matthew

The Last Deejay

After my wife and I got married in the mid 2000’s, it took about a year before I received my permanent resident visa that allowed me to move from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C. During that time I would get off work at about 2 AM on Sunday morning and drive to my wife’s apartment in Vancouver, arriving at about 4:30 AM. I would drive my wife to work on Tuesday morning then head back down to Seattle where I was due at work at about 3:30 PM.

One Tuesday morning I won a contest on Vancouver oldies station, 650 CISL. A week later I stopped by the station to pick up my prize. The station was in Richmond, the city just south of Vancouver. I got off Highway 99 and went westbound on Steveston Highway and wound my way to the studios. I waited at the front desk as they got my prize. I later mentioned to my wife that I wished I could have had a tour of the station.

A week or two later when I arrived on Sunday morning, my wife told me that we had an appointment at 10:30. I had no idea what the appointment was for but I did not think too much about it. I got a few hours of sleep, awakened, and got cleaned up. We got in the car and drove south on Highway 99 listening to Red Robinson’s show on CISL. My wife told me to exit Highway 99 at Steveston Highway.

As we drove west on Steveston, my wife asked me if I recognized where we were going.

I was incredulous. “No!” was about all I could say. My wife had arranged for me to meet Red Robinson.

Red let us sit in with him for about 45 minutes. As we were leaving, my wife took a picture of Red and me by a jukebox in the station lobby.

Red Robinson and me, a meeting arranged by my wife Photo: Personal collection

Red Robinson was a DJ and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He got his start on radio in Vancouver in 1954 when he was still in high school. His first name was Robert. According to his autobiography he never went by “Red” until he was on the air. His fellow students did not know that after school he would go to the station for his air shift. He was concerned that those we now call “jocks” would not take kindly to his after school job so he used the nom de voix “Red” so that they would not know.

He met many of the stars of early rock and roll, many of whom he considered friends. He really appreciated their music and, in the formative years of the genre, the humility of most of the artists. He told of one night after a concert he, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, and Buddy Knox went for a burger at a White Spot (think Denny’s) and just sat around talking for several hours.

In the early 1960’s he went to work at a station in Portland, Oregon. Red would do imitations on the air. While he was there, Walter Brennan had a hit record with Old Rivers. One day Red’s manager went into the studio and asked Red to do his Walter Brennan imitation. After he did it, the real Walter Brennan walked in saying “I don’t sound like that!”

At that time, Red would have been in his mid 20’s. As he was a young man living in the United States, he registered for the draft. One day he got his letter from the President. He weighed his options: he could return to Canada or he could honor his obligation. He chose the latter. He served in the US Army at Fort Ord, California.

After his stint in the Army, Red returned to Vancouver. In 1964 he emceed the Beatles Vancouver concert. Vancouver Police told Red that if the crowd did not settle down, the Beatles would not be allowed to play. As Red tried to settle the audience, John Lennon cussed him out telling Red to let the group play. Red explained the situation and John backed down.

Red Robinson’s radio career went on for many years. He also branched out into television and advertising. He did a great deal of charity work.

Red Robinson passed away this week, two days after his 86th birthday. The music and broadcasting industries lost a gentleman, as did the world as a whole.

Personal Music Descriptions

Of course I know In The Mood by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, but it was a hit many years before I was born. My personal description for such a song is, well, that I know it.

Of course I know it. Doesn’t everybody?

A song I know does not necessarily have to be from before I was born. It could also be something that I am old enough to possibly remember from when it was a hit, but don’t. One such song is Lies by the Knickerbockers. Even though it is from 1966, I don’t remember hearing the song until late 1968.

And like everyone else I thought it was the Beatles.

Another song I missed at the time but heard later on is Friday On My Mind by the Easybeats. For some reason, also in late 1968, KJR Seattle played it so often that I though it was new even though is was it was a hit on the US charts a year and a half before. This is another song I know.

It wasn’t until late 1969 when I heard KFRC say it was from 1967 that I knew it was an oldie when KJR played it.

Know is the most basic category of song to me. From there we move to songs I remember. A song I remember is one that I remember from the time it was a hit.

One song I remember was from 1964 after we moved to Germany. AFN Frankfurt had a country show from 4-5 PM (or should I say 1600-1700). From 5 to 6 (1700 to 1800) was a popular music program — the first half hour was top 40, the second half hour was what used to be called MOR (Middle of the Road). This particular song was on both the country and pop charts so it was played on both shows. That song was We’ll Sing In The Sunshine by Gale Garnett. I definitely remember this song. No wonder, considering I heard it twice in the two hours of limited music programming on the station.

And I’ve hated it ever since.

In late Spring, 1969, there was a song KJR started playing. By the time we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in late August, it was ready to drop off the KJR play list — a recurrent in radio parlance. When we got to San Francisco and found KFRC, that song was Hitbound. It is the only song that I heard run its course two consecutive times of heavy airplay. Yeah, I certainly remember Smile A Little Smile For Me, Rosemarie by the Flying Machine, and I sure got tired of it, too.

I guess it wasn’t really their fault.

The thing with a song I remember is that, while I remember it when it was a hit, it does not bring back the vivid mood of a specific time I heard it. It was just part of the woodwork so to speak — even if I do remember a specific time I heard it.

That brings me to what I call Time Machine Songs. Not only do I remember such a song from when it was a hit, but hearing it again transports my mind back in time to a specific time I heard it.

After my grandmother died in January, 1963, we drove from Staten Island for the funeral. After the funeral my mother stayed in Washington DC to help my grandfather. My father was in the Army. He stood like a ramrod and was forever telling us to “stand up straight.” As he drove my two brothers and me back to New York, the latest song by the Four Seasons came on the radio. My father could not pass up the oppourtunity to tell us that that is what we had to do — Walk Like A Man.

On the Pennsylvania Turnpike again.

I previously touched on one particular song from 1965. Whenever I hear I Can’t Help Myself by the Four Tops, I am sitting in our living room looking at the July 9 issue of Life Magazine. I can see many of the pictures. I am not quite nine years old. The song takes me back there.

And the girl on the cover was nice, too.

When my brother was a junior in high school he was involved with an organization called Junior Achievement. One night a week my mother would drive him to the meetings. I would go along for the ride. I don’t remember any other song that I heard on those rides, but Georgie Girl by the Seekers has me in the back seat of the car driving on the hills of downtown Tacoma.

It gets dark early that time of year in Washington State.

Music from any time can bring back memories, but a time machine song puts me in the moment.

Drumming to a different beat

Some thirty-odd years ago I went to a party at a friend’s house. As Robert answered the door there was someone a few feet behind him. Knowing that outside of himself I would be the only person at the party who would recognize the name, Robert whispered to me “That’s Sandy Nelson.”

While his heyday was a bit early for me, I certainly knew who Sandy Nelson was. He had a number of hits in the late 1950’s to early 1960’s, starting with Teen Beat in 1959.

I am not much of a social butterfly at parties. I am the kind of person who will find a like-minded individual and spend my time talking to him. Sandy Nelson was the same kind of person. We made some small talk and went into the kitchen and sat down.

Nelson asked me if I played any musical instruments. I told him that I made noise on the guitar. He had lost part of a leg in a motorcycle accident so he could not really drum anymore. He still wanted to make music so he was teaching himself the piano. One thing that confused him, though, was why the layout of the bass clef and the treble clef were different. I explained to him that they were originally laid out as one giant score with an added line in between for Middle C (which I since found out may not be exactly true). I pointed out that the top line of the bass clef was an A note. Above that was a space for a B note, then a ledger line for Middle C, a space for a D note, and the bottom line of the treble clef was an E note. One almost picked up where the other left off.

“A Guitarist who can read music. I’m impressed.”

“I’m not very good at either.”

“That’s OK. That’s still very good.”

We talked for a quite a while. He talked about the music industry in the late ’50’s. “If you had a kit (a drum set) and a car, you were a session musician.”

After we went out into the living room, Robert brought out a stack of Sandy’s albums. The liner notes on one of them said how he “drummed to his own beat.”

“That means I couldn’t drum my way out of a paper bag.”

I had a very enjoyable evening. Sandy was a nice guy. He did not talk down to me at all, nor did I act like a star-struck fan. We were just two people at a party with similar interests. I never talked to him again.

I just found out that Sandy Nelson passed away last Valentine’s Day. Rest in peace, Mr. Teen Beat.

Eureka!

Except when we were in Germany, I remember always having a piano in the house when I grew up. Recently I found the original receipt for the family Wurlitzer piano from 1957 — the year after I was born. I imagine that my mother always wanted a piano, and my father was able to fulfill that wish some eight years after they were married. I took piano lessons the summer I turned 13 but I cannot say I remember my mother ever playing the keyboard although we did have a collection of music books.

While my father used to sing, especially along with Richard Kiley on the Broadway Cast album of Man of La Mancha and later with albums of Irish music, he was, to the best of my knowledge, not a musician of any kind who played an instrument.

…except for one piece.

I have fond memories of my father standing at the piano and playing an upbeat tune. I remember this from time to time over many years. I had no idea of what it was he played. I asked one of my brothers about it. He suggested maybe it was Chopsticks. I know Chopsticks, and that was not it.

This was not it.

I thought I would never know what the tune was considering I remember it from sixty years ago.

Fabricio André Bernard Di Paolo is a Brazilian musician on YouTube known professionally as Lord Vinheteiro. His videos cover a wide variety of topics from songs you have heard but don’t know the name of, the difference between a cheap and expensive piano, and many more. His videos show a dry sense of humor.

Lord Vinheteiro Photo: https://livecoins.com.br

Lord Vinheteiro’s appears to be a stern head master. He clearly is very good musician. One of the hallmarks of his videos is that he usually scowls directly at the camera which is usually to the side of him. There have been several comments that a piece is especially difficult if Vinheteiro has to look at the keyboard as he plays.

Several days ago, Lord Vinheteiro posted a video showing the progression of a piano player from one second to ten years. For him, maybe, but not anyone I know. The best I could do after two months of hard work was a rousing rendition of Tommy’s New Drum March.

1 Day vs 10 Years Playing Piano

At the 35 second mark, Vinheteiro said “One day playing piano.” What came next was a shortened version of the tune I remembered my father playing all those years ago. The tune is known around the world by a number of different names. According to Wikipedia, it is known in Japan as I Stepped on the Cat and in Spain as The Chocolatier. In other countries it is know as the Flea, Pig, Dog, Cat or Donkey March, the Cat’s or Fool’s Polka, or by several other names. In the United Kingdom it is know as Chopsticks — but not what we know by that name in the United States.

One of the many renditions.

The song is said to be an easy tune to play although you could not prove it by me. My father played a boisterous, almost boogie woogie rendition. I would love to hear him play it again.

There are premiers then there are premiers.

A few days ago I was listening to the ’60’s channel on Sirius/XM. They played She’s a Lady by Tom Jones. I remember the first time I heard the song in 1971 (go figure). Usually if I remember the first time I heard a song it is because I associate it with something. In the case of that recording by Mr. Jones, it is because Bob Foster, the announcer on KFRC, said it was the world premier of the song.

The world premier?

Even though I was 15, I wondered at the time why the world premier of a record by someone from the UK would have its world premier on a radio station in San Francisco. New York I could understand. Maybe Los Angeles. But San Francisco? But if Bob Foster said it, it must be true!

Ten years later I lived on the Central Coast of California. Our cable service gave us TV stations from both Los Angeles and San Francisco. One night I was watching an LA station and they ran a promo about a movie they were going to show in a week — the “World Television Premier” of the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That’s right, the world television premier.

Two weeks later — a week after the “World Television Premier” on the L.A. station, I was watching a San Francisco station. They had a promo for something they were going to be showing in a week — the “World Television Premier” of the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While they might not like to think so, I always thought that Los Angeles and San Francisco were on the same planet.

That got me to thinking — what is the fastest a recording made it on the air after being recorded? I don’t mean something that was done live on TV and recorded for the purpose of being released as a single such as All You Need Is Love by the Beatles.

I found two videos of the original broadcast but they both “freeze up” accidentally on purpose at the same spot.

Nor did I consider Elton John’s reworking of Candle In The Wind for Princess Dianna in this regard, as releasing it as a single was also a fait accompli.

From the original broadcast in September, 1997

Instead, I considered a case where a song was recorded in the normal course of events. What was the fastest a record made it from the studio to the radio in the shortest amount of time? The record for the shortest time it took a record (sounds redundant, doesn’t it?) to make it on the radio has to be from 1961 for one Pat Boone.

Boone went in to the studio to record a song. After he was finished, he had a few errands to run. As he drove he listened to the radio. The producers of the recording must have thought they had something great on their hands. The made a quick copy of it and rushed it over to a local radio station. Before Boone even made it home, the song — Moody River — was already on the air.

Today it would have to be approved by the consultants first

Talk about quick!

Just as a side note, in 1978 I was the first person at the station I worked at to play Stuff Like That by Quincy Jones. That wasn’t because I was some important person tasked with breaking hits; I just happened to be the person who was on the air when the record was brought into the control room.

With my help this made it all the way to #21 on the charts!

Brothers

I was the youngest of three boys. My brothers and I were always pretty close. My oldest brother Larry and I seemed to have the most in common in terms of music. I remember many of the songs that he liked over the years,

The Brothers; Steve, Larry, and me — 1958

I remember him liking a Brenda Lee song that was a hit unto itself and was also the flip side of I’m Sorry. It was a song that I found many years later, much to my surprise, was written by Jerry Reed: That’s All You Gotta Do. The reason I was surprised was because once I heard that factoid, it was so obvious that I felt I should have known it. Larry played that record so many times that I am surprised we did not hear I’m Sorry playing backwards along with that song.

This sounds like Chubby Checker when you play the 45 at 33.

Larry never wasted an opportunity to ride buses. He never realized it, but one of his dreams when he was young was to be a Greyhound bus driver. In early 1963 there was a song that I loved so much that my mother sent Larry out to buy the record for me — Puff, the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul and Mary. Whether he had to or not, Larry spent just about the entire day taking buses all over Staten Island to find it.

Larry bravely chased around to find this record for me.

Later that year Larry bought a record for himself. I was with him one day when he played it when my Mother walked in. I don’t know why but she got really mad at him for his purchase: The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget by the Raindrops. To this day I still have no idea what got her so mad.

This struck a nerve for some reason.

When we moved to Germany in 1964 we did not have television so music was one of our biggest forms of entertainment. We bought records like we never had before. One of the first Larry bought was Remember (Walking In The Sand) by the Shangri-las.

I feel like my brother is here when I listen to this.

Maybe the reason my brothers and I were so close is because we moved around a lot and saw a number of different things, such as our trip to Berlin in 1965.

Me, Larry, and Steve at the Berlin Wall — June, 1965

After we returned to the United States, we drove across country in June 1966. My father always had the radio on in the car and one of the songs we heard was Little Girl by the Syndicate of Sound. Larry liked it but was not sure of the name. He bought the record before we had any way to play it, not sure if it was the right one. He saw in the TV listings that the group was going to be on American Bandstand. Larry never really watched the show, but he made sure he did that week.

The original video, albeit with the sound re-dubbed.

Another song Larry liked in 1966 was Hey Joe. He did not know who it was by, but he saw it on an album so he bought it. When I saw the album cover, I was totally bewildered. I had never seen anything like it before. It was a bit much for my ten-year-old brain to comprehend.

What the fiddlesticks? Photo: Reprise Records

That was not the version he wanted. He was looking at the version by the Leaves which he found on KJR 16 All American Hits.

Back in the days of Channel 95
Original video with original (lip-synced) sound

Years went by. College, marriages, life goes on. The three of us would have a chance to get together from time to time.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — Easter, 1983
After sitting on the front porch all night talking and watching satellites go by — May, 1995

On January 1, 2002, the three of us got together in Leavenworth, Washington. Besides being New Years Day, it was also Larry’s fifty-second birthday. Larry and Steve had their wives and the five of us had a great time.

My birthday was on a Saturday that year. To help me celebrate it, my son was going to spend the weekend with me. At about 2:30 in the morning, my son came in to tell me that my Father was on the phone.

“Your brother, Larry, is dead.” I know why he phrased it that way. My mother had been fighting cancer for over twenty years. As “mother” and “brother” sounded very similar, my father wanted to be sure I understood exactly what he was saying.

The last photo of the three brothers together — January 1, 2002

It has been twenty years since I last saw Larry. It took me years to come to grips with his passing, but I still am not used to it.

Songs On The Radio

If a driver of a standard automobile were to see a NASCAR race car, he could tell it was an automobile. However, he would notice many things that were different on it than what he had at home. A similar comparison could be made with turntables. Someone with a good home turntable would know what a broadcast turntable did. He might even be able to figure out how to operate it, but he would recognize that a broadcast turntable was a different animal from a home turntable.

The following video shows what an old broadcast turntable looks like. Before you play the video, look at the picture. The turntable has a 45 on it. Looking closely, you can see that the 45 is in a recessed area of the platter. That recess also includes a large spindle for 45’s in the center. The raised outer area of the platter is where an album would rest. Above the recessed 45 spindle is the standard spindle for albums.

The platters were very heavy and were driven by a rubber roller that transferred power from a high-torque motor. That motor allowed the turntable to come up to speed in about one-quarter of a turn at 33, one-third of a turn at 45. The shaft from the motor had three levels on it to provide the three different speeds. The speed control lever also had one or more neutral positions available that allowed the platter to be turned by hand.

Unlike the way the person who made the video would cue a record, I would put the turntable in to neutral. That allowed me to quickly cue up a 45 — literally in less than five seconds once the 45 was on the platter.

Tour of a broadcast turntable.

You Don’t Make Sense

I somehow managed to find myself in the Honor Society in the spring of the seventh grade. As a treat, the group took a cruise on Washington State’s Puget Sound. It was a lovely spring evening. Everyone packed their own dinner, usually the same sort of thing they would have packed for a lunch at school. A radio played, tuned to Seattle’s big Top 40 station, KJR. In a coincidence that still seems to be appropriate, I heard Crystal Blue Persuasion by Tommy James and the Shondells for the first time that night on the cruise.

What a night to hear this for the first time.

Later in the evening four people I knew, fellow seventh graders, were sitting at a table on the lower deck. Karen and Allan sat on one side, Roxanne and Everett sat on the other. The pairings seemed odd to me. Roxanne was cute — enough, but Karen probably was causing the plastic upholstery to blister. I guess Allan was OK, but Everett was tall and the kind of guy the girls would swoon over — he went on to become a doctor.

As I observed the two couples, cuddling up about as much as seventh graders could get away with in May, 1969, I could not help but notice that Karen was paying attention to Everett and Everett was paying attention to Karen. What was going on might, in terms of international diplomacy, be referred to as political manoeuvring. Roxanne and Allan were merely the tools being used by Everett and Karen.

Music: A bridge between generations

Last November I wrote about the recording Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakimoto. The post told the story of how Rich Osborn, of radio station KORD in Pasco, Washington, played the song from a Japanese album from 1961. That led to the song being released in the United States and becoming a hit. Mr. Osborn’s daughter, Mary, left a comment. In it, she said:

Dad always had extraordinary taste in music and one thing all of his kids remember with delight is walking into the house and seeing dad sitting in front of the hi-fi, listening intently. “Come here and listen to this!” he’d say…he has such admiration for the art and he helped us to admire it too.

Comment by Mary Osborn-Dixon
Rich Osborn Photo: longtailworld.blogspot.com

Mary’s comment reminded me how music brings people together. That does not mean that people of one generation will necessarily like everything of another generation, but there can be plenty of common ground.

My son told me of an experience he had while listening to Led Zeppelin with friends. His friends were amazed by one of Jimmy Page’s guitar licks. My son told them that it was a pentatonic scale — knowledge he knew from spending time plunking guitars with me. I think we both felt a sense of bonding that incident brought to us.

Another time I was playing a CD of rock songs from the ’70’s. While my son facetiously called the CD Cowbell Classics, he enjoyed it as much as I did.

My father used to listen to some diverse kinds of music. He was especially fond of Irish tunes from such artists as The Dubliners and songs such as Whiskey In The Jar.

Having a sip with the Dubliners

When my son was in high school he was listening to some contemporary music and I heard a song that sounded familiar.

…and another with Metalica.

My son has an appreciation for such traditional music that he got from his Grandfather. A few months ago he sent a video message. In it, he sang Rule, Britannia! in a marvellous tenor voice and dedicated it to my London-born wife, Fay.

My wife is a big fan of singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Sometimes Fay is surprised by the fact that she knows the lyrics to the classic songs. She thinks she must have inherited an appreciation of that music from her mother.

It isn’t just those singers that Fay shared with her mother. There was a rock and roll group that released their first Extended Play record (a seven inch record with about four songs) in January, 1964. No, it wasn’t by those relatively clean cut lads from Liverpool, but rather by a collection of ruffians from London called the Rolling Stones. It wasn’t just “older” music being shared with a younger person, it was “younger music” being shared with an older person.

Liked by young and not so young alike. Photo: Decca Records

After my Mother passed away in February, 2007, my Father had a rough time of things. Amongst other mishaps, he fell and broke his arm in a restaurant parking lot. My Brother and I thought it might be best if my Father moved up to Washington State to live with my Brother. My Father agreed to that on a trial basis.

My Brother drove his one of his cars down to California, picked up my Father and drove back up to Washington in his car. It was arranged for a friend of my Sister-in-law to live in my parent’s house.

The trial lasted three months. My Father decided that he wanted to go back home. That is the area he knew. That is where his friends were. That is where his activities were. As I was available, it was decided that I would drive my Father back to California.

I flew down to Seattle from Vancouver and took the train over to Eastern Washington. I took some video on my way to Eastern Washington using a digital camera with a video mode. The image quality was not very good and it had no audio but it did give me a souvenir of the trip.

https://mupourri.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Train-Trip-to-Ephrata-1.mp4
Old technology video of a special trip Video: Personal collection

I arrived late at night. My Father and I started on the long drive the next morning. As I recall, I did all the driving. We took longer than my brother would have taken, but he usually had FAA clearance for the trip when he drove.

The car had XM Radio in it (this was before the merger with Sirius). My Father graciously let me listen to the 60’s on Six. I would fill him in on all kinds of trivia about the music we heard. Somewhere in the middle of Oregon he asked if I would mind if he put on the Classic Country station that he liked to listen to. I said, “Fine.” It was his car, after all.

As we listened to the classic country music, I found myself filling him in on almost as much trivia about this old country music as I had about my music from the ’60’s. He seemed to take as much satisfaction in that as did I. He was thirty years older than I, but we still found a connection in the music.

I hoped to get lots of old family stories and information on that trip but that did not happen. In retrospect, the connection I had with my father through the music means more to me now than learning about family history would have.

Sollen wir auf Deutch singen?

The town where I went to high school had a radio station. The station had a German program on Sundays. Having lived in Germany for two years and having taken German in school, sometimes I would tune in to the program.

One Sunday I was working on some homework while the German program was on in the background. I wasn’t paying attention. The host played a record about an astronaut. As I worked on my homework I followed the story about the preparation for the space flight. Then came the countdown.

Zehn

Neun

Acht

Sieben….

Now I can count in German until die Kühe come home, but the countdown in the song about the astronaut slapped me across the eardrums. While I subconsciously followed the song before, I was now aware that it was in German. I didn’t understand anything in the rest of the song. I can’t seem to understand a foreign language if I am aware it is a foreign language.

With that said, I do have an ear for what might be “passable” German.

Elvis recorded a song called Wooden Heart which has some German lyrics. While he is not singing perfect German, I think he is at least passable. He might come across to a German as saying “Wie gehts, y’all,” but he sounds as if he could possibly have a basic conversation in German.

The King might give Germans a chuckle.

Joe Dowell also had a version of the song

This has Germans either scratching their heads or rolling on the floor laughing,

It strikes me that, prior to this song, the only German words Mr. Dowell had ever heard were kindergarten and gesundheit. His German is cringe-worthy. He obviously was singing the words phonetically having no idea what they meant.

He later recorded the song in stereo. Oddly enough, this version does not have the German verse. I don’t know if there is a connection, but it seems that his German was so bad in his first recording that they decided to leave it out all together in the second.

This version is missing something.

There are a couple of songs with a German word that make me wince. Listening to them makes you think they are singing about the title character of a 1953 movie starring Alan Ladd.

One of them was done by several artists in the 1930’s and ’40’s, including the Andrews Sisters

The person who made the video misspelled schoen.

In the early 1960’s, Wayne Newton had a hit with another record that totally messes up the pronunciation of the word schoen.

Save me.

It would be one thing if the singers just mispronounced the word, but it it not really their fault. The rhyme schemes are predicated on the incorrect pronunciation. They rhyme shoen with explain and pain.

In German, the word is written schön, with an umlaut (the two dots) over the o. What does an umlaut do? Simply put, they add a slight e sound to the vowel which is why they are often replaced in English by an e (schoen vs. schön). That makes the umlaut over the u in Mötley Crüe redundant, and changes the pronunciation from Motley to Mootly.

Officer Toody gives us a demonstrates.

An example from one of New York’s finest.

How is schön pronounced? Take the word shoe and add an n.

It does not sound like

Don’t come back! Photo: Paramount Pictures