Music and more with claudecat17 (aka Chris Davlin)!

Today’s been pretty calm, and I’ve had time to sit back with some music, the entire collection on random play. I like doing this every so often to keep new things in my head musically. I always discover something surprising and favorite a few things as the songs roll by. I do skip things, but it’s best to let it be background. You never know when a tune might get good right near the end or something.

Today’s standout “find” was by someone I already recycled an old tumblr post for, Ella Mae Morse, a young white gal from the midwest that sang like a seasoned black blues singer. She had huge hits and pretty much put Capitol Records on the map all by herself. I always hear and love “Cow Cow Boogie”, her biggest smash, because it’s on my favorites list, but this one I love even more. I was looking for this before but ended up on “Blacksmith Blues”, another good one but nowhere near as great as this one.

This is a song about a woman working the swing shift at the war plant and having trouble sleeping when she’s finally home because of the goddamn milkman making such a racket. I’m old enough to remember having a milkman as a young kid, in California. Magic! Fresh milk, just appearing every day, and a friendly guy in a uniform bringing it. Uber Eats before the LP! If this was a real issue for war workers, and it must have been, here’s their favorite song, their rallying cry.

It’s just full of fun turns of phrase like “moo juice”, and Ella Mae really has fun with the vocal. Lots to work with, and a fabulous period arrangement too. Everyone was a big band there for a few years, until the invasion of the lame pop singers, the Perry Comos and Doris Days, who’d all be swept away with the Elvis hubbub and whatnot. I bet Ella Mae was an Elvis fan. They had the same job, sang the same music. He shoulda married her instead of that barely a teen Priscilla. Coulda changed everything, or at least he dies in a Cadillac instead of on the motherfuckin’ commode like an amateur. Maybe she’d have smelled the colonel’s bullshit a mile away and he never would have had to make those terrible movies or fuck Ann-Margret at all! It’d be a different reality, no doubt about it.

That oughta be enough weed-fueled profundity for one piece. Here’s the tune already. Enjoy. I insist. Thanks for coming! Come again and again! It’s even legal to comment in many states. Likes are dealt with severely, always.

It’s freedom fries all over again! Get ’em while they’re on sale! Freedom ain’t free y’know! What are you some kinda commie? That’ll be $5.99, plus tax, no substitutions. It’s ketchup! It may be brown… Just eat, be patriotic and shit, or wait and do that tomorrow, after… Now eat!

Man I’m loopy as shit tonight! Your tune awaits: