The year 1966 was a great year for music, with classic releases by many artists. Some claim that artists like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys peaked that year. Billboard’s charts featured numerous songs that went on to be staples of classic radio stations today, such as “Good Lovin'” by Young Rascals, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by The Temptations, and “19th Nervous Breakdown” by the Rolling Stones. And there were songs that went on to be AM radio staples too, like Neil Diamond’s “Cherry Cherry.” How well do you know the classic hits of 1966? Do your best with the following fourteen questions. The answers appear at the end with videos of the correct answers.
On October 31, 1941, the USS Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-552 submarine near Iceland. At the time, the Reuben James was part of the Neutrality Patrol that guarded ships making passage between the Americas and the U.K. Within around five minutes, the entire ship went down. Different sources vary, but approximately 115 of the 160 men aboard died.
The Almanac Singers
Around this time, Woody Guthrie was playing with a group called The Almanac Singers, which also included Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell, and Lee Hays. The group had recorded songs about civil rights and unions, and they had previously recorded a song critical of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s peacetime draft.
But in reaction to the sinking of the Reuben James and the attack on Pearl Harbor less than two months later, the Almanac singers released an album in 1942 supporting the U.S. war effort. One of the songs was about the Reuben James.
Woody Guthrie’s Drafts of “The Sinking of the Reuben James”
When Guthrie began writing “The Sinking of the Reuben James,” his initial plan was to humanize the tragedy by listing all of the victims of the tragedy. His original version included lists of names as well as some details about some of the men: “There’s Harold Hammer Beasley, a first rate man at sea/ From Hinton, West Virginia, he had his first degree.” (Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, at 216.)
Guthrie took a draft of his song to a meeting with The Almanac Singers. They agreed he had a great idea for a song, but they wondered if listing all of the names made the song a little boring. Seeger suggested that Guthrie try describing the event in detail while adding a rousing chorus that would get across the same message.
Guthrie went back and reworked the verses, while Seeger and Lampell worked on the chorus, personalizing the song without listing the names by asking the listener: “Tell me, what were their names?/ Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James.” Below is Guthrie’s solo version of the song they wrote.
Note that in the above version he asks “what was their names” instead of using “were” as in other versions as well as in the official Guthrie lyrics.
The Music for “The Sinking of the Reuben James”
Regarding the music for the song, Guthrie set the verses to the tune from “Wildwood Flower” by The Carter Family.
Popularity
“The Sinking of the Reuben James” became one of the Almanac Singers’ best-known songs. But despite the patriotic tone of this song and other ones they released at the time, the Almanac Singers continued to be harassed for their earlier anti-war stance and they disbanded within about a year.
“The Sinking of the Reuben James” was officially listed as being written by “The Almanac Singers.” But in later years Seeger graciously gave credit to Guthrie for both the verses and the chorus.
{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie on July 14, 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie and the Woody Guthrie Centennial too. }
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there is going to be a lot of cleaning up in the following days. There are some trees down in Queens NY, like the one above, but other areas were hit much worse. The damage has spread all the way from the New Jersey coast to Ohio and beyond, causing problems and leaving people without power in a number of states. In the words of Bob Dylan, as performed by Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, we hope you found shelter from the storm.
One of the best songs set in San Francisco is Harry Chapin‘s “Taxi.” The song is one of those great story songs.
In “Taxi,” Harry Chapin was able to take a long compelling tale and wrap it into a song you can listen to again and again.
“Taxi” and Initial Reactions
“Taxi” is about lost chances and lost loves. When you hear that first line setting the song in San Francisco you know you are in for a great ride from a master storyteller as shown in this Soundstage performance.
The song originally appeared on Chapin’s 1972 album Heads and Tales, but I first got to know the song from hearing my sister play the album Greatest Stories Live (1976) over and and over and over again (especially the song about bananas). I have another friend in Cleveland who loves the song too.
But not everyone loved the song when it was released. Ben Gerson noted in a Rolling Stone magazine review, “The opening melody is merely banal, but more seriously, Harry doesn’t know how to construct a story.” But the song survived the review to become beloved by many Harry Chapin fans.
Inspiration for the Song
“Taxi” begins with rain falling on the streets of San Francisco. Yet, the story about Harry and Sue was inspired by a real event in New York. Chapin, who briefly attended the United States Air Force Academy and did have an interest in flying, revealed that there was some truth to the story in “Taxi,” although it is not all true.
Chapin never drove a taxi, but the song was inspired by an encounter with old lover when he went to get a taxi license. As Chapin later explained on a 1980 concert program, “I set into New York City to sign up for a hack license. On the way I meet an old girlfriend who has married money instead of becoming an actress, and I contemplate the irony of ‘flying in my taxi.'”
Skying?
I have often wondered about some of the words in the falsetto segment, sung on the recording by John Wallace. Wikipedia reports the verse as the following, noting that “skying” is an obscure slang word for going around naked along the lines of what later became called “streaking.” Baby’s so high, that she’s skying Yes she’s flying, afraid to fall I’ll tell you why baby’s crying Cause she’s dying, aren’t we all…
“Sequel”
The tale in “Taxi” is perfect as it is, but Chapin later returned to the characters in “Sequel,” bringing them together for a reunion of sorts. Again, the song begins in San Francisco where “Taxi” left us and takes us on a journey with a somewhat more happy ending.
“Sequel” features Harry’s return to San Francisco where he goes looking for Sue. Check out “Sequel”:
“Sequel” ends with the line, “I guess only time will tell,” making us wonder what happened to Harry and Sue. Unfortunately, we will never get a third song about them. In 1981, Harry Chapin died near exit 40 on the Long Island Expressway when he crashed with a tractor-trailer truck, perhaps after he had a heart attack while driving.
In 1987, Chapin was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his work on social issues, including his work raising awareness about hunger around the world. Today, the Harry Chapin Foundation continues his good work.
For our readers in the path of Hurricane Sandy, we wish you safety through the storm. Here in New York, they are shutting down the subways and making other preparations. Meanwhile, the residents have been out stocking up to prepare for the worst. It’s interesting to see the choices folks are making at the grocery stores in the face of possibly being holed up without power and refrigeration for some time. It seems the pessimists are grabbing up the water jugs, while the optimists are buying ice cream.
As a Bruce Springsteen fan, I cannot think of the name “Sandy” without thinking of “Fourth of July (Sandy),” one of the great early E Street Band songs.
Almost every line in the song is an arresting image in itself, whether the singer is telling us about the “tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag” or that “the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do.” Here and in the original, Springsteen sings to Sandy, “Love me tonight, and I promise I’ll love you forever.” But I have heard him change the words in other versions to an even more honest line, “Love me tonight, and I promise . . . I promise there won’t be any promises.”
In Songs (1998), Springsteen explained that he wrote “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” in mid-1973 after moving in with a girlfriend in a garage apartment five minutes from Asbury Park in Bradley Beach, NJ. The 23-year-old wrote it as “a goodbye to my adopted hometown and the life I’d lived there before I recorded. Sandy was a composite of some of the girls I’d known along the Shore.” He later explained the themes he was trying to address, “I used the boardwalk and the closing down of the town as a metaphor for the end of a summer romance and the changes I was experiencing in my own life.”
When the band planned to record the song, Springsteen hired a church children’s choir to sing on the track. But the kids did not show up on the day of the recording, so Suki Lahav — the wife of Springsteen’s sound engineer — sang the backing track and they overdubbed her voice to make it sound like a choir. It’s her voice you hear on “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” on The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973).
In the late 1980s, I took a road trip with a friend from Cleveland to New York, and along the way we stopped in Asbury Park. I was surprised to discover then that there actually was a fortune teller there named Madam Marie. She was closed that day, so I did not get my fortune told. But it made me realize how Springsteen was able to take things from real life and transform them into great poetry. Although Madam Marie is no longer in Asbury Park because she passed away in 2008, here is hoping that Asbury Park and other areas along the shore survive Hurricane Sandy.
What is your favorite version of “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
