#1099: “Can you play it a little louder?” – An Uncle Paul Story
(aka “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now”)

 

In the late 80s, I was starting to fill in my Van Halen collection thanks to the generosity of family, and the Columbia House Music Club.  Diver Down turned out to be a favourite because of the cover songs:  this was an album that parents and family would let me play in the car, because they knew the songs and they were not too too heavy!

Any time I found a Van Halen song that I thought the older generation would swing to, I would proclaim:  “I found another one!”

“Why is the band called Van Halen when the singer is named David Lee Roth?” my mom asked.

“Because there are two Van Halens in the band and only one Lee Roth,” I answered simply.

“Van Halen?  Sounds like some kind of tropical disease,” deadpanned my dad once upon a time.

But my family and especially my uncle liked enough of the songs:

• “Pretty Woman”
• “Dancing in the Streets”
• “Happy Trails”
• “Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)”

They really, really liked “Big Bad Bill”.  Especially the sweet, smooth clarinet melodies of Jan Van Halen.  The tone!  So full.  I don’t think they ever heard the clarinet played with the speed of Jan Van Halen before.  Diver Down was my pathway to having my music played in the car stereo.  Uncle really liked the upbeat sounds of these Van Halen covers.  Everybody seemed to like Roth.  I couldn’t get them into Hagar, even with ballads like “Give To Live”.  Uncle wasn’t into ballads.  (I should have tried “I Can’t Drive 55”.)  He always wanted something with a good tempo.  I have more stories about this, but today’s is about the mighty VH.

“Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)” was the one song everyone universally agreed on.  It was so different from anything in the mainstream.  It had a vintage country shuffle born from the 1920s, and of course that clarinet.  David Lee Roth hammed up the vocals, at his Vaudeville best, and Uncle Paul ate it up.  And then he said the magic words:  “Can you play it a little louder?”  The one phrase that no adult ever uttered:  “Can you play it a little louder?”  Uncle Paul was the only one.

What kid wouldn’t dive for the volume knob when an adult asked them to?

“If it’s too loud, you’re too old,” goes the saying.  Uncle Paul was never too old.

We loved Uncle Paul.  It was he that bridged the two generations.  He was an adult, but he was welcome to hang with the kids.  He was part of both groups.  Not very families has a member who fills that role.  We did — and I am so happy we had that.  Our childhoods were so much richer for it.

Miss you Uncle Paul.

From Wikipedia:

“Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)” is a song with music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen, written in 1924. The song became a vocal hit for Margaret Young accompanied by Rube Bloom, and an instrumental hit for the Don Clark Orchestra.

The song has also been recorded by Ernest Hare (1924), Billy Murray (1924), Clementine Smith (1924), Emmett Miller (1929), Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra (1940), Peggy Lee (1962), Merle Haggard (1973), Ry Cooder (1978), Leon Redbone (1978), Van Halen (1982) and others[4] and has been a popular song in barbershop quartet and chorus competitions.

The lyrics describe a man “in the town of Louisville…” who was once a fearsome and rough character known for getting into fights, who, after getting married, becomes a peaceable person who devotes his time to domestic activities such as washing dishes and mopping the floor. He was “Stronger than Samson I declare, til the brown skinned woman, bobbed his hair.”