now who do...who do you think you're fooling

In junior high and high school, we listened to Top-40 radio (because we wanted to?  because we didn't know any better?  because where we lived it was all there was that our radios could "get"...?)


"Billy, Don't Be a Hero"
"The Night Chicago Died"
"I Think We're Alone Now" (version by The Rubinoos)


I wanted more -- I wanted something else -- I wanted something and I didn't know what it was.


"Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim seemed schmaltzy and guy-wearing-large-gold-chain-y to me, yet it had a beat one could not dislike, and then in the instrumental part before the last chorus there's a bass (or guitar?) part that "rips it up" and is downright funky.


Whenever that song was on, I waited for that part, listened for it.


This is weird, because I'd been thinking about this  music and other music and how I felt about it, and then I went to type this, and then checked other-info and there's a guy who blogged and mentioned these exact same songs early in his post! 


He speaks of "Billy Don't Be a Hero" and then writes, "Along similar lines, see also Rock Me Gently and The Night Chicago Died, further up the countdown.  Cheese?  Yup.  Awesome gourmet cheese?  Hell and yes."  This was written by jb on a blog called The Hits Just Keep On Comin' -- Our Top 40 Past . . . in the Present.)


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I wanted something -- I was musically somewhat undernourished -- needed r & b, blues, soul, funk -- ROCK AND ROLL -- but until I found it / heard it, I couldn't articulate what I was missing, wanting, hoping for, and not finding --


and when I got to a bigger town with more sophisticated Radio options, I heard some sounds and I was like the Peanuts comic strip meme where a character finally hears the right answer, or sees what he's been looking for and cries out loudly "THAT'S IT!", bowling over the character to whom he is speaking.







Summer before college, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits -- me:
"That's IT!"


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I feel like, looking back, that throughout high school years the music I could hear on radio which came closest to what I really really wanted more of (and louder! and again!) was --


songs by Fleetwood Mac





and


the song "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot


and


"Loves Me Like A Rock" by Paul Simon.








When I was a little boy
And the devil would call my name
I'd say, "Now who do . . .
Who do you think you're fooling?"


I'm a consecrated boy
Singer in a Sunday choir
Oh, my mama loves me, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
Oh, she loves me like a rock
She rock me like the rock of ages
And she loves me
She love me, love me, love me, love me


When I was grown to be a man
And the devil would call my name
I'd say "Now who do . . .
Who do you think you're fooling?"


I'm a consummated man
I can snatch a little purity
My mama loves me, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
Oh, she loves me like a rock
She rock me like the rock of ages
And loves me
She love me, love me, love me, love me


And if I was President
The minute the Congress called my name
I'd say "now who do . . .
Who do you think you're fooling?"


I've got the presidential seal
I'm up on the presidential podium
My mama loves me, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
and she loves me like a rock
She rock me like the rock of ages
And love me
She love me, love me, love me, love me
She love me, love me, love me, love me...


_________________________
written and recorded by Paul Simon
single released July 19, 1973
album:  There Goes Rhymin' Simon
label:  Columbia
________________
"the minute the Congress called my name..."


Aahh.


-30-