The band Hotlegs was a kind of precursor to 10cc. The trio who recorded this (Eric Stewart, Lol Crème and Kevin Godley) all went on to be in that group as did Graham Gouldman who was a member of Hotlegs but unable to play on this for contractual reasons.
Hotlegs: Neanderthal Man
In looking the above video up I came across this recording of the song for one of those compilation albums of knock-off versions of recent hits. The singer here?
Another Graham Gouldman composition; but this one was most definitely a hit – for the almost anodyne Herman’s Hermits. In the US, where the Hermits had huge success, it was only released as a B-side but in the UK it reached no. 7 in 1966.
No Milk Today is lyrically very curious as a pop song, what with its emphasis on the down side of life. It has a very British feel to it, though, with its evocation of the daily morning delivery and terraced housing, “just two up, two down.” Nowadays the line, “the company was gay,” is likely to be read differently from back then!
For some reason I really like the bells in the “but all that’s left” sections of this.
Herman’s Hermits: No Milk Today
It seems the Hermits also recorded a version of Tallyman (see last week’s post) but it was never released, being thought not commercial enough by the group’s producer Mickie Most. This is a version they recorded in a BBC session. It’s introduced by the voice of Radio 2’s Sounds of the Sixties, Brian Matthew.
I mentioned when I began this category that The Jeff Beck Group’s Hi-Ho Silver Lining had been the runner-up in the competition which started off these musings.
Tallyman was The Jeff Beck Group’s follow-up single and as far as I recall failed to trouble the charts in any way and as a result is much less known these days than its predecessor. Tallyman has the distinction of being written by Graham Gouldman who composed 60s hits for among others The Yardbirds and The Hollies. Gouldman is now more famous for being a member of 10cc.
