Two Orders of Rice to go

I'm no musicologist; all I know is what I like.  

And people who do know music will tell you that a song needs a good melody to be memorable and catchy.  Being a wordy nerdy kind of guy, I insist that a song has good lyrics, too, to be good for me.  Even if the title of the song is "Papa Oom Mow Mow" or "Sh-Boom," the lyrics have to mean something to me.

We've all been in love, some of us even with other people, and we can only imagine what it must feel like to attend the wedding of your former inamorata as she marries your (former) friend. That one's got to hurt; I'm not going to lie to you.  And it had to be worse back in the day when the custom was to throw rice at the happy couple so that they emerged from the church in a hail of Uncle Ben's finest.  I think that was so that the couple would not start their marriage without any food.  I know that I got some rather odd looks when I would throw chicken fried rice at weddings, as I recall.

But the music, that's what we were talking about.  Eddy Arnold, one of the first old-style country singers to put on a tuxedo and go for the "countrypolitan" sound, wrote and sang a #1 tune called "I'm Throwing Rice (At The Girl That I Love)" in 1949.  

I'm throwing rice at the girl that I love

After she just said, "I do"

I'm throwing rice with a smile on my lips

But my heart is breaking in two

She was my gal and he was my pal

But she loved him better somehow

I stepped aside after I kissed the bride

And I'm throwing rice at her now

I'm throwing rice at the girl that I love

After she just said, "I do"

I'm throwing rice with a smile on my lips

But my heart is breaking in two

She was my gal and he was my pal

But she loved him better somehow

I stepped aside after I kissed the bride

And I'm throwing rice at her now

Jerry Lee

Eddy

You can hear Eddy's version of the plaintive song here, but I also want to share the uptempo, country-rock version done by the one, the only Jerry Lee Lewis.  It was 1980, and the Killer recorded at a studio called the Caribou Ranch, recording some 36 classic country, rock and pop tunes.  You can hear that this was a rough recording, in need of final production, but for pure passionate playing and singing, you have to give the nod to old Jerry Lee.  For reasons I don't understand, no record company ever released the songs from that session.

I believe that if you click on both versions and compare and contrast, you'll hear two fine interpretations of the same sad experience.   It gets me when JLL says, "Jerry Lee's heart is br-br-br-breaking in two."

I'm glad that no one ever dumped me and then invited me to her wedding.  I might have thrown a fit, instead of rice.