Yesterday I started thinking about song titles with girls' names in them, and I decided to jot them down. Before you could say "Jack Robinson" (not a girl's name), I had the following list of 50 songs. If you can't find something hummable in there, it's not my fault. And if one of the tunes gets stuck in your head, it's not my fault either. Well, yes, I suppose it is, now that you mention it. I'm sorry I didn't put the list in alphabetic order, but you can do that yourself to help pass the time during your long hours of self-quarantine.
1. Annie Laurie
2. Aura Lee
3. I Dream Of Jeannie (With The Light Brown Hair)
4. I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
5. K-K-K-Katy
6. Mary's A Grand Old Name
7. Annie Had A Baby, Can't Work No More
8. Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie
9. I Was Seeing Nellie Home
10. Lily Marlene
11. If You Knew Susie Like I Know Susie
12. Ida (Sweeter Than Apple Cider)
13. Laura
14. Margie, I’m Always Thinking Of You, Margie
15. All Day, All Night, Mary Ann
16. Good Night, Irene
17. Bar-Bar-Bar, Bar-Barbara Ann
18. My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean
19. Long Tall Sally
20. Once In Love With Amy
21. When Joanna Loved Me
22. Lulu’s Back In Town
23. Every Little Breeze Seems To Whisper Louise
24. Mandy
25. Roberta
26. Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town
27. Billie Jean
28. Daisy, Daisy (A Bicycle Built For Two)
29. Fanny
30. Tangerine
31. Sweet Betsy From Pike
32. Lucille
33. My Darling Clementine
34. Thoroughly Modern Millie
35. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
36. In My Sweet Little Alice-Blue Gown
37. Oh, Susanna!
38. Jolene
39. Waltzing Matilda
40. Sweet Adeline
41. Charmaine
42. Sweet Lorraine
43. Hello, Dolly
44. Sweet Georgia Brown
45. Frankie and Johnny
46. Michelle (Ma Belle)
47. Mona Lisa
48. Maybelline
49. Maria, I Just Met A Girl Named Maria
50. How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
Oh, yes, and how could we possibly forget "Helen Had A Steamboat"? I'm sure there are others, but my brain is tired.
Of the peppier songs in that list, the one I like best is "Tangerine" by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra from 1942 with Bob Eberle and Helen O'Connell on the vocals (3:16).
For slow songs, my favorite has to be "When Joanna Loved Me" by Tony Bennett (3:08).
If those don't suit your fancy, get your own earworm.
In the comments, tell me some other song titles with girls' names because I'm sure there must be many others. But do not say "Nothing Could Be Finer Than To Be In Carolina In The Morning" because the Carolina in question is not a girl but a U.S. state named for King Charles I of England. And do not say "Georgia On My Mind" because that Georgia is not a girl either, but a U.S. state named for King George II. And the June in "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" is a month of the year.
Showing posts with label Helen O'Connell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Helen O'Connell. Show all posts
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
As long as we’re remembering...
let’s go back to a happier time.
World War II.
Here’s “Tangerine” performed by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Bob Eberle, and Helen O'Connell (3:15)
Here’s “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” performed by The Andrews Sisters (2:22)
Here’s “Moonlight Serenade” performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra (3:25)
Here’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000” performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra (3:13)
Here’s “I'll Never Smile Again” performed by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, and the Pied Pipers (3:11).
Did you know that World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history? Over 60 million people were killed. I could give you a country-by-country breakdown, but I won't.
During those terrible years, while the dead were dying, the living were doing what they do best:
Living.
Life is full of both heartbreak and ecstasy. It can be terrifying, and it can be wonderful. There are times of laughter, and there are times of tears. We try to put the terror and the tears out of our minds and remember the happy times.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that often times things did not happen the way we remember them.
But my mother used to counter all looks of incredulity with “Vas you dere, Charley?”
World War II.
Here’s “Tangerine” performed by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Bob Eberle, and Helen O'Connell (3:15)
Here’s “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” performed by The Andrews Sisters (2:22)
Here’s “Moonlight Serenade” performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra (3:25)
Here’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000” performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra (3:13)
Here’s “I'll Never Smile Again” performed by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, and the Pied Pipers (3:11).
Did you know that World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history? Over 60 million people were killed. I could give you a country-by-country breakdown, but I won't.
During those terrible years, while the dead were dying, the living were doing what they do best:
Living.
Life is full of both heartbreak and ecstasy. It can be terrifying, and it can be wonderful. There are times of laughter, and there are times of tears. We try to put the terror and the tears out of our minds and remember the happy times.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that often times things did not happen the way we remember them.
But my mother used to counter all looks of incredulity with “Vas you dere, Charley?”
Friday, September 9, 2011
Well, that was certainly anticlimactic
...but it gave me three posts, four if you count this one.
If you were expecting something else, something more anteclimactic (if that isn’t a word, it should be), I’m sorry if you experienced a letdown. No pun intended.
If I were sorry every time someone was disappointed in something I did, I would be sorry most of the time.
I started to say I’m much better at the arts than at the sciences, but better is not the right word. Let’s just say I’m much more interested in the arts than in the sciences, and it was only fair to give the other side of my brain equal time.
Mission accomplished.
This week I read The Road, a 2006 novel by Cormac McCarthy that was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Wikipedia calls it “a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed much of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on earth.” I read it in a single day, and it was interesting in a depressing, I-hope-this-never-comes-to-pass kind of way. It wasn’t clear what the cataclysm was, but a lot of ash was involved, possibly radioactive ash from worldwide nuclear war or violently-spewed-into-the-sky ash from worldwide volcanic eruptions or just the general chaos fomented upon the rest of us by the more riot-prone sections of the general public (the jack-ashes).
Last week I read The Help, a 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. According to Wikipedia, “[t]he novel is told from the point of view of three narrators: Aibileen Clark, a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children, and who has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson, an African-American maid whose back-talk towards her employers results in her having to frequently change jobs, exacerbating her desperate need for work as well as her family’s struggle with money; and Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young white woman and recent college graduate who, after moving back home, discovers that a maid that helped raise her since childhood has abruptly disappeared and her attempts to find her have been unsuccessful.” It took me two days to read The Help, almost as long as it took to read that sentence from Wikipedia. I consider Wikipedia’s use of the word “exacerbating” to be elitist.
There could not be two more different novels than The Road and The Help. The only similarity, to my way of thinking, is that both books have two-word titles. What if it were against the law to read anything but books with two-word titles? I’ll tell you what. You could read The Robe but not The Gospel According to Peanuts. You could read Quo Vadis but not One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. You could read Mein Kampf but not And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. You could read Little Women but not Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. You could read...well, you get the picture.
Perhaps I am beginning another of my sporadic reading cycles. Only time will tell. I have been known to go years and years without reading anything at all and then try to catch up all at once in a sudden reading frenzy.
I’m funny that way.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Helen O'Connell from the 1940s and and she’ll tell you the same thing (2:38).
If you were expecting something else, something more anteclimactic (if that isn’t a word, it should be), I’m sorry if you experienced a letdown. No pun intended.
If I were sorry every time someone was disappointed in something I did, I would be sorry most of the time.
I started to say I’m much better at the arts than at the sciences, but better is not the right word. Let’s just say I’m much more interested in the arts than in the sciences, and it was only fair to give the other side of my brain equal time.
Mission accomplished.
This week I read The Road, a 2006 novel by Cormac McCarthy that was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Wikipedia calls it “a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed much of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on earth.” I read it in a single day, and it was interesting in a depressing, I-hope-this-never-comes-to-pass kind of way. It wasn’t clear what the cataclysm was, but a lot of ash was involved, possibly radioactive ash from worldwide nuclear war or violently-spewed-into-the-sky ash from worldwide volcanic eruptions or just the general chaos fomented upon the rest of us by the more riot-prone sections of the general public (the jack-ashes).
Last week I read The Help, a 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. According to Wikipedia, “[t]he novel is told from the point of view of three narrators: Aibileen Clark, a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children, and who has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson, an African-American maid whose back-talk towards her employers results in her having to frequently change jobs, exacerbating her desperate need for work as well as her family’s struggle with money; and Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young white woman and recent college graduate who, after moving back home, discovers that a maid that helped raise her since childhood has abruptly disappeared and her attempts to find her have been unsuccessful.” It took me two days to read The Help, almost as long as it took to read that sentence from Wikipedia. I consider Wikipedia’s use of the word “exacerbating” to be elitist.
There could not be two more different novels than The Road and The Help. The only similarity, to my way of thinking, is that both books have two-word titles. What if it were against the law to read anything but books with two-word titles? I’ll tell you what. You could read The Robe but not The Gospel According to Peanuts. You could read Quo Vadis but not One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. You could read Mein Kampf but not And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. You could read Little Women but not Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. You could read...well, you get the picture.
Perhaps I am beginning another of my sporadic reading cycles. Only time will tell. I have been known to go years and years without reading anything at all and then try to catch up all at once in a sudden reading frenzy.
I’m funny that way.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Helen O'Connell from the 1940s and and she’ll tell you the same thing (2:38).
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