Suddenly I’m so tired, I could just plotz. Writing my Newswithviews column sometimes does that to me.
So I found myself whistling this ancient tune, Glow Worm. It was on one of those red plastic records kids’ parents used to buy for them in the early 1950s. It must’ve made an impression on me, for me to be whistling it all these decades later.
Listen to the lyrics. Feel the innocence. Nice, isn’t it?
I couldn’t find quite the rendition that was on my record, but here are the Mills Brothers performing it on The Nat King Cole Show, 1957. I remember it as being sung by Rosemary Clooney, but couldn’t find it on youtube.
You did it again, Lee. I sure remember this 🙂 and it also made me think of the old timers like The Ink Spots and The Gaylords and The Platters – these were long before music turned into nerve jangling noise.
There’s also a video of Chet Atkins performing this, but he didn’t sing, so I went with the Mills Brothers instead. Unknowable, take note: you can find it on youtube.
The Mills Brothers’ ‘Cab Driver’ was a big hit too 🙂
Great post. My mother was a big fan of the Mills Brothers, so any time we heard them on the radio we took note. When Cab Driver was getting airplay, she was in her glory . . . and they were good. BTW, for those that are interested in such things, there’s an absolutely beautiful Gibson L-5c in natural on that video. It could easily be worth $10,000 these days.
I also checked out the Chet version and it’s quite impressive. That song does not lend itself to being played on guitar, the song fights every note you try to play. But good old Chet showed it who’s boss. He was assisted by his right hand man, the brilliant, bu humble Paul Yandell, seen standing behind Chet and to his right. They were quite the team.
Lee, this is one of those songs that sticks in my head and plays on and on like, “bug me, little ear worm, bug me, bug me!”