The Strangest Thing in My Head

When you've been swallowed by a machine, the strangest things careen around in your head. Yesterday, for example, when I was undergoing a couple of different scans at the Seidman Cancer Center, lyrics from an old song began echoing around, and I could not convince them to go away.

The line I kept hearing was this one: He wears tan shoes with pink shoe laces ...

a nuclear bone scan machine

For some mysterious reason, I somehow remembered the name of the singer: Dodie Stevens. And I remembered I was either in junior high or high school when the song was popular.

But I had to wait until the scans were over before I could check my portable memory (iPhone) and learn what I could about that song. I've put the full lyrics at the bottom of this post.

Link to YouTube of Dodie Stevens singing the song.

And another video of her actually performing it in 1959.

Now for trusty Wikipedia (and other sources). Composed by Micki Grant (a talented woman who later wrote a number of musicals, including Alice, 1978), the song became popular when Dodie Stevens (only 11 or 12 at the time) recorded it. She released it in February 1959--and by April it was the #3 hit in the country. It sold more than a million copies--those old 45 rpm's.

In February 1959 I was in 9th grade at Hiram High School. I was thinking that high school was impossibly long--it would never be over. I was taking English 9, Latin I, general science, physical education (my favorite!), Algebra I, band, and choir. (Don't ask me about my grades--though I will say that once I got to high school, my grades crept upward from my junior high years. Crept is the key word here.)

I remember the song well (as evidenced by its insistent appearance in my head yesterday). It was, I think, what they call a "novelty song"--not something you could dance to all that well (actually, I couldn't dance all that well to anything) but had considerable appeal because of its comedy--and silliness. It was kind of an odd song, too--especially since Elvis had burst onto the scene with "Hound Dog" in 1956, and popular music was undergoing a major transformation. Oddly, it also had a lot of rhythmical talking in it--an rap ancestor?

Dodie Stevens, born in 1946 and still alive, had a few more modest successes, then retired and married, then divorced, then reappeared, mostly as a back-up singer and at oldies concerts. She now teaches singing near San Diego.

Dodie Stevens

I learned just now that "Pink Shoe Laces" appeared in the soundtrack for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which we are now streaming (though we haven't hit that episode yet).

Pink Shoe Laces

Now I've got a guy and his name is Dooley

He's my guy and I love him truly

He's not good lookin', heaven knows

But I'm wild about his crazy clothes.

He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces

A polka dot vest and man, oh, man

Tan shoes with pink shoelaces

And a big Panama with a purple hat band

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

He takes me deep-sea fishing in a submarine

We got to drive-in movies in a limousine

He's got a whirly-birdy and a 12-foot yacht

Ah, but that’s-a not all he's got

He's got tan shoes with pink shoelaces

A polka dot vest and man, oh, man

Tan shoes with pink shoelaces

And a big Panama with a purple hat band

Now Dooley had a feelin' we were goin' to war

So he went out and enlisted in a fightin' corps

But he landed in the brig for raisin' such a storm

When they tried to put 'em in a uniform

He wanted tan shoes with pink shoelaces

A polka dot vest and man, oh, man

He wanted tan shoes with pink shoelaces

And a big Panama with a purple hat band

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

Now one day Dooley started feelin' sick

And he decided that he better make his will out quick

He said, "Just before the angels come to carry me

I want it down in writin' how to bury me."

A'wearin tan shoes with pink shoelaces

A polka dot vest and man, oh, man

Give me tan shoes with pink shoelaces

And a big Panama with a purple hat band

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

And a big Panama with a purple hat band!