Under My Thumb -A Minute With The Rolling Stones, circa 1964

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Who knows when you get a beat in your head, a musical beat that stays with you forever, or at least until a more powerful beat comes along. At one time that position was held by the Five Satins doing In The Still Of The Night, a doo wop-ish classic from the 1950s which had repeating lines of doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop unto infinity (or the end of the song) with a powerful drumbeat and raging sax soloing every few bars. It had the additional staying power of being tied into my very first teen age party, so-called petting parties which were the place where the first few rushed, awkward, and haphazard attempts to kiss a girl (or boy for girl) occurred. Tied as well to my first puppy love, Thea Wallace, whom I was smitten with in sixth grade and who had invited me to that party knowing full well that I was smitten by her having heard it through the infallible teenage grapevine that would for pure information put the damn CIA and the creepy NSA to shame for what the boy-girl love social order was in my growing up town of Carver at any given moment. So yes I got (or gave) my first, what did I call it above, rushed, awkward, and haphazard kiss from Thea. And we had our moment, a short one even in the whirling dervish world of teenage “affairs.” But here is the real cement, the really tragic cement for why that Five Satins beat stayed for so long. See that record was playing at the very moment when we kissed. And was the song in my head when I was mooning around walking past her house hoping against hope for a sight of her for a while after she ditched me (for some budding baseball player from what I heard). So, yeah, that beat died hard.      

But life, and some eternal need for a beat in the head goes on, and as the fifties and Thea faded (although not totally vanquished as this remembrance proves) I gathered another beat in my head once the Stones swam on to the American shores as part of the British invasion. (While it is not relevant to the sketch yes I favored the “from hunger” street fighting stance of the Stones, my high school corner boys too, except Jimmy Jenkins who was all twisted up by the Beatles, spoke to “from hunger”  to working class boys on this side of the ocean). This time their song Under My Thumb drove me crazy. Naturally it had to do with a girl, well by then a young woman, and had nothing to do with silly stuff like mooning over some misbegotten girl who ditched me or whining about some rushed, awkward, haphazard kiss since I had figured out that deal by then, or at least I acted like I had. No this one had to do with my first marriage, my fatally misdirected marriage to Olivia Simpson, whom I had met just after high school down at the Surf Ballroom in Hull about twenty miles from home on the water where on Friday and Saturday nights the Rockin’ Ramrods who did a lot of Stones covers played Under My Thumb and I asked her to dance (they also played bluesy stuff too like Muddy Waters not a happenstance connection as I found out later since the Stones worshipped Muddy and went to Chess Records, Muddy’s label, in Chicago just to hang with him when they were on tour one time). That song acted as some unholy mantra for a couple of years later we got married and everything went downhill from there (except the merciful, merciful for both parties by then, divorce). Here’s the hook though, the beat reason, that first dance night Olivia jokingly said, at least I thought it was a joke when she laughed her laugh, that she would have me under her thumb before long. Jesus