The Union Gap: "Woman, Woman"

January 13, 1968 (1 week)

It wouldn't be fully reflected at the top of the Canadian charts until the seventies but one of the coming musical trends for 1968 would be country rock, a rootsy blend of a pair of previously opposing genres. Bob Dylan seemed to see it coming with the release of John Wesley Harding at the very end of '67. It was a stark, stripped back affair that contrasted with the dynamism of previous official release Blonde on Blonde. (Even though the two were cut in the same Nashville studio with many of the same musicians) Meanwhile, Columbia label mates The Byrds had also begun dabbling in country, a style they would fully embrace by the midway point of the year. Spiraling into irrelevance, San Francisco's Beau Brummels even began working on a surprisingly strong country project of their own, which they titled Bradley's Barn.

Perhaps in no small part due to the involvement of The Byrds, the country rock movement is typically attributed as coming from individuals who had grown weary of psychedelic rock excess and were looking for a calmer headspace. (This narrative would only grow with The Grateful Dead's sudden shift from the acid-fueled jams of 1969's Aoxomoxoa to their sublime downhome duo of Workingman's Dead and American Beauty the following year) While The Union Gap were a relatively new act on the American pop scene, singer Gary Puckett had already made a failed attempt at stardom with The Outcasts. It is with their mid-sixties' singles "Run Away" and "I Can't Get Through to You" that you can hear early signs of psychedelic music. Jump ahead to the beginning of 1968 and his new act sounds like they were auditioning for the position of house band at the Grand Old Opry. (Quite what happened between the end of The Outcasts and this first Union Gap hit is up to the imagination, unless you happened to see them playing a show in the midst of their acid-to-country transition)

No, this is not your outlaw uncle's brand of country and western; rather, this is the old school Jim Reeves crooner variety. To be fair, Puckett and his crew couldn't have known that the tougher side of C&W would be the one favoured by rock's cooler kids. There had been a widespread instinct at the time to dial things back. The Beach Boys came off the Smile/Smiley Smile debacle with the pared down, R&B-influenced Wild Honey. Meanwhile, over in the UK, the simultaneous blues and folk booms were getting started while The Beatles were already scaling things back with their boogie single "Lady Madonna". (I maintain that the Fab Four should have released it and B side "The Inner Light along with John Lennon's recent compositions "Across the Universe" and "Hey Bulldog" as a brilliant E.P.; I would mention this elsewhere but for the fact that "Lady Madonna" didn't get to number one in Canada) Puckett had the right idea, only he went in the wrong direction.

Gifted a country composition, The Union Gap embraced fifties Nashville on "Woman, Woman". Considering Puckett's chewy baritone, they were probably right to go with mainstream country but it doesn't really ring true with these newfound back to roots values. If anything, it makes them sound more out of time than either the back to basics types or the acid rock holdovers. It isn't the worst attempt at countrifying the pop charts during this period (that happens to be the very next RPM number one) but there's little to say about it as well. How did it do so well? I think it's down to a combination of Puckett's dreamboat smile and crusty old dads hearing it, nodding with approval and going out to buy it for their kids. Or it's simply the public likes turgid old crap, the same old story. Either way, the single would kick start quite a year for the quintet as they joined an exclusive club alongside Elvis, The Beatles and a handful of others as acts for score at least three number ones on the Canadian hit parade within a calendar year.

I had never heard "Woman, Woman" before last week but I found myself listening to it an awful lot ever since. Considering my dismissiveness above, you might expect me to have played it a minimal amount and I would have done so but I couldn't get a grasp on it because it kept making me think of the 1993 dark comedy So I Married an Ax Murderer. Puckett's highfalutin sobs of "Woman, Wo-o-o-woman!" are so over the top that it's as if he's channeling his inner Mike Myers. Would "Woman, Woman" have sounded more at home as an amusingly twisted poem set to a basic jazz groove? It's impossible to say but yes, yes it would have.

Score: 4

1967: The Crowd Called Out for More

 1 — The Royal Guardsmen: "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron"

 8 — The Seekers: "Georgy Girl"

 4 — The Buckinghams: "Kind of a Drag"

 7 — The Spencer Davis Group: "Gimme Some Lovin'"

 4 — The Supremes: "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone"

 3 — Johnny Rivers: "Baby I Need Your Lovin'"

10 — The Beatles: "Penny Lane"

 3 — The Monkees: "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You"

 2 — Young Canada Singers: "Canada"

 4 — Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra: "Somethin' Stupid"

 9 — The Spencer Davis Group: "I'm a Man"

 6 — The Who: "Happy Jack"

 1 — The Happenings: "I Got Rhythm"

 8 — The Young Rascals: "Groovin'"

 5 — The Mamas and the Papas: "Creeque Alley"

 8 — Jefferson Airplane: "Somebody to Love"

 9 — The Turtles: "She'd Rather Be with Me"

 4 — Music Explosion: "Little Bit O' Soul"

 6 — The Association: "Windy"

 2 — The 5th Dimension: "Up, Up and Away"

10 — Jefferson Airplane: "White Rabbit"

 8 — Procol Harum: "A Whiter Shade of Pale"

 8 — The Monkees: "Pleasant Valley Sunday"

 7 — The Beatles: "All You Need Is Love"

 4 — The Young Rascals: "A Girl Like You"

 8 — Bobbie Gentry: "Ode to Billie Joe"

 3 — Eric Burdon and the Animals: "San Franciscan Nights"

 7 — The Box Tops: "The Letter"

 8 — Lulu: "The Boat That I Row"

 2 — Paul Revere and the Raiders: "I Had a Dream"

 4 — The Association: "Never My Love"

 6 — The Young Rascals: "How Can I Be Sure"

 5 — The Doors: "People Are Strange"

 9 — Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell: "Your Precious Love"

 7 — The Cowsills: "The Rain, the Park and Other Things"

 4 — Bobby Vinton: "Please Love Me Forever"

 3 — Spanky and Our Gang: "Lazy Day"

 6 — The Monkees: "Daydream Believer"

 5 — The Beatles: "Hello, Goodbye"

1967 is yet another year of ups and downs. I suppose that's how we ought to describe every year really. But what's different about this crop of RPM number ones is that it's starting to feel inevitable, as though the big players were starting to turn away from singles in favour of albums, allowing the bubblegum pop groups to fill the void. The British Invasion acts have either moved on or they've faded away — or they found better things to be getting on with.

Significantly as well, it appears that The Beatles' dominance was beginning to wane. In '66, they had four number one hits, all with scores of either 8 or 9. They started off '67 with faculties intact and raging on the extraordinary "Penny Lane" but then began to decline with the anthemic but still rather ordinary "All You Need Is Love" and then closed out the year with their weakest single to date "Hello, Goodbye". While their albums still kept them well above the pack, their singles now had difficulty up against some seriously modest competition.

The American bubblegum boom carries over into '68 and beyond. With a couple of notable exceptions, I don't have high hopes for the year ahead. If anything, '67's rather sad average score of 5.59 might suddenly seem a little more impressive. Still, I'm open to being proved wrong. There is at least one entry coming that I haven't heard before which I am leaving until just prior to writing my review and perhaps it will be something of a banger. The bright side of not expecting much is there's not much chance I'll end up disappointed, right? Right???

The Beatles: "Hello, Goodbye"

December 23, 1967 (3 weeks)

Over the last few years The Beatles have really leaned into the trend of bleeding their archives dry. You could say this has always been a part of their post-breakup catalog but they've shown more restraint than many of their competitors even if this only amounts to little more than not shoving unwanted bonus tracks on CD reissues. But that all changed in 2017 when the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: 50th Anniversary Edition was released. As if to prove that this was no mere one off, a deluxe box for The White Album followed in '18 and then Abbey Road a year later. Then came Let It Be in 2021 and then they went out of sequence with Revolver a year after that.

As expected, Beatles' fans who are flush with cash aren't satisfied. The majority have been clamouring for a Rubber Soul set to come out but so far to no avail. Some have also noticed that a gap has been left: the post-Pepper period that covered the rest of '67 and the early part of '68 prior to their departure for India where they went to study Transcendental Meditation. The wilderness between the triumph of Pepper and the spooky, initial-signs-of-the-coming-break-up White Album — an interesting period to be sure but not their most creatively fruitful.

I will admit that I have considered purchasing the Pepper, White Album and Revolver box sets, though the hefty price tags and suspicion that I won't listen to them much has so far prevented me from doing so. Had I ended up picking all of them up, I could see myself getting the Abbey Road set as well, even if its current status as the consensus best Beatles' album ever baffles me. I don't think I would've been tempted at all by Let It Be but at least I can see why there'd be some interest, especially after Peter Jackson's Get Back docu-series. But a box set covering a handful of cast offs used primarily for the soundtracks to Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine? A hard pass from me — even if money was no object.

Of course, this is The Beatles we're talking about so this period isn't without its high spots with John Lennon's "I Am the Walrus" being the clear stand out. "The Fool on the Hill" is probably Paul McCartney's best track from this mini era but in truth there isn't much else to highly recommend. "Magical Mystery Tour" is fine if unremarkable. Tracks like "Baby You're a Rich Man" and "Your Mother Should Know" are under-written (Ian MacDonald described the former as having "a stoned sloppiness" to it which is hard to disagree with). "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" is good fun but utterly pointless. George Harrison's "It's All Too Much" combines some terrific acid rock with his usual grumpiness but it goes on for way too long. (Still, it's accurately titled) Do I even need to bring up bloody "All Together Now"?

As for "Hello, Goodbye", it is the first Beatles' hit that no one ever needed. You may like it but what does it add to their discography? If it didn't exist, would anyone miss it? The very fact that I'm now tempted to come to its defense with a "there's nothing wrong with it" is revealing in and of itself: apologizing for a so-so number from just about any other act is one thing but the Fabs never needed anyone to say their records were just okay prior to this one. McCartney sings it well but, again, this is the sort of observation that wouldn't need to be made had I been discussing, say, "All My Loving" or "Eleanor Rigby" instead. Beyond its almost innate ability to lodge its way into my head and then squat there indefinitely, I am indifferent. 

Still, even when they were loafing about, The Beatles were always fascinating and "Hello, Goodbye" is no exception. Just who is contradicting McCartney so much? One option is that it's about his fraught relationship with the actress Jane Asher. While the positive side of their romance is said to have inspired "And I Love Her" and "Here, There and Everywhere", the tumultuousness of their time together brought on much more pessimistic works such as "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me" and "For No One". Strangely, 1967 seems to have brought an end to McCartney's cycle of songs about her but "Hello, Goodbye" might be an exception. By this point, Macca was the only unmarried Beatle and its likely he was beginning to tire of singlehood. Asher was as committed to her career choices as his nibs was and so domesticity was never going to be easy. Not unlike "I'm Looking Through You" and "You Won't See Me", there's a sense that McCartney is unable to communicate, that she is simply there to shoot down every one of his ideas.

That said, Macca could just as easily have been describing his loggerheads with longtime songwriting partner and close friend John Lennon. Only a few months' earlier, the "cute one" had been recording a song with the line "it's getting better all the time" while the so-called "smart one" (more like 'smart-ass one', am I right?) would come in with the rejoinder of "it couldn't get much worse". "Getting Better" comes from the Pepper sessions when things were rosy between the two but by the end of the year some troubles had begun to set in. Chiefly, the death of manager Brian Epstein at the end of that August left The Beatles with a hole that they'd never be able to fill. (For a group with a seemingly unlimited supply of 'fifth Beatles', it's rather fitting that so many within their camp were irreplaceable) Lennon would later complain bitterly about McCartney trying to take over the group but who else was going to do it at the time? With all this in mind, it's not inconceivable that John would have provided a stinging opposition to just about anything Paul suggested, even if just for the sake of it.

The three weeks at the top enjoyed by The Beatles with "Hello, Goodbye" proved to be their longest stay at number one in Canada since all the way back in the early part of 1964 when Beatlemania reigned supreme and when the CHUM chart allowed for lengthier stays at the summit. Similarly, the single spent no less than seven weeks atop the UK singles chart, which is tied for their longest spell at number one with 1963's "From Me to You". And, yet, it's the first Fab Four single that isn't all that great. This won't even be the last time that a light but inconsequential McCartney number would charm the pants off enough people to give it an extended stay on top — as a matter of fact, it would happen on a regular basis during his up-and down solo career. Fortunately, we'll be able to appreciate the full genius of Paul McCartney before he starts getting on our nerves again.

Score: 5

The Monkees: "Daydream Believer"

December 16, 1967 (1 week)

In preparing this review, I became aware that "Daydream Believer" had been altered and had become a compromised facsimile of what its songwriter, John Stewart, had intended. Mind you, only one word had been changed but it meant enough that Stewart was unhappy, arguing that the line it had been used in no longer made any sense. But then, as Tom Breihan has pointed out, he ceased complaining when the royalty cheques started coming in. (It's safe to say he's made a good living from just this one hit)

The line had originally been "you once thought of me as a white knight on a steed, now you know how funky I could be" but then it was changed to "...now you know how happy I could be". In a song supposedly about a young man coming to terms with the end of a relationship, I can understand why Stewart wasn't terribly thrilled. Still, funky? A song that with a serious groove or something that smells bad? I guess it was meant to be the latter: he was once a perfect boyfriend and now all his flaws have been exposed, presumably including farting in bed, toxic morning breath, B.O., poor hygiene and/or smelly feet (but not limited to them).

I must say, I never noticed the fact that the line doesn't make sense. I don't know about you but I don't look to The Monkees for lyrical thoughtfulness. "Daydream Believer" has enough going for it that the word salad lyrics never harmed it — that is until now. Having been exposed to the words having been changed has opened up a (stinky) can of worms. 

The narrative goes as follows: guy reluctantly gets up one morning and groggily gets himself ready for a day he doesn't want to face. The chorus comes in which establishes that there's some serious depression. Then, there's the bit about him letting her down because of his heretofore unforeseen stank which leads him to reflect about some shit that I don't care about. The chorus returns and then comes back following an instrumental break and that's about it. Oh, what can it mean...indeed.

As I say though, "Daydream Believer" is saved by just about anything other than the clumsy words and very incomplete story. The tune is very nice, all chilled out horns and Bachrach-esque melody. Peter Tork's childlike piano part makes for a sweet opener and pairs well with the boyish vocals of the boyish Davy Jones. The British transplant hadn't done much to aid the awful "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You" but his heartfelt delivery here manages to just about overcome the faulty lyrics.

The Monkees were in charge of their musical destiny but their continued reliance on outside songwriters to keep the hits coming held them back and may have even played a part in their inevitable decline. While it must have seemed at the time like they were never going to go away, it turns out they were just about done. They just had one more RPM chart topper to left in them.

Score: 6

Spanky and Our Gang: "Lazy Day"

December 9, 1967 (1 week)

Extolling the virtues of sloth is something very few in pop are able to accurately convey. John Lennon did it very well in many of his songs both with The Beatles and in his solo career. Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch had a couple of moments as well. Otherwise, the vast majority manage to miss the point. Take Otis Redding's excellent "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay": it's about a moment of respite that the singer clearly relished but that's all there is to it. It's great that pop stars are able to have fleeting moments to themselves but that sort of tells you all you need to know about the state of their lives: if they knew anything about being a good-for-nothing layabout then they never would have made it in the first place.

This is the first of many knocks to level against Spanky and Our Gang's "Lazy Day". Like Redding's "Dock of the Bay", it is about a one off bit of fun in the midst of a bunch of ageing folk music veterans hard at the task of finally making it. I may not like them but I'll respect the facct that they worked diligently at their craft and were entitled to a break along the way. It may be cliche-ridden and painfully cheesy but if that's how they enjoyed spending their rare bits of free time then who am I to begrudge them anything? Except that they don't know a thing about true blue laziness.

So, The Cowsills managed to make sunshine pop work but what about their competitors? As with most genres, the results are a mixed bag: The Seekers' "Georgy Girl" is excellent but The 5th Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" is lousy. What's strange about this, though, is that there seems to be a fine line between the two, with very little by way of all right or indifferent sunshine pop records to choose from.

Before I get to why I don't like "Lazy Day", I'd like to discuss how old the members of Spanky and Our Gang were which is a bit of a red flag. Guitarist and backing singer Nigel Pickering — who somehow wasn't British in spite of his name — is the one who really shifted the median here: he was thirty-eight years old in 1967. (Fun fact: he was a few months older than two of my grandparents; I admit this is only a fun fact if you happen to be a member of my family and mostly only on my mum's side at that) The rest of the band's original lineup was in their twenties but they still weren't exactly spring chickens in the world of pop music. At an average age of twenty-eight, they were older than your typical group.

But why is this a red flag? Well, first there's the name. Spanky and Our Gang? How were they not a quintet of twelve-year-olds who look like they'd been dragged in off the street? Couldn't this bunch of struggling folk musicians have thought of something better — or, failing that, just a mundane 'The Spanky McFarlane 5' or 'Spanky's Hoedown Minstrels'? I know that this was '67 when rock groups were taking on ever more eccentric names, many of which harked back to travelling medicine shows and the like from the days of yore but a tip of the hat to The Little Rascals doesn't go back nearly far enough.

More significantly, their advanced years do not do "Lazy Day" any favours. All this cumulative life experience and all these geezers have to offer is "blue skies, sunshine..." and all that crap? Granted, they didn't write it but that only brings up another issue: they weren't good enough to write this shit? All they could do was perform it as earnestly as possible which only makes the trite lyrics even that much more difficult to swallow.

I could go on but I'm a really lazy bastard and I want to wrap this sucker up. Let's just finish by trying to work out why it is that some sunshine pop songs work well while others suck something awful. "Georgy Girl" is addictive and you'd struggle to find a song that is as charming. "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" presents an almost "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "Penny Lane" type dream presented by a clean-cut family act. By contrast, "Up, Up and Away" wills the listener into an escape but offers them nothing to imagine or dream of along the way. "Lazy Day", which admittedly is a slightly better song, has some images but doesn't tell us anything about how we got there. The first two have relatable scenarios; the other two just expect you to go along with them. I, for one, am not interested. Plus, I'm too damn lazy anyway. 

Score: 3

Bobby Vinton: "Please Love Me Forever"

December 2, 1967 (1 week)

I recently watched a YouTube video titled "50s Stars Who Tried to Adapt to the Psychedelic 60s". Clocking in at just under twenty-five minutes, it is seemingly a comprehensive overview of those poor souls who had been on top a decade earlier only to see their fortunes go down the drain with the rise of Beatlemania. Most of the individuals involved — Del Shannon, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vee — were met with critical acclaim with their varied takes on acid rock  and/or baroque pop but sales tended to be disappointing. The bulk of them ended up fading away still further into the cabaret circuit and/or further obscurity.

Respect to Bobby Vinton, then, for not changing one iota over the years. His drippy balladeering had provided him with untold wealth and fame and he wasn't about to give it all up by dawning a flowery shirt, growing out his hair and flashing a peach sign. You don't become the Polish Prince by pretending to court the Woodstock generation.

Respect? Sure. Lots of it in fact. But does it save "Please Love Me Forever" any? No, not at all. At best, it's possible that since the gap between his stream of number ones had begun to widen, that it was becoming more difficult to get sick of him but, again, this doesn't say anything either way about this particular single. As befitting a guy who refused to change with the times, it's just more of the same.

More of the same like "Blue Velvet" perhaps? No, I'm afraid not. While an improvement on the nadir of "L-O-N-E-L-Y", it is more in the mid-range of not quite insufferable but still fairly shit Vinton numbers like "Roses Are Red (My Love)" and "Mr. Lonely". Graded on a curve, it would do fairly respectably but held up against sixties' pop it does significantly less well. While as trite as ever, it is saved (a bit) by a stronger than normal vocal performance. Vinton could sometimes sound timid, as though his vulnerabilities might pull at the heartstrings of the fair sex, but here he has a more confident delivery. Less of a sickening plea and more a plea with a veiled threat ("If I should die before I wake / I'll come back for you / That's no mistake...").

"Please Love Me Forever" was Vinton's fifth Canadian number one, no mean feat considering some of the heavyweights (The Everly Brothers, The Rolling Stones) who had yet to notch a similar total. Will he be back for a sixth or even a seventh RPM chart topper? I have no idea and, frankly, I'd rather not know. Surprise me. But I do have one request: if you must keep 'em coming, Bobby, then just keep sticking to what you know. No one wants you going acid rock or country rock or (shudder) disco.

Score: 4

The Cowsills: "The Rain, the Park and Other Things"

November 18, 1967 (2 weeks)

Broke, miserable and with nothing else on the horizon, I returned to work for a spell at a cafe located inside the Calgary hospital in which I was born twenty-six years earlier. I wasn't going to be there for long as I had been determined to return to Asia early in the New Year. It was the same job I'd had a couple years' earlier but I wasn't the same. I resented having to be there and I no doubt did a terrible job of hiding it. I deserved better.

One afternoon near the end of my shift, I saw an older gentleman in a wheelchair trying to get our attention. Customers had to ascend a small set of stairs in order to enter the cafe properly so there were often less mobile individuals we had to serve specially. I gestured to him and informed my co-workers that I'd handle it. I went down the steps and approached him.

"Hi, Mr. Cowsill, what can I get you?"

I daresay interacting with Billy Cowsill in Calgary, Alberta in the early 2000s wasn't an uncommon occurrence. I had in fact spoken to him a few months' earlier at a different cafe after he overheard me talking about my then favourite Beatles' song. (He admitted he'd never heard of anyone who thought the Fab Four never topped George Harrison's "Long, Long, Long") I had also seen him at the Calgary Folk Club with his band The Co-Dependents. Billy always seemed to be around. Even still, an encounter with a pop legend was one that I was not going to take for granted. I got him a coffee and muffin (on the house though I sure as hell didn't pay for it!) and went back behind the counter.

"That guy was once on The Ed Sullivan Show," I said to a co-worker who (bless her) tried to make it look like she cared.

~~~~~

Though Bill and Bob were already capable, it was decided that in order for The Cowsills to have a hit, they would have to rely on outside songwriters. Still, the duo of Artie Kornfeld and Steve Duboff could compose to order. Thus, "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" was written with the family group in mind. One might have expected little more than candy floss pop — and it sure sounds like it at first — but there is something subversive to their breakthrough smash.

Being marketed as a family group and now with their mother Barbara a full fledged member to join Bill, Bob, Barry and John (and with a rather controlling father Bud in a management role), clashed with the musical ambitions of the older boys. Then, younger siblings Paul and Susan began to be added to the lineup as well. With everyone in the group sharing the same surname, it was probably natural that they would have had a clean cut image. Yet, to have a single all about falling for a 'flower girl' was a statement, even if rather subtle one.

This flower girl in "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" represents an independence that The Cowsills wouldn't fully enjoy during their period as a chart act. Yet in spite of family pressures and an embarrassing advertising campaign for the milk industry, it was the countercultural elements that gave them their biggest hits. On the other hand, it was the contradiction of being into psychedelic rock while carrying around the image of a milquetoast all-American family that made them interesting. They would've been boring and predictable as a straightforward pop group and utterly unconvincing had they attempted to look like hippies — even if this wouldn't stop them from trying — so the end result was probably the closest thing to happy medium that we would get.

It's light but "The Rain, the Park..." makes for a highly enjoyable three minutes of listening. It is one of the finest examples of baroque pop from the era and a significant step up from many of the American bubblegum groups that had emerged during the course of 1967 (a scene which many would be forgiven for assuming The Cowsills to have been a part). Their augmented lineup of Mother Cowsill and a pair of little Cowsills ought to have detracted from the summer of love spirit so prized by Billy and Bob but they provide a fuller sound and maybe even a sprinkle of childlike wonder. In any case, has sunshine pop ever been so sunny?

~~~~~

The time I served an ailing Billy Cowsill at the Foothills Hospital has stayed with me, especially after his death just three years' later. I had been feeling entitled to the life that had been denied me up that point. I was lazy, didn't chase after what I wanted and squandered opportunities. But to look at this one-time rock star who had been through an awful lot since the spotlight had been turned off, I could see that very few of us get that life we think we are owed. He'd had a rough go of it with his controlling father, drug addiction and even a spell of homelessness and now he was broken down by life while still only in his mid-fifties.

But the young man who sang lead vocals on "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" was still there. Still rather gangly (when he wasn't either hunched over or in a wheelchair) and with that slightly crooked smile, he looked faintly like The Band's Robbie Robertson. His impeccable manners were present and correct (when my mother met him, he introduced himself as "Bill Cowsill, ma'am", even though he was about three years her senior). Similarly, his devotion to music had never gone astray. One's life might have fairytale moments but that doesn't necessarily mean there will be a fairytale ending. Nevertheless, Billy Cowsill kept going right on to the bitter end.

Score: 7

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell: "Your Precious Love"

November 11, 1967 (1 week)

She was only getting started and yet it was already the beginning of the end. The photogenic Tammi Terrell was just twenty-two years old and had only just begun recording with Marvin Gaye. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" gave them their first hit together. But then on the night of October 14, 1967, she collapsed into the arms of her partner while they were on stage in while performing a concert at a university in rural Virginia. The song they were in the midst of dueting on was "Your Precious Love".

I had long known about Terrell's tragically brief life and recording career but I always assumed that the night she passed out as a result of a brain tumor was only just before her untimely death. In fact, she endured an extended period of treatment, worsening health and sporadic recording sessions for close to three years before she met her end. She carried on as best as she could with the not yet volatile Gaye being her anchor. The pair even recorded "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing" the following year, giving them a third classic duet on the bounce.

The 'Ain'ts' ("...No Mountain High Enough" and "...Nothin' Like the Real Thing" respectively) have remained fixtures of the Motown sound ever since the sixties but the hit they bookend isn't as well remembered. "Your Precious Love" failed to make it on to the utterly brilliant Hitsville U.S.A. Motown box set back in 1992 even though compilers felt the need to make room for the nondescript Syreeta Wright number "I Can't Give Back the Love I Feel for You" instead. As a Canadian, I'm happy they included Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers' "Does Your Mama Know About Me" but it too is not in the same league as Gaye and Terrell at their very best. (Still, at least "Does Your Mama Know..." was a hit which is more than can be said for Wright's contribution)

Not as immediate as either of the 'Ain'ts', the charms of "Your Precious Love" do not fully reveal themselves until it's been heard three or four times. Motown founder Berry Gordy had pushed for Gaye to become the label's male sex symbol but, as Ian MacDonald points out in his mostly harsh essay on the singer, he only really fitted into this role in a pairing. Even then, it's the jauntier singles - along with the 'Ain'ts', his memorable duet with Kim Weston "It Takes Two", also included on Hitsville U.S.A. - do not do this position justice. It is only beginning with "Your Precious Love" that Marvin Gay the Ladies Man arrives. As MacDonald argues, much of what Gaye recorded in the seventies was under the influence of cocaine which reduces love to lust; as such, his work with Terrell is a rare case of Marvelous Marvin in romance mode. (A very different side of his feelings did end up on the extraordinary but notorious divorce album Here, My Dear which, sadly though unsurprisingly, came from a time of unaccustomed unpopularity)

With many of her colleagues bellowing out in full gospel mode around this time — including Gladys Knight with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", a future solo hit for Marvin Gaye — Terrell is closer to Diana Ross' brand of  delicate vocals, though not quite as fragile sounding. With her precarious health, her delivery becomes rather poignant, as if she wasn't physically capable of utilizing a much fuller range. Rather than the two them trading lines, he takes first verse, the two of them take the chorus together and she solos just after that. It's almost as if they spliced their parts together from separate sessions. Yet, it sounds far less contrived than your typical back-and-forth duet. With all due respect to former partners Weston and Mary Wells, Gaye never sounded so fluid than when he was paired with Terrell.

Not surprisingly, this review is a a one and done for Tammi Terrell. Rather more unexpectedly, Marvin Gaye won't be coming along again in this blog for quite some time. Such apparently sure fire number ones as "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", "What's Going On", "Mercy, Mercy Me", "Let's Get It On", "I Want You", and "Got to Give It Up" all came up short. (While the rest all ended up becoming sizable hits in Canada, it is a travesty that "What's Going On" and "I Want You" only peaked at numbers seventy-six and forty-five respectively) In bypassing his peak, my reviews will only cover his early period in which he specialized in duets and his brief early eighties' commercial renaissance. Where once he had been a reliable partner for the ailing Terrell, he lacked similar stability in during his mental decline. He may have professed the benefits of Sexual Healing but what he really needed was some of that Precious Love they once sang of so beautifully.

Score: 9

The Doors: "People Are Strange"

November 4, 1967 (1 week)

As a young music obsessive, I was aware that many people once revered Jim Morrison. I didn't myself but I could certainly see why many remained interested in him twenty years after his death. The guy had incredible charisma (though it certainly helped that his bandmates had none whatsoever), the sort of person you couldn't look away from even if you wanted to do nothing more. He also embodied the romance of the doomed rock star: he lived the lifestyle to its fullest and then paid the ultimate price for it. He had lots of hits, lots of sex and took boatloads of drugs yet still remained this deeply profound poet and visionary: who wouldn't have wanted to be Jim fucking Morrison?

All this was confirmed in Oliver Stone's 1991 biopic The Doors and, yet, this motion picture provided the seeds for the coming backlash. Wait, he was a disgusting pervert? He treated virtually everyone around him like shit? He wasn't much of a poet and visionary and was by and large an intellectual fraud? He threw his life away? Apparently, there were all these secrets about the so-called Lizard King (oh yeah, I just thought of another one: He gave himself a really pathetic nickname?) that had been hiding in plain sight all along.

As a result, there probably isn't a more divisive group in the annals of rock. (Even the likes of Led Zeppelin and U2 can't compare) The bulk of the fallout though seems to come down to the public being turned off by what a grotesque pig Morrison had always been rather than the quality of their work. Where once there had been somewhat exaggerated claims that their entire discography went from strength to strength, now there are those who are convinced that there's next to nothing of value in their surprisingly hefty back catalog. (Six albums in just over four years is a solid work rate for any band, let alone one led by a shamanist seeker dirtbag)

The big problem I have (particularly for this blog) is that The Doors were always an albums act. I'm quite fond of their self-titled debut as well as their grubby masterpiece Morrison Hotel and Morrison's posthumous swan song LA Woman. The others have never done much for me but fans seem to be split pretty evenly among all of them. The singles, however, seldom paint much of a picture of the group at their very best or even at their most relevant. Near-miss number one "Light My Fire" is the one real exception to this rule but, otherwise, their 45s are either remarkably slight or aren't catchy enough to be single material.

"People Are Strange" is more of the latter than the former. The melody and refrain are memorable enough but it's rather weird that it just cranks from verse to chorus and back again with nothing else to pad it out, not even a much needed bridge. I suppose once you've elaborated on people being strange there's not much more to be said on the matter. And I suspect that Morrison and his cohorts knew there wasn't much to it as they wisely kept it down to an economical two minutes and fifteen seconds. While Echo and the Bunnymen's version from the soundtrack to eighties cult classic The Lost Boys has its merits — mostly due to singer Ian McCulloch sounding far more vampiric than Morrison ever could — their decision to tack on an extra ninety seconds of superfluousness doesn't do their recording any favours.

Needless to say, Jim Morrison was a deeply strange individual so his perspective ought to have been ideal for such a song. Rather than tackling it head on though, a much better understanding of his peculiarities can be found in his work as a whole and the messed up life he led. He didn't need to tell us about how strange he was since everyone had already guessed.

Score: 5

~~~~~

Can Con

Over on the CHUM chart, there have been a handful of unique number one hits with Canadian acts Lords of London (who I really ought to have covered in this space but for my neglectful ways) and The Ugly Ducklings. It seems homegrown acts stood a better chance on the hit parade in the Metro Toronto region rather than Canada as a whole. The Ducklings have already been reviewed by me but "Gaslight" proved to be by far their biggest national hit — and it's a step up from previous entry "Nothin'". I was immediately struck by some proto-metal chords at the beginning which led me to wonder if they were the missing link between garage rock and the heavier stuff that really began to take off in the early seventies. Strange that more of the garage rockers never went in the direction of metal - either that or maybe that's exactly what many of them did only we choose not to examine them as such. Power is a good word to describe "Gaslight" and I can certainly imagine young men who'd later from Trooper, Helix and Platinum Blondes hearing this and getting some ideas in their heads. Influential or not, "Gaslight" is a worthy Top 20 hit. It's just a pity they won't be coming up again.

The Young Rascals: "How Can I Be Sure"

October 28, 1967 (1 week)

I haven't been mentioning many of the near number ones of late but there was one I was going to write about just the other day until I decided to save it for this review. Coming in just behind Paul Revere and the Raiders' ghastly "I Had a Dream" is a version of "Groovin'", a laid back chart topper from only four months' earlier. If anything, this recording by Booker T. and the MG's is even happier to kick back and relax. The famed house band for Memphis label Stax were the third finest quartet in the business (the two groups ahead of them, of course, were (in order) the Modern Jazz Quartet and The Beatles) and they were now entering a period in which they proved to be up for any standard they got their hands on. They already had a stellar Christmas album to their credit — the highlight being "Jingle Bells", which they might as well have called "You Can't Hurry Christmas" — as well as an astonishing "Summertime", perhaps the second best version of the Gershwin classic (George Shearing's is best). Coming up, they had Simon and Garfunkel and even a full album of Beatles' covers. The foursome wrote some fabulous instrumentals but they did just as well with cover versions.

I say all this not just so I can heap all sorts of praise upon Booker T. and the MG's (a group who won't be appearing in this space) but also so I can point out just how crazy Canadians were for anything connected to The Young Rascals. "How Can I Be Sure" was their third straight RPM number one and the fourth of eleven consecutive Top 10 hits. "Good Lovin'" and "Groovin'" had been such huge hits for the Rascals in many countries but they mostly struggled to recapture that level of success — the British had basically had their fill of them as soon as the latter had fallen out of the UK chart — but Canada bucked that trend.

I had been starting to agree with the folk in other territories especially after "A Girl Like You" proved so mind-numbingly boring. "It's this fence-sitting ordinariness that irks me," was how I finished off that particular review. How nice of them, then, to have been listening to this sad old blogger who happens to be writing nearly sixty years in the future! "How Can I Be Sure" doesn't completely work but at least they were attempting something new and even had a tune I could just about remember.

It's high time I gave some credit to the Rascal songwriting team of Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati. I respect anyone who takes the example of The Beatles and actually tries out some creativity of their own. (Yeah, take that boring old power pop bands!) I mean, that's the whole point for god's sake! Cavaliere even admitted that "How Can I Be Sure" owed a lot to Paul McCartney's softer Fab Four hits like "Yesterday" and "Michelle". He needn't sell himself and Brigati short though: even if the end result is a little messy, there's plenty of sonic experimentation that surpasses those all-too-familiar hits. Sure, I'd still rather listen to "Michelle" but "How Can I Be Sure" isn't simply a product of The Beatles; rather, it's the result of taking proper inspiration from them.

The composition is rather good but it's debatable if The Young Rascals' original is even the best one out there. A suitably dramatic and sultry reading by Dusty Springfield was only a minor hit in the UK in 1970 but her vocal leaves Cavaliere's in the, well, dust. David Cassidy had considerably more success with it a couple years' later. His version is a little too melodramatic but it's hard to argue with the grandeur of the arrangement. (Notably, all three "major" renditions of "How Can I Be Sure" retain the distinctive concertina even if there's less of an overall Continental feel to the Dusty/Cassidy remakes) Indeed, it could be the limitations of being a pop quartet that holds it back from what its true potential.

All that said, I can't bring myself to score it beyond the 'slightly above average' range. For all its strengths, it's still rather unmoving. I admire the craft but fail to be that drawn to the end result. Good not great, as befits even the best Young Rascals hits that aren't the two everyone knows. That said, maybe my perception has been altered by the discovery that its inspiration was the result of Cavaliere dating a high school student when he was in his mid-twenties. How Can You Be Sure? Maybe it was her social studies homework that should've given you the answer.

Score: 6

The Association: "Never My Love"

October 21, 1967 (1 week)

A peculiar thing has been happening over the past few days in the lead up to writing this review: I keep getting the words wrong. Correction: I keep getting the title wrong. "Never My Love" just doesn't quite hit right and I find myself resorting to "Forever My Love" instead. An easy mistake to make.

So apparently "Forever Never My Love"  was the second most played song on American radio and TV in the United States over the entire twentieth century. The people at Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI) must have some idea what they're doing but I can't help myself: I call bullshit. I realize it has been covered a lot (it was also Top 10 hit on Canada's RPM hit parade for both The 5th Dimension and Blue Swede) and you can always count on the masses to fall for the slushiest of ballads but it seems too hard to believe that every song but The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" registered fewer plays over the radio (and TV). The Beatles' "Yesterday" came in third in this 1999 survey. What about The Stones' "Satisfaction"? Elton John's "Your Song"? Carole King's "It's Too Late"? What about hits by Elvis, the Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross? Or Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby, who both had the advantage of coming along during the thirties and forties? They — and, indeed, many, many other hits of note — couldn't match this???

That's not to say I hate it. If anything though, my indifference towards it only makes me even more baffled as to how it managed to get played so often. Granted, radio has been there to provide people with music to tune out just as much they might tune in. I've been to the dentist several times in my life so of course there's a place for "Forev...Never My Love" to be piped in. I just never thought it would have been such a staple of youngsters waiting with marshmallow-flavoured floride in their mouthpieces.

While "Windy" had been a pleasant surprise, "Forever My Love" (I'm just going to go with it at this point) is a return to the schlock of "Cherish". Not exactly dreadful but not something to seek out either. The sort of thing that DJs from all over North America could play at an apparently alarming rate but which was scarcely noticed by listeners. (Perhaps it being the second most played song of the last century isn't as crazy as it seems, it's just that hardly anyone was paying attention to it). Not me though: I've had its melody stuck in my head over the past three days even as I still can't get the title right.

Score: 4

Paul Revere and the Raiders: "I Had a Dream"

October 14, 1967 (1 week)

The rise of The Monkees ushered in a healthy period for American pop. (I was going to say 'golden age' but let's not go nuts; 'silver age' and 'bronze age' were also considered but I'm not sure even they apply) Most — though not quite all — of the dregs of the British Invasion had been weeded out which left the door wide open for bright but disposable US pop to flourish. Bubblegum has a lot to answer for but at least it was enjoyable. Most of it at any rate.

It had been nearly a year-and-a-half since Paul Revere and the Raiders last hit number one on the RPM chart. A long time in the music biz. They predated The Monkees and it's likely they would've had plenty of success with or without the Prefab Four. It's even quite possible that the conditions that led to the Raiders finally becoming a going concern also worked in the favour of Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith and Tork. Yet, one group seemed to be making creative progress while the other could only fail upwards.

That's not to say that Revere and his cohorts weren't trying to keep up, only that in attempting to do so they come out of it sounding like they had less of an idea what they were doing. "I Had a Dream" has some good ideas. The influence of The Byrds was as present as it had been on "Kicks" but they seemed to be trying to follow the jingle-jangle band as they headed towards their fruitful period of mixing raga rock, psychedelia, space rock and country on seminal albums Younger Than Yesterday and The Notorious Byrd Brothers. While I might admire the effort, I can't appreciate the results. Paul Revere and the Raiders were simply out of their depth.

"I Had a Dream" has the elements to work but the song itself is dismal — or, at best, not worthy of all the adornments. A simple folk-rock arrangement or perhaps something with a soul or Motown feel would have been good enough. But their ambitions got the better of them and the result is a mess, a giant production with far too much activity. With more restraint, the horns might have sounded nice rather than being lost in the mix; similarly, the swirling organ — which was already becoming a period piece by '67 — barely registers. (Amazingly, they had been working with studio musicians which makes it even more of a wonder that this single is such a shambles) The Raiders themselves sound like they're straining with their vocals as well.

Paul Revere and the Raiders will not be featured again in this space but other American acts from this healthy period of American pop will be along shortly. Let's see if they were able to stay in their wheelhouse or would they too get lured in by the siren song of misplaced ambition.

Score: 2

Lulu: "The Boat That I Row"

October 7, 1967 (1 week)

I first heard the name 'Lulu' back in 1987 when she turned up as the replacement for Julie Walters in the now mostly forgotten Adrian Mole TV series. Based on the classic teen diaries by the titular Mole — who was very much the Ignatius J. Reilly of comedic British lit and, thus, a hero to me as an angsty youth — the show was faithful to the Sue Townsend novels, even if it never seemed quite right that more than a year's worth of journal entries ended up condensed to just six episodes. Walters played irresponsible matriarch Pauline Mole in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole series with Lulu in the role for follow-up The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

I probably wouldn't have noticed had it not been for my mum pointing it out. Yet looking back now, she wasn't as well suited as Walters. Her predecessor was seemingly born to play mothers (good or bad) while Lulu couldn't really be anything other than Lulu. It was the part she was born to play and one that has seen her through a long and varied career. But she is a peculiar type of celebrity. As a singer she didn't exactly rack up the mega-hits (she is probably still best known in the UK for her version of "Shout!" which only managed to make it to number seven) while her modest filmography is filled with little-remembered cinematic efforts (there was a To Sir with Love II?) Her real home was in British variety TV which means she was famous for being famous, albeit not to a fatuous extent. As Tom Ewing observes in his review of her one British number one hit — in which she guested alongside Take That, the nation's biggest group of the time — "I only had a fuzzy grasp on why Lulu was famous and I doubt I was along in this". No, Tom, you were not.

Lulu's signature hit in the United States was "To Sir with Love", the theme song from the 1967 film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier. Though not a hit in her native Britain — it was in fact a mostly ignored B side to her Top 20 hit "Let's Pretend" — it was a sensation across the Atlantic, reaching the number one spot on the Hot 100 on October 21, 1967. Its flip side was previous UK hit "The Boat That I Row". For whatever reason, the two sides were reversed in Canada which nevertheless gave the Scot a chart topper on RPM fortnight prior to her breakthrough on the Hot 100.

I must say, this is a cracking single. "To Sir with Love" has always been a good song (kudos to everyone involved for avoiding sappiness) and its companion might even be a bit stronger. While Neil Diamond had recently done no creative favours to The Monkees, this composition for Lulu is spot on and sounds like it must have been written with her in mind. It may sound that way but his nibs had already had a bash at recording it himself a year earlier for his album Just for You. (Incidentally, it is a remarkable LP with just about every song a hit for someone. In addition to "The Boat That I Row", it also includes "I'm a Believer" and "Red Red Wine" which means he placed three Canadian number ones on the same thirty minute record. "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" stands out as that rarest of things at the time, a Neil Diamond-penned single that was a hit for Neil Diamond of all people)

Diamond's version is far too serious for me to give a shit. Lulu has fun with it which is exactly what this statement of stubborn individuality needs. "Solitary Man", yet another well-known track off of Just for You, works as an earnest plea because of the rugged determination in the lyrics whereas "The Boat That I Row" is rather more flippant, an anthem for that free spirit who just goes about life the way they please and is immune to the critiques of others. A man like Diamond might be tempted to make it into a po-faced statement of intent but a good-natured young woman like Lulu transformed it into a song of liberation.

In addition, "The Boat That I Row" might as well be a theme song for Lulu's lengthy career in showbusiness. Her decades of shifting around from pop to the stage to film to TV variety and back again has been done on her terms. Others may have sung, acted or hosted more effortlessly than she did but no one performed the task of all around entertainer quite like Lulu.

Score: 8

The Box Tops: "The Letter"

September 30, 1967 (1 week)

As a music nerd I've long been aware of the name Alex Chilton. He is adored by music critics, grumpy guys who work in record stores and members of bands that I think are okay. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Still, you can probably detect that I'm not a huge fan, which I'm not. I'm not much of a music critic, I've never worked in a record store (though I've tried, believe you me; I'm certainly grumpy enough to be qualified) and I haven't been in a band since I was in junior high school — and, to be sure, we weren't even close to being "okay". But there's more to it than that. Mainly, I've never been that crazy about power pop so why would I be into the band that practically defined it?

The band I'm talking about is Big Star, Chilton's Memphis-based project that followed the dissolution of The Box Tops, his much more successful outfit from his teen years. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say his much better outfit. For while I'm sure garage bands the world over may learn a great deal from listening to albums like #1 Record and Radio CIty, far greater actual listening pleasure comes from a dozen-or-so first rate Box Top singles. And kudos to Chilton, who sings like a demon and was a steady rhythm guitarist — the only trouble was, he didn't write many of their great songs.

"The Letter" was the group's first and biggest hit and it is the one they are remembered for but it isn't quite their best. Not cursed with the power pop straight jacket that would stick to Big Star, they actually improved during their three years as a going concern, their background in Memphis soul blending perfectly with their debt to The Beatles. Still, their debut single is remarkably mature. The sixteen year old Chilton with his gravelly voice of a seventy-two year old helps the song's urgency.

A common complaint I've been noticing on YouTube is that it's too short. Certainly at just a minute and fifty-four seconds it is brief, especially during the late sixties when tracks going past the three minute mark was no longer an exception. More problematic, however, is that it doesn't have much substance within that swift running time. A verse, another verse, chorus, then they're repeated. If anything, the insubstantial writing on the part of Wayne Carson Thompson makes it guilty of going on a bit too long. No doubt it ought to be another sixty seconds longer but only if there was more for them to work with. Luckily, The Box Tops give such a fine performance that it almost doesn't matter. Almost.

(A big point in its favour is that "The Letter" is a clear influence on the typically outstanding "From a Whisper to a Scream" from Elvis Costello and the Attractions' album Trust. I'm kind of surprised I never noticed this before but, then again, it doesn't seem to have been remarked upon by anyone else either. I guess it wasn't just bloody Big Star who influenced everyone, huh?)

Alex Chilton would never hit this level of pop success again. As I mentioned above, The Box Tops released better material than this but their popularity waned enough that they would only have two more Top 10 entries on the RPM hit parade. From there, he would have critical acclaim to look forward to but sales never materialized. (Big Star seem to be one of those bands who are always being praised but still remain "underrated" in the eyes of their fans; I've never been able to square this one) Bad luck and a lack of record label support are frequently blamed but it couldn't have helped that he never wrote anything close to as catchy and engaging as "The Letter" or all those other Box Top numbers that I, for one, would much sooner be coming back to. The critics, record store clerks and so-so bands are welcome to the rest of Chilton's material.

Score: 7

Eric Burdon and the Animals: "San Franciscan Nights"

September 23, 1967 (1 week)

Sing with your eyes closed if you must but know that it doesn't make what you're doing any more profound or soulful.

The above is something I've been meaning to post on social media recently but I have so far resisted due to fear of backlash or, worse, of it being completely ignored — and also because my oldest and closest friend is a committed eyes closed performer. He knows how I feel about it but I don't think he needs reminding - even if by reading this review that's exactly what will happen.

It would be tempting to say that it wasn't always this way. I was once convinced that singing with eyelids firmly shut was a novelty in pop. Bernard Sumner from New Order and Canadian national treasure Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip seemed to be the only people who did it back in the early nineties. Because they were the only people I noticed doing so, I allowed them to get away with it. Then, everyone started doing it. In fact, as long as there have been stage-frightened singers, there have been those who won't open their damn eyes while singing.

It isn't done simply as a matter of avoiding crowds, however; it is also, as my un-posted Thread suggests, a way to add gravitas, particularly when there isn't much there to begin with. Eric Burdon had the good fortune to come up during the initial burst of the British Invasion but he lacked the looks and stage presence of contemporaries John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. He didn't have the look nor the personality of an entertainer. What he did have was a sick bluesy baritone. The combination of that gravelly voice and while keeping his eyes closed ensured that everyone knew that he meant it.

Being earnest in pop isn't my favourite quality but I will acknowledge that there is a place for it. As I previously blogged, the reason The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" is so effective is because of what it does to impressionable young musicians. Forget 'Dublin Soul', this is the real music of commitment. Burdon lays it out on the line and puts everything he has into it. You've got to give that much to stand any chance of making it.

But this isn't "House of the Rising Sun" we're dealing with. No, "San Franciscan Nights" is an entirely different beast. Still, I don't doubt Burdon's sincerity. He has always struck me as one of those English rock stars who loves America while wishing to have as little to do with his homeland as possible — and fair enough. Celebrating the US is one of the most quintessentially British things imaginable (along with, of course, expressing nothing but contempt for the US; I can't think of any offhand but no doubt there are a handful who have done both).

Opening as if he'd missed his calling as a carnival barker, we're treated to a rare example of Burdon's sense of humour in song as he shills for the city as place that Europeans should "save up all your bread" in order to pay it a visit. Wait, is Burdon joking? It's impossible to tell with him but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that for once he wasn't always such a deeply serious old downer. Sadly, it doesn't last once the song gets going. While there is an attempt at capturing the spirit of '67 with some wistful music and Burdon's flowery lyrics, it is nonetheless unconvincing. Eric Burdon was a blues singer from the north of England: the chap who sang "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" didn't need to tell us all about where he ended up.

Unsurprisingly, the idealism of "San Franciscan Nights" clashed with reality. George Harrison, his then-wife Patti and their entourage visited the Bay Area only a month or so earlier. Expecting to find enlightened people meditating and painting pictures, he was aghast to discover that the famed Haight-Ashbury region had become a ghetto full of stoned losers and homeless drifters. In retrospect, Burdon should have scrapped the paean to the centre of flower power and instead gone for a far gloomier take on hippie free love and dope and fuckin' in the streets in a kind of sequel to "House of the Rising Sun". Impressionable youths descend upon the city from all over only to wind up penniless and with crippling drug addictions. Those who did not end up as casualties of LSD are instead the target of cult shysters and dangerous madmen. If nothing else, it would've suited Burdon's overly-serious nature; hell, he could've even sung it with his eyes closed for all I care.

Score: 3