The Number Eight song in The OzHitztory Blog’s Top 20 BestHit Songs Of 1956 is…
“Why Do Fools Fall In Love?” by Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers!
Kids have always been bewildered by love. Mostly it is in a “ewww kissing” kind of manner, which later evolves into “Oh My God! You let him do WHAT?!!? That’s SOOOO GROSS!,” once they have been given “the talk” and understand the entire scope of the situation. Frankie Lymon was a little more mature about this, and turned it into pop philosophy of the very first order.
What does this tell us about the building blocks of pop? Are they so obvious, that even though Frankie most likely has little idea of the intricacies of love, he can plop a couple of cliches together, and wham bam! BIG HIT SINGLE!!! It’s unlikely that someone who was actually lamenting on the more inexplicable downsides of the human condition, - “why do fools fall in love?” – would follow it up with the happy-happy-joy-joy image of “why do birds sing so gay?” unless he was just wacking together a bunch of fail-safe lines from every song he’d ever heard.
But does this matter? Of course not! It just adds to the innocence and wonder of it all.
What Frankie lacks in terms of understanding the meaning of the words he is singing, and which he wrote himself, he makes up for in terms of his embrace of the happy jumpin’ jivin’ sounds of pop, and the clichés that make up the genre: gay birds singing, rain falling, hearts skipping beats… all of which induces the reaction, not of “ewww” but of “aaaaw.”
No. 20 - 16
No. 15-13
No.10!
No.9!
No.7!
No.6!
No.5!
No.4!
No.3!
No.2!
NUMBER ONE!
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