Kelly wanted me to write about Homecoming when I was in High School. I think that I should also share Sue's thoughts.
Homecoming was a big deal as a social event. People got corsages for the girls in Colorado. Big pom pom mums with colored ribbons with a year on it, and usually tiny gold football trinkets that hung from it. Sue said that girls always dressed up for homecoming and it was usually a new dress. Couples would go to the game together, out to dinner and then to the dance.
The dance always had an upper level garage band. This band on the minimum could play the Beatles songbook, some CCR, some RnB like the temptations. Some Rolling stones and Roy Orbison and Everly Bros if the band had some good vocalists. There was always a cake and a punchbowl supervised by the chaperones. There would not be hangers on trying to get into the dance for free. Certainly we didn't need a police officer and four teacher chaperones and two administrators.
Dancing was hot and heavy but not explicit. People would leave the dance sweaty. This was different from the sock hop generation before us. We were certainly post Fonzie.
In Junior High and in the first year of high school. there were a number of dancing that were novelty dances that really took off. Many had certain choreography. The song of hundred dances outlines many of these. The Frugg, the surfer, the charlie brown, the pepermint twist, and the stroll. Some of these dances were older than us. but they were still played at dances, It was not unusual to have actual horns and wind instuments in the band, Muscians accurately predicted the end of their era when they said that the synthesizer was going to put them out of business. What they didn't predict was the advent of the DJ, which took the place of all musicians. Also the advent of nonmusical songs.. raps.. or as some would say... the dominence of rhythm and verse.
It seems to me that real melody is starting to creep back into popular music. Lead by the women.
It is really interesting how things have changed. In high school all of the AM songs had equal numbers of vocal songs and instrumental songs on the radio. The format was usually play one vocal and then one instumental. The instrumental component is gone. There are no "Love is Blue" beling played on the radio..
Hope you had a great weekend
Pat
I'm trying to remember if I ever went to a Homecoming Dance. We were the years of apathy, known because we elected a student body president who said f*** three times in his election speech. We didn't go to dances, we didn't go to rallies, we hung out at the smoking area and looked cool. ::Laugh::: The apathetic class!!
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