Hey all you Dialophiles (or perhaps I should say Parrotheads!)
Tonight, the Dial reaches wayyyyyy back to the early ‘70s (sorry if that comment made anybody feel old…) for a Jimmy Buffett track which was unsuccessful at radio, but ended up becoming a very popular concert staple for the man behind Margaritaville. Tonight we present the whimsical “Pencil Thin Mustache”.
“Now they make new movies in old black and white
Tonight, the Dial reaches wayyyyyy back to the early ‘70s (sorry if that comment made anybody feel old…) for a Jimmy Buffett track which was unsuccessful at radio, but ended up becoming a very popular concert staple for the man behind Margaritaville. Tonight we present the whimsical “Pencil Thin Mustache”.
“Now they make new movies in old black and white
With happy endings,
where nobody fights
So if you find yourself
in that nostalgic rage
Honey, jump right up and show your age!”
The second single from his iconic 1974 Living and Dying in ¾ Time LP, “Pencil…” barely missed placing in the Billboard Hot 100 at #101, but managed to achieve #44 on the easy listening chart. It followed the soft rock classic “Come Monday”, the first of Jimmy’s many top 40 hits.
Containing humorous musings on his childhood and young adulthood, “Pencil…” is filled with 1950s pop culture reference points such as, Ricky Ricardo, Andy Devine, Sky King (and Sky’s niece Penny), American Bandstand, Disneyland, and many more. The titular facial hair belonged to “Boston Blackie”, a former criminal turned investigator, whose TV series was among the earliest successes in the new medium of television.
Jimmy’s unapologetically nostalgic track also contains an amusing acknowledgement that “only jazz musicians were smoking marijuana”, and the final few seconds interpolates the famous Brylcreem commercial… “Bryllll Creeeeem… a little dab’ll do ya!”
Though Buffett’s top 40 chart presence ended in the late 70s, he’s made two interesting returns to the chart, in the guise of collaborations with popular country artists… 2003’s US #17 hit “It’s Five O Clock Somewhere”, recorded with Alan Jackson; and the Zac Brown Band’s 2011 hit “Knee Deep” which hit US #18. Both of these tracks hit US Country #1.
Normally, when the Dial selects a tune, I’ll intersperse my review with a happy memory associated with that song. However, for this song, my memory only has to go back to last week, Tuesday March 26, 2013, to be exact.
My wife and kids and I visited Castaway Bay, an indoor water park in Sandusky, to get away from the lingering Ohio winter. At 9pm, we all attended the Snoopy themed “movie time”, in which a Peanuts TV special is played for gathered families. A few minutes later, my 14 month old daughter Zoey became rather restless, so I elected to take her for a walk around the hotel, letting my wife and son enjoy the Snoopy show undisturbed.
As we explored the hotel, we soon found ourselves wandering down a hallway leading to the restaurant next door, a corridor into which was being piped Jimmy Buffett’s classic ode to his youth.
Zoey had a huge smile on her face as I sang along to Jimmy’s nostalgic lyrics, and gently bounced her up and down to the beat, creating a sweet little “Daddy/Daughter” moment. It was then, that I knew that Buffett’s track deserved the latest spotlight from the Radio Dial.
”Oh, I could be anyone I wanted to be…
The second single from his iconic 1974 Living and Dying in ¾ Time LP, “Pencil…” barely missed placing in the Billboard Hot 100 at #101, but managed to achieve #44 on the easy listening chart. It followed the soft rock classic “Come Monday”, the first of Jimmy’s many top 40 hits.
Containing humorous musings on his childhood and young adulthood, “Pencil…” is filled with 1950s pop culture reference points such as, Ricky Ricardo, Andy Devine, Sky King (and Sky’s niece Penny), American Bandstand, Disneyland, and many more. The titular facial hair belonged to “Boston Blackie”, a former criminal turned investigator, whose TV series was among the earliest successes in the new medium of television.
Jimmy’s unapologetically nostalgic track also contains an amusing acknowledgement that “only jazz musicians were smoking marijuana”, and the final few seconds interpolates the famous Brylcreem commercial… “Bryllll Creeeeem… a little dab’ll do ya!”
Though Buffett’s top 40 chart presence ended in the late 70s, he’s made two interesting returns to the chart, in the guise of collaborations with popular country artists… 2003’s US #17 hit “It’s Five O Clock Somewhere”, recorded with Alan Jackson; and the Zac Brown Band’s 2011 hit “Knee Deep” which hit US #18. Both of these tracks hit US Country #1.
Normally, when the Dial selects a tune, I’ll intersperse my review with a happy memory associated with that song. However, for this song, my memory only has to go back to last week, Tuesday March 26, 2013, to be exact.
My wife and kids and I visited Castaway Bay, an indoor water park in Sandusky, to get away from the lingering Ohio winter. At 9pm, we all attended the Snoopy themed “movie time”, in which a Peanuts TV special is played for gathered families. A few minutes later, my 14 month old daughter Zoey became rather restless, so I elected to take her for a walk around the hotel, letting my wife and son enjoy the Snoopy show undisturbed.
As we explored the hotel, we soon found ourselves wandering down a hallway leading to the restaurant next door, a corridor into which was being piped Jimmy Buffett’s classic ode to his youth.
Zoey had a huge smile on her face as I sang along to Jimmy’s nostalgic lyrics, and gently bounced her up and down to the beat, creating a sweet little “Daddy/Daughter” moment. It was then, that I knew that Buffett’s track deserved the latest spotlight from the Radio Dial.
”Oh, I could be anyone I wanted to be…
Maybe suave Errol Flynn
or the Sheik of Araby…
If I only had a pencil
thin mustache…
Then I could do some
cruisin’ too”
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