30th
Helpless: The Platters (1957)
I’ve been slowly, so as not to drown in uncomfortable memories, revisiting a period of the mid-1990s wherein I was completely obsessed with 1950s doo-wop and vocal groups. I was a mixed up young man, wearing cardigan sweaters and sticking gloves on signposts with the words “hold me” written on the palm. I traded in all things sharp and angular, preferring the docile and dare I say, fey. I was an old man at age 19, albeit a self-repressed and sexually frustrated old man. Of my many eccentricities, I absolutely loved The Platters. Once, at a college house party, I straight-faced cited vocalist Tony Williams as the greatest singer that ever lived. No wonder I was so frustrated.
Ah, but I’m all better now. However, I will admit that there are two versions of myself that simultaneously materialize when I listen to this song – the only Platters song in my 2008 iTunes library. Version one - modern me - cringes at the overall trite corniness and drippy sentimentality of The Platters. Listen to this crap; it’s safe, benign, flaccid, soulless, unthreatening, meek, and bland. It deflates any punk sensibility that one might want to associate oneself with. Phooey.
Version two - a wizened version of my younger self - reminds me that Jonathan Richmond traded in his Velvet Underground records for this stuff. Listen to Tony Williams’ sheer lungpower. The vocals are recorded so hot they’re nearly on fire. His false setto foreshadows T-Rex and his vibrato hints at Bryan Ferry. The vaguely sexual, yet desperately insane stuttering is sheer brilliance. Any corniness present in the backing track is cast in juxtaposition to Williams’ unhinged performance. The tame backing vocals and childish sax line only seem to make him crazier. How are “The Magic Touch” or “The Great Pretender” better songs than this? They’re not. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, old man.
I’m not sure where or how I acquired this song. It simply materialized in my iTunes. The first time I heard it, I was amused. Ha, ha, the crusher. But each subsequent listen proves to be more trying, disconcerting even. My brow furrows and I have to stop what I’m doing in order to concentrate. It comes on in Spartan intervals when I least expect it, and always when I’m least prepared for it. Below are some frequent questions and observations that this song invariably provokes.
I’ve been listening to so much old music lately, sucked into a dreamy nostalgia for times that are only worth idealizing because I hadn’t actually lived through them. Admittedly, this is a form of escape, a rebellion against the present. Yes, I’ve been very busy, and not so happy about it. Louis Armstrong lulls me into a dream, or anachronistically, Dreamland – an exhibit at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition here in Buffalo, New York. Or maybe I’m drinking sodas at the drugstore counter, drowning my sorrows in sugar and the mysteriously sad sounds of doo-wop. The past somehow always seems more manageable when I’m stressed out, perhaps because I know how it all shakes out. Or perhaps simply because it is over.
One might consider this a pretty standard, if innocuous, doo-wop tune (ala their major hit, “Earth Angel”) if it weren’t for all the talk of trouble and worry and life ending. This is quite possibly the loneliest song ever written. He worries where his life will end. Not when, but where, implying certain devastation: living under a bridge; institutional commitment; dead for three weeks in studio apartment with rats eating his remains. He is in trouble and he knows it’s not going to get better. Nothing is certain. Everything is out of control and he is spiritually exhausted.
Michael Nesmith, former
Tally the lifetime-minutes I’ve spent listening to pop music. Those minutes, which easily become hours, will quickly turn to days, and then weeks, months, and finally years. Years and years spent listening to pop music.
As a small boy, the Beatles were my favorite band – mostly because they were my father’s favorite band. When I learned how to read, I read books about the Beatles. That’s how I learned about Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Smokey Robinson, and Carl Perkins. A skinny, socially awkward, bookish kid I was. I spent most of my time at the library, reading and checking out old rock and roll records.