Wayne Carson, born Wayne Carson Head and sometimes known professionally as Wayne Carson Thompson, was the son of Odie and Olivia Head, who were known professionally as Shorty and Sue Thompson. Shorty was a member of the Tall Timber Boys on the Ozark Jubilee radio and TV show, which meant that Wayne was pretty much born in a country-&-western trunk. He was a solid professional songwriter with some inspired titles: "Barstool Mountain", "I See The Want-To In His Eyes", "Slide Off Your Satin Sheets", "She's Actin' Single, I'm Drinkin' Doubles", etc.
But his reputation and royalties rested largely on two hits. The first was "Always On My Mind", which he wrote in ten minutes at his kitchen table and then had a couple of pals help him out on the bridge. They got it to Red West, who was an occasional actor (he's chief mechanic Andy Micklin in TV's "Baa Baa Black Sheep"/"Black Sheep Squadron" and auto-parts store owner Red Webster in Road House with Patrick Swayze) and somewhat more regularly one of Elvis' bodyguards. Red passed "Always On My Mind" on to the man himself. He'd just split from Priscilla, and the theme appealed to him. Ever since it's been the nearest thing to a contemporary standard, recorded in multiple styles by big names from Michael Bublé to Montserrat Caballé, the Pet Shop Boys to the Chipmunks. The Pet Shoppers added an extra chord to the end of the title phrase, which makes it sound poppier. The Chipmunks added Alvin. Stripped down, it remains a signature song for Willie Nelson, who was supposed to do it as a duet with Merle Haggard. But, when Haggard heard the song, he dismissed it as "a piece of sh*t". "Okay," Willie said to Merle, "you wait outside and I'll sing it without you." He did it so well he's often assumed to have written it. He didn't, but Wayne Carson was assuredly relaxed about the misattribution: it was undoubtedly his highest earner.
Yet I confess something of a preference for the second hit, which he owed to his dad. One day Shorty came to Wayne with a lyric line. "He would come up with ideas," recalled his son, "and pass them on to me, and say, 'If you can do anything with this, then go ahead.'" This particular day he had a phrase,:
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane....
Did any American say "aeroplane" even half-a-century back? But Shorty's son thought it was an arresting line, especially with that tri-syllabic bi-plane. So he pondered on it awhile, and then wrote the rest:
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain't got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home
My baby wrote me a letterI don't care how much money I gotta spend
Got to get back to my baby again
Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home
My baby wrote me a letterWell, she wrote me a letter
Said she couldn't live without me no more.
Listen, mister, can't you see I got to get back
To my baby once a-more
Anyway....
It's in traditional Tin Pan Alley A-A-B-A form - main theme, repeated, middle section, back to main theme - and it's a song of urgency, like "Darktown Strutters' Ball" in the teens or "Lulu's Back In Town" in the Thirties, but with a jet-age twist. He gave it the Somerset Maughamish title of "The Letter", which doesn't compare with his usual "She's Actin' Single, I'm Drinkin' Doubles" shtick but was to prove of far more universal appeal. Wayne Carson included it on a demo tape of his songs he sent to a Memphis studio owner called Chips Moman. Moman in turn passed it on to a record producer called Dan Penn. Penn in turn passed it on to a local group so unfocused they didn't even have a name, and told them to pick out anything on the tape they wanted to sing but to be sure to include something called "The Letter", because it was the only really good song on there.In the studio, the no-name group did over 30 takes before Dan Penn was satisfied.
The producer was preoccupied with the band and adding an aeroplane sound-effect that he dubbed off in the office from an LP. So he didn't pay too much attention to the singer, a 16-year-old kid, other than to tell him to stress the three syllables of "aer-o-plane". Wayne Carson was in the studio, playing guitar on the session, but wasn't too impressed. He didn't like the arrangement. He didn't like young Alex Chilton's vocal - "the boy didn't sing high enough" - and he didn't think there was enough of a record: the whole thing came in at one minute 52 seconds. Then Dan Penn added the jet sound-effect - "and I thought he'd lost his mind," said Carson.
At the end, Penn told the group to come up with a name for themselves. "Well," said one of them, "let's have a contest and everybody can send in 50 cents and a box top."
Penn looked at Carson: "The Box Tops. That'll do."
Wayne Carson still didn't like the vocal or the arrangement or the jet or the 1-52 length, so he went off on a USO tour for six weeks. When he returned, the record was Number Four. Next week - September 22nd 1967 - it was Number One, where it stayed for a month before being knocked off by Lulu and "To Sir With Love" (written by our old friend Don Black). Because it's in traditional form with a strong central idea, all kinds of singers picked up on the song from Bobby Darin and Dionne Warwick to the Beach Boys and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. In 1969, the Arbors got to Number 20 with a softer, slower, easy listening version that somehow misses the entire I-got-a-plane-to-catch urgency. The following year, Joe Cocker put a bit more life back into the song, and returned it to the charts for the third time in four years. But the Box Tops' is still the version. I was stunned when I found out Alex Chilton was only 16. It's such a mature voice, and with a real growl, like he's living the situation. Young Chilton went on to influence all kinds of fellows - Cheap Trick, REM, Garbage - but nothing he did enjoyed the success of that Wayne Carson song.
Maybe "Always On My Mind" is Carson's best shot at posterity, but on Monday, when I heard he'd died, it was "The Letter" that ran around my head until it hit the pillow:
Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home...
Rest in peace.
