Songs From Youth Revisited

In my last post I linked to a piece by a British writer who claimed that he'd rather watch an old Sherlock Holmes film from his youth than a modern mystery.

This lead me to think of my late father.

When I was a kid growing up in South Philadelphia my father, a child of the Depression and a World War II veteran, had a workshop in our basement where he would spend most Saturday afternoons playing old records on an old record player.

I got a kick out of hearing the old songs, as did my older brother, because the songs were to us from the Stone Age - the 1940s and 1950s.

The only "modern" songs he played were Barry Sadler's 1966 The Ballad of the Green Berets and Brook Benton's 1961 The Boll Weevil Song.

I still recall hearing Frankie Laine's The Kid's Last Fight, Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky's Dear John and other songs from my father's youth that he played over and over.

And now that I've passed my father's age, it amuses me that I find myself in my South Philadelphia basement office & library, playing songs from my youth, such as the Beatles, the Animals, Motown, Chicago, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers and other groups from my teens in the 1960s and my 20s in the 1970s. (I listen to smooth jazz and other modern music as well).

Thanks to www.youtube.com we can revisit songs from our youth and listen to songs from our parents' youth.

You can listen to Frankie Laine's The Kid's Last Fight via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhFZZNgUVpc

Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky's Dear John:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMueKWzG0WE

Brook Benton's The Boll Weevil Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVwjYptcnAY

Barry Sadler's The Ballad of the Green Berets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0w6Bqma4qM

And some songs from my youth:

The Beatles' Yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwS_YDzxH3M

The Beatles' Abbey Road Medley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pM3PVzDUCY

The Four Tops' Baby, I Need Your Lovein':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqjBAJx4ZA

The Temptations' My Girl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbAaLdLguLo

The Animals' The House of the Rising Sun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdPQp6Jcdk

The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a7cHPy04s8

John Barry's theme song from Goldfinger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgN50uAp4pg

Chicago's Beginnings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxmD724H70Q

Chicago's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-2rkWL8nx4&feature=related

Steely Dan's Reelin' In the Years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBllejn5fVA

Steely Dan's Deacon Blues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NntyxRhmFho&feature=related

The Doobie Brothers' Echoes of Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Lj2iZzqRk&feature=relmfu

The Doobie Brothers' Minute By Minute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_GmuIHL_EM

Boz Scaggs' Lowdown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65EoK4OelZU

And from my clubbing and dancing days in the 1970s:

Chic's Le Freak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqupk71a-O0

France Joli's Come To Me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voxU5X2VOCg

Donna Summer's I Feel Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljxm3NsnVI0&feature=related

The Trammps' Disco Inferno:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M

Thelma Huston's Don't Ask to Stay Until Tomorrow from Looking For Mr Goodbar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhbjmdYXKVM