Thanks to my high school classmate A.C. for sending this bit of nostalgia, a poem titled “What Made Me Me” by an unknown author. Below is a web site that accompanies the poem with a song from the ‘50s one can actually sing, “My Prayer” by the Platters. Stay tuned and hear many more great songs from that time when Rock & Roll was born.
CLICK HERE
A slightly different version is printed below. Enjoy.
What Made Me Me
Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan,
Or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents,
And they were you and me,
Long ago and far away
In the Land That Made Me Me.
Oh, there was truth and goodness
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges,
And Peyton Place was porn.
For Ike was in the White House,
And Hoss was on TV,
And God was in His heaven
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We longed for love and romance,
And waited for the prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one’s seen him since
We danced to “Little Darlin,”
And Sang to “Stagger Lee”
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land That Made Me Me.
Only girls wore earrings then,
And three was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
Except for Jean McKinney
And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see
A boy named George, with Lipstick
In the Land That Made Me Me
Girls fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.
We didn’t have a Star Trek Five,
Or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rockey-Rambo Twenty
In the Land That Made Me Me.
Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,
And Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat
Whose co-star was a chimp.
We had a Mr.Wizard,
But not a Mr.T,
And Oprah couldn’t talk, yet
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We had our share of heroes,
We never thought they’d go,
At least not Bobby Darin
Or Marilyn Monroe
For youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever,
In the Land That Made Me Me
We’d never seen the rock band
That was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson,
And Zeppelins weren’t Led.
And Beatles lived in gardens then,
And Monkees in a tree,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We’d never heard of microwaves,
Or a GPS in cars!
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they weren’t grown in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And “gay” meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never coed
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We hadn’t seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at
The bottom of the bag.
And hardware was a box of nails,
And bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land That Made Me Me.
Buicks came with portholes,
And sideshow came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles,
And skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We had no Crest with Fluoride,
We had no Hill Street Blues,
Girls wore superstructure bras,
Designed by Howard Hughes.
There were no patterned pantyhose
Or Lipton herbal tea,
Or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land That Made Me Me.
There were no golden arches,
No Perriers to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.
And middle-aged was thirty-five
And old was forty-three,
And ancient was our parents
In the Land That Made Me Me.
But all things have a season,
Or so we’ve heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline
We swear by Retin-A.
And they send us invitations
To join AARP,
We’ve come a long way baby,
From the Land That Made Me Me.
So now we face a brave new world
In slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they’re using
Smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children’s children
Of the way it used to be,
Long ago, and far away
In the Land That Made Me Me.
–Author unknown
