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And from Frankie Laine's square peg in a round hole to a man definitely comfortable with what he's singing - songs of self flagellation and broken hearts were manna for Johnnie Ray and this tale of 'my gal's gone' misery in the wet is one of the defining songs in his catalogue. So why is something so full of sadness and self pity so popular? Well it helps that Ray manages to sound both heartbroken but also amused at himself for being such a loser simultaneously. To remove all doubt, there's a chirpy whistling motif that punctuates the song with good indication that Ray isn't on his way to buy a packet of razor blades just yet.
And that's just what the song needs, because with lyrics that overload on literal heavy handedness ("Just walking in the rain, getting soaking wet"), any reading with a moribund, furrowed brow could have produced the unintentional comic effect of a tacky Victorian stage melodrama. Ray's 'Gee what the heck' tone adds sigh of relief enough to raise it from suck lowliness into something more enjoyable, though I'd have enjoyed this all the more if Johnnie wasn't followed on his walk by a groaning barbershop quartet chorus, a device that's ruined many a fifties song for me.
I've been reading back over some of the kickings I've dished out to Mr Laine so far this decade and I have to confess that they've left me feeling a trifle vexed. You see I am in fact a big fan of the man and I know he deserves better, but the problem seems to be that the things I like him for - the steely glint of drama from a voice that sweats bullets - is woefully inappropriate for the songs that the general public seem to have taken to. Because while Frankie does brooding menace and cowboy drama where love is never allowed to get in the way of a man's work incredibly well (think 'Cool Water', High Noon', 'Rawhide' etc), big ballads and showtunes sit uneasy on those broad shoulders.
'A Woman In Love' is as good an example as any of the mis-match; Laine goes for gold on this 'Guys And Dolls' number ("Those EYYYEEESSS are the EYYYEEESSS of a WO-MANNNNNNN in LOOOVVVEEEEE"), but he's in competition with a bold and brassy backing that tries it's damndest to outpunch him at his own game. It tries but ultimately 'A Woman In Love' ends up as an awkward and uncomfortable clinch in the middle of the ring, largely because Laine emotes it through gritted teeth with all the sincerity of a disinterested checkout girl bidding you a nice day. For all his lungbusting, you can't help but think that he'd rather be singing something else. Which is precisely what I'd rather be listening to. Sorry Frankie.
Every so often the media will pick up on a jokey story of a letter or postcard being delivered thirty or forty years after it was actually posted, usually with a Royal Mail spokesman taking some perverse pride in the fact it turned up at all. I kind of regard 'Lay Down Your Arms' as part of the same phenomena, a song that slipped through some wormhole in time from pre-Blitz to 1956. Set to a strident military march, 'Lay Down Your Arms' is pure gangshow material, a rousing blast to the troops 'over there'. Or perhaps not all that rousing - Shelton articulates the lyrics with the prissy aggression of a frigid Brown Owl barking out instructions to a troupe of unruly Brownies; 'Lay down your arms and surrender to mine' - the poor sod at the end of that doesn't sound like he has much say in the matter and her domination makes Vera Lynn sound like Shakira. I have no doubt that Shelton and her songs kept the home fires burning through Britain's darkest hour, but shoehorned into 1956 it looks as anachronistic as a new build house with an outside toilet.
Back in the 1980's, Birds Eye ran a TV ad campaign in the UK for their Steakhouse Grills, To whit, a gang of builders on their way home in a van ponder what their wives had waiting for their dinners. "Will it be chips or jacket spuds? Will it be salad or frozen peas? Will it be mushrooms? Fried onion rings? You'll have to wait and see!", though to a man they make it clear they hoped it was the chips. It's an advert I've never forgotten due to its immense irritation factor; instead of running the risk of being served up with something they weren't fussed on, why the @*!$ didn't they just let their wives know they wanted chips before they went to work? To my young mind, leaving something so simple and basic to luck seemed like a ludicrous proposition - what was the matter with these people?
What have chips got to do with Doris Day? Two things really, the first being that the builder's were musing to the tune of 'Que Sera Sera' and their own fatalistic predicament mirrors the lyric of the song; Doris asks her mother if she would grow up to be pretty or rich and her mother responds with an unhelpful "Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see". OK, so growing up to be pretty or rich is an end less easily attainable than telling your wife you fancy chips, but message is the same, a lazy shoulder shrug that life is something that happens to you rather than to be lived. Things work out well enough for Doris in the song, but I've always found the sheer inertia and free will denial of that lyric frustrating to the point of hatred.
Which is perhaps odd because I don't hate 'Que Sera Sera'. And this brings me to the second 'thing' that the song has to do with those builders - the tune. It's undeniable that the melody of the song is instantly recognisable and, along with the pithy philosophy of the title, sticks in the mind like flies on glue. In fact, it's versatility is evident by its ubiquity; I'm guessing that it's so ingrained that a great many people made the link with the lyrics and those builders without a second thought. Much covered across the genres, the basic tune has been adopted as football chants, used to sell life insurance and it's always something that gets wheeled out in films or on TV wherever a happy piece of good fortune needs a soundtrack.
And that itself is kind of ironic given the context in which the song originally appears in Hitchcock's 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (I won't spoil it, watch it yourself), though for her own part Day gives the song the right amount of breeze to make all my criticisms above largely redundant and further defuse any ticking bombs of resentment. But really, the song's the star here and in the final analysis it's perhaps the most telling illustration of its quality is that such a freewheeling nursery rhyme jingle can disguise it's own chin stroking depths with a wink and a smile that lets you know that everything will be alright. As I say, I don't buy into that but for three minutes at least Day manages to make it sound plausible enough.
'Why Do Fools Fall In Love'? Now there's a question, though it's one usually asked whenever you've fallen out of love rather than in. Or I suppose to be more accurate, when you've been kicked out of it unexpectedly. This is not something I had a great deal of experience of when I was thirteen. At that age my biggest loves were AC/DC and my bike; girls and romance were an uncharted territory that just didn't blip on my radar.
Frankie Lymon was thirteen when he recorded this song and, based on its evidence, he knew a thing or two about love. Lymon invests his vocal with a rasp of heartache that manages to convince it was born out of bitter experience far beyond his years.* Wild, untrained, rubbed raw and on the verge of breaking maybe, but never childish, childlike or rooted in teen angst. For the sake of contrast, Michael Jackson was two years younger when he sang 'I Want You Back', but he sounded it too and his cheery shout combined with the Jackson 5's funky stomp created a top drawer pop song buffed to a high sheen, something that 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love'? could never be accused of being.
A 'boyband' they may have been, but 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love'? offers up precious few smooth edge, and as familiar as I am with the song itself actually listening Lymon again for the first time in years catches me out with it's primal raggedness which, on reflection, makes 'Why Do Fools' sound like 'I Want You Back' dragged through the mud and left out in the rain. In 1956, the song stood at a neat intersection where street doo wop, stinging r&b licks and a solid rock and roll backbeat collide, yet what could have been a car crash of disconnected sound instead transforms effortlessly into a rule breaking abrasive chunk of angst driven ever forward by Lymon's wide eyed vocal that pulls off the trick of sounding both heartbroken but also glad of the opportunity and experience - Frankie knows it's better to have loved and lost and he constantly boots the song and the listener up the arse with his yelling so that we don't feel sorry for him. Not here anyway, but there's a great deal of pity to be derived from the fact that he would die a penniless heroin addict at the age of just twenty five. A fact that always takes the edge off the upbeat of this for me, but it remains a glorious milestone in the history of popular music that showed the possibilities of cross genre pollination to excite and innovate.
* I think my closest point of reference would be the just turned seventeen Alex Chilton growling through 'The Letter' with The Box Tops while sounding like he'd just turned into a fifty year old black man.
Usually the first and last word in clean cut, Boone generated his own mini industry in the mid fifties through recording sanitised versions of early r&b/rock & roll songs to re-sell back to a white, middle class audience left unnerved by the primal wildness and (let's be honest) racial origins of the originals. As a case in point, 'I'll Be Home' was originally recorded the previous year by black doo wop band The Flamingos. Exactly what they're coming home from is never made clear; "so long until I'll be home to start serving you" suggests something military but it shouldn't really matter - the sentiment is what's important and The Flamingos present it with an inappropriately jokey, frat boy aura that makes it sound akin to a novelty song.
For one man to take on a four piece harmony is no small task but Boone shows his intent by taking it at a much slower, lower pace that strangles any feelgood at birth. And by taking it in the opposite direction, Boone invests the song with an ill advised seriousness to the point that 'I'll Be Home' starts sounding more like a threat than a promise. And whilst it's true that Boone is an open goal for barbs that riff on a 'white bread soulless' criticism, I don't care much for the song no matter who is on performing duties. Boone's version is no less likeable to my ears than the original; songs with spoken word passages rarely do it for me and the ambiguity of 'I'll Be Home' means it does less than most. A lot less in fact.
Now largely forgotten by modern ears, Ronnie Hilton was quite the star in the fifties though he picked the wrong time to start forging a career as a crooning balladeer. His preferred style was rapidly running out of time and on 'No Other Love' there's a temptation to picture some Tomcat Murr practical joker transposing the lyrics to a different score of music before passing them to Ronnie and then giving the orchestra something different again from the realm of the Avant Garde to play. How else to explain Hilton's wild phrasing and sudden shifts of key and tone while the backing music breaks into rolling crashes of sound for no apparent reason?
For what's meant to be a loving ballad, 'No Other Love' is about as tender and soothing listening to a hailstorm from inside a tin shed; Hilton's voice is solid enough, but it's bland enough too and if there was some japery afoot behind the scenes (which, alas, I very much doubt), then he proves himself a top class straight man by rolling with everything that's thrown at him without missing a beat. And that's my main problem with this - his poker faced delivery is bone dry and it makes 'No Other Love' a turgid affair on every level. "Hurry home, come home to me, set me free, free from doubt and free from longing" - leave it out Ron.
And from Frankie Laine's square peg in a round hole to a man definitely comfortable with what he's singing - songs of self flagellation and broken hearts were manna for Johnnie Ray and this tale of 'my gal's gone' misery in the wet is one of the defining songs in his catalogue. So why is something so full of sadness and self pity so popular? Well it helps that Ray manages to sound both heartbroken but also amused at himself for being such a loser simultaneously. To remove all doubt, there's a chirpy whistling motif that punctuates the song with good indication that Ray isn't on his way to buy a packet of razor blades just yet.
