Pop Culture In Retrograde: "Daddy" by Julie London

In girl singer terms, it's inevitable that Julie London was always going to be a whole lot more girl than singer; not that she's anything less than a peerless vocalist despite what she herself called 'a thimbleful of voice', just that she's a whole lot more va-va-va-voom, as this video almost - but not entirely - fails to show. Still, you should consider yourself lucky for the paltry baud rate of YouTube, as there's no telling what this performance in hi-def might do your sensitive components*...

As great as this performance is, though, the song leaves me feeling distinctly icky; even watched ironically, I can't help be reminded that this is what today's Republicans have the utter temerity to call 'the good old days', and even 'simpler times'; thank goodness progress is inevitable no matter what obstacles it meets is all I have to say about that. Then again, I've always considered myself a fourth-wave feminist for insisting that women should avail themselves of whatever power they can in whichever way they can, whether in the boardroom or the bedroom - whether as brain or beauty or both** - so what do I know, eh?

Born in September 1926, Julie London died on this day in 2000, following a career on untold turntables, in smoky bars and on silver screens, and even tricked out in wet dreamy nurse's whites on Emergency!, produced by her ex-husband Jack Webb, (TV's Joe Friday of Dragnet fame).

*So totally a euphemism.
**Or neither, for that matter, although how a dumb ugly broad is gonna be successful I couldn't begin to tell you - I can tell you it probably involves really good management. That or a well-known surname...
*

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