PETER AND GORDON – "A World Without Love"

Doctor Mod says:

This is an early example of a Lennon-McCartney song without Lennon. We all know that a lot of the songs were written by one or the other and not as a joint effort.

Tom observes that “Peter and Gordon . . . sing [it] as if Merseybeat never happened. Pop drifts back to its early 60s status quo.” Perhaps for Brits it did, but in the US we’d never heard anything like it before, and it was actually exciting–organ and all. (Hammond? Sounds more like a Farfisa to me. I could be wrong.)

Still, in retrospect, the suggestion that it might be a throwback (in the overall scheme of things) seems conceivable. But perhaps it’s really a matter of “back to the future.” By 1970, McCartney would be showing just what he could do without Lennon–only the results were rarely up to the standard of “World Without Love.”

TOTPWatch: Peter & Gordon performed ‘A World Without Love’ on Top of the Pops for six consecutive weeks!;

25 March 1964. Also in the studio that week were; The Applejacks and The Bachelors, plus two specially prerecorded studio performances from The Beatles. Jimmy Saville was the host.

1 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Millie, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Applejacks and The Bachelors. Alan Freeman was the host.

8 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Millie, The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Four Pennies. Pete Murray was the host.

15 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Gerry & The Pacemakers, Millie and The Migil Five. David Jacobs was the host.

22 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Millie, The Four Pennies, The Mojos and The Searchers. Jimmy saville was the host.

29 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Gerry & The Pacemakers, Manfred Mann, The Migil Five, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Rolling Stones and The Searchers. Alan Freeman was the host.

None of these programmes survive.

Thanks, Rosie. Gordon Waller features a couple of times in the forthcoming John & Gary Walker autobiog, always glass in hand, clearly the bon viveur of the duo. Peter and Gordon have always seemed peculiarly enigmatic as post-Mersey UK pop stars – can anyone recall either of them as talking heads?

I’d urge anyone with a slight orchestrated pop inclination to search out his Seventh Hour, a Parlophone 45 (b-side) from 68/69, written by Gordon, richly produced, and properly gorgeous.

It’s New Pop as well in that the chirpy melody hides a lyric which would not have disgraced Ian Curtis.

Chad and Jeremy, their biggest hit in the UK was their “Batman” appearance.

Here’s a complete 1964 Pick Of The Pops with Peter & Gordon at no.1. From the days when they had different ‘units’, unit 4 being the Top 10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxX4ZEN8TB0

Back in my blogging days, I declared that the song that was number one on the day you were born could define the rest of your life. Mine was A World Without Love. My boyfriend at the time was Hot Love. It was destined to fail. My subsequent loves were Kung Fu Fighting and Use It Up And Wear It Out.

I rest my case.

Peter Asher plays a 12 string guitar in the “video” for the song which contributes to the jingle-jangle folk rock feel to this song. It sounds very well behaved in retrospect but there is a residual sense of edges being blurred and expectations being challenged by the relative emotional openness – something about it reminds me of early Paul Simon who (with Art Garfunkel) released ‘The Sound of Silence’ later that year.