Bobby Vinton: "Please Love Me Forever"

December 2, 1967 (1 week)

I recently watched a YouTube video titled "50s Stars Who Tried to Adapt to the Psychedelic 60s". Clocking in at just under twenty-five minutes, it is seemingly a comprehensive overview of those poor souls who had been on top a decade earlier only to see their fortunes go down the drain with the rise of Beatlemania. Most of the individuals involved — Del Shannon, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vee — were met with critical acclaim with their varied takes on acid rock  and/or baroque pop but sales tended to be disappointing. The bulk of them ended up fading away still further into the cabaret circuit and/or further obscurity.

Respect to Bobby Vinton, then, for not changing one iota over the years. His drippy balladeering had provided him with untold wealth and fame and he wasn't about to give it all up by dawning a flowery shirt, growing out his hair and flashing a peach sign. You don't become the Polish Prince by pretending to court the Woodstock generation.

Respect? Sure. Lots of it in fact. But does it save "Please Love Me Forever" any? No, not at all. At best, it's possible that since the gap between his stream of number ones had begun to widen, that it was becoming more difficult to get sick of him but, again, this doesn't say anything either way about this particular single. As befitting a guy who refused to change with the times, it's just more of the same.

More of the same like "Blue Velvet" perhaps? No, I'm afraid not. While an improvement on the nadir of "L-O-N-E-L-Y", it is more in the mid-range of not quite insufferable but still fairly shit Vinton numbers like "Roses Are Red (My Love)" and "Mr. Lonely". Graded on a curve, it would do fairly respectably but held up against sixties' pop it does significantly less well. While as trite as ever, it is saved (a bit) by a stronger than normal vocal performance. Vinton could sometimes sound timid, as though his vulnerabilities might pull at the heartstrings of the fair sex, but here he has a more confident delivery. Less of a sickening plea and more a plea with a veiled threat ("If I should die before I wake / I'll come back for you / That's no mistake...").

"Please Love Me Forever" was Vinton's fifth Canadian number one, no mean feat considering some of the heavyweights (The Everly Brothers, The Rolling Stones) who had yet to notch a similar total. Will he be back for a sixth or even a seventh RPM chart topper? I have no idea and, frankly, I'd rather not know. Surprise me. But I do have one request: if you must keep 'em coming, Bobby, then just keep sticking to what you know. No one wants you going acid rock or country rock or (shudder) disco.

Score: 4

Bobby Vinton: "L-O-N-E-L-Y"

June 28, 1965 (1 week)

"Oh and what do you know, another Bobby Vinton song is on the horizon in 1965. Whatever am I going to find to say about it that I haven't already written? But, hey, if the Polish Prince was content to repeat himself then why should I be any different?"

~~~~~

In the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, cousins Will and Carlton begin university and they start sharing an apartment. Rich kid Carlton manages to get a date and he asks her to dance. The music being played is "Mr Lonely" by Bobby Vinton, which bemuses the statuesque Jackie. Carlton had already expressed a fondness for the likes of Tom Jones and Barry Manilow which is supposed to make everyone laugh that an African American would be so fond of such painfully white music. But being into the 'Polish Prince' makes him seem like even more of a square with tastes that are even more old-fashioned. (Significantly, it was during this same season that Will and Carlton pledged to a frat house only for the latter to memorably be rejected for "not being enough of a brother to be a brother")

The last first time he came up, I knocked Vinton for being all teen-idol looks and smooth vocals with little else to show for it. This still holds true but did he need anything else if he had the right material to work with? "Roses Are Red" suffered from being not a great song that he couldn't not get to rise above being horribly blane.; for its part, "Blue Velvet" isn't terribly brilliant either but a definite step up. Due to its use in this film of the same name, "Blue Velvet" is intrinsically linked to the Lynch picture. This has prompted Tom Breihan to wonder if it always had a dark side. "Could a song", he asks, "be Lynchian before David Lynch got a hold of it?" I think that is something that we can only claim in retrospect. Sure, it's dreamy and there's a touch of teenage angst about it but nothing to suggest a psychological thriller or whatever it is Lynch did as a part of his "oeuvre". Lynchian? I prefer Dinnerian.

The results can be best described as "a song". Not revolting by any stretch of the imagination but just another Vinton turn about heartbreak and feeling sorry for himself. There are certainly worse things in the world — some of which happened to also go to number one in Canada — but the idea of listening to something like this for pleasure just doesn't compute. And not just for pleasure but for pop music therapy: Vinton wallows in misery but offers little by way of guiding young fans along in order to find hope or a way out. It's musical junk food masquerading as protein-rich chana masala.

"Blue Velvet" is decent and the other two were just about tolerable. "L-O-N-E-L-Y", however, isn't close to as good as its predecessors. While Jackie might have humoured Carl by dancing with him to "Roses are Red" or "Mr. Lonely", she would have drawn a line at this stinker. For his part, Carlton would have had enough self-awareness not to try romancing a pretty undergrad to something so shitty. Similarly, directors ranging from David Lynch to Michael Dinner wouldn't have been caught dead using it to soundtrack one of their motion pictures. Finally, I'd go so far as to say it isn't a song at all, just a self-indulgent and pathetic diary entry set to elevator muzak. Not haunting, not romantic, not helpful to teens in any way; just an increasingly irrelevant thirty-year-old trying to keep the party going — and it's the sort of party in which everyone had already left or never bothered turning up for. Oh, and just because that's just my sort of party doesn't mean I've got to like it.

Score: 1 

~~~~~

Can Con

Yet he managed to have a respectable career; I'll have to see if he managed to live up to the early promise.

"Unless You Care" had been a promising start for Terry Black but "Little Liar" did a great job of killing off his momentum. It's fine musically but Black's voice had suddenly decided to immature with age. Somehow it still made the Top 10 on the RPM chart which probably owes more to his status as a teen idol than anything else. Plus, at least he still was a teenager in 1965 unlike the Polish Prince.

Bobby Vinton: "Mr. Lonely"

December 14, 1964 (1 week)

This blog recently published its eighteenth review of one of Elvis Presley's number one hits in Canada. (Luckily, there aren't too many more left to cover) I hope I didn't repeat myself too often though the fact that I'm reluctant to go back to re-read all of them suggests that I'd rather not find out. Yet, I've expressed some views and notions that may or may not be of interest to people out there which is more than can be said for what I have to say about Bobby bloody Vinton.

I mean, what more is there to say about the Polish Prince? Well, I suppose I could say that his songs all sound the same but is that even the case? "Blue Velvet" has a dark heart to it which was probably why it found its way into a David Lynch film back in the eighties but "Mr. Lonely" has no such hidden depths. It's just a twenty-nine year old man boy pining for someone to reach out to him so he will not be so lonely.

They aren't quite the same but there's no indication that Vinton was trying to push on through creatively the way many of those who had wreaked havoc on the music scene in 1964 were doing. We may now adjudicate future singles and/or albums as the "turning point" for The Beatles ("Yesterday", Rubber Soul, Revolver, "Strawberry Fields Forever") The Beach Boys ("California Girls", Pet Sounds, "Good Vibrations"), Bob Dylan ("Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Like a Rolling Stone", Highway 61 Revisited) and so forth but their activities throughout a year in which they were all still finding their way indicate that they were never content to stand still. Not so with Vinton: he managed to have yet another number one smash without even bothering to record anything.

"Mr. Lonely" had been written back in the fifties and was cut just as he was set to achieve stardom with breakthrough hit "Roses Are Red (My Love)", a single I blogged about less than four months ago but which I cannot recall except that I'm quite sure it sounds like a Bobby Vinton song. He pushed for its release but his record company vetoed it, though it was included on his debut solo album Roses Are Red. Struggling to fill out a largely unnecessary greatest hits album, the singer pressed for "Mr. Lonely" which proved to be so popular that it returned him to the top of the Hot 100.

The results can be best described as "a song". Not revolting by any stretch of the imagination but just another Vinton turn about heartbreak and feeling sorry for himself. There are certainly worse things in the world — some of which happened to also go to number one in Canada — but the idea of listening to something like this for pleasure just doesn't compute. And not just for pleasure but for pop music therapy: Vinton wallows in misery but offers little by way of guiding young fans along in order to find hope or a way out. It's musical junk food masquerading as protein-rich chana masala.

Oh, and what do you know, another Bobby Vinton song is on the horizon in 1965. Whatever am I going to find to say about it that I haven't already written? But, hey, if the Polish Prince was content to repeat himself then why should I be any different?

Score: 4

~~~~~

Can Con

He did one of the all-time great celebrity guest spots on Imperial period Simpsons ("You're manager says for you to shut up!" is a line that lives rent free in my head) and that alone should justify Robert Goulet's lengthy career in music — and it certainly does far more for his legacy than "My Love, Forgive Me (Amore, Scusami)", a modest number twenty-two hit. I'm indifferent towards "Mr. Lonely" but the same cannot be said for this turgid crap. Honestly, Goulet is probably the best thing about it seeing as how the composition is littered with cliches and the arrangement is a tasteless mess. His voice is a little too perfect but at least he doesn't make me want to throw up my nachos and beer. He did far better with the classic "Jingle Bells, Batman smells...".

Bobby Vinton: "Blue Velvet"

September 9, 1963 (5 weeks)

Like many people around my age, "Blue Velvet" makes me think of a memorable scene in a movie. Allow me to describe it for you:

It is the night of the big school dance at St. Basil's, an all-boys Catholic school in Brooklyn. Joining the young men are the girls from the nearby Virgin Martyr school. Michael, the film's main character, promptly ditches the event to spend some time with Danni, who happens to be of another religious persuasion (or happens to be agnostic or an atheist. Meanwhile, bully Rooney convinces the lovely Jeanine to come out with him to cruise around in his father's new car. She agrees but on the condition that her best friend, the timid Kathleen, joins them along with one of his friends to keep her company. She suggests brainiac Caesar which Rooney reluctantly agrees to. The foursome pile in to the car which Rooney then foolishly parks on a bridge. Caesar and Kathleen are left in the backseat of the vehicle while their friends find a secluded spot so they can drink, make out and puke. Having to clean Jeanine's barf from his suit jacket, the night hasn't gone the way Rooney expected so he heads back to the car only to discover that a boat is coming and the bridge operator is unaware there's a car parked on it. It looks as if the vehicle and its passengers are going to plummet into the river when the operator finally notices them and they are saved — but not before it ruins Rooney's dad's car. "Blue Velvet" plays out the last few seconds of this scene.

As you will no doubt know by now, I did not describe a scene from the 1986 David Lynch film Blue Velvet. Rather, it's from Michael Dinner's comedy-drama Heaven Help Us from a year earlier. I don't know if there's a whole lot of reason for it being there beyond simply being a very popular song from the time but symbolism be damned! In any case, it sort of provides a calm after the storm to finish up that scene. As far as the film Blue Velvet, I wouldn't know because I've never seen it. I once watched about half of Eraserhead but I got so bored I turned it off. Otherwise, I've never seen a Lynch picture in my life — and, with all due respect to a legend who recently passed away, I'm not planning to do anything about this gap in my cultural development. On the other hand, he did direct the video to Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game", though, sadly, not the one everyone remembers.

One thing that Heaven Help Us inadvertently does to aid the cause of Bobby Vinton's signature hit is to place it in the context of teenagers in the sixties who borrowed their dad's Cadillacs or Oldmobiles in order to take a date to a spot called 'Make Out Point' in order to engage in some passionate necking and maybe even a bit of petting. (That said, not only is parking a car on a bridge stupid, it's also not an especially romantic setting; no bloody wonder Rooney and Jeanine ditched Caesar and Kathleen there) It's a classic make out song to have on in the car stereo or perhaps playing in the rumpus room. Hell, it might as well have invented the concept of make out music. Barry White, Anita Baker, a whole generation of hair metal bands so desperate for a hit that they resorted to the syrupy ballad: they all owe a debt of gratitude to the Polish Prince.

The last time he came up, I knocked Vinton for being all teen-idol looks and smooth vocals with little else to show for it. This still holds true but did he need anything else if he had the right material to work with? "Roses Are Red" suffered from being not a great song that he couldn't not get to rise above being horribly bland; for its part, "Blue Velvet" isn't terribly brilliant either but a definite step up. Due to its use in this film of the same name, it's intrinsically linked to the Lynch picture. This has prompted Tom Breihan to wonder if it always had a dark side. "Could a song", he asks, "be Lynchian before David Lynch got a hold of it?" I think that is something that we can only claim in retrospect. Sure, it's dreamy and there's a touch of teenage angst about it but nothing to suggest a psychological thriller or whatever it is Lynch did as a part of his "oeuvre". Lynchian? I prefer Dinnerian.

Look up the soundtrack to Heaven Help Us over on Discogs and you'll no doubt notice a nice selection of bangers. "Come See About Me", "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)", "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "My Girl" are all present and correct. Missing, however, is "Blue Velvet", presumably either because it didn't fit in with all that sixties' soul and Motown or because they couldn't get the rights. Either way, it's a shame since the pent up desires and fantasies of Dunn, Rooney, Caesar, Williams and Corbett crystallize in this memorable pop song even if the brothers at St. Basil's were determined to beat it out of them.

Score: 6

~~~~~

Can Con

I once read the bulk of Ian Tyson's autobiography, The Long Trail. I don't think I finished it but I consumed enough of it to get the picture. Mainly, I learned that he was "not a socialist" because I'm quite sure he brought it up on three separate occasions. I understood the first time because he clearly wanted to emphasize how he differed from many of his contemporaries in the left-leaning folk music circuit, though I'm not sure he needed to keep bringing it up. Otherwise, it wasn't such a bad book. It was during the five week reign of "Blue Velvet" that this Canadian singer-songwriter teamed up with his then-wife Sylvia — whose preference for the economic systems proposed by Karl Marx and Adam Smith I am unaware of — on the much-covered masterpiece "Four Strong Winds". With all due respect to Ian & Sylvia, this is one of those songs that everyone seems to nail. Then again, maybe that's what makes it so special.

Bobby Vinton: "Roses Are Red (My Love)"

June 25, 1962 (3 weeks)

That boyish smile, those honey-drenched melodies, being nicknamed the 'Polish Prince': Bobby Vinton seemed to be the ultimate teen idol. (Indeed, going by the name 'Bobby' rather than 'Bob' or 'Robert' or even 'Rob') Yet, he was twenty-seven by the time "Roses Are Red (My Love)" reached number one in Canada and the US. This is obviously no great age in the scheme of things but by a pop star standards of the time, he was getting up there. He was the same age as Elvis Presley who was still being strongarmed into putting out teenage love songs and other fluff but he also seemed to be looking for a way out. What excuse did Vinton have?

Oh wait, I know! He had the smile and the voice but not much else to speak of! Of course he was going to be doing nothing but songs of teen heartbreak when his talents were so relatively modest!

That's not to say that there's anything wrong with "Roses Are Red (My Love)", only that it's just nothing special. Well, scratch that: it's kind of engaging in its own way. The tune is surprisingly solid and Tom Breihan even makes the worthwhile point that a "country singer could have made something out of it". Too bad Vinton is far too bland to make this recording of much interest. That said, the guitar picking is pretty nifty. (Perhaps this is why Breihan got the idea that it could've been an effective country number)

In the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, cousins Will and Carlton begin university and they start sharing an apartment. Rich kid Carlton manages to get a date and he asks her to dance. The music being played is "Mr Lonely" by Bobby Vinton, which bemuses the statuesque Jackie. Carlton had already expressed a fondness for the likes of Tom Jones and Barry Manilow which is supposed to make everyone laugh that an African American would be so fond of such painfully white music. But being into the 'Polish Prince' makes him seem like even more of a square with tastes that are even more old-fashioned. (Significantly, it was during this same season that Will and Carlton pledged to a frat house only for the latter to memorably be rejected for "not being enough of a brother to be a brother")

Why did I bring this anecdote up? Mainly to pad what is an admittedly slight review but also to bring up the fact that teens fell for Vinton's shtick, even though he had been out of high school for the better part of a decade. Somehow or other, they kept buying it even as another ten years would pass by — as we'll be discussing further in the very next entry on here.

Score: 4

~~~~~

Can Con

A Canadian single on the CHUM charts?!? And in the Top 10 no less??? It feels like it's been a while. And we've got a future titan! "Gord" Lightfoot - yes, this is actually how he was credited on the single, minus the inverted commas - isn't much remembered for his work in the pre-singer/songwriter era but he was big enough in his homeland to manage to crack the Top 40 on multiple occasions. That said, this is a far cry from "If You Could Read My Mind", "Sundown" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". That distinctive, warm voice is present but his talents as a songsmith aren't apparent. If I'm being extremely charitable then I'd say that "(Remember Me) I'm the One" shows promise but, in truth, I'm only bringing this up because I know what he would one day become. A welcome reminder to never give up!