THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT: THE SUNNY SIDE OF MY STREET with THE "MIGHTY MEZ" - SONGS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD - EPISODE #28: WEDDING BELL BLUES / THE FIFTH DIMENSION (1969, SOUL CITY)

Laura Nyro wrote this song - (a tribute to torch singer Helen Merrill) - in 1966, but, it didn’t do much for her at the time. Three years later, when The Fifth Dimension recorded it, it shot to number 1. The radiant lead vocalist, Marilyn McCoo, sang it to her betrothed, Billy Davis Jr., on the various television variety shows of the day, and audiences lapped it up. Nyro, the oddball composer-prodigy from the Bronx, consistently channeled her soulful declarations to many other artists of the time - (Three Dog Night, Blood Sweat and Tears, Barbara Streisand) before being identified as the singular genius behind the magic. My high school girlfriend Cindy was a 4’11’’ spitfire with an identical twin. Her dad, Hank, a long-distance truck driver with a provocative (to put it generously) sense of humor, enjoyed teasing us. He called me “Keppy” (the yiddish word for Head, because my hair was thinning). Whenever this song came on the radio, trumpeting the refrain: “Marry Me, Bill!” - and it was ubiquitous - Hank, and Cindy’s two older brothers, would give us shit mercilessly, - and I HATED IT. I hated the song and I hated them for pushing the uncomfortable question on us - because, despite the fact that Cindy hoped for the eventuality of matrimony, I didn’t, and that was painful for her. Today this song sustains a shining memento for me - a reminder that I have enjoyed the gift of being loved by a soul who refused to give up on me. Fiercely loyal, uncompromising in her passions,- Cindy, my first love.