The Newbeats: "Bread and Butter"

September 15, 1964 (1 week)

"The review you had on "Bread and Butter" which was merely a three-word review, just said 'Shit and Butter'".

As you may have noticed, there's been a significant upswing in the quality of number one hits in 1964 compared to previous years. Where there is normally a mix of classics, average offerings and garbage, the number of high spots has been heavily outweighed so far this year. Obviously, The Beatles lead the way with four singles averaging a score of 9 but there have also been superb offerings from The Dixie Cups, The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, Jan and Dean, The Supremes and The Animals.

But not everything so far has hit. The poppy British Invasion stuff not recorded by Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr is indifferent at best with the nadir being The Dave Clark Five's pathetic "Bits and Pieces". Johnny Rivers' "Memphis" is another one I could give or take. But that's just four out of fourteen so far that are in the bad-to-all right range which is an excellent average so far.

And yet here comes a single so utterly annoying, so bereft of anything salvageable that it damn near ruins everything before it. Well, not quite. It doesn't actually destroy the legacy of what is an undeniably great year for pop music but it does provide a welcome reminder that there's always a room on the charts for godawful crap no matter how strong the competition.

The one thing in its favour is the sneaky feeling that maybe "Bread and Butter" is just your average, mediocre single that only seems rotten because of all those mighty singles that came before it. I wondered this but the fact that I couldn't get through its two minute run time without wishing to puncture my eardrums brought these suspicions to rest. "Bread and Butter" is the shits. As unfunny  as "The Purple People Eater", as sickening as "Paper Roses" and as a much of a slog to get through as "Donald, Where's Your Trousers?". Those three all suck something awful but this might well be worse. There isn't even the glimmer of a passable song tucked away somewhere in there.

Time for something decent. Luckily, it was 1964 so there was still lots more of the good stuff. Bring it on.

Score: 1

Travis & Bob: "Tell Him No"

May 4, 1959 (1 week)

Whether I've loved 'em, couldn't stand 'em or was utterly indifferent to 'em, I think I have managed to sort of understand what it was that made the previous forty-six entries on this blog popular enough to reach number one on the CHUM hit parade. The highly irritating novelty songs no doubt appealed to the kids and those vaguely jazzy instrumentals must have been favoured by older types — and those are simply the two most obvious examples.

But Travis & Bob's "Tell Him No" is a different beast from the rest. It isn't bad (though neither is it especially good), it's just incredibly hard to imagine it catching on with enough people to take it all the way to the summit of the Canadian chart. Obviously I've got an awful lot of ground still to cover but I have trouble believing I'll come across a single that sounds less like a number one (though there is a certain prog rock number from the early eighties that may well give it a good run for its money but we'll have to see). Weak-kneed, overbearing, convinced they're in control when they have no idea what to do: yeah, this song's got it all for manchild creepiness.

At first, however, "Tell Him No" seems way ahead of its time. It's impressive that a pair of young men in the alpha male fifties would be advocating for 'No Means No' anti-rape values if only that's what Travis Pritchett had intended when he wrote it. Okay, scratch that: they're all for a woman having self-determination over her own body when it comes to other guys who may be interested. Rather than attempting to make a case for why they might be the right the guy for her, they're all about convincing the girl to save herself for them. While the sentiment of the chorus is fair enough, the bargaining done in the song's middle eight comes across as pathetic. "It's all right to go to a party / It's all right to have some fun": I think you've already lost the battle if you're down to giving in on the fun she's permitted to get up to.

If the Canadian public really wanted a new Everly Brothers record then they ought to have been satisfied with their latest release "Take a Message to Mary", which had just entered the Top 10. While a minor work by their standards, Don and Phil's harmonies are as immaculate as ever, the backing is tasteful and Felice and Boudleaux Bryant handed in yet another peerless composition for the brothers to work with. It proved to be a modest hit compared to their recent imperial run but it is superior to "Tell Him No" in every respect. Why would you wish to have a third-rate "Bye Bye Love" when you could have the real thing?

One thing worth mentioning is that this single's rise up the charts is notable. Debuting at number forty-eight for the week of March 30, 1959, it was joined by a rival version of the same song by the duo of Dean & Marc (made up of brothers Dean and Mark Mathis who would go on to form The Newbeats who will be featured on this blog sometime within the next twelve months). This practice of the same song sharing a chart placement was not unusual at the time though in this particular instance something strange seems to have occurred. The two then shot up to twenty-six (where the April Fool's gag listed them as 'Princess Margaret', who, it should be noted, wasn't known to turned down the advances of her suitors) before hitting the Top 10 a week later. A week prior to this, Travis & Bob & Dean & Marc were at number five. But then, the Mathis brothers disappeared and suddenly it was just Travis & Bob who held the top spot. Curious and more than a little suspicious.

This is a shame since I prefer Dean & Marc's more spirited and shambolic rendition — although not by much. While Travis & Bob sound unconvincing as Everly Brothers impersonators, the future Newbeats don't even bother trying to sound like anyone but themselves. Nevertheless, there's only so much that can be done with such a flimsy piece of writing. Putting it on isn't the worst way to spend two minutes but surely you also have far better things to do, right?

Score: 4