Listening to the Fifties

The early rock and roll of the 1950s was subsumed and transformed by the rock and roll of the 1960s.

Michael Nesmith, Infinite Tuesday

During our two-day drive down to our winter paradise in Florida last week, Linda and I listened to nonstop Fifties music on SiriusXM. Other than Blue Moon by the Marcels and some songs by the Platters, Bobby Darin, Della Reese and a few others, I am not that fond of the songs of the Fifties (nor was I that fond of them back in the Fifties), but they do rekindle memories. Best of all, unlike other Sirius stations, there are few songs so objectionable one feels compelled to change to something else.

After we arrived in Florida I began reading Infinite Tuesday, an autobiography by Michael Nesmith, once one of the Monkees. Nesmith is a contemporary of mine, someone who grew up in the Fifties, then reached adulthood in the Sixties. He says that in the Sixties, "Popular music was coming from the hymnal of a new church." He is right. By the mid-Sixties, popular music was radically different from that of the Fifties. He attributes the change mostly to the influence of the Beatles and Bob Dylan.

During the long drive from Ohio, I noticed several things about Fifties music that separate it not just from Sixties music but from the music of every other decade. Here are some of them:

1. A major theme of rock and roll music of that decade was rock and roll music.During that decade we were subjected to Jailhouse Rock, Jingle Bell Rock, Rock Around the Clock, Shake, Rattle and Roll, Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay and other variations on the theme.

2. Another popular theme was teenage girls, especially 16-year-old girls. Consider Sweet Little Sixteen, Sixteen Candles, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen and others. Young love, of course, has always been a major topic of popular music, but has there ever been as much focus on girls still in high school?

3. Male singers in that decade favored little-boy names. There was Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, Frankie Lymon, Jimmy Reed, Jackie Wilson, Richie Valens, Johnny Mathis, Johnny Cash, Johnny Burnette. Bobby Darin, Bobby Freeman, Bobby Vee and numerous others. You might add to the list Little Richard, Little Anthony, Little Willie John and Little Walter.

4. Novelty songs were unusually popular. Every decade has its novelty tunes, of course. These are songs played just for laughs. My favorite novelty tune of all time has to be Junk Food Junkie from 1976. But in the Fifties these songs seemed to get radio play all the time. There was Charlie Brown by the Coasters, Christmas Don't Be Late by the Chipmunks, The Thing by Phil Harris, The Purple People Eater by Sheb Wooley, Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett and many others.

So yes, popular music changed in the 1960s. It matured, as did those who performed it.