"(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets opens with a double snare hit. And throughout the first verse, after Bill sings each line, session drummer Billy Gussak delivers another double snare hit.

Each of those hits was like a slap across my pre-teen chipmunk cheeks.

I had liked songs before that. I had bought records before that. I had even had what you might call "favorite songs" before that. But "Rock Around the Clock" was different. It was more like an obsession. The day after I first heard it, I rushed down to Wallich's Music City to buy the record. And it ended up owning me every bit as much as I owned it.

I played it over and over on my little record player, which drove my adopted mother Mrs. Gorman crazy. Both my brothers Simon and Alvin loved the song too, but even they thought I had gone a bit overboard. I wore out my 78rpm copy within a year, and immediately bought a 45 as a replacement.

And unlike any of my earlier favorite songs, this one compelled me to get involved. I didn't just want to hear those sounds. I wanted to make those sounds. I built my own little drum kit in the basement, from things I found around the house. Cardboard boxes, an old pail, coffee cans, and anything else that sounded good when you hit it with a stick. I started banging away on them - first with pencils, then with actual drumsticks that I bought at the music store. It was like the secret of the universe was in those things, and I was only able to access it by pounding away on them just right. Mrs. Gorman finally had enough of the clanging noises coming from her basement, and sprung for an actual scaled-down drum set for me. Better to hear actual drum sounds than what probably sounded like a fork in a garbage disposal.

Before "Rock Around the Clock", I was a music fan.

After "Rock Around the Clock", I was a musician.

This isn't to say I never did anything music-related before that. My brothers and I had been singing, in unison and in harmony, for as long as I can remember. We used to sing along with the radio and our records in our high-pitched squeaky voices, and we liked singing the hymns at church. One year for Christmas, Mrs. Gorman bought us all ukuleles. They were a bit of a fad in the early 1950s, and they were perfect musical instruments for us - we could actually hold and maneuver them in our small paws.

Alvin says now, "I've read about other musicians who start writing songs from the second they pick up an instrument. Not us, though. We'd just pick up a ukulele and try to play a song we heard on the radio. 'Hearts of Stone' or 'Come on-a My House' or something. It wasn't much to start with, but we did get pretty good at figuring out the basic chord progressions."

It wasn't until I got the drum set that I got serious about music, and my obsession seemed to ignite a flame in my brothers as well. It wasn't like there was a distinct line, though. When the three of us were harmonizing the words to "Aba Daba Honeymoon" while Alvin played ukulele, that just seemed to be us kids fooling around. But when we tried bashing our way through "Rock Around the Clock", with me on drums, and Alvin trying to ape the guitar solo on his ukulele, that somehow seemed more "real" - like we were now actually trying to create music.

I doubt that anybody would have guessed that we would form a musical group together. Not because the idea of a chipmunk music group was far-fetched, really. It's just that people who knew us tended to remark on how different we three were.

Alvin has always been the showboat. From the very beginning, he loved being the center of attention, and would do whatever it took to keep all eyes in his direction. If that meant being good at something, great. But if it meant "acting up", or doing things that might get him in trouble, that was OK with him as well. "I do like to be noticed," Alvin admits. "Even today, if somebody says they like my shirt, or they tell me they bought one of our albums, it totally makes my day." Alvin has always had a way with people, too. It wasn't often that we needed one of us to "face the public", but when we did, Alvin was the go-to guy.

As for Simon, I could just say he's "smart" but that would be a bit like saying that the Pacific Ocean is "wet". He's a genius, and I don't use that term lightly. If he decides he wants to learn about something, he jumps in with both feet and learns everything he possibly can about it. He not only comes up with great ideas, but he gets something of a laser-like focus where he'll doggedly pursue an idea until it becomes reality. Like a lot of really smart folks, he's not all that great at interacting with other people. When he does talk, he has a tendency to use some pretty long words. He says, "It took many years, but I came to the realization that I was both alienating people and failing to adequately communicate with my audience. I eventually learned to modify my speaking habits somewhat, which, in a way, was almost akin to learning a new dialect." Since we interacted with him more than anybody else, Alvin and I got pretty good at figuring out what he was saying from context. We got good enough at it that we sometimes acted as a sort of translator between Simon and other people. As an added bonus, Alvin and I usually got pretty good grades on our English vocabulary tests.

And then there was me. If Alvin was the class clown, and Simon was the straight-A nerd, I was that awkward shy kid that hardly ever spoke. It was bad enough growing up as a rodent in a human world, but I never even seemed to find a little niche to settle into. I'd occasionally manage to get a conversation going with a fellow student, and it seemed to go all right, but I could never seem to parlay that into anything resembling a friendship. That meant the only "friends" I had were basically those I had in common with Alvin (and, to a lesser extent, Simon).

"You were just massively unsure of yourself," Alvin explains. "I think all my friends liked you well enough, but there wasn't a lot to grab hold of. You were so scared to make a mistake that you kept everything bottled up. So you ended up being sort of a non-entity. Pleasant enough, but not really missed when you weren't there." This wasn't too bad as long as I could hang out with Alvin and his friends. But at one point in my adolescence, Alvin was off hanging out with a completely new group of people, and Simon was off doing other things. This left me home by myself an awful lot. But they say a musician with his instrument is never truly alone, and I spent many a weary hour pounding away at my drum set, mastering my craft.

Also, like many awkward and lonely kids, I found alternate "friends".

I was at the drug store one day in 1953, looking at Disney comic books, when a magazine caught my eye. It was called Astounding Science Fiction, and the cover featured a big metal robot, cradling a dead human in its bloody hands. (The same artwork was recycled over twenty years later by Queen, for the cover of their News of the World album.) I glanced inside, secretly hoping to read something a bit gory. Instead, I was immediately hooked by a story called "Belief", which was written by Isaac Asimov. It was about a man who had the power to levitate, but who couldn't get anybody to believe him. After reading a few pages, I dragged my eyes away from the magazine long enough to go to the counter and pay thirty-five cents for it, which was my entire comic book budget for the month. I rushed home, flopped down on my bed, and read the entire magazine cover-to-cover.

It's probably not too surprising that Alvin gave me a hard time about reading that magazine. He laughed and told me science fiction was for "squares". But it might come as a bit of a shock to find out that Simon was equally unimpressed. "I was very dismissive," admits Simon. "And that was completely due to ignorance. I held the prejudiced view that every story featured a strapping young lad in a rocket ship saving a damsel in distress from space monsters. But eventually I gave the magazine a cursory look. The quality varied, of course, but there were plenty of well-written and even intelligent stories within. And it cheered me to see you interested in the written word."

With Simon in my corner, I asked for, and received, a subscription to Astounding for Christmas in 1953. And in 1954, I got a renewal. And another one in 1955. In fact, I still have a subscription to that magazine to this very day. The name has changed (to Analog) but I still look forward to getting each new issue. Using that subscription as a base, I slowly began building a science fiction book and magazine library. I loved pretty much everything involved with the genre: aliens, time travel, robots. The stories made me think, made me wonder, and almost always made me happy. As a nice side effect, I learned an awful lot through those books and magazines. People who get to know me often come to think that I went to college, but actually, I never did. My only education past high school was through what I picked up from reading.

Then there was my other "friend", which is one that's perhaps even more common among awkward kids than science fiction – food.

Yeah, that's one thing that the cartoons got right. I've always been overweight. And it hasn't been due to laziness. I've stayed somewhat active all my life. The real cause of my extra pounds is my love of food - all kinds of food. Cheese and crackers? Bring it on. Chocolate chip cookies? You betcha. Spaghetti and meatballs? Yes yes yes.

I don't recommend sitting through every single TV show and movie that features me - or, more accurately, a character loosely based on me. But if you did, you'd see Theodore Chipmunk's favorite food changes a lot. Peanuts. Popcorn. Apples. Cheese balls. Frozen waffles. I won't pretend to dislike any of these things (except for frozen waffles - I'm pretty sure that was just part of some promotional tie-in), but only one of the shows got it right. That would be the 1980s cartoon, in which a certain chunky green-clad chipmunk had a special fondness for ice cream.

I sort of remember a time when I wasn't crazy about drumming. I can still recall back to when I wasn't into science fiction. But I cannot remember a time when I didn't like ice cream. I may have been born with a craving for it. Ice cream cones, sundaes, milkshakes - any form of ice cream is OK with this chipmunk. My favorite flavor? No question: butter pecan. It's gotten a bit harder to find, what with all the Cherry Garcias and salted caramels and whatever new flavor they came out with last week. Butter pecan is kind of an "old man" flavor now, but that's OK - I'm an old chipmunk. Give me a scoop of butter pecan in a cup (and a spoon) and you've got one very happy Theodore.

As different as we three brothers are, there has always been one thing that brought us together. Something we all loved, and talked about constantly, and wanted to do more than anything else in the world. Most of you are probably expecting me to tell you that thing was music. But actually, music was a distant second with us back in our youth. The one great passion shared by all three Chipmunks? Baseball.

I don't know why, but from day one, baseball was in our blood. We were fascinated by the game. We almost never went to a professional game as kids, but we'd listen to games on the radio all the time. And if there was some baseball game being played nearby, we'd be there cheering, analyzing, scrutinizing. We never actually played in the neighborhood pickup games with the other kids, but that wasn't really surprising. "Chipmunk bodies aren't built for baseball," says Alvin. "Our arms are too weak to take a vicious swing at a fastball, and our legs are too stubby to outrun an infield hit." But our knowledge of the game did eventually allow us to take part - as umpires.

Our positions were set from the very first game. I was stationed at first base, while Alvin handled both second and third. Simon was at home plate. At first, he stood on a fruit crate to get the proper vantage point to see the pitches, but he eventually got a small step-stool that he used to drag to the games in our wagon. "We of course did not inform Mrs. Gorman," states Simon. "She would never have consented to me willingly placing my bespectacled face in the line of fire for an entire baseball game. Fortunately, although my glasses were knocked off of my face by errant foul tips on a few occasions, there were no major calamities on that front. And yes, there was an occasional comment about the one chipmunk with glasses calling the balls and strikes. But for the most part, the other kids were quietly appreciative."

Our umpiring lasted an entire summer, and the first part of the next...at which point it all came to a sudden halt.

The batter's name was Jeffrey. Jeffrey was a very good hitter, a decent fielder...and an incredible bully. We had never really had a run-in with him before that day. He might have grumbled about a particular pitch once or twice, but either he respected our impartiality, or else he respected the fact that the other kids respected it. On this particular day, he was trying to stretch a single to a double, but then came scurrying back to first when the throw came in faster than he expected. The throw was spot on, he slipped a bit coming back, and the first baseman just barely tagged him out. After I made the call, Jeffrey stood up and started squawking at me, which is something no other player had ever done before. I didn't really respond to him, but I didn't change the call either. Finally, he put his hand to my chest and shoved me hard, knocking me to the ground.

Alvin ran over, with Simon not far behind. "You're out, Jeffrey!" Alvin yelled. "Go sit down!"

Jeffrey defiantly stood with a foot on first base and sneered at Alvin and Simon, while I slowly got to my feet. "And I say I'm safe. What are you mice gonna do about it?"

Simon recalls that he looked over at the other players. "I was observing their faces, attempting to ascertain their thoughts. I wished to determine if they would rally to our side if we continued the confrontation." Simon pauses. "And I did not get that sense at all. Perhaps they were cowed by Jeffrey as well. Perhaps they felt they had to side with the human over the rodents. Whatever the reason, I felt any confrontation was likely to result only in major humiliation and injury on our part. And it was also clear that our authority had been irrevocably compromised. Any player could henceforth simply bully their way through any call that did not suit them."

Simon quietly told Alvin and me to follow him. He walked back to home plate, folded his step stool, placed it in the wagon, and began walking home, as Jeffrey lobbed more insults at our backs.

Alvin remembers that moment all too well. "I was so wound up that I actually thought Simon was going to try walloping Jeffrey with the step stool, even though that wasn't like Simon at all. But instead, he just started walking off the field. I said, 'Wait, where are we going, we can't let him get away with this.' Simon just glanced over at me and said 'He already has'."

"It was a difficult and painful lesson for us," adds Simon. "About the divide between human and rodent, and about the inequities of life."

Thus ended our participation in the neighborhood baseball games, which meant we were stuck playing by ourselves in our backyard. Alvin, Simon and I had made up a baseball-like game that we called PBF - short for "pitch, bat, field". One of us would pitch a tennis ball, another would swing at it with a small bat, and the third would try fielding the ball with a small kid's baseball glove. The batter would get ten pitches, and would get points depending on where he'd hit the ball, and how long it took the fielder to retrieve it. Then we'd rotate positions.

"Simon changed the scoring for the game a lot," says Alvin. "Being all math-y, trying to make it as close to fair as he could."

"In retrospect, it was a poor substitute for the real thing," admits Simon. "But it was better than not playing at all."

When we weren't umpiring baseball, or fake-playing baseball, we were simply being fans of baseball. You could even tell which of our beds was which by the little pennants over them. I don't recall what led us to root for different teams, but that's how it ended up. Alvin is a diehard New York Yankee fan, while Simon, in his own quiet way, cheers for the Chicago Cubs. I started out being a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, which was sort of a halfhearted selection at first. But then the team moved to Los Angeles in 1955, right into our neck of the woods, and I became just as obsessed about the team as my brothers were about theirs.

Every Sunday morning, after we had devoured the weekly baseball reporting in the newspaper, Mrs. Gorman had us put on our nicest clothes, and we walked to the little Methodist church three blocks away. We usually sat right up front, so our view wasn't blocked by other parishioners. None of us three really took to religion at all, but we didn't really mind going to church, either. For one thing, as I mentioned before, we got to sing there. And secondly, it was a sermon given at that church about "helping the less fortunate" that led directly to us being adopted by Mrs. Gorman.

Mrs. Gorman was born Helen Inglemann, but we never knew her as anything but Mrs. Gorman. She didn't talk much about her life B.C. (Before Chipmunks) with us, but we knew the basics. She had been married to Artisty Gorman for about a decade before he died in a car accident. With no children and being left pretty well-off, she made the transition from volunteer-happy housewife to full-time volunteer. If there was a charity organization within five miles, you can bet she was involved with it, if not heading it up herself. You would think all of that would be enough to satisfy anyone's "am I helping the less fortunate" self-test, but apparently not Mrs. Gorman's. Which is what led her to cut back on her volunteering a bit, and to set about adopting the three least-adoptable kids she could find – us.

Something has probably struck you about all this - the fact that I'm calling her "Mrs. Gorman". But that's what we always called her, by her request. That sort of gives you some indication what the relationship was like. She was kind and generous, taught us well, gave us a good home, and supported our endeavors. But everything was done with a slight sense of formality. Our last names were never changed to match hers. They remained "Chipmunk". You might say she never really viewed us as "her children". We were more like "these three creatures I'm raising". This may come across as sounding a bit cold and depressing, but it really wasn't. In fact, at the time, it didn't even seem that strange. Mrs. Gorman may have doled out hugs extremely sparingly, but all three of us knew she cared deeply about us.

And what was it like for us before Mrs. Gorman? I wasn't quite three years old when she adopted us, so I really couldn't tell you. I have some really vague memories. Eating a cracker at a rickety wooden table, playing with green and yellow blocks, stuff like that. And no, we never searched for our birth parents. That was mainly Simon's idea. He says, "Rodent females who give up their children for adoption rarely have pleasant backstories. In addition, I was worried how the information might alter our sibling dynamic. For example, what if we discovered that you and I were biologically related, for example, but that Alvin was not? I know that many adopted people do not share my sentiments, but I genuinely felt comfortable simply not knowing about our birth family."

Our lives in the Gorman household probably weren't too different from those of most of our human peers. Every morning, we got up and went to school, although the other students tended to look askance at us until they got to know us better (and some never bothered making the attempt). Then we came home and did chores around the house for our nickel-and-dime allowances.

It would have been easy for Mrs. Gorman to either say "well, you're too small to help", or, at the other extreme, just yell at us to get things done. But that wasn't how she did things. She would just say, "Think about it, boys." And it fell to us to figure out how to do these chores despite our small stature. Which was why we kept an old fruit crate next to the kitchen sink, so we could push it into place to stand on when it was time to do the dishes. Or why we put a small toy wagon next to the laundry room, so we could haul the folded clean laundry back to our room.

One thing that was different for us chipmunks was our weekly elocution classes. Chipmunks and other rodents do have a tendency to talk fast, and it can be difficult for humans to understand us. So Mrs. Gorman sent us off to these classes once a week for three years. None of us looked forward to going, as Mrs. Klingensmith was something of a taskmaster. Even now, when speaking to someone new for the first time, I can hear her slightly-German-accented voice echoing in my head. "Stand tall, Theo-dore! Back straight, gut in! Full breath control! Pacing, pacing, pacing!" We gave speeches and oral reports every week, and said phrases like "round and round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran" so many times that I'm sure all three of us still say them in our sleep. But one can't argue with results, since most people seem to understand us just fine.

In December 1956, Mrs. Gorman managed to charm the folks at our church enough that they let her chipmunks take part in the Christmas pageant. This was the church's big event of the year, with a bake sale, nativity play, the whole nine yards. We got dressed up in our little suits, took the stage halfway through the pageant, and belted out our rendition of "Adeste Fideles". The crowd seemed to enjoy it, but one man near the back was particularly impressed. He approached us after the pageant, while I was trying to get Mrs. Gorman to buy me a lemon bundt cake at the bake sale.

He introduced himself as Ross Bagdasarian, a name that took me a few months to learn how to pronounce. (The last name, not the first name.) He told us that he worked at Liberty Records, and that we might find it easier to call him by his stage name: David Seville. He said he had enjoyed our performance, and he'd liked our voices enough that he thought he might be able to use us on a record at some point.

"The cliché states that the record label representative immediately pressures the artist into signing a lifetime contract," says Simon. "But no such thing occurred with us. Mr. Seville simply wished to establish contact. He had enjoyed our vocal work, but was unsure how best to utilize it. One of his initial ideas was that we might be ideal for high-pitched, ethereal backing vocals for easy listening records. He also mentioned perhaps working on an album specifically for children."

We told him about our little band set-up in the basement, and he came home with us to hear us bash through "Rock Around the Clock". And no, dollar signs didn't appear in his eyes then, either. "I think he said it was 'nice'," says Alvin. "Not really the adjective you want to hear about your rock and roll."

Mrs. Gorman mentioned to Dave that she thought our music making in the basement was getting too loud. So he made a suggestion. He lived about eight blocks away, and he had a mother-in-law apartment over his garage that he was just using for storage. He told us we could set up and play there, where we wouldn't be bothering anybody. And while we played up there, he could get a better feel what we sounded like, and how he might use us. Alvin says, "You'd think Mrs. Gorman would've jumped at that, but she just kept saying 'well, I don't know' in that way of hers. That's when we laid on the charm. We had to promise to do a lot of extra chores, but she finally gave in."

By January 1957, we had set up my drum set at Dave's house, and begun practicing our ukulele-and-drum-based rock and roll there. And on occasion, we would have a guest up in the room as we played. "Dave's son Ross Jr. used to sit in this old chair and watch us play," Alvin remembers. "He was a bit younger than us, but he was a nice kid, so we didn't mind. Sometimes we'd let him shake a tambourine or something, which he liked. It's strange to think that a lot of what followed was forged up in that room."