The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 108: Words Worth Remembering

Episode Date: August 21, 2018

These words take on a whole new meaning once you know the story behind why they were written.  

This is the way I heard it. At the wedding reception, Jerry leans on his crutches and watches his new bride dance with another man. And another man after that. And another after that. No doubt about it, Willie is a terrific dancer, and Jerry loves to watch her move. But so does every other man in the ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria. So, Jerry does the only thing he can. He hobbles over to her empty seat, picks up a pant.

and writes a short note. Just a few words to his new bride scribbled on the front of their wedding invitation. A few words that go all the way to number one. You remember the words, and you've probably danced to the tune. But I wonder if you remember some of Jerry's other words, also inspired by his loving wife.

Words like these that turned into a gold record with a little help from Jay and the Americans. This magic moment, so different and so new was like any other until I kissed you. Those words are worth remembering because they were written right after Jerry kissed Willie Burke for the first time. They also tell us how much he yearned for love that would always feel as magical as it did during that first kiss. And who among us hasn't yearned for the same? And what about these words that went all the way to number five, with a little help from

Dion and the Belmont's. Each time we have a quarrel, it almost breaks my heart, because I am so afraid that we will have to part. Each night I ask the stars up above, why must I be a teenager in love? Those words are worth remembering because they show just how fragile their marriage was and how vulnerable Jerry felt.

More to the point, they show us just how willing he was to share his own vulnerability with the world. And make no mistake, Jerry had a deep well of vulnerability from which to draw. When he was only six, about with polio landed him in a series of institutions where he was beaten and bullied. After a year in an iron lung, he was doomed to a life of crutches and wheelchairs. Maybe that's how the white Jewish kid from Brooklyn came to love the blues. Maybe that's why a man who couldn't walk allowed himself to fall in love with a woman who simply had to dance. If you Google it, you'll find a home movie of their wedding reception.

The footage is haunting, the way old film always looks when the color gets saturated and faded. You can see Jerry smiling as Willie dances with her cousins, her friends, and pretty much every other guy at the reception. and you can imagine him telling her to dance with anyone she fancies as long as she remembers to leave with the man she married, which of course she does, right up until she doesn't. Eight years after their wedding, it's 1965, and Willie is dancing full-time with someone new. Divorce is looming, and Jerry sits alone in his kitchen, bound to a wheelchair. So Jerry does the only thing he can. He jots down a few more words, words that go all the way to number two, with a little help from Andy Williams.

Can't get used to losing you, no matter what I try to do, going to spend my whole life through loving you. Those words are worth remembering because they explain why guys like Ray Charles and B.B. King craved Jerry's collaboration. They explain why Elvis Presley once called him. him in the middle of the night to thank him for writing suspicion and why John Lennon went to a banquet just so he could sit next to him. And why Dion said, meeting with him was like, quote, being inside a cubicle with a piano and a genius. Jerry's words are why Phil Spector called him

the greatest songwriter of all time. Maybe you don't remember Jerome Fender. Maybe you don't remember Doc Pomas, the name he published under. But I bet you remember the words he jotted down on his own wedding invitation. Words written by a crippled bridegroom who watched his new bride dance with a room full of other men, words that went all the way to number one with a little help from the drifters. You can dance with the guy who gave you the eye. Let him hold you tight. You can smile for the man who held your hand

Neath the pale moonlight But don't forget who's taken you home And in whose arms you're gonna be So, darling, save the last dance from me Those words are worth remembering And now that you know why they were written Impossible to forget Anyway, that's the way I heard it

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