Category: 1961

Oh, I do enjoy breaking format once in awhile to do special episodes like this one.

For this year’s Christmas episode, I return to the songs that you don’t seem to hear on the radio when the stations are playing All Christmas All The Time. You’d think that with the huge catalog of recordings to choose from (even if the list of songs is relatively limited), radio stations could go on for literally days without ever repeating a recording. But no, we’re going to get Mariah Carey and Trans Siberian Orchestra over and over and over again.

There was one station that managed to have a pretty deep catalog one year. It was out in Colorado and I think I went four hours before I heard a repeat. So that was pretty good. I don’t think they’re still doing that, though, more’s the pity.

I took a little more time to script this show than I did last year, so for those of you who are interested, there is a transcript this time. Last year, I was working off of notes, and it clearly shows. Hey, you live and you learn. Or you don’t live long. (h/t to Lazarus Long)

Here’s the playlist for this year’s episode:

• Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer (1979 version)—Elmo and Patsy
• Christmas Kisses—Ray Anthony and the Bookends
• Christmas on the Block—Alan Mann Band
• Crabs for Christmas—David DeBoy
• Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)—The Darkness
• How to Make Gravy—Paul Kelly
• Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town—Joseph Spence

And finally, let me note that Jenna Getty has come through again with a Christmassy version of the theme music, funded by the Patrons of the show. I haven’t mentioned this enough: Patrons of the show got a special hour-long episode a couple of weeks ago as an extra “Thank You” for their support. Plus they get the Newsletter with my lame blatherings every single week, whether a show drops or not. And if you become a Patron of the show, you’ll have access to all of that. If that sounds interesting to you, please click the link below.

Have a great and safe holiday!

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Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:57 — 25.0MB)

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Holy Moley, kids. It’s another overstuffed episode of the show for you. But, I guess that’s what happens when you’re dealing with a song that goes clear back to 1933.

“Blue Moon” was written by Rodgers and Hart, and it was going to be used in a movie, then it wasn’t. Then it was going to be used in another movie, then it wasn’t. Then it was again, and the publisher at MGM thought the melody would make a pretty nice popular song, so he convinced Lorenz Hart to change the lyrics. And it did take some convincing, for reasons you’ll get to hear about during the show.

While you’re here, let me give extra thanks to Bill Tyres for his permission to use the audio from one of his YouTube videos. You can find his over at his main webpage, or through his YouTube channel. Tell him I sent you.

Also, as promised, here are the stories about the woman who claims her dad was the true composer of the song:
New York Times article (soft paywall)
Liz Roman Gallese’s website.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:45 — 17.5MB)

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And finally, as a little bonus, here’s Elvy Yost, singing the first incarnation of the song. She appeared on an episode of The Catch singing a later version of it (and it looked like a YouTube video in the show), but it doesn’t appear that she actually made a video for YT consumption.

Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Happy Father’s Day! I’m releasing this episode a little early so I can spend the day Sunday with my family. Our plan is to go to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. I’m hoping to see Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman costume and a Batmobile. I hear there’s a terrific collection of musical instruments, including Steve Cropper’s guitar and Herbie Hancock’s keytar. Who knows, maybe the Musitron is in there!

Don’t know what that is? You need to listen to the show, post-haste. Get clicking.

Next week’s show (Under the Covers, Part 4) may be a little late because I’ll be on the road to a family event. You Have Been Warned.

Click here for a transcript of this week’s show.

Sometimes when I’m looking for a show to cover, I look at any potential patterns I may have been following, just to break out of them. Have I been doing too many hard rock songs? Too many from a given decade? Too many of a specific genre? That sort of thing. I like to use some songs as an entryway to discovering other songs. So, for instance, I know that “Classic Rock” songs tend to pull in the downloads, but I’ve gotten comments from people who tune in to hear about “Another Brick in the Wall” but stay to learn about “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”

So in searching for patterns, I also look for songs I don’t like to see if I can defend them, or make them somehow interesting to me (looking at you, Episode 30), or just get into “What haven’t I done so far?”

And that’s pretty much why I went looking for a song that begins with the letter Q.

But as usual, it turned into one of those things where your basic party song turns out to have a richer history behind it than one would ordinarily suspect. (A lot of times I think I’d like to cover a song and the research turns out to be a bust.) So check out the story behind Gary US Bonds’ song and how its popularity with another hitmaker led to his working on Bonds’ comeback hit:

Incidentally, I’ve started doing the artwork for each episode early in the process, since it makes for a great procrastination project. How am I doing so far?