“I wish I was 18 again” by Des Kelly
The name Sonny Throkmorton, I had never heard of, but ” The last cheater’s waltz, recorded in 1978 by a much better “known” name. the Recording Company ” “Mercury”, plus others, in addition to “awards” obtained by him were too numerous to mention.
A good reference to his listing in the ultimate encyclopedia of ” Definitive Country” by Barry McCloud tells us that here was another songwriter to be reckoned with.
As usual, this writer is always looking for only the very best “recordings” of Music, in general, & especially, as in this case, “Singers” of Country songs, who “stand-out”, as far as I am concerned. There are many “top” Singers, Songwriters, Instrumentalists & Performers who fit this category, but as soon as I noticed the “title” of this song, I had to find out, not only who wrote it, but also who ” sang & recorded ir”.
As I have written very often, “Country Music”, in my own opinion, IS “The story of Life”, but as a songwriter, myself, the most difficult thing for me, is to think up the “title” of a song, Country or otherwise. Just look at the titles of some of these songs. “I’ve been on both sides of goodbye”, ” The bottle let me down”, A teardrop on a rose”, & now, this one, “I wish I was 18 again”. Beautiful titles for beautiful songs.
Again, get this, folks. It was a World-famous Comedian of long ago, George Burns, who first recorded this Sonny Throkmorton song. I watched it.
Unfortunately, although, as a comedian, he did a very good “job” on it, I was not satisfied. Then, among others, I watched Jerry Lee Lewis, the famed Rock n roller, do it, because, I prefer Jerry doing “Country” rather than simply just Rock n roll, but, no, not on this one. Finally, I chose the Ray Price version of the song.
Ray Price, Ladies & Gentlemen, is CERTAINLY in the top 10 of my male “Country” Artistes. As time goes by, (another good “title” for a song), I will “feature” my choice of ” the best” for our website, which is also the very best website fir ALL Lankan/Aussies, but now, Ray brings me back to the “wishful thinking” days that I, & so many others like me will reminisce on, as we grow older. How true, are the lyrics of this song, I ask you? , how many times have you “guys” said this to yourselves, I wish I was 18 again!.
Desmond Kelly
Star of eLanka
(Editor-in-Chief).
