Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Teen Queens’ “Eddie My Love” (1956) - A 55th Anniversary, Of Sorts- Billy’s View

 

A YouTube film clip of the Teen Queens performing the classic Eddie My Love.

By Frank Jackman

 

This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hardworking, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally, specifically songs that some future archeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived, and what we listened to back in the day, back when rock and roll let us breathe a little before they, the other side okay, clamped down and we fell into an ebb tide we are still fighting a rearguard action against.  

I might have mentioned this before elsewhere but it bears repeating here back in the day the lord and king of the be-bop rock and roll night around my way, around where I grew up in the low-down Acre section of North Adamsville was one William James Bradley, Billy to one and all. For a long time he was my friend, best friend if anybody is asking, until eventually disappointment at being rooked by the real world, being cast aside in his fight to become the next Elvis at least in his mind, he did like a lot of low-rent Acre guys did once they recognized that the cards were stacked against them and quickly got attracted to a life of crime, serious crime like armed robberies and such.

But that was later when all the things he cared about fell through.  In our time, my time, his time everybody around the Acre, everybody that counted, meaning those young enough to be devotees of rock and roll and old enough to wonder what all the lyrics meant would listen to whatever Billy who really did have a serious knowledge on the subject as well as a sense of humor and irony about what was coming down had to say about the latest platters to hit the radio stations and record shops (this record shop business well before Amazon downloads and ITunes). Many nights Billy and I would go back and forth about particular songs and what they meant. Mainly I was clueless then about the girl thing having no sisters while Billy had three and a couple of girlfriends even when he was young. The sketch below is my attempt to reconstruct what Billy had to say about the classic record Eddie, My Love. Listen up.      

EDDIE MY LOVE

(Aaron Collins / Maxwell Davis / Sam Ling)

The Teen Queens - 1956

The Fontane Sisters - 1956

The Chordettes - 1956

Dee Dee Sharp - 1962

 

Also recorded by:

Lillian Briggs; Jo Ann Campbell; The Sweethearts.

 

Eddie, my love, I love you so

How I wanted for you, you'll never know

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait to long

 

Eddie, please write me one line

Tell me your love is still only mine

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

 

You left me last September

To return to me before long

But all I do is cry myself to sleep

Eddie, since you've been gone

 

Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast

The very next day might be my last

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

 

You left me last September

To return to me before long

But all I do is cry myself to sleep

Eddie, since you've been gone

 

Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast

The very next day might be my last

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

 

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

**********

Billy here, William James Bradley, if you don’t know already. To “the projects” born but you don’t need, or at least you don’t absolutely need to know that to get the drift of what I have to say here. I am here to give my take on this latest song, Eddie My Love, that just came out and that the girls are going weepy over, and the guys are saying “that a boy, Eddie.” At least that’s what the wiser guys I hang around with say when they hear the record played on the radio. Except, of course, sappy Jackman. Frankie Jackman if you don’t know, my best friend at Adamsville Elementary School (or maybe best friend, he has never told me one way or the other what it was with us from his end, but sappy as he may be at times, he is my best friend from my end) who thinks Eddie should be righteous and return to his forlorn girl. What is he kidding? Eddie keep moving wherever you are, and keep moving fast. And please, please don’t go within a mile of a post office.

 

Why do I hold such an opinion and what gives me the “authority”, some authority like the pope of rock and roll, or something to speak this way? Well, first off, unlike Frankie, I take my rock and roll, my rock and roll lyrics seriously, hell, I have written some myself. Also I have some talent in this field and have won vocal competitions (and dance ones too), although there have been a few more I should have won. Yah, should have won but the fix was in, the fix was in big time, against project kids getting a break, a chance to make something out of the jailbreak music we are hearing. I’ll tell you about those bad breaks some time but now I am hot to straighten everybody out, even Frankie, on this one. Jackman pays attention to, too much attention to, the “social” end of the question, looking for some kind of teenage justice in this wicked old world when there ain’t none. Get it, Frankie.

 

Look, I can read between the lines of this story just like anybody else, any pre-teenage or teenage anybody else. Parents, my parents, Frankie’s parents, Ozzie and Harriet, whoever, couldn’t get it if you gave them that Rosetta Stone they discovered to help them with old time Egyptian writing and that we read about in Mr. Barry’s class. No way. But Billy, William James Bradley, who will not let any grass grow beneath his feet, is wise, very wise to the scene. Hey, it’s not rocket science stuff; it’s simply the age old summer fling thing. Eddie, handsome, money in his pocket, super-charged car under his feet, gas in the tank, and an attitude that he is king of the known world, the known teenage world, sees this cutie, makes his play, they have some fun, some teenage version of adult fun for any not wise kids, school days come and he is off to his next cutie. Yah, he said he would write and, personally, I think that was a mistake. A quick “I'll be in touch,” and kiss on the cheek would have been smarter.

 

See Eddie, love ‘em and leave ‘em Eddie, is really a hero. What did this teen queen think was going to happen when Eddie blew into town? Love, marriage and here comes the teen queen with a baby carriage. Please. Eddie, Eddie your love ain’t got no time for that. And that old threatening to do herself in or whatever she means by “my next day might be my last,” is the oldest trick in the book, the oldest snare a guy trick that is. Yah, maybe someday when things are better, and guys don’t have that itch, that itch to move on, and maybe can settle down in one place and have plenty of dough, plenty of ambition, and the old wicked world starts taking care of its own better. Whoa… wait a minute, I’m starting to sound like Frankie. Jesus, no. Eddie just keep moving, okay. Billy’s pulling for you.