Yes, it certainly was. Possessiveness. Paranoia. Jealousy. The feeling that you're owed something. Making everything about yourself. Why must I be a teenager in love?
When people say "it was a different time" they're typically referring to a bygone era of sexism, racism and homophobia as if trying to explain it all away. But what if instead it's supposed to be about different time in a young man's life prior to maturity and experience setting in? A time when a relationship could go tits up and he didn't think the whole world was about to come crashing down because of it?
Dion DiMucci was twenty-two years old when "Runaround Sue" gave him a breakthrough solo hit. Admittedly, he should've known better by this point in his life (I was a lovelorn seventeen-year-old when I scribbled some similarly vindictive — if far less creatively successful — poems; I would go on to have another decade-and-a-half of bad relationships but I did learn how to deal with them) Still, hopefully he ended up growing out of it. It's said that he wound up marrying the very same Sue a couple years later so I think it's safe to say he learned a thing or two along the way.
Nevertheless, a great song can overcome an awful lot of baggage. The sentiments behind "Runaround Sue" may be somewhat problematic but at least they inspired a pretty fantastic tune and a well-deserved number one on both the CHUM charts and the Hot 100. Whatsmore, this was still just the late stages of 1961, a time when autobiographical songcraft had yet to be invented. (The week after "Runaround Sue" was dethroned from its place at the top of the Canadian charts, Bob Dylan began recording what would become his self-titled debut album, an LP which contained only two original works; The Beatles, meanwhile, were being headhunted by a local record store owner named Brian Epstein, with little thought at the time for the potential of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team)
Songs of teenage heartbreak have always been the backbone of popular music and they were everywhere in 1961 — always, it should be noted, from the male perspective. Del Shannon's "Runaway" and "Has Off to Larry", Roy Orbison's "Running Scared" (an awful lot of them have the word 'run' in the title, don't they?), Eddie Hodges' "I'm Gonna Knock on Your Door" and Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care of My Baby" were all chart toppers that with tales of love gone wrong from a wide variety of perspectives. If we're to judge them on a scale from angelic to devilish, "Runaround Sue" would probably fall somewhere in the middle, nowhere close to as well-meaning as Vee but not nearly as horrible and stalkerish as the seemingly prepubescent Hodges.
In any case, it's still an absolute banger, with Dion's doo-wop background from his days with The Belmonts being put to very good use. The "bom-ba, hey-dey, hey-dey, hey" backing vocals are iconic, perhaps the most distinctive of the era. And Dion sells it like a champ too. Though he sounds pitiful on the opening ("here's my story, it's sad but true..."), he soon manages to get away with being a giant prick, possibly because there's fire in his voice but no real vengfulness to it. There's way too much fun to be had to worry too much about Dion being a bit of a creep. And it was 1961 and he was twenty-two: it was a different time, man!
Score: 9
No comments:
Post a Comment