Last evening, once again, a song from youth popped into my head--and, so far, has refused to pop out again. I don't know how it happened. Joyce and I were driving along through the evening countryside (as is our wont)--perhaps we were talking about poetry?--and suddenly here came "Poetry in Motion"--the tune, the lyrics (well, almost all of them)--gently rocking through my head.
It could be, too, that I retained some wispy memories of a New York Times obituary I'd recently shared on Facebook. It begins: "Joseph B. Keller, an honored mathematician who figured out what makes a jogger's ponytail swing from side to side ...." (link to entire obit.) Maybe that's where the jiggle got into my head ...?
I could not have named that song's year very accurately last night--I knew it was from adolescence ... but when? Early? Late? I also could not come up with the name of the singer.
Home, I checked Google and discovered that the song, performed by Johnny Tillotson, released in the fall of 1960, reached #2 on the singles chart in November, the month of my sixteenth birthday.
I was a junior at Hiram High School that year and involved in so many things--sports, drama, choir, band, newspaper--that my schoolwork occupied a very low rung of my ladder. My high school transcript confirms this: a D+ in Algebra II (2nd semester grade), all B's in English.
Testosterone was the High King, and because of all the poetry in motion around me I was finding fidelity to a single girl an impossible standard to uphold. (It was my junior year that my long-time girlfriend, weary of me, spent the year dating ... my best friend. That was awkward.)
And so "Poetry in Motion" was a perfect song for these dissolute days. (See lyrics below.) I was noticing, believe me, the "gentle sway" of the girls in my school. I read online, by the way, that the songwriters had been "inspired" to write it when they saw groups of girls emerging from a nearby school. (Dirty Old Men!)
And who was Johnny Tillotson (TILL-ut-sun)? Born in 1939 (he's five years older than I), he had an archetypal and fairly swift rise from a modest background (his dad ran a gas station) to Grammy award nominations. He had some other hits--perhaps the biggest being "Heartaches by the Number" (1965). He stayed in the music business, has stayed active, has a webpage (link to Tillotson site).
YouTube has videos of an older Tillotson singing the song--but I found an "original" version (just with still photos). link to song
Well, I hope writing about this will evict the song. It was fun to remember it, not so fun having it continually dancing its way through my mind, the lyrics even moving my lips occasionally. Remembrance of things past can grow wearisome.
Poetry in
Motion
When I see
my baby
What do I
see
Poetry
Poetry in
motion
Poetry in
motion
Walkin' by
my side
Her lovely
locomotion
Keeps my
eyes open wide
Poetry in
motion
See her
gentle sway
A wave out
on the ocean
Could never
move that way
I love every
movement
And there's
nothing I would change
She doesn't
need improvement
She's much
too nice to rearrange
Poetry in
motion
Dancing
close to me
A flower of
devotion
A swaying
gracefully
Whoa
Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa
Poetry in
motion
See her
gentle sway
A wave out
on the ocean
Could never
move that way
I love every
movement
There's
nothing I would change
She doesn't
need improvement
She's much
too nice to rearrange
Poetry in
motion
All that I
adore
No
number-nine love potion
Could make
me love her more
Whoa
Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa
Songwriters
ANTHONY,
MIKE / KAUFMAN, PAUL
Published by
Lyrics ©
Universal Music Publishing Group
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