Pop

222. ‘Eleanor Rigby’ / ‘Yellow Submarine’, by The Beatles

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In my intro to The Beatles’ last #1 – ‘Paperback Writer’ – I said that it was a definitive split away from ‘The Fab Four’. This latest chart-topper from the group, then, is an even greater stride away from the mop-top days.

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Eleanor Rigby / Yellow Submarine, by The Beatles (their 11th of seventeen #1s)

4 weeks, from 18th August – 15th September 1966

The first side of this double-‘A’ disc contains a song that features no guitars, no drums, no nothing apart from strings. It’s a story about two people: Eleanor Rigby, who lives in a dream and wears a face kept in a jar by the door, and Father McKenzie, who writes sermons that nobody will hear and who spends his nights darning socks… We are a million miles away from ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, and that was barely two and a half years ago!

It’s a horribly sad song. Just start with the main refrain: Ah, look at all the lonely people! Then delve into the details. The images. Eleanor sweeping confetti from the floor of a church, after a joyful wedding party has been and gone. The priest and his socks. Eleanor’s funeral, at the end of which Father McKenzie wipes the dirt from his hands and walks back to church alone. No-one was saved…

The characters are fictional, although Paul McCartney has at times been ambiguous when asked about them. The grave of an Eleanor Rigby exists in Liverpool, very near to where Paul and John first met as teenagers. She died in 1939, aged just forty-four, and it does seem slightly too much of a coincidence. But then again, if you were going to invent a fictional old woman’s name, Eleanor Rigby wouldn’t be a bad shout.

Real or invented, Eleanor’s song races along on tight, menacing violins – the story told in barely two minutes. It’s a vignette, a moment in time. You can imagine Paul McCartney viewing the churchyard from the window of a double-decker bus, Eleanor sweeping the church steps, Father McKenzie waiting for the congregation that will never come, and then going home to write the song. Just what is it about? A study in loneliness? The decline of Christianity? A comment on the misery of post-war Britain? The more you listen to it, the more important ‘Eleanor Rigby’ sounds. And the less like a chart-topping record. Only The Beatles could have taken this song to chart success. Largely because only The Beatles were capable of writing pop songs like this.

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They were also the only band capable of writing songs like the one on the other side of this disc. We flip the record, and move from the sublime into the ridiculous. As if they thought that ‘Eleanor Rigby’ might be too much of a departure, too avant-garde, and so wanted something childishly reassuring to go along with it. But, in its own way, ‘Yellow Submarine’ is every bit as arresting…

Let me state right here right now – it is impossible to truly hate ‘Yellow Submarine’. It might be irritating, cheesy and pointless… but there’s a loveable nugget buried in there. Perhaps it’s because ‘Yellow Submarine’ is often the first Beatles song people ever hear as toddlers. I think also, for me, it’s the fact that Ringo sings it. There’s something wonderfully soothing about Ringo’s voice. It’s got a melancholy tremble that contrasts nicely with the song’s stupidly optimistic lyrics. Plus, his voice always reminds me of ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, which was my favourite TV show as a sprog.

In the town, Where I was born, Lived a man, Who sailed to sea… Ringo and chums sail out to find the land of submarines. They live a life of ease, beneath the waves… The end. It’s a complete novelty. The silliest, most childlike chart-topper since ‘(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window’ from way back when. To pair this with ‘Eleanor Rigby’ reminds me of when Elvis paired ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ with ‘Rock-a-Hula Baby’, times ten.

But hey. I like the bit where the band begins to play, and the use of goofy sound effects as the sub gets its journey underway, and the final verse, with the shouted, distorted backing vocals. The band must have enjoyed recording it, as they went and endorsed a whole movie based on the song. The cartoon ‘Yellow Submarine’ is probably one of the iconic Beatles images, along with Sgt Peppers and the EMI stairwell pictures.

Of course, this being The Beatles, the lyrics to ‘Yellow Submarine’ have undergone intense scrutiny. Just what is it about, man? Is it an anti-war statement (Yellow Nuclear Submarine?) Is it an ode to a hippy commune? The band themselves, as they usually did, stated that it was just a children’s song about a big, yellow submarine. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, there you have it. Two completely bizarre songs from the biggest band in history, at the height of their powers. There’s an arrogance to them releasing this disc – in them saying to their adoring public: ‘Here, get your pretty little heads around this!’ And it marks the start of a mini-hiatus from the top of the charts for The Beatles. Their next release, another very famous double-‘A’ side, will (gasp!) not make #1, and we won’t hear from them until almost a whole year has passed. By which time they will have taken another supersonic leap forward…

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219. ‘Getaway’, by Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames

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Following on from The Kink’s ‘Sunny Afternoon’, and we are keeping up with the summery theme. For what could be more summery than a little getaway…?

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Getaway, by Georgie Fame (his 2nd of three #1s) & The Blue Flames (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 21st – 28th July 1966

Gotta go, I hope you’re ready cos, Take a look outside… Georgie sings… We’ll leave the city folk, They’ll have to stay… he persuades… Don’t have to pack a thing, Just get away… It’s not as soulful, or as funky, as his previous number one, ‘Yeh Yeh’. It’s a simple enough acoustic riff, with a brass section for back-up. It’s cute. It’s catchy enough. It makes sense when you discover that it was written, initially, as an advertising jingle for a brand of petrol.

A lot of the song, around thirty percent I’d guess, is Fame chanting gotta go over the jaunty rhythm. Dig a little deeper into the remaining lyrics, though, and it turns out that his ‘getaway’ isn’t going to be a particularly luxurious one. I know a little place… A kind of pretty place… But it sounds charming: sun, sea and a bit of peace and quiet. I suppose it speaks to a time when young people didn’t have as much freedom, and perhaps could only truly ‘getaway’ once they were married…

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Musically, there are two things of note. There’s an organ solo, which places this song firmly in the mid-sixties. And every few lines a horn gives out a low parp, the sort of sound that usually follows a clown’s pratfall, which lends an (unintentionally?) comic air to the record. Apart from that, there doesn’t seem to be that much to it. It’s a nice enough diversion. Both of Georgie and The Blue Flames’ #1s have been a little off the beaten path compared to the dominant sound of the time. I like that – he was doing his thing and, clearly, people were digging it.

Another point to note – this hit is referred to as both ‘Getaway’ and ‘Get Away’, with different vinyl pressings having one title or the other. The Official Charts list it as one word so that’s what I’m going with… And I’m struggling to write much more about this chart-topper, to be honest. It’s nice. The end.

Plus, Georgie Fame will be making one more appearance at the top of the charts in a year or so, minus his Blue Flames (it is a really cool name for a backing band, isn’t it: The Blue Flames), so we can skip the bio bit. Anyway, I know that I’m publishing this in late October, but close your eyes and imagine that it’s high-summer, as it was when this disc hit the top of the charts. Close your eyes and, for two minutes thirty-one seconds, getaway.

218. ‘Sunny Afternoon’, by The Kinks

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It’s high summer. The sun bakes in the sky, heat haze rises from the tarmac, a willow droops lazily by the river. ‘Sunny Afternoon’ is a record that has always, ever since I first heard it as a kid, conjured up an image in my mind. An image of a man, on the lawn of his country house, in a deckchair, with a tall, icy drink in hand.

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Sunny Afternoon, by The Kinks (their 3rd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st July 1966

The intro descends, like the weeping willow, into a tale of upper-class woe. I mentioned that the previous #1, ‘Paperback Writer’, had a satirical edge to it, and The Kinks take it up a notch here. The taxman’s taken all my dough, And left me in my stately home, Lazin’ on a sunny afternoon… A rich man has been fleeced, by the government and then by his girlfriend, and has been left with nothing. It’s standard rock star stuff: I’m famous, successful and now I’m being taxed through the nose. They’ve taken my yacht, oh woe is me…. (Another obvious Beatles comparison would be to ‘Taxman’)

Except, The Kinks were cleverer than that. Perhaps aware that people might not be too sympathetic to rich musicians moaning about tax rates, they invented a character to take us through the song. A not terribly nice character: My girlfriend’s run off with my car, And gone back to her ma and pa, Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty… You don’t feel sorry that he’s been left with nothing but his ice cold beer… They’re complaining, sure (the progressive tax rate at the time was 83%!), but in a very palatable way.

I love this song. It’s a ‘never-skip’ whenever it pops up in a playlist. And I especially love the bridge, with its music-hall piano. Aw, Save me, Save me, Save me from this squeeze…and then a line I loved shouting out as a child… I got a big fat mama, Tryin’ to break me… Those two lines are one of the most brilliant pop moments of the decade. And the song as a whole is near-perfect: it works both as pure summery pop, and as knowing satire. And then there’s the jingly-jangly fade-out, which is very borrowed-from-The Beatles.

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I also love this version of The Kinks, the one that had moved past the R&B, garage rock of ‘You Really Got Me’, into the uber-British phase of their career – the years of ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, and ‘Autumn Almanac’. I’m going to go a little link-crazy here as, tragically, this is their final UK #1 single. And yes, that does mean ‘Waterloo Sunset’ in 1967, and ‘Lola’ in 1970, two of their best-known and best-loved hits, only reached #2…

It feels as if The Kinks occupy a strange place in pop music history. They were successful, and popular, and very, very good. But they seem to be permanently in the shadow of The Beatles and The Stones, and other stone-cold sixties legends. Elvis, Cliff, Dylan and The Who…  Perhaps they were too British, too playful in the way they leapt between genres, and wrote songs about once-rich aristocrats, London dandies, and drag-queens. They’re big, and very well-respected; but it feels as if they should be bigger, and even better-respected. Take a moment, then, I urge you, to listen to The Kinks today. Starting with this, their final #1 single – as clever as it is catchy. The perfect kind of pop.

Catch up on the previous 217 #1s with this playlist:

214. ‘Pretty Flamingo’, by Manfred Mann

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After our Dusty Springfield extravaganza last time out, we’re back with something a little more routine. A little more of its time. Guitars, drums and a husky-voiced man.

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Pretty Flamingo, by Manfred Mann (their 2nd of three #1s)

3 weeks, from 5th – 26th May 1966

It’s got an intro that has always reminded me of Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, in the way that the bass and the drums roll in, after a couple of guitar chords. It’s a song that I’ve known for quite a while, a perennial of the ‘Best of The Sixties’ tapes and CDs that accompanied long car journeys with my family. And it’s a song I’ve always liked: it’s sunny, breezy, poppy… A song that gives you a pleasant two and a half minutes; but that doesn’t linger too long afterwards.

Manfred Mann have grown up since ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ gave them their first chart-topper nearly two years back. It’s a more mature sound, more laidback and a tiny bit trippy. And, though I described singer Paul Jones’s voice as husky in the intro – it’s not a regular kind of husky. It’s nasally, and a bit rough. An acquired taste. The opening line hits you: On our block, All of the guys call her flamingo… This was one of Jones’s final recordings with the Mann’s – he would leave a couple of months later.

And actually, thinking about it more closely, is calling a girl a ‘flamingo’ that much of a compliment? It kind of suggests you have scrawny legs and a big beak… Or, rather, according to the lyric, it’s: ‘Cos her hair glows like the sun, And her eyes can light the skies… I’m still not convinced. When she walks, She moves so fine, Like a flamingo… (Flamingos are lanky and walk with an old man stoop. I doubt the songwriter had ever actually seen a flamingo…)

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All lyrical inconsistencies are forgiven, however, when we get to the bridge, which has a hook to die for: When she walks by, She brightens up the neighbourhood… And then we have what sounds like a flute solo, and some sha-la-las to wrap up, because it’s that kind of record. I also like the ‘Ha!’ after the If he just could… line, which suggests that deep down Jones knows it ain’t never happening with Ms Flamingo.

It’s a fun song, a cute song, a song that needs but a short post like this to do it justice. This was the middle disc in Manfred Mann’s chart-topping run, and I like that they straddled the swinging sixties with their #1s: one in 1964, one in ’66, and one to come in ’68. They’re not a name that instantly springs to mind when you think of ‘Biggest Acts of the 60s’, but perhaps they should be. Enjoy!

212. ‘Somebody Help Me’, by The Spencer Davis Group

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The Spencer-Davis’s return with a quick-fire #1, barely three months after the first. It’s not a record that rings a bell but, as soon as I press play, I know I’ve heard this before, somewhere, sometime…

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Somebody Help Me, by The Spencer Davis Group (their 2nd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 14th – 28th April 1966

Like ‘Keep on Running’, it all kicks off with a bass riff. But one a bit mellower, a bit more understated, and not quite as filthy sounding as in their first chart-topper. Somebody help me, yeah… Somebody help me, now… Won’t somebody tell me what I’ve done wrong…

It’s a song that tells a bit of a story. The singer had a girl, his Queen, back when he was seventeen, but lost her. Since then he’s been unable to find a new one. Now I’m so lonesome, On my own… (If the stalker-ish lyrics to ‘Keep on Running’ were anything to go by, it’s easy to guess why she dumped him.) And that’s about it. A simple enough rock ‘n’ roll record.

Like its predecessor, ‘Somebody Help Me’ has got a nice soulful vibe to it – especially in the bridge – in the I need a girl, To hold me tight… – plus I like the funky guitar licks at the end of the lines. The Spencer-Davis’s liked a crunchy guitar, which gives their songs quite a Kinks-y feel. And it’s the shortest chart-topper we’ve had in a long time, coming in at bang-on two minutes. Which is fine – there’s absolutely no need for this disc to be any longer.

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It’s a forgotten record, I’d say. A forgotten gem…? I’m not sure. Is it quite a ‘gem’? It’s definitely a groovy little record (we’re allowed to say ‘groovy’, by the way – it was the style of the time…) One that adds texture to the way Beat pop was splitting into different sub-genres. I’m not sure whether to go as far as calling it a ‘Shadow Number One’ – a song that only hits the top because of its more famous predecessor. Because A) it’s a good enough record to have reached the top on its own merits, and B) it managed a fortnight at the top while ‘Keep on Running’ only got a single week.

Interestingly, this song was, like ‘Keep on Running’, written by reggae singer Jackie Edwards. But he doesn’t seem to have ever recorded it. And, like so many bands of this era, The Spencer Davis Group didn’t last very long. They had a couple more Top 10s – including the classic ‘Gimme Some Lovin’, which is probably better known than either of their chart-toppers – before lead singer Steve Winwood left.

And that was all she wrote for the Spencer-Davis’s at the top of the UK Singles Chart.  They’ve reformed over the years in a variety of guises. Except… Winwood would go on to have a half-decent solo career, with a handful of eighties hits. One of which – ‘Valerie’, from 1982 – went on to be noticed by Swedish DJ Eric Prydz. He loved the vocals, persuaded Winwood to re-record them, and they formed the basis for his 2004 #1 ‘Call on Me’. So… we will hear the soulful tones of Winwood one more time in this countdown, in precisely thirty-eight years’ time. Aren’t the charts fascinating?

211. ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’, by The Walker Brothers

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Back to business, then. And not a bad record to get back to! Though it starts with an intro that is as folksy as anything we’ve had so far. Very of its time. Guitars round the campfire, a tambourine shakes… I’m getting Seekers flashbacks. Am I about to be underwhelmed by The Walker Brothers, for the second time…?

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The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, by The Walker Brothers (their 2nd and final #1)

4 weeks, from 17th March – 14th April 1966

Of course not. Because in come the drums. Suddenly it’s not a folk song – it’s gorgeous, string-drenched, Wall of Sound-at-its-finest, pop. Loneliness, Is a cloak you wear… A spaghetti Western lone whistle… Because, why not? A deep shade of blue, Is always there…

Then it all comes together. The drums cascade, the voices swirl together… The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore, The moon ain’t gonna rise in the sky… It’s a song about being dumped, essentially. About being sad and lonesome. But never has sadness sounded so appealing. By the time we get to the Bay-yay-ay-bay! I’m sold. Sign me up for the misery!

It’s a brilliantly melodramatic record. All the things that I didn’t think worked on The Walker’s 1st chart-topper – the slightly knowing ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’ – come together here. I think it’s because the music is so compelling, so lush and enveloping, that the OTT lyrics work. I criticised Scott Walker’s crooning on that record, but I love it here. It all culminates in the middle-eight: Lonely, Without you, Baby… through to a glorious I can’t go o-o-o-on…! It’s a song for wallowing in, with a bottle of wine and the curtains drawn.

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Everything about ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ points towards one man: Phil Spector. He must, you think, have produced this record. It sounds like the inside of his head. But, no. One Johnny Franz was on production duties. And yet the debt is clear. This is a Phil Spector record, even if he was nowhere near the studio.

It all builds to a climax, with the layered vocals on the fade-out working brilliantly. And it ends on a high, leaving you uplifted despite the subject matter. This could be a sad, depressing song, if you stripped it all back, but it isn’t. Thank God. It is ten, twenty times, better than the Walker’s previous chart-topper, and an early contender for best record in my next recap. It’s that good.

Interestingly, this isn’t the original version of ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna…’ It had been recorded a year earlier by Frankie Valli. His version sounds a little heavy-handed, but surprisingly similar to this one. It, however, made no impact on the charts. It’s also been covered by Cher, in the ‘90s. She is perhaps the only person who could make this song sound more OTT than Scott Walker…

This was the peak of The Walker Brother’s success, their popularity such that their fan-club allegedly had more members than The Beatles’. They had several further hits, and yet disbanded in 1968, largely due to Scott Walker’s dissatisfaction with being seen as a mere teen-idol. I can’t say I’ve listened to that much of his solo output, though I do know it has a reputation for being ‘challenging’… That’s probably what’s putting me off. It’s also been very influential: David Bowie, Pulp, Radiohead, The Arctic Monkeys… the list is a long one. He passed away in March of this year. John Walker had died in 2011, leaving Gary as the sole surviving ‘brother’.

But we’ll leave them here. Bowing out with their crowning glory. A song I knew was good, but hadn’t realised quite how good. Yet another supreme mid-sixties pop moment. Keep ‘em coming!

Catch up with all the Number Ones so far, here:

210. ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin”, by Nancy Sinatra

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One of the coolest intros ever – a twangy guitar that slides and droops like a wilting sunflower on a southern summer’s day – leads us into one of the coolest number one hits you’re ever likely to hear.

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These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, by Nancy Sinatra (her 1st of two #1s)

4 weeks, from 17th February – 17th March 1966

The sixties are truly swinging. There’s been attitude and swagger, even drug references (!) at the top of the charts. And now here’s Nancy, bringing the sass. The way she pauses between the lines, the way she delivers them like she can’t be bothered, as if the man she’s singing about is barely worth the oxygen.

You keep sayin’, You’ve got something’ for me… Her man’s been taking her for a ride; but Nancy ain’t no fool. You’ve been a-messin’, Where you shouldn’t’ve been messin’… He’s in for it. These boots are made for walkin’, And that’s just what they’ll do… One of these days these boots … cut the beat, leave it all to the vocals… are gonna walk all over you…

It’s a fairly minimalist record – sparse instrumentation and a lot of room for the echoey vocals to do their job. Which means there’s lots of time for all the gorgeous little details that make this such a great song to shine through. The whispered ‘yeah!’ between verses one and two, the sarcastic ‘Ha!’ after the You keep thinkin’, That you’ll never get burned… line. The way the horns come in halfway through, the same horns that will go wild for the fade-out (a very mid-sixties touch.) Then there’s the made up words – the ‘samin’ and the ‘truthin’. Nancy’s too cool to bother with proper English.

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‘These Boots…’ is a big development in terms of female-recorded #1s. In every photo-shoot from the time, Nancy Sinatra appears as a very sensual character: big, just-woken up hair, mascara-ed eyes, lots of cleavage. She’s sexy. A siren. In a way that Cilla (the girl next door) and Sandie Shaw (kooky and cute) weren’t. Helen Shapiro was still a kid, Doris Day was basically your aunt. The closest female star I can think of, from previous #1 hits, is Connie Francis, who was bringing the girl power on ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ seven years ago. But even she pales in comparison with Nancy Sinatra’s mini-skirts and thigh-high boots.

Surprisingly, this wasn’t her first attempt at a singing career. I had imagined that she simply appeared, fully-formed, as the superstar daughter of Frank Sinatra. But she had been releasing singles since 1961, to little interest on either side of the Atlantic. By 1965, she was about to get dropped by her label. It wasn’t until she paired up with Lee Hazelwood (the man with hands down the coolest voice ever committed to vinyl) that success came her way. He wrote ‘These Boots…’, and several other songs before she became his full-on muse and they recorded three albums together.

Though, I wonder … While being daughter of one of the most famous male singers of all time clearly didn’t bring her instant success, did it perhaps help mould her image? She had to distance herself from her fuddy-duddy dad, whose hit single career had stalled of late, hence the sexy looks; while her family name perhaps also gave her a safety net that meant she didn’t need to fit the ‘girl next door’ image adopted by most other female stars of the time. Was she in a constant state of teenage rebellion?

For a star who has become so synonymous with The Swingin’ Sixties TM, Nancy Sinatra wasn’t all that big a deal on the UK singles charts. But the impact left by this record alone is more noteworthy than the careers of many, more ‘successful’ stars. And she does still have one further chart-topper coming up – one of the sweetest (or should that read creepiest) #1 singles ever.

209. ‘Michelle’, by The Overlanders

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For those counting, we arrive at the 3rd Beatles cover to top the UK charts. Which means that in a little under three years, Lennon & McCartney have been responsible for twelve chart-toppers! Not bad, not bad at all. A couple of posts ago I mentioned them in comparison with Bacharach and David, who recently wrote The Walker Brothers #1 ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’. But, having done some digging, it turns out that they were still way behind John and Paul with just 6 chart-topping compositions to their name, in well over double the time.

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Michelle, by The Overlanders (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 27th January – 17th February 1966

Anyway, that’s all well and good; but this next chart-topper isn’t by The Beatles. Note the name at the start of this post: The Overlanders. You know, the British folk-rock-cum-pop combo? Nope? Well this was their one and only hit. And it’s a pretty faithful, note for note, cover of the original.

I’d like to write about this without comparing it to The Beatles’ version, but that would mean erasing a song that I’ve been listening to since I was a kid from my memory for the next half an hour. And I don’t have the technology to do that… Michelle, Ma belle, These are words that go together well, My Michelle… Alongside a jaunty, perky, French-salon tune. It’s slightly heavier, more deliberate version – the instruments and the vocals have a deeper finish and a gloss that the original doesn’t. The Beatles’ version is more subtle, lighter… (Oh fine, here’s a link. Compare them for yourself.)

Probably the most notable thing about this disc is that it has a full line of French in it, which is a first for a UK chart-topper. Michelle, Ma Belle, Son les mots qui vent très bien ensemble, Tres bien ensemble… Even if, like me, you have only the most basic of French abilities, you can work out that it’s just a direct translation of the preceding, English line. Still, aside from ‘Que Sera Sera’, which is actually gibberish, this is the first in a long line of ‘non-English’ #1s, or ‘not-completely-English #1s’, which will take us through ‘Je T’Aime…’ to ‘La Isla Bonita’, to, um, ‘Gangnam Style’…

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As a hit record, this is alright. It might as well have been done by a pub covers band for all the personality they bring to it, but it’s OK. It’s not as good as the original, you’d never choose to listen to this version over it, but the only bit I think that really lets The Overlanders down is the creaky I love you… before the solo.

What it kind of reminds me of is the electronic keyboard that I had as a kid, for the six months or so I attempted to learn, which had a bunch of famous songs pre-programmed into it. ‘Michelle’ wasn’t one of them; but if it had been I bet it would have sounded quite like this. Perhaps the problem is that, unlike the previous two Lennon & McCartney written chart-toppers, everyone thinks of ‘Michelle’ as a Beatles song. It’s a well- known track from one of their best-regarded albums, ‘Rubber Soul’, and features on several Greatest Hits compilations (which is where I first heard it all those years ago.) Whereas, Billy J. Kramer, and Peter and Gordon, could more easily pass ‘Bad to Me’ and ‘A World Without Love’ off as their own, with no ‘official’ version of those hits ever recorded by The Fab Four, The Overlanders wouldn’t be as lucky.

But then again, if you wanted a guaranteed hit in the mid-sixties, you couldn’t do any better than nabbing yourself a Beatles’ cast-off. They got their big smash; but very few people remember them for it. Like I wrote at the start, this was The Overlanders’ one and only hit record. It raises a philosophical question to finish on: What’s better, plugging away valiantly on your own with little recognition, or riding the coattails of the world’s biggest band for three weeks of reflected glory?

203. ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’, by The Walker Brothers

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From an angst-ridden clarion call for disaffected youth, to this. We have strings! A full-blown orchestral section. The top of the charts lurch from one extreme to another, like a slightly edgier version of the Royal Variety Performance.

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Make It Easy on Yourself, by The Walker Brothers (their 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 23rd – 30th September 1965

We’re in a classy cabaret. All velvet drapes and green-shaded lamps on the tables. Where a melancholy, Spector-ish intro moves into a very melancholy opening line. Oh, breaking up, Is so, Very hard to do… A hook that we’ll keep returning to throughout the song.

If you really love him, And there’s nothing, I can do… Don’t try to spare my feelings, Just tell me that we’re through… It’s a novel twist on the break-up song – another sign that pop music is growing up – in that the singer spends the whole song encouraging his girlfriend to split up with him. And if the way I hold you, Can’t compare to his embrace… Get it over with, he says. Don’t hang around. Make it easy on yourself. He’ll feel terrible, but then breaking up is, after all, so very hard to do…

The voice is velvety, and very, very croony. Check out the O-o-o-h baby… before the final chorus. So croony that at times it sounds a little insincere. A little like he’s playing up to the cameras, like he might not really be that bothered if she goes. I like it; and I don’t like it. I’m on the fence with it. It perhaps doesn’t help that I can’t help hearing Jarvis Cocker, who has unashamedly copied Scott Walker’s singing style to great effect since the 1980s, in every line.

The Walker Brother, like the Righteous Brothers before them, weren’t really brothers. It’s a stage name, one that adds to the slightly camp, cabaret-ish feel that this record has, a feeling that this record can’t quite escape. Maybe I’m hearing it all wrong, but it’s a song that sounds as if it’s being delivered with an arched eyebrow and a knowing wink. Or maybe that’s the point. The beauty of art is in the interpretation, after all.

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It’s another Bacharach & David number, originally written in 1962. I’ve not been keeping count, but this must put them at, or very near to, the top of the #1 record writing league. And, like so many of their compositions, it’s a song that just drips with that B & D class. It’s drenched in strings and portentous drums, and is another glowing example of Baroque pop, which is fast becoming the sound of 1965. It’s a record with a great pedigree, one of the first chart appearances by a man who has left a huge mark on popular music, from Bowie to Pulp to The Arctic Monkeys, and I just wish I could like it more…

The Walkers – Scott, Gary and John – were American but, in a sort of reverse British Invasion, enjoyed quicker and longer lasting success in the UK. They will appear one more time at the top of the charts here, with a song that – if I remember correctly – is even classier and glossier than this one, and that might just help me to ‘get’ them.

My first ever exposure to ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’, though, came long before I’d ever heard of Scott Walker, or Baroque Pop, or knew what a Wall of Sound was. In 2001, the opening strings from this #1 were sampled by Ash, on their #20 hit ‘Candy’. Ash are a great pop-rock band, who have never come anywhere near topping the charts, so I’d like to take this – my one and only chance to give them a shout-out. If you’ve never heard them, check them out.

Catch up with the previous 202 number-ones here:

201. ‘I Got You Babe’, by Sonny & Cher

/ UK #1s blog / 14 Comments

In which we meet a guy called Sonny and a gal called Cher. One of whom would go on to become a Republican politician; one of whom wouldn’t. I wonder which one it’ll be…?

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I Got You Babe, by Sonny & Cher (her 1st of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 26th August – 9th September 1965

Before all of that, their debut single. And what a way to get your careers started – with an international chart-topper. A song that’s still well known to this day. Ubiquitous, even. They say we’re young, And we don’t know, Won’t find out until we grow… Y’all know the rest. But, having listened to it several times now, I’m realising that it’s a very difficult record to define. Is it pop? Is it folk? Is it country? Is there a whiff of Phil Spector-esque Wall of Sound in there?

It’s a dense, textured record – lots of bells and tambourines and other slightly unusual sounding instruments that you don’t normally get in a pop song, chiming in along with a slightly droney rhythm. It’s Baroque pop – pop that incorporates classical elements. The Beach Boys, The Walker Brothers and The Beatles were all beginning to experiment with harpsichords and strings. Neither of which feature on ‘I Got You Babe’, though I think you can hear a French horn or two.

It’s a grown-up sounding pop record. A feature of 1965 so far through chart-toppers from The Righteous Brothers, Georgie Fame and so on, a further step away from simple Beat-pop. Except… lyrically, ‘I’ve Got You Babe’ is ultra-simple. They say our love won’t pay the rent, Before it’s earned our money’s all been spent… etc. etc. Culminating in Sonny’s lines in the bridge: I’ve got flowers, In the spring, I’ve got you, To wear my ring… It’s cutesy cutesy and a little hippy dippy. And the ending, where they list all the things that they have one another for – I’ve got you, To hold me tight… and so on, is a bit much.

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I have to admit, this has never been a song that I’ve loved. And writing this post hasn’t changed my mind. It’s too cute, too twee. Two teenagers in love, regardless of what the world thinks. Musically, yes, it’s another step forward but the lyrics are eighth-grade Valentine’s card level. And to call them teenagers isn’t strictly correct – Cher was nineteen when this hit the top, whereas Sonny was thirty…

What of Cher? There’s little going on here to suggest that she’s going to become one of the biggest female stars of the late twentieth century. She doesn’t even really sound like Cher yet. No autotune, maybe… The voice does come through in certain lines, though – rey-unt and spey-unt for example. She sounds a bit hesitant, a little shy, though she does deliver her lines in the bridge magnificently – You’re always aro-o-o-ound… and by the end she’s belting it out.

By the time we hear from her next, Cher will be stratospherically famous. But that won’t be for a while. A cover version of ‘I Got You Babe’, by UB40 and Chrissie Hynde, will top the charts before Cher appears there again. Meanwhile, Sonny Bono is the one who will go on to become the Republican politician (give yourself a round of applause if you guessed that right) before dying tragically in a skiing accident in 1998. They divorced as early as 1975, which kind of undermines the message of their only chart-topper together. ‘I Got You (Until We Split Up In a Decade) Babe’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.