Endless Sleep – Jody Reynolds (1958)

Splatter Platter

Late fifties there surfaced a new kind of songs on the market. Named ‘Death Disc, Teenage Tragedy Song or Splatter Platter’. The music was like filmmusic: exciting and ominous, the lyrics were about diseased and crashed partners, ghost and such.

Described from the angle from both the diseased or dying person as well as the left behind loved one(s). The song “Endless Sleep” is an example.

Click here for a compilation with fourteen versions of this track

Jody Reynolds amended the original lyrics under pressure from the record company; the song eventually got a -kind of- happy end instead of the tragic end it had at first.

Explanation: a young man is desperately searching for his girlfriend. After an argument she threw herself in the ocean. In the last couplet he finds her in the surf of the sea and he is able to rescue her just in time

Lyrics:

The night was black, rain fallin’ down
Looked for my baby, she’s nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she’s gone forever more

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin’ in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That’s why her footsteps ran into the sea
That’s why my baby has gone from me.

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin’ in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin’, held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea

I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she’s mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.

[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep

Banned

The compositions were rather quickly banned on te radio, especially in English speaking countries.

Versions

De song is executed by many musicians and groups. I got to know it thru versions of Neo-Rockabilly/Psychobilly bands The Meteors, The Long Tall Texans and Guana Batz.

Story and compilation made for RTV Rijnmond’s radioshow ‘Vraag Het De Bieb’, broadcasted 05-09-15