Reigning in my heart

When Buddy Holly sings, the music never dies

April 16, 2009

Nu Magazine - April 16, 2009

It kills me that Buddy Holly died exactly 50 years ago this year in a plane crash.

My dad says I’m “sentimental.”

I just appreciate a good love song when I hear one.

And Buddy Holly didn’t have just one; he had dozens. They were fast, they were slow, they were heart-wrenching, heartwarming, but most of all, charming.

He was devastatingly charming with those glasses and that smile and the neat sports jackets in the funky prints. Buddy Holly wielded a guitar and captured my heart, just like the hearts of so many a high school girl.

You just believe that he knows about love, believes in it, will love you too. And he was so young (only 22 at his death!). Buddy Holly was the boy you wanted to go to school with, fawn over in the soda shop. It was so innocent, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

In two minutes flat, I am in love, over and over and over again.

First it was Dearest, the gem from the Juno soundtrack gem. Then came Raining in my Heart, the endlessly sad, twangy, flute-driven, heartbreak track.

I have to sit down every time he wails out, “What’s gonna become of me?” in the chorus. Oh! It’s so dismal.

Before I fall all over myself with grief, Rave On lights up my life. He playfully hiccups through syllables and it’s absolutely adorable. You can just imagine the bobby socks of old flashing in school gyms. Every time a song says, “We’re goin’ steady,” I don’t even laugh. Old-fashioned is out the window.

Much like Shakespeare, Buddy Holly is timeless. The language changes, but not the sentiments. You’re So Square (Baby, I Don’t Care) is not only perfectly catchy, it also sends an unchanging message two people attracted to each other despite their differences. It doesn’t matter that no one uses the word “square” anymore. It matters that it’s relevant (and I assure you, it is).

Anyone can write a love song. But Buddy Holly wrote the best love songs. And they were two minutes. And deceptively simple. Don Mclean wasn’t exaggerating when he sang, in his epic song American Pie, that the music died when Buddy did.

Why was Buddy so important?

Sincerity goes a long way, my friend. Along with a little rock and roll.

Julia Wolkoff, 17, attends Columbia High School and is a member of Nu’s teen board.