To @slobberchops -- This one's for you!

Where it ended
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And where it began.

So, a while back, @slobberchops had a contest -- interesting and unusual, just like the man himself. I didn’t come across it until the very last day, and anyway I don’t enter contests (which made this serendipity perfect!)

He wanted to hear about the “first song you bonded to.” Not the first song you fell in love to, but the first song you fell in love with -- to where you couldn’t stop humming it to yourself, or hearing it in your head or begging your parents to buy it for you because you were too young to get an allowance.

He even acknowledged that it might reach back in your memory to when you were 5 or 6. And given that music and I have a kind of on-again-off-again history, I wasn’t sure I could come up with a title. But memory games like this intrigue me ... so I paused, got quiet, closed my eyes and thought WAY back. And BINGO there it was. Plain as day and exactly what he was asking about. So I promised him an answer -- and here we go.

To say I fell in love with this song is to understate golden gospel. I -- was -- smitten with this piece of musical madness. Yes, I got the record ... and, yes, I learned every verse by heart. (There must have been about twenty of them -- not all of which will be in the YouTube offering you’ll find below.) I drove people wild singing it straight through from the beginning to the end ... over and over and over. A capella -- with all the zest in my seven year old soul.

Yeah, I know it dates me -- perhaps fatally -- to put this out there. But here it is.

The Ballad of Davy Crockett (1954)

Trust me. I first heard this song in late 1954 -- on the Magnavox television in my grandmother’s living room in Lubbock, Texas. I was there. With bells on.

I had this version. I had the one by Tennessee Ernie Ford. I played them until the records wore out. I had a coonskin cap -- and a vivid imagination. I counted the days until the next installment of this saga played on Disneyland -- the black-and-white television program that was the only thing worth watching in my seven-year-old world.

I was in love with Davy Crockett. (Born August 17, 1786) I was in love with Fess Parker. (Born August 16, 1924) I never quite got over that one, frankly. What can I say? They were both Leos. That sign just does it for me. Ask @catweasel. (Born August 15, 1950) I never had a chance. Totally besotted.

I had a book on Davy Crockett I tried to read to myself, but I just couldn’t. I still remember the bewilderment and frustration of being able to read some books ... but not this one. That really irked me.

And finally, I remember sitting under the dryer at the hair salon one day, singing away to myself (probably at the top of my lungs. You know how it is when something is roaring in your ears. You have to give it a little extra volume to hear yourself over the noise.) And my mother came back where I was, her wet hair dripping onto those plastic capes they make you wear ... and hollered at me to “Shut UP!! Shut UP!!! ” (Yeah, like that was going to work.)

So ... @slobberchops, since you were kind enough to ask what was the first song I ever bonded with -- there you are. In all its hokey glory. I bonded with this song!!

Boy, did I ever!!

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