1. Johnny Horton – The Battle of New Orleans. …and the number one hit of 1959 is a novelty folk song about the War of 1812. I swear, I understand American culture less and less as I do this project. This one almost feels like a song you’d learn at summer camp as a kid, with its endless verses and its last-minute profanity dodge (“We held our fire till we see their faces well / Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave ‘em — Well, we…”). There’s also a banjo, a military-march drumbeat, a bit of army chanting (“sound off”!), and a repeated verse where Horton scratches up his voice and adds country-bumpkin whoops to the end of his lines in order to sing about “the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.” It’s instructive to compare this to “Yellow Rose of Texas,” another 50s hit with a military vibe. While that song is aggressively macho in its patriotism, this one seems to be trying hard to sound like Billy-Bob sitting on his porch in the Appalachians. I’d have a hard time saying which song is weirder in its details, though.

2. Bobby Darin – Mack the Knife. I don’t know what possessed Bobby Darin to record Kurt Weill’s creepy murder ballad as a lounge song. I know Weill’s style is cabaret-like, but he also had political aims, and there’s a difference between gallows humor and light entertainment. And I know Darin wasn’t the first to record the song in a more explicitly pop style (Ella Fitzgerald did a version, for example), but still… lounge? With a smooth-and-smarmy singer and a big-band horn section that’s ten years out of date? It’s a pretty ballsy move. Even more ballsy is Darin’s decision to insert the name of Lotte Lenya — Weill’s wife and the best-known interpreter of his songs — into the list of Mack’s victims. Whether it actually works or not I couldn’t quite say.

3. Lloyd Price – Personality. This one’s kind of annoying. Price has a nice voice — reminds me a little of Marvin Gaye’s — but the chorus of the song has a backing choir repeating “personality” over and over again to a bouncy little repeated motif, and again I wind up feeling like I’m listening to a kids’ song, but this time not in a good way. In fact, I’m pretty sure it reminds me of a specific kids’ song that I don’t like, but I’m having trouble placing it.

4. Frankie Avalon – Venus. Oh, what a treat for someone whose perception of the 50s comes with a built-in David Lynch filter! “Venus” is absolutely drenched in reverb, with military drums, harpsichords, vibraphones and an old-fashioned backing choir creating a kaleidoscopic trip through what I can only describe as the Peppermint Candy Swirl Christmas Wonderland from Hell. Avalon, like my old creepy friend Johnny Mathis (and yes, I know I mention him all the time), sounds like a man half made of plastic, with a corporate-controlled, tranquilizer-induced smile on his face — and he’s especially alarming singing things like “Venus, if you will / Send a little girl for me to thrill.” Plus there are all those great major seventh chords. And for all of my half-ironic commentary, the song is both gorgeous and quite sophisticated, with melodic writing that sounds more like the Beach Boys or the Zombies than your average 50s pop tune (even “Volare“). Yes! Fantastic!

6. Paul Anka – Lonely Boy. Definitely a let-down after “Venus.” Simplistic lyrics, simplistic rhyme scheme, simplistic phrase structure, simplistic tune. Simplicity isn’t always bad, of course, but the song is boring. The one thing worth remarking on is the recurring alternation between I and flat VII — a gesture that to my ears sounds like psychedelic rock waiting in the wings.