If you’re like me, there are probably quite a few songs or other musical performances that are embedded in your mind from your earliest days. See if you can find an example somewhere and post it here.
One of the first (if not THE first) for me is
HOW HIGH THE MOON LES PAUL MARY FORD 1951When I was a little kid, I loved the movie The Aristocats. Since the characters in there liked jazz, I decided I wanted to like jazz too. So I asked my parents if they had any jazz albums, and Mom looked through their collection and gave me “Jumpin’ with Jonah” by Jonah Jones. I played that thing into the ground. Here’s the first track.
Easy: The Royal Guardsmen - Snoopy vs. The Red Baron; we were both unleashed on the world at nearly the same time.
I still have my original 53-year-old 45 of the song that my aunt bought me, too.
For the record: that song still totally fucking rocks!
The very first music record I owned was a 45 by Marie Applebee, Down By The Sea.
Recorded in Nazi Germany, William Furtwangler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in an amazing performance of Beethoven’s 7th symphony.
From 1943
The first album I owned was My Name is Barbra, composed almost entirely of standards. I think this song was on that album, or one of the first three albums she did. This performance is actually from one of her TV specials, I think.
Around the same time, I was also interested in classical music. The other album I owned at that time included this Bach concerto, which I played until I wore it out.
Back in the mid-50s, my father bought our first stereo hi-fi record player, and the LP of My Fair Lady. He practically wore out that record, and soon I had every song memorized. 30 years later, it was one of the first CDs I bought.
The first LP I actually bought was Dvorak’s New World Symphony, by the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell.
My parents had a lot of records when I was a kid in the 60s. I remember playing 3 of them frequently: Johnny Horton’s Battle of New Orleans, Archie Bleyer’s Hernando’s Hideaway and Harry Belafonte’s Island In the Sun. The first record I owned was The Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand.
There could be no other but this
I played that cassette to death in my Fisher Price tape player. Yes it eventually wore out. Mom & Dad bought me a new copy that I still have to this day.
I’m not really into music, and I can’t really remember much about my early childhood before the house fire we had when I was 6yrs old (we lost everything and it’s hard to look back nostalgically when there’s nothing tangible to leaf through). But I did recently recall many of the songs on an album we repeatedly played on our crappy mono tape player, circa 1974. It was the New Zealand edition of a Solid Gold Hits compilation.
Interesting question (and result) - almost all the early records I can think of date back to 1970 - here’s a list of the ones that came to mind first:
Chestnut Mare - The Byrds (that’s a cool pre-teen, no?)
Sugar Sugar - The Archies
Indiana Wants Me - R Dean Taylor
Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes - Edison Lighthouse
Yellow River - Christie
Double Barrel - Dave and Ansell Collins
Ride A White Swan - T Rex (Irrelevant story - many years later, after the internet had been invented, I finally found out what “beltane” was - oh, so that’s what he meant.)
Links to those that (a) may be unknown in the US (though the comments in Youtube suggest that Double Barrel may have been used in an Arby’s ad); and (b) are great. I recommend that you give both of them ten seconds of your time. If you do not listen to the end; then repeat; then repeat again - well, my mission is a failure.
Too much I like it!
j
Mine is very close: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh-J4GSPgAM
Snoopy’s Christmas vs. The Red Baron - The Royal Guardsmen
Probably some Broadway showtunes. It might have been Man of La Mancha or Damn Yankees.
My mother and sister used to sing in the car when I was little. The ones I remember most were:
I Ain’t Gonna Lead This Life No More, but the lyrics were different.
This would have been in the early 50s.
I Feel Fine by the Beatles. I was given a record player for my 8th birthday but no records. My mom took me to a store to get one the next day. Heard I Feel Fine on the way and told my mom I wanted that record. Took it home and played both sides over and over. A few days later saw an ad for the Columbia Record club. Made my selections and sent the post paid card in. A few weeks later a big box of albums was delivered. Instead of giving me the records to play, my mom gave then to an older neighbor kid. Shortly after that the record player “broke” and I had no need for anymore records.
The earliest I remember are the riff from 25 or 6 to 4 and the theme from the Banana Bunch tv show.
I’m not sure if I get the question right.
The earliest musical recording that I hold dear is the interrupted live music from the Mercury Theater’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. To this day, I can’t hear a version of “Stardust” without thinking of Ramón Raquello and his orchestra.
But despite first hearing that around 5th grade, I didn’t fall in love with it until college, when I got it on tape and could listen to it as much as I wanted to.
Chronologically within my lifetime, the earliest musical recording I can remember listening to over and over again was either the American Graffiti soundtrack or a Ray Conniff collection of TV themes.
The Perry Como Christmas Album
The first record I bought was the 45RPM version of Deodato’s “2001.”
Excellent response! You’re correct in that my wording was still unclear after I tried to avoid ambiguity. Your responses are excellent in expanding the possibilities for reasonable replies. If I were to try again on the OP it would be to emphasize “earliest” as it applies to your own lifespan’s exposure to recordings, not to the chronological “earliest” date of recordings. (The difference in those dates, for each of us perhaps, might cover decades or even centuries!)
As it stands (with this explanation occurring deep within the thread itself) I believe the interpretations thus far have expanded my original intent to include some insightful and instructive examples. I’m pleased and happy with the replies so far!
Thanks for the clarification!
FWIW, I was a big Conniff fan from my early days, too!