this is not pitchfork

I’m trying to not include greatest hits collections in these reviews, but I don’t have any original Five Satins albums and I felt they deserved to be here somewhere.

This is the music I grew up listening to. While my parents were very into modern rock and roll, it was the music of the 50s, especially doo-wop, that was the constant soundtrack to our lives. I loved that sound and I still do; I don’t know if it’s the melodies and the music itself that warms my heart, or the memories attached to all of it.

Occasionally, when I need some comfort or a smile or just a reminder of less complicated times, I listen to In the Still of the Night. I close my eyes and I am in my parents backyard, about eight years old, wearing a yellow tank top and tan cotton shorts. It’s early evening and my parents have company over. They are scattered around the yard, sipping exotic drinks with fancy stirrers and smoking long cigarettes. I can smell the sweetness of the drinks, the smoke from someone’s cigar, the chlorine in the pool. There are fireflies flitting around the yard, and I’m running after them with another girl, the daughter of one of my parent’s guests. She smells of coconut suntan lotion and the beach. The radio, a little am/fm portable with a bent antenna is tuned to a 50’s “oldies but goodies” program. The DJ – he has a booming voice that seems to echo around the yard – announces the next song. “And now, here’s The Five Satins with In The Still of The Night.”

shoo do- shooby doo shoo do- shooby doo

The girl and I stop chasing fireflies. We stare at the grownups. They are all singing along, the women and the men with their funny drinks and half-drunk voices and some men are singing louder than the others and some of the women are giggling.

In the still, still of the night I held you, held you tight

They are swaying and crooning and it’s almost embarrassing, yet something about it is giving me goosebumps. My mom and dad are holding each other and dancing, and a lot of the other couples have started dancing and the men are all singing to their wives. They sing off key, their voices full of beer. But it’s oddly sweet and I stare at them for a minute before the girl I am playing with pokes me in the side and starts giggling.

The intensity of that memory, the very innocence of it, the way it makes me feel for a moment that I’m eight years old is a wonderful thing. But it’s the music as well that fills me with a sense of nostalgia, the sound and feel of all these songs. It’s sweet and soothing and so beautifully arranged. Do they even make music like this anymore? Something so simple and beautiful? No, it’s not just the memories here. This is just quality music.