It’s Oregon! In the May issue of Smithsonian, Matt Groening reveals that the location of the Springfield in The Simpsons is the state of Oregon.
Since the show began, it played with the idea that Springfield was a common town name, teasing viewers about the real location of the family. In the interview, Groening explains how as a kid growing up on Portland, Oregon, he was inspired by the location of Father Knows Best (1954-1960) in a fictitious Springfield. Realizing it was a common town name, he imagined others would assume the Springfield of The Simpsons is their local Springfield, as he did watching Robert Young in Father Knows Best. He was right. But why must he ruin it now?
Were you happy or disappointed that the Springfield mystery is solved? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley & the Comets recorded the rock and roll classic, “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.” During the recording session, the band spent most of the time on another song. It would be in the final forty minutes of that three-hour session where the band would make history, with a little later help by a 10-year-old kid.
The Rushed Recording Session
The band went in the recording studio for Decca Records that day and worked on the song “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)” for most of the three-hour session. Finally, with forty minutes left, they turned to “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.”
At the start of that forty minutes, the group played “Rock Around the Clock” one time. Then, because the first recording of “Rock Around the Clock” did not sound right, they then ran through a second take, leaving Sammy Davis Jr. in the hallway waiting for his turn in the studio.
Time was running out. So, an engineer was able to put together the two takes to make the classic record we know today.
The Guitar Solo
Because of the rushed nature of the recording of “Rock Around the Clock” the guitarist for the session, Danny Cedrone, did not have time to put together a unique guitar solo for the song. So he stuck in a solo he had used two years earlier with Haley on a song called “Rock This Joint.”
You may hear the familiar solo that Cedrone took from “Rock This Joint” in the video below.
The B-Side Release and Modest Sales
That spring, Decca released “Rock Around the Clock” as the B-side to the song on which the Comets spent most of the recording session, “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town).”
The single “Thirteen Women” and B-side “Rock Around the Clock” had modest sales that year. Perhaps the record would have remained a modest hit if not for a little boy.
Glen Ford’s Son Saves the Song
A 10-year-old named Peter Ford fell in love with the B-side of his new record. Peter eventually played the song for his father, the actor Glen Ford.
Ford was preparing to star in a movie called Blackboard Jungle (1955). Ford took the record, along with some others, from his son’s collection to the movie’s producers (or some accounts have the producers hearing the song at Ford’s home).
“(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” was selected to be played over the opening credits of the film about juvenile delinquency that also starred Sidney Poitier. With the boost from the movie, “Rock Around the Clock” sold more than a million copies in one month in 1955.
“Rock Around the Clock” Lives On
Twenty years later the song was familiar for another generation when it appeared on the soundtrack of American Graffiti (1973) and was used as the opening of the TV series Happy Days (1974-1984) for its first two seasons.
Funny how a rushed job, a 10-year-old kid, and a little luck created one of the most memorable records of the early rock era. It also helped send the late Bill Haley to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And on April 14, 2012, a few days after the fifty-eighth anniversary of the recording of “Rock Around the Clock,” the Comets were finally inducted too.
What do you think of “Rock Around the Clock” and inducting the Comets into the Hall of Fame? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On April 10, 1992, the comedian Sam Kinisondied in a car crash when his car was hit by a pickup truck in California. Kinison, who had just married his girlfriend five days earlier, was 38 years old.
Although Kinison started out like his father as a Pentecostal preacher he eventually changed careers and began appearing in comedy clubs. His first national break came when he was in his early 30s in 1984 when he appeared on an HBO comedy special devoted to young comedians. His 1984 breakthrough performance on the HBO Rodney Dangerfield’s Ninth Annual Young Comedians Special introduced him to much of the world. Then, the following year, he had another big break with his first appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. The world of comedy was never the same.
Rodney Dangerfield introduces the new comedian Sam Kinison to the world in the following video. Check it out.
While a week ago Google was punking everyone with their new “products” for April Fools’ Day, this new video seems to be the real thing. The video presents a view from Google’s “Project Glass” eyewear, which allows one to have all kinds of information accessible from the moment you wake up. As more and more the computer age integrates into daily life, it almost seems like the logical next step.
Don’t look for the eyewear at Best Buy right now. It is an ongoing project and the video is meant as sort of a teaser to get everyone buzzing. Still, a commentator on CNN this morning predicted that the product could be available in the next 12-24 months. And PC Magazine has a photo of Google co-founder Sergey Brin wearing the device. While I want the device right now, I am a little worried that it will lead to a lot of problems with people not paying attention where they are going. But I suppose there will be an app to warn you if you are going to get hit by a car. Then again, maybe it is a little creepy to have that much technology controlling our lives. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Would you try this device? What do you think of Project Glass? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In popular culture, most references to Moses focus on the high points of his life. These include him leading the Israelites to freedom by parting the Red Sea and his trip to Mount Sinai to bring forth the ten commandments. But in the final scene of the film The Ten Commandments (1956), the film ends with a less celebratory scene. The movie ends with Charlton Heston’s Moses left behind, paying for what seems like a minor transgression.
I remember watching the movie as a kid, seeing the low-key ending as a letdown after the excitement of the action of the parting of the Red Sea. I also found it confusing because the entire movie shows Moses as special to God and then all of a sudden God is punishing him.
Perhaps my confusion about the ending of the movie is one of the reasons I immediately fell in love with Bruce Springsteen’s “The Price You Pay.” Springsteen captures the tragic sadness of that moment in his song from The River (1980).
Little girl down on the strand, With that pretty little baby in your hands, Do you remember the story of the Promised Land? How he crossed the desert sands, And could not enter the chosen land, On the banks of the river he stayed, To face the price you pay.
Similarly, in “Adam Raised a Cain,” he explains that the notion of sin and punishment is so deep that paying for our own sins is not enough: “You’re born into this life paying / For the sins of somebody else’s past.”
But Springsteen, who both embraces and rebels against his Catholic upbringing in his songs, does not let the story of “The Price You Pay” end there. Although there is nothing Springsteen can do about the story of Moses (or Cain and Able), in “The Price You Pay” the singer rebels against the rules that say we must always be paying for sins. But just across the county line, a stranger passing through put up a sign That counts the men fallen away to the price you pay; And girl before the end of the day, I’m gonna tear it down and throw it away.
In some ways, “The Price You Pay” is a sequel to Springsteen’s “The Promised Land” from Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). In that song, the singer sang of faith in a promised land and a coming twister that will “blow away the dreams that break your heart.”
The idea of escape from punishment for sin is present in much of Springsteen’s music. In “The Price You Pay,” though, he connects the past and present in a way where the present-day hero is not crushed by old rules. Instead, he rises up and rebel not only for himself, but for the sinners of the past, including Moses. It may be nothing more than tearing down a sign, but he rejects the notion that life is about paying for sin.
Whether or not you celebrate one of the holidays this month, may you have a year free from the haunting of past sins. And at the same time may you tear down the sign and forgive others for their burdens.
What do you think is the meaning behind “The Price You Pay”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
