I didn’t mark my first New Year until 1955, so 2025 will be an anniversary of sorts as we teeter on the brink of another spin on the annual merry-go-round.
In 1955, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus — in which the late President Jimmy Carter had a hand — put to sea for the first time, a few days before the Pentagon announced its plans to develop ICBMs equipped with nuclear warheads.
But it would be a Soviet sub that launched the first ballistic missile.
The Warsaw Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization were established.
Emmet Till was lynched. The Vietnam War officially began. Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks were arrested for asserting their civil rights on public transportation. A time bomb blew up United Airlines flight 629 over Longmont, Colo., killing everyone aboard.
The Westboro Baptist Church held its first service in Topeka, Kan.
The Salk polio vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The first McDonald’s franchise opened, in Des Plaines, Ill., as did Disneyland, in Anaheim, California.
The first atomic-powered electricity to be sold commercially powered Arco, Idaho.
Jim Henson introduced Kermit the Frog v1.0 in the premiere of his puppet show, “Sam and Friends,” on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
Little Richard recorded “Tutti Fruitti.”
General Motors became the first U.S. company to make a profit of more than $1 billion in a single year.
Steve Earle, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Pollan, Steve Jobs, Brendan Gleeson, Angus Young, Barbara Kingsolver, Eric Schmidt, Colm Tóibín, Dana Carvey, Mick Jones, Willem Dafoe, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gwen Ifill, Bill Gates, Dave Alvin, and Steven Wright were born, among others.
Charlie Parker, Wallace Stevens, James Dean, Shemp Howard, and Albert Einstein died, among others.
Since before I can remember the world has been coming to an end. And yet, somehow, we persist.
The last leaves on the tree? Maybe. Tom Waits was still hanging on in 2011 when he released “Bad As Me,” with the song I stole for my headline.
I’ll be here through eternity
If you want to know how long
If they cut down this tree
I’ll show up in a song
But I notice he hasn’t given us any new music since. …
Mad Blog Media 
“It is a loss, both to themself and to others, when a traveler does not observe.” Francis Galton, Hints to Travelers, 1893
Safe travels, wherever 2025 takes you.
Steve Earle, Steve Jobs, and Steven Wright … now there’s a dinner party trio I’d love to sit down with
The Four Steves. Sounds like a Midwestern doo-wop group.
Last leaf on the tree? It may be, or is there a bud pushing it off?
Johnny Cash recorded “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1955.
And Willie covered “Last Leaf” this very year.
I’m not sure why Willy keeps doing this for money.
I think Willie does a ton of weed.
That make sense. Happy new year to yourself and Herself!
Happy New Year to you and Sandy, Paddy me lad. Take take of that PF.
I guess ’55 was a busy year.
I guess “our” Vietnam war might have started in ’55, but we were fronting the French a lot of logistical help, right up to where they got their assess handed to them at Dienbienphu in ’54.
I was working off the Wikipedia entry for 1955; annotations to the Vietnam entry say DoD picked 1 November 1955 as the “official” start of the Vietnam War “because this date marked when the US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina (deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman) was reorganized into country-specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established.”
The notes continue: “Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low-level insurgency in December 1956, whereas some view 26 September 1959, when the first battle occurred between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese army, as the start date.”
But the U.S. was dicking around in there during World War II, supporting the Viet Minh. Shit, we just can’t help ourselves, can we? Now my closet is full of clothing from Vietnam.
My closet as well. It’s the least we can do for them. We were for Ho Chi Minh before we were against him. Just like Bin Laden, heh?
We’re slow learners, hey?
That was a pretty amazing post of yours. Wondered how long it took you to do that Tour de History of 1955.
Happy 2025 to all. Hope it is an improvement over 2024! (as I sit here popping pain killer after oral surgery yesterday–figured get that done before the New Year started out).
Thanks, K. If I were a magician I couldn’t tell you how I did it, but I’m just a scribbler, so I have no boundaries.
I started out with the Tom Waits tune and got what I thought was a pretty good photo of the backyard maple in tatters, thinking about some typical sort of autumnal year-end wrapup (can’t do wintry, the weather’s been too nice).
Then I thought, hm, we’ve been in The Duck! City 10 years now and what’s that all about? That never really went anywhere.
Finally, in desperation, I threw the long bomb, all the way back to just past the 1-yard line — to 1955, when I would’ve been nine months old on New Year’s Day. What was going on then, and how does it relate to what’s going on 70 years later, as in now?
It all sounds very thought-out and linear, but it wasn’t. When I looked up 1955 in Wikipedia I knew I was onto something. “Trouble Every Day,” as Frank Zappa has taught us. After that the post practically wrote itself, though I will confess to 13 revisions (you can count ’em on the backend).
Ol’ Lucky 13? Oof. Trouble every day.
Hope the pain wears off soon. Hal had to take the scenic route around the Mackenzie Junction rockslide to get to his dentistry appointment in Pueblo yesterday. He had to drop down from Bear Basin Ranch along the unpaved and sketchy Oak Creek Grade to Cañon City and U.S. 50 instead of taking the straight shot down 96 to The Steal City.
Almost forgot: While I was trying to come up with that post I wandered off on a tangent about the Chinese New Year and how this next one would be the Year of the Snake, which seems appropriate. The last Year of the Snake was in 1965, likewise full of horrors, and somehow I wandered off yet again, this time to 1955.
Another glimpse of how my mind works, or doesn’t, depending.
Tom also wrote Ol’ 55 didn’t he?
He did. The Eagles got hold of it and made it a hit, which gave him a little nudge, I think.
I recall reading somewhere that he was critical of their take on the song and that Glenn Frey was unpleasant to him as a consequence. Eventually Waits conceded that the Eagles’ version was not completely hideous.
The Eagles’ version may have been my introduction to Waits, now that I think of it. Later my friends and I saw him open for Frey and his mates at Red Rocks when the original opener, Dan Fogelberg, had the whiskey flu or whatever.
Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart have covered his tunes as well, with The Boss doing “Jersey Girl” and Stewart “Downtown Train.” In both cases I prefer the original version.
You could almost do a Downtown Train Top Ten
The Mary Chapin Carpenter version isn’t bad, but her voice is too polished, too on key. Should have smoked two packs before recording it.
Everything But the Girl did an anti-Everything But the Girl version, light on the synth and loops, letting the piano and a gorgeous call and response vocal treatment that really works.
Patty Smyth (not Patti Smith) took a forgettable swing at it, which will never earn a “favorites” star on my iTunes history but does highlight how durable the original material is. Almost like, you just can’t ruin this song, even if you insert a Lost Boys / St Elmo’s Fire-style sax solo into it.
Bob Seger’s is simply unnecessary. It’s fine. A B-minus. But it’s like eating a Big Mac in your car sitting in the 801 Chop House parking lot. You’re so close …
Yeah, for my money, you can’t beat the original
Here’s a coincidence for you. The album “Come On Up to the House: Women Sing Waits” has Rosanne Cash (born in 1955!) covering “Time.” It’s a Waits tune I like to play on guitar.
The album has a version of “Ol’ 55,” too, by Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer, but it’s a little Eagles-y for my tastes.
You cannot explain with math or behavioral science why I strongly prefer the original to the Seger version, but I’m okay with EBTH taking a swing at the piñata.
Opposites attract? If it’s too close to the original, what’s the point? But if you run in a different direction, you’re opening totally new doors.
There’s kind of a corollary. I absolutely love Emmylou Harris and Shawn Colvin. But when I think about my favorite songs, the duets and covers and backup performances are heavily represented. There is no genre out there that can’t be improved with a little Emmylou Harris. And Shawn Colvin always knows just how much of herself to add somebody else’s recording.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/somethin-to-believe-in/170332901?i=170334038
Album also has Shelby Lynne … because of course it does, because everything in music is a circle