Petula Clark: "My Love"

February 14, 1966 (1 week)

One thing you've got to give Petula Clark even if you think her music is more or less dog shit: she was (and no doubt remains) a pro. By the mid-sixties she'd already been a showbusiness veteran for over twenty-five years so she likely learned a thing or two. Just the fact she could sing in French, German, Italian and Spanish and not sound awkward and not sound over-rehearsed is a testament both her skills as a vocalist and her consummate professionalism.

Clark has long been open about her dislike for "My Love" and yet you'd never know it listening to her. If anything, she sounds a great deal more convincing here than on her previous Canadian chart toppers, especially "Downtown", a song I have grown increasingly disinterested in. (I have a policy, borrowed from Tom Ewing, not to alter the score given once a review has been published; otherwise, I'd knock "Downtown" down to a 4 or possibly even a 3) Her earlier North American hits had been about finding a refuge either by losing herself in New York City's downtown or in a small live music venue so it's perhaps understandable that she found the trite lyrics to "My Love" so underwhelming. Nevertheless, she brims with confidence and enthusiasm, transforming a very ordinary song into a credible performance.

The story goes that songwriter Tony Hatch was on an airplane from London to Los Angeles and was struggling to complete a song called "The Life and Soul of the Party". The American sitting next to him advised against it — he supposedly claimed that the title would "mean nothing" in the States which means he was almost as big of a moron as some of the strangers I've sat next to on planes) and so the Englishman ended up dashing off "My Love" instead. (Hatch didn't give up on "The Life and Soul of the Party" entirely as it ended up as a deep cut on Clark's album My Love (aka A Sign of the Times/My Love, because nothing says serious albums act like changing the title after it has already been released), released in the spring of 1966)

I'm not quite sure if the airplane story is true — unless the jerk in the seat next to him happened to be a record exec, I'm not sure why he even gave his advice a second though — but no doubt "My Love" sounds like it was written in a hurry. The laundry list of romantic cliches ("my love is deeper than the deepest ocean, wider than the sky") is the first giveaway that Hatch probably didn't put a great deal of care and attention into it. With a less experienced singer the whole thing may well have been abandoned after no more than a two or three studio takes; but an old pro like Petula Clark managed to take chicken shit and turn it into chicken salad — albeit one heavy on the dark meat.

Score: 6