End of An Era: Gerry and the Pacemakers: "I'm The One"

It is odd to hear a song for the first time - as I have with this one - and know almost to the minute when it was a hit, and seeing this (with Gerry looking like a relative of Mike Myers; for all I know they are related) confirms that this was the era when people would sing about loneliness and possible broken hearts with smiles on their faces, because though he is down he's confident she will indeed see that he is the one; the upbeat smiley Mersey sound almost insisted on smiling no matter what, after all.

I wonder sometimes if the naturally more modest or shy folks ever really cottoned on to the bright cheer of this period, instead clutching their folk records and staying away from the raucous sounds from upstairs; or perhaps they were into the blues, man, and had no time for mere pop (though they may have bought this, out at the same time). These good-natured professional Liverpudlians were huge - only The Beatles could eclipse them - and yet by now there are a myriad of new bands flooding into the charts in The Beatles' wake, and the new is driving out the old with alarming swiftness. Gerry and the Pacemakers only had two other hits beyond this, fading out just as the other bands began to take hold; The Beatles must have seen this happen and heard a clock ticking on their own careers, but were too busy dealing with endless recording and touring to maybe comprehend the change. The party had just begun, with some of the arrived-early-leave-early types going elsewhere, and for the first time for a while, we go back to London next for a new band who have their own sound.