SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: Chucky Lee Byrd | The Poet of Old\Young Teen Love

The subtitle on Saturday Night Live’s YouTube channel from last night’s (S43E12) "Chucky Lee Byrd" skit reads: “The songs of Chucky Lee Byrd (Will Ferrell) have a disturbing theme.”

In the skit, the “incomparable” Chucky Lee Byrd, The Poet of Teen Love, sings “gems” and “hits” from his five-disc boxset that “[…] will bring you back to a simpler time in music. A time of innocence [and] purity."

Here’s a list of songs with some lyrics from the A-side:

“Beauty Queen”: “She’s my little beauty queen. And she’s only seventeen. But she’s my beautiful – beautiful beauty queen.”

Candy Baby”: “And she’s sugar, sweet and clean. What should I get her for her sweet sixteen?”

“Farmer Girl”: “She grows corn. She grows beans. Her daddy hates me, ‘cause she’s only fourteen. Fourteen. Fourteen. That’s her age. She’s fourteen”

“My New T-Bird”: “She purrs so fine. She’s fresh off the line. I wanna make her mine. And this song is about a girl who’s thirteen. A thirteen. OK, she’s twelve.”

Here’s a list of songs on the B-side:

1. “Cruising in My Windowless Van”
2. “Girl Scout Cookie”
3. “I Left My Heart Across State Lines”
4. “Simple Girl from Across the Street”
5. “Our Love Is a Crime”
6. “First Day of School … Ever!”
7. “Baby You Can Drive My Car If I’m In the Passenger Seat Because You Only Have a Permit”
8. One and One Equals Eleven”

A number of people wrote in the comments that Chucky Lee Bird is an allusion to Jerry Lee Lewis whom married Myra, his 13-year-old cousin.

Famous Age-Gap Marriage: Jerry Lee Lewis (22) & Myra Williams (13) | The Teen Bride

Myra (13) and Jerry Lee Lewis (22)

In 1958, after becoming famous for his hit songs "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire", Jerry Lee went on a six-week-tour of Britain. Upon arriving at the airport, Paul Tanfield, a reporter with the Daily Mail, noticed a nymphet in Jerry's entourage.

“I'm Myra. Jerry's wife.” the nymphet replied in response to Tanfield's inquiry.

“And how old is Myra?” Tanfield asked.

“Fifteen.” Jerry replied.

The news that 22-year-old Jerry Lee was married to a 15-year-old was not well received by British citizens, and it got worse for Jerry Lee when it was revealed that Myra was not 15. Not only was Myra 13 when they married, but she was Jerry’s first cousin too. And it turned out that Jerry Lee may have still been married to his first wife.

Upon receiving the startling news, the media and angry British citizens besieged the age-gap couple's plush Westbury Hotel. After Jerry Lee's marriage was investigated by the British police, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the House of Commons, Jerry Lee was asked to leave Britain after only three performances.

Jerry Lee Lewis Interview After Return to the US

After returning to the States, Jerry Lee dodged questions about his age-gap marriage to his cousin. However, disc jockeys in the States and around the world refused to play Jerry Lee's music. Subsequently, he was reduced to being a two-hit wonder, and he went from making $10,000 to $100 a night per performance.

The age-gap couple was married for 13 years, and per Jessica Gelt's Los Angeles Times piece "Jerry Lee Lewis’ teenage bride speaks out [...]" (October 29, 2022), Maya clarified in an interview given after Lewis' death in 2022, "I was called the child bride, but I was the adult and Jerry was the child [...] I didn't miss a beat. I took care of everything."

 

Jerry Lee Lewis Full Interview After Return to the US