tears on my pillow

640. ‘Tears on My Pillow’, by Kylie Minogue

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

Kylie does Grease!

Tears on My Pillow, by Kylie Minogue (her 4th of seven #1s)

1 week, from 21st – 28th January 1990

Well, no. Kylie’s never done ‘Grease’ – though she’d have made a good Sandy – and ‘Tears on My Pillow’ only ever features in the background of the original movie. But this record certainly has that feel about it…

It’s the final UK #1 to be produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman… pause for a moment to cheer/sigh (delete as appropriate)… though you wouldn’t particularly know it. It’s a shame that they don’t bow out with a Hi-NRG banger, but the chart Gods can be cruel. Like Jason Donovan’s stab at the sixties on ‘Sealed With a Kiss’, this is nothing more than karaoke. At least the trio bow out with a big hit for their chief muse, the lovely Ms Minogue. And in the big ‘Jason Vs Kylie Retro Covers Contest’ there can be only one winner: this one, because it’s Kylie.

There has been a bit of a retro wave sweeping the charts over the final year of the ‘80s. There was Jive Bunny, of course, but also those sixties covers from Jason, and Marc Almond with Gene Pitney. ‘Tears on My Pillow’ had originally been a 1958 hit for Little Anthony & The Imperials – one which failed to chart in the UK but had made #4 in the US. (There has of course been a completely unrelated ‘Tears on My Pillow’ at #1 in the UK, for Johnny Nash in 1975. Off the top of my head, I think this is the second time two different songs with the same name have made #1, after ‘The Power of Love’…)

This was from the soundtrack to Kylie’s big-screen debut ‘The Delinquents’, a Romeo and Juliet-ish tale of teenage love in ‘50s Australia. Apparently the movie isn’t great, but it continues a trend of forgettable films accompanied by number one singles (‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’, ‘When the Going Gets Tough’…) And it scored Kylie her fourth chart-topper in just under two years. Amazingly, this will be her sole nineties #1. A decade of fading chart fortunes, duets with Nick Cave, and a stab at something more alternative will keep her busy until a spectacular comeback in the early ‘00s. Still, she sneaks in, and in due course will join a select band of artists with #1s in three different decades.

If it feels like I’ve been padding this post out, blethering on about everything but the actual, largely forgettable, music then you’d be right. Let me pad it out a little more before finishing, then. Though I don’t remember this particular record, Kylie (and Jason) are pop ground zero for my generation: the first singers we remember from TV, from the playground, the first CDs we bought (more on that later…) The music may not have always been great, but this is nostalgic stuff for us older millennials. This rundown is suddenly getting quite real!

373. ‘Tears on My Pillow’, by Johnny Nash

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Our next #1 single feels a little bit misleading. It has a title that hints at other things… Is it a cover of the fifties classic ‘Tears on My Pillow’? Does Johnny Nash sound anything like Johnny Cash?

Tears on My Pillow, by Johnny Nash (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 6th – 13th July 1975

Its starts off very lush and soulful, with the swirling strings that have soundtracked many of the past year’s disco hits, but just when you think you know where this record is heading it changes tack and seamlessly slips into a reggae beat.

I remember, All the good times, That we had before… He loves a girl, she doesn’t love him back like she once did. Baby, Every night I wake up cryin’… Tears on my pillow… (and then, in a nice nod to the ‘50s song of the same name) Pain in my heart…

I like this one. I’d never heard it before, but I like it. I can even cope with the spoken word section (not something I often say) because it’s not too overwrought. I’ll always remember that day, You promised to love me… Meanwhile the reggae beat in the background is just too darn perky to make you feel sad.

Is ‘reggae-soul’ a thing? If it is, then that is what is happening right here. I especially like it when the horns come in at the end, playing an almost music hall refrain. They are – and there is simply no other word for it – funky. The more I listen to this song the more I’m enjoying it.

One thing’s for sure, 1975 is turning into one hell of an eclectic year. We can now add reggae to Philly soul, hard rock, a country classic, a novelty from a sitcom, and some spoken word sexiness from a TV detective… Those were the days! Johnny Nash was a Texan – one of the first non-Jamaicans to have reggae hits – and best remembered for the classic ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, which had reached #5, and #1 in the US, in 1972. That is a stone-cold classic, but I’m kind of glad that ‘Tears on My Pillow’ was his only chart-topper here. It really is a fun little tune.

It was the last of six UK Top 10s for Nash, who passed away just a few months ago, aged eighty. And for those of you left disappointed that this wasn’t a cover of Little Anthony & The Imperials’ doo-wop classic, just hang on fifteen years until an Australian legend takes to the top. Those of you disappointed that this is Johnny Nash not Cash… He never charted higher than #4.