Song Lyric Sunday – Christine

Posted byChristine BoltonPosted inBlog, Song Lyric SundayTags:, , , , ,

Well here we are with the Song Lyric Sunday prompt I was not excited about, at all. This week we are to find a song with our name. Trust me, with the name Christine, I did not have much to choose from. There are so few songs written about my name, probably because it only rhymes with a couple of words. There are some really weak ones with lyrics that made me cringe. Motorhead had one but I was never much of a fan. However Kiss did one called Christine Sixteen. It not too bad so I am using that one. It was a little creepy seeing them all dressed up in the video as grown men and singing about a sixteen year old girl.

Just so I can have a little fun with the prompt his week, my middle name is Margaret, so I have picked Maggie May by Rod Stewart. Now we are talking. Today I am Maggie!

The Song – Christine

Rock music is filled with songs where guys get lusty for 16-year-old girls. There’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” by Chuck Berry, “You’re Sixteen” by Ringo Starr, and “Only Sixteen” by Sam Cooke. “Christine Sixteen” is the lustiest, but like all these songs, it’s in character. Gene Simmons, who handles the vocal, was 27 when it was released, but we can assume he’s singing from the perspective of someone younger (although clearly older than Christine). We picture him as a 19-year-old kid who graduated high school but still hangs around town, scoping out the girls. Kind of like Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) in the movie Dazed and Confused, which was set in 1976. “That’s what I love about these high school girls,” he says. “I get older, they stay the same age.”

Gene Simmons wrote this song and sang lead. He came up with the title after ribbing Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley for writing songs about girls and love. “All you ever do is write girl songs like ‘Christine Sixteen,'” he told him. Realizing the song title he made up to tease Stanley was actually pretty good, he wrote an actual song called “Christine Sixteen.”

Released ahead of the title track, “Christine Sixteen” was the first single from the 1977 Love Gun album. Kiss had a breakthrough with their 1975 live album Alive! in 1975, then in 1976 they found their footing in the studio with the Destroyer album, which was produced by Bob Ezrin and boosted their fanbase. Love Gun was produced by Eddie Kramer, who also worked on their previous album, Rock And Roll Over. Kramer played piano on “Christine Sixteen.”

They’ve never surfaced, but Eddie Van Halen said that he and his brother Alex played on the demos of this song, with Ace Frehley modeling his guitar solo on what Eddie played. In 1976, Gene Simmons financed and produced the first Van Halen demo tape.

The Song – Maggie May

This song was inspired by the woman who deflowered Stewart when he was 16. In the January 2007 issue of Q magazine, Stewart said: “‘Maggie May’ was more or less a true story, about the first woman I had sex with, at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival.”

With his reputation on the line, Stewart was nervous. He said the encounter was over “in a few seconds.”

The name “Maggie May” does not appear in the song; Rod borrowed the title from “Maggie Mae,” a Liverpool folk song about a Lime Street prostitute that the Beatles included on their Let It Be album.

Stewart liked the play on words the title created, sometimes introducing the song by saying, “This is ‘Maggie May’ – sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t.”
In his memoir Rod: The Autobiography, Stewart provided details of the experience that led to this song. Wrote Stewart: “At 16, I went to the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in the New Forest. I’d snuck in with some mates via an overflow sewage pipe. And there on a secluded patch of grass, I lost my not-remotely-prized virginity with an older (and larger) woman who’d come on to me very strongly in the beer tent. How much older, I can’t tell you – but old enough to be highly disappointed by the brevity of the experience.”

Remarkably, there is video of Stewart at the festival, which took place in July 1961.
This song came together when Stewart began working with guitarist Martin Quittenton from the band Steamhammer. They convened at Stewart’s house in Muswell Hill, where Quittenton played some chords that caught Rod’s ear. As he sussed out a vocal melody, he started singing the words to the folk song “Maggie Mae,” which got him thinking about that day 10 years earlier when he had a quick-and-dirty tryst. They made a demo with Stewart singing fractures lines. From there, he got to work on the lyrics, filling a notebook with ideas and arriving at a story about a guy who falls for an older woman and is now both smitten and perplexed.

This was the first big hit of the rock era to feature a mandolin, which was mostly heard in folk music. Stewart first used the instrument on “Mandolin Wind,” which was one of the first songs he recorded for the album. He liked the results, so he used it on “Maggie” as well.

“Maggie May” remains the biggest mondolin-based hit ever recorded, although the theme music for The Godfather, released the following year, may be more recognized.

Published by Christine Bolton

I have been writing poetry since I was a child and it has helped in the good times and bad times. I am always looking within to find the answers to life's problems and to write thought-provoking poetry and prose. Thanks for checking it out. Christine

24 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday – Christine”

  2. Christine, I had to laugh at some of your comments. There are a lot of songs from the 50s and 60s with that creep factor … Go Away Little Girl, Young Girl Get Out Of My Life, She Was Only Sixteen, Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon, etc etc. I know exactly what you mean; they still creep me out today. Good selections today. I didn’t know the KISS song.

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  3. Great info and one great song. Shame about the first one – never been a fan of Kiss!

    Some additional info from a Brit who loved and bought Rod’s album at that time. That video is of him and the band on our big weekly pop show, Top Of The Pops. In those days everything was mimed to a pre-recorded track, and the guy holding the mandolin is actually the late John Peel, one of the best and most influential radio DJs we have ever had. He couldn’t play a note but Rod asked him to sit in on the show for a laugh.

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    1. Hi Clive, I am not a Kiss fan either so it bugged me that I had to go with one of their songs! My choices were so limited today that’s why I went with my middle name 🤣You may have forgotten that I am an expat born and raised in London so I am very familiar with Top of the Pops and the miming. The song put me right back there in the early 70s and I love it. I did however miss John Peel in that video. I remember him well. What a laugh! Great trivia to share. Thanks!

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      1. I guess that was always likely to happen with this theme.

        I’d forgotten that you would know of TOTP, but that clip is a classic and I loved seeing it again. That slightly bemused look on John Peel’s face always makes me smile.

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  4. Excellent choices both. the thing about Gene Simmons is he was such a manslut that it is hard to remove that from him singing this song about a sixteen-year-old. And Maggie May is just pure joy for me to hear under any circumstances.

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    1. Indeed Jim. One and only good song. As I said I am Maggie for the day. I never liked Kiss. This is probably the only time a Kiss song has been shared on SLS. Seems no one here is a fan! 🤣

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      1. I think Song Lyric Sunday does have some Kiss fans, but they are not regulars, and I could never understand using all of that makeup, as it seemed to be distracting from the music. I never really like Glam Rock, although it was and maybe still is popular, as what I look for in a song has nothing to do with the makeup or hair that is worn. You really can’t go wrong with Rod stewart and this is one of his best songs.

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  7. Some names are really popular for songs, and others not so much. Mine isn’t used very much either.
    I love the Maggie Mae song, as it reminds me of road trips way back when because we always heard it on the radio. Not a fan of KISS at all, but at least they had a song with your name in it (yes creepy makeup and all – sorry)

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    1. Thanks, Barbara. Don’t underestimate your name, Barbara Ann by The Beach Boys. I haven’t been through to listen to everybody’s song yet so I don’t know what you’ve chosen. I’m sure it’s good. Yes, I thought Kiss were extremely creepy. I was not a fan either. 😳

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    1. Thanks so much ☺️💕. It irritated me that I had to use a Kiss song. I have never been a fan either. I don’t think anyone in our SLS group is and this is probably the one and only time we will hear a Kiss song! LOL 🤣

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