It took decades to fully understand why the adult version of me became such a hopeless romantic who still texts photographs of Walmart flowers to loved ones.
I suspect I’m not alone among legions of fellow impressionables who came of age during the rock ‘n’ rollin’ 1950s and ’60s.
The bug bit first in my 14th year when the world — and all it promised — spread before me like a Western Sizzlin buffet. Nothing seemed impossible. Hormones had kicked in to begin shaping me into a bonafide puppy-love lovin’ lover.
And, being no fools for love themselves, the recording industry had its traps laid for me and every impressionable youngster in need of someone to share all that pent-up affection.
So I stand today, a graying man with an artificial hip, overwhelmed, of all things, by the rushing stream of those lucrative 1960s puppy-love ballads.
It was this music, which, like high-octane fuel, drove romanticized expectations of undying love with an “Earth Angel” soaring hand-in-hand to eternal heights.
One might rightly say how “In the Still of the Night,” “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” “In Dreams,” because “This Magic Moment” with my “Little Darlin’” and “Dream Lover” led me to believe she’d “Stand By Your Man,” an inevitability “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
Those simple melodies and lyrics embedded into 45-rpm vinyl extolled love’s allure and excitement, representing a lifelong inoculation for a fledgling male who, by nature, was easy pickings.
While I recognize now this was simply the big record business making big bucks off of teenagers with big dreams and radio stations nationwide cashing in alongside them, the magnetic draw captured me while being nestled in the mesmerizing folds of fantasy’s inviting cloak.
As an English Leather-soaked teen during the ’60s, I absorbed as reality each love song we swayed to at the sock hops. I suspect many fellow boomers swooned right alongside me. After all, the music we memorized that triggered imaginations and perspiration wouldn’t dare lie to us just to boost record sales, would it? No way. Not these poignant tales that played out in seeming real-life settings rather than insulated recording studios.
Well, OK. That’s what I wanted to believe.
Dick Biondi at WLS in Chicago and Wolfman Jack offshore in Del Rio, Texas, were the most popular disc jockeys in a world where their trade profited off our indoctrination, especially on weekends when the girl who then wore my slightly warped 10-karat gold ring ’round her neck and woolen letter sweater, regularly huddled close at Harrison’s local drive-in movie to be swept away to a steady stream of such sweetness.
Remember how Pat Boone touted the intoxicating mystery of “April Love” in a “White Sport Coat?” Tommy Edwards warned many a tear had to fall in romance, but “It’s All in the Game.” Percy Sledge advised what to expect “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
And there was more. Oh, so much more. Ruby and the Romantics (see, there’s that word!) assured, “Our Day Will Come.” Skeeter Davis wailed how losing her boyfriend’s affection could mean “The End of the World.”
Elvis advised to “Love Me Tender.” Buddy Holly crooned how “That’ll Be the Day” after Cupid shot his dart. I identified with Ritchie Valens’ suffering over the loss of his “Donna.”
There was the Righteous Brothers’ heartrending, “Unchained Melody.” Texas crooner Roy Orbison was applying four remarkable octaves to how he’d been “Running Scared” of losing his main squeeze, while explaining how “Only the Lonely” understood why his broken heart suffered.
The Everly Brothers proclaimed they hadn’t lived “’Til I Kissed You,” and pledged after a breakup, they’d be doing their “Crying in the Rain.” The great Nat King Cole sang “When I Fall in Love,” it will be forever. Yeah, I believed ol’ Nat too.
The list of such fantasy-soaked romance literally could fill this page. Why so many, you might wonder? Because the market was there for all of it they could pump out.
Anyone else recall how Bruce Channel asked, “Hey! Baby,” would you be his girl? The Platters sang how “My Prayer” was to be with their girl at the end of the day. The Supremes wondered, “Where Did our Love Go?” The Beatles reminded me “All You Need is Love.” Pianist Floyd Cramer had his “Last Date.”
Remember how the “Teen Angel” tragically went running back to die for her boyfriend’s class ring?
Among my most vivid memories from those years is a July weekend carport dance at the Harrison home of our late classmate Pebble Daniel. That humid night, a herd of us pimply 15-year-olds clutched and perspired to Bryan Highland’s “Sealed with a Kiss.” We wound up with hands and clothes drenched, the girls smelling of their mothers’ enticing gardenia scent called White Shoulders.
But we weren’t about to surrender our shufflings and squeezings, especially since Hyland reminded us how long and lonely the summer would be apart.
If bonding messages are deeply imprinted in the feelings of innocent puppies, kittens and even skunks, I assure you they also exist in passionate young human beings, especially when reinforced by melodic poetries of love. And dreaming. And kissing. And hugging.
Their common message of undying and unrequited love obviously marinated to my molecular core. I opened every door and window to my brain and heart.
Look, I’m not making excuses for my admittedly unrealistic views that linger even after almost 60 years. At 73, I am faulting my naive, yet well-intended, willingness to so openly accept the sweet mysteries of romantic musical reinforcement that became part of my impractical real life. Some of us believed puppy love could overcome everything because, hey, it felt so darn good. Besides, it was a noble belief.
Yet, for the life of me, I can’t recall one 1960s hit about paying the mortgage, managing a budget, dirty diapers, raising kids, cleaning the house, picking up doggy poo or grinding out a daily living.
Come to think of it, Lesley Gore did try to yank our adolescent chains with her remake of “What Kind of Fool Am I?” But, hey. What did Lesley know?
It’s lots more fun at 14 to dream of an overly simplified life with a beloved partner, courtesy of romantic lyrics and poignant melodies, which extolled uncomplicated attachments as they saturated my life in decades long past.
Mike Masterson has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
