Category: 1960s

The Four Tops – Reach Out (I’ll Be There)

The Four Tops had 45 songs in the Billboard 100, 7 top ten hits, and 2 number one singles. This song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #1 in the UK, #6 in Canada in 1966.

The Motown songwriting team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland (Holland-Dozier-Holland) wrote this. Dozier explained: “Brian, Eddie and I often had discussions about what women really want most of all from a man, and after talking about some of our experiences with women, we all three agreed that they wanted someone to be there for them, through thick or thin, and be there at their beck and call! Thus this song was born.”

The Four Tops recorded this in just two takes and had practically forgotten about the song until it was released, assuming it was a throwaway album track. Motown boss Berry Gordy had other ideas and released it as a single. Gordy thought he heard a hit song and got this one right.

From Songfacts

Holland-Dozier-Holland team also produced the songs they wrote. For this one, they told lead singer Levi Stubbs to sing like Bob Dylan on “Like a Rolling Stone,” which explains the urgency in his lyrics. Phil Spector once described it as “black Dylan.”

This was one of many hits the Holland-Dozier-Holland team wrote for The Four Tops. Some of these songs sounded remarkably similar, but the Motown writers didn’t have time to start from scratch with every song, since they were expected to crank out lots of songs in a hurry. H-D-H averaged two or three songs a day and literally had to clock in to work. Lamont Dozier said in a 1984 interview with NME: “If we didn’t complete them at least we would start them. We would have parts of the songs, like hooks, or maybe parts of verse, so that at the end of the day we would have something accomplished. I guess that was primarily the reason for the success we had in such a short time. We were there eight or nine years and out of those years we racked up some 50 or 60 Top 20 records, 66 Top Ten… something like that.”

The line, “happiness is just an illusion” appeared in another Motown song that was on the charts at the same time: “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” by Jimmy Ruffin. That one also rhymed “illusion” with “confusion.”

Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent sang backup. They later went on to form the successful vocal trio Dawn along with Tony Orlando.

This is a very difficult song to sing, something BeBe Winans learned when he performed it at a 2003 ceremony where Holland-Dozier-Holland were given a BMI Icon Award. “He had the hardest time singing it because it was switching keys and going to different places,” Lamont Dozier recalled to Songfacts. “But he finally got it. Some of those songs are awkward to sing and you have to be a great singer to sell it.”

Diana Ross recorded this for her 1971 album Surrender, taking the song to #29 in the US. Her version, which was produced by Ashford & Simpson, is drastically different from the Four Tops original. Ross sang it in a similar style to her 1970 hit, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” >>

This song has an interesting chart history in the UK: The original hit #1 in 1966, Gloria Gaynor took a disco version to #14 in 1975, a remix of the Four Tops version by the production team Stock, Aitken & Waterman went to #11 in 1988, and Michael Bolton’s version hit #37 in 1993.

It was just the second Motown song to hit #1 in the UK, following “Baby Love” by The Supremes, which reached the summit in 1964.

Reach Out (I’ll Be There)

Now if you feel that you can’t go on 
Because all of your hope is gone,
And your life is filled with much confusion 
Until happiness is just an illusion,
And your world around is crumblin’ down; 
Darling, reach out (come on girl, reach on out for me) 
Reach out (reach out for me.)
I’ll be there, with a love that will shelter you.
I’ll be there, with a love that will see you through.
I’ll be there to always see you through.

When you feel lost and about to give up 
‘Cause your best just ain’t good enough
And you feel the world has grown cold, 
And you’re drifting out all on your own, 
And you need a hand to hold:
Darling, reach out (come on girl, reach out for me) 
Reach out (reach out for me.)
I’ll be there, to love and comfort you, 
And I’ll be there, to cherish and care for you.
I’ll be there to love and comfort you.

I can tell the way you hang your head,
You’re without love and now you’re afraid
And through your tears you look around, 
But there’s no peace of mind to be found.
I know what you’re thinkin’, 
You’re alone now, no love of your own, 
But darling, reach out (come on girl, reach out for me) 
Reach out (reach out for me.)
Just look over your shoulder
I’ll be there, to give you all the love you need, 
And I’ll be there, you can always depend on me.

Bob Dylan – It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

A great song that sounds like a giant statement. It still rings true today and it’s just an incredible piece of work. Dylan sings this song as if every word has a purpose to it and it does. I’ve seen Bob eight times and he has played this song twice and it was one of the highlights when he did perform it.

The song was included on the album Bringing It All Back Home released in 1965. The song was not released as a single but the album peaked at #6 in the Billboard Album Charts. The song on the album to make it into the top 40 was “Subterranean Homesick Blues” which peaked at #39.

I haven’t posted many Bob Dylan songs because the original songs on youtube were almost impossible to find but observationblogger posted Tuesday that Dylan has released his songs on youtube. You can find almost everything now. 

From Songfacts

Dylan vents about subjects such as commercialism, hypocrisy and warmongering in this song. In the book, Bob Dylan, Performing Artist, author Paul Williams states this song sees Dylan acknowledge “the possibility that the most important (and least articulated) political issue of our times is that we are all being fed a false picture of reality, and it’s coming at us from every direction.”

Williams adds that Dylan portrays an “alienated individual identifying the characteristics of the world around him and thus declaring his freedom from its ‘rules’.”

This song is one of Dylan’s personal favorites. In 1980, he stated: “I don’t think I could sit down now and write ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ again. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but I can still sing it.”

The opening line, “Darkness at the break of noon,” is referring to a nuclear explosion. After a nuclear explosion, the sky turns black and the sun disappears. >>

The line, “He who is not busy being born in busy dying” is popular with politicians. Jimmy Carter used the line in his acceptance speech at the 1976 Democratic National convention, and while campaigning for President in 2000, Al Gore told talk show host, Oprah Winfrey, that it was his favorite quote. Ironically, the song also contains the line, “But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked,” which is Dylan alluding to the fact even the most powerful people will be ultimately judged.

The album cover shows a woman lounging by a fireplace with Dylan in the foreground holding a cat. She is Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman. The photo was taken in Grossman’s house, and the cat belonged to Sally.

Bob Dylan – It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn that he’s not busy being born
Is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be
One more person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright ma, I can make it

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on 
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Do what they do just to be nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say “God bless him”

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole that he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright ma, it’s life, and life only

Buffalo Springfield – Mr Soul

Buffalo Springfield is a band that never quite reached its true potential but still made a big impression in the late sixties. This song comes in with a bang. “Mr. Soul”  It was written by Young after experiencing an epilepsy attack after an early show with Buffalo Springfield in San Francisco. Many people in the audience were questioning if it was part of the act.

The lyrics had reflected Young’s experience, feeling as though he was about to die. Thereupon, he was advised by his doctor to never take LSD or any other hallucinogenic drugs.

The song was the first track of their second album Buffalo Springfield Again. The song did not chart.

From Songfacts

One hardly knows where to begin with this song’s lyrics. In just three short verses with no chorus, Young practically flaunts his lyrical prowess at this early stage in his career. He invokes both Beatles and early proto-punk, in verses that manage to be both angry and whimsical at the same time. Like the team of Lennon-McCartney, Young and Stills experienced friendly rivalry with their equally matched talents that also inspired each of them to top the other, bringing their work to an edginess that drove them to brilliance.

At the time of “Mr. Soul,” Young was wavering on leaving the band. His first departure was on the eve of Buffalo Springfield’s booking to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which he was vehemently opposed to. Young later told British music magazine Mojo, “I thought it was belittling what the Buffalo Springfield was doing. That audience wouldn’t have understood us. We’d have been just a f–kin’ curiosity to them.”

Along with missing The Tonight Show, Young’s sudden departure also cast a cold shadow over Buffalo Springfield’s appearance at the now-legendary 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. Buffalo Springfield brought in Doug Hastings to substitute on guitar and had Stephen Stills’ friend David Crosby drop by to assist with the Festival appearance, but even so, the group’s performance suffered so much that they were dropped from the Pennebaker documentary.

The book Neil Young: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History says that this song “was likely more indicative of where his [Young’s] head truly was. Much like the songs from the Springfield’s debut, ‘Mr. Soul’ suggests that Young’s work was still razor-sharp, even when it was coming from a very unhappy place.”

While we’re book-hopping, there are some ties between Buffalo Springfield members and Al Kooper (of Blues Project / Blood Sweat & Tears fame). In Kooper’s memoir Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, Kooper consulted with David Crosby when the idea of Blood Sweat & Tears was forming in his mind, and also recruited Jim Fielder (Frank Zappa and the Mothers alumni), who also part of Buffalo Springfield when they were seeking a replacement for Bruce Palmer’s continuous absences. And then Stephen Stills himself popped by to fill in for Mike Bloomfield when Kooper, in a panic, called him to help complete the album Super Session. There, is that enough threads weaving everything together?

Robin Lane ran in Young’s circle in the late ’60s. She also lived with him for some time and sang on “Round and Round (It Won’t Be Long).” Lane told Songfacts that the song “Mr. Soul” was inspired in some way by the death of Lenny Bruce, who died less a year before the song was recorded. In Shakey, Jimmy McDonough writes that Young himself had no recollection of the Bruce connection.

Mr. Soul

Oh, hello Mr. Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason
For the thought that I caught that my head is the event of the season
Why in crowds just a trace of my face could seem so pleasin’
I’ll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on.

I was down on a frown when the messenger brought me a letter
I was raised by the praise of a fan who said I upset her
Any girl in the world could have easily known me better
She said, You’re strange, but don’t change, and I let her.

In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?
Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster
For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster
Is it strange I should change? I don’t know, why don’t you ask her?

Martha & the Vandellas – Heatwave

Written by the Motown songwriting team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, this was the first Top 10 hit for Martha & the Vandellas, whose lead singer, Martha Reeves, started as a secretary at Motown. Heatwave is a powerful song that has been covered by many artists but this one remains my favorite. This song peaked at #4 in the Billboard 100 and #12 in Canada in 1964.

Martha & the Vandellas became the first Motown group ever to receive a Grammy Award nomination when this song was nominated in 1964 for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording; it lost to Ray Charles’ hit “Busted.”

From Songfacts

“Heat Wave” was the group’s second hit written by Holland-Dozier-Holland, following “Come and Get These Memories.” It was also one of the first songs to create the style of music that would be known as the “Motown Sound.”

In this song, Reeves sings about a guy who turns her on so much that her temperature rises when he’s around. Like many of Motown’s hits, it’s a light and amorous pop song.

Many of the jaunty songs Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote at Motown are underpinned with heartbreaking lyrics, often inspired by real-life breakups. This one is more congruent and less personal. Lamont Dozier explained: “It was summertime and hot and sticky in Detroit. I often sat at the piano and played a warm-up riff to get my day started. This one particular day the heat was over the top and I was watching tv and the weatherman said we had a record-breaking five-day heat wave that was not going to let up. So all this funky riff needed was for me to throw a girl into the mix and this song was born.”

Whoopi Goldberg sang this in the 1992 film Sister Act.

Linda Ronstadt reached US #5 in 1975 with her cover version, which was the first single from her album Prisoner In Disguise. It was a song her band had been pushing her to perform; they finally did at a gig in Long Island when they kept getting called back for encores and ran out of material. Recording it was a challenge; Ronstadt’s producer Peter Asher tried it with a few different sets of musicians before getting the take he liked with Andrew Gold on drums and Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys bandmate Kenny Edwards on bass. Gold then overdubbed guitars, piano and an ARP string synthesizer. Asher added four tracks of hand claps.

Artists who have covered this song include Lou Christie, the Jam, Joan Osborne, the Supremes, and The Who.

Heat Wave

Heat wave
Heat wave

Whenever I’m with you
Something inside
Starts to burn deep
And my heart’s filled with fire
Could be that I’m very sentimental
Or is this just the way love’s supposed to be?

I got a heat wave
Burning in my heart
I can’t keep from crying
Tearing me apart

Sometimes she calls my name
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can’t explain
I feel, yeah I feel
I feel this burning flame
This high blood pressure’s got a hold on me
‘Cause this is the way love’s supposed to be

I got a heat wave
Burning in my heart
I can’t keep from crying
Tearing me apart

Oh yeah
Oh yeah

Oh yeah
Oh yeah

Just give me another chance
This could be a new romance

Heat wave
Heat wave
Heat wave
Heat wave

Elvis Presley – Suspicious Minds

This one is probably my favorite of the after Army Elvis songs.  Colonel Parker had no qualms about pushing Elvis to the middle of the road. This one has some bite and is a great song. Elvis had 7 number 1 hits in the Billboard 100 total…this is his last one in his career. I actually thought he had more but he did place 109 songs in the top 100 and 25 top ten hits. Suspicious Minds peaked at #1 in 1969.

Elvis’ publishing company, along with his manager Colonel Tom Parker, tried to get fifty percent of the publishing rights to this song and threatened to stop the recording if they didn’t. Elvis insisted on recording the song regardless.

This was a big comeback song for Elvis. It was seven years since his last #1 hit.

From Songfacts

Memphis singer Mark James and Chips Moman wrote this. James recorded and released his own version, but it didn’t go anywhere. Memphis Soul producer Chips Moman brought this to Presley in 1969, and Elvis immediately fell in love with it and decided he could turn it into a hit, even though it had flopped for James.

This was recorded between 4-7 in the morning, during the landmark Memphis session that helped Elvis reclaim his title of “The King.”

This song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Artists to cover this song include Dwight Yoakam, Waylon Jennings, The Heptones, Candi Staton (#31 UK), B.J. Thomas and even The Fine Young Cannibals, whose 1985 version not only hit #8 in the UK, but was bizarrely referenced on the American TV show Psych, when Shawn tells his partner Gus: “Don’t be Fine Young Cannibals cover of ‘Suspicious Minds.’ We’re going to find her.”

In the UK, Elvis had a hit with this song three times. First in 1969 when it was originally released, then in 2001 when a live version recorded at The International Hotel, Las Vegas, in August 1970 was issued and went to #15, then in 2007 when it was re-issued to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Elvis’ death, going to #11.

Dennis Quaid and Elizabeth Mitchell dance to this in the 2000 sci-fi drama Frequency.

According to Elvis’ good friend Marty Lacker, who convinced him to record in Memphis with Chips Moman, the song’s fake ending was a result of tampering by Elvis’ longtime producer Felton Jarvis. “When Chips cut ‘Suspicious Minds’ and mixed it, the fade and bump at the end was not there,” Lacker told Goldmine magazine. “In other words, the song fades out and then it bumps up again. It’s that part where Elvis is just repeating and repeating the last chorus. In my opinion, it might be good for the stage, a dramatic thing, but it’s not good on a record. What happened was Felton Jarvis took the master to Nashville and started fooling with it thinking he could do better. And he couldn’t. He should have left it alone. He added background voices. The voices that Chips put on in Memphis, Mary Green and all those people, they’re fantastic southern sounding R&B-ish singers. Chips used them on a lot of the hits he had.”

Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter first covered this in 1970 and landed at #25 on the country chart. Their version was re-released to promote the 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws, the first country album certified Platinum, with more than a million records sold. This time, the single peaked at #2 and earned the couple a Grammy nomination for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

Suspicious Minds

We’re caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
And we can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds

So, if an old friend I know
Stops by to say hello
Would I still see suspicion in your eyes?

Here we go again
Asking where I’ve been
You can’t see these tears are real
I’m crying (Yes I’m crying)

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
And be can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds

Oh let our love survive
Or dry the tears from your eyes
Let’s don’t let a good thing die
When honey, you know
I’ve never lied to you
Mmm yeah, yeah

We’re caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Don’t you know I’m caught in a trap

Carla Thomas – B-A-B-Y

The song peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100 and #3 in the R&B Chart. B-A-B-Y was released on Stax Records in 1966. It was written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter.

Carla had 20 songs in the Billboard 100 with 4 top 40 hits and 1 top ten hit. The song was on the 2017 Baby Driver soundtrack. The song has a great soul sound to it with that Stax feel.

She is called the Queen of Memphis Soul. Carla Venita Thomas was born on December 1, 1942, in the Foote Homes Housing Project in Memphis, Tennessee. She teamed with Stax performer Otis Redding and in March of 1967, they released the album, King & Queen.

 

B-A-B-Y

Baby, ooh baby
I love to call you baby
Baby, oh oh baby
I love for you to call me baby
When you squeeze me real tight
You make wrong things right
And I can’t stop loving you
And I won’t stop calling you
Baby, oh baby
You look so good to me baby
Baby, ooh baby
You are so good to me baby
Just one look in your eye
And my temperature goes sky high
I live for you and can’t help it
[Lyrics from: https:/lyrics.az/soundtracks/baby-driver/b-a-b-y-by-carla-thomas.html]
You know I really don’t want to help it
B.A.B.Y. baby
B.A.B.Y. baby
Whenever the sun don’t shine
You go out to light my hind
Then I get real close to you
And your sweet kisses see me through
I said baby, ooh baby
You look so good to me baby
Baby, ooh baby
How I love for you to call me baby
When you squeeze me real tight
You know you make wrong things right
And I can’t stop loving you
And I won’t stop calling you
B.A.B.Y. baby

Ruth Gordon

Probably the most well-known role she played was the character of Maude in Harold and Maude. She is also remembered as Minnie Castevet in Rosemary’s Baby. Ruth Gordon was also a member of the Algonquin Round Table. She was a brilliant writer and actress. She was a stage actress mostly until the 1940s when she started to appear in films. She went back to the stage until the 60s where she started to be in films up to her death.

Ruth was born in 1896 in Wollaston, Massachusetts. She was a very successful writer and actress.

In 1915 she made her Broadway debut in Peter Pan in the role of Nibs. Her performance endeared her to the New York critic Alexander Woollcott, who introduced her to the famous Algonquin Round Table, a group that included George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Alice Duer Miller, Heywood Broun, Dorothy Parker, and Harpo Marx.

Throughout the next three decades, Ruth appeared in several plays by playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, and Booth Tarkington. She enjoyed her greatest stage triumph in a 1936 production of The Country-Wife at London’s Old Vic.

She married screenwriter and director Garson Kanin in 1942. Ruth and Garson collaborated on many plays and screenplays together.

She appeared in a handful of films during the early 1940s, including Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940), Two-Faced Woman (1941; Greta Garbo’s final film), Edge of Darkness (1942), and Action in the North Atlantic (1943). She then returned to the stage and did not appear in another film for 22 years.

She came back to film in1965 with Inside Daisy Clover ( best-supporting-actress Oscar nomination). She won an Oscar for her supporting role in Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and she developed a strong cult following with her offbeat characters in Where’s Poppa (1970) and Harold and Maude (1971). She appeared in many television programs and made-for-TV movies during the 1960s and ’70s and won an Emmy in 1979 for her role on an episode of the popular sitcom Taxi. Gordon and Kanin also collaborated on one more writing project, the TV movie Hardhat and Legs (1980).

Ruth Gordon died on August 28, 1985, and Garson Kanin died on March 13, 1999.

Awards from IMDB

Academy Awards

1969 Winner
OscarBest Actress in a Supporting Role
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) 

1966 Nominee
OscarBest Actress in a Supporting Role
Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

1953 Nominee
OscarBest Writing, Story and Screenplay
Pat and Mike (1952) 
Shared with: Garson Kanin

1951 Nominee
OscarBest Writing, Story and Screenplay
Adam’s Rib (1949) 

Shared with: Garson Kanin

1948 Nominee

OscarBest Writing, Original Screenplay
A Double Life (1947)

Shared with: Garson Kanin

https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gordon-ruth-1896-1985

Fleetwood Mac – Black Magic Woman

Most people today know the Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac but the band has a long winding history. The band members at this time in 1968 were Peter Green – Guitar, Mick Fleetwood – Drums, John McVie – Bass, Jeremy Spencer – Guitar and Piano, and Danny Kirwan on guitar. Christine Perfect contributed keyboards from the second album on and then married John McVie and joined in 1970.

Peter Green is a great guitar player, good singer and a very good songwriter. The Peter Green era produced songs such as Oh Well, Albatross, and The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown).

This was a hit for Santana, and their version was a cover of this Fleetwood Mac song that hit #37 on the UK charts. Peter Green, who was a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, wrote the lyrics. The original’s music sounds very similar to the sound Santana added on his version. Mick Fleetwood once described this as “three minutes of sustain reverb guitar with two exquisite solos from Peter.”

 

Black Magic Woman

Got a black magic woman
Got a black magic woman
I’ve got a black magic woman
Got me so blind I can’t see
That she’s a black magic woman
She’s trying to make a devil out of me

Don’t turn your back on me, baby
Don’t turn your back on me, baby
Yes, don’t turn your back on me, baby
Stop messing about with your tricks
Don’t turn your back on me, baby
You just might pick up my magic sticks

You got your spell on me, baby
You got your spell on me, baby
Yes, you got your spell on me, baby
Turnin’ my heart into stone
I need you so bad
Magic woman I can’t leave you alone

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beatles – Please Please Me

This song broke it open for the Beatles in the UK. After Love Me Do peaked at #17 in the UK charts…this one shot to #1 in the New Musical Express, Disc and Melody Maker charts in 1963. The song would later peak at #3 in the Billboard 100 in 1964 after Beatlemania had hit.

George Martin never cared much for Love Me Do and told the Beatles that. He did like Please Please Me and thought it had potential if they would increase the tempo. They had played it to him very slow like a Roy Orbison song. They worked on it for the next studio visit and it started to take shape.

The song was a vast improvement over Love Me Do. The quick catchy riff with those harmonies are hard to resist. The climbing “come on come on come on” led to a perfect chorus hook.

John Lennon was partly inspired by a line from a Bing Crosby song that read, “Please lend a little ear to my pleas.” He recalled: “I remember the day I wrote it, I heard Roy Orbison doing “Only The Lonely”, or something. And I was also always intrigued by the words to a Bing Crosby song that went, ‘Please lend a little ear to my pleas’. The double use of the word ‘please’. So it was a combination of Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby.”

From Songfacts

This was The Beatles first single released in America, and getting it issued in the States was a struggle. The Beatles first recorded “Please Please Me” on September 11, 1962. That version was rejected for release. They re-recorded the song on November 26, 1962 and that version was first issued in England on the EMI-owned Parlophone label on January 12, 1963. After EMI’s US affiliate, Capitol Records, rejected the song (and a lot of other early Beatles material), the small, Chicago-based Vee Jay label stepped in and released “Please Please Me” stateside on February 25, 1963 and again on January 30, 1964 and August 10,1964. The only release that charted was the second, when The Beatles finally made a name for themselves in America.

John Lennon, who was a big Roy Orbison fan, wrote this in the style of Orbison’s overly dramatic singing. Beatles producer George Martin suggested it would sound better sped up. In 2006, Martin told The Observer Music Monthly, “The songs the Beatles first gave me were crap. This was 1962 and they played a dreadful version of ‘Please Please Me’ as a Roy Orbison-style ballad. But I signed them because they made me feel good to be with them, and if they could convey that on a stage then everyone in the audience would feel good, too. So I took ‘Love Me Do’ and added some harmonica, but it wasn’t financially rewarding even though Brian Epstein bought about 2,000 copies. Then we worked for ages on their new version of ‘Please Please Me,’ and I said: ‘Gentlemen, you’re going to have your first #1.'”

This was rumored to be about oral sex. The Beatles denied this, since they had a very clean image to maintain at the time. Lennon said of the song: “I was always intrigued by the double use of the word ‘please.'”

Although in the UK this was officially a #2 record, three of the four charts used at the time – Melody Maker, NME and Disc – listed it #1. Only the Record Retailer chart had it at #2.

The group’s name was misspelled “Beattles” on the record label on the first American release of the single.

Typical for the verse in “Please Please Me,” and for many of Lennon’s songs, are the long notes (legato) that are also used in hymns – even sounding a bit like Mendelssohn’s Wedding March in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. When Lennon was a little boy he used to go to church on Sunday. Afterwards he improvised his own counterpoints to the hymns.

The climbing in the melody “Come on, come on…” is similar to parts of two traditional folk songs: “New’s Evens Song” and “Come Fair One.” >>

In the UK, this was re-released in 1983 to coincide with the 20th anniversary of it’s initial release.

The Beatles performed this on their second Ed Sullivan Show appearance in 1964. Sullivan was not a fan of many rock groups, but loved The Beatles and had them on his show whenever he could.

This was the second Beatles single released in England, the first being “Love Me Do.”

An early version of this song with session drummer Andy White playing drums instead of Ringo can be found on Anthology 1.

The Please Please Me album was The Beatles debut long player. When they recorded it at Abbey Studios in London, John Lennon was struggling with a streaming cold and all were tired after a tour supporting Helen Shapiro. However with the help and encouragement of producer George Martin within nine hours and 45 minutes they had recorded their groundbreaking LP.

The album was released to cash in on the success of this single in the UK. It took them about 12 hours to record, and was basically a re-creation of their live show, which was mostly cover songs. The album was released with the text “Please Please Me with Love Me Do and 12 other songs.” >>

The Beatles performed this on Thank Your Lucky Stars on January 19, 1963. It was their first ever UK television appearance.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed in an interview on the British TV program GMTV that this was the first record that he ever bought.

George Martin told Music Week magazine that the first time the Beatles played this to him, he wasn’t very impressed. He recalled: “I listened to it and I said: ‘Do you know that’s too bloody boring for words? It’s a dirge. At twice the speed it might sound reasonable.’ They took me at my word. I was joking and they came back and played it to me sped up and put a harmonica on it, and it became their first big hit.”

Lennon was a great fan of Bing Crosby and when in 1978, Yoko gave him a vintage ’50s Wurlitzer jukebox for his birthday he loaded the machine with as many 78-rpm records by the easy-listening vocalist as he could find.

This is Keith Richards’ favorite Beatles song. He told Jimmy Fallon: “I’ve always told McCartney, ‘Please Please Me.’ I just love the chimes, and I was there at the time and it was beautiful. Mind you, there’s plenty of others, but if I’ve got to pick one, ‘Please Please Me’… oh, yeah!”

Lennon-McCartney was the standard alphabetical credit for their Beatles songwriters compositions except on Please Please Me, where for reasons unknown, the names were reversed.

Please Please Me

Last night I said these words to my girl
I know you never even try, girl
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Please, please me, woah yeah, like I please you

You don’t need me to show the way, love
Why do I always have to say, love
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Please, please me, woah yeah, like I please you

I don’t want to sound complaining
But you know there’s always rain in my heart
I do all the pleasing with you,
It’s so hard to reason with you
Woah yeah, why do you make me blue?

Last night I said these words to my girl
I know you never even try, girl
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Please, please me, woah yeah, like I please you
Woah yeah, like I please you
Woah yeah, like I please you

The Nerf Ball… a brief history

The name NERF actually comes from drag racing. In the late ‘60s, foam-covered bars sometimes called “nerf bars” were put on the front of the trucks that pushed racers to the starting line. This prevented damage to cars.

I had many Nerf Footballs and small Nerf basketballs growing up and they were always fun to bonk someone in the head.

In 1968 Reyn Guyer who invented Twister helped invent the Nerf Ball. He was testing a new caveman game with colleagues. The prototype included a bunch of foam-rubber rocks that, the men soon discovered, were more fun to throw at one another than use in the game. He then thought (and probably saved a lot of broken lamps…and spankings) they could be used as balls and played within a home.

In 1969 Reyn tried to sell the idea to Milton Bradley but they didn’t want it, but Parker Brothers did. The first Nerf product as a 4-inch polyurethane foam ball. They marketed it as “world’s first official indoor ball” and soon they had blasters, footballs (Fred Cox, kicker for the Vikings actually invented the Nerf Football), basketballs, living room baseball and a line of Nerf products.

Hasbro

Parker Brothers handed the company off to Kenner Products, a sister company, in 1991, when Hasbro acquired the Nerf line. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the Nerf brand served under the subsidiaries OddzOn and Larami before Hasbro took full control of the brand.

Monkees Nerf Ball Commercial

 

 

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – The Tracks of My Tears

Smokey has one of the smoothest voices I ever heard. On top of that, he is one of the top songwriters of popular music. Bob Dylan called him “America’s greatest living poet.” and John Lennon was heavily influenced by him. The song peaked at #16 (only 16???) in the Billboard 100 and #9 in the UK in 1965.

Miracles members Smokey Robinson, Warren Moore, and Marv Tarplin wrote this song. Robinson penned the lyrics; Tarplin, The Miracles’ guitarist, came up with the riff. Tarplin got the idea for the music after listening to a calypso tune: Harry Belafonte’s “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).”

From Songfacts

One of the most gut-wrenching songs on record, this one is about a man who tries to hide his pain, but cannot conceal the tracks made by his tears. He has come out of a relationship with the love of his life, and the song is his confession to her that his high spirits are just an act and she’s the only one for him, or perhaps what he wants to tell her but can’t.

Miracles leader Smokey Robinson came up with the concept when he was looking in the mirror one day, and thinking, What if a person would cry so much that you could see tracks of their tears in their face?

Robinson recalled: “‘Tracks of My Tears’ was actually started by Marv Tarplin, who is a young cat who plays guitar for our act. So he had this musical thing [sings melody], you know, and we worked around with it, and worked around, and it became ‘Tracks of My Tears.'”

Robinson had the music Tarplin wrote on a cassette, but it took him about six months to write the lyrics. The words started coming together when he came up with the line, “Take a good look at my face, you see my smile looks out of place.” From there, it was a few days before he got the lines, “If you look closer it’s easy to trace… my tears.”

What to do with those tears was a problem, as he wanted to say something no one has said about tears. In a 2006 interview with NPR, he explained that he finally came up with the image of tears leaving lasting marks, and the song came together. “One day I was listening, and it just came – the tracks of my tears,” said Robinson. “Like footprints on my face. So that was what I wrote about.”

Four different artists have charted with this song in America. Johnny Rivers had the biggest hit, taking it to #10 in 1967. Two of the most acclaimed female vocalists of their time, Aretha Franklin and Linda Ronstadt, also charted covers, Franklin’s making #71 in 1969 and Ronstadt’s going to #25 in 1976.

Other notable versions of this song include renditions by Go West in 1993 and Adam Lambert in 2009.

When he first recorded this song with The Miracles, Robinson left out the last chorus, fading it out on the “I need you, I need you” line. He was convinced to end on the chorus when he played the song at one of the famous Monday morning meetings at Motown, where songs were scrutinized by their team.

Robinson wrote a similar song a few weeks later called “My Girl Has Gone,” which was released as the next Miracles single.

Motown head Berry Gordy has said that this song represents Smokey Robinson’s best work.

The song was popular among American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War, which is reflected in the 1986 Oliver Stone movie Platoon, where the song is used.

Other films to feature the song include The Big Chill (1983), The Walking Dead (1995) and Bobby (2006). TV series to used the song include The Wonder Years and Wife Swap.

Tracks Of My Tears

People say I’m the life of the party
Because I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I’m blue
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place

If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears
I need you, need you
Since you left me if you see me with another girl
Seeming like I’m having fun
Although she may be cute

She’s just a substitute
Because you’re the permanent one
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears

I need you, need you
Outside I’m masquerading
Inside my hope is fading
Just a clown oh yeah
Since you put me down
My smile is my make up

I wear since my break up with you
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears

Beatles – The Word

It took a few listens to this song for me to fully appreciate it. It was not released as a single but it was on the Rubber Soul album in 1965. This song expressed desire and optimism for universal peace and love.

Multi-part vocals over a simple chord structure that sounds so different to what they did the year before. From I Want To Hold Your Hand to The Word shows The Beatles refusing to use a formula and continuing to move forward. They would stick to this pattern and lead the way until the end of the sixties.

Rubber Soul would peak at #1 in the Billboard album charts in 1966.

Paul McCartney said of the song:

“To write a good song with just one note in it – like ‘Long Tall Sally’ – is really very hard.  It’s the kind of thing we’ve wanted to do for some time.  We get near it in ‘The Word.’

John on the song:

 “It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer, when I was younger, on the ‘Rubber Soul’ album.  My first expression of it was a song called ‘The Word.’  The word is ‘love.’  ‘In the good and the bad books that I have read,’ whatever, wherever, the word is ‘love.’  It seems like the underlying theme to the universe.  Everything that was worthwhile got down to this love, love, love thing.  And it is the struggle to love, be loved and express that (just something about love) that’s fantastic.  I think that whatever else love is – and it’s many, many things – it is constant.  It’s been the same forever.  I don’t think it will ever change.  Even though I’m not always a loving person, I want to be that, I want to be as loving as possible.”

From Songfacts

This is another brilliant musical innovation from the Rubber Soul album, the first point at which The Beatles shrugged off the “mop tops” image and went for bolder artistic horizons. “The Word” sounds almost like evangelizing; as opposed to a standard boy-girl love song, the lyrics here embrace love as more of a concept, the way the Flower Power movement was thinking about it.

The lyrics of “The Word” also mark an important point at which The Beatles began to realize that they were, in fact, spokespeople for a new generation. Their songs started packing a stronger message, bridging their way to the future when John and George would make their lyrics more political.

Lead vocals on this song were shared by John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Beatles producer George Martin played the harmonium, an organ-like keyboard instrument.

Yoko Ono gave the sheet music of this song as a gift to the composer John Cage, who later published it in his book Notations. Ono studied under Cage, even sharing the occasional stage with him, before she met John Lennon.

Out of all the zillions of times that music fans claim that something was composed on drugs, this is one of the rare times when a performer actually states that they did drugs while creating it. Paul McCartney reported in interviews that they’d blazed some reefer before setting down to do the lyrics, and reports that far from enhancing their ability, it actually got in the way.

In 2002, Joan Jett covered this for the album, It’s All About Eve (Music For The Cure), a charity compilation to support breast cancer research. It was produced by Rob Stevens, who had worked with John Lennon.

Rubber Soul is often cited as the first album issued without the artist’s name on its cover, but that honor really goes to Elvis Presley for his 1959 album For LP Fans Only.

The Word

Say the word and you’ll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine
It’s the word, love

In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I’ve got it, the word is good

Spread the word and you’ll be free
Spread the word and be like me
Spread the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine
It’s the word, love

Every where I go I hear it said
In the good and bad books that I have read

Say the word and you’ll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine
It’s the word, love

Now that I know what I feel must be right
I’m here to show everybody the light

Give the word a chance to say
That the word is just the way
It’s the word I’m thinking of
And the only word is love

It’s so fine, it’s sunshine
It’s the word, love

Say the word love
Say the word love
Say the word love
Say the word love

Yardbirds – Train Kept A-Rollin’

This track was produced by Sam Phillips of Sun Records, the man who signed Elvis Presley. It was recorded at Phillips Recording studio, a newly updated state-of-the-art studio in Memphis TN. Jeff Beck, who is a fan of early rockabilly, said that he introduced the song to the group: “They just heard me play the riff, and they loved it and made up their version of it”

I’ve always liked this version and Beck’s filthy sound he had on his guitar.

It was written by Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, and Lois Mann, this song was originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band in 1951. Johnny Burnette recorded a rock version in 1956, and The Yardbirds popularized the song with their rendition in 1965.

Aerosmith covered it in 1974, often playing the song as their encore in their early years. In the ’60s, Aerosmith was on the same bill as The Yardbirds for some shows, and former Yardbird Jeff Beck opened some shows for them in the ’70s.

The song didn’t chart in Billboard but was included on the album “Having A Rave Up” in 1965 which peaked at #53.

From Songfacts

This song is about a guy who is blown away by a woman, but he has to act cool to make sure he doesn’t scare her away. The train rolling is in reference to sex. 

In the beginning of the song, Jeff Beck used his guitar to create the train whistle sound.

There are two voices singing throughout the song. Both belong to lead singer Keith Relf. In the beginning, they sing different words, but by the end, both sing in unison.

When Jimmy Page joined the band and he was playing lead guitar with Jeff Beck, the Yardbirds appeared in the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film Blowup playing a new version of this song re-titled “Stroll On.” The Yardbirds appeared as a band in the film, which is about a London fashion photographer who may have witnessed a murder. It was one of the first major films with a full frontal nudity scene.

In an interview with Q Magazine January 2008, John Paul Jones recalls this was the first ever song he played with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Bonham after joining Led Zeppelin: “I can remember the first song I played with Led Zeppelin in a tiny basement room in Soho in 1968, with wall-to-wall amps. That was ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’,’ the Yardbirds song, which I didn’t know at the time. But I knew immediately, ‘This is fun.”

Train Kept A-Rollin’

I caught the train, I met a dame,
She was a hipster, well and a real cool dame,
(She was handsome,)
She was pretty, from New York City,
Well and we trucked on down in that old Fairlane,
(Goin’ on,)
With a heave, and a ho,

Well, I just couldn’t let her go.
(Yes I did,)
Get along, sweet little woman, get along,
Be on your way,
Get along, sweet little woman, get along,
Be on your way,
With a heave, and a ho,
(Love the way you walk,)
I just couldn’t let her go.
(Yes I do now.)

Well, the train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
(Sweet little woman, get along,)
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
([You’re my queen?])
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
(Sweet little woman, get along,)
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
(You’re my queen?)
With a heave, and a ho,
(Love the way you walk,)
Well I just couldn’t let her go,
(Yes I do.)

We made a stop at Albuquerque,
She must have thought I was a real gone jerk,
We got out the train in El Paso,
Lookin’ so good, Jack, I couldn’t let her go.
Get along, sweet little woman, get along,
(Oh, right,)

Well, the train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
With a heave, and a ho,
Well I just couldn’t let her go.

Doris Troy – Just One Look

This song has a fifties quality to it. Doris Troy was a true one hit wonder. This is her only top 100 song. It peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100 in 1963. This was just the second Top 10 pop hit that was written and performed by the same woman, following “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes)” by Carla Thomas.

She appeared on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” as a backup singer. In the UK, this was a #2 hit for The Hollies. It has also been covered by Lulu, and Linda Ronstadt, Mark Farner and Anne Murray.

From Songfacts

Doris Troy, born Doris Higginson in New York City, was an R&B singer/songwriter who first recorded as Doris Payne. When she was 16 years old, she got a job at the famous Apollo Theater, which featured many legendary black performers.

In a 1970 interview with Blues & Soul magazine, Troy explained: “I had the uniform and a flashlight and everything, and when I saw them stars up there performing I said to myself ‘that’s where I want to be someday,’ and I started to spend my off-duty hours in this restaurant in New York where out-of-work artists and composers hung out. I’d written ‘Just One Look’ and needed to make a demo. Well the demo got made, and it was the demo that was released. I was performing at the time, but I’d never looked on myself as ready for making hit records. I’d had a previous release out on Everest under the name of Doris Payne, but it didn’t mean a thing.

We’d taken the demo to Atlantic to sell the song, and as soon as they heard it they flipped and said they’d rush release it at once. I was on the road at the time touring with Chuck Jackson who was big then, and since I had no time to go in the studio and re-record it they issued the record straight off the demo-dub I’d had made. Wasn’t that a bitch? Well, the record took off so damn fast that it sold like crazy, and it was really lucky for me to be touring at the same time since Atlantic were able to arrange all sorts of promotional stints and interviews to tie in with the local radio stations where I was visiting.”

Troy wrote the song “How About That,” which hit #33 for Dee Clark in 1960. She worked as a session singer, appearing on recordings by Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, Dee Dee Warwick and The Drifters. “Just One Look” was her only American hit, but “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” nicked the UK charts at #37 in 1964. She moved to England in 1969 and signed with The Beatles’ Apple Records, where she release the Doris Troy album in 1970 before becoming a casualty of the rampant mismanagement at Apple. She resumed work as a session singer, and performed on The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and also tracks by Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck. She also sang backup on the 1973 Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon. Troy died in 2004 at age 67.

Troy’s version of this song appeared in a popular Pepsi commercial starring supermodel Cindy Crawford. It also appeared in a spot for DirectTV.

This appeared in the films Mermaids (1990), The Flamingo Kid (1984) and Buster (1988).

Just One Look

Just one look and I fell so hard
In love with you uh oh uh oh
I found out how good it feels
To have your love uh oh uh oh
Say you will, will be mine
Forever and always uh oh uh oh
Just one look and I knew
That you were my only one uh oh uh oh

I thought I was dreaming but I was wrong
Yeah yeah yeah
Oh but ah I’m gonna keep on scheming
‘Til I can ah make you, make you my own

So you see I really care
Without you I’m nothing uh oh uh oh
Just one look and I know
I’ll get you someday uh oh uh oh

Just one look, that’s all it took

The Who – A Quick One, While He’s Away

I first saw them perform this on The Kids Are Alright. The performance was electric. I like the studio version but the live versions they push a little harder. The song didn’t chart being so long. The album “A Quick One” peaked at #4 in the UK charts. The hit song of the album was Happy Jack.

The Who had 10 minutes left to fill on the album. Kit Lambert, The Who’s manager, suggested to Pete Townshend that he write “something linear… perhaps a 10-minute song.” Townshend responded by saying that rock songs are “2:50 by tradition!” Lambert then told Townshend that he should write a 10-minute story comprised of 2:50 songs.

The song was a “mini-opera,” paving the way for the other mini-opera “Rael” and eventually full-length rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia.

From Songfacts

The plot of the story is simple. A girl is sad that her boyfriend is away. Her friends suggest that she take a substitute lover, Ivor The Engine Driver. When the boyfriend returns, she confesses her infidelity and is forgiven.

The Who performed this on the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus, which was going to be a TV special. It never aired on television but it was released on VHS in 1996 and DVD in 2004. The Who’s performance of this was included in The Kids Are Alright, a 1979 film about The Who.

According to legend, Rock And Roll Circus didn’t air because the Rolling Stones felt that they were showed up by The Who. Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithful, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell all appeared on Rock And Roll Circus.

A live version of this song appears on Live At Leeds and the soundtrack for The Kids Are Alright. 

The Who wanted to put Cellos on the track but Kit Lambert said they couldn’t afford it. So they sang “cello, cello, cello, cello,” where the Who thought they should go. >>

This was used in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore starring Jason Shwartzman and Bill Murray

A Quick One, While He’s Away

Her man’s been gone
For nearly a year
He was due home yesterday
But he ain’t here

Her man’s been gone
For nigh on a year
He was due home yesterday
But he ain’t here

Down your street your crying is a well-known sound
Your street is very well known, right here in town
Your town is very famous for the little girl
Whose cries can be heard all around the world

Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la
Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la

We have a remedy
You’ll appreciate
No need to be so sad
He’s only late

We’ll bring you flowers and things
Help pass your time
We’ll give him eagle’s wings
Then he can fly to you

Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la
Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la
Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la la

We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la
We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la
We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la
We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la

We have a remedy.
We have!

Little girl, why don’t you stop your crying?
I’m gonna make you feel all right

My name is Ivor
I’m an engine driver

I know him well
I know why you feel blue
Just ’cause he’s late
Don’t mean he’ll never get through

He told me he loves you
He ain’t no liar, I ain’t either
So let’s have a smile for an old engine driver
So let’s have a smile for an old engine driver

Please take a sweet
Come take a walk with me
We’ll sort it out
Back at my place, maybe

It’ll come right
You ain’t no fool, I ain’t either
So why not be nice to an old engine driver?
Better be nice to an old engine driver
Better be nice to an old engine driver

We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be home

We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be home

Come on, old horse

Soon be home
Soon be home
Soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be home

We’ll soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be home

We’ll soon be home
Soon be home 

Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang

Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello
Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello
Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello
Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello

I can’t believe it
Do my eyes deceive me?
Am I back in your arms?
Away from all harm?

It’s like a dream to be with you again
Can’t believe that I’m with you again

I missed you and I must admit
I kissed a few and once did sit
On Ivor the Engine Driver’s lap
And later with him, had a nap

You are forgiven, you are forgiven, you are forgiven 

You are forgiven