Jimmy Clanton: "Go, Jimmy, Go"

January 25, 1960 (1 week)

Welcome to another edition of Margach's Music. I'm your host Paul Margach. Playing some great music from the fifties all the way through to the nineties — and, as always, twenty-first century songs are strictly forbidden around here. We got a great show lined up for you tonight including tracks by Louis Armstrong, Chic, R.E.M., Burning Spear, Dusty Springfield, The Beautiful South, The Four Seasons and Emmylou Harris — among many others.

So, I was having a cup of coffee and a raisin muffin at the cafe down the street from where I live the other day. Everyone else who goes in there orders these "half-caff, double-shot, chai-berry, soy milk, pumpkin-spice cappuccino tea lattes" monstrosities but I always get a cup of black coffee. One girl working in there once asked me if I wanted something called an 'Americano' but I shot her a look and since then she gives me nothing but hot cup of good old Colombian. That's all I want. And a bran muffin with raisins is what I want to eat when I go there. I don't want a biscotti or a macaron or an egg tart. And while we're on the topic, whatever happened to macaroons and when did the macaron come into the picture? I feel like it wasn't a coincidence that one disappeared just as the other arrived.

So, I got a table over by the window. I had been hoping to do some reading but the loud conversation the guy and girl were having at the next table became distracting. I confess that I then spent the next several minutes listening in. You might say I shouldn't have been eavesdropping but that's the price a young couple pays for talking at full volume in a public place. If what you're talking about isn't any of my business then don't make it my business and either converse in a private place or keep your voices down.

This pair looked no older than high school students. Now back in my day, we had this thing called 'humility'. We didn't boast about getting good grades or our prowess on the baseball field or how fast we could drive or our skill with the ladies — and not just because I was a mediocre student, I sucked at baseball, I hate driving and girls wanted to have nothing to do with me. We let the things we did well speak for themselves. Even the jock from my high school who played quarterback knew the meaning of modesty. And I can't believe the girl he was with was able to take all this hot air. When I was a kid, you'd know better than to blow your own trumpet because the girls would immediately be turned off by such brash displays. They were smart enough to see who had the looks, who had the charm, who had the brains and who had the athletic prowess — and they certainly didn't need us young men to bragging about our strengths. If you have to go so far as to tell the world about your strengths then it becomes all too clear just what your weaknesses are.

First up is Jimmy Clanton, number one in January, 1960, "Go, Jimmy, Go"...

Score: 5