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Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

Started by daf, June 12, 2019, 01:55:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on November 16, 2019, 05:00:21 PM
Talking of artists who radically changed direction, Alex Harvey: Agent OO Soul, advertised on that Record Mirror page, isn't bad, but it's no 'Next':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQy4s3xVzm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpl_8N6647M
Bad choice of song for Mr Harvey to go with there, as trying to follow in the footsteps of Edwin Starr is asking a lot of anyone.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: machotrouts on November 18, 2019, 09:43:52 AM
I've listened to it now. As someone whose concerted effort to get into Scott Walker has yet to extend past listening to his first album, I am mostly surprised at how much like Scott Walker it sounds. I don't know. I read so much about how different he was to the Walker Brothers I'd sort of fooled myself into thinking this wouldn't have his voice on it, or he'd be singing in a falsetto or yodelling or something. I'm sober now by the way.

More of a lyrical change, innit? The Walker Brothers didn't sing songs about gonorrhea, Ingmar Bergman and lonely middle-aged sex workers. The musical arrangements on Scott's first four solo albums aren't radically different to the stuff he did with the Brothers, but everything he recorded from the '80s onwards belongs in a different world entirely.

Nobody could've predicted that the Sun Ain't Gonna Shine hitmaker would one day record something like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuHfAqz3TFY


famethrowa

Hearing those 50s Engel tunes is quite something; the voice just isn't there yet. Sounds like some American kid.

daf

I thank the Lord that I've been blessed, with more than my share of 'a penis, it's . . .

204.  Ken Dodd - Tears



From : 26 September – 30 October 1965
Weeks : 5
Flip side : You And I

Did he? No, Doddy : 
QuoteKen Dodd was born Kenneth Arthur Dodd on 8 November 1927 in a former farmhouse in Knotty Ash, a suburb of Liverpool. He was to live in Knotty Ash all his life, dying in the house in which he was born, and often referred to the area—as well as its mythical "jam butty mines" and "black pudding plantations"—in his act.

As a boy, he attended Holt High School, a grammar school in Childwall, Liverpool, but left at the age of 14 to work for his father, a coal merchant. His distinctive buck teeth were the result of a cycling accident after a group of school friends dared him to ride a bicycle with his eyes closed.

Around this time he became interested in show business after seeing an advert in a comic: "Fool your teachers, amaze your friends—send 6d in stamps and become a ventriloquist!" and sending off for the book. Not long after, his father bought him a ventriloquist's dummy and Ken called it Charlie Brown.

He gained his big break at age 26 when, in September 1954, he made his professional show-business debut as 'Professor Yaffle Chucklebutty : Operatic Tenor and Sausage Knotter', at the Nottingham Empire. He later said, "Well at least they didn't boo me off".

Described as "the last great music hall entertainer", his stand-up comedy style was fast and relied on the rapid delivery of one-liner jokes. He interspersed the comedy with occasional songs, both serious and humorous, in an incongruously fine light baritone voice, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism. Part of his stage act featured the Diddy Men ("diddy" being local slang for "small").

Dodd had many hit records, charting on 18 occasions in the UK Top 40, including his first single "Love Is Like a Violin" , produced on Decca Records by Alex Wharton, which charted at #8 in the UK in July 1960.

Ken Dodd : "Love is like so many different things for so many different people. Love is a protective enclosure, cut off from the terrors of modern civilisation . . . . Love is a gateless prison, fenced on the one side with jealousy and longing and upon the other with passion and joy . . . . Love is a life's ambition, a blindness, an earthly heaven, a vocation, a guarded secret, a stolen hour, a motionless void of romantic dreaming, an essential emotion, a profession for which there is no training, a symphony for two hearts. Love is a wound that never heals, a bond that mends and breaks but always takes the strain, a memory that can't be lost. A pretty girl is like a melody and love is like a violin."

The follow up, "Once In Every Lifetime" climbed to to #28 in June 1961, and both singles were featured on an EP along with :  "Dream That I Love You"  / "Jealous Of You"  /  "The Treasure In My Heart"  /  and "Just For A While"

 

This was followed by the #21 hit "Pianissimo" in February 1962, "Still" - #35 in September 1963,  and "Eight By Ten" which claimed the "lucky" #22 position in February 1964, just as Beatle-mania was breaking in the USA. That same month, he released the STILL EP, featuring his last two singles plus :  "Remember I Love You" and "Come To Me".

Remarkably, his thinly-disguised paean to the gentleman's fun-bundle - "Happiness" - which would later become his signature song, only reached #31 in July 1964!

In August 1964, he released the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER EP, containing : "Beautiful Dreamer"  /  "Romantica"  /  "Green Leaves Of Summer"  /  and "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows"

 

In November 1964, having a second crack at it, the HAPPINESS EP included the recent single, plus : "All Of My Life (O Toi La Vie)"  /  "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"  /  and "Fools Rush In".

 

"So Deep Is The Night" was next - but again bottomed out at the non-coveted #31 position in December 1964, but tears of sadness were about to change into tears of gladness, as his next single streamed its way right up to the 'Diddymost of the Doddymost' for a month in the Autumn 1965.

Dodd's recording of "Tears" on the Columbia label topped the UK singles chart for five weeks in 1965, becoming the biggest hit single in Britain that year and selling over a million copies in the UK alone.

Though mainly a singles act, he released his debut album, "Presenting Ken Dodd" on the Columbia label in 1962, and that difficult second album - "Tears of Happiness" finally emerged in 1965. Despite the title, neither 'Tears' nor 'Happiness' were included on the fraudulently misleading long-form platter - no doubt spoiling many a Christmas morning for short sighted punters as they squinted in despair at the hitless track-list on offer.

 

He continued his run of good fortune with "The River" written by Renato Angiolini with lyrics by Mort Shuman, which made it into the Top 3 in November 1965.

Dodd occasionally released comedy novelty records, and the following month saw the debut of The Diddymen with the DODDY AND THE DIDDY MEN EP - featuring "Doddy And The Diddy Men Make A Record"  /  "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"  /  "Wee Cooper Of Fife"  /  "Where's Me Shirt?"  /  and closing naturally with "Tatty Bye"

 

In May 1966, "Promises" written by Norman Newell and Tom Springfield, climbed to #6, while "More Than Love", slid to #14 in August. Continuing the trend of dwindling chart positions, "It's Love" barely made it in - stalling at #36 in November 1966.

1967 began well in January with the Top 11 hit, "Let Me Cry On Your Shoulder", but success is a fickle mistress, and his next three singles all flopped : "Mine" in August 1967,  "The Same Mistakes" in November 1967, and "Kisses From A Clown" in February 1968.

He released his third and fourth albums in 1967 - "I Wish You Love", and "For Someone Special" both consisting mainly of soupy covers of old standards like "What'll I Do", "They Didn't Believe Me", and "As Time Goes By". A further long player emeged in 1968 - "Don't Let Tonight Ever End" - again filled to the brim with creaky old chestnuts .



Switching back to comedy, The second outing on disc for the Diddy Men, the DIDDYNESS EP, was released in February 1967, featuring : "The Nikky Nokky Noo Song"  /  "Diddycombe Fair"  /  "The Song Of The Diddy Men"  /  and "The Ballad Of Knotty Ash"

And a third comedy EP, DODDY'S DIDDY PARTY, emerged in 1968, featuring : "Doddy's Diddy Party"  /  "The Washboard King Of The Diddyland Jazz Band"  /  "How'Ya Diddlin'"  /  and "The Diddly-Doo Parade"

 

Two more flops rounded off the year : "And You Were There" in July, and "Sunshine" released in November 1968. And 1969 kicked off with another chart-avoiding platter : "With You Beside Me" - which sank like a stone in February 1969.

Following Man's 'Giant Leap' to the moon in July 1969, the following month, another extraordinary event occurred when "Tears Won't Wash Away My Heartache" became Doddy's first hit for over two years - peaking at #22.

Sensing a second wind was afoot, he ploughed on through the early 70s with a string of annual mid-table hits : "Brokenhearted" - #15 in December 1970  /  "When Love Comes Round Again" - #19 in July 1971  /  "Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)" - #29 in November 1972.

His final chart entry, "Think Of Me (Wherever You Are)" reached #21 in November 1975.

Ken Dodd died on 11 March 2018 at his home in Knotty Ash, the same home in which he was born and raised, aged 90 after recently being hospitalised for six weeks with a chest infection. He had been touring with his stand-up stage show until 2017.

His biographer Michael Billington ranked Dodd alongside Lord Olivier as one of "the two theatrical geniuses of the British stage" in the writer's own lifetime, while fellow Liverpudlian and comedian Jimmy Tarbuck declared Dodd "the greatest stage comic the country has ever seen".

The Single :
Quote"Tears" was written by lyricist Frank Capano and composer Billy Uhr, and was first recorded by Rudy Vallee in 1929.

The main theme is based on Delilah's aria "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("Softly awakes my heart") from Act II of Camille Saint-Saëns's opera Samson and Delilah, which dates from 1877.

It was made famous in a version recorded by Ken Dodd, released as a 45 rpm single in 1965.

 

Although best known as a comedian, Ken Dodd was a prolific recording artist throughout the 1960s and most of his music recordings were serious, not comic. The song became a No. 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart, and also reached number one on the Irish Singles Chart - much to the consternation of many baffled pop-crazed youngsters at the time.

 

The single spent 24 weeks in total on the chart, with five of those at #1. It sold over a million copies in the UK, becoming the biggest-selling single of 1965 in the UK. It was the third-biggest selling single of the 1960s in Britain, and the biggest selling single by a solo artist. In 2017, it was listed as the UK's 39th-best selling single of all time, with sales of 1,523,690.



"Tears" was parodied in a section of the song "I'm Bored" by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on their 1967 debut album 'Gorilla'.

Other Versions include :   Bobby Vinton (1966)  /  Judy Page and Peter Lotis (1967)  /  The Flying Lizards (1984)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)

On This Day  :
Quote26 September : The original "It Girl", Clara Bow, American actress, dies at 60
30 September : Thunderbirds debuts on ITV in the United Kingdom.
4 October : "Pickwick" opens at 46th St Theater NYC
4 October : USSR launches Luna 7; it crash lands on Moon
6 October : Ian Brady, a 27-year-old stock clerk from Hyde in Cheshire, is arrested for allegedly mudering 17-year-old apprentice electrician Edward Evans
8 October : Ardal O'Hanlon, Irish comedian and actor, born in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Ireland
8 October : London's Post Office Tower is opened by Prime Minister Harold Wilson
9 October : The Beatles' "Yesterday" single goes #1 in the US & stays at the top for 4 weeks
10 October : "Drat! - The Cat!" opens at Martin Beck Theater NYC
14 October : Steve Coogan, comic actor, born Stephen John Coogan born in Middleton, Lancashire
16 October : "Drat! - The Cat!" closes after 8 performances
17 October : "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" opens in NYC
18 October : Curtis Stigers, American jazz vocalist and saxophonist, born in Bloise, Idaho
19 October : Frankie Paul, Jamaican reggae musician, born Paul Blake in Kingston, Jamaica
20 October : Norman Blake, (Teenage Fanclub), born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland
21 October : Bill Black, Elvis' original bassist, dies of a brain tumour at 39
21 October : Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.
24 October : Benjamin Britten's "Voices for Today" premieres
25 October : Hans Knappertsbusch, German symphony conductor, dies age 77
26 October : The Beatles receive MBEs at Buckingham Palace
28 October : Coming to a sticky end, Earl Bostic, American jazz alto saxophonist, dies at 52
29 October : "Moors murders" Ian Brady and Myra Hindley appear in court, charged with the murders of Edward Evans (17), Lesley Ann Downey (10), and John Kilbride (12) from Manchester.
30 October :  Gavin Rossdale, Rock singer (Bush), born in Marylebone, London
30 October : English model Jean Shrimpton introduces the miniskirt to women's fashion by wearing a controversially short white shift dress to the Victoria Derby at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote                       

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Time once again for that evergreen Toppermost comment: what the fuck is this doing in the charts?

Ken Dodd was a great comedian, on that point we can all agree, but he has no business stinking up the top spot with this mawkish drivel in 1965.

The Culture Bunker

I'm in what I assume is something of a minority in that I never found Ken Dodd that funny, though I'd much rather hear him tell jokes than listen to any of his music ever again.

Cardenio I

The funniest thing Ken Dodd ever did was get immortalised in bronze threatening to tickle a 400lb Bessie Braddock for all eternity.


Cardenio I

Why the fuck is Ken Dodd in the vanguard of the oldies reaction against Beat, Psychedlia and Unkempt Young Men? Is this a known thing? Does everyone know Ken Dodd was a moderately successful mid 60's balladeer? Why did no-one tell me?

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Cardenio I on November 18, 2019, 02:24:50 PM
Why the fuck is Ken Dodd in the vanguard of the oldies reaction against Beat, Psychedlia and Unkempt Young Men? Is this a known thing? Does everyone know Ken Dodd was a moderately successful mid 60's balladeer? Why did no-one tell me?

Doddy's side-career as a lachrymose balladeer is very well-known, yes. Louis Barfe's KD biography is called Tears and Happiness for a reason, they were massive hits.

I don't actually mind kitsch like this, it's harmless in isolation, but in the context of this thread it's utterly jarring. Must've been so weird at the time if you were a groovy young fan of the Stones, Beatles, Kinks etc. Jagger was STICKING IT TO THE MAN just a month before this.

daf

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on November 18, 2019, 02:06:03 PM
what the fuck is this doing in the charts?

See the press clippings in the notes ^ - the kids were saying exactly the same back in 1965!

If it's any comfort, the pop-crazed youngsters weren't denied any major pop classics during its 5-week reign of terror - as the only two songs it kept from number 1 spot were : "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" by Manfred Mann and "Almost There" by boring old Andy Williams.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: daf on November 18, 2019, 02:46:50 PM
See the press clippings in the notes ^ - the kids were saying exactly the same back in 1965!

Hats off to the kids! They'll be back in force soon.

Quote from: daf on November 18, 2019, 02:46:50 PM
If it's any comfort, the pop-crazed youngsters weren't denied any major pop classics during its 5-week reign of terror - as the only two songs it kept from number 1 spot were : "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" by Manfred Mann and "Almost There" by boring old Andy Williams.

That Manfred Mann cover is alright, but yeah, it's not as if Doddy was keeping a freaky psychedelic classic off the top spot.

purlieu

Crikey. Wasn't expecting this. Certainly at this point.

But also, those press cuttings. Did people really care about the charts that much? I remember being mildly annoyed when something like 'Barbie Girl' got to number 1, but not to the 'write in to a magazine about it' level.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: purlieu on November 18, 2019, 04:42:37 PM
Crikey. Wasn't expecting this. Certainly at this point.

But also, those press cuttings. Did people really care about the charts that much? I remember being mildly annoyed when something like 'Barbie Girl' got to number 1, but not to the 'write in to a magazine about it' level.

Of course they did, there were only two TV channels in 1965. Imagine being a pop-crazed youngster living in a nowhere town, and this wheelbarrow of manure is tipped into your ears for five incessant weeks. You'd be furious.

kalowski

Quote from: machotrouts on November 18, 2019, 09:43:52 AM
I've listened to it now. As someone whose concerted effort to get into Scott Walker has yet to extend past listening to his first album, I am mostly surprised at how much like Scott Walker it sounds. I don't know. I read so much about how different he was to the Walker Brothers I'd sort of fooled myself into thinking this wouldn't have his voice on it, or he'd be singing in a falsetto or yodelling or something. I'm sober now by the way.
He's the fucking Godhead and I don't care what Thighpaulsandra says.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on November 18, 2019, 03:11:16 PM
Hats off to the kids! They'll be back in force soon.


Yeah but they'll end up ruining the world, those evil Boomer bastards!

daf


machotrouts

THERE SHE WAS JUST A-WALKIN' DOWN THE STREET, SINGIN'

Quote from: daf on November 18, 2019, 02:00:00 PMDODDY AND THE DIDDY MEN EP - featuring "Doddy And The Diddy Men Make A Record"


Hope those of you aghast to discover this even exists noticed this bit:

Quote from: daf on November 18, 2019, 02:00:00 PMIn 2017, it was listed as the UK's 39th-best selling single of all time, with sales of 1,523,690.

That's 10 places higher than 'Rock Around the Clock'. Even more inexcusably, 11 places higher than 'It Wasn't Me' by Shaggy featuring RikRok.

(A miss for my Derby Dead Pool team – I moved him off the squad to the subs bench after a healthy 2017. Ken Dodd not Shaggy featuring RikRok.)

daf

Sweets For My Sweet, Sugar For My Honey, it's . . .

205.  Rolling Stones - Get Off Of My Cloud



From : 31 October – 20 November 1965
Weeks : 3
B-side : The Singer Not The Song
Bonus 1 : Hullabaloo
Bonus 2 : Top of the Pops

The Story So Far : 
QuoteIn May 1965, while on tour in Florida, tour manager Mike Dorsey fights with, and hurts, Brian Jones, after Brian allegedly beats up a girl.

Keith : "There was always something between Brian, Mick and myself that didn't quite make it somewhere. Always something. I've often thought, tried to figure it out. It was in Brian, somewhere; there was something... he still felt alone somewhere... he was either completely into Mick at the expense of me, like nickin' my bread to go and have a drink... He'd do something like that. Or he'd be completely in with me trying to work something against Mick.... He was a little insecure. He wouldn't be able to make it with two other guys at one time and really get along well... He was a big whisperer too, Brian. Little giggles... you don't meet people like that.

As he went along, he got more and more fragile and delicate. His personality and physically. I think all that touring did a lot to break him. We worked our asses off from '63 to '66, right through those three years, non-stop. I believe we had two weeks off... For cats like Brian... He was tough but one thing and another he slowly became more fragile. When I first met Brian he was a little Welsh bull. He was broad and he seemed to be very tough... Eventually, it caught up."

Bill : "Brian was one of those people that are a bit of a hypochondriac and also a bit of a worrier. He was highly intelligent, very articulate. But he was sort of on the edge all the time. He could be the sweetest, softest, most considerate man in the world and the nastiest piece of work you've ever met. Opposites all the time. He'd flit from one to the other. He wouldn't give a shit for anything and then he'd worry about the slightest detail."

 

At the end of May, they embarked on the California leg of their current North American tour, taped appearances for U.S. TV's Hollywood A Go-Go, Shivaree and Shindig!, and had the opportunity to meet some of their heroes . . .

Mick : "I met Howlin' Wolf on that show we did... which is when he introduced me to Son House. He was in the audience at the Shindig show. Howlin' Wolf said to me, I want you to come meet somebody. And I said to him, Who? He said, I'll tell you in a minute. We went up into the audience, walked up with all these children, and he said, This is Son House. And there was this guy sitting in the audience with all these kids, wearing denim overalls before it was fashionable to wear denim overalls. And he said, This is Son House, and Son House did the original Little Red Rooster. I don't know what he's talkin' about, because he was pretty recherché at the time. He became a bit more known after this. And he said, You shouldn't worry about doing The Little Red Rooster, because I wasn't the first person to do it anyway. He was very, very nice and gentlemanly about it..."

In July, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman and Brian Jones appeared in court in London for the March 18 'pissing up against a wall' incident and were found guilty of using insulting behaviour and fined. Keith Richards and Charlie Watts are present for support.

A few days later, on Mick Jagger's 22nd birthday, the Rolling Stones performed on British TV's 'Thank Your Lucky Star's, and meet with their future business manager, and legendary bastard, Allen Klein for the first time.

 

In early September, they recorded their next single, Get Off of My Cloud, and more songs for their next album at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, California, including 'I'm Free', 'The Singer Not the Song' and 'Gotta Get Away'. On 14 September, Brian Jones meets Anita Pallenberg in Munich, whom he soon starts going out with.

 

Andrew Oldham: "You've got places like Munich. The war wasn't over that long ago, and we weren't exactly pro-German. Satisfaction was out and the automatic thing that comes to mind is goose-stepping. So that's going on backstage, as everyone is quite frivolous. Next thing I know Jagger is out onstage doing that. They were playing in a big fucking tin shed. There were lots of police with big dogs. The audience was sitting there getting all emotional; their leader was in front of them. But they had to behave 'cause if they got up there was a guy with a club. When they left the place the kids did in about 100 cars in the car-park. All the trains going back to the sticks were a mess. It was worse than if they'd been allowed to let off steam inside the hall."

 

In early November - following a three week theatre tour in the UK, TV appearances on Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go, and beginning their fourth North American tour - Brian Jones jams with Bob Dylan in a hotel in New York City during a major electricity blackout. During the New York stay, journalist Al Aronowitz also brings Brian Jones to meet Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison of the embryonic Velvet Underground "to score some acid".

 

In late November, the group flies to Miami and rent motorboats for a rest. Anita Pallenberg arrives and joins them.

Bill : "Brian's bizarre behavior surfaced again en route from Fort Worth to Dallas on November 22, when we stopped at a roadside burger place. Brian said he wasn't hungry and sat in the car as we all went in. Just as we were leaving, Brian decided he wanted food. Despite our protests that we were running late, he was obviously determined to relax over a large meal. Finally Andrew told Pete Bennett to go get him. We all sat in the car looking into the glass-fronted restaurant as Pete marched in, picked Brian up by the scruff of the neck and frog-marched him back to the car, complete with half-eaten hamburger. Brian was speechless. The humiliation probably added to his paranoia, but the incident was typical of the way he focused attention on himself and infuriated those around him, even over small things."

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

December's Children (And Everbody's), the Stones' sixth US album was released appropriately on 5 December 1965. It was the last of the group's early albums to feature numerous cover songs; writers Mick Jagger and Keith Richard wrote only half of the songs themselves.

Essentially a collection of odds and sods, with songs drawn from the sessions for the UK edition of Out of Our Heads in September 1965 in Los Angeles, plus single only releases and tracks had appeared earlier in the UK versions of Rolling Stones albums, but had been left off their American counterparts.

The title of the album came from the band's manager, Andrew Loog Oldham who facetiously credits it to "Lou Folk-Rock Adler" in his liner notes on the back cover. According to Jagger, it was Oldham's idea of hip, 'Beat poetry'. The black and white front cover photo of the band, by Gered Mankowitz, had previously been used - originally tinted green - for the UK edition of Out of Our Heads.

 

The album reached #4 in the US album chart, where it was certified "gold". Bassist Bill Wyman quotes Jagger in 1968 calling the record "not an album, it's just a collection of songs."

Despite it's patchwork origins, it remains a strong collection of songs - particularly the three tracks that open side two :
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Side 1 : "She Said Yeah" / "Talkin' About You" / "You Better Move On" / "Look What You've Done""The Singer Not the Song" / "Route 66"
Side 2 :"Get Off of My Cloud" / "I'm Free" / "As Tears Go By" / "Gotta Get Away" / "Blue Turns to Grey" / "I'm Moving On"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(original appearance : Out of Our Heads (UK)  /  The Rolling Stones EP (UK)  /  makes its debut on this album  /  Single A or B-side  /  Got Live If You Want It! UK live EP)

The Single :
Quote"Get Off of My Cloud" was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard and performed by the Rolling Stones. Recorded in Hollywood, California, in early September 1965, the song was released later that same month in the United States and October in the United Kingdom.



Keith : "'Get off of My Cloud' was basically a response to people knocking on our door asking us for the follow-up to 'Satisfaction' ... We thought 'At last. We can sit back and maybe think about events'. Suddenly there's the knock at the door and of course what came out of that was 'Get off of My Cloud'"

Mick : "That was Keith's melody and my lyrics ... It's a stop-bugging-me, post-teenage-alienation song. The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early '60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress."

Keith : "I never dug it as a record. The chorus was a nice idea, but we rushed it as the follow-up. We were in L.A., and it was time for another single. But how do you follow-up "Satisfaction"? Actually, what I wanted was to do it slow, like a Lee Dorsey thing. We rocked it up. I thought it was one of Andrew Loog Oldham's worst productions."

Despite Keith's reservations, the single was a major success - In the US, the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on 6 November 1965, and remained there for two weeks. The song was included on the band's next American album, December's Children (And Everybody's), released in December 1965. While 'The Singer Not The Song' was the featured B-side in the UK, the US and the rest of the world, the B-side was "I'm Free".



The song stayed at number one in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in November that year, and also topped the charts in the US, UK, Canada, and Germany and reached number two in several other countries.

Other Versions includeDino, Desi and Billy (1965)  /  The Blue Cats (1966)  /  Tomcats (1966)  /  I ragazzi del sole (1966)  /  "Come mai" by I Camaleonti (1966)  /  The Pupils (1966)  /  "Bajate De Mi Nube" by Los Johnny Jets (1966)  /  Alexis Korner (1975)  /  The Ronski Gang (1978)  /  "Kom in och hälsa på" by Dan Tillberg (1979)  /  The Meteors (1981)  /  The Flying Pickets (1982)  /  Sheryl Crow (1995)  /  Bob Rivers (1997)  /  The Lounge-O-Leers (1999)  /  Ac·Rock (1999)  /   Opium Jukebox (2002)  /  School Orchestra (2010)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Last Throw Of The Dice (2012)  /  a robot (2017)

On This Day  :
Quote6 November : Edgard Varèse, French-born composer, dies at 81
9 November : Bryn Terfel, bass-baritone opera singer, born Bryn Terfel Jones in Pant Glas, Wales
10 November : Sean Hughes, Irish comedian, born in Archway, London
12 November : Venera 2 launched by Soviet Union : destination Venus
13 November : "Skyscraper" opens at Lunt Fontanne Theater NYC
13 November : Director Kenneth Tynan says the word "Fuck" on BBC - the dirty bugger!!
14 November : "Baker Street" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 313 performances
14 November : US government sends 90,000 soldiers to Vietnam
16 November : Venera 3 launched, 1st to land on another planet (crashes into Venus)
16 November : Walt Disney launches Epcot Center: Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow
17 November : General Meeting of UN refuses admittance of People's Republic of China
20 November : "Pickwick" closes at 46th St Theater NYC after 56 performances
20 November : UN Security council calls for boycott of Rhodesia

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote             

purlieu

I still don't like The Rolling Stones.
I like I IV V IV sequences even less.

The Culture Bunker

I'm not that keen on it, though it's not bad. Jagger does the "smacked-arsed little shit" sneer thing better than pretending to be an old bluesman.

Johnboy


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on November 20, 2019, 02:13:39 PM
I'm not that keen on it, though it's not bad. Jagger does the "smacked-arsed little shit" sneer thing better than pretending to be an old bluesman.

He does. Smacked-arse little sneering shit was the role he was born to play.

He was once a very good lyricist, too. The image of a shagged-out, drugged-off Jagger falling asleep in his car, then waking up to discover a load of parking tickets "just like flags" stuck on his windscreen is particularly vivid, like something from Blow-Up.

Also, this song is very catchy. You can shout "Hey!" along with the chorus, which is always a plus in my book.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on November 20, 2019, 06:47:55 PM
He does. Smacked-arse little sneering shit was the role he was born to play.

He was once a very good lyricist, too. The image of a shagged-out, drugged-off Jagger falling asleep in his car, then waking up to discover a load of parking tickets "just like flags" stuck on his windscreen is particularly vivid, like something from Blow-Up.

Also, this song is very catchy. You can shout "Hey!" along with the chorus, which is always a plus in my book.
He's certainly the best thing about the song, but the music itself lacks the urgency that 'Satisfaction', for instance, oozed.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I agree, it feels like a follow-up written to order. Because it's the Stones during this particularly fecund period, that's not too much of a problem - it's an above average throwaway from a songwriting team who know what sounds good on the radio.

After this, at least for the remainder of the '60s, they always tried something new with each single release.

grassbath

I'd always thought this was a pre-'Satisfaction' tune. Weird to discover its the follow-up single - not a bad song by any means but feels like a step down to me, a return to the derivative feel of the earlier stuff.


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Messy rather than muddy? The drums sound crisp, Jagger's vocal makes its presence felt, but the guitars and bass aren't mixed particularly well. It's a rush job, which sort of adds to the record's appeal. They sound like they're racing out the door to catch a plane - another plane full of BUSINESS MEN WITH THEIR SUITS AND TIES. It's sloppy and propulsive, angsty proto-punk fun. A knee-trembler.


Cardenio I

I always reckon the verse of this song deserves a better chorus. There's a raw bit of naughty Jagger fun to be had and then "Hey... you.. get offa my Radio 2!"

Part of that's probably being a 90's born massive fan of the 60s, influenced no doubt by an omnipresence of this stones on the aforementioned station but.. christ that's a chorus that goes nowhere, no? "Excuse me vacate my metaphor" more like.

I dunno, just something very unconvincing about it, and I can't quite plug in through time the way I can with other sixties (and other Stones') hits. Just feels like an uneasy alliance between a timeless 60s naughtyness and a tedious Boomer wetness and I can never make it seem whole in my head. It's odd 'cos I can hear the stones I love right through it, but as a track I'm left cold.

EDIT: Left cold-ish, I should say. Ultimately it does still feel like a well-earned banger.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley