***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s High School Dance Night

 

 

 

A YouTube film clip of The Drifters performing their classic Save The Last Dance For Me. Please, pretty please.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

A while back, maybe a couple of years ago now, yes, it was just about two years ago, I spend tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” reviewing many aspects of 1950s American teenage culture that in my time I was waist deep in like every other breathing post-war, red scare, cold war, atomic bomb dread kid.  (And maybe those glad tidings spread to Europe too. Think about the Beatles and Rolling Stones and what they were listening to out in the English night, especially that Chess Record-driven Chicago blues with Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee and the gang.)  Blame it on Elvis, blame it on American Bandstand, blame it on that atomic bomb worry, hell, blame it on Bo Didderly for asking that rhetorical question- “Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll?”- but certain social aspects of the be-bop teen night needed to be observed. Central to that teen culture, to the throbs of that first wave of post –war (World War II for the forgetful) was the inevitable school dance that, which if for no other reason than to maintain one’s social standing, school social standing, it was necessary to attend.
 

With that school dance came its’ also inevitable last dance drama, trauma as a kind of rite of passage into sainted teen-hood. John and Mick had to ask too, remember. A last dance, by the way, that I have been at great pains to describe elsewhere as the last chance for glory for shy boys like me (or girls, for that matter, but they can speak for themselves if they have overcome their shyness). That seminal event also ritualistically involved setting off the wallflowers from the “in” crowd in the school social pecking order. And from there by some mysterious process that pecking order was set in stone through three or four long serf-like years of high school. Or, perhaps, for you and your crowd, your guy crowd, your corner boys if you were a corner boy like me and imbibed all the macho manly clichés of that existence, acted as a test to prove that you had that something, some moxie to ask that certain she for the last one.

Of course, the critical question, the world historic question, was whether the last dance was to be a slow one that meant that you had to dance close and pray to high heaven that you did not ruin your partner’s feet or shoes in the process. That those secret lessons to Benny Flynn’s just out of high school sister , paid out of some misbegotten allowance  or the sweat of one’s brow from doing arduous household chores, were good enough, were embedded deep enough, to make it through the two minutes and fifty-eight seconds of say  the slow classic Til.    

That concern however was only the beginning of the evening’s preparations check-list. Don’t forget the hair cream that had to keep your cowlick in place (Wildroot, “a little dab will do ya,” of course- you taken in by the wistfulness of the television ad to give it a try since nothing else had worked not that strong bay rum of your father’s, not that nameless grease you tried last time on Slick Jones’ say so). That using your Gillette steel-edged razor that you never really got the hang of despite older brother instruction hadn't caused terminal blood lost but only a tissue sop wound hopefully blended into the darkened dance floor night or explained as some heroic wound. That the deodorant that was supposed to get you through the night (hell it said all- day protection but that was for mere normal mortals not for hyper-hormonal teens) did not wear off although you seemed to be sweating, excuse me, perspiring through your tee-shirt. And, finally, that that surefire kiss mouthwash, Listerine, that tasted, well, tasted like mouthwash and seemingly paralyzed your mouth as you gargled held up as well.

Maybe, though that last one, depending on the dee-jay’s mood or whether he and his girlfriend had had a fight, would be, with hosanna relief, a fast one, that you could kind of fake that you knew how to dance to, but was not as bound up with the ending of your rising social status like those slow ones. A little shake here, a pivot there, hands in the air, just keep moving like Benny’s sister showed you after she, exasperated, had practically given up in horror on your two-left-foot-ness.  And best of all no worry about hold-your nose mouthwash, hair cream, shaving cream or Right Guard.

Ah memory, Chuck Berry’s Back In The U.S.A. (fast and great doo-woppy back singing parts so you could sing along while you are not paying attention to your partner just in case things didn't work out); Tommy Edwards’ It’s All In The Game (slow, swoony, ouch, I am thinking about that razor-induced neck wound); the legendary late Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love? (fast and sassy, sassy 'cause girls who liked Bo, well, they "did' it, didn't they, and you know what "did it" means, with all that Afro-Carib beat); and, the Flamingos I’ll Be Home (slow, and only if that certain she turned you down and you had to dance with your sister's best girlfriend, or something like that).

Ah memory too so you can get “nostalgic” for what did, or did not, transpire in the old days. That certain she that turned you down crushing all earthly hopes for happiness for eternity (or until the next sassy brunette came along your path). That song that became “your song,” you and her. That night after the last dance down at Breaker Beach. The possibilities were endless. Or forgetting nostalgia for a minute if you are now memory telling tall-tales to the younger set for them to giggle over, giggle over what their parents or grandparents got all heated up about and who are thanking somebody, thanking them ot high heaven even that they came along in the days of hip-hop nation and avoided all that. Whee!