I Know a Place / Petula Clark

I never thought of myself as a Petula girl.  Dusty Springfield, maybe (never realizing she was just re-packaging the Motown sound); or maybe waifish Cilla Black, with her Beatle connections. I could only aspire to being elegant enough for Sandie Shaw.

But Petula?  That red bubble hairdo looked too mainstream for me, and her arrangements had too many horns and strings. (Rockers hadn't yet "discovered" horns and strings.) All the same, I did own the single of "Downtown," and I now realize I can still sing just about every word of all her big hits -- "My Love," "Colour My World," "A Sign of the Times," "Don't Sleep in the Subway." (Underground train American usage, not underground passageway, British usage. Go figure.)  If you listened to AM radio at the time -- and I did, on my little transistor, for hours at a time -- Petula Clark's songs were ubiquitous. And yeah, overexposed -- which means they're now ripe for a fresh listen.

What I didn't get at the time -- which British fans would have understood -- was that Petula wasn't a bona fide British Beat artist. She was a good ten years older than the Beatles and Stones, and she'd been singing on the BBC since she was a kid ("Britain's Shirley Temple," they billed her).  By 1964, Petula had been living in France for years -- was in fact a bigger star in France than in the UK -- and her career revived only when composer-arranger Tony Hatch sold her on a song inspired by a recent trip to New York City.  Come on, when you hear "Downtown," don't you picture Times Square rather than Piccadilly Circus?  Lucky Petula's radio-ready singles slipstreamed over the Atlantic on the British Invasion wave, and we dumb Americans never knew the difference.

Still, Tony and Petula had a winning formula, cranking out effervescent pop tunes charged up with urban energy. They worked that vein like nobody's business. I'm reminded of the Glen Campbell / Jimmy Webb partnership: a gifted singer working with a crack songwriter whose talents merge seamlessly, song after song.

And of all Petula's hits, this is the one that still gets me dancing:

This is not the music of rebellion -- no "We Gotta Get Out of This Place."  It's music written for office-workers and shopkeepers who like to relax after work. They don't hate their jobs; in fact they are responsible citizens who take life seriously ("just get away where your worries won't find you . . . don't let the day get the better of you"). But everybody needs a spot of fun sometime. 

Sex? There's only a whisper of it, in the chorus: "I know a place where the music is fine / And the lights are always low." Petula gives the word "low" an extra meaningful thrill, just in case you're looking for a club where you can make out. But sex isn't the point of this song, though it IS the point of so many other British Invasion songs. 

Tony Hatch's commercial instincts were spot-on. Yes, this song recycles the urban theme of "Downtown" (which he'd use again in "Don't Sleep in the Subway") and its chord changes and melodic phrasing would appear again, almost intact, in "My Love." You could probably slip a verse of one song into the other and no one would notice. But he also upped the rock elements this time around, with more backbeat rhythms, more drums, a electric piano riff . . . well, until the razzle-dazzle of the bridge, at least. 

And most significantly, he gave this song a unique hook:  It's really about the nightclub she's inviting her friend (workmate? girlfriend? lover?) to go to, with its great beat and cool denizens. "All around there are girls and boys / It's a swingin' place, a cellarful of noise" -- and with that last phrase, Hatch nails his zinger. Because everyone in 1965 -- even me -- knew that "cellarful of noise" referred to Liverpool's Cavern Club, where the Beatles had been discovered. Cellarful of Noise was the title of Beatles manager Brian Epstein's glossy autobiography. (Yes, of course I own a copy.)

And with that sly Beatles reference, Petula once again scrambled onto the British Invasion bandwagon, climbing to #3 on the US charts (the Brits weren't quite so taken in, only getting her to #17.)  "I Know a Place" even won her a female vocalist Grammy, and I'd say it was well-earned. Hatch knew how to write for Pet's voice, showcasing her rich timbre, wide range, and flawless ear -- those syncopated interval jumps really take a pro to execute. I love how he alternates those low, confiding verses with brassy upper-register choruses. And yeah, let's top that with a sassy key change too. Pet can knock those out of the park.

Compared to, say, "Summer in the City" -- a song howling with pent-up frustrations -- this is so much more upbeat. It's a toe-tapper, plain and simple. But what's so wrong about that?

"Pied Piper" / Crispian St. Peters

I was surprised by how saddened I was today to read the obituary for Crispian St. Peters, who just died at age 71. Not a major British Invasion star, not by any stretch of the imagination, but still . . . As a kid I owned his one big US hit, "Pied Piper," and I faithfully learned its lyrics by heart (that head crammed with 60s lyrics is one reason why I can't remember my daughter's cell phone number). Well, if I'm this affected by the death of Crispian St. Peters, I can't imagine how gutted I'll be when the great British rockers from my formative years shuffle off this mortal coil. I daren't even name their names, but you know very well whom I'm thinking of.

Crispian St. Who? you may well arsk. Come on, listen to the song; you know this record.



For a brief spell in the summer of 1966 -- oh, that glorious summer! -- this tune haunted the airwaves, pouring out of every little transistor radio we kids held snuggled to our ears. With its boppy prancing beat, its Donovan-like feyness, "Pied Piper" hooked us but good.

St. Peter's real name was Robin Peter Smith -- a properly British-sounding name, but not nearly as evocative for us Americans: hence the stage name. Let's face it, nobody in my grade school in Indiana was gonna have a name like Crispian. And St. Peters? In Indianapolis, the North Side clothing boutique that peddled all the must-have clothes was Roderick St. John, a name chosen for its faux-English pretensions. St. John = St. Peters = upper-crust class. Basing a pop song on the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin could have seemed precious, but St. Peters' earnest tenor and twee Englishness sold the literary reference just right.

Though he'd been knocking around as a professional musician since the late 50s, after Beatlemania Robin Smith jumped onto the British beat bandwagon, reinventing himself with his new stage name and signing to Decca in 1965. His first big UK hit, in 1966, was the Sylvia Tyson song "You Were On My Mind," but that didn't chart over here -- we had our own homegrown version recorded by We Five. In July 1966, however, he followed that up with "Pied Piper" -- a cover of a minor 1965 single by The Changin' Times -- and scored a Top Ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

Recording "Pied Piper" was a stroke of luck for this guy. You may never have heard of The Changin' Times, but one-half of this short-lived duo was songwriter Artie Kornfeld, who'd already had one big hit with Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve"; he and his Changin' Times partner Steve Duboff also later wrote the Cowsills' 1967 hit "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things." Perhaps even more important was Kornfeld's role as one of the prime organizers of the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969. As a professional songwriter, Kornfeld -- a Brooklyn boy -- had songcraft down pat. How else could he have turned out three such different hits -- a California surf rock classic, a gauzy sunshine pop anthem, and this British Invasion charmer?

Okay, so this song didn't have much to do with the Pied Piper myth. Just as well, because the Hamelin story is one of literature's creepier tales. As a kid, I remember being freaked out by the idea of a town so infested with rats, they needed to hire this exterminator with a flute. (The bit about the town burghers stiffing the guy once the job had been done completely went over my head.) And the TV version I remember further wrenched my heart by adding one Tiny Tim-like boy with crutches who got left behind when all the other kids followed the vengeful piper out of town.

Luckily in this song, the Piper is only used in its metaphorical sense as a charismatic leader. Most likely Kornfeld and Duboff got the idea from reading somewhere how the Beatles were "pied pipers to a generation" (as indeed they were). To this, Kornfeld and Duboff added just the right amount of hippie gloss. The singer -- the "I" of the song -- is a free spirit, addressing some hung-up soul ("masquerading," "contemplating") who's afraid to follow him. Singing in a low, coaxing voice, St. Peters weaves a spell, pointing an accusing finger with repeated "you's" and tempting his prey onward. The arrangement is deliberately minimal, with a prominent bass line, light guitar strum, and martial drums (the better for marching away). What is he offering? Drugs? Eastern philosophy? Marxist revolution? Only in the second verse does it become clear that he's singing to a girl, which clarifies his motives considerably. But hey, he waits until the second verse to put the move on her, and he never even mentions intercourse -- how refreshing!

Remember, in the mid-60s coded drug messages were everywhere; this timid soul clearly needed to be turned on. And so the chorus blooms into full orchestration, including a sprightly penny whistle, representing the piper's pipe. "Come on babe," he invites, swinging into his beautiful upper register, "follow me / I'm the Pied Piper / Follow me / I'm the Pied Piper / And I'll show you where it's at." Talk about 60's lingo -- "where it's at," man. That's pusher talk if I ever heard it.

Calculated British Invasion pop -- and yet, it's an absolutely lovely recording, redolent of its era and yet timelessly lilting. Hearing Crispian St. Peters launch into that chorus still makes my heart leap. We talk so dismissively of one-hit wonders; but having even one hit this delightful is something to be proud of. Rest in peace, Robin Peter Smith.

"I'd Be Far Better Off Without You" / Sandie Shaw

Bit of a palate cleanser, this. You can't follow up Graham Parker with just anybody -- jumping to a completely different era is the only strategy that works for me.

Despite my devotion to Dusty Springfield, and my sneaking affection for Lulu, my third favorite British girl singer of the 1960s wasn't demure Cilla Black, or bright-eyed Petula Clark, or the inscrutably hip Marianne Faithful. No, it was the elegant Sandie Shaw, languid and barefoot and model-beautiful. She was much more popular in Europe than in the States -- I only remember hearing her on the radio for a brief blip in 1964, beginning with "There's Always Something There to Remind Me" (she beat out Dionne and even Dusty for her way with a Bacharach-David song) and ending with the stunning "Girl Don't Come." But to me, Sandie Shaw WAS Swinging London, as iconic of the era as Charlotte Rampling or Julie Christie or the Shrimpton girls.

Well, here's the flip side to "Girl Don't Come" -- in fact, this was originally the A-side, until DJs decided they preferred "Girl Don't Come." To me it's a toss-up; both are fabulous moody songs, with just a whisper of cool jazz sultriness, tailor-made for Sandie's smoke-edged voice. And as it happens, both were written by Chris Andrews, a Pye in-house songwriter who wrote most of Shaw's singles throughout the 60s. Take a listen.



To be honest, I haven't much to say about this song. It's definitely more pop than rock -- those crisp L.A.-style horns, that sashaying samba beat -- and I should cringe at its message of a woman helplessly mired in a love affair with a man who doesn't appreciate her. Then again, this is nothing compared to some of Dusty's most clinging, co-dependent songs ("I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten," "You Don't to Say You Love Me"), and you know how much I love those tracks.

And ultimately Sandie lashes back, shifting into "You Don't Own Me" mode in the bridge -- hear her kittenish voice turn into a tigress's snarl as she declares "'For without you I'd be free / Free to go where I want to, / See what I want to, / Do what I want to." That Sixties ideal of the free-spirited bird, leaping into some impossibly tiny sportscar with her mini-skirt and patent-leather boots, carelessly flipping her long windswept hair -- it's hardly "I am woman, hear me roar," but it wins for glamour, hands down.

We'd have to wait for the 70s to get true rock chicks, empowered babes like Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde and (I suppose) Stevie Nicks. They had big voices and tough attitudes; they had brains and guts and could totally take care of themselves. But did I ever want to be them? No, I'm sorry to say, I did not. For better or worse, I wanted to be Sandie Shaw. Which really explains a lot. . .

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 41-45

Ah -- a tale of Five Obsessions. Five fleeting obsessions perhaps, but powerful while they lasted.

41. "Get Back" / The Beatles (1969)
The Beatles, of course, are one of the major obsessions of my life. But I'm thinking of a more particular obsession here -- my obsession with the film Let It Be. In May 1970 my friend Karen Butcher and I went to the Vogue Theatre in Indianapolis (then a real movie theater, not a music club like it is now) to see Let It Be the weekend it opened. We saw every showing that first Saturday, in fact, hiding out in the bathroom between screenings so the ushers wouldn't throw us out. Slipping back into our red plush seats in the dark, we avidly drank in every mumbled line of dialogue, every grainy shot of Our Boys. That climactic scene on the rooftop of the Apple headquarters on Savile Row riveted us, as the band played an unannounced LIVE BEATLES CONCERT in the middle of the London working day. (Can you imagine opening your office window and hearing that?) Karen and I were no casual Beatles fans -- throughout that next summer, we'd spend countless evenings sitting on Karen's front porch, holding imaginary conversations with our future husbands John Lennon (Karen's) and Paul McCartney (mine). (I'm not sure how we killed off Linda Eastman and Yoko Ono, but I'm sure it was bloodless and legal.) We lived in that movie. Of course, we already knew "Get Back" -- it had been released as a single way back in the spring of 1969, even before Abbey Road. With its chugging locomotive rhythm track and blithe McCartney melody, not to mention Billy Preston tripping all over on the keyboards, it teased us with riddling character portraits -- loner JoJo rambling from Tucson to California, transsexual Loretta Martin -- everyone trying to get back to where they once belonged. Hearing it resurface in Let It Be was like meeting an old friend. Now, years later, I know that the Beatles actually recorded Let It Be first, planning it as a back-to-basics reunion titled Get Back; it was still in production when -- having moved on to Abbey Road -- they decided to split. Shrewdly, they finished Abbey Road, then recast the Get Back material as their farewell, Let It Be. All along, we fans were kept in the dark, ignorant of how carefully the break-up was being orchestrated. But by the time Karen and I sat in that movie theater -- watching them on that rooftop, Paul with his bushy black beard and John in his round spectacles and short fur coat, peeling off a rare guitar lead -- we knew we'd never see them again. And at the end, John's sardonic sign-off -- "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and I hope we pass the audition" -- well, crikey.

42. "Message In a Bottle" / The Police (1979)
Let's just get it right out there: Sting was the hottest guy in rock music in 1979. Those wary eyes, that sulky sneer . . . and there I was, with my longtime weakness for bassists. Against the hard-edged sounds of punk, metal, and disco, the reggae groove of the Police almost single-handedly kept the roll in rock 'n' roll for a couple of years. It's hard to believe that a three-piece combo could create a sound this full; that melodic, lounging bass line was essential. Their tracks were tight, lithe, muscular, but never felt stripped-down. Add to that the reverbed, minor-key spookiness of tracks like "Roxanne," "Don't Stand So Close to Me," and "Walking on the Moon," and there was really no way I could resist. By the time they hit it big in the US, the Police were cranking out sunnier, blander easy-listening tracks like "Every Breath You Take" and "Everything She Does Is Magic," and I lost all interest. But when this song came along -- their first #1 hit in the UK, from their second LP Reggatta de Blanc -- I was completely under its spell. Fine songcraft, developing the image of a castaway shipwrecked on some desert island (in the Caribbean, from the sound of it), sending out an "SOS to the world" in countless pleading bottles. Sting's mopey wail fit this song perfectly, declaring, "Love can mend your life but / Love can break your heart" (our first clue that the island is a metaphor for heartbreak -- the old John Donne "no man is an island" line). And then after the instrumental break, in the third verse, the money shot: "Woke up this morning / Don't believe what I saw / A hundred million bottles / Washed up on the shore." Can't you just see them, camera panning out to show them all, bobbing in the surf? A lesser songwriter might have turned this into a happy ending, but not Sting -- he interprets it: "Seems I'm not alone / In being alone / A hundred million castaways / Looking for a home." Everybody's lonely, the message goes; everybody hurts. But me personally? All I could think about was mopping the tears of poor shipwrecked Sting, brushing the sand from his blond hair, tasting the salt on his sun-bronzed skin. . .

43. "If This Is It" / Huey Lewis & the News (1984)
Another case of fangirl lust. Huey Lewis wasn't my usual type -- I favored long-haired skinny Brits, not clean-cut virile preppie types from California -- but that hoarse edge to his voice snagged my heart. (His resemblance to Jeff Bridges didn't hurt, either.) Huey Lewis flirted at the edges of New Wave hipsterdom -- his original band Clover, sans Huey, backed Elvis Costello on his first album -- but his essential talent was for clean radio pop, with enough of a retro gloss to cash in on the Eighties' 1950s nostalgia. For a while there, Huey & Co. were just cranking out the hits -- "The Heart of Rock and Roll," "Power of Love," "I Want a New Drug," "Heart and Soul" -- all lively, well-crafted tracks that got tons of radio play. No less than four hit singles were released from their megatuple platinum LP Sports; it would've been the year's #1 album if not for Thriller. In the early 80s MTV exposure was also critical, and the video for "If This It It" is a classic, a stylish sitcom set on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. (Remember the band, buried in sand up to their necks, doing the doowop harmonies on the chorus?) It was all mainstream as hell, and you know me, mainstream is not usually my thing. Besides, in 1984 I got engaged and then married; naively I assumed that the fangirl part of me would now be locked up in a streamer trunk, along with the faded corsages and torn ticket stubs. But there we were, in September 1984, on our honeymoon, a tour of quaint New England inns (no Poconos heart-shaped tubs for us!). And every time we turned on the car radio -- I'm telling you, every time -- there was Huey's pleading rasp, urging me to reconsider, "If this is it / Please let me know / If this ain't love, you better let me know!" I didn't reconsider, of course; I had no reason to. No matter how many times Huey cajoled, "Girl don't lie, and tell me that you need me / Girl don't cry, and tell me nothing's wrong." (Oh, how he growled with frustration on the "rl" of "girl!). I'd look out the car window, press my knees together. But I knew that the fangirl was still in the back seat; she wasn't going ANYWHERE.
44. "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" / Herman's Hermits (1965)
My first post-Paul McCartney crush, fed by a crush of hype in Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazines. But oh, Peter Noone was adorable in 1965, with his crooked front tooth, his shiny gray eyes, and that sleek mop of fair hair. He may have been a manufactured teeny-bopper phenom, but he was MY manufactured teeny-bopper phenom, and he actually had the singing talent -- not to mention the acting chops -- to pull it off. Hell, he's still out there flogging these oldies. (And still adorable.) Herman's Hermits actually had two careers -- an initial run in the UK with a string of respectable R&B numbers, then a crossover to the US when they increasingly specialized in goofy English music-hall songs like "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" and "Henry The Eighth." Released in January 1965, "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" marked the crossover -- it climbed to #2 on the US charts, but in the UK it was only the B-side to "Silhouettes." All I knew was, it was track one on their second US album, Herman's Hermits on Tour (I've still got my battered copy, with its cheesy cover graphic of the band inserted into a hot-air balloon). Producer Mickey Most was taking no chances; "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" features the same stompy beat and cheery girl-group-style harmonies as the Hermits' debut single "Something Good." The song was written to order by John Carter and Ken Lewis, incidentally the backing vocalists on the Who's "Can't Explain," who also sang in their own group The Ivy League -- remember "Tossing and Turning?" I loved Herman's guttural Manchester vowels as he sang, "Cos you're the one I lo-ove," but the best part is that little cry at the end of the bridge, when he sings, "I get the feeling, you're ooooh-wee (ah!)" He'd cock his head, hook his thumbnail on that crooked tooth, and all us little fanbabies would just dissolve. . . .

45. "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" / Stevie Wonder (1974)
If Jeff Bridges gets the Academy Award for Crazy Heart this year -- and oh, how I hope he does -- it won't just be because he was brilliant in Crazy Heart, though of course he was. It'll be because he's been brilliant in every single damn movie he's made since his 1971 debut in The Last Picture Show. Same thing here with Stevie Wonder. No single Stevie Wonder track stands out enough to make it into my Top Ten, but Stevie is so close to my heart, he had to be on here somewhere. For sheer musicality, nobody (except maybe Paul McCartney) can equal the guy. But which single to write about? "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"? "Superstition"? "Livin' for the City"? "I Wish"? "Part-Time Lover"? It's an impossible choice. But in the end, the Stevie Wonder LP I loved most was 1973's Innervisions, at the apex of his amazing streak from Talking Book through Songs in the Key of Life. It came along the spring of my junior year, when I had just started editing the college newspaper, was proposing my senior thesis, was in the thick of deciding where my life should go (like I've EVER figured that out.) Some days the only way to survive was to lock my dorm room door and put Innervisions on my turntable. By the time "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" came along -- side two, track four -- I'd be lost in Wonder. That crazy tango intro, with Stevie muttering some jive-ass hustle ("Paris, Beirut, Iraq, Iran ... you know, I speak very very fluent Spanish!"), morphing magically into a smooth-as-silk samba. "Everybody's got a thing / But some don't know how to handle it / Always reachin' out in vain / Accepting things not worth having" -- gee, was that my life or what? And there was Stevie, with those long, caressing, overlapping lines of the jazzy chorus, reassuring me: "Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama /Cause I'll be standing on the side /While you check it out." Lyrics aren't Stevie's strength (again, like Paul McCartney) but even an English major like me can forgive a little verbal fuzziness when the sentiment is so beautiful. Stevie in the studio must have been like a kid in a candy shop, delighting in how many musical textures he could pile on, pouring it all into one richly complicated groove. And soaring above it all, his soothing vocals: "Everybody needs a change / A chance to check out the new" (or "loo," as I always heard it). "But you're the only one to see / The changes you take yourself throo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ough," ringing the chord changes on that "through." I can feel myself relax, even now; I can breathe again. Better than yoga, Stevie.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 56-60

For better or worse, my musical tastes were born out of the British Invasion, so it's no surprise I'm hitting a run of mid-60s English rock in the heart of my list -- and no surprise that I've already written about so many of today's songs. Some of these bands belong to that elite group of artists who've nabbed more than one spot on my list (guess which); others are more in the category of one-hit wonders, but as my write-ups explain, don't dismiss them so quickly.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

56. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Animals (1965)
The last great Animals single to be recorded with Alan Price on organ -- and oh, it's a sizzler.

57. "Sunshine Superman" / Donovan (1966)
So many great Donovan tracks, it was hard to choose just one. (I'm prepared now for the onslaught of comments telling me which Donovan tracks you thought were better.) But in the end I had to go for "Sunshine Superman" because it encompasses everything we loved him for -- folkie innocence, hippie psychedelia, and a nifty world music groove.

58. "Time of the Season" / The Zombies (1969)
Thank goodness I've got links for the rest of today's songs -- that leaves me plenty of room to write about this song. As many of you know, I go weak in the knees whenever I think about the Zombies. They weren't around very long -- in fact they broke up a full year before this single was released. Fun facts to know and tell: Wikipedia tells me that it was rock & roll zelig Al Kooper, who'd recently become an A&R exec at Columbia Records, that pushed to lift this track from their 1968 farewell album Odessey and Oracle and put it out as a 45. How cruelly ironic, then, that it turned out to be their best-selling single ever, at least in the U.S. (The Zombies were one British Invasion band that didn't really catch on over here, though I can say I was a Zombies fan from the get-go.)
Talk about the Spookiness Quotient -- this song is simply drenched with it. Some songs just deserve to be heard in the dark, late at night, and this is one of them. That mysterously tip-toeing bass line, the descending triplet on the organ, strange little percussion accents like bumps in the night -- dig that one repeated tic, a lightning-swift combo of block clap, cymbal, and gasp (sounds like somebody's being whipped down in the dungeon). Above all, it's Colin Blunstone's other-worldly voice, doubled and echoed until it sounds like it's coming from some parallel dimension. And on the second verse, all those overlapping voices, falsettos and booming baritones, coming out of the woodwork like a spirits at a seance: "What's your name? (What's your name?) / Who's your daddy? (Who's your daddy?)/ (HE RICH) Is he rich like me-ee? / Has he taken (Has he taken) / any time (any time) / (TO SHOW) To show you what you need to live?" It's like an allusive, coded conversation, something heard through a wall maybe; we have no idea what they're talking about. In the bridge, the imaginary voices take the lead: "(Tell it to me slowly!) / Tell you what?/ (I really want to know). . . " Then they all chime in together in thick clotted sacral harmonies for the refrain: "It's the time / For the see-ea-son for loving," ending on a VERY disturbing chord. After which, off goes Rod Argent's lunatic, inspired organ solo -- I've got to think that Al Kooper was grooving on that. The baroque textures of this song tap into so many dark psychological states -- it makes me think of time travel, of drug trips, of haunted houses, of black magic, of kinky sex, of mad wives locked in the attic, of evil clowns and malevolent ventriloquist's dummies coming to life. You know, like The Twilight Zone on acid, with a script by Ray Bradbury, directed by David Lynch, starring Jeremy Irons and Amanda Plummer. Gothic and stylish, a pure class act.

59. "Concrete and Clay" / Unit 4 + 2 (1966)
Ah, just listen to that cowbell intro. A fluky hit, catapulted from obscurity by pirate radio stations (raise your hand if you saw the film Pirate Radio, a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked), this irresistible little swinger was best listened to on a transistor radio snuggled underneath your pillow. Few songs transport me back as totally as this one does.

60. "A World Without Love" / Peter & Gordon (1964)
The fact that this song was written by Paul McCartney is one-hundred-percent beside the point. I adored Peter Asher, and the heavenly harmonies on this record were pop perfection.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 61-65

By some great serendipity, here in the early 60s of my list comes a cluster of five mid-60s classics from the British Invasion. Major artists? Maybe not (I'd make an exception for Georgie Fame, but only the basis of his later jazz albums). But major British Invasion hits? Indeed they are.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

61. "To Sir With Love" / Lulu (1967)
I'll admit, my love for this song is inextricable from my love for the film it appeared in, an Inspiring Teacher drama starring Sidney Poitier, Suzy Kendall, and teenaged Lulu herself. I still cry whenever I see it; even this clip makes my eyes well up. While Lulu had been a star in the UK ever since she was 15, belting out a hit version of the Isley Brothers' "Shout," this was the song that really broke her into the U.S. market. In the movie, she sings it in the closing scene, when a pack of troubled urban secondary-schoolers gather to thank the teacher (Poitier, natch) who helped them turn their lives around. (Bonus points if you recognize the band playing in the first part of that clip as the Mindbenders.) For a natural diva like Lulu, there was plenty of drama to play with in those lyrics by Don Black (a movie-theme specialist, who also wrote "Born Free") -- "Those schoolgirl days / Of telling tales and biting nails are gone" or "If you wanted the sky I would / Write across the sky in letters / That would soar a thousand feet high." But perhaps more important was that emotive melody, written by Mark London, the husband of Lulu's longtime manager Marion Massey. London knew exactly how to showcase their girl's brassy, rich contralto -- octave leaps, swift swoops up and down the scale, long sustained notes packed with crescendo and vibrato, heartfelt warbles of melisma. And Lulu, god love her, made it all sound so easy, effortless, spontaneous. "But how can you thank someone / Who has taken you from crayons to perfume?" THIS is how you do it.

62. "Georgy Girl" / The Seekers (1966)
Another movie theme song, from another brilliant 60s British movie -- slightly earlier, in arty black-and-white. (Have I ever mentioned that this is my #1 favorite era in cinema?) Another girl singer, too -- Judith Durham -- with a voice that nearly rivaled Dusty Springfield for clear hard power. Back then, when I played this 45 constantly on the fold-up stereo in our basement rec room, I never noticed that this song was in fact written by Dusty's brother Tom Springfield, her old partner from the folk trio the Springfields. Tom also wrote the Seekers' earlier hits, "I'll Never Find Another You" and "A World Of Our Own" (I'd love to know Dusty's reaction to having her brother feed hits to Judith Durham); for the lyrics on "Georgy Girl," he turned to musical comedy actor Jim Dale. With its perky whistling motif, "Georgy Girl" sounds more like cabaret, or at least folk music, than backbeat rock 7 roll. The Seekers weren't British but Australian -- the first Aussies, in fact, to score Top 5 hits in the US, UK, and Australia -- and like many people, I often confused them with the Searchers. In general I think the Searchers were a much better band, but this one single gets me more than anything the Searchers ever did. Maybe that's because I so loved the movie, with Lynn Redgrave playing an impulsive, cheerful, slightly overweight girl harboring a mad crush on the gorgeous boyfriend (Alan Bates) of her icy roommate (Charlotte Rampling). Now there was a movie I could identify with. Despite its plucky melody, we all knew this was a desperately sad song. "You're always window shopping / But never stopping to buy / So shed those dowdy feathers and fly! / A little bit" -- what an anthem to grow up with.

63. "A Summer Song" / Chad & Jeremy (1964)
It really does blow my mind that in the course of one year -- 1964 -- I could have so many crushes on different British musicians. Oh, Chad, with your golden mop and black-framed glasses . . .

64. "Michelle" / David and Jonathan (1967)
Truly, this is not a shameless way to sneak yet another Paul McCartney song on here. I honestly did love David and Jonathan's cover of "Michelle," and besides, the Beatles didn't release this one as a single. In case your memory of this has been obliterated forever by the Beatles' album version (I know mine has), here's a video:



Okay, okay, OKAY, it's not better than the Beatles' recording. It clips along a little faster, and David and Jonathan's voices are smooth and banal compared to Paul's. They weren't really singers, after all; they weren't even named David and Jonathan (corny Bible reference), but songwriters Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook, who also wrote "You've Got Your Troubles" for the Fortunes. Rog and Rog teamed up here with George Martin to help the Beatles extend their brand, maintaining their full frontal assault on the record charts. Martin added background oohs and a touch of strings, transposed Paul's acoustic finger-picking to what sounds like a harmonium, and had Rog and Rog harmonize the whole way through. It's just slightly slicker than the Beatles track -- but for a genius track like "Michelle," that slickness is no improvement. On the other hand, you'd never know that if you hadn't heard the Beatles' version yet, which I hadn't when this first hit the airwaves. And I have to say, it does feels more Parisian -- I could almost hear accordions in there, and visualize Apache dancers in a smoky Left Bank cafe. McCartney, always keen to score points for sophistication, was striving for that French bohemian sound, which is why he asked his pal Ivan Vaughn's wife Jan to supply a few French phrases -- "Michelle, ma belle, sont les mots qui font tres bien ensemble." Paul hadn't a clue what it meant. I'd just started studying French in grade school, though, and it was lovely to imagine that Paul was sending me secret messages in "our" second language. The fact that he'd had to employ David and Jonathan to slip that message to me made no difference at all.

65. "Yeh Yeh" / Georgie Fame (1965)
Sorry, Mr Lennie, but you do not know whereof you speak. It should be apparent by now that I have a sneaking affection for jazz-inflected rock, and here's the guy who led me to it.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 66-70

Here in the middle of the list, we're in serious Sixties Earworm territory. From the poppiest pop to the deepest soul, here are five songs that defy you not to sing along. (C'mon, you know you know the words.)

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs].

66. "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" / Manfred Mann (1964)
Being a baby boomer is way too broad a category -- let's narrow it down a little. It's significant that I was old enough in 1964 to experience the British Invasion, yet I was still young enough that I was completely ignorant of where those British bands were stealing their music from. For me, this WAS the original.

67. "I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James & the Shondells (1967)
Sneaking around and doing things behind your parents' back -- that's what being a teenager is all about. Just because I wasn't misbehaving in 1967 didn't mean I wasn't ready to, given half a chance.

68. "Come and Get It" / Badfinger (1969)
I know what you're gonna say -- she's sneaking in another Paul McCartney song. But honestly, when this record first came out I didn't know McCartney had written it, as the theme song for his mate Ringo's new movie The Magic Christian. I should have guessed, though. As the first non-Beatles artists signed to the Apple Corps record label, Badfinger was hyped big-time as the Beatles' heirs apparent. (Watching that green apple on the label spin around and around was definitely one of this single's charms.) The Beatles, who were heading for Splitsville themselves, had a LOT invested in these guys -- no point in leaving anything to chance. Paul produced the record as well, and as insurance he renamed the band from the Iveys to the hipper-sounding moniker Badfinger (a Neil Aspinall suggestion). Ultimately I think that the Beatles legacy unfairly overshadowed Badfinger; despite their string of melodic, addictive singles ("No Matter What," "Day After Day," "Baby Blue," "Without You"), they rarely got credit for what a fine band they really were. Just listen to this debut single -- Tom Evans' buoyant lead vocals, the tight, beautifully blended back-up harmonies. (I was always torn between singing along to the high harmonies or the melody.) Sung against that bouncy timekeeping piano, the melody is always slower than I remember it, lagging lazily just behind the beat -- a genius tempo, actually, for a song about sitting back and waiting. I guess we never really knew what the "It" was that he was inviting people to take. If you saw the movie, you'd know it was money (the Magic Christian being like a hippie version of that old TV show The Millionaire), but trust me, it works equally well as a song about drugs or sex -- "If you want it, here it is / Come and get it / But you better hurry 'cos it's going fast." Wishful thinking, probably.

69. "Love Potion No. 9" / The Searchers (1964)
So much new music hit my ears in 1964, and it was definitely not all of a piece. Take this classic Leiber and Stoller number, for example -- first recorded in 1959 by the Clovers, it was already a standard when the Searchers covered it in 1964. But did I know that? No, I did not. To me, it was clever and witty and brand-new. I was still young enough to enjoy the occasional novelty tune, and this one was right on the cusp of being a novelty number. Three verses and a bridge, with a neat, if primitive, plot -- the singer asks for help with his pathetic love life from a fortune-telling gypsy ("with the gold-capped tooth," though I thought it was "gold tattoo"). He's definitely in the Loveable Loser category: "I told her that I was a flop with chicks/ Ain't had a date since nineteen-fifty-six" (in the re-recording, his 3-year celibate streak was inevitably changed to an 8-year drought). She gives him a potion, he gulps it down, and then he goes merrily bonkers, until he kisses a cop on the corner beat, who then breaks his potion bottle. This is not a song that you had to take seriously, and maybe that's what I liked about it -- plus it didn't depend on a sex-infused subtext that would shoot right over my adolescent head. This one's pure slapstick comedy -- "She bent and turned around and gave me a wink / She said I'm gonna mix it up right here in the sink / It smelled like turpentine and looked like India ink / I held my nose and closed my eyes [beat, beat] / I took a drink!" It's like Jerry Lewis meets Jekyll and Hyde. And the Searchers executed it perfectly, with their brisk drumbeat and crisp surf guitars -- a perfect Tin Pan Alley piece of pop comedy.

70. "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" / The Righteous Brothers (1964)
I remember seeing The Righteous Brothers on Shindig! and being surprised they weren't black -- not disappointed, mind you, just surprised. I'd never heard the term "blue-eyed" soul. But hey, I was already lapping up all those British beat bands' covers of Motown and girl group singles -- I couldn't deny Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield the right to sing R&B. As it climbed to the top of the charts in early 1965, no doubt American record companies breathed a sigh of relief that some American acts could still stave off the British Invasion. The ace in the bag -- as producer Phil Spector must have known -- was those booming low vocals by Medley, something no British band was equipped to compete with. Of course, a swoony Barry Mann melody helped, and Cynthia Weill's mournful lyrics -- "You never close your eyes anymore / When I kiss your lips," sung at the bottom of Medley's range, then jumping up an octave to continue, "And there's no tenderness like before / In your fingertips." By the time they got to the chorus, when Hatfield's tenor joined in on harmonies, we were already slain. "You've lost that lovin' feeling, now it's / Gone / Gone / Gone / Whoah-oh-oh oh" -- dig how those "gone's" toll away like the bells of doom. It's such a great song, and so much fun to sing. In college, my friend Mary MacManus and I did a pretty mean version of this while we worked the dishwashers in the dorm kitchen -- as I recall, the dining room would fall silent to listen, then burst into applause. At least that's how I remember it -- don't you dare tell me different.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 81-85

These five songs aren't quite guilty pleasures -- though they're all by artists that some rock snobs spurn. I'll defend them to the death, though, and not just because of nostalgia for the time in my life when I first heard them.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

81. "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" / Gerry & the Pacemakers (1964)
In 1964 we were all waiting to figure out who the next Beatles would be (turns out it was more of the Beatles). Even then, though, I'm pretty sure I knew it wouldn't be Gerry & the Pacemakers, despite the fact that they were also managed by Brian Epstein. Still, Gerry Marsden had a soulful pop voice, well suited to ballads, which soon replaced perky numbers like "How Do You Do It" in their repertoire. As a coda to the whole Merseybeat phenomenon, 1965's "Ferry Cross the Mersey" was poignant, even for us who'd never been to Liverpool. But my vote goes to "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," which came out a year earlier. It was the Pacemaker's first U.S. hit, and amid the tsunami of other British Beat bands frantically trying to cash in on the Beatles' US success, the tenderness of this song really stood out. I'll admit, that arrangement was totally movie-music schmaltz -- those quivering strings, that oboe counterpoint -- but still it comes off as totally sincere. I've read that Marsden wrote it after breaking up with his girlfriend; after she heard the song, apparently, they got back together and eventually married. I don't know if that story's true or not, but I desperately hope so. I remember watching Gerry sing this on Shindig, adoring his Liverpudlian vowels, taken in by his huge puppydog eyes. Ultimately, I just couldn't work up a crush on Gerry Marsden -- not with Paul McCartney around -- but this song still brings a lump to my throat.

82. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" / Steely Dan (1974)
You either get Steely Dan or you don't. Plenty of other cheesy jazz-rockers came along later to muck up the waters, but these guys invented the sound -- the dense aural environment, underlaid with a slapping, commanding groove. I loved Donald Fagan's nimble and intelligent keyboards, but what really spoke to me was Walter Becker's snarky lyrics. It's toss-up between this number and "Reeling in the Years" ("those weekends at the college never turned out like you planned / The things that pass for knowledge I don't understand"), but in the end I vote for this on the Spookiness Quotient -- that ominous ticking bass line, the faintly scolding lyrics, the lapidary call-and-response of the chorus. The singer's pleading with a girlfriend -- not even that, a girl he's briefly dated; with a whiff of desperation, he reminds her of "our little wild time" and going "out driving on Slow Hand Row" (that's some evocative name for a lover's lane). "Rikki don't lose that number," he entreats her -- I picture something scrawled on a matchbook or a cocktail napkin -- adding, "Send it off in a letter to yourself" (mnemonic tips from Dr. Becker!). Chords falter and diminish as he speculates, "You might use it if you feel better / When you get home . . . " He knows she won't, but a guy can hope, can't he? ("And you might have a change of heart . . . " the line wanders upward, followed by a twiddle of piano). I've always thought that it was his phone number he wanted her to keep, but just today it occurred to me that it could be something else -- an abortion doctor, maybe? Whatever. It's like being thrown into a Raymond Carver short story, and scrambling to figure out what's going on. One thing I knew for sure: if I was Rikki, I'd keep that number.

83. "Smooth Operator" / Sade (1985)
Jazz again -- really smooth jazz, in fact, sizzling over a Latin beat. When this song came out, mind you, we were in the throes of MTV's glory days of video; the sound is inextricable from the exotic vision of gorgeous Sade, with her skimmed-back hair and luscious red lips, poured into a cocktail dress. She was so poised, so reserved, so elegant -- more Audrey Hepburn than Debbie Harry -- I instinctively identified with her. The wary, wounded quality of her voice fit perfectly with this allusive story about a jet-set wheeler-dealer ("diamond life, lover boy"). Not that we get many details, though -- he could be a pimp, a drug lord, or James Bond for all we know. She doesn't trust him, and I'm guessing it's from bitter firsthand experience, as she croons: "A license to love, insurance to hold / Melts all your memories and change into gold / His eyes are like angels but his heart is cold." (Dig that icy quarter-note pause before "cold.") Sade's voice is like satin, like honey, her diction crisp, her phrasing sensuous yet delicate. Congas thump, maracas sussurate, a sax moans in the night. "Coast to coast, LA to Chicago, western male / Across the north and south to Key Largo, love for sale" -- it's so Eighties. But delicious.

[And by the way -- how cool is it that Sade's brand-new album just zoomed to number 1? The lady takes a decade off from performing, and her audience is right there waiting for her to return. No crazy promotional blitz (take note, Madonna and Lady Gaga), just a solidly crafted set of songs with her long-time loyal band. It proves that when the older audience respects and cares about an artist, they'll buy records in droves. So how come the record companies waste so much time and money only wooing the fickle youth market?]

84. "I Don't Want to Go Home" / Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (1976)
Warning: You won't find Bruce Springsteen anywhere on this list. But I've got nothing against Jersey boys -- and here's a selection to prove it.

85. "Maggie May" / "Reason to Believe" / Rod Stewart (1971) Hey, I didn't know better. And even if I did, I'd probably still fall for this gravelly debut by whiskey-voiced Rod Stewart.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 86-90

I'm surprised to discover how few of today's five singles ever got covered on this blog before. I assure you, each one had its heyday on my record player (and yes, I do mean record player). Bear with me as I make up for lost time!

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

86. "Have I The Right?" / The Honeycombs (1964)
Remember, in 1964, we had no idea which English band would be the Next Big Thing. We listened to all of it, drank it in, bought the singles -- and waited to see how it would all shake out. The Honeycombs were a British band -- check -- from North London, named after their female drummer Honey Lantree, who was also a hairdresser (Honey Combs, get it?). I was snared right away by the exuberant backbeat bounce of this song, enhanced by a prominent drum track, a tambourine rattled right onto the mike, and heavy footstomps on the studio stairs, recorded by producer Joe Meek. ("Come! right! back! I just can't bear it / I've got this love and I want to share it!") Add some cheese-grater guitar and a whiny organ and there it was, an irresistible bit of pop candy. Lead singer Denis D'Ell's voice was a little Tommy Steele-ish -- even more so once they'd sped up the original recording -- but that chipper, boyish quality was tremendously appealing, especially with all the little growls and yips he threw in. "Have I the rrright to touch you? / If I could yooou'd see how much you / Send those shivers rrrunning down my spine." Two minutes and 59 seconds of youthful desire -- exactly my cup of tea.

87. "You Were On My Mind" / We Five (1965)
For some reason, in my mental jukebox "Have I The Right?" is always followed immediately with "You Were On My Mind." This despite the fact that it came along a year later, from an American band (We Five was from San Francisco), had a female lead singer, and was folk-rock instead of BritBeat (if I'd been a folkie I'd have recognized it as an Ian and Sylvia song). But it's the same sort of uptempo, upbeat charmer, with lots of drums -- in fact, "You Were On My Mind"'s entire first verse is practically a capella, sung with just a snare and high hat. Verse two adds a few asterisks of electric guitar strums, with more guitars layered on gradually as the song builds and builds. The harmonies swell, guitar riffs spin off like Telstars, and a marvelous time is had by all. The plot is simple: "Well I woke up this morning / You were on my mind / And you were on my mind . . ." She's got troubles, she's got worries, she's got "wounds to bind" -- but she doesn't bother us with details. She goes to the corner, she comes home again, she walks away her blues. She copes, briskly and cheerfully, probably because of that guy who's on her mind. What's not to love?

88. "Killing Me Softly With His Song" / Roberta Flack (1971)
Coming fresh off of her first big smash hit, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," Flack owned the airwaves for a while with this song, and she deserved to. It came along smack dab in the middle of my coffeehouse intellectual phase -- well, as much of a coffeehouse intellectual as I could be as a high school senior in Indianapolis -- when an arty jazz-soul hit by a black sister with an enormous Afro was just the ticket. It has a great backstory, too: Written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox (composers of the "Happy Days" TV theme song) and singer Lori Lieberman, it was inspired by Leiberman's rapture after watching a pre-"American Pie" Don McLean sing at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. (I suspect that's info I picked up from Casey Kasem's Coast to Coast radio show.) On her own recording, however, Lieberman overemotes; the thing that made this a hit was Roberta Flack's smoky, bell-like voice gliding over a samba beat. I love those overlapping, repeated phrases: "Strumming my pain with his fingers / Singing my life with his words / Killing me softly with his song / Killing me softly / With his song, telling my whole life / With his words, killing me softly / With his song. . . . " She sounds dazed, transported, stunned to her core, the way a girl sometimes is after sitting in the dark, riveted soul-deep by a stranger on stage. We've all been there, ladies.

89. "Tempted" / Squeeze (1981) I listen now to Squeeze and can't fathom why they never really registered on my radar. It was just this one big hit, but oh, what a sweetie.

90. "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" / John Lennon (1974)
Post-Beatles John Lennon took himself way too seriously -- all that primal scream crap -- it would have driven me right into the arms of Paul McCartney if I hadn't already been firmly snuggled there. I longed for the old playful, funny John to resurface, and he finally did on this 1974 single -- John's only #1 solo hit -- from the Walls and Bridges album. It's telling, I think, that this song came out of John's 18-month-long "lost weekend," when he went off with May Pang to sort himself out. Pang has said that it was inspired by John's habit of channel-surfing late at night, a habit I totally identify with. It rockets along on a high-energy groove, courtesy of Elton John, who contributes backup vocals and a boogie-woogie piano; best of all is the screaming sax, a Bobby Keys special. Studded with a few Lennonesque koans ("don't need a watch to tell the time," "don't need a gun to blow your mind"), it's one long party of a song, bursting with joy and optimism. I love that coaxing boogeying bridge: "Hold me darlin,' come on listen to me / I won't do you no harm / Trust me darlin,' come on listen to me, / Come on listen to me / Come on listen, listen." Whenever this song came on the radio, I'd squeal and turn it up -- and it still never fails to lift my spirits.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 91-95

Quite a mixed bag in today's installment -- most of these artists are here for their general importance in my musical life, not because of these specific singles. But for various reasons, each of them simply HAS to be on the list somewhere, so here they are . . .

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

91. "Cruel to Be Kind" / Nick Lowe (1979) Ah, c'mon, you KNOW I love Nick. But he was never very lucky when it came to singles; this was his only hit, a power-pop gem that still never tempted me to buy his albums. It would be years before I saw the light.

92. "Hungry" / Paul Revere and the Raiders (1966)
Throughout the mid-60s, I was a stubborn Anglophile, watching the nighttime music revues Shingdig! and Hullaballoo only to catch the latest British bands. But I had a secret. Every day when I came home from school, I'd turn on Where the Action Is to watch Paul Revere and the Raiders cavort on a SoCal beach in their full trademark regalia of ponytails, breeches, and tricorn hats. My crush on lead singer Mark Lindsay was a deep dark secret (secret, that is, from my true love Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits). Only years later did I realize that the Raiders were in fact a tight, energetic dance band, with songs that were hardly inane fluff. The costumes, the gimmick, were just the price of fame. "Hungry" -- which, like their other big hit "Kicks," was by veteran songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill -- simply seethes with sexual appetite, underlaid with Revere's thrusting keyboards and a prowling deep bassline. Lindsay's bluesy voice was like America's answer to Eric Burdon -- those cajoling, intimate verses just exploded into the frenzied chant of the chorus: "Hungry for those good things, baby / Hungry through and through." The segue into verse two is devastating, as Lindsay sucks in his breath, then groans, "I can almost taste it, babe . . . " And me on the sofa with my 6th grade homework, the little fangirl storing it all up.

93. "For Your Love" / The Yardbirds (1965) I say I was infatuated with the British Invasion -- and yet of its Big Six bands (Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, Who, Yardbirds) I only liked the first four. I was way too young to "get" the heady guitar-driven sound of the Yardbirds back in 1965. My loss . . .

94. "I Can See For Miles" / The Who (1967)
The other major British Invasion band I couldn't quite love at first. I didn't like the Who because they'd copied their sound from the Kinks. I didn't like the Who because they busted up their instruments. I didn't like the Who because somehow, instinctively, I felt they were perves. (Come on, Tommy was just creepy.) But for a little period there, just as British rock headed into psychedelia, the Who won me over. Ostensibly a song about catching his girlfriend cheating, to me "I Can See For Miles" was always really about getting high, about the illusion of expanded consciousness. The spookiness of this track haunted me, with those clanging windmill guitar strums, Daltrey's echo-chambered vocals ("I know you deceived me, now here's the surprise / I know that you did 'cos there's magic in my eyes"), and best of all, the slow-mo progression of dissonant chords on "miles and miles and miles and MILES and MILES and m i l e s." The Who's lyrics never really held up, and they weren't much for melody, but for hooks and riffs they couldn't be beat. With this song, they added texture, playing metal against muffle, dark against glitter, and showmanship against sincerity; it was like they'd gone 3-D. The rest of this album, The Who Sell Out, baffled me, but this song? It made me forgive the Who. It's their Get Out of Jail Free card as far as I'm concerned.

95. "Heart of Glass" / Blondie (1979)
I moved to New York City in 1979 and immediately plunged into the New Wave scene, along with all the other recent college grads with nice entry jobs and tiny Manhattan apartments, privileged kids who didn't dare be associated with the punk scene down on St. Mark's Place. Blondie -- or more precisely, Blondie's lead singer, Debbie Harry -- reigned as Queen of that New Wave scene, but as I recall it, her power was not unquestioned. All the men I knew were infatuated with her ex-Playboy Bunny pout and fishnet-covered legs; most women I knew resented her for exactly the same qualities. Compared to the other New Wave ladies -- Kate and Cindy of the B-52s, Tina of the Talking Heads -- why did we need a vamp like Debbie Harry, even if she did have a killer singing voice? Nevertheless, Blondie's slightly edgy but catchy power-pop was deliriously fun to dance to, with great singalong hooks, and it'll always remind me of those glory days, when the downtown music clubs hadn't yet given way to disco. "Heart of Glass" was already heading in that direction -- just listen to that metronomic rhythm track, the syncopated synths, the robotic high flutter of Debbie's voice on "Once I had a love, it was a blast." It was Blondie's 3rd hit single from their breakout album Parallel Lines; when "Heart of Glass" hit #1, I remember finally dismissing Blondie as a mainstream sellout band. Now, of course, when this song comes on the radio I'm hit by waves of fond nostalgia. Go figure.

"Tobacco Road" / The Nashville Teens

Heard this on Sirius a couple days ago -- one of those moments when a song suddenly jumps into your mental spotlight. Sure, I knew this song – it was a radio staple in the mid-60s. But I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about who recorded it and what was going on in the song.

And when I finally started to Google around, I was surprised. First of all, despite the name, the Nashville Teens were a British band -- from Surrey, in fact, not even gritty Liverpool or Newcastle. Jeez, their American accents were convincing -- much better than most Brit singers. The band itself had a revolving door of band members, none of them big names, and they never had any other big hits, though they were around for 10 years or so; I wouldn't call them one-hit wonders. (They backed up Jerry Lee Lewis at the Star Club in Hamburg, apparently an epically great live performance.) But “Tobacco Road” was – here’s your telling detail – produced by hitmaker Mickie Most, who worked similar magic for the early Animals among other bands. If they only hit gold with this track in 1964, it was no fluke.

They didn’t write the song; it was by John D. Loudermilk, one of Nashville’s most sterling songwriters, who’d released it as a single himself in 1960, to little success. I took a listen to Loudermilk's version, which is slower and more doleful; it mines the song for struggle and sorrow, which you'd think would be the meat of this song about a hardscrabble country Carolina upbringing. ("I was born in a trunk / Mama died and my daddy got drunk...") The Teens, though, speeded it up, added a percussive backbeat and tons of reverb, and came up with a hit. Country? Yeah, the guitars have a little twang to them, and there's those honky-tonk keyboards in the bridge -- but the song it most resembles is The Blues Magoos' "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet." Go figure.

Okay, it ain't "The House of the Rising Sun," though I'll bet that was exactly the sound Most was reaching for. Those hammering electric piano chords are taken straight from the Alan Price playbook (the keyboardist was John Hawken, later to resurface in Renaissance), and there's a similar threatening bass line and bluesy guitar riff as well. According to Gordon Thompson's invaluable book Please Please Me, the guitarist was Jim Sullivan, although Wikipedia claims that Jimmy Page was playing guitar -- which should give any Kinks fan a good laugh, seeing as how Jimmy Page is still trying to take credit for all the early Kinks records too.

The master touch -- the thing that makes this a great single -- is the reverb on those harmonized vocals, which makes them sound extra lonely as the singer recalls his miserable childhood ("left me here to die alone"; "Growin' up, rusty shack / All I had was hangin' on my back") . At the end of every verse, the singers -- Arthur Sharp and Ray Phillips -- sing "In the middle of Tobacco Road" totally a cappella, mournfully drawing out "road" like howling wolves. That fierce two-beat accent that breaks up each line of the verse is a great touch too, channeling all the singer's throbbing resentment and his ambition to break out of poverty. In the last verse, when he declares, "Bring that dynamite and a crane / Blow it up, start over again," it's got all the rebel intensity of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place."

With no songwriters in the band, the Nashville Teens were probably dependent on their producers snagging them good material; later producers like Shel Talmy and Andrew Loog Oldham may not have given them the kind of attention they needed. I listened to some snippets of their other songs and their musical sound was all over the place, which isn't unusual when you've got a bunch of technically skilled musicians with no strong identity. But this track? It still blasts onto the radio with such cheeky energy. You gotta love it.

Tobacco Road video

Tobacco Road sample

"I Don't Want to See You Again" / Peter and Gordon

R.I.P. Gordon Waller, 1945-2009

I'll admit, this death has hit me a lot harder than Michael Jackson's. True, it was his partner Peter Asher who was my hearthrob back in 1964 (in the brief intervals when I despaired of Paul McCartney ever falling in love with me) -- a strawberry blond mop and black-framed specs, who could resist? But even then I knew perfectly that the sweetly earnest voice carrying the tune was all Gordon.

Granted, how could they lose, when Peter's sister's boyfriend Paul was handing them tunes like this to record? This is possibly the tenderest kiss-off song in the history of pop. In fact, that title phrase -- "I don't want to see you again" -- doesn't even come from our singer; he's just ruefully quoting what his girl said to him. Talk about a deft switcheroo. And he's such a sweetheart, he's just aching . . . which makes your average teen girl with her ear pressed to her transistor radio yearn to comfort the poor guy. A second switcheroo!!

As we girls all know, guys are emotional amateurs. Right now, our protagonist is gobsmacked by the break-up. "I hear that love is planned," he begins -- he's bought the pop party line on love-ever-after -- and he's confused, poor baby. "How can I understand / When someone says to me, / 'I don't want to see you again.'" Can't you just see the winsome pout?

But the folk-tinged sincerity of P & G's voices -- well-bred schoolboys still, with perfect enunciation -- keeps it honest. Push it just a little further, and it could have sounded like self-pity, or egotistical complaint. But no, not our boy -- he's crying at night, ladies, still mournfully rehearsing her cutting words in his ears.

Only in that thrumming bridge does the slightest bit of accusation edge into their voices: "As you turned your back on me / You hid the light of day / I didn't have to play at being / Broken-hearted." (Who said he was "playing"? Lemme at her.) Listen to how they shift in and out from unison to harmonies; whenever their voices divide, I feel more complex emotions burbling up. Just a touch of strings to schmaltz it up, and that doleful-yet-perky instrumental break -- is that a mellotron? a clavinet? whatever it is, it sounds like honking sobs. The production on this number is spot-on, isn't it? I assume it was George Martin at the helm (having a Beatle in-law was tremendous luck for these kids), but knowing that Peter Asher went on to be such a gifted producer himself, I'm willing to believe they had a hand in it themselves.

By the third verse, we already can detect a hint of perspective creeping in: "I know that later on / After love's / Been and gone / I'll still hear someone say / 'I don't want to see you again.'" Ah, well the first cut is the deepest and all that. I suppose we knew this was all cliche -- maybe Peter and Gordon knew it too (I'm betting Paul was always a true believer, at least when in songwriting mode). But as a distillation of teen heartbreak, this little number is nearly faultless. It's unironic pop magic, pure and simple, and we'll never see the likes of it again.

I Don't Want to See You Again sample

“Love Is All Around” / The Troggs

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

Love, indeed, is all around us this time of year. But in 1967– the hippy-dippy flower-child aura of groovy love must have been impossible to escape. Hence this hit single, written by Reg Presley (great rock & roll name, eh?), lead singer of the Troggs – yes, the same Troggs who did “Wild Thing.” Hearing this song out of context – like for example, with Bill Nighy’s Christmas-ized parody in Love Actually -- I’d never have said it was the same band. “Love Is All Around” goes for a much more conventional pop sound, right down to a schmaltzy overlay of strings; to me it sounds much more West Coast (think the Association) than BritBeat.

But when all is said and done, it’s basically a seduction song, just like “Wild Thing.” Maybe it’s a different sort of girl he’s seducing this time, but hey, whatever works. He starts off all dreamy-- “I feel it in my fingers / I feel it in my toes” – and then drifts off on the trendy love vibes of the era (“love is all around me / And so the feeling grows / It is written on the wind / That’s everywhere I go”). But pretty soon he gets down to the bottom line: “So if you really love me / Come on and let it show.” In other words, put out or get out.

Smooth operator that he is, he slips his challenge in, oh so casually, and then deftly adds a layer of goo: “You know I love you, I always will / My mind's made up by the way that I feel / There's no beginning, there’ll be no end / ‘Cause on my love you can depend.” Right down to the rhyme-chasing inverted word order, this is complete poetic cliché. He’s regurgitating last week’s stale Valentine candy -- and he’s got an ulterior motive for sure.

Listen to the deliberate pace, those sidling chord shifts, that tick-tock percussion – it’s full of underlying tension, a.k.a. sexual frustration. It’s like he’s circling around her; in verse three he edges closer: “I see your face before me / As I lay on my bed” (Clue #1: He’s in bed). Look at how coy the next lines are: “I kinda get to thinkin’ / Of all the things we said.” (Clue #2: Promises were made.) He waves the contract in her face -- “You gave your promise to me / And I gave mine to you” – before making his demand: “I need someone beside me / In everything I do.” Sure, it’s not totally explicit (“everything” could be innocent), but those hip-shifting chord changes are totally suggestive. Especially in the song’s long fade, as he doggedly repeats “Come on and let it show” over and over-- this isn’t a plea, it’s a command.

I’m sure love was all around in 1967. It was the dawn of the era of free love; the air in London must have reeked of sex, and this guy wants his piece of it. He’s willing to shovel on whatever romantic platitudes she requires—but he won’t be put off for long. Ah, Valentine’s Day – ain’t love grand?

Love Is All Around sample

“When You Walk in the Room"
“Everything But a Heartbeat" /
The Searchers

Back at the height of the British Invasion, I knew the Searchers’ hits "Needles and Pins" and "Don't Throw Our Love Away." I even owned their cover of "Love Potion No. 9." (The single had an orange label; I can picture it still.) But by 1966, I never stopped to wonder what had become of them, the same way I didn't wonder about Gerry and the Pacemakers or Billy J. Kramer or any of the other Liverpool artists that had slipstreamed behind the Beatles’ success. In the end, I guess, constant comparisons to the Beatles may have worked against these guys, who were neither teen-idol material nor strong original songwriters. Once the Beatles moved past Merseybeat, so did I.

But on every British Invasion anthology I've bought over the past few years -- and I'm a sucker for British Invasion anthologies -- the Searchers really stand out from the pack. They've got a winning combination of crisp 12-string guitar and fat vocal harmonies, a sound that morphed over time from skiffle into folk-rock, even before there was such a thing. I never bought their albums back in the 1960s (had to save all my pennies for Beatles LPs) so when I finally ponied up for the 2-disc 40th Anniversary Collection, I was amazed at the depth of the Searchers' catalog.

Take their 1964 hit, “When You Walk In the Room,” a cover of a song by the seriously underrated Jackie De Shannon. (Note to self: Get hold of more Jackie DeShannon music.) What a well-crafted pop number it is. Verse 1: the singer describes his physical reaction to the girl walking into the room (“I can feel a new expression / On my face / I can feel a glowing sensation / Taking place.”). Verse 2: he drifts off and imagines what it would be like to be with her (“I see a summer’s night with a / Magic moon.”). Bridge: he admits he’s never had the nerve to talk to her. Verse 3: She appears again, and “Trumpets sound and I hear thunder boom / Every time that you [beat, beat, beat, beat] / Walk in the room.”

The percussion is all antsy snares and high-hats, and a jangly guitar hook keeps cutting through the mix, like the tingle of adolescent desire. Like the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” and the Kinks’ “Something Better Beginning,” this song just teeters on the threshold of teenage lust – fantastic.

And then lo and behold, I get to disc 2 of the collection, and I find out that the Searchers did not vanish from the scene in 1967, but continued to crank out solid music. Here’s this power pop gem from 1979, written by no less than Will Birch of the Kursaal Flyers and the Records (this guy is the Zelig of 1980s UK pop, I swear). A much more bitter song, as befit the times; “Everything But a Heartbeat” is absolutely drenched in disillusionment. Each verse follows the same tight pattern: It starts out promisingly, with a bouncy melody and glowing descriptive details – “She may possess the best dress / She’s got the looks to match”; “She’s got a smile like sunshine / On a cloudy day” – but then the verse pivots halfway through to tell you, in anxious minor chords, the flip side of her story, “She will chew you up and then she’ll spit you out,” “She will wind you up / And then she’ll spin you around.”

In the bridge, he confirms our suspicion that he’s talking from experience: “She’ll use you any way she can / I can tell you so / And when she kicks you out again / You’ll be the last to know.” Underlaid with furious pulsing drums, the hooky chorus sums it all up: “She’s got everything but a heartbeat / She’s as cold as stone / Everything but a heartbeat / And a heartbeat matters so.” Sure, the guy’s been hurt and he’s hungry for revenge. But that doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth. If I were you, I’d stay away.

This is another of those Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience duos -- the ecstatic naive song from the outset of the relationship, pitted against a cynical post-heartbreak diatribe. Once she made your pulse race; now she just makes your blood boil. Ain't love grand?

When She Walks In the Room sample

"Oxford Comma" / Vampire Weekend

I'll admit it, I'm a grammar geek; the very idea that anybody would call a song "Oxford Comma" thrills me. True, the song is a vicious put-down of a grammar geek girl who cares about the Oxford comma, but that doesn't stop me from loving it. (The song I mean. Well, and the comma too.)

Vampire Weekend has to steer very carefully around being pretentious -- a bunch of Ivy League kids who met at Columbia, they label their music as Upper West Side Soweto because it mixes Western classical and African pop (dig their song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" for instance). They dress up like preppies in cashmere pullovers, polo shirts, and neck scarves, and they refer to Cape Cod constantly in their songs. Yet among their indie creds are a tour opening for the Shins and a March 2008 cover shot on Spin where they were featured as the year's best new band. I could hate them already.

And yet, their music is pretty irresistible. Those Afro-pop rhythms are infectious, their lyrics are funny and fey, and the strings and horn section actually make sense in the musical context. But just in case, they make it quite clear in this song that they're not pretentious -- not pretentious at all! "Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?" the singer (Ezra Koenig) protests in rat-ta-tat rhythm. "I've seen those English dramas / Too-oo / They're cruel," he notes, with goofy octave-jump yodels to underscore his point. The drums rap along briskly, accompanied by bleepy stabs of organ; a plinky guitar solo in the bridge sounds more like ukele or mandolin. It's just a tad precious, but then so are the Shins.

The truth is, this pretension stuff is all relative. I don't blame him for dissing this girl, with "all your diction dripping with disdain" -- but he's still into the one-ups-manship himself: "Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma? / I climbed to Dharamsala / Too-oo / I di-id / I met the highest lama / His accent sounded fine / To me, / To me." We're not talking a man of the people here -- the mere fact that he knows what an Oxford comma is betrays him. (Raise your hand if you have absolutely no idea what an Oxford comma is.)

Too clever by half? Yeah, they are, but that's not such a bad place to start. (Elvis Costello was too clever by half when he started out, as I recall.) I hugely enjoy this first album of theirs; I'm curious to see where they'll go next. And I'm dying to know what their SAT verbal scores were.

Oxford Comma sample

"Something Better Beginning" / The Kinks

One of the joys of being a Kinks fan is that you never run out of songs to obsess over. Their catalog is not only immense, it's gold all the way through. Who needs to dwell on just the hits when you've got "minor" tracks as good as "Something Better Beginning"?

You'll find this gem on Kinda Kinks, a wonderfully uneven album recorded in a hurry at the end of 1964 and beginning of 1965. Pye Records was breathing down the Kinks' necks, hoping to wring one more LP out of a quirky band of youngsters that the record execs feared had already spent their fifteen minutes of fame. The pressure the Kinks were under is obvious, given song titles like "Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight," "Don't Ever Change," "You Shouldn't Be Sad," and one of my all-time favorite Kinks titles, "Nothin' In the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl."

These sessions produced the jittery "Come On Now," recorded as a B-side to the bone-weary "Tired of Waiting," as well as the anxious "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy" (nobody in this song is or ever will be happy) and its fretful flip side, "Who'll Be The Next in Line?" -- which pretends to be about a romantic break-up, but I'll bet it was inspired by Ray Davies' fear of the Kinks being supplanted by the next hot band. The plaintive "Set Me Free" and "See My Friends" would follow soon after in the spring of 1965. Ray has always been a bit of a head case, but there's no disguising the neurosis of this period.

Still, there's one upbeat song on Kinda Kinks -- "Something Better Beginning." Though it was one of the first tracks recorded for this album, it comes last in the track order, as if trying to end the album on a hopeful note. Its note of tentative, wary optimism is classic Ray Davies (you'll hear it again and again in later songs like "Better Things," "Good Day," "Don't Forget to Dance," "Stormy Sky," "Lost and Found," even Ray's solo efforts "Things Are Gonna Change" and "One More Time).

On the surface, "Something better Beginning" doesn't sound like klassick Kinks -- especially not for 1965, when their signature power-chord sound had been defined by "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All Of The Night." It's standard-issue British Invasion, a mono track with echoing vocals, spangly guitars, and a wistful scenario about blossoming love at a school dance. The Searchers, the Hollies, or the Zombies could have done this song and no one would have been surprised.

But for me, it's a real sleeper. I think of it alongside the Beatles' "If I Fell"-- both singers standing on the brink of a new love affair with the same wounded wariness. Compared to "If I Fell"'s subtext of threats ("I must be sure from the very start / That you would love me more than her") and revenge ("and that she will cry / When she learns we are two"), the Kinks give us fragility and insecurity.

We can just picture him sighting her across the room, the lights dimming and the crowd parting like something out of West Side Story, their tender first dance, their moonlit walk home. It's a marvelously cinematic bit of romance -- except that he's haunted by bad memories, as he repeats in every chorus: "Is this the start of another heartbreaker / Or something better beginning?" Even in the bridge, where he rhapsodizes about how great he feels when he's with her, he nervously adds, "I wonder how long it will last?"

It isn't until the last verse that he speaks directly of his past: "I've known this joy once before, / But it came to an end / Just as it had began." But that defensive tic underlies everything else in this song -- the nervous flutter of Ray's vocals, the stop-and-go rhythm, the shivering little swoops and dips of the melody, the unresolved chord changes. What seems like a simple song is in fact absolutely riddled with complex emotion.

Hold a gun to most young songwriters' heads and you'd get crap. Hold a gun to young Ray Davies' head and you got stuff like this. I don't suppose the Pye guys even appreciated it; they wanted another power-chord hit single, and then whatever else could pad out the rest of the LP. Hah. Padding? I think not.

Something Better Beginning sample

"She Won't Be Back" / Bill Lloyd

Usually I steer away from tribute albums -- I'd always prefer to hear the original artists perform their own songs. But I'm too curious not to bite when the tribute's to Ray Davies or Nick Lowe. After all, the first Nick Lowe song I ever heard was a cover, Elvis Costello's "What So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding." If it hadn't been for Ray Davies tribute albums, I'd never have discovered Ron Sexsmith, Fountains of Wayne, Matthew Sweet, Yo La Tengo, or Bill Lloyd. (Both Lloyd and Sexsmith covered the same relatively obscure Kinks song, "This Is Where I Belong".) You gotta figure, any artist who's eager to cover Kinks songs knows where it's at.

But it took me a while to dig deeper into Bill Lloyd's work -- somehow I got the notion he was a country artist (because of his late 80s work in the duo Foster and Lloyd) and left it at that. Then I noticed he'd collaborated with Marshall Crenshaw on MC's wonderful album #447, co-writing the mesmerizing "Ready Right Now." That jumped Lloyd right to the head of the Artists I Should Investigate queue. And when I learned that his 1999 album Standing On the Shoulders of Giants was an homage to the 60s British bands who'd formed his musical taste -- well, I was in.

Lloyd's got an amazing list of collaborators on this album, including Crenshaw, Al Kooper, and another Nashvillean who should be better known, Greg Trooper. (Trooper and Crenshaw have both also added their licks to Nick Lowe tribute albums - do I love these guys or what?) I drove myself crazy the first few times I listened to this record, trying to identify all the familiar riffs weaving in and out -- echoes of the Searchers, the Byrds, the Who, the Hollies, and Badfinger, as well as the Kinks and the Beatles (songs like "Dr. Roberts' Second Opinion" and "Turn Me On Dead Man" are only the most obvious references). Lloyd's songs may not equal their models, but they're tuneful and full of smart pop energy.

Leading off with a Kinky riff ("Set Me Free," appropriately enough), "She Won't Be Back" writhes with pre-break-up anguish -- the singer's lying bed waiting for his girlfriend to come home, with a sinking feeling that she won't. "The clock shows 5 AM / Could she be wondering where I am? / Well, I'm the one who's lying in our bed." But in this scenario, he knows he's the one to blame. "She gave me every chance," he admits in verse two, "to give her more than just a song and dance / And now it's too late to change my tune." He's riddled with middle-of-the-night doubt and agony: "And so I watch the clock / Hoping she's just circling round the block / But that's an empty wish that won't come true." It's a bitter moment of self-honesty and guilt, piled on top of a stomach-heaving sensation of loss.

So far, it's a caustic set-up Davies or Lennon might have written -- but that second bridge is distinctly modern: "She always talked about a trip out west / Now she's got the time I guess / I never listened to her dreams / But now I know how much that means." We've come a long way from Lennon songs like "Run For Your life" or "Girl", though I guess McCartney and the Zombies were ahead of their time when it came to being sensitive males (or at least pretending to be).

Lloyd's slightly reedy voice isn't your classic British Invasion blues imitation, but the song works just fine without it. The song winds up with a nifty guitar solo by Pat Buchanan, heard most recently on Ray Davies' new album Working Man's Cafe -- talking about closing the circle. This song may not be "Yesterday" or "Days," but it's a lot better than "Sexy Back." Add Bill Lloyd to my roster.

She Won't Be Back sample