Time Won’t Let Me
Tom King died!
Tom WHO?
So I’m sitting on the plane reading the obituaries. My father used to be addicted, would wake up my mom on a regular basis saying GUESS WHO DIED!
She hated it, and I didn’t get it, but now I’m addicted. And I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the compartmentalization of life, that’s all there is, between birth and death, the story’s complete.
And you read all kinds of crazy things. The inventors of food products, scientific breakthroughs, if you make the obits, you were a hit. You did something noteworthy.
And "Time Won’t Let Me" by the Outsiders was extremely noteworthy.
It was a hit in ’66. And I always thought they were a Boston band, but I read online that was because local promotion man, AL COURY, broke them big there.
We were addicted to the radio. This was just before FM. The Beatles had wiped clean what had come before and everybody was trying to capture the energy of the U.K.
And "Time Won’t Let Me" did.
It’s the way the song bounces up and down. You can’t keep from shaking your head. And then your body.
There are horns. An intimate vocal, like a phone call, and then a big chorus, that you couldn’t help but sing along with, that I still can’t help but sing along with when I hear it on Sixties on Six.
What did Bill Murray say in "Stripes"? One day Tito Puente’s gonna die and then his girlfriend can say she’s been listening to him FOREVER?
Eventually, Tito Puente did die. And now it’s the turn of the sixties rockers. The ones who didn’t O.D. on drugs but had bad health turns and died before their time. Like Tom King.
Tom King co-wrote "Time Won’t Let Me".
And this is all most of us remember, but it’s enough.
Watch him here:
He’s the rhythm guitarist. The front man is Sonny Geraci, who went on to front Climax, whose "Precious and Few" was written by former Outsider Walter Nims.
Whew! Ain’t that rock history!
