In the comics series Phonogram, there’s a scene in which the – kind of horrible – pop DJ Seth Bingo and his indie collaborator Silent Girl are struggling to work a recalcitrant dancefloor into life. Their solution? “Play the Blondie!” – a copy of “Atomic” which literally glows as it’s withdrawn from its sleeve.
Every club and every DJ has this kind of record – the song you put on as an act of faith to galvanise the night, or as an act of celebration to help it to its peak. “Always On My Mind” has been one of mine. There comes a point whenever I play pop music to a crowd that I want to play the Pet Shop Boys, and the next question becomes, well, why not play this? Those five seconds of groans and drum tracks to alert the lapsed or doubtful and then – boom! The mighty, unmistakable synthesiser fanfare which is the Boys’ great addition to the song, kicking off one of the most simply and sympathetically joyful tracks we’ll ever encounter, a gallop of sequenced Eurodisco drum lines and bright blasts of keyboard in service of the original track’s warm chords.
“It’s A Sin” found the Pet Shop Boys pushing their hi-NRG arsenal into the red, conquering pop by overloading it: “Always On My Mind” unleashes the same level of force but this time they’re handling it with happy precision, while somehow preserving the song’s humility under all the flashes and bangs. They manage this partly through another marvellous performance from Neil Tennant. He can’t compete with the arrangement’s fireworks so he stands back from them, making himself a calm, sincerely regretful presence in the middle of the track, and making “Always On My Mind” seem as heartfelt as it is grandiose.
Of all their big singles it’s perhaps their most relaxed – there’s no particular cleverness or conceit, no great message to take away, nothing ironic or ‘subversive’. Their other hit covers have points to prove: “Where The Streets Have No Name” is a bit of anti-rockist mischief making, “Go West” a defiant coming-out parade. Here they are making a huge technicolour hit simply because they’re pop stars and that’s their job: “Always On My Mind” has no real gameplan or reason to exist other than to delight people. It feels – appropriately for a Christmas Number One – like a gift, and I think that generosity is what makes a friendly dancefloor always respond so well to it. I don’t play “Always On My Mind” every time I DJ – there are always too many new and rediscovered peaks to fit in – but if the night’s gone well I always feel like I did.
Score: 10
[Logged in users can award their own score]
Quick notes:
– the video is from the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘interesting’ fillum project, It Couldn’t Happen Here, so maybe I am being slightly disingenuous in implying AOMM is an act of the purest generosity. But it’s long since shaken off any associations it had with that.
– the extended mix of this on Introspective deserves, and may one day get, its own post.
– I decided not to mention “Fairytale Of New York” in the blurb (partly because I half suspect it’ll end up getting to #1 EVENTUALLY). It is an excellent record, I do not enjoy it as much as this one but I do feel one of the four weeks “Always” was at the top could have been handed over. Oh well.
(And there have now been more 80s 10-out-of-10s than the rest of pop PUT TOGETHER! Anyone would think I grew up then or something.)
I’m not a huge fan of the PSB but I like this better than most of their stuff.
I think Neil Tennant benefits from singing a lyric which he hadn’t written himself – and particularly one which is such an iconic song.
The Elvis version is a camp classic with his intense, theatrical performance. PSB achieve a different sort of camp here with NTs almost affectless delivery contrasting with the frenetic pulse and synthetic brass flourishes of the music.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Tom that this originally surfaced in an ITV special to mark the 10th anniversary of Elvis’s death in September which, this song apart, was filled with dross (although Kim Wilde’s “One Night” was notable for non-musical reasons). Initially the PSBs seemed reluctant to put it out because they had one more single to come from “Actually” which we will get to shortly.
I like it but wouldn’t give a cover 10.
I’d argue that the marks for this and “It’s A Sin” are the wrong way round 😉
I’m surprised you didn’t reprise what you said about this song a few years ago on ILX, Tom –
this is one of Tennant’s finest vocal hours because in his slight diffidence you can hear exactly how and why he neglected his lover, and in the unstoppable synthesized beat you can hear exactly how he’s going to get him back
^^which is completely OTM, absolutely crucial to why this version succeeds, and a line I always think of whenever I hear or think about this song. It’s a difficult balancing act to pull off, to convey a character flaw like that without losing sympathy (or more precisely, without making the listener transfer their sympathies to the object of the song) – and MOST DON’T, especially the kind of passive-aggressive weedy boy who uses Tennant’s diffidence as a template. I think it’s because Tennant sounds resolved to actually rectify this flaw, or at least try.
One who does succeed is Ne-Yo on “Part Of The List”, where you can hear this fastidious attention to minutiae that would have driven the girl away but which is also what makes the song so great as a crafted piece of work.
Haha you also wrote (in Oct 2002), “I want this played at my wedding” – was it?
Oh – yes that is a good line! Well done me 🙂
And yes it was played at my wedding, at least to the extent I can remember what was played at my wedding….
I love both versions, but I prefer the PSB version only for this subtlety. At the end of the main chorus in the Elvis version, they hold that last note.
The Pet Shot Boys pull a trick where they inject two new bass notes that bridge to the post-chorus. Those two notes are the ones that have hooked me into this song altogether.
Oddly enough, whenever I go back to the Elvis version, I so want to hear Elvis’s band play those Two Crucial Bass Notes.
A well-deserved 10, although maybe not to the “Always in my House” version.
Was the Willie Nelson version known in the UK at all? It was huge around 82-83 in America, and I thought of this as a Willie Nelson song when the PSB version came out. Willie also sings it in an understated way, which is probably the best way to approach a lyric that can come off as “things on my mind: we’re out of milk, you, my sister’s birthday is next week.”
Yes, I distinctly remember playing it at your wedding, in a bit of a rush when I remembered that the bride & groom shuffle off before everyone!
Possibly not a ten for me (Always In My House might have been, but for annoying my sister reasons) but I love it and hear it probably as often as I need to (ie about once a month a Poptimism – of which there is one this Friday!)
I was surprised by the 10 for this. It’s probably my favourite of the PSB’s number ones, but I still think they had stronger singles which didn’t get there. I love the weird roaring noise which opens the track, it gives me a shiver of anticipation for the rest of the song every time I play it.
And I’m glad it blocked Fairytale of New York, which just irritates me.
(New here, by the way)
I’m also with the less-than-a-ten crowd, probably around an 8, but I like what you say about it seeming like a gift – it’s a good way of getting across how at ease the record sounds.
Finally, a PSB single gets a 10! I was kind of worried, since I knew it was the only one left that had a chance.
This is, for whatever it’s worth, my favourite single ever – I remember the first time I loved it, on Fox FM in bright Oxfordshire sunshire and thinking it was Elvis; it’s as pure a translation of joy – as I understand & feel it – as any medium’s ever brought to me.
I like what you said, once, about the note of triumph in “Gi-ive me…” – that Tennant is at that moment & for the first time totally certain that he’ll get his second chance.
I find AOMM a big yawn, and the love for it expressed here quite baffling. The synth chords bludgeon (I swear this band’s arrangement and keyboard skills went backwards from their first album), the voice is thin, the rhythm track is unremarkable. I’d take True Faith (let alone Peekaboo – a genuine ’80s ’10’ in my view) by at least several points over this any day of the week. To me, AOMM sounds knocked out in about half an hour using It’s a Sin’s presets, which were lousy. I understand that I’m in the minority on this, but apart from people reliving youthful PSB-mania I don’t see how this can be seriously thought an especially delightful record, let alone one of the best ever made. Unwanted consistency watch: where does one begin? Perhaps with TomScore(Jailhouse Rock) = 7. I mean, good God. For me, AOMM can score no more than a:
5
No complaints from me. This is a solid 10. Not only one of the PSB greatest singles, but one of my favourite songs, period. Pure bliss!
My favourite part, which, iirc, is absent from previous versions, is towards the end when Tennant sings “Maybe I didn’t love you…” omitting the following “quite as often as I could” line. I’m not sure if it was intentional but to me it suggests a shift towards a more genuinely reflective, rather than apologetic tone. As if all of a sudden he understands.
BTW, I would’ve given “It’s a Sin” and “West End Girls” 10s too (although maybe the former deserves a slightly minor 10).
BTW this was a nice blurb and all but my favourite review of AOMM is still Tanya Headon’s, which I find remarkable not just because it’s ROFL, but also because I cannot object to a single thing she says about it. I was going to post a link but I can’t find it 🙁
Tanya: written ten years ago just six weeks from now!
“The Pet Shot Boys pull a trick where they inject two new bass notes that bridge to the post-chorus.”
I recall them saying in interview how they had deliberately simplified the song – reduced the chord sequence or something. What mattered to me was that it was at the RIGHT SPEED.
I woke up in my first year college room, turned on the radio on my modular ghetto-blaster thing, and went back to sleep. I had a dream that went at a tremendous canter, and when i woke up again, this was the dream tempo on the radio.
MY. FIRST. SINGLE. And the 12″ at that. which i still have.
Not actually my first single – i’d had (eg) Rubber Ducky by Sesame Street bought for me when i was very small – but the first one i bought for myself. Which (if you know me) seems like a late stage, but before now I had been happy KILLING MUSIC BY HOME TAPING the top 40.
As others have variously observed, I’d give either this or It’s A Sin a 10 depending on my mood that week.
That year I thought xmo number one was going to be Barcelona.
Most predictable 10 ever! I love it but I’m a little sick of it I guess and several of the PSB’s excellent b-sides and album tracks from this time are still quite new to me so I’m spending more time and love on them.
The spectral gusto of Horn and Lipson seems to be chief informant here as with It’s A Sin – the despairing other side of the drama-ramic coin to the euphoric immense sound of AOMM. In a particularly busy year of hit songs that aimed for enormity (IAS, China…, You Win Again) the apex arrived in this climactic affair.
Elvis recorded it first in 1972. In the States, it was a b-side. Willie Nelson had the next biggest hit with it in 1982, peaking At number 5. But I was surprised to find that this version made it to number 4. Not as enthused as Tom’s 10, more like an 8. A good overhaul of what, at that time, was already an Adult Contemporary evergreen.
There is a moment in every pop music fan’s life that he or she is asked to consider 2 versions of the same song and decide which is the better version. “Always On My Mind” is one of those moments. Elvis’ version was imperious, untouchable. A piece of grand pop perfection, larger than the sum of it’s parts. Presley’s almost restrained vocal, the orchestraition that allows the song to build naturally, to suck you in emotionally, to feel what Elvis felt, what Willie felt, what Brenda felt…what Neil felt. Country music tells stories, conveys emotion to those who find emotion the hardest thing to convey. Elvis elevated it to high art, this conveying of longing, of yearning, of hope. It’s a boomer anthem. If you can imagine the postwar generation wondering for what, their parents and grandparents sacrificed in 2 world wars, and then the 60’s came with it’s paranoia and permissiveness and the other side of that, the 70’s almost nullifying the hippy philosophy with recession and energy crisis and Vietnam. AOMM through that lens becomes an apology, an act of contrition. An admission of guilt. For the next generation it shines. An achingly beautiful tale of lost love with the hope of love regained. A promise of a better tomorrow. And this is where Neil comes in. This is probably one of the most forward-looking nods to the past ever. It feels re-invented, re-imagined and new like all good cover versions should be, but always aware of its roots and origins. In the wrong hands, the song could have drowned in sparkly newness, but it’s much more deft and clever than you think. How do you speed up a slowie and keep it’s earnest integrity?
Wiki states it’s all in the cadence:
“The Pet Shop Boys version introduces a harmonic variation not present in the original version. In the original the ending phrase ‘always on my mind’ is sung to a IV-V7-I cadence (C-D7-G). The Pet Shop Boys extend this cadence by adding two further chords: C-D7-Gm7/B♭-C-G (i.e. a progression of IV-V7-i7b-IV-I).”
The change allows for AOMM to accelerate into a higher tempo arena without it feeling rushed or clunky. The change allows this version to build with the drama and urgency necessary for a discoed up, camped up homage to Elvis, Brenda and Willie. Just a little tweak that makes all the difference. IMO, this elevates the PSB’s vesion to the top. Among the greatest cover versions ever made, and worthy of a 10 indeed.
Great comment thefatgit – was hoping someone would explore the covers angle in a bit more depth! (I’d forgotten the Elvis TV special entirely!)
Yes, in the U.S. the Willie Nelson version is the best known. Some may be dimly aware that it was recorded by Elvis first, but it is not associated with him at all.
I hadn’t seen Tanya’s review of this, but boy oh boy, she had it right on the nose. Given some space and restraint, this thing might have some impact, but as it is it’s an awful blaring piece of crap brought down by the fact that it’s exactly the kind of thing that Neil Tennant cannot be trusted with whatsoever. I genuinely hate this.
Clunky, pompous and sung with all the emotional intensity of a man reading the classified football results. Both this and ‘Its A Sin’ share the same overbearing synth sound, and same propensity for ill-conceived drama of production. It leaves me cold, and genuinely dumbfounded by the majority of the comments.
So, 4 – because it has a great melody to start with, some of which survives unscathed.
Maybe the truest version of the song was the quiet, shattered dignity of Willie Nelson’s acoustic reading, one of the legions of great singles released in 1982 but seldom acknowledged as such. Elvis sang it like a brute belatedly tamed, probing into his deepest, least hardened arteries to discover the core of tenderness which would still justify his asking “Love Me Tender” in Vegas, and as with most of his later work was interpreted as simply another chapter of signifiers in his dysfunctional descent.
The Pet Shop Boys were asked to participate in a Granada TV special in the summer of 1987 to mark the tenth anniversary of Presley’s death. They settled for “Always On My Mind” with the declared intent of making it sound as little like Elvis as possible. On the programme they came across as a wiser and disillusioned Flanagan and Allen, mournfully bearing haversacks as they proceeded slowly down a back-projected railway track. As a performance it was as decidedly at odds with the relatively bland fare proferred by the other artists taking part as the duo themselves were defiantly at odds with the suffocating blandness of the upper reaches of 1987 chart pop. It elicited a massive response, and though initially reluctant to release it as a single, they went back into the studio with Julian Mendelsohn and recorded a full version; too late to appear on the Actually album (though it was added to later pressings), it was rush-released at year’s end and became the best Christmas number one since “Don’t You Want Me?” and possibly the best Christmas number one ever.
In 1987 the Pet Shop Boys ruled pop – even if, other than New Order, the Smiths (defunct by year’s end) and SAW at their best, there was so little competition. The ingenuity, originality and genuine (not second-guessed from quarter-century-old soul sides) honesty of their work was enough to make most other mainstream pop in 1987 feel ashamed to call itself pop (particularly since, from Curiosity to D’Arby, they didn’t really want to be pop but soul, or at least pub rock). If one record were to be chosen which summed up the Thatcherite, post-Big Bang Britain of this period it would have to be Actually, the group’s second album; few pop songs of any era were as politely but brutally honest about the societal milieu from which they emerged than “King’s Cross” or, especially, “Rent” – the latter courageously released as a single (and it still made the top ten), a song so good that artists as diverse as Liza Minnelli and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine would subsequently be able to derive new meanings from it. “It Couldn’t Happen Here,” complete with an Ennio Morricone orchestral arrangement, is a noble litany for what could be Aids, or more likely Clause 28 – if only Kenneth Williams, then screaming towards the agonising end of his guilt-suffocated life, could have heard this music he would have understood it in a second.
“Always On My Mind” follows the tried and tested Hi-NRG template of delivering ballads at ballad tempo while the rhythm exultantly rushes along at double speed, but the Pet Shop Boys do it with exceptional elan, complete with the triple tease of the delayed intro. Neil Tennant delivers the song in the persona of someone who knows he’s a bit of a shit (whereas Elvis simply sounds bemused and confused) but still needs that love, that company – he walks the sardonic/vulnerable tightrope with enviable skill, dropping down his “my mind” with the ingenious altered chord changes in the second half of the chorus as though challenging you to guess whether he has a mind, as such. As with Bernard Sumner, Tennant’s “soul” is latent and inherent in his vocal uncertainty; unable and indeed unwilling to emulate the howls, screams and other “soulcialist” memes deemed necessary to signify Soul Passion And Honesty (and predictably the Pet Shop Boys turned out to be more genuinely socialist than most of the “real” acts of the time), Tennant derives his vocal style from the unlikely sources of Donovan, Al Stewart and Jonathan King – verging on the deadpan but never less than tactile and, when he needs to be, extremely moving.
But the little addendum incorporated into the final, most minute seconds of the record’s fadeout is one of the most chilling endings to any pop single; Tennant, strolling out of sight at the far end of the horizon, turning back briefly and saying, “Maybe I didn’t love you.” The portrait of the thrusting Thatcherkid too busy greedily sizing up his bonuses and stuffing himself with cold trinkets signifying nothing (see the song “Shopping”) that not only didn’t he have the time to say and do all those “little things,” but that he viewed the concept of “little things” with near-inexpressible contempt. Five years later, burned out in his bedsit, he suddenly wonders when the sun stopped shining in those now lonely, lonely times.
I actually have a theory about this song and this reading of it, which I may commit to pixels at some point. For now I will just say that TV’s (and LaRoux’s dad) Joss Ackland doesn’t half ruin the video for me with his rubberised hamminess. And don’t the PSB’s look young! Blimes, as the yoof of today say.
I have to agree with the less enthusiastic posters – this really did nothing for me – it sounded disrespectful, both of Elvis and of the song itself. The PSBs didn’t do much for me overall – I could appreciate/admire what they were doing without actually liking much of it – to my mind Tanya pretty much sussed them, and I can’t help thinking that Tom maybe painted himself into a corner and had to give this a 10, which is quite frankly, a joke. If he’s going to maintain any sort of consistency, there are a hell of a lot of 10s to come (and a hell of a lot of re-rating previous entries)!
(The?) One other highlight from the Elvis 10 year anniversary special was the Blow Monkeys surprisingly sprightly take of “Follow That Dream” – I don’t think they ever recorded it, but maybe one of you knows better?
They certainly did; it’s on the superb NME compilation The Last Temptation Of Elvis.
Thanks MC
Something which occurred to me, reading this thread, is that we’re maybe not quite there yet but we’re on the cusp of the period now where the canon of pop singles starts to break down a bit. Through the 60s – and even more so in the 70s and early-mid 80s – there are quite a few singles which are consensus classics, ‘natural 10s’ (even if they didn’t actually GET a 10).
There are consensus-classic-singles from the 90s too but fewer of them got to #1, and the value of the stuff that did get to #1 is more in dispute, not settled yet. So I expect future threads where I give 10s to be more controversial. (To be honest I’m delighted so many people really love AOMM – I thought I was uncommon in thinking it’s a major PSB single)
(This is a Good Thing from my perspective – giving something a 10 and having people say WTF is more interesting than the dispiriting feeling of being chided for not loving an 8 or a 9 enough… ;))
Just a brief mention for FTONY…I think it’s another song that polarises opinion, chiefly because it’s either:
i) a very finely crafted xmas song with just the right amount of seasonal pathos and humour. More importantly, it’s NOT by Shakin’ Stevens.
OR
ii) a complete sellout, an acknowledgment of seasonal commerciality and the need to cash in, betraying the punk/socialist ethos by suckling upon Thatcher’s capitalist teat. If I hear it one more time from November onwards, I’ll smash my radio.
One of the things that really gained momentum in the 00s – culminating in last year’s Xmas No.1, though it was building before Cowell got anywhere near the festive season – was a desire for “alternative” records to do well at Xmastime, and “Fairytale” has become enshrined as a kind of ultimate alternative Xmas record, while also having entered the traditional canon. It’s probably more popular now than Slade quite frankly.
@32 that’s a good point and something I hadn’t quite realised – despite the ’90s being the decade I grew up in and which shaped my love of pop music, there are surprisingly few No 1s I’d unhesitatingly give 10 to (only around 12 over the whole decade, and bear in mind how MANY No 1s there were towards the end of it), and I wouldn’t really call any of them “canonical” in the same way as some of the ones we’ve had (and of those 12, I’d only bet on one or two getting a 10 from Tom). (Obviously they SHOULD BE canonical.)
Though looking ahead there were actually of REALLY AWFUL No 1s in the ’90s – how I grew to love pop music despite the surfeit of shite is a mystery in retrospect.
@35 it’s quite interesting that since the download chart was incorporated, the two old Xmas records to unfailingly chart highest every year are “Fairytale” and “All I Want For Christmas Is You” – the former actively sets itself up as an “alternative Xmas” but the latter is oddly both trad and non-trad at the same time: it reels off every possible traditional Xmas association, but actually rejects them all; and while it sounds so much like a non-alternative ’60s Xmas standard that most people still think it’s a cover, it’s an original self-penned track that makes as much sense in Mariah’s personal canon.
Yes, I’d definitely agree with that. Can’t stand “FTONY” but then in my view the Pogues are the most overrated group in the history of pop.
One of the curious things about Fairytale vs Always is that it’s routinely mentioned as a controversial “denial of number one” scenario but you have to look quite hard online to find anyone who actually seems very upset by it or writes like it’s a safe assumption that the Pogues song is better than the Pets one – unlike Dolce v Ultravox or “Common People” v [NOT SAFE FOR BUNNY]. In fact the only person who seems cross about it is Shane “faggots with synths” McGowan.
#27 A rare opportunity to pull you up on the facts Marcello, Clause 28 wasn’t presented to The Commons until December 1987 the PSB’s could not have been writing about it in the summer.
I think “It Couldn’t Happen Here ” (not their best song) is more generally about the breakdown of the post-war Keynesian consensus. We’ll find out in a couple of days whether we’re heading back to that particular wasteland.
If Dolce v Ultravox is top of the Premier League of “denied” #1’s, then Pets v Pogues is in the League 2 relegation dogfight area. I don’t recall any major murmurings in ’87 either.
Count me among the doubters too. I think if the PSB version had been the original we’d find the same things to admire in it that we always admire – the sweet if diffident voice, the synth and rhythm making the whole thing pretty overwhelming, the scale etc – but if we’d then have heard Elvis’s as a cover version we’d have thought he’d found a whole new dimension to the song and that the more powerful vocal suited the sentiment perfectly. So I’m not at all saying it’s a bad record, just not as good as the original and I was on the Pogues’ side in that particular Christmas battle. (I misremembered slightly and thought that there’d been two great songs about the Celtic diaspora in that Christmas top five, but looking it up I see the Proclaimers’ “Letter From America” made number 3 at the end of November.)
Re whether Fairytale will ever be a Christmas number one in its own right, I think if it was going to do so it would have been in 2005 at the time of the publicity boost for the Justice for Kirsty campaign, which sadly has now been wound down.
re #39 – agreed, this was a cracking chart battle between two worthy contenders, of which I happened to prefer “Fairytale” – not a “classic v crap” encounter! Looking back to the last week of T’Pau’s reign, that was a battle and a half – Rick Astley’s “When I Fall In Love” in at 2 and Jacko’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” up from 16 to 3, with the PSBs in at four. The Pets won out and then held off all competition in Christmas week.
Re: 41 Top of the denied number league is still Strawberry Fields vs Release Me, surely?
TOTPWatch: Pet Shop Boys twice performed Always On My Mind on Top Of The Pops;
10 December 1987. Also in the studio that week were; Rick Astley, Johnny Hates Jazz and Alison Moyet. Mike Smith was the host.
25 December 1987. Also in the studio that week were; The Bee Gees, Rick Astley, T’Pau and Johnny Hates Jazz. Mike Smith & Gary Davies were the hosts.
Re: 43, as I recall Astley was expected to progress to number one, but was denied when the original was re-released the next week, splitting his target constituency.
Some of Elvis’s best records stalled at UK #2:
(The wonderfully psychotic/suicidal) Heartbreak Hotel shafted by Pat Boone’s I’ll be home.
(One of the greatest double A-sides) Hound Dog/Don’t be Cruel shafted by Frankie Laine’s A woman in Love
Those are both dolce/ultravox, bunny/pulp -level pop injustices I reckon (Tom scored both of elvis’s nemeses as 2).
Release me holding out PL/SFF isn’t quite as bad as any of these I reckon because Release me doesn’t strike me as completely horrible. I’m not a fan of AOMM but it’s certainly no stinker either. Of course, if you think AOMM is a ’10’ then the FtoNY case may be most analogous to The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows being shut out by Eleanor Rigby.
some unhelpful facts about “Always on My mind’
Aside from those mentioned I’ve found 28 — possibly 29 — other covers, mostly country-ish, some jazz, a handful of reggae (Dennis Brown’s probably the best known), and one that’s a kind of electro-jazz vocoder intrumental that may not be a cover at all (Xaver Fischer Trio come on down). The only foax to go the PSB route arrangementwise seem to be — slightly astonishingly but rather effectively — the Shadows.
What I also found out is that “Always on My Mind’ (or some near variant of) is a VERY popular title-type: I’ve found more than 20 other distinct songs with something like this title (though some may be covers of each other, I got a bit muddled checking, esp.re the disco remixes and mash-ups). The one i most wanted to be our AoMM was Eek-A-Mouse’s, though his is excellent as you’d expect. Possibly my favourite is actually probably called “Always on my Own” sung by Cornell Campbell, which begins “I’m a lonely soldier, yes! Gosh!”
Hello from a newcomer. I’ve been reading through all the number ones from the start for a couple of weeks, and have finally caught up – and it seems an appropriate moment, as I absolutely loved AOMM at the time. I would have given it a 10 back then – I’ve given it a 9 now, as I now find it a little OTT.
God Only Knows v Eleanor Rigby is indeed a battle worthy of toppling Dolce v Ultravox, most notably for the quality of both songs, but as I was a mere babe in arms at that time it was off my pop radar.