This is the year of Paul Mauriat.
1. Hey Jude, Beatles
2. Love is Blue, Paul Mauriat
3. Honey, Bobby Goldsboro
4. (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding
5. People Got to be Free, The Rascals
6. Sunshine of Your Love, Cream
7. This Guys in Love With You, Herb Alpert
8. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Hugh Montenegro
9. Mrs. Robinson, Simon and Garfunkle
10. Tighten Up, Archie Bell and the Drells
I was 12 and I thought Love is Blue was insipid but pretty. Kind of the same with Honey. Hated Herb Alpert.
The rest of this list is A and B list to THIS day. Soft stuff, not rocking except for Cream, but solid. Real songs, not product.
The question is whether one likes these tunes because they first heard them when they were 12, sleeping outside at night so they could listen to their portable transistor radios without getting scolded or told to go to sleep. Certainly my affection for Honey is sentimental. Really sentimental.
Just looking at the second 10 in 1968: Fun novelty country Harper Valley PTA by Jeannie C. Riley, the weird soul of OC Smith’s Little Green Apples, best heard in Indianapolis, transcendent fun Mony Mony by Tommy James and the Shondells, the Doors Hello I Love You (!), and I’m not afraid to say I loved Young Girl by the Union Gap (though I haven’t thought about it in decades, the fantastic blue-eyed soul of the Box Tops’ Cry Like a Baby, the 5th Dimension’s poppy version of Laura Nyro’s Stoned Soul Picnic, Hugh Masekela’s wonderfully geometric instrumental Grazing in the Grass, the Grass Roots’ best song Midnight Confessions, pure pop rock, and best of all, Sly and the Family Stone’s Dance to the Music.
Young Girl, tonight’s night music I suspect, is the worst of that set, which isn’t even all that soft. Well, not totally.
You meant 1968, I’m sure. Sure beats 2013 to hell.
Fixed.
Sure does.