ROSEMARY CLOONEY - “This Ole House”
(26th November 1954)
A word on teenagers and adults. It’s a truism to suggest that in the early 50s the “teenager” hadn’t been conceptualised; judging by these records, it’s also generally accurate. Nothing about them suggests they are aimed at anyone other than young adults, or simply adults. The subject is generally love - love treated not with an adolescent intensity or passion but usually with ticklish wordplay that we recognise is to be taken as grown-up, or sophisticated. When the subject isn’t love it might be faith, or parenthood, or in this case property.
OK, it’s a stretch to describe “This Ole House” as ‘about’ anything much: it’s a knees-up party record, meant for dancing and smiling to. As such it does its job with vim and charm - the pompous bass voice (representing the tumbledown house itself, I suppose) is a particularly fun touch. But there’s no sense in this dance that it’s something for the young to do, or that anyone can or should be excluded from it. 4
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rosie on July 23rd, 2008
And yet, isn’t there a sense here that the old house is the old order, no longer needed because the world is moving on? That could be quite a radical reading. There’s certainly an energy here which has been missing from much of what’s gone before. And why should it necessarily be only for the young? There’s a whole country here now finally free of the shackles of rationing.