I can’t go on with this listing of songs I like unless I include The Platters. Time-wise, they are more from the very late 50s and early 60s. When they were at their peak I still wasn’t quite a teenager; but I grew to like them as an adult, which is odd.
Great Pretender is one of their best known songs; also Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. But there’s a song on their greatest hits album called My Prayer.
The group was made up of four guys and a young woman. One of the guys was Tony Williams. He had the lead voice and what a voice; he easily moved up and down the scales and did not sing falsetto. You can hear his spectacular voice in most of the songs but he shines in My Prayer. My lady friends in the medical transcription room always called me in if they played that song on the oldies station.
Also, before I move on to the super-groups I have to include The Drifters. So many songs to love–On Broadway, On The Boardwalk, Save The Last Dance For Me. They also recorded Up On The Roof and yes, there’s a story connected with this.
During the years I was working together with Peter we had a workshop that was on the top floor of an old manufacturing company. There was a door, you stepped out, and you could see miles and miles of houses, buildings, and roads. You had to be careful because there was no protection along the sides of the roof. Nothing to keep you from falling. We used to sit out there on nice days and eat our lunches. In lots of ways it was the best years we had…Michael safely taken care of, steady money coming in from the birds.
Finally–and this is weird and can’t be explained–I need to include Bob Dylan. Why am I sticking him at the tail end of this piece on Music I Love? I don’t know. My feelings about Bob Dylan have always been mixed. Sometimes I’ve not liked him because his lyrics don’t make sense and gave me a chill. In many pictures he’s not smiling. Somehow–I think this comes from Joan Baez’s autobiography–I’ve read that he used her and hurt her considerably. Just listen to her song called “Diamonds and Rust.” Girly stuff. But now that I got through that, I have to say that some of his songs really are a part of me. Mainly, this came to me through knowing Mark. Mark had a poetic side and loved all of Dylan’s music. He could sit and talk about the meanings of the words for hours.
Nashville Skyline is my favorite album of Dylan’s. For one thing, he’s smiling in the picture on the album. The songs appeal to me a lot…they are really beautiful. Also hearing Johnny Cash sing with him was great. But my almost favorite album is Blood on the Tracks. The lyrics are perfect and have all different kinds of effects on me. I like to sing with this album as I drive. Also, when Michael was young, we listened to it a lot and Michael really liked it too. He liked “The Jack of Hearts.” I liked “Shelter From the Storm.” But all of the other songs are very, very good. Mark liked to sing “I Threw It All Away,” which I think was on Nashville Skyline. There is a stanza that begins: “I once held mountains, in the palms of my hands…” Mark was made to feel very sexy, listening to that. He was convinced that the mountains in the song were a woman’s breasts.
lgmwriting 