Popstrology

[Gazoo]

I'll do these one at a time -- they take longer to type out than I anticipated.

5/1/59: The Fleetwoods, "Come Softly to Me"

You are the dreamer who lives the dreamers' dreams.

The story of your Birthstar's rise reads like the plotline of a trigonometry-class daydream: three teens team up to write and perform a song for the senior class show; family and classmates proclaim, "Gee, you guys oughta record that!"; homemade tape is hand-delivered to local promoter via Greyhound bus; local radio picks up the record, and ... well, you can see where this is headed.  Suffice it to say that a million teenagers' ridiculous fantasies were given fresh new fuel by groups like the Fleetwoods, who managed a bootstraps rise from high school to the highest reaches of the universe on the strength of "Come Softly to Me," and without assistance from the teen-idol machinery that produced contemporaries like Frankie Avalon.  Short though their heyday may have been, your Birthstar stands as a powerful source of inspiration to the self-made types born under their influence -- popstrological proof, if you like, that your childhood desire to put on a show in your uncle's barn was the first expression of your greatest strength.

Star Traits: Whitebread; Not Sexy; Forgotten; Familiar; Somewhat Massive

Constellation: Doo-Wop

Celebrity: RuPaul (11/17/59) is a child of the Fleetwoods.

Birthsongs: "Come Softly to Me" (4/13 - 5/10/59), "Mr. Blue" (11/16-22/59)

[mshray]

I like it!

[Gazoo]

9/16/59: The Browns, "The Three Bells"

(ed. note: I have never heard, or even heard of, this song before.)

You are the blue-plate special of grits and coq au vin.

They pursued the Southern route to stardom, working their way up from Little Rock to Nashville on live radio programs like "Barnyard Frolics" and "Louisiana Hayride."  But Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed (yes, Jim Ed) Brown's ascent stalled just short of its goal, and by 1959, a workaday life on the margins of country success seemed all the Browns could hope for.  But then something strange and marvelous happened.  Through a wrinkle in the fabric of popstrological space-time, a sinking country star was suddenly and unexpectedly catapulted into the highest reaches of the pop universe thanks to the power of a Massive star from a completely different dimension.  That star was Edith Piaf, the legendary French chanteuse whose 1945 hit, Les Trois Cloches, had somehow made its way to the ears of young Jim Ed back in high school in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  On the brink of quitting the music business entirelym the Brown siblings instead recorded the Little Sparrow's song as "The Three Bells," and its dramatic success made them not only the second star in the constellation Gene Pool, but also the first and still the most continental star in the constellation Country Cousins.  As the child of a star whose rise requires the popstrological equivalent of advanced string theory to explain, you too may find yourself challenging traditional boundaries and enjoying your greatest success when hard work and serendipity collide.

Star Traits: Somewhat Minor; Massively Forgotten; Not Sexy; Familiar; Massively Whitebread.

Constellation: Country Cousins, Gene Pool

(no celebs noted under this sign: sorry!)

[ggould]

9/16/59: The Browns, "The Three Bells"

(ed. note: I have never heard, or even heard of, this song before.)

I did not recognize the title, so I went to iTunes and listened to a snippet.  Yes, it was a big hit, and I would expect some of you older folks to have heard it.  

Artist/Band: Brown Jim Ed
Lyrics for Song: Three Bells (Les Trois Cloches)
Lyrics for Album: The Essential Jim Ed Brown & the Browns

There's a village hidden deep in the valley among the pine trees half forlorn
And there on a sunny morning little Jimmy Brown was born
All the chapel bells were ringing in the little valley town
And the songs that they were singing was for baby Jimmy Brown
And the little congregation prayed for guidance from above
Lead us not into temptation bless this hour of meditation guide him with eternal love
There's a village hidden deep in the valley beneath the mountains high above
And there twenty years thereafter Jimmy was to meet his love
All the chapel bells were ringing twas a great day in his life
For the songs that they were singing was for Jimmy and his wife
And the little congregation prayed for guidance from above
Lead us not into temptation bless oh Lord this celebration
May their lives be filled with love
From the village hidden deep in the valley one rainy morning dark and grey
A soul which wait in the heaven Jimmy Brown had passed away
Just the lonely bell was ringing in the little valley town
Twas there well it was singing to our good old Jommy Brown
And the little congregation prayed for guidance from above
Lead us not into temptation may his soul find this salvation of Thy great eternal love

[RGMike]

9/16/59: The Browns, "The Three Bells"

(ed. note: I have never heard, or even heard of, this song before.)

I did not recognize the title, so I went to iTunes and listened to a snippet.  Yes, it was a big hit, and I would expect some of you older folks to have heard it.  

Indeed, a classic of late-'50s Americana.

[mshray]

Gaz, these are great, but you need to explain to us your rationale/guidlines for how you come up with 'em.

As a logician would say, these have internal consistency, but I can't say exactly what it is.

[RGMike]

Gaz, these are great, but you need to explain to us your rationale/guidlines for how you come up with 'em.

As a logician would say, these have internal consistency, but I can't say exactly what it is.

HE'S not coming up with them, is he?... they're from that guy's book, no?

[Gazoo]

Gaz, these are great, but you need to explain to us your rationale/guidlines for how you come up with 'em.

As a logician would say, these have internal consistency, but I can't say exactly what it is.

HE'S not coming up with them, is he?... they're from that guy's book, no?

Exactly - I'm just reposting the text from the book.  The basis is simply whatever was #1 at the time of birth, give or take a few days.  If I were writing these there'd be more snark.  

[Gazoo]

3.6.63: The Four Seasons, "Walk Like a Man"

Yours is a voice that will not be silenced, or ever mistaken for foreign.

They were the godfathers of Italian-American soul, and though their roots were in old-school doo-wop, they left that style dead on a Newark street corner when they combined Frankie Valli's macho falsetto with Jersey-thick background vocals and a driving beat in the Spector/Motown style.  Records like "Sherry" and "Walk Like a Man" epitomized the sound you couldn't refuse, a sound so strong and so popstrologically Fresh that even the mighty Beatles couldn't silence it.  Indeed, the Four Seasons were one of only two American groups to enjoy significant success before, during, and after the mighty Britvasion, and they did it without abandoning their principles and converting to the Britvader look or the Britvader sound.  And unlike the Beach Boys, the Beatles-surviving band that was to the Pacific Ocean what the Seasons were to the Passaic River, your Birthstar didn't depend for their success on the gifts of a single, psychotic genius.  Too little Brian Wilson and too much sun turned the Beach Boys into a dried-out husk of a band well before their late-career comeback with "Kokomo," but your birthstar managed one of their most timeless hits with their comeback -- "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)."  Perhaps you've had your share of foreign adventures, child of the Four Seasons, but it's your mastery of the American idion, and your steadfast refusal to see anything wrong with that, that will always underlie your more successful ventures.

Star Traits: Majorly Fresh; Lasting; Massive; Slightly Whitebread; Slightly Not Sexy.

Constellations: Jersey Pride; Fresh Breeze; Launching Pad; Royal Court

Celebrities: Tommy Lee (10/3/62), Joan Cusack (10/11/62), Jodi Foster (11/19/62), Jon Stewart (11/28/62), Reese Witherspoon (3/22/76), and Jayson Blair (3/27/76) are children of the Four Seasons.

(Ed. note: How recently did this go to press, that Jayson Fucking Blair made the celeb cut?!)

[princessofcairo]

i don't see how "slightly not sexy" and jodie foster go together. unless "slightly not sexy" refers to someone she's dating.

i was going to make the same comment for tommy lee until i realised the tommy lee in question didn't appear in "coal miner's daughter."

[mshray]

of all the attributes listed, I think the one I hope is most true of me is 'Lasting' & least true is 'Massive'.  'Slightly Not Sexy' I can live with.

[RGMike]

of all the attributes listed, I think the one I hope is most true of me is 'Lasting' & least true is 'Massive'.  'Slightly Not Sexy' I can live with.

I don't think they mean "massive" as in obese. :wink:

[mshray]

of all the attributes listed, I think the one I hope is most true of me is 'Lasting' & least true is 'Massive'.  'Slightly Not Sexy' I can live with.

I don't think they mean "massive" as in obese. :wink:

yeah, but I can't take the chance.  I'm already more massive than I want to be.

[princessofcairo]

of all the attributes listed, I think the one I hope is most true of me is 'Lasting' & least true is 'Massive'.  'Slightly Not Sexy' I can live with.

I don't think they mean "massive" as in obese. :wink:

yeah, but I can't take the chance.  I'm already more massive than I want to be.

and you still won't sleep with dave??

[Gazoo]

That conversation's being derailed right there.

Today's installment is for our Princess-In-Transit (and soon-to-be-Birthday-Gal), who missed by a single day being born under the auspices of Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl" (see, it's all in how you play it, gurl).

4/3/77: ABBA, "Dancing Queen"

You may play in Peoria, but not everyone wants to be seen as Peorian.

It is no mean feat to earn even a single #1 hit in America, which is why even the most Minor and Forgotten stars in the popstrological firmament are worthy objects of contemplation.  But when a star as Massive (ed. note: see, there's that word) and Lasting as ABBA (ed. note: author is obv. European) earns just a single #1 hit, it's worthy of a full-scale investigation.  ABBA, after all, are not just any star in the constellation Tip Of The Iceberg -- they are, by some estimates, the biggest-selling pop group in Earth history.  So how to explain the relative cold shoulder America turned to the bright and shiny Swedes the rest of the world found so impossible to resist?  Well, patriotism, in part (see: Starland Vocal Band), but also fear -- a profound and entirely reasonable fear of losing our vast edge in pop-music coolness over the notoriously dorky nations that made ABBA their gods.  Americans could thrill to ABBA in the privacy of their bedrooms and automobiles, but to let that guilty secret be reflected in the kind of public displays of affection seen elsewhere in the world?  To let that secret be revealed by allowing ABBA their rightful place in our popstrological firmament?  Well, maybe the kids in Chile, Taiwan, and the Benelux nations didn't have an image to keep up, but we Americans surely did.  Time and the power of nostalgia eventually removed the taint of shame from those Americans who secretly worshiped your Birthstar, but don't be surprised if you find yourself treated as a guilty pleasure before being embraced as a beloved treasure.

Star Traits: Very Fresh, Very Sexy, Very Lasting, Very Massive, Very, Very Whitebread.

Constellations: Tip Of The Iceberg, Eurosomething, Holy Matrimony, Fresh Breeze.