Neda Ulaby has done a comprehensive piece on the death of legendary songwriter Ellie Greenwich, so I won't harp on the breadth of her career or her staggering number of memorable pop songs.

But as someone who has listened to Phil Spector-produced girl-group-style music — especially that of Darlene Love — with a brand of enthusiasm many people save for religion and giving birth, I would be a miserable ingrate if I didn't pause to mention just how much Ellie Greenwich music I have enjoyed over the years. In addition to the most famous songs she wrote — "Leader Of The Pack," "Be My Baby," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Chapel Of Love," "River Deep, Mountain High" — she wrote some of my favorite lesser-known tunes that came out during the period.

She wrote or co-wrote "Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" (above), which I listened to a lot around the time of my sister's wedding; "A Fine Fine Boy," which you will never forget once you have heard it, simply because it contains the spoken line, "He's a fine, fine, super-fine boy"; and "Give Us Your Blessings," which is the most hilariously over-the-top variation that ever was on the genre — which really existed — of songs about teenagers fantasizing about dying in car wrecks just to really stick it to their parents.

Seriously, go listen to "Give Us Your Blessings" right now. It is utterly absurd, but it is also almost impossible not to sing along with.

I've said it a million times and I'm sure I'll say it many more: pop entertainment that endures is so much harder than it looks. There's a reason why most music doesn't survive, but this particular music — as much as it sounds like a lot of bubbles and hopscotch — still sounds so great.

This is not for amateurs, trying to create something that deceives the brain into believing there's not much going on while bending the ear ruthlessly to its will. "You just relax," it says. "I'll just come over here and pitch a tent in your brain for the next forty years, so that every time you hear me, you will answer the call with your little tapping foot." (Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron.)

Really, facilitating this Tina Turner performance is enough for anyone to rest on. But for this, and for everything else, and for all the girls with the wiggling hips and the big hair and the minidresses, for the call-and-response, and for "My folks were always putting him down (down, down)," I pause and say: Thank you, Ellie Greenwich.