Dean Friedman's 1977 homage to Paramus, New Jersey (and Jewish girls in peasant blouses)

Trolling around YouTube (as I'm known to do) I ran across this gem. The song "Ariel," written and performed by Dean Friedman in 1977, chronicles a young man's romance with a Jewish girl. The song is a hoot, wonderfully descriptive of the time period and blissfully poppy. How have I lived this long without this one? The Franky Valley squeaks alone are priceless. According to wikipedia, this song reached #26 on the billboard charts. Even better, Friedman is still actively writing and gigging. Check out his website for more information and to order one of his many albums. I just snagged his first album "Dean Friedman" (the one with Ariel) off of eMusic. Can't wait to give it a spin.

For the record, I don't know if Friedman is Jewish or not. But since he has an album entitled "A Million Matzoh Balls" with tracks titled "A Million Matzoh Balls" and "In My Sukkah" I can only imagine.

Dean Friedman - Ariel

Thanks to YouTube user abmcw for posting the video. And to Dean Friedman for making my day 30 years after the song was written. I'm looking forward to catching up on your recent work.

Update: Youtube User abmcw just got back to me about the video and said "Glad you enjoyed it! It's a video I made using clips from the Prelinger Archive, an public domain archive of educational films, newsreels, commercials, etc." Great job and thanks so much.

Update II: I got a nice email from Dean Friedman tonight. First, he digs the video. Good job, abmcw. Second, about the Jewish songs. "A Million Matzoh Balls is a collection of mostly silly Hebrew School songs I wrote for the local synagogue when asked to teach music when my kids were little. They've been picked up by synagogues and JCC's around the US. Fun stuff. It's not on eMusic but you can download the album via my website (or order the CD)." I'll do that.