Best song I hadn't heard.

When I was looking up some information for the D.B. Cooper item I posted a couple of weeks ago, I came across the curious note that Cooper's skyjacking case and (apparent) escape had inspired a couple of instant records, quick 45s to cash in on the news of the day. This, kids, is what people used to do before throwing together music videos on YouTube for the same purpose. 

While there have been many songs dedicated to the poor parachutist Cooper in the decades since, and even a band named for the felon, at the time one example of the D.B. Cooper genre that popped up on vinyl was by Judy Sword: "D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?" The B side was "Skyjack '71," which is the only one of the two songs I could find on YouTube.

I don't know what became of Ms. Sword, but I do know that her best remembered song was "Please Don't Squeeze My Jimmy" in a piano-hammering blues rock style. But I think the song that should have really put her on the map, the song with one of the best titles I've ever heard, was the B-side of that single, "Take My Love and Shuv It Up Your Heart."

The label left off the "It"

That song was written by one Danny Vest, who recorded it with the Simmons Family. Ms. Sword knew a classic when she heard it, obviously, and covered that sucker. I cannot find her recording, but here's the original, released in 1967, properly spelled:

This could be the love song that the world needs now, with everyone so angry all the time. What better way to say I Love You But Go Away than "Take My Love and Shuv It Up Your Heart"? None, my friends; there is none. Unlike the peculiar case of a lone hijacker, there is a timeless appeal to this poetic phrase. And I think we're all a little wiser now.