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

Bobbie Gentry: "Ode to Billy Joe"

September 16, 1967 (1 week)

A while back I blogged about Bobby Freeman's rather nice if somewhat underwhelming version of "Do You Want to Dance". Though successful at the time, this original would eventually become overshadowed by the fuller and more upbeat recording by The Beach Boys which opened their seminal 1965 album Today!. I used that review mainly as a excuse to dump on YouTubers and their silly, clickbaity 'Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers' lists. What has since occurred to me is something that music influencers have largely steered clear of up until now: 'Songs You Didn't Know That Have Superior Covers'. I was going to provide a list of examples but I couldn't think of any so I'm just going to go into the present single and a little-known rendition of that I think surpasses it.

~~~~~

The Singing

There's no shame in not being able to match Sinéad O'Connor. The late Irish vocalist was a generational talent, one who effortlessly made covers all her own. For all I know, some of her singles that aren't "Nothing Compares 2 U" like "Troy" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" might as well be covers as well; it's ultimately irrelevant just what she did or didn't write herself. For her part, Bobbie Gentry is a terrific singer as well though she doesn't come close. Still, her rather flippant interpretation isn't the way I'd choose to go with it.

Winner: Sinead

The Mood

O'Connor famously handed in her contribution to the WarChild charity album Help at the last minute but the compilers were so affected by it that they just had to make room. Considering that some of the others involved farted out fresh versions of previously recorded material or uninspired covers, she put a lot of effort in, sparing no expense on having a haunting flute part and a full band joining her. (I looked it up and she wasn't even working on anything else at the time; her previous album Universal Mother was already a year old and a follow-up wouldn't emerge for another five years) There's even the sound of a baby crying in the background at one point. I know that people dig the rawness of Gentry's recording but there's no escaping the fact that the O'Connor version is how it was always meant to sound.

Winner: Sinead

The Narrative

I mean, it's the same for the most part. O'Connor's cover dispenses with the "frog down the blouse" verse but it isn't as though its missed. I suppose there's the subtext of the Brother's involvement and how he and Billie Joe had been a pair of mischievous friends — and it sort of hints that he too knows more than he's letting on (more on that below). 

Winner: A slight edge to Bobbie

The Experience

Gentry is a Southerner. This means that she's more likely to be a MAGA nutjob nowadays but it also means that she had a lifetime of Baptist repression and smalltown folk spreading rumours to lend itself to her great composition "Ode to Billie Joe". She didn't necessarily have to have lived the gut-wrenching world of the characters in this song but she was clearly qualified to know how they'd react — and, in some cases, not react — to this type of situation. for all of O'Connor's gravitas, her telling is more like reportage than recalling an experience she lived through.

Winner: Bobbie

The Bias

Aka 'My Bias'. I own precisely as many albums by Sinéad O'Connor as I do Bobbie Gentry. That's right, zero. I may write like a Sinead fanboy but I don't really have a dog in this fight beyond my preference for the '95 remake. But it's also the one I'm most familiar with, having been listening to it since the day I bought it. Gentry's original wasn't something I encountered much as a lad and it isn't the kind of sixties' classic that I seek out aside from when I'm doing this review.

Winner: Sinead (but I would say that, wouldn't I?)

The Vagueries

In truth, this is the only category in which Gentry's original has the upper hand on O'Connor's cover — and that's only if you buy the idea that "Ode to Billie Joe" is meant to be vague. Apparently, the secret pregnancy/infanticide/suicide plot was one of many being discussed back in the sixties. Billie Joe might have been gay and she was the only one who knew. Or the two of them had been planning to elope. The object they were seen throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge might have been a wedding ring or maybe it was drugs. Now, it could be might familiarity with O'Connor's version but I call bullshit on all of this. It's about an unwanted baby that they did away with and old Billie Joe was too guilt ridden to live with what they had done, end of story.

To be fair, there is one aspect of this that Gentry's recording captures. While the Father is an out-to-lunch old drunk, the Mother, Brother and "nice young preacher" Brother Taylor all know she's involved in this. None spell it out but they all seem aware that that girl has been up to something with Billie Joe. O'Connor's reading makes it seem like just idle gossip but the way Gentry delivers it, there's this ineffable feeling that virtually everyone involved has some idea of what's going on. 

Winner: I refuse to acknowledge that this song is meant to be vague but if I have to choose...Bobbie.

The Verdict

I like Sinéad O'Connor's cover version much more than Bobbie Gentry's renowned original. It's more interesting, it sounds better and it makes me want to listen to it again. Nothing against its predecessor though, even if I can't quite get past how much I'd rather be listening to a little-known rendition of it that popped up on a fairly obscure British charity album.

Score: 8

Unofficial Score for Sinéad's Version: 10

The Young Rascals: "A Girl Like You"

September 2, 1967 (1 week)

I've been complaining a lot about the rapid turnover of number ones on the RPM chart — believe me, we're just about done with it — but one thing in its favour is that it's provided me with a good chance to explore songs that I otherwise would never have heard. I had been ignorant of exemplary Four Seasons' hits like "Rag Doll" and "Save It for Me" prior to establishing this blog. The same goes for Jay and the Americans with "Let's Lock the Door (and Throw Away the Key)" and The Turtles' with "She'd Rather Be with Me". All received rave reviews and scores that were just short of perfect 10s yet a lifetime of being raised on sixties radio stations failed to edify me on their existence.

The corollary to this, however, is that I haven't been similarly grateful towards all Canadian number ones that I had previously been unaware of. All those Herman's Hermits and Peter and Gordon chart toppers that aren't "Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" and "A World Without Love" or the abomination that is The Four Seasons' alter-ego The Wonder Who? with "Don't Think Twice" (I would happily never have to think of it again). That there have been many shitty RPM number ones goes without saying but it's important to consider all the ordinary singles that have topped the charts as well. Reasonably good songs but which simply didn't deserve the honour. Entries like The Hollies' "Stop! Stop! Stop!" and The Mamas and the Papas' "I Saw Her Again" — and, indeed, The Young Rascals' "A Girl Like You".

The Rascals had been on quite a high over the past year with at least two major hits which are beloved today, "Good Lovin'" and "Groovin'". Wait, did I say "at least two major hits which are beloved today"? Sorry, I meant "at most two major hits". Nothing against the rest of their material but there's a reason you never hear any of it today. "A Girl Like You" is a coattail riding hit and nothing more. Its position of number ten on Billboard's Hot 100 is also overly generous to a mediocre piece but at least it tracks with the momentum they had been on. A number one smash that displaced "All You Need Is Love" for a week? I don't think so.

Nothing about it sticks out at all. "A Girl Like You" isn't so much a grower than an 'exposer': the sort of song that sounds all right the first time you play it and, indeed, maintains some interest  with subsequent listens. However, flaws subtly start to expose themselves over time. I'm usually a sucker for R&B horn sections of the era but not so much in this instance; they strike me as hackneyed. The backing vocals seem strained. Plus, it's such a thoroughly unremarkable song that I couldn't begin to even hum the tune after over a week of steady listening. You'll never forget their two major hits to date but you'd struggle to remember this sad little turd.

The amazing thing is, we've only just begun. Another Young Rascals' single would go on to top the RPM hit parade before 1967 was out with two more the following year after they finally got their way and rebranded to simply 'The Rascals'. Six number ones from a group I hardly know beyond the two songs everyone knows...oh, this is going to be something. Hey, I'm prepared to judge their trio of upcoming singles fairly but I can't say I'm thrilled to be doing it. That said, finger's crossed they'll give me a pleasant surprise. Failing that, I wouldn't be opposed to their music dropping off a cliff. It's this fence-sitting ordinariness that irks me.

Score: 4

The Beatles: "All You Need Is Love"

August 26, 1967 (2 weeks)

For the very first time, I have had the "opportunity" to blog about a single that I've already written about. This proved advantageous since I could use myself for research purposes. It proved to be even more advantageous when I then decided just to re-publish the original in this space. I did make a handful of tweaks but, otherwise, this is more or less the same. Is a cheat? Yeah, I suppose it is but the worst thing I'm doing is ripping myself off — and being a lazy bugger. (John Lennon spent the bulk of his adult life swerving between being a hardworking rock star and a disinterested loafer so this piece sort of fits) 

The blog this comes from is VER HITS: The Smash Hits Singles of the Fortnight. I started it in 2018 as a celebration of the classic British music mag Smash Hits and its singles review page. While I did consider keeping it going, it ended in 2024 just as I was starting this one up.  Each review would begin with a quotation from the music journalist or pop star who had been tasked with sifting through the new releases that fortnight. Thus, the quotes from the members of Scots sophisti-pop group Wet Wet Wet below. References to chart positions are British. 

It should be a while before another crossover review comes up. Smash Hits didn't begin publishing until 1978 so after that it will become relatively more common with the likes of "Heart of Glass", "Pass the Dutchie" and "With or Without You". I'm going to try to ensure that this recycled review is a one off. I will probably still use my old reviews for research and I might even quote myself but that's as far as I plan to go.

Though much the same as what's written below, check out my original review here. To read up on Wet Wet Wet's singles review turn, click on this link. Brian McCloskey's entire Smash Hits archive is well worth having a look at.

~~~~~

"This is a completely brilliant record."

— Marti Pellow

"I hate Paul McCartney — his records are crap."

— Tommy Cunningham

"I have a soft spot for Paul McCartney because he's a bass player like me." (?)

— Graeme "Graham" Clark

"..."

— Neil Mitchell

4, 29, 40, 45, 62, 53, 52, 65, 70, 86, 79, 78, 63, 65, 47, 63, 67, 52, 74, 84, 84, 78.

If I told you that these were the chart peaks of a certain band's twenty-two singles, you probably wouldn't be overly impressed. Just one big hit and only two more in the top forty (and one of them only just barely) and then a lengthy procession of flops. You might wonder just what such an unsuccessful band was doing being signed to the same record label that whole time — even if the eighties were a different time and awash in record company money. But this was no ordinary group: The Beatles could get away with such poor results since they all did much better the first time round — and who's going to drop the biggest group that ever lived from their label?

A revival in interest in the Fab Four was probably the one positive effect of John Lennon's murder at the end of 1980. Their legacy had been overshadowed by the hit and miss quality of their solo works and the culture was gradually discovering that it was possible to move forward without them leading the way. It's likely that many people had taken them for granted and didn't realise how much they meant until one of their key members was gunned down.

Lennon product selling in the aftermath of his death brought back the commercial viability of The Beatles as a whole. In the wake of "Stars on 45" and the early eighties medley craze, "Beatles Movie Medley" was released and was a hit in spite of its poor quality. The twenty year anniversary of their debut single was approaching and it was decided that their records would be re-released over the course of the rest of the decade. The first single did well, providing "Love Me Do" with the top five hit it had been denied previously but interest rapidly dwindled. It probably didn't help — though it would have been far from the only reason — that Smash Hits had next to no interest in giving these reissues publicity. After Fred Dellar gave a short but terse critique of "Movie Medley", there wouldn't be another Beatles single reviewed until Roland Orzbal of Tears for Fears practically begged the reviews editor to give him their copy of "Ticket to Ride" (he wouldn't name it SOTF, giving the crown instead to XTC's extra curricular project The Dukes of Stratosphear, citing his approval for how much they'd been "studying The Beatles!"; please see my piece on "The Mole from the Ministry" for my theory on what it ended up doing for Orzbal's career). At the beginning of 1987, Lola Borg took a look at "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" and advised readers not to bother buying it and that they should "nip down to Woolworths instead for a peek in the bargain bin where you will no doubt find both these songs on a compilation LP for an absolute snip". Probably sound advice.

"Strawberry Fields" only got to number sixty-five, a routine showing for their eighties reissues. Yet, "All You Need Is Love" did considerably better and it nearly got them back in the top 40. It was re-released in the summer of 1987 at a time when The Beatles' favourability was on the upswing. Their catalog had finally been issued on compact disc and the June release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the new format did particularly well. This was still the time in which it was the consensus 'Greatest Album of All Time' and its anniversary was celebrated with the It Was Twenty Years Ago Today documentary. These factors probably contributed more to the respectable chart performance of "All You Need Is Love" than the recommendation of a current pop group. Still, I'm sure it didn't hurt.

During the summer of '87, Glasgow's Wet Wet Wet were on the rise. Though they would soon release a series of grim singles (the first of which, "Sweet Little Mystery", came out just two days prior to publication of this issue of Smash Hits; it was reviewed in the previous issue), their debut in the spring, "Wishing I Was Lucky", was uncharacteristically decent. Keen to play the pop game, singer Marti Pellow and co. agreed to have a crack at the new singles. They aren't terribly impressed with what's on offer for the most part, with positive words saved mainly for The Beatles and fellow re-release "Lovely Day" by Bill Withers (a full year prior to its 'Sunshine Mix' revamp which became his biggest hit in the UK; this version did rather less well). The four do have their disagreements, with Pellow, Graeme Clark and Neil Mitchell disliking The Beastie Boys' "She's on It" (the latter's comment that he doesn't care for "white guys doing that sort of music" is rather amusing considering how the Wets were all about mining soul and R&B for their own benefit) while drummer Tommy Cunningham enjoys it. They don't even appear to be in unison about the SOTF, with Mitchell offering no comment, having previously praised Withers as his favourite.

The Wets were the sort of eighties pop stars who seemed to have excellent record collections yet struggled to create great music of their own. They were born during the sixties pop boom and would have been exposed to much of it from a very early age. They would have been children during the heydays of Slade and T.Rex, approaching adolescence during punk (in some ways, the perfect age for it: old enough to find it exciting but young enough not to be turned off by its negatives) and set for adulthood at the time of New Pop. You're talking about a vast twenty year window of outstanding music to cut one's teeth on. Too much in fact. It could be easy to get overly comfy in these environs with little to object to. Great pop attempts to fill a void but there was no such emptiness for this generation. Rather than carving out their own place in music, they seemed happy churning out substandard soul and Motown tributes.

I don't expect the members of Wet Wet Wet to match the output of The Beatles or, indeed, any of the acts they reviewed this fortnight. They provided their thoughts on some new singles and that's fine. But I don't think it's asking too much for them to explain why they think the Fabs are so brilliant — even if it's trite and cliched. The following year they participated in the NME's Sgt Pepper Knew My Father charity album. It's a collection that has its moments but their take on "With a Little Help from My Friends" isn't one of them. Even by Pellow's lofty standards his vocal is cocky and it loses the vulnerability that Ringo's workmanlike singing provides (you need to believe that singing out of tune is a distinct possibility for this to work). With his voice and his looks, does Pellow even need any friends? Yes, he loves their music but what has he learned from them? Why did he record this cover version when it shows no trace of their inspiration?

In the context of their many remarkable singles, "All You Need Is Love" is nothing special. While I wouldn't quite agree with Ian Macdonald's assessment that it's one of their "less deserving hits", there's nothing thrilling about it like "She Loves You" or "A Hard Day's Night", nothing spectacularly inventive about it like "Paperback Writer" or "Strawberry Fields Forever". It doesn't have a bridge and it glides along happily without even a key change. Pretty substandard work then — especially from them. 

(Lennon's famous wordplay is nowhere to be found and this composition marks the point when he began favouring simplistic chants repeated over and over. It was just under two years later that he assembled another large group to record "Give Peace a Chance" for yet another orchestrated media event. Having put some thought into its predecessor, "Peace" is slapdash by comparison, with lyrics about how everyone is talking about various movements and people though his lists are frequently hard to comprehend with a shambolic crowd packed into a Montreal hotel suite not aiding the audio. "Power to the People" from 1971 actually addresses issues (including the worthwhile observation that feminism had a part to play too) but it lacks a hook and the singalong quality that makes both earlier attempts so special. (Lennon didn't simply reserve his new found sloganeering for his agitprop. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", his plea to Yoko Ono, lacks any semblance of verse structure and amounts to eight minutes of him wanting her — wanting her so bad, it's driving him mad. It's a better record than it probably ought to be but it's certainly guilty of hammering the point home) Though "Come Together" would be a successful attempt at combining his poetic imagery with a chorus to chant on football terraces, "All You Need Is Love" would be his best simple singalong)

This being The Beatles, however, there's still lots of magic involved. It is now impossible for many people to hear the start of "La Marseillaise" (ie the French national anthem) and not go into a swaying "love, love, love". The brass response to Lennon's cries of 'All you need is love' is one of the most familiar musical passages in their entire repertoire. It's use of various musical quotations lends it an instant familiarity but the deliberately simplistic chorus does so as well. It is one of those songs that feels like it has always been around. I might find myself singing along to it without even knowing.

The ubiquity of The Beatles could turn people off and I remember a time when there was something vaguely shameful about exploring their music. Due in part to the Sgt Pepper documentary, I went through brief phase of listening to them at around this time. Pepper was a record I looked at much more than put on the stereo and I was happy to play my mum's Rock 'n' Roll Music cassettes. This period led me towards getting into the Pet Shop Boys, INXS and Terence Trent D'Arby and on to becoming a pop music obsessive. The next time I really got back into them, however, was six years later when I began to tire of everything going on at the time. (1993 was a favourite year in music for some but not me) Listening to The Beatles at that point was tantamount to conceding that things were better then, at a time before I was even born, and that I was ready to give up on my own music — and, worse still, that my parents had been right all along.

The Beatles would gradually take their permanent place as a group for all generations with the Anthology series but some of us continued to carry around an uneasiness about getting into their music. A number of years ago, I was in a pub with some friends and we bumped into Owen, an old schoolmate who I had always been friendly with. He was a hip hop kid and I was into alternative music back in junior high school so our tastes differed but we still sometimes talked about what we were listening to. "Well, it's a bit embarrassing", he said, sheepishly when the subject turned to music, "but I've been listening to The Beatles a lot lately". I knew exactly what he meant. Much as we might try, there's no getting rid of them.

Score: 7

The Monkees: "Pleasant Valley Sunday"

August 19, 1967 (1 week)

It is the summer of 1967 and thousands of young people from all over North America have recently purchased copies of the latest single by The Monkees. Many would have put it on in their bedrooms on their treasured suitcase-style record players. Others may have had access to the family hi-fi, especially if their parents were still at work or otherwise disposed, so they'd put it on in the living room or down in the basement rumpus room. Some are alone, while others are joined by brothers or sisters or even friends from the neighbourhood.

The reaction is mostly positive. Some girls may be disappointed that 'cute one' Davy Jones isn't on lead vocals, others are delighted that Mickey Dolenz is in his rightful place behind the mic — and, anyway, the youthful-looking Brit is clearly there on backing vocals ("Ta ta-ta-ta, ta ta-ta-ta..."). It has a good tune, one that budding musicians hope to sink their teeth into, with some rapid fire drumming and chugging guitars with a nifty little riff that seems tailor made for The Monkees. Also, the song is about where they live! There is a local rock group down the street, that weird guy who never showers and is in my class is their bassist! I don't know if creepy old Mr. Enright across the street is a squire but he does come out to mow his lawn on weekends in his housecoat (while also lingering to check out the girls). Our neighbourhood does smell of charcoal!

Some kids must've known right away but I imagine there were also plenty who didn't realize that The Monkees were taking a giant dump all over the burbs with "Pleasant Valley Sunday". Speaking just for myself, it took me a while to figure it out. Yes, snidely chirping at Mrs Gray with her roses in bloom and Mr Green with his vast collection of TVs didn't clue me in. I scarcely listened to Dolenz in the bridge as he trashes the "creature comfort goals" and how he needs "a change of scenery". Yeah, I wasn't always the most attentive music fan but look who we're talking about here. Did anyone expect The Monkees to be sneering at middle America? (In any case, the Pet Shop Boys' "Suburbia" has always been my song of choice for taking a blowtorch to the idealized world that Kevin Arnold loved so much in The Wonder Years)

For those, like me, who weren't paying close enough attention, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" practically comes across as an American equivalent of The Beatles' "Penny Lane" and The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset", albeit with even more optimism. The aforementioned 'weekend squire' and the nut with nearly a dozen TV sets are caricatures but no more so than the "fireman with an hourglass" and the "pretty nurse" selling poppies. It sounds like a celebration of white flight! But in actuality, it is closer to The Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper" than anything else: a gripping and sneering indictment on how individuals choose to shackle themselves even while in the delusion that they are free. (Jesus, sorry to get all Adam Curtis there)

Though composed by the successful songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole KIng, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is perhaps the closest thing we would get to a self-written Monkee number one smash. Coming off a tremendous, if still troubling, first year of being stars of both pop and TV, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork were keen to take control and fight back. While you might assume that The Monkees of all people were in no place to be critical of the homogeneous burbs, I think that is precisely the point. The key line of "I need a change of scenery" is given extra weight by the way the quartet were treated as pawns by their management and record label — and, indeed, by the way they managed to wrest control from them. The Prefab Four had been able to extricate themselves from their own suburban nightmare and you should consider doing the same!

Finally, it is worth mentioning that this single is also a triumph for the Goffin-King team. They had spent much of the sixties as a married couple penning charming and wonderful songs for their babysitter and other pop types but, like a whole generation of groomed bubblegum stars, they had developed and matured. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" emerged from the couple's move out of New York to the sprawl of New Jersey and how Gerry Goffin hated the experience. Rather than churning out the same old Brill Building-type stuff, they were composing based on their own experiences and thoughts. Some of their finest material came from around this time including "Goin' Back" (a hit for Dusty Springfield but done equally well by The Byrds), "Wasn't Born to Follow" (again recorded by The Byrds; both songs appear on their remarkable 1968 album The Notorious Byrd Brothers), "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" (a hit for Aretha Franklin which King would later "cover" — is it a cover version if it's your own song? — for her hugely popular Tapestry album) and "Porpoise Song" (recorded by a suddenly unpopular Monkees for the soundtrack to their bizarre film Head). Their partnership was entering its last days but this only meant better things to come for King, who we'll be seeing in this space before long. 

Score: 8

Procol Harum: "A Whiter Shade of Pale"

August 12, 1967 (1 week)

My associate Aidan Curran has a most fascinating theory involving "A Whiter Shade of Pale": he considers it to be the "Too Shy" of its age. (Yes, the same "Too Shy" that gave Kajagoogoo a worldwide hit) The way he sees it, they both have impenetrable lyrics, icy organs and soulfully pleading vocals from Gary Brooker and Limahl respectively. But there's even more to it: Procol Harum and Kajagoogoo were both progressive rock bands giving in to commercial pressure to widespread success and acclaim (at least in the case of the former). Also, the two groups paid an enormous price for their Faustian hits. The only thing really separating the two is how they are perceived: one is considered to be a classic of the sixties while the other is dismissed as a disposable slice of pop fluff from an era filled with supposedly disposable pop fluff.

(It goes without saying that the two have nothing in common musically. Weirdly, the song that reminds me most of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is "Colorado", a lovely country lament on The Flying Burrito Brothers' self-titled third album. You may not be aware of it and that's probably down to it having nothing to do with Gram Parsons, the free spirited and self-destructive one time leader of the country-rock pioneers. He had been kicked out of the band by that point but it is well worth checking out. Rick Roberts is a name that deserves to be better known)

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" is a curious beast. My appreciation for it seems to increase the longer I go without listening to it. It is an accepted all-timer, so who am I to question it. But then when I give it a play, my immediate reaction is invariably, "that's it?!?" Where are the clever key changes and/or deft sonic touches that the prog rockers should have been all over? John Lennon had been a fan of the track during its prolonged six-week stay atop the British charts that summer and it is said that he used it as inspiration for the similarly lyrically dense "I Am the Walrus". The difference is — beyond, of course, the Beatle's playful and dark wordiness — that the Fab Four utilized cellos, violins, clips from a radio play of King Lear and all kinds of studio wizardry to create this unconventional piece. Procol Harum's celebrated effort is, by comparison, a hammond organ, some steady drumming and those very silly lyrics.

Like all massively popular and enduring singles, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" has gone through a backlash over the years. "I identified it as the enemy," confesses Tom Ewing in his review. Much of this is down to the words being meaningless. "Poxiest bleedin' lyrics ever written", observes Jimmy Rabbitte in The Commitments, though this didn't stop him from singing along. And this is where I feel the Harum's one major hit requires some defending: I think we all know deep down that the words are a load of nonsense. The same goes for Oasis. Meat Loaf could put all kinds of passion into his recordings which on paper seemed about as soulful as a TV jingle for fabric softener. Us armchair critics might scoff at such stuff but we're also liable to become suckers for some of it too. Put another way, if I'm thinking about it too much, then I am aware that it's a load of crap; on the other hand, if I happen to be daydreaming or staring out the window, there aren't many songs I'd rather have on as accompaniment.

Procol Harum would play a small part in Canada's musical heritage when they released their live set In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 1972. (Probably the most notable live album to have been recorded in my homeland other than Charlie Parker's celebrated The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall from 1953) It is a wonderfully highfalutin record, the sort of thing that could only have come out at the height of prog. While it reached the Top 10 in many countries and would go on to be their best selling album, I wonder if fans who were in attendance at Edmonton's Jubilee Auditorium were disappointed by the non-inclusion of "A Whiter Shade of Pale". It was the group's only major hit (or the only one anyone cared to remember at any rate) and it was just four years old by the time they played Alberta's capital. I realize that they weren't close to being a heritage act at this stage but they could've done worse by dusting off their signature number. It might even have endeared them to ESO conductor Lawrence Leonard, who must've had gritted teeth as he raised his baton that evening. He had no use for rock music — to the extent that he insisted that his name be kept off the live album's credits — but it's possible he would've changed his mind had he found out that their number one hit had been borrowed from Bach. He may even have grown to love it in spite of himself, just as many of us have. Trying to get the crusty old classical purist into "Too Shy" would've been more of a challenge though.

Score: 8

Jefferson Airplane: "White Rabbit"

July 29, 1967 (2 weeks)

There's an AI-assisted version of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" on YouTube. It wasn't what I was looking for but it certainly does the trick. I had been wondering if there's a much longer recording of the song out there, perhaps in demo form or maybe from a chaotic, acid-soaked gig. I imagined something that was at least eight minutes long and even half-expected to come across some unlistenable shit which clocks in at nearly half-an-hour. But a five minute "White Rabbit" will certainly do even if it isn't as extreme as I'd been picturing.

By the sounds of it, this AI extended version of "White Rabbit" is more or less the same as the original two-and-a-half-minute release until Grace Slick's cries of "feed your head" die down and a heretofore unheard buzz-saw guitar solo comes in. This goes on for long enough to lure the listener (or this listener at any rate) into assuming that it will continue for the remainder of its playing time. But then at the three minute, thirty-eight second mark Slick returns with some all new verses. It's all pretty convincing until a minute later when the singer goes back to the key lines of "feed your head" and she hits a note that she likely wasn't capable of — and whatsmore, it's one that goes on for several seconds. Realistic or not, I will admit that it's a satisfying way of bringing this five minute version to a conclusion. (The presumably AI-generated lyrics rely far too much on references to Alice in Wonderland: the Mad Hatter isn't missed in the original and it only feels like he's present here in order to pad out the verses)

AI Slick's (that's Artificial Intelligence Slick, not Al Slick!) note brings to mind Liz Phair or PJ Harvey or Courtney Love — in fact, it doesn't quite sound like any of the indie rock babes of the nineties in particular but all of them in general. It might as well be the first Riot Grrl anthem. The only problem is, under the conditions imposed by CD length glut, music industry trends and band indulgence, an alt.rock "White Rabbit" would have been at least five minutes in length, packed with unnecessary guitar solos and extra verses that only end up hammering the point home. In other words, a mere facsimile of the Jefferson Airplane original and, in its own way, every bit as contrived as the AI version. 

Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow is a fascinating debut — even if it isn't strictly speaking their first album. It isn't necessarily brilliant from start to finish but that doesn't mean it doesn't make for an interesting listen. The cliche goes that an artist has their whole lives to make their first album but then only a few months to make a follow up. Too true but this saying neglects to mention that bands have to figure out what they're doing on their freshmen releases. Just throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. On Surrealistic Pillow, some of it stuck — but a good deal of it plopped onto the floor creating on hell of a mess and an unholy stench. (The great critic Ian MacDonald considered it to be the album's "only unquestioned success": a little harsh but not too far from the truth)

Despite what I wrote above about 'CD length glut', album running time has long been an issue. By 1967, more and more LPs were getting longer. Both Bob Dylan and the Mothers of Invention had put out double albums a year earlier while The Rolling Stones' Aftermath clocked in at around fifty-three minutes. On the other hand, The Beatles, Beach Boys and Byrds were still in the habit of being economical with time. (The latter's superlative '67 release Younger Than Yesterday has a running time of under thirty minutes) On the underground scene, the big album of the time had been The Velvet Underground & Nico with a pushing it but still manageable forty-eight minutes. Wisely, the Jefferson Airplane chose to err on the side of brevity.

The good thing about keeping things relatively concise is that flab gets trimmed as much as possible. Poor songs like "Plastic Fantastic Lover" are still present but at least they don't drag while the highlights are unable to wear out their welcome. A five minute "White Rabbit" might still be effective enough to impress but cut in half and you're just left wanting more — even if you're ultimately grateful that they kept it short all along. At just two-and-a-half minutes, it only has time to build itself up. It begins in a murky atmosphere of a lonely bass, bluesy guitar and military percussion. Then Slick comes in and it's clear she is in complete control. Every line she sings is done with precision and authority. Though short, the song takes its sweet old time getting to a climax that, to the shock of precisely no one, also doesn't stick around for very long.

At a time when silly and trivial bubblegum pop songs were clogging up the number one spot on the RPM chart, Jefferson Airplane getting to number one with this utterly mesmerizing single makes for a refreshing change of pace, all the while ushering in a purple patch of stellar chart toppers as the supposed golden summer of '67 began to fade, giving way to autumn. Yet, even most of the finest pop-rock of the era couldn't hope to compete with this. Jefferson Airplane would remain a very hit-and-miss act (a trend that would carry over into spinoff band Jefferson Starship; quality control would dip when they eventually evolved into Starship) but they would have been worth discussing had they never done anything beyond this one hundred and fifty second masterpiece. That extended AI "White Rabbit" is all well and good but I have no need for it any longer.

Postscript: Turns out, there is a lengthier recording of "White Rabbit" by Slick's previous band The Great Society. It opens with a free form exploration complete with a wild, Coltrane-esque sax solo courtesy of one Peter van Gelder. The tune is more upbeat, almost resembling jangle pop, which goes well with Slick's more rushed, less assured performance. The only real stand out is the strong drumming of Jerry Slick (Grace's then husband). It sounds very much like the work-in-progress it was. The extended opening may have worked in a live setting but there was clearly no need for it as a studio creation. Simplifying the arrangement, a more languid pace and a commanding vocal would be all that they would need to alter it from 'we may have something' to 'Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?'

Score: 10

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

July 22, 1967 (1 week)

As I have said repeatedly in this space, Canadians didn't seem to take to Motown the way their neighbours to the south did. This blog has just passed the midway point of 1967 and we still haven't encountered a non-Supremes' chart topper on the Detroit-based label — and it's not as if Diana Ross' group was racking up the number ones at the same rate in the United States either. By my count, there had been sixteen Motown and/or Tamla number ones on the Hot 100 by the midway point of 1967 while over the same period of time, only there were just four on Canada's CHUM/RPM charts.

Yet, a vocal quintet who had been considered for the Motown label ended up accomplishing what had eluded the likes of The Marvelettes, Mary Wells, The Temptations and The Four Tops. Signed to Johnny Rivers' newly-formed Soul City and with a young Jimmy Webb tasked with providing usable material, the group that had previously been known as The Versatiles were not exactly being groomed in an environment that could be described as the 'sound of young America' but was instead the 'sound of bland America'.

In a poptimistic twenty-first century that has rushed to embrace former guilty pleasures ABBA and the Carpenters, it may seem out of place to crap on The 5th Dimension for being so milquetoast. But that's an easy stance to take when you're defending acts who have masterful pop hits like "Knowning Me, Knowing You" or "We Have Only Just Begun" to back them up; it's a whole other matter entirely when you're dealing with something as cheap and tawdry as "Up, Up and Away".

No doubt it is joyous to many but to these ears "Up, Up and Away" is far more depressing than Morrissey on his worst day (or could it be his best day?). Could it have soundtracked a tacky gameshow or TV commercials for pillows or mattresses (or anything else that gives you a nice, floaty feeling)? Of course and I'm sure it has many times over in the nearly sixty years since it hit the charts. But it is also trite. Armchair critics have the tendency to describe songs like this as 'music for people who hate music' but I hear it more as 'music made by people who have no idea what truly great music sounds like'. Why blame listeners for shitty singles when we can go after the dweebs that made them instead?

With that in mind, I think terms like 'cheap', 'tawdry' and 'trite' don't quite do it justice. It's cringey. It evokes tackiness. It's bland but not in the forgettable sense. Its form of escapism only makes you wish for the harsh realities of life and anti-Vietnam War protests and civil rights rallies. It makes you wish that everyone involved could be doing something better — as indeed they (Johnny Rivers, Jimmy Webb, even the Dimension themselves) all would at some point. It commits all these crimes to recorded music and yet its tune still manages to suck the listener in. "Up, Up and Away" could at the very least do us the service of being boring.

I will likely never fully warm to The 5th Dimension. While I appreciate that the great Laura Nyro made a nice living due in no small part to their trio of covers ("Stoned Soul Picnic", "Sweet Blindness", and "Wedding Bell Blues" respectively), they can't hope to compare with her immaculate originals. I understand that both Nick Drake and Miles Davis were said to have been fans ("He was probably screwing one of the girls or something," the musician David Was once remarked), to which I say "good for them". Music critic Caroline Sullivan makes a good case for them and her affection is sincere but I came away from reading it with a higher opinion of the writer than of the band she loves so much. All that said, they would release far better songs than "Up, Up and Away" (a pair of which I'll be getting to all in good time). In any case, it's not like they could do a whole lot worse.

Score: 2

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Can Con

Inspired by Tom Ewing - a gentleman to whom all of us in the number ones from a particular country blog business owe a debt of gratitude — I have a policy not to change scores once a review has been published on here. It is, however, tempting to alter the odd grade here and there. For example, I wish I could give the Young Canada Singers a bonus mark for salvaging their centennial hit "Canada" when The Sugar Shoppe proved unable to do the same. The original has a welcome sixties' optimism that the Toronto foursome couldn't hope to replicate. It scarcely even sounds like the same song which the Shoppe's harmonies dominating the arrangement. A depressingly apt companion to The 5th Dimension only lacking whatever trace amounts of character the Americans had on "Up, Up and Away". Though not quite as big as the YCS original from earlier in the year, it still gave them at a cup of coffee on RPM's Top 40 as well as a week on top of the recent Canadian Content chart. Clearly, Canadian pride over the hundredth birthday and Expo 67 in Montreal hadn't dimmed though this single suggests that maybe it should have. (As an aside, one of the members of The Sugar Shoppe was an eighteen-year-old actor/singer named Victor Garber who has been in thousands of movies and TV shows and is doubtless someone you vaguely recognize as the "guy from that thing")

The Association: "Windy"

July 15, 1967 (1 week)

It is said that "Windy" was initially supposed to be about a man. Songwriter Ruthann Friedman has said as much so there's no reason to doubt her. The Association then had its pronouns changed so it became about a woman whose name may or may not have actually been 'Wendy', even if they didn't go so far as to change its title. But I am here to put forth an alternate explanation: "Windy" is in fact about the wind. (Yeah, sorry Ruth but I'll do the explaining of a song that you composed a decade before my birth)

The role of wind in pop is often meant to be profound. While numbers such as Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", Ian and Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds" and The Byrds' "Hickory Wind" are poignant, others like Elton John's "Candle in the Wind", Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings", and Scorpions' "Winds of Change" overplay their hands by placing way too much importance on air circulation. Good or bad, we are meant to believe that the wind is an element of change and/or wistfulness and/or sorrow and/or deep thoughts jotted down in an adolescent's diary. But does it always have to be this way?

The Association's "Windy" does take stabs of its own at profundity but it does so with a lightness that makes its word salad lyrics easier to swallow. Whatsmore, its breeziness is suitable and makes for a refreshing change from all those deep thinking balladeers I mention above. And then there's the fact that this is The Association we're dealing with: having come off the massive success of "Cherish", no one would have blamed such an apparently play-it-safe act from just repeating their breakthrough. "Windy" isn't some radical shift but it does indicate that the LA sextet was willing to have some degree of diversity in their sound.

The only thing that knocks it down from being a truly great pop song is that I don't have the musical sweet tooth to take it for very long. "Windy" didn't impress me all that much but it didn't take long for it to grow on me. Unfortunately, it then ended up shrinking in my esteem over the last few days. It's certainly a fun recording with a melody that refuses to exit the brain but there's ultimately no need for it. Truthfully, there's not much need for many songs about wind and at least this one seems to know it.

Score: 6

~~~~~

Can Con

I've been neglecting this feature of late but I couldn't not include a band from my hometown. That's right! Anticipating the rise of The Stampeders, Calgary's 49th Parallel seemed fond of fuzz guitars and appropriately laboured vocals on their minor hit "Laborer". While I'm trying not to use my usual 'they would've been a treat to have seen live' line that I fall back on in these short write ups, I am admittedly struck by their solid band dynamic that would've seen them through some big nights at the old Highlander Hotel bar or whatever other dive venues they were reduced to toiling in at the time. As I also tend to remark in these Can Cons, one I ought to look out for (which generally means that I'll forget all about them). I must ask my parents if they ever came across these guys — assuming I remember to do so.

Music Explosion: "Little Bit O' Soul"

July 8, 1967 (1 week)

Some songs just don't land. They may be well made with perfectly fine songwriting, singing, musicianship, production and engineering but if they don't quite sound right, then there's not much more to be said. (And yet, here I am with my usual half-dozen or so paragraphs below so apparently there is more to be said even if it is just writerly padding)

I've been into Roxy Music for much of my adult life. I got their seminal album For Your Pleasure on CD in my early twenties and figured that was enough until it very much wasn't. I gradually picked up the early albums and loved all of them - my personal favourite being third release Stranded — which made my eventually acquisition of 1975's Siren a no brainer. It's the one that Americans swear by and since when were the people of the United States wrong about anything?

The American music mag Vibe considers it to be a seamless blend of their early experimental art rock with their eventual re-emergence as a classy romantic pop-rock group and I kind of agree. The only trouble is, it's too much of a compromise. Predecessor Country Life had been a mostly successful move away from the daring and complex sound of their first three albums but Siren sounds like an unconvincing attempt to claw some of their edge back while also leaning more towards the middle-of-the-road. While I'm indifferent to much of latter-period Roxy, I find too much of Siren to be bothersome and no song on it irks me more than "Both Ends Burning". Yet, I can't give a rational reason why. The playing is energetic and Bryan Ferry is his typical louche self. The only thing I can truly rationalize is that it sounds underwritten and as a result is highly repetitive.

I feel much the same about Music Explosion's one major hit. Each time I listen to "Little Bit O' Soul" I feel distinctly unimpressed but afterwards I wonder if it's not really so bad. And it isn't bad, it just doesn't land with me. It doesn't get on my nerves the way that "Both Ends Burning" does, rather it gnaws at me that this Ohio five piece is lecturing me about 'soul'. A good way to ensure that everyone knows you're lacking in the soulfulness department is to hector listeners with your supposed soul bona fides. I've never liked Bob Seeger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" but I'd never question the song's sincerity. That said, "today's music ain't got the same soul" is a deplorable line which makes me wonder what the hell a geezer like Seeger knows about soul. The same goes for these guys: if you have to tell everyone how soulful you are then you probably aren't very soulful.

To be as fair as possible, Music Explosion didn't write it and weren't even the first group to give it a go — and they didn't even muck it up as badly. A version by Coventry's The Little Darlings had come out in Britain in 1965 and it's very much the product of the era of shouty vocalists trying to outdo Mick Jagger (yeah, good luck with that) with the pounding percussion of The Dave Clark Five. This was really the closest thing the UK music scene had to garage rock and it isn't any wonder they never did much with it — and not just because the British are low on garages. It's poor so it's a credit to Music Explosion that they were able to make it somewhat enjoyable.

But only somewhat. This sort of poppy garage rock was really starting to get old by 1967 and there's still some more to go. Sure, they played it as well as they could have and with plenty of spirit but it's almost as if I'm being subjected to an early run through of tired old power pop. Doing a blog such as this, I'm examining some of the biggest hits spanning several decades over a relatively compressed period of time. Thus, I can easily tire of the same old "soulful" pop singles that had been in the charts when listeners at the time could experience them in a more spread out fashion. More of the same may well have delighted Canadian teenagers while I find it an exercise in monotony. Bring on the harder stuff, I say.

(FYI: I won't be writing about Roxy Music in a review and this is likely the closest I'll ever come to discussing them in much detail in this space. Therefore, I have finally found a reason to be appreciative of "Both Ends Burning" — I just won't be listening to it again any time soon)

Score: 4

That's the Order of the Day: Canadians at Number One in Canada

July 1, 1967 was Canada's one hundredth birthday. To mark the occasion, Queen Elizabeth II visited Parliament Hill in Ottawa, while Expo 67 in Montreal had one of its busiest days. Elsewhere, ecstatic Canadians attended fireworks shows in various cities and no doubt enjoyed picnics and barbecues. The people of Winnipeg were just three weeks away from hosting the Pan American Games, so it must've been busy there. The Order of Canada, the closest thing my homeland has to knighthoods and MBE's, also began on that day, with then Governor General Roland Michner being its first recipient (which was in no way a conflict of interest). Casting something of a downer on the celebrations was native actor and activist Chief Dan George who gave his deeply influential "Lament for Confederation" speech to a packed crowd at Vancouver's Empire Stadium. Over in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, Barry and Carol Anderson welcomed the birth of their daughter, 'Centennial Baby' Pamela (you may have heard of her). And, finally, The Turtles' "She'd Rather Be with Me" enjoyed its second and final week at number one on the RPM hit parade. One of these things is not like the others.

One of my favourite blogs is Aidan Curran's Irish Number Ones. When I was in the early stages of planning this blog, I was pleased to discover its existence. American and British number ones have been talked about to death so it's nice to see other country's charts being represented for a change. "If this guy can write about Ireland's number ones then I can do Canada's," I said to myself at the time. Curran is also a very good writer with many entertainingly terse observations about a whole heap of pop songs he has no time for. (He is a good deal stingier with his scores than I am)

Curran has covered a lot more ground than I have but even still, it's a little dismaying to see just how many Irish singles he's had the opportunity to review. They aren't always very good but that's a whole other matter. As of the publication of this blog post, he's been on something of a role with homegrown acts: eight of the last twelve singles he has reviewed from the end of 1971 into the spring of '72 have been Irish. Meanwhile, I've just passed the tenth anniversary of the first CHUM chart and only seven Canadian singles have so far managed to make it to the top spot. Canuck pop and rock stars of my parents' youth weren't off to a great start.

It's worth noting that I did leave a handful of Canadians off, mostly because they happened to be members of American groups. Bands like The Lovin' Spoonful and The Mamas and the Papas had Canadian members (in both cases, they were vital as well) but it's a stretch to claim that "Summer in the City" or "Monday, Monday" are "Canadian". That said, Jack Scott isn't terribly Canadian either. He grew up in Windsor, Ontario but eventually found his way across the bridge to Detroit where he remained for the rest of his life. Still, he was a solo artist and that makes a difference. Had Zal Yanofsky or Denny Doherty released solo number ones then they would have been included here too but under the circumstances of playing with Americans, they have been excluded. Basically, if anyone's Canadian-ness had to be questioned then they've been left off — unless, of course, I say otherwise.

There are only seven at this point but it will begin to grow steadily from 1969 and on into the seventies and beyond. In fact, in 1996 there were seven Canadian number ones alone. The list will be updated with every new edition while this essay will remain until I eventually decide to publish a new one, perhaps with the next numerically attractive anniversary of Canadian Confederation.

~~~~~

Paul Anka: "Diana"
Jack Scott: "My True Love"

Richie Knight and the Mid-Nights: "Charlena"

Lorne Green: "Ringo"

Guess Who? (aka Chad Allan and the Expressions): "Shakin' All Over"

Little Caesar and the Consuls: "You've Really Got a Hold on Me"

Young Canada Singers: "Canada"

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

June 24, 1967 (2 weeks)

I recently discussed how it's hard to really place The Hollies. They weren't quite among the elite of the British Invasion but there was more to them than just a mildly irritating throwaway. Occupying a similarly ill-defined zone are The Turtles, the one-hit wonders who in fact had several hits and that rare sixties act not named The Monkees who have so far been snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

One-hit wonders? Well, sort of. They had five Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and seven on the RPM chart but can many people name any of them other than "Happy Together"? Oldies radio owes a great deal to the song they are best known for but they've never gone out of their way to play, say, their cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" or "You Showed Me" or, indeed, "She'd Rather Be with Me". When you're only remembered for one song then you might as well be a one-hit wonder.

But "Happy Together" isn't the subject of this review — and a good thing too because it's very much the "Walking on Sunshine" of the sixties: a gloriously joyful pop hit that I would be perfectly happy never to have to listen to again. "She'd Rather Be with Me" was its follow-up and you'd be forgiven for assuming that it's one of those classic more-of-the-same singles that doesn't quite have the same energy as its predecessor. But that's far from the case. If anything, there's a little more spirit involved this time, like they realised that they couldn't quite recapture the euphoria of "Happy Together" and so added some audacity in its place.

Musical audaciousness may be a little discussed aspect of the influence The Beatles were having at the time. This didn't mean having to copy the Fab Four, the way industry plants like The Monkees were doing or the way whole generations of boring old power pop groups have been doing since the early seventies (even though I'd argue that aping a very narrow element of their sound isn't really something Beatles' devotees ought to be doing at all; being Beatlesque ought to involve being musically curious but I digress). The Beatles had been exploring and experimenting so much that it rubbed off on others — and it wasn't simply The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones they were rubbing off on. Though not all that sonically alike anymore, The Turtles had also modeled themselves on fellow Los Angeles band The Byrds (they had even once toyed with the misspelled Tyrtles in tribute but that was just being silly) who were also becoming far more unpredictable in the studio and whose brilliant fourth album Younger Than Yesterday had been released that February. (In fact, "She'd Rather Be with Me" is closer to The Beach Boys, especially in its Brian Wilson-influenced instrumental passage which is not unlike the ridiculous but adventuresome "Amusement Parks USA" from their 1965 album Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!))

The Turtles weren't in the same league creatively as either The Beatles or Byrds and they likely knew it but I have a lot of respect for the fact that this didn't stop them from trying. "She'd Rather Be with Me" might have come across as bubblegum pop had a less confident group recorded it; in the hands of The Turtles, however, it's loaded with a stomping beat, some honky tonk piano, blasting horns and what may or may not be a circus pump organ in the background. It's one of those songs that reveals a hidden instrument or production quirk with every subsequent listen. Plus, they have far more swagger than a band reliant on outside songwriters has any right to be.

"Yobo!" my wife just called to me from the living room, "the music is bothering me". I proceeded to shut the door so I could listen to it again. Yeah, I know what she means for once (we don't always see eye-to-eye when it comes to music): it does sound like a racket at first and it doesn't matter how much you lower the volume, it can't help but be loud. Yet, "She'd Rather Be with Me" is a classic pop grower, a song I was largely indifferent towards at first but one that I can't get enough of now. An American Hollies? Glorified one-hit wonders? Nah. The Turtles were just an opportunist band making the most of their opportunity.

Score: 9