Nik Cohn’s AwopBopaLooBopaLopBamBoom is the best book on Sixties pop, it makes everything else seem like marginalia. He’s almost always right, so I only ever open it when I’m stumped by a record. And “House Of The Rising Sun&#[…]

The last few number ones have often seemed like throwbacks – records not as sharply of their time as “I Want To Hold Your Hand” or “Glad All Over”, records that would have fitted contentedly into 1959 or ’60. That […]

It’s less irksome to hear the full-bore Cilla treatment given to a song you don’t know from subtler versions – and besides, she has competition here from a particularly piercing string arrangement. But even so my heart sinks as the […]

Genteel, repetitive ballad whose soft, trained vocals and precise lyrics (“reminiscent of you”) initially seem to drape the record in a smothering courtliness. Repeated listens make “Juliet” seem no less quaint, but its charm […]

Love’s a funny thing. A catch-all ingredient for pop songs – particularly these pop songs, at this time – the word can stand for anything from a pang of mild yearning to physical passion to an all-encompassing mystical force. This s[…]

The Beatles fallout continues: Peter here is Paul McCartney’s girlfriend’s brother. Gordon is Peter’s schoolfriend. Public schoolfriend, which makes this record a touchstone of social flux for some – the class system dissolvin[…]

“I don’t care too much for money”, they sing sweetly as they conquer the world. By accident or design, this feels like a slight nod backwards for The Beatles – a solid, skiffley strumalong married to some earthy good sense (wa[…]

It’s fair to say time hasn’t smiled on this record. The first verse sets up the singer as a dirty old man – keep the secret, don’t tell on me, etc. But then comes the twist – he’s a teenager trying to cop off with […]

“Anyone who had a heart would love me too”. When Cilla Black sings it, this is not a request. Dynamic to be sure, but this song requires its singer not to lose the vulnerability when they turn up the volume, and Cilla never pulls that off[…]

An unwitting example of how quickly things change, the cod-country yokelry of “Diane” would have blended perfectly into 1962’s list of No.1s, but now seems quaint and entirely out of place. Innocuous enough, though, even charming if[…]