Handy Man

It's been a year and a half since I last posted an entry here. I've been sucked into other social networking, and also trying to focus on, y'know, life and stuff. Maybe I'll pick up the pace here at The Songs in My Head, and maybe not. I tweet at twitter/soozenextthing with a touch more frequency, so follow me there!

For now, the lilting mellowness of a tune from my youth, with Mr. James Taylor's "Handy Man." The "comma, comma, comma, comma, come, come," refrain was ubiquitous on 70s radio, a song not to be confused with Sammy Davis Jr's "The Candyman" and the weirdness that is Neil Sedaka also spelling out that useful bit of punctuation. But I actually didn't realize that the song is much older. It's easy to attribute to JT, since he was mainly known for singing songs he'd also written, but the song was originally penned by roots rock and R&B singer Jimmy Jones and songwriter Otis Blackwell (who also wrote "Don't Be Cruel," "Great Balls of Fire," and many other very influential rock tunes). It's a case of the long, vague memory thread of a song that's been part of the culture for a very long time, arriving in my head one random day in 2015, in the form I'm most familiar with. Likely you've heard a couple of these versions of the tune yourself:

The 1959 original, by Jimmy Jones:



The chart-topper, later that same year, by Dell Shannon and his distinctive clavioline:



And who knew that Frank Black and Teenage Fanclub even banged out an indie cover of the song for a John Peel session record?



Artist: James Taylor
Year: 1977
Rating: Warm

Artist: Jimmy Jones
Year: 1959
Rating: Luke Hot

Artist: Del Shannon
Year: 1959
Rating: Luke Hot

Artist: Frank Black & Teenage Fanclub
Year: 1997
Rating: Warm

Six Degrees of Fish Heads

This is not a timely entry - the chain of events and songs-in-my-head described herein happened months ago, but I've been wrestling with how to present the tale. Unfortunately, I'm not skilled enough in web design to give you the presentation I had envisioned, which would have involved the linking of images in a flowchart to their relevant examples somewhere on the World Wide Web. Instead, please draw your attention to the two-dimensional flowchart below. Click on the image to enlarge it so's to maximize legibility.

Now in linear form, with links: A while back, a Facebook friend of mine, Lia, wrote on my wall to let me know that Del Shannon's "Runaway" was in her head. (I always appreciate hearing what songs are in your heads, dear readers!)



 The clavioline* bridge in "Runaway" led me to get the Lost in Space theme song stuck in my head. Well, one of the Lost in Space theme songs.** From there, I was inspired, while still on YouTube, to look up Billy Mumy, who played Will Robinson on Lost in Space. I'd heard at some point or other that he'd become a musician, in a career trajectory not unlike Brandon Cruz, another sixties child star who went on to front several irreverent punk bands. Some of you out there may have known this already, but in fact, Bill Mumy was one half of the art-wave/novelty duo Barnes & Barnes, most famous for this Dr. Demento staple:

 And there you have it. This, in sum, is how my friend Lia led me to get "Fish Heads" stuck in my head, and to make the realization, for the first time, that little Billy Mumy was responsible for it. If only I had mad web design skills and could have conveyed this convoluted story to you when it was still au courant. Shouts out to Lia!

Artist (Runaway): Dell Shannon Year: 1961
Rating: Warm
Artist (Lost In Space Theme): John Williams
Year: c. 1967
Rating: Warm
Artist (Fish Heads): Barnes & Barnes
Year: 1978
Rating: Luke Hot

* No, I did not know the name of this instrument until embarking on this tangential internet search
** The other Lost in Space theme song goes like this.