Pop

241. ‘Hello, Goodbye’, by The Beatles

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We round off 2019 with the final number one from 1967. Top of the charts fifty-two years ago today was…

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Hello, Goodbye, by The Beatles (their 13th of seventeen #1s)

7 weeks, from 6th December 1967 – 24th January 1968

… of course it was. Who else? (As a kid, listening to ‘Pick Of The Pops’ on Radio 2, we’d always have a contest in the car to guess who would be number one. And if it was a chart from the sixties I’d always guess The Beatles because, well, the odds were with you.) And, speaking of being a kid, ‘Hello, Goodbye’ was one of my first favourite Beatles hits. But, to be honest, it’s appeal has faded as the years have gone on, and as I’ve gotten older and more cynical.

You say yes, I say no, You say stop, And I say go, go, go… Oh no… It’s a song that explodes into life – no waiting around. You say goodbye, And I say hello… A song about an argument, about two people that are deliberately disagreeing with one another. One says ‘high’, the other says ‘low’. So on and so forth. It’s tempting to read into it – is it a seemingly nonsensical, childish pop song documenting the start of the slow break-up of the world’s biggest band…? Or a glimpse into the marriage of Paul McCartney and Linda… Actually no, that theory is dead in the water – they didn’t marry until 1969.

McCartney did write this one, which I think is probably quite obvious. It’s got that slightly irritating chipper-ness to it that shows up more often in his solo work, once John wasn’t around to check his worst impulses. Lennon reportedly didn’t care much for ‘Hello, Goodbye’, and pushed for ‘I Am the Walrus’ to be released instead. If only… (‘Walrus’ was the B-side.)

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But, but, but… I’m making it sound as if I hate this record, when I don’t. Beatles’ ‘average’ is still pretty good. I like the backing vocals, which remind me of ‘Help!’ in the way that they sing different lines to the lead, and the reverb on the Why-why-why-why do you say goodbye-bye-bye-bye… And Ringo’s drumming is great on this. The outro, though… The Hare Krishna-ish Hey-la-hey-bah-hello-ah… Nah. Not for me.

Perhaps this is the Beatles playing it safe, worrying that they had spooked people too much with their much more avant-garde stuff: ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘All You Need is Love’. Playing it safe with a huge Christmas hit – their 4th Xmas #1 in five years. It’s just that, for the first time in ages, a Beatles song doesn’t feel like a step forward.

But, what do I know? ‘Hello, Goodbye’ gave The Fab Four their joint-longest run at the top of the charts, tied with their debut #1 ‘From Me to You’. (It has to be mentioned, though, that charts were often repeated for a week over the Christmas and New Year holidays in those days.) It’s also fitting that 1967 ends with a blockbuster number one. It’s been a quick year to get through, with lots of long runs at the top from Tom Jones, Engelbert, Procol Harum and now The Beatles. It’s one of the very few years in chart history where every single #1 stays there for longer than one week.

It’s also fitting that I end 2019 by thanking everyone who has read, liked and commented on this blog over the past twelve months, and wish you all a very happy new year. See you all on the other side… 1968 awaits!

My #1s playlist:

239. ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’, by The Foundations

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When I first scanned down my big long list of number ones and saw that ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’ by The Foundations was coming up, I started imagining what it would sound like. I do that with bands and songs that I’ve not heard much before. And I pictured a Detroit four-piece – like The Four Tops, or The Temptations – and lots of vocal harmonies.

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Baby, Now That I’ve Found You, by The Foundations (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 8th – 22nd November 1967

But no. The Foundations were British. And, while I could have sang at least half the chorus of ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’, the rest of the song sounds quite different to how I’d imagined. It is uplifting, and catchy. It soars upwards on line after ascending line. There are strong hints of Motown in there. But it’s a record that owes just as much, if not more, to British soul – the Georgie Fames, Chris Farlowes and The Spencer Davis Groups that have been popping up over the past couple of years.

Baby, Now that I’ve found you I can’t let you go, I’ll build my world around you, I need you so… It could be a Motown recording, if the production were a little slicker, and the vocals a little more polished. But it’s down to Earth-ness, it’s rough around the edges-ness – dare we say its Britishness? – is a big part of this record’s charm. Especially in the bridge, when the drums go all rocky, and the voices all come together like its last orders down the pub: Now you told me that you wanna leave me, Darling I just can’t let you… Clem Curtis, the lead singer, gives it his all.

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It’s a fun song, a catchy interlude that makes 1967 an even more eclectic year in terms of its chart-topping singles. It was the debut single of The Foundations, who are a band that deserve a bit of attention drawn their way. They were the first inter-racial band to have a #1 in the sixties, their members coming from the West Indies, the UK and Sri Lanka. Plus there were – I think – nine people in the band when ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’ was released (I know there are only eight in the picture above, but I’m going on what I’ve read…) That’s a big pop group in anyone’s books, but not a record… The Temperance Seven also numbered nine members back when they hit top spot back in 1961. The Foundations’ oldest member was thirty-eight; the youngest just eighteen.

From the sounds of it, they found it very difficult to keep a band of that size and with that wide an age-range together. They only released ten singles before splitting up in 1970 – the second biggest of which was the even catchier ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’, which would reach #2 in 1968.

To be honest, if a year or so ago somebody had asked me about ‘British soul in the 1960s’ I would have had to politely shrug. But having now written posts on all these hits that have kept on cropping up at the top of the charts for almost three years now, I feel I should hang my head in shame. British soul was a big part of the sixties-sound, that seems to have been overshadowed by the likes of Merseybeat, folk and flower-power… Maybe it’s because, like me, people just assume the songs and the bands were American. Hopefully if you were as oblivious as I was then you too have enjoyed discovering this fascinating sub-genre. And hopefully the British soul hits keep on coming!

238. ‘Massachusetts (The Lights Went Out In)’, by The Bee Gees

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A couple of posts ago, as I wrote about Scott McKenzie’s ‘San Francisco’, I made a big deal about #1 hits that reference places, and how uncommon they were. Of course, just to prove me wrong, the charts now throw up a song about Massachusetts.

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Massachusetts (The Lights Went Out In), by The Bee Gees (their 1st of five #1s)

4 weeks, from 11th October – 8th November 1967

And that’s not all that this next chart-topper has in common with McKenzie’s hit. It also, you know, sounds a lot like it. The same light guitar and the same chimes. The same chilled-out vibes. It even references San Fran in the second verse. It’s the (Indian) Summer of Love! Is it harsh to suggest that The Bee Gees were simply jumping on the hippy bandwagon?

Actually, yeah, it would be harsh. This is a retort to songs like ‘San Francisco’. It’s being sung from the point of view of someone who has left his home, in Massachusetts, to join in the summer’s festivities, and who now feels a bit homesick. Feel I’m going back to Massachusetts, Something’s telling me, I must go home… He left his girl standing alone, as the lights all went down in Massachusetts… But he’s now seen the error of his ways: They brought me back, To see my way with you…

It’s an interesting concept, and a quick piece of song writing to get the record out and in the charts mere weeks after the hits that it references. It turns what I initially felt was a so-so, slightly bland song into one worthy of note. The lights are going down in Massachusetts because everybody’s buggering off to the West Coast! I will remember Massachusetts… I wonder if the Massachusetts Tourist Board have ever used it in an ad campaign?

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Moving on – largely because ‘Massachusetts’ is a really difficult word to keep typing – let’s take a look at the band. The debutants atop the UK Singles Chart. The Bee Gees. You know, the band that in a decade’s time will take disco to the masses. I think that’s the ‘Bee Gees’ that most people think of: jumpsuits and sparkles and you should be dancing… It’s there in this record, mainly in the vocal harmonies that tremble a little higher than your regular pop record. (Though Robin Gibb sang lead on this one, while Barry sang falsetto on most of their seventies hits.)

They’re a fascinating band, actually. They will spread their five chart-toppers over exactly twenty years, covering three completely different versions of themselves, in terms of sound and image. But they’re not a band I’ve ever really been able to love, and I wish I could like their debut #1 more than I do… (Personally I think their final #1 is by far the best of the five.)

Anyway, they will be back soon enough. In between this and their next #1, they will release ‘Words’, which I can look on fondly as one of the first songs I ever learned to play on keyboard. Other interesting, and less self-revolving, bits of trivia about sixties-era Bee Gees include the fact that none of them had ever actually been to Massachusetts – they just liked the sound of it, and the fact that it was about as far away from San Francisco as you can get on the continental USA. (The Bee Gees, of course, weren’t American – they’re British/Australian.) And… I really like this one… ‘Massachusetts’ was the first ever non-Japanese #1 single on the Japanese charts! How about that…

236. ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)’, by Scott McKenzie

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And so we reach the final part of our Summer of Love trilogy. Three songs. Thirteen weeks. One summer that (kind of) changed the world. The psychedelic weirdness of Procol Harum, The Beatles going for a full-on hippy love-in, and now this. An ode to the city where it all started.

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San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair), by Scott McKenzie (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 9th August – 6th September 1967

If you’re going, To San Francisco, Be sure to wear, Some flowers in your hair… The music is acoustic: folky and wistful… Very 1965 – already sounding a little old-fashioned in mid-’67. Something’s going ‘ting’. Somebody’s clapping their hands. In the streets, Of San Francisco, Gentle people, With flowers in their hair… (Apparently all the references to ‘flowers’ and ‘gentle people’ were added to make hippies sound less frightening!)

The singer, Scott McKenzie, also sounds as if he’s from another time, a little old-fashioned. Kind of clipped and proper. A bit square, if we’re being honest, like he’s chronicling the scenes in the parks of San Francisco, an observer rather than a partaker. I dunno, I’m left slightly underwhelmed. For the ‘unofficial anthem of the flower-power movement’ I’d have expected something a little more revolutionary…

But, you know, it’s a cute song. I like it. I knew it, as most people do, as a chorus in the back of my mind. And the most interesting bit comes in the middle-eight, when McKenzie breaks the fourth wall and explicitly references the counter-culture movement: All across the nation, Such a strange vibration, People in motion… There’s a whole generation, With a new explanation… The beat here is spikier, more urgent. It sounds almost like a rallying call.

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I’ve been to San Francisco twice. Once as a kid, and once just last summer. When one night, in the heart of downtown, a guy walked past us bellowing this very song out at the top of his lungs. San Fran being San Fran, he wasn’t oddest oddball we’d seen that day, or even that evening. But I liked the fact that the song was still there, still an anthem of the city fifty years on. And there is something about San Francisco, still, even if downtown is full of meth addicts and Haight-Ashbury is now a bit of a tourist trap. Something in the air that suggests that it could start a revolution again, if it wanted to…

I’m still not sure if Scott McKenzie himself was much of a hippy. He had quite long hair, but then everybody did in the sixties… What I do know is that he is a near perfect example of a one-hit wonder: his only other charting single in the UK reached #50. He was something of a journeyman singer-songwriter, even in 1967, having been in doo-wop and folk bands since the start of the decade. Post ‘San Francisco’, he performed with The Mamas and the Papas, and co-wrote The Beach Boys’ eighties hit ‘Kokomo’. He passed away in 2012.

So that’s that for the Summer of Love. Three game-changing #1 singles: one timeless, one crazy, and one pretty nice. Up next, we slip right back into the easy-listening mulch that has made up so much of 1967. But let’s not think about that just yet. Let’s focus instead on the fact that this is only the 3rd chart-topper to reference a city, after Jimmy Young’s ‘The Man From Laramie’ in 1955, and Winifred Atwell’s ‘The Poor People of Paris’ back in 1956. If we extend that to ‘places’, we could include The Song from ‘Moulin Rouge’, and, at a bit of a push, ‘The Garden of Eden’… Worth noting, though, as it’s not a common topic for #1 hits…

My Spotify playlist, for your pleasure:

235. ‘All You Need Is Love’, by The Beatles

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The top of the British Singles Chart has just endured its longest Beatles-less spell (at least, you know, until they split up and stop making music) but they are back! Though you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a completely different band.

The Fab Four were killed off a year or so ago. Since then they’ve hit #1 with the string drenched ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and the kids’ singalong ‘Yellow Submarine’. Before that came the bass-heavy garage of ‘Paperback Writer’. Both big steps away from the Beat sound that had made them huge. This single is another massive leap away, even compared to their innovation of ’66. This single opens with the French national anthem…

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All You Need Is Love, by The Beatles (their 12th of seventeen #1s)

3 weeks, from 19th July – 9th August 1967

Because, why not? They’re The Beatles and they can do whatever the hell they want. ‘La Marseillaise’ doesn’t last for long, and soon we swing into a simple ditty. Love, love, love… and a mantra. Nothing you can do that can’t be done, Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung… On first listen it sounds like a hippy-dippy, peace (man!) anthem for the Summer of Love. But, actually… Nothing you can know that isn’t known, Nothing you can see that isn’t shown… It’s kind of negative. ‘Why bother?’ seems to be the message…

John Lennon allegedly kept the lyrics simple, as the song was to be debuted on TV screens around the globe for ‘Our World’, the first ever global tele-link. But, Lennon being Lennon, I sense a bit of needle in there. A bit of sarcasm, maybe? It’s definitely not as straightforward as it sounds. He later described the lyrics as ‘revolutionary propaganda.’ The chorus, though, is simplicity in action: All you need is love… Love is all you need.

Like ‘Good Vibrations’ – a record that spurred The Beatles on to greater experimentation – ‘All You Need Is Love’ jumps around all over the place, from national anthems, to drunken jazz in the chorus, to an electric guitar solo, to stabbing strings, with some music-hall ‘All together nows’ for good measure.

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And then there’s the finale. Where it all just goes a little bit mental. We get horns from Bach (meaning the 18th Century composer has influenced two #1s in a row!), a snippet of Glen Miller’s ‘In the Mood’ and, naturally, ‘Greensleeves’. From revolutionary France, to WWII mess-halls, to Tudor England in one four minute pop song… And there are snatches of two other Beatles’ classics as well: ‘Yesterday’ and ‘She Loves You’. (Opening up an interesting sub-category: #1 singles that feature in other #1 singles…) All the while the band and guests whoop and holler until the whole messy shebang fades from sight. It sounds like the best party you’ve never been to.

Where to start analysing this? Why even bother? I certainly don’t feel qualified to go into any more detail. With other bands, and other singles, you can see where they were coming from, what they were trying to do, even how you might have done it better. Not with this song, not with The Beatles. It’s unthinkable, really. Throwing out singles that most bands would have built whole careers around, willy-nilly. Here’s ‘She Loves You’, there’s ‘Help!’, watch you don’t trip over ‘Eleanor Rigby’, or ‘Ticket to Ride’ over there in the corner… You’d like a song for a lame TV show? Here’s ‘All You Need Is Love’. And ‘Yesterday’, the song that they reference here – the song that has been covered over 2000 times, the song that has been voted ‘Best Song Ever’ on several occasions? They stuck that away on Side 2 of an album. Oh, The Beatles… Beatles, Beatles, Beatles…

But, just so that they don’t go getting too big-headed, too full of themselves – Paul and Ringo definitely read this blog, right? – I feel compelled to add that when they next appear in this countdown, it’ll be with what I personally think is the worst of their seventeen chart-toppers…

233. ‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes

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It’s been over three and a half years since The Tremeloes scored their first number one hit, a raucous cover of ‘Do You Love Me’. Since then they’ve dropped Brian Poole – or, rather he’s left to pursue a solo career – and mellowed their sound right down.

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Silence Is Golden, by The Tremeloes (their 2nd and final #1)

3 weeks, from 18th May – 8th June 1967

I’m getting a Beach Boys, folky vibe as we start off. ‘Silence Is Golden’ is yet another song I know as being ‘part the swinging sixties canon’, without having ever listened to it properly. It’s a nice melody, the harmonising is nice… It’s a nice song. Oh don’t it hurt deep inside, To see someone do something to her… It’s the song of a watcher, one that either still has feelings for an ex, or that has an unrequited love. He wants to tell her that she’s being taken for a ride: Should I tell her, Or should I be cool…?

In the end he decides that silence is indeed golden, and that he should keep schtum. I like the idea that it’s actually the singer’s conscience singing to him, and that it at one point calls him ‘a fool’, but some time around the second chorus this song starts to get irritating.

It’s the forced falsetto voices, and the cheesy doo-wop backing vocals. It’s the ‘solo’, which is the band converging for a long oooweeeooowaaawaaawooowooow. By the end, when the final note swoops upwards like you’ve changed the speed setting, you’re glad it’s over. Like I said, it’s nice enough… But it’s a bit wishy-washy. It’s trying too hard. If this record were a schoolboy, he’d be getting his lunch money stolen.

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(Can we just take a moment to appreciate that this disc appears to have had an actual picture sleeve, which seems to have been very rare thing indeed in Britain in the ’60s! Maybe that’s why it made it to  #1!)

‘Silence Is Golden’ is actually a cover of a Four Season’s ‘B’-side from a few years earlier. I’ll link to it here, but have to admit that that version also leaves me a bit cold. I dunno. Sometimes songs just don’t connect. It is very impressive, though, that The Tremeloes’ chart-topping career spanned the very middle of the 1960s, a time when pop music was developing at lightning speed. Their contemporaries in 1963 were Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer, who were nowhere near the #1 spot in 1967. (And The Beatles who, to be fair, were still enjoying reasonable success…)

To conclude: file under so-so. The Tremeloes powered on, given a second wind by their second number one, and scored hits right through to the early seventies. They still tour on the oldies circuit, and reunited with Brian Poole for their 40th anniversary. And, since I’m struggling to write much more, I’ll end with a great bit of trivia. The Tremeloes contributed heavily to nineties pop, inadvertently, as the band members’ children included duo Alisha’s Attic and the one and only (gettit?) Chesney Hawkes!

232. ‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw

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Oh, won’t somebody drag us out of the middle-of-the-road slump we’ve been in for months now…? Can that somebody be Sandie Shaw? I have high-hopes…

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Puppet on a String, by Sandie Shaw (her 3rd and final #1)

3 weeks, from 27th April – 18th May 1967

…that are not disappointed. Roll up! Roll up! This is a crazy little record. From the get-go. From the oompah band intro that morphs into a fairground soundtrack – a demented, horror-movie kind of fairground, that is.

Love is just like a merry-go-round… sings Sandie, like your aunt after a sherry or two… With all the fun of the fair… It’s a fairly simple metaphor: love as fairground ride. But this song takes it all the way, to the extent that we get Big Top sound-effects and crashing cymbals. You really can picture her as a marionette, or as a Judy doll behind a makeshift stage.

If you say you love me madly, I’ll gladly be there, Like a puppet on a string… It’s a fun record. A bit mad. If it were a person you might cross the street to avoid them. But it’s interesting, if nothing else, unlike some of our recent chart-toppers. It’s chanty, and catchy, and Sandie does at least get to stretch her lungs on lines like: Are you leading me on, Tomorrow will you be gone…? At other points she sounds a bit drunk, to be honest. It’s a ‘proper’ pop song, but it’s comes very close to crossing the line into ‘novelty’ territory’.

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It makes complete sense that this was a Eurovision Song Contest entry. In fact, it explains a lot. Subtlety and  nuance are not in big supply at Eurovision. And not only was it an entry, it was the winning entry! Britain’s first ever! (Yes, the UK used to win Eurovision.) Sandie had been convinced to perform the British entry to get back into the public’s good books after a divorce scandal, although she hated it. In her own words: ‘I hated it from the first oompah… I was instinctively repelled by its sexist drivel and cuckoo-clock tune.’ Brilliant stuff, up there with Frank Sinatra’s dismissal of ‘Strangers in the Night’.

I think she was a bit harsh, to be honest. It’s fun, camp, silly… Perfect for Eurovision and, most importantly, not a bland, easy listening, country-lite ballad. Had ‘Puppet on a String’ come along elsewhere in our countdown I might have had less patience with it but, as it is, I’m just happy to have it liven proceedings up. And Sandie must have softened towards it, or the royalty cheques it brought her, as she rerecorded it for her sixtieth birthday.

That’s it for Ms. Shaw and the top of the charts. She would only have one more Top 10 – the equally kooky ‘Monsieur Dupont’ in 1969. I’ve enjoyed it every time she’s come along, with the classy ‘(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me’ and the fluffy ‘Long Live Love’ and now this. She just seems very, I don’t know, sixties. She officially retired from the music business in 2013. And, if nothing else, I appreciate the symmetry of all three of her chart-toppers spending three weeks each at the top!

Follow my Spotify playlist, why don’tcha:

228. ‘I’m a Believer’, by The Monkees

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We leap into 1967 grins and cheeky winks all round. Hey, hey… It’s The Monkees!

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I’m a Believer, by The Monkees (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 19th January – 16th February 1967

Wham: The organ riff intro. Bam: The guitar lick. This is a record that doesn’t hang around. I thought love was only true in fairy tales, Meant for someone else, But not for me… And then, less than thirty seconds in, we hit the chorus. It feels quick, even though it’s a regular two and a half minute song. Or maybe it feels like boxes are being ticked. Check, check, check. We got ourselves a hit record.

It’s hard to write about The Monkees – and I say that as someone who knows very little about them – without resorting to the clichés. The first manufactured boy-band. They didn’t write their own songs (This one was written by Neil Diamond, no less.) They couldn’t really play their guitars! The TV series. ‘An American rip-off of The Beatles’. All stuff that has passed into pop-culture legend. You can’t help but picture them running goofily along a beach. But, and I hope that this has become apparent as this blog has gone on, I’m no music snob. A good song is a good song, no matter who it was recorded by. And ‘I’m a Believer’ is ‘A Good Song’. It’s an ear-worm. You don’t switch stations when it comes on the radio.

The chorus especially, hits all the right spots. Then I saw her face, Now I’m a believer, Not a trace, Of doubt in my mind… Then the Mmmmhhh… And the perfect hook of rhyming ‘believer’ with ‘couldn’t leave her.’ Yes, the verses are a bit basic: ‘pain’ and ‘rain, and so on. And the topic is love. Or, not love. Lust. But not lust. It’s a song about the general concept of love, with a smudge of lust, for kids who don’t know yet what those feelings are. And it’s not a Beatles ‘rip-off’. Not quite. It’s definitely influenced by the Beat sound, especially the guitar licks between the verses. But the most Beatles thing about The Monkees were their haircuts. It’s a disc that ends on a high too, with that great Yayayayayaay!

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‘I’m a Believer’ feels like a moment. The fact that it’s the first #1 of a new year, maybe. Something’s shifting. Is this perhaps the first ‘pop song’? Hear me out… Up to now pop music has been jazz, and swing, and rock ‘n’ roll, R & B, and rock. All those sounds have been popular. But this. This is a song written with the single purpose of being popular. Of promoting a group of young men and forcing them into the hearts, and onto the bedroom walls, of girls aged between nine and, say, fourteen.

What I mean to say is that The Monkees are taking the sound of the mid-sixties: Beat pop mixed with folk and R&B, on the cusp of flower-power, and diluting it into pure pop. But, of course, that’s been happening for years. Paul Anka’s ‘Diana’ was diluted rock ‘n’ roll. Helen Shapiro’s ‘You Don’t Know’ was diluted jazz. The Four Pennies ‘Juliet’ was diluted Merseybeat. I’ve just answered my own question, then. This is not the first ‘pop song’. This isn’t anything new. It’s just a next step in The Evolution of Pop.

I’ll stop before I disappear any further into my own mind. This is a post on ‘I’m a Believer’; not a philosophical dissertation. But it is The Monkees’ one and only appearance on this countdown and so I did need to cram it all in. Anyway, a quick glance at their discography on Wikipedia shows just how much of a monster hit ‘I’m a Believer’ was: #1 across the world, from Australia, to Germany, to Canada. And, like all the best boy-bands, they burned out pretty quickly. Though not before they left us with some great pop songs: ‘Last Train to Clarksville’, ‘Daydream Believer’, ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’… And one I had never heard of before starting this post, but which may be my new favourite-ever song title: ‘Randy Scouse Git’ (released, perhaps unsurprisingly, as ‘Alternate Title’ in the UK.)

Listen to every #1 so far in this playlist:

226. ‘Good Vibrations’ by The Beach Boys

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I read an article once, on The Guardian, about how 1966 was the best year in the history of pop music. You can check it out here. And, as we reach the penultimate #1 of the year, you look around and pretty much have to agree with them. Yes, the standard of chart-topper has been ridiculously high since mid-1963, while 1961 was eclectically fun and there were a few months in 1957-58 when every rock ‘n’ roll legend around was lining up for their moment in the spotlight… But 1966 beats them all. Because 1966 has this song.

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Good Vibrations, by The Beach Boys (their 1st of two #1s)

2 weeks, from 17th November – 1st December 1966

How to even contemplate writing a post on ‘Good Vibrations’? How to say anything remotely original, anything that hasn’t been said a thousand times before. The genius of Brian Wilson… The hundreds of hours of tape… The synthesisers… The expense…. You’ve heard it all before.

So let’s listen to it, then, as if it were the first time we were ever hearing this hot new single from America’s biggest band. The follow up to their smash hit ‘God Only Knows’. Is this the disc to give them their long-overdue 1st British #1…?

It comes in all dreamy, and echoey. Angelic vocals and a shimmering backing track. I, I love the colourful clothes she wears… It’s trademark Beach Boys – high-pitched harmonies – but completely different to, say, ‘Barbara Ann’. And when the drums come in, like a drunken horse clomping around its’ stable, it’s gorgeously woozy.

Then woosh! We’re into the chorus. Not hanging around. That insistent bassline. The UFO stylings of the Theramin. I’m pickin’ up good vibrations, She’s givin’ me the excitations… Perfectly nonsensical pop lyrics. More harmonising. Good – ba-ba – Good vibrations – ba-ba…

Verse II. Snap back to woozy bliss. I… I look in her eyes, She goes with me to a blossom world… Trips? To different worlds? Is that a drug reference I smell? Are you boys smoking pot down there…? It’s the summer of love come six months early. Repeat the chorus. You can tell that they were stitching different pieces of music together, in the way that the song swerves this way and that, but it never sounds forced.

Then another sharp turn, into jingle-jangly Baroque pianos. Things get woozier. I don’t know where but she sends me there… We’re mid-trip, but we don’t have time to relax. Because now we’re at a funeral. At least, there’s a funeral organ, and a plaintive chant: Gotta keep those love-good, Vibrations a-happenin’ with her… Which fades away and is replaced by a home-on-the-range whistle, and a throbbing bass… Aaaaaahhhhhh!

Pause.

Good, good, good, good vibrations…! And then by the time you get to the layered na-na-na-nas you just want to say ‘Alright, boys, you’re just showing off now…’ Cue the fade-out, with the Theramin to the fore, as the aliens come and beam us all up. Phew.

It’s still The Beach Boys; but in a dimension we’ve never been to before. And it’s still a pop song; but one from a planet we’ve not managed to reach yet. The sonic shock you get when you hear it, alongside its contemporaries, is similar to that felt from ‘Telstar’, in 1962. Another record from another planet.

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That was fun! I have to admit that for years I’ve viewed ‘Good Vibrations’ as a sort of museum piece – a work of art to be admired, but not enjoyed. Best viewed from afar. That happens with ‘The Classics’. ‘Good Vibrations’ would never crop up in any of my playlists. But maybe it should. Maybe I’ll add it today. It stands up as a pop song. At heart it’s a ditty about falling in love at first sight. Musically, it’s outrageously creative without being pretentious. Perfect.

I love that this was The Beach Boy’s first UK #1. Slamming right in at the top with a little disc called ‘Good Vibrations’… Of course, it wasn’t their first hit. In 1966 alone, they’d had two #2s, with ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Sloop John B’. In their native US they were huge, and had been for years. The only reason they took a little longer to take off in Britain is that their early surf-rock songs didn’t resonate on an island where any attempt at surfing usually ends in frostbite.

‘Good Vibrations’, and the ‘Pet Sounds’ album that preceded it, was a line in the sand. The Beach Boys were upping their game, and were ready to take on the British big boys: namely John and Paul. Anyway… You can read hundreds of more sophisticated analyses of ‘Good Vibrations’ – the record that changed pop music. You know where to find them. If, though, for reasons best kept to yourself, you have never heard ‘Good Vibrations’ before (or even if you’ve heard 1000 times already) press play on the link below, and get yourself some excitations…

225. ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, by The Four Tops

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

Amongst all the glorious music that has reached the top of the charts over the past few years, as we’ve reached the apex of the swinging sixties – Merseybeat, R&B, folk, soul, garage rock – one genre has been seriously underrepresented. Motown.

Granted it’s not technically a genre, more a record label… but hey – everyone knows the Motown sound. And ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, by male vocal group The Four Tops, is only its 2nd ever UK #1, after The Supremes’ ‘Baby Love’. And so, in the context of the charts of 1966, this record stands out every bit as much as its predecessor, Jim Reeve’s croon-tastic ‘Distant Drums’.

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Reach Out I’ll Be There, by The Four Tops (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 27th October – 17th November 1966

And, though I mentioned the ‘Motown sound’ right there in that last paragraph, the intro to this song is more ‘Spaghetti-Western’. They’re not pan-pipes, are they…? It’s ominous, and thrilling. A horseman clattering round the corner to save his damsel in distress. Now if you feel like you can’t go on, Because all your hope is gone, And your life is filled with much confusion, Until happiness is just an illusion…

It should be a ballad. It should be sung by Lionel Richie at a piano. It’s a brilliant song, but the music and the lyrics don’t really match. The woman in the song isn’t just a little unlucky in love; she’s apparently suicidal. Her world has gone cold, is crumblin’ down, while she drifts out all on her own… I mean, it’s heavy stuff. And all the while The Four Tops charge to her rescue aboard a frantic and incessant groove. Reach out for me…

It’s melodramatic – I get that – and way over the top. It reminds me of John Leyton’s ‘Johnny Remember Me’, possibly the only other #1 single so far to be based on a horse’s gallop. But several things about this record push it above camp curio and into the realm of the classic. There are the ‘Ha’s!’ the pepper the end of lines, the spoken asides – Just look over your shoulder! – and the outrageously funky bass riff before the choruses. And, most of all, the Dar-lin’s!

The Top’s lead singer, Levi Stubbs, commits to each and every line of this record. It’s one of the most memorable vocal performances that we’ve heard in this countdown. He commits to the point where it doesn’t matter how ridiculous the song is. His vocals are the reason that this is a Rolling Stone ‘Top 500 of All Time’ kind of tune.

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It’s a deserved #1. It’s a great song and it’s about time that another Motown disc got there. For a genre that is hugely loved and respected in the UK – think all the compilation CDs and ‘Motown Weeks’ on X Factor – it really never got its due representation at the top of the charts. ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ was the label’s 13th Billboard chart-topper. In Britain it was, as I mentioned at the start, its 2nd. They will have 1 (one!) more #1 in the ‘60s, and only eight in total, ever…

And I have to admit that The Four Tops are a band I’d heard of – Motown, sixties, etc. etc. – but didn’t know too much about. The hits were more famous than the group it seems, as scanning through their discography you can see some stone-cold classics: ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’, ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’, ‘It’s the Same Old Song’… Not a bad encore. And they do still tour, though ‘Duke’ Fakir is the only surviving original member.

All of a sudden, then, in The Four Tops and Gentleman Jim, two American acts have wrenched us away from what had been ‘the sound of ‘66’. And up next, another bunch of American ‘Boys’ (hint, hint) will drag us even further from our comfort zones with, ah yes, possibly the greatest pop song ever recorded…

Follow along with this handy playlist: