Max Picks …songs from 1967

1967

This year contained the Summer of Love and psychedelia was everywhere. This year alone had many of my favorite songs I still listen to. I want to start with a song that I think is one of the best of the sixties. The Kinks Waterloo Sunset.

People ask me my favorite Beatles song all of the time. Usually, I say A Day In The Life but this one comes really close. The Beatles released Sgt Peppers this year but also released one of…if not the best single ever with Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane. Strawberry Fields was credited to Lennon/McCartney but Lennon is said to have written most of it.

Speaking of favorites…this is one of my top songs from the 60s and ever. Procol Harum with a Whiter Shade Of Pale. Gary Brooker and Keith Reid were credited with writing the song but Matthew Fisher the former keyboard player in the band sued for partial writing credit and won on July 24, 2008. Now the song’s writing credit is Reid-Brooker-Fisher. Gary Brooker and Fisher wrote the music and Reid wrote the lyrics. This was the first song Procol Harum recorded.

Another landmark song…The Doors in Light My Fire. The organ intro to this song by Ray Manzarek is one of the most iconic intros in rock. I first heard this song as a kid and automatically loved it. It is the song that the Doors are most known for. I like the album version that is longer and has more of a solo.

The four band members were credited for writing this song Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, John Densmore, and Ray Manzarek.

This one is a no-brainer…the one and only Aretha Franklin with Respect…and I have plenty of it for her. It was written by the great Otis Redding.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

53 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1967”

  1. ‘Waterloo Sunset’ came to Ray Davies in a dream after he met his first girlfriend Rasa, along the Embankment at Waterloo and she eventually became his first wife. In mid-1964, twenty-year-old Ray Davies began dating a 17-year-old woman called Rasa Didzpetris who he met in Sheffield after Rasa skipped out on school where she was a student from Lithuania via Bradford. Ray wooed Rasa on Waterloo Bridge and they married in December 1964 after Rasa became pregnant and they divorced in 1973.

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  2. It was a stellar year and that’s another great selection of songs. I think I understand how song credits work but I’m still baffled that Aretha wasn’t able to secure partial credit for Respect. She made some fairly substantive changes. I’ve seen shared credit for less. The Procol Harem example is a question of origin which is much different, nevertheless that’s interesting that things took so long for a change to take place.

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  3. Another tough year to pick just 5 from! Good selections by you (I’d go with ‘A Day in the Life’ as top Beatles track of that year but illustrates again how good they were that people could debate things like that). One year & you have the song that Rolling Stone mag now say is greatest ever(‘Respect’) and one that was for decades the most-played ever on UK radio (Whiter shade..). Not a bad year for music

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    1. It was a great year…yea with the Beatles I could have went so many ways… its something about Strawberry Fields that gets me.
      It is hard to pick just 5…but it’s a great problem to have.

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      1. I’m guessing an Otis song could challenge to make the ’68 list too. good point on the songwriting, Aretha probably added enough to be able to legitimately claim a co-write credit.

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    1. Dana…I would only mind if you didn’t share! Thats is what we are here for…always share away.
      You know that is funny because my son is 23 and in one of his college classes…they still debated the Paul is dead theory. That is cool that you had a teacher hip enough then to do that.

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      2. It turns out that one of the people involved in the Paul is Dead theory is Fred LaBour. That makes a lot of sense because Fred LaBour, well, he is better known as Too Slim in Riders In The Sky. Yes, I’m a big Riders In The Sky fan.

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  5. Great songs from a great year. “Respect” is phenomenal in that it is two different songs. Otis’ original laments the treatment of the Black man in US society, hoping to at least get respect at home since he gets none in the workplace or the world at large. Aretha turns it into a song of women’s liberation, demanding respect from at least one man in her life and, in doing so, demanding respect for all women. Both are powerful anthems. Since the San Francisco sound was not big on the charts (not a lot of singles released), it’s hard to ignore Jefferson Airplane in 1967 with “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit”. Since the organ dominates “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, it’s hard to imagine the organist didn’t have a hand in writing it. Too bad it took 40 years to get credit (but not royalties). Keith Reid was to Procol Harum as Robert Hunter was to the Grateful Dead – a member of the band who did not appear on stage with them but was integral to their sound.

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    1. Somebody to Love was a hard one to leave out and White Rabbit.
      Whiter Shade of Pale is one of my top songs ever…I never get tired of it.
      I hate when those songwriting credits get drawn out like that. I know it made them instantly wealthy that year.

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  9. All great song choices Max. The album long version of the Doors’ Light My Fire is my favorite song of the 1960s, and my 2nd favorite of all-time, after Stairway to Heaven. Some other songs that are among my favorites of 1967 are White Rabbit, Happy Together, Ode to Billie Joe, To Sir With Love, Gimme Some Lovin’, Daydream Believer and Somethin’ Stupid.

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  10. Again, a top twenty or even thirty would still be hard to shave down to in’67. Also, on watching the ‘Penny Lane’ vid I had to laugh at around 1.15 where there’s a street sign ‘Penny Lane’ with ‘stones’ scrawled on it. picking only 5 is never going to please everybody but no-one can say any one of the 5 is not deserving.

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    1. Good catch on the Penny Lane video…I never noticed that.
      Thanks…yea I think 5 can represent the time pretty well. If it was 10…people would be waiting all day before the page to load with that many videos.

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      1. Yep; another site I follow was getting up to seven vids to play- if I’d seen it before I’d zip past and then if there was a couple new to me I’d lost half an hour and I was still only halfway through. All too much, too much, to rip off a certain song.

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      2. Yea I agree…if I ever do anything above 5…I’ll do the spotify list probably…I’ve never worked that in before but I need to learn how.

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  12. That damn Doors organ appears yet again?? lol. Strawberry Fields is a great track. The year we were born Max. Seems like Yesterday (see what I did there ..lol)

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  13. This was a fun read. I have lots of opinions on this list, or maybe on the year, so here goes. I wouldn’t have expected to see Waterloo Sunset in there, but it I like it. No argument from me for including them. I’m not a fan of the Doors at all; to me they are boring and way overhyped. Without the 1991 movie, I don’t know that they would be considered legends at all. But they were definitely part of 1967. I love the Procol Harum song, but I like Conquistador even better. Not sure which was the bigger hit, or better reps 1967. Also, the question of which of their two songs I’d pick is probably moot, because I would have switched them out entirely for The Moody Blues. That’s probably a matter of taste. No argument with Aretha, period. That one’s a lock.

    I somehow managed to miss your 1966 list, I think. I need to go look for it.

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    1. With Waterloo Sunset…I made a note of it early on because I didn’t want to miss it.
      The Doors…people either love them or hate them usually…the movie did help their status for sure.
      I didn’t realize Conquistador was in 67.
      Oh…mine is a matter of taste also…I hope everyone remembers that because when the 80s come…you will see A LOT of alternative I would imagine. Oh the Moody Blues are coming…. in a few weeks and also when we get to the 80s.

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      1. To me Conquistador seemed to come later, too. So I looked it up again, and (speaking of the Moody Blues), it did what Nights in White Satin did, and charted twice, first barely on its limited release in ’67, then became an international hit in ’72.

        I’ll look forward to plenty of alternative in the 80s. 😀

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      2. I’m glad you will…but someone will almost surely ask where Madonna is…my answer…anywhere but on this site lol.
        Thats like The Beatles…rereleasing Got To Get You Into My Life in 1976 and making the top ten.

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  15. 1967 was another great year in music. I love all of your picks. I’m also with you regarding The Beatles and “Strawberry Fields Forever”. It would definitely be among my top 3 to 5, together with “A Day In the Life”. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” would be another song in that top group and, believe it or not, “Let It Be”. Now I guess I let it be and stop rambling! 🙂

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    1. No man…ramble all you want! I’m glad you liked the list…so many I left off…I had Pleasant Valley Sunday on here but I couldn’t leave Aretha off.

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  16. Why didn’t I know Otis Redding wrote RESPECT? Such a fine tune, just as the rest of these are. Procol Harum feel otherworldly to me, there’s an aspect of their music that kind of creeps me out but I do love it. Was Steve Winwood in the band? Kinks and Beatles you can never go wrong with them. I remember that extended version of Light My Fire, lots of room for the psychedelics to kick in lol.

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    1. No Steve Winwood was in The Spencer Davis Group and Blind Faith…
      Oh yes…I was born in this year….I still listen to all of these songs. I’m A Believer was number 1 when I was born.

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  18. good choices there! For me, it was the year of Isle Of Anglesey, Wales, The Monkees, Batman and Doctor Who on TV, You Only Live Twice at the cinema, collecting stamps, reading Enid Blyton books and school with teachers who spoke Welsh to each other so we couldnt understand them. Happy days!

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  19. I love your saying, and correctly so, that you HAD to include Aretha. Hell, you had to include all these artists…

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  20. From https://00individual.wordpress.com/2025/11/

    From November 1967

    Album releases:
    Nov. 6  The Monkees – Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
    Nov. 10 The Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed
    Nov. 10 Cream – Disraeli Gears
    Nov. 27 The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour
    Nov. 27 Stevie Wonder – Someday at Christmas
    Nov. 27 The Temptations – In a Mellow Mood
    Nov. 30 Jefferson Airplane – After Bathing at Baxter’s
    Nov. 30 The Amboy Dukes – The Amboy Dukes
    Nov. The Hollies – Butterfly
    Nov. 13th Floor Elevators – Easter Everywhere
    Nov. LOVE – Forever Changes
    Nov. Country Joe and the Fish – I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die
    Nov. Waylon Jennings -The One and Only
    Nov.  Kaleidoscope UK band – Tangerine Dream
    Nov. Jimmy Witherspoon – The Blues Is Now
    Nov. The Chambers Brothers – The Time Has Come

    US Top 40 Singles for the Week Ending November 11, 1967
    1  TO SIR WITH LOVE – Lulu (Epic)
    2  SOUL MAN – Sam and Dave (Stax)
    3  IT MUST BE HIM – Vikki Carr (Liberty)
    4  INCENSE AND PEPPERMINTS – Strawberry Alarm Clock (Uni)
    5  YOUR PRECIOUS LOVE – Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (Tamla)
    6  THE RAIN, THE PARK AND OTHER THINGS – The Cowsills (MGM)
    7  PLEASE LOVE ME FOREVER – Bobby Vinton (Epic)
    8  A NATURAL WOMAN (You Make Me Feel Like) – Aretha Franklin (Atlantic)
    9  EXPRESSWAY TO YOUR HEART – The Soul Survivors (Crimson)
    10  NEVER MY LOVE – The Association (Warner Brothers)
    11  I CAN SEE FOR MILES – The Who (Decca)
    12  I’M WONDERING – Stevie Wonder (Tamla)
    13  LOVE IS STRANGE – Peaches and Herb (Date)
    14  (Loneliness Made Me Realize) IT’S YOU THAT I NEED – The Temptations (Gordy)
    15  LET IT OUT (Let It All Hang Out) – The Hombres (Verve Forecast)
    16  HOLIDAY – The Bee Gees (Atco)
    17  HOW CAN I BE SURE – The Young Rascals (Atlantic)
    18  PEOPLE ARE STRANGE – The Doors (Elektra)
    19  EVERLASTING LOVE – Robert Knight (Rising Sons)
    20  GET ON UP – The Esquires (Bunky)

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