Truly a great love song

Buddy Holly died fifty years ago this month, so I thought I would feature one of the first love songs to touch me, and one that stands out from its times, 'True Love Ways'.

My first real enthusiasm was Rock 'n' Roll, the early stuff. Once I'd acknowledged that being a streaker wasn't a serious career option (http://helioholic.blogspot.com/search/label/vocation), I put all my energy into collecting old records, combing my hair and curling my lip. It's a good job the wind didn't turn, or I'd have been stuck like I was here, aged 9 and obsessed with the 1950s.

But I didn't go for Elvis, for the same reason I don't like the Beatles - because everyone else did and does. Buddy was the rocker for me. He was the thinking man's Rock 'n' Roller. Sensitive and bespectacled, he smiled rather than snarled, and was obviously a genuinely nice guy. He proposed marriage to his wife on their first date. Buddy was the true romantic of the Rock 'n' Roll era.

And I think this shows in his love songs, especially 'True Love Ways'. What distinguishes it mostly is something decidedly lacking from love songs from the epoch - sincerity. Maybe it's me, but I think I just bought into the whole rebel rocker image, and then was surprised to find this snarling, hip-thrusting animal suddenly getting all doe-eyed and gooey, simpering teen love platitudes according to record label diktat. Rock 'n' Roll love is either pure bubble gum, or really about sex. When Eddie Cochran sang 'Three Steps to Heaven', you knew what he was really talking about. It's almost an instruction manual into getting into a bobby soxer's silky boxers, and he even chuckles dirtily when he growls 'That sure sounds like heaven to me'. Good Golly Miss Molly sure liked to ball, and you can bet Little Richard didn't waste much time buying her flowers.

But Buddy was different. 'True Love Ways' is a grown up love song. He doesn't even call her 'baby', while acknowledging the full reality of love's wilful repertoire: 'Sometimes we'll sigh,

Sometimes we'll cry'. In short, it is true about love's little ways. The song's arrangement seems to straddle both the swing and the pop era, with Buddy crooning over harp, strings and a spine-curdling clarinet. It is goose-bumpy stuff that positively wrenches your heart-strings. You just know he was singing to his wife, soon to be widow. It was his wife's favourite song, and one of the last songs he ever recorded. All this sings out in 2.5 minutes of pure pop perfection. They sure don't make 'em like that any more.