When Is A Song An Unsong?: Mac and Katie Kissoon: "Sugar Candy Kisses"

What is it like to listen to a song that has fundamentally been...forgotten? This song is essentially no longer part of what I (guess) is the musical “canon.” Of course this may not be a bad thing, but in a time when people seem to obsess over the past in a way which is unhealthy (look at the current album charts – how much of the music is from the past or are greatest hits from the past? A lot) it is rare.  If you are me, trying to find the new is increasingly difficult but the past seems to loom and even interrupt, making the new (and interesting) harder and harder to locate. 
                          

Do people deliberately like bad things?  Do people deliberately like mediocre things?  These were my first thoughts upon regarding this song.  But I have had a bit more time to think these things over.  This song is neither bad nor mediocre; but it is in a unique and unenviable position of being utterly forgotten.  Finding a 70s compilation with this song on it – and there are so many 70s compilations – is nearly impossible.  It has been virtually erased from music, been turned into a non-song.  An unsong, if you will.  This is a rare feat, as so much of radio (in the UK at least) is fixated on the 70s, as the album charts to this day show.  Almost all songs from the 70s which were big hits (that can still be played, of course) are still being given airtime somewhere (if not on Radio 2 then on 6 Music or elsewhere).  The overwhelming narrative is not just on the radio but on these compilations; for a song to only be available on a Disky (Dutch) box set is saying something.  It is saying only Europe still cares; the UK has effectively turned its back on this song and Mac and Katie Kissoon, denying its existence and leading us, dear reader, straight into the void that I somehow instinctively knew was at the heart of the 70s UK single charts.  With this song we are beyond the edge; we are in the world where things disappear, and must go forth carefully.  This is not The Fog as much as what The Fog has been hiding.

Of course, there are many songs which managed to get into the charts which are, for any number of reasons, no longer played – singles are, lest we ever forget, supposed to be evanescent things, things which strike at the moment acutely, moments that reach out to the listener directly as if taking up a conversation, adding their voices to the discussion. (By the way, while I remain ambivalent about the 70s personally, I think they are far more interesting than radio generally lets on.)  They can be good or bad or indeed mediocre, but they all hope (or the songwriters and performers do) to be at least remembered and even celebrated. The music industry loves (in part because this is how it survives) to remind us of the past, even if it is just the recent past of the NOW series. 

For a song to be left out of all this is a puzzle, particularly as these two were already part of the UK  musical world – Katie Kissoon had been recording since the 60s (under the odd name Peanut) solo and with her brother Jerry (stage name Mac).  This song was their big chance for a hit in the UK, and as it was as deliberately written* as The Rubettes’ “Sugar Baby Love” and it worked, getting to #2 on Radio Luxembourg and #3 in the UK.  (That a love song is being sung by siblings was something blithely ignored at the time I am guessing, especially since Donny and Marie were also popular.) 

I can think of a few reasons this song has been...left behind.  It sounds as if they are singing the song – their voices are genuine and sweet enough, but somehow still there is no punctum. It is, even by 1975 standards, a bit square; like a music box it dutifully revolves and then fades abruptly once it’s done.  It is professional music, done by professionals; Mac and Katie Kissoon are and have been very much part of the business as in-demand backing singers** since their heyday (mostly in Europe) was over.  They are doing their best with a song that is just too rote and routine to spark any actual fervour, the sort of song done on variety shows.

Ultimately this song shows that just being a hit is not enough.  Being in the charts at all as we have seen is not really enough either. There is something amiss about the charts themselves at this time – which I will address in due course.  A whole other thing is quietly and determinedly already existing and growing, music which is not perhaps as technically good as this...but that will not, in time, matter.  Alongside this in February 1975 Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of the Conservative party.  The end of “the 1970s” is not in sight...yet.


Next up:  a different pair with a different future.

                    

* The composer credits are Bickerton/Waddington, who also wrote "Nothing But A Heartache" by The Flirtations. 

**Katie is a favourite with Van Morrison in particular, though I should note she has also worked with the KLF and Dexy's Midnight Runners.. I should also note that as Mac and Katie they had the first crack at “Love Will Keep Us Together” before the more famous version, and had the US hit version of "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep."

 

 

The Right Time: John Holt: "Help Me Make It Through The Night"

One of the contributing factors towards 1975 being the amazing year it was has to be the general openness of the charts.  The old stalwarts of pop and rock were still around, but new things, new permutations of things, abounded in the early 70s.  In short, anything went, and amidst the joy/chaos there were more than a few songs that showed vulnerability and a slight sense of loneliness and even tiredness.  Country and reggae were old friends, and here they sound just right together.

By early 1975 the high that Trojan Records had been riding was coming to an end, but label star John Holt was wise/lucky enough to have a hit album 1000 Volts of Holt (the cover screams early 70s, right down to the paisley/plaid combination which Holt pulls off because star power) come out before the financially-struggling Trojan collapsed altogether in May, bought out by Saga Records. (This could be, as is suggested in Bass Culture, that the English kids who dug reggae c. 1971 were no longer interested in it, it being passé.)

“Help Me Make It Through The Night” was released in late 1974 and got to #2 on the Luxembourg chart as a crossover reggae/lovers rock hit that was solid musically and sung with warmth and ease by Holt.  That it was so sophisticated was due to the English producer  Tony Ashfield, who had been involved in Jamaican music for some time and had worked with Holt on a previous album, The Further You Look.  That was 1972 though, and while it was a big hit in Jamaica it wasn’t elsewhere – hence Ashfield and Holt decided to do another album, one with proven songs like this one, which had already been a hit for Gladys Knight & The Pips as well as others, including a reggae version by Duke Parker.  The song suited his voice and modest mien* and its devil-may-care-desperate lyrics somehow work in with the longing in his voice.  I wonder if this song would have made it to number one had all the shops it sold in – not just Boots or Woolworths – were counted?

In the meantime, Ashfield and Holt split over differences, Holt continuing to record in Jamaica both in the lovers rock style and doing more political songs.  This song marks a moment when someone who is a worldwide star finally gets his due, and had things been different...

 

Next up:  Music, non-stop!

 

 

                                       

 

*Holt turned down a certain song which author Max Romeo eventually had to record himself.   Ahem.

Irresistible: David Bowie: "Sorrow"

As 1973 draws to a close - there are only a few songs left (for this blog, in any case) to consider - the understandable and complex idea of going backwards to go forwards is coming into play.  David Bowie's understanding of this was to do an album of covers, as if to say, hmm, yeah, the 60s was my decade too, but it's the 70s now, and what is left of the 60s?  Surely the 70s are not going to be some endless rehash of the previous decade, are they?

"Sorrow" started its way towards Bowie rather modestly as the b-side of The McCoys' version of "Fever" - which brings the nigh-legendary figure of Rick Derringer into the MSBWT story, amongst other things.  It was The McCoys who did it first, and The Merseys (Tony Crane and Billy Kinsley, formerly of The Merseybeats) then covered it and had a hit with it in May 1966.  A line from the song appears in The Beatles' "It's All Too Much" ("with your long blonde hair and your eyes of blue").  The song (written by Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and future Blondie/The Go-Go's producer Richard Gottehrer) is a typical lament about a girl who is "acting funny" and who "never does" what she should (she plays "high class games" - are these the same ones that the woman in "It's All Over Now" plays, I wonder).  The song (an NME #2) is in two parts - the first, wherein he presumably leaves her because she brings nothing but, well, sorrow, and after the saxophone solo, where he is alone and missing her and her "OWNLEY" things - blond hair in particular.  He's unable to sleep, his mind wanders in the song as he tries to find her, unable to resist the pull of her, even if she's bad news for him. 

It is a low-key song, slightly nervous, as if the narrator acknowledges that the object of his desire is possibly "the devil's daughter" but that she has a pull on him that is hypnotic, languorous and will not let him be.  It's not like "Eloise" in its absolute high-pitch of romantic obsession - Bowie is trying to keep a lid on that, but it is as if, with the strings and his own delicate singing, that he is hooked on her sorrow, that he would rather be with her than with someone who was more conventional.  It could be that "Sorrow" is a song looking back at the 60s themselves - dangerous, fluctuating, self-important and utterly compelling - as something that can only be lamented, remembered and sought for, but never recovered.  Not entirely; not completely. 

The 60s are going to keep resonating as the 70s go on - in some parts of the UK the 60s only really begin to happen in the 70s; there is a time-lapse going on, a reluctance to move ahead.  But considering late '73, who wouldn't want the 60s all over again?  Bowie seems to be warning against such thinking, though, and his emotional distance here breaks down pretty quickly - he may be cold or cruel in other ones on the album, but this is a moment of reflection and loss; of wanting and ache.

Next up:  if it can't be shiny, it's dirty.        

Hang Up Heartbreak: Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show: "Sylvia's Mother"

This is a song of desperation; a song of communication that has broken down so much that the narrator, desperate as he is, really has no idea if anything he is trying to get across is getting through. 

You don't have to be Marshall McLuhan to figure out how frustrating this is, and the narrator is practically driven to a nervous breakdown in just trying to say something to one Sylvia Avery, a woman he has loved and lost, presumably to the man who "lives down Galveston way."  There is no deeper indication in Shel Silverstein's lyrics as to why Sylvia is leaving so quickly, only that she is - packing up, getting her umbrella, off in time to catch the train, all while the hapless narrator is singing.  The operator (who is yet another stumbling block in the narrator's way) keeps demanding money, which means he's in a phone booth somewhere, feeding yet more dimes as he tries to at least say goodbye.  But he doesn't get to do that; Sylvia's mom doesn't let him talk to Sylvia as she might start crying and thinking she should stay, and there's simply no time for that.  I can see Sylvia's mom - perhaps a little old lady type, very nice but distracted; but overall protective of her daughter's happiness. That Sylvia is happy is the first stab in the narrator's heart; perhaps he knows she is with someone else, is engaged, or maybe has found out that she is leaving home and wants to say goodbye, and then the learns the news - he's history.  There can be no rekindling here, no second chance.  He asks and asks to have Sylvia hear his goodbye, to no avail - she's too busy.  And so he gets her mom; a nice lady, nice enough - and this is the last straw I feel, for the narrator - to tell him that he can phone again when he likes, though it is highly unlikely he ever will.  His whole purpose in life is this girl, this Sylvia, and she is disappearing from it, at great haste. 

Anyone who has ever dumped someone will know how Sylvia feels.  She is happy, and that happiness is so big that talking to her ex is literally too small a thing for her to do; she is washed clean of him and does not need his goodbye.  Indeed even if it was the other way around, her new happiness eclipses any sorrow she may have felt, and his wanting to start anything up again would be met by a pity, a pity that only now, when he is losing her, is he trying to get her back.  In any case she is eager to get to her new life and love as soon as she can, and has no time to be persuaded, to maybe feel different.  There was a time for that, but it has passed; and so the hapless narrator (who has run out of change, or so I always think, by the end of the song) is left to cry and hang up the phone, walking out into that same rain, not even knowing if Sylvia herself knows or cares that he called.  That he can't go see her in person - or didn't - is maybe an indication that seeing her again would be too much; the breakup wound is still too raw for him to handle.  And now this.  It is hard not to feel for him, and anyone who has called to get someone's mom or dad explaining that their son or daughter is with someone else will know the emptiness and scant consolation in that conversation.  The narrator is desperate for one last word, but he gets the wrong female of the house; and so his hopes are dashed. 

I will return to Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show in a few years - sadly with a song unlike this, but I will discuss that one when it comes.  I should say that the songs I know by them best are the ones I heard growing up listening to Dr. Demento - "Freakin' at the Freakers Ball" and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" - also songs by Silverstein and much more indicative of the band's genial strangeness and good humor, to be a kind of post-hippie band for the generation of those who were to grow up to be not yuppies but those determined to keep something of the 60s alive, however they could.  That they would have their greatest successes once they lost their wackiness shows that the post-hippie generation somehow either mellowed out or began to focus on something else, something or someone more meaningful.  (Even though Dr. Hook & The Medicine show were based in New Jersey, I think of that post-hippie crowd and Chez Panisse and Alice Waters come immediately to mind.)  But for now, with Silverstein's songs, they are one facet of the early 70s, one that doesn't take itself too seriously, though with this song, they show they have heart; generations may come and go, but the pain of being too late to even say goodbye is a constant agony.           

Next up:  we like to be beside the seaside.

No Agony Please, We're British: Vicky Leandros: "Come What May (Apres Toi)"

And now to the winner of 1972's Eurovision, to a song that was sung originally in French as "Avec Toi" but was translated into English as "Come What May."  Leandros was born in Greece but was asked by Luxemburg to represent them at Eurovision in '68 (I have no idea how that would happen, by the way - perhaps it's because she was brought up in Germany?) where she placed a more than respectable fourth place; and so she returns again, with an anthem of love - all the typical tropes are here ("my life changed completely the moment I met you" and "yesterday is very far away" are the main messages of the song, beyond her loyalty and love for her Other).  Yes, this is an unabashed love song, of the kind that automatically gets versions sung in various languages, yet is immediately understandable even if you don't comprehend what she is singing.  The feeling of relief and triumph are here, a kind of stark testifying that might grip the hearts of the Housewives of Valium Court and remind them of their own decisions of the past, ones made with equal conviction and heroic quality.  The French lyrics, however, take the song to a more intimate corner, where she is comparing how she feels when she is with the Other and when she is not; she is singing to let her Other know that she has "les main vides, le coeur sans joie" and the song ends with the ambiguous but hopeful "je pourrai peut-etre/donner de ma tendresse/mais plus rien de mon amour."

All of which is to say that in English this is an utterly straightforward song, clear as can be; but in French (which was the basis of the other versions, I presume) it is more a song of experience and love that is typically Gallic in its sophistication, more heart-grabbing, more the kind of thing that properly translated could be sung by Scott Walker.  I feel as if the English-speaking audience is being cheated here, that a song that is about the many facets of love and loss is being ironed out into a rah-rah blunt statement of near-slavish devotion that is just plain embarrassing once the original lyrics are understood.  I am not sure who re-wrote the song, but s/he did the original version (co-written by Leandros' father, Leo) an injustice.  In French, she sings about living after him as the shadow of her Other's shadow; in English, she seems to give up everything for this man, not once telling him how things will be for her if he leaves her; and so a fine Eurovision winner is more than just lost in translation; it is simplified for an audience that is presumed to be too...something....for such a song to work.  What that something is, is in part what I am working towards here; the answer is not going to be pretty, I'm afraid.

Next up:  back to the 60s via a 70s pin-up. 

Olympian Yelp: Andy Williams: "Can't Help Falling In Love"

And now we shift from the still grieving Beatles fans to a different segment of fans altogether - those who watched tv, and bought singles by those who had their own tv shows. As the 70s go on the power of television - both shows and commercials - grows stronger, and as you would expect, helps to mould what gets in the charts.

If you have your very own tv show of course you don't need commercials, you just have to perform the song and it will sell, depending on how your audience reacts to it; the whole thing is a neat circle, and since kids watch tv as much as adults do, anything that appeals to both generations - as this song surely did - will really work. Commercially, at least; but is this a good version of the Hugo & Luigi song?

Williams' best work - as noted here - is not where he has to shout to be heard, but where he can be more varied in his responses, from joyous to near-godlike. I say godlike as in absolute; Williams is not a man for holding back if it's not necessary, and his Olympian voice in this song strains the delicacy the melody and seductiveness of the lyrics. It is a hard song to sing with much emphasis or whooping joy, because it is at root a chanson, dozy and suggestive, slightly sinister and retrospectively overwhelming.

"Take my whole life too" is a big statement and Williams here is virtually throwing himself at his Other, with what sounds like the Love Affair in the background doing a variation on "Everlasting Love." He is going up and up when the whole song is about that river gently flowing into the sea, about inevitability, about fate itself. Perhaps Williams is taking his cue from the "fools rush in" part, but he doesn't sound as if his whole life is in someone else's hands, which is really the point of the song. He cannot help himself, he is vulnerable, but made strong by his love - strong enough to sing, at least. However, Williams seems to be proclaiming this helplessness as so the whole town can hear, shouting it from the rooftop - it's all at cross purposes, and feels like someone using a blowtorch to light a birthday candle.

This is what happens, though, when a song (an NME #2 by the way) is done in a style that will appeal to 'the kids' as well as the adults; the subtleties are lost in a new glossy finish that sounds 'hip' while still appealing to his main fans (Williams' show was at its peak in popularity at this time). It worked, clearly, but I can't say it's a good version of the song, just one that fits in with the general confusion of 1970, where the old and the new are beginning to get mixed up, and all kinds of strange things, as you dear readers will see, start to pop up, songs that come from all angles and places, some already laid-back, others (like this one) definitely not.

Next up: Back to Eurovision.

Play It Again: Herman's Hermits: "My Sentimental Friend"

By the late 60s there were two categories bands found themselves in; one the auteur-led wayward geniuses of what would in retrospect be called Classic Rock (The Big Four being the most obvious ones) and the more-or-less bubblegum contingent, whose claim to any greatness was that nothing they did could smack of pretension or profundity, mainly because their producers were mainly intent not on albums but on singles. Big important bands, whether they were famous or just well-known amongst the cognoscenti, did albums, all the better to fit in new concepts, new instruments, and virtuosic solos. The Bubblegum kids had hooks, heart-tugging or not, songs that were easily hummable and understandable, and a blink-and-you-miss-it sophistication.

I count Herman’s Hermits – whom some of you may have been expecting at this here blog – as bubblegum, because that is where their core audience (and Mickie Most, their producer) liked them to be; they were much more successful as purveyors of what No Hard Chords’ Sally O’Rourke calls “pop junk” on the charts in the US than in the UK, where they paved the way for The Monkees just as much as The Beatles did. The Hermits were an actual band that could write songs and everything, but Most knew what they could do best and that was interpret songs by others (leaving their own compositions to album tracks & b-sides).

And so here we are, dear readers, with a song that John Carter and Geoff Stephens wrote, rubberstamped by Most as he knew that the yearning in Peter Noone’s voice (surprising to hear him with such emotion in his voice, but then bubblegum thrives on naked emotion as much as opera does) would do it justice. Not that this is a profound song, but it walks a very thin line indeed between being about powerful emotions in and around music and then mysteriously becoming what it is already talking (or rather, singing) about.

It is a song about the manipulative power of music, a man wanting his old “friend” to be moved by a song to tears. Because he wants her back, he wants to see her cry? Perhaps, but mainly he wants her to realize what they had together, via the postively Casablanca-style ploy of requesting that old song of theirs which will bring back those old feelings. That she is “over there” implies a huge gulf that he is scared to physically cross, as if he knows that would already be useless; only music has the power to bring her back now, and his song is secondary heart-tugging – he wants the DJ to play something, or perhaps the bandleader – whoever is in charge here has to help him.

So this song has us as a witness, as the DJ/bandleader ourselves, roped into this moment where he sees her and wants her to want him back via the sentimental song…which is clearly in and of itself sentimental. He knows she likes sad songs, and since this is a plea the song itself is sad, as there is no way of finding out whether the ploy works or not. (“Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” works on kind of the same lines, with Noone aw-shucksing his way into Mrs. Brown’s heart if not ours.) The song thus doubles up on itself (I don’t know if this was Carter/Stephens’ intention*) and this brought the Hermits’ their biggest hit in the UK. I’m not sure if this was even released as a US single; it’s on the reissue of their US-only album Blaze, and I imagine it's on greatest hits compilations in the UK. In any case I don’t remember hearing it on North American radio – not surprising, as it breaks down that bubblegum wall Most had carefully built, even as Most approved of the song in the first place. It seems no one could escape the positively tidal emotions of 1969, where music itself was the one, the only thing that could possibly bring hearts together.


*There is a unique intensity in John Carter’s work that is hard to describe; hearing him sing the demo for this song is even more affecting than the Hermits’ version, as if he knows already his question is doomed but he has to ask anyway.

Troubled Dolly: Clodagh Rodgers: "Come Back And Shake Me"

If you said the words ‘Northern Ireland’ to, say, earnest young people at this time, they would talk about The Troubles; but the same words would evoke quite something else in those younger and more interested in pop, particularly boys; Clodagh Rodgers would be their main response, which puts a whole different spin on what, at this time, Northern Ireland meant to the British public in general. To some, sectarian strife; to others, home of a dream babe.

Unlike Mary Hopkin, who prospered under the aegis of Apple, Rodgers prospered with one American Kenny Young, who wrote and produced this song and finally got Rodgers (who had been performing since she was a teenager and recording for several years already) her first real hit, an NME number two. It is, in effect, a song about wanting her man back, the aggression of the title lyric implying she is all but dead without him – “My sleeves are all torn, my buttons are loose/My makeup’s starting to fade away*” – she is his “baby doll” and a rather sullied and sad Raggedy Ann. She begs him to come back and fix her up, and bring her back to life. It’s a standard uptempo song as you’d expect – “Hug me, bug me, be my friend!” she commands in the chorus – and her requests are topped with this bare fact: “My life is my love, my love is my life/My world is my man” – feminist anthem this is definitely not, but then it is1969, and this song chimes in well with Rodgers’ appearance as a “dolly bird” who is dressed up much as a Barbie would be, with a hint of invitation that would indeed make her the boys’ favourite at this time. Rodgers went on to other successes in the charts** and controversially represented the UK in Eurovision a year later (there were IRA death threats against her); she became part of 'all around entertainment' and was always there either on tv or the stage, even if she had bad luck with singles. (For instance, she recorded "Stand By Your Man" before Tammy Wynette did, but Tammy had the hit.)

Rodgers was a star, launched with Kenny Young's songs; he would go on to write and produce with Fox and Yellow Dog (Fox's hit "S-s-single Bed" in 1976 was too coy for Rodgers, I imagine; part of her appeal was her directness). The simplicity of Rodgers, that star quality, were part of the whole puzzle of 1969, when show business was going right along as usual, just as the 'classic rock' era was beginning and strangeness was starting to seep into things. If you were a boy, Rodgers was easy enough to understand, even if The Troubles was something hanging in the background, in direct opposition to just about everything she stood for.

Next up: a Manchester band that did much better in the U.S. than at home.


*I cannot help but think of the whole riot grrl 'kinderwhore' deliberately rough baby doll look here, as championed by Courtney Love; in the 60s that would have been unacceptable. Rodgers here wants joy in her life, as well as neatness and tidiness.

**She was the biggest female star of '69 in the UK, and her voice was insured for a million pounds. And yet growing up in North America I was unaware of her - a good example of how divided the two sides of the Atlantic were becoming at this time, a gaping crevasse that would increase in the early 70s.

Boy Toy: The Foundations: "Build Me Up Buttercup"

And so we come to the end of 1968; it may have been a year for worldwide revolution, but for this blog it clearly has been a year of relationships, whether they are viewed nostalgically as with O’Connor or tormentingly, like Ryan. This song sits about halfway between those two extremes, in that the man clearly loves the woman but is disappointed by her actions, or rather inactions. He loves her but those inactions speak volumes about her attitude, which is decidedly blasé. There doesn’t seem to be much reason for him to still be attracted to her, and he himself questions why he needs her; he doesn’t understand himself, nor does he understand her, save that she thinks of him as a "toy." Perhaps it is because he is so desperate that she stands him up, forgets to call, and “mess(es) him around.” His aching “ooo-OOOH”s are as much about his pain as physical longing, and I don’t know if it is perverse of me to guess that maybe he secretly likes being in love with someone so unpredictable; someone who is very much like the butterfly girl in “Jesamine” who irritates and is yet still inherently lovable.

The song is upbeat, led by piano and horns, a radio staple to this day** as it is cheery, even though it depicts a man at the end of his proverbial rope, the singer almost screaming “WHY” at each chorus, maybe to her, maybe rhetorically as he stares at the clock*, runs to the door, looks imploringly at the phone...wondering about his fate and telling her how much he loves her.

He believes one day he will win her over, but I don’t know if this one-sided relationship has much of a chance; no matter how many “hey hey hey”s and no matter how loud he gets, this woman’s inability to commit, even to something as simple as a phone call, must mean there is either something about her he doesn’t know (not that he has any suspicions in the song) or that maybe, as the saying goes, she just isn’t that into him and he, poor sap, is trying to get pears from an oak tree. (I am not ignoring the obvious implications about her building up his expectations either; those yelps of his are from thwarted desire, and in between this and him not even knowing why he’s attracted to her, something awkward and unpleasant might just happen.)

The Foundations’ previous hit points to a sort of theme here of hapless pointless attachment (“Baby, Now That I’ve Found You”) and this need to be with someone – even if it’s not reciprocated – kind of hints at what is to come. If the Summer of Love was all about love as a universal solvent, then in ’68 love came back down to the dogged and irrational personal perspective, wherein men have feelings for women that don’t necessarily make a lot of sense, but they are true and genuine and that – that realness – is what counts. 1969 is going to take that realness all over the place, as the decade ends and everyone has their final say on what counts.



*Sloan do an excellent song on the bonus EP of One Chord To Another called “Stood Up,” all about a guy who is left in a café, watching the clock…

**If I sound a little...arms-length about this song, it's because I associate it with a compilation I heard way too much in a situation that I didn't exactly enjoy. As much as I try to be fair to songs, some have been drummed into me in a way that doesn't make me think of them with automatic enthusiasm. I should note that it was written by Mike d'Abo (lead singer with Manfred Mann) and Tony Macaulay, who helped to write "Baby, Now That I've Found You." I should also note that The Foundations were the first multi-racial group to hit it big in the UK, at a time when (inexplicable to me) The Black and White Minstrel Show was still on tv. The struggle was still definitely continuing...

Love's In Control: The Casuals: "Jesamine"

As common as they seem now, musicians have been going on tv to compete against each other for promising stardom and riches for some time; The Casuals won Opportunity Knocks three times in 1965 and got a recording contract, but the public enthusiasm for them, as it does for so many in these situations, did not translate into an instant hit for their first single. Sure, people liked them, but not the song. And so they moved to Italy and had a career there doing Italian covers of English-language hits (they did The Bee Gees' "Massachusetts" for example). Then they changed their label from Fontana to Decca and got this hit, a cover of a song by The Bystanders written by Friendly Forbear* Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott, the Bystanders' manager.

It sounds as if it was written and performed almost anonymously; there were no stars in this hard-working band, and it sounds very much as if the old-fashioned beat of the 50s is combined with the "butterfly child" 60s vibe of a man in love with a girl who is life and death to him, who "makes his life a dream" but doesn't seem to know what effect she has on him. It is a wistful song with a sense that beauty like this is ephemeral and a hesitancy to do anything lest she fly away, forever. The music circles around this dilemma elegantly, the music itself slowly settling and then soaring, aching to break free but not really able to; not yet, anyway. The awfulness of how he is "not really living" without her is balanced by his adoration of her, her opening his eyes being her real gift, again one she may not know she is giving.

If the previous song had the feeling of "Gee, this what falling in love is like - gosh, I'd better get used to it" then this is much closer to the near narcotic state it can have, wiping the mind clean of anything but the Other, making the rest of the world seem irrelevant and the lover can find nothing and be nothing without the beloved. Again, this might seem extreme, but the songwriters - even if published this under psedonyms - are right to emphasize the Romantic here, which The Summer of Love tried to make universal. This presents a truer sense of what nobility and vulnerability there is in love (especially, as here, one-sided & maybe even unrequited love); the next song will go far beyond this, and far beyond anything I've written about so far in terms of love's intensity and all the desperation those arrows can cause.

This song, by the way, like Leapy Lee's was The Casuals' only real hit; not to get too meta here, but it is as if Love itself was propelling these artists into the charts, to right a certain wrong. With this next song, it certainly sounds as if Love has got the reins.



*The name I use to describe anyone who has anything to do with New Pop before it actually starts; in this case, Wilde is Kim Wilde's father, so he is a literal forbear!

Sophisticated Misery: Englebert Humperdinck: "A Man Without Love"

It is easy to see that on the same block as Marriott and his bothersome neighbors, the Housewives of Valium Court have their own method of escape; not just through doctor-approved medication but through daydreams. There he is, unable to leave the house as he is crying (and real men don't cry in public) over his lost love. It was, perhaps, a Mediterranean romance - Spain, Italy, somewhere where (the Housewives think) Romance is constantly in the air and a broken heart is seen not as a mere scratch or bruise but as a near-fatal condition that must be treated with respect.

Crying is a funny thing in songs; it's an easy enough thing to sing about, but if you have the wrong voice for it, it renders the emotional outpouring as something more or less as emotionally involving as trimming the hedge or kneading dough*. It requires a big voice to handle those big emotions, and if Englebert here sounds less than believable (compared to say, Roy Orbison) he at least has the appropriate voice for the song and its Italian origins. (The song was originally written by Roberto Livraghi, Daniele Pace & Mario Panzeri as "Quando M'innamoro" for the Sanremo Festival, an Italian song competition that was the inspiration for Eurovision; Barry Mason wrote English lyrics.) Part of the reason this works is simply that so many I'm-going-to-stay-right-here-and-mope songs** were Englebert's territory already, but there is a languorous smoothness here as well, and the Housewives could easily imagine him wearing his silk dressing gown and eating his eggs Benedict and being as elegant as hell, and still suffering.

Loneliness is indeed a cloak he wears, as a more avant-MOR balladeer would sing, and if he can't go outside he is in a way just as imprisoned as his intended audience; what may look like more fromage to some was more than likely reality for many. That it has a slightly too-sweet aura about it - like a kind of glaze - adds to the sealed-for-your-protection feeling of immobility he's felt since she went away, after that Mediterranean romance.

Still, this immobility is cozy in way - there is a reassuring gentleness and suaveness in the music that guarantees that once the narrator (who recognizes himself as one of many lonely men, a member of a tribe if you will) gets over his loss and goes outside, he is bound to meet another woman and Romance will bloom again. For now he cries and can't go outside, though, and while that seems harsh at least his suffering isn't as acute as the one in this song, a song that brings romantic agony's endless and near-morbid condition only too close to home***. (That it didn't get into the Top 40 in the UK could in part be because of its intensity; it could also be because Motown music wasn't as of yet being pushed that much by certain DJs and music folk.) The Housewives of Valium Court are comforted in their way by this shared misery, thinking and feeling the common "He's too beautiful to suffer!" as they pause after housework or during the baby's nap; that maybe in a few years they might think that way about themselves is possible, but at this point marginal. For now they sit and imagine the Mediterranean breezes, exotic romance, meeting a lovelorn man while strolling by the sea...

Next up: a song that lives, like other things, in infamy.


*Witness the completely emotionally non-involving Jason Derulo single "Fight For You" where when he sings about crying he sounds like a robot. The overuse of Toto's "Africa" doesn't help much either.

**As opposed to Tom Jones, who is forever trying to get home and never really managing it.

***Roger Penzabene, the lyricist, wrote the song about his marital troubles; he killed himself on New Year's Eve, 1967. The Summer of Love had many victims, and the heaviness of '67 was beginning to crush many in '68.

This Is The End: Englebert Humperdinck: "There Goes My Everything"

There are certain historians of late who have tried to give a different spin on the 60s, on 1967 in particular; these are the sort who will point out the album sales of The Sound of Music were still going strong and that this man, Englebert Humperdinck (a stage name given to him, after the Hansel und Gretel composer) was the true star of the time. All else is hippy-hypey nonsense, so much florid ephemeral noise. The solid majority of folk did not want backwards guitars and baroque orchestration; they wanted a four-square song they could understand, with lyrics that are brief, lovesick and thus romantic. This is true enough; his first hit was on the charts for over a year, and this one stayed around for over six months. He had been working in the club circuit for years, honing his craft as an entertainer (a term he takes seriously) and his management thought that his way forward was to change his name (from the less exotic Jerry Dorsey) and give him some big ballads that would have women and girls a new idol to worship, more or less.

Idol worship is strange; reality shows that try to find one tend to come up trumps a lot of the time as idolatry is really either one of two things: temporary or permanent. It's also another thing: illogical. No Fullers or Cowells can ever really gauge what any given audience will want after a certain point, and the ones that are chosen who succeed tend to do so because they don't agree with their so-called masters. Cliff Richard still has his fans in part because he does what he wants, as does Englebert*. The "too beautiful to suffer" element is also here, of course; idols are adored and glamorized by women who feel they could be the one, if only in their dreams. (In his previous hit he wanted out of a relationship; in this one she's leaving him - how many adult listeners heard these songs as reflections of their own lives?)

And the narrator in this song is a pitiable creature, indeed. He hears her footsteps as she leaves, her last statement as she goes; clearly he has no energy to try to win her back, to plead or beg. That is all done. And so this song seems vast and empty, as if all the air has disappeared from the room. I could be all new age and say that it's not right for someone to be so utterly dependent on someone else (his only possession is her, he now has no reason to live) but again that would be our good friend logic talking. If you have been in the unfortunate situation the narrator is in, you would know better than to judge the absolute extreme he presents, because to him it's real. His heart is broken and there's nothing for him, he can't even speak. He can't move. It is as if a thick black line has been drawn, dividing him from...everything else.

This does seem terribly romantic, this waltzing misery, and yet there is a horrible realism to it, one that stands stoutly next to Procol Harum or Jimi Hendrix (who learned a thing or two about working a crowd from Englebert when he toured with him). The Summer of Love is here, but love is a risky thing that, like idolatry, is either temporary or permanent. Romantics are those in love with love, who maybe even enjoy a good wallow in despair once in a while; and if they can't sing, then they can listen to music that doesn't think they are backwards or old-fashioned, but instead puts them on a kind of eternal plane. (I'm not saying this is a timeless song though: referring to anyone as a 'possession' as if they were a car or house isn't very hip these days, and must have seemed positively Brontesque to some - not all - in '67**. Country songwriter Dallas Frazier wrote it, but then he also wrote "Alley Oop" and "Elvira" amongst many hits, so I can forgive him.)

The realism and romanticism appealed to women, who love him to this day; women who want a handsome man who has a handsome voice and seems to understand that life isn't always pleasant or fair. He may be an idol, but he is grown-up, laid-back, unlike Tom or Cliff or any of the others. 19th century by name, 19th century by nature? 1967 has opened a time warp wherein the past and the future are blending together, or where time has stopped making sense altogether...but then for romantics, Love is eternal...

Next: another bunch of romantics fight The Man plc in the name of Art. Oh yeah!



*Like Tom Jones, Englebert's son is his manager now, since his previous one turned down a chance to appear on a the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach without bothering to ask the singer first, which upset him greatly (as it would any right-thinking person). This gives me an excellent excuse to post this, of course. Maybe next time?

**Two of the musicians on this song - guitarist John McLaughlin and bassist Dave Holland - were a bit tired of playing such traditional music (as well-paying as it was) and not long after this they both joined (at his request) Miles Davis' group; thus they were liberated to play on In A Silent Way, a sublime album every jazz lover should own (if s/he doesn't have it already). They tried their best with this song, goodness knows, but some musicians just aren't cut out for standard country ballads.

The Waiting Game: The Mamas & The Papas: "Dedicated To The One I Love"

To be attached to someone and yet not be able to be with them is a difficult state; even while you know you will be together again, the time seems endless and empty and yes, slightly depressing. All you do is think of the Other, and if you are so moved, you can write for the Other and console yourself by recording the time in your own way. (My husband did just that and the result is, if I may say so, this very fine book.)

The Mamas & The Papas were a folk group who had aspirations to doing more than hanging out in Greenwich Village; they wanted in on pop, and brought to it a multi-voiced armoury that stood for (in retrospect) nothing less than the collective joys and sorrows of everyone who listened. Even in their happiest songs there is lurking sorrow, and vice versa; and so this song was utterly perfect for them, being one of alternating hope and sorrow, sunlight and darkness. By the time it was a hit, the band were having problems of the sort that foreshadowed those of Fleetwood Mac a decade later - an affair was found out, emotions were tangled up, the affair ended and unease and (on Denny Doherty's side, heavy drinking) began to take a toll on the group. As you might expect, a band so dependent on literal harmonizing must have harmony outside the studio as well, and at this time this was pretty much impossible; for one thing, John Phillips and the band's producer Lou Adler were helping to put together the Monterey International Pop Festival, along with a few others (including Paul McCartney).

So there is weight here, with Michelle Phillips singing lead, she who had been unfaithful and for a while was thrown out of the group; Monterey may have heralded the Summer of Love, but love is, alas, more than just a good good feeling that you can share with flowers and peace signs. Love is what kept most people going in the 60s (as ever) and love for many then as now meant waiting. Not just waiting to be with the Other, but waiting for a time when being with the Other would not cause so much waiting to begin with*. The Shirelles did their version in '61, but the song was written in the early 50s by Lowman Pauling (guitarist) and Ralph Bass (producer) of the still-underrated The "5" Royales. In them you can hear the longing and frustration even clearer, as the 60s (so to speak) hadn't happened yet, and the longing is for something even bigger and more important, in a way, than being with the Other. It is the darkest hour, the worst time; the stars are the only light visible...and no one is having an easy time of it. The singer might not reach the Other soon, Love might not be perfect but there is the promise, based on hope, that things will change. When? Who knows.

With The Mamas & The Papas version, it is a more straight-forward expression of lovesickness, hopes and fears balanced (the trickiest part being the bear-trap line "Love can never be exactly like we want it to be" which is sung as if tiptoeing past one, as if this is a fact, sure, but one that is going to be avoided, for now). The harmonies are strong and vibrant as ever, but as the song ends and the voices separate, there is a feeling that something indeterminate has once again ended, or perhaps been set free. Maybe this is the end of all that waiting; the end of all that dreadful insomnia and emptiness. Maybe now something is going to happen. This group were the collective voice of that longing, and began to unravel along with the decade; this song is their last big statement on how difficult love can be, how beautiful and sad at the same time.

That we had this on our wedding cd was an acknowledgement that we had been apart for too long, and an unwitting premonition that we would be apart once more for a lot longer. It was a terrible and stressful time, our time apart, but at least we could communicate with each other; this song rests on prayer alone, and is a prayer itself.

Next up: a song about looking down at a city instead of looking up to the stars.



*Lest we forget, many are separated by war at this point, and have been for years...

The Turning Point: Gene Pitney: "No One Needs Your Love"

There is a quiet revolution happening at this time in music, quiet because those participating cannot, so to speak, be heard. There is a division - and to a certain extent there always will be - between those who write the songs and those who record them; between those who sit at pianos in tiny rooms pounding away writing songs (such as in the Brill Building) and those who have to puzzle over how to sing those songs best to do themselves and the songwriters justice. As things have been going it is the upstart rock groups who are writing their own songs, while everyone else is still dependent to a certain extent on the (mostly) men who write lyrics and melodies. There were a few performers - such as Gene Pitney - who wrote songs as well (oddly enough he didn't record his own songs), but by and large singers did the singing.

This is how things stood in '66, so if you were a young man who wrote songs who, perhaps, didn't consider yourself (or maybe the labels didn't) teen-idol material, you just ploughed away writing songs for others. Eventually, if your talent was appreciated and understood, you would go on to some regard and even fame, of a kind. But that would be in the 70s; for now, you hone your craft and hopefully have some hits.

If you listen to this, you might be able to guess who wrote the song. It is the lovelorn ballad taken to the extreme - he cannot live without her and questions her continuously as to why she has changed - it suits Pitney's astringent quality with its own ruthlessness. He is part lover here and part interrogator, and this could be an incredibly annoying song...and yet it isn't, and that's due to the music. It is hopeful, the chorus rising to a word-on-every-note precision that is proud and vulnerable at the same time, as if he knows he is being a pain and is trying to make up for it the best he can.

Yes, '66 is a turning point for music in that musicians were soon to split into two camps: those who wrote for others and those who wrote for themselves, and as the market for songwriters dried up in the US (much less so in the UK), songwriters such as this one - Randy Newman - would slowly begin to take to the studio and stage themselves for their own reasons*, while singers like Pitney would slowly fall out of the charts (though Pitney was always able to pack 'em in live). Newman found his voice in having his own to sing his songs(such as this** one), writing about subjects that were far off the usual Top 40 map, but in this song his solid skills in building a mood and having hooks galore are already evident.

We will soon be returning to L.A. for heart-tugging of a different sort, but next we go back to Europe...


*As Greil Marcus explains Newman's: "He made a lot...but since he didn't much like the way other people did his stuff, he began recording it himself." (Mystery Train, pg. 99)

** "This peaceful, quiet song is more outrageous than anything the Rolling Stones have ever done..." (ibid, pg. 108)

Taking Off: The Yardbirds: "Heart Full of Soul"

And now, an important crossroads...this blog has, effectively, reached the mid-point of the Sixties itself. Merseybeat is effectively gone, folk rock is on the rise, and guitarists are starting to buy gadgets that make their instruments sound different - the days of slashing speakers are over, and the fuzz box becomes the first of many pedal effects every band either has already or is going to get soon. Not only are guitars amplified now, but they are sounding warmer, fuzzier and dirtier, in part because guitarists like to experiment and in part because other instruments are starting to attract their attention. In the case of The Yardbirds, they wanted a sitar on this song, but Jeff Beck couldn't quite master it in time, so he got a fuzz box and made his guitar sound like one instead. Clearly, merely playing a song in the suddenly old-fashioned way isn't quite enough anymore.

And thus at this near-legendary point in time, the blues roughness that so many UK bands (The Yardbirds coming up following the wake of The Rolling Stones, who are about to launch their own fuzz box anthem) wanted to get into their songs is just there, and every garage band everywhere immediately saves up its nickles to get one, either in sheer imitation or because they want to make themselves sound even dirtier and rougher than their UK counterparts.

The song itself is by Graham Gouldman* and it has odd echoes and a rather menacing vocal from Keith Relf - his girl is gone, he has no idea where she is and he seems to be talking to someone - WHO? - about how he will never make her sad, "if she'll have me back again." Pretty basic stuff, but between the acidity of the guitar and Relf's voice there is something indeed beyond mere love here - it is as if his pleading is desperate yet cool at the same time, Relf trying to be suave behind his sunglasses while he's actually nearly crying. There is a creeping aloofness coming into rock at this time** and the tensions here for once aren't between a squaresville singer and his band but within the singer's psyche itself, as his band dutifully try to play what he can't sing. And the screaming girls want to put him out of his misery, as they do with all groups at nearly any time. But it's now that the whole decade slides into a harder, louder and rougher phase and the concepts of what is "pop" and what is "rock" start to become more and self-evident - though at this time it's all still pop, no matter what effects are used. For now.



*He also wrote their hit "For Your Love" which has a harpsichord on it (you see what I mean?) - a song that one member of the group deemed too "pop" and so he left in a huff to play the blues for a year amongst other purists. His name? Eric Clapton.

**Check out the near-magisterial aloofness of The Byrds, who were #1 at this time.

Raggedy Ann: The Four Seasons: "Rag Doll"

And now we hit the streets of Newark, New Jersey: a place I passed by while on a train once, to see a sign proclaiming "Newark Makes - The World Takes." By far the biggest band out of Newark in the 60s was The Four Seasons (indeed they were the Popstrological leaders of 1962) and I sometimes wish people paid more attention to their work in full*, as opposed to the fine-but-stagey Jersey Boys version, but their combination of compassion and toughness that came from the streets (this song was inspired by a street girl who cleaned Bob Gaudio's windshield and was tipped generously by him, to her astonishment) and thus was real in a way that even the fabled Brill Building songwriters sometimes couldn't muster. Gaudio and Crewe wrote this song immediately, and of course it went to #1 in the US.

That his family is the only thing from stopping him from getting involved with her points to the generational divide that would tear up the nation (in truth, it already was), though the love-thwarted-by-families situation is as old as the proverbial hills itself. She is pretty, she is poor, but she is not objectified; somehow in the "AAAAAAAAAHHHHs" and "OOOOOHHHs" of Valli & Co. there is a tenderness that shows empathy rather than any kind of condescension. The song, if you will, is a loving gaze towards the girl as opposed to a mere glance, and in a way it is as much a protest song as "Have I The Right?" (lest we forget we are still in the Age of Meek), only the divide alluded to there is unspoken (because it was illegal). So much love in the air, so much frustration, so much need: in essence, the 50s as a concept is dying, and so many butterflies are wriggling desperately trying to be free. The next song takes us back to the NMEchart for a long-overdue trip to Detroit, where the British Invasion is being repelled successfully, just as it was in Newark.



*The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette (1968) album, for instance, which took inspiration from local papers in post-riot Newark; as intense and rewarding an experience as you'd expect.

That Stunning Moment: The Hollies: "Just One Look"

She looks at him and somehow knows; love is a baffling mystery, sometimes, but there is no bafflement here. Spring has arrived, the rush of love is in the air, birds hop from branch to branch and even the puddles seem to shine with happiness. She is being pulled to him, tugged, and she states her case finely and satisfiedly, as if she has just completed a rather difficult knot and is admiring what she has accomplished. She is not in a dream, this is real, and he is it.

Thus goes the original, co-written sung by Doris Troy; a hit in the US but not in the UK, where a band from Manchester who were always on the lookout for a good song decided to record it, and lo and behold they had a big hit.

The one characteristic The Hollies have over everyone else (save for The Beatles, of course) is their harmonies. They are strong and almost overpowering, as loud as the DC5 are in their own way. "Bright" is a word that is used to describe it, but "blinding" might be another, more apt word. It is a high, keening sound - there is no bottom to it, so to speak - that soars and uplifts, and I can imagine for some it can be wearying, because when you hear them you have no choice - you are up there with them, whether you want to be there, or not. This rather stupefying effect has to be managed carefully, but it fits this song, about total fixation and resulting ecstasy, very well*. It may be because of this quality of theirs that I get to write about The Hollies several times, but in their inimitable way they give a drama and sweetness to the charts, along with their dazzling vocal skills. But as we see next, just being able to sing in harmony is not enough, for some...


*Just over a decade from now another band from Manchester will take stupefying harmonies to another level; here "Just One Look" gets a whole different meaning.

Holding On For Life: Andy Williams: "Can't Get Used To Losing You"

The plucked strings sound like a man itching, restless, pacing the floor back and forth, willing something to go away that just won't. He can't relax. He can't talk on the phone, not for long. The strings slide and glide in a way that is glassy, as if he is trying to walk on emotional black ice. He loves her, it's over, he still loves her, but it's no use. He could go out and yet she would be there, the pluckings now signifying his eye catching this and that, the steps of his walk, the beats of his heart. There is nothing to do but keep loving, because that at least shows he is alive, not just a bundle of nervous moments.

He has lost her, yet he plays it light. He doesn't, like Darin, look back - this is not a nostalgic song, but one that keeps trying, trying, trying to somehow move forwards. But there is no way out, at least for now (Williams' essential warmth means there will be a way one day). The very slipperiness of the song, its goings back-and-forth are elegant and neat, as if the rawness of the experience are gone, and now it is all routine, helpless, he still suffers but at least he is buoyant, proud in his own way to love and keep loving long after there is any real point to it.

There is a more general loss here, of course; the gradual loss of the early 60s, the Camelot age of the New Frontier. It hasn't gone just yet, of course, but by this time (May) the seemingly-placid world of, say, 1960 is pretty much gone. The last Aldermaston march/founding of the CND in the UK, Dr. King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail - these are just some of the more obvious pointers to the intensity of the sixties, and the corresponding need for songs like this (lyrically and sonically) that acknowledge that things are permanently changing, but put them in the most graceful and hummable context this side of Cole Porter (kudos to Pomus and Shuman)...

...my parents not being the easy-listening types (not that this is easy listening, exactly; the poor man does nothing but hit one void after another), the first time I heard this song it was by The (English) Beat; a version so faithful that Williams himself at first thought it was a remix of his own and not a cover. That it works is due to that semi-ska rhythm that is inherent in the song, but also Dave Wakeling's own soulful voice, one which meets the loneliness here head on and understands. ("Mirror In The Bathroom" is just an extension of this feeling, only there is no love for anyone else; just the self. I can only wonder if Williams has heard it.)

The Cheery Quiet: Bobby Darin: "Things"

The last time we heard from Mr. Darin (and how long ago does that seem now?), he was inviting us all to join him up a lazy river; he pounced and trounced and played with the song like a lion cub. He still has that "he's got savoir-faire because he's debonair" about him here, but note the differences; he has written this song himself. And he sits by his window, watching other couples go by.* He sees them cuddle and laugh and then remembers what they did; walking, kissing, going out and just hanging out listening to the jukebox and - most importantly - remembering 'the night we cried.' The song ambles along in a pop-country way, girls in the back singing as if they themselves are just mere representatives of her, the one he lost, the one causing him such heartaches.

The whole song is like a jaunty walk and smile, the person saying they are fine when really deep down they aren't; it is also yet another song wherein introspection (all he has to talk to are his own heartaches and they are, presumably, quite vocal) is starting to creep into the story - notice how here he doesn't even have a picture of the woman in question. But what happened on that night when they cried? Was it something to do with their lovers' vow? I feel that with song that the intensity of the 60s has just increased by that much, the cheery optimist still only just winning out over the profound void of being by oneself in total quiet. (One of the most important songs of the 60s, I feel - at least in this vein - comes along about a year from now, released as a b-side in the U.S. only, and it takes all of pop to a different place; a place that I would say culminates in Manchester in the late 70s.) If you compare these two songs, you can see how swiftly the 60s evolve and how the pressure to be not just good but great was already building up; also how the Rat Pack/Mad Men era was starting to slowly change despite itself, how showbiz was turning slowly from one thing into something else altogether. Mr. Darin smiles, stares out the window and resists crying - for now.


*For those of you who know the number two list already, there is another one that starts with this same premise but takes it to a different and radical conclusion. That's not for a few years yet, though.

Raw Not Cooked: Del Shannon: "Hey! Little Girl"

By 1962, Roland Barthes was probably already working on the idea of the grain of the voice; the punctum of the voice, if you will. Some songs work because the lyrics are so good; others work because the voice that sings is so, well, grainy that there is no way to ignore it. Del Shannon's voice is one that sounds almost perpetually on the edge of being too rough and out-of-key for proper singing; unlike the operatic Orbison, he jumps over the idea of a 'normal' or 'average' voice that could be expected from a pop single. It's not a non-voice as such, or an anti-voice, but there is a certain punctum here that takes a song as nominally average as this one and makes it into a virtual short story. He is walking the street; he sees her crying; he remembers wanting her and not being able to talk to her, even to learn her name. His open and honest growls and cries makes his desperation more than credible (and makes him the godfather to emo, along the way) and his addressing this girl is far more intense and anguished than the easy-going Bruce Channel - suddenly with this song the story* here deepens, the plaintive tone that probably started in the chansons of yore has come back with a vengeance.

Otis Blackwell (the song's writer) must have been happy that this was a much bigger single here than in the US; and it almost goes without saying that a certain group still to be accepted by a record label must have listened to him with keen interest, their own directness coming in part from Shannon's brave example.


*The story of the 60s in this case; a decade that is about to change in ways that were unthinkable to most, including a lot of musicians who were unaware that something big was about to happen. Shannon wasn't one of them.