Week ending: 10th December
Two new faces this week, neither of which I've heard of at all - not even in a vaguely familiar "heard the name" way. That's kind of rare, and as such I'm very excited, especially looking at the names of this week's songs - both sound very ridiculous, just off the titles.
Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat - The Avons (peaked at Number 3)
Well, ths is a piece of novelty fluff. You can tell from the intro, even, with its jolly but decidedly silly de-doo-de-dum-dum backing, and the weird quacking sort of noise that accompanies it all. You've also got what sounds like a tambourine, and the whole vibe is real lighthearted.
And then the lyrics come in, and they're great. Our narrator is driving, it seems, and we've got seven little girls, sitting in the back seat / Huggin' and a-kissin' with Fred. This seems amusingly implausible - just from a geometrical / spatial standpoint, I'm very confused as to how seven girls (plus Fred) are going to fit into the back seat of any vehicle. He's either driving some sort of bus, or they're literally sitting on top of each other? Also, seven girls? Just how much of a catch is this Fred?! And how's he keeping seven of them entertained? He's only got two hands! Obviously, it's a joke, but I love how exaggerated it all is. Excellent stuff.
Our narrator, quite understandably, is a bit annoyed by this, and suggests that one of them come up and sit with him - to which the girls reply, seemingly simultaneously, with some weird hive mind, telling him to keep you mind on your driving / Keep you hands on the wheel / Keep your snoopy eyes on the road ahead / We're havin' fun sittin' in the back seat / Kissin' and a-huggin' with Fred. Ouch. That's one way to let a guy down. Though probably for the best, since he's driving, come to think of it.
Anyway, our narrator seems bizarrely not put off by this, and tries to win them over with how well he can drive, telling us all about how he drove through the town, drove through the country / Showed 'em how a motor could go / I said, how do you like my triple carburetor? This, possibly understandably, doesn't impress them much, and so he gives up and suggests he ought to leave. But no, he's the driver, they need him driving, no ditching them. Wish that I could be like Fred, he remarks, glumly, and presumably keeps driving. Poor guy. Though a small part of me does want him to just grow a spine and drive himself home and ditch Fred, who really doesn't sound like he's being the most considerate friend in this situation.
As you may have surmised, it's not the most serious song, and the Avons sell it well, with lots of silly little touches. In particular, I rather like the comically insincere gee, wow noises the female backing singers make towards the end, and the little breathy oh Freddy that precedes them. Very dumb, and not something I'd want much more of than we get, but as a piece of fluff, it's fine.
Tean Beat - Sandy Nelson (9)
This is more like it - a bit more substance, a bit of bite. It's also an instrumental, and more than that, it's a drum instrumental. I don't think we've had one of those yet, and it's a nice change of pace. Sandy Nelson, it turns out, was a session musician on hits, including To Know Him Is to Love Him. So we've already heard him playing, it turns out. He was on a few other hits, and then apparently decided to break out as a solo artist - an unusual move for a drummer, but it worked out for him, and this was the first of a shedload of hits that mostly have some sort of drumming-themed titles.
As such, we start, unsurprisingly, with drums, a thumpy, racing beat. We're joined, in the middle, by a very distorted, overdriven guitar, and some piano, though, so it's not 100% a drum track - Sandy, it seems, drafted some of his session musician friends, with Richard Podolor and Bruce Johnston joining him for this track. Interestingly, both of them are better known later on as producers in their own rights, and for working with other more famous folks later on - we're looking at a real rag-tag bunch of musical folks with a wide range of interesting music industry gigs and side-projects, it seems.
Anyway, after a while, Richard and Bruce drop out, and we're back to Sandy to end with, with a whole long section that basically just shifts between different parts of the drum kit, the pitch changing as he goes from snares to toms, to something bassier. It's great, especially right at the end, as he teases us, stopping short, and pausing, before ending with a decisive final ka-thump. In all of this, we're in the realm of pure rhythm, with very little in the way of melody or tune. You can't get this stuck in your head, you know - it's more of an experience in the moment, a feeling of pace and momentum, all of it recorded in this interestingly echoey way that occasionally means you're just kind of listening to it as an indistinct barrage of sheer noise, more than anything else, the sounds of the individual instruments and different drums blurring together slightly fuzzily.
None of this feels necessarily, fundamentally teenaged. But clearly the "teen" marketing was hot, so Sandy sells us this as a "teen beat", the sort of radically intense music that all the cool kids are dancing to. And honestly, I have no clue if you even can dance to this, but I do think there's a very teenaged attitude to it, a sort of "look at me making as much noise as I can, regardless of whether it actually sounds good" vibe that I can get behind. I'm not going to go so far as to say that this is punk, but I'm not going to say it's not punk, you know? You could head-bang to it, and I imagine it would feel pretty cathartic.
I liked both of these songs, though neither feel like the sort of thing I'd listen to on repeat. Still, one of them was clearly more interesting, just on the basis of it doing things that we haven't really seen before. I mean, a drum solo? I'm not saying that they didn't exist, but they feel like a jazz thing, more than a rock and roll thing. And then here comes Sandy, and sure, it works. It's loud, it's a bit obnoxious, and it's gloriously overhwelming.
Favourite song of the bunch: Teen Beat
