The Chordettes - Mr. Sandman, 1954

The Chordettes - Mr. Sandman (Pat Ballard) Vocal Quartett with Orchestra dir. by Archie Bleyer, Cadence 1954 (Vinyl 45 rpm., USA) NOTE: It is for me the most lovely musical icon of the 1950s. I can listen and listen to it, with no end. Like so many songs from that time - it contains the whole optimism of the early post-war period in America, when - as it seemed - the mankind’s war nightmare was over, forever. In many ways, that atmosphere was somewhat similar to that, from the Roaring Twenties. And - similarily - many people, who were busy in enjoying the flavors and tastes of the happy new consumerism - also enjoyed being blind to the horrors, that could be easily seen, hidden behind the colourful screen of the pop-culture. In the 1920s - it was communism and fascism, which were soon to bring to the world the atrocities of another war - and in 1950s it was - a “good old Stalinism“, which in the 1950s was just in the middle of its feast, devouring the East European nations, with Poland as the main course - and also a completely new element, which was slowly emerging on the mankind’s horizon: the growing, dark mushroom of the nuclear weapon.