Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Chiffons’ He’s So Fine

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing the classic doo wop song He’s So Fine.

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Now many music and social critics have done yeomen’s service giving us the meaning of various folk songs, folk protest songs in particular, from around this period. You know they have essentially beaten us over the head with stuff like the meaning of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind as a clarion call for now aging baby-boomers back then and a warning (not heeded) that a new world was a-bornin’, or trying to be. Or better, The Times They Are A-Changin’ with its plaintive plea for those in charge to get hip, or stand aside. (They did neither.) And we have been fighting about a forty year rearguard action to this very day trying to live down those experiences, and trying to get new generations to blow their own wind, change their own times, and sing their own plainsong in a similar way.

Like I said the critics have had a field day (and long and prosperous academic and journalistic careers as well) with that kind stuff, fluff stuff really. The hard stuff, the really hard stuff that fell below their collective radars, was the non-folk, non-protest, non-deep meaning (so they thought) stuff, the daily fare of popular radio back in the day. A song like today’s selection, He’s So Fine. A song that had every red-blooded American (and, who knows, maybe world teen) wondering their own wondering about the fate of the song’s narrator and her quest for that elusive Johnnie. About her plan to capture old Johnnie’s heart so that she, in Johnnie’s reflected glory, could be the envy of all the girls. More importantly, if he becomes stubborn and does not fall to her charms right away will she continue her pursue, continue it forever. Yes, that is the hard stuff of social commentary, the stuff of popular dreams, and the stuff that is being tackled head on in this series- Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night. Read on.

Susie Murphy comment:

Gee, can it be over a year, over a whole year since I spotted Johnnie, Johnnie Cain over at the Adventure Car-Hop over in Centerville where I was working as a car hop at the time trying to put nickels and dimes together so that I could go to secretarial school over up in Boston , Fisher College, you might have heard of it, to study in order to become an executive secretary to some big businessman and not be stuck, stuck like my sister, Sandra, in some lowly steno pool over at the John Hancock Insurance Company being bored to death just pounding the keys all day and dreaming of, dreaming of I don’t know what. I don’t know what lately moreover as Sandy and I don’t cross paths so much since I started working as a nighttime car-hop to get better tips.   

Can it really be almost two years since I graduated from Northfield High (Class of 1961) and broke up with my senior year high school flame Frankie Larkin after that graduation night when he tried taking certain liberties with me when I didn’t want such liberties taken (although, I am not prude, and on previous occasions it was just fine ). Let’s just leave it at that although our break-up was almost a sure thing since Frankie was going off to college in New Haven (which is why he thought that he could do what he tried to do to me as a lasting symbol of our love before he left, left to screw around with every girl from New Haven to New York City that would give him the time of day. Yah, right Frankie no girl has ever heard that line before). I was, moreover, determined to make some money that summer to go to school and not burden my poor widowed mother who was barely able to make ends meet without Sandy’s help. So sex, and the possibilities of getting pregnant were, low on my calendar that night and for a while thereafter.        

Come to think of it can it really be over two years since I started working at the car-hop, first the afternoon family and after school shift (and no serious tips, although plenty of guff, plenty of get me this and get me that, from harried mothers with a carful of kids and snooty high schoolers who though that I was an indentured servant) and then nights and plenty of tips, big tips from guys hanging out expecting a little something extra for their generosity along with their hamburgers and Cokes. Like a buck or two got them some privilege to get more than a grateful thank you. Of course they were guys, single guys, in their souped-up cars, or a bunch of guys “cruising” the strip (really Main Street but everybody calls it the strip since that movie, that James Dean movie, Rebel Without A Cause came out a few years ago. Guys with their honeys, guy with their girlfriends might give me an eye but mainly they were eyes straight forward, or else, and coin tips. 

Most night though it was fun, although my feet were tired by the end of the shift (one in the morning weeknights, two, weekends, Wednesday through Sunday). I enjoyed, enjoyed from a safe distance, a distance enforced by Morey the short order cook and part- owner if one of his car-hops was in need of such protection, guys hitting on me with their silly lines. I think they must have learned their lines from some junior high school boys’ lav wall where they are etched for eternity, and eternal use because after a while I could almost recite the lines back to them. A couple of times I went out, quietly went out, with a guy but that just didn’t work out since he was married, very married (with two kids) which he told me about on our second date.         

Then one night, one slow Thursday night ( a slow night even in summer since everybody was saving their burger and shakes money, with tips, I hoped, for the weekend and the prospect of , well, I am no prude, the prospect of getting lucky, sex lucky, okay), Johnny, dreamboat Johnny, came in, came in alone, came in his sedate-looking Pontiac. Probably his father’s on loan I thought since it showed no souped-up signs.  I waited on him, took his order (cheeseburger, medium well, no ketchup, no onions, fries, and a cherry Coke, large), left to put in the order, returned with it from the cook station and placed the tray on his front door window. I gave him the bill for two dollars and some change; he paid me and added a generous dollar tip. Like always, like always except he didn’t give me any snappy come on line like every other single guy that evening, didn’t say anything except a manly mannerly thank you, I appreciate the service, a thank you like it meant something to him to say thank you in just that way.

Like always, as well, my usual friendly service except I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He was beautiful; or rather he had beautiful, meaningfully beautiful, blue eyes which made the rest of him beautiful too. (A fellow car-hop, who had waited on him on previous occasions, said it better perhaps, he had “bedroom eyes.”) I watched him as I waited on other customers wondering what he was all about, wondering why he didn’t make a pass at me when I thought I distinctly gave the impression that I was Johnny make-a- pass-able. Nothing. He finished his order and left. He came back several times over the next couple of months after that, sometimes I waited on him (usually the same order, always the same generous tip, and always with me having a big sign on me saying “make a pass, brother, brother, make a pass, you’ll be glad you did” –nothing), sometimes one of the other girls would beat me to him.      

I had pretty much given up on my Johnnie boy, figuring that he was either married like that other guy I dated on the job, on the run, a homosexual, or something because, frankly, no guys had ever said that I was hard to look at. And I wasn’t. Especially in my car-hop uniform (in summer a halter and short shorts which showed off my long legs to advantage) that made more than one guy think bedroom thoughts. Still many nights, and not just nights when he came in, I would toss and turn over him, and maybe do some other things too, some private things, okay, before going to sleep.     

Then one night, late afternoon really, Carla, my closest car-hop friend told me that she had heard that Johnnie (who she was interested in too and put out a bigger “make a pass, buddy” sign out than I did when she waited on him)  worked for his father over at the John Cain& Son law office near Smith Street downtown. She said that she was going to go over there the next afternoon before work and take her chances to see if he would bite when she was not in uniform. I panicked.   

The next morning about nine o’clock, still tired from the last late night shift I was sitting in the law offices of John Cain &Son when Johnny came walking in the office door. I turned red, beet red, when he looked at me, looked at me not recognizing me at first and then something clicked and he said something like he didn’t know Adventure Car-Hop had a take-out service. We laughed and then I turned red, beet red again. I froze, froze for a moment, realizing this was all wrong, that he was not all that interested and was just being polite to a dumb cluck and then just ran out of the office. What a foolish thing, what silly high school kind of thing to do, although later that afternoon as I was getting ready for work I was glad I at least tried, tried for the brass ring. And that…        

Oh, sorry, I hear a honk outside and I have to leave now. I have to leave because Johnny said he would pick me up at eight so we can celebrate our first anniversary together. I can’t stay out late because I have an early class tomorrow but he insisted we celebrate tonight.  See, my foolish girlish stunt at the office touched something in Johnnie, something that his lawyer’s mind (first year law school student actually which explained a lot) said “needed further investigation” (I am quoting him now).  That night, really morning, just before closing, he showed up at the restaurant , waved off the charging Carla, and just sat there, not saying a word until I came over to his car, took his order (same old, same old) except this time he said and I quote- “I’ll wait for you until you finish work, alright?” And he did.