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

Today, in these maddening political and social times, I’d like to bring you some “droopy drawers” songs.

I’m not aiming to make you sad with this post, just reflective. The great, sad songs of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s don’t make you break down and cry so much as they calm you, slow you down and soothe the rough edges of the soul.

One reason I’ve always loved the droopy drawers songs is I was always a lousy fast dancer. The Twist was the only popular dance I could do even adequately. Forget the Mashed Potato, the Watusi and the Loco-Motion. But, hell, everybody could slow dance. I particularly remember one steamy summer night dancing with a good-looking redhead at a teen “mixer,” and when I got home I discovered the blue Madras shirt I’d been wearing had bled all over my chest and back.

But enough about my youthful excitability…Bring on the songs!

“Happy, Happy Birthday Baby” — The Time Weavers, 1957

One of the best songs of the Doo-Wop era, it was written by Margo Sylvia and Gilbert Lopez, members of the group that recorded it. It went to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The lead vocals were by Margo Sylvia, who is backed up by her husband John Sylvia, her brother Gilbert Lopez and her cousin Charlotte Davis.

“Blue Velvet” — Bobby Vinton, 1963

Songwriter Bernie Wayne was inspired to begin writing “Blue Velvet” on a 1951 visit to Richmond, VA. At a party at the Jefferson Hotel, where he was staying, a female guest dressed in blue velvet caught and held his eye. He went on to have a fling with her. The song was originally recorded in 1951 by Tony Bennett, but it was Vinton’s version that went to No. 1 on the charts.

Wikipedia says a music publisher who was a friend of Vinton’s spontaneously suggested the song be included in Vinton’s “Blue on Blue” album. The friend sent his secretary to a store to purchase the sheet music, and an hour later Vinton had recorded “Blue Velvet” in two takes.

“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” — Carole King, 1971

The great songwriting/husband-wife team of King and Gerry Goffin wrote this song for The Shirelles, who took it to No. 1 in 1960.

King had a slower, more evocative version of it on her landmark “Tapestry” album in 1971. (Who over 65 doesn’t have a “Tapestry” album somewhere in the house?)

Great story behind the song. This (with edits) from the Financial Times in 2016…

It was released in the same year (1960) as the first oral contraceptive pill, and few songs have captured the bittersweetness of a cultural revolution more perfectly than “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.”

King and Goffin had hastily married in 1958 after King became pregnant aged 17, and Goffin was still working at a chemical company when the Brill Building’s Don Kirshner commissioned the ambitious duo to write something for the up-and-coming New Jersey doo-whoppers. One of the few girl groups to compose their own material, The Shirelles needed a follow-up to their minor 1960 hit “Tonight’s the Night.”

King bashed out the melody in an afternoon (with their infant daughter in a playpen beside the piano), then dashed out…leaving a note for her husband near the tape recorder reading: “Please write.”

“I listened to it a few times,” Goffin told King’s biographer, Sheila Weller, “then I put myself in the place of a woman — yes, it was sort of autobiographical. I thought: what would a girl sing to a guy if they made love that night?” In just a few simple lines, Goffin nailed the insecurities of a new generation of sexually liberated women. He wrote for a voice that was confident and vulnerable in equal measure: “So tell me now and I won’t ask again/ Will you still love me tomorrow?”

Here’s King’s version, followed by — if you can spare another five minutes — a second stripped-bare version by Norah Jones.

“Tracks of My Tears” — Linda Ronstadt, 1975

This song was written by Smokey Robinson and two of his “Miracles,” Pete Moore and Marvin Tarplin. Robinson’s group recorded it in 1965, and it became a Top 10 hit.

I lean toward the Ronstadt version for a couple of reasons. First, I saw her perform live at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, KS, twice in the 1970s and was completely blown away. (My buddy and I were high on marijuana the second time I saw her. We arrived after she had started singing and ended up sitting in the back row because we couldn’t get to our assigned seats…Still kicking myself about that.)

Second, this is the best recording-session video I’ve ever seen. It’s captivating from the lead-in, where three smiling, long-haired engineers are sitting at a sound board not knowing what they’re about to experience…to the end, when the incomparable Ronstadt gives a slight shrug of her shoulders, as if to say, “OK, I guess.”

The three-plus minutes of music between the lead-in and the shrug are unadulterated uplift, even thought the drawers are drooping wa-a-a-y down.