The theme of the evening was songs from the year you were born. We had one new person, Larry, one back for his second time, Dave, along with Arlene, Vin, Joe, Liz, Chris, Nathan, Cris, Tom, Ken, and the return of a vigorous and healthy Suzala, the founder of our outfit.

Dave, in possession of a new ukulele, led off with a Tiny Tim song from 1995, I Know God Still Loves Me (Because He Gave Me You). It's not a famous song, but it was straightforward and uptempo with easy chords. No one had trouble following Dave's lead.

It was Nathan's tenth birthday. Chris, his guitar teacher, brought in a cake (because although we've been eating cake continuously for weeks, we're still too thin), and we played a good rendition of Happy Birthday.

Arlene had a Dinah Shore song from 1948, Buttons and Bows, a perky number about a woman from out west who seeks the modern clothing of eastern cities. "Don't bury me in this prairie. Take me where the cement grows. Let's move down to some big town where they love a gal by the cut o' her clothes, and I'll stand out in buttons and bows."

I picked the next one from 1959: Dion and the Belmonts doing Teenager in Love. That was an easy 4-chord song everyone knew. Things deteriorated a bit with the deceptively tricky verses of Poison Ivy by the Coasters. We rallied on the choruses.

Liz's pick from 1951 was On Top of Old Smokey (all covered with cheese). This poor fella deserves our sympathy. He lost his true lover "by courtin' too slow," AND it's snowing, AND he's on top of a godforsaken mountain. If only he could get a date on level ground in warmer weather.

My third pick was a doo-wop ballad which turned out to be clunky and difficult to play as a group: Since I Don't Have You (Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners). Some chords were a little different (Gm6, for example) but not really any harder. I don't know why this didn't go over well.

Leave it to Vin to save the day with the smash 1965 hit from Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, the rock 'n' roll staple Wooly Bully. We were very sloppy and hesitant with the introduction. That'd smooth itself with a little practice. "Hattie told Mattie, let's don't take no chance. Let's not be L 7. Come and learn to dance." Is that poetry or what? (To be L 7 means to be a square.) It was some messy business getting through this one, but we played and sang with messy gusto, making it the hit of the evening for me.

The next, from the same year was I Can't Help Myself by the Four Tops. You might know it from the opening lyrics "Sugarpie, Honeybunch." It's a good song but the chords we had were a little messed up: some missing and some over the wrong lyrics.

The last of Vin's pick was I Got You Babe (Sonny and Cher). We tried to take separate singing parts, the boys doing Sonny and the girls doing Cher. It was a mixed success. We'd need a little focus (and we ain't famous for that) to do this better. Poor Sonny (killed in a skiing accident) wrote a love song for the ages. Terrific melody. Fun to sing.

Back 25 years, to just months before the war, was Glenn Miller's 1941 hit Chattanooga Choo Choo, the pick from Joe. All the chords were simple until they threw in an A flat in the last verse. Vin had a trick: play it as you would a G chord, but move forward one fret, away from the tuning pegs, and then play only the bottom three strings. Purists may howl, "Why don't you practice a real, four-fingered Ab until you get it right?" My reply to this, as a lazy, middle-aged man, is that if this nasty little Ab is going to stop me from playing a song, and I can somehow work around it, is that so terrible? Maybe one day we'll have a philosophical discussion on tricks and shortcuts.

Ken's selection was I'm Henry VIII, I Am (Herman's Hermits, 1965), a British music hall number from 1910, revived in the sixties. We were quite enthusiastic when shouting 'Enery! in a Cockney accent.

Chris picked Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll (1982). I was madly in love with Joan Jett in the early eighties. (Did you know she now lives in Rockville Centre?) This would seem to be the easiest song in the world, but we couldn't quite get it.

And that was about it for our theme night. We did a few more off-topic songs. Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is our default song, played whenever we can't think of anything else. The next is one of my favorites, the Foundations Build Me Up Buttercup (video tutorial). There were lots of chord changes. We had never tried it before, and it was a big mess. Then came Bette Midler's The Rose. I have never liked this song. However, everyone played it well and Cris did a nice vocal. We tried it again in a slightly faster tempo with a country feel and it sounded very good. Who knew?

For our next session, Liz came up with the idea of state songs, like California Here I Come. In order to have enough, we may have to broaden this so that songs like I Left My Heart in San Francisco and I Got A Gal in Kalamazoo are acceptable.

-- Dan.