Lesley Gore Sings To The Girls

It was Ladies Night Out.

There was a gaggle of them. Eight maybe in one notable group. Perhaps a baker’s dozen. It was a night for the Girls. Some had told hubby to make sure the kiddos finish their homework before bath and bed, they were going out. Others, single, or single mothers, or perhaps divorced, said the same to the babysitter. Some may have come as couples.

They were camped close to the action, stage left, at the outdoor home for free State Fair concerts in the decrepit stadium at the Fairgrounds.

When Lesley Gore was introduced they were out of their seats. For the next forty minutes they escaped the shackles of the decades. Wrinkles disappeared. Mortgage worries were swallowed by Gore’s soaring voice. There was no custodial mediation, fighting over child support, carpool arrangements, blind dates with a brother-in-law’s alcoholic buddy from work or looking for a job with better benefits.

It was sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. It was ‘63 all over, and these ladies were footloose and fancy free. They danced. They waved their arms. They laughed with each other. They danced some more.

Gore sang “It’s My Party,” her first and biggest hit, as a throw away. It didn’t matter to the Girls. Their parents were out of town. The word had gotten out at the Big Boy. More kids from school showed up than they wanted. They’d worry about the mess in the morning. Then the worst: He showed up with Her.

Sweltering heat be damned, they sang full-throated. And danced some more.

Until Lesley Gore closed her set with a defiant twist on her anthemic, “You Don’t Own Me.” The Girls stopped prancing, raised their fists and sang with the same intense gusto as the former teen phenom at the microphone.

You don’t own me
Don’t try to change me in any way
You don’t own me
Don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay

Oh, I don’t tell you what to say
I don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

For three minutes, the turmoil of adulthood roiled away. A song that was unique in its declaration of female independence in ‘63 was more salient than ever decades later. The Girls were at one with Gore, whose life hasn’t been free from its own travail.

The moment was illusory perhaps. Sixtysomething Lesley Gore, once a star of the highest order, drove off in a minivan with her piano player to another oldies but goodies gig.

And the Girls had to go home. To pay the sitter. To a sullen hubby who’d quaffed more than a sixer. To wash their face in front of a mirror that wouldn’t lie.

But for those elegant moments, the magical interludes that music brings, it was all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.

I don’t tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want.

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