The Vine: January 27, 2012
There is an earworm that has been crawling around inside my brain for the better part of three decades, and I am seeking the assistance of TN’s loyal readers in identifying (and possibly purging) it.
My family moved to the Puget Sound region in 1984 and we were devoted watchers of the two PBS stations that we could pull in on our little television via coat hanger and tin foil. One was KCTS 9, which is still on the air, but I don’t remember the name/channel of the other one, and nothing I pull up online rings any bells. (I suppose it might even have been one of the Canadian channels.) Whichever station it was would put little filler pieces in between programs as necessary to even out the start/end times. One of these fillers was the source of my previously-mentioned earworm.
The piece was short and began with a group of interestingly-dressed musicians standing around in some studio space waiting for an off-camera cue. (The waiting was awkward and obvious, and usually caused me to do a little, “Aaannnnd, Action!” routine in front of the TV, which I found entertaining but I’m sure wearied my parents.) The group then launched in to their song, which I loved but do not know the exact name of. Neither do I know the name of the group. The lyrics that I remember go like this:
Chorus:
Come to the dance at D.J. McKay’s
there’ll be (something something something)
and lights all a-blaze
Come faster, come quicker
bring lots of hard liquor
and if you come sober
you’ll leave in a daze.
(I’m here to tell you, “come faster come quicker” is not a word combination you want to type into Google.)
Many verses about this shindig at Mr. McKay’s followed, but I don’t remember anything more specific until the last verse which goes something like:
Said D.J. McKay as they put [“hauled”? “took”?] him away,
“Dear God, what a glorious spree!”
The song was very folk-y (is that a word?) and some of the musicians looked a little like they had recycled parts of their old Renaissance-festival garb to wear for the taping. But they were talented, the song was quite enjoyable, and after all these years, I’m increasingly frustrated that I can find no trace of it. I would love to find a copy of the video online somewhere, but barring that, I would settle for the name of the group and a complete set of lyrics.
The only other information I can offer is that I can narrow the dates down to between March 1984 and late ’86/early ’87. After that, we finally got cable and we watched a lot less PBS.
Oh, and I did send off an e-mail to KCTS a couple of years ago, but their response basically said that they never kept records of the filler pieces from that era and they couldn’t really help me. So I’m turning over my aging earworm to the Vine readers. Any help would be immensely appreciated.
Thanks,
PNW Expat
Tags: Ask The Readers earwigs popcult
I also grew up in the 80’s without cable in the Puget Sound. I’ve been able to find clips of 1980’s programming and commercials on Youtube just by searching for the local station call signs. But no luck yet on the song you describe. In case it helps with your search, here’s what I remember of the local station lineup:
Channel 2 – CBUT – Canadian
Channel 4 – KOMO – ABC affiliate
Channel 5 – KING – NBC affiliate
Channel 6 – CHEK – Canadian
Channel 7 – KIRO – CBS affiliate
Channel 8 – BCTV – Canadian
Channel 9 – KCTS – PBS
Channel 10 – CKVU – Canadian
Channel 11 – KSTW
Channel 12 – KVOS – from Bellingham
Channel 13 – KCPQ – FOX affiliate starting 1986
Ahhhh, PBS. It’s a really endearing/whacky corner of the nation’s subconcious, no?
Is the local paper still around? Do they have a “Since You Asked” type column or a columnist who writes about how things used to be? Any chance they have a TV columnist who’s been around awhile? They might know the answer or if they run a story a local reader might know.
Not from the Puget Sound area but the group sounds an awful lot like the Canadian band The Arrogant Worms, but they’re just celebrating their 20th anniversary so probably not them.
I wonder if there is some Puget Sound folk or bluegrass org that would know the answer.
My guess for the other PBS station would be the Tacoma affiliate, KBTC; that used to come up in the pre-cable lineup. You could try them, since KCTS shot you down…
http://www.kbtc.org/
You might also try looking into the Northwest Folklife Festival: http://nwfolklife.org/
Good luck!
I didn’t have any luck finding your lyrics, but I did stumble across this site, which has a lot of Irish and Scottish folk acts listed plus a list of song lyrics (doesn’t appear to be searchable, though.
http://www.theballadeers.com/index.htm
Maybe you could contact them?
Oh, and to get to the lyrics list you have to click on the “and the rest” option in the box on the left side.
Have you checked in with the folks at Mudcat Cafe? They’re pretty good with crowdsourcing musical mysteries in the acoustic community.
I don’t know who the act was but it sounds pretty cool – hopefully someone can find it and share it with the rest of us.
It’s a good song – it was just running through my head, too…my parents’ friends used to play it at our folk music get-togethers in the Okanagan (BC). I don’t know how many of them are still around this part of the country (or would still remember how it goes). I think that the missing lyrics are “There’ll be dancing and music and lights all a-blaze”…but I can’t remember any of the verses.