Almanac Music: ‘100 x 100, 1954-1977’: 51 – 60

Mid 1960s was a great time for popular art, mad bastards were making movies, writing books, recording albums.

 

51 – ‘Eight Miles High’, The Byrds, March 1966
Pop goes weird. Byrds members were folkies and bluegrass until they heard Beatles and Bob, natural harmony in their wonderful voices. Lyrics describe first visit to London, imagery, humour, ‘signs in the street that say where you’re going are somewhere just being their own’, the music was inspired by John Coltrane, flips pop harmony on its head, rhythm pushes, breaks open, backs off, the guitar spirals.

 

52 – ‘Wild Thing’, The Troggs, April 1966
Writ by American Chip Taylor in a few minutes, Troggs grabbed the original and took it where it needed to go, a raw anthem of lust.

 

53 – ‘Aint Too Proud To Beg’, The Temptations, May 1966
“I know you want to leave me” David Ruffin sings one of the alltime great opening lines in pop history, the producer made him do it again and again until he got it right. But – oh, I love this – it follows one of the great drum licks, sits atop that ride cymbal and a piano trill, all in the first few seconds. Then it gets better, horns, congas, guitars, saxophone, harmonies.

 

54 – ‘Bus Stop’, The Hollies, June 1966
Hollies was a well-travelled group, great rhythm and harmonies, the self-contained band was not yet such a big deal, Graham Gouldman wrote this perfect example of mid 1960s British beat pop, it tells a story, carried along on a rhythm of drums and acoustic guitars.

 

55 – ‘Summer In The City’, The Lovin’ Spoonful, July 1966
Perfect song title, an instrumental break featuring traffic and jackhammer, ‘running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop”, young and living in tall thin 19C houses on narrow streets, that hook is like waiting for the streetlights to change so you can keep moving, cos you’re young and groovy and on top of the world.

 

56 – ‘Don’t Look Back’, The Remains, August 1966
Uni students in Boston, a song ahead of its time, running and trying and looking to find, like Billy Vera, writer and not of the band, knew what was gonna happen to the hippie ideal that had yet to take off, Remains hit this track hard and loud, caught a yearning and a wish.

 

57 – ‘Gimme Some Loving’, Spencer Davis Group, October 1966
Two note bass riff. Drums, percussion. Organ. Sneaking in, setting up for 18 yr old Steve Winwood singing like a soul master, this song was a loose jam that became a song in half an hour. Then they went out to the café for a break, manager stormed in screaming “How can you do this to me?!” Don’t worry, we’ve got it. Recorded the next day, played live that night, crowd loved it.

 

58 – ‘Friday On My Mind’, The Easybeats, October 1966
Working class anthem, finishing a working week and getting the train into Oxford St, Easybeats playing at Beatle Village, a basement club in Oxford St, I’ve got to have tonight. A classic guitar hook, a song so perfectly Sydney. Monday I’ll have Friday on my mind.

 

59 – ‘Happy Together’, The Turtles, January 1967
Struggling band meets sharp producer, from a lousy demo renders a pop symphony. Stacked harmonies atop horn section, building to a glorious peak – then a shift in the harmonies and – How is the weather? A cynical puncture that few noticed, it fades out with a terrible knowing.

 

60 – ‘Heroin’, Velvet Underground, March 1967
New York, lazy chiming guitars, electric viola, malleted drums, there’s a hint of pop, love song, it gets crazy, screeching feedback, poetry, an ode to nihilism, I wish that I’d sailed the darkened seas on a great big clipper ship and I guess that I just don’t know – and the slow, sweet “heroin, be the death of me.” Abstract art meets rock and roll.

 

‘Eight Miles High’ was banned cos of drug references that weren’t there, ‘Heroin’ was never popular enough to be banned, it’s a sweet coincidence that those songs open and end this Ten, sweet innocence has fled, pop is dead and the simple fun of loin-swinging rock and roll is about to be swept aside by the self-conscious artist.

 

 

To read more by Earl O’Neill click HERE.

 

 

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