Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers performing Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
CD Review
The Best Of Doo Wop Uptempo, various artists, Rhino Records, 1989
Recently I got caught up, and caught up bad, in the girl group doo wop (or that is what I prefer to call it anyway) night and mentioned that I had a hard time, a really hard time, relating to girl groups. No, not that they could not doo wop with the guys, Christ, half, more than half the time, they were better than the guys. Think of those great Shirelles numbers that came exploding off the charts. No, my problem, my mostly girl-less teenage alienation, teen angst, teen guy couldn’t figure out girls problem, was the lyrics of most of the songs. Songs filled with lines about longing for long gone Eddie, songs about parents forcing young love out the door when it involved the leader of the pack, or wistfulness about whether true love would survive the night, or tomorrow night. Or even such lowly concerns as the fact that one’s boyfriend was back, or that one had reclaimed an old boy friend and made some other teenage girl miserable, miserable waiting at the midnight phone, still waiting maybe. You know, girlish concerns, girlish giggle concerns not fit for serious teenage boy angst ears.
Not so though with the doo wop guys, slow, or as here up-tempo. Here the reverse is true, well, somewhat true. Although many times girl-less I could relate to such lyrical problems as two-timing mamas, fickle girls trying to decide between Johnny and Jimmy, girls, conspiring, yes, conspiring, and I will provide notarized proof upon request, to break up Susie and Bobby so Laura can have a shot at the lad. Such were the treacheries of the teen life, the 1950s teen life American-style (although I suspect, without notarized proof here, that this stuff rings a bell for today’s teen whatever nation, via Facebook convenience, they hail from.
That said all that is left is to figure out the stick-outs, and there are many here, some verily classics of the genre of the up-tempo doo wop night: Get A Job (first, ma says it at about twelve or thirteen, then girlfriend says it at about sixteen or seventeen so you have some dough to spend on her, then wife says it at about twenty-five or six, okay we get it, yes, get a job): The Silhouettes; Gee (great harmonics, although the lyrics are, ah, a little light), The Crows; Blue Moon (an old time Tin Pan Alley tune that cries out for this treatment, and a big old full moon to croon under), The Marcels; Little Star (wistful, guy version), The Elegants; Step By Step (sensible approach to a relationship, if you can do it, most teens just forget it), The Crests; and, Come Go With Me (yes, please do), The Del-Vikings.
Note: I have to make a special pitch for Why Do Fools Fall In Love? by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, the max daddy of the bop-doo wop night and the voice that basically made it all possible for all those groups, all those big city corner boy (and girl) groups, to partake of the rock scene and some fame. When my best elementary school friend, Billie, William James Bradley, king of the neighborhood rock night and a pretty good budding rock singer, first heard this song I thought he was going to go crazy. He had us doo-wopping that thing all one summer when we were hanging out in back of the school. And guess what? That song (and a couple of others) had the girls, a couple at first, then a few more, then a bevy (nice word, right?) all coming around and getting all moony and swoony. And kept this reviewer from being girl-less, for a while anyway. Thanks, Frankie.
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