Quantitative Sentiment in Music, Buddy Holly

The expression of anger and sadness in pop music lyrics is on the rise, according to a recent quantitative analysis of the emotional sentiment contained in over six thousand songs that reached Billboard’s “Hot 100” between 1951 and 2016. This paper, “Quantitative Sentiment Analysis of Lyrics in Popular Music,” was recently published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies (on December 4, 2018). Notably, chart-topping songs released during the mid-1950s were the least angry during the entire sixty-six-year timespan of this pop music analysis except for the three years between 1982-1984. So, what happened since 1955? First, timbral variety went down. That means that songs are becoming more and more homogeneous. Pop music kind of sounds the same nowadays. The study also found that the number of chords and different melodies has gone down. 

The researchers based their analysis on the Million Song Dataset—of songs from nearly 45,000 artists. Of the million songs therein, 464,411 came out between 1955 and 2010 and include data on both the sonic characteristics and the year of release. In another parallel study, 6,150 songs from Billboard's Hot 100 charts were analyzed using a text-mining program called "Tone Analyzer" (which is part of the computational linguistic tools in the IBM Watson developer cloud) to conduct an automatic analysis of the "tone" of sentiments (e.g., emotions, feelings, attitudes) found in written text such as published song lyrics. “Although love and romance have always been the most dominant topic of popular music, lyrics have changed significantly across the decades, reflecting social and political changes,” the authors said. “In general, the results show a clear trend toward a more negative tone in pop music lyrics, with a more significant change around the early 1990s. That trend can also be explained by changes in social values, reflected through changes in mainstream popular music. The results show that anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and conscientiousness have increased significantly, while joy, confidence, and openness expressed in pop song lyrics have declined.”

There were two quirky anomalies in the statistical analysis that bucked overall trends of increasing anger and sadness in Hot 100 songs from 1951-2016. Surprisingly, the researchers found that Top 40 songs released between 1982-1984 were less angry compared to any other period in modern pop music, except the 1950s. Another exception to general trends occurred in the mid-1970s, when there was a dramatic spike in Hot 100 songs expressing joy. (e.g., "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain & Tennille was one the most popular songs of 1975). The findings, published online on Scientific Reports, show that some trends do emerge over the decades—most of them not necessarily good. Unfortunately, anger started to skyrocket in song lyrics as the 1980s were winding down and there was more and more anger every year from the 1990s till the end of compiled analytic data in 2016. Whatever the cause, the authors conclude that “the period from the 1960s to the 1990s was a special time in popular music history.” Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Corporate takeover and subsequent ownership of the music industry has eliminated most meaning in an art-form that once thrived. Modern pop music is simply the soundtrack for the moguldom that has become the end-game. If there is an 'underground' scene it might never surface for fear of being bought. As David Leonhardt explains, “For Americans under the age of 40, the 21st century has resembled one long recession. This loss of dynamism hurts millennials and the younger Generation Z, even as baby boomers are often doing O.K. Because the layoff rate has declined since 2000, most older workers have been able to hold on to their jobs. For those who are retired, their income—through a combination of Social Security and 401(k)’s—still outpaces inflation on average. But many younger workers are struggling to launch themselves into good-paying careers. The generational gap in both income and wealth is growing.” 1989 was a turning point when the cumulative change in inflation-adjusted median net worth by age group took a significant nosedive for every generation under 55. Whatever happened to the Senate's Antitrust and Monopoly Committee? Isn't it interesting to think that we once thought monopolies to be a problem? Now we have them controlling newspapers, TV, Internet, Manufacturing, Scientific research, Pharmaceuticals, Agriculture, you name it and yet nobody bats an eye. And such monopolies are even being promoted and advanced by the majority of our government on both sides of the aisles and supported by voters. Unbelievable, isn't it?" Source: www.nytimes.com

For centuries, guitars were strung with 4 wound strings (a wire with thinner wire wound around it) and 2 plain (one wire) strings, the plain strings being the highest treble strings, E and B. Normally, the 3rd string, the G, is wound, making it a tough string to bend. An unwound G instantly makes a guitar easier to play and more expressive. And, the G string is often the string that is voicing the ‘flavor’ note in any given chord, and is also often the root string when soloing. Buddy Holly’s G string was unwound and his guitar style was one of the most profoundly pivotal moments in the history of the guitar. Like Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran also was writing his songs using the immemorial 1-4-5 chord sequence in ways that did not use the the standard 1-4-1-5-4-1 blues sequence (even if you know nothing about music, you can understand it by humming a blues to yourself). Virtually every one of Cochran’s masterpieces utilizes those same three chords.

From 1954 onward, rock and roll advanced very quickly in the popular music and soon about 40% of the hit songs belonged to the emerging rock and roll stream. Entering the field in 1954, Decca was the first major record company that became active on the market of rock and roll music, signing Buddy Holly & The Crickets in 1957. Rock and roll scared some sectors of the American society and representatives of the establishment spoke out against it vehemently. Church officials typified the music as rebellious and warned that it would subvert American youth. As Columbia University's Dr. Meerio was moved to conclude at the time, "If we cannot stem the tide of rock and roll with its waves of rhythmic narcosis and vicarious craze, we are preparing our own downfall in the midst of pandemic funeral dances." The musical establishment incited a congressional investigation into the widespread practice of payola, by steering the investigation exclusively to those involved in producing and playing rock and roll music, making Alan Freed their designated scapegoat in the process.

Remembering Buddy by John Goldrosen is, by consensus, the best Buddy Holly bio out there, and Goldrosen does a great job digging into first-hand sources, exploring mythology and apocrypha and avoiding baseless speculation. To his credit, he speculates only as far as the facts lead him. Also, a feeling of sadness is reflected in Goldrosen's excellent account of the last hours of Holly's life, a strange and disturbing set of weird and ironic turns of fate that left three stars of '50s rock strewn lifelessly among plane wreckage. Amid the chronological facts, and Goldrosen's frequent attitude of apology for failing to capture the elusive nature of Buddy Holly, there are moments of illumination. One is a 1959 photo of Holly taken in a photo booth at the Grand Central Station, New York, in which he is sporting a sense of glee, a mischievous smile, and a cigarette dangled self consciously between his fingers—it reminds us that for all the genius and gravitas ascribed to Holly, he was still just a young man from a more innocent time when drugs and debauchery were almost unheard of. When Holly showed a temper, impatience or distance, Goldrosen suggests that came from a desire of wanting things done right, and from not tolerating those who settled for less. Holly was an introverted, well-behaved geeky kid who essentially changed an art form because, beneath his humble background, a sharp sensibility burned hot and bright. 

Philip Norman also does a remarkable job with his well-researched bio on the Lone Star's original rock star. Who could have predicted a bespectacled, unruly-haired working-class kid would actually became the early, rare 'triple-threat' of singer-songwriter-instrumentalist in the American rock music scene? What is also refreshing is that, by all the accounts documented, Holly was a genuinely decent guy—barring one brief fling with a married woman—he's otherwise presented as a good son, brother, friend, husband, and (even at his young age) show-biz mentor. His life story is certainly not boring, but thankfully the standard sleaze and scandal (Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin type) is absent and not missed at all. On the opposite side of professional research, we have a highly inaccurate book in the "Goldman tradition" of trashing the legends of deceased musicians. Leaden with errors, Ellis Amburn's bi­ography of Buddy Holly would be merely an embarrassment if it weren’t fundamentally mean-spirited. Amburn misquoted and distorted what his sources told him—even Buddy Holly historian Bill Griggs is misquoted here—while also making up parts of a nonsensical narrative that doesn't fit Buddy Holly's personality at all. Not all sources are equally reliable and truthful, Amburn should know. The supposed “sexual” relationship—which probably never happened—of Holly with the 'wild girl' of Lubbock is mentioned by a musician named Tin­ker Carlen, a very unreliable source. 

Carlen lost all credibility when he told Amburn he had “formed the Crickets originally” and “did their book­ings”—much to the amusement of Jerry Allison (surviving member of The Crickets). Another similar case was Terry Dahlgren from Arroyo Grande, California, who once told The Tribune he had been hired in August 1958 by Holly & the Crickets to perform with them in a show in Cleveland. Dahlgren said that after that show, Holly asked him to get on the bus to tour as a member of the Crickets. Jerry Allison denied this claim in a telephone interview from his home in Tennessee saying he didn’t know Dahlgren and that the Crickets never had local performers play with them on tours. “We never had anyone fill in the tours, ever.” Allison said that details of Dahlgren’s story were untrue, including that the band traveled by bus then. “We didn’t have a bus in those days,” Allison said. Guitarist Tommy Allsup, who joined the Crickets in May 1958—and played with Holly in his final Winter Dance Party tour—also said Dahlgren never played with the group during its Summer Dance Party tour in July 1958, or Biggest Show of Stars tour in October 1958, or the Winter Dance Party tour in early 1959. “I never heard of this guy, he was not there,” said Allsup in a telephone interview from his home in Missouri. Asked if the Crickets ever had local guitarists play with the group during the tour, Allsup said, “absolutely not.”

Other fact-checking by The Tribune shows that many of the details of Dahlgren’s story conflict with the documented history of the 1958 tours of Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Told that Allsup and Allison called his story false, Dahlgren said he never played with them. “I played with Carl Bunch and Waylon Jennings in 1958 when the Crickets were touring with Holly,” he said. Documentation of the tours, however, shows that Holly didn’t tour with Bunch and Jennings in 1958. Holly did tour with Bunch, Jennings and Allsup in the 1959 Winter Dance Party tour. Dahlgren was unable to provide The Tribune with any evidence that he played with Buddy Holly and the Crickets, such as mementos, memorabilia, photos or people who could corroborate his story. In one last desperate attempt, Dahlgren said it had been in Akron when he had played with Buddy Holly. That lie was what ended with the patience of Bill Griggs and other researchers. Dahlgren was just another fake in a long line of opportunists trying to attach themselves to the rock and roll history. Source: www.sanluisobispo.com

Buddy Holly's widow threatens to sue Lubbock DJ: Portions of an email from William Clement, operator of KDAV 1590 AM, were included in his exchanges with Stephen J. Easley, the attorney representing Maria Elena Holly. Easley sent Clement a 'Cease and Desist' letter regarding a celebration in the Depot District of Lubbock called the “Buddy Holly Birthday Bash.” The letter also demanded that the station remove all mentions of Buddy Holly from their advertising, which included a picture of the statue at the Buddy Holly Museum. Clement stated that the planned festivities, scheduled to take place two days after what would be Buddy Holly’s 75th birthday, was actually being put along Buddy Holly Avenue, in the Depot District. Clement specifically listed the Melt Lounge as primary sponsor of the event. Clement continued stating that the sponsor had the right to use the Buddy Holly Avenue. Easley countered saying that “’A Buddy Holly Birthday Bash’ certainly is not within any license to rename a street.” Clement continued noting that Buddy Holly had a relationship with the station in the past, and claimed that Holly worked as disc jockey at the station in 1955-1956. KFYO News found numerous records of Holly performing and recording at KDAV-AM, but there has been nothing found that actually lists Holly as a disc jockey at the station. Multiple allegations and criticisms were made by Clement throughout his correspondence as well, and he offered to supply Ms. Holly’s attorney with “trinkets of history your client would most probably not like to be made public.” Easley reiterated the original 'Cease and Desist' demand, and expressed confidence in a favorable outcome for his client Maria Elena Holly if the issue ended up in court. Parts of the email sent to Easley from Clement alleged that Ms. Holly was a “golddigger” who was employed at Peer Southern “to entertain male entertainers,” prior to her marriage to Holly. Easley countered saying throughout the correspondence, “It is fortunate that you published the vile and defamatory statements about Mrs. Holly, reducing my burden of proving that you made them.” Source: kfyo.com

Buddy Holly had died intestate and so Maria Elena received the first $5,000 of the net estate, with the remainder being shared with his parents. Three guitars went to the Holley family with Maria Elena keeping the Gibson J-200. Buddy Holly’s claim against Norman Petty was settled in April 1959 for $40,000 and he was acknowledged as the only composer of ‘Peggy Sue’. In 1993, Holly was the only major rock’n’roller not to benefit from an officially released CD box set. Maria Elena Holly: "I have been in litigation with MCA and Universal for years. We know from that telephone conversation with Paul Cohen that Buddy’s original contract was suspect, and his one with Brunswick was as well. Norman Petty–I call him ‘The Evil Man’–had signed the contracts and he had no reason to sign on Buddy's behalf. Even in litigation, they said that someone had got into the office and ripped the signature out, a fan, and I said, ‘In your office? You know, that isn’t possible’."  Shortly after the plane crash, Paul Anka told the NME on February 13, 1959, that he had played 150 shows with Buddy Holly and he added, ‘I feel especially unhappy for Buddy’s widow Maria who, to the best of my knowledge, is expecting a baby. Buddy’s marriage was a very happy one.’ This comment confirmed Maria Elena's pregnancy and I think that Buddy simply preferred to keep it a secret amongst his family and working associates until it was further advanced.

Unfortunately, Maria Elena lost their baby. ‘It was the shock. I was in bed, and one of the young men that Buddy was recording, Lou Giordano, called me and I told him that I was still in bed. I was not feeling good in the mornings. He said, ‘Don’t put on the TV and just wait until I get there.’ Of course, I got up and put the television on and they were talking about the crash. When my aunt came in, I was running around like a demented person and that is when I lost the child.’ The conclusions of the report by the Civil Aeronautics Bound were published on 23 September 1959: "At night, with an overcast sky, snow falling, no definite horizon, and a proposed flight over a sparsely settled area with an absence of ground lights, a requirement for control of the aircraft solely by reference to flight instruments can be predicted." Musicologist Dominic Pedler (author of Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles): ‘The intuitive appreciation of musical and lyrical semantics would intensify as Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting structures matured and they began incorporating the Buddy Holly trademark of an ambitious key change within the middle eight (a musical bridge that refers to a section with a different melody or lyrics within a song). In this regard, Holly's catalogue represented essential listening for the Beatles in their formative years. Indeed, it is no surprise that the origins of several distinctive Beatles chord progressions and songwriting manoeuvres can be traced to some of their favourite Holly songs.’ Would Paul McCartney have written ‘Yesterday’ if Buddy hadn’t come up with ‘True Love Ways’? Surely not.

Michael Gray, author of the definitive book on Dylan’s music, Song and Dance Man (1981): ‘Dylan was very proud at having seen Buddy Holly on his last tour. No musician who had an interest in rock’n’roll could avoid being influenced by Buddy Holly. He was the first person who knew what he was doing – he did the writing, the arrangements, he wasn’t just a singer being moulded by a manager. Holly had rather a strange voice and he sounded like nobody else. Nik Cohn’s book, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, says that Holly was the typical no-hoper that everybody liked precisely for that reason. It’s rubbish to say for Cohn that Bob Dylan can’t sing, but he can’t sing like Picasso can’t paint. They broke rules (Holly and Dylan), without taking notice of anything else. Holly’s first attempts at recording were complete failures and he was sent back to Lubbock, Texas, which is one of the most godforsaken spots in the universe, but he refused to become the small-town hick. There are several pieces by Dylan where you can hear a very strong Buddy Holly influence: Maybe Someday from Dylan's album Knocked out Loaded has a very Holly sound.’ —"Buddy Holly: Learning the Game" (2019) by Spencer Leigh

Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly

Rock’n’roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis has suffered a minor stroke, a representative for the star has said. The 83-year-old was expected to make a full recovery and was recuperating in Memphis with his family by his bedside after falling ill on Thursday, Zach Farnum said. Lewis, known by his nickname “the Killer”, began his career in the 1950s and is best known for his 1950s rockabilly piano hits "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," and "High School Confidential." Born in Louisiana, Lewis began his career at the famous Sun Records, which also played a key part in the careers of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Lewis is a Grammy winner and a Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame inductee in 1986 and has been described as “rock’n’roll’s first great wild man”. Source: www.theguardian.com

Jerry Lee Lewis has, in old age, a stiff-necked and relative sober dignity. He is not wistful, except in the rarest moments, and does not act wounded; he just gets mad. He believes he is due some things but not the right to whine. A man like him forfeits that. A real Southern man does not whine, anyway. “I want to be remembered as a rock-and-roll idol, in a suit and tie or blue jeans and a ragged shirt, it don’t matter,” he says. Hank Williams taught him this, and he never even met the man. “[The music] takes their sorrow, and it takes mine.” He looks across the arc of bad-boy rockers who have come after him and laughs out loud. In May 1958, Jerry Lee was presented in Uk as some kind of serious threat, an example of the Southern American at his virulent worst. Even the British government took a hand in the affair, sending officers from the Home Office to inspect Jerry Lee’s and Myra’s passports and immigration status. The headlines screamed: 'Baby Snatcher, go home. We Hate Jerry Lee Lewis, shout ex-fans!' The British tabloids ripped Lewis to shreds, and his career "took a nosedive right into the concrete," as told to music journalist Alan Light.

Columnists called for his arrest and deportation and for an investigation by the child welfare office. Even Parliament weighed in. Sir Frank Medlicott, of the constituency of Norfolk Central in the House of Commons, questioned why a man of such nefariousness was granted a permit to work in England. Young women announced they were going home to smash his records. At a show in Tooting, South London, fans chanted “We Hate Jerry!” and cried “Cradle Robber!” from the audience. Offstage, Jerry Lee kept talking to reporters, and they only wound the noose tighter; by now several theaters had canceled and the tour was in jeopardy. Reviewers described him as a drooling bumpkin making more noise than music. Even the most highbrow critics in the States, even the ones who despised his genre, had often been forced to admit that, whatever danger to society he might pose, the music was good. But the British appreciation for American music was not yet deeply ingrained, and such matters were easily overlooked. Other threats would surface, from people who had hated his music all along and from inside his circle of friends and business associates. Dick Clark had already written him off. And it was only beginning. Sam Phillips seemed unsure how to respond, at least publicly, to the attacks on their marquee star. He knew the threat was serious, potentially career-ending. “Jerry Lee can’t be managed,” concluded Phillips. “People ask me what effect England had on me, and mostly the effect was on Sam Phillips and distribution,” Jerry Lee says now. “He just was not puttin’ my records out there.”

Myra, left mostly at home as he chased his newfound stardom, had hired detectives to follow her husband on the road and by 1970 had evidence to support her suspicions of prolonged infidelity. She filed for divorce while Jerry Lee was on tour in Australia. Her petition alleged cruelties and threats on her life. Jerry Lee denied the worst part of it—“I never hurt none of ’em”—but the infidelities were, as he once said himself, “hard to hide.” Jerry Lee wanted to know why the press always hovered around him in the worst of times, while they always gave Elvis a pass. “Y’all hate my guts or something,” he told the Commercial Appeal. “I’m no angel, of course, but I’m a pretty nice guy.” Myra later married Peter Malito, one of the private detectives she had hired to gather evidence of Jerry Lee’s infidelity. 

He was not angry at Elvis, Jerry Lee says. He was not eaten up with jealousy. What he had always felt was disappointment at the way Elvis, who should have fought him to the death for the crown, had been managed by Colonel Tom Parker into such a sorry state, into a paunchy semirecluse behind locked gates. “Can a man play rock-and-roll music and go to Heaven? Jerry Lee asked Elvis the same thing he’d been bothering Sam Phillips about: “Can you play rock music . . . and still go to heaven? If you died, do you think you’d go to heaven or hell?” Elvis looked startled, trapped. “His face turned bloodred,” remembers Jerry Lee. “Jerry Lee,” he answered, “Don’t you never ask me that. Don’t you never ask me that again.” “He didn’t come around much, after that. I could tell he was scared. So I never did ask him that again.” 

Jerry Lee Lewis was in the first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was January 23, 1986. The inductees included some of the most influential musicians and personalities in music history, and they walked to the stage, some more stiffly than others: Fats Domino, who would not follow Jerry Lee Lewis onstage in New York; the Everly Brothers, who would not follow him, either. But rock and roll was a hard business, and sometimes when they called the names, there was a second or so of sad silence: For Buddy Holly, who rocked ’em to the floor and became his true friend. For Sam Cooke, who called him “cousin.” And for Elvis, who had cried before him about enlisting the Army. Keith Richards swayed to the stage to wild applause, looking a little surprised, as if he had just been roused from a good nap. Paul Shaffer ripped into “Johnny B. Goode,” and Chuck Berry, still spry, duckwalked onto the stage. Keith Richards, who once was punched in the eye by Berry at a rehearsal, hugged him and handed him his statue. Accepting for Buddy Holly was his widow, Maria Elena, whom Buddy had loved so strongly that one night he'd called Jerry Lee to tell he had proposed to her on their first date.


John Fogerty then spoke eloquently of the never-ending cycle of rock and roll and how a riff from Buddy Holly and the Crickets’ “That’ll Be the Day” would echo in the Beatles’ and later in his own music. “I never did care for the Beatles all that much, to tell the truth,” Jerry Lee confesses. He was surprised by John Lennon's compliments. “I just wanted you to know what you meant to me,” said Lennon to Jerry Lee. “You made it possible for me to be a rock-and-roll singer.” “It was flattering,” Jerry Lee remembers. “He said, ‘I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you've done for rock and roll.’”

Jerry Lee was especially fond of Buddy Holly, one of the driving forces in rock and roll. “He was my buddy,” Jerry Lee says with great nostalgia. Holly had opened for Elvis in Lubbock, and proved—even in those black-frame spectacles—that he could rock it right down to the floor. During their tour in January 1958, Jerry Lee watched Buddy on the stage in Sydney, Australia. In fact, Jerry Lee admitted that Buddy Holly was the true star of the show. “Hmm, I remember thinkin’, this boy’s gettin’ pretty good.” In February, Jerry Lee joined Buddy Holly & The Crickets on The Big Gold Records Stars tour (aka The Florida Tour). He traveled back to New York as a headliner of an Alan Freed package tour called The Big Beat, starring Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly, and Chuck Berry. Buddy Holly was congenial in agreeing to take third billing, but as the two other headliners came together backstage, it was like watching two trains closing in on a single track. “You know they call me the Killer,” Jerry Lee said once to the audience. “The only thing I ever killed in my life was possibly myself.” —"Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story" (2014) by Rick Bragg

During a performance at Electric Park in Waterloo, Iowa, a photographer asked Buddy Holly to remove his glasses for a picture. Buddy replied: “I never have pictures made without my glasses.” Buddy had tried out contact lenses in 1956, but they were very uncomfortable back in those days—so he stuck to glasses. Gary Clevenger remarks in Words of Love 1959-2009 (2010): "Under those big-framed black horn-rims he adopted, there was a very good-looking young man. I was intrigued by the close-up of Buddy with his trademark glasses and movie star good looks." Don McLean: Buddy Holly would have the same stature musically whether he would have lived or died, because of his accomplishments which nobody–not the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or anyone else–can beat, for these reasons—By the time he was 22 years old he had recorded some 50 tracks, most of which he had written himself and each of them, in the view of many, was a hit. No rock 'n' roll records can touch songs like "Rave On," "Think it Over," "Not Fade Away," "Peggy Sue" and many more.

Buddy Holly was also a sensitive, ballad composer, which people often overlook, with songs like "Moondreams" and "True Love Ways." Because of the ever-growing psychological power of the media, we seem to think we can reach back half a century. We have embarked on the 'American death trip' and the endless regurgitation of Marilyn, Elvis and JFK's death details. As a paperboy, I cut open the stack of papers on February 3, 1959, and saw that Buddy Holly had been killed in the plane crash. The next day I went to school in shock, and nobody cared. Rock 'n roll in those days was sort of like hula hoops, and death  did not go with the exuberance and bright colors of the 1950s. –Don McLean Source: edition.cnn.com

Buddy Holly: the central conflict of the 1950s

Buddy Holly embodied, as much as James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, the central conflict of the 1950s: conformity with establishment values versus individuality/rebellion. While he sometimes wore leather and rode a motorcycle, he was a devout fundamentalist Christian, hounded by a puritanical conscience that condemned rock and roll as evil. Perhaps it was this innate contradiction that made him so great. Smart in the head is one thing, smart in the heart is another. With an artist possessed of both, it’s game over for all challengers, which is why, if there are 10 performers in rock history that matter more than all others, Buddy Holly is one of them. Holly did look slightly milksoppish—but in an earnest, quick-with-a-smile way. Buddy thought those high, squeaky voices of Alvin & the Chipmunks really were the coolest thing. This was not someone you’d expect to be a rock and roller, especially at a time when rock-and-roll badassery wasn’t just in vogue, but represented by some seriously tough-looking cats—Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, or Eddie Cochran. 

Buddy Holly was hardly the awkward geek that his amateurish, poorly lit promotional photos suggest. Duane Eddy, the twangy guitar rocker who collaborated with him in 1958, once described Buddy as a “well-built” six-footer who had “wavy hair” and was “very good looking.” And he could play the Fender Stratocaster the loudest too. Buddy Holly’s right hand was among the strongest in rock history. According to Bill Griggs of the Buddy Holly Memorial Society, Holly learned a unique way of picking: “Most people play down, up, down, up, when they're stroking the guitar. Buddy played basically downstrokes in a lot of his music. Therefore, he had to play twice as fast, but it also gave him what we call 'rhythm lead.' He kept hitting the bass chord on the guitar first. That's why he had that unique sound that people even today cannot duplicate, because you have to play the guitar 'wrong' to make it right.” The Beatles wrote “Can’t Buy Me Love” in a hotel, and Dylan recorded notable music in sleeping quarters (ditto Janis Joplin with her Typewriter Tape). But the ultimate grail is Holly’s tapes that he made just prior to his death in his Greenwich Village apartment. With his guitar and an Ampex tape machine, this is a very different Buddy Holly than his more "rockabilly garage" sound from two years prior. His enunciation is emphatic, as if he were a film director who’d recorded an intense emotional scene by overcranking the camera, playing it back so that it ran slower. You really hear it on the four versions of “Slippin’ and Slidin,” like Holly is decoding rock and roll for you. Source: www.thedailybeast.com

In rock critic Jonathan Cott’s words, “Holly’s deepest, wisest, and seemingly least complicated songs express the unadorned confrontation of beauty and love with time.” A letter seen in the Buddy Holly Museum in Lubbock was written by Holly's grieving father, Lawrence, to the editor of the New Musical Express two months after the plane crash, expressing his gratitude to his son's UK fans. "How has this loss of one so dear affected Buddy's beautiful wife?" asked Holley rhetorically. "She's been very brave and courageous but she, like us, will never get over such a great loss." Maria Elena's intense devotion to Holly's memory explains her antipathy towards the late Peggy Sue Gerron. The namesake of Buddy Holly's most memorable song was the girlfriend of Jerry Allison, drummer in Holly's band the Crickets. And even though Gerron died last year, aged 78, Maria Elena is still fuming about the claims she made about Holly in her memoir. "Oh my God, that book!" she exclaims. "But I stopped her. It was published, but she couldn't get much out of it. She went to London, then I called the journalists who were interviewing her and I said, 'That will be the last time you hear from me!' So they just stopped the interview. She claimed that Buddy was in love with her, and that Jerry knew about it. But Buddy hated her guts! When we were in his father and mother's house after the wedding, she came in and said: 'I don't know why Buddy would marry this woman because she's not from the same background. What? We were already married!" Source: www.afr.com

According to Peggy Sue's memoir, it seems that she never loved her first husband Jerry Allison—“Standing at the wedding ceremony: The biggest mistake of my life.” What do we learn about Buddy Holly? Always kind and understanding, like his parents, but he could erupt when pushed. We learn that Buddy helped “the Lubbock girl with the bad reputation” when she got pregnant—“Really, I loved her,” Holly reportedly said of her. Although Niki Sullivan hinted at Buddy going through a tragic romance with the wild girl of Lubbock that culminated in an unwanted pregnancy, Philip Norman dismantled that myth, proving that Holly was not the father. Norman was conceded a brief interview with Lubbock's mysterious woman: "On my first visit to his hometown in late 1994, I talked to Niki Sullivan, the Crickets’ rhythm guitarist, convinced that story was true. But the story has just one flaw. The person named by several knowledgeable sources as the mother of Buddy’s illegitimate child (who supposedly, according to Sullivan, waited for Holly's paychecks while living at a shelter for runaway unwed women) is adamant that she knew him only slightly and certainly never dated him romantically. She got married in 1954, almost two years before Buddy allegedly might have left her pregnant, and her two children–by the same husband–were both girls. The trail stops here." Philip Norman also refuted Sullivan's allegations of an affair between Buddy and Norman Petty's wife Vi.

Travis Holley (Buddy's brother): "I met Maria when he brought her here to be married. I had only heard about it a week before. And when I met her I understood why he wanted to marry her. She was just a little raven beauty. She was just as cute as she could be. And charming. And she still is." Next day, the Lubbock Avalanche newspaper reported: "Married: Buddy Charles Holley (21), and Miss Maria Elena Santiago (25), both of Lubbock". Maria Elena of course was not from Lubbock, but in rural conservative Texas, interracial marriages were still considered taboo, and it was unusual for an older woman to marry a younger man. From the very beginning of their relationship, Buddy confided to Maria Elena about his growing dissatisfaction with Norman Petty: “I’m not happy with Norman, because he never wants to put money out to promote us.” Maria Elena understood Buddy’s discontent: “Norman didn’t want to spend a red cent. Everybody else was exposed out there, and Buddy always had to struggle to make sure that the people knew about him.” Petty, in fact, had done little to increase the Crickets’ public exposure. The only promotional pictures of the group were black and white shots taken by Petty’s loyal bookkeeper, Norma Jean Berry. The Crickets were sorely disappointed when Petty refused to allow them to appear alongside other rock and rollers in the movie Go, Johnny, Go! (1959).

As described by Philip Norman, Norman Petty's portrait is quite frightening: "The face is a blandly good-looking one, its cheekbones curving with the symmetry of a ventriloquist’s dummy’s, its complexion airbrush-smooth, its butterfly bow perfectly tied. The expansive smile is professional rather than humorous, and kindles no warmth in the eyes, which are narrow, opaque and calculating." Petty turned over all the correspondence and financial records relating to Buddy and the Crickets to his banker in Clovis, with instructions to retain them for the three years required by the US Internal Revenue Service, then destroy them. But the banker did not destroy the papers and, after Petty’s death in 1984, we can go through receipts for Buddy’s guitars and clothes, see the cashed cheques for his dental work and wedding-ring, even read the heartbreakingly polite last letter Buddy sent to Petty a couple of weeks before his death. To the self-seeking professional biographer, it is a wildly exhilarating experience. But to the one-time English schoolboy, whose adolescence Buddy both brightened and soothed, it is horribly sad. As so often with those who cloak themselves in ostentatious secrecy, there was little about Petty’s life that could be called exotic. His father, Sydney, had originally been a migrant from the Oklahoma oilfields, stricken with tuberculosis and seeking a cure in New Mexico’s high altitudes. His wife Vi had her mother institutionalized for schizophrenia and herself manifested all the symptoms of the disease in its ‘episodic’ form: insecurity, anxiety, squirrel-like acquisitiveness, and chaotic disorganization.

Norman Petty was technically brilliant but creatively mediocre; a visionary in some respects but in others a blinkered small-town wheeler-dealer; ostensibly a backroom-boy, yet with a ravening ego, watchful for any chance to use the talent of the young musicians who passed through his hands for his own profit and advancement. Dr Jerry Fisher, who worked as an engineer with Petty in later years, and got to know him well, believes Petty to have been a classic case of arrested development. That explains his sexlessness. He didn't even seem to understand the rock and roll genre, or Buddy Holly's passion for the opposite sex. Norman Petty could not face the fact that Buddy Holly had evolved beyond the Clovis/Tex-Mex ethos. In an interview with Skip Brooks and Bill Malcolm, Norman Petty still found it difficult to address why he hadn’t been more supportive of Buddy’s need to experiment as an artist; Petty admitted he had lacked vision. As John Beecher recalls: "Norman and Vi Petty sent us information, but mostly they obstructed us in our efforts to gain access to their photographs, recordings, and film - something I found really hard to understand until later, when I worked out that Norman was just waiting for an opportunity to make some money. I suspect that by the time Buddy (and later the Crickets) discovered what had been going on with their income that had been directed to Clovis, it was too late for Norman to regain trust and he knew this. Thus, he burned all his boats with Buddy and cold-shouldered his attempts to get his royalties. Soon, lawyers were involved in getting Buddy his money and the process would have taken years to resolve. When I visited Clovis, I saw the problem at first hand; it was not until MPL took over Nor Va Jak that writers received regular statements and payments." About Amburn's mean-spirited biography, of which Bill Griggs said "that book belongs to the trash can", John Beecher agrees: "I don't much dig what Albert Goldman has to say on Elvis. I knew that a lot of what he attributed to Lennon wasn't true; he tried to destroy Lennon's soul for commercial gain and I think that's unforgivable. A bit like the tales Ellis Amburn told on Holly - so many of his facts that were able to be checked were so out of line that it made one doubt his assertions on anything he wrote. Goldman again."

Amburn hinted about Maria Elena's suspect aunt Provi Garcia, Maria's lack of domesticity or her tempestuous personality, sexy yet brainy. According to Peggy Sue, "Whenever someone even mentioned Maria, Jerry would simply state, “That’s Buddy’s wife,” and put an end to the conversation." Peggy Sue insinuated Maria Elena was very demanding of Buddy and more experienced than she let on. On 5 January, 1958, Coral released ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ and ‘Raining In My Heart’. That same week, Buddy received some New Year tidings which all but wiped his anxiety over his new singles from his mind. Maria Elena told him she was pregnant. In her interview with Philip Norman in 1996, Maria Elena explained: "We had not been trying to have a baby. It was an accident; it just happened. I didn’t want to have a child because it was going to interfere with all the projects we had starting out. But Buddy was elated about it. I told him, “If I have a baby, that means I won’t be able to travel around with you like you want me to.” But he said, “No, that’ll be fine. The baby can come with us.” Maria Elena didn't pursue her own ambitions to be a dancer-actress. “After we got married, he said, 'No, you don’t need to do that.’ He wanted me to be around.” Knowing how much she loved flowers, Buddy brought her an extravagant bouquet of roses for her 26th birthday. Maria Elena persuaded Buddy to drink “a couple of glasses of champagne,” she later told Goldrosen and Beecher. He became seriously ill, due to being an ulcer sufferer (possibly, in part, from the stress of his career).

Buddy Holly was described by The Melbourne Herald during the Australian tour in February 1958 as ‘the perfect representation of the American person, ascetic, serious, dignified...’ Buddy’s stage persona was the very opposite of what they had expected—not cool, but friendly, funny and unpretentious. Holly didn't intend to change the world (like Lennon or other 60s rock icons) but he wasn't going to let the world change him either. Buddy Holly adopted his new songwriting mode to produce the most stylistically varied body of original recordings of any late fifties writer/performer. Some were sonically brash, others subdued. Some were paradigm examples of experimental rock and roll, by including celesta and harp. Holly’s creative arrangements sometimes combined electric guitar with jazz sax or instruments one might expect to find in a symphony orchestra. His vocal hiccups are the skipped beats that convey to us that we are not lost on the way out, but surging towards the irreducible. —"Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly" (2014) by Philip Norman

Some Kind of Mirror: Creating Marilyn Monroe

Feminist film scholar Molly Haskell admits that Marilyn Monroe “was giving more to idiotic parts than they called for—more feeling, more warmth, more anguish; and, as a result, her films have a richer tone than they deserve” in that they “suggest the discrepancy between the woman and the sexpot, even as their directors exploit the image, through exaggeration” I agree with Haskell, but attend in more detail to Monroe’s performances to demonstrate how she resisted the sexpot character. Molly Haskell and Marjorie Rosen published their reflectionist studies of women in film in the 1970s. In contrast, by thinking of film as a fantasy structure housing a number of shifting identificatory positions, theorists such as Elizabeth Cowie and Judith Mayne propose that viewers respond to stars in ways that are not driven by gender binaries. The work done toward disproving the hegemonic influence of the patriarchal gaze has resulted in a richer understanding of the ways female stars generate meaning for audiences. Professor of Film History Matthew Solomon calls attention to Monroe’s “metaperformances,” in which “she often plays two separate but not entirely distinct roles nested within one another.” Similarly, the analyses of Kristen Pullen (Female Performance in Classical Hollywood) and Ana Salzberg (Beyond the Looking Glass: Narcissism and Female Stardom in Studio-Era Hollywood) have challenged us to see Monroe as a more complex figure. 

Marilyn Monroe exerted considerable control over the outcome of her performances, a little-known fact that encourages careful attention to her films. Although her star persona was largely “manufactured” through her new name, new look, and extensive acting and diction lessons, Ty Burr asserts that “she became big enough to understand that she was bigger than her studio, and that someone that big should be the author of her fame rather than its victim.” In 1954’s River of No Return (Otto Preminger) she demanded Jack Cole as choreographer (after working with him on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and chose Robert Mitchum as her leading man. She also discussed script revisions with Preminger, thereby shaping her role in many ways. More importantly, Monroe was an actress who dictated her own performances. She improvised scenes and created her character as she saw fit for the first time in 1956’s Bus Stop. Director Josh Logan confirms that screenwriter George Axelrod considered Monroe’s “feeling about the whole story” when rewriting her scenes. “Only very rarely have actors had the opportunity to influence a film so directly,” insists Carl Rollyson, “and Logan’s supreme trust in Monroe, built on his belief that she was ‘one of the great talents of all time,’ has been occasionally matched by other directors but never surpassed.”

Because fans recognized more than the sexpot in Monroe’s offscreen persona, they were likely primed to read more than the sexpot for which she was scripted into her film roles. And these fans’ desire to protect Monroe from herself still resonates with audiences today. Monroe’s portrayal of the sexpot was not a parody (like Jayne Mansfield), nor was it an agonizing portrayal of the woman torn between desire for pleasure and desire for security (like Kim Novak). Neither was Monroe a sultry, femme fatale type like Lana Turner—Marilyn subverted the type of repressive ideology around postwar gender roles, marriage, and female sexuality. In Bus Stop (1956) Marilyn as Cherie says to Don Murray's character: “Bo, I just wanted to tell you something kinda personal and embarrassing, too. But, I ain’t the kind of girl you thought I was. I guess a lot of people’d say I led a real wicked life.” When Cherie says she’s had “quite a few” previous boyfriends, Bo admits, “I guess I just didn’t know anything about women, ’cause they’re different from men.” Cherie’s response, “Well, naturally,” shows us that Cherie knows about both women and men, making her an appropriate teacher of how men should respond to women. Through Cherie, and by extension, Monroe’s sexual but not wanton persona, Bus Stop bespeaks a cultural shift in which sexually active (unmarried) women were seen with respect.

“Seeing as how you had all them other boyfriends before me,” Bo states, “and seeing as how I never had one single gal friend before you, well, between the two of us, it kinda averages out to things being proper, and right.” Bo’s stubborn desire to marry Cherie, despite her past, leads him to finally accept her. Cherie avoids making eye contact with Bo as she waits for him to explain if he feels the same, but an extended close-up two-shot illustrates, through the shot composition and editing, how they come to a mutual understanding. “I’ve been thinking about them other fellas, Cherie,” Bo says, his face dominating the frame such that only one of Cherie’s eyes is visible as she glances hopefully up at him. “I like you the way you are, so what do I care how you got that way?,” he continues, as the camera gradually tilts down to show her full face only when Bo has accepted her sexual experience. In this shared shot, “with Cherie’s upper body lying along the bottom of the frame and Bo leaning above her,” as Ana Salzberg points out, “the two merge in a body-landscape, a panorama of passionate recognition”.

After this, a series of shot/reverse-shot close-ups alternately isolates each of their faces as they realize their affection for each other, and signals how Bo’s acceptance of Cherie’s past enables her to “go anywhere in the world” with him. The series of close-ups in this sequence, rather than two-shots, indicates that Bo and Cherie are individuals before they are a couple, and, contrary to the advice of postwar marriage counselors, that their past experiences must be accepted before they can begin a successful relationship. But what does Cherie gain when she agrees to marry Bo? Most obviously, she gains a way out of the saloon circuit and a spouse, despite conventional warnings that men don’t marry loose women. As the couple stands outside the bus, Bo recognizes that Cherie must be “freezing” in the thin coat she has been wearing since he forced her onto the bus to Montana, and offers his heavy coat. The shot lingers on her as she wraps herself in its luxury. While Carl Rollyson reads Cherie’s enjoyment at this moment as “recognition of what she has won,” he doesn’t say what that is, but implies it is the security of marriage.

If we focus on Cherie as a sexpot, a more significant gain for her is reciprocity—both in terms of sexual pleasure and respect. The film’s final moments make clear that Cherie can expect more than the security of marriage in the form of the “deep freeze” Bo had promised, “or an electric washer, or any other major appliance you want.” As Cherie wraps herself in the coat, she turns her head from left to right, lingering in the sensation of the coat’s fur trim against her skin, displaying the closed eyes and open mouth associated with Monroe’s signature expression of sexual pleasure. Cherie’s visible pleasure indicates that Bo will work to satisfy her sexual needs, just as he does her more immediate physical needs. After this exchange, Cherie gives Bo her scarf, hinting at a reciprocal relationship, a gesture that makes him whoop as he considers her needs again and helps her board the bus ahead of him. In short, Bo finally makes Cherie “hot” for him by thinking of her needs, demonstrating that he has learned the lessons indicated by Kinsey’s findings regarding female sexual pleasure.

Marilyn Monroe’s offscreen life also informs the role of Cherie in Bus Stop, who is eager to find “respect” on Hollywood and Vine, but who instead finds respect for her sexual experience. Those of Monroe’s films that most blatantly capitalize on her sex appeal draw on the transgressive elements of her offscreen life. As The Girl in The Seven Year Itch, Monroe most clearly plays a version of herself—she has posed nude, she is single but not virginal, she is an actress. The Girl demonstrates how Monroe’s offscreen transgressions embodied the kinds of female sexual behavior that Kinsey reported, the validity of which many Americans were debating at the time.  Finally, in Some Like It Hot, Sugar has been “used” like a tube of toothpaste, much like Monroe herself, whose affairs were gossip fodder, but she aggressively pursues a man and wins him in the end. This series of films from Monroe’s canon demonstrates her unique contribution to the postwar moment. Although Monroe was a sexpot, she credibly combined compliance and independence, seeming submissive while making her right to self-satisfaction axiomatic.

When Marilyn as Roslyn in The Misfits (1961) dances aimlessly across the yard, self-absorbed, spinning and hugging herself, she demonstrates her unavailability. With her back to the camera, her straps fall from her shoulders, and she finally embraces a tree. Roslyn’s self-motivated dance acknowledges her sexpot appearance and subverts it by making it possible that her body exists for herself rather than for men: she controls her sexuality. As Richard Dyer notes, The Misfits breaks with the rest of Monroe’s oeuvre in that it “begins to hint at a for-itself female sexuality as formlessness. The men in the film look on, unable to comprehend her sensuality; grasping a tree she looks out at them/us with a hollow expression of beatitude, straining to express what is already defined as inexpressible.” J. M. Coetzee allegorizes Monroe’s “resistance to the highly focused and even regimented models of sexuality purveyed not only by Hollywood and the media but by academic sexology. Roslyn is dancing out a diffuse and—in the light of the rest of the film—forlorn sensuality to which neither Guido’s predatoriness nor Gay’s old-fashioned courtliness is an adequate response.” Roslyn is a mercurial force—although she causes the men’s unraveling, they also look to her for healing. 

Marilyn Monroe’s delivery mode made it seem unlikely that she was consciously using her sex appeal to manipulate others. Monroe certainly was an imperfect wife and her offscreen life inflected the meanings of her films. Her imperfections, however, endeared her to postwar men and women, who were also struggling with the radically reconfigured social landscape of the postwar period. Onscreen, she played a pageant queen wife in We’re Not Married! (1952, dir. Edmund Goulding), a murderess in Niagara (1953, dir. Henry Hathaway), and gold digger in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire. Monroe’s films reflected unacknowledged problems within a cultural discourse that encouraged women to be housewives. Her roles in The Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop, and Some Like It Hot attest to the changing understanding of female sexuality in the postwar period. By playing women more interested in pleasure than in marriage, Monroe reflected Kinsey’s findings in Sexual Behavior in the Human Female that about half of women engaged in sex outside of marriage. What’s more, while in these roles her desire for pleasure is apparent, the films received Production Code Administration approval. We use Marilyn Monroe in the present to remember and perhaps advocate for prior ways of being American. —"Some Kind of Mirror: Creating Marilyn Monroe" (2019) by Amanda Konkle

"Legends and Lipstick, My Stories of Hollywood's Golden Era" by Nancy Bacon

Nancy Bacon (1940-2018), pinup model and B-actress, started working as a cocktail-waitress at The Sands, and she became the darling of the local celebs. As she recalls in her memoir Legends and Lipstick, “After about a month of constant, adoring surveillance, I was finally invited back into the inner-sanctum where the Rat Pack drank, partied, and made love until dawn. But none of the boys dared lay a glove on me. Word had come down from The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra, that I was underage and could only be ogled from afar. So, I honed my drinking skills and picked up intel no young lady should ever hear!” She soon left Sin City and after a whirlwind tour through Europe, Nancy settled in Hollywood, CA.

She appeared in several films—cheesecake B-movies with names like Sex Kittens Go to College and The Private Lives of Adam and Eve—but she never took to acting because she hated having to be on set at the crack of dawn. She preferred late nights to early mornings. Her life took a hairpin turn when she met Don Wilson, co-founder and rhythm guitarist of the hit band The Ventures. Wearing a tight yellow sweater, lime green pedal-pushers, gold high-heels and a saucy smile, she graced the cover of their 1964 Walk, Don’t Run Vol 2, then tied the knot with Don shortly after. They had a daughter, Stacey Wilson.

Nancy Bacon was also the editor of the infamous Confidential magazine and worked as a gossip columnist. Throughout the swinging sixties, Nancy hobnobbed with heartthrobs ranging from Paul Newman to Jayne Mansfield, plus exciting friendships with the Rat Pack, Judy Garland, Bobby Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, and Marilyn Monroe. While undeniably strong-willed, she was addicted to cigarettes—even the trendy treatment at Schick Shadel failed—and took her last puff on December 16, 2018. Nancy passed away on her own terms, bringing to mind a song she loved: My Way. She adored Sinatra, but the Elvis version was closer to her heart because he was her favorite guy and the “one that got away”—of all the stars she knew, The King not only eluded her, he had the nerve to die on her birthday in 1977! 

"I was a freckle-faced farm girl, fresh off the bus and wide-eyed with awe at the splendor of the big city: Hollywood. I was the youngest of nine children, and grew up on a farm in bleak, cold, nowhere Ellensburg, Washington. My earliest memory was dreaming of escaping. As soon as I could formulate a clear thought it was to just run and never look back. In the blazing California sun I was struck dumb by the opulence, the lush, tropical gardens, the tables laden with exotic dishes, the gorgeous women. It was surreal. I have had a fantastic life. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been rich. I’ve lived among the famous. I’ve known beautiful people and I’ve been made to feel beautiful through them and by them. I know it would be more politically correct for me to confess and express guilt about the way I handled my life, but I honestly cannot do that. And at the time I never intended to hurt anyone. I’m sure that there is going to be a little fuss over what I have written about some of the people I have known—mainly Paul Newman—but everyone can be damn sure that as long as it lasted, everyone enjoyed themselves! 

The Sexual Revolution was in full swing. Jayne Mansfield was completely outrageous and I adored her. Those were sexually freer times, and while Women’s Lib was in vogue, we didn’t look at the dynamics between the genders in quite the same way as the generations to follow. I have to say if a man really bothered me, I laughed at him and moved on. And for every prick I ever met, there were ten or twenty truly wonderful human beings who gave me a hell of a lot more than I gave them. All in all, I’ve been pretty lucky to have known all the flamboyant, beautiful and outrageous people with whom I spent my formative years. I have soared on drugs, booze, fright, love, excitement, on the edges of dangerous rides. If there is any message in all of this, it is simply that I have never soared so high as when I have been in love: cold sober, perfectly straight, and clear of eye." —"Legends and Lipstick: My Scandalous Stories of Hollywood's Golden Era" (2017) by Nancy Bacon

Duane Eddy & The Ventures: "I Fought The Law". Originally written by Sonny Curtis for Bobby Fuller (1965).

"He was a good ol' boy, and he had a good Christian soul. He never knocked nobody down in his life — He loved us all, and he treated us right." —"The Real Buddy Holly Story" (1979) by Sonny Curtis

The Myth of the Fifties, Dion, Buddy Holly

The Myth of the Fifties: In his book called The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965, Alan Petigny—professor of history at the University of Florida—challenges the stereotypical ideas that the 1950s was such a conservative period and dives deep into the true radical changes taking place in American life at the time. Petigny argues persuasively that the 1950s were not truly conservative. Unlike other revisionist accounts that lean heavily on anecdotes, this study is firmly rooted in statistics and serious research. Petigny discusses a variety of topics from sex to rock ‘n’ roll, from psychology to religion, and gives the reader a true empathic picture of an emerging way of thinking he calls 'The Permissive Turn'. In contrast to those who see the 1950s as essentially a conservative period and the 1960s as a time of rapid moral change, The Permissive Society points to the emergence of a liberalizing impulse during the Truman and Eisenhower years. During the 1950s, a traditionalist moral framework was beginning to give way to a more relaxed style of child-rearing, the loosening of sexual attitudes, and the increasing influence of modern psychology.

The era usually denoted as “the Fifties” generated a remarkable set of social indicators. For the one hundred years prior to 1941, the American marriage rate was in decline. The proportion of the adult population that was married also fell steadily, while the divorce rate began a seemingly inexorable rise; by 1910 (thanks largely to Nevada), the United States was the divorce capital of the world. Fertility also showed relentless decline, falling more than 50 percent among the native-born population. A nation dominated by freehold farmers became a land of sharecroppers and urban tenants. In political terms, conservative values and free markets gave way to secularism, progressivism, and moral individualism. Then came the 1941–65 period, “the Fifties,” and the marriage rate soared; the average age of first marriage fell to twenty for women, twenty-two for men. 

By 1960, the proportion of adults, age forty, who were or had been married reached 96 percent, a record high. Even the divorce rate, after a postwar spike in 1946, declined for the next dozen years. Most notably, marital fertility climbed sharply, almost doubling by 1957 in the celebrated Baby Boom. At the same time, measures of income inequality (such as the Gini index) shrank as the numbers of the very rich and very poor fell while the great American middle class swelled. Undergirded by federal housing and mortgage insurance programs, a revolution in property ownership commenced. Between 1945 and 1960, the number of owner-occupied homes nearly doubled, restoring America as a land of property owners. Church membership soared, Sunday schools were bursting at the seams, and President Dwight Eisenhower beamed a comforting, genially conservative smile over the land. A budding youth culture was being fueled by rock ’n’ roll.

Petigny challenges in particular what he calls “the four great myths of the 1950s”: (1) the belief that religious piety was on the rise, seen in the popularity of Billy Graham and rising rates of church attendance; (2) the proposition that American sexual behavior was relatively stable during this time, with the sexual revolution arriving only in the 1960s; (3) the claim that the status of women was losing ground during this era of domesticity; and (4) the belief that the youth culture of this period represented a vigorous challenge to the values of the adult world. Instead, he argues that American values were going through a fundamental transition in these years, driven by the democratization of psychology, the “medicalization” of ailments such as alcoholism (formerly seen as moral sins), the emergence of a therapeutic theology in the churches, and the liberalization of child-rearing practices under the influence of Benjamin Spock and other sociologists.

In all this, Petigny sees “an inversion” of the Marxist understanding of the relation between ideas and the material world: “the ideological superstructure took precedence over the material base.” This change of values represented a permissive shift in American life, but one beginning in the 1940s, not the 1960s. He gives special emphasis to the human displacements that occurred during World War II: fifteen million young men into the military, and five million young women into the factories. This great mixing of young adults spawned massive changes in sexual relations, ranging from a rise in the proportion of premaritally conceived pregnancies among whites and blacks alike to the emergence of egalitarian “companionate” marriages.

Such an argument is not completely new. John Costello anticipated this dating of the start of the sexual revolution in his serious book, Virtue Under Fire (1985); so did Allan Sherman in his insightful Official History of the Sex Revolution (1972). In The Hearts of Men (1983), feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich also emphasized—as does Petigny—the significance of the founding of Playboy magazine in 1953 as a transformative challenge to traditional sexual ethics long before the first bra was burned in the 1960s. And Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound (1988) showed the complexity of husband-wife relations during the postwar years. The author notes “the decline and fall of original sin,” evidenced at the theological level in Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) and also in the popular new psychology of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. By the mid-1950s, Petigny shows, Billy Graham was moving away from fundamentalism, moderating his message, and declaring his admiration for theological liberals such as Norman Peale and Reinhold Niebuhr. Meanwhile, both Protestant and Catholic clerics moved enthusiastically into a new form of pastoral counseling, shaped by Freudian psychoanalysis.

Petigny demonstrates keen insight into other contentious issues. He challenges, for instance, the common argument that the introduction of the birth control pill in the early 1960s launched the sexual revolution, showing evidence that the use of condoms and other forms of birth control was spreading well before the arrival of the Pill. Condoms and contraceptives began to fall under more scrutiny from the FDA, thus making them more readily available. Thus, the more liberal attitudes on sex were becoming more prevalent. As such, the 1950s closed out with the birth control pill, a stronger condom, and leading to cutting down STD rates. As a result, the US saw an uptick in single mothers. Petigny speaks of a “commoditization of sex” during the 1940s and 1950s, in the popular films and music of that era. 

Petigny asserts, “During the 1960s, Americans were simply more willing to acknowledge the extracurricular activities of their youth than they had been during the previous decade.” The prevalence of out of wedlock birth “between 1940 and 1960,” as Petigny proclaims, “increased by 2.5 fold.” Such evidence suggests there was an increase in premarital sex, making apparent the drastic liberalization of social norms–particularly those dealing with sexual promiscuity–taking place before the 1960s. The increase of premarital sex in the 1950s makes evident that a “permissive turn” took place before the 1960s. The Youth Culture and Sex chapter talks about how the teens practiced “going steady” because “the greater intimacy of going steady facilitated higher level of sexual intercourse amongst the young.”  Sexual promiscuity no longer branded a woman as undesirable wife material by a majority of the educated middle class, although these attitudes were not always reflected accurately by Hollywood (Splendor in the Grass). While the 1950’s is not credited for being a time of feminism it most definitely was. Petigny remarks: “Feminism in the 1950s was less a movement or ideology than a new sentiment or set of attitudes.”

In addition, Petigny mobilizes survey data to deny feminist complaints that American homes during this era rested on the systematic repression of women. Instead, most homes were based on “egalitarian” relationships. The number of working women climbed steadily during “the Fifties,” partly because of a Baby Boom–driven demand for teachers and nurses. Women made real political gains as well, with the proportion of women in Congress and the state legislatures climbing steadily. Petigny even makes a compelling case that the Boy Scouts of America actually lost ground in this era. Myths regarding the youth culture of the era also fall before Petigny’s analysis. While acknowledging the musical revolution implicit in rock ’n’ roll and the alienation portrayed in James Dean’s Rebel without a Cause (1955) and in J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (1951), the author notes the widespread support that this new music found among adults and youngsters alike. The problems shown in Catcher in the Rye were not about prevailing American values; it was Salinger's complaint about the failure of “phonies” and how to live up to personal expectations. An overturning of stylistic conventions ranged from Jackson Pollock’s paint-spattered canvases to the jazz improvisations of Charlie Parker.

The Social Conservative’s Dilemma: Adult acceptance of rock ’n’ roll also grew naturally out of the permissive child-rearing practices of the postwar era. That explains how a new celebration of spontaneity reshaped the arts during the 1940s and 1950s. The surge in fertility during the 1950s is particularly striking. It violated all the “laws” of sociology, including the general rule that the more education a woman has, the fewer children. While fertility rose for all American religious groups during the 1941–65 period, it rose far more impressively among Catholics. The total marital fertility rate for non-Catholics averaged 3.15 per woman in 1951–55 and 3.14 in 1961–65; for Catholics, the respective figures were 3.54 and 4.25. Only 10 percent of Catholics under age forty reported having four or more children in 1952–55, close to the Protestant figure of 9 percent. By 1957–59, the Protestant figure was unchanged, but the proportion for Catholics had more than doubled to 22 percent. 

At another level, however, Petigny’s analysis leaves social conservatives facing a fairly large dilemma. The Fifties seemed to be the one clear example in modern American history of social, cultural, and moral renewal. Families appeared to be growing stronger. Burgeoning church construction and swelling Sunday schools betokened a measurable form of religious revival. The suburban revolution seemed to restore America as a land of property owners, with adult consumption patterns focused on family life. In essence, Petigny’s argument is that these were all ephemeral developments, almost illusions, and the strongest evidence in support of his view is the rapidity with which these signs of social health evaporated in “the Sixties” (even “Catholic exceptionalism” on matters of family and fertility had vanished by 1970). The implication for twenty-first-century social conservatives is that there are no secular or easy paths back to social health. In this respect, The Permissive Society is not only a valuable work of history and a refreshing correction to the myths that surround the Fifties. It also indirectly summons a searching of a more difficult, yet real, form of social renewal for the future.

During the late 1940s and 1950s, there were two different points of view on how people looked at guilt. On one side, the Christians would naturally think of guilt as one of the main factors of mankind’s spiritual believes that would ultimately show them the difference between right and wrong. On the other side though, Freud and modern psychologists view guilt as one of the biggest problems that are facing mankind in modern times. The reason that it is being viewed as a problem is because that despite civilization developing, they will lose their happiness if they allow their sense of guilt to increase over time. The only thing that is confusing about Petigny's analysis is the guilt factor. This part of his study does not specifically say if everyone feels guilty for being happy or guilty for wanting to develop civilization. Source: home.isi.org

Buddy Holly fitted the nice guy archetype and the non-conformist archetype at once. His was a triumph of subver­sion. Buddy introduced Edwardian fashions to rock ’n’ roll, years before they became popular in the sixties. He wore an ascot and a greatcoat with a fur collar, displaying a style that was radical, even unthinkable, in an era of Brooks Brothers sack suits and buttondown collars. Tasteful and vaguely aristocratic, Buddy had repeatedly reinvented himself until finally achieving a sort of beauty. Duane Eddy, whose twangy guitar made him one of the top rock’s instrumentalists, saw Buddy at this time and described him, in Reminiscing magazine, as an impressive sight—tall, powerful, and strikingly handsome. As Rolling Stone’s Robert Palmer would write from the perspective of 1990, “It is a measure of fifties rock’s genuine revolutionary potential (as opposed to the revolution-as-corporate-marketing-ploy so characteristic of the sixties) that while sixties rock eventually calmed down, was co-opted or snuffed itself out in heedless excess, fifties rock ’n’ roll was stopped. Cold.” Buddy Holly only saw one good royalty check during his lifetime. He received his check on August 26, 1958 for $14,462.74. Holly was in the process of dissolving the Prism partnership right before embarking his last tour. Ray Rush was reimbursed and Buddy agreed to let Norman Petty take 2000 $ out of his Prism account for the Ampex. Whatever record label Holly was going to run, it would have been without Norman Petty. Manny Greenfield had booked the Crickets on the Dick Clark Show, the English tour, and other venues. In return, he and Buddy had had a word of mouth agreement that Greenfield would receive a 5% commission. These commissions were dutifully paid and there are receipts and checks as proof. Sometime around July or August of 1958, Manny Greenfield felt he was Buddy's manager and should be receiving a commission on all of Buddy's earnings. "Not so," said Buddy. So the assets were being held up by Greenfield. Buddy wanted Irvin Feld (the promoter of the Winter Dance Party tour) as his new manager after the break-up from Petty.

I wrote Runaround Sue about a real girl in the neighborhood, but we changed the name to protect the guilty. She was the kind of girl who loved to be worshipped and worked hard to get a guy’s attention; but as soon as she had him, she’d lose interest and start charming somebody else. We used the name Sue because it fit and because it lends itself to a lot of rhymes. Now, let me put you wise: Contrary to what has been reported everywhere, the song is not about my wife. It is not about Susan Butterfield. Susan has had to endure being introduced as “Runaround Sue” at least a thousand times since 1961. She smiles through it all. And she may one day be canonized for it. Even The New York Times (December 3, 2000) reported that she was the “iinspiration” for the song. The New York Times! The song hit number one in September 1961. 

I’ve written songs about Susan but never managed one that captures the wonder of it all. Her love is like God’s love, a mystery I’ll never fathom. You’ll notice something about the best rock and rollers: They tend to be outsiders. When they were kids they were loners. They didn’t fit in. They felt excluded. They made music to ease their pain. The great thing about writing a song is that it enables you to present a huge problem––loneliness, betrayal, fear, rejection––and then resolve it in three minutes. All it takes is a few verses, a chorus, and a guitar solo. The problem is that nothing’s really resolved at the end of the song.

The pain’s still there, inside––and that’s exactly what happens to the greatest rockers. The pain remains; and if you don’t find a way of dealing with it, you die. That’s the way it ended for too long a litany of rockers. They died from overdose, self-abuse, or reckless living. Others died inside. Some went crazy, or just burned out, or turned into misanthropes. But others grew up, which is, I think, the better way. At some point you need to grow up, even if you’re a rock star. Buddy Holly did change my life. I believe he founded the rock's avant-garde. For many people, he was the King of Rock and Roll, although Elvis kept the title. I got to know Buddy Holly pretty well. In New York I introduced him to Manny’s on 48th Street and a clothing shop on Third Avenue. He was 22 and very decisive and he impressed me because I was 19 and insecure. Buddy told me once, "Dion, I don’t know how to succeed, but I know how to fail: Try to please everybody." If he didn’t tell me that, I probably never would have done "Runaround Sue," or "The Wanderer."  I miss those guys (Buddy, Ritchie and The Big Bopper). I feel they are helping me out. I have three angels up there.

I think John Lennon's intentions were good, though he wasn’t the most informed participant on the scene, and the drugs got in the way of his clear thinking. Nowhere is the murk of his thought more evident than in the most popular song of his solo years. “Imagine” has become an anthem for internationalism––one-world government––and a favorite hymn for those who are “spiritual but not religious.” Imagine there’s no heaven... Lennon was talented, but this song represents a huge failure of imagination. In 1971 we didn’t need to imagine atheistic internationalism. Communism was living and active and it wasn’t producing peace. The Eastern Bloc was a repressive, unhappy place. China was sustaining its self-holocaust into Chairman Mao’s senility. What made it possible for so many leaders to issue the orders for atrocities over the course of a half-century and more? They feared neither heaven nor hell. Imagine that. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine polled a select group of recording-industry professionals, critics, and artists, and they ranked “Imagine” the third-greatest song of all time. In the video for the song, John plays a white grand piano in a white room. His wife, Yoko Ono, walks around the room, throwing open the curtains on all the windows, one by one. When I saw the video, I wanted to shout: No! She should be closing the curtains! The song isn’t enlightening anything. It’s a deepening darkness.

John Lennon wanted good things. “All you need is love,” “Give peace a chance.” The problem is that those things slip away like eels unless you have a clear idea of what they are. How could John preach love to the world when he had a hard enough time showing love to the people closest to him? What right did he have to preach world peace when he couldn’t even get along with the Beatles? Peace isn’t the chaos of liberty, anarchy, and license. It is, as St. Augustine said, “tranquility of order.” It’s the train on the track (“Slow Train Coming,” as Dylan put it). It’s good to want a revolution, and it’s good to give peace a chance, but the only true revolution that produces lasting peace is the one that Jesus started. The alternatives just make you pick sides among the warring factions. So John ended up throwing his support behind armed terrorists in the IRA and Black Panthers, even though they really weren’t interested in giving peace a chance. ––Dion: the Wanderer Talks Truth (2011) by Dion Dimucci