“Drugstore Rock and Roll”, Janis Martin, 1956, Janis Martin.

Martin was only fifteen when she recorded this, but she puts it over with more authority than you’d expect from a fifteen-year-old. I mind me of a thing I read in one of Bill James’s baseball books, where he lists a number of indicators for how mature a sports league is, as in, how well-developed is it as an institution, and one of the indicators is, are a lot of the players particularly old or young?

Because I think we can agree that the world of rock’n’roll was not particularly mature in 1956, and Janis Martin’s age is consistent with that. But maybe it’s not so simple, because it’s not like super-young performers are going to be phased out as the industry matures. Look at how old Billie Eilish was when she hit it big, and also, brace yourself for when this countdown gets into the 2020s, because I’m going to be listing some songs by some old-ass people. Maybe James’s idea isn’t much use to us here.

So that’s all right. We listened to a song, had a thought, evaluated it, and discarded it. Good day’s work.