Forget about the whinin' an' the cryin'

Artist: Bob Luman
Title: Let's Think About Living
Year: 1960
Chart peak: 6

As Mark Twain so sagely observed, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. The Beatles aside, tax seems to be a rather overlooked subject for popular songs (and there's surely a gap in the market there, for any enterprising songwriters who happen to be reading this). But death, that's another matter. And despite this taboo subject pretty much automatically earning a radio ban, around the turn of the 1960s there was no shortage of "death discs" spinning on jukeboxes and climbing the charts. No wonder some folk thought it had all gone a little too far. Folk like country singer Bob Luman and songwriter Bodleaux Bryant.

Texas-born Luman had been recording country numbers with moderate success since 1955, while also moonlighting as a semi-pro baseball player. But after seeing Elvis Presley in concert, he decided his act needed updating. He adopted a rockabilly style and, in a musical climate where everyone was seeking the next Elvis, got signed to Imperial Records. His early discs didn't do as well as the label had hoped (they would have greater success with another "new Elvis", Ricky Nelson) and he was dropped, hopping briefly to Capitol Records and then to Warner Brothers where labelmates included The Everly Brothers - many of whose hits were penned by the husband-and-wife team of Bodleaux and Felice Bryant.

Bodleaux was a pretty shrewd operator, and when the "death discs" craze came along, he figured there must be a market for an answer song, one celebrating life rather than death. So he penned "Let's Think About Living", a witty response to the morbid trend which included digs at recent hits by Marty Robbins, Patti Page and even Bryant's clients, the Everlys (referring to "Cathy's Clown", one of their few hits penned not by Bodleaux but by Phil and Don themselves). According to the lyric, half the songs around in 1960 are about people dying, and the other half are about people so sad that they feel like they want to die. "If we keep on a-losin' our singers like that / I'll be the only one you can buy", jokes Luman.



Ironically, this amusing and zestful ditty fell foul of radio's self-appointed censors for the very same reason as the death discs it was satirising. By discussing the scenarios of these records, even if only to send them up, "Let's Think About Living" managed to get itself barred from radio playlists. This didn't seem to damage its chances, though, and the song still climbed into the top ten in both the UK and the USA.

Being basically a country singer, Luman never crossed over in the same way again, but enjoyed a consistent run of hits in the US country charts until his death from pneumonia in 1978. Fate dealt an ironic blow: the man best known for urging us to think about living died at the tragically early age of 41.