One Thing Leads to Another...

Judy Collins sings Liverpool Lullaby
Barry Friedman, the heart and soul of Tulsa, conducts a regular Friday 10 best (or worst) list on his Facebook page, which I generally dodge because invariably one minute after making my list public, I remember something or someone I should’ve included and I end up feeling like a dope. But I couldn’t resist the bait on Barry's most recent hook to submit 10 favorite first lines of popular songs. There are at least 10 songs whose first lines I've been singing to myself (and unwilling others) pretty regularly for decades, so I knew making my list was unlikely to leave me in one of those gobsmacking "I couldda had a V8" moments.  
After completing my list, I realized that three of the songs I cited appeared on one album (excuse me, CD)--Judy Collins's "In My Life"-- if not one of the 10 most essential pop albums of the 20th century, at least in the top 100. My three first lines came from:Dylan's Tom Thumb's Blues—“When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter time too…"Leonard Cohen's Suzanne—“Suzanne takes you down to a place near the river…"Lennon & McCartney's In My Life--"There are places I remember all my life though some have changed…”With those three songs dominating more than usual the musical playlist of my mind, it was inevitable that I would end up playing the entire Collins album come Sunday morning...a time reserved in our home for the weekly worship of music. When I say "In My Life" is among the essential LP's of the 20th century (whether essential 10 or 100 I leave open to debate), what makes it so is the selection of songwriters Judy and her exquisitely tasteful producer Joshua Rifkin chose to feature. The writers' collective weight is really what elevates the album far above the ordinary. Not only are Dylan, Cohen, Lennon & McCartney included, but Brecht & Weill, Jacques Brel, and Randy Newman as well. Richard Farina and Donovan get pulled along for the ride. Neither is in the same songwriting league as the others, but their contributions nicely complement the overall tapestry of the album.
Then there's Stan Kelly.

And this is where you’ll have to pardon me while I embarrass myself. Over this past weekend with my most recent listen to this album--which I’ve owned since bell bottoms were in fashion and Lyndon Baines Johnson was President--I realized that I didn’t know who the writer was on one of the album’s many highlights—Liverpool Lullaby. I have no defense for this gross oversight. If I’d learned that the song was a collaboration of Dylan, Cohen and the ghost of Bertolt Brecht, I easily could’ve believed it…it’s thatgood. I learned instead that it was the creation of a guy named Stan Kelly, and here’s what Stan Kelly’s talent wrought:
Oh you are a mucky kidDirty as a dustbin lidWhen he hears the things that you didYou’ll get a belt from yer dad
Oh, you have your father’s noseSo crimson in the dark it glowsIf you’re not asleep when the boozers closeYou’ll get a belt from yer dad
You look so scruffy lying thereStrawberry jam tufts in your hairIn all the world you haven’t a careAnd I have got so many
It’s quite a struggle every dayLivin’ on yer father’s payThe buggar drinks it all awayAnd leaves me without any
Although you have no silver spoonBetter days are coming soonOur Nelly’s working at the loomAnd she gets paid on Friday
Perhaps one day we’ll have a splashWhen Littlewoods provide the cashWe’ll get a house in Knotty AshAnd buy your dad a brewery
Oh you are a mucky kidDirty as a dustbin lidWhen he hears the things that you didYou’ll get a belt from yer dad
Oh you have your father’s faceYou’re growing up a real hard caseBut there’s no one can take your placeGo fast asleep for your mammy
It’s just a small gem of a song lyric—a hummable Angela’s Ashes--tippy-toeing down that very fine artistic line between the sentimental and the ironic. I also learned that Stan Kelly died earlier this year, that he was sometimes known as Stan Bootle, and he was no ordinary guy. He was among the first in the world to earn an advanced degree in computer sciences, was a football (soccer) agent, and an historian of his beloved Liverpool home. This, from one of his obituaries:

Stan Kelly-Bootle, who as a freelance operator could maintain an interest in all three of his worlds: computers, music and football. Moving to San Francisco in the late 70s, Stan was among the first Britons to make his presence felt in Silicon Valley, California, as a technical consultant, prolific columnist and writer of books, including the highly successful Computer Contradictionary.

This unusual Nobby Work's post at a week's start rather than its end is my small penance for overlooking this remarkable guy for so long.  Another obit makes clear why Stan belongs in The Nobby Works pantheon even if it did take me 50 frickin’ years to “discover” him: 

“And above all, he was a realist who lived for the here and now, despite his poor health of later years…His own self-penned epitaph was revealed by his son David on the day of his death: 'Stan died. No flowers or tears.'"

I’d like to say that this one thing that started with Barry’s Friday list and serendipitously led to me filling in a rather large hole in my cultural knowledge ends here. But one thing really does lead to another and then another…and this one, alas, leads to this: It happens that singer Cilla Black, a one-hit wonderin the US, has had a rather long and substantial career in Great Britain, due in no small measure to her making Kelly’s Liverpool Lullaby  (ahem) “her own.” On a 2013 television special, she sang the song for about the giga-thousandth time, but in this version she decided to change a line. “You’ll get a belt from yer dad” became “You’ll get told off by your dad.” As The Daily Mail reported:

The star’s agent and manager, her son Robert Willis, last night defended the new version, which he said was about ensuring the show stayed ‘family-friendly’.
He said: ‘Cilla loves the song and she thought it was an evocative and appropriate ending for the show. We changed the line about belting because we thought it was important to bring the lyrics up to date.
A spokesman for ITV last night said the star and the broadcaster had agreed to amend the song.
‘Cilla felt some of the sentiment could have been made more relevant for today,’ he said. ‘She discussed it with everyone and there was a feeling it was the right way to go.’

And thus this magical mystery tour Barry Friedman’s fun Friday listmaking launched me on leads me once again face-to-face with my ofttime nemesis Political Correctness. So thank you, Cilla Black, for paving just a wee bit o’ the road to hell with your damned good intentions.