Our featured song for the eighth day of our look at the 31 Days of Halloween, comes from Dickey Lee with, in my mind, one of the strangest songs ever recorded. Laurie (Strange Things Happen), the song is a ghost story, written by Milton C. Addington, based on a story written by 15-year-old Cathie Harmon. The plot tells of a young teenage boy that meets a young girl at a dance. Her name is Laurie and, it happens to be her birthday. The boy and girl spend the evening dancing. At the end of the night, the boy walks Laurie home. Its a particularly chilly night, so, the boy gives Laurie his sweater. At Lauries door, he kisses her goodnight and walks away. Then, remembering hed left his sweater, returns to the home. He knocks and Lauries father answers. The boy tells her dad, that he gave Laurie his sweater earlier that evening and forgot to get it back. The angry father says, how can you be so cruel, my Laurie died on her birthday, one year ago today. The boy, is drawn to the cemetery and finds Lauries grave. On the headstone was his sweater. Perhaps the original story by Cathie Harmon was inspired by the legend of Resurrection Mary, described as a shy young woman with cold hands. A number of young men encountered her at dances in Chicago, in the 1930s. They would escort her home and were told she would leave them at Resurrection Cemetery, where she vanishes after telling them not to follow her. In 1939, a young man Jerry Palus met her at a dance and he took her to her home. Going there the following day, he found an older woman who verified that she had a daughter, who had died many years before. Her picture was identical to the girl he escorted home the night before. The song by Dickey Lee, which was arranged by Ray Stevens, peaked at #14 in 1965.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 11:40:10 +0000
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