Hello, baby.  Yeah, this is the Big Bopper speaking.
Oh, you sweet thing.
Do I what?
Will I what?
Oh baby, you know what I like.

Chantilly lace and a pretty face,
And a pony tail hanging down.
That wiggle in the walk and giggle in the talk
Makes the world go round.

There ain’t nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl
That makes me act so funny, makes me spend my money,
Makes me feel real loose like a long necked goose,
Like a girl, oh baby, that’s what I like.

What’s that, baby?
But … but … but … oh, honey.
But … oh baby, you know what I like.

Chantilly lace and a pretty face,
And a pony tail hanging down.
A wiggle in the walk and a giggle in the talk
Makes the world go round, round, round.

There ain’t nothing in the world like a big eyed girl
That makes me act so funny, makes me spend my money,
Makes me feel real loose like a long necked goose,
Like a girl, oh baby that’s what I like.

What’s that honey?
Pick you up at 8 … and don’t be late?
But baby, I ain’t got no money, honey.
Oh, all right, honey, you know what I like.

Chantilly lace and a pretty face,
And a pony tail hanging down.
A wiggle in the walk and a giggle in the talk
Makes the world go round.

There ain’t nothing in the world like a big eyed girl
That makes me act so funny, makes me spend my money,
Makes me feel real loose, like a long necked goose,
Like a girl, oh baby, that’s what I like.

Songwriter: J.P. Richardson

© Glad Music Co., Carlin America Inc, Windswept Holdings LLC

My take:

I thought I’d go from the sublime to the ridiculous this week and come up with something as far removed as possible from The Phantom of the Opera’s “All I Ask of You.”  If you were alive in the fifties, The Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” is sure to bring back fond memories.  If you weren’t alive then, it’s a song will give you a pretty good idea of what it was like in the early years of Rock and Roll.

To borrow a line from Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen,” plain and simple, the world was younger than today.  Drugs hadn’t yet put a chokehold on the nation’s youth, college and professional athletes hadn’t yet discovered dreadlocks and pigtails, and most people paid little attention to the fact that Americans were losing more and more of their freedom.

Admittedly, the lyrics from many of the early Rock and Roll songs were on the silly side, but that was the fifties — silly, innocent, and (good, clean) fun.  I think The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) captured this feel-good spirit as well as anyone with his classic “Chantilly Lace.”

As simpleminded as the lyrics to this fifties song may sound, they still do what good lyrics are supposed to do:  create a vision in people’s minds — in this case a vision of a teenage girl with a pretty face, a pony tail, big eyes, a “wiggle” in her walk and a giggle in her talk.  Yep, that, indeed, is what made the world go round for high school guys in the fifties.

By contrast, how sad that when young people think of woman today, they picture pathetic characters like Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, and Madonna.  Ugh!

Sorry if you weren’t there to enjoy that younger, more vibrant, more innocent America of the fifties, where us young guys were into nonstop action, not brain-dulling video games, smartphones, and computers.  To borrow from another famous song, those really were the days, my friend — and, no, I don’t believe any of us thought they would ever end.

But enough of this mushy nostalgia.  This is 2013 and, through wonder of the same technology that deadens our brains, you can sit back and enjoy a ghost from the past, The Big Bopper, singing his classic version of “Chantilly Lace.”  (Note the clean-cut dress, hairstyles, gum chewing, and nonstop clapping of the teenage girls — and guys — in the audience.  And, yes, that handsome young studio host is Dick Clark.)