At Thanksgiving dinner last week in my hometown of Summit Hill, I was reflecting on the Friday night dances my friends and I attended at the former St. Joseph’s Elementary School just a few blocks away.

This was the place to be to start the weekend, and it was definitely the place for a young teen guy who wanted to make an impression on girls.

When it comes to looks, I was once told that I have the perfect face for radio (a career that I had for a few years before I became a journalist). So it was a given that I was not going to wow those of the opposite sex with my appearance, but I tried to make up for it in other ways.

Unlike some of my male friends, I loved to dance, and some girls appreciated the fact that I was willing to “fast dance” with them. We called it jitterbugging. Most of the guys “slow danced.” We called it “waltzing,” although it certainly was not the real waltzing.

The parish priest and his assistant, who eyed us like hawks, would sometimes intervene if we got too close to each other on the dance floor. It’s not like today where dancers are draped over each other.

Some of my not-so-young contemporaries will from time to time lament the fact that our beloved songs of the rock era of the 1950s and ‘60s were oh-so-tame compared to today’s shockingly explicit rock and rap lyrics.

Remember the fun songs - “Pink Shoe Laces,” “At the Hop,” “Witch Doctor,” “Purple People Eater,” “Sea Cruise,” “Little Darlin’” and “Lonely Boy?”

I am here to tell you that some of our songs were not as innocent as revisionists would have you believe. In some of these songs, you had to dig beneath the surface to understand the subtleties of what the lyrics were really saying and their hidden meaning.

For example, in some hit recordings, male singers reflected on a girl’s “many charms.” Researchers who have studied the origin of rock songs from that era contend that this is a reference to her breasts, butt and other prominent body parts.

Example: The Everly Brothers’ No. 1 hit “All I have to Do Is Dream” features this line: “When I want you/In my arms/When I want you/And all your charms ...”

Because parents didn’t catch on to these euphemisms, we were able to put one over on them. Our parents hated rock ‘n’ roll causing us to embrace it all the more.

To give you an idea of how far we have come, the Everly Brothers’ 1957 No. 1 hit, “Wake Up, Little Susie,” was banned by some radio stations for its alleged suggestive lyrics.

Don and Phil tell the tale of a young couple who fell asleep at a drive-in movie and didn’t wake up until 4 in the morning. “Whatta we gonna tell your mama/Whatta we gonna tell your pa/Whatta we gonna tell our friends/When they say ‘ooh-la-la’?/Wake up little Susie ...”

When he was 26, Johnny Burnette recorded a top-selling tune in 1960, “You’re Sixteen.” The lyrics raised eyebrows when he sang, “You’re all ribbons and curls/Ooh, what a girl/Eyes that sparkle and shine/You’re sixteen, you’re beautiful and you’re mine.”

One of the most suggestive songs of the era was 1968’s “Young Girl” by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. “Young girl, get out of my mind/My love for you is way out of line/Better run girl!/You’re much too young, girl.”

When I first heard the song, I turned up the volume on the car radio to make sure my ears were not playing tricks on me. “With all the charms of a woman/You’ve kept the secret of your youth/You led me to believe you’re old enough to give me love/And now it hurts to know the truth.”

The lyrics to “Hideaway,” the 1958 recording by the Four Esquires, was banned by some radio stations because of these lyrics, “Wish I knew a hideaway/I could take you to/I would pass the night away/Making love to you.”

The Shirelles’ “Tonight’s the Night” in 1960 pulls no punches with these lyrics: “ ... You say you’re gonna love me/Tonight’s the Night.”

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I found out later that the St. Joseph’s priests would carefully go over the playlists of records for the Friday night dances to make sure they were acceptable for our tender ears and would not corrupt our morals.

Now, that’s funny. If they only knew what was really going on.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com