Brian Hyland: "Sealed with a Kiss"

July 16, 1962 (1 week)

One of my main tools for running this blog is the invaluable CHUM Tribute Site. Run by enthusiast Doug Thompson, it includes photos, memorabilia and, most relevant to this endeavour, scans of CHUM charts from the fifties all the way through to the eighties. I can't do without it and I plan to continue using this resource even after the Toronto-area radio station stopped being Canada's national chart.

That said, there are errors. I'm not judging, especially since I am well aware that I've committed my share of mistakes in my writing. One such howler is listing Bobby Vinton as the credited artist on "Sealed with a Kiss" on their list of number ones from 1962. I initially chalked this up to the Polish Prince having had the previous chart topper with "Roses Are Red (My Love)" until I remembered that he would go on to have a hit of his own with it a decade or so later. (There is also an error just below it, which credits Ernie Mareska (sic.) as the artist behind "(Girls Girls Girls) Made to Love" which was in fact recorded by Eddie Hodges)

Vinton's version of "Sealed with a Kiss" is one of three that are worth discussing. The others are by Brian Hyland, who actually topped the CHUM charts with it in the summer of '62, and Australian actor/pop star Jason Donovan, who managed to have his third UK number one on the bounce with it. Vinton's is probably the best-produced and most professional of them and he was (and, indeed, probably still is) at least a hundred times the singer as either of them but it is also by far the worst. 

Tom Ewing considers Vinton's version to be "insincere" which I can see. In fact, I hope that's what it is. Otherwise there's something creepy about a guy in his late thirties singing about teen romance and longing for the girl he won't be seeing until September. Definite creepy-gym-teacher-who's-been-sleeping-with-students-on-the-down-low vibes here. Hyland was nineteen when his recording of "Sealed with a Kiss" made the charts; Donovan was a year older. The two could've at least still passed for high school students.

As for Hyland, this is a marked improvement on the lousy "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", a single that I generously gave a 3 for some reason. Having previously celebrated the joys of summer in such crass fashion, it's rather nice to hear him expunge on how July and August can be such a drag. (One of my many pop obsessions is with songs about how the summer can be a giant load of suck; I don't know if I'd put "Sealed with a Kiss" quite as high as Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" and Belle & Sebastian's "Summer Wasting" but it might not be too far off)

Though not a technically proficient singer, Hyland does a good job pleading with his best girl that they'll be right back to where they left off once the summer holidays are done with. While not quite pathetic, he manages to sound desperate enough and is more than convincing. (By contrast, Jason Donovan's take is darker, as though something ominous is about to befall the couple in question during their separation)

Another point that Ewing makes in his review of Donovan's cover is that no one has ever "quite nailed a definite take on it". Again, I'm inclined to agree. One comment accompanying his review states that George Michael would've done wonders with it. True but I can't imagine the late Wham! superstar having any use for it either. The big problem with "Sealed with a Kiss" is that individuals who either can't sing all that well or are stuck in a perpetual state of youthfulness are the only ones who seem interested in recording it. A truly gifted artist like a George Michael or a Smokey Robinson or a Rufus Wainwright, on the other hand, would have far better things to do than lay down a session for a nice piece of juvenalia such as this

Score: 6

Brian Hyland: "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"

July 18, 1960 (3 weeks)

After returning from the 1988 Winter Olympics (which just so happen to have taken place in this humble blogger's hometown), the lovable loser Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards went back to obscurity as a roofer or whatever the hell he did for a living. Or so everyone thought. In actual fact, he invested in some tacky clothing, had a skin peel and went into broadcasting in his native UK. He also changed his name to Timmy Mallett and made some cash as a talentless children's TV "personality". The former ski jumper became so renowned that he even recorded a novelty pop hit in the broiling summer of 1990 under the name Bombalurina. The song? A cover of the not especially good Brian Hyland bit of silliness "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" which he somehow managed to make much, much worse.

(Some clarification: as far as I know, Eddie the Eagle and Timmy Mallett are not the same person. I merely jumped to that conclusion the first time I saw the latter on British TV in the autumn of 1988. In truth, they didn't look all that much alike unless you hadn't seen or thought about one of them — or both — in a long time, which does track. My schoolmate Grant, with his thick glasses and head-in-the-clouds personality, was actually more of an Eddie the Eagle clone, a fact we never failed to remind him of)

Brian Hyland's original version of "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" is not very good. Even without all the irritating samples added to the Bombalurina recording, it's still a deeply annoying song. Plus, Hyland's voice is flat, almost as if he wanted nothing to do with such a stupid single. (Imagine that!) Though almost half the length of Mallett's abomination (and, speaking of which, why the hell did so many pop records in the eighties and nineties go on for four or five minutes when two was generally more than enough?), its two minutes and twenty second run time is still too long.

Yet somehow, the Timmy Mallett cover version makes this original seem just about bearable. (I was going to say "pretty good" but let's not go nuts here) Hyland's reading isn't great but he does manage to capture the persona of an older brother who feels both protective of his little sister and her overwhelming shyness while also teasing her a bit. (A moderately interesting idea for a version of "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" would be from the perspective of a bully; I said it was interesting but I'm in no way trying to suggest it would be any good) If not for the whole thing being so embarrassing, it would almost have been charming. Amazingly, Hyland's version even manages to avoid sounding creepy, a quality that the Mallett cover only seemed to embrace.

A hopeless song that still managed to catch on — this isn't the first example on this blog and it will be far from the last. Perhaps it was funny at the time and maybe it even shocked a few Baptists. Who the hell knows? The only thing shocking now is just how bad it is — although, as I say, it's still nowhere close to as woeful as the infamous cover version from thirty years later by a man who would be so lucky to have been a lovable loser ski jumper.

Score: 3