A Rock and Roll Nugget.
Over the years, I probably have listened to Dion’s “Runaround Sue,” oh, about a gazillion times, and I have also sung it alone and with a crowd (alcohol often being involved), oh, about a half a gazillion times. Not too many peeps actually sing the verses, but everyone sings along with the background vocals.
Everyone sort of has their own version of the “words” in the background vocals, but today, on his Facebook Page, Dion wrote:
HAPE, HAPE, BUM DA HAITI HAITI***
(just for the record, this is the background vocals sounds to “RUNAROUND SUE.”
***When I sang this to the “Del Satins” they thought I was crazy:-D
How farookin’ cool is that?
A Dion story: I met him once. A guy I was dating in the early ’90s was a pretty big Dion fan (strange as that might have been for an 18-year-old Brooklyn guy in the 1990s), and his (in my opinion, dumb) hobby was going to the backstage entrance of the Ed Sullivan Theater, or the main lobby of 30 Rock, and getting celebrities’ autographs. It was the bane of my existence that he did this, and always dragged me along. I hated it! He would run up to them, like a dork, say all nervous and goofy like, “Excuse me, can I please have your autograph?” And then whomever it was would either comply, all emotionless like, or flat out refuse. It doesn’t change the fact that I can say I’ve met Dan Aykroyd, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, etc.
One day we both schlepped to the Ed Sullivan Theater to see Dion, a musician, at that time, in whom I had very little interest. Most of the details of that day are fuzzy, but a few things stand out: 1- There was a bigass tour bus parked on 53rd Street, 2- Dion was standing right in front of it, yakking away on some kind of big walkie-talkie, 3- When he was finished talking, Joe (the guy I was with) ran up to him, asked for an autograph, and Dion just kind of chilled with Joe and I for what must have been something like 10-15 minutes. He was as nice and personable to us as any celebrity we had ever met. In fact, he’s probably the only one who was this nice to us.
It’s cool to be able to hear him sing, think “what a great song,” and then also be able to say, “And the guy who sings it is a really nice guy too.”
True story.
Comment by Erica — October 4, 2011 @ 11:14 pm
Dion just kind of chilled with Joe and I = Dion just kind of chilled with Joe and me
My grammar is slipping, big time.
Comment by Erica — October 4, 2011 @ 11:17 pm
Erica – mistakes don’t count as “slipping” if you correct them yourself. Full marks and a great story!
Comment by Ken Adams — October 5, 2011 @ 7:46 am
I’ll work on that for the next song fest at Bingley’s.
Comment by gregor — October 5, 2011 @ 7:19 pm