Musical Musings are not EZ

Moyes' Monday Musical Musings

I started this post on Monday, November 11, 2024. I am just now, evening November 15, getting around to posting it. 

Del Shannon’s debut single, ‘Runaway,’ written by Shannon and keyboardist Max Crook, released on my mother’s 52nd birthday, February 18, 1961, was a major international hit topping the Billboard charts for four consecutive weeks ending the year as the number five song for 1961. It was also one of my favorite songs through my early teen years. The song has been covered by The Lawrence Welk Orchestra, Elvis Presley, Bonnie Raitt, the Traveling Wilburys, and many others. Del Shannon re-recorded ‘Runaway’ in 1967, 1986, and 1987 (recorded live on the David Letterman Show with Paul Shaffer and the World’s Most Dangerous Band. It was used in American Graffiti in 1973 and in Good Will Hunting and Eddie and the Cruisers. Shannon’s 1987 remake was used as the opening theme for the Crime Story television series, and in Dexter: New Blood on Showtime. Tom Petty mentions the song in Runnin’ Down a Dream, as does the group Barenaked Ladies in When You Dream. Genesis sampled a bar in their song In the Cage.  

Runaway. Photo by Kate Darmody on Unsplash

While listening to ‘Runaway’ tonight, I was struck by the similarity in the message with that in the lyrics of another very popular song from the 1960s that I continue to enjoy very much: ‘Sukiyaki’ (U.S. title) or ‘Ue o Muite Arukō,’ by Kyu Sakamoto. While the musical styles are very different, there is a similarity in the feeling they present the listeners, along with the message of the lyrics, although I find ‘Sukiyaki’ to be more authentically melancholy.

Compare the lyrics, below, or even better, listen to them on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ttpzuzkD6NQ?si=Fb5VwUViiUkTBWFW and 

https://youtu.be/C35DrtPlUbc?si=xi1x5s2yWPC0eTgZ .  

‘Ue o Muite Arukō’ is sung in Japanese on this YouTube version, but the English lyrics are displayed to read.

Like ‘Runaway,’ ‘Sukiyaki’ was released in its home country in 1961. For ‘Ue o Muite Arukō,’ that country was Japan. It didn’t hit the U.S. market re-titled ‘Sukiyaki’ until 1963. It quickly became an international chart-topper, spending three weeks in the number one spot on the American Billboard Charts in June of 1963, and eventually one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over 13 million copies. NASA used an instrumental version as mood music for the astronauts aboard the Gemini VII spacecraft, making the song the first known piece of human music played in space. It has been the subject of a Google Doodle. Credit for ‘Sukiyaki’ goes to composer Hachidai Nakamura and lyricist Rokusuke Ei. The song has been remade or covered by numerous artists, with the January 1981 single release by U.S. group A Taste of Honey reaching number one on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lyrics, Runaway (https://genius.com/Del-shannon-runaway-lyrics)

 [Verse]

As I walk along I wonder

A-what went wrong with our love

A love that was so strong

And as I still walk on

I think of the things we've done together

A-while our hearts were young

 [Chorus]

I'm a-walkin' in the rain

Tears are fallin' and I feel the pain

A-wishin' you were here by me

To end this misery and I wonder

I wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder, why

Why, why, why, why, why she ran away

And I wonder a-where she will stay-ay

My little runaway, a-run, run, run, run, runaway 

Lyrics, Sukiyaki (https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kyusakamoto/sukiyakiuewomuitearukou.html) Note: This translation of the lyrics is slightly different than those displayed on YouTube.

 [English translation:]

I look up while I walk

So the tears won't fall

Remembering those spring days

But tonight I'm all alone

I look up while I walk

Counting the stars with teary eyes

Remembering those summer days

But tonight I'm all alone

Happiness lies beyond the clouds

Happiness lies above the sky

I look up while I walk

So the tears won't fall

I cry while I walk

For I am alone tonight

Remembering those autumn days

But tonight, I'm all alone

Sadness hides in the shadow of the stars

Sadness hides in the shadow of the moon

I look up while I walk

So the tears won't fall

My heart is filled with sorrow

For tonight I am alone

For tonight I am alone

Shannon’s ‘Runaway’ is also renowned in the music industry for the first use of the very distinctive sound of the electronic instrument called the Musitron, an instrument created and played by co-author Crook. The very unusual piercing and crescendoing sound of the Musitron is very obvious in the song’s bridge between verse and chorus.

A Walk on a Rainy Night. Photo by Khamkéo on Unsplash

‘Sukiyaki’ is renowned for being the first Japanese song to do well with American audiences since before World War II. In 1963 we were less than 20 years from the end of that horrendous struggle which cost many lives and much wealth. Americans were still sensitive. ‘Sukiyaki’ came to our shores at the same time that Japanese electronics and automobiles were being newly introduced. The cars and the electronics became well accepted within a relatively short time, primarily due to the value they offered. ‘Sukiyaki’ remained the only Japanese hit to have reached the American Billboard list for several decades. I find this fact ironic, as Rokusuke Ei did not write the lyrics as a lost love song, as it seems. Rather, it was to express his sadness over U.S. domination of Japan in the early 1960s. He actually first put the lyrics to voice while walking home (in the rain) from a student demonstration against the American presence in Japan.

References from which I have heavily borrowed for these musings:

Medium. (2019). Medium. http://medium.com, “Del Shannon’s ‘Runaway’ and the Mystifying Sound of the Musitron, Excerpt from ‘200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs’’, Edgar Street Books as published in The Riff.

 Kyu Sakamoto - Sukiyaki (Ue Wo Muite Arukou; 上を向いて歩こう) Lyrics | AZLyrics.com. (n.d.).

Www.azlyrics.com. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kyusakamoto/sukiyakiuewomuitearukou.html

Del Shannon – Runaway. (2022). Genius. https://genius.com/Del-shannon-runaway-lyrics

Wikipedia. (2014). Wikipedia.com. http://wikipedia.com

 

Even Happiness is not Easy

 

Some years back, a charter member of the my writers group, Gregory Kaspar, wrote of his mother, Josephine Bsales Kaspar, and we published one of her works in our 2020 Encore Writers Group Anthology, There be Writers Here, which can be found as ISBN 9798699228393 and is available for purchase on Amazon.

I may have shared that my mother also did some writing. Since I’ve not lately been able to find my voice to write, I thought I should at least share some of her work with this august body.

My mother, Laura Florence Rasmussen, born into this life in a log cabin during the cold, bleak days of February 1909, grew up on a small family farm along the banks of the Snake River near Burley, Idaho. She graduated from high school in 1927, one of the first in her bloodline to have done so. I remember her telling me in my youth a little of her memories of high school days and especially fondly recalling her senior year drama class production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a production in which she had a speaking part. Considering what I have learned over the years about this fantastical work of stagecraft, I wonder how it was presented and how well it was received in 1927 by the parents of the students in this mostly Mormon community. Well, things were thoroughly modern by then, if you believe the lyrics as sung by Julie Andrews in 1967, and had, according to Richard Rogers in an earlier work, “…gone about as fer as they can go.” I do know that she knew how to dance both the Charleston and the Lindy and would occasionally demonstrate those dances for me, usually in our kitchen while wearing an apron. At Grange Hall dances I never saw my father dance anything but the waltz, the two-step, or the round-a-bouts of square dancing. Other than those occasions, I never saw him dance at all!

 

During the early 1950s, my mother was regularly published in a weekly article in the Sunday edition of the Twin Falls, Idaho Times News. I very clearly recall seeing clippings of some of her pieces when I was a pre-teen and her telling me what they meant. She wrote in a humorous and satirical vein about the weather, local government, buyers (sometimes sharp) dealings with farmers, and associated gossip in a column called ‘Pot Shots,’ as if she were a citizen writing to the editor, signing her missives with the pseudonym Sy Clone. I especially remember one article from a clipping harpooning a local city council's decision to eliminate the public bus system in Twin Falls. A decision that was finally reversed in 2023 to meet Federal requirements. Sadly, I have been unable to reproduce any of those clippings in that small-town newspaper’s archives. I can find digital online photos of the paper’s pages with the ‘Pot Shots’ column heading clearly visible, but nothing else is readable in those copies.

 

She also wrote poetry. She said the word, ‘poetry’ only applied in the loosest terms to her work. So far as I know, none of the poems were ever published. Amongst my keepsakes is an e-document of 60 pages with her musings. This was originally in a journal in her handwriting but has been transcribed by my niece. As the daughter of my eldest sibling, she has custody of the original. Many of my mother's short poems are whimsical. Probably none rise to the level of ‘literature.’ Nevertheless, I will share a few samples here. I am copying them as they are transcribed to my e-document, spelling and punctuation unchanged.

 

For reasons I will explain after this first example, I start with a poem she titled Inspiration. It is the 28^th entry in the collection. Were I a poet, I may have written this with my mother as subject.

 

Inspiration

 

Among my mother’s virtues,

The thing I love the best,

How vividly, I recall

Her radiant happiness.

 

Always, as she did her work,

She hummed a lively song;

And to me her singing seemed

To speed the work along.

 

Now, that she is laid to rest,

And from her I sadly part,

Still her joyous singing

Will live on in my heart.

 

And often now, I sadly wish,

When everything goes wrong,

I could rouse from life’s nightmares

And waken to her song.

 

But then I stop to ponder,

That I, too, must be strong

And fortify mine own heart

With glad, inspiring song!

 

Laura Florence R. Moyes

 

Now, my reason for choosing this piece as my first to represent her work: First and foremost, some of my earliest childhood memories are of the sound of Mother singing happily as she worked in her brightly sunlit kitchen. Her movements over the cheap linoleum flooring were dance-like as she baked or cooked or just simply cleaned. Her kneading of bread dough on the yellow and white Formica countertop was always in rhythm with her singing. For such strenuous work, she would select a lively and rhythmic song such as Harry Belafonte’s version of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” Lighter work might be accompanied by a work such as Billie Holliday’s “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” or Debbie Reynolds’ “Singin’ in the Rain.” She knew all the words by heart.

 

I mentioned that her singing seemed happy. Her voice rang clear and as bright as the sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows. The second thing influencing my selection is, my mother had a rough life with much hardship and some tragedy, as did her mother. In neither case should the happiness in their voices be taken for granted. Reading the above poem, with my mother talking about her mother’s happy singing and referencing life’s nightmares is, to me, reflective and insightful of the human condition. That bright, streaming sunshine has the power to reveal dust particles afloat in the air and old stains and smudges on the bright beige, yellow, green, and blue linoleum. Sadness and disappointment must have been hidden behind hope and faith in their voices.

 

Now, to lighten the mood a bit, I will share some of her more whimsical work.

 

Call on Carter

 

When you all get married,

And I know you all will

And your hubby gets grouchy

Tho he's not really ill-

Hop in your car - step on the starter

And hurry to visit Mr. Earl Carter.

 

Why visit this gent, you might ask

He'll give you something in a flask

The contents will fill your man with cheer

No, it isn't just a glass of beer.

This something will make your man happy

So happy you will think he's sappy.

 

He'll feel so good - I just know

He'll want to take you to a show;

Next morning he'll rise early - maybe

And even offer to tend the baby;

And when his blues all disappear

He'll even call you honey-dear.

 

What is Carter's miracle in the flask

Ladies, you will want to ask,

This stuff that takes away all ills

It's - Carter's little liver pills!

 

Florence Moyes

 

As it is getting late this Tuesday evening, and I have miles to go before I sleep—but I exaggerate as I plagiarize Robert Frost—I am only about 30 feet from my bedroom. I will end with only one more entry from her work. I could tell you much more of her life and some of the life of her mother, but I will leave that for another time.  Here’s the last entry for tonight:

 

 

Ga-Ga

I'm almost going ga-ga

Listening to the radio's blaa-blaa

So instead,

I'll go to bed.

 

L. F. M.