HANG ON SLOOPY by David Porter 2016

In my younger years of my life I knew girls known Sandie, Samantha, Suzanne, Sara, but never a Sloopy.

Doctor Nick and I went to college with a girl whose name sounded by Sloopy, until I went to university.

A slight brunette from Roxbury majored in nursing. On the weekends she danced weekends at the Two o'Clock Lounge in the Combat Zone to pay her tuition. Sloopy was the first person in her family to attend university. Nick and I drove taxi at night. We sometimes picked up Sloopy at closing time. Neither of us received more than the fare at the end of the ride. We never said how we felt about her. To have said anything was bad luck.

At a party one Friday night I told our college friends from New York and New Jersey about the idyllic Rockport quarries. Everyone wanted to swim in the spring-fed granite pits. The next day we left Boston in a car caravan headed to Rockport. Sloopy accompanied Nick. He had a red MG convertible.

We smoked weed on the cliffs. Nick and Sloopy leaped off the cliff together.  I decided to dive to impress her. I misjudged the drop and hit the water at the wrong angle. Bones crackled along my spine. I swan to the shore and slowly hauled myself from the quarry waters.

Sloopy hadn't seen my dive. She had been kissing Nick. As I pulled myself from the water, Nick reached out a hand and asked if I was all right. He was pre-med at BC.

"I'm okay."

Barely and I recovered from the dive, but ever since then I've avoided girls with names sounding like Sloopy, I love David Porter's cover of the McCoy's hit song. Henri Flash introduced me to the HANG ON SLOOPY at BSIR's, a Hamburg nightclub, in 1982. The French disc jockey would play Porter's long version at the end of the night.

The last lingerers slow-danced for about two minutes and then lost the groove. Henri called the lengthy recording the best music for emptying a nightclub nearing dawn. David Porter's HANG ON SLOOPY was a long song. Henri would leave the DJ booth and I would join the Frenchman at the bar.

"A last drink."

"To HANG ON SLOOPY."

We never lost the groove.

And neither does this song.

"C'mon Sloopy."

From the Stax hit man.

Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" (1968 Grammy Winner)
Mariah Carey "Dreamlover" (1993 Grammy Winner)
Will Smith's "Get Jiggy Wit It" (1999 Grammy Winner)
Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'"
Biggie Smalls "Who Shot Ya?"