Dave Alvin – Haley’s Comet

And he tells the waitress, “Hey, I just found the body
Of some guy who was famous long ago”

CB sent me this and it’s a song about the last sad years of Bill Haley. Haley’s Comet is a hell of a rocker but tells a poignant story. It’s sad to think that a pioneer American Rock and Roll hero could be forgotten to the point he’s not even recognizable. I like how Alvin focuses on Haley’s loneliness and makes you feel it.

It was written by Dave Alvin and Tom Russell.  I wore this song out this week. While researching this post I got a book about Bill Haley and I’m almost halfway through it now. He was an interesting artist that I never knew much about. It’s a shame he is not remembered like his peers such as Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. He helped kickstart rock and roll.

He was known to everyone in the 1950s for his band The Comets and songs such as Rock Around The Clock, Crazy Man Crazy, Shake Rattle and Roll, and more. He had the world’s attention in 1955 and 1956. He looked more like a fatherly figure than a rock star but he was very popular at that time. He also appeared in two movies, Don’t Knock The Rock and Rock Around The Clock in 1956.

After the fifties, his popularity on the charts vanished. He was still a popular touring act in the UK. Many American 50s rockers toured there in the 60s and 70s like Gene Vincent. There were no more hits but Haley kept touring. He also developed a bad drinking problem.

There was a rumor, that was denied by his wife, that he had a brain tumor. Haley didn’t want to tour anymore. That rumor helped him stay hidden. He started to call and write his friends pages of rambling, bitter notes about his career. He also took to painting his bedroom windows black as the song tells. He was said to be a modest gentle courteous man, who throughout his career encouraged every change and newcomer in music, never criticizing anyone. He passed away in February of 1981.

Dave Alvin was the guitar player for the Blasters. This song was on his solo album Blue Blvd released in 1991. Tom Russell is a singer-songwriter who resides in El Paso, Texas. Russell’s songs have been recorded by artists such as Johnny Cash, Ian Tyson, Nanci Griffith, Dave Alvin, and others. In addition to his music, he is also an artist and published author. There will be more posts about him coming up.

Dave Alvin: Haley’s Comet was sadly based on the last years of Bill Haley’s life as you know it. It’s one of those “Don’t let this happen to you” songs.

Haley’s Comet

Do you know who I am?” said Bill Haley
In a pancake house near the Rio Grande
The waitress said, “I don’t know you from diddley”
“To me you’re just another tired old man”

He walked alone down on Main street
A hot wind was blowing up from the south
There were two eyes staring in a pawn shop window
And a whiskey bottle was lifted up to his mouth

There was no moon shining on the Rio Grande
As a truck of migrants pulled through town
And the jukebox was busted at the bus depot
When Haley’s Comet hit the ground

He blacked out all the windows in his bedroom
He was talking to the ceiling and the walls
He closed his eyes and hit the stage in 1955
As the screams of the children filled the hall

This cop walked into a pancake house in Texas
And ordered up a couple of cups to go
And he tells the waitress, “Hey, I just found the body
Of some guy who was famous long ago”

….

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

44 thoughts on “Dave Alvin – Haley’s Comet”

  3. Bill Haley seems to be a good illustration of how brutal the music business can be – one day, you can be on top of the world, the other day you may be an afterthought at best.

    Did I ever tell you I had a ticket to see the very man in the early 80s when he was scheduled to play some gigs in Germany? Unfortunately, that tour never happened, and six months later or so he passed!

    I loved Bill Haley and classic rock & roll at the time (still do!), and it would have been a thrill to see the man, especially since it no longer was possible to see my childhood idol Elvis!

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    1. I had a post of Bill Haley ready to go opposite of this one but I was afraid that people would go to the Haley post and miss this one.
      Oh man…have you still got that ticket by chance? Man that is so sad.
      Haley had a swing in his music no one else had…

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      2. My cousin regrets something and he doesn’t have the ticket. Him and his best friend bought tickets to AC/DC in 1979….they got into an argument or something…and he didn’t go…it was Bon Scotts last tour.

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      3. Oh no! BTW, did you hear AC/DC recently announced a European tour to support their most recent “Power Up” album? Best of all it’s going to be with Brian Johnson rather than Axl “Screaming Dog” Rose!

        Evidently, Johnson’s hearing issues have improved sufficiently – of course, given it ain’t exactly chamber music, you wonder for how long!

        No word yet whether the tour will come to the US as well. I’ve always wanted to see them!

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      4. I’m glad Brian is back…I would not have liked to see them with Axl….
        I never got to see them. I didn’t like them for a while and then I started to. I regret not going to see them in the 80s and 90s.

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  5. Thanks for this one! I was a fan of the Blasters way back when, but the last I’d heard of Dave Alvin was when he joined up with X to fill Billy Zoom’s shoes. I’d no idea he was doing solo work.
    Good song! I could listen to good ol’ Americana R&R all day!

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    1. CB sent this to me…and I loved it. I like The Blasters a lot…they had such a great thing going in the 80s.
      I’m always down for Americana…always!

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      4. That is really sad…it’s terrible that he had to go out and do that…I didn’t know that about him…..and another part…when I was watching Bill play in the late 70s…he wore the same stuff and his band did also. I guess people at that time wanted him JUST like he was….kinda what Ricky Nelson was singing about in Garden Party. It’s as if they are stuck in a bubble and can’t get out.

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      5. You know a bit about the music gig Max. It’s HARD! Springsteen has that line in one of his songs ‘Local Hero’ that catches it in a more humorous way.
        Yeah the Knox thing has stuck with me all these years. You couldn’t make the place and atmosphere up. I’m pretty sure Russel play there when he was starting out.

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      6. It’s some of the hardest work I’ve done. We would play from 8pm to 3pm with two 30 minute breaks…I was spent at the end. I remember drinking beer on stage but never getting tipsy because you would sweat it back out…as you are playing.

        Its just sad to think about…many performers took one hit and lived off of it.

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    3. Re; the Buddy Knox scenario, I mentioned on either Max Or Dave’s site about one of the Danny and the Juniors guys who did for himself years ago. I mean, how many times can you sing ‘At The Hop’ at some sadly familiar dive on the Oldies circuit before you think ‘make it stop?’

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      1. Yeah I guess it comes down to the financial situation. The Kinks have that song ‘One Of the Survivors’ which kinda puts a humorous slant on things. We could dissect this one obbverse. Funny side and sad side. The way Alvin and Russel put this one together they tell a tale without hammering at the the downer of it.

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  7. Good nicely written song, it swings along well. There’s been some biopics of the older R’n’R and pop stars, Morrison, Valens, Charles, the excellent Cash one, the Clunker Elvis one lately. Maybe it’s time for Hollywood to tell Bills story, it seems like a tragedy just waiting to be made. The scary thing is the audience will be mainly made up of the grandchildren of those 50s era juke box burger and Coke pony-tailed girls and duck-tailed boys down at Dennys Diner or whatever.
    There would be a Hell of a retro sound track too.

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    1. I agree… he is largely forgotten and his story is tragic. I’ll be posting him tomorrow but I like his country Western swing a lot.
      You are so correct about the audience of it. He was more important than I really gave him credit for…

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  9. My intro to Bill Haley was watching Happy Days when the 45 drops in the jukebox. Haley never gets talked about but its cool like you and CB are in 2024 writing about it

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  10. Pingback: Bill Haley – Rock Around The Clock – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

    1. Yes you did…. it got lost like Gallo Del Cielo did…as I’ve said…I love the name dropping and connected songs.
      Boss of the Blues jumps and swings…listening to it now.

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  12. I don’t see the connection between Boss of the Blues by Dave Alvin and Gallo del Cielo by Tom Russell other than both are great songs written by GREAT songwriters who have teamed together. Tom Russell is an incredible songwriter and as he bad mouths himself in jest, his chicken song (Gallo del Cielo) is only one of a dozen killers.

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  13. I am reading through the Twilight Zone recaps, and loving it. I have read this comment before, but I read lots of the comments over and over again.

    The lyric from Haley’s Comet sounds like a Twilight Zone:

    There was no moon shining on the Rio Grande
    As a truck of migrants pulled through town
    And the jukebox was busted at the bus depot
    When Haley’s Comet hit the ground

    And thanks for posting both Dave and Tom. There are some subtle differences that mean a lot to me about where each comes from. Love ’em both,

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