Hip Hip

I used to play this song for money. It was popular just then, or maybe it was a year or so after it was popular. We were like musical vampires, always playing somebody else’s favorite song. I got my amusements where I could find them. Some of the songs were more fun to play than others. This was one of those pleasant accidents where people liked something you didn’t dread on the setlist. It was certain death to play a song simply because you liked playing it. You are not the audience, and the audience can’t be expected to amuse you.

It’s an example of if you don’t get what you like, you better like what you get. I used to sing the little tag line at the end of this song, way up high, and it was fun for me. I was always the worst singer in the band, no matter how many people shuffled through it, but for one little minute I sang a happy little phrase that stood out that made people happy to hear it.

We’ll never feel bad anymore is not a happy thing to sing. It sounds happy but it isn’t. It made me happy to sing it because I wasn’t. Is there more than a wistful litote to sing in this life? I don’t know. Hip Hip.

[Update: Thud from Over the Water in Liverpool put the boys on his blog. Next stop, the Cavern Club!]