I’m on record saying that the Crystals Da Doo Ron Ron is Rock’s Greatest Song.
Maybe I need to elaborate. A perfect rock song needs to be simple, needs to be about sex, needs to allude to sex, needs to sustain the big beat.
What I like about the Crystals’ version is the epic sound, courtesy of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.
What I love about the Searcher’s version is that the play and sexual innuendo persist, I think because that’s a part of the song.
Rock’s Greatest Song? Geez. Funny list of qualifications you list too. My list would start with “grabs you by the balls” and I think Henry’s “makes you want to fuck on the floor and break things” is a good finisher. Give me Search & Destroy.
I think you missed my point royally.
The Crystals’ version of the song grabs you by the balls and the whole fucking on the floor and breaking things. Henry would surely agree.
The Searchers are like the early Beatles, about something much more polite but just as, um, searching. But the primal quality of Da Doo Ron Ron persists despite the jangly guitars.
Great song, and so is Search and Destroy.
No version of Da Doo Ron Ron does any of that stuff for me and I’d not be so confident about Henry either. Let’s make that the first question we ask him next time either of us meets up with Mr. Rollins.
Primal to me is Mike Salfino telling me a few years ago that, whenever Kick Out The Jams came up on his I-whatever (shuffled, of course – ugh) his son, who was a little kid at the time, instantly started running around the room uncontrollably. That’s primal. That’s rock ‘n’ roll.
When the Crystals version of Da Doo Ron Ron comes on, if I’m not prepared, my tongue slides out of my mouth, my hips twitch and then they pump, and if sex isn’t immediately available a burger better be. That’s primal to me.
Same thing happens with Kick Out the Jams, except I’ve never been with a gal who wanted to do it while the MC5 was playing.
I’ll have to comb the jukebox at Pig & Whistle before we go in for beers this year. I know what you mean about Kick Out The Jams. I’m still looking.
I think this is another age kind of thing. I totally understand what Peter means. I love Da Doo Ron Ron (although “He’s a Rebel” is my fave Phil Spector tune, a song Gene Pitney penned).
I think without Spector, Search and Destroy has a harder time finding daylight.
And, I was also a huge Searchers fan. The link being they also did Sonny Bono’s “Needles and Pins” (Bono, along with Herb Alpert and Jack Nietszche were Spector proteges).
As previously noted, Strictly Olga does “When You Walk in the Room,” a killer Searchers cut (that one penned by Jackie DeShannon).
Either way, great choice here Peter.
I forgot that Needles and Pins was Sonny Bono!