There's something about purity and innocence in music that brings out the best in me. The Shirelles Soldier Boy has that quality. It inspires a higher ideal in me.
Here's Soldier Boy on YouTube:
I was driving home a few days ago when this song came on the radio. A local station was playing a recording of a radio show that had aired in Dallas, Texas in 1962. The recording included wisecracks by the DJ, commercials that were current back then, etc.
I was driving my car in Maine and listened fascinated as this radio show recorded in Dallas 50 years ago played on my radio.
Contributing to the innocence of the era was the DJ who had so much more freedom to engage in off-the-wall antics and be entertaining. Clearly it was a live show and clearly the DJ was making it up as he went along.
The sentiment of the song is loyalty. Loyalty is one of the most rewarding ideals one can pursue, especially if it is returned. Even when not returned, it still helps you to find out who your friends are. When someone is disloyal, you move on.
Returning to simple ideals, such as loyalty, is always rewarding. The song says, I will never make you blue. That's essentially true. The people who are loyal to you rarely make you blue.
Oddly enough, the song is not just entertainment, it also teaches higher values in a very un-self-conscious way. The song teaches a higher value --- loyalty --- without seeming to teach anything at all.
That's my favorite kind of teaching. The kind of teaching where neither the teacher nor the student is conscious of the fact that anything at all is being taught. It's the most innocent and most effective form of teaching.
Every song has an ideal behind the lyrics. An innocent ideal is great. A higher value is even better. Soldier boy has both.
Ed Abbott
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