What movies and/or songs do you remember from your childhood that you really enjoyed, or that stand out from other songs or movies that you liked ? I think that one of the songs that we all loved was called the "Purple People-Eater" which was sung by Sheb Wooley. He may have done other songs; but this is the only one that I really rmemmber him singing. I don't even remember how long that song was at the top of the Top Forty charts; but it was up there for weeks and weeks. Another really unusual, but much loved, song was called "Itsy Bitsy Teeny-Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini", and I think that all of us kids went around singing that song. I still enjoy hearing it to this day. Back in the 1950's, we had epic movies ! Many of them were stories from the Bible, like Ten Commandments, , Soloman and Sheba. There were also ones that were historical , like Sparticus, El Cid, Ben-Hur, just to name a few. What other old movies or songs do you remember from when you were growing up ?
Along the same lines was "Witch Doctor," by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., released under the name of David Seville in 1958
Tarzan was my show, I would run around making the Tarzan yell at the top of my voice my mother would get so mad at me now that I think about it I was a strange kid. .
I didn't really take much notice of music until I was about 11 years old, when I went away for a few days on a school tour. Looking back it's always felt like there were only two songs playing on the tour bus all the time and one stood out - "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" by Tony Orlando & Dawn. It's been a favourite ever since.
There were some great musical movies being made when I was growing up. I remember seeing Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Gigi and My Fair Lady when they were first released. We also had long playing records and sheet music at home, for classics like South Pacific. Even now I can remember the words from many of those songs.
Those musicals were wonderful. I've seen most of them more than once, but for some reason I don't think I've ever seen "Mary Poppins". I only realised that after watching "Saving Mr Banks" recently. Now I really want to see it.
The most memorable war picture I saw when I was still a child was "The Dirty Dozen" starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown.
Since I loved horses, watching western movies was what I really enjoyed. We had matinees on Saturday afternoons, and almost all of the kids in town went to the afternoon movie. Randolph Scott, Rex Allen, Audie Murphy, and Jeff Chandler were always my favorite. And, of course, Jimmy Stweart. I loved those old Indian movies where Jeff Chandler usually played Cochise, and they all rode beautiful pinto horses. Broken Arrow was one of my all-time favorites, and was pretty much a classic in the western movies of the day. I remember we had the musical movies, and I also went to see those; but never really cared for any of them. The closest I have come to liking a musical would be "The King and I " with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. I think that might have been the first Yul Brynner movie that I remember, and after that, I was definitely a fan of his, and didn't miss one of his movies if I could help it.
This song didn't come out until I was grown, I think in the late 1960's; but it is another one of those songs that we have all listened to at one time or another, called "Alice's Restaurant" , by Arlo Guthrie. My oldest son used to play his guitar and sing this song, and that would have probably been in the late 70's or early 80's; and you still hear it off and on, even now. I chose this version that was done in 2006 at Farm Aid, and you can see that everyone still remembers, and sings along. It is just a good-time, fun song, no matter when you first heard it.
I walk every morning with a friend who is only in his mid 40's and one of the things we do is to try to stump each other with songs we never heard of. Today I won with these three very popular (at the time) tunes. Anybody here remember them?
@Richard Paradon - They're definitely before my time, but my Mom knows and likes them, so I've heard all of them before. None of the names of the singers mean anything to me though. I'm not too bad when it comes to music from the sixties, seventies and possibly early eighties, but I'd easily be stumped by the music of the last decade or two.
My father used to love listening to Elvis Presley, so of course I listened to it too. My favorite song of his has to be "Can't help falling in love", because even when I was a child, that song used to make me calm. Must be the slow tempo. Here it is, for those who somehow haven't heard it:
I don't remember my parents ever playing Elvis when I was growing up, and strangely I only really became aware of his music when he died. Although I've never been a huge Elvis fan, I've always loved "Always On My Mind".
Wow! You guys sure bring back the memories. i remember all of the songs and movies mentioned. But, the first movie / theme song I can remember was North To Alaska, Staring John Wayne, and my first heart throb, Fabian (sp??).