Monthly Archives: February 2007

2. The Twist & Let’s Twist Again

Music, Song Blog

The first song I remember liking enough to do something about was The Twist, sung by Chubby Checker. The song seemed to be everywhere when I was in kindergarten and first grade.

Ray Raynor showed us how to twist on the Ray Raynor Show, telling his audience to pretend they were toweling off after a bath. He demonstrated by holding a bath towel in his hands with the middle part behind the small of his back, then quickly pulling on either side of the towel as if he was drying his lower back.

When my kindergarten teacher played the song on the record player in her classroom, I was all set and knew exactly what to do, thanks to Ray Raynor. I held my fists out as if I had a towel by the corners and wiggled my butt and closed my eyes, dancing away. When I opened them, the song was over and Ms Freeman was standing near me trying hard not to laugh.

When I got a little older, I still liked the song and was pleased to see that my parents had a version of it. I’d put it on our HiFi and wiggle my butt and pretend to towel off, just as Ray Raynor told me to.

Come on everybody clap your hands
Now you’re looking good
I’m gonna sing my song and you won’t take long
We gotta do the twist and it goes like this

Come on let’s twist again like we did last summer
Yea, let’s twist again like we did last year
Do you remember when things were really hummin’
Yea, let’s twist again, twistin’ time is here

Though I’m not a dancer, just thinking about that song makes my hips begin to move back and forth and occasionally when I towel off after a shower I think about Ray Raynor and Chubby Checker and I want to Twist Again, like I did last summer…

(Ok, the shower image is a little disturbing.)

1. She is So Funqular

Music, Song Blog,

In 1980 or thereabouts a song that played on the radio a lot caught my attention. I may or may not have known the musician – Peter Gabriel – at the time, but the song was catchy and I’d sing along with the chorus:

She is So Funqular
She is So Funqular
She is So Funqular

My boyfriend said funqular was a French word, but didn’t know what it meant. I imagined it meant sexy in a cool way or something. We were happy in our ignorance, and sang along with the lyrics – none of which made any sense, but that was fine with us.

At some point we purchased the album and realized we were wrong about the lyrics in the chorus, but it took me a while to realize exactly what the song was about. I’d even been to a Jeux San Frontiers heat on one of my visits to England in the 1970’s and had a bright yellow “It’s a Knockout” poster among my souvenirs of that trip.

I must have carefully read the lyrics, or perhaps took the poster out of storage, or maybe just saw the video, but it finally occurred to me what the song was about. I remember putting the poster up in the basement and smiling every time I saw it or heard the song played on the radio or on our stereo. It wasn’t until later that I learned that it was Kate Bush singing the chorus.

To this day, when I hear that song, I smile, and sing along with the chorus:

She is So Funqular
She is So Funqular
She is So Funqular

David

Photographs,

David resting

Click the image for a larger view.

David is my brother-in-law. He’s been a farmer since he was a child, first helping his father as a dairy farmer, later as a corn and wheat farmer with his twin brothers. It won’t be long now, before the land he and his brothers farm outside Elgin, Illinois becomes million-dollar homes, fancy shops and expensive cafes. Though David is past retirement age, farming is all he knows. Soon there will be no cattle to feed, corn to plant or harvest, or hay and straw to bale. David’s days of taking a break near the barn are numbered.