rock nyc's Mary Magpie Is Sixteen Today! The Perfect Age For Rock And Roll!!!
Ok, I admit it, the Beatles went with "She was just seventeen, if you know what I mean.." but once you've said that. how many rock songs do you know about 17year olds? And, yes, the Stones jail bait ganger "Stray Cat Blues" had the classic lethargic lothario come on "yeah I can see that you're fifteen years old, no I don't want your ID" but, really, who wants to be Jagger's stray?
No, sixteen is the one with the calendars, the candles, the fake autographs, and back in class again. Sixteen is a girls golden age and raptured over by rock and rollers since time memorial and so as rock nyc contributer hits the big one six, let's drag Mary Magpie away from her Bright Eyes calendars and 1D fetishisms and hail our great writer on her milestone birthday. We will start with Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" and sorry, no, not the Lennon cover because it is just too damn weird.
And then we will move on to the "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen". a singalong by Neil Sedaka (he was the Elton John of the early 1960s, I mean the cool Elton who wrote pop songs, not the fathead we have now). "You've turn into the prettiest girl I've ever seen" and before you call the police on him, he was only 35 at the time…
But if Neil is a poppy creep, Sam Cooke solves the problem on the just plain perfect "Only Sixteen", "But I was a mere child of sixteen, I've aged a year since then". Has there even been a sweeter voice than the Great Mr. Cooke in full fledged pop mode. Me? I loved him in gospel, soul, r&b and any other mode, but if your taste turns to pop you should give another listen to him, you can rank him with Gaye, Green, you name it. Costello, of course, tributed him on "Motel Matches". "Somewhere in the distance I can hear 'who shot Sam?". And both Van Morrison and Rod Stewart owe him debts they can never repay.
Now back to being sixteen, and they made a movie out of "Sixteen Candles" which (Magpie favorites) Fall Out Boys answered with "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me" (DON'T LISTEN!!!). And as long as we are not touching, how about Rodgers and Hammerstein "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" -"Better be canny and careful". Well, quite right!
And now the deluge, the Avett Brothers "Sixteen In July", Iggy Pop's "Sixteen", Johnny Burnette's "You're Sixteen" (but try and find Ringo Starr's terrific cover), Velvet Revolver's "Just Sixteen", Destiny Child's "Sixteen"…
But let's end with one for Mary's Mommy, , the perpetually 21 year old Helen Bach and Mary can take heed it as a warning: "And I wish I was sixteen again, then would be so much fun, all the things would be the same but they're much more fun then when you're 21"
The warning: enjoy it while you can, Mary. But I know you will. Thanks for all your years of writing and may the next sixteen years and then the sixteen after that and after that and after that, all be just the same only much more fun.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET SIXTEEN!
