The Branch Manager at my workplace had the thought that we workers weren’t having enough fun (thank you David Brent) and came up with the glorious idea of having a competition. We were to name our favourite 1960s hit – that is no purely album tracks were allowed – and pay £1 for the privilege of entering it.* A committee was formed to adjudicate the results. The winner was announced and played over the tannoy – wait for it – after work on the day we broke up for Easter. Some fun!

Runner-up was the now ubiquitous but at the time relatively ignored Hi-Ho Silver Lining as by The Jeff Beck Group. It came second to Daydream Believer by the Monkees. You’ll have guessed I wasn’t on the committee. I will admit to a softish spot for the Monkees but Daydream Believer is a bit twee.

Anyway this all got me to thinking which song I would have considered. I soon realised that choosing just one is impossible but if I had to it would probably be Rupert’s People’s Reflections of Charles Brown but really it depends on the mood I’m in.

I’ve already featured a lot of 1960s songs here and any of them could have been contenders. So pick one from Rainbow Chaser, Tiny Goddess or Pentecost Hotel by the true Nirvana, the real Nirvana (see my category and scroll down.)
Or there’s America by The Nice, with which I started off my prog rock musings, plus their The Diamond Hard Blue Apples Of The Moon – even if it was a B-side – and The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack,
The Electric Prunes’ I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night and Get Me To The World On Time (both here,)
The Small Faces’ Tin Soldier,
The Who’s I’m A Boy,
Python Lee Jackson’s In A Broken Dream,
Procol Harum’s Homburg,
R Dean Taylor’s Gotta See Jane and Indiana Wants Me.
I would also have included Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues if it hadn’t been turned into a cliché by excessive re-releasing and overplay.

That’s most, but not all, of the 1960s songs I’ve mentioned before.

But there is a host more, of which I have fond memories and which I might have chosen.

So to start what may be a regular series this is The Easybeats and Friday On My Mind.

*Edited to add:- The money collected was to be split two to one between the respective submitters of the winner and the runner-up.

What was it with sixties/seventies song writers and murderers?

The Green, Green Grass Of Home and the Bee Gees’ Gotta Get A Message To You both feature convicts on Death Row and R Dean Taylor’s Indiana Wants Me, someone on the run. Another song occupying this territory is Elton John’s Have Mercy On The Criminal from the Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album but in that one it’s not clear whether the convict is a murderer or not.

(There are bound to be more examples of this sort of thing but I can’t bring them to mind at the moment.)

Is it just a cheap shot at sentimentality like the use of motor cycle accidents in Twinkle’s Terry and the Shangri-Las’ Leader Of The Pack?

Indiana Wants Me in particular has a shocking first line; by which I do not mean it’s a bad line – on the contrary, it’s a very good first line** – but that the sentiment it expresses is reprehensible; one which no-one ought to think, still less act on.

R Dean Taylor did go in for sound effects, though, didn’t he? There were the tyres in Gotta See Jane, and listen to the howl of the sirens in this one.

R Dean Taylor: Indiana Wants Me

**It was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines.

Something about the Electric Prunes’ I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night reminded me of R Dean Taylor.

His classic Gotta See Jane starts (after the tyre screeching) with a bass line that sounds similar to Dream‘s.
There is also some Beatle-like cello after the first two “Gotta See Jane”s, and with the second pair the song gets into its stride by developing a driving beat (pun surely intended.)

The three high notes (which he seems to strain for a bit) at 1 min 38 seconds in, 10 seconds later and at 2 min 30, emphasise the desperation expressed by the lyric.

It all gets very Eleanor Rigby indeed in the instrumental middle passage.

It’s a somewhat literal video but: enjoy.

R Dean Taylor: Gotta See Jane