The Browns: "The Old Lamplighter"

May 9, 1960 (1 week)

"The Old Lamplighter"? Could this be a tribute to Montreal Canadiens hall-of-famer Hector "Toe" Blake? The gritty and talented left winger was such a prolific goal scorer in his heyday that he made the goal light go on an awful lot. By the time this single by The Browns had come out in the spring of 1960, Blake had become the coach of his old team and had just led them to an unprecedented fifth consecutive Stanley Cup. If anyone from the world of hockey deserved to have a pop hit in their honour, it was the great Toe Blake — though I suppose most would opt for his old linemate Maurice "The Rocket" Richard, which, granted, wouldn't have been a bad choice either.

Had it come out at some point in the post-"Weird Al" Yankovic culture, there's a reasonably good chance that "The Old Lamplighter" would have been re-tooled in tribute to Blake, at least by some clever Montreal-area DJ. In fact, the song had already been the fodder for parody back in 1953 when the great polymath Tom Lehrer did it as "The Old Dope-Peddler" (the line "he gives the kids free samples because he knows full well / That today's innocent faces will be tomorrow's clientele" is what really makes it) but this should've just scratched the surface. "The Old Nailbiter"? "The Old Piss-taker"? "The Old Shit-disturber"? These comedy songs practically write themselves!

The last time The bloody Browns came up, I found myself listening and re-listening to "The Three Bells" in an effort to get myself to find some worth in it. Tom Breihan was so touched by it that he gave the damn record an 8 in his review so I figured there must have been something I was missing. I initially had a respectable score of 6 earmarked but as I kept playing it, the more I found myself hating it to the point in which I gave it a 2. (I stand by this score, as, indeed, I do with all of my reviews so far) If not quite irredeemably bad then close enough to it.

But what of "The Old Lamplighter"? Well, it's sort of the opposite scenario. I had been thinking that it would be just as piss-poor as its predecessor but it's now as if I'm searching for reasons to hate the thing and I'm coming up empty. The two songs are similarly sentimental but this one is far less sickly. Though I'm not particularly interested in paying tribute to gentlemen who would go about the town lighting kerosene lamps, the idea of The Browns doing so is lovely in its own way. And this time I don't even have to quibble over the supposedly tender plot.

And yet, "The Three Bells" set such a low bar that I can feel well-disposed towards its much better follow-up but still not really enjoy it all that much. It may not get on my nerves to the same extent but that doesn't prevent it from being rather boring. I only really like it compared to what The Browns managed to barf up previously; alongside the likes of recent entries by Johnny & The Hurricanes, Johnny Horton and Elvis Presley, it is roughly equal in terms of quality. In other words, passable at best. A tribute to Hector "Toe" Blake could easily have been just as good — if not better.

Score: 5