Last updated 16:04, Saturday, 05 April 2008

THERE was a song in the late 50s or very early 60s that begged: “Let's think about living, let's think about life.”

It occurred to me why that was the other day when a friend urged me to buy a two-CD set of “our” kind of music.

That’s music of the 60s and, in some cases, even the late 50s.

We were on holiday in Scotland when the Allison Brothers entered the Eurovision song contest with Are You Sure in 1960. That was on the above mentioned CD and it was lovely to hear it again.

My friend's aunt owned a rather seedy bed and breakfast in Blackpool. Next door, however, was a bed and breakfast where all the theatrical types stayed and she got the Allisons' autograph.

Later she was to meet the aunt of one of them who shattered the illusion that they were brothers.

“Oh no!” the aunt exclaimed, “Why! My nephew went to public school and that other boy just went to the local grammar!”

Anyway, talking about the Allisons got us on to other songs that we had loved and I mentioned that “Honey”, by Bobby Goldsboro, used to make me cry.

For those who don't know, it told the story of a blissfully happy young couple and how his world is torn apart when she dies.

And that gave rise to a discussion that left us wondering how there are any children of the 60s left and why we had not all slit our own wrists.

Perhaps we - the people of my age - were so surrounded by unreal tragedies, through the medium of music, that we unleashed all our grief and depression on our fantasy world and that made the real world easier to cope with.

For our listening pleasure we had Tell Laura I Love Her - boy goes to stock car race to get money for a wedding ring and is killed.

Then there is Teen Angel. Now this one, in my opinion, deserves to die. She and her boyfriend’s car gets stuck on a railway track. They both escape safely but she runs back to retrieve his ring.

Can’t remember how “Terry” died but he’s asked to “wait at the gates of heaven for me.”

Then there are the deaths caused by unfeeling, heartless parents.

“Patches” lives on the wrong side of the track. Mother and father won’t let their son go and meet her so she throws herself into the dirty old river and he is vowing to join her. “Running Bear and Little White Dove” also died by drowning because their tribes fought one another so their love could never be.

“The Leader of the Pack” roared off into the night when the love of his life told him her parents wouldn’t let her go out with a biker and although no “one knows what happened that night”, we can all guess that it was grief that caused his bike to crash!

Then, of course, there was “Ebony Eyes” who died in the ebony skies - see, it rhymes - when her plane crashed.

Animals died, too and sometimes had to be put down by their owners as in the case of Old Shep. I cried throughout the morning of my 11th Christmas when someone gave me Elvis’s version of that song.

But death was not always the end, of course, even for animals. Do you remember Tige the dog who was faithful to the end and beyond. His soldier master returns home from battle on a foggy, foggy night and nobody has thought to tell him of a dam than has been built in his absence. Tige leads him safely home, preventing him from falling in. When he tells his parents they look at him in amazement. They hadn't told him Tige was dead! Not a very communicative family that.

Then there was Laurie from the song “Strange Things Happen”. Couple meet, fall in love and he gives her his jacket. They part for the evening, he remembers jacket and returns to her home and asks parents to see her. They tell him she’s been dead for years. He goes to graveyard and there’s his jacket, on her tombstone.

If you young ones look at those of us who are in our 50s and beyond and if we look worn out and haggard, don’t judge us.

Just remember the tragedies we have had to face - and that was only in our hit parade!