A YouTube's Clip Of The Everly Brothers Doing "All I Have To Do Is Dream".
CD REVIEW
The Everly Brothers: All-Time Original Hits, Rhino Records, 1999
There was a time in my youth, in the late 1950's, just after the hullabaloo of the original emergence of rock&roll as a threat to national security with the rise of the likes of Bill Halley, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and the like had subsided and before the British invasion that revitalized rock had surfaced teenage popular music hit a bump in the road. During that time young male singers like Ricky Nelson, Bobby Dee, Fabian, Conway Twitty and the singers under review, the Everly Brothers, emerged or were pushed forward to fill in the blanks. This was a period where there was a conscious effort to tone down, sweeten up and bastardize rock. Although the Everly Brothers cannot be said to have been the cultural force behind that movement, after all they just wanted to sing, make money and be popular with the girls, they certainly benefited from this shift in the popular music industry. Other more sinister adult forces led the charge to this homogenized music.
That said, on their own terms the brothers were hardly the worst of the lot in presenting this kind of music to their teenage public, especially those adoring, dreamy-eyed white suburban girls whose allegiance drove their material up the pop charts. Some of their work, included for your inspection here, can and should be considered classics of this dark period in American teenage music. While the Everly Brothers on their best days will never have the force of Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll", Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" or Jerry Lee's "Breathless', their clean, well produced music and okay instrumentation will survive on the second or third echelon of the rock pantheon.
Who, from that generation, can forget the panic lyrics that drive the story line of "Wake Up Little Susie" or the very danceable "All I Have To Do Is Dream" and "Let It Be Me". Teen angst, meaning not having a boy or girl friend is well represented by "Crying In The Rain" and "Cathy's Clown". Can't you just visualize those old school gym dances now. Ya, that is what the brothers were successfully catering to don't you know. For those of us who could not dance, were girl-shy or lacked the proper boffo- haired appearance of the singers of the period we got our chances later but for those guys handy with a slick comb this was their time-and the Everlys'.
Wake Up Little Susie Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Everly Brothers
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
We’ve both been sound asleep, wake up, little Susie, and weep
The movie’s over, it’s four o’clock, and we’re in trouble deep
Wake up little Susie
Wake up little Susie, well
Whatta we gonna tell your mama
Whatta we gonna tell your pa
Whatta we gonna tell our friends when they say “ooh-la-la”
Wake up little Susie
Wake up little Susie, well
I told your mama that you’d be in by ten
Well Susie baby looks like we goofed again
Wake up little Susie
Wake up little Susie, we gotta go home
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
The movie wasn’t so hot, it didn’t have much of a plot
We fell asleep, our goose is cooked, our reputation is shot
Wake up little Susie
Wake up little Susie, well
Whatta we gonna tell your mama
Whatta we gonna tell your pa
Whatta we gonna tell our friends when they say “ooh-la-la”
Wake up little Susie
Wake up little Susie
Wake up little Susie
All I Have To Do Is Dream Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Everly Brothers
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
When I want you in my arms
When I want you and all your charms
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
When I feel blue in the night
And I need you to hold me tight
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam
I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine
Anytime night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz
I’m dreamin’ my life away
I need you so that I could die
I love you so and that is why
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam
I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine
Anytime night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz
I’m dreamin’ my life away
I need you so that I could die
I love you so and that is why
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
FADE
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Bye Bye Love Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Everly Brothers
CHORUS:
Bye bye love
Bye bye happiness, hello loneliness
I think I´m-a gonna cry-y
Bye bye love, bye bye sweet caress, hello emptiness
I feel like I could di-ie
Bye bye my love goodby-eye
There goes my baby with-a someone new
She sure looks happy, I sure am blue
She was my baby till he stepped in
Goodbye to romance that might have been
CHORUS
I´m-a through with romance, I´m a-through with love
I´m through with a´countin´ the stars above
And here´s the reason that I´m so free
My lovin´ baby is through with me
CHORUS
Bye bye my love goodby-eye
Bye bye my love goodby-eye
FADE: Bye bye my love goodby-eye
Bye bye my love goodby-eye
Cathy's Clown Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Everly Brothers
CHORUS
Don’t want your lo-o-o-o-ove anymore
Don’t want your ki-i-i-i-isses, that’s for sure
I die each time I hear this sound
“Here he co-o-o-o-omes, that’s Cathy’s clown”
I’ve gotta stand tall, you know a man can’t crawl
But when he knows you tell lies and he hears ‘em passin’ by
He’s not a man at all
CHORUS
When you see me shed a tear and you know that it’s sincere
Dontcha think it’s kinda sad that you’re treatin’ me so bad
Or don’t you even care
CHORUS
FADE
That’s Cathy’s clown
That’s Cathy’s clown
We were working out to Cathy's Clown in exercise class today--probably our instructor's mother's era. I suppose Cathy's Clown is a great-grandfather by now. Do you suppose he ever got over Cathy?
ReplyDeleteNorma- Believe me you may get over your teenage loves some way but there is always some little tinge, great grandfather or not. That is not a revolutionary maxim but something on the order of folk wisdom nevertheless. Markin
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