Thanks and Appreciation: Thanks For the Boogie Ride

Erin McKeown: Thanks For the Boogie Ride

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My first response to this week’s theme was to realize that I had used three of my best choices for a post on my own blog, Oliver di Place. My next thought was that there are many songs of the “thank you for your love” variety. At that point, a procession of truly terrible pop songs began to play in my head. It seems that love is an overwrought emotional state that is always slow, has far too many strings, features truly ghastly oversinging, and all to mask a set of uninspired lyrics that need every production trick in the book to disguise their banality. So I resolved to seek out songs of thankfulness for things other than love.

But it has been bothering me. My experience of love has been nothing like this. It came on in a rush, accelerating every thing around me. It was not padded, but pure, and overwhelming but not complicated. Thinking about this, I remembered Thanks For the Boogie Ride. Erin McKeown nails exactly what I was feeling.

Gene Krupa Big Band with Anita O‘Day: Thanks For the Boogie Ride

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Just to check, I wanted a look at the lyrics. It turns out that they are not easy to find. I did, but not before I learned that the song was a cover. Here is the original version. It turns out that there is some interesting history here. In the big band era, most bands had a featured singer. Usually female, she would not even be on stage for the fast numbers, while the crowds jitterbugged away. She would come out only to sing the slow numbers. Anita O’Day was the first to change that. O’Day sang the fast numbers as well, and therefore became a full-fledged member of the band. Thanks For the Boogie Ride, from 1941, is a fine example of this “new sound”.