Saturday 9: Angie Baby

Saturday 9: Angie Baby (1974)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's featured song? Hear it here.

 

1) This week's song is a spooky one about a young man who breaks into the bedroom of a troubled girl named Angie. Their encounter doesn't go well and he's never seen again. Though there's been gossip, no one knows for sure what happened to him. Does your town have any scary legends that have been passed down through the decades?

The Leather Man. He went though our town on his circuit, the town historical society gave a lecture on him at the senior center. When I was a teenager we used to hike the mountain and I visited his cave.

2) Songwriter Alan O'Day said he drew upon aspects of his own childhood to come up with "Angie Baby." He was an only child who often stayed home sick from school, with only Top 40 radio for company. What do you recall when you think about sick days as a kid?  

 I hated them because you really had to be sick and that was no fun.

3) Helen Reddy said she enjoyed hearing what her fans thought happened in "Angie Baby." Can you think of another song that is open to interpretation?

 "Ode to Billie Joe"  What really was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

 

4) When Helen and her husband/manager Jeff Wald heard "Angie Baby" the first time, they immediately agreed she should record it. She went into the studio that afternoon and in less than 10 days, disc jockeys were playing it and "Angie Baby" became an international hit. When were you glad you acted on impulse?

I am very thoughtful, being retired I have nothing but thought.

Questions inspired by Halloween .... 

5) Though best known as a recording artist, Helen Reddy also acted on occasion and appeared as a singing nun in Airport 1975. A nun's habit is a popular Halloween costume. Will you/did you dress up this year?

No. But the pot store’s employees were.

6) In 2024, more Americans than ever dressed their dogs up for Halloween. Have you ever taken your pup with you trick-or-treating?

Probably in my youth.

7) According to the Guinness Book of Records, the award for highest number of jack-o-lanterns in one place went to Keene, NH, where in 2013 there were 30,581. Did you carve a pumpkin for Halloween this year?

No, but I seen the Keene NH display. Not that one but rather back around the turn of the century, we had a cottage that you had passed through so I drove by it.

8) In years gone by, the Irish celebrated Halloween not with pumpkins but by carving turnips, potatoes and beets. Are any of those foods in your kitchen right now?

Potatoes.

 

9) Some Elvis fans insist his ghost hovers in the trees over Graceland. Have you ever seen a ghost?

No but when I had pneumonia I was hallucinating people walking up and down the hallway in the house, they were like ghosts. That was when I thought… Get ye to a doctor.

 

---

 

I played around with the photos from last week...