For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has asked us to write a post using the prompt word “kisses,” using the above image or “any other #1 song from the late 1950s or early 1960s, or a song that makes use of the lyrics “dum,” “doo,” or “dooby,” or with anything else that we think fits.”

I’m going with both “kisses” and with “dum,” “doo,” or “dooby,” by featuring two songs: “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” made popular by Jimmie Rodgers, and “Come Go With Me” by the Del-Vikings. Let’s start with “Kisses.”

Part 1: Kisses

“Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” was written in 1950 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays of The Weavers and released in 1951. A cover of the song by Jimmie Rodgers in 1957 was a hit for Rodgers. Rodgers version went to number 7 in the U.S., and was a Gold record. Joel Newman and Campbell Paul got credit for the Jimmie Rodgers version’s lyrics, which aren’t that different from the Pete Seeger and Lee Hays version.

The tune was adapted from Lead Belly’s “If It Wasn’t for Dicky” (1937), which in turn was adapted from the traditional Irish folk tune “Drimindown / Drumion Dubh.” The Weavers first released the song in 1951 as a Decca single, which reached number 19 on the Billboard chart.

The song is about a young man who had never been kissed so he found a girl and kissed her and “Oh, Lord, well I kissed her again / Because she had kisses sweeter than wine.” They got married, had kids, and grew old, and the old man says that he’d “do it all again / Because she had kisses sweeter than wine.”

Part 2: Dom-dom dom-dom dom-de-doo-be

“Come Go With Me” was written by C. E. Quick (a.k.a. Clarence Quick), an original member (bass vocalist) of the American doo-wop vocal group the Del-Vikings. The song became a hit, peaking at number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Top 100 Pop chart and number 2 on the R&B chart.

The group consisted of serving members of the U.S. Air Force, who shot to fame with their 1957 hit, “Come Go With Me.” Management issues and fractures for the group resulted at one stage in two different incarnations of the group performing simultaneously: The ‘Del’-Vikings and The ‘Dell’-Vikings to add to the confusion.

The song is basically a guy asking his girl to “come go with me” because he loves her, he needs her, and they will never ever part. But it was more the “Dom-dom dom-dom dom-de-doo-be-dom” than the lyrics that the song is known for.