Song 12:
"Action” by Freddie Cannon
Peak: 13
Year: 1965
Year end position: NA
Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 2/5
Chronological Songs by Artist: 5/5
Video?: No
Wikipedia?: No
Spotify?: Yes
If you had me guess how many songs into the blog we would be
before we got to the 2nd song by one
of the acts, I think I would have guessed about 50 songs in. Turns out I would have been pretty close were
it not for today's song. As a follow up
to that, if you had asked me to guess who the act was that had the 2 songs in
the first 12 alphabetically, I probably would have guessed for the next 20
years before coming up with Freddy Cannon.
Neither of the 2 songs that we have gone over for him finished in the
top 100 for the year that they charted, nor did either of them make the top
10. For those that maybe forgot, we already went over Freddy Cannon's 4th top
20 hit "Abigail Beecher".
"Action" hit the charts in 1965, making it the 5th and last
song to hit not only the top 20, but also the last time he ever hit the top 40.
I was doing some research on this song over the last week,
and I was a little surprised to hear that this is the first song we've had so
far that was used as a theme song for a television show. It was not a show I had ever heard of, but it
was called "Where the Action Is" (Wikipedia says it was also known as
"WTAI" which seems dubious to me, since that is a terrible acronym,
and since a Google search of "WTAI" doesn't come up with this TV show
on the first page). The TV show was a
music-based variety show that ran on ABC from 1965-67, and was a spin-off from
American Bandstand. The show was originally
supposed to be a summer replacement show, but was finding some success, so they
moved it from 2 PM to 4:30 so the kids could watch it during the school
year. The show featured "House
band" Paul Revere & the Raiders (who will come up later in the blog)
and sounded vaguely similar to American Bandstand in that they featured acts
performing and kids dancing. Dick Clark
produced the show, but rarely appeared on it, except in voice over at the
beginning and introducing the singers for the day. I particularly like the featured dancers:
Pete Manifee and the Action Kids. That
seems like such a mid-60s name to me.
As you would expect with any song named "Action",
the song is pretty upbeat. The lyrics
are pretty basic. They describe how
great it would be to be able to go to a place where you could get away and
listen to some music and dance.
Obviously, the implication being that that place should be wherever they
were shooting that days episode of "Where the Action Is", or if you
couldn't be there, at least you could follow along on TV. I didn't really know when I first heard this
song that it was a TV theme song, but now that I know, a lot about the song
makes more sense. The song is only a
little over 2 minutes long, and the last 40 seconds of the song are the chorus
repeated over and over and over again.
That makes more sense because that part of the song is almost assuredly
cut off on TV.
There's no video specifically for this song, but YouTube
does have some grainy video of the actual TV show. I watched the Four Tops sing "I Can't
Help Myself" in Detroit in one episode.
Apparently, the "Action" was in Detroit that week. It's not the best quality, but it's available
if you had never heard of the show, as I had not.
The song is pretty enjoyable to listen to. Freddy Cannon has a particular style that we
also heard on "Abigail Beecher".
He has a bit of a gruff voice, which he complements with lots of
"Whoo" screams every so often.
It's good time music, although the repetition of the chorus at the end
of the song makes repeated listenings a little tedious. In moderation though, this song is fun. If you were a fan of the show, it probably
invokes some good memories as well.
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