Pop

124. ‘Johnny Remember Me’, by John Leyton

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If you enjoyed the OTT angst of our previous #1 – Woaah-oo-wooah-oo-woaah… ‘You Don’t Know’ – then you’ll probably love this next one. Probably. Because while Helen Shapiro coyly flirted with melodrama on her hit, this next disc grabs melodrama by the hand and elopes with it.

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Johnny Remember Me, by John Leyton (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 31st August – 21st September / 1 week, from 28th September – 5th October 1961 (4 weeks total)

Picture the scene. A rainy, misty moor. Wind whistling across the heather. A galloping rhythm introduces the recently bereaved John Leyton. I hear the voice of my darlin’, The girl I loved and lost a year ago… Then we hear said voice of his late love… Johhnnnnyyy Remember Meeeee…. straight from the cheapo ghost house at the local carnival. Off the top of my head, this is the first and perhaps only #1 to feature the ‘voice’ of a dead person.

Well it’s hard to believe I know, But I hear her singing in the sighin’ of the treetops, Way above me… I’d like to point out here that moors tend not to have many trees – what with them being bleak and open spaces – but I feel that trying to apply logic to this song might be missing the point. As it progresses I’m on the fence. This is clearly a ridiculous song. But is it good-ridiculous; or bad-ridiculous?

One moment sways it for me: when poor, bereaved John lets rip with a Yes, I’ll always remember…! He doesn’t sound like he particularly wants to keep remembering her; but she does insist on speaking to him from the treetops. Till the day I die, I’ll hear her cry, Jooohhnnnny remember meeee… He goes on, in the final verse, to describe that while he’s sure he’ll find another love, he is equally sure that he’ll never be allowed to forget his first love. She’ll always be there… Joooohhhnnnnyyyy…. I love that. Who knows, maybe the singer is the one who killed her off, and it’s his conscience he can hear in the wind…? It’s like a full Gothic novel in under three minutes, this song.

What to make of all this, then? I can’t file it under ‘Novelties’ – the musicianship is too good, and the lyrics are clearly heartfelt. But at the same time… Who was buying this and taking it seriously? It’s extremely camp – a word that I’ve found myself writing quite a lot in recent entries (‘Surrender’, ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’…) Turns out people in the early-1960s had a much higher tolerance for camp than we do now. Or at least, they clearly didn’t think of this stuff as ‘camp’. They took this song at face value – the BBC banned it, for God’s sake, due to all the references to death – and connected with the sentiment. In the intervening fifty-eight years since ‘Johnny Remember Me’ became a huge hit record, we’ve become a much more cynical, irony-loving people. This song just wouldn’t work in 2019.

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This is, of course, another dreaded Death-Disc! Dun-dun-dun! That oh-so early sixties phenomenon. It joins ‘Running Bear’, ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ and ‘Ebony Eyes’ to become the fourth death disc to hit the top in the UK… But it’ll be the last. And, for what it’s worth, I think this is the best of the four. It’s mad, it’s OTT and then some; but it grabs your attention and doesn’t let go till it’s done. John Leyton was actually an actor by trade, starring at the time in an ITV drama in which he played a rock star. Said rock star sang this song in one episode and, hey presto!, it became a real-life hit. Leyton had very few others in his singing career, but once he returned to acting he did star in one of the most famous British films of all time, ‘The Great Escape’ (you’re humming the theme already, aren’t you?)

Perhaps worthy of more note than Leyton himself is the fact that this disc was produced by Joe Meek, a man who was dragging rock music forward thanks to his innovation in the recording studio. He overdubbed, he sampled, he added lots of echo and reverb, using his recording equipment like an extra instrument. The real stars of this song – the eerie atmosphere and the shrill voice of the ‘dead’ woman – all stem from him, and we’ll hear from Meek again before long in this countdown. Along with Del Shannon’s recent ‘Runaway’, and its use of the Musitron, we’re starting to get a glimpse of the future of pop music as the sixties unfold. What started off as a funny, campy, Halloweenish gimmick of a record is actually pointing the way forward… Listen carefully and you can just about hear it beckoning… Joooohhhnnnnyyyy….

123. ‘You Don’t Know’, by Helen Shapiro

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Rock ‘n’ roll is young people’s music. For the kids. At least it used to be, until all the rock ‘n’ rollers refused to die, kept touring well into their seventies, and the kids all started listening to rap. But indulge me… Rock ‘n’ roll is music for young people; and is at its best when being sung by young people. Like in this next chart-topper.

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You Don’t Know, by Helen Shapiro (her 1st of two #1s)

3 weeks, from 10th – 31st August 1961

This is a song about heartache and longing. About dreaming of, pining for, obsessing over someone in the way that only a teenager can. Some lovely girl-band Woaah-oo-wooah-oo-woaahs lead us into a tale of a girl who has a big old crush… Although I love you so, Oh you don’t know, You don’t know, Just how I feel, For my love I daren’t reveal, I’m so, I’m so afraid, You might not care… The object of her desire passes by in the corridor, yet he has no idea of what the sight of him with another girl does to poor Helen. Oh honey, we’ve all been there…

I don’t know about you but I’m listening to this record, picturing Miss Shapiro lying on her bed, hair done up in a bee-hive, diary open as she pairs her first name with the surname of her crush over and over again, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek…

We don’t quite reach peak teen-angst, though, until the bridge: I would tell you, If I believed that you might care someday, But until then, I’ll never give this away… Isn’t that just perfect? Of course she’ll never actually tell him; because nothing in this world beats the exquisite pain of unrequited love.

This record could be awful. It could sound ridiculous to anyone over the age of seventeen. But it doesn’t; it stays on the right side of all the melodrama and turns out glorious. Calling it rock ‘n’ roll in the intro was slightly misleading – this is a classy jazz-pop-ballad, all bass and strings. And the fact that Helen Shapiro was really just fourteen when this disc hit #1 gives the whole affair true authenticity. Yes, really. Her voice might sound deep and honeyed, and like she’s had her heart broken a million times; but she was just a child when this sent her to the top of the charts. (Her only previous hit – from earlier in 1961 – had actually been titled ‘Don’t Treat Me Like a Child’).

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This means that Miss Shapiro becomes, in a stroke, the youngest woman, and just the second-youngest artist of either gender, to top the charts. Only a thirteen year old Frankie Lymon back in 1956 can beat her – and that was with ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love?’, another song about teenage heartache that benefitted from being sung by actual teenagers (very literally, what with Lymon’s backing group being ‘The Teenagers’.)

It’s been a while, actually, since we had a rock ‘n’ roll disc being sung by anyone over thirty. Cliff, The Everlys, Del Shannon, Johnny Tillotson, even Elvis, were all still well within their twenties while performing on recent chart-toppers. Gone are the days of Bill Haley, Guy Mitchell, Kay Starr and the like pretending to be kids to get hits. Helen S. takes it to another level here, though – and remains, to this very day, the youngest female solo artist ever to reach #1 in the UK.

To be honest, it’s just nice to hear a girl’s voice again on this countdown. As great and groovy as recent songs have been, it’s all been a bit of a sausage-fest! Miss Shapiro will grab another #1 very soon and so we shall hold back from any bio until then. For now, simply close your eyes and think back to when you were fourteen, scribbling the name of your crush on the back-page of your notebook, a dreamy look in your eyes and a bucket load of hormones churning around your brain… Woaah-oo-wooah-oo-woaah… Those were the days…

122. ‘Well I Ask You’, by Eden Kane

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Imagine the lounge bar of a hotel that’s seen slightly better days. It’s Thursday evening. The bar’s half-full. Eden Kane struts onstage to a smattering of light applause. That’s the vibe I’m getting here.

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Well I Ask You, by Eden Kane (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 3rd – 10th August 1961

It’s a song with a bit of a shimmy to it; a song with a knowing grin. Well I ask ya, What a way to treat a guy, What a way to cheat and lie, Because I wanted you… It’s a song about a break-up, with some no-punches-pulled descriptions… Well I ask ya, Did you have to beat me down, Did you have to go to town, And smash my world in two…?

Kane sings it well – gives it lots of little vocal flutters, puts a nice rasp into the We-e-ell I ask ya…, gives us a little Buddy Holly hiccup and an Elvis-ish Oh baby! It’s a hammy performance, which I know is an adjective usually reserved for actors but I feel it’s applicable here. The singer ain’t really heartbroken. Turns out he’s looking for revenge.

A-don’t think you’re getting’ away with it, You’re gonna pay me somehow, You cruelly wrecked my life, But oh you want me now… Maybe it’s just my sensitive little 2019 ears, but there’s something sneering in the singer’s tone as he delivers these lines, something a little sinister. Just you ask me, Get down on your knees and try… If you ask me, the girl’s probably better of out of it. Check your male privilege, Eden. We end with the song’s title on repeat: Well I ask ya… “This girl dares break up with me? We’ll see.”

Or, maybe I’m reading way too much into this little ditty. Maybe it’s an ironic study in masculine fragility? Kane is covering up his heartbreak with a shrug, a wry smile. “Her loss…” Lyrics have in general become a bit sharper recently, a little more biting, and this latest hit is simply following the trend. Think Adam Faith’s ‘Poor Me’, or Emile Ford’s ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?’ Since rock ‘n’ roll came along, heartbreak has lost its allure. Faced with rejection in 1961, it simply won’t do to clasp your hands together a la Frankie Laine in ‘Answer Me’, praying for divine intervention in affairs of the heart. Now you need a shrug, a knowing wink and a sassy response. Well, I ask ya…

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Musically this disc isn’t pushing any boundaries. It’s polished enough, and actually pretty funky; but it’s a slight step back to the glossy male crooners that were lining up to top the charts back in the spring of 1960: your Anthony Newleys, Michael Hollidays and Jimmy Jones’s. Kane’s stage name was even inspired by the biblical tones in Adam Faith’s. ‘Eden Kane’ sounds slightly cooler though, perhaps a little more raffish, than any of those guys. Unlike say, Holliday, he doesn’t sound like someone you’d trust backstage with your teenage daughter.

Though I should immediately state that Kane is still alive and with us, aged seventy-eight, and hasn’t had so much as a whiff of scandal over the course of his career. (Just on the off-chance that he reads this and reaches for the phone to his lawyer…) He had a decent strike-rate with his singles in the early sixties – they either made the Top Ten or they failed to chart at all. By the middle of the decade, however, he had turned to acting. As an aside, we’ll meet his younger brother, Peter, right at the end of the 1960s with his very own chart-topping single. Actually, that’s worth considering – how many other siblings have topped the charts separately? Answers on a postcard…

The fact that my mind has wandered down these lines probably suggests that I’ve wrung everything I can out of this latest #1. A funky enough, but pretty much forgotten one-weeker from the summer of ’61. Moving on…

120. ‘Runaway’, by Del Shannon

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Hold up! Just before I pause for another recap, what’s this I hear? A late contender for best song?

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Runaway, by Del Shannon (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 29th June – 20th July 1961

This is a song the greatness of which has long been recognised. I’m not sure I can add much more to the debate. ‘Runaway’, by Del Shannon, is a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, ‘Rolling Stone’ Top 500-songs-ever kind of tune. It’s catchy, it’s innovative, it’s irresistible. It comes in all a-frenzy and lifts you up, up and away on a frantic piano riff. As I walk along, I wonder, What went wrong with our love, A love that was so strong…

Let’s break it down, shall we? I can now state – after an extensive bout of listening to said song – that the brilliance of ‘Runaway’ can be put down to three things. Of which number one is… The rasp in Shannon’s voice as he sings the chorus. I’m a-walkin’ in the rain, Tears are fallin’ and I, Feel the pain… He truly sounds heartbroken, singing at the top of his lungs as if it will help bring his runaway baby back.

Number two… The hook. Every classic pop song needs one. Here it’s simple enough: I wonder, I wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder… And just to be sure: Why? Why-why-why-why-why? Ask anyone to sing a line from ‘Runaway’ and I bet they recreate (probably quite painfully) Del Shannon’s falsetto on these lines.

And number three… The solo. This is the innovative bit. Because what in God’s name is that instrument? It sounds weird enough to my modern ears. To the unsuspecting people of 1961 it must have sounded like it was coming from another planet. It’s a Musitron – an early version of the synthesiser. And so we have what is technically the first ever electronic #1 single – around twenty years early! This is why I love the charts. The fact that it is a list of songs based solely on how many people have bought them. Nothing else. Anything can follow anything. Which means one month on from The Temperance Seven’s ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’ looking back to the 1920s, we have ‘Runaway’ and its crazed Musitron solo looking forward to the 1980s.

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There are plenty other reasons why this is a classic, of course. But why bother trying to explain? It might be the chords, the minor key, the tempo… Or yes, it might be the solo, the hook or the voice. But some songs just have ‘it’ – that magic formula that ensures a timeless hit.

Del Shannon – AKA Charles Westover – had been in the music business since the mid-fifties, and ‘Runaway’ was his first and his biggest hit. He wouldn’t have any subsequent hits as big. I’m semi-familiar with his other work: ‘Hat’s Off to Larry’ is catchy enough, but I would recommend the brilliant ‘Little Town Flirt’ as his best song that isn’t you-know-what. He had several further Top 10 hits in his native US, and even more in the UK, but no more #1s. He descended into alcoholism and tragically shot himself in 1990, aged just fifty-five. Which helps add a further melancholy edge to his already pretty melancholy most famous song.

This is a brilliant Number One single – no doubt about it. It’s catchy, yet not banal. Familiar, yet innovative. Uplifting, yet sad. It is also – and perhaps this says more than anything I’ve written –  the first of our hundred and twenty number ones to have a ‘Behind the Lyrics’ feature on Spotify – the sort of honour only bestowed on pretty much every modern pop song but only the most classic of classic hits.

119. ‘Surrender’, by Elvis Presley

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This December 24th, I’d like to wish everyone who reads ‘The UK Number Ones Blog’ a very merry Christmas. And to celebrate the festive season, let’s welcome back one of the most famous figures in Western popular culture – a man famous both for his large belly and his garish, all-in-one outfits… No, not Santa… Elvis! Yes, it’s him again. His third chart-topper of the year – and it’s only June! Like that urban myth about rats in a city; in 1961 you were never more than seven feet from an Elvis Presley #1 single.

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Surrender, by Elvis Presley (his 8th of twenty-one #1s)

4 weeks, from 1st – 29th June 1961

Or, more accurately, you’re never more than a month away from an Elvis #1 single. There were just four weeks between ‘It’s Now or Never’ and ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’, then another four weeks before ‘Wooden Heart’ came along, and exactly four weeks later here we are with ‘Surrender’. Surrender? The UK Singles Charts surrendered to Elvis a long time ago. And these aren’t just flash-in-the-pan chart toppers either – they’ve all settled in at the top for a long haul. Eight weeks, four weeks, six weeks, and now another four. Very few acts can claim to have had this kind of hold over the top spot.

To the song, then. I’ve long been familiar with this. One of the first tracks on CD2 of the Greatest Hits I bought aged sixteen or so. It’s never been my favourite Elvis song. Nor have I ever hated it. I’ve never had any strong feelings about it, I guess, but I should really muster up some kind of opinion about it or this’ll be my shortest post yet.

The intro is cool – I’ll give it that. It always makes me think of the James Bond theme. Dun-dada-dun-dada-dun-dada-dun… And then The King comes in. When we kiss my heart’s on fire… Burning with a strange desire… I’m still slightly disappointed by his voice, all smooth and honeyed as it is. I have to keep reminding myself that rock ‘n’ roll Elvis is dead, or at least in a decade-long hibernation. He sings it well, though. Obviously he sings it well. It is Elvis, after all.

So my darling please surrender… All your love so warm and tender… Let me hold you in my arms dear… While the moon shines bright above… The lyrics look pretty ridiculous, written out like that. I mentioned in my post on ‘It’s Now or Never’ that Elvis never really did subtle, and this song is ‘It’s Now or Never’ distilled and concentrated. This is Elvis on heat. The best bit is when he comes back round for a final chorus, and murmurs: Won’t you please… Surrender to me… It’s playful, it’s flirty… It’s high camp. I’m being won round as I type this, on the fourth or fifth listen. I’d put it in my Top 10 ‘Elvis Songs to Belt Out in the Shower’ (‘The Wonder of You’ is number one, in case you were wondering.)

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And in terms of his post-army, sixties number ones thus far – I’d rank ‘Surrender’ as No. 2 of 4. Behind ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ but ahead of this track’s big brother ‘It’s Now or Never’. Incidentally, ‘Surrender’ is also based on an old Neapolitan ballad, ‘Torna a Surriento’ – yet another chart topper harking back to decades earlier. And then ‘Wooden Heart’ ranks fourth. Of course. I hope I’ve left you in no doubt as to how awful that particular song is.

I think one of the reasons why I’ve neither loved, hated nor felt very strongly at all about this record is the fact that it’s so short. One minute fifty-two seconds and out. It’s over before you can really think about it; and it was never worth the effort of skipping on that old Greatest Hits CD.

There’s not much more to say here. Like I said, we’re never far from the next Elvis Presley-based #1. We’ll see him again in fo… No! Shock horror… We will have to wait a full TWENTY weeks until his next chart-topper! Is this the beginning of the end for the King, and his dominance over the UK charts? Is he preparing to leave the building? (*Spoiler Alert* No, it’s not and no, he isn’t.)

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…

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

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

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.

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…