Author: UK #1s blog

116. ‘Blue Moon’, by The Marcels

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I really want to try to transcribe the intro to this latest chart-topper – what an intro, by the way – but am unsure that I will be at all able… Here goes…

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Blue Moon, by The Marcels (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 4th – 18th May 1961

Bombombombombombababombabbomababamdadangeedongdangdingydongydang… There, that’s it. Give or take a couple of boms. Blue moon…! It’s certainly an intro with some life about it. A whole song, actually, that is bursting with a joie de vivre; with both vim and vigour. A real palate cleanser after *shudder* ‘Wooden Heart’. The bombombom intro-slash-refrain pops up over and over, while other voices, from dog-whistle high to comically low, shrill and soft, husky and clear, all intertwine and frolic around one another.

Seriously – this record, a set of drums and a bass-line aside, is all voice. Five voices in total, but you’d be forgiven for thinking there were more. It’s a work of art, I’d go as far to say, the manner in which these voices flirt and slide, the way in which they provide the riff and the rhythm section, as well as the actual lyrics. Lyrics that I’d guess you know quite well…

Blue moon, You saw me standing alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own… Quite a sad song to be given such a cheery interpretation, you might think… Blue moon, You knew just what I was there for, You heard me saying a prayer for, Someone I really could care for… The singer wishes upon a blue moon (which is an actual thing, apparently – when there are two full moons in a calendar month the second is ‘blue’, though not literally) and lo! A lover appears before him… Blue moon, Now I’m no longer alone, Without a dream in my heart…

The lyrics are, in truth, pretty banal; but you don’t come to this song – to this version of ‘Blue Moon’ – for the lyrics. You come for the energy, the fizz and pop: the crazy fusion of doo-wop and barbershop. The very end of the song, where the highest note meets the final, lowest note – a doleful, drawn out Bluuuuuueeee Moon – brilliantly sums it all up. This is a mad record. And it’s only right that this song itself got to number one at least once. It’s a standard, recorded by everyone from Sinatra to Billie Holiday, Elvis to Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart to Bing Crosby, since its creation in 1934. Most of those artists took a slow an’ mournful approach to ‘Blue Moon’; but The Marcels went crazy and were rewarded with a huge, international, million-selling, rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame entering hit, and probably the definitive version of the song.

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“Who were The Marcels?” I hear you cry. They were a mixed-race (mixed-race I say! The first group of their kind to top the charts!) doo-wop group from Pennsylvania whose star burned brightly – 1961 was their year – but briefly. They split a couple of years later and didn’t have very many follow-up hits. But, as I’ve said before and I’ll say again, if you’re going to be remembered for just one song, make it a good one.

I first became aware of this song as a track on the ‘Don’t Stop – Doo-Wop!’ CD I picked up 2nd hand years ago, and that I’ve made heavy mention of already in this countdown – see the posts on ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love?’ and ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?’. Alas, I think this might be the final time I get to mention that album, as doo-wop #1s are looking rather thin on the ground from this point on. It’s not on Spotify, or YouTube, but if you ever see it hanging around a bargain bin it’s well worth picking up for the oh-so-nineties cover-art alone…

115. ‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley

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Oooh, what’s that? An accordion? Yay!… Said no-one ever. Nothing good ever starts with an accordion.

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Wooden Heart, by Elvis Presley (his 7th of twenty-one #1s)

6 weeks, from 23rd March – 4th May 1961

And what could you possibly add to said accordion to make an even more annoying sound? Ah, yes – an oompah band. Or at least the flaccid remnants of an oompah-band. So with this pair of musical buzzkills we enter Elvis’s short-lived ‘Lederhosen phase’: Can’t you see, I love you, Please don’t break my heart in two, That’s not hard to do, Cos I don’t have a wooden heart…

This is – for want of a better, more descriptive word – bad. At least Elvis has the decency to sing it like he’s embarrassed. He’s on auto-pilot – none of the emotion we were hearing on ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’, none of the bombast from ‘It’s Now or Never’ and certainly none of the energy we were hearing from him a couple of years ago on ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘I Got Stung’. The song, like the oompah-rhythm, plods along until it fizzles out.

There’s no strings upon, This love of mine, It was always you from the start… And then, if you thought it sounded lame in English, just wait until you hear it in German! Or, more accurately, in Swabian – a southern German dialect. Interestingly, this adds to the list of unusual-languages-other-than-English to feature on #1 hits. We’ve had cod-Italian (‘Mambo Italiano’), cod-Scots (‘Hoots Mon!’) and now Swabian-German, but still no French, Spanish or Italian…

Anyway, at least Elvis keeps this bilge short. Two minutes; done. ‘Wooden Heart’ featured on the soundtrack to ‘G.I. Blues – the movie shot by Elvis during his time stationed in Germany with the army, in which he plays an American soldier stationed, with the army, in Germany. And if you watch the song in the context of the movie – here – with the puppets and the children and everything it kind of works. It’s kind of cute. Separated from the movie soundtrack, though, and restricted to a black vinyl disc… I struggle to understand why anyone needed to buy this. It’s genuinely one of the worst #1s so far.

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And. AND! This single didn’t just sneak a week at the top… It spent six weeks there. A month. And a half! This is how famous Elvis was in 1961. Whenever anyone makes the old joke about an artist being so popular that they could release a fart and it would go to #1, this is what they’re talking about – the six weeks across March, April and May 1961 in which ‘Wooden Heart’ was Britain’s top-selling record. Which makes sense, since the oompah parts do, to an infantile mind such as mine, sound a bit like someone farting…

If nothing else, this disc confirms what we have long suspected: that rock ‘n’ roll Elvis is long dead. Long, long dead. ‘Wooden Heart’ isn’t so much the final nail in the coffin of Elvis the rock ‘n’ roller as the litre of gasoline chucked on the coffin while it burns. When I was a teenager just getting into Elvis I always skipped this track on his Greatest Hits. Even then. But – grasping for a silver lining here – at least this means that Ricky Valance has some competition for Worst #1 in my next recap!

114. ‘Walk Right Back’ / ‘Ebony Eyes’, by The Everly Brothers

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The Everly Brothers, clearly working on the ‘if it ain’t broke’ principal of hit-record making, return with their third UK chart-topper. Their second – ‘Cathy’s Clown’ – was so good, so seismically bloody brilliant, that who could blame them for trying to repeat the trick?

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Walk Right Back / Ebony Eyes, by The Everly Brothers (their 3rd of four #1s)

3 weeks, from 2nd – 23rd March 1961

And yet ‘Walk Right Back’ is not simply a blow-by-blow remake. The marching rhythm remains – albeit in a much lighter shade – and the drums are every bit as commanding. But this is great little record in its own right.

I want you to tell me why you walked out on me, I’m so lonesome every da-a-ay… I want you to know that since you walked out on me, Nothin’ seems to be the same ol’ way… Are they perhaps pining over Cathy? Has she finally quit toying with them, and moved on to another guy? (Why do I always picture the Everly Brothers dating the same woman…?)

What’s for sure is that they’ve both grown a pair since the days of ‘Cathy’s Clown’. The chorus comes, and they positively demand that she: Walk right back to me this minute, Bring your love to me don’t send it… The harmonies remain strong, this is clearly the Everly’s in mid-season form – their imperious phase – and it stands a cut above most of what we’ve heard recently on this countdown. Take, for example, ‘Poetry in Motion’: a perfectly acceptable, catchy pop song. But it’s a class below this. This is high quality pop music; better than 90% of its contemporaries in a way that’s as undeniable as it is hard to explain.

The song ends on a fade-out, the brothers bemoaning that they’re so lonesome every day… And that’s that. I apologise for rushing, but we do have the flip side of this disc to get to. A song that’s nowhere near as good; but which will be much more fun to write about. ‘Ebony Eyes’ sounds, before you listen, like pure B-side fodder. And it is. But in the best possible way…

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On a weekend pass… (yep, they’re in the army now)… I wouldn’t have had time, To get home and marry, That baby of mine, So I went to the chaplain, And he authorised, Me to send for my ebony eyes… And so, Ebony Eyes hops aboard flight 1203, to Don’s, or Phil’s (or both’s?) army base. In an hour or two, I would whisper ‘I do’, To my beautiful ebony eyes…

This is soppy drivel. We’re back in the realm of ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’, the Everly’s first chart-topper, which was a world away from the brilliance of their current hits. But… What’s that? In an extended spoken word section, the brothers describe the ensuing events. I kind of want to type it out verbatim, it’s that good – but I’ll refrain. Here are the highlights:

The plane was way overdue, So I went inside to the airlines desk… They probably took off late, or they may have run into some turbulent weather, and had to alter their course… And then – a genuinely harrowing description of a plane-crash from the victims’ families POV: I went back outside and I waited at the gate, and I watched the beacon light from the control tower as it whipped through the dark ebony skies… he has to slow down here, to wait for the backing singers… As. If. It. Were. Searching. For… My eeeeboooony eyes… And then came the announcement over the loudspeaker, That those having relatives or friends on flight 1203…

Yup. Powerful stuff. We’ve got another death-disc here, folks. A Grade-A splatter-platter (brilliant term, that) which got banned from British radio for being a bit too graphic. We’ve had the goofy ‘Running Bear’, the toe-curlingly awful ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’, and now this. And just when you think this heartfelt and very natural sounding spoken word section is about to redeem the genre, and turn it into something with some musical merit about it, they start singing again.

If I ever get, To heaven I bet, The first angel I recognise… Yeah yeah, blah blah, it’s Ebony Eyes. Whatever. It kinda ruins it. But hey. This does what every good double ‘A’-side should do: places a big, proper hit alongside a completely different, slightly left-of-centre ditty. Apparently – and I can’t see why anyone thought this would be a good idea – ‘Walk Right Back’ was originally meant to be the ‘B’-side! Still, it’s always nice to hear from the Everlys, and it’s a bit sad to realise that we’ll only be seeing them once more on this countdown. ‘Till then, Don and Phil, ‘till then…

113. ‘Sailor’, by Petula Clark

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Ladies and Gentlemen, something strange is about to occur atop the British Singles Chart. For the first time since 20th March 1959 – that’s twenty-three months and thirty-two #1s ago – the following chart-topper will be sung by – dun dun dun – a woman!

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Sailor, by Petula Clark (her 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 23rd February – 2nd March 1961

The gap between this song and Shirley Bassey’s ‘As I Love You’ is, I’m going to assume, some kind of record for the longest gap between female-led number ones. Though, quickly glancing down my list o’ chart-toppers, it is genuinely surprising how male-dominated the sixties will be. Certain consistent stars aside – Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Nancy Sinatra and the like – there will be huge swathes of #1 territory taken up by blokes with guitars. I wonder that more hasn’t been made of it, to be honest. But, I suppose, that’s all a story for another day. We have a new number one – let’s take a look at it…

It starts with a harmonica, an instrument under-represented so far in this countdown… Sailor, Stop your roamin’, Sailor, Leave the sea… Sailor, When the tide turns, Come home, Safe to me… It’s cute, and lilting, like the waves upon the ocean. Then comes the chorus, and it’s a proper sing-along one: As you sail across the sea all my love is there beside you…

It’s kind of old-fashioned. Kind of cheesy. Above all I’d describe it as ‘sentimental;  what the Germans call a ‘schlager’ song. It’s a hard one to place –  a song that might have been a hit any time between 1940 and 1975 – and one that reminds me of certain #1s from years already gone by. It’s a ‘Come Home to Me, My Love’ kind of song, the sailor in the title presumably being in the navy and separated from his amour against his will, as in Anne Shelton’s 1956 hit ‘Lay Down Your Arms’. But I’m more reminded of Jo Stafford’s ‘You Belong to Me’ – the second ever UK #1 – when Clark lists all the countries to which her man is sailing: In Capri or Amsterdam, Honolulu or Siam… (not sure which war he’s fighting in to take him on that erratic route, but anyway).

And then the pub-at-closing time feel of the chorus puts me in mind of The Stargazer’s 1954 smash ‘I See The Moon’, albeit with the crazy dialled back several shades. It’s a light little song that just about stays on the right side of cheesy, aside from the line about his final destination being ‘the harbour of her heart’…

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To be honest this song is perhaps best used as an excuse to draw people’s attention to the Life and Times of Petula Clark. In my post on the last female chart topper, I referred to Shirley Bassey as the First Lady of British pop. But that title might just as equally go to Ms. Clark. She went from being a childhood star, to a WWII Forces’ Sweetheart, to a global, multi-lingual superstar – equally as popular in France (‘Sailor’ was released there, in French  as ‘Marin’, reaching #2) and the USA as she was in Britain. Her first chart hit – ‘The Little Shoemaker’ – came in 1954, although she had been releasing singles since the dusty pre-chart days of 1949. And then, while all the big female pre-rock stars fell by the wayside – Vera Lynn, Kitty Kallen, Kay Starr, Rosemary Clooney et al – Clark kept going. Rock ‘n’ roll didn’t hurt her. In fact, she grew in popularity. Not even the Merseybeat revolution will be able to see her off!

We’ll meet Petula again in six years or so for her second #1, which is officially A Good Thing. Between then and now she will release her signature hit, ‘Downtown’, and my personal favourite – possibly the most uplifting song ever – ‘I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love’, which featured on a cassette of sixties hits that stayed on heavy rotation in our family car back when I was eight or nine. The songs on it were strictly 2nd-tier hits in chart terms – no Beatles, Elvis or Stones for obvious licensing reasons but plenty of Tremeloes, Emile Ford, Kenny Ball and T. Rex (sixties T. Rex, before they were particularly famous) – but I’d give anything to find out what the hell that tape was called. My love for all this glorious fifties and sixties pop stems directly from that compilation – in fact this very blog probably stems from what that tape awakened in me. As a small child I listened to very little music recorded post-1969. Until I turned ten and The Spice Girls came along, that is… But that’s yet another story for yet another day.

112. ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’, by Elvis Presley

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What is Elvis’s most famous ballad? If you were an Elvis impersonator looking to slow things down on stage, to which song would you turn? I’d say either ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Always on My Mind’, ‘The Wonder of You’, or, perhaps most likely, this.

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Are You Lonesome Tonight?, by Elvis Presley (his 6th of twenty-one #1s)

4 weeks, from 26th January – 23rd February 1961

Are you lonesome tonight, Do you miss me tonight, Are you sorry, We drifted, Apart? This is a country-tinged record – I mean, ‘lonesome’, come on! – during which you can imagine Elvis sat on a hay-bale, gently strumming, as the embers of the evening’s fire grow weak. It’s also perhaps the most minimalist #1 yet: no drums, no bass – just a guitar, some mellow backing vocals from The Jordanaires, and Mr. Presley.

I feel that Elvis, throughout much of his career, struggled to keep things subtle. Just look at those jumpsuits for a start… He had some really beautiful, low-key moments early on (his version of ‘Blue Moon’, for a start) but come his post-army days he was becoming ever more a fan of the semi-operatic, belt-em-out at full volume type hits (see ‘It’s Now or Never’). But he really does hold back here, purring the lines like a lovesick cat. Every so often he adds a bit of oomph – shall I come back… again? – but he quickly reigns it in. And this gentle approach really teases out the emotion in each line. I’ve always loved the Do the chairs in your parlour, Seem empty, And bare? Do you gaze at your doorstep, And picture me there? line. It’s kinda deep – a step above your usual rock ‘n’ roll love song.

And then… Oh my. Elvis talks. I wonder if… You’re lonesome tonight… Elvis couldn’t half talk. I make this only the second #1 to have featured a spoken-word section, after Pat Boone’s ‘I’ll Be Home’. And this isn’t just a couple of lines we’re talking about here. In a three minute record, Elvis talks for well over a minute of it. That’s more than a third of the song, people! Only The King could have gotten away with it. He ‘quotes’ Shakespeare, and describes a love in three acts… It’s amazing, and it peaks when his voice goes all serious, like a disappointed teacher: Honey, You lied when you said you loved me… But no matter how upset he is, he just can’t get over this woman. If you won’t come back to me, Then they can bring the curtain down…

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I struggle to believe that someone like Elvis had to spend many lonesome nights over the course of his life, without specifically choosing to; but he sells it here. He sounds heartbroken and vulnerable. Legend has it that he recorded this track at 4am, alone in the studio with all the lights out. And you can believe it, you really can. Contrast ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ with Cliff’s most recent chart-topper ‘I Love You’ – another simple-as little love song. But where that came off as cheesy and trite, this one comes off as timeless, and will actually make your spine tingle if you let it. This record is all about Elvis: The Voice. And that’s true star quality. Sorry Cliff.

‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ has a history that goes way beyond the 1960s, and beyond Elvis. Add this to ‘Who’s Sorry Now’, ‘It’s All in the Game’, ‘Mack the Knife’ and countless other songs from earlier in this countdown, as being originally written and recorded decades before. In this case it dates from 1926. Though – and I’m being kind here – Elvis’s version makes those from the twenties sound pretty darn lightweight. BUT. If you think I’m finally, six number ones into his UK chart career, giving The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll the credit that he deserves then to you I say this: ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ may be his best chart-topper so far (yes, I’m going there) but his next #1, not too long from now, will not be ‘lonesome’. Oh no. It will be genuinely loathsome.

111. ‘Poetry in Motion’, by Johnny Tillotson

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And so we stride into 1961, with a strong whiff of Roquefort in the air… Or is it Camembert? It’s some kind of cheese, at least.

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Poetry in Motion, by Johnny Tillotson (his 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 12th – 26th January 1961

It starts with one heck of an intro: When I see my bay-ay-by… (Sax-sax-sax-sax) What do I see…? (Sax-sax-sax-sax) Po-e-try… (Sax-sax-sax-sax) Poetry in… Motion! Enter the drums, and a swinging little rhythm. Poetry in motion, Walkin’ by my side, Her lovely locomotion, Keeps my eyes open wide… Yes, Johnny’s watching his girl (at least I assume she’s his girl – she could be a complete stranger) walking down the street. He loves every movement, there’s nothing he would change – She doesn’t need improvement, She’s much too nice to rearrange!

This is a proper jukebox record: redolent of milkshakes and sock-hops, of the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies (it would slot right into the ‘Grease’ soundtrack), the sort of song that’s played on a loop in Frankie & Benny’s and that might have been covered by Showaddywaddy (it wasn’t, alas – Mud got there first). I’d place it right up there with ‘Diana’ and ‘When’ as one of the purest slices of pop to hit #1 so far. It’s cheesier than a Quattro Formaggio with extra Parmesan; and I love it.

But wait, I hear you cry. You called out the last chart-topper, Cliff’s ‘I Love You’ for being basic and simple and cheesy! What gives? Well, dear reader, ‘tis all in the delivery. While Cliff sleepwalked his way through his offering; Johnny Tillotson and his band give it some oomph. For a start, he belts out pretty much every word, nay every syllable, and every woah-woah-woah, as if his life depends on it. Check out the way he sings mo-shun or po-shun, or the way he adds at least three extra syllables to ‘re-ee-ah-ra-ay-nge!’ Tillotson was barely out of his teens when he recorded ‘Poetry in Motion’, and it’s a disc dripping in boyish enthusiasm. You can really imagine him following this girl down the street, cartoon love-hearts in his eyes, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth…

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He sings it as if he knows it’s going to be his one shot at stardom. Perhaps that’s it! While ‘I Love You’ was Cliff’s fourth #1 in barely over a year, and already his umpteenth hit, maybe Johnny Tillotson knew this was his big chance, his golden ticket. If he did, then he certainly grabbed it: ‘Poetry..’ hit the top in the UK and #2 in America, where it was the first of four Top 10s for him. Over the Atlantic he can lay legitimate claim to being a one-hit wonder, his next biggest song (the wonderfully titled ‘Send Me the Pillow You Dream On’) only reaching #21.

And, if all that weren’t enough to convince you that this is a forgotten pop classic; then let us reflect on the fact that this is a two and a half minute, chart-topping homage to a woman’s arse. If that’s not something to celebrate, then what is? Poetry in motion, All that I adore, No number nine love potion, Could make me love her more… (A little Easter-egg for you there: a sly reference to another hit song – The Clovers ‘Love Potion No. 9’ – from a couple of years earlier).

Johnny Tillotson continues to write and perform in his native Florida, and is in fact an inductee to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, no less. He’s had hits and concerts all over the world – Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand…. In Britain, however, he’s best remembered for ‘Poetry in Motion’, the record that brought a spot of Florida sun to a dank January. And I can think of far worse ways to be remembered than for this cheesy little gem of a chart-topper.

110. ‘I Love You’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows

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Can there have been a more basic title in the history of popular music? This is what pretty much every rock and pop disc ever recorded boils down to – the sediment left at the bottom of the barrel once the distilling process is over… ‘I Love You.’

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I Love You, by Cliff Richard (his 4th of fourteen #1s) & The Shadows (their 5th of twelve #1s)

2 weeks, from 29th December 1960 – 12th January 1961

And it ain’t just the title that’s basic. Everything about this latest chart-topper has a bare-bones, doing-the-bare-minimum, holding-pattern feel. The plodding guitars, the solo that struggles to find a pulse, the lyrics… (*shudder*) Oh, the lyrics…

Your love means more to me than, All the apples hangin’ on a tree, And like those apples, Our love will grow, Because I… I love you… Yup. Then a bunch of similarly trite bletherings about fishes in the sea and how Cliff needs his girl near to him more than she could ever know, and then the piece de resistance: Everyone knows one and one is two, I’ll be the one, And the other one’s you…

I mean, you could moan and nit-pick, but are these lyrics really worth the time or the effort? I think what makes this record sound particularly bland is the fact that Cliff’s last effort ‘Please Don’t Tease’ showed catchy promise, while The Shadows last #1, ‘Apache’ was a bona-fide little masterpiece. What did they make of this record? Their dreamy guitar licks are the highlight of this track, licks that are rapidly becoming both a trademark and the sound of 1960, but they were clearly capable of so much more. Though ‘I Love You’ was actually written by Bruce Welsh, AKA rhythm guitarist for The Shadows, so… Either way, this is the sound of Cliff – who, let us not forget, is fairly tame at the best of times – undergoing a complete castration. It’s music for five-year-olds, the closest we’ve come to having a lullaby at the top of the charts. I’d liken ‘I Love You’ to ‘Living Doll’ – the Cliff track that it has the most in common with – but that at least had creepy sex-doll lyrics to pique the listener’s interest.

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Having put my opening statement through more serious consideration, the ‘I Love You’ sentiment obviously doesn’t cover every pop song ever written. There’s the ‘I Used to Love You’ songs, the ‘I Wish You Loved Me’ songs, the ‘I Still Love You, But You Don’t Love Me’ songs, the ‘I’m Not Sure About Love But I’d Really Like to Bang You’ songs… In fact, there are precious few pop songs in the canon with such a relentlessly optimistic view of love as ‘I Love You’ (after all, only seven songs by this title have ever made the UK charts). I take it all back – this record is nigh on unique! But that doesn’t make it sound any better. Frankly, it could do with a bit of lust, a bit of regret, a bit of SOMETHING just to make it mildly interesting.

It does at least give us a first sighting of the two titans of early sixties pop knocking one another about at the top of the charts: Cliff replacing Elvis just in time for the new year. And this won’t be the last time that these two follow one another in and out of pole position. I’d even go so far as to suggest that the only other artist whose star power could have dragged this silly little ditty to #1 would have been Elvis Aaron. In the hands of any other singer this would have #12 hit written all over it. Too dull to be any good; not bad enough to be of any interest. Next!

 

 

109. ‘It’s Now or Never’, by Elvis Presley

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More musical one-upmanship at the top of the charts! The Big ‘O’ has just finished teaching Ricky Valance how to do heartbreak properly; now Elvis has heard Roy’s operatic vocals and clearly thought to himself ‘So, this Orbison thinks he can sing an aria, does he? We’ll show him how it’s done! Uh-huh-huh.”

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It’s Now or Never, by Elvis Presley (his 5th of twenty-one #1s)

8 weeks, from 3rd November – 29th December 1960

If only that’s how the pop charts worked – a never ending attempt to outdo the chart-topper that went before you… At least that’s how the autumn of 1960 is turning out. Hot on the heels of ‘Only the Lonely’, this is more opera-lite. Except, while Orbison kept the operatics to a minimum in what was still a rock ‘n’ roll disc; Elvis really lets fly. The King was never one for understatement.

We open with backing singers – the Jordanaires – and a slice of cheesy Italian guitar… And then boom: some very famous lines indeed. It’s now or never, Come hold me tight, Kiss me my darling, Be mine tonight… Elvis croons the verses and belts out the choruses. It’s a rhumba, or perhaps a bossanova – the kind of rhythm that gets your hips swaying gently. It’s a very sexy record.

Or, at least, it’s trying to be a sexy record. Something, though, is lacking. You can’t fault the voice – Elvis sings it very well, and very properly – but to my modern ears it just sounds a bit… silly. A bit camp? Maybe it’s the flourishes of said Italian guitars. Maybe it’s the lyrics straight from an 8th grader’s poetry collection – When I first saw you, With your smile so tender, My heart was captured, My soul surrendered – plus some of the rhymes: excite me with invite me, a lifetime with the right time…

I don’t suppose the song’s cause has been helped by the intervening fifty-eight years since it was released. It’s now a standard of the white jump-suited, microphone twirling Elvis impersonator. Plus anyone who has been to Venice will have heard it mangled by hundreds of gondoliers all high on the fact that they’re getting a hundred euros for twenty minutes work. Plus, anyone who grew up in the UK in the ‘80s and ‘90s will instinctively start singing ‘Just one Cornetto, Give it to me, Delicious ice-cream, From Italy…’ when the intro kicks in. This is a song laden with pop-culture baggage.

Perhaps it’s impossible to view this song as it sounded in 1960. Though it was far from being a ‘new’ song even then. ‘O Sole Mio’, the Neapolitan folk song upon which it is based was written way back in 1898, and people would have known the melody. Whatever this record was – or is – perhaps depends on your age, or on whether you’ve holidayed in Italy, or on whether you’re a fan of cheap, mass produced ice-cream cones…

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One thing that isn’t up for debate is the success of this disc. Eight weeks at the top. Presley’s best-selling single in the UK – with 1.3 million copies sold it is his only British million-seller and was, at the time, the 2nd biggest selling single of all time behind ‘Rock Around the Clock’. A brand new entry at number one, only the 2nd single to ever do so. A monster hit. Some sources claim that its success was down to it being Elvis’s big comeback after a year away in the army. That’s not quite right, however. His first new recording, ‘Stuck on You’ had already hit #3 earlier in the year.

Whatever the reason for this record’s success, it’s what I’d call the beginning of Elvis MKIII – the neutered, granny friendly, chart-humping behemoth. MKI was the rough an’ ready country boy making his Sun Recordings – a version we never saw at the top of the UK charts. MKII was Elvis the Pelvis, singing ‘All Shook Up’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’, scandalising TV audiences across the globe with his thrusting. The big shock here is that this Elvis sounds so different to that Elvis. He’s dropped all the mumbling, and the growling and the uh-huh-huh-ing, and is singing perfectly, like an angelic choirboy in front of an archbishop. We caught a whiff of it in his last #1 – the cabaret-ish ‘A Fool Such As I’ – but the difference is quite shocking. I’ve mentioned it before, but hearing these famous records in context, surrounded by their contemporaries, really lets you hear them afresh.

One thing I do like about this song, I have to admit, is the ending. And not in an ironic, thank-God-it’s-over kind of way, no, no, no. I like the way Elvis slows it down, the guitars twiddle their way to silence, and we await the big finish. It’s now or never… But… with a great bit of showmanship, and in a way that drags this song well past the three minute mark, Elvis goes round one more time… my love won’t wait. And then he belts the ending out: It’s now or never… MY LOVE WON’T WAIT (chun-chun-chun)!

Before I go, I must mention that – way ahead of schedule – I get to celebrate one of my birthday #1s. ‘It’s Now or Never’ spent another week at the top of the UK charts at the end of January 2005, just in time for my nineteenth birthday. Which kind of annoys me, actually, as it spoils the flow of my ‘Birthday #1s’ playlist by sitting there amongst Limp Bizkit, Enrique Iglesias and Lady Gaga like a big old sore thumb. Anyway. First world problems. You better get used to hearing Elvis over the next few months, as he has the British Singles charts in something of a choke-hold from this point on – hitting the top at least three times per year – until a certain bunch of lads from Liverpool come along and kick him off his perch.

108. ‘Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel)’, by Roy Orbison

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

Now this is more like it! As we try to wash the memory of that last chart-topper from our minds, a dose of the Big ‘O’ will do nicely.

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Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel), by Roy Orbison (his 1st of three #1s)

2 weeks, from 20th October – 3rd November 1960

Dum-dum-dum-dumbee-doo-wa, Ooooh-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, Oh-woa-woa-woa-ahhh… Only the lonely… We haven’t heard many catchier intros in this countdown, have we?

Only the lonely, Know the way I feel tonight, Only the lonely, Know this feelin’ ain’t right… This is how you do heartbreak in a pop song. It feels somehow significant, the fact that this was the song to depose ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ from the top of the charts. As if Roy Orbison had listened to Ricky Valance and his saccharine mulch and said ‘Hold my beer…’

Everything about this song feels like an upgrade from ‘Tell Laura…’ – the voice (that voice – one of the most unmistakeable in pop history), the lyrics, even the backing singers. But to paint this record solely as the yang to ‘Laura’s yin would be unfair. This is a great track in its own right, deserving of a place in this countdown regardless of the record it knocked from the top spot.

It’s a rock ‘n’ roll record, but with the operatic flourishes that were a trademark of Orbison’s career. There are the fluttering violins that dance around the end of each line, the deep bass drum that marks out the bridge – there goes my baby (dun dun dun dun) – and, of course, that high note at the end. His voice, which has been deep, and fairly manly, up to now, rises with each of the final lines: Maybe tomorrow, A new romance, No more sorrow, But that’s the chance… wait for it… youuuuuu gotta take… As someone who has listened to Roy Orbison for many years this almost passes me by as standard – that’s what he sounded like a lot of the time – but you have to remember that this was his first big, international hit. People in October 1960 didn’t know who he was, and they wouldn’t have heard the high note coming. The chart nerd in me feels compelled to point out that ‘Only the Lonely’ took what was, at the time and until 1985(!), the longest ever climb to #1 in the UK charts (eleven weeks) This was a slow-burner, a word-of-mouth hit that you heard about from your neighbour over the garden fence – ‘Have you heard that new song by the guy with the high-pitched voice…?’

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Turns out that this mix of rock ‘n’ roll rhythms with operatic touches and emotive, melancholy lyrics was Roy Orbison’s new trademark, after an earlier rockabilly phase that had brought him limited success in the US but had failed to register over in Britain, and the record-buying public lapped it up. His next release, for example – the OTT ‘Blue Angel’ – makes ‘Only the Lonely’ sound stripped back and subtle. I bought my first Big ‘O’ Best Of at the same time as I was getting into Buddy, Chuck and co., so we go way back. He can be something of an acquired taste at times, but once you get him; you won’t forget him.

And we’ll hear from him again in a few years’ time – when he’ll stand up to the Merseybeat tsunami with a couple of his best known songs – but until then I’d recommend checking out his early sixties classics: the aforementioned ‘Blue Angel’, ‘Running Scared’, ‘Crying’ (as made super famous by Don McClean), ‘Workin’ for the Man’ and ‘Falling’ (a song that, to this day, I can’t work out if I like or not but which definitely shows off his unique voice).

We seem to be settling back into a nice rock ‘n’ roll groove in the autumn of 1960, this disc following on from the likes of ‘Please Don’t Tease’, ‘Shakin’ All Over’ and ‘Apache’. In fact, ‘Only the Lonely’ is something of an amalgam, of this new, easy goin’ rock ‘n’ roll and the string-laden, percussion-y chart toppers from earlier in the year – ‘Poor Me’, ‘Why’ and so on. A new type of pop song, perhaps? A subtle little game changer? We’ll see. Onwards!

107. ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’, by Ricky Valance

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

So, you know how I had a bit of a moan about instrumentals in my previous post, about them having no lyrics and being difficult to write about…? Well. How I find myself wishing that this next record was an instrumental…

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Tell Laura I Love Her, by Ricky Valance (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 29th September – 20th October 1960

Laura and Tommy were lovers, He wanted to give her everything, Flowers, Presents, And most of all… A wedding ring… (I’m not summarising here – these are the actual lyrics, verbatim) He saw a sign for a stock-car race, A thousand dollar prize it read…

Musically there is very little going on here. A lilting guitar guides us through the story of Laura and Tommy and, what with Ricky Valance’s stiff and stilted delivery, this could almost qualify as a spoken word track. If it weren’t for the overwrought chorus – Tell Laura I love here (Bum-Bum-Bum), Tell Laura I need her, Tell Laura I may be late, I’ve something to do, That cannot wait – which is caterwauled out like, well, a cat. On heat.

He drove his car to the racing ground… Actually, I will summarise, as I don’t think I can face typing much more of this doggerel out: Tommy gets to the race, finds out that he’s the youngest driver there, drives really fast, his car overturns in flames… As they pulled him from the twisted wreck, With his dying breath, They heard him say… Can you guess? Yep… Tell Laura I love her (Bum-Bum-Bum) etc and so on.

What we have here is an example of a uniquely early-sixties phenomenon: the ‘death disc.’ “Ballads lamenting tragic (and usually teenage) deaths in an extremely melodramatic fashion.” That pretty much sums up this song, with a large emphasis on the ‘MELODRAMATIC’. Often they were banned by the BBC, who felt that their lyrics were too upsetting for public consumption. ‘Running Bear’, which hit the top a few months back, was a death-disc of sorts, and we’ll meet at least another couple such songs over the next year or so, though unfortunately not the one true masterpiece of this genre: The Shangri-La’s ‘Leader of the Pack’.

Anyway, back to the song. We’re now in the chapel. Laura is praying for her beloved… It was just for Laura he lived and died, Alone in the chapel she can hear him cry… What can she hear him cry? But, of course… Tell Laura I love her (Bum-Bum-Bum)…

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Boy, oh boy. The voice, the lyrics, the delivery, the weird rhythm… This is an irredeemable record, one of the very worst yet. If I were the BBC, I’d have banned it too. Can we just wrap it up here and move on? This happened, it hit #1 in the UK charts – a national embarrassment up there with Brexit – let’s never mention it again (except for in my next recap, where it will undoubtedly win worst song). Ricky Valance had a few other minor hits and now performs for old folks on the Costa Blanca in Spain.

Actually, to finish, I should mention that I have a friend called Laura, and the first time that this song came to my consciousness was when she named it as the only song she knew with her name in it. Then The Scissor Sisters released their own ‘Laura’, and I remember her being happy. Having now listened to ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ on repeat for the last half-hour, I can understand her happiness, and would like to thank The Scissor Sisters on behalf of Lauras the world over, for freeing them from the shadow of this song. Now if only someone could do the same for the Mandys…