Peter Case – I Shook His Hand

Each tongue is a world, each eye is an ocean
Of every child, woman, man here in living motion
Now who’ll protect us, who’ll pеrfect us
Who’ll live to see the day whеn love connects us

I just started to listen to Peter Case recently, although I like the Plimsouls, I never knew much about Case. This song and its history intrigued me. First of all, it’s a great song, but Case started this song by reminiscing about when he was a kid and shook hands with John Kennedy at a county fair that Kennedy had appeared at. So by total coincidence, this again fits into the book I’m reading. I had a playlist of his songs, and I heard this one, and I thought…what hand did he shake? I then read his quote about shaking hands with JFK. 

He first broke out with The Nerves, a tight power pop band that was popular on the early LA power-pop scene. Though they never found major commercial success, they did have the song Hanging on the Telephone, later covered by Blondie. The Nerves showed Case’s gift for melodic songwriting and short three-minute power pop songs.

After that came The Plimsouls, who blended power pop with roots rock and harder edges. Tracks like A Million Miles Away made them cult favorites and briefly pushed them into the mainstream. The band toured constantly, but music industry pressure and burnout pulled them apart just as they were gaining traction.

This song is off of Peter’s self-titled debut album, released in 1986. The musicians he gathered, I’m a huge fan of. Roger McGuinn on his 12-string Rickenbacker, Jim Keltner on drums, Van Dyke Parks on keyboards, T-Bone Burnett producing, and acoustic guitar and more. He was on Geffen Records at the time and also released a UK EP called Steel Strings that contained many of these songs. He also released another EP called Selections from Peter Case. That one had two different versions of the song Steel Strings on it. 

The album was largely recorded live in the room, with players reacting to each other instead of building tracks layer by layer. I say this a lot in my reviews, but it’s true in this case as well. The band played to each other, and there were minimal overdubs. He kept small imperfections that made the performances feel real. The goal wasn’t to overproduce the album; it was to capture the way these songs worked when he played them alone or in small rooms.

He has been productive as a solo artist. 14 studio albums, 4 EPs, 3 compilations, and 11 singles. A tribute album was also released in 2006, A Case for Case, with various artists. 

Peter Case: I wrote this one in 1984, on the Amtrak train down to San Antonio, where I was meeting the rest of the Plimsouls to start a tour. It’s about meeting JFK on his trip to the Erie County Fair, when I was five, though I was also thinking about MLK and RFK. 

I Shook His Hand

I was a kid out behind the fair
His words were like lightning in the summer air
His eyes were wild with the truth he told
Holding back the rain while the thunder rolled

I was too young to understand
I was proud to say I shook his hand

He took command on a winter’s day
All across the land, spring was on its way
He struck fear into the hearts of fools
Breaking up the gangs, breaking all their rules

Too young not to understand
I was proud to say I shook his hand

Each tongue is a world, each eye is an ocean
Of every child, woman, man here in living motion
Now who’ll protect us, who’ll pеrfect us
Who’ll live to see the day whеn love connects us
Who’ll take a step out in this land
I’ll be proud to say I shook his hand
I shook his hand, well I shook his hand

For years they tried to kill him, he finally died
I still remember how I felt when my mama cried
I grew up with a bullet in my breast
If you knew it or not, so did all the rest

 

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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.

27 thoughts on “Peter Case – I Shook His Hand”

  1. Pingback: Peter Case – I Shook His Hand – MobsterTiger

  2. I have heard of this guy and The Plimsouls but my knowledge of their music is pretty limited. As I was reading the names from the recording session my jaw almost dropped to the floor! All those guys among the best of the best. Amazing. Really interesting material for a song.

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  3. Interesting! By about halfway through I was thinking I’d like to see what U2 could do with this! Excellent lyrics and a catchy tune, I really didn’t hear any Rickenbacker though , (maybe because I’m listening to it through phone), I think if there was and maybe the harmonica was a little less prominent, it would have gone from ‘real good’ to ‘great’

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  4. I understand this song and that feeling as a child. When I was seven, I shook the hand of then-Governor Gaylord Nelson. Ten years later, as a Senator, he created Earth Day. I was impressed that my dad knew him to introduce us. In retrospect, I was even more impressed because my father was a Goldwater Republican but still liked and respected Gaylord Nelson, who was world’s apart from Barry Goldwater.

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      1. Of curse that means I have to ask. Were you a Dawn Wells fan or a Tina Louise fan? Oh wait – I remember you already answered that. Did you actually wash that hand, or just wipe it on a towel and save the towel? It was sort of like having a favorite Beatle.

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      2. Oh yea…as they say today…I was on Team Mary Ann…I’m not kidding…my mom made me wash my hand. I was 8 or 9… she was even prettier in person and the most tanned person I’ve ever met…I was shaking. It was at Jerry Lewis Telethon back in 75 or 76. I’ll never forget it.

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  6. I have already made it clear I love this album. It is the only solo work of his that gets a lot of attention in my listening, but it gets a lot. Having seen too many times the ups and downs of the business of fame, I am partial to the lyrics of Steel Strings. But this whole album is great. Very classy.

    Great stuff

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    1. Thanks…I liked the entire album and almost wrote up that instead of just this song. I always liked his power pop background with the Plimsouls and The Nerves for that matter…I just didn’t know about him solo.

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  7. You caught me off guard (Not really. You’re coming up with all sorts of gems)with this one. Case has been around for a long time making great music. Hooking up with T-Bon edidnt hurt the production. I dont know if it helped with sales. Hopefully Peter has made some decent dough from his talent.

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    1. The entire album impressed me CB. I came close to writing it all up but didn’t have the time. This song just fit into perfectly and coincidently with my reading habit right now. But after listening to this…it should have been played…a lot.

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  8. Nice post and song, Max. I still remember shaking Jerry Garcia’s hand after a show he did and I walked right past him in the narrow corridor backstage. Two of my friends and I thought this was a shortcut to the parking lot, having no idea that we were going backstage. My tongue was a bit tied when I walked right in front of Jerry, but I reached out my hand and said, “Great show.” He pressed his stubby finger into my hand and smiled at me and said, “Far out man.”

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  11. Good song. The only CDs of his I have are Sings Like Hell and Full Service No Waiting. I probably found out about him from the e-town radio show that I used to listen to regularly. That’s where I discovered a lot of people. I haven’t listened to him in a while. I need to again. I like his voice.

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