MORE ABOUT BOBBY DAY and DAVE CLARK...

... or"Maybe she's just not that into you"

In a recent post (Tues 1 Nov) I described how this whole business about covers totally baffles me. Like, why are the lyrics sometimes so different? If you recall, I even gave a detailed example, "Long May You Run" by Neil Young, and covered by Emmylou Harris. Well, here's another example (which I already referred to in the post before this one). Today we'll look at them a little closer. We'll take the DC5 version first, since that's the first version I heard back in the day, even though Bobby's was released two years earlier.

"Over and Over" by the Dave Clark Five, 1965
Well, I went to a dance just the other night

Everybody there was there

I said over and over and over again

This dance is gonna be a drag

Didn't you always kind of wonder about that last word in the second line when Dave and the boys sang it? "Everybody there was there"? I don't know about you, but to me that always seemed a little too metaphysical for rock and roll. I mean, I hear it in my head in a more David Carradine intonation ("Ah Grasshopper, everyone there was indeed fully there!") and not Dave Clark. Maybe it's me. Anyway, some time later I happened to catch the wonderful 1963 original by Bobby Day, and things suddenly made much more sense -- at least for a moment (hold that thought).

"Over and Over" by Bobby Day, 1963

Well I went to a dance just the other night
Everybody there was stag
I said over and over and over again
This dance is going to be a drag

Now isn't that better? For one thing, "stag" actually rhymes with "drag." For a brief span of time I was content. Then I got to those last two lines of the song; the ones where she blows him off by telling him she's waiting for her steady date. My first thought was, Wait a minute -- why would a guy who's trying to pick up a chick be complaining about a dance where everyone is unattached? Then, even more to the point, I thought -- why would a girl be waiting for her "steady date" at a stag dance in the first place. Hmm. I think she probably just told him she was waiting for her date just to politely get rid of him. Wonder if he got the message.

FEATURE ARTIST - Bobby Day (born Robert Byrd)

One of the earliest songs I can remember practicing my dance (Chicken, Bop) moves to is "Rockin' Robin" by Bobby Day. What a great song! It was 1958, I was 11 years old, and my mom's dining room chair was just the right height to stand in for a dancing partner. Then later, in 1963, Bobby recorded "Over and Over" (which was covered - less impressively in my opinion) by the Dave Clark Five in 1965. In fact, Bobby (sometimes under different names) was in or connected to a number of West Coast doo-wop / soul starting right back in the early '50s. There's The Four Flames, The Laurels, Bobby Day and The Satellites, The Hollywood Flames. And calling himself Jackie Lee, Bobby recorded "The Duck" (a dance craze number) in 1965. There were so many more, including "Truly Truly," "Buzz Buzz Buzz," "Don't Ever Leave Me," the list goes on. My particular fave is the number he did with Earl Nelson, as Bob & Earl - "Harlem Shuffle." That is one very fine song indeed! Sadly, Bobby is no longer with us; he passed in 1990. But it's no cliche that his music still lives on. Go bird go!