Within Gainsbourg’s career this sounds to me like a stopping point between the sharp pop songs he was writing for himself and others in the 60s and the more drawn-out, high-concept records he made in the 70s: “Je T’Aime”s bass[…]

One of rock’s jauntier doomsdays, a feeling solidified for me by its status of party fixture on my college bar jukebox. Jaunty doesn’t always mean friendly, though. Creedence keep things brisk, lean and simple, and there’s only a t[…]

Science-fiction songs are rare visitors to the mundane world of Earth’s pop charts, and a song that goes beyond sci-fi into a genuinely apocalyptic future vision – a kind of folk-rock Olaf Stapledon! – is more unusual still. Everyth[…]

1969 birthed two of the darker elements of the Stones legend – Brian Jones’ death and Altamont – but as a chart-topping hit “Honky Tonk Women” interrupts a run of strange, doom-laden records[…]

My stock line on songs and adverts is “so what?” A song you like appears in a commercial? Who cares? It doesn’t harm the song, and if it harms your relationship with the song, maybe it wasn’t that strong anyway. Association wi[…]

The Beatles’ last number one is a rum do. Knocked out quickly with half the band absent it’s a postcard from Lennon and Ono’s ’68-’69 peace tour, turning on the repeated chorus suggestion that “the way things are g[…]

 
I’m not a huge fan of late 60s bubblegum in general – though I respect it as a root for a lot of stuff I do love – and “Dizzy” is a puny specimen at any rate. A rewrite of Roe’s earlier (and cuter) “Sweet […]

 
“The Beatles as nature intended”, according to the single’s ad copy. It’s familiar enough now, this back-to-the-roots move: something of a cliche even, in the way bands like Oasis invariably trail their latest album by prom[…]

“Get up in the morning slaving for bread Sir”
The intro to “Israelites” – two chords, and Dekker’s naked voice – is one of the most striking in 60s pop. Taken slower than the rest of the verses it’s a […]

Some of my favourite soul performances go to the ragged-throated extremes of the style – Lorraine Ellison’s apocalyptic “Stay With Me”, for instance. But more of them are like “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”, wh[…]