KIND OF A DRAG by THE BUCKINGHAMS. Poem by Craig Kirchner.

Cermaks corner, NE Baltimore, late 1960s

Don’t know what else The Buckinghams did,

but by virtue of those four words their hit

became the drug store theme song.

We did what we could to spice it up,

but it’s easy to be bored in your early teens,

and the summer heat.

When your baby don’t love you
Kind of a drag
When you know she’s been untrue

The rest of the lyrics were part of the problem.

There were no babes loving anybody,

it wasn’t a coed corner, just guys wishing

some would stop by, see if we were alive.

Availability was an understatement,

horny was understood.

Oh, listen to what I’ve gotta say
Girl, I still love you I’ll always love you,
Anyway, Anyway, Anyway

Anyway, we stayed busy, porching beer,

figuring out who would buy us beer,

running around like crazies when the police

would come up on us drinking beer, we would

graduate from beer, but beer years,

were good years.

When your baby says goodbye
Kind of a drag
When you feel like you wanna cry

 Eventually we all had babes from somewhere,

never did they hang on the corner.

The love stories are as diverse as the guys.

We all got over the need to hang, but

the comradery, the love of corner stories,

their themes, and the love of beer is still real.

Oh, girl even though you made me feel blue
I still love you; I’ll always love you
Anyway, anyway, anyway

Stereo Story #813