What If The Beatles Had Entered The Eurovision Song Contest?
What If The Beatles Had Entered The Eurovision Song Contest?
Could the BBC have chosen The Beatles to represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest? When would it have happened? What would they have sung? Would they have won?
Let’s start with the year. Obviously, The Beatles need to have formed, and also obviously it needs to be before they become bigger than Brian Cohen of Nazareth. Which really leaves just one year… 1963.
In that year’s UK …
Well, we're back into the realm of the obscure. Will You Love Me Tomorrow was such a fun little jaunt into well-known territory, but little known tracks and/or well known tracks but by artists you've never heard of feels much more like the standard for this project, and boy howdy do I have two little-known gems for you today.
Are You Sure? - The Allisons (peaked at Number 2)
The title of this one sounds like yet another Adam Faith hit, but it's not. Instead, we've got the Allisons to thank for this track, a pair of British "brothers" who weren't actually related at all. Born Bob Day and John Alford, somebody seems to have basically realised that sibling groups like the Everly Brothers were all the rage, and made the executive decision to market the "Allisons" as relatives. Which is kind of funny. And to make things even better, they picked up two other temporary "Allison brothers" in the 1970s. All of them entirely unrelated to the rest, of course.
They don't seem to have had many hits - their only notable song, indeed, is this one, which was the UK's Eurovision entry for 1961. And it does seem to have done quite well for itself, placing second behind Nous les amoureux, Luxembourg's entry for the year. This isn't bad at all, in Eurovision - nowadays we'd be thrilled to get second place - and even in 1961, with only 16 participants, second was nothing to sniff at. Plus, it forms part of a run that's nothing short of extraordinary - the Allisons were the third consecutive British act to come in second, and there would be two more to come, only for Sandie Shaw to break the pattern with Puppet on a String, which only went and won the whole thing. So yeah, Britain's doing pretty well at Eurovision at the moment, even if we're not outright winning.
So, what are we actually looking at, here? On the surface, it's a pretty standard harmonised number, complete with lots of strings, a strummy guitar line, and lots of little vocal hiccups, like the line where they ask if their love is sure you won't be so-o-rry, / Come tomorrow you won't wa-a-nt me? It's very trendy, and also very clearly inspired by the Everly brothers, with lots of tight, pretty harmonies. But it's also got a few distinctive points. There's a fun echo going on at the start of the verses, for example, and there's also a kind of Latin rhythm going on underneath most of it that keeps it feeling fresh and a little off-kilter. Add in some random one-off woodblock noises, and direct the string players to play in a choppy, random way, and you end up with something that's memorable, for sure - I have no trouble believing that Eurovision audiences came away with a favourable impression of this one. It feels fun, light and pretty catchy.
Catchy enough, in fact, that you can almost overlook just how petty the song sounds. Almost, but not quite. Because boy, this song is a passive aggressive nightmare. The Allisons, you see, have had a break-up. Hence the repeated goodbye, farewell line, as the Allisons regretfully inform you that I'm not sure what to do. Which is fine. Except the next line just reads as sarcastic, as they tell their love so long, au revoir / It's hard but I'll pull through. Mmm. I'm sure. It's hard. But they'll pull through. Somehow. Because you cheated on them, remember. So you know, they're probably better off without you. They'll be fine. And in this light, lines asking are you sure you won't be sorry? come off mostly as a sort of jab. The Allisons will be just fine without you, but will you be alright without them? It's barely subtext, by the middle of the song, with lines straight up informing their love that you'll be sorry, wait and see / Spend your life in misery / Wishing that you had returned to me. Yeouch! Talk about scathing. And all of it wrapped up in this kind of fake, insincere concern. Satisfyingly petty.
Ghost Riders in the Sky - The Ramrods (8)
Okay, so despite what I said in the intro, I do actually know this song. It's a pretty well-known song, after all, a Western song written by one Stan Jones, about a cowboy who, in a deliciously dark turn, sees a herd of ghost cows, their eyes flaming red, stampeding through the skies, being rounded up by a horde of ghost cowboys, the titular "ghost riders". It's a frightening vision, and along with it comes a warning: change your ways, or you too will have to join the ghostly round-up. It's a grim story that Stan claims to have learnt from a Native American in his native Arizona. Combining the lyrics with a tune based vaguely on When Johnny Came Marching Home (another song we've seen on this project) Stan released his own version in 1948, to great acclaim. Pop and crossover versions followed, most notably by Burl Ives, Vaughn Monroe, Bing Crosby and even Peggy Lee. And the covers continue, with the one I actually know being Johnny Cash's 1979 version. So yeah, a well known song.
That said, I'd never heard this one before - hadn't even heard of the Ramrods. Still, it's a Western-influenced song with a badass title released by a band in 1961, so my bets even before hitting play were on this being a guitar instrumental. And yes, upon listening, my suspicions were confirmed - this is indeed an instrumental. And quite a cool one, at that, with lots of twangy bass, simmering saxophone and this insistent, galloping rhythm guitar, mimicking the sound of cattle hooves. There's also, if I'm not mistaken, a cheeky nod to Apache's main guitar line in the finale fade-out, a subtle acknowledgement that yes, this is covering similar ground, galloping along trails already pioneered by the Shadows, as it were.
All of which makes this verson of Ghost Riders sound like something unoriginal, or derivative. Which it very much isn't, but you get the sense that the Ramrods wanted to do something to set themselves apart and make their version memorable. Which possibly explains their decision to dub the whole thing over with weird, eerie sound effects, bringing the story to life with wild cries of hah, and yee-hah, banshee-like wailing, whip cracks and squeaks and, of course, a whole ranch's worth of cow noises. The end result's a lot, and not in a way that necessarily improves the song, though it's certainly distinctive, and brings a menace to the song that I think's appropriate, given the story it's trying to tell - visions don't come much more nightmarish than ghostly, stampeding cattle with eyes of fire, right? So yeah, actually, perhaps the song gets a pass.
I enjoyed both of these songs, though I'm under no illusions that either of them are classics. Both zipped along nicely, both had just enough distinctive points and quirky to make them interesting, and crucially, both were complete unknowns to me. Which I appreciate. I do think that the cow noises were a bit much, though - they're going to haunt my nightmares, at this point. Plus the nod to Apache, while cute, does serve to highlight just how much better the Shadows are at this - there's nothing wrong with Ghost Riders, but comparatively, it just comes off as very rough around the edges, you know? Whereas pretty harmonies are pretty harmonies. So...
