The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Frankie Riley’s Theory- With Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep” In Mind –Take Two

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Frankie Riley’s Theory- With Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep” In Mind –Take Two  

JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"

(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)

The night was black, rain fallin' down

Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around

Traced her footsteps down to the shore

‘fraid she's gone forever more

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

“I took your baby from you away.

I heard a voice cryin' in the deep

“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?

Why did I leave her alone tonight?

That's why her footsteps ran into the sea

That's why my baby has gone from me.

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

“I took your baby from you away.

I heard a voice cryin' in the deep

“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Ran in the water, heart full of fear

There in the breakers I saw her near

Reached for my darlin', held her to me

Stole her away from the angry sea

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

“You took your baby from me away.

My heart cried out “she's mine to keep

I saved my baby from an endless sleep.

[Fade]

Endless sleep, endless sleep

**********

I want the iPhone number and e-mail address of the person who wrote this one, wrote these death-dealing lyrics above. Of course I would not touch a hair on the head of well-side-burned pretty boy Jody Reynolds since I may need to use his song sometime myself so I will reserve my fury for Delores Nance for leading Jody astray on this one. As far as getting her iPhone number and e-mail, well, okay since this song goes back a way I will give some choices just to show I am not a guy hung on being very, very up-to-date with the latest communications technology and don’t realize that not everybody has made their mark on the information superhighway. Hell I won’t be particular and will be old-fashioned enough to just request the landline number and street address of Ms. Nance. She, in any case should be made to run the gauntlet, or put on a lonely desert isle, or, and this would be real justice in this case made to follow Socrates, who also corrupted the morals of the youth of his time. Yeah, the more I think about the matter before us that latter choice seems most fitting.

Why all the hubbub? Why am I insisting on deep Socratic measures for some poor Tin Pan Alley denizen? Well read the heart-breaking teen angst lyrics printed above for your perusal on Endless Sleep. Old Jesse Lee, let’s call him that, although as in most cases with these 1950s teen lyrics, frustratingly, the parties are not named except things like Johnny Angel, teen angel, earth angel, be-bopper, him, her, she, he, they, etc. like giving names to angry anguished teens in the red scare cold war night was akin to aiding and abetting the Russkies or was some grave matter of kinky national security concerns, and his honey have had a spat, of unnamed origin so we never get to figure out who had justice on his or her side. Okay, so maybe it was a bigger one than usual but in the whole wide-world historic meaning of things still just a spat. Laura, high-strung Laura, again name made up although not the angst to give some personality to this sketch since we revealed Lee’s name and nothing much has happened to him as a result. Judging from her reaction thought whatever irked her was a world-historic dispute, and she just flat-out flipped out. Nothing new to that phenomenon as teenagers have been flipping out since they invented teenagers about a century maybe more ago although they have not always called what said teenagers did “flipping out.” And, as teenagers often will do in a moment of overreaction to some slight, Laura had gone down to the seaside to end it all. Throw her young body, whether it was shapely or not we never find out either but figure with a name like Laura she is, well, “hot,” high school hot or Jesse Lee and his big ass ’57 Chevy would have no truck with her to begin with, into the sea. Lee in desperation, once he heard from some inevitably unnamed third party, I say apparently unnamed although maybe it was from some more reliable source like Susie Darling, Laura’s best friend since elementary school, what Laura had done, frantically tried to find her out in the deep, dark, wave-splashed night. All the while the churning “sea” is relentlessly, almost sexually cone hither calling out for him to join her. Jesus what a scene.

And that last part, the part where the sea, or Laura now acting as the ocean’s agent, practically begs for a joint teen suicide pact is where every right thinking person, and not just enraged parents either, should, or should have, put his or her foot down and gone after the lyricist’s scalp, to speak nothing of the singer of such woe begotten lines (although like I say not me, not me just in case that she I am eying right now might have a crush on Jody, or actually like such deathly lyrics). Yeah, I know old Jesse Lee saved his honey from the endless sleep but still we cannot have this stuff filling the ears of impressionable teen-agers. Right?

Of course, from what I heard third-hand from a friend of a friend who claims to have scoped out what really happened, this quarrel that old Lee speaks of, and that Laura went ballistic over, was about whether they were going to go bowling with Lee’s guy friends and their girls down at old Jack Slack’s bowling alleys or whatever the name of the bowling alleys were in there town to roll a few strings Saturday or to the drive-in theater for the latest Elvis movie. (I have used Jack Slack’s bowling establishment here since that is where me and my corner boys hung out, hung out one night discussing the meaning of all of the acts in this very song so Jack Slack’s will do nicely to fill in a name for what ailed our beloved couple.) Jesse Lee, usually a mild-mannered kid despite his corner boy reputation and some things said about his style around town, reared up at that thought of going to another bogus Elvis film featuring him, the king. The king riding around in a big old car, some pink Caddy, dressed in some gaudy Hawaiian shirt and white beach pants attire, singing some lamo syrupy songs that in his Sun Records days when he was young and hungry and talking about one night of sin and jailbreak-out stuff he would have thrown out the studio door, having plenty of dough in his pocket and plenty of luscious young girls ready and waiting to help him spent that dough. Of such disputes the battle of the sexes abound, and occasionally other battles, war battles as well. However, after hearing that take on the dispute, which sounds reasonable to me, I think old Jesse Lee had much the best of it. And, also off of that same take I am not altogether sure I would have been all that frantic to go down to the seaside looking for dear, sweet Laura. Just kidding.

Okay, okay I know what everybody is going to say, or at least think now. What has this guy not at least given Laura her say, her day in court to explain he dramatic behavior. This information was harder to glean because I had to get it from a friend of Laura’s friend Susie Darling. Susie sworn on a stack of seven bibles or something that she would not reveal to anyone Laura’s motivation under penalty of death. Of course in the ethos of the times and age that swearing unto death business just meant telling only one other person, a girl person in this case, come Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” talkfest. So according to this hearsay what Laura was miffed about was that Jesse Lee had not been paying enough attention to her of late, had been almost every night out with his corner boys doing wheelers with his car or whatever guys do when their honeys are not on board. So the drive-in movie idea was to get Jesse Lee to pay more serious attention to her was not about the movie, not about Elvis although Laura, like every other girl in America had her dreams about how she could tame Elvis in a flash if she could just get close to him, but about “doing the do.” See Laura a few weeks before had let Jesse Lee have his way with her but since then-no go. And she wanted to do it. But here is the kicker the place where Laura went into the sea is exactly the place where they had first made love. Jesus.               

But that brings something up, something that I am not kidding about. Now I love the sea more than a little having grown up so near it that I could roll down a hill and take a splash. Love the sea and its tranquility, of the effect that those waves, splashing waves too, have on my temperament. But I also know about the power of the sea, about old Uncle Neptune’s capacity to do some very bad things to anyone, anything, any object that gets in his way. From old double-high storm-tossed seawalls that crumble at the charging sea’s touch to rain-soaked, mast-toppled boats lost down under in the briny deep whose only sin was to stir up the waves. And Laura should have too, should have known on that dark rainy night the power of the sea. So I am really ticked off, yes, ticked off, that Laura should tempt the fates, and Lee’s fate, by pulling a bone-head water's edge stunt like that.

The whole scenario once I thought about it reminded me, although I offer this observation in contrast, of the time that old flame, old hitchhike road searching for the blue-pink great American West night flame Angelica, old Indiana-bred, Mid-American naïve Angelica, who got so excited the first time she saw the Pacific Ocean, out there near Point Magoo in California never having seen the ocean before, leaped right in and was almost carried away by a sudden riptide. It took all I had, all I knew or remembered about how to ride out a riptide to pull her out. To save her from the briny deep. And that Angelica error was out of sheer ignorance. Laura had no excuse. When you look at it that way, and as much as I personally do no care a fig about bowling, would it really have been that bad to go bowl a couple of strings. Such are the ways of teen angst.

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Billy’s, Billy From The Old Neighborhood, View-Jody Reynolds’ Endless Sleep

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Billy’s, Billy From The Old Neighborhood, View-Jody Reynolds’ Endless Sleep

 JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)

The night was black, rain fallin' down

Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around

Traced her footsteps down to the shore

‘fraid she's gone forever more

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

“I took your baby from you away.

I heard a voice cryin' in the deep

“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?

Why did I leave her alone tonight?

That's why her footsteps ran into the sea

That's why my baby has gone from me.

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

“I took your baby from you away.

I heard a voice cryin' in the deep

“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Ran in the water, heart full of fear

There in the breakers I saw her near

Reached for my darlin', held her to me

Stole her away from the angry sea

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

“You took your baby from me away.

My heart cried out “she's mine to keep

I saved my baby from an endless sleep.

[Fade]

Endless sleep, endless sleep

This is another of my tongue-in-cheek commentaries, the back story if you like, in the occasional sketches going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billy, William James Bradley, the mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood down in Adamsville not far outside of Boston. The “projects” for those not in the know, those of you who came of age in the leafy suburbs that we “projects” boys fiercely dreamed about once we saw what they looked like on television (and the girls, “projects” girls too dreamed our dreams too although there wasn’t so much mixing of the two until later, until we, meaning we corner boys figured out that those sticks that used to annoy us as they got some shape seemed a lot more interesting that we had previously recognized)were usually poorly constructed multi-unit complexes (ours were four-unit complexes, with many, many such complexes) originally built to house house-hungry returning World War II G.I.s who needed a place to stay while they were waiting on the golden age of the American dream to hit them.

But enough of that for this sketch is not about growing up poor in the land of plenty but growing up in the golden age of rock and roll that we hungry kids and kids from the leafy suburbs could both relate to. In those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days when he lost his moorings, went off to a hard scrabble life of crime, every kid, including one of his best friends, Markin, Peter Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every song that we would recognize as our own. This song, Endless Sleep, came out at a time when my family had been at the beginning of the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billy orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe. I was then in my 24/7 reading at the local public library branch phase unlike previously being Billy’s accomplice on various, well, let’s call them capers just in case the statute of limitations has not run out. Still Billy, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billy I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

*****

Billy back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over at Snug Harbor Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he told me his family was going to move out of the projects and who has developed this big thing for the local library and books lately, came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of my rock universe-adorned bedroom when we got to talking about this latest record, Endless Sleep, by Jody Reynolds. You can usually depend on Markin to show up when there is some song he is not sure about blasts over the radio, or maybe when he wants to go mano y mano with me on those ill-advised times when he thinks he has an edge on me.

All the parents around here, at least the parents that care anyway, or those who have heard the lyrics screaming from their kid’s electricity plug-in blaring living room radio (that’s why they invented transistor radios-so parents wouldn’t, or couldn’t, catch on to what we are listening to- smarten up is what I say to those kids still listening on the family radio, for Christ’s sake) about the not so subtle suicide pact theme. [See lyrics above.] Yah, like that silly pact to jump in the ocean is what every kid is going to do when the going gets a little tough in the love department. Take a jump in the ocean, and call one and all to join them. Come on, will you. It's only a song. Besides what is really good about this one is that great back beat on the guitar and Jody Reynolds’ cool clothes and sideburns. I wish to high heaven I had both.

But see the pope of rock lyrics, me, can’t just leave this song like that. I have to decode it for the teeny-boppers around here or they will be clueless, including big-time book guy Markin. And that is really what is going to make the difference between us here. We had a battle royal over this one. See, Markin always wants to give big play to the “social” meaning of a song, whatever that is, you know where the thing sticks in society, where it speaks to some teen concern, at least in teeny-bopper society. Or maybe he has read some newspaper article where some highly-paid guy, a professor usually has spotted a trend and wants to warn every parent, cop and rat teacher of the consequences. Jesus. Yeah, and Markin is also the “sensitive” guy, usually. Like, for example, one time when he was pulling for the girl to get her guy back, or at least go back to her old boyfriend who was waiting by the midnight phone after Eddie split for parts unknown for some back-up love, in Eddie My Love. Or Markin had a kind thing to say about the dumb cluck of a bimbo who went back to the railroad track-stuck car to get some cheapjack class ring that the boyfriend probably grabbed from a cracker-jacks box in Teen Angel (although he agreed, agreed fully, that the dame was a dumb cluck on other grounds, on the grounds that she should have dumped a guy long before if his foolish junk-box of a car got stuck on a forlorn railroad track).

Here though I am the sensitive guy, if you can believe that. Here’s why. It seems that Markin has some kind of exception to the “social” rule when it comes to the ocean, to the sea, christ, probably to some scum pond for all I know as the scene for suicide attempts. Apparently he is in the throes of some King Neptune frenzy and took umbrage (his word, not mind, I don’t go to the library much) at the idea that someone would desecrate the sea that way, our homeland the sea the way he put it. Like old Neptune hasn’t brought seventy-three types of hell on us with his hurricane tidal waves, his overflowing the seawalls across the channel from us, his flooding everything within three miles of the coast, or when he just throws his flotsam and jetsam (my words, from school, I like them) on the “projects” beaches whenever he gets fed up. So I have to defend this frail’s action, and gladly.

You know it really is unbelievable once you start to think about it how many of these songs don’t have people in them with names, real names, nicknames, anything to tag on them. Here it’s the same old thing. Markin would just blithely go on and makes up names but I’ll just give you the “skinny” without the Markin literary touches, okay. Rather than calling the girl every name in the book for disturbing the fishes or the plankton like Markin I am trying to see what happened here to drive her to such a rash action. Obviously they, the unnamed boy and girl, had an argument, alright a big argument if that satisfies you. What could it have been about? Markin, wise guy Markin, wants to make it some little thing like a missed date, or the guy didn't call or something. Maybe it was, but I think the poor girl was heartbroken about something bigger. Maybe boyfriend didn’t want to “go steady” or maybe he wasn’t ready to be her ever lovin’ one and only. Or maybe he didn’t was to satisfy her hormonal problem if you can believe that. Some guys are like that although I don’t know any, any that would pass that kind of thing up. Let me put it this way it was big, not Markin’s b.s. stuff.

Okay she went over the edge, no question, running down to the sea and jumping in. On a rainy night to boot. Hey she had it bad, whatever it was. But see old Neptune, Markin’s friend, maybe father for all I know, was taunting said boyfriend, saying he was going to take boyfriend’s baby away. Well, frankly, and old wimpy Markin dismissed this out of hand, those are fighting words in the projects, and not just the projects either, when one guy tries to horn in on another guy’s baby when he is not done with her, maybe even after too. Like I say those are fighting words around here.

And the girl, given the cold and what that does to you when you have been in the ocean too long was forced to taunt her lover boy, trying to bring him down too so no other frail could be with him. Just like a girl. This is the part I like though, although Markin would probably take umbrage (again), the boyfriend was ready to reclaim his honey, come hell or high water. He wasn’t done with her and so old man Neptune took a beating that night. Yah, he’s taking his baby, and taking her no questions asked, back from that nasty relentless sea. A little justice in this wicked old world. Chalk one up for our side. Yes, Billy, William James Bradley, is happy, pleased, delighted and any other words you can find in the library that this story has a happy ending. Markin’s homeland sea mush be damned.

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Jody Reynolds “Endless Sleep”- Billie’s View

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jody Reynolds performing the classic Endless Sleep.

Markin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the mad hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own. This song, Endless Sleep, came out at a time when I my family was beginning to start the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe. I was in my 24/7 reading at the local public library branch phase in lieu of being Billie’s accomplice on various, well, let’s call them capers just in case the statute of limitations has not run out. Still Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)
The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.


Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.


Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.


[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
*****
Billie back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over the Adamsville Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he told me his family was going to move out of the projects and who had developed this big thing for the local library and books lately, came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of my rock universe-adorned bedroom when we got to talking about this latest record, Endless Sleep, by Jody Reynolds. All the parents around here, at least the parents that care anyway, or those who have heard the lyrics screaming from their kid’s plug-in blaring radio (that’s why they invented transistor radios-so parents wouldn’t, or couldn’t, catch on to what we are listening to- smarten up is what I say to those kids still on plug-in mode, for christ’s sake) about the not so subtle suicide theme. Yah, like that is what every kid is going to do when the going gets a little tough in the love department. Take a jump in the ocean, and call one and all to join them. Come on, will ya. It's only a song. Besides what is really good about this one is that great back beat on the guitar and Jody Reynolds' cool clothes and sideburns. I wish to high heaven I had both.

But see the pope of rock lyrics, me, can’t just leave this song like that. I have to decode it for the teeny-boppers around here or they will be clueless, including big time book guy Markin. And that is really what is going to make the difference between us here. We had a battle royal over this one. See, Markin always wants to give big play to the “social” meaning of the song, whatever that is, you know where the thing sticks in society, at least teeny-bopper society. Yah, and Markin is also the “sensitive” guy, usually. Like pulling for the girl to get her guy back, or at least go back to her old boyfriend for some back-up love, in Eddie My Love. Or has a kind thing to say about the dumb cluck of a bimbo who went back to the railroad track-stuck car to get some cheapjack class ring in Teen Angel (although he agreed, agreed fully, that the dame was a dumb cluck on other grounds).

Here though I am the sensitive guy, if you can believe that. Here’s why. It seems that Markin has some kind of exception to the “social” rule when it comes to the ocean, to the sea, christ, probably to some scum pond for all I know as the scene for suicide attempts. Apparently he is in the throes of some King Neptune frenzy and took umbrage (his word, not mind I don’t go to the library much) at the idea that someone would desecrate the sea that way, our homeland the sea was the way he put it. Like old Neptune hasn’t brought seventy-three types of hell on us with his hurricane tidal waves, his overflowing the seawalls, his flooding everything within three miles of the coast, or when he just throws his flotsam and jetsam (my words, from school, I like them) on the projects beaches whenever he gets fed up. So I have to defend this frail’s action, and gladly.

You know it really is unbelievable once you start to think about it how many of these songs don’t have people in them with names, real names, nicknames, anything to tag on them. Here it’s the same old thing. Markin would just blithely go on and makes up names but I’ll just give you the “skinny” without the Markin literary touches, okay. Rather than calling the girl every name in the book for disturbing the fishes or the plankton like Markin I am trying to see what happened here to drive her to such a rash action. Obviously they, the unnamed boy and girl, had an argument, alright a big argument if that satisfies you. What could it have been about? Markin, wise guy Markin, wants to make it some little thing like a missed date, or the guy didn't call or something. Maybe it was, but I think the poor girl was heartbroken about something bigger. Maybe boyfriend didn’t want to “go steady” or maybe he wasn’t ready to be her ever lovin’ one and only. Let me put it this way it was big, not Markin’s b.s. stuff.

Okay she went over the edge, no question, running down to the sea and jumping in. On a rainy night to boot. Hey she had it bad, whatever it was. But see old Neptune, Markin’s friend, maybe father for all I know, is taunting said boyfriend, saying he is taking his baby away. Well, frankly, and old wimpy Markin dismissed this out of hand, those are fighting words in the projects, and not just the projects either. And the girl, given the cold and what that does to you when you have been in too long is forced to taunt her lover boy, trying to bring him down too. This is the part I like though, although Markin would probably take umbrage (again), the boyfriend is ready to reclaim his honey, come hell or high water. Yah, he’s taking his baby back, and taking her no questions asked, from that nasty relentless sea. Chalk one up for our side. Yes, Billie, William James Bradley, is happy, pleased, delighted and any other words you can find in the library that this story has a happy ending. Markin be damned.

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night-Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jody Reynolds performing the classic Endless Sleep.

This blog is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working under sweating suns or noisy dust-filled factory floors, hard drinking Saturday into Sunday morning just before church blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off, the generation of ’68 from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly this retro look has been by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archaeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
*********
JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)

The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.


Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.


Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.


[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
**********
I want the iPhone number and e-mail address of the person who wrote this one. Whoever that person is (or they are, as the case may be) should be made to run the gauntlet, or put on a lonely desert isle, or, and this would be real justice in this case, made to follow Socrates, who also corrupted the morals of the youth of his time. Why all the hubbub? Well, read the heart-breaking teen angst lyrics above on Endless Sleep.

Old Linc Davis (let’s call him that, although as in most cases with these 1950s teen lyrics, frustratingly, the parties are not named except things like teen angel, earth angel, johnnie angel, handy man, etc.) and his honey, Laura Pratt (again name made up to give some personality to this sketch, although it could have been Joanne, Dee-Dee, Claudette, Baby Blue, Donna, or a thousand other now quaint names) had a spat, a big one from Laura’s reaction, and then she flipped out and, as teenagers often will in a moment of overreaction to some slight, and had gone down to the seaside to end it all. Linc in desperation, once he heard what she had done, frantically tried to find her out in the deep, dark, wave-splashed night. All the while the “sea” was calling out for him to join her. (Linc, by the way, heard about Laura’s stunt from some unnamed third party according to reliable sources, some corner boy guy who it turned out later tried to take one Laura Pratt away from one Linc Davis by showing up at her door one night in his ’56 cherry Chevy revved up and she went for a ride with him. That is a story for another time though.)

And that last part, the sea-calling part that practically begs for a joint teen suicide pact is where every right thinking person, and not just enraged parents either, should, or should have put his or her foot down and gone after the lyricist’s scalp, to speak nothing of the singer of such woe begotten lines. Yah, I know old Linc saved his honey from the endless sleep but still we cannot have this stuff filling the ears of impressionable teen-agers even now. Right?

Of course, from what I heard third-hand, this quarrel that old Linc spoke of, and that Laura went ballistic over, was about whether they were going to go bowling with Linc’s guy friends (including that unnamed third party “thief” I mentioned earlier) and their girls down the old Bowl-a-drome on Saturday night or to the drive-in theater for the latest Elvis movie.

Linc, usually a mild-mannered kid, reared up at that thought of going to another bogus Elvis film featuring him, the king, riding around in a big old car, having plenty of dough in his pocket and plenty of luscious young girls ready and waiting to help him spent that dough. Of such disputes however the battle of the sexes abound, and occasionally other battles, war battles as well. However, after hearing that take on the dispute I think old Linc had much the best of it. After all after Jailhouse Rock once you have seen one totally forgettable Elvis film you have seen them all. Around our town, Elvis movies at the drive-in theater on Saturday night were strictly background for “making out” (you can figure out what that is on your own). Also off of that same take on the dispute I am not altogether sure I would have been all that frantic to go down to the seaside looking for dear, sweet Laura. Just kidding.

But that brings something up, something that I am not kidding about. Now I love the sea more than a little. But I also know about the power of the sea, about old Uncle Neptune’s capacity to do some very bad things to anyone or anything that gets in his way. From old double-high storm-tossed seawalls that crumble at the charging sea’s touch to rain-soaked, mast-toppled boats lost down under in the briny deep whose only sin was to stir up the waves. And Laura should have known that too if she lived in beach town, or nearby. So I am really ticked off, yes, ticked off, that Laura should have tempted the fates, and Linc’s fate, by pulling a bone-head water's edge stunt like that.

It reminds me, although in sharp contrast to silly Laura’s conduct, of the time that old flame, old hitchhike road searching for the blue-pink great American West night flame Angelica, old Indiana-bred, Mid-American naïve Angelica, who got so excited the first time she saw the Pacific Ocean, never having seen an ocean before, leaped right in and was almost carried away by a sudden riptide. It took all I had to pull her out. That Angelica error however was out of sheer ignorance. Laura had no excuse. When you look at it that way, and as much as I personally do no care a fig about bowling, would it really have been that bad to go bowl a couple of strings. Such are the ways of teen angst.

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jody Reynolds performing the classic Endless Sleep.

Markin comment:This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
*********
JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)
The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.


Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.


Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.


[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
**********
I want the iPhone number and e-mail address of the person who wrote this one. Whoever that person is (or they are, as the case may be) should be made to run the gauntlet, or put on a lonely desert isle, or, and this would be real justice in this case made to follow Socrates, who also corrupted the morals of the youth of his time. Why all the hubbub? Well, read the heart-breaking teen angst lyrics here on Endless Sleep. Old Lee (let’s call him that, although as in most cases with these 1950s teen lyrics, frustratingly, the parties are not named except things like teen angel, earth angel, etc.) and his honey, Laura (again name made up to give some personality to this sketch) had a spat, a big one from Laura’s reaction, and now she has flipped out and, as teenagers often will in a moment of overreaction to some slight, gone down to the seaside to end it all. Lee in desperation, once he hears from some unnamed third party apparently what she has done, frantically tries to find her out in the deep, dark, wave-splashed night. All the while the “sea” is calling out for him to join her.

And that last part, the part that practically begs for a joint teen suicide pact is where every right thinking person, and not just enraged parents either, should, or should have put his or her foot down and gone after the lyricist’s scalp, to speak nothing of the singer of such woe begotten lines. Ya, I know old Lee saved his honey from the endless sleep but still we cannot have this stuff filling the ears of impressionable teen-agers. Right?

Of course, from what I heard third-hand, this quarrel that old Lee speaks of , and that Laura went ballistic over, was about whether they were going to go bowling with Lee’s guy friends and their girls down the old Bowl-a-drome on Saturday or to the drive-in theater for the latest Elvis movie. Lee, usually a mild-mannered kid, reared up at that thought of going to another bogus Elvis film featuring him, the king, riding around in a big old car, having plenty of dough in his pocket and plenty of luscious young girls ready and waiting to help him spent that dough. Of such disputes the battle of the sexes abound, and occasionally other battles, war battles as well. However, after hearing that take on the dispute I think old Lee had much the best of it. And, also off of that same take I am not altogether sure I would have been all that frantic to go down to the seaside looking for dear, sweet Laura. Just kidding.

But that brings something up, something that I am not kidding about. Now I love the sea more than a little. But I also know about the power of the sea, about old Uncle Neptune’s capacity to do some very bad things to anything that gets in his way. From old double-high storm-tossed seawalls that crumble at the charging sea’s touch to rain-soaked, mast-toppled boats lost down under in the briny deep whose only sin was to stir up the waves. And Laura should have too. So I am really ticked off, yes, ticked off, that Laura should tempt the fates, and Lee’s fate, by pulling a bone-head water's edge stunt like that.

It reminds me , although in contrast, of the time that old flame, old hitchhike road searching for the blue-pink great American West night flame Angelica, old Indiana-bred, Mid-American naïve Angelica, who got so excited the first time she saw the Pacific Ocean, never having seen the ocean before, leaped right in and was almost carried away by a sudden riptide. It took all I had to pull her out. And that Angelica error was out of sheer ignorance. Laura had no excuse. When you look at it that way, and as much as I personally do no care a fig about bowling, would it really have been that bad to go bowl a couple of strings. Such are the ways of teen angst.