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Gavin B. · 10-17-2009, 11:21 AM

Song of the Day

The cover to Jim Lowe's first and only album.

Green Door- Jim Lowe Green Door was a 1957 song recorded by Jim Lowe. Lowe is a guy that nobody knows a heck of a lot because he didn't leave much of a mark on music history, except for the song Green Door. At first the song sounds like a typical banal hit parade song of that era, but there's something else going on here, if you follow the story line of the song. I've been listening to Green Door since I was a kid and there is a sense of mystery in the song that is seductive.

Could it be that all kinds of depravity and evil lurk behind the green door? Listen to the lyrics... The green door could be the portal to a speakeasy, a house of ill repute, a coven of Satanists, a homosexual bar, a cell meeting of communists or almost any other form of "evil". There is lilting blend of Tin Pan Alley/rockabilly sensibility to the song which is counterpointed by a metronome ticks away like a time bomb. Green Door still induces an anxiety attack for me, if think about the lyrics too much.

A mint condition copy of Jim Lowe's album Songs from Behind the Green Door can fetch a price of $30 to $40 on the collector's market. I've always thought it was a high price to pay for ownership of a certain album, but music collectors are driven by their uncontrollable fetish to own a very specific item. On a few occasions I've profited handsomely by acting as a broker between a seller and a buyer for bulk sale of an entire record collection. The Lowe album is on the wish list of nearly every collector of Fifties music. Estate sales are a great place to find rare and collectable vinyl issue albums.

In 1981 the Cramps included a revved up version of Green Door on their album Psychedelic Jungle. I came across an interview with Lux Interior, the Cramp's bass player, and he had a similar theory to my own about the banality of evil being expressed in the lyrics of Green Door. That's not much of a comfort to me, since Lux Interior is a truly derranged man who once wrote fan letters to serial killer John Wayne Gacy. I don't love the Cramps any less for Lux's quirky hero worship of serial killers, but I generally maintain a safe distance from larger-than-life rock stars like Lux Interior.

BONUS TRACK: Hernando's Hideaway- Archie Bleyer Hernando's Hideaway is another novelty song with a similar theme predates Jim Lowe's Green Door. In 1954 a long time jazz band leader, Archie Bleyer wrote Hernando's Hideaway, a catchy little castinet driven tango for the score of the Broadway musical the Pajama Game. The lyrics are far more tongue-in-cheek than those of Green Door.

Songs like Green Door and Hernando's Hideaway are interesting musical artifacts because many of the novelty songs of the Fifties authentically reflected the reign of sexual and social repression that existed in the United States. The attitude of our national leaders and opinion makers was best summarized as: conform or perish. During the Eisenhower years, Hollywood movies were censored, Joe McCarthy was busy blacklisting communists, homosexuality was taboo, smoking marijuanna was (and still is) criminal and even seeking a divorce from your spouse was grounds for social banishment. On television the married couple, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were forced to sleep in separate beds on I Love Lucy because networks censors thought showing married couple in the same bed was too sexually graphic. To a certain extent, nearly everybody was hiding a part of themselves behind the green door during the Eisenhower years.

So all those "amoral" folks who failed to conform to the fake Christian social mores of the 1950s were driven underground and were forced to have a secret rendezvous with an illicit lover or fellow traveller at Hernado's Hideway. The cultural revolution of the Sixties changed a lot of people's ideas about what illicit and deviant behavior was. Nearly everyone was in violation of the restrictive sexual and social taboos of the Fifties and it wasn't just homosexuals who came out the closet in the wake of the Sixties cultural upheaval. Beat era writers like Jack Keroac and comedians like Lenny Bruce who defied the authority of the the morality police state became harbingers of the coming cultural rebellion in the Sixties.

Embedded below is the Hit Parade version of Hernado's Hideway released by Archie Bleyer in 1954, but it was John Raitt, the father of rock vocalist and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, who sang Hernando's Hideway in the Broadway cast of the play and it's Raitt who sings it on both the Broadway and movie soundtrack.

10-17-2009, 11:21 AM	#107 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day The cover to Jim Lowe's first and only album. Green Door- Jim Lowe Green Door was a 1957 song recorded by Jim Lowe. Lowe is a guy that nobody knows a heck of a lot because he didn't leave much of a mark on music history, except for the song Green Door. At first the song sounds like a typical banal hit parade song of that era, but there's something else going on here, if you follow the story line of the song. I've been listening to Green Door since I was a kid and there is a sense of mystery in the song that is seductive. Could it be that all kinds of depravity and evil lurk behind the green door? Listen to the lyrics... The green door could be the portal to a speakeasy, a house of ill repute, a coven of Satanists, a homosexual bar, a cell meeting of communists or almost any other form of "evil". There is lilting blend of Tin Pan Alley/rockabilly sensibility to the song which is counterpointed by a metronome ticks away like a time bomb. Green Door still induces an anxiety attack for me, if think about the lyrics too much. A mint condition copy of Jim Lowe's album Songs from Behind the Green Door can fetch a price of $30 to $40 on the collector's market. I've always thought it was a high price to pay for ownership of a certain album, but music collectors are driven by their uncontrollable fetish to own a very specific item. On a few occasions I've profited handsomely by acting as a broker between a seller and a buyer for bulk sale of an entire record collection. The Lowe album is on the wish list of nearly every collector of Fifties music. Estate sales are a great place to find rare and collectable vinyl issue albums. In 1981 the Cramps included a revved up version of Green Door on their album Psychedelic Jungle. I came across an interview with Lux Interior, the Cramp's bass player, and he had a similar theory to my own about the banality of evil being expressed in the lyrics of Green Door. That's not much of a comfort to me, since Lux Interior is a truly derranged man who once wrote fan letters to serial killer John Wayne Gacy. I don't love the Cramps any less for Lux's quirky hero worship of serial killers, but I generally maintain a safe distance from larger-than-life rock stars like Lux Interior. BONUS TRACK: Hernando's Hideaway- Archie Bleyer Hernando's Hideaway is another novelty song with a similar theme predates Jim Lowe's Green Door. In 1954 a long time jazz band leader, Archie Bleyer wrote Hernando's Hideaway, a catchy little castinet driven tango for the score of the Broadway musical the Pajama Game. The lyrics are far more tongue-in-cheek than those of Green Door. Songs like Green Door and Hernando's Hideaway are interesting musical artifacts because many of the novelty songs of the Fifties authentically reflected the reign of sexual and social repression that existed in the United States. The attitude of our national leaders and opinion makers was best summarized as: conform or perish. During the Eisenhower years, Hollywood movies were censored, Joe McCarthy was busy blacklisting communists, homosexuality was taboo, smoking marijuanna was (and still is) criminal and even seeking a divorce from your spouse was grounds for social banishment. On television the married couple, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were forced to sleep in separate beds on I Love Lucy because networks censors thought showing married couple in the same bed was too sexually graphic. To a certain extent, nearly everybody was hiding a part of themselves behind the green door during the Eisenhower years. So all those "amoral" folks who failed to conform to the fake Christian social mores of the 1950s were driven underground and were forced to have a secret rendezvous with an illicit lover or fellow traveller at Hernado's Hideway. The cultural revolution of the Sixties changed a lot of people's ideas about what illicit and deviant behavior was. Nearly everyone was in violation of the restrictive sexual and social taboos of the Fifties and it wasn't just homosexuals who came out the closet in the wake of the Sixties cultural upheaval. Beat era writers like Jack Keroac and comedians like Lenny Bruce who defied the authority of the the morality police state became harbingers of the coming cultural rebellion in the Sixties. Embedded below is the Hit Parade version of Hernado's Hideway released by Archie Bleyer in 1954, but it was John Raitt, the father of rock vocalist and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, who sang Hernando's Hideway in the Broadway cast of the play and it's Raitt who sings it on both the Broadway and movie soundtrack.