pop charts

266. ‘(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice’, by Amen Corner

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A nice song, to keep 1969 ticking along, nicely. If paradise were half as nice as this song, then paradise would be a perfectly pleasant place to be…

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(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice, by Amen Corner (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 12th – 26th February 1969

Tell the truth, I’m finding it hard to get very excited about this record. I like it, it’s fine, it’s nice… I suppose life would be fairly exhausting if you got excited about every song you heard. Sometimes it’s OK just to think something’s… OK. If paradise is half as nice as, Heaven that you take me to, Who needs paradise, I’d rather have you… It’s cute – a song about being the simple act of falling head over heels in love.

I’ve heard this song before, of course – it’s a bit of a ‘Sixties Best Of’ staple (the copyrights must be cheap?) and a mish-mash of the usual late sixties sounds. There are horns, it’s a bit trippy, and the lead singer has a very soulful voice. That’s my favourite thing about this song, Andy Fairweather Low’s husky voice, and his oh-woah-woah-woahs and oh yes I’d rather have yous in the chorus.

It’s a chilled-out #1, one that floats along and then out on a fluffy cloud. And, if in doubt, always stick in a la-la-la refrain – nobody minds a gentle dose of lalalas. Like a surprising number of previous chart-toppers have been, ‘(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice’ was originally written and recorded in Italian. Not that it sounds particularly Italian compared to, say, Elvis’s pair of operatic hits ‘It’s Now or Never’ and ‘Surrender’, but still.

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Amen Corner were a Welsh band, named after a soul club-night in a Cardiff ballroom. ‘If Paradise…’ was their 3rd of four Top 10 hits before they split up at the very end of the decade. (That’s something worth noting – how many of the 1960s’ chart-topping acts didn’t make it into the seventies.) Amen Corner recorded the definitive version – in the UK at least – of ‘Bend Me, Shape Me’, which surprises me, as it has a very different vibe to their sole #1.

Amen Corner, then. A short post for a perfectly acceptable song. I like it, but can’t help feeling that it doesn’t give the listener much to get their teeth into. A background number one – helping us float that bit further along on our journey through the years…

Follow every #1 so far here:

265. ‘Blackberry Way’, by The Move

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This next #1 single is one that opens with a bang, right in the middle of the story. ‘In media res’, if you want to be fancy about it. Blackberry way, Absolutely pouring down with rain, It’s a terrible day…

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Blackberry Way, by The Move (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 5th – 12th February 1969

I like the absolutely pouring down with rain line – it sounds very British. As the picture is filled in, you really can picture a dull suburban street – probably lined with bungalows – in the rain, as girl ends it with boy. So now I’m standing on the corner, Lost in the things that I said…

It’s a dramatic record. Make that melodramatic. The strings moan like the soundtrack to a haunted house. The drums are thick and portentous. As the singer makes his way from Blackberry Way, through the park and past the boating lake, where the boats float: just like myself they are neglected… Before each chorus, he asks himself: What am I supposed to do now? He gets on the train, with one final look over his shoulder, to see if she’s followed him… We can assume that she hasn’t.

This is kind of fun; if a little OTT. Even though it’s about heartbreak ,the scale of the song, and the lyrics about the mundane things he sees on his walk in the rain, keep it slightly tongue-in-cheek. Only occasionally does it get ahead of itself – what exactly does the line: See the battlefields of careless sins, Cast the to the wind… mean? I like the fact that it’s quite a psychedelic sounding song, but one describing a fairly everyday scene. No flower-power here. And I like the contradiction in the chorus: Goodbye Blackberry Way, I can’t see you, I don’t need you… Sure to want me back another day… Ain’t that just how a break-up goes…?

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The Move were a Birmingham band, that had already enjoyed four Top 5 hits before they scored their sole chart-topper. I always liked ‘Fire Brigade’ as a kid – it must have been on a sixties-hits tape we had lying around – and ‘Flowers in the Rain’ was famously the first ever song played on Radio 1. They were quite a sonically experimental band, mixing Spector-ish production with innovative sounds and effects. You can hear the instruments on ‘Blackberry Way’, straining to make themselves the most important part of the song over the vocals. It’s a record that bursts from the speakers…

Central to The Move was songwriter and singer Roy Wood, who we will meet again in the coming decade – a man who played a big role in shaping the sound of the seventies when The Move morphed into Electric Light Orchestra. Wood didn’t hang around long with ELO, though, leaving to form glam-rockers Wizzard. Luckily for all of us, we’ll meet both of his bands-to-be later in this countdown. Not many artists can claim to have been involved in three hugely successful, chart-topping acts… Kudos to Wood!

263. ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’, by The Marmalade

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Our first #1 of 1969, which hit the top just as the New Year’s bells rang out. Throughout January it was locked in a bit of a jig with our last chart-topper, ‘Lily the Pink’. Both records replaced one another at the summit. And when you listen to this disc, that makes sense…

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Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, by The Marmalade (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 1st – 8th January / 2 weeks, from 15th – 29th January 1969 (3 weeks total)

For ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ is cut from the same silly, music-hall cloth as Lily and her medicinal compounds. This is another strange tale – the tale of Desmond, Molly and their market stall. Desmond says to Molly girl I like your face, And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand…

You probably know what comes next, because this is a song by a very famous band, from a very famous album. Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Life goes on, Wo-oah… La-la how the life goes on… Yep, it’s the fifth cover of a Beatles’ song to make #1 in the UK, following on from ‘Bad to Me’, ‘A World Without Love’, ‘Michelle’, and hitting the top only a couple of months after the last one, ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’. Add these to the Beatles’ fifteen #1s, and that’s a cool twenty chart-toppers for Misters Lennon and McCartney. (Listen to the original here – John apparently hated it.)

Out of the previous covers, I’d say that this has most in common with The Overlanders’ ‘Michelle’. It’s a perfectly functional copy of the original, one that adds nothing new into the mix. It still bounces along on the same ska-ish beat, Desmond still buys Molly a diamond ring, Molly still does her pretty face and sings with her band in the evening – they still have the drag verse at the end – but it’s basically karaoke.

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In fact, the bits I like about the original ‘Ob-La-Di…’ are the cut from this. They don’t shout ‘Bra!’ in the chorus, instead changing it to ‘woah’. There’s no ‘ha ha ha ha’ between the bridge and the third verse, no plinky-plonky piano. Plus, at the end they change So if you want some fun… to So if you want some jam… Because, I’m guessing, they were called The Marmalade. So actually, they’ve taken an average song, and made it worse. Oh well.

And it’s sung in a very strange, slightly Indian, slightly Scouse, slightly Fagin from ‘Oliver!’ accent. The Marmalade were from Glasgow, but that ain’t no Glaswegian… It’s tough, I know, to assess a song like this on its own merits, having been familiar with The Beatles’ version since I was about eight. It’s fine, but coming so soon after Cocker’s outrageous interpretation of ‘With a Little Help…’ it falls pretty flat. The Marmalade would, to be fair, have several other, self-written Top 10 hits through to the early seventies. They were no one-hit wonders.

P.S. Before we finish, it’s worth noting the reggae-ish undertones in this disc. Last year we had the first ska-tinted number one from The Equals, while the ‘Desmond’ in this song was apparently inspired by Desmond Dekker, one of the first reggae stars to make it big in the UK. The ‘Bra!’ in the original was apparently meant to be more like ‘Brah!’ – ‘brother’ or ‘friend’ in West Indian patois. Nowadays Paul McCartney would probably get savaged for such cultural appropriation… What it all means is that reggae has arrived at the top of the charts, just in time to add yet another layer to an amazingly diverse musical decade.

P.P.S. This is the 19th disc to have two (or more) separate runs at the top since the charts began sixteen years ago. Amazingly, it will be the last disc to have a return to number one (without being re-released) until 1993!

262. ‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold

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The final number one single of 1968! Over the course of the twenty-one records that have topped the charts this year, we’ve met a wide range of characters: Bonnie & Clyde, Quinn the Eskimo, Cinderella Rockefella, Lady Madonna… Now please welcome, last but by no means least, Lily the Pink!

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Lily the Pink, by The Scaffold (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 11th December 1968 – 1st January 1969 / 1 week, from 8th – 15th January 1969 (4 weeks total)

We’ll drink a drink a drink, To Lily the Pink, The saviour of, The human race… The pace is frenetic, the song charges along on an oompah-band beat. For she invented, Medicinal compound, Most efficacious, In every case… And it’s not just Lily the Pink that we meet either, but the cast of poor souls that her medicinal compound has helped.

There’s Mr Frears, with his sticky-out ears… The notably bony Brother Tony… Old Ebeneezer, who thought he was Julius Caesar… Jennifer Eccles, with her terrible freckles… You get the idea. It’s a novelty song. Perfect for a Christmas party, last-orders down the pub sing-along when everybody’s a bit pissed. Pure music-hall.

It reminds me of two, very different songs. First, there’s ‘Oom-pah-pah’, from the musical ‘Oliver!’ Another rowdy bar-room tune, in which the drinkers raise their glasses to the life-giving properties of the mythical ‘oom-pah-pah’. It’s a classic. Secondly, this also reminds me, with its boing-boing rhythm, of another (in)famous Christmas #1… ‘Mr Blobby’. (Which very much isn’t a classic.)

‘Lily the Pink’ falls somewhere in between these two songs. It’s fun, for a verse or two, and then it gets pretty old pretty quick. There’s an unfortunate stuttering verse – Johnny Hammer, Had a terrible s-s-s-s-stammer… – and it’s very hammy by the end, when the medicinal compound proves too strong even for Lily the Pink, and she snuffs it. It’s definitely a song that would improve the more you drink…

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Speaking of which, it is based on a much older, American drinking song – ‘The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham’ – which in turn was inspired by an actual drug – Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, from the 1870s, which relieved menstrual cramps. The fact that it was 40 proof alcohol meant that plenty of people not suffering from period-pains drank it anyway… And apparently the original verses were saucier even than The Scaffold’s end-of-the-pier version.

Just as interesting as the song’s origins are the musicians involved in its recording. The Scaffold were a comedy trio from Liverpool – one of whom was Peter McCartney (brother of Paul.) Musicians they were not, and so to help them on ‘Lily the Pink’ you can hear Graham Nash of The Hollies (the line about ‘Jennifer Eccles’ is a reference to a Hollies’ hit), Tim Rice and an unknown singer by the name of Reginald Dwight, who may or may not have gone on to bigger things under a different name.

What’s that? You thought that 1968 was going to finish off with some bland, run-of-the-mill pop song? Well you haven’t been paying attention, have you? This year has brought us the most eclectic bunch of #1s so far. We’ve veered from silly novelties, to bizarro fantasy epics, from spaghetti western soundtracks to the birth of shock-rock. All with healthy doses of jazz, crooning, rock ‘n’ roll, and Cliff, in between. Next up, we tick on over into the final year of the swinging sixties, and hope that it can be half as interesting as the year just gone…

Enjoy all the number ones from 1968, and earlier, here:

261. ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, by Hugo Montenegro, His Orchestra & Chorus

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And so we reach one of the 20th century’s best-known pieces of music. People might not be aware that they know the theme from ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, but if you can mimic the woo-wee-oo-wee-oo well enough, then they should be able to come back with a passable waa-waa-waa…

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, by Hugo Montenegro, His Orchestra & Chorus (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 13th November – 11th December 1968

It’s so famous that it sounds kind of clichéd now. It’s been used in so many spaghetti-western spoofs – a gun slinger in a poncho with an orange setting sun in the background, close-up on his narrowed eyes as he spits his tobacco on the ground (the famous refrain is supposed to sound like a coyote howling.) You’re almost surprised to remember that it was an actual real piece of music, soundtrack to real movie all of its very own.

Back in the fifties and early-sixties, when it seemed as if every second chart-topper was an instrumental, I regularly complained that lyric-less songs can sometimes meander and get lost. Not always, but for every ‘Apache’ or ‘Nut Rocker’ there was a ‘Side Saddle’. Instrumentals need a bit of atmosphere about them to cover up for the fact that you can’t sing along. The instruments need to become the voice. Which is what happens with this record. This instrumental passes the test. You definitely can sing along to it.

Speaking of ‘Apache’, this theme owes a bit of a debt to The Shadows when the twangy, Hank Marvin-ish guitars come in. It also reminds me of ‘Running Bear’ (1960 was a big year for the cowboys and injuns themed #1s) with its rep rop ooh wah too chants, which came from band leader Hugo Montenegro himself, and which sound a lot like someone counting in a strange, forgotten tongue.

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It’s a fun mish-mash of sixties styles – a bit latin, a bit rock ‘n’ roll and a bit psychedelic. It sounds old-fashioned at the same time as sounding like nothing that’s reached the top of the charts before. It was, of course, from the movie of the same name, starring Clint Eastwood but this isn’t the version used in the film. The original was written and recorded by Ennio Morricone – listen to it here – and it sounds a bit bleaker, a bit more like a movie soundtrack should. This version is softer, warmer – more of a pop song. Why it hit #1 a full two years after the movie’s release…? I’m not sure.

I’m glad it did make a belated chart-topper, though. It’s given us yet another strange side-road to wander down on our journey through 1968. We’re almost there, though – almost made it through this most eclectic of years… Hugo Montenegro wouldn’t enjoy chart success on the scale of ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ again, though he tried his hand at covers of several of the songs we’ve heard elsewhere on this countdown: ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, ‘Stranger in Paradise’, ‘Good Vibrations’… He died very young, in his mid-fifties, in 1981.

We may have left the golden age of the instrumental behind us – the days of Winifred Atwell, Eddie Calvert and, of course, The Shadows – long ago. But there are a few more still to come. Looking at the modern day, I can’t remember the last big instrumental hit. Maybe a nineties dance track…? Though they usual had at least one vocal refrain. I can’t help feel that it’s something we’ve lost – our love for the instrumental single – because when a good one comes along it’s usually quite the experience…

260. ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, by Joe Cocker

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I recently did a series of posts on cover versions of #1 songs – previous chart-toppers that had been reimagined in different ways by different artists. ‘Different’ being the important word – a good cover version should bring something new to the table. What’s the point in releasing a karaoke version of the original? And while we have had plenty of cover versions hit number one already, this one takes the concept to another level.

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With a Little Help From My Friends, by Joe Cocker (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 6th – 13th November 1968

The Beatles’ version of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ had been released the year before, on the ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club’ LP. Joe Cocker, a British blues-rocker who had been around for a few years without enjoying much chart success, took it and made it his own. It’s slower, heavier, longer, downer and dirtier… Re-acquaint yourself with the original here, then settle in for the Cocker treatment.

It begins with a distant organ, as if you were standing outside a church before evensong. It’s an ominous build-up… You’re ready for something to happen. Then wham. Guitar! Proper hard-rock guitar. Hendrix and Clapton kind of guitar. The type of guitar that’s been nowhere near the top of the charts before. It’s bombastic, and outrageous. It makes you want to make devil-horns and punch the air.

The lyrics are the ones you know. What would you do, If I sang out of tune, Would you stand up and walk out on me…? But it sure isn’t Ringo singing it. Cocker’s voice is husky, and soulful. He delivers the lines late, squeezes the words in before the next one comes along. The backing singers, so important in any version of this song, sound like a gospel choir: How do I feel at the end of the day…? Are you sad because you’re on your own?

The best bit is the bridge – the Do you need anybody… bit. The guitars go super heavy and crunchy, like a motorbike revving up. The second time around, especially, when Cocker howls and the backing singers soar and we launch into the final minute of a mini rock-opera. I know we’ve had a lot of soul number ones in recent years – The Small Faces, Chris Farlowe, Long John Baldry and more – but this takes it to the next level.

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It kind of sounds a bit like a jamming session, or at least a live version, and that really adds something to the song. They captured lightning here. They would never have been able to re-record this exactly the same – it’s too raw, too intense. It lacks the polish of a regular #1 single, but you’re oh so glad that it somehow managed to have its week in the top spot

As I mentioned, it’s another long number one. You wait years for a #1 single that lasts longer than five minutes, then three come along at once. And that’s not all that links this to the previous two #1s. We’ve now had a number one recorded by The Beatles (‘Hey Jude’) replaced by one that was produced by a Beatle (‘Those Were the Days’) replaced in turn by a number one written by The Beatles. In case you’ve lost count, this is the fourth Beatles cover to reach the top in the past five years. They may have been reaching the end of their career as a band, but their grip on the charts wasn’t weakening.

We end in a frenzy of organs and guitars, as Cocker ad-libs over the fade-out. Phew. It’s not a subtle re-interpretation, I will admit, but for me it works. I knew this record by reputation, but it’s been great to give it an in-depth listen. ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ is a song that will pop up another two times in this countdown, and I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that neither of the upcoming covers are fit to lick this one’s boots…

Joe Cocker will only have one more Top 10 hit, until the early-eighties when he will record ‘Up Where We Belong’ with Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack to ‘An Officer and a Gentleman.’ From Sheffield, but sadly no relation to Jarvis Cocker, he was still scoring Top 20 albums in the ‘00s and the 2010s. He died in 2014.

259. ‘Those Were the Days’, by Mary Hopkin

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From the longest number one yet… To the second longest. Five minutes plus! Picture yourself in a tavern in Leningrad, back when it still was Leningrad. Big furry hats, sturdy men, even sturdier women…

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Those Were the Days, by Mary Hopkin (her 1st and only #1)

6 weeks, from 25th September – 6th November 1968

It reminds me of Petula Clark’s ‘This Is My Song’, an old-fashioned ballad with a sweeping intro. Instruments that I couldn’t begin to name jingle-jangle before the violins come in… Once upon a time there was a tavern, Where we used to raise a glass or two… It’s a song of longing and regret. The singer is reminiscing about happier times, dancing and singing down the pub. Those were the days, my friend, We thought they’d never end… If ‘bittersweet’ was a sound, then that sound would sound a lot like ‘Those Were the Days.’

I wasn’t just making up all that stuff about Leningrad – this really is based on an old Russian folk-tune. A Georgian folk-tune, actually, which had been around since the turn of the century. And you really can picture some Cossacks high-kicking in time to the steady beat, especially when we get to the dadadadas. That’s another thing that this record has in common with its predecessor ‘Hey Jude’: a chanted refrain. Except this one doesn’t drag on for four and a half minutes…

By the third verse, time has moved on. The singer stands outside the same tavern: In the glass I saw strange reflections, Was that lonely woman really me…? In the fourth verse she timidly enters the bar… Oh my friend we’re older but no wiser, For in our hearts the dreams are still the same… Do they get back together? Have one last fling for old time’s sake? Or do they just leave it at a smile? I guess we’ll never know…

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As a melody, it’s pretty irresistible, coming as it does from a time before ‘pop music’ existed. It sounds nostalgic, like you’ve heard it before, somewhere, sometime… It feels as if it should be from a musical. It was also produced by one Paul McCartney, who may have popped up once or twice already on this countdown. He’d known the tune for years, and finally chanced upon Mary Hopkin as a singer. She was barely eighteen, and looks every bit the sixties flower-power girl. Long hair, bare feet, that kind of thing. ‘Those Were the Days’ was her first, and by far her biggest hit. She would go on to have four more Top 10 singles in the next couple of years, and still records to this day.

In one way, this song stands out as odd. It’s sentimental, old-fashioned, a bit cheesy… But in another way it is very late sixties: there are folk-rock touches (the ‘B’-side was even a cover of The Byrds’ ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’) and some very Beatlesy flourishes (the horns that come in midway through, for example). Plus, this is 1968, and anything goes at the top of the charts this year. There have been some weird chart-toppers, and some weird ones are still to come…

258. ‘Hey Jude’, by The Beatles

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Buckle up and make yourselves comfortable, cause we’ve hit our longest number one single yet. One of the longest ever. Seven minutes and ten seconds of Beatlesy goodness.

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Hey Jude, by The Beatles (their 15th of seventeen #1s)

2 weeks, from 11th – 25th September 1968

It starts off in beautiful simplicity. Just Paul and a piano. Hey Jude, Don’t make it bad… Take a sad song, And make it better… You’re there, in the studio. You can picture his face as he sings. Remember, To let her into your heart, Then you can start, To make it better…

I love the way the instruments are slowly added into the mix. Before you know it there’s a tambourine, a guitar, then backing vocals and Ringo’s drums. Hey Jude, Don’t be afraid, You were made to, Go out and get her… It sounds like an encouragement to a friend, to go and get the girl he loves, but it was inspired by John’s separation from his first wife Cynthia. Paul wrote it to comfort their son Julian (Julian – Jules – Jude). John, however, claimed that it was about him, and that the song’s lyrics were Paul’s blessing to him and Yoko Ono. Others still – mainly McCartney’s exes – have claimed that it was written about them. Who knows? A great song means something different to everyone.

And this is a great song. I’ve always liked the bridge best: And anytime you feel the pain, Hey Jude, Refrain…  It’s almost, without wanting to sound hopelessly pretentious, spiritual. Pop music as hymn. If I were religious, I’d go to churches where they sang ‘Hey Jude.’ I gave Paul McCartney a hard time in my post on ‘Hello, Goodbye’, and I stand by that, but here… His voice grows ever more soulful. It’s something else – it’s undeniable.

Just over three minutes in we reach the bit that means this record will live on for ever more. When the waves finally lap over the last bit of unsubmerged land left on earth, the final sound man hears will probably be the coda of ‘Hey Jude’. Na-na-na… Nananana! Nananana… Hey Jude! It lives on at karaoke nights, in pubs, outside pubs, in football stadiums… And you can see why. It isn’t hard to remember some ‘nananana’s. Whatever language you speak. Nananana.

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(‘Hey Jude’ was the 1st single released on The Beatles’ own Apple Label)

I had forgotten – having not actually listened to ‘Hey Jude’ properly for years, how crazy Paul goes over the coda. He riffs, he scats, he howls and yells. By the end he sounds as if he’s properly lost it. This was recorded at a particularly difficult time in The Beatles’ history: John spending all his time with Yoko, Ringo temporarily leaving the band… Maybe he was just letting some frustrations out.

The song starts to fade a full minute and a half before it actually ends. Does it really need to be over seven minutes long? Probably not. But at the same time: why the hell not? By this point in their careers, The Beatles could do whatever they wanted. ‘Hey Jude’ is a full two minutes forty seconds longer than the previous ‘Longest #1 Single’ title-holder, The Animal’s ‘The House of the Rising Sun’. You could play the shortest #1 – Adam Faith’s ‘What Do You Want’ – almost five times before ‘Hey Jude’ plays once. As far as I’m aware, it is still the 4th longest #1 single ever, and won’t be displaced as the longest until 1998, when Oasis will release their cover version… sorry, their completely different song… ‘All Around the World.’

And so we reach the end, finally, as the nananas fade and we are left to return to everyday life. ‘Hey Jude’ is a song that has entered the fabric of British life, of our national identity even… Paul McCartney plays it at most of his concerts, as a tribute to his long-dead song writing partner. It’s only right that it hit number one, but it seems wrong that it stayed at the top for just a fortnight. In the US it tied for the longest-ever run, at nine-weeks. That seems more appropriate. A long old run in pole position, for a long old song… Na-na-na-na!

Listen to all the previous, much shorter, #1 singles here:

257. ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You’, by The Bee Gees

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The Brothers Gibb’s 2nd number one picks up where their first – ‘Massachusetts’ – left off. Melancholy and minor key-ish. This time, though, with a hint of gospel about it, a touch of something more funky. I like it more than ‘Massachusetts’ (and always have done…)

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I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You, by The Bee Gees (their 2nd of five #1s)

1 week, from 4th – 11th September 1968

The lyrics immediately remind me of Tom Jones’ monster hit from a couple of years back, ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’, as they concern a man condemned to die. Is it worth making a new sub-genre of chert-topper? The death row #1? Probably not. In GGGOH, the singer was dreaming in an attempt to escape his inevitable fate. But in this one, the singer is under no illusions. The last rites are being read… The preacher talked with me and he smiled, Said come and walk with me, Come and walk one more mile…

The end is nigh, but he wants to get one last message out to his beloved… I’ve just got to get a message to you, Hold on… Hold on… One more hour and my life will be through… Whether or not he manages to get the message out is never revealed. In the background some very late-sixties percussion and an organ make things sound much cheerier than they should.

Another key difference to GGGOH (something very satisfying about banging that out in caps…) is that we are left in no doubt that the singer dunnit. He killed a man – I did it to him, Now it’s my turn to die… And it might even have been a crime of passion: It’s only her love that keeps me wearing this dirt… Is she grateful, or sad, or has she already shacked up with someone else…?

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For the final verse we get a key change. Which means this record about a murderer preparing to face the electric chair ends on a strangely uplifting vibe. He’s still alive at the end, and the listener is left to wonder if maybe, just maybe… I do like a song that tells a story!

As much I like this record, however, there is something irritating about how The Bee Gees sing. While not quite the falsettos from their disco phase, it’s still a bit nasal, a bit whiny, especially after the key-change. Minor quibbles, though, minor quibbles. They would score further hits with classics like ‘Words’, ‘I Started a Joke’ and ‘World’, the latter of which forever has a place in my heart as one of the very few songs that I ever managed to master on a keyboard. This can be seen as the end of The Bee Gees MK I. They will fade from view, chart-wise, for most of the early-seventies, until disco comes along and we meet them again in a decade or so.

256. ‘Do It Again’, by The Beach Boys

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

This is a song I’ve known for a long time, from childhood car journeys with The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits on repeat, and ever since I first heard it I’ve been fascinated by the intro. The pulsing, grinding rhythm that draws us in, sounding like something that Prince would have rejected for being too saucy…

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Do It Again, by The Beach Boys (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 28th August – 4th September 1968

Apparently it is several drum sounds merged together and compressed to slightly trippy effect. It doesn’t last long, unfortunately, this electro-beat intro, as The Beach Boy’s familiar chugging surf guitars soon come in. It’s automatic, When I talk with old friends, The conversation turns to girls we knew… It’s an interesting concept, a ‘traditional’ Beach Boys song about girls, surfing, and so on, but written as a reminiscence. It’s barely four years since every song they released was about girls, surfing, and so on, but so much has changed…

California girls and a beautiful coastline, Warmed-up leather let’s, Get together and do it again… In some ways, it’s a run-through of the Boys’ greatest hits: vocal harmonies, oo-bee-dooos and a nifty little guitar solo. But in other ways it’s a completely different band, one that’s been through ‘Pet Sounds’ and a whole load of LSD. It’s a lot slower than, say, ‘I Get Around’, with a very droney vibe. Even the surf-rock solo is crunchy and distorted. And then it fades out with what sounds like a carpenter’s workshop, all sawing and hammering. Repairing a Woodie, perhaps…?

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It’s short and sweet, a snip over two minutes long, just like its one-week run at the top of the charts. Blink and you’ll have missed The Beach Boys’ second and final number one single, in the UK at least. It’s interesting to me, and a little bittersweet, that none of the early hits that ‘Do It Again’ echoes made #1. ‘California Girls’, ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’, ‘Surfin’ Safari’ and the like all fell short. This is all that remains, an echo of more innocent times. Well, this and ‘Good Vibrations’ – one of the most famous pop songs ever recorded – but still…

Mike Love gets a hard time when people look back at The Beach Boys – the Devil to Brian Wilson’s Messiah. And a lot of its deserved: freezing other members out, resisting change (his ‘don’t fuck with the formula’ quote even has its own Wiki page), writing ‘Kokomo’… But ‘Do It Again’ is his and Brian’s baby, a call-back to when they were the biggest band in the States, selling a glossy, sun-swept vision of American life to gloomy, smoggy, faraway places like Britain.

I’ve always liked this song, even in amongst all the other biggies on their Greatest Hits, and listening to it again now I like it even more. It’s the perfect late-summer hit, as the sun goes down and you lie back in your hammock, cracking open your third beer. And it would be the perfect way to bid farewell to The Beach Boys on this countdown, by pressing play on the link below and doing it again…