Remember this guy? Once a mainstay of this blog, the ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ hadn’t topped the charts since Congratulations won Eurovision in 1968. 11 years later, Cliff Richard’s comeback, which began with Devil Woman, was complete with this 10th number 1.
Before
The Shadows, who often acted as Richard’s backing band, with who he shared many hits and number 1s, decided to split at the end of 1968. Their last single together was Don’t Forget to Catch Me, which reached 21. Despite being unfashionable, he still had a large enough following to notch up plenty of hits, ending the 60s with two top 10 hits in 1969 – Big Ship (eight) and Throw Down a Line (with Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin), climbing to seven.
The 70s began with Richard fronting his own BBC series, It’s Cliff Richard, which ran from 1970 to 1976 and featured the singer with musical friends including Marvin and Olivia Newton-John. His 50th single, the intriguingly named Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha, went all the way to six in 1970. Many of Richard’s singles for the first half of the 70s were in line with his Christian beliefs – I’m not going to listen to them all to find out, but I’d put money on Jesus (1972) being a prime example.
Having been considered almost as much an actor as a singer in his peak years of the 60s, Richard gave up his film career after starring in the film Take Me High in 1973. He also had another bash at the Eurovision Song Contest that year. Power to All Our Friends finished third that year. Apparently he was so nervous during the competition he took valium and his manager struggled to wake him. It was at least a big hit, climbing to four and earning him his best chart performance for the next six years.
The next couple of years were lean for the not-very-mean machine. His only single in 1974, (You Keep Me) Hangin’ On did OK (13), but he messed up in 1975 when he chose to cover Conway Twitty’s Honky Tonk Angel. Richard recorded a video, 1,000 singles were pressed up and EMI expected it to perform well, but when Richard discovered ‘honky tonk angel’ was Southern American slang for a prostitute, the whiter-than-white pop star was horrified and insisted it was withdrawn. What on earth would God have made of it? This meant that, for the first time in his career, Richard had gone a calendar year without a chart entry.
However, it was decided that, rather than continue down the purely righteous path Richard seemed hell-bent on, he should be repackaged as a rock singer. At the time this must have seemed laughable, and to be honest I’m struggling to imagine it while typing this. But, good Lord, it worked!
Teaming up with Bruce Welch (another guitarist from the Shadows) on production duties, the nicely titled LP I’m Nearly Famous was an unexpected smash. And not only commercially – guitarists Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were just two of the rock stars spotted wearing ‘I’m Nearly Famous’ badges in honour of the comeback kid. Although Miss You Nights (15) was a ballad, the follow-up, Devil Woman, is a classic slab of pop-rock, with a hell of a chorus. And listen, that’s Cliff Richard singing a song with ‘devil’ in it! With punk rock rearing its ugly head, a more edgy Cliff Richard was very timely.
The comeback didn’t last long though. The next album, Every Picture Tells a Story, spawned only one hit – My KindaLife (number 15 in 1977). Perhaps feeling he must atone for his sins, Richard then released an album of Christian gospel called SmallCorners in 1978. Neither that or his next pop LP, Green Light, performed well. 1978 was also the year Richard reunited with The Shadows for concerts at the London Palladium, as captured on Thank You Very Much.
Despite appearing on stage with Welch once more, the Shadows guitarist didn’t produce his next album, Rock’n’Roll Juvenile. That honour went to Terry Britten, who had worked with Richard many times in the past. Recording sessions began back in July 1978 but vocals weren’t begun until January 1979.
We Don’t Talk Anymore was recorded in one day, five months later. For some reason, Welch received production credit for Richard’s 10th number 1. It was written and arranged by Alan Tarney, a new collaborator, who also played guitar, keyboards, synthesiser and bass on the track, as well as performing backing vocals. On drums was his former bandmate in Quartet, Trevor Spencer.
Review
It’s no Devil Woman, but We Don’t Talk Anymore is a decent pop song and Richard’s best number 1 since SummerHoliday in 1963. I have to confess that I used to think this came much later in his career, and was a Stock Aitken Waterman production from the late-80s or early-90s. It’s something about that catchy, melancholic yet soaring chorus combined with a very light production sound. In its own way, it’s as contemporary as Are ‘Friends’ Electric? with its keyboard-heavy arrangement. Though not nearly as good.
Has to be said though, I’ve never heard Richard sound so passionate. I mean, it’s not exactly a raw, emotional performance – this is Cliff Richard we’re talking about after all. But he gives it a rare bit of oomph! The verses are pretty bog-standard ‘my woman has left me’ and not much to write home about – it’s all about the earworm of the chorus really, and the emotion at the end. Weird lyrical phrasing too – ‘It’s so funny/How we don’t talk anymore’. None too shabby. With The Beatles long gone and Elvis Presley six feet under, Richard could still sell records, when he tried.
The video for We Don’t Talk Anymore is as 70s as it gets, featuring Richard and band performing amid a smoky stage, Richard occasionally merging into himself through a dated but charming kaleidoscopic effect.
After
Cliff Richard fared better in the 80s than the 70s, regularly appearing in the upper reaches of the charts. But it would be seven years before his 11th number 1, for which he shared billing with a series named after one of his most famous chart-toppers…
The Info
Written by
Alan Tarney
Producer
Bruce Welch
Weeks at number 1
4 (25 August-21 September)
Trivia
Births
14 September: Rugby league player Stuart Fielden
Deaths
27 August: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (see ‘Meanwhile…’) 28 August: Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne 29 August: Painter Ivon Hitchens
Meanwhile…
27 August: Lord Mountbatten of Burma, cousin to the Queen and uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh, was assassinated by a Provisional IRA bomb while on board a boat when holidaying in the Republic of Ireland. His 15-year-old nephew Nicholas Knatchbull and boatboy Paul Maxwell were also killed, and Dowager Lady Brabourne died from injuries sustained a day later. Also that day, 18 British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland at the Warrenpoint ambush.
30 August: Two men were arrested in Dublin and charged with the murder of Lord Mountbatten and the three other victims of the bombing.
2 September: Police found the body of 20-year-old student Barbara Leach in an alleyway near Bradford city centre. She was to be named as the 12th victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.
5 September: The Queen lead mourning at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten. Also on this day, Manchester City paid a British club record fee of £1,450,000 for Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Steve Daley.
8 September: Wolverhampton Wanderers broke the record by paying just under £1,500,000 for Aston Villa and Scotland striker Andy Gray.
10 September: British Leyland announced production of MG cars would cease in the autumn of 1980.
14 September: The government announced plans to regenerate the London Docklands through housing and commercial developments.
21 September: A Royal Air Force Harrier jet crashed into a house in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, killing two men and a boy.
Seems rather fitting that on the day Brexit finally happens, that this blog covers an event from 50 years ago in which this country was embarrassed on the world stage, doesn’t it?
Before
Three weeks before the England football team began their defense of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico, they had their first number 1 single. The jolly, charming anthem Back Home marked the start of a not-often-grand tradition, in which the squad recorded an official, FA-approved song to mark that year’s failed attempt at the World Cup or UEFA European Championship.
Football songs were not a new idea – UK clubs had been recording them for years, and in 1966 skiffle king Lonnie Donegan released World Cup Willie before England’s legendary win. But this was the first (and only time) we were the world champions, and they were going into the tournament with a supposedly superior line-up to 1966 and so it must have been felt we had momentum, and that this should be commemorated.
I’m assuming it was the FA who asked Bill Martin and Phil Coulter to write and produce Back Home. After all, with their two previous number 1s and Eurovision big-hitters, Puppet on a Stringand Congratulations (plus Coulter was involved in All Kinds of Everything), the duo were more than capable of getting the nation to sing along in a big competition.
And so Alf Ramsey’s boys were assembled to record their vocals. It’s unclear who out of the 22 men picked to represent the country made it on to the recording, but the biggest names in the squad included captain Bobby Moore, goalkeeper Gordon Banks, Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst, Nobby Stiles and Emlyn Hughes. Also recorded was the bizarre B-side Cinnamon Stick. It’s not a weird song, it’s a typical mid-60s lightweight pop song about a pretty girl, but lots of footballers singing it together is weird.
Review
I’ve never been a fan of footballers such. I tried, but I was terrible at school, and so I took no interest in clubs. However, I do get swept up in the World Cup and Euros, going right back to Mexico 86, where I can still remember being an upset seven-year-old, as angry as my dad at Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’. I have felt the dizzying highs and terrible lows intensely. I don’t think I have the nervous disposition to cope with the tension more than once every two years. So I do take notice of the official England songs, or at least I used to before they ceased to be. Obviously the best are World in Motion and Three Lions, but I have a soft spot for Back Home.
Opening with the familiar stadium clap-a-long bit (forgive the terrible terminology), Back Home is a lovely, charming postcard from more innocent times, set to a brass band backing, in which our proud, brave boys sing about how the fans will be watching their every move. Here are the world champions, at the top of their game, but rather than boast, they just hope they won’t let their country down. There’s no mention of them winning again (just as well), they just say they’ll give all they’ve got to give. Nice, isn’t it? I’m probably also fond of it because it became the theme tune to BBC2’s mid-90s comedy competition Fantasy Football League, presented by Three Lions singers Frank Skinner and David Baddiel.
After
The 1970 World Cup began on 31 May, while Back Home was still at number 1. Before England had even played a game they faced a setback when Moore was arrested and released on bail three days previous in Colombia on suspicion of stealing a bracelet.
England were in Group 3, along with Brazil, Romania and Czechoslovakia. They came second in their group, beating the latter two but losing to the mighty (and eventual winners) Brazil, one of the greatest teams of all time, featuring legends including Pelé.
The quarter-finals saw a repeat of the 1966 final, with England facing West Germany on 14 June. It looked like Moore and co would win once more, as they were up 2-0. But Banks was ill and out of the match, and substitute goalie Peter Bonetti let a goal by Frank Beckenbauer through in the 70th minute. And then Charlton was substituted, and Uwe Seeler made it 2-2 in the 81st minute. In extra time, Gerd Müller made it 3-2. It was all over for England.
The Outro
There would be no more England World Cup songs for 12 years – we didn’t qualify in 1974 or 1978. And it would be 20 years before the England team would make it to number 1 again.
How many years before we’re back in the EU? Less than that, let’s hope.
The Info
Written & produced by
Bill Martin & Phil Coulter
Weeks at number 1
3 (16 May-5 June)
Trivia
Births
20 May: Journalist Louis Theroux 21 May: Field hockey player Jason Lee 22 May: Model Naomi Campbell
Meanwhile…
19 May: The government made a £20,000,000 loan available to help save the financially troubled car maker Rolls-Royce.
2 June: Cleddau Bridge, in Pembrokeshire, collapsed during erection. Four people died.
Somehow, Bridge over Troubled Water was replaced at number 1 after three weeks, by… this. The Eurovision Song Contest winner of 1970, Irish 19-year-old warbler Dana’s ultra-twee All Kinds of Everything is an early contender for worst number 1 of the 70s.
Before
Rosemary Brown, born 30 August 1951, was born in Islington, North London. Her working-class parents had relocated from Derry, Northern Ireland after World War Two due to high unemployment, but when she was five the Browns were advised to return to Derry due to the effects of smog in the city on some of her siblings (she was one of seven).
Both young Brown’s parents were musical, and she proved it ran in the family when she won an all-ages talent contest aged only six. She learned to play the piano, violin, guitar sang and became a ballet dancer too.
As a young teen in 1965 she won another talent contest, and this time the prize was to record a demo. When Brown finished her O-levels, Rex Records got to hear it and signed Brown up. Debut single Sixteen, released in November 1967, failed to ignite interest. Around this time, and now undertaking her A-levels, she took the stage name ‘Dana’ – her school nickname.
In 1969 her label suggested she take part in the Irish National Song Contest, as the winner would represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. She came second with Look Around (her fourth single).
The following year the Irish National Song Contest producer Tom McGrath suggested Dana try again. This time the winner would represent just the Republic of Ireland at that year’s Eurovision. He thought the young singer would be a great match for All Kinds of Everything, a ballad by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith, two 28-year-old amateur songwriters working as printmakers for a Dublin newspaper.
Dana won the contest and on 21 March she became the last performer at Eurovision, held in Amsterdam. She beat Mary Hopkin representing the UK by seven votes. This was the first of a record seven wins by the Republic of Ireland, and was only the second English language song to win the competition (Sandie Shaw’s Puppet on a String was the first in 1967, and Lulu’s Boom Bang-a-Bang had shared first place in 1969). It’s worth noting the political significance of this win, having a girl from Northern Ireland representing the republic and not the UK, just as The Troubles were rumbling.
The single version of All Kinds of Everything had been released the week before the show, arranged by Phil Coulter, who had co-written Puppet on a String and Congratulations. It began to climb the charts.
https://youtu.be/8xmnd3uiK_Y
Review
If this kind of dreck can win Eurovision, there’s no wonder it has such a reputation for the naff. The best thing I can say about it is that it didn’t make me want to hurt myself the way Puppet on a String did. All Kinds of Everything is all kinds of terrible. The production (Ray Horricks also produced both Anthony Newley’s chart-toppers) is lightweight and makes an already sickly song even worse, and the lyrics are something else. Dana’s got someone constantly on her mind and the song is simply a list of things that remind her of him. So let’s take a look at those things, shall we?
In the first verse she sings (in a serviceable but sickly manner) of ‘Snowdrops and daffodils, butterflies and bees’. Predictable, but sweet I suppose. But then she moves on to ‘Sailboats and fishermen, things of the sea’. Fishermen? Ok, that’s unusual. And how vague is ‘things of the sea’? Either she can’t be arsed to go into detail, or hasn’t got the imagination to do so. In the second verse we get ‘things of the sky’, including seagulls and wind… I daresay my eight-year-old could be more imaginative than this. Lindsay and Smith clearly should have stuck to their day jobs. Tacky, dated and dull, All Kinds of Everything is one of the worst songs I’ve reviewed yet.
After
Dana’s debut album was released in June, named after her number 1, and featuring a new version of that track. I’m not going to find it and compare, I’m not putting myself through that. Her fortunes soon became mixed, with her follow-up single I Will Follow You ironically not following her previous one to anywhere near the same success. Who Put the Lights Out reached the top 20 in 1971, though.
Despite still doing well in Ireland, it was 1975 before Dana was back on Top of the Pops with Please Tell Him That I Said Hello. Her second biggest UK success happened that December with the seasonal It’s Gonna Be a Cold Cold Christmas reaching number four in Christmas week. In 1976 she scored a top 20 hit with the disco-influenced Fairytale, but after that her fame dwindled until she took a new direction as the 80s began.
In 1979 Pope John Paul II visited Ireland, which inspired Dana to sing about her faith. She topped the Irish charts with Totus Tuus, and it opened the door to a career recording Catholic music and prayer albums, and spent most of the 80s doing this, appearing in Pantones or appearing on light entertainment shows.
Dana’s religious dedication made her popular in the US, and she presented a TV show there in 1991, called Say Yes. In 1997 the Christian Community Centre in Ireland suggested she ran for Irish presidency, and after scoffing at the idea initially, she ran as an independent under the name Dana Rosemary Scallon, and came third.
Scallon won a seat in the European Parliament in 1999, and proved herself to have values as outdated as her music – vehemently pro-life, anti-divorce, anti-same-sex marriages, and anti-EU. So actually, in a way she was ahead of her time, and could probably become supreme leader of the universe with the way the world is in 2020. All kinds of prejudice reminds me of Dana, you could say.
Scanlon lost her seat in 2004 and returned to light entertainment, launched a religious music label, released her second autobiography and became a TV talent show judge. In 2011 she ran for presidency again and came sixth. 2019 saw Dana, now 68, release her first album in years, My Time.
The Outro
Sadly, All Kinds of Everything sets the scene in a way, as there was lots more dreary MOR to come in the 70s.
The Info
Written by
Derry Lindsay & Jackie Smith
Producer
Ray Horricks
Weeks at number 1
2 (18 April-1 May)
Trivia
Births
27 April: Actress Kylie Travis
Deaths
20 April: Academic Thomas Iorwerth Ellis
Meanwhile…
18 April: British Leyland announced its longest-running model, the Morris Minor, which had been in production since 1948, would be discontinued at the start of 1971.
29 April: Chelsea defeated Leeds United 2-1 in the FA Cup final replay at Old Trafford, gaining them the trophy for the first time. On the same day, last year’s winners Manchester City won the European Cup Winners’ Cup by defeating Polish team Górnik Zabrze 2-1 in Vienna, Austria.
I’ve done it. 186 blogs in 17 months and I’ve now reviewed all the chart-toppers in that most incredible decade of transformation in pop culture. It’s been fascinating, exciting, dreary and terrifying at times, and sometimes, while listening to songs such as Cinderella Rockefeller, it’s been all those things at once.
The 60s, pre-Beatles, is an era I knew little about, so I suspected this could prove as enlightening as my reviews of the 50s, but I was surprised to learn so much once The Beatles invaded the charts too. Their impact in 1963 and 64 was even bigger than I’d ever imagined, and their move into a more ‘mature’ sound would effect the singles charts of their later years too, but detrimentally.
To commemorate reaching the end, it’s only right that I repeat what I did with Every 50s Number 1, and relisten to them all once more, before deciding on the best and worst of each year, and whittling them down even more to the best and worst of the whole decade.
Despite knowing and loving much of this music so much, I admit to being a bit nervous. How do I choose between some of the greatest bands and songs the world has ever seen? Only one way to find out…
1960
They say that it takes a few years for a decade to get started, and it’s certainly true in the case of the swinging 60s. The music from the dawn of the decade is mostly a hangover from the fag ends of the initial burst of rock’n’roll. There’s a strange short-lived fad at the start of the year for cockney pop by Adam Faith and Anthony Newley (a big influence on early David Bowie). Things don’t really get going until May when the Everly Brothers return to the top with The pioneering drum sound ofCathy’s Clown. This was followed by the first posthumous chart-topper – Eddie Cochrane’s Three Steps to Heaven. Legendary singer-songwriter Roy Orbison makes his number 1 debut with the classic melancholy of Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel). There’s also a great comeback from Elvis Presley with It’s Now or Never. Less impressive were Cliff Richard and The Shadows’ two number 1s together. Weirdest? That can only be Johnny Preston’s bizarre tail of the love between a cowboy and a native American, Running Bear.
This could and arguably should have been The Shadows’ surprisingly edgy and menacing Apache, which is a true pre-Beatles classic and hugely influential on pop, rock and even hip-hop. But just pipping it for me was this raunchy, dangerous slice of British rock’n’roll. The band brought theatrics into their live shows and inspired The Who, among others, plus it features number 1 session drumming legend Clem Cattini.
How quickly the mighty can fall. In Every 50s Number 1, the ‘King of Skiffle’ Lonnie Donegan’s incendiary performance of Cumberland Gap was my runner-up for number 1 of the decade. Three years after inspiring some of the future decade’s brightest talents, he was performing this music-hall rubbish in a live recording from Doncaster. Terrible, terrible jokes littered throughout. Shame.
1961
A bumper crop and a real mixed bag. The women finally get a look in, featuring a young Petula Clark, Shirley Bassey and Helen Shapiro, but I have to say none of these tracks impressed. Elvis had started his ‘will this do?’ era, butAre You Lonesome Tonight? still hits the spot and(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame deserves a mention. Wooden Heart does not. His sometime pianist Floyd Cramer’sOn the Reboundis still full of vim and vigour. The Everlys bow out with Temptation, a nice atmospheric number. There’s a lot of oddities about, and they’re mostly good, particularly the gothic melancholic pomp of Johnny Remember Me. Blue Moon is a lot of fun, as is the demented wailing of Frankie Vaughan on Tower of Strength.
Not for the last time I found myself torn between a song that pushes the boundaries of pop and a simple, much-loved standard. This time the former, Del Shannon’s still-popular Runaway fell behind the timeless beauty of the South African singer’s take on Moon River, number 1 that Christmas.
The veteran Welsh singer is loved for her powerful voice, but it not only leaves me cold most of the time, I find it painful, and this is her at her wailiest (it’s a word, now) over a very boring track. I was very tempted to throw my headphones across the garden when I got to the final note.
1962
The first sighting of what may have been had The Beatles not arrived. Frank Ifield was the year’s biggest star, with his penchant for amusing yodelling over two number 1s, and was still going strong until the rise of Merseybeat. Elvis’s bestsellers range from the dire to classics – even within a single release. Cliff Richard and The Shadows return with strong material, The Young Ones and Wonderful Land respectively. The country-soul of I Can’t Stop Loving You is far from Ray Charles’s best work, but I confess it’s grown on me a little. Nut Rocker is ace, and is fully deserving of its ubiquitous usage in TV and film.
Like 1961, this was tough. I very nearly picked the quirky space race euphoria of The Tornados’ Telstar. Joe Meek was innovating pop before The Beatles, and despite Telstar being famous, I can’t help but think it’s still a little underrated. However, once more, the timeless pop ballad wins out – am I getting soft in my old age? Perhaps, but how can I deny the brilliance of one of the finest love songs ever written? There are many versions, but none compare to Elvis’s. I’m far from his biggest fan at times but this is pure gold. That the flip side of this is the awful Rock-A-Hula Baby (“Twist” Special) makes it all the more remarkable.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a bit of Carry On humour, and it’s wrong to expect a song from 1962 to live up to the political correctness of the #metoo era, but Come Outside is woeful. Sarne’s flat vocal irritates, Richard is charmless, and it’s all a bit, well, rapey. The rhythm track isn’t bad, though.
1963
Never has a year in pop seen such a seismic shift. For the first third it’s very similar to the year before with appearances from Cliff (Summer Holiday is still a lovely blast of pop), The Shadows and Frank Ifield, and then Merseybeat happens, and things change forever. It’s nearly always The Beatles, acts performing Lennon-McCartney tunes (Billy J Kramer with The Dakotas) or inferior copycats (Brian Poole and The Tremeloes). Bar one good single from Elvis,(You’re the) Devil in Disguise, US artists don’t get a look in. None of these other groups can match The Beatles, although Gerry and the Pacemakers have some decent material with their hat trick of bestsellers. A lot of Merseybeat is too twee for me to really get into, but some of the greatest pop songs of all time are right around the corner now. Exciting times!
The Fab Four shook things up like no act before or since in 1963, and that’s largely due to this, the decade’s biggest-selling 7″. The chorus of She Loves You is lightning in a bottle, pure unbridled joy and ecstacy, and it sparked a thousand imitations. From Me to You is nice enough, andI Want to Hold Your Hand showed new maturity in their songwriting, but this is easily their finest early song. And the lyrics are smart too, moving away from the template of ‘I love you’ and introducing a third party. I’ve always loved She Loves You, but hearing it arrive in the context of this blog increases my respect for it even more.
Cliff Richards’ sometime backing band’s impressive run of number 1s with him and alone came to an end this year, with tracks ranging from the great (Apache) and the good (Wonderful Land) to this, which isn’t awful, it’s just incredibly boring and leaves no mark on me whatsoever. Adding an exclamation mark to the end of the title doesn’t make me any more enthusiastic, either.
1964
An incredible year of number 1s. I envy anyone who lived through this. In fact, listening to them all in one stint, I’d say there’s a very strong argument that this is the high watermark for number 1s. Merseybeat mutates and expands in strange and exciting ways, most notably the momentous folk-rock classicThe House of the Rising Sun by The Animals, meaning that the legendary Bob Dylan’s influence was now being felt on these shores. Then The Rolling Stones made their debut (It’s All Over Now), and became so popular, they got a blues cover to the top (Little Red Rooster)! Roy Orbison bows out by getting the girl at last with the brilliant Oh,Pretty Woman. Joe Meek had his third and final chart-topper too, producing The Honeycombs’ insanely underrated Have I the Right?. Women make their belated return, with Sandie Shaw and Cilla Black both topping the charts with two songs by the masterly Burt Bacharach and Hal David – ((There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me and Anyone Who Had a Heart), and The Supremes had their sole UK number 1. As for the Fab Four, well, there’s three classics from them, in particularA Hard Day’s Night. But they don’t win this time.
Facing incredibly strong competition, Muswell Hill’s finest were my choice, because despite all the other great tunes in 64, it was this primal expression of pure animal lust that pretty much kickstarted rock and heavy metal. Ray Davies may have become one of our wittiest, most quintessentially English songwriters, but The Kinks perhaps never bettered this scorching slab of raunch.
A staid, old-fashioned, boring ballad from Ireland’s original boy band. Wouldn’t have sounded out of place 10 years previous (it actually dates back to 1927. That’s right, it’s even worse than Billy J Kramer with The Dakotas’Little Children, because at least that had a tune.
1965
Tons of pop gold again, but stylistically more varied than the previous year. More strong material from The Kinks and the Stones, and one of the finest epic break-up songs of all time – namely The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’. On a similar note, I’ve always loved The Moody Blues’ version of Go Now that preceded it. We’re starting to see the rise of the hippy movement – hair is getting longer, and the lush jangle of Mr Tambourine Man marks another sea change. Cynics may balk at Sonny & Cher’sI Got You Babe, but I think it holds up well, as does the debut of Tom Jones with his anthem It’s Not Unusual. Four songs from The Beatles, all of them – Ticket to Ride, Help! and Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out, among their finest work, in particular Ticket to Ride. The latter, and Day Tripper, are built around some of the finest riffs in existence. And yet, and yet… Ticket to Ride is just trumped by perhaps the greatest riff there has ever been.
It was as close a call as it’s possible to have, but for once in my life, I’m choosing the Stones over The Beatles. Keith Richards’ legendary riff, allegedly created in his sleep and intended for horns, never dates and combined with Mick Jagger’s frustrated world view make for a dream combination. After paying homage to the blues time and again, this saw the birth of Jagger and Richards as songwriters to rival Lennon and McCartney.
Oh Cliff. Behind the times as early as 1965. And what does he do, to counteract Beatlemania? He abandons The Shadows, perhaps a shrewd move to appear ahead of the curve? Oh, he’s gone and recorded an old-fashioned country song from 1963. Never the genre’s biggest fan, this sounds like a pale imitation of I Can’t Stop Loving You. Ken Dodd’s huge-selling Tearsmay have also sounded like a relic, but at least the chorus was catchy.
1966
The last of the peak years of the decade, before albums began to overtake singles in importance. In general, a superlative blend of pop and the rise of drugs and psychedelia in music. British pop now striding into a bold, experimental future, and combined with England winning the World Cup, there was an overwhelming sense of optimism and pride in the UK. The Beatles were approaching the peak of their abilities in the studio, and minds must have been blown by their dark ode to the lonely, Eleanor Rigby. As startling a song as it is, I’ve always found it easier to admire than to enjoy. I’d take previous single Paperback Writer over that, and wish their jangly guitar era had lasted a bit longer. 66 got off to a blistering start with the Spencer Davis Group’s still storming Keep on Running, and Nancy Sinatra helped shape modern female pop with the sassy cool ofThese Boots Are Made for Walkin’… yet Dusty Springfield’s only number 1, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me is uncharacteristically pleading. By and large, 1966 is another embarrassment of riches, particularly The Rolling Stones’ apocalyptic Paint It, Black, almost their best song ever.The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, Sunny Afternoon, Reach Out, I’ll Be There… all classics. It would take a very special song to shine above all these.
And a very special song this is. That’s right, Brian Wilson’s ‘pocket symphony’ means that I haven’t picked any number 1s by The Beatles during their peak years, which is probably the biggest surprise I’ve had since starting this blog. What it does prove is that the Fab Four inspired their contemporaries to do better than them. Had they not released their landmark album Revolver, we may never have had the finest three-plus minutes of The Beach Boys’ career, which in turn spurred the Beatles on to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But anyway… in a year of great tunes and studio innovation, The Beach Boys combined both beautifully, devoting as much time to Good Vibrations as lesser bands would to entire albums. The peak of Brian Wilson’s creativity. The only downside being the burn-out that followed recording their next LP.
Released two years after the US country star’s untimely death, this was a bizarre number 1 to have in 1966, particularly for five weeks. It’s unclear why it was considered single-worthy, as it’s more B-side material, and it’s completely out-of-step with prevailing trends. But the anti-war message may have resonated with Vietnam in mind, and it probably gave succour to old folk baffled by yellow submarines et al. Not awful, like some of the other dire material I’ve mentioned, just out of place.
1967
The tectonic plates of British music and culture shifted once more this year, only not as much as you might imagine in the singles chart. As some of the most famous acts concentrated on complex psychedelic LPs influenced by the rise in LSD, the 7″ chart was largely dominated by light entertainment acts – the most since 1962. Top of the pops was smoother-than-smooth balladeer Engelbert Humperdinck, who enjoyed 11 weeks at number 1 and famously, criminally, prevented Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever with Release Me. Other than the pop brilliance of The Monkees’ I’m a Believer, nothing remotely hippy-like gets a look in until the Summer of Love finally gets underway that June with Procul Harum’s earnest and excellent lysergic standard A Whiter Shade of Pale. Only two other, wholly appropriate chart-toppers followed – The Beatles anthem All You Need Is Love and Scott McKenzie’s dreamy San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair), before Humperdinck brought everything down to earth again. We say hello to the Bee Gees for the first time with the lovely Massachusetts, and goodbye to Nancy and Frank Sinatra, with their ‘incest anthem’ Somethin’ Stupid. All in all, 1967 was a surprising letdown.
This isn’t even the best Beatles single of 1967, but thanks to Humperdinck, I can’t rate Strawberry Fields Forever. So I’m settling for this instead, which may seem controversial when lined up against A Whiter Shade of Pale, but personally I love Hello, Goodbye. I rated it the best Christmas number 1 of the 60s here, and I stand by it. It’s infectious, upbeat and catchy, and the finale is as joyous as the chorus to She Loves You if you’re in the right mood. The B-side, I Am the Walrus, is better, though.
The famously barefooted singer hated this song, which was our first ever Eurovision winner – and I don’t blame her, because it’s awful and I’m betting it did her career lasting damage. The lyrics are awful, the tune is demented and it makes me want to pull my teeth out and feed them to sparrows.
1968
Stylistically speaking, 1968 is all over the place when it comes to number 1s. The main trend among the bigger bands this year was to adopt a back-to-basics approach as a reaction to flower power. The Beatles led the way, as usual, but Lady Madonna doesn’t match up to The Rolling Stones’ rocking, witty comeback single Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and Do It Again is a bit of a letdown after Good Vibrations, even if the drumbeat proved pioneering. There’s still room for psychedelia in the charming theatrical demonic pomp of Fireby The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, but then there are some number 1s that are downright odd more than anything, such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and particularly Cinderella Rockefeller, with its deranged yodelling and godawful rickety tune. I loved the Bee Gees’ I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You and Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, an evergreen classic which gave Satchmo a chart-topper shortly before his death. Cliff finally remembered how to record a catchy tune and whatever you think of Eurovision runner-up Congratulations, you can’t deny its popularity.
In much the same way John Lennon’s Imagine is now considered uncool, it seems to be the done thing to slate McCartney’s lengthy classic, but I’m having none of it. It’s soulful and poignant, written for Julian Lennon when his parents were splitting, and its universal message of the power and importance of love speaks more to me than the simplistic sloganeering of All You Need Is Love. The Beatles may have been already splitting at this point, but there was still plenty of magic in the tank.
This could so easily have been the profoundly irritating Cinderella Rockefeller, but that at least had a memorable hook, albeit a very irritating one. No, this is as bland as they get, sang with no soul or meaning whatsoever. He’s supposed to be broken-hearted, but he sounds like he’s having a great time. I like Des, but I get why Morecambe and Wise ripped the piss so much now.
1969
The end of an era in more ways than one as we say farewell to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Despite the fact Abbey Road is one of their finest albums, The Beatles’ singles before its release weren’t them at their best, leaving The Ballad of John and Yoko a rather odd way to bow out of the blog. Honky Tonk Women was more appropriate, showing the future for the Stones as the archetypal good-time rock band of the 70s and beyond that they became. For the first time, album sales outpaced singles, as the teens of the mid-60s grew up and moved on to LPs. This left a gap, to be filled by inferior bubblegum pop, resulting in Sugar Sugarby The Archies becoming the year’s biggest seller. Other than that, it’s another mixed bag, like 1968. Some of the highlights include the tranquil Albatross by the original incarnation of Fleetwood Mac and Something in the Air by Thunderclap Newman. Lots of great tracks from overseas acts too, particularly the horny Je t’aime… moi non plus by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, plus the apocalyptic boogie of Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival and ska pioneer Desmond Dekker’s Israelites.
Originally recorded in 1967, Motown boss Berry Gordy Jr was uncharacteristically blind to the greatness of Gaye’s version of this track. Slowing things down, adding an incredibly cool bass line for the intro, and singing with the kind of feeling that was completely alien to the likes of Engelbert Humperdinck and Des O’Connor, this is soul music at its finest, and peak Motown. To hear just how stunning Gaye is here, check out this clip that’s currently doing the rounds online, which isolates the vocal. Spine-tingling.
Had I been deciding this before Harris was outed as a paedophile, I’d have said Zager & Evans deserved it, because I, like so many others, had a soft spot for Two Little Boys. Now obviously it just leaves a very sour taste, and it’s a downbeat way to end the decade.
The Best 60s Number 1 Ever is…
The Beatles – She Loves You
It was always going to be the Fab Four, wasn’t it? They’re the greatest group of all time, so it’s a no-brainer. However, I’d be lying if I said She Loves You has always been my favourite Beatles single. I’d probably say Strawberry Fields Forever or Something, but of course neither went to number 1. But it would be wrong to make my choices for best and worst chart-toppers of each decade simply my favourite. I also look at the impact of each song, ine innovation and the influence it had, as well as the catchiness of the chorus. She Loves You easily covers all three bases. It’s modern music’s ‘big bang’ moment, and as I’ve said before about this and other legendary number 1s, it’s listening to them in the context of this blog that really separates the wheat from the chaff, and Every UK Number 1has truly brought home what a monumental few minutes of pop music The Beatles conjured up here. What alchemy.
But also, what competition, what an often astounding selection of songs I was honoured to listen to and choose from. It could just as easily been You Really Got Me or (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, but in the end She Loves You got there first and laid the groundwork that allowed all the other classics to be made in the first place.
The Worst 60s Number 1 Ever is…
The Bachelors – Diane
You could argue it’s unfair to single out Diane because it was number 1 in a year full of brilliance. I’d argue that’s exactly why I’ve given it this dubious honour. It spoiled my listening experience and stuck out like a sore thumb! Its dull tweeness would have earned it a slating if it had been released in 1954. 10 years later, it’s unforgivable really. And if they were the first Irish boyband, well, that’s nothing to be proud of, is it?
The Outro
The 60s were the decade in which pop came of age and became an integral part of the youth movement. From the dreariness of post-rock’n’roll, to Merseybeat, to the British Invasion, to psychedelia, to bubblegum pop and rock, music mutated rapidly, thanks in large to The Beatles, but also The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and more. Reviewing each number 1 in turn was really fascinating, and has increased my knowledge of the decade greatly, and for me the most interesting parts were just how much Merseybeat completely upturned the charts, and how little impact psychedelia actually had in 1967, due to the rise in popularity of albums.
So obviously it’s the 70s next. The decade in which I was born, albeit very late in the decade (1979). Pop changed and changed again here too, many times, and it was an often dark and turbulent decade in the news, so I can’t wait to get stuck in once more.
Blogs on every 60s number 1 are available to view via the Archive section.
