Songs

It sounds as though Bobby really loved music.  He was able to sing on an amateur level and, according to an interview in 1954, was interested in playing progressive jazz – the musical direction of the time.

There are two songs Bobby alluded to liking in a letter to his teenage girlfriend in 1951:  “Them There Eyes” and “I’m in Love Again”.  It’s hard to know which version of “Them There Eyes” he was referring to, as – with so many of the songs back then – it was covered by tons of different people.  He might have meant the most famous version by Billie Holiday, but that seems unlikely as that one came out in the 30′s.  However, we do have to remember that a younger person’s stigma about listening to older music in the 50′s probably wasn’t what ours is today.  The other thought is that Doris Drew did cover it in 1951, which was the year the letter to Pat was written.  So who knows!

I’m really not sure about “I’m in Love Again.”  I can’t find much other than to say that Fats Domino popularized it in 1956 which would have obviously not been the version Bobby was talking about here.  It does seem like he listened to alot of records, so many of the songs he liked COULD have been lesser known songs like this as opposed to any “Top Hits” he might have heard on the radio.

It's said that his favorite song was "Earth Angel" by the Platters, according to Brian Keith O'Hara, who stated The Platters was his favorite band.  He made a point of saying that Bobby liked the version The Platters did as opposed to The Penguins' version (the actual hit song), but after doing some research, I don't think The Platters ever did Earth Angel.  I can not only find the actual song on youtube (the one that had once described itself as being The Platters was discovered to have been the Back to the Future version), but I can't seem to find a record that the band recorded the song at all.  So I don't really know what this means, if Bobby's favorite song was still Earth Angel, and it was cited to have been by the Platters since that was his favorite band...?

Anyway, I have come up with my own list of songs that remind me of him.

“Second Chance” - Shinedown

I have to be honest, I kind of hate that most of the songs I’m listing here do have to do with the more tragic part of Bobby’s story.  I guess it’s because those are the moments of his life that tug on our heart strings the most.  This song specifically reminds me of what Bobby might have wanted to say to his parents when he left home for New York in the mid-60′s – that it wasn’t their fault, that he was his own person who had to take his own chances.  I admit, I cried when I heard it anew after learning Bobby’s story.

“Dock of the Bay” - Otis Redding

By all accounts, Bobby did alot of drifting around New York in his final years, and this song reminds me of that very thing – him sitting still in a park, walking down an alley, or hey, maybe sitting on a dock, watching life go on around him and wondering how to move forward.  The terrible irony is, this song was Number 1 in the U.S. the week he was found in the abandoned tenement.  

“All the Right Moves” - One Republic

There is a specific line that definitely reminds me of Bobby in this song, and how he must have struggled for recognition during those career fadeout years of his teens:  Do you think I’m special… do you think I’m nice?  Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?  In reading about his early career, it does seem that Bobby DID make all the right moves in all the right spaces, and have all the right friends and all the right faces – only for him to be taken down later.