First Among Equals: The Drifters: "Save The Last Dance For Me"

There is something to be said for freedom and generosity - not just in political terms (when last I wrote here, did anyone expect the election to bring a sharing of power?), but of the heart as well. Popular music is popular in part because it expresses (like all arts) things that maybe are too extreme or hapless or abject to say in person. And since love is the main topic of songs period, a great deal of insecurity and nervousness and, yes, possessiveness comes into music, for better and also for worse.

This song is unique in that the man is utterly sure and happy and generous with his girl; she can be held tightly by someone else, she can stand in the pale moonlight, she can look a man who gives her the eye right back.

She can do all these things because he knows (and she knows) that their love is safe and secure, that he is taking her home - indeed in Ben E. King's satisfied "hmmmms" you can tell that what they have is special and that their relationship is one of equals. I cannot ignore that we are still (only just) in 1960 and that true equality hasn't really arrived yet, but I don't get the sense that there is any patronizing or condescending attitude here - 'little girl you can do what you like' is one way of looking at this, but the confident cha-cha asserts there is more going on here than that. (And indeed, there was - Doc Pomus, who wrote the song with Mort Shuman, had polio and couldn't dance; the song was for his wife, who liked to go out and dance.) So this is a song of love and in part dependence, of longing and freedom and understanding. I can see him saying these things to her as she puts on her shoes and does her makeup, just as I can see her coming back, her feet a little tired and longing for him and his arms, where she ultimately belongs, after maybe not having such a great time. He rubs her feet and she sighs, happily.

A Young Woman Ascends: Frank Chacksfield: "Terry's Theme"

As I go through the fifties I must stress to you, my readers, that I wasn't around back then and what perspective I have on it is through one young American woman who has yet to arrive in England - there are definite eerie parallels going on here, but I will only comment on them when the time arrives.   In the meantime, I have not seen Limelight and so am at somewhat of a disadvantage here.  Romantic, slightly sad, feminine – all attributes ballerinas have, whether they are suicidal or not – is what Chaplin wrote for his movie, and Frank Chacksfield does a great job in giving the song the delicacy it needs, as it sounds like something lovely but near lifeless coming back to life, gaining strength – as much native strength as it can have.

I don’t know if Limelight was a hit or if the audience somehow could sense themselves in Claire Bloom’s character – it is set in the distant-but-still-memorable past of 1914, the world about to haplessly enter a ‘war to end all wars’ (though whether the war itself is intimated in the movie, I don’t know). Chaplin is able to save her, and through doing so is able to save himself, enough to become a stage performer once more (paired up with his old partner, played by Buster Keaton) – so in the end it is a story of sustaining life and purpose, in perhaps finding meaning in a world that had none, continuing to dance and be grateful and take to the stage. For the British people, the comparison between the death of their monarch in 1952 and the ascension to the throne of a new one (the young Elizabeth II) just as this became a hit – – must have been inevitable. The old makes way for the new, the new gives love and respect to the old.