Belated Mother’s Day Post: My Little Buckaroo

Some things are hard to talk about. My apologies, but today’s is one of them. Someone close to me mentioned that I didn’t play anything for Mother’s Day last week, and while the omission wasn’t on purpose, I also didn’t mind just letting it slide by. Not adjusting for leap years, it’s been thirty seven years, one month, and two days since my mother died. And it’s still hard to talk about. Sometimes I need to, and now that it’s been brought up, I guess it’s one of those times.

I loved my mom so much. We were very close. It’s been the topic of a lot of poems over the years, very few were published. Today, the only thing I want to share is this lullaby that she used to sing to me when I was quite small. Written by Jack Scholl, “My Little Buckaroo” was recorded by Bing Crosby in 1937 for his album, Cowboy Songs, but the entire album wasn’t released until nearly a decade later. History gets a bit cloudy as some say it was the B side to the single “I’m an Old Cowhand,” but other evidence shows that “I Can’t Escape from You” was the B side to that single.

Whatever the case, it was later recorded by the likes of Slim Whitman as well as Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. But I like to think that it’s this first airing of the song, sung by Dick Foran, that my mother first heard. It was performed in this scene in the movie Cherokee Strip in 1937, and though Mom’s voice was much softer as she stroked my hair and crooned this to me, the pace and the notes all sound just right for how I remember it.

Don’t you realize,
My little Buckaroo,
That it was from a little acorn,
That the Oak tree grew?
And remember that your dad,
Was once a kid like you.
So go to sleep,
My little Buckaroo.

Happy Mother’s Day, belatedly to the moms who read this. Thank you for reading and singing to your children. We will cherish it all our lives.

Judy Garland Gets Happy

Well, look at that, will ya? You made it to Friday. Now, please accept my sincerest apologies if you happen to work in hospitality or service of some form that means you have to work the weekend.

The origins of this song are a bit cloudy, but the lyrics were written by Ted Koehler and music by pianist Harold Arlen. It apparently started as a vamp to get a dance rehearsal group tapping their feet, when Arlen asked Koehler if they could team up to flesh out a song with it. That was in 1929 and when the first show it was in floundered, it was then recorded by Nat Shilkret & the Victor Orchestra which took it to #6 on the charts in 1930.

Judy Garland’s version revived the song in her last film for MGM after being fired from two previous films as a result of her struggles with addiction. At first I doubted the claim from some sources that the term “Get Happy” was a popular phrase in black churches of the time and described a sort of religious ecstasy when church goers were moved upon by the holy spirit. It just seemed like one of those too-perfect explanations that were made up after the fact, but after more digging, I am increasingly convinced. This song from 1930 is a great example:

You could spend your Christmas
Just like it was nobody’s business.
You could pray and sing
And get mighty happy.
But how
Can a man pray and sing
And get happy
When he’s broke and hungry?

Now when this song was performed by Garland, it was presented as irony. This approach was not unfamiliar to Garland fans who have watched shows like Meet Me in St. Louis, in which the popular Christmas tune “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” first appeared. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that the scene for that song was heartbreaking, and not at all the happily nostalgic thing it seems to have evolved into.

Judy’s character in the movie Summer Stock is out to save her farm, and somehow dancing in her barn with Gene Kelly’s character is just the ticket. It’s remembered as one of Garland’s all time best performances, despite her personal troubles during the filming of most of the show.

Sister Golden Hair, by America

Well, we have run out of space odysseys and space oddities, but we have not run out of killer soundtracks in Timmy Chalamet movies! Actually, there are the movies Interstellar and the Dune series, both with brilliant and moving soundtracks by Hans Zimmer, but gorgeous as those are, they are all instrumental, and not what we are looking for on Song of the Day. So the movie connection today will be more, shall we say, down to earth.

Today’s song is one I have loved since the first time I heard it, which had to be when I was no younger than eight years old. America (yes kids, that’s the name of the band—see the movie clip below) released the tune on their third album, Hearts, in 1975.

I’ve heard people compliment this semi-daily music post as being diverse and that they often hear new music they really like. That makes me very happy, but at the same time, like many of you, I love to hear a nostalgic classic from time to time as well, especially when it’s one that doesn’t get the airplay I think it deserves.

Miss Stevens is another little film from the mid twenty teens, and while the trailers might make you think it’s one thing, if you can handle this mild spoiler, I assure you that while the movie gets a bit tense, it is also just so wholesome and satisfying to watch. That leads us into today’s bonus music scene. Our man Timmy is playing a troubled teen with a great deal of talent and skill in the drama department. He, three fellow students, and their teacher, played by Lily Rabe, are on their way to a drama competition, the winning of which would help their school qualify for more arts grants. Yes, it’s nerdy tense.

Usually, I put the bonus clip after the main song, but today, let’s flip it around as a good intro to the whole enchilada. First, here are a few of my favorite lines from the song, which I think just has killer lyrics:

Well, I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed
That I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed

Now I’ve been one poor correspondent
And I’ve been too, too hard to find
But it doesn’t mean you ain’t been on my mind

No, here’s the cast of Miss Stevens with the band America.

Ariana Grande & Kid Cudi, Just Look Up

Fast forwarding from 1969 (yesterday’s song of the day) to 2021, we advance from David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” to a Netflix space flick called “Don’t Look Up,” a movie that had incredibly mixed reviews. Some loved it and others said it was a disaster. It was humorous, but man was it dark, especially the later part of the movie. It made me feel things I didn’t like, to be sure, but I thought even the ending, over-the-top as it was, seemed appropriate. Overall, I liked it, and I’m glad I watched it.

The film had a super soundtrack, by the way, including today’s song by Ariana Grande and featuring Kid Cudi. In staring roles were big names like Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, and even today’s lead vocalist, Ariana Grande herself. Can you guess who else was in the movie? That’s right! As more evidence of his versatility, Timothée Chalamet plays the role of a seemingly dull-headed shoplifter named Yule. What? You think I’d forget about Timmy by Thursday?

In this space oddity, an oddity from space comes to earth, a wayward asteroid is on a collision course with our planet, and politicians and the media, as you might expect, face impending doom with their usual ineptitude.

Here is a live performance from Grande and Cudi, who just happen to be favorite artists of Mr. Chalamet. Enjoy this end-of-the-world love song, “Just Look Up.”

David Bowie’s Space Oddity

You’ve heard David Bowie sing “Ground Control to Major Tom” so many times, but can you believe it was put out into the universe in 1969? I grew up with this song, so I suppose that makes sense, but something about it just sounds so very modern. The song was the opening track of his second and self-titled studio album.

Now, what the heck has Timothée Chalamet got to do with this song? I’m so glad you asked! I could say that his second Dune movie came out this winter, based on the books by Frank Herbert, but that’s a different space oddity altogether. No, this connection to our unwitting theme material for this week is a bit more tenuous.

There’s a lesser known film that came out just before the smash hit Call Me by Your Name, and it didn’t really make a big splash. I suspect some of the over-the-top humor was just something that a lot of movie goers didn’t get. The wild example of the coming of age genre definitely has a base of appreciable fans, but maybe it just didn’t click with the mainstream. Elijah Bynum’s directorial debut included a different take on seeing fireworks when you have your first kiss. I’ll include the scene after the video from Bowie.

The Space Oddity video came out three years after the album, in 1972 and was used in the movie Hot Summer Nights almost five decades later in 2017! I hope you’ll forgive me for making this connection, but we’re doing a deep dive into niche Timothée Chalamet today.

Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens

Running late on today’s edition of JSOD because Micah and I are at an appointment. No worries. Everything is fine. Just following up on the mystery of his sore ankles. Sadly, the doctors do not seem to have a medicine to address the mystery of love. More research needs to be done.

Here to sing about the mystery (not of ankle pain, of course) is Sufjan Stevens at a live performance at the 90th Academy awards six years ago. The song was nominated for an Oscar as it appeared in the soundtrack for the movie Call Me by Your Name, starring the same dude who was featured in yesterday’s bonus material wearing a top hat and singing “Pure Imagination.”

Pure Imagination, You Might Need It on a Monday

This weekend I got called away from a cleanup project at a nearby favorite lake before we could even get started. Our internet and phone at the library were down and I had to get them back up and running. I had no luck on the phones until this morning, but I did manage to get us back online with the help of one of our techs via the phone. Now this morning our telephones are back up and working at the library after climbing around on a wall to look for a nearly unreadable “reset” button.

So, how is your Monday going? I’ve been thinking of this song quite a bit lately. I don’t know if it’s because of the element of imagination in writing my poems, or if it’s just a longing to escape when I can’t actually get out to the wild to see birds. To be honest, it’s probably because I have been wanting to see the new Willy Wonka movie and I just haven’t been able to yet. So now I’ll probably have to watch it on TV.

I was sad to hear so many people groan and complain about it. But it did well at the box office, and people were complaining before it even hit the theaters. It’s not a remake, it’s a prequel, and sometimes it’s good to just have something light and fun. No need to complain about that, so please don’t. I know, I can be moody too, but let’s not fall into that trap today. Monday’s are hard enough.

While Gene Wilder famously sang the song in the original Willy Wonka film, based on the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl, it’s since been covered by so many others. Lou Rawls, Maroon Five, Fiona Apple, Barbara Streisand, and Josh Groban have all taken turns. But the version I was looking for this morning was a live version by the Smoking Popes.

Unfortunately, the only live performance I could find was one of those shaky, hand-held phone recordings from an audience member, and that will only give us vertigo. Since there is no “official video” from the Smoking Popes, here is a studio version with some fan photos. Oh! And if you don’t want any spoilers from the movie, don’t watch the second video, which is Timothée Chalamet’s reprise of Wilder’s original. I can’t wait to see this film!

Fever (and Chess)

I have yet to watch the Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, but I’ve truly been meaning to. Had I known this scene was in there, that probably would have been enough for me to have watched it immediately. As it stands I have to finish the latest season of Shetland before I can devote myself to another show.

I’ve been thinking this week about some songs that have made a comeback due to movies or TV’s, and it seems that often they are associated with TikTok or Instagram Reels that went viral. While I’m not sure that today’s song quite fits the bill (I can’t find any evidence of it hitting the billboard charts in the 2020’s yet), three months after it’s release on the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, the song received an updated video version of her hit song “Fever.” The tune featured in a scene of episode five in October of 2020 (More after the video).

One fact you may not know is that Peggy Lee added two of her own verses to “Fever.” The song has been covered by Madonna, Beyonce, Bette Midler, Elvis, and even Michael Bublé, but her version keeps coming back.

As a Two-for-Tuesday bonus, let’s toss in a throwback to 1946 with “It’s a Good Day,” another song to make at least a small, social media come back. When I still had an Instagram account, I had recorded a short reel with Eliot, our Goldendoodle to this tune. You may find it hard to believe this is the same young lady who sang the nihilistic “If That’s All There Is,” but hey, she was a damn fine actress too.