Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel (1960)- Billy’s 1960 View

A YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing the classic Teen Angel.

By Bart Webber

 A while back Sam Lowell wrote, more than wrote, spouted forth on the intricacies for lack of a better word of watching the “submarine races” in the old days down at Adamsville Beach where we spent many a summer night going through the to and fro of that tradition. For those who know not of this tradition, perhaps you live in the Middle West and are not close to the shore, or in Mountain time ditto on the ocean or even if you do live fairly near the ocean your lovers’ lane spot might be in the woods somewhere this effort was simplicity itself. You would con, pardon the expression but that was the truth of the matter at least the first time you tried it and the first time the girl bought your silly ass line, some young thing, wise to the tradition or not, in order to get her down by the lovers’ lane ocean. To, well, to watch those elusive U-boat or whatever type you mentioned Nautilus or Soviet that were not far from the shoreline. Preferably watching out in the moonless briny seas from deep within the back seat of your father’s car, or your car if you had some dough in your family and your father maybe passed his three year old “clunker” to you rather than take a trade-in, or that of your newly minted best friend. Absent those choices, especially for those under sixteen and license-less, you could do your thing on the seawall, or rather behind the seawall.                  

Of course “watching submarine races” was not the only pastime among the old time corner boys who populated the front of Tonio’s Pizza Parlor along with one Sam Lowell. Nor was that little scam the only thing that the corner boys committed during the high school years when between six and a dozen corner boys who congregated  any given weekend, weekdays too during the summer, that Sam wanted to let a candid world know about when he started his little reminiscences. The whole thing, the whole memory lane thing, by the way got a big boost when Clara Kelly, one of the officers of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 and a woman who stayed in the area (and eventually upon her parents’ deaths move back into the old homestead where she was born), set up a Facebook class page to gather in whoever was still standing. Sam who also stayed in the area after law school and kept a practice there until recently, although he had spent several years along with guys like Pete Markin, Josh Breslin, Frankie Riley, and a few others from the corner headed out West and fully imbibed in all that 1960s counter-cultural expression had to offer, signed up early and pushed, pushed hard by Clare began “telling all,” “telling all there was to tell,” about his experiences in the old town in the old days.            

With some time on his hands now that he had turned over the day to day operation of his law practice to his younger partner Sam went at it hammer and tongs. When he had through that Facebook connection gotten reunited with some of the old corner boys and they gathered occasionally at the Dublin Grille where their father’s drank, sometimes the family paycheck as with the case of Josh’s father and told some tales which Sam would whip into some kind of little sketch.

You know Sam, unlike a number of those corner boys still standing who came around in high school when to be seen at Tonio’s in some circles was to be seen as “cool” (although the intellectuals, you know the nerds and geeks of the day dismissed the whole scene out of hand as did the social butterflies as low-rent but the working-class boys were all for it, wanted in, although not every guy made the “cut”), had always since elementary school been a “corner boy.” So Sam would regale the denizens of the Dublin Grille nights with tales of the Doc’s Drugstore days on Newbury Street and of the doing at Adamsville North Elementary School across the street. As Sam would always mention those days were always centered around the exploits of one Billy, William James Bradley, who would later after moving away from the town meet a bad end after dropping out of high school in sophomore years but who in his rather young prime set the tone at Doc’s, set the tone for Sam too-unto this day. Got it.            

Here is what Sam churned out after one Dublin Grille session when the subject of when the members present gravitated toward the common thread of high school-rock and roll music to sweep the blues away:

 

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billy, William James Bradley, and the mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood, out in the Acre section of North Adamsville. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Sam, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own. This song, from 1960 Teen Angel, came out at a time when I had left the projects, had moved across town, acquired new friends, and, most importantly, had definitely moved away from Billy’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe after more than his fair share of failed attempts to go straight, to be the next Elvis or whatever it was that drove the better angels of his nature. Still he knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot (he lost his infectious laugh alone with those faded dreams as well, developed a snarl, and not that theatrical Elvis one either. Here is what I recall from back then that I related to the guys at the Dublin Grille and which as I wrote it down later I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to put in Billy’s voice, what he had to say about one such song. Hey, wherever you are Billy I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

*********

MARK DINNING

"Teen Angel"

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled

upon the railroad track

I pulled you out and we were safe

but you went running back

 

Teen angel, can you hear me

Teen angel, can you see me

Are you somewhere up above

And I am still your own true love

 

What was it you were looking for

that took your life that night

They said they found my high school ring

clutched in your fingers tight

 

Teen angel, can you hear me

Teen angel, can you see me

Are you somewhere up above

And I am still your own true love

 

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone

They've taken you away.

I'll never kiss your lips again

They buried you today

 

Teen angel, can you hear me

Teen angel, can you see me

Are you somewhere up above

And I am still your own true love

Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

***********

Billy back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Sam’s pal, Sam Lowell’s pal, from over at the Adamsville Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know, the Acre. Sam, whom I hadn’t seen for a while since he moved “uptown” to North Adamsville came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of the old neighborhood and we got to talking about this latest record, Teen Angel, by Mark Dinning that had us both baffled at first, but now I can give to you my take on it. And for one of the few times in recorded history, recorded Billy and Sam from the old projects history, we agree right down the line that this weeper is strictly for the girls.

Yeah, I know, and Sam does too, (I won’t keep saying “Sam does too” but I have to admit I was astounded when he agreed with me, especially on the ring stuff, so I had to say it at least this once) this is a guy lamenting his lost teen angel. So you think right off that he is all broken up about his baby. But that’s just for public consumption. (Do you like that term? Nice, huh?) What’s a guy supposed to say after his bimbo, yes, bimbo, and I will explain that in a minute, runs back to save his f-----g ring from a clunker (probably), some old thing maybe an old Hudson or Studebaker held together with baling wire and sweat, worse his father’s cast-off once he got tired of it and rather than use it for trade in foisted it off on his son, stuck on some old railroad track. In fact the guy should be fuming that this b---o [bimbo, okay-Sam] thought more of his “symbolic” ring (after all they were just “going steady”) that keeping herself alive in order to keep him company on those now lonely Saturday nights down by the seashore, or at the carnival or the drive-in (restaurant or movie). Yeah, Markin says there should be a law against the "bim" (compromise, okay) doing such a thing and the guy should sue the pants off of her folks for raising such a bim, maybe alienation of affection whatever that is that I heard Sam mention one time when Lorna Lee dumped him and he was fuming about it after he had bought her a big box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. And you know I think he might be right.

 

What really grips me though is that f- -king (hell, you know what kind of ring it was) ring thing. I’m not going to beat a dead horse over her running back to some crippled up car held together with baling wire and sweat on an active railroad (by the way where the hell is that place we haven’t seen trains around our way for many years). That’s over and done with. But let’s face facts, and everybody who knows anything about anything knows that those high school class rings are strictly from cheapsville, from nowhere, nada, nothing. Got it. All glitter and glow for lots of dough. But like I said cheapsville. Fake jewels, fake gold, plated or fizzled or something, hell, maybe fake lettering. Frankly stuff that I wouldn’t even bother to grab off some kid I was thumping. Definitely for not a girl. Got it.

Christ, I “clipped” better stuff at Woolworth’s and gave it to my younger sister, as a gag. But see I could have gotten this guy some good stuff, a nice ring that he could have given her, a ring she would have been proud to go back for, although I wouldn’t wish her to give up her young life over it. While I am at it if anybody needs rings, bracelets, or other trinkets as signs of eternal love or just to give your honey something just get a hold of me. There won’t be any fako stuff either. All A-One stuff from Kelly’s Jewelry Store up the square. Got it.

 

When you think about it though, and although I am glad that my boy Sam brought it up after we talked about it for about an hour up in my room before my brother who I share the room came and didn’t want to hear about some weepy story since had had just broken up with his girl, how much time can you really spend on this set of lyrics. See here is where my papal authority comes in, you know my being the undisputed Pope of rock and roll around her, the pope that counts forget that guy in Rome on this one. I put this one strictly under novelty items, and like I said strictly for girls, weepy girls. Girls, up in their lonely rooms waiting by that midnight telephone. No way, no way in hell, is this that moony swoony song that sets up your mood thing down at that previously mentioned seashore. Or do you really want to spend the whole night at the high school dance waiting for that last dance so that the she you have been eyeing all night just falls all over you, and then this “downer” comes on. Take it from the Pope, no way. Got it.