Category: Music

In One Ear, In the Other

With an apology to the hearing-impaired, headphones are required for this audio recording quiz.

I heard the effect in the recording before he pointed it out, but with the expectation there was a technical problem, I assumed a microphone was out of phase with the other mics. This is his follow-up entry.

DOuG pRATt in high school with a Pioneer SX-440 receiver, Garrard 40B turntable with Shure M91ED cartridge, Pioneer SE-20 headphones, and Realistic MC-1000 speakers.

The Lennon Sisters Sing About Puberty

The Lennon Sisters sang this “coming of age” song on the Lawrence Welk Show in 1956. Kathy, on the left, was thirteen going on fourteen. Peggy, on the right, was fifteen going on sixteen. Eldest sister Dianne, aka Dee Dee, was sixteen going on seventeen, and Janet was ten.

“Thirteen Going on Fourteen” hasn’t aged well, but the Lennons, being girls singing about girls, made it a cute little song. I can imagine Welk thought it was perfect for them when he heard the single recorded by the Crew Cuts. Today, a quartet of men in their mid-20’s singing about a 13-year-old girl being “a pretty little flower, ready to bloom,” comes across as rather creepy.

Written by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning, what’s most interesting about “Thirteen Going on Fourteen” historically is that it predates Rodgers and Hammersteins’ “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” by three years.