Thanks to many readers who came up with their own memories in response to last week's column about places that sounded quite magical as a kid. Mandalay and Kathmandu were definitely the front-runners at grabbing children's imaginations in the old days.
There is wealth of literature that made the city of Mandalay sound exotic, starting with Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay, from which came the expression "road to Mandalay". George Orwell, who was based in the city, added more interest in the country with Burmese Days. We must not forget Nellie the Elephant who quit the circus, trundled off to the jungle and met the head of the herd "one night in the silver light on the road to Mandalay".
Sadly, the current situation in Mandalay and Myanmar is anything but magical.
One of the more intriguing emails concerned a place called Cucamonga, familiar to Americans but not to me. It's a town 60 kilometres east of Los Angeles and became famous in the US as a running joke on Jack Benny's radio show. A station master (voiced by Mel Blanc) would announce "the train leaving track five for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga". It was the way Blanc pronounced Cucamonga, sometimes broken down into Cuc-a-monga, that caused amusement and the increasingly desperate tone of the announcements suggesting no one really wanted to go to Cucamonga.
It became such a well-known catchphrase Cucamonga would crop up in totally unrelated shows. There is a statue of Benny in Cucamonga in acknowledgement of him putting the place on the map.
From Tipperary to Split
One reader dryly observed that "it is also a long way to Tipperary" in a reference to the old music hall song concerning an Irishman in London dreaming of his home in the Emerald Isle. The name Tipperary does have a certain fairytale feel to it and there's a famous Tipperary cocktail featuring Irish whiskey, chartreuse and vermouth -- best of luck with that.
There was also an email from a reader in the Croatian city of Split, an eye-catching name in a wonderful location on the Adriatic coast. Tourists are often shown a house where the great psychiatrist Sigmund Freud briefly stayed in September 1898. Apparently guides can't resist telling visitors that this is where the great doctor formulated his concept of "split personality".
Last week I mentioned the song (I've got a girl in) Kalamazoo. If anyone happens to be feeling a bit down there's a brilliant version of it on YouTube. It's a great song and the band actually looks like it's enjoying itself, while there is some spectacular dancing that will definitely cheer you up.
Louie Louie
Today is International Louie Louie Day -- not a lot of people know that. You can be forgiven for asking who or what is Louie Louie?
The celebration marks the birthday of Richard Berry who wrote the original Louie Louie song back in 1955. However it was the 1963 rhythm and blues version by the Kingsmen that made the song a part of US music folklore.
The extraordinary thing about Louie Louie is that it's such a basic song with just a few chords, almost unintelligible lyrics and sounds like it was recorded in someone's bathroom. Yet there is something appealing about it, an earthy, raw wildness. For all its technical faults it really caught on and has amazingly been featured in nearly 50 films over the years.
The worst
The Louie Louie lyrics concern a Jamaican seaman and his lover. Conservative elements in the US claimed incorrectly that it featured obscene lyrics, prompting a ridiculous FBI investigation and it was banned by many radio stations. Initially the record didn't sell well. It was even played on one Boston station as "The Worst Song of the Week". But listeners thought differently and sales soared.
According to lead singer, Jack Ely, it was originally going to be an instrumental but at the last minute he added some words -- a good move, even though you can hardly hear them. It has since been covered by dozens of artistes including Otis Redding, the Kinks and the Troggs. It was also the first song Doors star Jim Morrison ever performed on stage.
The Kingsmen's version is on YouTube. You might hate it, but it will be played around the world today.
Dunoon concert
Not long after the Kingsmen's song came out I was on holiday in Dunoon, Scotland with another teenager, Ken from Newcastle. His favourite song was Louie Louie. We were staying in a sprawling guest house and one afternoon Ken and I wandered into a deserted function room which had a stage with a piano.
The temptation was too much for Ken who fancied himself as a singer and he persuaded me to have a bash on the piano at the opening chords of Louie Louie. With no one around we launched into the song, Ken using an empty coke bottle as the microphone. Unfortunately he only knew the opening line and kept repeating "Louie Louie oh no, me gotta go" in his magnificent Geordie lilt.
With me hammering away at all the wrong chords it must have been a horrendous noise and inevitably a Scottish staffer appeared and ordered us to "stop the racket" forthwith. Thus, somewhat abruptly ended the worst ever performance of Louie Louie. But it was fun while it lasted.
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