Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXIX--Dion: Abraham, Martin, and John

This week's tune is an abject lesson in the fact that nobody writes songs commemorating political assholes.  There are no celebratory songs about Reagan or Nixon or Bush the Elder or Bush the Lesser because in the end, people don't like and won't buy records about assholes who don't give a shit about people.

There endeth the lesson....

Dion DiMucci began recording in 1957 and by 1960 he had (along with neighborhood friends The Belmonts) eight singles that had reached the Billboard Hot 100.  He went solo in 1960 (after a stint in rehab for heroin addiction, a problem he'd had since his mid teens), and over the course of the next eight years had 19 more singles hit the Hot 100.  Dion is most noted for his singles "Runaround Sue" (his only #1) and "The Wanderer" (#2--and originally released as a B-Side).  He was among the first inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in 1989) and is/was cited as an influence by Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Lou Reed (who gave the speech inducting Dion into the Hall).  For all intents and purposes, though he continues to tour and record, Dion's commercial success was over by 1968.  He did another stint in rehab, finally cleaned himself up, and now does outreach work with prison addicts.  In a nutshell, he had a hell of a career.

Fun Fact:  Dion was on the ill-fated "The Winter Dance Party" tour with Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper and was invited to take the plane that eventually crashed killing all three, but turned it down because it cost $36 which was what his parents had paid per month for the apartment Dion lived in as a child--and he thought, in comparison to a month's rent, it was just a bit too much money to pay for a plane ride.

"Abraham, Martin, and John" was released in August of 1968 in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy.  It would be the last hit single of Dion's career (but oh what a song to finish with), reaching #4 (most assuredly with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  The most surprising aspect of the song, is considering when it was written, that the song easily could have been a soap opera-ish, sappy, overwrought work of drivel, but it isn't, and the reason for that is its simplicity.  The lyrics use just slightly north of 60 words to describe what these four men--the aforementioned King and Robert Kennedy, plus Abraham Lincoln and JFK--meant to their country and the tragedy for all of us at their loss.  The song at times has a gospelesque feel (it is often sang at churches--not any of the ones I ever went to, mind you, unforunately), with some pop and some easy listening mixed in.  Dion's vocals are a wonder--he's one of those lucky men who can actually sing blue-eyed soul and he absolutely nails this one.  It's hard to not be inspired by the song, by what it says about the best of America's politicians, and to me seems especially appropriate in this time when we're led by a pseudo-Nazi, if nothing else as a reminder that we are better than this moment, and eventually history will give a big fuck you to one Donald J. Trump.

There endeth lesson two....

Fun Fact #2:  The gentleman who wrote the song also co-wrote the novelty hit "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron"  which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966.  Fascinating, my God...

Lyric Sheet:  "Didn't you love the things that they stood for?/ Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee