September songs, part five

This entry covers the top ten songs of September 1968, based on a cumulative ranking of each song that hit the top ten that month (10 points for a #1 ranking, 9 points for #2, etc.). 

SEPTEMBER 1968

1. PEOPLE GOT TO BE FREE – Rascals
2. HARPER VALLEY PTA – Jeannie C. Riley
3. LIGHT MY FIRE – Jose Feliciano
4. 1, 2, 3 RED LIGHT – 1910 Fruitgum Company
5. BORN TO BE WILD – Steppenwolf
6. HEY JUDE – Beatles
7. HUSH – Deep Purple
8. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT – Aretha Franklin
9. FOOL ON THE HILL – Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘66
10. HELLO I LOVE YOU – Doors 

There was something for everyone on the charts in 1968. Don’t care for the samba of Fool On the Hill when it came on the radio? Sit tight and chances are Deep Purple’s Hush would follow right after it. If you’re someone who needs to categorize into genres, the September top ten offers uplifting blue-eyed soul, a country story-song, flowing easy listening, horny pre-teen bubblegum and biker rock, and that’s just the first five songs. Not to mention three cover versions as well.

Hey Jude entered the charts on Sept. 14 at #10, then settled into the top spot for nine weeks – from the end of summer to Thanksgiving. This was a record with a buzz: the Beatles’ first release on their own label, Apple Records; more than seven minutes long (in the context of 1968, 15 seconds less than MacArthur Park); and word that during the long fadeout Paul utters either “bloody hell” or “fucking hell” when he hits a bum note on the piano. (With headphones, you can only make out “hell”). 

This was the first year that albums outsold singles, 192 million to 187 million, leaving record companies to release singles that did little on the charts since everybody bought the album. For this month, here’s what could be found on Billboard’s Hot 100: Deep Purple’s Hush, Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love, the Who’s Magic Bus, Moody Blues’ Tuesday Afternoon, the Stones’ Street Fighting Man, Chamber Brothers’ Time Has Come Today, Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Big Brother’s Piece of My Heart, Vanilla Fudge’s You Keep Me Hangin’ On and Jimi Hendrix’ All Along the Watchtower. If you play the longer album versions of Iron Butterfly and the Chambers Brothers, that’s a solid two hours of programming on any classic rock station. 

Maybe the only time the producers of Mad Men slipped up with the soundtrack was in an episode that took place in 1968. Don Draper and few others from the agency visit a hip Hollywood party where Don gets zonked smoking hash and the music playing during the party is … Harper Valley PTA? Unless, of course, the idea was to draw a subtle parallel between the private lives of the employees of Cooper Sterling and the citizens of Harper Valley.

September songs, part four

This entry covers the top ten songs of September 1967, based on a cumulative ranking of each song that hit the top ten that month (10 points for a #1 ranking, 9 points for #2, etc.). 

SEPTEMBER 1967

1. ODE TO BILLIE JOE – Bobbi Gentry
2. REFLECTIONS – Supremes
3. COME BACK WHEN YOU GROW UP – Bobby Vee
4. THE LETTER – Box Tops
5. BABY I LOVE YOU – Aretha Franklin
6. APPLES, PEACHES, PUMPKIN PIE – Jay & the Techniques
7. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE – Beatles
8. YOU’RE MY EVERYTHING – Temptations
9. NEVER MY LOVE – Association
10. LIGHT MY FIRE – Doors 

The soundtrack to the Summer of Love was relatively brief, starting with Sgt. Pepper in June, moving on to the singles chart with “San Francisco” and “White Rabbit” in July and ending with “All You Need Is Love” hitting the #1 spot in mid-August. While a number of groups spent the summer plotting their own Pepper statement, the records that filled the gap were mostly anything but journeys to the center of the mind. 

“Ode to Billie Joe” still feels unique, Americana before there was a name for it. Summer in Mississippi, nowhere to hide from the heat and humidity, and nowhere to hide secrets either. Its rise was impressive, entering the charts on August 5 at #71, jumping to #21 the following week, then #7 before taking the #1 spot for four weeks. 

Motown was in a slump this summer, with only Stevie Wonder’s raw (and very un-Motown like) “I Was Made to Love Her” hitting the top ten. “Reflections” helped redeem the quarter for Motown, after its producers tagged on that electronic whooping noise to accompany the high school sophomore metaphors (“Through the mirror of my mind” and “As I peer through the window of lost time”). “Reflections” rose up Billboard’s ranks in a rush, #61, #20, #8, then the #2 spot for three weeks behind “Billie Joe.” 

Trading horns for strings and Aretha for Diana, “Baby I Love You” was Southern soul, the antithesis of Motown. Recorded during the same session as “Chain of Fools,” the funky guitar on “Baby” may be the work of Joe South, who would have a couple of hits later with “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” and “Games People Play.” 

There wasn’t anything necessarily psychedelic about “Light My Fire,” save the circular keyboard riff and the extended instrumental break on the album, edited down to just a few notes for the single. If you haven’t listened to it in a while, the single still packs a punch, although its overall effect has been weakened from decades of overplay on rock radio and that the phrase “light my fire” has been reduced to tacky lounge lizard innuendo. 

 September songs, part three 

The look at the hits of September from 1964 to 1968 continues. 

SEPTEMBER 1966

1. YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE – Supremes
2. SUNSHINE SUPERMAN – Donovan
3. YELLOW SUBMARINE – Beatles
4. SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER – Happenings
5. CHERISH – Association
6. SUMMER IN THE CITY – Lovin’ Spoonful
7. BUS STOP – Hollies
8. LAND OF A 1,000 DANCES – Wilson Pickett
9. SUNNY – Bobby Hebb
10. WORKIN’ IN A COAL MINE – Lee Dorsey 

Of the September songs from 1964 to 1968, this year feels like the weakest. The number one record, “You Can’t Hurry Love,” doesn’t seem all that special today, it’s best feature being its trademark Motown bass line. Otherwise, it’s not unlike the faceless and formulaic “I Hear A Symphony” and “My World Is Empty,” two other Supremes’ songs from around the same time. 

“Summer in the City” is the gem of this top ten, on its way down after sitting at #1 for three weeks in August. Wikipedia says it was released on July 4, 1966, but that seems doubtful. Fittingly, the summer of 1966 was brutal on the East Coast, as New York City recorded a mean daily temperature of 90.3 degrees for July, with a high of 101. The temperature hit 100 four times that summer, still the second-hottest on record. In those golden years before air conditioning became ubiquitous, 2,250 deaths were attributed to the heatwave. 

There’s much to like about “Summer in the City”: The crashing immediacy of John Sebastian’s voice coming out of the blocks as soon as the needle hits the groove. The key line “But at night it’s a different world.” The reference to the Drifters’ “Up on the Roof” in the lyrics. The jazzy piano riff that forms the bridge and plays over the sound of car horns and jackhammers. The racket of guitars and drums – like a summer thunderstorm – before the fadeout. 

“Summer in the City” was the Spoonful’s only number one record, and pretty much their swan song. That May, two members of the band were arrested in California for marijuana possession. Faced with jail and, in the case of Canadian guitarist Zal Yanovsky, deportation, they were coerced into giving the police the name of their source, something nobody did back then. Underground newspapers vilified them, theatres wouldn’t book them and their career was essentially over. 

“Workin’ in a Coal Mine” was mostly a complaint about having to wake up early each morning., leaving the singer exhausted by the time the weekend rolled around. One year later, the Bee Gees would score a Top 20 hit with “New York Mining Disaster, 1941,” about the last moments of a group of miners after the mineshaft they’re working has fallen down around them. Getting up before 5 a.m. didn't seem so bad compared to that.

 

September songs, part two 

Moving forward with the Top 40 music of September 1964 through 1968: 

SEPTEMBER 1965

1.  HELP – Beatles
2.  LIKE A ROLLING STONE – Bob Dylan
3. EVE OF DESTRUCTION – Barry McGuire
4.  YOU WERE ON MY MIND – We Five
5.  CALIFORNIA GIRLS – Beach Boys
6.  HANG ON SLOOPY – McCoys
7.  CATCH US IF YOU CAN – Dave Clark Five
8.  UNCHAINED MELODY – Righteous Brothers
9.  THE IN CROWD – Ramsey Lewis Trio
10.  I GOT YOU BABE – Sonny & Cher 

This was a burst of unprecedented creativity. The evolution of lyrics and abstract concepts, compared to one year ago, is mind-boggling. 

In twelve months, we’ve moved from “I like bread and butter/I like toast and jam” to the line often trotted out to represent the Beatles’ growth as artists, “My independence seems to vanish in the haze.”

The words to “Hang On Sloopy” weren’t exactly Cole Porter, and there always has to be some silliness on the charts, but “Like A Rolling Stone” was, to an 11-year old listening to the radio, impenetrable, a rhyming alphabet soup that you couldn’t stick a spoon in. But it sure sounded cool. 

“Eve of Destruction” was too specific to 1965 to age well, but its lyrics beamed a light of global awareness to kids who weren’t exposed to the news much, save the hourly three-minute headline broadcasts on Top 40 radio. (And taking the song’s title literally, the Doomsday Clock read 11:48 in 1965. Today it’s at 11:58).

Taking in this sudden literary curriculum was like discovering the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man on the newsstands after reading Superman and Jimmy Olsen through much of your childhood. 

The Ramsey Lewis Trio’s version of the “The In Crowd” was the epitome of cool and the second popular jazz number to make the Billboard Top Ten, preceded the year before by “The Girl From Ipanema” at #5. Before that, Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” – two years before he scored A Charlie Brown Christmas – went to #22 in 1963, and “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck hit #25 in 1961. “The In Crowd” album won Lewis, who died earlier this month, the 1965 Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. 

Finally, there’s the troubled “California Girls,” the first 45 I ever bought. Brian Wilson wrote the music at his piano, coming down off his first acid trip and playing over-and-over the same four notes that would eventually form the foundation for “California Girls.” 

It is a record that has had to overcome 1) Mike Love’s ogling lyrics; 2) an embarrassing 1985 cover and accompanying video by the clownish David Lee Roth; and 3) deejays talking over the song’s unrelated-yet-connected 22-second instrumental introduction -- almost an overture -- that set the stage for Pet Sounds, which would come out the following year. 

The brief introduction was unlike anything heard before in a pop song and Wilson later said, “I'm still really proud of that. It has a classical feel.” It also served notice that things were changing and that many of the old rules about making records were quickly falling away.  

 

September songs, part one 

Maybe because it was viewed through the carefree lens of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of soda and pretzels and beer, I always had it in my head that the Top 40s of June, July and August, 1964 to 1968 – the five greatest years of pop music – were somehow better, more magical, than any other time of the year. (And I should add that while soda or pretzels were always welcome, I never touched a beer during those five years). 

There are plenty of fantastic summer songs during that time: “Light My Fire,” “I Get Around,” “Satisfaction,” “Respect.” But as summer began its inevitable creep toward autumn, there’s a lot to be said about the music that charted during September. Based on a cumulative ranking of each song that hit the top ten in September 1964 (10 points for a #1 ranking, 9 points for #2, etc.) is this list: 

1. HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN – Animals
2. WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO – Supremes
3. BREAD AND BUTTER – Newbeats
4. EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY – Dean Martin
5. LITTLE GTO – Ronnie and the Daytonas
6. OH PRETTY WOMAN – Roy Orbison
7. BECAUSE – Dave Clark Five
8. REMEMBER (Walkin’ in the Sand) – Shangri-Las
9. C’MON AND SWIM – Bobby Freeman
10. DO WAH DIDDY – Manfred Mann 

Any exercise like this unearths some bummers, but with one or two exceptions, overall this ain’t all that bad.

The Animals were #1 for three weeks that month, before giving way to Roy Orbison. A rearranged traditional folk song about a New Orleans brothel, “House of the Rising Sun” was recorded by Lead Belly, Bob Dylan and Andy Griffith (!), among many others, before the Animals. 

The Animals' version defied Top 40 conventions because it didn't have a chorus, only an extended organ break by keyboardist Alan Price. Keep that name in mind. On a traditional song, whoever arranges it takes the songwriting credit. In a Spinal Tap moment, the arranging credit went only to Price. There wasn’t enough room to list all five band members on the record label, and since Alan Price was first alphabetically – well yeah, if you’re one of the few who list alphabetically by first name – he received all the royalties. Needless to say, it was an oversight that caused a lot of tension within the band. 

Throughout the 60s, there were records whose rise to the top seemed completely propelled by adults buying 45s. Like “Strangers in the Night,” “Cab Driver” and “Everybody Loves Somebody,” which went to #1 for a week in early August, knocking “A Hard Day’s Night” off the throne. It was still in the top ten in September. Dino took this one literally to the grave: “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime” is inscribed on his burial vault. 

“Remember” was the first in a modest string of moody, psychodramas for the street-tough yet vulnerable Shangri-Las, four teenagers from Queens. A good part of their look and overall vibe was attitude, and the pre-teen me would watch them on Clay Cole and be reminded of the high school girls you’d see shopping for make-up at Woolworth’s on Saturday, chewing gum and wearing their boyfriend’s blue and gold letter jackets. 

September ’65 next.