Herman's Hermits: "I Can Take or Leave Your Loving"

March 2, 1968 (1 week)

"We're just about done with Peter Noone on this blog and I can't say I'm going to miss the cheeky bugger."

Or so I claimed last November, the last time a Herman's Hermits single came up for consideration. Even though I didn't hate their cover version of The Kinks' "Dandy", it was clear that it succeeded in spite of the Hermit treatment; it only made me appreciate Ray Davies' songwriting genius even more than I already do.

So, I ought to be glad that they're finally bowing out after six RPM number ones and for the most part I am. Half-a-dozen is more than enough. Tom Ewing and Aidan Curran only had to write a single review apiece ("I'm Into Something Good" being their sole British and Irish chart topper) while Tom Breihan had just a pair to cover ("Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" and "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" which, surprisingly though mercifully, somehow failed to hit the top of the charts in Canada). Those guys might be able to write me under the table but how would they fare with having to share their thoughts on six chart toppers by Herman's bloody Hermits. That said, a small part of me is sad to see them go.

It's bizarre to think that Herman's Hermits were still a relevant chart act by the end of the sixties. They had seen off the majority of the competition — longtime rivals Peter and Gordon had begun to fade a year earlier — with the remaining elements of the British Invasion having grown into serious recording artistes with concept albums and drug addictions. Yet, with bubblegum pop at its peak, there was still a place for Peter Noone and his band who may or may not have played on their records. Noone was still young and boyish enough to hang with Davy Jones of The Monkees and that was more than enough of a reason to stick around.

Previous Hermit hits were unconvincing. In their cover of "Silhouettes", we're expected to believe that Noone would have drunkenly stalked his best girl so they he may catch her in the act of cheating on him. Nope, I don't buy it. On "Listen People", he's delivering an allegedly profound message of peace and understanding to a populace that had been looking to The Beatles and Bob Dylan for "the answer". Again, a good try but his nibs was out of his depth. This is what makes "I Can Take or Leave Your Loving" so refreshing: I can imagine him saying this to a groupie or even to a girl-next-door with a pretty smile. This is only from listening to it casually, as the narrative paints the young woman as the one at fault while our hero attempts to put on a brave face. This is the acceptable, pop-friendly side but I prefer to think of it as him having a nonchalant view on relationships in general. I mean, why else would he sound this chipper?

But that is the thing with Noone: very few in pop sound as genuinely optimistic as he does — and all the better for it since he sounds like he's being himself for once. "I Can Take or Leave Your Loving" isn't all that special in the scheme of things but I think it does fairly well when held up against the new generation of American bubblegum groups. It has no more substance than what the likes of The Union Gap and Paul Revere and the Raiders were putting out but it has a chorus you might want to sing along with and a melody that could see you through your day. Will I miss having to review Herman's Hermits singles? Not particularly but this final go has given me a newfound respect for Noone (as well as whoever it is that happens to be playing on this). Good to go out on a high note!

Coming up, a vocal group of considerable importance. One who took themselves very seriously while quite often appearing to be a joke. Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb could've learned a thing or two from shameless spotlight hogger like Peter Noone.

Score: 6

Classics IV: "Spooky"

February 24, 1968 (1 week)

"What the hell is this place, this music? Since when do you listen to the Classics IV? What the hell did you do here? Who the hell are you?"

It was in the classic Six Feet Under episode "The Room" that main character Nate Fischer learns of just how little he knows about his recently deceased father Nathaniel. Discovering some unusual bookkeeping practices at his family's funeral home, he seeks out individuals who made unconventional deals for burials of family members. A mechanic exchanged regular oil changes for a funeral service while a horticulturalist gives Nate his father's monthly supply of hydroponic weed. Finally, he meets the owner of an Indian restaurant who shows him a secret room that his father would use.

Nate looks around the dusty, unkempt room and soon begins to rummage through a crate of records. Having previously believed his dad to have been mostly interested in old big band tunes, he is surprised to discover pop and rock in his collection. He puts on The Amboy Dukes' "Journey to the Center of the Mind" and imagines his father playing cards, doing drugs the bikers, sleeping with mysterious women and firing a gun out the window just for the hell of it. He then smokes some weed himself and has a fantasy chat with his dad over the mellow sounds of the Classics IV.

As with all music used in Six Feet Under, "Spooky" is an excellent choice of soundtrack for this scene. (A third selection, "Let's Go Out Tonight" by Craig Armstrong and Paul Buchanan, plays at the episode's end and it's in a very poignant scene) Nate has been chilling under the influence of all that J but he is still dumbfounded by what he has learned — and, indeed, by all that he'll never learn. You might say he's spooked by it all. Significantly, the show's main character has also recently begun an intense and tumultuous relationship with Brenda, a messed up genius who he finds equally intriguing and intimidating. But most importantly, he ultimately feels uncomfortable that he, a grown man in his thirties who has lived much of his life running away from loved ones and responsibilities, could become just like his mysterious father who know one really knows.

The relationship between Nate and Brenda is the essence of the spookiness in "Spooky": while she challenges him to become so much more, he refuses to get dragged into her manipulative games (or, more accurately, he refuses yet still often gets sucked into them anyway). The two are rocked by what the other represents. While their on-again, off-again relationship doesn't work out in the end, there's no question that they've changed each other profoundly. Sadly, there's less of a give-and-take dynamic in the song itself. Normal, everyday guy has this bird who changes on a dime. She blows him off one minute, then comes right back to him the next. It's unclear if we're supposed to sympathize with him or not but it does feel like he's more than a little turned on by her flightiness.

I could go on about Six Feet Under. (I have considered doing a blog about it, believe me) What I'd prefer not to delve into is Classics IV or, indeed, much beyond how their biggest hit works in an episode of one of my favourite TV shows. While there are many remarkable aspects to the HBO dark comedy, its use of music is largely overlooked. I can praise music supervisors Gary Calamar and Thomas Golubic for selecting great songs by Radiohead or slow-core masters Spain but I'd rather give them props for choosing material that buttons up scenes regardless of whether I like them or not. Some hipsters from my generation seemed to like Death Cab for Cutie but they never did much for me. That said, the use of their song "Transatlanticism" in a season four episode is inspired and for a fleeting moment I can understand why many people got into them back at around the time of the Millennium. 

While it has a sparkling, jazzy rhythm, "Spooky" isn't nearly as sexy at it thinks it is — nor is it even all that spooky. (Billboard would have you believe otherwise, putting it at number twelve on their list of the 25 Biggest Halloween Songs of All time on the Hot 100, stating that it's a favourite of "sensual spectres", whoever they are) Still, it is rather creepy, I'll give it that. Plenty of perfectly normal people have ended up in toxic relationships but the vast majority of us have the decency not to celebrate them so openly. At least Nate and Brenda learned something from all the shit that they put each other through which is more than can be said for the loser narrating this passable yet strangely unmoving song.

Score: 5