‘Darling, Don’t Be Sad . . .’

I think I’ve written here before about music being a potent memory trigger. If I haven’t actually said it out loud here, I’ve certainly danced enough around the topic. 

Anyway, I took a little time trip this morning, I was checking out Facebook and a few blogs as iTunes kept me company set on random. And there came a trumpet backed by snare and then a quick bass solo, a simple little figure introducing the next tune.

And I was gone, heading about three miles southeast and almost fifty-four years back, sitting at the table in my room while the old RCA radio on the nightstand offered me Top 40 (likely from WJON, the all-things-to-all-people radio station just down the street and across the railroad tracks from the house where I grew up). 

I marveled for an instant at how clear the memory was, how I could see in my mind my table and the glass-fronted bookcase, my filing cabinet, my bed with its plaid bedspread in tones of brown and orange. (It was plaid, my mom told me, so that the lines would help me keep it straight when I made my bed each morning. The lines didn’t seem to help, and the bedspread was often askew anyway.) 

And then the vocal came in: 

You really should accept
This time he’s gone for good
He’ll never come back now
Even though he said he would
So, darling, dry your eyes
So many other guys
Would give the world, I’m sure
To wear the shoes he wore 

Oh, come on, smile a little smile for me, Rosemarie
Where’s the use in cryin’?
In a little while you'll see, Rosemarie
You must keep on tryin’
I know that he hurt you bad
I know, darling, don’t be sad and
Smile a little smile for me, Rosemarie, Rosemarie 

I guess you’re lonely now
Love’s comin' to an end
But, darling, only now
Are you free to try again
Lift up your pretty chin
Don’t let those tears begin
You’re a big girl now
And you'll pull through somehow 

Oh, come on, smile a little smile for me, Rosemarie
Where's the use in cryin’?
In a little while you'll see, Rosemarie
You must keep on tryin’
I know that he hurt you bad
I know, darling, don’t be sad and
Smile a little smile for me, Rosemarie, Rosemarie

Smile a little smile for me, Rosemarie, Rosemarie 

The record, titled inevitably “Smile A Little Smile For Me,” was a studio project by two British producers, Tony MacAuley and Geoff Stephens. (When the record hit, the two producers put together a touring group, as often happened during the bubblegum era and may still happen today.) And the record reached our shores – as measured by the Billboard Hot 100 – during the first days of October 1969. 

I had just turned sixteen and was filled with romantic notions, but here was one I had not considered: To be the comforter, to help a heart-broken girl through her grief to where she could smile again. Years later, I realized, of course, that telling a grieving girl to “not be sad” and to “smile for me” is pretty gauche. But at sixteen, what did I know? I thought the record was romantic. 

And there’s a subtext in the song that I think I saw vaguely back in 1969, a subtext that became clear to me sometime between then and the time I first heard the record on an oldies station, probably during the late 1980s: The narrator, the fellow who’s doing the comforting, likely wants to be more than a comforter after Rose Marie smiles for him. That’s not uncommon, of course, but it’s still tacky. 

Ah, well. It was a pretty record that offered a somewhat lonely teen the idea that he could someday play a role he’d not considered, that of the comforter. Not a bad thing for a pop song to do. 

And it did pretty well on the charts: “Smile A Little Smile For Me” was in the Hot 100 for fourteen weeks, rising eventually to No. 5. It’s a true One-Hit Wonder, as the Flying Machine never had another record reach the Top 40.