Pun Salad

Fifty years ago today, as Don McLean put it, the music died. I usually do the iPod shuffle in my car, but today I stuck in my From the Original Master Tapes CD and listened to Buddy on the way to work.

• At the American Spectator, Daniel J. Flynn has a nice essay putting the plane crash in the context of rock history.

• My favorite bit of trivia, as recounted in the UK's Independent:
  … in June 1956, The Searchers, a western directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, opened in Lubbock. Holly's new drummer, Jerry Allison, was there. "Buddy and I went to see The Searchers and for a couple of days afterwards, we were mocking the way John Wayne said, 'That'll be the day.' Then we wrote the song. The first time we recorded it was in Nashville for Decca Records. It was the summer of 1956 and I had just gotten out of school. The producer said, 'That's the worst song I've ever heard in my life.' That hurt my feelings 'cause it was the first song I'd written!"

• Jerry Allison was not on the 1959 tour, and he's still around. The song "Peggy Sue" was originally titled "Cindy Lou"; Allison persuaded Buddy to change it to impress Allison's girlfriend, and future wife, Peggy Sue Gerron.

• Peggy Sue is still around too, she even has her own website. She and Allison divorced long ago, though, making "Peggy Sue" another entry in the "undying love for my, um, first wife" genre. (Other examples: Marc Cohn's "True Companion", Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line", James Taylor's "There We Are".)