JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

What’s a person to do? People are driving too fast and scaring the wits out of me; we’ve got an idiot for a governor (I’m talking Missouri, of course); and we’ve got a President whose vocabulary is so limited he doesn’t know “origins” from “oranges.” (I trust he knows apples from oranges.)

What’s a person to do, then, to escape the Covid/political funk?

I know…Let’s play some Oldies!

I’ve got a nice mix of songs for you today. Last time, if you’ll remember, I went with five songs from 1961, headed by “Tossin’ and Turnin’ ” by Bobby Lewis.

Today, I’m dipping back even further, picking three songs that were recorded in 1958 and became big hits. As a bonus, they have interesting back stories.

Here we go then…

:: “To Know Him Is to Love Him” by The Teddy Bears.

I was only 12 when this song was released, and I have a vivid memory of hearing it at a “mixer” at some place like an American Legion hall in when I was about 14 and in the eighth grade. Those adolescent yearnings for mixing with the opposite sex had set in, and this song lit a fuse under those yearnings.

The song was written by Phil Spector and, according to Wiki, inspired by the words on his father’s tombstone (same as the words in the song title with one small exception), “To Know Him Was To Love Him.”

It was first recorded by the only vocal group of which Spector was ever a member and was released in September 1958.  The record spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart.

A lot of groups and solo singers have covered this song, but no other versions are as good as the original. The only other one that approaches the original, in my opinion, is the 1987 rendition by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

Long live The Teddy Bears.

:: “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin was an incredibly talented man whose entire, short life was clouded by the fact that he knew his health was bad, from bouts of rheumatic fever in childhood, and that he would not live very long.

He died, in fact, at age 37. But he packed a lot into those few decades, including four great songs — “Splish Splash,” “Dream Lover,” “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea.”

Darin was much more than a singer. He tried his hand at acting, was an enthusiastic chess player and was married twice, once to actress Sandra Dee.

In 1968, he worked on Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and was present at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night Kennedy was assassinated. That same year, Darin discovered he had been raised by his grandmother, not his mother, and that the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother.

The combination of Kennedy’s assassination and learning about his true parentage sent Darin into a tailspin, and he spent most of the next year living in seclusion in a trailer near Big Sur.

The focal point of the broad canvas of Darin’s life, though, was his music. Not only did he have an outstanding voice and a tremendous sense of phrasing, he threw himself into his songs in such a way that he takes the listener on undulating rides in each of his four big songs.

“Mack the Knife,” the most unique of those songs (and one of the most unique songs in all of music), was composed by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by playwright Bertolt Brecht, for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera.

Darin recorded it at Fulton Studios on West 40th Street in New York on Dec. 19, 1958. It was released in August 1959 and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was named Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards.

Dick Clark had advised Darin not to record the song because of the perception that, having come from an opera, it would not appeal to rock and roll audiences. Later, Clark would jokingly recount the story of his misguided counsel.

Here we go, then, with some of the most inventive lyrics ever composed.

“Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear…”

:: That was so good, it merits a Bobby Darin “twin spin.”

Who can resist “Beyond the Sea,” which was released in October 1959 and reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100?

The song was written in 1945 by Jack Lawrence, with music taken from the song “La Mer” by Charles Trenet.

Trenet had composed “La Mer” with French lyrics. Lawrence added the word “Beyond” to the title, changed a few words and, Voila!, transformed it from a paean to the sea into an achingly captivating love song.

And I say thank God for that bit of inspiration!

(Note the muted trumpets, which comprise the perfect bookends.)

No more sailin’
So long, sailin’
Bye bye, sailin’