The first song you remember listening to...

**Pete Hanlin** · 05-25-2004, 02:23 PM

Since music is always such a popular topic, what is the first pop song you consciously remember hearing on the radio as a kid? Mine has always been stuck in my mind- it was in the back our family station wagon on the return trip from my grandparents that I started paying attention to the music playing on the radio.

The tune? Blinded by the Light, by Manfred Mann's Earth Band (awesome little guitar solo in there). Other really way back tunes I recall include In the Jungle (the Lion Sleeps Tonight) and Billy, Don't be a Hero.

Ah yes, being a product of 1968, the fog on the dawn of my memory included a lot of horrible, horrible music that has since passed on into oblivion. Thankfully, my dad's tastes were stuck (still are, in fact) in the 50's and 60's, so I mostly remember tunes like Black is Black, Honeycomb, There Was a Tall Oak Tree, White Sports Coat, etc.

However, Blinded by the Light will always stick out as the original "hey, what's this stuff called music?" moment of my early years.

I'll be interested to see what y'all recall from those very early years...

**lpdeen** · 05-25-2004, 03:03 PM

Well, I was born in 1970 - not too far from you, Pete!

The first song I can really remember was "Seasons in the Sun". Funny, that is such a depressing song, now that I listen to the words as an adult. I absolutely loved it when I was little.

I was exposed to a lot of different kinds of music. My mom really likes folk music, oldies and rock so that's what we listened to growing up. They also went through an old school country phase. When I was at my grandma's house, it was big band and just about anything from the 40's.

I laugh with my mom about the variety of songs we sing along to when we are together.

**chm2023** · 05-25-2004, 03:04 PM

It's My Party by Leslie Gore, God help me. To my credit, I knew it was awful...yet, I seem to remember it...hmmmmm. A lot of girl group songs: Ronettes etc. Oh memory lane. I remember my dad just loathing rock and roll, and of course liberally sharing that opinion. I try to keep this in mind when I hear the kids listening to rap.

I need to go soak my teeth now.....

**John R** · 05-25-2004, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by lpdeen

Well, I was born in 1970 - not too far from you, Pete!

The first song I can really remember was "Seasons in the Sun". .

First record i ever bought that one.

Cnat remember what first song i ever heard was but i would guess at the theme to "Watch With Mother"......

**shanbaum** · 05-25-2004, 04:05 PM

First record I bought (I was 9 or 10, I think): Oh, Carol! by Neil Sedaka.

**walt** · 05-25-2004, 04:10 PM

Zip-a-dee-do-dah :p

**Texas Ranger** · 05-25-2004, 04:14 PM

Chantilly Lace, by the Big Bopper...long ago...

**shanbaum** · 05-25-2004, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by walt

Zip-a-dee-do-dah :p

Ouch.

Funny, one doesn't see Song of the South much on the Disney Channel...

**walt** · 05-25-2004, 04:24 PM

Really spooky Brer shanbaum...

First Uncle Joe,
then Uncle Remus.
Who's next? Uncle Sam?

**Judy Canty** · 05-25-2004, 04:58 PM

1812 Overture...my Dad's a retired high school band director. The first album I bought...Meet The Beatles. I wasn't allowed to play it on my Dad's stereo...something about contamination...

**Diane** · 05-25-2004, 05:22 PM

I had a very young and hip mother. She was 18 when I was born, and I would come home from grammar school and we would watch American Bandstand and dance and sing every afternoon. I thought that was what all families did. We had a hi-fi and played records (45's and some old 78's).

Man, I'm listening to some of the songs you guys remember and I remember them all. I think memories go back to Elvis and even before, (I remember when he went into the Army and I thought the world was certainly strange). "Hound Dog" I think was the first record I bought.

I too, loved Pat Boone, and "White Sport Coat". It just seemed like the gentlemanly thing, and made a person think Spring showers and flowers blooming, and stuff like that. Blue Moon, and Moody River...MMMM, have to say I loved Chantilly Lace. That was a little on the dark side according to my Daddy. I used to think I WAS Leslie Gore, and "It's my party" was my song. Some of my favorite songs were probably beach music...you know, the Drifters, and the Beach Boys, but then I was a teenager by then... Under the Boardwalk... Oh well. Warren, you remember them all, don't you, darlin'. I loved Fabian, and Paul Anka, and Bobby Darin, and being a good girl, had to love Annette Fun (can't spell it) Mickey Mouse fame. There were a huge number of really great singers, in the 50's and 60's and it was fun to see and hear them first hand. And of course the Beatles. They came to Atlanta, when I was a teenager, but I didn't get to go. My later to be husband went, though.

Don't think there is much music I don't like. Pop, rock (not too much hard rock), jazz, blues, classic, big band, country, gospel...maybe not tooooo much rap, but I can at least listen to my grandson sing it.

Spending too much time on this.

Diane

**Cindy Hamlin** · 05-25-2004, 07:39 PM

My first album purchase was something by Lynn Anderson. Can't remember for the life of me now which one or why? I have never been a country music fan since.

Except for Vince Gill and that is cause he is yummy!

<-dreamin of Vince!

**JRS** · 05-25-2004, 08:14 PM

This thread certainly brings back memories -

Being older than most (1949), I heard Big Band music until I was old enough to do "my own thing". However, I still enjoy Big Band music... Started collecting old 78's about 20 years ago, and then had to buy an antique phonograph to play them on. Anyone (besides me) remember the old TV-Phonograph combinations in the real wood cabinets? With TUBES!!! TV the size of my laptop screen! Anyhow, I must have 300 78's at the house. My oldest being a 1902 recording of John Phillips Sousa (things a quarter inch thick and only grooved on 1 side).

But the first album "I" bought was a Buddy Rich (drummer). Then it was stuff like Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, etc. late 50's, early 60's stuff.

Now you can buy most anything on CD. So I just convert them to MP3's and play them on my laptop while i travel.

**Joann Raytar** · 05-25-2004, 08:25 PM

Also born in 1970, the earliest pop songs I can recall hearing were the Knacks - My Sharona and The Eagles - Heartache Tonight.

**JennyP** · 05-26-2004, 12:04 AM

First pop song I remember listening to long enough to memorize the words was "Groovy Kind of love" (1965: Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders) and the first 45s I ever bought were Dave Clark 5's "Glad all over" and the theme from "The Man from Uncle" by I dunno :p I'm sure I drove my Mom nuts because I only had about 4 records the first year we had a phonograph player.

Another poignant memory:
I was headed to the dentist in early '65 to have my upper eye teeth* pulled prior to beginning orthodontics (I had wolfman style fangs that didnt descend, but were visible when I smiled {which was rare back then, too}) and the song on the car radio was "Ticket to Ride" by the Beatles, of course, which I sang at the top of my lungs, fretting all the way to the dentist! Can't listen to it today without having tooth loss phobias!

~~* (((ok, are "eye teeth" called "incisors" or what? I can imagine what a thread from dental professionals would be about their patients' terminology!)))

**Steve Machol** · 05-26-2004, 01:33 AM

The first song I can remember hearing was 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini'. They certainly don't write 'em like that anymore. :)

**JRS** · 05-26-2004, 02:13 AM

How about the "One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater"?

**Rick Strong** · 05-26-2004, 04:35 AM

Johnny Horton

"Bismark"

**shanbaum** · 05-26-2004, 05:53 AM

Funny - I was scrolling down this thread, and when I saw "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", I immediately thought, "what about the 'Flying Purple People Eater?'"

**Jim Schafer** · 05-26-2004, 08:06 AM

Outside of the big band and post WWII pop that my parents listened to ...and the German polkas that were always on the radio at my grandparents...it was Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue that stuck in my mind... to this day. Where is that girl anyway??

I have two Aunts that were teens in the mid to late 1950's and me being the first grand baby, they took me everywhere. They had all the 45's that Columbia packages and sells on late night TV. They exposed me to Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Wayne? Eddy and the Everly Brothers. Later it was all the pre Motown Duke of Earl, Blue Moon doo wop and early Phil Spectre wall of sound groups.
The first album I bought was a no named Rolling Stones fall of 1963 debut with Not Fade Away, Route 66, Heart of Stone and King Bee. It cost 1.99...2.99 for stereo version..but who needs that?

What I really enjoy now is the Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and other country music classics that I heard on my youth baseball coaches car radio.

**Pete Hanlin** · 05-26-2004, 08:29 AM

Oh yeah... the first record I bought was a 45 with the song "You're Just Too Good to Be True" on it (don't even remember who sang that- but I listened to it over and over and over).
The most prolific album in my memory has to be an 8-Track that my dad received by mistake (if anyone actually has this I just may freak). My aunt bought him a Johnny Cash 8 Track for Christmas, but when we played the thing, it wasn't Johnny Cash. Instead, it was a fellow named Tom T. Hall, and the album turned out to be "In Search of a Song." Anyway, my dad played that tape over and over and over, and all three of us boys just loved it (with songs like "Four Hundred Hogs," and "Tulsa Telephone Book," and "The Year Clayton Delaney Died" how could you NOT love it?!?). Its funny how anytime my brothers and I get together, one of us eventually ends up humming a tune from that tape.

I definitely remember Bismark, Purple People Eater, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini- as well as The Streak, Secret Agent Man (ugh), The Battle of New Orleans, and every Elvis song ever recorded (my favorite being "Are You Lonely Tonight?") The saddest song (since Seasons in the Sun was mentioned) I remember as a child was "Alone Again- Naturally" by Gilbert O'Sullivan.

**karen** · 05-26-2004, 08:42 AM

hmmm...well, my mom loved Captain and Tenille so I have fond memories of her driving me around belting out "Love will keep us together" My dad has always listened to classical so I don't remember a lot of that. The first songs I can remember really loving were "Da do run run" by Shawn Cassidy and "Hot Child in the City"-cannot remember who sang that. My mom liked a lot of different stuff so consequently I know the words to all the music from Man of La Mancha as well as stuff from the Village People-she has ecclectic tastes. I think the first thing I bought myself was an 8 track of Parallel Lines by Blondie...

**shanbaum** · 05-26-2004, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by Pete Hanlin

I definitely remember Bismark, Purple People Eater, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Yeah, but Steve, JR and I remember them from when they were released.

**Judy Canty** · 05-26-2004, 09:00 AM

Yup...and The Battle of New Orleans and the oh-so politically incorrect A-hab the A-rab.

**Pete Hanlin** · 05-26-2004, 09:10 AM

Yeah, but Steve, JR and I remember them from when they were released.

Well, I'm starting to fall victim to that too, Robert. Recently, there was a remake of the song "Hey Now, Hey Now (Don't Dream its Over)" for a movie sound track. I made the comment "That's a good remake" to one of our admin assistants, and she said "Remake? I didn't realize this was a remake- when did this song come out originally?" Between moments like this and the fact that 80's music is now being called "classic," I'm feeling pretty old.