? & the Mysterians / The Facts of Life
GOOD NEWS!
It has lonnng bothered me that "96 Tears," the classic hit single by ? & the Mysterians, is not in print. If you are young or somewhat out of the loop, this was one of the biggest singles of 1966, instantly recognizable by the cheesiest, plinkiest organ riff in history, whose aesthetics Stephen King riffed on briefly in Hearts in Atlantis and one of my friends (sorry, Phil, Frank, can't remember which one of you... maybe it was Mr. King?) brilliantly summed up as a song where it seems the singer is crying and mocking the idea of crying at the same time. His heart has cried 96 tears, which is too many teardrops... for one heart... to be cryin'... and he's way down there, but he's going to get back up on top, but for now... he'll just cry.
It occurred to me suddenly that since the song is not in print, maybe nobody has firm legal rights to it, and maybe some beautiful person has put an MP3 up online.
Well - THEY HAVE ! ! ! ! !
This blog also has a couple great little stories, one tied in to "96 Tears," and then some thoughts on the TV show The Facts of Life, which I -surprisingly- found myself having watched enough episodes of to have firm opinions about what they blogged. (ex. - my answer to #5 is an emphatic "no.") What can I say- it was Diff'rent Strokes-related, so I had to watch!
Anyway, forget my questionable 1980s TV viewing; we ALL can now download "96 [friggin] Tears"!!!
...and I know some of you are wondering, "He's not gonna play this on repeat all weekend like those goddamned Van Morrison songs, is he?"
YES, he IS!!!
GOOD NEWS!
It has lonnng bothered me that "96 Tears," the classic hit single by ? & the Mysterians, is not in print. If you are young or somewhat out of the loop, this was one of the biggest singles of 1966, instantly recognizable by the cheesiest, plinkiest organ riff in history, whose aesthetics Stephen King riffed on briefly in Hearts in Atlantis and one of my friends (sorry, Phil, Frank, can't remember which one of you... maybe it was Mr. King?) brilliantly summed up as a song where it seems the singer is crying and mocking the idea of crying at the same time. His heart has cried 96 tears, which is too many teardrops... for one heart... to be cryin'... and he's way down there, but he's going to get back up on top, but for now... he'll just cry.
It occurred to me suddenly that since the song is not in print, maybe nobody has firm legal rights to it, and maybe some beautiful person has put an MP3 up online.
Well - THEY HAVE ! ! ! ! !
This blog also has a couple great little stories, one tied in to "96 Tears," and then some thoughts on the TV show The Facts of Life, which I -surprisingly- found myself having watched enough episodes of to have firm opinions about what they blogged. (ex. - my answer to #5 is an emphatic "no.") What can I say- it was Diff'rent Strokes-related, so I had to watch!
Anyway, forget my questionable 1980s TV viewing; we ALL can now download "96 [friggin] Tears"!!!
...and I know some of you are wondering, "He's not gonna play this on repeat all weekend like those goddamned Van Morrison songs, is he?"
YES, he IS!!!
VIEW 16 of 16 COMMENTS
I'm still nervous about my job... I still feel like I'm not catching on. Hopefully I'll get there with time.
See my next journal entry for a sampling of my favorite books, I forget if I told you those but I listed a couple others. Your recommendations are good... maybe I should be looking more for "neo-classics" though, because the older stuff doesn't strike me as light/medium reading. I should check out those classics anyway though.
There's a question for you in my latest journal.
Don't worry about Tetris... I mean if you want you can open the page and leave it open for a while to let it load. Or something. But no big deal if it doesn't work for you or takes too long.