This archive contains my review of every song to make the top ten in 1966. Songs are arranged alphabetically by artist and then in order by date. The date under each title marks it's first appearence in the top ten, followed (in red) by it's peak position.

A-M     N-Z

2008    2007    2006    2004-2005    1966

Make the World Go Away
12/18/65 #6

Arnold had been a country star for some twenty years (with another twenty to go) when he recorded this old Ray Price number, which became his only top ten pop hit. Like a lot of Price’s songs, such as “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” the soaring melody of the chorus is so gorgeous it achieves a grandeur that makes it easy to ignore the simpering sentimentality of the lyric and the sap oozing from every pore of the arrangement. Since Arnold, along with his producer, Chet Atkins, helped to invent the so-called countrypolitan sound, it’s odd that he didn’t have other pop hits besides this. Too much sap and not enough grandeur, most likely.

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along comes mary
7/9/1966 #7

These days, if people talk about The Association at all, they’ll bring up “Cherish” or “Never My Love” and remember them as a sugary ballad band. But this was their first hit, and it’s about pot. The lyrics are almost indecipherable, the music jaunty and bizarre (those falsettos! and where did that flute come from?), the message both counter-cultural and conservative. How they got it on the radio is anyone’s guess. Perhaps because it’s not so much about the pleasures of dope smoking as it is a warning about the false sense of enlightenment and peace it gives the people who indulge (“Now my empty cup is as sweet as the punch”) They were college boys, after all, and had apparently read enough Marx to know about opiates of the people. But the song never moralizes or suggests that there’s anything dangerous about marijuana; it demonstrates a remarkable amount of common sense, both for a pop song and for the time. And the lyrics, pretentious as they often are (“And when the morning of the warnings passed, the gassed and flaccid kids are flung across the stars”) cascade in a way reminiscent of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, or, looking forward, of “It’s the End of the World As We Know It”. A bit show-offy, but a very smart song, and easily their best.

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Cherish
9/17/66 #1

The lyrics are a lot more honest than most romantic ballads, vaguely suggesting not only that all men are heels, but giving the woman credit for a certain amount of intelligence, as well. As an example of romantic supplication, it’s not bad. But the arrangement is so much overcooked mush, ghastly enough to not only hide all the songs strengths , but to turn them into weaknesses. That is, it makes the singer sound like a wimp, which, considering most of the rest of The Association’s output, he probably is.

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barbara ann
1/29/66 #2

In November of 1965, the Beach Boys had released their follow-up to “California Girls”, “The Little Girl I Once Knew”, a challenging song full of fascinating tempo and dynamic shifts, including sections that went dead silent for several seconds (a definite taboo on pop radio at the time). It barely made it to number 20 and then dropped quickly, becoming only the second Beach Boys single since 1962 not to make the top ten. Almost in embarrassment, Capitol Records rush-released “Barbara Ann”, which itself was part of the hurried three day sessions for A Beach Boys Party!, an album designed to fill the gap between LPs while Brian Wilson worked on Pet Sounds. It’s a great nonsense song, and great fun, because the Beach Boys were a great band, but they were understandably perplexed when it went straight to Number 2 and became a standard on oldies radio, especially since none of them sing lead. It’s Jan Berry of Jan and Dean. He’s great, too, though, so who cares?

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sloop john b
4/23/66 #3

Considering that the year would end with “Good Vibrations”, it’s ironic that The Beach Boys’ first two top ten records of 1966 would both be rush releases designed to cover the commercial failure of the more experimental records that preceeded them. In this case the flop was “Caroline, No”, issued as a Brian Wilson solo single, and the first record to be released from the Pet Sounds sessions. Everyone, including the record company, expected it to be a smash, and when it barely made top forty, Capitol quickly put out this catchy folk number, which jumped straight into the top ten. Though it’s easy to understand how disappointed everyone was at the time, in retrospect this seems a perfect choice. Originally suggested by Al Jardine, who worked out the basic arrangement, Brian Wilson quickly made this record his own, and it’s difficult not to feel that its story of a sea voyage gone horribly wrong, recorded when his relations with the other Beach Boys were growing ever more difficult, must have struck a chord with Brian in some way. “This is the worse trip I’ve ever been on,” he sings near the end, a capella, in a voice that sounds truly defeated (he added the line near the very end of the recording sessions). In its way, this record is the true break from the old Beach Boys and the Beach Boys of the next couple of years. The fun and games in the sun and sand were over, it was time to put down roots and get serious. At least, that’s what Brian thought.

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Wouldn't It Be Nice?
9/17/66 #8

As much of a Beach Boys fan as I am, I have never been a Pet Sounds cultist, or even considered it to be a particularly great album. It has a handful of brilliant songs—this, “God Only Knows”, “Caroline No”, “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)”—a lot of half good to mediocre numbers, and two useless instrumentals. Musically, and lyrically, for all it’s innovation, it’s often self-involved and overdone. Worst of all, though, is the tone of self-pity that fills the album. “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” may be the ultimate brainy, misunderstood teenager litany (and hence, a favorite of rock critics), but coming from a guy in his mid-twenties, it’s a sob story on the thematic (though not musical) level of “I Am a Rock”. With music this sophisticated, you expect something a little more mature thematically.

That being said, I also have to admit that “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” is just about my favorite Beach Boys song, though I know it’s not their greatest. Not only is the music warm and bouncy in that “California Girls” manner (a bit of a rehash, actually, and the weakest thing about the record), but the lyric may be one of the slyest pieces of seduction ever put on the pop charts. Painting a picture of domestic bliss as hedonistic utopia (play all day, sleep together all night), the song asks the ultimate question: “Do we really need to wait until we’re married?” This subtle coaxing toward the preferred answer ends with one of my favorite lines in all pop music: “You know it seems the more we talk about it/It only makes it worse to live without it/But let’s talk about it…” The coda ends the tale with ambiguity: “Good night, my baby/Sleep tight, my baby”. So, did he talk her into it or not? Is he saying good night on the porch, or are they in bed? The rest of the album (this is the opening cut) details the slow collapse of the relationship, but this is a heavenly high point, one of the loveliest records about adolescent lust and romantic ambition ever made. To think that it may not even be one of the Beach Boys’ best only points out how great they truly were.

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Good Vibrations
11/12/66 #1

It would be the height of temerity to believe that I could say anything new about what is easily the best, the most important, the most influential, and, forty years on and counting, probably the biggest selling record of 1966. So, just a couple of small points that you've probably heard already. Along with Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations” is generally considered the first step in what would have been the next phase of Brian Wilson's career—if, at least in terms of actual musical output, there had been a next phase. That's true in a sense, but I tend to think of this more as the culmination of everything that had come before, the final statement in the spiritual quest that Wilson had earlier expressed through surf music and songs of teenage hedonism. “Good Vibrations” is surf music taken to the ultimate mystical high, the climax of everything Wilson had done up to this point. Nothing that he had made before this, with the possible exception of the intro to “California Girls”, comes close; and, as wonderful as Smile would ultimately turn out to be, nothing that followed does either.

The other point concerns “Good Vibrations” influence on almost every single piece of pop that has followed. Wilson wasn't the only person thinking of “modular” songwriting and production at the time (Frank Zappa was fooling with much the same idea), but he made it work better than anyone else. It's impossible to think of a lot of the music that followed, from the worst dynamics and tempo torturing opuses of art rock in the 70s to the cut and paste of sampling artists like DJ Shadow today, without invoking Wilson's name. Even thrashing emo bands like Fall Out Boy or more straightforward guitar bands like Franz Ferdinand make use of drastic juxtapositions of tempo and tone that would be unimaginable without Wilson's example. Moreover, even though almost all the sounds on “Good Vibrations”, aside from the theremin and the electric organ, are acoustic, this is the greatest techno record ever made. I would even go so far as to suggest that if you mix Wilson's harmonic adventures with James Brown's rhythmic experimentation, what you get is modern hip-hop (or at least Kanye West). It's mind-boggling to think that Wilson, having already expanded the harmonic and melodic range of rock and roll far beyond what anyone else had ever imagined, proceeded to blow it apart in a way that continues to fascinate us forty years later. No wonder he went nuts for awhile.

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we can work it out
1/1/66 #1

This song sounds so simple and unassuming today that it’s easy to forget how revolutionary it was at the time. It's a complete break from the sound of most of the Beatles' previous singles, which had depended on strong guitar riffs and an increasing amount of distortion (not that they'd given up on all that quite yet—we'll get to the flip side in a couple of weeks). Here the guitars are subdued and serve mostly to propel the song forward rhythmically, while a drifting harmonium wheezes the changes as it gently passes by. The carnival effect is increased by the shift to 3/4 time at the end of the middle eight, yet another revolutionary moment.

Then there are the lyrics. Most songs about troubled relationships take the form of pleas or demands, usually at the height of the dramatic moment, with the singer ready to live or die based on their lover’s response. This song puts us in the middle of what sounds like a very amiable, if earnest, discussion. The speaker seems to be appealing not to the listener's emotions, but to their sense of logic and fair play. This amiability, however, masks deeper emotions, and a demanding insistance on control. Fair and understanding as he may sound, if you disagree with this guy, he's gone; the result is a song as tense and taut as strung wire. His logic is designed to do nothing more than baffle you into submission with endless contradictions. “Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong”, he admits, but “life is very short, and there’s no time” and “there’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long”. Besides, as that signature shift suggests, time is relative, and it, and your lover, and your life, will slip out from under you if you don’t pay attention. “You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s all right.” So try to see it my way. We can work it out. Honest. What manipulative little bastards they were.

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day tripper
1/8/66 #5

Sometime in 1965, the Beatles suggested in interviews that from now on they would write only “comic” songs. Exactly what they meant by that is anyone’s guess, but there’s no doubting that the following album, Rubber Soul, was full of sly jokes, some obvious, some not so much, and almost all of them reflecting a decidedly ambivalent view of the opposite sex. The romantic vision of Lennon and McCartney’s music was already darkening (not a single happy love song was chosen for Help! the movie, though there were a couple among the non-soundtrack songs), but Rubber Soul is an almost unrelenting outburst of doubt, suspicion, and ill-feeling. The women portrayed are either evil sirens (“Girl”), mysterious, sultry teases who won’t put out (“Drive My Car”, “Norwegian Wood”, “You Won’t See Me”), imminently disposable (“I’m Looking Through You”, “If I Needed Someone”, “Run for Your Life”), or too vacuous to bother with (“Think for Yourself”). The closest thing to a love song, “Michelle” (which I suspect was also intended as something of a joke), presents us with a Frenchwoman so simpleminded that the only English words she can understand are “I love you”, and even then things have to be explained to her in her own language before she can figure out what’s going on.

Describing a woman who is more than willing to ingest large helpings of the singer’s drug supply but still refuses to sleep with him, “Day Tripper” fits in perfectly. Lennon later said that this was a “forced” composition, intentionally written as a b-side, which perhaps explains why, compared to the LP tracks, the lyrics are far more straightforward, and the music more blunt, harsher than anything on the album except for its fellow portrait of sexual frustration, “Drive My Car”. “She’s a big teaser, she took me half the way there” is as blatantly sexual a line as you were likely to find on the radio in early 1966 (reportedly Lennon first wrote it as “cock teaser”, though he knew he could never sing it that way). “Day Tripper”, however, does have its subtleties. The guitar and bass play wonderful games with the idea of the tease, especially in the solo, where the riff seems to rise and rise and then suddenly collapse, only to rise and try again, until finally it explodes in a discordant burst of sourness and frustration. But by then, of course, the girl is long gone.

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nowhere man
3/12/66 #3

This was the third and last Beatles single that Capitol would release for which there was no British counterpart. “Eight Days a Week” and “Yesterday” had both been obvious choices, the first a bright bouncy number that the Beatles had almost picked as a single themselves, and the second…well, do I really have to go on? But the selection of “Nowhere Man” is more interesting. Of all the tracks on Rubber Soul, “Michelle” would seem to be the obvious choice, but maybe even Capitol realized that it would be pushing things to release two ballads in the space of a year (or maybe The Beatles themselves put their foot down). “Drive My Car” would have made a great single, but may have seemed too harsh to Capitol execs. “Nowhere Man”, however, must have looked like the perfect choice for the time. Not only was it relatively simple and catchy, but it could also be promoted as social commentary, along the lines of “The Sounds of Silence” or “Eve of Destruction” or “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Catchy, hip, and relevant—it couldn’t miss.

The irony, of course, is that “Nowhere Man” isn’t intended as social commentary at all. It is, instead, the first of many songs that Lennon would write about his desire to, in some way, fade away and be left alone, to become nothing more than a silent observer of the world spinning around him, and the guilt he felt about that desire. It was a theme he pursued the rest of his life, until he finally came to terms with it with the wonderful “Watching the Wheels” on Double Fantasy. But in 1965, Lennon was still unsure that that sort of personal removal from the world was the right idea, and it would take him a full decade of bouncing from one extreme to the other before he came to a decision. “Nowhere Man” reflects that ambivalence, as it circles around itself, the music suggesting the undeniable pleasures of lassitude, while the lyrics critically appraise the negative aspects of dropping out. Not one of the Beatles’ best singles by a long way, but absolutely essential for any understanding of Lennon’s life and career.

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Paperback Writer
6/25/66 #1

Like many people, I’ve always felt ambivalent about this song. Musically, it’s brilliant, riff-based rock that’s as adventurous harmonically as it is rhythmically, packed with stunning arrangement and production touches that never distract from the forward momentum of the song itself. The problem, of course, is the song, the first indication of the sort of airy nonsense that would decorate every Beatles’ album to follow and make up a large part of Paul McCartney’s solo output. Compared with McCartney’s other songs from the time, on Rubber Soul and Revolver, it’s a bit of a surprise, lightweight and silly in a period when the majority of his songs were darker and more serious. As a character study, the song lacks detail, and as satire it lacks bite. Except for the line about the son who works for the Daily Mail, which may be a reference to some of the journalists The Beatles had dealt with, it doesn’t seem to have risen out of anything The Beatles were actually familiar with. It’s just a made up, silly story. There was a lot of that going on at the time, and this is better than most, but somehow it just doesn’t add up.

At the same time, if you don’t mind me applying some pseudo-Freudian pop psychology, there is the possibility of deeper meaning here, that this song was, for McCartney, (though even he may not have realized it) a statement of purpose. Lennon, by this time, had published two hardcover volumes of nonsense doggerel verse and stories, which for the most part had received positive reviews and been compared, by some, to James Joyce. He had even won the Folger literary prize for his first book, In His Own Write. McCartney, who was as much an artistic dilettante as Lennon, perhaps even more so, but who was also very aware of his audience and his artistic limitations, never put on the arty front that Lennon did. He wanted to do great work, but he also wanted to maintain his popularity, wanted to appeal to the masses, wanted very much to be a “Paperback Writer”. And he seemed to know exactly how he was going to do this: by boiling down and applying the artistic ideas of his day into three minute pop song formats. “It’s based on a novel by a man named Lear,” as he puts it, the Shakespeare reference providing a clue to the size of his ambitions, but he’s more than willing to cut it down from its thousand pages, or make it longer, or change it round if that will help it sell. It’s as if McCartney were tipping himself off, and us, as to what was to come, exactly how he would go about it, and at the same time warning himself of the dangers of hackdom. None of this, I should point out, makes the record itself any better. But it gives an idea of the different levels the Beatles were working at, even if they themselves weren’t always aware of it.

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Yellow Submarine
8/27/2006 #2

With it’s invocation of nursery rhymes, psychedelic imagery, and good time music hall, it’s easy to take this song as an invitation from The Beatles to their fans to join them in their discovery of potent hallucinogens, but don’t be fooled--this is an unbridled dream of escape and isolation from a band that was just about to announce its unwillingness to place itself directly in view of, or line of attack from, its adoring public. That their self-imposed bubble was partially a psychedelic one is of little importance, an accident of the times more than anything else. Drugs provided The Beatles with an escape from their fame, just as they provide an escape for others from the things they hate about their lives, but drugs weren’t the reason The Beatles wanted to escape, and they weren’t the only way they might have managed it (as Harrison proved when he turned to Eastern religion). But they were handy, and easy, and almost instantaneous, and they did seem to provide insights into deeper levels of creativity. So, yes, the yellow submarine is a vision of psychedelic paradise, but it’s also a dream of isolation, where only one’s most trusted friends will be allowed inside. Meanwhile “more of them” (the phrase is decidedly, and perhaps intentionally, ambiguous), are kept safely out of sight, but close at hand if they should be needed. Because even though The Beatles were terrified of their own fame, they still had no desire to be completely free of it; they still hoped to negotiate a solution that allowed them both celebrity and solitude. Why else paint your submarine bright yellow, unless it’s to guarantee that even while you’re safely hidden inside, the rest of the world always knows exactly where you are?

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i got you (i feel good)
11/27/65 #3

Having pioneered the sound with “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”, Brown resurrected a slightly older number that hadn’t quite worked and applied the same formula, promoted it by putting on a heavy sweater and singing it in front of a roaring fire in the movie “Ski Party”, and came up with an even bigger hit. The rhythm is so precise, yet so warm and human, it’s literally impossible not to dance while the record's on. Brown would ride variations on this groove for the rest of his career, deepening and lengthening it to the point that most radio programmers (and most white people) couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but here is its perfect pop moment. Brown would get funkier over the years, but he would never sound friendlier or more accessible than he does here.

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It's a man's, man's, man's world
5/28/66 #8

String-laden ballad or not, like all of Brown’s records, this one lives or dies by its rhythm track. Even the strings, when not sounding like a movie soundtrack, are used as percussion, providing cross rhythms and sudden highlights. The arrangement might seem overly-melodramatic, but it gives the song a power that it otherwise lacks (an earlier version included on the Star Time box set, without as concise an arrangement, sounds weak in comparison). Brown screams as effectively as he ever did, and only uses his sob effect once (if you really want to wallow in Brownian melodrama, listen to “The Bells” sometime). Though the lyric may seem simplistic, it’s as close to the truth as many men ever get, and when Brown uses the word “bitterness” he sounds as if he knows exactly what it means. Besides, in an age of hip-hop bitches and hoes, it’s refreshing to hear any record that refers to women simply as women.

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See See Rider
10/22/66 #10

This was the first hit for Eric Burdon and the Animals, which is to say, the Animals without founding member and keyboardist Alan Price. It was also their last R&B hit. After this, Burdon discovered LSD, hired a whole new band, and released a series of the most godawful, inadvertently hilarious psychedelic records ever made. As a farewell to R&B, though, this isn't bad. Burdon is in remarkably good humor—he even makes a joking reference, as if passing the torch, to Mitch Ryder—and the band is as good as they ever were. The keyboard playing is simplistic, though, and Price is sorely missed, even on a song as simple as this. Burdon may have provided this band with their energy and rage, but Price provided the tension and the undercurrent of despair that made the Animals more interesting than the hundreds of other British R&B bands that appeared at the same time (only Them, with Van Morrison, who carried equal measures of both rage and despair, came close). There's a reason musical partnerships work. Unfortunately, it's usually the same reason they end.

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turn! turn! turn!
11/20/65 #1

The Byrds were the first “serious” American rock band, the first to take the cultural ideas that had grown out of the folk music scene and mix them with rock and, later, modern jazz and country, the first to think of pop music as socially meaningful art rather than mere entertainment. Their own inspiration came from Dylan and the Beatles, but they brilliantly fed those inspirations’ own ideas back to them, and brought an entirely new culture along with them, riding it, for a time, like a surfer on the edge of the perfect wave. Ultimately, of course, it all got away from them, but until Roger McGuinn’s creativity and confidence started to collapse in the late 60s, they continued making beautiful and influential records long after their presence on the pop charts had faded.

Beauty, of course, is the point. The lush perfection of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, with their multi-part harmonies and modified bluegrass guitar played on an electric 12-string, was like nothing anyone had ever heard before, much less what was expected from a rock and roll band (a more modern comparison might be with what New Order did with electronic dance music in the 80s). I have my own doubts about turning the words of Ecclesiastes into an anthem of protest and uplift, but that’s Pete Seeger’s fault, not the Byrds. Some things are too beautiful to quibble about, and this is a near perfect record.

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cool jerk
6/18/66 #7

With backing provided by the moonlighting Funk Brothers, this is probably the classiest and best played r&b one shot of all time. It’s also a hoot. You just know that this guy has some of the most bizarre and silliest dance moves on the planet, and that he whips them out on a moment’s notice, whether anyone really wants to see them or not. He’s cool, and he’s a jerk. It’s perfect.

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Cryin' Time
2/5/66 #6

This was Ray’s last top ten record, and it’s one of his greatest. The first few seconds, with that woeful, stretched out intro—“Oh…it’s…cryin’ time again”—are enough to make you collapse into tears all on their own, and the rest of the song drives the feeling home. Ray’s voice here is more than the epitome of soul, it’s almost the definitive sonic presentation of pain and loss, drawn more, I imagine, from the heart of his heroin addiction than any memory of romantic desolation. The Raelettes’ background vocals, flat and sarcastic, mocking and belittling, could almost be the heroin itself, denying his soul the smallest possibility of succor or escape. And with that very first “Oh”, you know Ray has already given up.

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bang bang (my baby shot me down)
4/2/66 #2

Although it’s more than fair to point out that Cher’s voice, with it’s thick, permanent sob, has never been much good for anything but somber, doom-laden melodrama, it’s also worth pointing out that her voice is perfect for somber, doom-laden melodrama, especially when balalaikas and gypsy tambourines decorate the background. This song could almost be seen as a warm up for what Robert Christgau called her “swarthy trilogy” ("Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves," "Half-Breed," and "Dark Lady") of the early 70s, except it’s better, more subdued and less camp. As somber, doom-laden melodrama goes, not bad.

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Sweet Talkin' Guy
6/25/19 #10

By the summer of 1966, the girl group movement was definitely over (unless The Supremes count), and this record, which barely scraped into the top ten, may seem like a novelty throwback to an earlier era. But listen closely—if there’s such a thing as girl-group psychedelia, this is it. The record is constantly shifting gears, packing new phrases and riffs into the basic structure in a way that reminds me of “Good Vibrations”, which wouldn’t be released for another four months. Which isn’t necessarily to say that Brian Wilson was influenced by this record (though he was a huge girl group fan), but that “Sweet Talkin’ Guy” was as daring and experimental in its way as anything else released at the time. It’s also as charming and delightful as most of the Chiffons’ other records.

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lightnin' strikes
2/5/66 #1

At times I like to think of pop music as a kind of Shakespearean universe, where the best songs present insights into human character that by themselves may be only slightly illuminating, but when gathered together bathe us in the entire spectrum of humanity, from bad to best. This song strikes me as a strong piece of evidence in support of that point of view. One of the most insane records of the 60s, it may be the funniest portrait of a cad in all of rock and roll. Using his falsetto as a symbol of uncontrollable lust, Christie could be one of Shakespeare’s more unrepentant clowns: Sir Toby Belch, perhaps, if not quite Falstaff. Notice, however, that it isn’t really Lou’s fault. It’s all those women, put together fine, wanting to make time, reading his mind, that lead him into temptation. He just can’t resist, no matter how hard he tries to repent: with music that sounds like the wedding ceremony has already started, he promises to be true to the very end—eventually. In the meantime, though, he’ll continue to pursue the joys of manly falsettohood. Don’t bother waiting up.

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Over and Over
12/4/65 #1

Is this Part I? Where's the rest of the song? Having gotten to the party, met the girl, and then introduced the challenge of convincing her to dance before her boyfriend shows up, Dave Clark simply allows the song to end. No explanation, no suggestion of any kind of follow-up, nothing. Believe it or not, this was Clark's only number 1 in the US. Was it that unresolved ending that lured listeners in? Did they make up their own finish? Or did they not care? Whether you like this or not depends, I suppose, on what you think of the band’s pronounced tendency to thud loudly and with less than metronomic profundity. The volume is appreciated, but this could just as easily be a Herman’s Hermits song. Only the Hermits (that is, Mickie Most) would have come up with a cutesy, music hallish ending—or some kind of ending, anyway.

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my love
1/29/66 #1

Hesitant as I am to challenge the august opinions of the late, great Glenn Gould, who considered Petula Clark better than the Beatles, I feel the need to stand up and state my case as plainly as possible: this is a terrible record. It would be possible, I suppose, to blame Tony Hatch’s arrangement, which rushes by with such alacrity that Petula barely has a chance to phrase or make sense of the lyrics (which are mush anyway), but it’s even worse than that. Try to imagine, for a moment, this song being taken at a more moderate tempo. Can’t do it, can you? At breakneck speed it’s a trifle at best, but at any slower tempi it would be a trifle gone bad, a running pile of sweet stinking ooze. A better, more soulful singer might have made something of it, but Petula, who was only really good when she had a really good song, isn’t that singer. Dusty, perhaps? Not with that clumpy, unswinging British big band behind her she wouldn’t. Maybe a speed metal band could try it. Not that it would be worth the trouble.

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I Couldn't Live Without Your Love
8/20/66 #9

This isn’t as bland as “My Love” (and nowhere near as frenetic), but it’s bland all the same, and only the summer doldrums could explain how it got further up the charts than the far superior “A Sign of the Times”, which just missed making top ten four months earlier. A failed attempt to create a British version of a Supremes record, it does have one remarkable feature: a hook that is not only catchy but at the same time unrelenting in its ability to induce profound boredom. Clark sings as precisely and with as little feeling as she can manage, hoping the gung-ho cuteness of her voice will carry things through. It doesn’t. That’s what happens when you produce songs by formula.

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Somewhere My Love
7/30/66 #9

A throwback to the days when movie soundtrack themes were regular chart toppers (back in ’54 there were three different versions of “The High and the Mighty” in the top ten at once), and, best of all for music publishers, instant muzak, leavening the dull atmosphere of every elevator and department store in the land within a week of release. Once the tune is in your head, it’s ineradicable, and though it would be reassuring to believe there’s some simple formula for creating this sort of smooth, sentimental pabulum, there isn’t. Otherwise every movie theme in the world would go top ten. No, it takes a special talent, and special knowledge, and maybe a complete lack of shame and artistic integrity to create something as insinuating as this. It’s music as marketing, designed to sell nothing but itself.

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Psychotic Reaction
10/8/66 #5

It opens with nothing but a steady pulse on the kick drum and a heavily distorted electric guitar riff. Then, one at a time, the rest of the band joins in: a more recognizable guitar playing a counter riff, a bass emphasizing the beat, then the full drum set, pushing that beat even harder. Each addition, as electrified and distorted as the technology of the time and a no doubt extremely small budget allowed, seems to increase not only the volume but the tempo. The song itself, a basic blues ripped off from the Yardbirds, is almost an afterthought, a nod to convention more than anything else. Sound is everything here, words nothing—even though the magic word “psychotic” provides an arresting hook all on its own. After the chorus the lead guitarist launches into one of the worst solos you’ve ever heard, but it doesn’t matter, because the tempo really does jump this time, the drummer is relentless, and the rhythm guitarist has taken out his switchblade and is maniacally slicing up his fretboard. Claimed by many as the very first punk song, “Psychotic Reaction” was immortalized in the early 70s by Lester Bangs in his essay “Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung”. Yet no one, as far as I know, has pointed to this record as the obvious antecedent for yet another underground music movement made up largely of determined amateurs with cheap equipment: techno. Until the song itself starts, this could be a techno demonstration record, all rhythm and sound effects, and that psychotic breakdown would make any DJ happy. Why some enterprising producer hasn’t covered this, I have no idea; maybe it’s too fast for them.

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red rubber ball
6/18/66 #2

Paul Simon has never been a prolific songwriter, and on a live S&G version of this song, Garfunkel comments that it was the only song Simon had written up to that point that S&G hadn’t recorded. He says the Cyrkle beat them to it, but that’s nonsense—the song was obviously too simple and not serious enough for S&G, who were pursuing a much higher level of pretension at the time. It’s a shame, in a way, because although this isn’t a great song, it isn’t a bad one, and Simon’s usual dryness of approach suits it far better than this smoothed over confection. But you can understand why he didn’t want to record it; except for the somewhat obscure metaphor of the title hook (I assume what he means is that now he’s free of this girl the world, and the new day, is his plaything), it’s a fairly bald, straightforward putdown (“If I never hear your name again it will be too soon for me”). The melody is a little too bouncy for the subject matter, but if the song wasn’t bouncy it would probably be too nasty. Which means, after all is said and done, that it’s something of a failure, and chances are Simon knew it.

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If I Were a Carpenter
11/5/66 #8

One of the problems with Bobby Darin is that, like Elvis or Jackie Wilson, he tried to please too many people at the same time. Though he eventually made a total turn into folk music (and even that only lasted a couple of years), recording Tim Hardin's “If I Were A Carpenter” was only a tentative half step into relevance. The year before he had done an LP of Broadway showtunes—including his own addition to the countless versions of “Hello Dolly” and “Mame” that were churned out in the mid-sixties—and in 1967 he issued Bobby Darin Sings Doctor Dolittle. Not that he didn't mean it or didn't have an eye for material: his next few singles would include two Lovin' Spoonful songs and Hardin's “Reason To Believe”, and the LPs that went with them contained Jagger-Richards' “Backstreet Girl” and Randy Newman's “I Think It's Going To Rain Today”. The problem is that except for the higher level of production and the fact that Darin has, technically, a better voice, this sounds almost exactly like Hardin's original. Darin was smart enough not to oversing it, but his showbusiness soul insists on smoothing the song out and prevents him from approaching the level of emotion Hardin achieved. He's earnest and well meaning, and he thinks he gets it, but he doesn't. A worthy attempt, and the song is so beautiful, if a trifle corny, that the record gets by anyway, but it's not what it might have been, or what Hardin had already made it.

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Cherry Cherry
10/1/66 #6

There’s no doubting Neil Diamond’s talent for hooks, but there’s also no underestimating the size of his ego, which, like his stolid, pontificating voice, tends to overwhelm his talent every chance it gets. His desire to say something important, or at least his misguided belief that he has something important to say, has thrown his career off-kilter from almost the very start, and he shows no sign of ever stopping in his insane quest to be thought of as a genius. He no doubt went to work with Rick Rubin because he thought Rubin could help canonize him with the young, hip crowd, the same way Rubin did with Johnny Cash. Except Diamond thinks he’s better than Cash—he thinks he’s better than everybody—and, because that belief warps his music, it’s his greatest sin. It isn’t a tragedy or a great loss, because Diamond was never more than a decent songwriter with a gift for hooks, but it is a shame, because even his best hooks tend to be pumped up with self-importance—you almost feel embarrassed enjoying them.

This record, though, his first hit, is the great exception. Produced by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who also provide background vocals, this has all the hooks and none of the overkill, and even with Diamond’s somewhat stolid vocals, comes across as light as a feather. It also contains hints of what would become one of Diamond’s best compositional tricks, the sudden shift from a bright, poppy, acoustic guitar driven chorus into a deeper, gospel-influenced, piano-based bridge. Diamond has never been more than a moderately talented guy with a big head and big ambitions (this song was originally called “Money Money”, which gives you an idea of where his real ambitions lay at the time), but this, and his songs for The Monkees, almost make up for the massive flaws of his later years. If only he’d stopped after, say, “Cracklin’ Rosie.”

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Sunshine Superman
8/20/66 #1

What’s so stunning about this record, the first real piece of British psychedelia to make the U.S. charts, is how sparse the instrumentation is. Acoustic and electric guitar (with tone pedal), bass, percussion, and harpsichord. That’s it. The result is a record that fills a room but leaves a lot of open space for the listener to wander around in. Unlike the somewhat claustrophobic quality of, say, “Paperback Writer”, or most of the Stones’ records, where drugs serve to crush the performers inward and isolate them, here the music, while still being totally self-involved, opens outwards to the world and nature. The surrealism of the lyric and the sound goes a long way toward covering up the nature boy muddleheadedness of Donovan’s ideas (as does the fact that the song is primarily a seduction), and it’s no wonder that the Beatles, and many others, were highly impressed by him. Over the next couple of years he would create some of the most beautiful records in the history of pop (“Wear Your Love Like Heaven” is right up there with “Waterloo Sunset” in my book). Then his muddleheadness would overwhelm his musical sense (either that or he stopped working with Mickie Most), and bring him crashing back down to earth.

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Mellow Yellow
11/26/66 #2

There would be many more songs about the joy of taking drugs after this, but this delicious psychedelic stew—roughly equal parts “Yellow Submarine”, “Good Day Sunshine” and “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”—is the only one I know of that seems to be from the drug's point of view. Saying “Eat Me”, like Alice's cake, would be too obvious—and perhaps impossible, considering the altered state of the protagonist—but the message is clear enough if you pay attention. The music is so happily seductive and inviting—with Paul McCartney's whispers on the chorus providing the alluring eeriness that draws you in even deeper—that the lyrics hardly matter, anyway. All the pusher's favorite tricks are here, though: I'll help you fly higher, see deeper, make your world more colorful, your life more vivid, get you invited to all the exclusive parties where beautiful people have far more fun than you've ever had, get you laid, and turn you on to the hippest new chemicals long before the lowly commoners, who keep their dreary time below you as you soar through the multi-colored heavens, ever will. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

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Working In the Coal Mine
9/3/66 #8

Lee Dorsey has always been a personal favorite of mine, and this is some kind of classic, but I don‘t think it‘s near his best. Dorsey often played the hard working, put-upon common man, but this particular version of the persona is too silly to take to heart. There was always a lot of humor in Dorsey’s records, but unlike more heartfelt numbers like "O Me-O, My-O", "Coal Mine" goes over the top into novelty territory. It might help if most of the singing were actually done by Dorsey: the chorus is sung by writer-pianist-producer Allan Toussaint, a brilliant musician of no great voice who insisted on singing anyway, and who made almost everything he did sound funny, whether it was meant to be or not. A wonderful record, but if you want to hear the down and out Dorsey at his best, try "Work, Work, Work" or "Gotta Find A Job".

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The Men In My Little Girl's Life
1/15/66 #6

I used to watch Mike Douglas’s talk show a lot when I was a kid—he was the epitome of white bread, but he did have some pretty cool people on sometimes (John and Yoko! for a week! and he let them bring Chuck Berry and Jerry Rubin with them!)—but I must have shut this musical long-distance commercial out of my mind, because I had completely forgotten about it until I started doing research for this project. It’s awful, of course, but at least it doesn’t end with his little girl dying of cancer or in some sudden accident. It’s actually fairly restrained, and Douglas hits all the sentimental notes with professional ease, without once having to stretch. It’s remarkably, and offensively, effective. How did it get into the top ten you wonder. In the age of Oprah’s Book Club, do you really have to ask?

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rainy day women #12 & 35
5/7/66 #2

I’m not even going to pretend to know what this song is really about—if it’s about anything at all, that is. The basic message appears to be that if you’re going to get stoned anyway (and you are) you may as well get stoned first, if only to make the first kind of stoning more bearable. The laughter and general party atmosphere can be taken any number of ways: eat, drink and get stoned, for tomorrow we’ll be stoned; life is one long cruel joke, so you might as well get high and try to laugh it off; and who cares? Optimistic and pessimistic, full of faith and totally nihilistic, cynical and accepting, silly as hell and deadly serious, there’s a lot going on in this song. But anytime you want, you can just pretend that it’s about getting wasted and forget the rest. It sure sounds like Dylan did.

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Let's Hang On!
11/13/65 #3

Before the Beatles showed up, The 4 Seasons were arguably the biggest group in the United States (only The Beach Boys came close). Unfortunately, their success was based on a style that all but vanished under the pincer attack of the British Invasion and Motown. It’s a credit to their resiliency that after a year of floundering, they found a way to keep producing hits, largely by lifting directly from the competition and adapting their own style to the newer standards. The end result was not only an impressive string of hit singles, but some of the weirdest sounding records you’ve ever heard. "Let's Hang On" opens with a luscious string arrangement, which gets overtaken by a Stones-style guitar riff, that then feeds into a Motown-inspired rhythm track, which is then overlaid with the Seasons’ white doo-wop harmonies and Frankie Valli’s gritty falsetto lead. There are all sorts of wonderful ideas packed into this record (the lyrical shifts in the background vocals are especially nice), but, unsurprisingly, the stylistic mash-up doesn’t quite gel. Maybe it wasn't supposed to; though this was never a number one, it spent almost two and half months in the top ten, largely, I assume, because it appealed to so many different demographics at the same time. Simultaneously, the Seasons had another hit record under the pseudonym The Wonder Who?: a falsetto-filled cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It's All Right” (they would later release an album that was half Dylan songs and half Bacharach/David). As we shall soon see, things only got weirder as the year went on.

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working my way back to you
2/26/66 #9

A lot of white bands were taking inspiration from Motown by this time, but I don’t think anyone got it as perfectly as the Four Seasons did here. Except for Frankie Valli’s gritty lead vocal, which is more melodic and flexible, if ultimately less expressive, than Levi Stubbs, this could easily be the Four Tops. The only problem is the production, which is shrill and a little too busy. Still, this is a great song, and possibly the best thing the 4 Seasons ever did.

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I've Got You Under My Skin
10/8/66 #9

Psychedelic weirdness comes in many forms, and this may be one of the weirdest, mostly because its roots are so far from what is generally considered psychedelia. It sounds like an oldies band—mid-sixties variety, meaning classic show tunes with layers of strings and lots of silky harmonies—on acid. They never step that far a way from what they know, but they distort and rearrange it just enough to make it sound completely surreal. Many another established act of the time was trying to find a way to incorporate modern trends into their sound, but the Four Seasons don’t sound like they’re cashing in—they really mean it. Inspired by the new kids, they’re trying to be progressive, but, unlike their younger contemporaries, who looked back to the blues, vaudeville and music hall for their inspiration, they harken back to the classic pop and doo-wop (which is where a lot of their surrealism comes from) that they had grown up on. The result is all swirling strings, swooping falsettos, a bridge that takes off from the original and plants it squarely in the middle of 60s pop, and, of course, that glorious moment when the song fades out and then comes roaring back to life again. It’s a record totally unlike anything else that was being released at the time. I wonder what Cole Porter would have thought of it.

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Reach Out I'll Be There
9/24/66 #1

Like so many great records from the 60s, a song about friendship as much as romance. If most modern rappers tried a song like this, they’d tag on a verse about how, once everything was taken care of, they’d get freaky in the limo. Here, there’s hardly a hint of sex. The Beatles started the trend, but Motown, because their songs always had that edge of racial politics and inner city life, perfected it. Friendship means a hell of a lot more when there’s something to stand up against, or to stand up for. Just about every Motown record from this period comes on like a riot with a beat, and this is one of the best, especially with Levi Stubbs sounding as if he’s ready to take on the world—or, better yet, like he’s already beaten it.

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I FOught the Law
3/12/66 #9

More even than “Louie Louie”, this may be the ultimate garage rock classic. Not so much for the perfect simplicity and drive of the music, but for the lyric’s casual acceptance of fate at the hands of authority. This guy is second class, and he knows it; he took his chances and he lost—end of story. It’s the mythology behind every lower class kid who ever picked up a guitar with hopes of becoming a star, knowing full well that all the odds were against them. The guitarist as gunslinger epitomized. In real life, too: within six month of this record making the top ten, Fuller was dead, quite possibly murdered by a local hood whose girlfriend he’d stolen away. The “law”, many believe, covered the crime up by ruling Fuller’s death a suicide.

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See You In September
8/20/66 #3

This song had been a top thirty hit for the Tempos back in 1959, but of course by 1966 everybody had forgotten it, and for those who found The Beach Boys a little too subtle, or The Mamas and The Papas a little too avant garde, or who were dumbfounded by the increasingly psychedelic 4 Seasons, The Happenings’ smooth, white-doo-wop must have seemed like a perfect substitute. It isn’t an embarrassment (the high harmonies go a long way toward saving it), but it’s definitely a throwback to an era that only existed in people’s nostalgic imaginations.

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Sunny
8/13/66 #2

An oldies standard, and you can understand why—“Sunny” could almost be a master’s class in economic song construction (with Bill Withers as its best student). There’s no verse, just a chorus made of two rhyming couplets, each employing a different rhythm, and a final, repeated line closing off each chorus. No bridge, no instrumental break, only a slow build of emotional intensity—from romantic bliss to ecstasy in two and a half minutes. The production is too soft, and the arrangement, especially the drumming, too busy, but Hebb (who started his career as a child country singer on The Grand Ole Opry) delivers the song perfectly. Yet another wonderful trifle.

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A must to avoid
1/22/66 #8

I couldn't have said it better myself.

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listen people
3/3/66 #3

You can’t fool me. I know the label says Herman’s Hermits, and I know that’s Peter Noone singing, and I know that’s a crack studio rock band and not a big unswinging British big band playing in the background, but I still trust my ears more than anything else, and this, without a doubt, is a Petula Clark record. It sounds as if it was written (by Graham Gouldman) for Petula, and Noone even phrases like her, which makes his singing more tolerable than usual. It also helps that he isn’t trying to be cute, which is what makes most of the other Hermit’s stuff unbearable. Of course, when he isn’t trying to be cute, he isn’t much more than blandly pleasant, a description which nicely sums up this record. Featured in the Connie Francis movie When the Boys Meet the Girls, also starring Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Louis Armstrong, and Liberaci. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

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leaning on the lamp post
4/30/66 #9

It isn’t the fake music hall that makes this record so awful. There were lots of people doing that sort of thing at the time: The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The New Vaudeville Band, not to mention The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Beatles. There was always a certain ironic twist to that music, though, the adaptation of well worn music hall turns to modern themes. There's none of that here. This is nostalgia, pure and simple. But even that isn't what makes this record so awful—what makes this record so awful is Peter Noone. This is Noone at his most archly cute, and he’s almost unbearable. He’s so cute he even lets out a snorting little laugh at one point—overwhelmed, no doubt, by the intensity of his cuteness. He sounds completely, almost psychotically, pleased with himself. Not in a threatening way, though, because he’s totally bloodless. Totally sexless, too. He seems to have no libido at all. All he has is a catchy tune and the occasional charming vocal effect (which isn’t at all the same thing as a charming voice). Apparently this is all he needs to talk his girl into, well, strolling around the park or having a soda or something. She must find him awfully dull after awhile. I know I do.

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Dandy
10/22/66 #5

Except for the strings, this is almost an exact replica of the Kinks' original version, and Ray Davies was reportedly furious with his management for handing the song over. Peter Noone even copies Davies' phrasing, dropping, for a moment, most of his cloying cuteness. The string arrangement more than makes up for this lack, though, turning a song that seethes with anger and envy into mindless celebration and simplistic nonsense. Davies sang from the resentful point of view of a man who knew he could never be a Carnaby Street Casanova, making the song an object lesson in the origins of prudery, even if Davies rejects that stance at the end; Noone sings likes he's watching a particularly entertaining animal in the zoo, from which he is safely separated by a piece of Plexiglas. Safety sells, obviously.

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Bus Stop
9/10/66 #5

The sometimes harsh, metallic harmonies of the Hollies are something of an acquired taste, I suppose, but in the sixties their sound was undoubtedly modern, even advanced, compared to much of what else was around, and those harmonies really cut through on a transistor radio. In a way, the Hollies sound was the vocal counterpart to the Byrds’ Lear jet guitars, though the Hollies were nowhere near as hip or taken—or took themselves—as seriously. They were a perfect pop band, though—great judges of material, even when the material was mindless fluff like this Graham Gouldman ditty. They were also determined experimentalists: “Bus Stop”, though it borrows sitar from both the Beatles and the Stones, sounds like nothing else on the radio at the time, and their later records were even more daring. If they’d ever had anything to say, or evinced much personality, they could have been one of the great bands of the decade.

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Stop! Stop! Stop!
12/10/1966 #7

This might be a wonderful comedy record if the Hollies demonstrated an ounce of humanity or if the arrangement and production weren’t constantly beating you over the head. Since the song is about obsessiveness, I suppose you could make an artistic case for the claustrophobic nature of the thing, but I tend to think of it as just another example of someone carrying a pretty good idea way too far. Once you’ve hewn your way through the wall of balalaikas and crashing cymbals and managed to make out the lyrics, it is a pretty funny song. But unless you fully devote yourself to the task, that process could take years. So, as long as you can stand it, you may as well relax and enjoy the shiny, metallic surface and forget about the rest, just like the Hollies did.

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Hanky Panky
7/2/66 #1

Originally released in 1963 (or 1964, depending on whose story you believe), this record languished in obscurity until a DJ in Pittsburgh started playing it to death and turned it into a number one hit. A throwback then, yet somehow it’s goofy beach party atmosphere fits perfectly in 1966, when rock and roll was busy turning on, getting hip, and transforming itself into rock (a transition that James himself would take a couple more years to pull off). It does have its odd little psychedelic moments, when the bass line stretches out and the whole band seems to slip into slow motion, but then surf music was a major precursor of psychedelia and dozens of records share moments like that. All the same, this feels like a door linking two different worlds, both stretched slightly out of shape, a record both behind and ahead of its time, if you will. And if that seems too hard to think about, you can always just get drunk and dance to it.

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Walk Away Renee
10/15/66 #5

If the Count Five invented punk rock with “Psychotic Reaction”, then “Walk Away Renee” is the birth of ornate Lo-Fi pop. It isn’t all that lo-fi, of course, at least not for the time, but it makes the same impression: muffled, subdued, a little slurred; emotions that can’t quite or perhaps shouldn’t be expressed. The singer’s mouth seems to be stuffed with cotton, and I have never been able to figure out the words. You get the impression of someone walking along sodden, rain soaked streets, bemoaning the impossibility of love. It’s so beautiful it almost convinces you that lo-fi is a great idea, and it is, in combination with the right song and the right circumstances. This is both.

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She's Just My Style
1/8/66 #3

This has almost everything it needs to be a wonderful record: a catchy little ditty with a great R’n’B styled intro; a near perfect arrangement by Leon Russell; the playing of some of L.A.’s greatest session men. Unfortunately, it's all in support of possibly the godamndest worst singer in the history of rock and roll. Whiny, nasal, weak, insipid, whatever negative adjectives you care to dredge up, they all apply to Gary Lewis, who, to put it simply, sings like he’s playing a part in one of his father’s least funny comedy routines. If it were a great song, instead of just a catchy one, it might not make a difference. As it is, any possible enjoyment you could get out of this is ruined every time Lewis opens his mouth. He put seven records in a row into the top ten this way. Connections, it’s all about connections.

 

Sure Gonna Miss Her
4/2/66 #9

Vocally, this is a step up from “Just My Style” (not to mention “Everybody Loves a Clown”, the most atrociously sung song ever to make the top ten), but the song itself is worse, and the arrangement is nothing but a mishmash of warmed-over clichés, courtesy of Elvis Presley’s “Suspicion” and the Tijuana Brass. But Lewis was on a roll, so this managed to sneak into the top ten anyway.

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Green Grass
6/4/66 #8

Yes, I hate Gary Lewis and the Playboys, but I enjoyed this song when it first came out and, God help me, I still do. It's sprightly, it’s catchy, it even swings a little. Lewis’ voice has been multi-tracked and echoed over so much you barely notice what a terrible singer he is. This was the last of his top ten hits; at least he went out on a decent one.

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elusive butterfly
2/26/66 #5

If there were ever such a thing as “stalker rock”, this is it. Lind sounds like the quiet neighbor next door who turns out to be a serial killer, and no amount of pseudo-poetic fussiness can hide the true message of this song: “You might wake up some mornin'/To the sound of something moving past your window in the wind/And if you're quick enough to rise/You'll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow.” It’s also a portent of the flood of unbearable, hyper-sensitive, hypocritical singer/songwriter crap yet to come. You really have to wonder how Lind got away with this. It’s not as if the world of 1966 was innocent or lacking knowledge of this sort of thing: John Fowles’ novel “The Collector”, about a young man who collects women as if they were butterflies and cages them up in his basement, had been a big seller the year before and was made into a movie around this time. It’s just possible that Lind knew exactly what he was singing about, but lacked the artistry to get the satire across. It’s also possible that he was a hopeless simp. I lean toward the latter, but he still deserves credit for inspiring the Bonzo Dog Band’s “Canyons of Your Mind”, one of the funniest records ever made.

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Black Is Black
9/24/66 #4

Spanish rock and roll, an oldies-station staple, and wrong in almost every way you can think of: it thuds when it should swing, the vocalist barely understands the language he’s singing, and the lyrics would sound insipid to any half-bright American fourth-grader. Yet somehow it works. The thudding beat, the stilted vocals, the baldness of the lyrics, all add up to exactly the feeling the song is trying to convey, and the bass line adds a fluidity the rest of the track is missing. The result is an accident never to be repeated, at least until The Shocking Blue, but for stupid, plodding, phonetic pop/rock, it has its charms.

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you didn't have to be so nice
1/22/66 #10

There’s no doubting the wonderfulness of this record, or for that matter, of the Spoonful’s short career as a whole (this was the second of a string of seven top ten records and a couple more in the top twenty, after which, hampered by the deportation of their guitarist and accusations of being “uncool”, they pretty much disappeared). At the same time it’s almost impossible to say anything about them that would illuminate their real place in pop history. They were never as serious or influential as the Byrds, never as hip as the Mamas and Papas, never as ecstatic as the Beach Boys. There’s no doubting the quality of their music, but in a way it’s almost beyond criticism. What they were, basically, as the title of this song puts it, was nice. Nice, catchy, clever, charming, and, in all those things, just about perfect. It’s impossible not to smile at this record, or resist the urge to sing along. Lyrically, it’s just a simple love song, and a charmingly casual one at that. It presents a vision of love as something preordained, something that you naturally fall into and that there’s no point in getting overly excited about, a feeling more of warmth than of passion or lust, as if love were nothing more than friendship on a higher plane. Friendly, that’s the word. How many records have you heard that are truly friendly? This, and most of the Spoonful’s other records, were. And how do you criticize that?

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daydream
3/19/66 #2

This charming, carefree celebration of laziness (or at least lazing around), generates instant, timeless nostalgia: not necessarily for days gone by, but for last summer, or last week, or maybe just the day before—for any day when the sun is out and a cool breeze is blowing and you have nothing more important to do. As perfect a piece of recreated vaudeville as anyone has ever managed, and the second (after The Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’”) of a seemingly endless string of summer songs that filled the airwaves throughout 1966. All on its own, though, it makes the spring of that year sound like a remarkably happy, optimistic time. Confident, too: the song doesn’t deny the possibility of dues that have to be paid, it simply writes them off as inconsequential and easily dealt with. Irresponsibility made irresistible (as if it hadn’t always been).

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did you ever have to make up your mind?
5/28/66 #2

The rumor is that this song was inspired by the consternation experienced by [insert name of famous Greenwich Village-based folksinger of your choice here] on first meeting, and falling in love with, Joan Baez, and then meeting her younger (and most thought even more strikingly beautiful) sister Mimi. Whether that story, which makes the song an even greater joke than it is on its own, is true or not, this is still a wonderful record, full of humor both obvious and sly. For an extra laugh, listen closely to the background vocals, where someone (Zal Yanovsky?) plays the dirty old man, growling lecherously behind John Sebastian and adding just the amount of lust the song needs to make its point.

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Summer In the City
7/30/66 #1

Though I try to avoid positive hyperbole as much as possible (negative hyperbole is more my style), I need to be honest about my opinion of “Summer In the City”: this is a nearly flawless pop record, and one of the greatest singles ever made. The stretched out drumbeats that open the song, the jackhammer sound effects, the rhyme scheme (“city”, “gritty”, “pity”), the electric piano that shimmers like hot air over asphalt, all combine to create a flawless impression of an urban heat wave. The subject may seem lightweight, but if anyone has made a record that so perfectly captures the energy and heat of urban youth in midsummer I haven’t heard it (The New York Dolls might have pulled it off, but I don’t think they ever tried it this directly). Turning it into a love song (the lyric climaxes with the line “til I’m wheezing like a bus stop/running up the stairs/gonna meet you on the rooftop”), which could easily trivialize the song, deepens it instead. The heat and lust combine and expand on each other, enlarging the meaning of both. With it’s stunning, shifting arrangement and layers of sound effects, the song works in much the same manner that the Beatles would receive so much praise for a year later with Sgt. Pepper. Pepper is the better record, I suppose, but it was really an art record. “Summer In the City” is a pop record—a perfect pop record.

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Rain On the Roof
11/19/1966 #10

Another small gem from the Spoonful, this one quieter, more openly romantic. It comes dangerously close to being too cute for its own good—you can almost imagine it as the background to a moment of chaste romance in an episode of Gidget. That has more to do, though, with John Sebastian's gift for concrete imagery than any seeping sentimental notions—just like “Summer In the City”, he conjures up the moment and makes you see it, vividly, with unerring economy and grace. Sebastian doesn't get the credit as a lyricist he deserves, possibly because he never wrote songs of what would be considered serious social import, but aside from Ray Davies, no one at the time attached great lyrics to great melodies as often, or to better effect. This is almost magically subtle, the only obvious moment being the burst of French horn, with its hint that things aren't quite as chaste under that tin roof as the lyrics suggest. You could, I suppose, take the horns for a burst of thunder, but that's just another metaphor, isn't it?

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California Dreamin'
2/26/66 #4

For all intents and purposes, the Southern California hippie dream (as opposed to the old Hollywood dream or the Beach Boys’ surfer dream) starts here. Not, despite their contrast of safe and warm L.A. with a bleak east coast winter, in the lyrics, but in the sound. Those justifiably famous harmonies create a definite feeling of warmth and blue sunshiny skies and cool ocean breezes and a world that, though identifiably the same as the one the Beach Boys were living in, is seen from a totally different perspective. The Beach Boys were about youth and fun and energy, the Mamas and the Papas are about bliss—mature, mellow, communal, sexual bliss. It is, of course, as much a fantasy as the Beach Boys’ world, and it would be tempting to compare this with something like the Pet Shop Boys “Go West”, except there’s no sense, in “California Dreamin’”, of an understanding of how far from reality the dream truly is. All of which is only to say that “California Dreamin’” is a masterpiece of American Utopianism, and just because the reality ended in drugs and squalor and the Manson Family, that doesn’t mean the record can’t still be appreciated for it’s sheer beauty and the indelible way it taps into all our dreams.

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monday, monday
4/23/66 #1

The story goes that Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips hated this song and almost refused to record it, but John Phillips convinced them it was going to be a huge hit and that they had to do it. Commercial considerations aside, I think Phillips also wanted to record this because he knew it would be a perfect counterpoint to “California Dreamin’” —the other side of the story, so to speak, with the songs hinged on the lines “If I didn’t tell her I could leave today” in “Dreamin’” and this song’s “How could she leave and not take me?” The dumper and the dumped, as it were, both giving their side of the story, as channeled through Phillips. Whether Phillips was consciously aware of this is open to question (later songs like “Young Girls are Coming to the Canyon” suggest any general sensibility of romantic guilt Phillips may have possessed was quickly overwhelmed by life in Southern California), but the fact that the two songs are near mirror images of each other is undeniable. The fact that Cass and Michelle don’t sound like they’re enjoying themselves much only drives the point home.

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I Saw Her Again
7/23/66 #5

Lyrically, this is a fairly honest portrait of a cad—though not nearly as honest, or as funny, as “Lightnin’ Strikes”—but the music is too bouncy by half, and, with its elaborate string arrangement and odd stop/start effects, too clever as well. After two classic singles, some sort of comedown was inevitable, but this was quite a fall. Whatever genius John Phillips had in him, he used it up fast. After this, The Mamas and the Papas’ only top ten records were covers (“Words of Love”, “Dedicated to the One I Love”) and a tongue-in-cheek history of the band (“Creeque Alley”) that made it sound like everything was over after little more than a year. That’s what California does to some people.

Update: Oops, my mistake. "Words of Love" wasn't a cover. But it's also not much of a song, so the point still holds.

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I'm Ready For Love
12/10/1966 #9

This isn’t a bad record, but it’s a misbegotten one, and, in retrospect, an obvious sign of what was to come at Motown. This is such an blatant to cash-in on the success of “You Can’t Hurry Love” that it’s easy to think of it as a kind of hand-me-down, a song that Berry Gordy didn’t consider good enough for Diana Ross and that he gave to the Vandellas in the hope that some of that Holland-Dozier-Holland magic would rub off. If chart placement counts, it worked, but the production and arrangement sound thin, as if H-D-H couldn’t be bothered to give a non-Supremes production the full gloss treatment. Even worse, Martha Reeves sounds as if she would rather be doing anything else in the world than singing this song; it didn’t fit her voice, she knew it, and it shows. As good as she was, she wasn’t Diana Ross, and, for female singers at Motown around this time, not being Diana Ross was starting to become something of a liability.

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don't mess with bill
3/12/66 #7

The Marvelettes put out a string of wonderful records, most of which were hits on the R&B charts, but they only made the pop top ten three times, and this, their last appearance, was their first since 1962. Like most of their songs, this was written by Smokey Robinson on one of his more straightforward lyrical days, which were often his best (the complicated stuff he saved for himself—though there is a sly joke hidden away in here, since Smokey, of course, was Bill). This emits sheer charm from beginning to end, even as all the other girls in the world are firmly warned away. The lead vocal suggests both undying affection and a truly jealous spirit. You can almost see her whispering threateningly in the other girl’s ear—with a self-satisfied smile on her face. But the irony of the situation isn’t lost, either: if she could trust Bill, she wouldn’t have to worry about the others girls, would she? It’s almost as if she’s trying to seduce him by threatening the other women. That’s the great thing about great pop songs, they just go deeper and deeper; there’s no real end to them.

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Fever
12/18/65 #7

It’s easy to be flip and remark on how conveniently a blues classic like “Fever” can be shaped to that dependable “Hang On Sloopy” rhythm, but that would suggest these guys didn’t have their hearts in the right place. Rehashed rhythm track or not, this is a fairly respectful rendition, and it even sounds like they learned it from Little Willie John and not from Peggy Lee. Unfortunately, it’s also about as sexy as a record stamping machine. The overly respectful addition of a few lines from Bobby Bland’s “Turn On Your Lovelight” explains why they never went any further (this was the McCoy’s second, and last, top ten record): they just didn’t know how to get dirty.

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a groovy kind of love
5/21/66 #2

Despite Phil Collins’ fervent attempt to turn it into elevator music, “A Groovy Kind of Love” still packs its share of artless charm. Enough charm, in fact, to cover up the sly subversion of the lyric, which suggests that the young lovers’ groovy state may very well have something to do with controlled substances. “Anytime you want to, you can turn me onto, anything you want to.” This could just be romantic supplication, I suppose, or even a cynical attempt to cash in on the hip lingo of the young, but since the young themselves were advertising the correlation between sexual energy and chemical highs at the time, I think it’s fair to take the lyric at face value. By the end, the fellow is either so in love or so stoned he doesn’t even care if his world shatters. My guess is it’s a little of both.

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england swings
12/18/65 #8

It’s not easy writing catchy, unpretentious ditties that don’t come across as shameless manipulation (try it sometime). Roger Miller did it for almost two years, a record I doubt anyone has topped. “England Swings” was the last of a string of top tens that started in mid-64 with “Dang Me” and included the immortal “King of the Road.” After this, he started relying more on non-sequiturs (“You Can’t Roller Skate In a Buffalo Herd”, “My Uncle Used To Love Me But She Died”), and, as psychedelia temporarily pushed most of the country influence out of rock, faded from the pop charts (he would continue to have country hits into the 80s). As is only proper, this has a wonderful bouncing swing to it, a melody always surprising in its twists and turns, and, except for that line about the rosy-cheeked children, never stoops to conquer (it doesn’t even use the obvious cash-in of mentioning the Beatles). It’s a trifle, but it’s a near perfect trifle.

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Last Train To Clarksville
10/8/66 #1

The Monkees made a handful of worthwhile records—“Daydream Believer”, ”I’m a Believer”, “A Little Bit Me A Little Bit You”—but “Last Train To Clarksville”, their first single, isn’t one of them. The problem isn’t the song—though the song isn’t much--and it isn’t the production or the arrangement, which are surprisingly economical and sharp. The problem is Mickey Dolenz, who sings like what he was: a TV actor. Not as bad as George Maharis or Richard Chamberlain, mind you, but close. He’s all projection and effect and no feeling (and no bass)—a skilled vocalist, if you will, but not a singer. Since “Clarksville” is made-for-TV pop, his voice is mixed way out in front, and you can hear every forced, meaningless nuance. When he sighs it’s as if he’s reading a stage direction: “And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home. (sighs)” He sang like this throughout his career, and though he did get better, he remains the main reason I find it impossible to take The Monkees seriously. The other reason I can’t take them seriously was their stupid insistence on becoming a real band, but we’ll get to that later.

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I'm A Believer
12/17/66 #1

It was in the midst of this record’s chart run that the Monkees announced, to no one’s surprise, that they didn’t play on the records released under their name. They also announced, which was something of a surprise, that they thought they should. Hired as actors, suddenly they wanted to be a real band (in manufacturing terms, this might be referred to as the revolt of the product). As far as the TV show was concerned, the change was meaningless—they barely squeezed out a second season as it was. As far as their music was concerned, it marked an immediate downturn. Of the group, only Mike Nesmith, who has become one of the most lovable eccentrics in the music business, had any true talent. Worse, cut off from Don Kirshner’s roster of songwriters (Neil Diamond, Goffin-King, Barry-Greenwich, Mann and Weill, Neil Sedaka), they found it difficult to find decent pop songs, and when anyone in the group besides Nesmith tried to write, the results ran from low-mediocre (Dolenz and Tork) to awful (Jones). Say what you will about the “legitimacy” of the first two Monkees’ albums (and what’s so great about being legitimately bad, anyway?), they were full of well crafted, well performed songs like this one, and they deserved to be hits. With the exception of “Daydream Believer”, I find that impossible to say about almost everything they released post-revolt.

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