THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
862) The Knickerbockers — “One Track Mind”
No Lies, the Knickerbockers’ follow-up single “sounds even more like a Beatles recording than its predecessor” (me-n-my45, https://www.45cat.com/record/hlh10013) and “gets even closer to Beatlemania. . . . teeter[ing] on the edge of hysteria, with moptop-shaking harmonies and a killer stop-start Rickenbacker riff that takes its cue from Day Tripper.” (Jon Dennis, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/nov/10/old-music-knickerbockers-lies). It is a “fine Mersey-style rocker featuring a great guitar hook” (Mike Stax, liner notes to the Nuggets CD comp), “a solid ROCKING tune!” (Brandon, http://www.rebeatmag.com/album-the-knickerbockers-the-challenge-recordings/)
George Brandon “env[ies] anybody who got to hear this one on AM radio back in 1966 because it must have sounded spectacular.”(http://www.rebeatmag.com/album-the-knickerbockers-the-challenge-recordings/). Indeed! Anyone who did, let me know!
Had it been up to the band, OTM wouldn’t have been the A-side. Drummer Jimmy Walker explains:
We didn’t want “One Track Mind” to be the follow-up. [Guitarist] Beau [Charles] had written another song called “Just One Girl”[, which] was similar to “Lies”. It was in the same key. It was the same voice, voicing as far as the harmonies went. It was a real exciting song. We thought we did a real good job on the recording of it, but the record company again second-guessing us, put out “One Track Mind”. It was a good song. We did a good job on the record and it did fairly well. I still wonder if “Just One Girl” had been released, had it been better received… That’s what we wanted to do. It had been written by one of the members of the band. We wanted to write our own material. We didn’t want to do other people’s stuff.
http://www.classicbands.com/KnickerbockersInterview.html
Ray McGinnis charts OTM’s fate:
One Track Mind” was a hit in Vancouver that peaked at #6. . . . It climbed to #8 in San Antonio, Texas, but stalled in the upper reaches of the Top 30 or Top 40 where it got any airplay in America. Unfortunately, the Knickerbockers label, Challenge Records, mishandled the distribution for the single. The outcome was “One Track Mind” got stuck at position #45 on the Billboard charts and #52 on the Cashbox Record chart that calculated record sales. With “One Track Mind” and “Lies” rumors were spreading that The Beatles had actually released these two singles under a pseudonym. AM Top 40 radio stations would play a Knickerbockers disc and then play a Beatles disc in the winter of 1965 and spring of 1966 and ask listeners to phone in their comments.
https://vancouversignaturesounds.com/hits/one-track-mind-knickerbockers/
He then takes maybe too deep a dive into the song:
“One Track Mind” is about a guy who is hung up on his ex-girlfriend. She’s all he can think about and he refuses to consider anyone could ever take her place. He’s been crying and won’t believe that she’s actually left him. In fact, he wants those around him to confirm that she hasn’t left him. He wants others to tell him what to do. But it’s likely anyone who knows him, given the state of denial he’s in, knows he only wants to be reassured that she hasn’t actually left him. His request to have “somebody please tell me what to do,” is most likely going to result in an argument should anyone suggest he move on and find someone new. He’s making it clear to others if they offer that another will take his ex-girlfriend’s place that he will not have any of it. After all, as the singer admits, he’s got a one track mind. So his friends better take note that he only wants to hear what he wants to hear.
https://vancouversignaturesounds.com/hits/one-track-mind-knickerbockers/
Here is “Just One Girl”, which ended up as the B-side on another ’66 single:
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