Ginny Arnell – "Dumb Head" (1963)

I must be insane

Or else I was born with

A peanut for a brain

The lyrics of today’s featured record are certainly applicable to Angela Harrison, but the song couldn’t have been inspired by the 53-year-old Oklahoman – she was born eight years after “Dumb Head” was recorded. 

It appears from this photo that those 53 years have been very, very hard ones:

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Harrison – who used to work at a Waffle House – was arrested by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma recently when she was observed driving a white Jeep Liberty that had been reported stolen last year.

She claimed that she had run into a former customer of hers at a gas station just an hour before her arrest, and that he had given her the Jeep – plus a $10 bill – when she told him that she had a birthday coming up soon.

The Tulsa po-pos were skeptical of her explanation because they had a surveillance photo of Harrison in the Jeep that had been taken on January 14.  Harrison admitted that she was the woman in that photo but stuck by her story that she had been given the car as a gift just an hour earlier.

Casting further doubt on her account of how she came to be in possession of the Jeep was the fact that its owner had died months ago.

Hopefully, she met a really good lawyer during her Waffle House days – I’m guessing she’s going to need one.

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“Dumb Head” – the story of a girl who regrets rejecting a boy who said he loved her – was a minor hit for Ginny Arnell in 1963.  

Arnell – who was born Virginia Mazarro in New Haven, Connecticut in 1942 – was not a fan of the song when it was first presented to her:

I didn’t like calling myself a dumb head, especially as I had just graduated high school with high honors.  How could I call myself dumb and feel good about it?  But when we recorded it, with the kazoos in the background and all, it was fun.  It came out really good.

Arnell had a good voice – she was compared by some to Lesley Gore – but if you ask me, it was the kazoos that made “Dumb Head.”

Click here to listen to “Dumb Head.”