When I’m Sixty Four i’ll visit the House at Pooh Corner Dancing In The Dark so Don’t You (Forget About Me)!

Hello Monday! Hope everyone stuck in the hotter than the hinges of you-know-what are staying cool! Meanwhile, Monday means music! This week’s Monday’s Music Moves Me theme is to “build a playlist from the 60s – 80 to celebrate someone special’s 64th birthday.” Let’s get this birthday celebration party started!

Let’s start with a song that might be shared a lot today, considering it’s the perfect fit for this week’s theme. It’s a song that Paul McCartney wrote the music for when he was about 15, and used to play it when The Beatles were still known as The Quarrymen. He put lyrics to it later in honor of his father’s 64th birthday. George Martin arranged this in the style of a 1920’s big band, which came to be known as “retro-rock”, and was the first song recorded for Sgt. Pepper’s lonely Hearts Club Band.

This was a favorite of The Beatles at their early club shows, where they were required to play for hours. When their amps overheated, they would sing this around the piano. This song was also used in the Robin Williams movie, The World According to Garp.

Here’s The Beatles with “When I’m Sixty Four”:

Moving to the 70s, this song is one of the first songs this artist wrote, and  his first charting single as a songwriter. The song title happens to be a popular children’s book by A. A. Milne following the adventures of his character Winnie The Pooh. The song is based on this book. The artist said:

“(I was) going on graduation in high school, and for some reason, I was thinking about that last chapter in The House at Pooh Corner. It was the first book I ever read.

The last chapter is where Christopher Robin is leaving the Hundred Acre Wood, and he’s telling everybody goodbye. I felt like that was akin to what I was going through in high school. Some part of me knew that I was leaving my childhood behind. I didn’t really think it through like that. It just sort of came through.”

The song nearly didn’t get recorded because of copyright issues. The artist explained:

“I was 17, and I didn’t really have any awareness that I wasn’t allowed to write a song about Winnie the Pooh, and that there were people who owned that copyright. In those days, as a songwriter, you’d go around to different parties, much like what’s happening here in Nashville where you have writers in the round.”

The artist showed up at a party where a couple of members from an up-and-coming act called The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band were also in attendance. They heard the song and loved it and told the teenage songwriter they wanted the tune for their album. He said:

“I was really excited, and I’d never had a song recorded. About a month later, I got a phone call from John McEuen, who at the time seemed to be the leader of the Dirt Band. He says, ‘Kenny, I’m really sorry, but we won’t be able to record that song. We’ve been inundated with phone calls from Disney lawyers for the last few weeks, telling us that we’re not allowed to record a song about Winnie the Pooh.’

I was going on a date that night, and I mentioned to my girlfriend, ‘I’m kinda bummed tonight because I thought I had my first song recorded, and it’s not gonna happen. The Disney lawyers put the kibosh on it. She looked at me and says, ‘Disney lawyers? Let me to talk to Daddy about that.’ I did not know that I was dating the daughter of the CEO of the Disney corporation.”

Give a listen to Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina with “House at Pooh Corner”:

Next up, heading into the 80s,  is a song that this artist wrote about his difficulty writing a hit single and his frustration trying to write songs that will please people. His struggles pour out in the lyric, where he feels like a hired gun dying for some action. He even addresses an industry trope, which he surely heard many times before:

They say you gotta stay hungry / hey baby I’m just about starving tonight

Ironically, the song was a hit single – the biggest of his career in terms of US chart position. The video was filmed during the artist’s concert at the St. Paul Civic Center in Minnesota on June 29, 1984. Courteney Cox, who was planted in the audience, got the role of the adoring fan in the front row who gets to dance on stage with the artist.

The video was this artist’s first to get heavy airplay on MTV, and it introduced him to a new, mostly younger audience. As for Courteney, a few years later she landed a role on the sitcom Family Ties, and went on to star in the wildly popular TV series Friends.

Fun fact: This won the artist his first Grammy – in 1985, it got the award for Best Male Vocal.

Here’s The Boss, Bruce Springsteen with “Dancing In The Dark”:

Last, but certainly not least, is the big song from the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club (the song was specifically written for the movie, by the way). One of the songwriters was a big fan of this Scottish Band, so he tried to get them to record it by delivering a cassette demo.

At the time, the band was gaining traction in the UK with three modest hits from their 1984 album, so they wanted nothing to do with recording this song because they didn’t want to record a song they didn’t write, and one of the bandmembers didn’t like the lyric (especially the “vanity… insecurity” line).

They wanted to use one of their songs instead, but didn’t realize this song was actually written to the script, and was the only option. They said:

“We were young, we were a bit brattish, we were insecure. We were loving what we were doing and thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, you want us in ’cause you love us because we write these songs, but you want us to do your song?’ We weren’t even willing to listen initially.

We were like, ‘No, we don’t do other people’s songs. End of story.’ And of course, later on it was explained, but the song was written to the script and every time they tried to make it more amenable, it sounded worse, because they would say, ‘It sounds really like Simple Minds,’ and we would be infuriated. ‘How dare you rip us off and then try and sell us on an idea!”

Getting the band into the studio to record this song was the hard part, but when they plugged in, the magic happened.

“Once we go into the studio, we don’t know how to do things by half measure. The band was on fire anyway. Anything we jammed on sounded great.”

The intro was especially inspired, with the guitarist landing a big riff and the lead ad-libbing the “hey, hey, hey, hey” part.

“Suddenly it was game-on and we weren’t thinking about ourselves, we were just thinking about what’s coming out of the speaker, and every time someone did something that was cool, that encouraged us more. We were kinda looking at each other going, ‘It’s good this? isn’t it?’

This is the thing with music: You can analyze it and you can come with an attitude – and bands are notorious for politics – but once you start playing and you like how it makes you feel, everything else goes out the window. That’s all that counts.”

Without further ado, here’s Simple Minds with “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”:

That’s a wrap for this week – see you on the dance floor! And to whomever is celebrating their 64th Birthday this week, Happy Birthday! Remember, the 60s are the new 40s… 😉

Now on to the particulars of Monday’s Music Move’s Me:  

For this new year, the 4M crew is operating a bit differently. If you have a theme idea, submit your request by email. Each person’s suggestion(s) will be credited accordingly – unless someone wants to volunteer for the monthly co-host spot, then we won’t be looking for anyone to fill it in 2023. It’s tough to commit for 4-weeks. The object is to keep things fun!

I have the supreme honor and privilege of being a co-host with the inimitable Xmas Dolly and our musical cohort, the awesome Cathy from Curious as a CAThy, and Alana of Ramblin’ with AM!

Want to join in the fun? It’s easy – just find a tune that rocks your boat, post it and link up – don’t forget to grab Xmas Dolly…er, um, I mean her button…over at her place here. Check out Xmas Dolly’s sidebar for the random themes we sport each week – and you can always ask for a specific theme of music you like, too. Check out the other music lovahs and let’s jam!

Robin of Songbird’s Crazy World