Friday, November 9, 2007
Got to be good
Oh where oh were could my baby be
The lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven so I've got to be good
So I can see my baby when I'll leave this world
We were out on a date in my daddy's car
We hadn't driven very far
There in the road
Straight ahead
A car was stalled the engine was dead
I couldn't stop
So I swerved to the right
I'll never forget the sound that night
The screamin tires
The busting glass
The Painfull scream that I heard last.
Oh where oh were could my baby be
The lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven so I've got to be good
So I can see my baby when I'll leave this world
Do you recognize those lyrics? Ah, but from what artist?
Pearl Jam
Cavaliers
Ozzy Osbourne
If you answered Cavaliers, then you're probably a baby boomer.
If you answered Pearl Jam then you're much younger than a boomer.
If you answered Ozzy Osbourne, then it's time to expand you need to see a therapist.
I heard this song "Last Kiss" on the way to work this morning listening to the Oldies station. Of course, at this time in life you tend to evaluate the lyrics more than when you were in your teens.
We were out on a date in my daddy's car
Obviously not current day. Who drives their "daddy's" car these days. It's probably a mini-van anyway. And "daddy"? Who today would refer to their father as their "daddy" when talking to anyone other than perhaps the closest of family?
The screamin tires
The busting glass
I can sympathize with the fact that there was a stalled car in the road, but I'm going to guess he may have been going faster than he should have been. the stalled car was straight ahead. It's not like it was on "deadman's curve". He's a teenager right? He has a girl in the front seat. Back then the front seat on daddy's cars went all the way across the front. They called them bench seats. My guess is that his "baby" was sitting right next to him and I doubt that she, or he, was wearing a seat belt. I even question if they were available back then (1964). I'm wondering if some of the responsibility lies with him for the accident.
I'm a little hesitant to agree with him that "The Lord took her away" but I'm going to have to downright disagree that "She's gone to heaven so I got to be good so I can see my baby when I leave this world." I have no basis of knowing whether heaven was her final destination, but he is mistaken that for him to also get there he has to "be good". I'm probably being too hard on him. My position is that it's faith not works that yields the end result. I should be glad that he concedes that there is an after life and it does involve heaven and another not named possibility. That's better than trying to imagine an existence where heaven and hell do not exist.
With all that said, I probably prefer the lyrics of yesteryear.
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3 comments:
Yes, Mr. Rodgers there really were seat belts in some of the newer cars in 1964 and I remember the song from that era. The song was originally performed by Wayne Cochran & the C. C. Riders. Cochran wrote the song based on the death of sixteen year old Jeanette Clark who was killed in a collision with a truck December 22, 1962; the Saturday before Christmas. J. L Handcock, also sixteen, was driving the 1954 Chevrolet in which he, Jeanette, and another teenager were killed. The song reached the “Top Ten” in October of 1964 four months after it was released by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. On a personal note, I never liked the song.
I agree that the song does not provide sufficient information on the final destination of the young girl but I feel better thinking that she reached a better place then the one she left behind. As for the young man, may I suggest that he already has “faith” because of his assumption that she went to heaven and his desire to follow her there. As for “being good”; that is not really a bad thing to be.
Can one really be said to have "faith", if they do not also perform "good works"?
The song was written and originally performed by Wayne Cochran ..it is about an accident he witnessed on the Highway he lived on ..Sixteen-year-old Jeanette Clark was out on a date in Barnesville, Georgia on December 22, 1962, the Saturday before Christmas. She was with a group of friends in a 1954 Chevrolet. J. L. Hancock, also sixteen, was driving the car in heavy traffic and while traveling on Highway 341, hit a log truck. Clark, Hancock, and another teenager were killed, and two other teens in the car were seriously injured. Cochran finished the song, which he titled "Last Kiss", and dedicated it to Clark.
So you see to the original poster ... making fun of the song is one thing... but making fun of the meaning behind the lyrics is sick. But then the original poster probably didn't even know the song was written by Wayne Cochran, and sung by him locally, and even promoted by him. However Cochran could not get any big companies interested in the song. Then in 1964 J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers had the song handed to them by a promoter, and the rest is as they say history.
The point is, before you go off half coked rattling onabout a song, that you think a recent artist recored and wrote, check your facts.
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