Summertime Blues came out in 1959, the year I was born. It is by Eddie Cochran (1938-1960), a lesser known American icon from the early days of Rock n Roll and one of several to die tragically young – in a car crash. The record was one of a small collection of 45 rpm records that we had at home – most inherited from an older cousin but some donated by the man next door who worked with juke boxes (these had no centres so Summertime Blues must have come from cousin Gill). I must have first become aware of the record after buying my first single ever (on my own that is – I'd bought Beatles singles with my mother upstairs in TV shops – this one was from downstairs in Boots). The single was Ride a White Swan by T Rex. The flip-side had 2 tracks – the excellent Is it love and a conga driven (and inferior) version of Cochran's hit (many others have covered it including The Who).
The strength of the original is its powerful acoustic rhythm, staccato delivery, brevity, strong lyric (though not one I could ever identify with despite trying) and the use of the bass voice (something I've always been a sucker for) at the close of each of verse. Cochran (with co-writer Capehart) has taken the best of black music and presented it in an instantly accessible and infectious style. The lyrics seem effortless and simple now but as a youngster I remember struggling to get certain things – like “cos you didn't work a lick” (not an expression I knew then). It took me ages to understand the line “If you wanna use the car to go a ridin' next Sunday”. If you wanna use the car to go a ridin' next Sunday then what? A comma can be very important. “If you wanna, use the car to go a ridin' next Sunday”. That's quite apart from the alien notion of such a young man driving his parents' car!
I've checked out Cochran's other material and this really is the best. It took 45 minutes to write but 50 years on and nearly 40 since I first heard it, what simple pleasure it has given down the years.
The strength of the original is its powerful acoustic rhythm, staccato delivery, brevity, strong lyric (though not one I could ever identify with despite trying) and the use of the bass voice (something I've always been a sucker for) at the close of each of verse. Cochran (with co-writer Capehart) has taken the best of black music and presented it in an instantly accessible and infectious style. The lyrics seem effortless and simple now but as a youngster I remember struggling to get certain things – like “cos you didn't work a lick” (not an expression I knew then). It took me ages to understand the line “If you wanna use the car to go a ridin' next Sunday”. If you wanna use the car to go a ridin' next Sunday then what? A comma can be very important. “If you wanna, use the car to go a ridin' next Sunday”. That's quite apart from the alien notion of such a young man driving his parents' car!
I've checked out Cochran's other material and this really is the best. It took 45 minutes to write but 50 years on and nearly 40 since I first heard it, what simple pleasure it has given down the years.
1 comment:
Have you come across him in The Cochran Brothers?
http://www.myspace.com/thecochranbrothers
Quite a different style in some ways.
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