Play Me a Sad Song

Yet another song with the "Earth Angel" chord progression.

Today, a "DJ" is someone who makes music by running someone else's album under a needle and moving it back and forth rhythmically. But once-- when the radio was used as a music-listening device instead of a political megaphone-- a "disc jockey" just played someone else's records over the air and let us listen to them. For free (well, there were always commercials).

These DJs would often take requests, answering the listener's phone calls and playing what he or she wanted to hear. This was true at least up through the 1980s; after that, radio content was largely pre-selected by national corporations that owned stations nationwide (the better to sell the airtime for those commercials).

The speaker here doesn't even call the DJ. He just sort of wishes his request at the radio: "Play me a sad song, please Mr. DJ/ Play me a sad song tonight."

One can hardly blame the poor kid for his despondency. As Sam Cooke would later bemoan, it's a classic case of: "Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody... I'm in an awful way."

Our speaker puts it: "Saturday night... Don't have a date... don't want to hear a lullaby/ I can't sleep, I just sit and cry."

Of course, going out "stag" is out of the question. It would just publicize his undesirability: "Don't you think I want to go where other kids go?.. I've got nobody to hold me tight."

So he's alone with the radio, which is "playin' the Top Tunes tonight." From Top of the Pops to American Top 40, one of the most popular formats was a simple countdown of that week's most popular songs, as measured by albums sold, requests made, or some other such metric.

Our speaker is not up for such fare. He knows that other teens are playing this countdown at their parties and get-togethers, commenting on the worthiness of that week's rankings.

Instead, he agrees with Elton John, who in "Sad Songs Say So Much," opined: "It's times like these when we all need to hear the radio/ 'Cause from the lips of some old singer/ We can share the troubles we already know." In short, misery loves even virtual, musical company.

So our left-out boy wishes for, not dance tunes or lullabies, but "a song of love/ 'Cause that's all that I'm thinking of."

"I bet I'm the loneliest boy in the world," he sighs. Of course, any one of the thousands of people who have heard this song have had that exact same thought.

Eventually, he despairs even of despair, which is both tiring and tiresome. "Sitting here crying won't get me a girl... Oh, what's the use? Guess I'll turn off the light."

He pulls up the covers, murmuring as he drifts off, "I feel so lonely." Maybe things will look better on Sunday morning? There're always color comic strips on Sunday mornings...

Next Song: Teenage Blue

Our Song

In 1957 and 1958, Simon and Garfunkel were still known as "Tom & Jerry." They released some singles under that moniker in those years, collecting them in an album called simply Tom & Jerry (10 tracks, two of which are instrumentals). I cannot find the release date of this album definitively, only one site that estimates: "1958?"

Since we have, in this blog, been dealing with whole albums as much as possible, we will discuss these songs in the order in which they appear on this album, not in the order in which they were released prior to that as singles.

The first song on this album, "Hey Schoolgirl," has already been discussed, since it appeared on a box set. So we move directly to the second song, titled "Our Song."

Musically, it starts with a howl of sadness, stretching out the vowel in "She's go-o-o-one." Then it jolts into a speedy clip, about as fast as "Wake Up, Little Susie," which it sustains until the end. The song is certainly a rock song, but there is a touch of country twang in some of the guitar solos.

The song itself is about that special kind of torture that happens when a song that was "our song" is caught coming out of the radio, long after the "our" has ceased to be. The speaker is trying to move on, but the radio will not let him, so he is upset with "every DJ on the radio."

He mentions a practice which I am not sure still exists, that of "playing dedications." A listener could call in to a radio station and request that a certain song be played, "dedicated" to a certain other party the listener was sure was also listening. In this way, people could flirt, strengthen a relationship, tell a third party to back off, or even break up, depending on the message the given song contained. Someone might dedicate a song to an entire group, such as one's fellow graduates, as well. The DJ would say something along the lines of: "And here's "Earth Angel," dedicated from George to his angel, Martha."

In our speaker's case, the song he shared with his girlfriend is one popular enough to be dedicated with regularity. So he not only keep hearing the song, but mentions of couples who still share the song, while he no longer does... adding to his torment: "He (the DJ) doesn't know/ That once upon a time/ Our song made two hearts chime/ When you loved me so/ Won't they ever let me forget/ The day that we met."

Then comes a two-line bridge that seems out of place: "What will our friends say/ When they know that you've gone, gone away?" How would they know, relative to the content of this song? By the lack of his dedicating the song for her? By his reaction when the song comes on once again?

Functionally, the line only serves to remind the listener again of "Wake Up Little Susie," which it resembles strongly, and which contains the line "What're we gonna tell our friends/ When they say 'oo-la-la'?"

Our song, "Our Song," ends with this sliver of ironic hope: "...somehow I know/ She's bought the radio/ That's playing our song." He's fairly certain that she is not coming back, but at least she has to listen incessantly to this now-painful song, too. He doesn't want to actively make her feel bad, but if she does...

Next Song: That's My Story