AGAIN I die!

In My Room

In my room, way at the end of the hall
I sit and stare at the wall
Thinking how lonesome I've grown, all alone
In my room

In my room, where every night is the same
I play a dangerous game
I keep pretending he's late
So I sit, and I wait

Over there is the picture we took when he made me his bride
Over there is the chair where he held me whenever I cried
Over there by the window, the flowers he left - have all died

In my room, way at the end of the hall
I sit and stare at the wall
Thinking how lonely I've grown, all alone
In my room

So why would I feature such a morbid little ditty on a normal, dull Tuesday afternoon? It popped into my head for no known reason today, and I assumed finding it on YouTube would be the usual breeze. It wasn't. At all. when I tried to find some, ANY recording of it, by anyone, all I could find was the Beach Boys singing:

. . . THAT song, also called In My Room. The one covered by dozens of bands, badly, because no matter how odd and strange Brian Wilson was, he sure wrote beautiful songs. 

But there HAD to be a song like the one I remembered! I heard it on the radio all the time, on CKLW ("Windsor and Detroit know/It's Radio Eight-Oh!"). I started googling "songs titled In My Room," "covers of In My Room", and finally, I got a bingo: a song by some boy group called the Walker Brothers. They had a few minor hits which I am too lazy to dig up. It was definitely the right song, but I wasn't able to listen to it all the way through because it just wasn't a guy song. It didn't sound right. The one I remembered was sung by a woman. So I had to keep digging. 

I dredged it up finally on one of those lists-of-songs pages, and even found some Youtube videos. Someone named Verdelle Smith had a modest hit with it, though I think it was the B-side of a record called Tar and Cement (which, in turn, was a knockoff of the Shangri La's You Can Never Go Home Any More).

Connie Stevens

Nancy Sinatra

Verdelle Smith

I prefer the Julie Rogers version, if only for the giant spider web on the wall and the elegant way she's dressed. I love '60s videos, usually filmed for TV variety shows (of which there were many). The song must have made some sort of minor splash for these high-end performers to do covers. But now and forever, the lyrics will bring to mind that godawful Vikki Carr song of howling female rage and loss.  

 

I tell myself what's done is done
I tell myself don't be a fool
Play the field have a lot of fun
It's easy when you play it cool

I tell myself don't be a chump
Who cares, let him stay away
That's when the phone rings and I jump
And as I grab the phone I pray

Let it please be him, oh dear God
It must be him or I shall die
Or I shall die

Oh hello, hello my dear God
It must be him but it's not him
And then I die
That's when I die

After a while, I'm myself again
I take the pieces off the floor
Put my heart on the shelf again
You'll never hurt me anymore

I'm not a puppet on a string
I'll find somebody else someday
That's when the phone rings, and once again
I start to pray


Let it please be him, oh dear God

must be him , it must be him

or I shall die, 

Or I shall die

Oh hello, hello my dear God
It must be him but it's not him
And then I die
Again I die