Part I – The Early 1970’s
When I was two years old, my mother wrote in my baby book that I liked to listen to records. That’s how far back that goes. Among my Disneyland and Sesame Street records were all of my parents’ discarded 45s from their formative years. This was now the 1970’s and albums were what they were purchasing.
Even before I could read, I could tell by looking at the record label which songs I liked. The blue ones with the map on them were good (it was Motown). The ones with the orange and yellow swirl were The Beatles and The Beach Boys. (Capitol records – fun to watch spin on the turntable). My favorite record, though, was the only one with little doggies on the label: “Maybe” by the Chantels, on End records.
“Candy” – my mother’s name – was written on the label in neat pre-teen cursive. She told me many times that she used to listen to this record every day when she came home from school.
By this time, she was no longer quite so fond if it. She didn’t care for any of the old records, really. Not anymore. There wasn’t a lot of nostalgia in our house. The old-fashioned “ba-da-dum-dum dum” piano intro of “Maybe” would start and she’d roll her eyes, asking why I insisted on playing those old songs. But sometimes while doing housework, she would loudly sing along, complete with dramatic gestures that made me laugh.
Part II: 1979
My mom, her boyfriend, and I are sitting around listening to music. They met working at the Pizza Hut. He’s 20 years old and listens to Kiss and Foghat. She’s 33, divorced with three kids and likes Billy Joel and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
I don’t recall how “Maybe” came up, but I went and fished it out of my pile of 45s. Like me, he wasn’t born yet when this record came out. The song intro starts, and he jumps on it. “What the hell is that?” It is decades away from current popular music, and he’s making fun of it. Poking fun at her, really. Not in a mean way. Everyone is laughing.
He keeps starting the record over – playing that creaky piano intro over and over again until she’s laughing so hard, she has tears in her eyes.
Part III: July, 2011
July 30, 2011, I’m at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park for She’s Got The Power! A Girl Group Extravaganza. This is an all-day concert celebrating the girl groups of the 1950’s and 60’s. Former Chantels lead singer Arlene Smith is one of the performers.
By this point, “Maybe” is considered to be one of the greatest records of the 1950’s, paving the way for the girl group era and making a place at the table for female R&B vocal groups. Singers like Darlene Love and The Supremes cite the recording as an early influence.
Arlene Smith takes to the stage draped in glittery fabric, seated in an electric wheelchair that she expertly maneuvers around the stage as she sings the song. 54 years have passed since she recorded this, but her voice is still strong. I decide to call my mother, tell her where I am and hold up the phone for her to hear.
“Oh my god. I haven’t heard that song in years!” she says. She gets a little choked up, and I tell her I’ll call her later when I get home.
In the documentary Girl Groups – Story Of A Sound, Arlene Smith recalled that she had just turned 16 years old when the Chantels recorded “Maybe.” “I was singing about the kind of love that I didn’t know… I loved my parents.”
Part IV: July, 2026
We are enjoying a summer evening in my sister’s back yard, as best we can. A year and a half of cancer treatments has reduced my mother to 90 lbs, but it’s the Alzheimer’s that has now taken the lead in this battle. Earlier in the afternoon, we had her try to draw a clock – a cognitive test used to detect the disease. She couldn’t do it, although she can still tell the time on her watch. It’s a tricky thing to navigate.
I suddenly have an idea. I pick up my sister’s phone and hijack her Summer BBQ Spotify playlist. I tell my mother I want her to listen to something and see if she remembers it.
The piano begins “ba-da-dum-dum dum” …” Her brow is slightly furrowed. When the vocals start, she mouths the words, but she doesn’t sing. I don’t remember the last time I heard her sing.
My stepfather is dozing next to her. Without opening his eyes, he says “What year was that?”
“1958. Do you remember this song?,” I ask.
“Sounds familiar,” he says.
I tell my mother; “This was your favorite song when you were a kid. You said you used to listen to it every day when you came home from school.”
She nods and softly says, “I was heartbroken.”
“Over who?”
“I don’t remember.”
She may not remember, but later that night, I did. His name was Jackie. I grew up in the same house that my mother did and I sometimes came across little hearts drawn in hidden places: on the wall inside the linen closet, on the underside of the coffee table. In these hearts she had written “Candy loves Jackie.” I remember asking her about him back then. She told me about the first boy she was in love with, and how crushed she was when it didn’t work out.
Would I have mentioned his name if I had thought of it in the back yard? Are painful memories better left forgotten? Or is it important to keep trying to remember simply as a brain exercise?
Maybe next weekend, if I play this record for her, it will trigger a different memory. Maybe she will remember singing around the house, or the Pizza Hut guy. Maybe the memory of my phone call from Lincoln Center will come back to her. Or maybe next time, the song won’t sound familiar to her at all.
The song begins to fade as Arlene repeatedly pleads “Maybe…” Her fellow teenage Chantels, forever frozen in time, sing back to her; “Maybe maybe maybe…”
See also:
My Mother, The Superhero
The Playground Swing
The Tin Man & The Lion: Unanswered Prayers
The Lion In The Emerald City: Promise Of A New Day
1991: Homo Alone
We Got Hitched
60’s Girl Group Survivors
She Knew Something About Love: Brenda Reid (1945-2026)
Girl Group Heaven: Ronnie, Rosa & Wanda
Back To The Girl Zone: 60 Degrees Returns
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