Free B009HOTHPE EBOK by Paul Anka, David Dalton

appeal because of its Semitic melody line. The way I sang and wrote those early songs got an instantaneous worldwide reception—from Mexico to the Middle East to Japan—because they were in a minor key and people around the world could relate to that. Everyone recognizes the minor key; it’s the way all cultures moan out their troubles from the blues to Inca flute melodies.
    That was the secret ingredient in Cole Porter, you know—most of his songs are in minor key and that’s what makes them so attractive. But Cole Porter was a very sophisticated songwriter—maybe the most sophisticated writer of lyrics ever with songs like “Night and Day,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” But what I did in my form of singing was to fuse a minor key melody to gut, honest emotions—which I spelled out in romantic semaphore.
    I had this talent for stupid little teenage songs at a moment in time when teenagers wanted to hear simple little teenage songs. I was a lonely boy and I knew there were plenty of us out there—I’d see other lonely boys at the hops I’d play. Put your head on my shoulder—that was your objective that weekend … plus maybe getting a kiss and your hand in her blouse. All that I understood only too literally by the mere fact that I was a teenager. I was going through all these emotions myself. I didn’t second-guess, I didn’t try to be clever. What I was writing and performing was just an unabashed teenage lament. All of that early stuff was intensely personal, drawing from what I knew, which was pretty basic.
    As soon as “Diana” became a hit, stories began to circulate about how it came to be written. They printed endlessly that my teen crush Diana Ayoub had been my babysitter. I just got tired of stomping out that fire so I let it live. It was a cute little story. That was the fifties. If you were a sixteen-year-old boy, you only dated a girl younger than you. The opposite situation was just taboo in those days. And Diana wasn’t just older than me, she was much more sophisticated. You know how girls are—even back then teenage girls were a lot more grown-up, more grounded. Guys are still immature at that age. And that was me. The three-year difference in our ages made romance impossible. The only way to declare myself was through that song.
    My limitations were my greatest asset. Out of necessity or ignorance, nothing I did came out contrived or manufactured. All my songs back then were a composite of things I really felt myself and I decanted them directly into primitive adolescent songwriting. What else would kids my age want to hear?
    I was a teenager writing for other teenagers—and however simplistic that was, it was new, appealing, and kind of sexy in a teenage way. “You and I will be as free, as the birds up in the tree, o please stay by me, Diana.”
    The pop music business was just beginning to grow; there were a limited amount of record studios, record labels. People were wondering what the next decade would bring and here was this kid who almost by default was hitting all the right buttons and kids are relating to him. Not long after I hit, the Avalons, the Fabians came along—groomed by the Marcucci-DeAngelis Chancellor Records stable. We really were a clergyman’s answer to rock ’n’ roll: we “white-ified” it. But back then, just to get an idea for a song was a major achievement; to get it recorded and on the radio was out of this world. We were part of that second wave of rock ’n’ roll that was about to hit. As the first white kid singer-songwriter, I became the unlikely model for a type that soon became extremely popular: the teen idol. Being short, Semitic, not exactly in the mold of the current matinee idol, I was a most improbable candidate for this role. But I made it in spite of all that—maybe even because of it.
    The Frankie Avalons and the Fabians of course had people writing for them, but because I was actually going