pop charts

169. ‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies

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Before listening to this next UK chart-topper, I would have put the house on ‘Juliet’ being a doo-wopish, soulful, Motown record and The Four Pennies a black vocal group from Detroit. And if I had, I would now be homeless.

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Juliet, by The Four Pennies (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 21st – 28th May 1964

For this is another Beat record, and The Four Pennies a band from Blackburn, Lancashire. Which goes to show how much of a forgotten #1 single this is. I have genuinely never heard this record before. I suspect most people haven’t. This record is so inconspicuous that I missed it every time I glanced down my list of UK chart-toppers, what with its single week at the top being completely buried amongst large swathes of Beatles, Pacemakers, Searchers and Cilla.

What is it, then – this most forgotten of #1s? Well, if I had to pick one word to describe it that word would be ‘gentle’. A gentle guitar rhythm, gentle drums, and oh-so gentle vocals that give us something approaching a lullaby. There was a love, I knew before, She broke my heart, Left me unsure…. It sounds like the last number played at a spring dance in 1955, a soundtrack to which sweethearts would pair up and decide to ‘go steady’, not a hit single from the swinging sixties. Ju-li-e-e-e-et, Don’t forget… (some high quality rhyming, there.)

It’s got a pleasantly lo-fi, home-demo quality to it, and I quite like the soaring, layered you gave me… line in the bridge. It’s nice that it sneaked a week at the top in amongst all the huge hits of the time; but there’s a good reason as to why ‘Juliet’ has been well-forgotten by the collective conscience… It’s pretty dull. Kind of like The Bachelors from a few weeks back, it’s a case of bandwagon-jumping, or perhaps clever marketing, from four guys with guitars who look like a cool new Beat group, but who are recording music for mums.

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Actually, the more I listen to it, and the more I look at my list of upcoming number one singles, I think this might be the final genuine, Merseybeat chart-topper. Suddenly the movement is dead. Or, if not dead then about to splinter into lots of different styles: R &B, garage, folk… especially once the Americans get involved. But what a run it’s been. I can’t imagine a similarly homogenous run of #1 singles at any other time, before or after. Since The Searchers hit the top back in August ’63 with ‘Sweets For My Sweet’ we’ve had a near flawless procession of Beat pop at the top of the charts. I make it fourteen out of fifteen #1s, with the only exception being Cilla Black’s ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, and she was from Liverpool and so was still halfway there.

The Four Pennies weren’t quite one-hit wonders, but ‘Juliet’ was their only Top Ten hit. The follow-up, ‘I Found Out the Hard Way’, could only make #14. By 1966, after only three years together as a recording group, Lionel, Fritz, Alan and Mike had gone their separate ways. Perhaps most tellingly, they were the only group from the Beat movement – and I’m talking about all the bands covered so far in this countdown and all the bands still to come over the next few years – that failed to chart for even a single week in the USA during the famous ‘British Invasion’.

Listen to every #1 so far with this playlist:

Songs That Should Have Been #1… ‘Please Please Me’, by The Beatles

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The Stargazers, Don Cornell, The Johnston Brothers, The Dream Weavers, Jerry Keller…? Nope, me neither. But they’ve all had the honour of topping the UK singles chart.

How well a single performs in the charts can be influenced by various things… promotion, star power, tastes and trends, time of year… pure luck. And that most fickle, unpredictable of  factors: the general public. Do enough of them like your song to make it a smash? Or will they ignore it, and let it fall by the wayside?

I’m taking a short break from the regular countdown to feature five discs that really should have topped the charts. Be it for their long-reaching influence, their enduring popularity or for the simple fact that, had they peaked a week earlier or later, they might have made it. (I’ll only be covering songs released before 1964, as that’s where I’m up to on the usual countdown.)

Next up… A record that changed the course of popular music?

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Please Please Me, by the Beatles

Reached #2 in February 1963

As with Elvis, I don’t need to go giving The Fab Four any extra number one singles. By the end of their chart careers, they’d had seventeen of them. And as much as I love this single (if it had been one of their #1s it would probably be in my Top 5) , and as much as I wish that this had been their first ever chart-topper, that isn’t why I’m including ‘Please Please Me’ in this mini-countdown.

I touched on it in my last post, on the mega-long running #2 hit ‘Stranger on the Shore’, but the charts of the 1950s and ’60s were a tad confused. There wasn’t just one of them, for a start. You had the ‘Melody Maker’ chart, the ‘NME’ chart, and the ‘Record Retailer’ chart. None of which offered a complete overview of a week’s sales – they all conducted ‘surveys’ of selected record stores over the phone…

‘Please Please Me’ hit #1 in the NME chart (which had the largest circulation) and ‘Melody Maker’ chart, but it only reached #2 in ‘Record Retailer’, which was the one that the UK Singles Chart chose to follow. So, it may well have been the biggest selling single at some point; we’ll just never know for sure… The history books record it as having stalled behind Frank Ifield’s dull-as-dishwater ‘The Wayward Wind’ for two weeks.

It’s far from the only single to have suffered this unfortunate fate – it wasn’t until 1969 that the UK charts were unified into one – but it’s a landmark single from the biggest pop group in history, with one of the very best middle-eights, ever… So enjoy.

Songs That Should Have Been #1… ‘Stranger on the Shore’, by Mr. Acker Bilk

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The Stargazers, Don Cornell, The Johnston Brothers, The Dream Weavers, Jerry Keller…? Nope, me neither. But they’ve all had the honour of topping the UK singles chart.

How well a single performs in the charts can be influenced by various things… promotion, star power, tastes and trends, time of year… pure luck. And that most fickle, unpredictable of  factors: the general public. Do enough of them like your song to make it a smash? Or will they ignore it, and let it fall by the wayside?

I’m taking a short break from the regular countdown to feature five discs that really should have topped the charts. Be it for their long-reaching influence, their enduring popularity or for the simple fact that, had they peaked a week earlier or later, they might have made it. (I’ll only be covering songs released before 1964, as that’s where I’m up to on the usual countdown.)

Next up… a song that I have to admit I don’t know terribly well. In fact, I listened to it for the very first time just before typing these words…

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Stranger on the Shore, by Mr. Acker Bilk

reached #2 in January 1962

It’s a pleasant enough instrumental, by a clarinetist from Somerset… The theme to a TV programme of the same name. It sounds slightly dated, even for a record released in 1961. Not the type of song I’d usually rush to listen to… I’m including this disc in this mini-countdown for exactly the opposite reasons I included ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. ‘Stranger on the Shore’ isn’t revolutionary, or life-changing, or any of that…  But it was a bloody persistent record.

It entered the Top 10 in December of 1961, and it remained, with a couple of drops and re-entries, a Top 10 record in the following… July! Over six months! It remained in the charts for a year. It was the first British single to hit #1 in on the Billboard Hot 100, two years before the British Invasion. It was also the biggest selling hit of 1962 in Britain, and is the biggest selling instrumental record in chart history. It was played in Apollo 10, on its way to the moon…

All the figures suggest that this should have been massive chart-topping smash… except the one that matters most. It never got higher than number two, held off in the most part by Cliff & The Shadows, ‘The Young Ones’. It did top the NME chart, but that wasn’t the official chart, and a lot more on that tomorrow, in my next shoulda-been-number-one post…

168. ‘Don’t Throw Your Love Away’, by The Searchers

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The Searchers complete their hat-trick of #1s, with a very ‘Searchers’ record. Light as a feather guitar, restrained vocals, a hint of melancholy… Check, check, check.

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Don’t Throw Your Love Away, by The Searchers (their 3rd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st May 1964

If The Beatles were the popular kids, and Gerry & The Pacemakers the class clowns, The Searchers were the cool kids in the corner, planning out their next, more grown-up, hit record. ‘Don’t Throw Your Love Away’ is the sort of record your gran wouldn’t have minded; but she would definitely have told you to turn off The Dave Clark Five.

It’s another Beat-pop song with a less-than-positive message. A song about a man who has been burned in the past, and who now sits at the end of the bar doling out advice to anyone who’ll listen. Lovers of today, Just throw their dreams away, And play at love… They give their love away, To anyone who’ll say, I love you… He doesn’t refer to himself specifically; but you just know he’s had his heart broken. Don’t throw your love away… he counsels… For you, Might need it, Someday…

When I first listened to this record a few days ago – a record I was aware of but had never really listened to properly – I noted that I ‘couldn’t really get into it’, that it was a little bland and uninventive. I even jotted down the phrase ‘Landfill Merseybeat’, meaning it in the same way that anyone who wasn’t The Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand or The Libertines in 2006 was ‘Landfill Indie’. But I’d like to officially change my mind, having listened to it on repeat, and admit that what I mistook for a bland number is actually a very subtle song that simply takes a while to fully reveal itself. The vocal harmonies are cute, and the guitars chime very tightly (I especially like the little ‘Arabian Nights’ fill in the bridge.)

And all credit to The Searchers, for not chasing the ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ of other Beat songs, for ploughing their own furrow and taking this forgotten little slice of sad-pop to number one. This is a very ‘Searchers’ record; and if that means it’s a little hard to get into at first, then fine. I think part of the reason I didn’t get into their first chart-topper, ‘Sweets For My Sweet’, is that that was a song that really needed an up-tempo, grinning approach, which The Searchers couldn’t provide.

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That’s not to say that they couldn’t do better than ‘Don’t Throw Your Love Away’. ‘Needles and Pins’ stands out clearly as the best of their three #1s, if not one of the best Merseybeat records, period. And their next single but one, the brilliant ‘When You Walk Into the Room’, would have made an even better final chart-topper for the group. It only reached number three…

I really could just cut and paste this next sentence… The Searchers (as with Gerry & The P’s, Billy J, Peter & Gordon et al) couldn’t keep the hits going much longer than this. Their final Top 20 hit came in 1965. Perhaps their biggest problem was that they didn’t write their own hits – all their #1s were covers (‘Don’t Throw Your Love Away’ was originally released, in the US at least, by The Orlons.) In the fifties that would have been fine, but all of a sudden, it seems, acts – especially guitar bands – needed to be writing their own stuff. They tried to move with the times, covering songs by The Stones and The Hollies, but nothing stuck. The line-up changed at an alarming rate, and they now tour as both Mike Pender’s Searchers and the ‘original’ group. But, we can remember them fondly as the band who gave us a breather, with their wistful melodies and hesitant vocals, from the relentless march of the Beat revolution.

167. ‘A World Without Love’, by Peter & Gordon

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With Beatlemania at its scream-until-you-vomit height, it should come as no surprise to learn that one Fab Four song is replacing another at the top of the charts. Except, one glance at the act involved in this latest #1 gives the game away… There was neither a Peter nor a Gordon in The Beatles.

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A World Without Love, by Peter & Gordon (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 23rd April – 7th May 1964

For those keeping track, this is the 6th Lennon & McCartney composition to take the top spot in the UK: four recorded by The Beatles themselves; two covered by other artists. But even if you hadn’t been filled in beforehand, the second the needle drops on ‘A World Without Love’ you know it’s a L&M number.

Is it the chord progressions? The harmonies? The fact it’s a catchy song with a sad underbelly? Is it all those things; or none? I can’t put my finger on it – but it’s there throughout the song. That Lennon & McCartney fairy dust. At the same time, though, this disc doesn’t sound exactly like a Beatles’ number. They were still, at this point, a guitars and drums pop group; while this record is driven by a bass riff and an organ.

The voices are different too – softer, more Everly Brothers than Beatles. They’re nice, drenched in echo… Please, lock me away… And don’t allow the day… Here inside, Where I hide, With my loneliness… It’s a song about how awful the world looks after a break-up. And this particular break-up must have hit pretty darn hard… Birds sing out of tune, And rainclouds hide the moon… By the end, the duo are begging to be locked away, hidden from all, rather than staying in a world without love.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it is surprising just how melancholy and melodramatic some of these Beat #1s were. You think it’s all youthful exuberance and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’, but when you sit down and listen intently you notice that songs like ‘Bad to Me’, ‘She Loves You’ and ‘Needles and Pins’ are more concerned with the downsides of love, and that it’s not all sweetness and light. Apparently this song was written by Paul McCartney aged just sixteen, and that makes complete sense. That line about ‘hiding with his loneliness’ is pure teen-angst; while the bridge – in which it is revealed that the singer still holds out hope of his beloved returning to him – is pure youthful optimism. Although the line When she does (come back) I lose… adds an ambiguous element into the mix. Does he want her to come back? Or is he enjoying his gloomy wallow a little too much?

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Peter Asher and Gordon Waller were school friends, and ‘A World Without Love’ was their debut hit. Asher was the brother of Paul McCartney’s girlfriend, Jane, and actually shared a room with Paul when he first moved to London, hence how he got to know him and was allowed to ‘borrow’ one of his songs. All the duo’s biggest hits were covers – ‘True Love Ways’ and a version of ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ followed – before, as with so many of the bands that broke through in the Beat explosion, their careers crumbled circa 1966/67.

McCartney was honest enough to admit that he thought ‘A World Without Love’ wasn’t good enough for his own band, and so they never recorded so much as a demo of it. I think that’s a little harsh – it’s a neat slice of pop that’s the equal of many Beatles’ album tracks. But I also get what he means. Nothing here matches the euphoric rush of ‘She Loves You’ or the guitar on ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. They may have had cute hairstyles and cheeky grins, but The Beatles, and Lennon & McCartney in particular, knew what they were doing, taking control of their careers from the off.

165. ‘Little Children’, by Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas

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One of the earliest stars of the Beat explosion, Billy J. Kramer, returns for one last go on top. And he starts this latest #1 off with an intro full of intrigue. An intriguing intro. It’s a little slow and shuffling, a little woozy, like a pub band that’ve had one too many warming up for their final encore of the night. All that’s missing is a harmonica…

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Little Children, by Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas (their 2nd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 19th March – 2nd April 1964

Then the lyrics come in, and the intrigue grows ten-fold. Little children, You better not tell on me… I’m telling you… Little children, You better not tell what you see… It’s a song that tells a story – rather than the traditional ‘I love you, I’m in heaven, Hold my hand’ kind of songs that we’ve had a lot of recently – and that’s always a good thing. It makes them easier to write about for a start. But… And I’m sure you noticed it too… Those opening lines do sound kinda creepy.

It gets worse, too, before it gets better. I’ll give you candy, And a quarter, If you’re quiet, Like you oughta be, And keep the secret with me… Yep. I know. But, just as you reach for the phone to call ChildLine, all becomes clear. He wants the children to bugger off so that he can kiss and cuddle with their – presumably safely over-age – older sister. Nothing more sinister here than a spot of mild bribery. Phew.

Still, this is a strange little song. And not just because of those lyrics. I like it, the slightly seedy rhythm and the fact that it paints a picture of a very specific and believable scenario. Why does he not want his secret exposed? You saw me kissing your sister, You saw me holding her hand, But if you snitch to your mother, Your father won’t understand… Are her parents simply over-protective? Or has he got a reputation as a bit of a bounder? The best bits are the growled asides: I wish they would take a nap… And the simple, snide Go anywhere…! Add to this the fact that there isn’t really a chorus or a solo, just four ascending verses in which the singer grows more and more frustrated about not being left alone with his beau. I like it, even though it’s a strange song. I like it because it’s a strange song.

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Given all the American references littered throughout the song – ‘quarters’, ‘movies’, ‘going steady’ – I was convinced that this #1 was going to add to the list of Beat-hits-that-were-actually-covers, but no. It was written by two American songwriters – J. Leslie McFarland and Mort Shuman – but Billy J. and The Dakotas recorded the first and only version. Apparently Kramer had been offered another Lennon and McCartney song but turned it down for something quirkier. Kudos to him for that. Although it has to be said that, as fun as this record is, ‘Bad to Me’, their first, Beatles-written, chart-topper is the superior disc.

That was it for Billy J. and number one hits. In a similar fashion to Gerry & The Pacemakers, his career fell off a cliff in 1965 as the Beat movement split into all its different sub-factions. He would only have one further UK Top 10, and parted from The Dakotas in 1967. In the seventies he worked in cabaret and regional television, and to this day he still does a turn on the oldies circuits. He has also been married twice, and so he must have persuaded those pesky kids to clear off, eventually…

164. ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, by Cilla Black

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Alright, chuck? What’s your name and where d’you come from? Me name’s Cilla, and I’m from Liverpool.

1962 and ’63 were barren years in terms of women reaching number one in the UK. 1963 had precisely zero female #1s, while 1962 had just the one – Wendy Richard popping up as the featured artist on Mike Sarne’s ‘Come Outside’ (and she didn’t even sing on that record!) No, if we are counting #1 discs sung solely by women we have to look all the way back to Helen Shapiro’s ‘Walkin’ Back to Happiness’ from October 1961! No pressure then, Cilla…

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Anyone Who Had a Heart, by Cilla Black (her 1st of two #1s)

3 weeks, from 27th February – 19th March 1964

This is a dramatic record. Right from the opening chords. Dun… Dun Dun… It’s the sort of song sung onstage, in a movie, while a murder is being committed in the wings. We’ve got a jabbing piano, cascading strings, and those rolling drums that are fast becoming the sound of the mid-sixties. Anyone who ever loved, Could look at me, And know that I love you…. It’s the song of a spurned lover. One who demands better. Knowing I love you… so, Anyone who had a heart, Would take me in his arms and, Love me too…

Writing the words out like that, though, cannot convey the brilliantly stop-start, woozy way that they come at the listener – loud then quiet, soft then angry. The pauses before the ‘so’ and the ‘who’ in the chorus are perfect, as is the whispered What am I to do… before the gorgeous horn solo.

It is a slice of supreme balladry – a seriously classy record. And when you discover, as I just did, that it was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, then that makes complete sense. It’s their 4th UK chart-topper so far. And the soaring ending – with the Anyone who had a heart would love me too… lines emphasised by drumbeats on each word, and Yeah Yeahs from the backing singers, is possibly the most sixties thing we’ve heard yet in this countdown.

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The only unconvincing thing about this record is… sorry Cilla… the voice. Technically, it’s great. But, for me, it sounds just a little young. Anyone who had a heart would love me too… is a difficult line to sell, and in the hands of a twenty-year old Cilla Black it sounds a little bratty. You don’t like me so you must have something wrong with you… My first instinct is to ask: Did Dusty ever sing this? Dusty would have done it justice. And she did. It’s not her finest effort, and I’m not sure about the guitars in place of the piano, but still… Nobody conveys stoic heartbreak like Ms. Springfield. On top of this, the song was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick, who also gave a more grown-up rendition.

But, still, this single launched Cilla Black as one of the biggest British female singers of the decade. Her take on ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ was the biggest selling song by a woman for the entirety of the 1960s! She was, as many people know (and as she kept reminding us for years to come), best mates with The Beatles, coming up through the same club circuit as they did. John Lennon introduced her to Brian Epstein, and the band even accompanied her during her audition for Parlophone.

Maybe what I’m mistaking for brattishness was actually the reason Cilla Black became so popular – her genuine girl-next-door, cheeky charm. She’ll top the charts again very soon and so we’ll hold off talking about what was to come for our Cilla for now. It is interesting to note, though, that both she and the last woman to top the charts, the aforementioned Wendy Richard, went to on to be better known for their TV work than their singing. More on that later…

Listen to every #1 so far with this handy playlist:

163. ‘Diane’, by The Bachelors

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Ladies and Gentlemen! ‘Diane’, by The Bachelors, is the UK’s one hundred and sixty-third number one single… Nope. Me neither.

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Diane, by The Bachelors (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 20th – 27th February 1964

It’s been a good long while since we arrived at a chart-topper that I’d never, ever heard before. Yodeller par excellence Frank Ifield’s version of ‘Confessin’ was probably the last. But even before pressing play, I can kind of predict what we’re heading for here. ‘Diane’, by ‘The Bachelors’ doesn’t, to me, scream rock ‘n’ roll abandon.

And yup, the intro has a strong whiff of barbershop quartet: Smile for me-e-e-e…. My Diane… Close harmonies, and long drawn out notes. But no sooner has this opener swooped to a close than in comes a lilting country rhythm. I’m in heaven, When I see you smile, Smile for me, My Diane… It’s a song about a woman, called Diane, and how much a boy loves her. She lights the road home. No matter where he roams etc. etc. (Has there ever been a non-country and western song featuring the word ‘roam? I don’t think so…)

The Beat-invasion may have had a strong chokehold on the charts at this time, but other songs could still poke through. This had a solitary week at the top, and I have the feeling that that was because there was little in the way of competition – a default #1 because, well, something has to be number one. It’s cute, and pleasant enough, but…

I’m not too sure what to make of it. Maybe it’s insignificant enough for me to simply make nothing of it. It’s a country-ish, barbershop-ish (I do like the ah-oh-oh-ohs!) little ditty that I have to admit I was singing along to by the fourth listen. Actually, I’ve just realised that I’m also getting hints of Cliff – in both the swaying guitars last heard in ‘Summer Holiday’ and the band’s name (Bachelors, get it?)

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Who exactly were these Bachelors? Well, they were Irish, which makes them the very first Irish act to top the British charts, preceding U2 and Boyzone, and the other Irish chart-dominators of the eighties and nineties. So that’s something. There were three of them – Conleth, Declan and John, and they made a decent mid-sixties career out of re-interpreting old tunes from the 1920s and ‘30s in a vaguely Beat-ish way. ‘Diane’ was originally written as the theme song to a 1927 silent movie, for example. Slim Whitman, Jim Reeves and Vic Damone all did their own versions at one time or another. The lads also scored hits with covers of songs like ‘I Believe’ and ‘Hello Dolly!’ While other Beat groups were looking forward; The Bachelor-boys were looking back.

Nothing dates this song, though, as much as the ending. Back in the dark and distant Pre-Rock days almost every song ended with a huge, soaring climax that had been signposted a mile off. And The Bachelors here do their best to recapture those halcyon days. The song slows down, the singer revs up and… Smile for meeeeeee, My… Di….AAAAAAANE! We finish all misty-eyed for the days of Al Martino and David Whitfield.

I don’t begrudge this song its week on top of the charts; but at the same time I’m not terribly sad that we won’t be hearing from The Bachelors ever again. Interestingly, not only does this record give us our first Irish #1, it also sees the name Diane (or variants thereof) sprint into the lead as the name featured in the most chart-topping singles. With two. This, and Paul Anka’s ‘Diana’. We’ve also had a Joe, a Rose Marie, a Hernando, a Josephine, a Mary, a Cathy, a Laura, a Johnny and a Michael, all on one chart-topper each. Not something I ever thought I’d keep an eye on but, now that I have done, it’s kind of fascinating. Which name will be the winner? And who’d have thought that a Josephine would have topped the charts before, say, a Sue or a Jenny?

162. ‘Needles and Pins’, by The Searchers

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The Searchers return for a second run at the top. And if their first #1 – ‘Sweets For My Sweet’ – was a cute little slice of Beat-pop; then this is next-level stuff entirely. This baby is a classic!

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Needles and Pins, by The Searchers (their 2nd of three #1s)

3 weeks, from 30th January – 20th February 1964

We start with a simple, chiming riff. In my previous post on The Searchers, I mentioned that they had a sound slightly removed from frenetic Merseybeat – a bit more sedate, a bit more melancholic – a sound that wouldn’t sound out of place on Indie records of the 1980s. Well, that sound is back here.

Lyrically, too, this is a more complex record than the likes of ‘Do You Love Me’ and other such pub-singalongs. And no, ‘Needles and Pins’ doesn’t refer to waking up with a dead arm; it’s about the feeling you get when you see a lost love. One that did you wrong. I saw her today, I saw her face, It was a face I loved, And I knew, I had to run awa-y…

It’s also a song about bruised pride… Because of all my pride, The tears I gotta hide… and a song with an air of revenge about it: Let her go ahead, And take his love instead, And one day she will see, Just how to say please, And get down on her knees, Yeah that’s how it begins, She’ll feel those needles and pins, Hurtin’, Hurtin’… This is one grown-up love song. It’s like the sophisticated older brother of discs like our last chart-topper, ‘Glad All Over’, looking down his nose at his younger siblings’ silly little songs.

I wish I had the musical vocabulary to describe the chord structures and the key and whatever it is that gives this record its ‘mood’. Whatever it is that makes this song so good. But then again, if I could dissect it and pinpoint it’s genius maybe it would lose some of its magic. It’s a sad-sounding song about a sad-sounding break-up; and it’s superb. By the final verse, it’s reached a bit of a crescendo. Two voices – the lead singer (Mike Pender) and a high-pitched back-up which just adds to the emotion. Oh, needles and pins… And those drum-fills. Oh those drum-fills.

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I’ve been kind of surprised, listening to them all in a row, how cheesy (for want of a better word) these early Beat #1s have been. Musically they’ve been a huge step forward but, in lyrical terms, records like ‘From Me to You’, ‘Bad to Me’, and ‘I Like It’ haven’t moved on much from the 1950s.

‘Needles and Pins’ is different. Though I was shocked to find out that it is actually a cover. It’s a song I’ve loved for a long time and have assumed for years was a Searcher’s original. But no. It’s a Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono song, originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon in 1963. I feel betrayed… I really do. This – and I realise that this is a bold statement to make – is the first pop song I ever loved. I must have been maybe seven, and it was on a sixties mix-tape (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before) in our family car. It would be playing on a Sunday evening as we drove home from dinners at my grandparents, along dark roads under orange streetlights. A melancholy scene for a melancholy song.

Actually, that’s another thing that has surprised me – just how many of these early Beat chart-toppers were covers. Since Gerry & The Pacemakers kicked the movement off in April ’63, I make this six covers out of eleven (I’m counting ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ in this, though it isn’t your average Beat-pop number). I just assumed these boys with guitars were all writing their own songs. How wrong I was!

Anyway, the ‘Needles and Pins’ story doesn’t end with The Searchers. It’s classic status is confirmed by the fact it’s been covered by The Ramones and Tom Petty. It’s a song so good that it might just give you needles and pins! (Though I’ve always said ‘pins and needles’ – I guess that didn’t scan quite as well…)

Follow along with my Spotify playlist:

161. ‘Glad All Over’, by The Dave Clark Five

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

And so we launch head-first into 1964. Suddenly we are in the mid-sixties! Doesn’t time fly! And kicking off the new year are some newbies at the top of the UK singles charts: The Dave Clark Five.

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Glad All Over, by The Dave Clark Five (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 16th – 30th January 1964

Interestingly, none of the acts that topped the charts in 1963 were one-offs. Every single one of them had hit #1 previously, or would go on to hit #1 again. But the very first chart-topping act of 1964 are… drum roll… one #1 wonders!

Anyway, this a barnstorming way to start off. We get a thumping, grinding drum-beat designed to blow away any lingering new year hangovers, which is quickly joined by a bass and a stabbing saxophone. Then the singer (Mike Smith, not Dave Clark) jumps in: You say that you love me, All of the time, You say that you need me, You’ll always be mine…

The beat then morphs into an insistent, irresistible galloping-horse rhythm that will last for the whole song. And then comes a chorus that pretty much everyone knows: And I’m feelin’… Glad all over…Yes, I’m a-… Glad all over…!

It’s an non-stop sledgehammer of a song, with large swathes of call-and-response and a key-change that is pointless trying to resist. Other girls may try to take me away… (you can just pictures the girl’s eyes rolling at this point)… But you know, It’s by your side, I will stay… It’s a fun disc. File it under ‘unsophisticated’. This and The Tremeloes’ ‘Do You Love Me’ from a few posts ago would make a great drunken-1am-singalong double-header.

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Like ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, this is also a huge football, and rugby, crowd song – the call and response bits work perfectly – and is usually played after a home-team scores (Crystal Palace started it when ‘Glad All Over’ was still in the charts and lots of other teams followed suit). It was last seen in the UK charts a couple of years ago when Glasgow Rangers fans did a mass-download campaign. In fact, I’d have to say that this is just the latest in a run of chart-toppers that have entered the public consciousness like few previous #1s have. From ‘Sweets For My Sweet’ through ‘Do You Love Me’, plus the recent Beatles chart-toppers… I’ll bet most people on the streets could sing a line or two from all of these songs, even today. Just goes to show how much the music from this era lingers on.

Since we’ll never hear from them again on this countdown – just who were The Dave Clark Five? Well, you’ll be shocked to discover that there were five of them, and that they were ‘led’ by one Dave Clark, who also drummed on all their hits. They were from Tottenham, in North London, and were at the vanguard of the ‘Tottenham Sound’ -which I’m not sure sounded any different to the Mersey-sound, or any other variety of Beat-band sound, but hey – they were representing. As I mentioned, this was their one and only #1; but they scored Top 10s throughout the sixties before splitting up in 1970.

There you have it then. 1964 is off and running with a boisterous pop number. I don’t go in for previews very often in these posts, but I have to mention here that ’64 is going to be a stellar year for chart-topping singles. One of the very best… if not the best… years in terms of #1 quality. Over the course of the next twenty-two hits we’ll hear some classics, meet some legends, and have a generally pretty ‘groovy’ time (that’s how people talked back in the sixties…)