Posted on 09/29/2016 5:02:52 PM PDT by mdittmar
We all try to decipher the lyrics,guess it means something to all of us.
Back in the early 1960s there was a TV show on called THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS, a spoof on all that week’s news.
They had a segment that played Petula Clark’s DOWNTOWN, while showing news paper articles on the various crimes perpetrated on people visiting downtown.
I’m 52 years old and still remember hearing that song as a toddler.
Still sounds just as great now.
I recall that song when it first came out, even remember the 3 radio stations that played it alot, WLS of Chicago, CKY of Winnipeg, & KCJB of Minot, ND. - the only AM stations we could get where we lived back then. The Canadians pronounced her name “Pechula”.
I don’t know about everyone but I get songs stuck in my head nearly everyday.
I was 12 when this song came out and I loved it. I listened to it over and over until I had most of it memorized.
Since 1965, whenever a song gets stuck I bring this song into my mind and replace whatever was driving me nuts. I have used this song thousands of times and never get tired of it.
Thank you Petula Clark
I’ve always been a big fan of Pet Clark. There’s a sameness to her 60s hits, but they really bring back the 60s for me.
Wow thank you very much. That song reminds me of my childhood. I would go to with my mom to San Francisco or Oakland back in the 60’s and this song would play in the radio.
What a talent, I also lover her other songs like Kiss Me Goodbye, This Is My Song, and Don’t Sleep In The Subway.
Wow. This just sparked a little kid memory in me of riding in the back seat of the car while this song was playing then stopping by the dentist office while my brother got a teeth cleaning.
I sat with my mom in the lobby trying to figure out how the lava lamp didn’t melt when it had hot lave inside it.
I have a good friend from high school whose Dad roomed with Petula Clark's family during WWII in the build up to D-Day.
Of course, she was just a girl of 11 or 12 then.
Terrible job of lip-synching or poor video/audio translation. Sometimes an entire beat off.
The writer of the song, a Brit, was inspired by walking about Mid-Town in NYC unaware that New Yorker call Lower Manhattan “Downtown”.
I remember That Was The Week That Was, the U.S. version. Apparently almost no videos have survived.
I still have audiotape made holding the Revere recorder mike up to the TV speaker. Tape is old & brittle now, but I recall in the fall of 1963 how they were making fun of Pres. Charles de Gaulle for his arrogance, his independent nuclear missiles, and his determined stance against Britain joining the EEC.
TW3 featured an interview with `Madame de Gaulle’. Asked why, with the U.S. & Soviet Union locked in a space race to land first on the moon, did France seek to land a manned space probe on the planet Mars.
“Because...if there is intelligent life on Mars, it will speak FRENCH, of course!”
JFK was assassinated later that year, and everything changed.
I can’t hear that song without thinking of Hanoi. It became a reference to going to the highest threat area in North Vietnam’s defense - going “downtown”!
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jack-broughton-20141101-story.html
http://www.talkingproud.us/Military/Military/F105.html
Such a cutie. I love her “Boy From Ipanema” on the Muppet Show.
Not a Simpsons fan, but I can’t hear this song without thinking, “Doontoon!”
Ah a seekers fan. I had forgotten all about that band until the last year or so. I didn’t really know anything about them except their songs. That lead vocalist was good and didn’t stay in the business that long.
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