And so we arrive at the ultimate love song. The song I will have played at my wedding…
All About You / You’ve Got a Friend, by McFly (their 3rd of seven #1s)
1 week, from 13th – 20th March 2005
Two slight caveats here: you must always allow me room for hyperbole when it comes to McFly, and I have little-to-no plans to ever get married. But still, I do think that ‘All About You’ is a lovely song.
First we have to skip the cheesy harps and strings intro, and imagine they’re being delivered with a knowing wink. Skip straight to the harmonies in the first chorus, and the pretty verses, with their timeless melodies. It is hard to write timeless, hard to write a song that sounds like it might always have existed.
The acoustic guitar solo is more of its time – though that ‘time’ would be a soft-rock song from the eighties – and the second bridge and chorus, when the band finally come in, is pure power-pop. Okay the lyrics are trite – Dancing on the kitchen tiles, Yes you made my life worthwhile, So I told you with a smile… – but eighteen year olds can get away with trite.
McFly songs provide a real chicken vs egg scenario for me. Do I blindly argue their brilliance because I think McFly are a truly underrated band; or are songs like ‘All About You’ truly great and deserve to have me arguing for them? I’ve been a McFly fan for so long now that I can’t judge this clearly.
Actually that’s a lie. The other side of this double-‘A’ will give me a chance to appraise McFly impartially. Since this was the official Red Nose Day single for 2005, the suits presumably needed a song with more of a message (and a music video in which the band could run around with lots of Ugandan orphans…) So they chose Carole King’s classic ‘You’ve Got a Friend’.
It is on the one hand completely unnecessary. It does not improve in any way on King’s original, or on James Taylor’s definitive cover. And I really don’t like all the woodwind. (See, I can write something bad about McFly.) But Tom’s voice sounds nice on the first verse. Plus, I sang this in my primary school choir, and it really does have one of the most heart-string tugging choruses in all of pop history.
The flutes, and the full-blown orchestra in the background of ‘All About You’, bring up one of the reasons why McFly’s second album, ‘Wonderland’, is my least favourite. They threw the kitchen sink at it, production-wise, with string sections and three-part rock operas about teen suicide. I think it was an attempt to prove themselves, to show that they weren’t just a boyband; but it led to bloat, and some boringly worthy music. By their third album, they seemed to have shaken that monkey off their back, and returned to making great pop-rock.
As this was the official Red Nose Day single, it opened with McFly’s highest ever weekly sale. It also meant this record didn’t have the massive second week collapse that they would become synonymous with. And yet, ‘All About You’ was still eclipsed by the unofficial Red Nose Day single, which brought about one of the biggest, and unlikeliest, hits of the entire decade, and which is up next.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
First time hearing both of these McFly songs. “All About You” is pretty cute. I detect a slight 60s and 70s influence with the horns and string arrangement respectively. It’s a nice little pop rock ballad. The band seems to have quite a bit of reverence for 60s and 70s pop/rock while still keeping their music rooted in the contemporary music, which is always nice. Is that Graham Norton and Dermot O’Leary in the music video? And the Busted boys on the mag cover, that’s funny.
Their version of “You’ve Got a Friend” is fine. It’s basically what you’d expect. It’s a perfect song and you can’t really mess it up unless you’re actively trying to make a bad version. I agree James Taylor’s version is the best and really can’t be touched but McFly done a perfectly acceptable job. So far, definitely enjoying all their No. 1s more than Busted, I can see why you like them so much they’re a very solid pop rock group.
McFly visually kinda remind of The Monkees mixed with Green Day and Supergrass for some reason.
All About You is a great song.
My only McFly fact (that I’m sure you’ll mention when we get there!) is that they had the last ever double A side to reach number one. In fact, they had the last 3!
All About You is probably their most-memorable song, jaunty and singalong, but the video is very annoying, I hate time-wasting acting intros and mid-song breaks, they need to be banned! It was their first track to break into my weekly top 40, the next would be Star Girl. Later singles Party Girl and Lies went top 20, and their first top 10 was Shine A Light in 2011, so I got there eventually with a hand from Taio Cruz. You’ve Got A Friend, well the song totally deserves to be a UK number one, so there’s that as a plus, but I’ll stick with Carole King’s version, not even James Taylor’s is as good.