I Listen to All The Music

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) - Edison Lighthouse (1)

I don't know where I came across this one first, but I've known it for a while, at least in passing. It was the first fully 1970s Number 1 (i.e. that didn't hit the top spot in 1969) and honestly, I think it's a good pick, it's a very catchy, good-natured track. The conceit is that Edison Lighthouse (a group, not a person's name) are in love with this girl Rosemary, who's kind of a weirdo. She ain't got no money, they sing, her clothes are kinda funny / Her hair is kinda wild and free. What's more, she talks kinda lazy / And people say she's crazy / And her life's a mystery. And yet, there's something very alluring about this strange, hippie woman, and so we hit the hook, the whole band piling in to sing about how love grows where my Rosemary goes, and nobody knows like me.

This is simple stuff, but really well done, there's a charm to it that's undeniable. Partly this is just because it's cute, a sort of rom-com set-up with Edison falling head-over-heels for the free-spirited oddball. But I also think the songwriting's on point, it's simple and to-the-point, but the lines' emphases all fit the melody perfectly, there are lots of punchy internal rhymes and assonances, or witty little matches, like rhyming "fella" with "tell her". The tune itself is super catchy and memorable, too, I defy you to listen to this, even just once, and not have a pretty solid grasp on the tune.

Anyway, all this to say, Edison Lighthouse were off on a good foot to begin with, here, and they've taken that good material and really run with it. There's so much here to like, from the funky, slightly country-rock-sounding riff that kicks the whole thing off, to the chugging, blues rock groove that follows, the liberal use of tambourine, and the way that the whole band piles in every time for the love grows chorus, giving it a grabby sort of oomph. They drop out again between choruses, but they're not completely absent, either, you get these fun little whay-hey-hey flourishes, a shouted hey! on the bridge, a relaxed coda with the band just repeating the hook in a vaguely Hey Jude way. Throw on brass and strings, and you've got a track that feels big, much more so than its cutesy lyrics would otherwise lead you to believe it should. This is a track I have a lot of time for.

Friends - Arrival (8)

This, meanwhile, is a track I have absolutely zero clue about, I hadn't even heard of the band before hitting play. It's a cover of a song by British singer-songwriter Terry Reid, who I also hadn't ever heard of, and first impressions, as the intro starts up, is that this is... honestly kind of boring? There's a rather grand, stately piano riff, but it's medium-slow and repeats one time too many, I start the track kind of willing it to get a move on. Not a great start.

Things do pick up a bit when the singing comes in, I'll admit, as lead vocalist Dyan Birch puts in a convincingly soulful performance. I don't think I love her voice, it's by turns husky but then strident and cutting and she sounds like she's straining it a bit at points, but you can't deny that it's a showstopper performance, and the lyrics are intriguing. I'm not convinced I actually know what she's driving at, mind you, but they're interesting for sure, as she sings about how I had a friend who had friends by a river / They too had friends who had friends of their own / All seated round takin' port after dinner / Port that was brought by the friends that were known. I have zero clue what this means, apart from a vague sense that it's a nostalgic kind of song, thinking back to good times with friends. And, hey, I have myself had a good time sitting round drinking port with friends, it's not the most rock and roll drink of choice, but it's nice, you know?

Alas, there's not much more to note about this song, though. There are some cool bongos throughout? Plus we get a string section later, heavy on the cellos, which feels like a very Beatles move to pull. Which is interesting, because there's not much else that's Beatles-y about this track, it's a soul-inflected pop track with a female vocalist. But the repeated descending cello line sounds like it's been pinched wholesale from Penny Lane. Oh, and we've got yet another fade-out, I feel like that's the only way people know how to end a track any more. Not a complaint, though, it's infinitely preferable to the Big Old Ending you'd get in the 50s and early 60s.

Leaving on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul & Mary (2)

Ooh, okay. I can't remember if we've heard anything from Peter, Paul & Mary. A quick Google suggests that we haven't, this was their only UK Top 10 hit. Which is funny, because I feel like in my brain they're a mid-60s band at the latest, the sort of group that did a lot of Bob Dylan covers and folksy stuff and then got really big on the hippie scene. But here they are showing up for the first time, and it's already 1970!

But digging a little further, it turns out the track is actually older, it's a 1967 cover of a 1966 John Denver track, written (rather fittingly) during a layover between two flights in Washington DC. Peter, Paul & Mary's recording then languishes unreleased for a bit, only to finally see a release in 1969. Immediately and probably inevitably it gets used in various United Airlines commercials, which I can't imagine harmed its domestic chart performance. And off the back of that, it seems to have done pretty well for itself in the UK, too.

And, honestly, I can see the appeal. There's something very sweet about this one, and very simple too, the whole thing hangs on a slightly jazzy double bass, a single acoustic guitar and Mary's vocals, which are deep and very gentle, soft without ever getting too whispery or breathy. She's clearly the star of the show, but Peter and Paul provide some very deft backing harmonies throughout, the vibe feels like what you'd get if Simon & Garfunkel were three people, and co-ed, or if the Seekers' whole deal were just a touch subtler.

Because it is quite a stripped-back, restrained performance. Which isn't to say that it stays soft and quiet throughout, there are some dynamic peaks once the song gets going. But even at its most intense, the song feels emotionally quiet deadpan, there are no great passions here, we're not in the realm of romantic ecstasy or in the realm of crushing misery. Rather, the song takes a small, everyday moment, a woman who has to sneak out for an early morning flight, leaving her love behind, and turns it into something very simple but poignant, Mary singing about how all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go / I'm standing here outside your door / I hate to wake you up to say goodbye. The taxi's standing waiting, she's still there, but already I'm so lonesome I could cry. She asks her love to kiss me and smile for me / Tell me that you'll wait for me / Hold me like you'll never let me go, dreams of coming back more permanently, a wedding ring on her finger. And that's it, that's the song. It's small-scale, but that's the beauty of it, the romance. I like it a lot.

The Witch's Promise - Jethro Tull (double A-side, 4)

And then this comes screaming in with strummed guitar and a cascade of fluttering, trilling flutes, pretty but chaotic, like a mess of birds twittering melodically all at the same time. It's a heck of an opening, but somehow also much more what I'd expect from Jethro Tull, compared to their last hit, Sweet Dreams, which was way heavier. Whereas we've got a folk vibe here, kind of.

Kind of, I say, because this is still a very different beast to the gentle easiness of Peter, Paul & Mary's folk. Their music is smooth and palatable, with simple, observational lyrics rooted in actual modern life, drawing from the same American folk tradition as Peter Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan. Jethro Tull's take on folk, on the other hand, is feels very British to me, like they're trying to channel something much older and decidedly stranger, creating a song that clips along briskly, falling quickly into this off-kilter, melismatic sort of meandering waltz as Ian Anderson's unmistakable vocals come in, spinning a rich but enigmatic and ultimately quite unsettling tale.

Because what else can you make of this? Lend me your ear as I call you a fool, Ian sings, you were kissed by a witch one night in the wood / And later insisted your feelings were true. Somebody's been beguiled, it seems, tricked into falling in love - lured away from their existing love by the promises of a seductress, I'm surmising, though there's quite a lot of reading between the lines happening here, it's not a very clear or a very straightforward story that gets told. And that's perhaps the point, I get the feeling that Jethro Tull are much more about writing capital-R Romantic poetry, capturing the beauty and the strangeness and the magic of it all, without necessarily needing to lay out exactly what they're singing "about". The witch's promise is turning, they assure you, so don't you wait up for him, he's going to be late...

Teacher - Jethro Tull (double A-side, 4)

This, on the other hand, is a return to Sweet Dream's more bluesy style. And I'm not mad, it's nice to have the contrast. In some ways this feels like a much more conventional hit, a heavy, riff-driven rock song with a lot of drive and energy, and a Hammond organ wailing away over the top. There's a sick jazzy flute break halfway through, because it is still a Jethro Tull song, we've go to have some weirdness. But overall, this feels much more "normal", I know where I stand here.

And to go with it, you get some much more easily applicable lyrics. Because much like various Beatles tracks of the era, this is song about that sort of "guru" figure that seems to have been so prominent in the late 60s, be he a literal Maharishi-type guru or some other more metaphorical "guru" figure, claiming to have all the answers, sucking people in preaching hedonism and free love, only for it to turn out to basically be a grift, or worse, a cult.

Hence lines about him turning up to the singer's house, early one morning, claiming that my name's the teacher / Or that is what I call myself / And I have a lesson that I must impart to you. He comes with a message, encouraging the singer to jump up, look around, find yourself some fun, and our protagonist falls for it, singing of how I took the journey, threw my world into see, except with me went the teacher who found fun instead of me. Because at the end of the day, when things get real, it's the teacher who's first to bail, thanking Ian for his ticket, but getting out of there, sun-tanned, drink in hand, leaving our clearly disappointed protagonist to foot the bill.

What a range of stuff! I feel like we got quite a few interesting things, this week, I particularly enjoyed to clash between Peter, Paul & Mary's old-school chill folk and Jethro's new-school less-chill folk. But at the end of the day, there's one of these songs that I already know I'm going to come back to, not least because it's gonna be stuck in my head anyway. So...

Reflections of My Life - Marmalade (peaked at Number 3)

This feels very Beatles, somehow, just in the careful way the band builds the song up. It starts with this very simple, strummed guitar, cycling through a permutation of chords that feel a bit more interesting and unpredictable than your standard chord progression - nothing crazy, but there are definitely some shifts back and forth from major to minor in there. This sequence then carries on through the whole song, picking up bass and drums, then organ and vocals, then backing vocals, then strings, then some brass fanfare-like flourishes, to the point where it feels quite full, and then it's just a question of pulling it all back, building it back up again, rinse and repeat.

All of which is in service of a lot of melancholy navel-gazing, as Marmalade sing about how the changing of sunlight to moonlight / Reflections of my life, oh how they fill my eyes. Marmalade are in the mood for reminiscing, disenchanted with the present, hence lines about how all my sorrows / Sad tomorrows / Take me back to my own home. They're stuck crying, feel like dying, dying, convinced that the world is a bad place, a bad place / A terrible place to live. They don't want to die, they assure us, but they're clearly not doing great, hence the repeated refrain about going back home, nostalgia as an escape from the present.

It's a bit self-indulgent, and I don't love how word-salad is, there aren't many coherent sentences going on here. But it does make it at least moderately clever when you hit the guitar solo and half of it has been recorded and then played in reverse. Which is a super cool effect, it's a distinctive, weird sound in its own right. But in a song that's about going back to the past, reversing time, it also feels thematically appropriate, which is fun, I like it. I kind of wish they'd made it more prominent, actually, or done the whole solo reversed, rather than just half. More reversed noises, please!

Come and Get It - Badfinger (4)

Badfinger isn't a good band name, I'll say it now. It sounds weird, and kind of gross, at least to my ears. They were named, apparently, after the working title for the Beatles' With a Little Help from My Friends, which started life out as Bad Finger Boogie. But I don't think that helps matters. It makes sense, sure - they were signed to the Beatles' Apple Records and had a bunch of songs produced by Beatles, including this week's Come and Get It, so the influence isn't exactly a secret - but I just don't like it, it sounds nasty.

But whatever, a bad band name doesn't necessarily mean bad music. Case in point, this. Because this is quite a serviceable hit. Come and Get It was penned by Paul McCartney as part of the soundtrack to The Magic Christian, a 1969 black comedy featuring Peter Sellars, Ringo Starr and a frankly baffling array of in hindsight incredibly famous people (including a pre-Monty Python John Cleese). It's about an eccentric billionaire, Guy Grand, who goes round playing "pranks" that are basically him throwing his cash around and bribing people to do shocking, chaotic or plain stupid things. This doesn't sound like a film I'd much enjoy, but it does give some context for the otherwise quite vague lyrics of the song, which is from Guy's perspective, as he flashes the cash, promising all these schmucks if you want it, here it is, come and get it / Mmmmm-make your mind up fast / If you want it, anytime, I can give it / But you better hurry, 'cause it may not last.

Written out like that, this doesn't sound great, but I promise it's catchy. I think part of that's the sheer repetition of it, the structure as far as I can tell is literally just ABAABAB, so you've got plenty of time for it to worm into your brain. On top of that, the lyrics are simple, it's bouncy, and it sounds good, too - the band have thrown on these very pleasant three-part harmonies, there's a fun interplay between the piano and the bass that I can't quite describe, there's somebody just keeping this steady, shuffling maraca beat going, the drumming's very competent, and I really like the way everything drops out on the fool and his money line before piling back in as the A-section repeats. It's very competent stuff, I'm not in any way shocked that this was a hit.

It really does feel like the Beatles influence looms large over both of these tracks. Which is to be expected, the Beatles are the biggest group around and have been for a few years, of course people are going to be stealing their tricks, the interesting chord progressions, the careful build-up, the backmasking and other studio tricks. In Badfinger's case, you've also got the catchy Paul McCartney songwriting, the mild but anarchic sense of humour, and, you know, a film with Ringo in it. And the result of all this drawing of inspiration is (predictably) some pretty solid music. Who'd have thought it?

Good Old Rock 'N' Roll - The Dave Clark Five (peaked at Number 7)

This is a track that does what it says on the tin, opening with a proper rock and roll guitar hook. A bassline kicks in playing a 12-bar blues pattern, the piano's going wild, Jerry Lee Lewis-style, the drums join the party, and suddenly Dave's singing about how when I was just a little boy, you know my one and only joy / Was listenin' to that good old rock 'n' roll. Well, he's 23 now, he sings, but he loves rock and roll as much as ever. And this leads into a medley of rock and roll hits, snippets from Sweet Little Sixteen, Long Tall Sally, Chantilly Lace, Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, Blue Suede Shoes, Lucille. All what I'd call proper "canonical" rock and roll hits, and all performed with admirable gusto by Dave and co.

This is kind of funny to me, because on the one level you could ask what the point is, or bemoan how the first hit of the 1970s is stuck looking back to the past. But on the other hand, it does kind of make sense, because this is music from 12 to 15 years ago, that's the perfect gap for nostalgia to kind of start creeping in, especially for folks like Dave for whom I guess it was their, like, childhood comfort music much in the same way that some late 2000s and early 2010s music is for me. Which is funny, I feel like when I imagine a "rock and roll fan" it's always a teenaged leather-jacketed greaser with a pompadour listening "live" on the radio, circa 1957. But it makes perfect sense that you would also get this long tail a decade and chance later of people who were a bit too young to fit that archetype, but who still absorbed all the music at a formative age.

And so you get this, a very straightforwardly crowd-pleasing 1950s pastiche. Because it's just that, a pastiche, not a one-to-one replica, it's the 1950s as interpreted by 1969, which means meatier instruments, a slightly more garage rock feel. The best example is the riff at the start, which is ripped straight from the start of Johnny B. Goode, but dissolves into this very psych rock distortion at the end, before the vocals come in. Or how about the Hammond organ that comes in towards the end, subtly? They did have organ back in the 1950s, but to my ears, it's still a very late 1960s sound. And in contrast, there's no sax, no string bass, no piano triplets - barely any piano at all, in fact, except for the glissandos that have been thrown in for flavour. All of these things were 1950s staples, but you don't get them here, because deep down, this isn't interested in actually recreating the 1950s-as-were, it's interested in the 1950s-as-remembered, which is a much more flexible thing.

I don't hate it, not least because it's clearly just meant to be a bit of Christmas fun, a medley of popular hits to be played at parties. Which is something we haven't seen since Winifred Atwell's days, and now I think about it, she also used to include a bunch of wartime hits and even some pre-war standards, which for an early 1950s audience probably fulfilled a similar function to what Chuck Berry and Little Richard are doing for Dave Clark, giving listeners something they can latch onto and recognise even just from a few short bars. And once you've worked out what the tune is, you've got the fun of guessing what's coming up next, anticipating what tracks are "classic" enough to throw in the mix.

I won't lie, I was hoping for something super "1970s-y" this week. Which this absolutely wasn't, let's be clear. But it is interesting to think about how there has now been a full generation who've grown up with relatively "modern" music around. Something that will be interesting to keep track of as we get further into the decade, I suspect.

Without Love - Tom Jones (peaked at Number 10)

I guess we are ending on Tom Jones. And you know what, that's fine. Personal feelings aside, he is undeniably one of the names of late-60s UK pop music, the sort of guy who's got imitators popping up left, right and centre, including, you know, Elvis. So perhaps he's not the worst person to round the decade out. I hope the track's good, though...

Ah. Well, that's not a great start. We begin with piano and strings playing a little jerky motif, and then it's time for a very muted trumpet melody, with Tom speaking over the top. Not singing. Speaking. I have a hate-love relationship to spoken word segments at the best of times (it's like a love-hate relationship, but weighted towards hate) and this one's particularly irritating. There's not one thing that makes it so annoying, either. Perhaps it's the rather portentous, pretentious quality to Tom's voice as he proclaims that to live for today and to love for tomorrow is the wisdom of a fool. Oh, he thinks he's so clever, doesn't he? Or perhaps it's the saccharine sentiment of lines about how love is that wonderful thing that the whole wide world needs plenty of, or the mildly disapproving sternness of the line about how if you think for one minute that you can live without it, then you are only fooling yourself. Or perhaps it's the sheer cheesiness of the transition into singing, with Tom announcing that I'd like to tell you something that happened to me just the other day.

Whatever the case, by the time the singing then starts, I'm thoroughly unimpressed. Which is a shame, because the song does then start out okay? It's a Clyde McPhatter original that Tom's covering, so as you might expect, it's got a bit of an R&B or a soul feel, Tom putting on an (only slightly hokey) American accent as he croons gently over these very gentle strings, a pretty harp, a bluesy piano providing some genuinely lovely contrast at te end of lines. It's quite minimal, I suspect there's a chorus doing some ooohs in the mix, but they're kept thankfully subtle.

And then, because it's Tom, all that gets thrown out the window in favour of big theatrical touches. It starts with a rather over-dramatic sigh, and before long, Tom's fully belting, backing chorus and brass, the works. He belts well, so I can see why they did it, but it does tip some of the more self-important lines over into "too much" territory. When he was crooning, I could buy into lines about dreams turning to ashes, about finding your life barren and bare, about how without love I had nothing, nothing at all. But at full power, they suddenly come off as bombastic and kind of overblown. Like, what am I meant to say to Tom shouting about how I have conquered the world, but nothing did I have. Get over yourself, dude.

Well, that's the 60s. Genuinely insane to think of the changes that have happened in pop music over that time. We started the decade rocking and rolling, a whole British invasion happened, we've had Brill Building pop, we've had a folk revival, we've had an unexpected amount of trad jazz, we've had Cockney comedy, we've had Italian festival hits, we've had protest songs, we've had power pop, we've had a whole Wall of Sound, we've had Motown, we've had hippies, we've had blues rock, we've gone all bubblegum, we've even seen reggae starting to pop up on our radar... I really do think the 60s must have been one of the craziest and most exciting times to be alive and listening to popular music, because there's just so much happening. And now, a new decade looms. So, roll on the 70s, and may they be just as nuts as the 60s were!

Tracy - The Cuff Links (peaked at Number 4)

I love name songs. They're such a cool snapshot of what were "cool" names back in the day. I don't think I know a single Tracy nowadays, but clearly in 1969 it was quite the thing, joining Suzanne, Susie, Sue, Bobbie Joe and...uh, John and Yoko, I guess? Okay, I guess there haven't been all that many this year. Still, always fun.

All of which is me putting off saying anything about this particular song, because... I don't know, it's fine? There's just not much to say about it. It's cute, I guess, starting with these light, bouncy ba-ba-bababa-baas, followed by lead singer Ron Dante singing about how Tracy, when I'm with you / Something you do / Bounces me off the ceiling / Tracy, day after day / When you're this way / I get a lovin' feeling. They're simple, sweet lyrics, very sugary, but straightforward and unpretentious enough that you can't really dislike them, and the ba-ba-bababa-baa hook's pretty catchy, I'll probably be humming it tomorrow.

I will also say, I do love the layered vocals in the chorus. I thought they were backing vocalists, but I think they might actually just be Ron spliced over himself a bunch of times, singing these pretty harmonies that feel strangely kind of classical at points? The Tracy, I love you so / Tracy please don't go gets bonus points here for having a completely different set of lyrics, love it when you get a countermelody like that. And even when it's just ooohs, they're pretty tight, somebody's been really careful arranging all this, and the result, while not super dramatic, is very pleasant to listen to, there's a gentle whimsy to it that I do rather like.

All I Have to Do Is Dream - Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell (3)

And then this, a cover of an Everly Brothers song that I remember enjoying. In theory, this should be an easy win, I like the original, I like Bobbie Gentry and I like Glen Campbell. Both Bobbie and Glen are country artists at heart, or at least country-adjacent, with husky, slightly beat-up voices that I would expect to work well with this kind of slightly melancholy, downbeat love song. This really ought to work.

And yet, here I am. I don't think it doesn't work, exactly. But there's no energy to this, it's like both Bobbie and Glen are on autopilot, they sound half-asleep. Which might be the point, in a song about dreaming, and it's not like the original vocals were particularly high-octane, but still. I'm getting a strong whiff of Cliff Richard from Glen's vocals, which is never a great sign. And Bobbie's not adding much either, I really have to focus to pick her vocals out. The whole thing's fine, but nothing here's thrilling me, neither the vocals nor the blandly smooth, string-heavy backing.

What I will say for it is that I do like the basic idea of turning the song into a male-female duet. Because as soon as you get Bobbie and Glen singing, it becomes less a song sung about somebody and more a song sang to somebody. When our singers sigh that whenever I want you, all I have to do is dream, or lament that only trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away, or sing about how I need you so that I could die, you get the sense they're singing about each other, which in turn creates this wonderful irony, the idea that they're both pining away over each other, when if they just confessed their feelings, they could have the real deal, no need for all this dreaming! They're so tantalisingly close to working it all out! The fanfiction reader in me loves this, zero complaints about the framing. I just wish there was a little more dynamism to it.

It's funny, I do generally think it's hard to do a bad cover of a good song, and Bobbie and Glen's attempt at All I Have to Do Is Dream is no exception. It's not bad at all, there are some definite merits to it, and many of them were latent in the original song, it was just waiting for two singers who weren't, you know, related. So, not a bad cover. But I will admit, a slightly pointless cover. I'm not sure anybody was out there clamouring for this one. Tracy felt much fresher, much lighter on its metaphorical feet. Like a lot of bubblegum music, it's a bit nothing-y, but that's fine, it's catchy and fun. Which has to mean, on balance...

Winter World of Love - Engelbert Humperdinck (peaked at Number 7)

Listen, it's an Engelbert Humperdinck Christmas song, you can't be surprised by anything here. Sure, it's slow and sappy and full of these very twinkly, cheesy orchestral touches, but that just comes with the territory. If you didn't want vibes and lush strings and heroic horns and tinkling chimes, what are you listening to this for? If anything, I'm mostly just surprised how prominent the bass guitar and drums still manage to be, in the face of such a onslaught of Orchestra Noise.

All of which is in service of lyrics about walking through a snow-white land with your love, hand in hand, sitting up by night making eyes at each other around the fire, Engelbert promising his girl that we'll find a winter world of love / 'Cause love is warmer in December. Which... okay. Fine. Not sure that's entirely true, but it's fine, it's pretty enough, as a sentiment, and Engelbert does then follow up with lines about how because the nights are longer / We'll have the time to say such tender things before each day, which isn't really that saucy, if anybody else were singing I would in fact call it quite tame, but for Engelbert, this is as risqué as things get, all these allusions to people cosying up together, keeping each other warm through the night, whispering sweet nothings as the dawn finally breaks...

Okay, it's a stretch. But I've got to find something, this is otherwise quite a boring song. Even Engelbert sounds bored, I'm afraid, the little oh ho, oh ho that he does throughout the song just gets more lifeless on each repeat, there's next to no energy to it. And even as the song does pick up a bit of oomph, there's not much feeling to it, Engelbert goes big, a proper Frank Sinatra My Way kind of performance, but there's no emotion to back any of it up, no tenderness, no real affection. And the end result, as I've said, is real boring. Yawn.

The Onion Song - Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (9)

Okay, this promises to be a little more interesting. It's not every day you get a song with such an inscrutable title. And as things kick into gear, things don't immediately become clearer, as we get Marvin and Tammi harmonising beautifully over some lovely piano, singing about the world is just a great big onion / And pain and fear are the spices that make you cry / And the only way to get rid of this great big onion / Is to plant love seeds until it dies.

So many aspects of this make no sense to me. Is the world being an onion meant to be a bad thing? I mean, I guess cutting onions makes you cry, but other than that, they're inoffensive at worst, and outright delicious at best. I feel like spices also don't typically make me cry, not unless I've really overdone it on them. And how would planting "love seeds", whatever those are, kill our big cosmic onion? And do we actually want to kill off the cosmic world-onion? Surely that's, like, apocalyptically bad, right?

I'm clearly taking the metaphor far too literally, this is a song about working together and loving each other to make the world a happier place, hence Marvin's lines about how we got a great big job to do, or asking don't you know, we've got to clean up this place? So it's not literally about the world being a giant onion, but still, if you start with such a striking line, I feel like you've got to get the details right. Which I'm not entirely convinced they've done here, but it just about works anyway, purely on the strength of how bouncy and upbeat this track is, the funky bass, the liberal use of tambourine and bongos, the horns and strings layered on top, that Motown danceability.

Also, Marvin and Tammi are very good singers. We already knew this about Marvin, but he continues to impress here, there's by turns an edge to his voice, then it's smoother, while Tammi's also a very confident singer, with a lovely, pleasant voice. They've got a good a good give and take between them, as well, neither of them take over the track, they're pretty balanced. You can see why they duetted together, though sadly this was one of their final tracks, before Tammi's untimely death from a brain tumour, aged just 24. Which is kind of wild, she's literally 23 here, you'd never guess she was so young!

I know what I'd be listening to, back in 1969, and I'll give you a hint, it's not Engelbert. I do have a few bones still to pick with the Onion Song's metaphor, I don't think it's entirely coherent. But the "let's all plant love seeds" messaging feels super on-brand for 1969, it's like a better, less issue-specific (and consequently less racist) version of what Blue Mink were trying to do last week with Melting Pot. And it sounds good, to boot.

Two Little Boys - Rolf Harris (peaked at Number 1)

I'll keep it brief, because I've said it before and I'll say it again, I feel like I'm doing something wrong even clicking play on tracks from somebody whose reputation today is so firmly tied to, say, a conviction for child sexual abuse. Fortunately, if you can call it that, we've come across Rolf Harris before, so no need to really explain him. Australian. Makes novelty music. TV personality. Beloved national treasure until he very suddenly wasn't.

But that was much later. In 1969 Rolf is still a very popular figure, with his own BBC variety show, as part of which he strikes on the idea to record a version of Two Little Boys, which was actually a pre-existing song from 1903. It's a sentimental number, potentailly based on a Victorian children's story, all about two little boys (duh) playing soldiers until one of them breaks his toy horse. Tears and crying ensue, until his friend picks him up, asking did you think I would leave you crying / When there's room on my horse for two? He rescues his friend and they muse on what it'll be like when they grow up and are really soldiers. Well, would you know it, they do grow up and go to war together, and one ends up wounded and dying, and the other picks him up onto his horse yet again to save him, and this time they think nostalgically back about how things were back when they were just boys.

I dislike this, even just on its own merits. It's sentimental and cutesy, which I despise at the best of times, it's horribly earnest, and there's something very unsettling, at least to me, hearing about the boys' eagerness even as little children to go to war and get themselves killed, the way the song doesn't even question that. It feels tone deaf today, when kids really are discouraged from "playing soldiers", but I suspect that even in 1969, with so much emotion and cultural anger around the Vietnam War, I suspect there may have been some weird feelings about this one. Layer on a production that's terribly self-important and militaristic, lots of snare drums and bugle calls, and you've got something that's really hard to listen to.

And if you wanted yet another reason to dislike the song, 10 years after its release Margaret Thatcher of all people went onto BBC Radio Lancashire and named it as her favourite song. Which is both upsetting and also kind of baffling to me, that anybody could like this to the point of naming it their favourite. Bleurgh.

Melting Pot - Blue Mink (3)

You know, I don't think Blue Mink are the band I thought they were. I had in my head that they were a psychedelic rock band, and a pretty heavy one, at that. No idea who I was confusing them with, answers on a postcard if you think you know! Because as soon as this track starts, it's clear that Blue Mink are more of a soul outfit, perhaps with a bit of pop thrown in for good measure, but there's none of that rock edge here, it's pretty soft stuff, sung in a high, clear register by American soul singer Madeline Bell, who will end up duetting with the band's usual lead, Roger Cook.

And okay, it's a well-meaning song. Let that be said first. On top of being co-ed, Blue Mink was also racially integrated, and this is a song about that, a call for racial harmony, describing how great it would be if everybody just mixed together, what a beautiful dream, if it could only come true, you know, you know. So yeah, we like racial harmony. But the way the song frames it is... well, it's not great. We start with take a pinch of white man / Wrap him up in black skin / Add a touch of blue blood. This is already quite weird. But the "recipe" (as it were) just gets more problematic after this, with at least three straight-up slurs. Which is a whole new level of bad, I don't think we've had that on this blog before, and I'd really have preferred it to stay that way. Worse, even the proposed solution, mixing everybody up in the titular melting pot for a hundred years until you can turn out coffee-coloured people by the score, also feels reductive and just kind of fraught. Like, the more you think about it, the more problematic it becomes. Good intentions, terrible execution.

The rest of the song is fortunately on slightly more solid ground, though it's not entirely out of the woods, as it turns to religion, with an emphasis on how it shouldn't matter what religion you belong to, whether you belong to the rabbis and the friars / Vishnus and the gurus / You got the Beatles or the Sun God, it's true. It's a bold and possibly controversial move to include the Beatles in there, after John's "bigger than Jesus" comment made such a stir, but my main issue here is actually Madeline's diction, as she manages to make the first like sound like "grandma's in the fryer", which really confused me the first few times I listened. I had to look the lyrics up in the end. And Roger's vocals in this bit are equally unclear, there are several lines that I can't make out at all and that the lyrics I looked up don't seem to agree on, either. But yeah, by and large the back end of the song's fine, it's just a bit empty and much less focussed than the first minute or so, you do get the feeling that Blue Mink ran out of new things to say. And that's fine, seeing as how the things they had to say were slurs. I'll take "aimless nothing" over that any day.

Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley (2)

Oh, here we go, something actually good. This track could have been four and a half minutes of ear-bleeding guff and I'd have awarded it "favourite song of the bunch" just by dint of it not being by a predator or, you know, actively offensive. But I'm very pleased to announce that that is not the case. From the intro, with its familiar, warm mix of guitar and organ, Elvis clearly means business. And the result's an absolute classic, catchy and well-made.

We're caught in a trap, Elvis sings, harmonising with himself, I can't walk out / Because I love you too much, baby. There's a touch of violin, then drums, upping the intensity. Why can't you see, he asks, what you're doing to me / When you don't believe a word I say? And then the chorus, as Elvis laments that we can't go on together / With suspicious minds / And we can't build our dreams / On suspicious minds. The relationship's gone sour, Elvis describing a love who gets terribly jealous of an old friend stopping by to say hello, asks where Elvis has been, refuses to believe his explanations. The relationship's not going anywhere, but he still loves them too much to leave them, and so the song can't really go anywhere, instead getting stuck in a loop, the I'm caught in a trap lines repeating over and over, fading out, then in again, then out again without ever coming to a resolution.

It's a bittersweet sort of song, describing a really specific relationship problem, inspired, apparently, by a situation singer-songwriter Mark James go into along with his wife and his (married) childhood sweetheart, talk about messy! Still, Mark's pain is Elvis' gain, because it's exactly the sort of song that he needed, when planning his big Memphis comeback, a proper, meaty rock song with some nice gospel and soul touches - the bridge in the middle's perhaps the best example of this, as everything slows down and switches to 6/8 for a soulful moment before coming crashing back in, but the horns and the backing singers are also quite R&B-sounding. And aside from fitting stylistically with the other stuff Elvis is doing, it also feels like quite a good song for a mature singer, somebody who's lived life, been married, had time to experience some of the more difficult times, all of which really helps him sell Suspicious Minds.

I will say, if I had any critique, I think it's the fake ending. I've never really understood these, they always sound to my ears like a mistake that shouldn't have been left in, or at best a rather cynical ploy to make a song with a long coda more palatable to radio DJs, who could cut the song at the fake ending if they needed to. Which is fine, needs must, but it does make for a rather confusing and honestly pretty anticlimactic listening experience as the song completely loses all energy, picks up a little, only to peter out yet again, this time for real, I swear, promise. It's very unnecessary, and I'm very much hoping it goes out of fashion soon.

Zero surprises here, I've already told you what my favourite was, for reasons that ought to be obvious. But honestly, I think Elvis probably would have taken it anyway, Suspicious Minds is a great track, very catchy, very memorable, keeps moving along at a nice pace and never gets boring. All very competent stuff, Elvis really is back on form - looking forward to whatever comes next as we enter the 1970s.

The Liquidator - The Harry J Allstars (peaked at Number 9)

I'll hand it to them, the Harry J Allstars did have a cool name. Named after their leader, producer Harry Zephaniah Johnson, much like the Upsetters, the Allstars were a band made up of session musicians. Harry, it seems, had obtained the rights to a track called Liquidator, with the intention of using it as backing for a completely different song. When that fell through, I guess he must have decided that the song could stand alone.

Why, I have no clue. Because The Liquidator is just a track with very little going on. Well, no, that's a lie, there's a guitar riff that opens it all, and a staccato reggae beat that drops in about 23 seconds in, plus a bit of organ over the top playing something that I might call a tune, if I were feeling generous. I'd have to be feeling pretty generous, though, at best it's on par with Dollar in Teeth. Which was the better of the Upsetters' two tracks, but it wasn't exactly a thrill ride. And neither is this, it's very repetitive, meandering aimlessly around the same melodic ideas without any great development, before fading pointlessly out, not even a proper ending. I'll admit, the organ's also starting to grate, the more I listen, too.

Despite this, the track clearly did do well, perhaps thanks to a demographic that I didn't really think about, back when the Upsetters' tracks came out. I wondered then who the target audience was. But The Liquidator was apparently used - and still is, for certain clubs, most notably Chelsea - as a track to play as the players run out onto the field at football games. Which makes sense, now I think about it. It's a bouncy track, for sure, and there's a certain confidence and swagger to it. I bet the organ, grating as it is through headphones, really pops when played over tinny stadium speakers, too, cutting through the crowd noise handily. Plus, there's no lyrics for you to mishear. So yeah, not my favourite track, but I'm glad it found its niche.

I wonder if I watched more football if the connection here would have been more obvious. As it was, the link was a genuine surprise - but like I said, it makes perfect sense, when you think about it, both that the song would be used as a stadium anthem, and that it would get super popular, as a result. Kind of makes me wonder if other clubs were using Return of Django or Dollar in the Teeth for the same thing, when they got big a few weeks back...

Sweet Dream - Jethro Tull (peaked at Number 7)

I may have already said, I love me some Jethro Tull! I don't think I know this one, though. Looking at it, the songs I know best seems to mostly be their 1970s ones, so I guess that makes sense. And to be honest, if it weren't for Ian Anderson's very distinctive voice, I have no clue listening without context if I'd recognise this as a Jethro Tull track at all, it's got barely any flute right up until the final thirty seconds or so, going heavy instead on bombastic brass, a guitar riff nicked right out of a Led Zeppelin song and later on some pretty intense use of cowbell. None of which are completely outside of Jethro Tull's wheelhouse, but the combination has much more of a standard hard rock vibe than I usually associate with the group. Or perhaps I just miss the flute, love me some flute.

The lyrics, at least, are suitably weird. As far as I can tell, they're about the singer appearing, succubus-like, in the night to woo their young lover away, hence lines about how you'll hear me calling in your sweet dream / Can't hear your daddy's warning cry, promising that you're going back to be all the things you want to be / While in sweet dreams you softly sigh. Things turn a bit darker as they exhort you to get out and get what you can / While your mummy's at home a-sleeping, describing you leaving and starting your parents' car, all wrapped up tightly in the coat you borrowed from me, promising that your place of resting is not far / You hear my voice is calling / To be mine again. Which... okay, the band were in their early twenties at this point, which definitely makes it a bit less weird, but still. Definite potential for creepiness here, it feels like Ian's playing into a super sinister, unwholesome sort of character.

And indeed, there does exist a music video, made much later, set in an old-timey abandoned cinema, with Ian playing some sort of vampire. I cannot recommend it enough, there's an Igor lookalike, Ian Anderson rises from a coffin in Bela Lugosi get-up, there are all sort of little visual references to Nosferatu and other 1920s German expressionist films, there are clips from the Cabinet of Dr. Caligaria, the whole video's shrouded in dry ice smoke, there's some completely inexplicable nonsense with huge balloons, a ballerina, a tarantula with laser eyes, a creepy nun, many, many candles. It's a good time, basically. Also, it's a different version of the song with way more flute, so you know, added bonus, if you like that kind of thing too (which I very much do).

Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town - Kenny Rogers (2)

Hmm. I thought this was a song that I'd know, but listening, I'm not sure it is at all. In my head, I thought it was about a man in love with a prostitute, a sort of country version of the Police's Roxanne. And I maintain that that probably is a song that exists, it's the sort of downbeat small-town story that country music's good at telling. Kenny's got a sad kind of voice, too, all husky and creaky, so as he launched into the song, singing about how you've painted up your lips and rolled and curled your tinted hair, I thought I was on solid ground. Ruby, he asks, are you contemplatin' goin' out somewhere?

Except then verse two gets going, and I realise that this might not be the story I thought it was, because suddenly he's singing about how it wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war / But I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore. Yup, it turns out this is a Vietnam War song, and quite a depressing one, too, told from the perspective of a veteran who's come back injured. Ruby, in this telling, isn't some unrequited crush for Kenny to pine after, she's his girlfriend. Or perhaps not for much longer, because she clearly doesn't have much time for him, now that he's back. And this is something Kenny does initially seem to understand, with lines about how it's hard to love a man whose legs are paralyzed / And the wants and the needs of a woman your age, Ruby, I realize. But as she leaves, this understanding gives way to a bitter rage, with Kenny swearing that if I could move, I'd get my gun and put her in the ground / Oh, Ruby, don't take your love to town. Talk about dark!

As short stories go, it's pretty compelling, I found myself really sympathising with Kenny, right up until that sudden, murderous urge, which comes completely out of the blue, but not in a bad way, more in the sense of somebody hitting their breaking point and just snapping, worn down by so much ill-treatment. There's an irony to it, since the very injury that's caused all Kenny's problems is stopping him acting on his impulses here. And honestly, I feel for Ruby, too, in all this, because while the song sets her up as a pretty unlikable hussy, you do still get the feeling that things have been hard for her, too, that there's probably more to the story than Kenny's letting on. He admits himself that I'm not the man I used to be, and given how quickly his impulses turn violent, you have to wonder if that line's about more than just his physical injuries. Which in turn makes this in retrospect also into a song about the lasting impact of the Vietnam War, the sad, messy situations it creates even after the men have come back home.

Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday - Stevie Wonder (2)

And some Stevie Wonder to wrap up, nice! This is a very straightforward, bittersweet sort of ballad, Stevie longing to turn back time and go back to a time before his love dumped him, back to yester-me, yester-you, yesterday. I was pleasantly charmed by this wordplay at first, but the more Stevie leans into it - and he really does lean into it here - the stupider I'm afraid it's starting to sound to me, and that's before he gets into lines asking what happened to that yesterglow, reminiscing about a pair of yesterfools, chasing after those yesterdreams. Ugh. I get it, the song has a shtick.

Fortunately, the song does at least sound good, which doesn't quite make up for how irritating I find the lyrics, but it does make it a bit more listenable. Stevie's voice is, as ever, very easy on the ear, by turns smooth as silk and then rougher, picking up just the tiniest bit of an edge. His backing singers are giving it their all, and when you add guitar licks, a bit of bass, some slinky bongo percussion, expressive strings, and some well-timed mmmm-hmmms, you end up with something that despite the dumb lyrics is still perfectly pleasant to listen to.

But yeah, compared to other recent Stevie Wonder songs, Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday just isn't my favourite. It's not bad, but it's kind of nothingy. And there might be a reason for that, because looking into how the song came to be, it sounds like Stevie was having vocal problems at the time. Needing to rest his voice, his label thus put out a whole string of older material, stuff he'd recorded years ago and never got round to releasing, this track included. Except I feel like that's always going to get you some kinda meh songs, because if something was really good, it would have been released back when it was initially recorded. Oh, well. Can't fault Stevie for that, I suppose. Hope he gets better soon, though, and we get some new stuff!

Hmm, okay. If I were grading here based purely on how much fun I had listening to a song, then it would be Jethro Tull for sure this week. But alas, most of the fun I had there was linked to a music video that only got made in 1981, which we're a full 12 years away from. So, in the (slightly arbitrary) spirit of this blog, I think I can't count it. So, purely on the merits of the songmanship, which is totally a word that exists...

(Call Me) Number One - The Tremeloes (peaked at Number 2)

Hah. Ironic. You know, because it peaked at Number 2? But obvious joke aside, I'm honestly mostly just surprised the Tremeloes are still around and scoring charting hits. They've been a going concern since, what, 1963, now? Which isn't that long, in years, but the musical landscape's totally different, better bands have gone under in the intervening years. But the Tremeloes feel like a bit of a mid-60s staple, they're always around with a hit or two a year, usually some inoffensively dumb, stompy rock hit.

So, does this fit the pattern? It's heavy, sure, we're definitely in rock territory, but I'm not so sure it does. Certainly, it doesn't sound like many other Tremeloes hits. Instead, we open to acoustic guitar, but with a distorted electric guitar chord played drone-style over the top of it, creating this strange, slightly ominous effect. And then, suddenly, a cut to hammered guitar chords, and a vocal that's thin and a little bit nasal, there's a touch of the Bee Gees to it. Then the band come in with this strange chant, a chesty wa-chee! wa-chee! wa-chee! wa-chee! while a bit of jazzy saxophone plays over the top, followed by a very country rock bit of guitar, and it's only then that you get the classic Tremeloes slightly rowdy "everybody in" chorus.

And even then, it doesn't last long before we've got solo vocals again, a bunch of thumpy chords, the acoustic guitar from the intro... through sheer repetition it does just about work and come together, but it makes for quite a weird song, not one where you can really find your feet. And that's before you get the wailing, squalling solo towards the end, with its sitar-like drone underneath, very psychedelic, very trippy.

Lyrically, it's also very hard to parse, you really get the sense that this is a conversation between the Tremeloes and an ex, not something you're necessarily invited to fully understand. Even the opening lines are confusing: I picture the rain on windows / And I think of home / I wonder if you remember / Did you ever know? What are you supposed to be remembering, here? What does that final line mean? How's this linked to memories of home, and of rain on windows? The Tremeloes at times seem to want to travel, singing about the places I dream about / I will be getting out / Then I can follow the sun, but at other times they seem to want to go home, wondering will I be afraid to tell you / That I'm coming home / I'm ready to take the highroad / I've been away too long. And the chorus, asking their love to call me number one comes in the middle and makes absolutely no sense, either. And, like, I get it. Songs don't have to make sense. But this feels kind of incoherent.

Something - The Beatles (double A-side, 4)

Man, this song comes out the gates strong. It's a really simply start, just a drum roll, the main guitar motif, a whoosh of cymbals, and we're off, with a vocal from George Harrison that's very soft and gentle, perfect for the lyrics, which are also very soft and gentle, inspired by his wife, Patty Boyd. They're romantic, on paper they look quite sappy and sentimental, but something about the simplicity of them, George's sincere delivery, and the complete lack of cliché really wins me over here: something in the way she moves / Attracts me like no other lover / Something in the way she woos me / I don't wanna leave her now / You know I believe, and how.

It helps that it's also really beautiful, musically, with just some very light guitar, some super minimal drums from Ringo, and then a bassline that's playing a completely different counterpart melody, deep enough and quiet enough that it's not stealing the show, the focus is absolutely on George, but it just adds depth in a way that makes me want to look up the chords and work out what's going on. There are a bunch of augmented chords, and chords that change at the end of lines, and as soon as hit the "don't wanna leave her" line, you've got this beautiful minor chord, organ dropping in followed by swelling strings, all conveying the tension George feels when he even considers it. And then, that guitar from the intro, bringing everything round full circle for a second verse.

But then, after that second verse, there's a shift. The guitar returns for a third time, but this time it ends differently, resolving to somewhere unexpected. It's a brighter sound, a major chord, but when you're not expecting it, there's something a bit unsettling about it, and it does then lead into the heaviest part of the song, as the mood completely changes, with harsh, echoing drums, more intense strings, as all the Beatles pile in. You're asking me, will my love grow? they ask, I don't know, I don't know. A series of deep, chromatic chords follow, very heavy, lots of double bass, plus a nightmarish Wurlitzer-like sound subtly underneath. It's perhaps the most typically "Beatles-y" part of the track, it actually sounds a lot like parts of A Day in the Life. But you can't deny it's also pretty intense, much darker than everything up until now, as George seems unsure of what the future may bring. You stick around now, it may show, the band sing, I don't know, I don't know.

And then it all just clears, the uncertainty, the tension, as the chromatic chords come back, but on a honky-tonky piano, smaller, friendlier. Things slow down, the same beautiful, interesting chords from the opening come back, but this time with George playing this expressive, calm solo on slide guitar, full of yearning, ornamented and a little bluesy, but ultimately a very calm, relaxed vibe. It feels like the clouds clearing after a storm, you get the sense that he had his moment of anxiety, but then he thought about Patty again, saw her, and all that uncertainty just faded away. Something in the way she knows / And all I have to do is think of her / Something in the things she shows me / I don't wanna leave her now / You know I believe, and how. And that's it, with the guitar coming back a final time, repeated twice to round things off, creating this neat bookend on the track, the sense that George's love really isn't going anywhere.

Come Together - The Beatles (double A-side, 4)

It's interesting, I feel like Something stands out because the Beatles weren't doing many straight-up love songs at this point in their career. Most of their output recently - or at least the stuff hitting the charts - has been a bit more experimental, or a bit more political, or a bit more spiritual, or whatever, just stuff that reflected the Beatles' various interests at the time. So it's nice to get something that's relatively straightforward, or at least relatively accessible. Let's hope that continues with... ah, okay. Never mind.

This is a song that starts inscrutable, and only gets more so, with that slinky, whispered shoot me intro, followed up by lyrics about a mysterious man: Here come old flat-top, he come groovin' up slowly / He got juju eyeball, he one holy roller / He got hair down to his knee / Got to be a joker, he just do what he please. Even if I didn't recognise John's voice, I'd know this was a John lyric, it's that classic thing where he's just having fun playing round with words, you get the same in a bunch of John's songs where it's just word salad, usually peppered with hints towards various other songs, or cultural phenomena of the era, or the Beatles' own oeuvre and personal lives, just enough that you're kind of tempted to try and pick it apart, to read it allegorically, and then you hit lines about how he got feet down below his knee, and you realise that it might not be all that deep.

Not that there's nothing behind it. Come Together apparently had its genesis during John and Yoko's "bed-in" world tour, and in particular the Monteal section, where they received visits from all manner of US and Canadian counterculture figures, including Timothy Leary, a clinical psychologist who was also a huge proponent for LSD and its mind-expanding powers. He seems like a very 1960s figure, he literally coined the hippies' "turn on, tune in, drop out" catchphrase. He was also hoping to run for governor of California against the then-incumbent, Ronald Reagan, with the slogan "Come Together, Join the Party".

Naturally, he asked John to compose him a campaign song, and while that song didn't get written in time, you can see the bones of it in this version of Come Together, which stews in a heady broth of drugs, free love and politics. There are the surreal, trippy lyrics, there's the veiled reference to "shooting up" on drugs, there's the inevitable sexual resonance of John just moaning come! at you for a good portion of the track, there's the idea of "coming together" metaphisically but also politically, there's a reference to John and Yoko's "bagism" idea, there are lines that seem to be mocking the idea of a politician who gladhands and panders to voters and makes obvious statements line one and one and one is three, who got to be good-looking, cause he's so hard to see. It's a lot, but the more I'm listening, the more I am seeing the vision.

And then another layer is that the Beatles are also in their blues era, and this is part of that. So yes, John's songwriting's really getting into the politics of it all, but on top of and beyond all that, the band's also just trying to play about with this very bluesy, swampy sound, to see what interesting stuff they can do. There's the intro, with its low, repeated bass riff and its pattering percussion, and its shoot me line, which I always thought was just a wordless bit of mouth-percussion. It's really distinctive, probably the most recognisable bit of the song, sparse and minimal, but super funky and stylish. The bass continues through the verses, along with a chugging, distorted guitar and that same, stripped back percussion, then a rawer chord on the come together line, a bit of steel guitar later on, the whole thing feels heavy, brooding, dangerous even. There's yet another luxuriously jammy, seemingly effortless solo from George, who's the absolute hero this week. And all of it's super bluesy, something that feels like it's even being referenced in little ways, like the rhythm of the first flat-top line being taken from an old Chuck Berry song, or a line referencing Muddy Waters and his track Got My Mojo Working. So yeah, lots going on here, there's wordplay, attitude, references on references, little style things. It's very good.

Wonderful World, Beautiful People - Jimmy Cliff (6)

And then It's 1969, so of course we have to round off with some reggae. It's a very bouncy, upbeat sort of reggae, jolly and bright, with a fiddly bit of guitar kicking in, after that classic reggae drum roll start. Jimmy's got a very soulful, smooth voice, once the vocals come in, too, he's very nice to listen to, with lyrics that seem almost comically cheery and optimistic, Jimmy describing a wonderful world, beautiful people / You and your girl, things could be pretty. So far, so good, I'm getting flashbacks to Sam Cooke's Wonderful World.

But there's a twist coming, since underneath this, there is a secret / That nobody can reveal. What is this secret? Unclear, because first, something even more unexpected, which is a violin solo! I don't think we've had a violin solo in a reggae track like this before, it feels like a very strange bit of intrumentation, but I don't hate it, it adds a bit of refinement and class to proceedings, which definitely helps WWWP stand out from some of the other, less memorable reggae we've heard recently. If Return of Django had strings, would I remember it more fondly? It's quite possible...

So, anyway, the twist is politics. Take a look at the world, Jimmy exhorts us, and the state that it's in today / I'm sure you'll agree / We all could make a better way / With our love put together / Everybody learn to love each other / Instead of fussing and fighting / Cheating, backbiting / Scandalizing and hating / Baby we could have a / Wonderful world, beautiful people... it's not the deepest or most trenchant of political analyses, this is some All You Need is Love-level feel-good fluff, but still, it's heart's in the right place, and I do like Jimmy in the outro explicitly calling on Harold Wilson, Richard Nixon, George Pompidou and Alexei Kosygin to make peace with each other. Modern "political" songwriting would never, it all has to be so coded nowadays - can you imagine a song calling Trump out by name like that, or Putin, or whoever. I certainly can't, I feel like the blowback today would just be too much, it wouldn't be worth it.

There's a naive charm to Jimmy's approach to things here. But let's be real, this week was all about the Beatles, I spent far too long picking their latest hits apart. But that's because there's a lot to unpick. The Beatles are headed for a break-up, that much has been clear for a few years. Their latest albums have felt like a few different solo projects in a trenchcoat, they've all picked up different interests, there are weird interpersonal tensions going on, and you get the sense the Beatles just aren't as close as they used to be - heck, the video for Something doesn't even feature any Beatles interacting with each other, that's the point we're at. And yet, Something and Come Together - and Abbey Road more generally - are proof that when the band are on the same wavelength, they're still firing on all cylinders, still capable of putting some really good, layered, interesting stuff, and I love it.

Love's Been Good to Me - Frank Sinatra (peaked at Number 8)

Well, this is a Frank Sinatra song I know absolutely nothing about. But it was released on a 1969 album, so it's part of his late-career comeback, same as My Way. Which is a song I can't stand, but I'm trying to keep an open mind here, there's plenty of other Frank Sinatra songs I like...

And fortunately, I do indeed think this is a gentler, humbler affair than My Way was. It starts out in a similar vein to My Way, with a line about how I have been a rover, I have walked alone / Hiked a hundred highways, never found a home. But instead of blowing this up into a big deal, singing about the difficulties life's thrown at him, and how Frank, ever the rugged individual, has prevailed over them all in his own, unique way, this track instead takes a different tack, reflecting on how yes, life's been hard at times, but despite it all, Frank's generally content with how his life, since once in a while, along the way, love's been good to me. There are memories of a girl in Denver, with a smile to drive away the storms, another girl in Portland Frank would go out courting with. And those memories are enough, all in all I'm happy, reason is, you see / Once in a while along the way, love's been good to me.

It's a sweet, simple idea, and pretty, as most Frank Sinatra tracks are. At 54, his voice is still fantastic, warm and velvety-smooth. There's a restraint to the delivery, he's not belting or showing off, doesn't need to, it's a quiet, calm sort of track, reflective in a way that suits a slightly older singer. And to compliment it, the track's orchestrated in this very lush, classic style, with sweeping strings, harpsichord, a gentle bit of glockenspiel, woodwind and horns here and there. It's lovely, there's nothing groundbreaking going on, but it's a very classy, listenable vibe.

Delta Lady - Joe Cocker (10)

In contrast, this is a pretty rowdy affair, a blues rock number from Joe Cocker that rocks pretty hard from the word go, with bass and piano playing a funky riff before Joe launches in, full-throated and husky as ever. The whole thing's driving, energetic, jubilant, as Joe sings about his American lover, his delta lady, with a gospel-style backing chorus coming in on the choruses to help him celebrate his love, complete with plenty of tambourine and cowbell, all of which gives Delta Lady a whole lot of oomph, I found myself bopping my head along almost instantly.

The other thing that struck me, though, was how sexy this was! At first, I thought the song was going to go the innuendo route, with lines about Joe longing for your soft and fertile delta. But then you get lines about her yearning for the warmth and tender shelter of my body, or Joe thinking about how many times I found you / Standing wet and naked in the garden. So you know, I guess that's another option. There's an intimacy to all this, but Joe's clearly very comfortable revisiting it, and there's a real sense of fondness to it too, a sense that these are treasured memories, still.

For a song by a British artist, the whole thing sounds super American. You've got Joe's bluesy delivery, the blues rock feel of it all, the gospel elements in the chorus. I guess you'd expect this, in a song about a "Delta lady", but it's still kind of funny to me. I guess there is at least a little nod to the strangeness of it, with that line in the middle with the line about how when I'm home again in England / I think of you, because I love you, love. Which is literally an acknowledgement that Joe isn't actually American, but there's also a very Beatles-ish trumpet fanfare, which I do think at a stretch might be construed as a little cheeky nod to the British Invasion and the sort of musical tradition that Joe's markedly not part of. And then we're right back to the US again, England very deliberately set aside for the charms of the Mississippi Delta.

I'd heard of neither of these songs before, but both were perfectly fine? I will say, I think I'm ready for Frank Sinatra to fade into obscurity, though, with My Way as a final smash hit and then Love's Been Good to Me as a quieter coda, a gentler and more agreeable hit to bow out on. Joe Cocker, on the other hand, feels like he's just getting started exploring this amped-up, Americanized sound. And given the energy he brough to things this week, I'm tentatively quite excited to see where that goes...

Return of Django - The Upsetters (double A-side, peaked at Number 5)

Right, before we get going, let me just say that "The Upsetters" is a sick band name. They were the house band from Upsetter Records, a label founded and run by producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, whose name is also pretty cool. Anyway, this wouldn't be relevant, except on top of presumably providing backup for other, bigger artists, it seems like the Upsetters had quite a run of hits in their own right, instrumental hits that didn't have anybody singing on them at all.

Such is Return of Django. Who Django is, I have no clue, or where he's returning from, or why. But there you go. The track opens with a brief clatter of drums and these horn licks, before settling into a steady, reggae rhythm, bass guitar keeping everything ticking along. There's a bit of sax going on, too, such that if you don't listen too hard, it kind of sounds like you're listening to an old rock and roll track. The rhythms are off, but the chords, the instrumentation, the quality of the recording, all of them feel like something you'd hear Bill Haley or Chuck Berry doing back in the early days of rock and roll, which is kind of cool.

Unfortunately, the song doesn't then do all that much with this, it creates a groove and then just sits there in it, without really going anywhere. It's not unpleasant, but the overall result feels a bit pointless. There is a brief moment in the middle where everything cuts away and you get a drum fill that's kind of fun. And the high point of the whole track has to be the sax solo you get at 1:20, which is genuinely pretty impressive, with whoever's playing occasionally leaping up into the stratosphere, getting all these rather unlikely, squealing sounds out of the instrument. But it's not long before we're back to the same old groove as before, and it's fine but I was really hoping for something more. Heck, the song doesn't even bother to end properly, it just fades out, it's not a very satisfying resolution.

Dollar in the Teeth - The Upsetters (double A-side, 5)

I was really hoping that Dollar in the Teeth would provide a few more fireworks, but alas, it was not to be. On hitting play, it's the same reggae drum roll, and then once again we just settle into a steady, relaxed groove. It's fine, everybody involved is clearly a competent musician, but there's not much else you can say about it, the track's all about setting the scene, creating this chilled out, cool vibe to really sink into, and that's it, that's the whole point.

To be fair, I do think there's a bit more substance to this one than there was to Return of Django. At the very least, you get the interplay between an abrupt, honking horn, a bluesy Hammond organ and a funky saxophone, all three of which at various points in the track come to the fore playing something approaching a tune. It's still pretty groove-based, but there's more sense of a melody and melodic progression, something you could hum back to somebody, if they asked you how the track went.

So yeah, I probably prefer this to Return of Django. It's jazzy, it's confident, there's a bit of pizzazz to it. And I'll admit that while I do find both tracks a bit aimless, still, I am starting to see the virtue of this sort of vibes-y, repetitive track. If nothing else, you can just spin Dollar in the Teeth on loop and get lost in it. The bass and drums and guitar settle into this very steady, dependable pattern that through sheer repetition becomes like a neutral canvas that the rest of the instruments can then paint on top of in their own unique ways, adding a bit of flair and style while the rhythm and chord patterns keep it all very cohesive and coherent.

Well. Neither of these tracks rocked my world, they felt like backing tracks that really ought to have somebody singing over the top. Which, now I think about it, might have been the point, I know for a fact that Jamaica has a tradition of people deejaying and scatting over the top of records. Except that still doesn't explain how it got so popular with the British record-buying public of 1969, who I suspect were just buying this and listening "as-is". Was it just for mood-setting? I guess reggae is having a bit of a moment this year, so I could see this being background music, something you could put on to give your party a chill and fashionably exotic background ambience...

Sugar, Sugar - The Archies (peaked at Number 1)

Yup, this is the Archies, a band made up of characters from Archie Comics, a long-running teen comedy comic book that had gotten its start all the way back in 1941, if you can believe that. The main cast- made up of Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Reggie Mantle, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge - don't seem to have had a band in the original, they were just regular high-schoolers, but right before The Archie Show was launched in 1968 as a cartoon spinoff, the premise changed, and a band was duly formed, with the rather ambitious idea that they'd be a real band - that is, that they'd make and release all their music like any other bubblegum act.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the inspiration for this came from the Monkees, another group that blurred the boundary between fictional and real, having been assembled by executive Don Kirshner for a scripted TV show all about the fictional band "The Monkees", who just happened to be played by four chaps with the same names as the characters they played in the TV show The Monkees. I can only imagine how much potential this has to tie you in knots, artistically but also just psychologically, and indeed, it was the individual band members who ended up bringing the show down, as they got increasingly tired of micromanagement, wishing to branch out beyond the bright, unchallenging music that Don wanted them to be putting out. And so the Monkees (real, human band) ended up tanking The Monkees (TV show-slash-musical project). But it had been a huge success while it lasted. If only there was some way of making a fictional band that you could control completely...

And so the Archies were born, a completely animated band, "voiced" (as it were) by session musicians, who would provide the sound, but whose faces and personalities would never be linked to the characters they were playing. Which in turn meant they were replaceable, a real-life band member wanting out could be shown the door without it having the slightest effect on the fictional band. It was a clever set-up, since it also meant that the Archies' style didn't have to change or develop, Don could find a vein of crowd-pleasing, sugary pop and just mine that vein until the public stopped caring, swapping musicians out as needed.

The result's perhaps the most bubblegum of bubblegum pop songs, to the point where the lyrics almost read as parody. Honey, the Archies sing, oh sugar, sugar, / You are my candy girl / And you got me wantin' you. I shouldn't be enjoying this, it's so very basic. I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you, the Archies sing, and I wonder if they've ever heard of a thesaurus, I just can't believe it's true. Or take the line about how when I kissed you, girl / I know how sweet a kiss could be / Like the summer sunshine / Pour your sweetness over me. That's bad writing, by most metrics, or it's pretty unoriginal at least, there's nothing original here, it's ostentatiously cliché and predictable. But perhaps that's the point. As a literal cartoon band, the Archies are meant to be, like, the platonic ideal of a band, the bandiest band ever to band. And so yeah, of course they're leaning hard into this super conventional, appealing style.

And let's be real, it also sounds great. Which is perhaps another bonus of hiring session musicians, since for a relatively cheap day rate you get musicians who are super experienced and competent, and who by definition are great at slotting into whatever group you throw them into. On top of that, if you're recording all the music in advance, you can do lots of studio stuff, too, because you no longer have to worry about if the band can replicate it "live" on stage. One consequence of this is that the song makes heavy use of multi-tracking; there are only actually three people singing on this, but they manage to sound like a much larger band. And the same goes for the instruments, you can record them all separately and tweak until you're happy with it, and you're not limited to the number of instruments that five teens could actually play at one time in real life, which gives you this very full-sounding track that's still clean, every instrument carefully chosen and implemented.

And all of this gets thrown onto a structure that's super simple, but there's something new just about every verse, there's xylophone and sax at the start, then shakers, then some gentle baba-ba-ba-ba backing vocals, then a bridge with Hammond organ, then tambourine, then a section with bass and hand claps, then the pour a little sugar on me call-and-response bit, and so on and so forth, all the way through to the end, you're never allowed to get bored. It's brutally effective, by the end of it, I defy you not to have the tune stuck in your head, in all its bubbly, dumb glory.

I really like this song, okay? It's fun and it's catchy and it's well-made. But I'm also fascinated by the weirdness that comes with a fictional band. It's something we'll see re-invented again and again, from Alvin and the Chipmunks to Gorillaz to Huntrix, and I'm a sucker for its meta weirdness, the complicated knots you can end up tying yourself in getting your head round the logistics of it all, and the freedom you have to just do something kind of oddball and left-field - even if you do then go and use that freedom to make the most conventional, crowd-pleasing pop imaginable.

I'm Gonna Make You Mine - Lou Christie (peaked at Number 6)

First, though, Lou Christie. I'd never heard of Lou, but a quick google confirms he seems to be a pretty standard late-60s American pop star, lots of floppy hair and a generally pretty clean-cut look. And surprisingly enough, once I hit play, I actually do think I might have heard this song before? I can't sing along or anything, but there's a definite sense of familiarity, the more I listen, the more I reckon I've probably come across this somewhere before, goodness knows where.

Or perhaps it's just because it's a pretty standard-issue pop number. I don't mean that in a bad way, either, because this is very competent stuff. It's bright and catchy and there's something very satisfying in the way it's written, the emphases that fall with almost clockwork precision on just the right note: I'll try-y-y-y-y-y / Every trick in the book with every step that you take / Everywhere that you look, just look and you'll find / I'll try to get to your soul, I'll try to get to your mind / I'm gonna make you mine. There's so much that's quietly good there, from the repetition of "every", to the punchiness of all those verbs, to the "mind" / "mine" half-rhyme, and the whole thing has a great flow, it just keeps going from one idea to the next very neatly.

I like Lou's voice, too, he's really throwing his whole self into it, giving it a bit of a wail where he needs to, without it ever feeling too over-the-top. There are a few rather acrobatic leaps that he handles well, plus a few falsetto gonna make you mines and aah-ha-ha-ha-haha ad libs, plus that try-y-y-y-y-y moment. And there's also the bridge, stompy and pounding, with a big, performative grunt as he sings about how I'll be a hard-lovin', pushin' kinda - uh - individual / Knockin' night and day at your door. This is the sort of sentiment I'd normally have a bone to pick with, but again, I think Lou just about threads the needle right, leaning into the camp cheesiness of it all as he promises that you'll have to turn me away like a indestructible force!

The whole thing honestly feels very Billy Joel, to me, if Billy Joel arrived on the scene ten years earlier and had access to a whole Wall of Sound-style backing orchestra to play with. Because the backing here is very 1960s, I'm hearing a lot of brass, but at other points there's guitar, piano, pizzicato strings, harpsichord, a triangle, a tambourine, what sounds like a vibraslap and of course those very 1960s backing singers. It's a lot, but I quite like it. And yeah, very Billy Joel. Good vibes.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - The Hollies (3)

And then it's time for something quite different, as all Lou's instruments drop out in favour of a plaintive, warbling harmonica solo that actually goes out of tune mid-solo. Which wouldn't normally work, but here I think it sounds quite cool? I don't know, it's my favourite part and definitely the most iconic part of this song, the part where I'm like "oh, yeah, I know this one". It does then drop out, but it comes back near the end to frame everything, with this clear, mournful tone that sets the scene well for the rest of the song.

Because this isn't a very cheery number. It's not on the same level as Nobody's Child from last week, thank goodness, but it's just a very serious song, as the Hollies, completely out of left field, present us with a slow, earnest soft rock ballad with some lofty ideals, its theme taken rather unexpectedly from an 1884 book of parables and sermon illustrations written by Presbyterian minister James Wells, in which a little girl is struggling to carry a large baby, but when asked if she needs help, she replies with the title line: he's not heavy, he's her brother.

It is, I guess, a pretty touching story, if a bit saccharine for my tastes, and it's as good an illustration as any of Christian charity, but that still doesn't explain how it reached the Hollies' attention. But from being printed in 1884, the phrase does seem to have been repeated in various magazines and publications all the way into the 1920s, always as the punchline to some moral fable. Notably, it also gets used as a slogan for a major US children's home, inspired by a story of one resident carrying another polio-stricken child up some stairs.

And my suspicion is that somewhere, in all this, it becomes a sort of proto-meme, a glurge-y story that the Hollies probably absorbed just by osmosis, connected to various worthy causes, with a vague but ultimately uplifting message of mutual support not unlike You'll Never Walk Alone, but with a more somber, dour seriousness, and a wordiness that you don't often get in pop songs, with some very Victorian-sounding lines about how his welfare is of my concern / No burden is he to bear, or about how he would not encumber me alongside much more straightforward lines about how I'm strong, strong enough to carry him, or about how the load doesn't weight me down at all. Because at the end of the day, he ain't heavy, he's my brother. If we all saw each other as brothers and sisters and bore each other's burdens, we'd all be much gladder and the world would truly be a better place.

All of this I understand. What I still don't entirely get, on an intuitive level, is why people liked this so much. Or why they still like the song, because I know that people do like this one, even today. But sadly, for me, at the end of the day, it's way too earnest and sentimental, and the moral message, while admirable, just doesn't move me all that much, it's nice enough and I do broadly agree with the Hollies, but that's as far as it goes. Honestly, for me, it's an "eat your vegetables" kind of songs, it's good and worthy and you know you're meant to like it, but ugh. What a slog.

Space Oddity - David Bowie (5)

This, on the other hand, is a nice surprise! I don't know if I was expecting David Bowie to turn up in the 1960s, he's such a 1970s and 1980s artist in my mind. But the 1970s are almost upon us, so perhaps I shouldn't be shocked. Whatever the case, it's great to hear from Bowie, and especially with Space Oddity, which I've liked for a long time. It's such a perfect little thing, a quirky track about an astronaut drifting in space. And actually, I'm now realising that that makes total sense for 1969. People just landed on the Moon, for goodness' sake. We're mid Space Race. 2001: A Space Odyssey came out just a year ago. Of course people had space on the brain. Honestly, now I think about it, I'm surprised we've not had more space songs.

So, Space Oddity. It opens with a strummed bit of acoustic guitar, drifting in faintly from the distance. Ten seconds later you start to get these quiet chords on electric guitar, some echoing snare rolls here and there in the mix. It's a perfect set-up, sparse and dreamy with just the faintest hint of something a bit more ominous, perfect for David's voice to come in over the top about the 30-second mark. It's not a pretty or a smooth voice, not a conventional pop voice at all, but very distinctive. There's something rather deadpan and emotionless about the delivery, the whole Ground Control to Major Tom section is very detached as David goes mechanically through the pre-flight checks.

But perhaps this works, because the story's meant to be a bit unsettling. It starts fine. We get Major Tom lifting off, a gloriously dissonant chord, building, higher and higher, like a rocket shooting upwards. Ground Control congratulates Tom, asks him to step out the capsule, and there's a moment of real wonder, Tom singing about how I'm stepping through the door / And I'm floating in a most peculiar way / And the stars look very different today. But already there's a tension as Tom describes himself sitting in a tin can / Far above the world / Planet Earth is blue / And there's nothing I can do. And this is where things go wrong: Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong / Can you hear me Major Tom? The line's repeated, but he can't respond. Tom's capsule's cut off, dead in the metaphorical water, and the song ends there, on that same, powerless, strangely peaceful detachment from before, as far above the Moon / Planet Earth is blue / And there's nothing I can do...

All of this sounds great, by the way. I mentioned the dreaminess of the start, the way the countdown's incorporated into the start, creating tension and drawing you into the story just in time for that glorious, soaring liftoff chord. The song falls back into a soft, psychedelic rock vibe after that, but there are still surprises, like the gorgeous, shimmering flutes that come in over the here I am sitting in a tin can parts, the sudden injection of energy on the guitar break that follows, surprisingly folksy acoustic guitar and hand claps giving way to an epic, lush electric guitar solo that ends with a disquieting bit of feedback, right as the spaceship starts breaking down, another bit of storytelling just through the sound of it all. And then the whole thing ends on this long, chaotic Day in the Life-style fadeout, instruments playing at random, quieter and quieter, like the ship's instruments misfiring as Tom drifts off into the black, never to be heard from again. It's *chef's kiss* perfect for the story it's telling, you can tell how much Dvid and his team have taken with this.

I'm a huge sucker for space stories, so it's no surprise that I really like all of this, the sci-fi romance of it is super compelling. There's that clash between Tom's role as this idealised space hero, risking his life to boldly go where no man's gone before, all fanfare and applause, contrasted with the reality of those quieter, more introspective moments where he realises just how cut off he is from the rest of humanity, how isolated. And then his ship malfunctions, and Tom ends the song as a sort of Laika figure, set adrift to die, but accepting his fate with a tragic stoicism, because what else is there to do? It's peak drama, and I love it, and that's before you get into the resonances with the 60s counterculture, Major Tom on a trip, away in space and unable to connect back to the world below... it's rich, that's all I'll say. Lots and lots to like.

Oh Well - Fleetwood Mac (2)

But we're not done, because we get some Fleetwood Mac to round off! I loved their last hit, Man of the World, so I was excited to see them pop again, with yet another hit I'd never heard of. And I was right to be excited, because this is a banger! From the get-go, it's got lots of energy, opening with a blisteringly fiddly bluesy picked-out guitar riff that I'm sure takes some serious skill to play. It gets repeated twice and then we get the same riff again, this time on an electric guitar, maracas and cowbell joining in as the riff gets developed into something a bit funkier, a bit more involved. Already, not thirty seconds into the track, this rocks, it's got a proper hard rock energy that's giving Led Zeppelin, or some White Stripes tracks, if you want a more modern comparison, it's much heavier and rougher around the edges than I'd normally associate with Fleetwood Mac, even having listened to some of the rest of their earlier output.

Anyway, the guitar then drops out, all of a sudden, and we get half of the song's lyrics, Peter Green crooning in a blues sort of way about how I can't help about the shape I'm in / I can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin / But don't ask me what I think of you / I might not give the answer that you want me to. These lyrics don't mean anything. I mean, I guess they probably do, but it's not the point, the point's to create a break in the song, to have an excuse to pull everything back so it can come crashing back in again, even heavier and harder-rocking than before. Same with the verse later on about talking to God, the actual lyrics aren't the point, this is basically an instrumental song, with Peter's voice acting as just another instrument among many.

And then the song does something a bit strange, grinding to a halt completely a minute from the end, feedback ringing on the final chord, and we get a much slower, almost classical guitar coda, very minimal and sparse, a cello playing these sustained notes quietly underneath. There's a lick of something on what turns out to have been a recorder, but it doesn't really feel like it resolves, you've just got this strange, dark ambience... and then the song's done? It's jarring and unresolved and weird. What was going on?

The answer, it turns out, is that Oh Well was recorded in two parts, with the single version more properly bulled as Oh Well (Pt. 1). The second part was then released as a B-side, presumably to make it a more commercial length, since Oh Well (Pt. 2) was a full five and a half minutes long. It's also a lot slower, picking up where the first part ended and just kind of sitting in that same quietly stormy space, brooding and ominous but doing very little, until the whole thing ends on a tiers de Picardie, a major chord brightening the mood very subtly right at the end. I actually do like this, it feels like a much-needed cool-down after the excitement of Part 1. But I can see why it didn't make the A-side, it's all a bit empty and stark and honestly, the question it mostly leaves me with is why on earth they included any of this bit in Part 1. A confusing decision in an otherwise quite fun pair of tracks.

Whew! I took my time listening to these, but I did really enjoy myself this week. I love to think that I'd have been cool enough to be into Bowie and Fleetwood Mac if I was around in 1969. The reality is that I'd probably have been a Lou Christie girlie, though. And there's nothing wrong with that, he's very good. But man, Bowie and Fleetwood Mac both blew it out of the water this week with songs that create these very dramatic, interesting moods and soundscapes, and in the case of Space Oddity manages to tell a pretty compelling story. More of this, please!

Nobody's Child - Karen Young (peaked at Number 6)

This track originally dates back to 1949, when it was recorded by country artist Hank Snow (no, I hadn't heard of him, either). It doesn't seem to have ever been a huge hit in the US, but in the UK it saw several covers throughout the 50s and 60s, including one by Lonnie Donegan, and another by rock and roller Tony Sheridan with the a little up and coming group called the Beatles as his backing band. So it's a tune people might well have been familiar with, even before Karen Young's version came out.

That said, I still can't see why this got quite as popular as it did. Lyrically, in particular, it's a huge downer, telling the story of Karen passing by an orphanage, stopping for a moment to watch the children play, as you do. Alone, a boy was standing, she notes, and when I asked him why / He turned with eyes that could not see / And he began to cry. This immediately casts Karen as the villain of the song for me, because seriously, you're going to just ask some random blind kid why he's got no friends? What a jerk! Things only get more emotionally manipulative in the chorus, as the kid sings about how I'm nobody's child, I'm nobody's child / Just like a flower, I'm growing wild / No mommy's kisses and no daddy's smile / Nobody wants me, I'm nobody's child. Eek.

And yeah, as you might then expect, the rest of the song continues in a similarly sentimental vein, with the kid singing about how families keep coming and taking the other children home and passing the blind kid by. This is already laying it on a bit thick, it feels borderline like a RSPCA ad trying to convince you that this sad cat or dog really needs to be adopted. But it gets even worse in the next verse, to the point where I actually come all the way round and instead of finding it at best twee and kind of irritating, I start to find it actively hilarious. Which probably doesn't say anything good about me, but it's just so mawkish and overdone, with the kid going on about how he's sometimes so lonely he wants to die. I'd walk the streets of heaven, he sings, where all the blind can see / And just like all the other kids / There'd be a home for me. Can you hear how hard I am rolling my eyes at this?

I don't think it helps that it's all done in a super bland style as a steady, dull country ballad. The pace is kept slow, the tune's repetitive, there's literally nothing memorable about this. Even Karen's vocals sound sleepy, there's no energy to them, no great emotion, just a strangely mannered quality that feels very old-fashioned to me, at this point, a throwback to the terribly well-spoken singers of the 1950s and early 1960s. And so we plod along, and I find that I'm not at all sad when it's time to say goodbye to Karen.

Yawn. I don't have much to say here. You don't need to go listen to this one. It's sad and dreary and set my teeth on edge with how limp and pathetic and sentimental it was. What on earth could the appeal have been? I don't know, honestly it just kind of feels exploitative, misery porn for the masses, and boring misery porn, at that. Bleurgh.

Throw Down a Line - Cliff Richard and Hank Marvin (peaked at Number 7)

Okay, this is something a bit different. It's Cliff and Hank Marvin, so I thought I knew what I was in for, but it turns out this is a track Hank wrote originally with Jimi Hendrix in mind. Who's about as different as you can get to Cliff, and the result's something that's very unexpected but, dare I say it, not bad? The vibe's straight psych rock, heavy and brooding, with yowling guitar licks, these slow, pounding drums, and an ominous rumbling underpinning it all. I like it, it's properly moody stuff.

And over the top of it all, Cliff, bluesier than he's been in years, pleading with us to throw down a line, help a poor boy, who's drownin' in a stormy sea / Throw down a line, help a poor boy, who's hangin' in a nowhere tree. There's a darkness to these lyrics that I suspect Jimi would have just eaten up. And Cliff's no Jimi Hendrix, but he does an alright job too, leaning hard into the whinier side of his voice, which suits the lyrics, as he sings about how I feel the stab of pain returning / Despair is burning in my heart again, or about how the peaceful hand that once caressed me / Hurts like the rest, because it's turned to stone / Talons of steel have grown. These are super melodramatic and, yes, a little silly, but with enough whimpering, Cliff can just about make them work, I reckon.

The star of it all's got to be the guitar solo in the middle, though, which is even more distorted than the rest of the guitar work, this shimmering, hazy, metallic, wailing thing straight out of some obscure prog rock epic. Except it's not, it's a 3 minute-long Cliff Richard song, which is insane. If you just played me the solo and asked me who the artist was, never in a million years would I guess. I love it, it's a lot of fun - I just wish Hank had been given, oh, an extra thirty seconds to revel in it?

It's Getting Better - Mama Cass (8)

Hmmm. I'll confess I did think for a moment that this was going to be Mama Cass covering the Beatles' Getting Better, which I was briefly very excited for. Alas, it isn't, but I'm still pleased to see Cass back. She was a founding member of the Mamas & the Papas, but the band broke up in 1968 following various arguments, and the aftermath sounds like it was particularly rough for Cass. she made a successful solo debut with a Las Vegas run of shows, but lost an unhealthy amount of weight for it and got really sick. The reviews were brutal, and she apparently was depressed for some time afterwards. And then, in the midst of it, this, a track that Cass doesn't seem to have loved - far too saccharine, no real substance at all- but that was at least an undisputed hit.

Because Cass is good here. She's got a lovely, warm quality to her voice, a strong, confident contralto that's not super overwrought, but just does enough to sell the lyrics. Which is what this tune calls for, since it's a song about a love that's not spectacular or showy, but that's steady and dependable. Once I believed that when love came to me, she sings, it would come with rockets, bells and poetry / But with me and you, it just started quietly and grew / And believe it or not, now there's something groovy and good 'bout whatever we got. She's not turned on and starry-eyed, mooning over her love, but there's a contentment and an affection that's getting better, growing stronger, warm and wilder, getting better every day. Which is cute, right? It's very down-to-earth, very real, and Cass' voice suits it well, she's not going for vocal fireworks, just a solid, sweet performance.

To modern ears there's also a very nostalgic, vintage feel to this, I can't explain exactly what it is, but something in the way Cass sings, the bouncy tune, the sunny flutes and trumpets and steel guitar backing her up and especially the twee little da da da da da backing vocals, it's very well done, but also very of-its-era, or even of a slightly earlier era, because it is a very Brill Building sort of sound, with simple romantic lyrics, a basic but competent song structure, a bit of Latin flare in the percussion, lots of backing vocals, heavy use of session musicians, catchy hooks. It's exactly the sort of song that could have been a hit at just about any point in the 1960s, with only minor changes, and I'm not shocked that it's from Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who are one of the big 60s pre-Motown songwriting duos (You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling's probably their biggest hit, but they did tonnes of stuff!)

Yeah, the more I've listened, the more I think I've warmed to this. I think at first I was afraid it would be a little twee, and it is, very much so, but in a charming way, plus I have absolutely been won over by the lyrics. They're simple, but capture a sense of contentment, a grounded, unflashy view of love that I think's underrepresented, in music and in culture more broadly.

Lay, Lady, Lay - Bob Dylan (5)

And some Dylan, to round off! It feels just instinctively like it's been ages since we've heard from Bob - and yup, I've just looked it up, his last Top 10 hit was 1966, when he brough out Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 and 35, a track that's apparently pretty forgettable, since I have zero memories of it, just a faint suspicion that I didn't much like it. But yeah, three whole years, with barely any lower-chartings hits in-between, too.

What's Bob been doing? A brief glimpse at google doesn't turn up much. He was in a motorcycle accident and took a break from touring as a result, instead recording his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, which was sparse and serious and had All Along the Watchtower on it, which is a song we've heard, but not Dylan's version. And then it sounds like Bob's just playing gigs until 1969, when he puts out a new album, even more country-flavoured than John Wesley Harding was, called Nashville Skyline. It's stripped back, it's homey, it's soft, and that's where Lay Lady Lay comes in.

Because Lay Lady Lay is a very chill, gentle song. It's not completely acoustic, there's still a proper electric, rock feel going on. But it's quite soft, with Bob affecting a different voice to his usual nasal whine, a lower, more melodic sort of croon. There's an acoustic guitar, plus steel guitar playing this melancholy, descending line, there's what sound like bongos, but also cowbell, and later on there's a quiet bit of organ, but it feels pretty light-touch throughout, even where things gets a bit more worked up in the chorus, everything seems to pull right back whenever you hit the refrain, it doesn't stay high-energy for long.

And this works with the lyrics, which for Bob are quite simple. I normally associate Bob with a certain lyrical density, words that need to be unpicked and analysed and pulled apart. And there is a similarly poetic quality to the lyrics here, they're not completely obvious. But the refrain still gives you a solid sense of what the song's about, and it's a love song, with Bob inviting his love simply enough to lay, lady, lay / Lay across my big brass bed / Stay, lady, stay / Stay with your man a while / Until the break of day / Let me see you make him smile. There are other lyrics, more enigmatic lines about the colours of his love's mind, about Bob's dirty hands and his clean clothes, about taking what you want and not waiting. But at the end of the day, this is a very straightforward, intimate song, Bob concluding by singing about how I long to see you in the morning light / I long to reach for you in the night / Stay, lady, stay / Stay while the night is still ahead. Which is about as plain as it comes, with Bob.

I enjoyed these three songs. As is often the case, they don't really fit together, but they made a pretty pleasing playlist, and I'd say that both Cliff and Bob managed to pleasantly surprise me, Cliff with a rather out of character bit of psych rock and Bob with a vulnerable, light-touch love song that had none of his usual complexity, no cynical edge, no bite, just a strange combination of coziness and yearning that I honestly found quite appealing.

A Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash (peaked at Number 4)

I like me some Johnny Cash, so I came into this one feeling pretty optimistic. I feel like Johnn's got a very calm, down-to-earth kind of sound at the best of times, and there's an fantastic energy to the live tracks he recorded in prison, I love that you can hear Johnny chatting with the inmates, interactions with guards, people clapping and cheering, plus there's something quite moving about songs like Folsom Prison Blues or 25 Minutes or especially something like Greystone Chapel, which offers up a glimpse of grace and hope, even in prison. And then you get stuff like A Boy Named Sue, recorded at San Quentin prison, which serves a different but related purpose, providing a moment of much needed levity in the middle of an otherwise heavy set.

Because this is a very silly song (in case the title didn't give it away). It was written by Shel Silverstein, better known for children's writing and especially cartoons, and this does feel kind of cartoonish, with Johnny recounting the story of a boy whose dad left when he was only three, leaving only a guitar and an empty bottle of booze. Now I don't blame him 'cause he run and hid, Johnny sings, but the meanest thing that my daddy ever did / Was before he left, he went and named me Sue. A life of mockery ensues, but in true country fashion, it makes Sue sharp, I grew up quick and I grew up mean / My fists got hard and my wits got keen. He vows to track his dad down and kill him, finds him at a saloon in Gatlinburg. I knew that snake was my own sweet dad / From a worn out picture that my mother had / Knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye. I love all these details, it's all very economic but also very evocative, you can tell Shel's a writer first and foremost, somebody who knows exactly how to get the most mileage out of cliché details.

And there's a funny conclusion to the story, too, as they fight, his dad cuts off a bit of Sue's ear, the fight continues, until his dad explains, saying the name was meant to toughen Sue up, you ought to thank me before I die / for the gravel in your gut and the spit in your eye / 'Cause I'm the son of a bitch that named you Sue. Well, Johnny doesn't sing the profanity on the live version of the record, he censors it with a silly chicken cluck, but other versions keep it, it's very punk rock. And it clearly wins Sue over as I got all choked up and I threw down my gun / I called him pa, he called me son / Come away with a different point of view. Which is a sweet enough ending, but Johnny can't quite leave it there, instead concluding that he has a boy ever he'll name him ... Bill or George or Frank or anything but Sue, hate that name! Which genuinely gave me a chuckle, it's a perfect punchline for what at the end of the day's a pretty daft story.

So yup, there's some solid comic writing here, and then you've got Johnny, who's also great, very conversational. The whole thing's set to music, but it's done in a talking blues style, so basically Johnny reciting lines over the guitar, it's the same style though quite a different vibe to Subterranean Homesick Blues a few years back. All of which gives the track a rhythm and a catchiness, but at the same time, it does somehow feel kind of like a stand-up comedy set more than a song. It's a curious thing, and definitely novelty-adjacent, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Ah, Johnny. I should sit down and re-listen to San Quentin at some point, I forgot how much I enjoy his style and vibe. Live albums aren't usually my thing, but Johnny Cash singing in prisons might just be the exception to the rule, like I said, the energy's off the charts. And A Boy Named Sue's for sure part of that, a little bit of well-made but still quite wacky fun as an entertaining buffer between heavier or more serious tracks. More Johnny Cash soon, please, chart gods!