These pieces seem to come round earlier and earlier each month. Is it just me? It can’t be, the months are flying by, this year especially. I both mind, and don’t, but we’re not here to talk about my preferences for the flow of the year, so I’ll move on quickly, now, to the point of this piece of writing.
No messing about in the intro today. Below is the list of songs we’re going to look at, as always I’ll score them all individually and then decide which is best at the end. This is, I think, the shortest song list of the series so far. A few more like this would make me a very happy chappy.
Cliff Richard & The Shadows – The Young Ones
I can’t see the names “Cliff Richard” and “The Young Ones” without thinking about the version of Living Doll they did together. Maybe that’s terrible, maybe that’s just life, but it’s definitely the case. The song starts off surprisingly strong for Cliff Richard and for The Shadows. Then the vocals kick in and I am reminded, forcibly, that this is at its core a Cliff Richard track. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the singing, but it doesn’t do much to inspire the audience member – me – beyond wanting to get through it so that I can move on. When you consider that I’m going to be writing three and a half pieces about Elvis after this, that’s got to be telling in and of itself.
The music is fine, the mixing is off, there’s nothing wrong with the vocals and lyrics, but they just don’t fit together like the jigsaw of music should. 4/10
Elvis Presley – Can’t Help Falling In Love
My immediate thought was ‘this sounds a bit like Hallelujah‘, and my second thought was ‘ugh, it’s a slow Elvis track’. It’s sombre, one might even say melancholy in a way, sounding at times like the dreary singing you’d find at church on a Sunday. I’m sat here listening to it and I’m thinking “this isn’t for me, at all”, and that’s fine, not every song on the planet is meant to be aimed at me. My parents weren’t even alive while this was number one, so I sure as hell definitely wasn’t the target audience. I can live with that, I can accept and respect that fact greatly.
There’s a brief section where it feels a bit like Magic Moments by Perry Como, and I do feel more positive towards that snippet of the song, but the rest just feels too repetitive (backing track) and too dreary (vocals and backing vocals). 3/10
The Shadows – Wonderful Land
As with all the previous songs we’ve looked at by The Shadows, this is an instrumental piece with Western themes to it. I could very easily see this used as a transitionary piece showing a bunch of cowboys making their way across an open plain in an old movie. It would work for it, it would make sense to use this sort of a track, and the quick fade out end, instead of having a more defined ending point leads me to think that there might be a place that it can loop from, allowing it to go on for as long as needed for the scene in question. I have neither the time, equipment or motivation to see if it would loop well, but those are my thoughts.
It’s more enjoyable to me, now, to listen to this track than I remember any of their other tracks being, but I can’t remember and don’t want to check what scores they got, so I’m going to score it and maybe my opinion of the previous have been skewed by time. At any rate, I know it’s better to my ears than any other song this year, so far. 5/10
B. Bumble & the Stingers – Nut Rocker
This is a piece of music that I never expected would have made it to the top spot. I recognise it, and that surprises me greatly. Key thing to note here is that it’s music, it’s another instrumental piece. An instrumental piece would never get the top spot nowadays. It’d take the likes of John Williams dying, and a concerted effort from the public to commemorate that with a UK Number One, to achieve something like that now. I’m not saying it can’t happen, I just think it would be damn near impossible.
It’s catchy. I vaguely remember there being some lyrics to it that people would sing on the radio, but this is years and years ago. Do I rate it? Surprisingly better so than the last instrumental piece, despite the last quarter or so being a rather unpleasant (mostly as a result of the higher pitch) experience to sit through. It’s structured, though, and it feels like there’s a method to the madness, even if it’s not clear to the audience. 6/10
Elvis Presley – Good Luck Charm
‘Oh great, another Elvis’. I don’t hate him, I just think he’s over-rated. That said, this immediately feels like the kind of Elvis song that I could get behind. It’s got that essential Elvis sound – less dreary, more thoughtful. It sounds like it’s in a major key, an overall positively sounding song, than the last Elvis on the list. The song itself follows as he wants the woman in his life to be his good luck charm, as opposed to all of the other more conventionally accepted good luck charms – four leaf clovers, rabbits feet, so on, so forth. He wants her, her love and the good luck it makes him feel like he has. It’s a loving song, it’s surprisingly enjoyable to listen to – because of my thoughts on the man himself – and I think it’s in real contention for the top spot this year. Good luck to it, I say.
It does feel like Elvis, that image we have of him in our minds when we say Elvis, when we listen to impersonators or do the impression ourselves. It’s not quite there, but it’s a step in the right direction and that makes a world of difference to me. This is the kind of song that would actually make someone think, “you know what, maybe he’s worthy of the reputation he has for being a decent musician”. 7/10
Mike Sarne with Wendy Richard – Come Outside
Songs get to give you two, maybe three, first impressions. There’s when the music starts, when the vocals start and, sometimes, if you think about the lyrics properly, they manage to get another attempt at a first impression. Typically, this is the order they take place in, too – first, music; second, vocals; third lyrics. This song is a prime example of how these impressions can be so very wildly different.
The pre-vocals music sounds very upbeat, very cheerful, very much like it’s going to be a fun and enjoyable song to listen to. But then the vocals come in and I’m very definitely put off the whole thing. Why? Accents. Have you ever noticed how you don’t really pick up on accents in most music – with some notable exceptions such as country music where it’s quite a core component of the song in most cases – with some prime examples being the Welsh accents of Tom Jones and Bonnie Tyler. Maybe it’s less a thing these days and you’re all going to think I’m mad, but honestly, this is something I’ve been thinking years.
Well, in this, they’ve got Cockney accents and that’s not necessarily something I’m opposed to, but it does make me take the song less seriously, even more so than my discovery that Wendy Richard was Pauline Fowler in Eastenders. What? I didn’t recognise her from the name, I don’t do Soap Operas, that’s Benny’s thing. So far as I can tell, the song is about a man trying to convince ‘is bird to come out for a while before her curfew and she spends most of the song opposing it only to give in at the end. Not cool behaviour, but for the sake of it being a song, I’ll let it go. As much as I feel the song is weakened by the accents, Wendy is entertaining with her opposing comments and the last few moments of the song, when she’s resigned to go with him and they’re just talking, does bring a smile to my face. 5/10
Ray Charles – I Can’t Stop Loving You
I also get nervous when I see a four minute song any earlier than 1970 – historically, they’ve been slow, dull and not at all worth the effort they took to listen to. The scores are typically low and I come out of it regretting ever starting this god-forsaken series. Sure, my Spotify wrapped is going to look like I’ve given a lot of artists a go, and my “most listened” is probably going to be one of the short tracks because I loop them til I finish writing, but outside of that, there really does seem to be very little benefit to me doing these. You lot sure as shit ain’t reading ’em!
I’m not halfway through the song on my first listen through and I have to say, the music works well, the vocals work well, but I am not a fan of the backing vocals at all. I think maybe cutting the strings and the backing singers would improve the quality of the song greatly. It’s not bad, but it does have that very church feel to it and as much as it’s a Sunday – both for me, writing this; and for you, if you’re reading this on the day it was published – there’s a reason neither of us are in a church right now, right? It tells, if I understand it correctly, of learning to live with the loss of love (try saying that when you’re drunk) and as important a message as that is, I think getting that across would have been achieved better without the aforementioned flaws. 5/10
Frank Ifield – I Remember You
This is another one with a jaunty tune, and then they go ahead and throw a bloody harmonica into it and screw with the whole thing. The harmonica is not, inherently, a happy instrument, so using it alongside a fairly upbeat jazzy piece of music just feels wrong. The vocals aren’t much of an improvement either, with him sounding far more like a mountain goat at times than Shakira does. Google that, if you don’t know what I’m referring to. Then listen to Whenever, Wherever. I really don’t know what to say about this song. I don’t like it, I begrudge the fact that I’m listening to it. 3/10
Elvis Presley – She’s Not You
Oh joy. More Elvis. I’m actually listening to Shakira right now, just to make sure I was think of the right song, and I was, so that’s good. Always important to make the references make sense or else you’ll think I’m even more full of shit than you probably already think I am. You know I dread Elvis. It doesn’t look like it’ll be a proper Elvis track, so wish me luck.
Alright, so it’s a halfway Elvis song. It has the sound, the pacing, the vocals, but it doesn’t feel Elvis. Know what I mean? It’s Elvis-lite, and far from being the sort of song you’d play someone if you wanted to introduce them to his music – in fact, as someone who likes to think he knows a fair bit about music, this was the first time I’d even heard of this track, so it’s clearly not one that the world holds in overly high regard. I wonder if, perhaps, this is from a period of time when he was still establishing his brand of singing and was merely just doing well in general. Food for thought, not that I’ll ever know the answer.
It’s not a bad song, I have to admit, but I’m not a fan still. Technically, it’s fine, but it isn’t my cup of tea, especially on a morning when I so desperately want some more coffee. I’d ask if my seven year old son would be willing to make me a drink, but I would rather like to avoid a trip to A&E. 6/10
The Tornados – Telstar
The word “Telstar” reminds me of something and I can’t think what. I have looked it up, and it’s the name of some satellites from the 1960’s, which absolutely explains the ridiculous science-fiction sound which the Wikipedia page for the song correctly says sounds weird by today’s standards. It does, it’s fucking weird. It’s also, in my opinion, just a tad unpleasant too, but hey, I’ve only listened to it a half dozen times while I was reading about how the guitarist is related to a guy from Muse. No, not a fan. Not a fan at all. I enjoy a bit of strange every now and then, but this is beyond the pale. I cannot abide it. 2/10
Frank Ifield – Lovesick Blues
This is another upbeat sounding song, but it does that first impressions thing I mentioned where the music sounds great to start with, like I might be able to really get behind it… and then Mr Mountain Goat kicks in again. It honestly sounds like he’s trying to yodel while he’s singing a song about missing his gal, and while I suppose it probably emulates the sort of loss of voice control we get when we cry out in anguish, it really does not do the song any favours at all. Far be it from me to criticise how someone with two number ones tracks in the space of a few months back before I was born, sings, but if someone did this sort of singing nowadays, they would have the absolutely piss taken out of them. And rightly so. It’s terrible. How this ever got to the number one spot, I will never understand. 2/10
Elvis Presley – Return to Sender
As this was the Christmas Number One for 1962, I have already written a short review on the song for this one, and many of you are going to think that I’ve given it a ridiculously low score because hey, it’s Elvis and I’m really not a fan. Au contraire! I actually really like this one. You can read the full opinion in the linked piece, but I’ll summarise and update my thoughts here.
The tune is catchy, the singing is very Elvis as he should be, the backing vocals add to the song brilliantly, not detracting from the experience like these things often do and it’s genuinely quite fun to sing along to. It’s lacking a bit of pace in places, but it’s a genuinely great song and it may really be my favourite of his number one songs. We’ll have to wait and see. 9/10
Well then. What a turn-about. Imagine that. Elvis Presley having the number one, number one spot for 1962. Still, I have long believed in credit where it’s due, so I can do nought but tip my had to the success of the song. Officially, the best UK Number One of 1962 is Return To Sender by Elvis Presley.
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