One habit Mrs. RWP and I have developed is stopping every Sunday morning on the way to church to have a sausage, egg, and cheese croissant with hash browns (potatoes) and coffee at our local Burger King. Usually there are old songs being piped throughout the establishment (to help us digest our food, I suppose, or to hurry us along to make room for other customers).
A couple of weeks ago I heard "That's The Way (Uh Huh, Uh Huh) I Like It (Uh Huh, Uh Huh)" and was sure it was being performed by either Creedence Clearwater Revival or Hall & Oates. When I looked it up on my widdle smartphone, however, I was completely wrong. It was by KC & The Sunshine Band. That particular stop for breakfast inspired my later post about Creedence Clearwater Revival and their song about them old cotton fields back home.
You take inspiration where you find it.
This week the song that lodged in my brain at Burger King was Paul Simon singing "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard" from 1972.
You know I had to look it up. According to my source (don't look now but it starts with a W), the song is about two boys ("Me and Julio") who have broken a law, although the exact law that has been broken is not stated in the song. When "the mama pajama" finds out what they have done, she goes to the police station to report the crime. The individuals are later arrested, but released when a "radical priest" intervenes. The meaning and references in the song have long provoked debate. In a July 20, 1972 interview for Rolling Stone, Jon Landau asked Simon: "What is it that the mama saw? The whole world wants to know." Simon replied, "I have no idea what it is... Something sexual is what I imagine, but when I say 'something', I never bothered to figure out what it was. Didn't make any difference to me."
In all these years I have never imagined that the song was about "something sexual"; I always thought it was about a transaction involving the sale/purchase of illicit drugs.
Live and learn.
P.S. -- I grew up in the country. If Paul Simon had grown up in my part of the world and knew the kind of people I knew, his song would probably have been "Me and Julio Out In The Cornfield" or "Me and Julio Down By The Stock Tank" or "Me and Julio Up In The Hayloft"...I'm just sayin'.
P.P.S. -- Any thought you may have of me and Julio interacting in any way whatsoever is a complete figment of your overwrought imagination.
P.P.P.S. -- A considerate blogger would probably include here a youtube clip of the song in question, but in the interest of audience participation I am going to let you find it yourself.
P.P.P.P.S. -- In conclusion, I leave you with a completely unrelated trivia factoid of the day. When Dick Van Dyke left the Broadway cast of "Bye, Bye, Birdie" to start his television series, he was replaced by Gene Rayburn who is most remembered today as the host of several incarnations of Match Game on the telly. Mr. Rayburn's understudy in "Bye, Bye, Birdie" was Charles Nelson Reilly, who also spent many years on Match Game.
I always thought Mama was a bit over the top when she said she's put him in the house of detention. So he did something that really made Mama angry.
ReplyDeleteRed, the mama didn't say that, the papa did. Check the lyrics! The mama just spit on the ground at the mention of the singer's name.
DeleteYou stop at Burger King on the way to church?????
ReplyDeleteI had to stop reading right there
1. Isn't it a sin to make purchases on Sundays?
2. How on earth do yu roll out of bed early enough to stop at Burger King? It's all I can do to grab a banana to eat in the car!
kylie, if you stopped reading right there you missed the whole point of the post! As for your questions:
Delete1. Probably. Almost everything is. For example, we travel 12 miles to church and the rabbis teach that a sabbath day's journey is about one mile. Also, we don't even attend church on the sabbath (Friday sundown to Saturday sundown), we go on Sunday morning. I remember how shocked I was in 1975 to learn that not just restaurants but even shopping malls in Atlanta were open on Sundays. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, you know (Romans 3:23), and Paul answered his own question "Shall we sin that grace may abound?" with the strong answer, "God forbid!" -- Addison Leitch, the second husband of Elisabeth Eliot (her first husband Jim Eliot was killed by the Aucas in Ecuador) once wrote, "If sin were blue, I'd be blue all over." I identify greatly with him. Thank God, however, Jesus died to save me from sin (death) and give me eternal life. End of sermon!
2. It's easy to roll out of bed early every day when you have a little dog that needs to be walked and fed. Once up, it's easy to stay up.
I hope you will read the entire post eventually
I read it all but I don't have a lot to say about songs!
DeleteThere are few songs that I dissect. I don't look for meanings or background. If I like them I listen to them. For instance all the songs with hidden drug messages are simply fantasy to me.
ReplyDeleteEmma, you mean like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"? Also, I think "I've Got A Brand New Pair Of Roller Skates, You've Got A Brand New Key" is about something else entirely.
DeleteWiddle smartphones are not available in Great Britain. I guess that "Widdle" is a superior smartphone brand. Over here when someone goes for a "widdle" they are planning to urinate. I must say that I did briefly imagine you and Julio up in a Texan hayloft until I saw the P.P.S.. You made a nice couple.
ReplyDeleteYorkshire Pudding, when I said "widdle" I did not mean I was planning to urinate. I don't think people ever plan to urinate. I was merely doing my best Elmer Fudd imitation. Julio and I were not a couple. I never even knew a Julio. I did know an L.W. but we were not a couple either.
DeleteFor some reason, I'm finding this post and comments annoying, maybe even a bit crass. Hmmph. Oh well, maybe it's just me. Creatures of habit, we are. When we go for a drive to the beach, we ALWAYS stop at the same gas station, same coffee shop, eat at the same restaurant and then stop at the same quick stop for more coffee on the way home. It's comfortable and we like comfortable! We also like music, but I try not to listen too hard to all the words, lol.
ReplyDeleteHilltop (Pam), I will try to take a higher tone henceforth, but I'm not making any promises. Sometimes crassness seems clearer after the fact rather than in the heat of composition.
DeleteWe are COH (creatures of habit) too. The same old same old can get boring, however.
Re music and words, I remember being in a 4-person carpool when "Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Birds, a golden oldie, came on the radio and conversation stopped as we all listened. When it was over I said, "That's from the Bible" and the driver said, "What's from the Bible?"
"That song," I said, "the words are straight out of the third chapter of Ecclesiastes."
"I never listen to the words," he said. "I just like the beat."
If he had been on American Bandstand he probably would have told Dick Clark, "I give it a 95; you can dance to it."