Talkin’ Music with Jack – I know It’s True

I Know It’s True, Oh So True
Cause I Saw It On T. V.
(Your Childhood Memories Flash Before You, All In One Song)
By Jack Coll
12-31-14

So Donna and I were having dinner at Houlihan’s Restaurant located on Germantown Pike some time ago, before it closed, with a couple of friends, when a discussion pops up in the booth behind us. Not that we were eves dropping but the waitress and a few other diners were discussing a photograph on the wall. If you never went to Houlihan’s, it one of those restaurants that have tons of photographs on the wall everything from movie starts to athletes. So this restaurant community discussion breaks out about this photograph of a young good looking guy, but the photograph shows the face only, and Donna recognizes the photo as that of John Fogerty, former lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, (CCR).
So the discussion ends and we all go back to eating dinner, but sometimes seeing or hearing something like the photograph or a song it sparks a memory. So on the ride home from the restaurant I start thinking about the career and songs of John Fogerty and CCR, and man they had some pretty good songs including “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Green River,” “ Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” “Have You Ever Seen Rain,” “ and the powerful “Fortunate Son,” just to name a few.
CCR parted ways sometime during the 1970’s and following a ten year hiatus Fogerty returned to the music scene with a blockbuster album called “Centerfield,” The song “Centerfield” is a catchy tune that we have grown to know and love, ya know it when you hear it:
“Well I spent sometime in the Mudville Nine,
Watchin’ it from the bench.
You know I took my lumps when the Mighty
Casey struck out.
So say “Hey Willie, tell Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio”
Don’t say “It ain’t so,”
You know the time is now.
(The term “Say it ain’t so” refers to Shoeless Joe Jackson fixing the 1919 World Series)

Oh, put me in coach, I’m ready to play, today
Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play, today
Look at me, I gotta be, centerfield”

The song “Centerfield” is a good song, as is the song “Old Man Down The Road”, but nothing in comparison to the four minutes and twenty seconds Fogerty spends with the song “I Saw It On T. V.”
I don’t recall if the song “I Saw It On T. V.” was released as a single, (I don’t think it was) but the song is played regularly on my play-list. When it comes to music, I’m a sentimental kinda of a guy, and Fogerty’s song takes me down memory lane, if you’re a child of the sixties, you’re gonna love this! Fogerty makes the song interesting because some of the lyrics are self-explanatory, while other lyrics force the listener to figure it out. It’s a very complicated song, and yet, a very simple song. The hook in the song is:
“I know it’s true
Oh so true
Cause I saw it on T.V.”
I’ll run through the song line by line and give you my un-official interpretation of the lyrics attached to each line, check it out: (Note Limosine spelled wrong, that’s the way Fogerty wrote it!)

John Fogerty
“I Saw It On T. V.”
They sent us home to watch the show coming on the little scree….Late 50’s early 60’s, small TV screens
A man named Ike was in the white house big black limosine…Dwight Eisenhower was the President
There were many shows that followed from hooter to dootyville…referring to Howdy Doody
Though I saw them all I can’t recall which cartoons were real…interpreted as what cartoons did you
Believe in? Mighty Mouse?, Popeye?
The coon skins skin caps Yankee bats the hound dog mans big start…Davey Crockett, Mickey Mantle,
& Elvis
The A-Bomb fears, Annette had ears, I lusted in my heart… As a kid in school we practiced climbing
under our desk when the alarm sounded in fear of the BOMB, that was later changed
to running into the hallway and putting our head between our knees, (I’m assuming
to give our ass a proper kiss goodbye before we died) It was the Cold War. “Annette
had ears,” well that of course referred to Annette Funicello as a Mouseketeer
wearing the Mickey Mouse Club hat with the big ears, and if you were a kid,
checking out Annette on the Mickey Mouse Club, you certainly lusted in your heart!
A young man from Boston, set sail the new frontier…referring to John Fitzgerald Kennedy
And we watched the dream dead-end in Dallas, I think we all remember November 23, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.
They buried innocence that year…. Self-explanatory.
I know it’s true,
Oh so true,
‘Cause I saw it on T. V.
(If it was on T. V., it must be true, kinda like the internet commercial, if it’s on the internet, it must be true)

We gathered round to hear the sound comin’ on the little screen,
The grief had passed, the old men laughed, and all the girls screamed
“Cause four guys from England, took us all by the hand, The Beatles, of course.
It was time to laugh, time to sing, time to join the band.
But all too soon, we hit the moon, and covered up the sky; referring to the Apollo 11 moon landing on
July 20, 1969, and other flights to follow
They built their bombs, and aimed their guns, and still I don’t know why….Vietnam
The dominoes tumbled and big business roared…The dominoes was considered the spread of
Communism, suggested by Dwight Eisenhower. If
Vietnam fell to communism so would the rest of Asia.
(Highley debated) Big business roared-war business
Every night as six, they showed the pictures and counted up the score…Every night the World News
Tonight and other National news-cast would show images of that day’s battles in
Vietnam, (our first television war) and they would always state the number of
American Soldiers that had died, or were injured in the war on that day, and
then show a tally of American Dead; Americans injured, for the day and the total
since the war began. They would also show the same totals for the enemy. (It
was like a little box score in the corner of the screen, for the record, 58,220
American men and women died in the Vietnam War, the last Americans to die
in Vietnam was on April 30, 1975 during the final evacuations of Vietnam.

I know it’s true
Oh so true
“Cause I saw it on TV

The old man rocks among his dreams, a prisoner of the porch
“The light” he says “At the end of the tunnel,
Was nothin’ but a burglar’s torch,” And them that was caught in the Cover are all rich and free,
But they chained my mind to an endless tomb
When they took my only son from me.
Some say the Old man who’s rocking among his dreams,
a prisoner of the porch, refers to former President Lyndon Johnson.
It was Johnson who failed to put a halt to the war
and choose not to run for a second term in office,
thereby returning to his ranch in Texas,
where he spent his time rocking on his front porch, reflecting.
The light at the end of the tunnel was bullshit,
There was no light at the end of the tunnel.
The tunnel was the war, and there was no end in sight.
The bugler’s torch, and the men caught in the cover,
All rich and free referred to “Watergate.”
“But they chained my mind to an endless tomb
When they took my only son from me” is another highly debated lyric.
A sad lyric indeed, reflecting how an American father, lost his son,
To what many say was a senseless war, was it for America?
Was it for money? Was it a war that could ever be won?
Where the hell is the parade for these guys?
I know it’s true,
Oh so true,
“Cause I saw it on T. V.

I know it’s true,
Oh so true,
“Cause I saw it on T. V.

The song ends with a guitar riff borrowed from one of Fogerty’s earlier songs from the CCR days. It’s a cutting riff that ended the song “Who’ll Stop The Rain,” a Vietnam-War era themed song.
I’m sorta sorry to say that one of the lyric’s that peaked my interest was the reference to the Howdy Doody show. I remember watching the show when I was young but then sorta grew out of it, but I remember it had a dramatic ending when the show finally closed. One of the many characters on the show was Clarabell The Silent Clown, well Clarabell never spoke. In the final televised episode, at the end of the show, Clarabell spoke, and this was like big news, “CLARABELL SPOKE.” At the very end of the show, with a mighty drum roll pounding away in the background, Clarabell slowly turned to the camera, the camera pushed closer to Clarabell’s face, and then closer with the drum roll continuing, his lips quivered, and with a tear in his eye Clarabell softly said, “Goodbye Kids,” and the picture faded to black.
Now I know where the Soprano’s got their ending from, the music starts, Journeys, “Don’t Stop Believin’” (the drum roll starts for Clarabell) The camera pushes in on the mobsters at the table, (the camera pushes in on Clarabell) (Do you see where I’m going with this) The camera flashes to the front door of the restaurant and pushes in for a close up of the mobsters, (the camera slowly pushes in for a close up of Clarabell) You can cut the intensity with a knife, As the camera pushes closer and closer to the mobsters, the big moment arrives, the camera fades to black, just as Clarabell says “goodbye kids” with a tear in his eye, the camera fades to black. The only difference in this whole scenario is that Clarabell spoke and faded to black nearly a half a century earlier, makes one wonder!
“I know it’s true
Oh so true
‘Cause I saw it on T. V.”
John Fogerty’s song, “I Saw It On T. V.” is actually a great song, feel free to check it out on U-tube

Okay, you talked me into it, a few more facts on the Howdy Doody Show!
The Howdy Doody Show ran from 1947 until September 1960.
The show was presented by Buffalo Bob Smith.
Starring Bob Keeshan, who originally played Clarabell, Keeshan continued
in that roll until 1952 when he was fired after a salary dispute.
Keeshan later became Captain Kangaroo at CBS.
Howdy Doody was a freckle faced boy marionette with 48 freckles,
One for each State of the Union at that time.
Clarabell always communicated by honking horns on his belt,
and by squirting seltzer.
Velma Dawson was the original builder of Howdy Doody,
she made the original in 1948.
The Detroit Institute for Arts has custody of the original Howdy.
Several exact replicas of Howdy were made over the years.
A distinctive feature of the show was the Peanut Gallery,
Bleachers were set up on stage that seated about 40 children.
Each show started with Buffalo Bob asking,
“Say kids, what time is it?
And the kids replied in unison,
“Howdy Doody Time!”
Then the kids would sing the theme song,
Okay, everyone lets hit it!
It’s Howdy Doody Time
It’s Howdy Doody Time
Bob Smith and Howdy too
Say “Howdy do” to you
Let’s give arousing cheer
‘Cause Howdy Doody’s here
It’s time to start the show
So kids, let’s go!

This week’s Talkin’ Music has been brought to you by
Knucklehead Productions, LLC
&
Conshohocken Community Acupuncture
(Located at 521 East Elm Street)

Jack Coll writes a semi-weekly column called “Talkin’ Music”
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Library to catch up on any columns you might have missed.