Talk to me about daisies and I’m likely to respond with “I’ll Give You A Daisy A Day”… that was the title line of a song by a man called Jud Strunk in the early Seventies (1973 to be precise).
It’s a simple love song about a couple together from childhood to old age and beyond:
I’ll give you a daisy a day, dear
I’ll give you a daisy a day
I’ll love you until
The rivers run still
And the four winds we know blow away
(Didn’t even have to look that one up…)
Jud Strunk, who was mainly known for humorous songs like “She’s Got The Biggest Parakeets In Town”, died in 1981 at only 45.
His legacy is this simple song “Daisy A Day” with its simple message:
In 1973 Dobie Gray sang the most popular version of “Drift Away”, sometimes known as “Give Me The Beat, Boys”, which had originally been recorded a year earlier, and has since become a classic ending song for concerts.
He took it to Number 5 in the USA, though it didn’t enter the charts in the UK.
To be honest, I had never heard of Dobie Gray until just now (at least not consciously), but I’ve heard the song “Drift Away” probably hundreds of times!
In fact I would go so far as to say this song is an icon of modern music.
This is Dobie Gray singing “Drift Away” live on the BBC in 1974:
And here he is singing “Drift Away” nearly 20 years later, in 1992:
Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock’n’roll and drift away…
Although initially written and released on his second album in 1969, “Streets Of London” by Ralph McTell came out as a single in the UK in 1974, having earlier been successfully launched as a single in the Netherlands.
I remember when I flew into Britain for the first time a week before Christmas in 1977, when I was not quite 20, this song was in my head as we circled over London before landing – and as I descended the steps from the plane onto the tarmac (maybe it was concrete, who cares…).
And again the next morning as I leaned out the hotel window in the dark before the sun came up (behind clouds, I believe, but I didn’t care – I had returned to the land of my parents that I had dreamed of since childhood).
It came to mind tonight at dinner in a hotel in Bristol with my father, as he talked about having a cup of tea for a pound at London’s Victoria Station.
For that made me think of the old man in “Streets Of London”, and the woman with her carrier bags.
I had come across them at Victoria Station on a dreary Sunday in late 1980 as I waited in the station cafe for a train to the ferry that would take me back to the Continent.
His name was Mr Golden.
He had nowhere to go – he lived with his son, who had thrown him out, and had no money until his next pension payment.
I bought him a cup of tea – for a pound. And I kept him company as he passed away the time waiting for Monday.
It makes me quite teary eyed now just thinking about it.
As we sat there, the woman from the song with her carrier bags came by.
The whole situation was so surreal, and the irony is that I have just read that Ralph McTell actually based the stories in “Streets Of London” on characters in Paris, although he apparently drew on his hitchhiking and busking experiences in that city as well as London and elsewhere in Europe.
Which reminds me that I also used to see them in Frankfurt when I lived and worked there, the “old girl” in particular, with her carrier bags.
“Streets Of London” went to Number 2 on the UK singles chart over Christmas in 1974, at one point selling 90,000 copies a day.
Later I learned to play it on the guitar.
Although meanwhile covered over 200 times, the song became so closely identified with Ralph McTell that there was a sketch on British comedy show Big Train in which he plays “Streets Of London” and then attempts to perform “a new song”.
After expressions of shock and disbelief in the audience, who cannot conceive that Ralph McTell could play any other song, they force him (or rather the actor playing him) to segue into “Streets Of London” yet again.
So here it is, Ralph McTell with “Streets Of London”:
Does that take you in your mind to the streets of London?
Englishman Mike Oldfield released “Tubular Bells” in 1973 – the album was the first venture of Richard Branson’s new record label Virgin Records.
The instrumental achieved particular fame when it was used as the theme of the movie “The Exorcist”.
The album “Tubular Bells”, on which Mike Oldfield played over twenty different instruments, quickly entered the Top Ten of the UK album chart.
It’s follow-up, “Hergest Ridge” (of which I have a copy), went to No. 1 for three weeks, before it was displaced by “Tubular Bells”.
“Tubular Bells” was re-recorded by Oldfield, in 1992, 1998 and again in 2003.
Here is the shorter version of “Tubular Bells” used in “The Exorcist”:
And this is one of a number of live recordings of the longer version, here divided into three parts (you’ll need a bit of patience if you want to listen to these…):
“Tubular Bells” live, Part 1:
“Tubular Bells” live, Part 2:
“Tubular Bells” live, Part 3:
If you’ve listened to all of these you’ll now likely be very relaxed….. or asleep…
For some reason I just recalled “Spiders And Snakes” by comedian and musician Jim Stafford, which reached Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1974.
Not that I remembered that, but a little research goes a long way….
In fact at first I just remembered the line “I don’t like spiders and snakes but that ain’t what it takes to love me like I wanna be loved by you”.
Some things just stick in your mind :-).
Then I found that it was sung by Jim Stafford, and the name was instantly familiar.
So here’s “Spiders And Snakes”:
The previous year, i.e. 1973, he had a chart hit with “Swamp Witch”, another familiar title, which was produced by his friend Kent LaVoie, otherwise known as Lobo:
And in 1975 “Wildwood Weed” peaked at Number 7:
A year later Jim Stafford reached the Top 40 with a song in a similar vein, “I Got Stoned And I Missed It”:
