Boston songs (early '60s)

[Donna Halper]

At 10:23 PM 6/20/2007, markwa1ion@aol.com wrote:
>The Boston My Home Town song was on WCOP in 1961.  I remember it 
>well since I was 12 then and WCOP "ruled school" in Arlington at the time.
>Another Boston-themed song I remember from around that time were 
>"Banned in Boston" by Merv Griffin ("Now she's banned in Boston, 
>condemned in Cleveland, and banished in Baltimore; she is now taboo 
>in Philly and St. Lou and Chicago doesn't dig her anymore.")  Freddy 
>Cannon had a Boston My Home Town hit and Peggy Lee's "Boston Beans" 
>went something like "No beans in Boston, plenty of fish, Chinese 
>food if that's your dish, steaks and chops make a wonderful fare but 
>I couldn't find any Boston beans there."  Tommy Facenda's High 
>School USA did have a Boston version - played on WCOP and WMEX - 
>with numerous mispronounced town names: Rosedale for Roslindale, Jam 
>Plain for Jamaica Plain.  Any local kid could tell that the record 
>was thrown together in Hollywood or NYC with Facenda taking his best 
>shot at it from the Rand McNally road atlas.

Actually, Facenda got a hand-written list of towns from somebody at 
his record company and they included the abbreviations (Jam. Plain) 
as well mis-spellings (Wesley rather than Wellesley).  He had to do 
about 12 versions, so I am amazed he did anything even remotely 
close!  And I too recall Banned in Boston-- I remember vaguely a 
local TV show played it in 1961 and Bob Clayton of WHDH lip-synched 
some of the words before the singer started singing the chorus, like 
"and she was..." and "now she's been..."