***On The Nature of True Love-In Search Of The Great Working Class Love Song- With Donna Walker, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, In Mind-Take Three

 

A YouTube film clip of Richard Thompson performing his classic working class love song, 1952 Vincent Black Lighting.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

1952 Vincent Black Lightning-Richard Thompson

This song is on YouTube performed by Thompson, although a stronger version is done on a cover by folk singer Greg Brown.

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike

A girl could feel special on any such like

Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you

It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems

Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme

And he pulled her on behind

And down to Box Hill they did ride

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand

But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man

I've fought with the law since I was seventeen

I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine

Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22

And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you

And if fate should break my stride

Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae

For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery

Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside

Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside

When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left

He was running out of road, he was running out of breath

But he smiled to see her cry

And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world

Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl

Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do

They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52

He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys

He said I've got no further use for these

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

And he gave her one last kiss and died

And he gave her his Vincent to ride

Today's subject, as noted in the title, the search for the great working class love song is prompted by a question that I have been asked about before from old North Adamsville high school classmates (Class of 1964 of course)- what music were you listening to back in the day? This is not as innocent as it sounds since the music you were listening too, Elvis, Chuck, Bo, Jerry    Lee, what is now called classic rock and roll versus say, Bobby Vee, Fabian,  Bobby Darin and the crowd, the musical markers of time between Elvis and the Beatles and Stones pretty well projected whether you were, well, square or “hip,” although that word except among the small Frankie Riley-led pseudo-“beat” crowd was not in common usage just then in staid old North Adamsville. Or if your tastes ran to the new jail break-out folk music that said plenty about what you were about. And if you had no interest in music, saw it as the grinding of gears then you were probably a waste of time to communicate with and so were given the big kiss-off, and rightly so.

Since most of my classmates, or at least the ones brave enough to venture an opinion in a sullen world, came of age with a photograph of Duane Eddy on their book covers I felt somewhat apprehensive for a while listening to their “rationale” for, say, Tell Laura I Love Her and Donna, Donna.  In fact after endless dribble about this for me at least that subject was totally exhausted. I no longer want to hear about how you fainted over Teen Angel, Johnny Angel, or Earth Angel. Christ there were more angels around then than could fit on the head of a needle or fought it out to the death in John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost.

Moreover, enough of You're Gonna Be Sorry, I'm Sorry, and Who's Sorry Now. What was there to be sorry about, except maybe some minute hurt feelings, some teenage awkward didn’t know how to deal with some such situation or, in tune with today’s theme, some mistake that reflected our working class-derived lacks, mainly lacks of enough time, energy and space to think things over without seven thousand parents and siblings breaking the stream. And those never-ending and never quenched wanting habits that started about the crib and never really left us, at least I never stopped thinking about the dirty deal of being foisted on a society that I didn’t create, and didn’t have a say in running.  

And no more of Tell Laura I Love Her, Oh Donna, and I Had A Girl Her Name Was Joanne, or whatever woman's name comes to mind. Old sweet woman Red Molly of the above-cited song, all dolled up in her black leather, puts them all to shame, yah, puts them all to shame. So it is time, boys and girls, to move on to other musical influences from our more mature years, say from our post-traumatic stress high school years.

But why, as the title suggests, the search for the great working class love song? Well, hello! Our old town, our old beloved North Adamsville, was (and is, as far as I can tell from a very recent trip back to the old place) a quintessential beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday working-class town (especially before the deindustrialization of America which for North Adamsville meant the closing of the shipyards that has left it now as a basically low-end white collar service-oriented working-class town, dotted with ugly, faux-functional white collar office-style parks to boot). The great majority of us came from working-class or working poor homes (a distinction that I favor drawing since the working-class guys were gainfully employed at steady work allowing for a single family home, a new model car, and discretionary money for the kids to buy records, play jukeboxes and go to the movies unlike my working poor father who was “last hired, first fired” and so reduced to the scraps of the ‘golden age of the American dream”). Most songs, especially popular songs, then and now, reflect a kind of "one size fits all" lyric that could apply to anyone, anywhere. What I was looking for was songs that in some way reflected that working-class ethos that is still in our bones, that cause our hungers even now, whether we recognize it or not.

Needless to say, since I posed the question, I had my choice already prepared. As will become obvious, if you have read the lyrics, this song reflects my take on the corner boy, live for today, be free for today, male angst in the age old love problem. However, any woman is more than free to choose songs that reflect her female angst angle (ouch, for that awkward formulation) on the working- class hit parade.

And a fellow female classmate did, proposing Bruce Springsteen’s version of Jersey Girl and here is my response:

“Come on now, after reading these lyrics above is any mere verbal profession of undying love, any taking somebody on a ride at some two-bit carnival going to make the cut. I am thinking here of another working class song suggested to me by a female classmate, Tom Waits' cover version of Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Girl where they go down to the Jersey seashore to some amusement park to while the night away in good working- class style, cotton candy, salt water taffy, win your lady a doll, ride the Ferris wheel, tunnel of love, hot dog, then sea breeze love , just like our Paragon Park nights, some buying of a gold ring like every guy on the make is promising to do for his honey if she…, or some chintzy, faded flowers that melt away in the night, or with the morning dew going to mean anything? Hell, the guy here, bravo James, is giving her, his Red Molly, HIS bike, his bike, man. No Wild One, Easy Rider, no women need apply bike night. HIS bike. Case closed.

And you think that is so-so and just a guy trinket love thing, not the stuff of eternity. No way. I KNOW of at least one female, noted above in the dedication, who might relate to this song. I also know at least one male, who shall remain nameless, who snuck out the back door of old North Adamsville High with another classmate, a female classmate, to ride his bike during school hours back in the day. So don't think I have forgotten my medication, or something when I call this a great working class love song. Romeo and Juliet is nothing but down in the ditch straight punk stuff compared to this. And I repeat, for the slow learners here, the guy, my boy, my corner boy James, in the song gave her HIS bike, man. That is love, no question.