[Robb_K]

"That'll hold the little morons for another day!" - Isn't that line based on a real life comment by a children's show host who thought the microphone was off? 

Apparently that is an urban legend dating  back to Radio days. Must have been a powerful one because I remember hearing it in Australia  - told of an American children's host - and until now I didn't doubt its veracity, It is quite believable!
Did Uncle Don Call Kids 'Little Bastards' on the Air?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/uncle-don-rumor/
Clearly, the line in the comic references this story!
Cheers!

I had heard that story about the Kiddie Show story reader calling the kiddies "Little Bastards" , not realising his microphone was still on, and the broadcast was still on him, rather than moved to a taped commercial message.  And there was a so-called "taped version of it", we listeners got to hear.  Though, now I'm guessing that was a staged "re-inactment' of it, as it is unlikely that it was being taped back in the 1930s on a mostly or completely live programme.

I'm pretty sure that "Uncle Don" Carney wasn't the guilty children's radio story teller, as he not only didn't lose his radio show position, but also continued to have his story feature printed in "Fawcett's Funny Animals" comic book series for it's entire run from 1942 through, into 1954 (when Fawcett shut down its comic book lines, and coincidentally, Uncle Don died).  Had HE actually been the person who made that remark on the air, Fawcett Comics' Advisory Board of Editorial Supervisors' president, Eleanor Roosevelt, would never have allowed his story-telling written feature to continue to be printed in their books.  We have 47 such issues here at CB+.  Here's his first, from early 1942:

[SuperScrounge]

Thanks Crash & Panther.

I think they must have re-issued those 'blooper' records in the 1970s which is when I heard about it.

Does make one wonder why Kermit Shafer would make these things and attach them to real life people's names though. Didn't they have libel laws then?

Super Detective Library 159 - Buck Ryan and The Phantom Prowler

I actually read this two weeks ago indexing it for the GCD https://www.comics.org/issue/583385/ Fortunately Buck Ryan's are good enough to reread.

For those wanting to compare it to the original strips check out Buck Ryan 46 The Fight Game https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=73957

[crashryan]

Does make one wonder why Kermit Schafer would make these things and attach them to real life people's names though.

When these records were made (mid-1950s through 1960s) it was definitely a less lawsuit-happy time. The legal profession hadn't yet realized what a gold mine "intellectual property" suits could be.

That said, I think the main thing here is that the bloopers Schafer re-created were already out in the public consciousness. As the Snopes essay points out, the "little bastards" hot-mike event may not have ever taken place. It certainly had nothing to do with Uncle Don Carney. Yet the writer's aunt remembered having heard it happen. It's a classic example of an urban legend.

Some of Schaefer's bloopers provably did happen but were embellished over years of retelling. Harry Von Zell really did stumble over President Herbert Hoover's name, pronouncing it "Hoobert Heever." But the story has Von Zell  make the slip when introducing the President on a live broadcast. In fact it happened while Von Zell was reading a long scripted birthday tribute to Hoover. He had already pronounced Hoover's name properly several times. Snopes publlished an excerpt from Von Zell's interview with a radio historian:

"I must have mentioned in that opening the name of Herbert Hoover no less than twenty times. I was very young at the time ... and was very nervous. I walked out of that studio — we were on the twenty-third floor of the Columbia Broadcasting System building — and fortunately the windows were not operative. They were fixed windows or I would have jumped out! And I thought that whatever career might have been a potential in my life began and ended right there in that one incident."

But that's not as good a story as Von Zell screwing up live while introducing the President, and people want a good story.

[SuperScrounge]

Four Color 96 - Dick Tracy

Eh, okay, but weak stories. Junior's story probably being the weakest with a plot that didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. Convince a kid to rent a place for kids to park their bikes, then damage the bikes, then repair the bikes with stolen parts, then whistle dixie & make a profit. It was just overly complicated for too little profit for the crooks.


Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives

Interesting. Had trouble making out many lyrics other than the chorus, so I'm not sure what the story of the song was about. Okay beat, but not one of my favorites of his work. The movie clips were nice, but it might have been interesting if someone had put together clips that seemed to tell a story rather than just random clips.

[K1ngcat]

K1ngcat: After a bit of detective work of my own I found what I believe is the comic you're remembering. It isn't one of the 25-cent giants, but the last ten-cent issue before the 25-centers began. Harvey's reprinting of the Yogee Yama story begins in Dick Tracy #139 (Apr 1960) and ends in #140. Roloc Bard introduces himself in #140. This was the last 10-cent Harvey issue. Neither of these issues has a yellow cover, but a later 25-cent issue does, so you might be mixing the two up. Memory does that to one! Here are links to the covers for #139, #140, and #143, the 25-center with the yellow cover. I'm sorry but I can't get the usual image imbed to work. You'll have to click the links. The files are from the GCD.

Thanks for your excellent detective work crash, it is a while since I saw the issue in question and probably twenty years since I read it, so my memory might well be faulty! I tried your links but they all came up Error 404 Not Found, so I won't be able to stir my gray matter any further. Appreciate you efforts, glad it helped Robb to find what he was after.

All the best
K1ngcat

[K1ngcat]

Buck Ryan has always had a particular appeal to me, perhaps it's the quintessential Britishness of the background.  It captures the feel of the UK in the fifties where a lot of the villains are small-time, and a bit of sensible sleuthing and a swift uppercut are all that's required to set the world to rights. I like Jack Monk's tidy artwork, which has been well adapted from the newspaper strips to fit the Super Detective Library format.

As the Buck series went on, he developed several very memorable characters, including Twilight, a one-eared femme fatale who would easily give any of the Spirit's girl friends a run for their money; and Ma-the-Cache, a pipe-smoking old trout with a taste for stout who brokers dodgy deals for her pals in the underworld.

Monk created quite a few grotesques in the accompanying cast, too, though maybe none a noteworthy as Tracy's villains. This Ryan adventure seems quite tame by comparison to some, and I'd recommend anyone who's even slightly tempted to check out the full collection in our Comic Strips section where there are 79 newspaper strips beautifully packaged for your enjoyment. They also include a  genuinely adorable photo of Monk at work with an enormous but very placid pussycat sitting on his shoulder, which has quite an "Awww" factor for feline fanciers. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Thanks again Panther for posting these three great examples of detective fiction,
All the best
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

Scrounge posted,

Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives

Interesting. Had trouble making out many lyrics other than the chorus, so I'm not sure what the story of the song was about. Okay beat, but not one of my favorites of his work. The movie clips were nice, but it might have been interesting if someone had put together clips that seemed to tell a story rather than just random clips. 

For the most part I am not always a  lyrics kind of guy and I am not an educated musician. So in many cases I hear a number like a soundscape, just groove to the whole thing - I've never bothered to decipher Declan McManus' lyrics, just enjoy the songs and groove to the chorus.
I chose that [obviously fan-made]video because it features many Detectives and Actors whom we have been talking about over the last 12 months on CB+. I thought that would be obvious.
Reading some of McManus' lyrics, my respect for him has only increased.
I'm going to have to pay more attention.
A very clever man, in more than one way.   
Saw him about 5 times live in '77.
Watching the Detectives Lyrics Elvis Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvbZrlYvAno 
My interpretation, for what its worth.
From the intro lines, the protagonist has taken a girl home and is getting nowhere. So he starts by criticizing her for her dress sense - which is probably what attracted him in the first place. All she wants to do is sit on the couch and watch a particular Detective TV show. 'Ooh, he's so cute!'. This cheeses him off, so being Elvis Costello he analyses Detective shows and has a good bitch about the cliches. Well, he would, that's how a songwriter would think.  So, very sarcastic and once you see that, funny. He gets the guys mood exactly  right. He's really just deflecting his frustration with her. 'What's she watching that crap for, when I'm right here?' [Some of us can probably identify, am I right?]       

Listen carefully so you can hear Elvis change to "watchin' the defectives" during the vocal outtro. Clever bastard.

"There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" - Ian Dury                   

[Quirky Quokka]

[
Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives

Interesting. Had trouble making out many lyrics other than the chorus, so I'm not sure what the story of the song was about. Okay beat, but not one of my favorites of his work. The movie clips were nice, but it might have been interesting if someone had put together clips that seemed to tell a story rather than just random clips.

SuperScrounge, I had trouble working out the lyrics too, so here they are, though Panther gives a good interpretation:

https://www.google.com/search?q=watching+the+detectives+lyrics

Cheers

QQ

[paw broon]

Dick Tracy.  I tried Dick Tracy when I was re-starting my interest in comics in my late teens and I didn't like what I read.  I think the weird, grotesque character who inhabited the few stories I read were what put me off.
Also, I was so keen on superheroes that a detective didn't seem exciting enough.  Now that I've read this 4 Color, I've changed my mind.  I enjoyed the stories and although the Junior Tracy tale was a bit obvious and the principal characters were somewhat dim, there were good bad guys.
The underwater tank was so daft it was enjoyable.  There really are some nasty villains in these stories.
Before I re-read Buck Ryan - always a pleasure - I have to apologise as now I'll attract your ire by admitting that I can't stand Elvis Costello.  Not only his songs but his voice also.  I walked out of a cafe once because they kept playing his whiny, grating, annoying tunes.
Glad I got that out.  Pheeeewwww!

[The Australian Panther]

I can't stand Elvis Costello.  Not only his songs but his voice also.  I walked out of a cafe once because they kept playing his whiny, grating, annoying tunes.   

It might surprise you that I don't entirely disagree with you about McManus' voice in his early work.
I first heard him playing a semi-acoustic and solo at the Nashville. What impressed me was his songwriting and musical composition. [At the same gig, the support was the Rezillos - who I also love]
I say McManus, because I'm aware that 'Elvis Costello' was a construct, a stage name. Listening now to some of those early clips on YouTube it's clear that he was hamming it up to the max. it sounds a bit ridiculous.
Let me assure me tho, the Attractions live were just about the tightest band I have ever heard. Dynamite!
Also, my ex-wife and I ran a Cafe. That is not the music you should be playing in a cafe. People come into Cafes to have a coffee, relax, talk and hear themselves think. I probably would have walked out too!     
cheers!         

[K1ngcat]

I suppose as an ex-muso it behooves me to chime in on this. I was quite fond of Mr McManus's earlier work (excluding the Secret Lemonade Drinker advert!) He had some catchy tunes and inventive lyrics, and he knew a good cover when he heard one. My Aim Is True, Pump it Up, The Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes, Oliver's Army, I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down, all that was fine with me.

Watching The Detectives was one of the most interesting though. Unless you're an obsessive bar-counter, you could miss out on, this but trust me. There's half a bar missing that would really mess you up if you didn't know, and I know because  an old friend of mine persuaded me to try and busk it with him at a live jam. "He can't be wounded cos he's " is a four beat bar, "got no" is a two beat bar,  and "heart" is the start of the next four beat bar. The rhythm section nearly fell over themselves first time round.  Mr Costello was cleverer than he looked.

[SuperScrounge]

Thanks Panther & QQ for help with the lyrics. 

For the most part I am not always a  lyrics kind of guy and I am not an educated musician. So in many cases I hear a number like a soundscape, just groove to the whole thing

Yeah, when I'm focusing on other things music is just background noise*, but as this was one of the reading group suggestions I felt I should try to analyze the song.

* Except when I'm trying to sleep. Then with nothing else to focus on my brain keeps me awake paying attention to the stupid lyrics. These days I sleep to Classical music since there are no words I can understand. 

[paw broon]

Kerry Drake.  Not very appealing and a bit nasty at times.  Others have mentioned the acid burns and life of pleasant ease.  Page 11 has 2 panels slightly reminiscent of P.A.M. Drake didn't seem to me to have the presence of Dick Tracy and the "mystery" of Victor Apollo was telegraphed.
Dick Tracy - I've downloaded other DT comics and am enjoying them.
While the rogues gallery of villains and odd characters in Buck Ryan are great fun and menacing at times, they are nowhere near as weird as those in Dick Tracy. But many are memorable.

[crashryan]

Four Color #96: Dick Tracy

I've always had an ambivalent relationship with Dick Tracy. Some years back I did production for a friend who published a series of Tracy reprints, so I ended up reading many years' worth of the strip. Gould's art lurches between grotesque and awful. His plots are often totally batty. Yet I keep being sucked in by the stories and I end up liking them despite myself.

Everything I just said applies to Four Color #96. The middle story is the weakest of the three. It just doesn't make sense that Black Pearl spent fifteen years inventing her flying tank-submarine but never hired a test crew. And she'd entrust this crate to two guys off the street, enemies no less, who'd theoretically be able to fly it away or at the very least flatten her with it? It does not compute. I'm also annoyed by the foreign agent turning out to be Jim Trailer. Chester Gould was no stranger to deus ex machina, but this reveal just seems like sloppy writing. Why didn't he stick up Pearl and her gang when he knew Dick and Pat were in real trouble?

On the other hand, the incomplete Roloc Bard story is a great example of a favorite Gould situation. Our hero is trapped with time running out. With extreme effort or quick thinking he escapes the trap--only to have something happen that traps him again, this time with even less hope of escape. Gould used this gimmick numerous times, and not only on good guys. Flattop was submerged in a lake beneath a model of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria. It looked like he'd be rescued, but he didn't have Tracy's luck. Bye bye FT.

As others have said, the gimmick behind the bicycle thieves story is illogical. I'd venture that 3/4 of Gould's criminal plans are like that. Once the action starts you forget the logic and roll with the chases, crashes, and gunplay. For me that was true in this case. I had fun.

By the way, one of Gould's quirks is that he'd become fixated on a notion, then do it to death. Backward-spelling names was one such. I think the first back-speller was Frank Redrum, aka The Blank. He was aware that his surname spelt backward was "Murder." Being himself a murderer, he enjoyed the fact. Later characters were unaware of their strange names. The names often didn't match the character. "Bard Loroc" (Drab Color) would make more sense for an artist than a research chemist. All the same Gould milked this for years before moving on.

[Quirky Quokka]

I can't stand Elvis Costello.  Not only his songs but his voice also.  I walked out of a cafe once because they kept playing his whiny, grating, annoying tunes.   

It might surprise you that I don't entirely disagree with you about McManus' voice in his early work.
I first heard him playing a semi-acoustic and solo at the Nashville. What impressed me was his songwriting and musical composition. [At the same gig, the support was the Rezillos - who I also love]
I say McManus, because I'm aware that 'Elvis Costello' was a construct, a stage name. Listening now to some of those early clips on YouTube it's clear that he was hamming it up to the max. it sounds a bit ridiculous.
Let me assure me tho, the Attractions live were just about the tightest band I have ever heard. Dynamite!
Also, my ex-wife and I ran a Cafe. That is not the music you should be playing in a cafe. People come into Cafes to have a coffee, relax, talk and hear themselves think. I probably would have walked out too!     
cheers!       

Panther, your comment about the cafe reminded me of the Frasier episode where Elvis Costello played a muso who 'ruined' the atmosphere in Frasier and Niles' favourite coffee shop. Did you see it? Here's a clip (the last minute goes to a different scene, but the coffee shop scene is fun). Life imitating art?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPnaRL8TN-w

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

His plots are often totally batty.

That's because he made them up as he went along. Sometimes it could work while other times it was just, "Wait, what???"

I think it was Sam Catchem's first story where he forces a reformed criminal to become a snitch, she gets involved in a dangerous situation that she could have avoided if not for Sam, then it's revealed her mother is crazy and tries to kill her, then trying to escape from all this she ends up in a rich man's penthouse and, oh, yeah, he has a private zoo with a dangerous gorilla. Yikes!

[crashryan]

Kerry Drake Detective Cases #2

Kerry Drake ran in local newspapers when I was in college and I found it dull as ditch water. It was well-enough drawn but the stories were more soap opera than detective stories. I find these early stories much more interesting even though they're basically "Dick Tracy Lite."

The story reads well despite an obnoxious kid sidekick. It adapted well to the comic book format. There are none of the sudden gaps that trouble other newspaper reprints. All the Dick Tracy elements are here: grotesque villain, clever murder gimmick, scientific detective equipment. Strangely, the realistic-style artwork dulls the story's edge. Murder, madness, action climax--it's all here but without Chester Gould's grotesque art style the overall impression is of a more genteel, you might say a more middle-class, crime story.

I must point out that despite all his scientific detection, Kerry makes rather sweeping assumptions about criminal psychology. "Sooner or later a man rejected by society, will turn on society...with HATE and MURDER in his heart!" Later Kerry describes the man as "insane...a ruthless homicidal madman!" Not to excuse No-Face's behavior, but in comic strip terms he doesn't behave much differently than your everyday murderer. He kills (or tries to) the theatrical couple out of jealousy and offs the station manager to avoid detection. His main distinction was a clever murder weapon.

"Burma Bridge Busters" features a typically solid art job by Charles Quinlan, one of the Golden Age's under-appreciated creators.

I've never understood why Dotty Dripple lasted nearly thirty years. I presume it was the Blondie for papers that were priced out of Chic Young's eternal suburbianite. Dotty shares all of Blondie's shticks: chirpy housewife (though Dotty is cuter than Blondie), teen daughter, younger son, amusing dog, and above all an idiot husband who without Dotty to run things would have remained a hopeless nobody living with his mom and lurking around incel websites. The strip enjoys the rare distinction of being even less funny than Blondie.

I didn't like this book as much as Dick Tracy, but it was entertaining and I enjoyed getting a long, complete-in-one-issue story.

[K1ngcat]

Had a look at the lyrics, but found some darker interpretations, though I wish I had a clearer meaning for "red dogs." Frankly there's a lot of stuff in there that suggests a guy who's manipulated or abducted an under age girl into sharing his company,  these are the lines that throw up red flags for me:

Nice girls, not one with a defect Cellophane shrink-wrapped, so correct Red dogs under illegal legs

Now baby's here to stay, love is here for a visit They call it instant justice when it's past the legal limit

The detectives come to check if you belong to the parents Who are ready to hear the worst about their daughter's disappearance

It only took my little fingers to blow you away

The repetition of the word "shoot" has a very strong sexual connotation and I'm not sure about the last line - does it suggest bringing a woman to a climax, or literally killing her?

Okay, all of a sudden I'm the dark heart of CB+, but I've spent a lot of time unravelling misogynistic old blues lyrics, and I'm thinking this song is a whole lot less wholesome than it might at first appear. The "Comments" section suggests I'm not alone...

Be interested in your reactions, also if you have the number of a shrink who does house calls. 
Sleep well
K1ngcat

[crashryan]

Super Detective Library #159

One of the great gifts ComicBook+ has given me is Buck Ryan. I had only seen one or two panels in comics history books and I wasn't impressed. Once I started reading the strips themselves at CB+ I was hooked. I've read the entire run by now. I especially enjoy the postwar continuities in which we meet Twilight, Ma the Cache, and other odd characters.

This issue of SDL collects "The Fight Game," the 46th Buck Ryan continuity, published in 1952. The story translates reasonably well to comic form despite several annoying places where they stick in an unnecessary caption to fill an empty space.

I'll accept the ghost explanation because it isn't that much less likely than No Face's dry ice bomb. The rest of the story holds our interest and offers a few surprises. On the whole Buck Ryan enjoyed more "adult" storylines than similar American daily strips. I don't mean to imply they were more intellectual or served up more sex and violence. It's just that even in wide-open strips like Dick Tracy you can see that the syndicate was always walking a tightrope between giving the readers their mayhem and avoiding offending editors too much and inviting cancellation. British strips weren't syndicated in hundreds of different newspapers serving a wildly disparate audience. Unlike American daily strips, all of the British action strips I've seen have assumed an all-adult readership, not a mix of young and old.

Jack Monk is excellent at drawing lowlifes and blue-collar types. From time to time he'd draw movie actors into his strips. It's funny to see Humphrey Bogart do a turn as Dodger Green. Monk draws detailed, atmospheric backgrounds and good action scenes, even if the figures are occasionally stiff. My one complaint in this entire issue is that he draws a most un-Chinese-looking Chinese cook.

Two thumbs up for this book. Give the original a look-see, too. The panels look much better not cut-up.

[Quirky Quokka]

I've never understood why Dotty Dripple lasted nearly thirty years. I presume it was the Blondie for papers that were priced out of Chic Young's eternal suburbianite. Dotty shares all of Blondie's shticks: chirpy housewife (though Dotty is cuter than Blondie), teen daughter, younger son, amusing dog, and above all an idiot husband who without Dotty to run things would have remained a hopeless nobody living with his mom and lurking around incel websites. The strip enjoys the rare distinction of being even less funny than Blondie.

It's interesting you say that, Crash. I had no prior knowledge of Dotty Dripple and I thought these two one-pagers were pretty weak. Maybe they had better ones. But it also occurred to me it was a poor man's Blondie. I used to love the Blondie comic strips that were in newspapers when I was a kid and a bit older. I recently picked up three Blondie comic books from the 1980s in a second-hand store and they weren't as funny as I remember. But I still like them better than these two Dotty Dripples.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Buck Ryan - Phantom Prowler

This is the first time I've read a Buck Ryan comic. Interesting that he doesn't even appear until p. 24, but I guess that gives time for the case to develop that he's going to solve.

I loved the British dialogue. Is there a better insult anywhere than 'you nattering, suspecting, ten percent, old lobster-puss'? (p. 17) Also love the idea of a 'nerve nobbler', and I'm waiting my chance to tell someone to 'can the cackle'.

A few plot holes, or at least ambiguities, for me.

When the poison pen letters first arrived threatening Jack's girlfriend Dolly, why wasn't she immediately given protection or put into hiding? Jack is still training and worried about her, but wouldn't he or the manager do something to make sure she was safe? Though I guess the crooks were mainly threatening what would happen to her after the fight if they didn't get the result they wanted.

On p. 28, I thought it was funny to only have one panel with Dolly in it, given that Buck asks her a question and there's no second panel in which she can give her answer. But maybe that's a consequence of it being cut and pasted from newspaper strips. Perhaps that day's strip finished on that panel.

On p. 32, if the 'ghost' emptied his revolver into Buck's bed while Buck was hiding underneath it, wouldn't the bullets have still hit him? Though I guess it depends what the base of the bed is made out of.

The art was mostly good, though I thought there were a few inconsistencies. Buck's face seemed to change a few times (and I don't mean because he had a different expression). There were a few times when I wasn't sure which character it was.

Overall, I did like this comic. I liked the fact that the story could develop over a longer frame and I thought the script was really good. I could imagine this being a half-hour episode of a black-and-white British noir TV show. The actual topic of the story (i.e., match fixing in boxing) wasn't something that particularly appealed to me, but that's more a preference. I can see there are a lot of Buck Ryan comics on this site, so some of the other stories might appeal to me more. I do like a good detective story.

Cheers

QQ

[crashryan]

Watching the Detectives

I've always liked this song. I love the musical arrangement but it's the lyrics that I enjoy most. They really capture the spirit of old noir movies, inviting the listener to dig into them and uncover the song's meaning. K1ngcat, you've made an uncomfortably good case for your interpretation. After reading your list of lines I was surprised I hadn't seen it before. It makes a heckuva lot more sense than Elvis Costello's explanation at the time, that the song is about a guy wanting to romance his girlfriend but she only wants to watch detective movies on TV.

Taken as a whole the song doesn't tell a consistent story. Sometimes the man seems to be a bad guy menacing the woman; at other times the woman seems to be a classic movie femme fatale out to kill him. "She's filing her nails / while they're dragging the lake" captures in a single line the essence of the ice-cold Lisbeth Scott man-eater of so many noir films. But it's unfair to expect a coherent plot. Costello was going for atmosphere above narrative. He often indulged in what a critic called "image mongering," dropping in a vivid image or a clever play on words just because he thought it was cool. He overdid it from time to time but, hey, he wasn't even twenty-five when he wrote this. Youthful excess and all that.

I can understand why people might find EC's music grating. He certainly didn't have the greatest singing voice. I enjoy a lot of his stuff because the ambiguous lyrics suck me in and I start building a story. That story, it seems, is usually wrong. I built elaborate explanations for "Green Shirt" and "Sunday's Best" only to learn in an interview that it wasn't what he had in mind at all. Putting all that aside, even if I didn't like his music, I'd still owe him a debt of gratitude for introducing me to the splendour of the Hoover Factory, that incredible Streamline-Deco building which I admired so much I drew it into an episode of Infinity, Inc. as a movie studio.

[Quirky Quokka]

Watching the Detectives

I can understand why people might find EC's music grating. He certainly didn't have the greatest singing voice. I enjoy a lot of his stuff because the ambiguous lyrics suck me in and I start building a story. That story, it seems, is usually wrong. I built elaborate explanations for "Green Shirt" and "Sunday's Best" only to learn in an interview that it wasn't what he had in mind at all.

Crash, this reminded me of a Peter, Paul and Mary concert I went to once. (A tangent, I know). One of the fellows went into a lot of theories people had given over the years about what 'Puff the Magic Dragon' was about. There were a lot of drug references etc. After going through all of those explanations, he said 'So here's what it's really about. There's this boy called Jackie Paper, and he has this friend called Puff who's a magic dragon ... '  I guess if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, meaning can often be in the mind of the reader/listener.

Cheers

QQ

[K1ngcat]

Watching the Detectives

I've always liked this song. I love the musical arrangement but it's the lyrics that I enjoy most. They really capture the spirit of old noir movies, inviting the listener to dig into them and uncover the song's meaning. K1ngcat, you've made an uncomfortably good case for your interpretation. After reading your list of lines I was surprised I hadn't seen it before. It makes a heckuva lot more sense than Elvis Costello's explanation at the time, that the song is about a guy wanting to romance his girlfriend but she only wants to watch detective movies on TV.

Thanks, crash, for giving some vindication to my darker fears, it comforts me to know somebody else can see it. I wish I had a better explanation for the red dogs, but it's not a perfect world!

All the best
K1ngcat

[K1ngcat]

Crash, this reminded be of a Peter, Paul and Mary concert I went to once. (A tangent, I know). One of the fellows went into a lot of theories people had given over the years about what 'Puff the Magic Dragon' was about. There were a lot of drug references etc. After going through all of those explanations, he said 'So here's what it's really about. There's this boy called Jackie Paper, and he has this friend called Puff who's a magic dragon ... '  I guess if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, meaning can often be in the mind of the reader/listener.
Cheers
QQ

Oh dear, QQ,  this is an unfortunate time for you to mention P, P & M...

https://www.iheartradio.ca/news/peter-yarrow-of-peter-paul-and-mary-accused-of-child-sexual-assault-1.14650915

I still don't believe the drug- associated stories about Puff, though!
All the best
K1ngcat