Cancer/writing Journal #93
“Wake up Little Suzy"--An Evaluation
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
We've both been sound asleep
Wake up, little Susie, and weep
The movie's over
It's four o'clock
And we're in trouble deep
Well, what are we gonna tell your mama?
What are we gonna tell your pa?
What are we gonna tell all our friends
Well, I told your mama that
You'd be in by ten
Well, Susie, baby
Looks like we goofed again
The movie wasn't so hot
It didn't have much of a plot
We fell asleep
Our goose is cooked
Our reputation is shot
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
We gotta get home
“Wake up Little Suzy” was a hit song sung by the Everly Brothers in 1957. It hit # 1 on the Billboard Pop Charts that year and makes it to 318 on Rolling Stone’s 500 best songs of all time. It was rerecorded by Simon and Garfunkel in 1982 in what was surely an act of irony tinged with nostalgia. The 1957 version was banned from play on radio stations in Boston for being too suggestive. The first reaction to this is “What?! Poor kids go to sleep during a dull movie and you’re banning it?” But while the banners were fighting a losing battle, there is an element of subversive transgression going on here.
I’m not totally sure I believe little Suzy’s boyfriend. Sleep without waking up for six or more hours in a car or a theater seat? And wouldn’t the theater or the drive in attendants rouse you? Come on!* And then, I wonder how often the “Little Suzy” defense was used or at least tried by teen-agers coming in after curfew. The song extends a sort of sanction to light hearted fun and sly workaround for the serious business of kids getting home when they are supposed to. I sympathize a little with whoever did the banning in Boston, however quaint it is in retrospect.
Another curious feature to this song is that their “reputation is shot.” With whom? The friends that say, “Ooh la la!”? Now granted, the songwriters needed a line that rhymes with “plot” but still, there needed to be some level of plausibility to concern over damage to reputation. Maybe it is with teachers and the principal at school and not the other kids. “Ooh la la” doesn’t sound like real strong condemnation. But, I suppose there are different ways of saying “Ooh la la”. And maybe “Ooh la la” carried more bite in 1957.
I first heard this song when I was eight years old. I remember being troubled by the fix little Suzie and her boyfriend were in and how it was all so unfair! Children are not equipped to process the way this song is intended to be amusing and not a truly serious lament. At least I failed to process it. So I am happy to finally get my issues with “Wake up Little Suzy” thrashed out after all these many years. Ooh la la.
*Granted, there are literary difficulties with finding a narrator unreliable whose narrative is contemporaneous, especially if, as here, the narrator is in emotional distress.
This was my writing submission for March. I almost had nothing but "Wake Up Little Suzy" was plaguing me as an earworm so I went with it. Wouldn't have thought I had so much to say about it but, as you see, I did. When I read it aloud to my writing group, they wanted me to sing, not read, the lyrics. I did and all of them joined me. The Everly Brothers bring out the lively in people.
I showed this to my sister who reported that the part about "reputation" would have resonated with teenage girls of the era. She was 16 in 1957 so would know what she is talking about. They could have been pretty sure the boys would talk. It occurred to me that the better line would have been, "Your reputation is shot." The fella would have most likely have come out OK.
In the process of writing this, I read a Wikipedia article on "Banned in Boston" It's interesting. You will find "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman and a couple of Hemingway's novels on a list of all the works that have been banned. Things have changed in Boston.
Charlie, I really enjoyed your walk down memory lane with this song and your experience of it as an eight-year-old child. I love it that your whole group joined in to sing it with you! Now THAT is a fun group! It's crazy to think of what was once banned as being too risque. Wow, especially compared to today. Thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jan. All of us knowing "Wake up Little Suzie" pretty well establishes our ages, doesn't it. But yes, it was fun. And "Banned in Boston" used to be a phrase but is no longer in use. I found what made that list really interesting. So interesting that I copied it and passed around copies to the writing group member and so interesting that I will show the list here too. I should note that you will find the song "Beans in their ears" on the list. There's a puzzler. Turns out that it was a public health measure and that Boston was not the only place to ban it. Kids were putting beans in their ears and then having to go to the doctor to have them removed. Medical groups pled that local radio stations not play it, so frequently were kids putting beans in their ears. We Baby Boomers were problems then and we continue to be problems. But anyway:
ReplyDeleteWorks banned in Boston
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1881)[10]
"$5 'Educational Series' Silver Certificate (1893, issued 1896)[10]
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (1894)[10]
Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn (1909)[10]
Many Marriages by Sherwood Anderson (1923)[10]
Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley (1923)[10]
The American Mercury (magazine, April 1926)[10]
Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill (play, 1926)[10]
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis (1927)[10]
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (1927)[10]
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1927)[10]
Oil! by Upton Sinclair (1927)[10]
Black April by Julia Peterkin (1927)[10]
Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos (1927)[10]
Mosquitoes by William Faulkner (1927)[10]
Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten (1927)[10]
The World of William Clissold by H. G. Wells (1927)[10]
Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson (1927)[10]
Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill (play, 1929)[10]
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence (1929)[10]
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (magazine serial, 1929)[10]
Jews without Money by Michael Gold (1930)[10]
God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell (1933)[10]
The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman (play, 1934)[10]
Within the Gates by Seán O'Casey (play, 1935)[10]
Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets (play, 1935)[1]
Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith 1944[10]
Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor (1944)[10]
The Moon Is Blue (1953)
"Wake Up Little Susie" by The Everly Brothers (song, 1957)[11]
"Beans in My Ears" by the Serendipity Singers (song, 1964)[12]
In four final cases the bans were overturned in court:
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (1965)[9]
Fanny Hill by John Cleland (1966)
I Am Curious (Yellow) by Vilgot Sjöman (1967)[13]
Caligula by Tinto Brass (1979)[14]
I suppose some feel we ought to "bubble wrap" kids, metaphorically. Interesting list. Funny about the beans song!
ReplyDelete