Petula Clark: "I Know a Place"

April 12, 1965 (1 week)

As I hammered home the last time she came up, Petula Clark was a good deal older than her pop contemporaries. (At number two on the RPM chart during the week of April 12, 1965 was Sandie Shaw, a full fifteen years Clark's junior) While North America treated her like any other member of the British Invasion, she had already established herself in Europe so it wasn't as if she was this overnight success story. Yet, her relatively advanced years and the fact that she was working primarily with a milquetoast composer/producer set her apart and might have put her at a disadvantage, even if her run of hits in North America indicates she overcame this particular handicap.

"I Know a Place" was a canny move on the part of Clark and longtime collaborator Tony Hatch. While the heavier drum sound suggests they were adapting to current Merseybeat trends, the song's message of her being aware of this basement club in which "the music is fine, the lights are low" is far more important. She wasn't jumping on the Beatles' bandwagon, she's hip enough to know where to seek them out. Better yet, she's also cool enough to know the fantastic bands who aren't yet such a big deal. "Look, the older woman who lives down the road and who you secretly fancy is actually hip!"

Like "Downtown", "I Know a Place" is about a refuge. A place to go for lonely people to escape from their sad lives. But whereas her signature hit happened to be about New York, a city most people didn't really have the chance to visit back in the mid-sixties, this follow-up deals with a nice club which could be anywhere. Yeah, I suppose it's meant to be set in Soho in the middle of London — or maybe the Cavern up in Liverpool if we want to take The Beatle connection to the fullest extent — but it could be about any mid-size city's top music venue, the kind that kids would sneak out to visit.

While "Downtown" is the much more familiar Petula Clark hit, "I Know a Place" is the stronger single overall. Though more contemporary, it still allows Clark to unleash her West End/Broadway vocals and is thus not out of place for her. Not especially brilliant and no doubt nowhere close to as good as the music she experienced at this club but a fine record nonetheless. But that is the problem here: as she herself hints, there's far better pop to be found than with her modest efforts. She may indeed have had good taste in bands that were worth seeking out but that doesn't mean she was able to hold her own with them.

Score: 6