Deciphering Popular Songs

Ever listen to a popular song and wonder WTF it was trying to say?  Of course you have.  But you are in the elevator at the time and somebody just farted so you never find out.  Who ARE these people and what are they trying to tell us?    Here I endeavor to take a few specimens and determine exactly what is going on if anything.  

James Taylor:  Mexico

 

You get a mental picture of someone drinking and baking their brains out on the beach in Mexico. Then it's night and you're doing something with a coked up senorita. She's sleepy but her eyes are on fire.  It's all right so far.  The moon is high in the sky and lights things up.  Pretty picture.  Then you get to the bridge.  

Then there is something about the baby needing feeding, the relatives don't care and you're out of money.  You're stuck down in Mexico.  You write them a long letter and they send back a postcard, perhaps from Chicago.

After this there comes the disclaimer.  He says suddenly that he's never actually been to Mexico, but now that he's written this song maybe he'll go.  When he does go he'll spend most of his time in a honky tonk, which is what pop music always calls a bar, but is not a phrase used in real life.     

   
Sara Bareilles- Love Song

She's been getting a lot of bad advice, like being told to breathe underwater. She's also being patronized, and sarcastically adds that it's not easy breathing underwater, unless you are a fish, and even she knows that.  

Then there is some clod in her life who asks her to write him a love song otherwise he's out of here.  Well obviously command performances seldom go well and she refuses, and pounds on the piano because she's royally pissed, frankly.  So she writes him this song,  which is basically a go fuck yourself song.

Jeremiah was a Bullfrog by Three Dog night

 

The singer was a friend with a large amphibian.  The amphibian did not speak English (probably a French bullfrog) and yet they were buddies, and he must have owned a vineyard, hence his ability to provide the singer with very good wine.  One wonders what sort of relationship you could have with an amphibian.  A very affectionate one?  What does an amphibian choose for wine who otherwise hangs around a pond waiting for flies to wander too close?  Hey flybreath, what do your recommend on the wine list?  Ribet.


    In the chorus he talks about Joy to the world and all the boys and girls (drinking wine underage) and joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea (why them in particular?  I don't understand).  

Then he observes that if he were the king of the world this is what he'd do.  He'd get rid of all the cars and the bars in the world and make sweet love to you.  Really?  Must he become supreme ruler of the whole world to get you into bed with him?  He must be very, very ugly. 

  Getting rid of all the cars and the bars in the world, everyone would presumably have to drink at home, since there are no more bars out there.  Or maybe he is suggesting universal prohibition?  He enjoys drinking with inarticulate amphibians and wants to deprive the rest of the world transport just so he can make love to you, whoever "you" are.  I hope you enjoy it.  

I want it that a way by the Backstreet Boys

Man I hate this song with a passion and that goes for its stupid inane lyrics especially.  Otherwise I think it is a great song and a technical masterpiece.  

What could this song be about?  You are my fire and my desire.  I guess you keep him warm. But something's wrong.  Maybe you're holding your ears with both hands and screaming.     He wants vaguely to let you know that he wants it that a way, he doesn't want you to say that you want it that a way, but what way he wants it to be, nobody knows.  Maybe he wants to do it doggie style but clearly you don't want to do it that "uh" way.  And he wants to know why he never wants to hear you say "I want it that a way".  Maybe this relationship isn't going to work because neither of you is fluent in a known language and cognition isn't one of your strengths.  

  The Joker by the Steve Miller Band

What can you say about some dude who speaks with the pomitous of love?  He's too sexy for his pants no doubt.   And who is the Maurice, anyway?  He's the space cowboy gangster of love.  And what do gangsters do generally?  Basically protect their turf and shoot anyone who impinges on their business.  Sounds like a very jealous dude, baby.  I'd watch out.  

And he has a tit fetish clearly.  Loves your peaches especially.  We all know what peaches are and every woman has a pair.  And what is with that WEEP! WOW! sound effect after certain lyrics?  It's the law of pop music, which dictates that there must be a novelty sound in there somewhere to get the listener's attention.  In this song it is the WEEP! WOW! business.  

He explains that he is a joker.  (When are you serious, bud?).  That he uses tobacco, and at midnight he even smokes pot.  He gets his loving on the run, but he's not doing you wrong because he's right here at home (wherever that is).  As irrepressibly sexual as this guy is, and as peripatetic, what are the chances he doesn't shake a lot of peaches in a lot of trees?  

Are We Human by the Killers.

 This song makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  And the grammatical weirdness "Are we dancer" just sticks in your mind like a splintered chicken bone in the gullet of a dog. So I decided to help them out by providing my own lyrics, as follows: 

I gave my best to Otis, 
when the ball came down the twine, 
On the platform shoes of gender,
I was sick but you were fine. 

And I sometimes talks to Jervis
When I see an open sore
Close the wound, ablate the heart
And cut the crap

Are we human or is this cancer?
My sign is Leo, my tool is cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the exit
Are we human or are we Cancer?


Pay my respects to Grace and Willis
Send my condolences to food
I'm sorry that I ate you
I was hungry and you were good

And so long to the ocean
You taught me everything I know
Say bye bye, and go to hell
You've gotta let me blow.


Are we human or is this cancer?
My sign is Leo, my tool is cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the exit
Are we human or are we Cancer?

Will your system be alright
When you're drunk senseless in the night?
(If there's no message then we're leaving
and I don't care if your heart's still beating)
 
Are we human or is this cancer?
My sign is Leo, my tool is cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the exit
Are we human or are we Cancer?
 

The Alternative North American Reality: 1867 to the present

Canada is a strange world, especially to Americans, who often seem hardly aware of what goes on up there north of the border.  Going to Canada is a little like slipping into another dimension or an alternative North American reality, kind of like an episode out of the Twilight Zone.  Everything is almost the same as in the US but with odd little differences. like it's colder outside.   They call themselves loyalists, which I guess makes the rest of us disloyalists. 

 

They look like Canadians to me, Boss.

They have silently and sneakily infiltrated our entertainment industry, pretending to be as American as you or I, but they aren't, like Lorne Greene, or Michael J Fox, or Peter Jennings.  And then you wake up one day and realize that "The most trusted man in America" may not even be an American.  You also discover that your thesis adviser is actually some strange little dude from Alberta who does even stranger things with chicken blood. They are clearly the original pod people.  You can sometimes detect them by asking them to pronounce certain words and noting their reluctance to use Webster's dictionary.  

 I have been to Canada several times, mostly because I married a girl from Niagara County, NY and I wanted to see the better view of the Niagara Falls afforded from Canada.  The US side is depressing, industrial, and dirty looking. Every time I've been there (at least a dozen times) the Canadians on the other side of the river seemed to be having a LOT more fun.   Their money is more colorful and shows pictures of people I had never heard of, they occasionally do strange things, like put gravy on french fries, and they sell gasoline by the liter, which gives you an interesting conversion problem when trying to figure out if it is more or less expensive than it is in the US.  (Usually it is more).    There is also the GST and all products and signs sport both English and French versions (except in Quebec).    And then there are mayors like Toronto's own Rob Ford, who seems to be doing old Washington, DC Mayor Marion Barry proud.   (Maybe they should nominate that guy for the Martin Sheen award). 

Canada became a confederation in 1867 and I realize there is more history than that, but since 1867 marks the point at which Canada began to have prime ministers, I start there.  One always has to begin somewhere.

What was known as the the province of Canada came into existence years earlier of course.  It was the union of Upper and Lower Canada  (Upper Canada being Ontario, Lower Canada being Quebec) which had its legislative assembly.  Thus began the somewhat uneasy partnership between the French and the English in the St. Lawrence Valley.   

The conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865 was a sign that something had to be done to keep the Americans out.  The British and Canadians had seen what the US had done to Mexico in the 1840s, and now that the slave vs free state issue was moot and the demonstrable size of its army and residual resentment against the British for their favoring the South in the war made many in Canada and the UK feel that an invasion might be next on the American agenda.

The solution to this problem was the Confederation of Canada, which became official on July 1, 1867.  At that time Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia became known as the Dominion of Canada, a self governing part of the British Empire, although it wasn't until 1931 with the Statute of Westminster that the UK parliament renounced its ability to legislate for Canada. 

Conclusion: 

   After having reviewed Canadian History through the lives and governments of Canada I must admit there was a LOT I didn't know about our neighbors to the north (2).  I was faintly aware that Stephen Harper was Prime Minister and that Jean Chretien had left office, but I scarcely remembered Paul Martin at all.  Pierre Trudeau I remember primarily because he was kind of a media darling and was married to Margaret Trudeau a flower child 30 years his junior.  She had three children by Trudeau before their divorce in 1984.  Towards the end of their marriage she was seen hobnobbing with Teddy Kennedy and members of the Rolling Stones and partying at Studio 54 in New York on election night. 

 About Brian Mulroney I remember that he was in office for a time and then left abruptly letting Kim Campbell holding the bag while the Progressive Conservatives went down the toilet.  I have wondered for a long time how a political party could fail so completely that only two seats were won by it in the general election.  Later the fragments of the conservatives reconstituted themselves much like that evil character in Terminator II and became the Conservative Party of Canada.   

PC had rather the wrong connotation anyway.  In America anyway to be "progressive" is to be blatantly left-wing while attempting to fuzz away any association with Marxists.  To be "PC" is to be "politically correct" which is to play an inane game of catching other people using words that others have labeled as "not politically correct" because of their supposedly sexist, racist, or "just not with-it" connotation.  (Didn't you get the memo, Mortimer?).  Also political correctness seems to be an exercise in intolerant "like-think" where everyone on the ground is waiting for signals from Moscow before deciding what to think.  The most celebrated episode in this sorry episode was the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, after which American Communists were, overnight, told that Germany was no longer the enemy but our friend.  And then of course, after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1940 they were back to being the enemy. 

The PC crowd also has a marked tendency to appoint people to "speak for" all people "of color" or "of gender", or so forth, as though the group was a monolith of interests, but that is best talked about elsewhere.

I knew that the Canadian Federal government was patterned after the British model, and that Queen Elizabeth II was the titular head of state who must be consulted, so to speak, before elections can be held, though actually this job is done through the "governor general", who is appointed by the Queen on the suggestion of the government.   

 While in the US people "run" for office, in Canada they "stand" for office.  In a similar way, when lawyers receive their license to practice in a given state or province, in the US they are said to be "admitted" to the bar, whereas in Canada they are "called" to the bar.  There is also the curious institution in Canada called the Senate, which seems to be somewhat like the "House of Lords" in the UK.    And in Canada the electoral districts are called the "riding" or "constituency", akin to the American congressional districts. 

What have the Canadians been up to?  Mainly the same sorts of things Americans have been up to.  More than Americans they have had to deal with identity.  Their proximity to the US has been a constant danger and temptation.  The Western provinces are much closer to American markets than Eastern Canada, which has led to a certain East/West resentment.  Quebec is mainly French speaking which has led to a cultural divide which has threatened to split from Canada at various times in the past.  And there is a significant French speaking minority in the rest of Canada.    In the middle of Canada is a huge mostly empty wilderness known as Western Ontario, which seems good for only flying people in occasionally to fish and hunt.

After having read a little about the Charlottetown and Meech Lake summits, I frankly still don't know quite what the fuss was about.  Constitutionally the Federalists seem to be winning the struggle against the Quebec separatists. I was surprised that until early in the 20th century Canadian foreign policy was handled through the UK.  

Free trade of course is a good thing.  Those that don't think so are usually owners of protected industries or members of labor unions enforcing inefficient practices.   It has taken the Canadians a long time to realize this.  Americans are as afraid of free trade with Canada as much as the Canadians were afraid of it from the US.  Ross Perot's giant sucking sound was actually the noise of his own ideas.  

The Eight Wives of Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney started life as Joseph Yule, Jr., and was born in Brooklyn in 1920,  the son of  Ninian Joseph Ewell of Glasgow and Nellie Carter of Kansas City.   They were both in vaudeville and the father had himself changed his name for show business becoming Joe Yule.  He began performing a scant 17 months later, appearing onstage in his own little tuxedo.    The elder Yule and his mother split up when he was three years old.  His mother returned to Kansas City and in 1925 relocated to Hollywood where she maintained a tourist home and worked to get her little boy into pictures.  She succeeded.  He started out as Mickey McGuire, until the lawyers for the originator of the character also named "Mickey McGuire" sued the studio and won. Then they settled on "Mickey Rooney".     He then went on to star in the Andy Hardy movies opposite Judy Garland and other films.  This was in the period prior to his WWII service.  In 1944 he entered military service as an entertainer of troops and on Armed Services Radio and received a bronze star for entertaining troops in and around a combat zone.

As with many juvenile actors when they can no longer take juvenile roles, by 1945 his best years as an actor were behind him, but he did soldier on as a character actor, most notably in the movie "The Black Stallion" and appeared, if peripherally, in quite a few films, stage productions, and voice acting roles and   continued to work right up to his very last years, making his an astonishingly long career (1).

1.  Ava Gardner (1942-1943)

Gardner was born in Smithfield, NC in 1922, and posed for pictures for her sister's photographer husband on a visit to New York, which led in 1941, to her going to Hollywood as a contract player for MGM.  While there she met Rooney who was a bigger star than she was at the time.  They were married for about a year.  Afterwards she went on to marry Artie Shaw,the band leader, (who has previously been married to Lana Turner)  and Frank Sinatra.  Among others she had relationships with were Ernest Hemingway, George C. Scott, and Howard Hughes (2).

2.  Betty Jane Rase (aka BJ Baker) (1944-1948)

One of the difficulties with discussing women in general and in show business specifically is their tendency to have multiple names.  She was born Betty Jane Phillips in Birmingham, AL in 1927, was Betty Jane Rase at the time she married Rooney and had two of his children, and became BJ Baker later on, having married Buddy Baker.      She was a backup singer for a number of famous recording artists, and provided the voice for one of the characters in the film "Flower Drum Song".  She died in 2002 at the age of 74 (3). 
 
3.  Martha Vickers (1949-1951)

Vickers was born Martha MacVicker in 1925 in Ann Arbor, MI.  She began as a model and progressed from there to supporting roles in film and television during the 1940s and 1950s.  The Rooneys had one child, and were married a little over two years.  She died of esophageal cancer in 1971, at the age of 46.  (4).


4.  Elaine Devry (1952-1958)

Elaine Devry was born in 1930 as Thelma Elaine Mahnken in Compton, CA. She met and married Rooney when she worked with him on the film "The Atomic Kid" at which time she was known as "Elaine Davis".  They were married about six years.   She has worked since then in supporting roles in films many popular TV series, including Perry Mason, Bonanza, I Dream of Jeannie, and Marcus Welby, MD.  She said of her marriage to Rooney "Living with Mickey is no bed of roses.  Six wives can't be wrong"(5) 

5   Barbara Ann Thomason (aka Carolyn Mitchell,  Tara Thomas) (1958-1966)

Thomason was born in 1937 in Phoenix AZ.   As a young woman she moved to Los Angeles in hopes of making it in show business.  She won several honors as a beauty queen, in various pageants, and became a dance instructor, and fashion model.  She met Rooney through a mutual friend in 1958 and they were soon married.  They had four children in the eight years they were married.   By 1966 when their marriage was on the rocks, and Rooney was away in the Phillipines making a film, she took up with Milos Milosevic, a Yugoslavian actor whose only film role was a bit part in "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming".   In the complicated situation created by the separation, divorce negotiations, and tape recordings, one night Milosevic killed Thomason in a murder-suicide (6). 


6.  Marge Lane (1966-1967)

A friend of Barbara Ann Thomason,  she helped take care of Rooney's children shortly after his wife died.  The marriage lasted only about 100 days.  

7.  Carolyn Hockett (1969-1974)

Two years later he married Carolyn Hockett, a former secretary working for the Miami Herald. They were divorced after 5 years. 
 
8.  Jan Chamberlin (1978-2013)

She was born Janice Darlene Chamberlin in 1938.  She is a singer and holds the record for staying in a marriage with Rooney, over 30 years,  (7).   Rooney passed away from "natural causes" on April 6, 2014.  He was laid to rest at Hollywood Forever cemetery next to Paramount Studios in accordance with his wishes.

Those old Christmas songs and where they came from

1.  Santa Baby (1953)

This song was originally recorded by Eartha Kitt in with Henri Rene and his orchestra on October 6, 1953.   It was written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer (2).  

2.  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (1949)

The story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer started as a coloring book created by Robert L. May for the department store Montgomery Ward  in 1939, which at the time was giving out free coloring books every Christmas in its stores.  That year, rather than buy them they chose to create one in house, which was the assignment given May.    The story appeared in a poem borrowing the metrical structure of  Moore's "A Night Before Christmas"  

Ten years later, Johnny Marks, May's brother in law wrote the song of the same name.  Harry Brannon sang the song on the radio in 1949, but it was Gene Autrey, the singing cowboy, who made it a hit single in the Christmas season of 1949.

3.  Jingle Bell Rock (1958)  

The song was first recorded by Bobby Helms.  The song was written by Joseph Beale and James Boothe.   Beale worked in PR and lived in Atlantic City, NJ.  and Boothe was an advertising copy writer from Texas.   Since then it has become a perennial favorite covered by dozens of well known artists. 

4.  Christmas Time is Here (1965)

The song was originally written by Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaraldi for the 1965 television special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas."  The instrumental version was recorded by The Vince Guaraldi Trio and the vocal version was sung by the choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael California.    Vince Guaraldi was only in his 30's when he co-created the song.  He died of either a heart attack or an aortic aneurysm in 1976 at the untimely age of 46.(1)

5.  Baby it's Cold Outside (1944)

This song was written performed on an informal basis  by Frank Loesser and is a duet between the "wolf" and the "mouse", the wolf trying to persuade the mouse to stay and the mouse insisting that she needs to go home.  In 1948 he sold the song to MGM which inserted it into the film "Neptune's Daughter" in 1949 where it was performed on screen by Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams.  It has been covered many times since.  

Frosty the Snowman (1950)

This song about a snowman magically brought to life  by receiving a hat, was written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson and first recorded by Gene Autry in 1950, after the success of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer the year before.  It has spawned animated cartoons, children's books, and parades in Armonk, NY (3). 

Hard Rock, Coco, and Joe (1950s)

 This is probably a bit more obscure, but it was created in the 1950s using the best available technology for stop action video at the time by animator Wah Ming Chang for WGN-TV in Chicago.  

Another Christmas short was "Suzy Snowflake" produced about the same time.   It was popularized by Rosemary Clooney in 1951. 

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! (1945)

This song was written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne in July 1945, and first recorded by Vaughn Monroe.  Dean Martin recorded a very popular version of this song which is featured above.

Walking in the Winter Wonderland (1934)

It was written by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith in 1934.  Smith wrote the lyrics while in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Scranton, PA.   The song really has no mention of Christmas in it, of course, but features lovers enjoying an early winter snowfall.  Strangely enough, early on, some objected to the bridge lyrics which were:

"In the meadow we can build a snowman,

then pretend that he is Parson Brown.
He'll ask 'Are You Married?' We'll say 'No man,

but you can do the job while you're in town!'"

 

A "parson" is a traveling minister who travels a circuit in rural areas where not enough people are around to form a full time congregation.  However this lyric, where two young people spur of the moment seemingly decided to get married was seen as inappropriate for children and an alternative lyric came out (4) :  

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
and pretend that he's a circus clown.
We'll have lots of fun with Mister Snowman,
until the other kiddies knock 'im down!
When it snows, ain't it thrillin'?
Tho' your nose, gets a chillin'
We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland.

Little Drummer Boy (1958)

Davis

The song was written by Katherine K. Davis a classical music composer in 1941.   It became popular in the 1950s when the Trapp Family Singers and the Harry Simeone Chorale recorded versions.   A poor drummer boy gains a smile from the baby Jesus even though all he can do is play a drum for him (6) (7).  




I'll Be Home for Christmas (1943)

This song was written from the point of view of an overseas soldier during WW II, was written by Buck Ram, Kim Gannon and Walter Kent and first performed by Bing Crosby.   This is another hugely popular song that has over the years been covered by hundreds of artists(6).  

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (1944)

This song was written by Ralph Blaine and Hugh Martin for the hit musical "Meet me in St. Louis" and was first recorded by Judy Garland.   The musical is about a St. Louis family at the time of its World's Fair in 1904.   The story moves along pleasantly enough until the father screws up all their lives by accepting a job promotion to New York which will uproot the family.   In the midst of this sadness, Judy's character sings a melancholy song of Christmas.  Many other recording artists considered the song a bit too depressing with lyrics such as "until then we'll all have to muddle through till then" and changed it somewhat to make it a little more upbeat. 

White Christmas (1940)

"White Christmas" was written in 1940  by Irving Berlin.  It turned out to be not only the best selling christmas single of all time, but the best selling single about anything of all time.  As was often the case, the songs were often first introduced to the public during live broadcasts on the radio.  Bing Crosby sang the song on Christmas Day, 1941 on his radio program, called the Kraft Music Hall.   This was a scant couple of weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and everyone was getting ready to go off to fight the Japanese.    He recorded the song the following May and it became part of an album released to coincide with the movie "Holiday Inn", which was about an Inn that was open only on holidays and formed the framework for a series of 12 Berlin songs.    Later, in 1954, the song was reprised in the musical "White Christmas."


The Christmas Shoes (2000)

Released by the Christian vocal group "New Song" it is a song about a little boy who is trying to buy his mom who is dying a new pair of shoes so she can look good if she meets Jesus tonight.  What this song indicates is that what you are wearing when you die is what you will meet your maker in.  

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (1952)

It was written by British songwriter Tommy Connor in 1952, and was first sung by Jimmy Boyd when Boyd was 13 years old.  At one point the kid says "What a laugh it would have been, if Daddy could have seen".   (No it wouldn't, kid, Dad has a mean temper and shotgun.)   Here is Jimmy singing the original recording of this adorable song.  

Feliz Navidad (1970)

Written by Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Jose Feliciano, it has become a huge and perennial favorite at Christmastime in the inclusive spirit of this multicultural age (11).  


Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (aka "The Christmas Song") (1944)
 

The song was written by Mel Torme and Bob Wells in 1944 on a hot summer day as a way of thinking cool.  It was first recorded by the Nat King Cole trio in 1946, and went on to re-record is several times (10). 

Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1934)

Completing the picture of childhood paranoia is this song, written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934.  It was first performed on Eddie Cantor's radio program that same year.  It was recorded first by Harry Reser and his band with Tom Stacks doing vocals in October 1934.  Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded it in 1935, and it became a sheet music #1 song.   (11).   

Since then it has been extensively covered and stomped on by numerous performers who can't seem to play it straight including this one by Alice Cooper:

 After which kids might not WANT Santa to come to town. 


Sleigh Ride (1946)

Leroy Anderson wrote "Sleigh Ride" in 1946-1948, Anderson being a composer of "light" orchestral pieces.  In any case one of his biggest hits was this song.  Mitchell Parish wrote  words to what was originally an orchestra piece.  Either way the composition has been a hit holiday standard since about 1950.  This is a version done by Johnny Mathis in 1958.

It's the Most Wonderful time of the Year (1963)

They heyday of  popular Christmas music apparently was the 1940s and 1950s, but this one came along in 1963.  It was written by George Pola and George Wyle.  George Wyle also wrote the theme song for the 1960s TV program "Gilligans Island".   This one was written for Andy Williams for his first Christmas Album.  Naturally being of a cynical temperament I prefer to call it the "The Most Horrible Time of the Year". 

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas (1965)

This song was written by Johnny Marks for Burl Ives and his Christmas Album of the same year.  Burl Ives was a well known folk singer, and actor of the time.  Johnny Marks, as you may recall wrote "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and was married to the sister of Robert L. May, who wrote the poem for Montgomery Ward in 1939. 





 

Illinois Governors on Parade, 1913-2014

Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne (1913-1917), Democrat

Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne, was a governor from 1913-1917 and a Democrat.  His father has been an Irish Nationalist who emigrated after an unsuccessful rebellion.   He was born in Watertown, CT.  His mother was daughter of a prosperous contractor who had built the docks of Galway.    His father became a successful businessman and an ardent supporter of the Fenians.  Edward attended Trinity College in Dublin, but had to leave because of financial reverses in his father's business.  He finished his education at the Union College of Law in Chicago, and became a successful Lawyer.  He served as judge of the Circuit court from 1892 to 1905, then was elected mayor of Chicago.

As Governor from 1913 to 1917 he supported progressive causes such as Women's suffrage, and expanded the role of the state government.  He helped create the Public Utility Commission, and oversight functions in workmen's compensation, and teacher's pensions.  

After serving as governor he returned to his law practice.  he died in 1937.  
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Frank Orren Lowden (1917-1921), Republican.

Lowden was born in Minnesota, and grew up in Iowa, attending Iowa State University  and then the Union College of Law in Chicago, received his law degree and was admitted to the bar in 1887.  He married the daughter of George Pullman and was a law professor at Northwestern.
He served in the US Congress from 1906 to 1911, replacing a member who had died and, reelected in succeeding terms, stepped down in 1911.   

He was elected governor in 1917.  During his term he reorganized state government, introduced the idea of a state budget for state spending, frustrated efforts to abolish the death penalty by vetoing the bill, favored women's suffrage, opposed the League of Nations, supported the Volstead Act.  He was praised for his handling of the Chicago Race Riots of 1919 and the transit strike.   

In 1920 he was a major candidate for President on the Republican ticket, deadlocked with General Leonard Wood, but in a smoke-filled room, Harding got the nod.  In 1928 he tried again, but this time Herbert Hoover had it in the bag. 
He died in 1943 in Tucson, AZ, and was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.  
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Lennington Small (1921-1929), Republican

acquitted under suspicious circumstances

Small was born in 1862 in Kankakee County.  He attended Northern Indiana Normal School and began his career as a school teacher.  He invested in real estate, became eventually an owner of a bank and the local newspaper.  He served in the Illinois senate from 1901 to 1905, Illinois state treasurer from 1905-1907 and 1917-1919, and was elected governor in 1920, and re-elected in 1924.  He was indicted but not convicted of embezzling a million dollars but was acquitted.   The fact that 8 of the jurors got state jobs subsequently led to a suspicion of jury tampering.   At one point he required state workers to contribute to his "defense fund" raising $650,000. After losing a civil suit against him requiring him to repay $1 million he struck a deal with prosecutors to allow him to repay the $650,000 he had raised from state employees.  He also pardoned around 1000 convicted felons, including notorious bootlegger Spike O'Donnell, in 1923. 

After two malodorous terms as Governor he was defeated in the Republican primary by a reform candidate in 1928.  He died in 1936.  
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Louis Lincoln Emmerson (1929-1933), Republican

Emmerson was born in Albion, IL in 1863.  Emmerson started out as a merchant and banker in Mount Vernon, IL.  He ran first for state treasurer in 1912, was unsuccessful, but four years later he was elected Secretary of State, and remained in that office for 12 years.  In 1928 he defeated Len Small for the Republican nomination for governor and was elected the same year.  In 1929 the great depression set in and in the tribulations brought on by that event, he eased the penalties for late tax payment and instituted a gas tax to help pay for better roads around the state.   He also started the first unemployment commission in Illinois and received a grant to complete a Lake Michigan to the Gulf Waterway.  Republicans were not popular by 1932 and he chose not to seek reelection.  Emmerson died in 1941. 
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 Henry Horner (1933-1940), Democrat

Horner was born in 1878 in Chicago.  He went to the University of Chicago and became a lawyer.  From 1915 to 1932 he served as a probate judge.  As governor, faced with a fiscal shortfall he instituted the first Illinois sales tax of 2%, which he increased to 3% in 1936.  He was a reform candidate who was opposed to graft and stoutly opposed the Nash-Kelly machine in Chicago, but was reelected in 1936 anyway owing to support from downstate.  In 1938 he suffered a stroke and spent the last two years of his life as an invalid.  He died in October of 1940, in office. He was buried at the Mount Mayriv Cemetery in Chicago. 

Horner was a collector of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia and donated his collection the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield.  A park in Chicago is named Horner Park, and the housing project Henry Horner Homes is also named in his honor.  
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John Henry Stelle (1940-1941), Democrat

Stelle was born in 1891 in McLeansboro, IL.  He was Lieutenant Governor of the state when Governor Horner died, so served the remaining 3 months of his term.

Stelle received a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.  He became state treasurer in 1935 and became Lt. Governor in 1937, which he held through most of Henry Horner's second term as governor.  In that short time he spent as Governor he lavishly rewarded his friends and supports in the state.  In one example, he appointed George E. Day as state purchasing agent, and then authorized the painting of yellow lines on all state highways to denote unsafe passing zones.  Day was a paint dealer and bought the paint from his own firm, to his great financial benefit.  

He was a fervent supporter of the military, and promoted the GI Bill of Rights later in the war.  He supported and campaigned for John F. Kennedy, who won Illinois with a narrow margin of 11,000 votes.  He died in 1962.  
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Dwight Herbert Green (1941-1949) Republican

Green was born in 1897 in Ligonier, IN.  He went to college at Wabash College and then went to law school at the University of Chicago.   He served as US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois from 1931-1935 and was one of the prosecutors who finally put Al Capone away.  After failing to win in an election to mayor of Chicago, he went on to be elected governor of Illinois in 1940 on the strength of his reputation as a prosecutor and opposition to the Democratic Chicago machine.  While he was a popular governor, he was held responsible in regulatory negligence for the deaths of 111 miners in Centralia, IL, and was defeated in an upset in 1948 by Adlai Stevenson.  He died in 1958 and was buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.
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Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1949-1953), Democrat.

Adlai Stevenson II came from an illustrious Illinois political family, his grandfather having served as vice president under Grover Cleveland.    He was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1901, but grew up in Bloomington, IL.  He attended University High School, but transferred to Choate, an exclusive private school in Connecticut,  from which he graduated in 1918.  Although he enlisted in the Navy shortly afterwards, it was too late to participate in the First World War.  He attended Princeton University and went to Harvard where he did poorly and withdrew.  A while later he had a renewed interest in law and got his law degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, was admitted to the Illinois Bar and worked for a law firm in Chicago.  He and his wife built a home on a 70 acre tract of land in what is now Mettawa, IL., but what was at the time Libertyville, IL.   He and his wife had three sons, one of whom became Adlai Stevenson III.  

In the first term of the Roosevelt Administration he took positions in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and then in the Federal Alcohol Control Administration, but left in 1935.  In 1940 he returned to government service as counsel and assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox.  Postwar he worked in the Foreign Economic Administration and in the State Department in efforts to establish what became the United Nations. 

In 1949, put forward as the Chicago Democratic Organization's candidate, he was elected Governor over the incumbent,  Dwight Green.  The same year his wife divorced him.  He never remarried.

As governor, he reorganized the state police, removing political considerations and introducing a merit system for employment.  He vetoed a bill that would have made it a felony to belong to a "subversive group" and required "loyalty oaths" for anyone working for the state.  He famously vetoed a bill passed by bird lovers declaring that letting cats run loose was a public nuisance.   He was a character witness in favor of Alger Hiss in 1949.  

In 1952-1960 he made what would be three consecutive runs for the US presidency, losing twice to Dwight Eisenhower, and failing to get the nomination a third time, when John F. Kennedy got the nod from the Democrats.  In later years he served as ambassador to the UN.  He died in 1965.  
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William Grant Stratton (1953-1961), Republican

acquitted of tax evasion

Stratton was born in 1914 in Ingleside, IL he was son of William J. Stratton.    He attended the University of Arizona, where he majored in political science.  He served one term in the US congress in 1941-1943 and another in 1947-1949.  He was elected state treasurer in 1943-1944, served as lieutenant in the US Navy 1944-1946.  He was elected again for state treasurer in 1950-1952.  In 1952 he was elected Governor of Illinois, reelected in 1956, but defeated for reelection in 1960 by Democrat Otto Kerner. 

He was acquitted of a charge of tax evasion in 1965.  He attempted a return to the Governor's mansion in 1968, but was unsuccessful.  He maintained a home in Morris, IL and operated a livestock farm in Sangamon County.  He died in 2001. 
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Otto Kerner, Jr.  (1961-1968), Democrat

sentenced to 3 years

Kerner was born in 1908 in Chicago.  His father served as Illinois Attorney General and as judge on the Seventh Circuit of the US Court of Appeals.  He graduated from Brown University in 1930, and attended Trinity College in Cambridge before receiving a law degree from Northwestern University in 1934.  He married the daughter of Anton Cermak, the Chicago Mayor who had been fatally shot in 1933.  In the second world war, he served in the army in Italy where he made the acquaintance of Jacob Arvey, who was the leader of the Cook County Democratic Party.  Later he joined the Illinois Army National Guard, where he retired in 1954 as a major general.  

In 1947 he was appointed the US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and became a judge in the Illinois circuit court of Cook County until 1961 when he was elected governor,   denying Stratton a third term and was re-elected in 1964.   Illinois won with his efforts the contract to build the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, IL.  He worked to expand international trade in Illinois products.  He reformed the mental health system run by the state.  In the wake of the race riots of 1966, he served as chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders, having been appointed by President Johnson.  

In the last year of his second term, Kerner resigned his governorship to become a judge for the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.  

In 1973 Kerner was convicted of 17 counts of mail fraud, conspiracy, perjury and related charges.  He was sentenced to three years in Federal Prison, but served only 6 months, being released because by that time Kerner was suffering from lung cancer.  He died in 1976.  
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Samuel S. Shapiro (1968), Democrat

Samuel S. Shapiro was born in Estonia in 1907 and emigrated with his family to America as a small child.  He got his law degree from the University of Illinois and practiced law in Kankakee, IL.  He became state's attorney for Kankakee County in 1936, served as a state representative from 1947 to 1961.  In 1961 he was elected Lieutenant governor along with Otto Kerner as governor.  When Kerner left his position as governor in 1968, he succeeded him as governor.  His special interest as legislator and as Lt. Governor was mental health, which he sought to reform.  After being narrowly defeated for governor by successor Richard B. Ogilvy, he returned to his law practice.  He died in 1987.  The day he died he was supposed to be in court in Kankakee, and was only discovered to have died, when police were sent to his home to investigate why he had not been in court.  He was buried in Jewish Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, IL.
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Richard Buell Ogilvie (1969-1973), Republican

Ogilvie was born in 1923 in Kansas City, MO.  He attended Yale and then entered the army in 1942, serving as a tank commander in France, and then finished his studies at Yale, graduating in 1947 with a degree in American History.  He got his law degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology Kent College of Law in Chicago in 1949.  From 1950 he practiced law, became a US attorney in 1954 in Chicago, and in 1958-61 served as special assistant to the US Attorney General, and was in charge of a unit fighting organized crime in Chicago.  In 1962 he was elected Cook County sheriff.  In 1967 he became president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

He was elected governor in 1968 along with  Lt. Gov.  Paul Simon, a Democrat who later went on to become a US Senator from Illinois.   Aided by large Republican majority in both Senate and House in the state, he was able to call a constitutional convention in the state, instituted the first income tax for the state, and increased social spending.  The income tax resulted in the voters sending him home in 1972.  

After serving as Governor he practiced law in Chicago, where he was considered for the position of FBI director by President Nixon before giving the job to Patrick Gray.  He served as a trustee for the bankrupt railroad, the Milwaukee Road in 1979, which became as a result the Wisconsin Central.  In 1987 he was on a committee to study the feasibility of shutting down Amtrak, which never happened.  He died in 1988 and was interred at Rosehill Mausoleum in Chicago.  The Metra commuter rail station in Chicago is named in his honor.  
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Daniel Walker (1973-1979), Democrat

convicted, sentenced to 7 years

Dan Walker was born in 1922 in Washington, DC, and grew up in San Diego, CA.  He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1945 and served in the Navy during World War II and in Korea.  He graduated from Northwestern University with a law degree in 1950.  He served as a law clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Vinson, an aide to
Governor Stevenson, served as a deputy commissioner in the US Court of Military appeals.

In 1968 he served as head of a study team for the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, looking into the messy violence surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention.    His report was critical of the Chicago Police Department and earned him the lasting enmity of Mayor Daley.  Later as candidate for governor in 1972 he won the Democratic nomination over the Daley and the Chicago Machine favorite, Lt. Gov. Paul Simon.  During his campaign he hit upon the gimmick of walking around the state, covering over 1000 miles during his campaign.  He was elected governor, defeating Richard B. Ogilvie by 51 to 49%. 

 As Governor he clashed with both the Chicago Democratic machine and Republicans in the state.  Nevertheless he instituted some reforms against certain corrupt practices and passed a campaign finance disclosure law.  He was defeated in the state primary in 1976, and left office in 1977. 

In 1980 he started a chain of oil change shops and bought two troubled Savings and Loans Associations.  As owner of one of these banks, he committed bank fraud by borrowing $45,000 from a borrower from his bank. He subsequently pleaded guilty to bank fraud, perjury, and filing false financial statements and was sentenced to 7 years in federal prison in 1987.   After 18 months Walker was released from prison in 1989.

He later went on to become an author, writing about early Church history, San Diego History, and his memoirs of his time in Illinois state politics.  He now lives in Rosarito, Baja California in Mexico.  
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James Robert Thompson, Jr. (1977-1991) Republican

Thompson was born in 1936 in Chicago.  He attended the University of Illinois-Chicago, and Washington University in St. Louis.  He earned his law degree from Northwestern in 1959.    He served for the Cook County state's attorney, taught at Northwestern Law School, and became a US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in the early 1970s. It was as a federal prosecutor that he succeeded in convicting former Governor Otto Kerner Jr. for influence peddling in connection with the racetrack industry.  He also succeeded in gaining convictions of some of Mayor Richard J. Daley's top aides as well as some prominent Republicans in Cook County.  

In 1976 Thompson was elected governor with an overwhelming plurality.  At this time the terms of governor were adjusted to fall on non-Presidential election years, so his first term was only for two years.  He beat Michael Bakalis two years later for a second full 4 year term, and then defeated former senator Adlai Stevenson iii, son of the former governor twice in 1980 and 1984.  

After leaving office in 1991 he joined and later headed the law firm of Winston and Strawn.  As part of that law firm he has focused on corporate law and government relations, as well as  defending former Governor George Ryan in the "licenses for bribes" scandal. 

He served on the 9/11 Commission in from 2002-2004, when the commission released its report.  
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James Edgar (1991-1999), Republican

called to testify

Edgar was born in Vinita, OK in 1946 and grew up in Charleston, IL.  He attended Wabash College and graduated from Eastern Illinois University circa 1968.     In 1976 he was elected to the Illinois House from someplace in the state, and was reelected in1978.  Governor Jim Thompson appointed Edgar as his legislative liaison, and when Alan Dixon left to become US Senator, he was appointed by Thompson to fill his term as Secretary of State.  He was subsequently reelected at Secretary of State before being elected as governor of Illinois in 1990.  He served two terms as governor before leaving office in 1999.   While he was called to testify in his role in the Management Systems of Illinois scandal, he was not charged, while a number of Illinois state employees were convicted.

Citing health problems, specifically his heart surgery, he has stayed out of politics since leaving office as governor.   For example, although he was thought to have been a strong candidate for US Senator he chose not to run for the seat that Barack Obama won in 2006.
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George Ryan (1999-2003), Republican

convicted sentenced to 6 1/2 years

Ryan was born in Maquoketa, IA in 1934, and grew up in Kankakee County, IL.  He worked in his father's drug stores, and attended the Ferris State College of Pharmacy in Michigan.  Ryan was drafted and sent to Korea during the Korean War and served 13 months as a base pharmacist there and then returned to build his family's pharmacy business into a lucrative state-wide business. 

He served on the Kankakee County Board from 1968-1973.  He then served in the Illinois House from 1973 to 1983 where he rose to become minority leader and then speaker.  Then he served as Lt. Governor under James Thompson, then as secretary of state from 1991-1999. From 1999 to 2003 he served as governor.  

As governor he followed the usual path of being in favor of education spending, road construction, and mass transit.  More controversially he led a trade mission to Cuba, and was the first sitting governor to meet with Fidel Castro.  He also opposed the death penalty in Illinois because he felt it was arbitrary and too many questionable verdicts had led to the death penalty.  As a result he commuted all death row inmates (about 160 or so) at the time he left office in 1999.  

It was only after leaving office that he started to encounter his legal problems, for things done before he was governor, when he was secretary of state.  

Willis Mini-van

  His problems stemmed from a tragic accident in I-94 in Wisconsin in November 1994, where a piece of metal fell off a truck in front of a minivan where the pastor Duane Scott Willis, his wife and all six of their children were passengers.  Running over the piece of metal punctured the gas tank of the minivan causing it to burst into flames.  While Willis and his wife escaped with relatively minor burns, his six children were incinerated.   As it was subsequently determined, the driver of the truck whence the metal had fallen had obtained his Illinois drivers license through a bribe and was apparently unqualified to be operating a truck.

In the subsequent investigation into the Secretary of State's office it uncovered a pattern of bribery and corruption that ultimately led to George Ryan to be sentenced to 6 and 1/2 years in Federal prison after conviction on 20 of 22 counts of racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering and tax fraud (1).   Ryan has now been released to home confinement as of January 2013.    
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Rod Blagojevich (2003-2009) Democrat

convicted, sentenced 14 years

Blagojevich, born in 1956 in Chicago was the son of immigrants from Serbia.  He went to school at the University of Tampa then transferring to Northwestern, where he graduated in 1979 with a BA in history. He got his law degree from Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.  He is married to Patricia Mell, daughter of former Chicago Alderman Richard Mell. He was a law clerk for Chicago Alderman Ed Vrdolyak, and then became an assistant prosecutor for Cook County for Richard M. Daley, then State's attorney and later mayor of Chicago.   In 1992 he was elected to the Illinois House from the North Side of Chicago.  In 1996 he was elected to the US Congress, taking back for the Democrats the seat won by Michael Flanagan over the disgraced longtime congressman Dan Rostenkowski, who was convicted of mail fraud.  He was reelected twice more as Congressman from the district.  Interestingly he was one of only 81 house Democrats who voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2002.  He was alone among the Democrats in the state delegation to have done so.

As candidate for governor in 2002 he narrowly defeated two opponents, IL attorney general Roland Burris and Chicago Public Schools superintendent Paul Vallas.  Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama, and David Wilhelm in various capacities supported Blagojevich's run for governor.  The Republican candidate was Illinois attorney general Jim Ryan. Though no relation to George Ryan, Blagojevich successfully linked the two together and the need for "change".   

By 2006, the Blagojevich administrated had its own bad smells to contend with lone statewide Republican Judy Barr Topinka, state treasurer, running a campaign against Blagojevich that emphasized his corruption.  Nevertheless she lost the election.  

Some of the change that Blagojevich promoted was ethics reform, death penalty reform, state Earned Income Tax Credit, KidCare and FamilyCare heath care programs, sexual orientation discrimination bans.  The costs of these programs was borne by raiding the state pension funds and expanding gambling in the state,  rather than tax increases. 

Blagojevich faced mounting opposition even from his own party as he did things and said things that alienated them.  He refused to live in Springfield, and seldom talked to members of the legislature.   Mayor Richard M. Daley went so far as to say that Blagojevich was "cuckoo".  One could go on and on cataloging the legislative outrages of this governor but a fairly good summary is found here.

Wiretaps conducted by the US attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, convinced him to arrest Blagojevich at his home.  As it appeared the governor had openly sought to "sell" the open seat left when Barack Obama was elected President, the Illinois governor being given the option to appoint someone to fill the remainder of Obama's senatorial term until the next general election.  On the tape he remarked that "I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden. I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing."  Subsequently he was removed from office on a 59-0 impeachment vote, and banned from holding political office in Illinois.  Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn succeeded him in office.   He was convicted in Federal court in 2011 of all charges associated with the sale of the senate seat, and for extortion relating to a children's hospital and a race track.   In the Federal trial for corruption he was sentenced to 14 years in Federal prison, and is now incarcerated in Englewood Colorado.  He will not be eligible for release until 2024.   
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Patrick Joseph Quinn III (2009-2015), Democrat

Quinn was born in 1948 in Hinsdale, IL.   He earned a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in 1971.  He received his law degree in 1980 from Northwestern University.   He served as an aide to Governor Dan Walker.   Early on he supported an initiative to increase the voter referendum as a way of influencing policy, but this was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois supreme court.  Another initiative more successful was his effort to cut back on the number of members of the Illinois House, reducing the number from 177 to 118 members, and eliminating cumulative voting and multiple member districts.   Others have suggested however that the old multiple member districts produced a better legislature.  

In 1982 he became commissioner of the Cook County board of tax appeals.  After one prior unsuccessful run, he was elected state treasurer from 1991 to 1995.  He was critical of George Ryan and ran against him for Secretary of State in 1994.   In 1996 he ran for the open Democratic seat in the US senate vacated by Paul Simon, but Dick Durbin won that contest.   Quinn was an early teabagger, encouraging voters to express their displeasure with the approval of an increase in the salaries of state legislators under Jim Edgar by mailing in tea bags, and encouraged a similar protest against Commonwealth Edison's increase in rates.  

In 2002 he was elected Lt. Governor on Rod Blagojevich's ticket, but did not remain a supporter of Blagojevich, and by 2006 they were pretty much political enemies. In 2010 he narrowly won reelection in his own right against Republican Bill Brady, who in a Republican year was widely expected to win.    In a lame duck session after the 2010 election Quinn and the legislature passed a 66% personal income tax increase and also increased corporate income tax rates.  The new legislature coming in in January 2010 would never have approved these changes, so obviously it had to be done in this sneaky way.  In order to accomplish this the legislature actually stopped time and delayed the midnight hour a couple of hours past midnight.  

Businesses, owing to the tax structure of the state, one of the most confiscatory in the nation, are relocating outside of Illinois.  The most recent example of this is Office Depot's decision to locate its corporate headquarters in Boca Raton, FL.    However, so far, the teacher's unions, the SEIU and anyone else on the state payroll is well pleased with the governor although a crisis regarding pension funding still looms.   

In November 2014, however, voters had had enough of our boy Quinn and turned him out of office.  One hopes Bruce Rauner is an improvement and stays out of prison as seems to happen a lot with Illinois governors.  

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Bruce Rauner (2015-?)