Joey Joey Joey (Leslie Odom Jr) with Lyrics

As a wonderful reminder that it might be worth the effort to remain alive, great songs will jump out of nowhere and attach themselves to your heart.

I discovered Leslie Odom, Jr. recently when I heard his version of "Love, Look Away" on KJAZ in Los Angeles. That song was still on YouTube on the day that I first heard it, but within twenty-four hours it had disappeared from the digital universe. (Unless it's back now, you never can tell.) I listened to everything that I found by him, and I really was hit hard by "Joey, Joey, Joey."

Somehow, it sounded familiar, but I was pretty sure that I had never heard it before, and that the illusion was just a deja vu moment. But no, I had heard it, once or twice, in the late 1990s. I picked up five CDs of lesser known Broadway shows at a silent auction for a school whose owner was a friend of mine, and "The Most Happy Fella" was one of them. I had never heard of the show, but I liked it when I listened to the CD, and this is one of the songs.

How about Mr. Odom's "Joey . . .?" Not bad, 'eh? This guy is really something.