The YouTube Rabbit Hole

Yesterday I went down deep into the YouTube rabbit hole starting and ending with the Everly Brothers. Trying to distract myself from endlessly scrolling through Instagram to see who the Israel IOF was currently killing in Gaza, I decided to make a pineapple upside down cake. It’s the only sweet thing I could find the ingredients for in my kitchen besides oatmeal cookies, which I was sick of (I always make a batch to take skiing with the grandkids). I figured some good old 50s and 60s rock ‘n roll on Pandora would be a good fit.

A few songs into the Everly Brothers station, “All I Have to do Is Dream” came on. I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. My family in Colorado Springs was visiting another family and us kids were outside playing around, I guess with a radio on, and when I heard those voices in beautiful harmony sing “Whenever I want you in the night, whenever I want you to hold me tight, all I have to do is dream, dream, dream” (with some long, drawn out phrasing of the word dream). I was gobsmacked. I must have been around 11 or 12, in 5th or 6th grade, before the Beatles arrived and took me along on their ride.

The Pandora playlist then segued into all those early bands that had mostly corny or stupid lyrics but wonderful rhythm and beats: Buddy Holly with Maybe Baby; Elvis Presley with Hound Dog; Ricky Nelson with Traveling Man (misogynistic but we all loved him on the Ozzie and Harriet show); Sam Cooke with You Send Me, Patsy Cline with I Fall to Pieces (such a wonderful singer); The Fleetwoods with Come Softly (darling); Conway Twitty with Make Believe (so soulful); Roy Orbison with Only the Lonely, and Bobby Darin with Dream Lover.

It was Bobby Darin who sent me to YouTube once the cake was in the oven. I’ve always loved Bobby Darin and I wanted to see him in person singing Dream Lover because his subtle little body sways are so very sexy. The first video that came up was his appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Oh my, what a show that was and there’s nothing like it today. He always had a musical guest on and he had them all: Elvis, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, the BeeGees, the Byrds, and, of course, the Beatles. We always ate dinner on trays in the living room so we could watch Ed every Sunday night.

Anyway, I got my fix of Bobby Darin and then had to go ahead and stay with Ed for a while to watch Elvis sing Love Me Tender, another heart breaker, the BeeGees (who didn’t do well on Ed’s stage because they’re singers and song writers, not a band), and the Animals do House of the Rising Sun.

Then something called “Top Twenty Songs with Harmonies that give us chills” popped up and of course I had to listen to it. By this time the cake was out and I was drinking a martini. There was too much talking by the voice over host, a few groups I’d never heard of, and not necessarily my rated order, but for the most part it gave credit where credit was due. So of course, there were the Righteous Brothers doing “Unchained Melody,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the Beatles on any number of songs, the Carpenters (!), Abba (!) whose only song I know is Dancing Queen, the Eagles, who did a five part harmony, the Seekers’ “I’ll Never Find Another You,” Queen, and finally, through process of elimination, the Everly Brothers!

So, I made it through another day with “a little help from my friends,” as the Beatles put it. I also have to put in a plug for the Cox Family, in terms of beautiful harmonies. They’re basically a country band, but they do a great version of Runaway, by Dell Shannon, who’s also on that Pandora Everly Brothers station. What comes around goes around.