#16: The Walls Have Ears by Patti Page

City: Hull, PQ
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: May-June 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #55
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #77
YouTube: “The Walls Have Ears”
Lyrics: “The Walls Have Ears”

Patti Page was born on November 8, 1927. The New York Times writes “She was born Clara Ann Fowler in Claremore, Oklahoma, the second youngest of 11 children of a railroad laborer. Her mother and older sisters picked cotton. She often went without shoes. Because the family saved money on electricity, the only radio shows Miss Page heard as a child were Grand Old Opry, The Eddie Cantor Show and Chicago Barn Dance.”

When she was 13-years-old, Fowler won a scholarship to study art, and got work in a radio station art department in Tulsa. But someone at the station had heard her sing at a school assembly. Clara Ann Fowler was asked her to audition to replace a singer on a show called ”The Meet Patti Page Show” sponsored by the Page Milk Company. She got the job, becoming the fictional Patti Page of the airwaves.

She sang traditional pop music in a style common in the pre-rock ‘n roll era. In the 1950s the 5’4″ Patti Page was the top-charting female vocalist and best-selling female artist. In a six decade span she sold in excess of 100 million records as a recording artist. At her live performances she was introduced as  “the Singin’ Rage, Miss Patti Page.” In 1947 she signed with Mercury Records, and became Mercury’s first successful female artist charting several Top 20 hits in the late 1940s. Her first hit single was “Confess” in 1947, which climbed to #12. In 1948 she recorded the Cole Porter song “So In Love” from the Broadway musical Kiss Me, Kate. The single peaked at #13 on the Billboard pop chart. In early 1950, Page had a #11 hit with “With My Eyes Wide Open, I’m Dreaming”. The song was a cover of a 1934 pop standard recorded by Ruth Etting.

As well, in 1950, Page had her first Top Ten hit, “I Don’t Care If the Sun Don’t Shine” and two number one hits, “All My Love (Bolero)”, and her signature song, “Tennessee Waltz”. The latter became the fourth official song of Tennessee in 1965. She had two more number one singles, “I Went To Your Wedding” (1952) and “(How Much Is That) Doggie In The Window” (1953). She charted 14 additional million-selling singles between 1950 and 1965.

The string of Top Ten hits between 1950 and 1958 released by Patti Page included “Mockin’ Bird Hill”, “Detour”, “Changing Partners”, and “Cross Over The Bridge”. Unlike most pop music singers, Page drew from country music styles and infused them into many of her songs. This led to her crossover appeal.

However by the mid-50s on the pop charts it was a different story. With the coming of Elvis Presley and rock ‘n roll music saturating the airwaves, Patti Page struggled to succeed from 1955 onward. In 1956 “Allegheny Moon” peaked at #2 on the Billboard pop chart, but “Go On With The Wedding” and “Mama From The Train” were kept out of the Top Ten (the latter at #11 on Billboard and #14 on the Cashbox Best Selling Singles chart). In 1957 she had a #3 song on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Old Cape Cod”. In addition, the B-side to “Old Cape Cod” titled “Wondering” climbed to #17 on CKWX’s Fabulous Fifty.

Also in 1957 Page’s recording of “A Poor Man’s Roses (or a Rich Man’s Gold)” stalled at #27 on the Billboard pop chart. In 1958 Patti Page had one more Top Ten “Left Right Out Of Your Heart”, followed by a 7-year drought of cracking the Top 10. However, Hull was one of the radio markets where Patti Page continued to chart well. This was the case with her 1959 single release “The Walls Have Ears”.

“The Walls Have Ears” was written by Irving Gordon who was born in 1915 in Brooklyn, NY. His birth name was Israel Goldener and raised in a Jewish family. During his childhood he studied violin. After attending public schools in New York City, Gordon worked in the Catskill Mountains at some of the resort hotels in the area. While working there, he took to writing parody lyrics to some of the popular songs of the day. In the 1930s, he took a job with the music publishing firm, at first writing only lyrics, but subsequently writing music as well. In 1937, Gordon was introduced to Duke Ellington who sometimes invited him to put lyrics to his compositions, including “Prelude to a Kiss”. That year he wrote “Me, Myself and I” which was recorded by Billie Holliday.

In 1951, he wrote “Mister and Mississippi” which became a #8 hit nationally in the USA for Patti Page. That same year Gordon wrote
“Unforgettable” which became a #14 hit across America for Nat “King” Cole. It later became a hit for his daughter, Natalie Cole, and “Unforgettable” won Grammy Awards in 1992 for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. In 1952, Irving Gordon’s “Be Anything (but Be Mine)” was a #7 hit for Eddy Howard. In 1956, Patti Page recorded Gordon’s “Mama From The Train” which climbed to #11 on the Billboard pop chart. In 1960, Perry Como had a Top 30 hit with Irving Gordon’s “Delaware”. Irving Gordon died in 1996 at the age of 91 of multiple myeloma.

“The Walls Have Ears” is a song about the word-of-mouth, the gossip, of people hearing that the man a woman loves doesn’t love him anymore:
Mary said that Jenny said
that Willie said that Johnny said
that Susie said that you don’t love me anymore.

In contrast,
The walls have ears
and the windows have eyes
everybody is wise
that I love you still.

“The Walls Have Ears” peaked at #1 in Hull (PQ), #4 in Ottawa, and #16 in St. Louis.

In 1960. Patti Page had a #31 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 titled “One of Us (Will Weep Tonight)”. Patti Page hosted her own TV show in the 1950’s and starred in the 1960 film Elmer Gantry, and in 1961 in the film Dondi, adapted from a comic strip. In 1962 Patti Page got picked to record the title song for the film Boys’ Night Out. Page was also an actor in the film. And in 1962, the rockabilly-tinged tune “Most People Get Married” climbed to #27.

In 1965, she had her final Top Ten hit on the pop charts with “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte”. She released over 130 singles between 1947 and 1982. Of these 110 appeared on either the Billboard pop, country or adult contemporary charts. Between 1970 and 1982 Page had 13 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. In a 2003 article in the New York Times, it was reported that at age 75 Patti Page was appearing in 50 concerts a year. In 2012 Patti Page stopped touring. She died in 2013 of heart and lung disease.

August 26, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Patti Page Obituary: Multimillion-selling Vocalist Dubbed the ‘Singing Rage’,” Guardian, London, January 3, 2013.
Bernard Weinraub, “Patti Page, Proving That Simple Songs Endure,” New York Times, August 12, 2003.
Myrna Oliver, “Irving Gordon; Composer of ‘Unforgettable’,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1996.

CKCH 970-AM Hull (QC) Top Ten | June 6, 1959