Friday, June 02, 2017

Songs From the 50's and early 60's



I hope to post some of the songs my husband likes to listen to in the car. When he has the music playing  I feel like we are a carefree couple cruising around. A simple stop at the grocery store and the post office seems like a vacation :-).

Some of the songs we listen to are about meeting someone to marry and the lyrics talk about church bells ringing and weddings. You certainly do not hear words like that in today's Noisic. Now if they
played that in the stores I wouldn't complain.

The "crooners" of the fifties -- individual singers not in groups--often sang songs containing
references to getting married, having a house and children; sharing a future into old age together. This music, although not church music, at least did not undermine marriage and family or the woman at home.

And never did any of the songs of that era speak against God, Christ, the Bible, Christians, worship
or the church.

The songs expresses kindness, sympathy, ("put your head on my shoulder"), and gentleness between
men and women.

Also songs seemed to lack tension except for the question of winning the love of the opposite sex, which was a common challenge. Music was not too annoying, although there is some of the harmony
Not to my liking.

This next video, below, is the same group, many years later, still dressed up and still fine voices. This group performed at one of the schools my husband attended. These singing groups always dressed decently for public performances and they smiled a lot.



The Church Bells song is at 5:29 in the above video, some of the other the songs are good in that you can hear the actual words. What a novelty, eh? Hearing the words of the songs? At 15:10 is the song "Twenty-six Miles".

Below, another group that sang the church bells song:



The Church Bells May Ring

Lyrics
Church bells may ring,


Church bells may ring. 
Church bells may ring,

And surely, darling, the angels will sing.




I'll tell you, darling,
You're the queen of my throne.
You should have known, sweetheart, sweetheart. 
Church bells may ring,
And surely, darling, the angels will sing.



I'll tell you, darling,
You're the queen of my throne.
You should have known, sweetheart, sweetheart. 

Ling a ling a ling a ling a ling ding dong,
I love you, darling, and I want you for my own.
I'll give you any, anything that I own,

You should have known sweetheart. 

A reader left a comment about this song, and I agree: it has such good values in the music and 
lyrics. This song was sung by many different artists, but this man's voice is incredible. Jimmy Bell was the first artist to record the song, in 1960 :


Lyrics
She wears my ring to show the world that she belongs to me
She wears my ring to show the world she's mine eternally
With loving care I placed it on her finger
To show my love for all the world to see
This tiny ring is a token of tender emotion
An endless pool of love that's as deep as the ocean



She swears to wear it with eternal devotion
That's why I sing, because she wears my ring


She swears to wear it with eternal devotion
That's why I sing, because she wears my ring
This tiny ring is a token of tender emotion
An endless pool of love that's as deep as the ocean
She swears to wear it with eternal devotion
That's why I sing, because she wears my ring
That's why I sing, because she wears my ring

Songwriters: Boudleaux Bryant / Felice Bryant
You may like this one: "I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time."



Cars of the times were very nice too, and well built, but I wouldn't mind a reproduction of the previous era roadsters with the picnic box on the back!



11 comments:

Mary said...

You are so right. The songs back then were pretty innocent. The music got worse as time went on. The music of today is downright depressing.

Hartslove said...

The music has a soothing effect. It reminds me of riding in the car with my granddad when I was a child. I was born at the end of the 1960's. Alexine

Lydia said...

Ellie Ray, yes they got worse in several ways. In these songs they express how much it hurts to give away your heart and be rejected. We were sensitive to that. But contemporary songs actually celebrate hurting someone and not only emotionally.

Harts love, music was not always so jarring to the ears and the lyrics were not always so upsetting. The oldies didn't have to use loud music to hide the bad words. The music was about normal male and female relationships.

Sibyl said...

Lydia

My husband and I listen to this type of music quite often, (meaning all the time). He talks about how the lyrics build the girl or woman up and not belittling them or calling them derogatory names or putting them down. He is so fortunate to be able to finding these on Youtube. One of our favorite songs is "She wears my ring". Its a man talking about his wife wears his ring. Showing the whole world she is his. One of those kind of songs that make you proud to be his girl/wife.

Talking about music at the stores. I notice that if I go early in the morning--around 8am or so, I hear good music similar to this, or some of the beebop music of the 50s early 60s. Something to sing with. But the later in the day, the less likely to have good music on the intercoms.

Thanks for all the encouragement you offer.

Lydia said...

Sibyl, thank you for that song. I posted it for everyone to enjoy, but I did not know what artist you listen to. Still, this singer has got great pathos, for lack of a better word, to his voice...or chalk, or whatever it is called. The singers today are shrill and flat with no softness. Even the new age singers of the 90's sounded better than the pop music obnoxiously blared in stores. There are a lot of good c and w singers but some of them are just loud and shrill.

Lydia said...

Listening to these songs on the radio must have had an influence on a lot of your women to desire to marry a nice man and wear his ring, I was reading some acxlunts of that time, in which the girls were described as wanting to learn to keep house for the yong man they married, and the boys wanted to build a house for the young lady they married.

SheLaughs said...

We will soon be in the 2020s. I suspect that we will see a lot of retro versions of clothes, cars and music from the 1920s being redone for our modern era.

Lydia said...

They only have a little over teo years time to get this all ready so I hope the artists and designers are getting the tribute things planned. Never fear, though, you can do it yourself, and I plan to have some things here on this blog; a few dresses I am hoping to make, amd some hairstyles...and I may outfit our car with an old fashioned picnic hamper. Cars today have very little wiggle room compared to the cars of that era, amd you can't wear a hat because there is not enough head room in many of them. however there are a lot of things besides cars , and I will be Shari g some of the. With some photo reenactments and some hand made things.

Lydia said...

The 1960's generally have a bad reputation but the early part of the decade there were a lot of good things going on and a lot of great memories.

Lydia said...

You are right about the early morning music in stores...they play the oldies! Maybe the older employees are working that shift.

Mrs. French said...

My kids listen to Annette Funicello, Frankie Vallie, etc... They browse YouTube music - the rules are absolutely no rap, heavy metal, etc.., and the lyrics have to be positive. Being homeschooled, they are not subject to peer pressure making modern "music" appealing to them. Their choices sure make me feel that at least in this area, we are getting the parenting thing right! :)