R.I.P. RAY PETERSON

He wrote the best of the great teen-tragedy songs, "Tell Laura I Love Her."

Improbable but true fact: In 1997, on A Prairie Home Companion, I sang that song in a duet with Garrison Keillor.

Comments

[hayduke lives]

I'm first AND I read the link! O Happy Day! And tell Laura...oh, never mind...

[hayduke lives]

Seems like I'm always first when somebody dies. Go figure.

[igloo]

There is that Prairie Home Companion thing again. Where can I get one? I've been lonely ever since my beloved left me and won't respond to my newpaper ad. Do I have to live on the prairie? Is the companion real, or is like the cuddly blow up doll I have at the cleaners?
And Dave, I don't recall that Mrs. Dave first name was Laura. Don't you think you should have kept that out of the public eye.

[igloo]

Well Hayduke, be thankful your not the first one to die.

[MOTW]

Uh, your Daveness? There was also a reference to MacArthur Park on that episode.

[klynn]

Igloo, I can't help but notice your good mood today. You are just gursting with wacky humor. Maybe if you keep up the good work, my day will get better too.

[igloo]

I am in a great mood. Copied some of the recipes on yesterdays roadkill, uh, er blog and made me a quart of Toad Smoothies. Just the drink to follow those special mushrooms I had with my brownies.
NO, not THOSE brownies.

[Julia Child]

Today we're going to make a special French dish - Caned Toad Brownie Smoothy with mushroom sauce. Now, this is just the thing to cure those winter time blues! I whipped up a batch of this and sent it to a good friend of mine who has been suffering with a case of the blues for a few months, Martha Stewart. Did this do the trick? *chuckles to self* Ah, well, let's just say that the guards had to ask her to pipe down when she was singing "MacArthur Park" just a bit too loudly!

Save the liver!

[narf]

I don't want to make anyone feel like an old fart here, but who the hell is that guy?

In any case, may he rest in peace. And his songs too.

[raynebow]

AW, man. For years there have been only three songs I was ever aware of that had my name in it, and all three had to do with death or dying. (I have since learned of a new song "Laura" by a band who's name now escapes me. I think no one dies in that song.)

At any rate, I adored this song because my name was in it. I would cry every time I heard it, along with "Laura, What's He Got That I Ain't Got?" and "Think of Laura".

So I shall mourn this passing, seriously. That song was a big chunk of my childhood.

Thanks for the special memory, Ray. I treasure it.

~Laura

[Higgy]

That song - back when I was listening to radio stations that played it - was responsible for me spraining my finger about a dozen times as I stabbed the OFF button.....

Talk about an awful song....

[queensbee]

sorry he bought it, but what a cruddy song! up there with all those other teen death songs... as you so aptly described in your book.

[Tamara]

"I know there's no knight, and I know there's no horse..."

"...There's no horse?"

Oh, god, Dave, that was so hilarious. Thanks for sharing that with us!

[Mike "Mad's Dork" Weasel]

Tamara, I'm hoping they put that bit in the G2G movie.

[bart]

raynebow

There is a beautiful (old) song named "Laura" written by David Raskin and Johnny Mercer.

[sandy beach]

I loved that song, too, Raynebow, for exactly the same reason you did. Sob! ( ...so much for my pseudonym...)

And I still love the Johnny Mercer song--it also has a dead girl theme going for it. It's from a movie about a dead woman named Laura. Her portrait haunts the homicide detective investigating the case.

That was Laura, but she's only a dream...

[igloo]

Jeff,
Do all of the extra blog clock hours go into the month of Ugust? Is that a way to make the calendar balance? I think the Mayans did something like that.

[BILL]

rAY AND i BECAME FRIENDs THROUGH MY WORK. hE BOUGHT SEVERAL lINCOLN tOWNCARS FROM me. He was always a very polite gentleman. He also wrot Corina Corina.

[D'Artagnan]

BILL, I hate to have to tell you this, but you may want to have your (not you're) keyboard checked.

[bart]

Jeff,
Thanks for the correction about Raksin and Mercer. BTW, the first time I ever heard "Laura" it was the Spike Jones version. I still can't hear it or play it without getting car horns and whistles running through my audio circuits.

[O.F. #1]

I always thot that song was a little too syrupy for my taste (musically, at least) ... but the girls liked it, and it was a good song to have on the radio when you were making out ... romance, and that caca la baca-type stuff, you know ...

[kC]

Jeff,
They taste good with chocolate syrup or even some M&M's sprinkled over them. Real Chewy letters!
*Oh! I almost swallowed the letter,"P" without chewing.*
My grandmother always said, "Chew your food 26 times before swallowing."

[O.F. #1]

Jeff - I know (not no) that proofing is not much fun, but it save embrassment later on ... (as in: Wowser, that's such a beauty of a mistake, we gotta bronze it for posterity ...)