Child star, teen idol, TV celebrity and general all round clean cut All- American icon. Ricky Nelson had 53 Billboard Top 100 singles. That's quite a lot. I only really know this one. Poor Little Fool at a push. This has become the one to like first because it's great but also because it's been pushed to a cool place by The Cramps who covered it and Quentin Tarantino who featured it in Pulp Fiction. It speaks of failure, regret and misery, sitting on a barstool nursing a glass in glowing neon late at night as this plays on the jukebox. Always more interesting somehow than shiny teethed, ersatz American Bandstand teen idol glamour which I suppose is the mood most of Nelson's other records convey (perhaps I'm wrong but I imagine I'm not). Pat Boone, Fabian, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon. Where are you now? The clip below says it all. Nelson died in an aircrash in 1985 aged just 45. This reached # 7 in The States in 1958.
Maybe down in Lonesome Town. I can learn to forget.
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