "The Girl in the Other Room" album is contemporary but harks back to Mercer and Mathis. I particularly like cut #3 "Temptation" and cut #6 "Love me Like a Man."

One thing I noticed is I don't enjoy a lot of modern vocal music, because I can't understand the lyrics. Between the slurring of the words, mixing to highlight the bass, and my hearing loss, much of it is just rhythm and noise.