Chop Chop: Brian Poole and Tremeloes, The: "Someone Someone"

The taste of the British public puzzles me at times; I cannot tell, for instance, if this song did well because it is so utterly inoffensive as to have no character at all, or because of the performance here, wherein the singer - a drip of a man, judging by this - is more or less ignored/mocked by his own band. The song - a post-Holly Crickets b-side - is thin gruel to begin with, but some singers have ways of taking inane songs and making them mean something; Mr. Poole doesn't. Perhaps the Tremeloes know something that he doesn't?

In any case, this serves as an inter-band example of the schism happening in UK pop, wherein some people are solid as sides of beef (eventually Poole went back to his original calling, being a butcher*) and others are all about the giddy enjoyment of just being there, like chefs being happy at their work. I am amazed that this song - on evidence a big hit - did better at the time than "My Guy" or "Chapel of Love" - but then time has a way of figuring out what is worth keeping around and separating the temporarily useful (as a last-dance song, for instance) from the ultimately not necessary in the long run. The 60s are heating up to a sizzle and there is no time for warmed-up leftovers like this.



*Instead of being a butcher of songs, some might say, though on evidence he sings songs as if he has already put them in the cooler.

A Singin' Thistle: Lonnie Donegan: "The Battle of New Orleans"

It is with a little trepidation that I arrive at the end of the 50s; a simple, swell time was mostly had by all and while not everything was, shall we say, pleasant, it is without doubt the decade that has had the most nostalgia attached to it of the 20th century.

History has a longer memory than that, though, and it is weirdly fitting that the last song I write about for this decade looks back to the War of 1812, to its last great fight, the Battle of New Orleans. I say fitting as it was a war between the British and the Americans (with the not-quite-a-nation-just-yet Canada haplessly in the middle, though perhaps not so much as hapless as stuck) - the UK charts were beginning to look like a war between these same two foes, songs being covered here and there, homegrown stars such as Cliff and Marty and Adam (I will get to him, dear readers) doing battle with Yankee ne'er-do-wells, with what I can only call interesting results. (Indeed, the results of this war will only become apparent once a certain band emerges, but that's not for two long years yet.)

Stepping smartly into this field of battle was one Lonnie Donegan - yes, the skiffle fad was over but nothing could keep Lonnie from having hits (indeed I can imagine nothing could keep Lonnie from music, period). His "The Battle of New Orleans" has a certain...something to it though that is different from the original song by American Johnny Horton. Whereas Horton is ornery and military and almost makes you wish you were there, Donegan's version is...well this is his spoken intro in part:

"This is a song about a fit between Yankees and them there English people...in which the British came off rather ignominiously...because they never done no good no how, ciao."

He then relates the tale of the "Bloomin' British" and how they were defeated by the Americans with what I can only call great relish. As a Scotsman he has every right to sing about the English defeat this way, and evidently enough British people in general seemed to think it only fair, more than tolerating his 'ha hiddle-dee-dee's and maybe being a little distracted by Joe Meek's production (yes, we are back to him again), which takes this stern march and makes it more into a dub reggae skank about wily natives showing up the supposedly better opposition. (Sadly I won't be getting back to Scotland for a while here, but when I do it will be with someone who surely knew Donegan's work by heart.)

Whoops, I've Fallen Into The Pool: Jim Dale: "Be My Girl"

And now we come to a bellwether, a notable moment, a stopping place: this is the first #2 of the rock 'n' roll/pop era by someone from the UK. And how...appropriate that it be almost a perfect template of its time (semi-yelping big-eyed-puppy longing) and a past-is-prologue to everything that is to come. The high-pitched tinkly piano comes from Winifred Atwell and is still alive with Lily Allen; the backing singers are a little too polished to be the Jordanaires and thus may as well be the Mike Sammes Singers, minus the girls. The whole thing has the air of being well-rehearsed and yet just casually put together in that adorable slackerly way most (not all!) UK musicians have. Dale was going to be a pop idol but then found out that "his entry into the UK singles chart came about more by accident than design, for his ability to fall over without sustaining injury far outweighed his vocal skills" - and so the first time I ever saw him (looking like Davy Jones' uncle) was in Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World and not in a record collection of any of my friends' moms. Music turning to comedy; comedy informing and enriching music; this is the unlikely yet inevitable precursor to just about everything to come, either directly or inadvertently. (That he is the straight, loyal guy to the butterfly-like girl in the song only underlines all this, in case you were wondering about the narrative details, as such.)