I almost didn’t include this song on my list of ‘Songs of My Life’ – not because I didn’t think it belonged on the list, but because NO ONE will ever have heard of this song – except for Lee, who, again, found it originally. As far as music quests, this one was definitely my hardest. And my quest did not end until the internet came along; and even then, it wasn’t as simple as just a ‘googling’ it.

Once again Lee turned me on to another song. Although this time I don’t remember him actually listening to it. I remember going through the 45’s we had laying on the basement floor one day (today I would have been horrified to have vinyl just laying on a tiled floor and not carefully put in their correct album sleeves. We never noticed how bad these 45’s sounded. We were just amazed there was any sound at all). I remember recognized the title, “The Birdman of Alcatraz” so I put the 45 on our record player, hoping it was the song I remembered Lee had played – and it was.

Once again my search suffered from mis-heard lyrics – or rather – having the wrong title.  However, I don’t feel bad messing up the title after 40 years. I could hardly be blamed for thinking the song was “Birdman of Alcatraz” and not “Birdman of Alkatrash”.

This quest began at the Deerfield Record Shop in 1976, after Dave and I had moved in with Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack. The owner was a nice older man named Lenny who seemed to put up pretty well with four young boys in sixth and seventh grade.

The Deerfield Record Shop was not just a little store, it was a tiny store dating back to the 50’s. It had only 20 feet of aisle to walk down, covering record bins and a single glass case of 8-Tracks; and the beginnings of a cassette collection. The record bins began when you entered the store against the wall and leave only the two aisles for customers to avoid being blocked in. Lucky for us (but I’m sure unlucky for Lenny) it was never busy when we were dropped off.

In one of our first visits, he explained he used to have the listening booths in the back of the tiny store but he had to close them because he would catch the kids making out in them. Four young heads peered down the aisle to the back room of past transgressions.

After each of our bedrooms received stereos from Grandma, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jack supplied gift certificates for the Deerfield Record store. Four boys could almost fill the store as we looked for ways to redeem what was remaining on our gift certificates. Lenny had this giant book that you could look up any song in the world – it was called the Phonolog. He kept it to the side of the counter and would explain it didn’t have EVERY song, it did have every song that was currently available.

In the beginning, there were three songs I would be looking for. I imagine when I asked Lenny about them it went something like this:

“I’m looking for a song”

“What’s the name of it?” Lenny asked.

“I don’t know”

“OK, can you sing some of it?”

“No!” it was all I could do to ask him that I was looking for a song in the first place.

“OK,” peering at me from behind the counter and made his way to the Phonelog. “Do you know any of the lyrics?”

“Actually, I know the name of one song – ‘Those Were the Days my friend’,” I proudly announced. I knew he would soon be digging in a box behind the counter and pulling out the requested 45 and asking me about the next song.

“OK, well let’s see what we find” and Lenny would flip through the Phonolog running his finger down the page and adjust is glasses as he zeroed in on his target.

“There it is, now who sang it?”

“I don’t know”

Lenny peered over his glasses at me, “There are over a dozen versions of this song.” His finger ran down the possibilities. “Ah-ha,” he exclaimed, “I bet it was Engelbert Humperdinck.”

“No!” I said a bit too quickly. Engelbert Humperdinck – I was sure he was just making that up. “It was a girl singing.”

Lenny went back to his tome. “Was it Mary Hopkins? or Maria Schell? Maybe Sandie Shaw”

“I don’t know,” I said hanging my head.

“OK, what else are you looking for?”

“Well, there’s one song that the singer sings really fast and then he sings regularly.”

Lenny just stared at me as his glasses clung to the tip of his nose. “Do you know the name or any parts of the lyrics?”

“No, I mean yes, well, I only remember one line – ‘Doris Day and Jack the Ripper'”

Again ‘The Stare’. “Sorry, I’ll need more than ‘Doris Day and Jack the Ripper.’ Is the ‘regular part’ the chorus?”

“Yea, it kinda went like a-huh, ah huh, bump ah huh” I was getting desperate enough I was even humming a melody that sounded more like Crash Test Dummies’ ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm’ song. Had I only known then…

“Sorry kid, try thinking of some more lyrics and we’ll try again. You said you had three songs?”

“Yea, this one I know the title, ‘Birdman of Alcatraz'”

Lenny peered back to the tome of tunes and flipping pages and chasing his fingers. “Here we go he announced, ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ by Elmer Bernstein. It’s from the Birdman of Alcatraz movie. Is it an instrumental?”

“Yea,” I said, “It’s got guitars and drums, just like a regular song.”

“No no, kid, this is an instrumental, there’s no singing in it. It has violins and cellos. Elmer Bernstein is a famous conductor.”

Elmer Bernstein didn’t do ‘Birdman of Alcatraz,’ and that book doesn’t have all the current songs in. And Lenny didn’t know that much about music. And I was getting very frustrated. “No, that’s not it then,” I said.

“That’s your third strike, sorry kid.”

My brother and cousins were already waiting at the counter with their records and Deerfield Record Store Gift Certificates in hand. I think I grabbed The Beach Boys’ ’15 Big Ones’ and checked out with the others.

It was a lesson for me that things are not as simple as they seem. ‘Those Were The Days’ was covered by over 30 artists around the world. A single phrase from a song isn’t enough to find a song – unless you have Google or a Vanilla Ice wanna-be from the eighties. And even if you know the title of the song you could be wrong.

I talked to Lee about the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’. He knew it was from the band Strawberry Alarm Clock and the flipside of their first hit ‘Incense and Peppermint‘. What he didn’t know, and what Goggle corrected, is that it is actually ‘The Birdman of Alkatrash‘. Those crazy Alarm Clock boys!

I was thrilled to finally find this song. Yes, it’s quirky. In fact, you could say it borders on being a novelty song – with its ‘quacking’ throughout the song. Ironically, this was the original A side but the radio stations responded to ‘Incense and Peppermint’, the original B side, they reissued the single flipping the songs. So ‘The Birdman of Alkatrash’ all but disappeared behind ‘Incense and Peppermint’ – except for two men who have fond childhood memories of this strange sixties song.