THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,439) The Honeybus — “Do I Figure in Your Life”
The A-side of Honeybus’ (see ##6, 52, 207, 434, 562, 605, 764, 1,100) second single (’67) is “not just their, but virtually anybody else’s finest recorded moment . . . a mini-masterpiece . . . [with] immaculate arrangement; haunting melody; wistful, reflective lyrics” (Roger Dopson, liner notes to the CD comp Honeybus at Their Best), “one of the baroque pop genre’s standard-bearers . . . . a perfect combination of memorable melody, plaintive lyrics and a florid woodwind and string quartet arrangement that framed [Pete] Dello’s peeved vocal to perfection” (David Wells, liner notes to the CD comp Come Join My Orchestra: The British Baroque Pop Sound 1967-73), “a rather wistful folksy ballad with intricate harmonies” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited), “a lush, introspective ballad”. (https://www.angelfire.com/pop2/honeybus/story.htm)
Yet, “[d]espite considerable airplay Chart action inexplicably eluded it, although several artists, including Dave Berry, Joe Cocker and Dana [and Samantha Jones, Ian Matthews, Pete Dello himself, and even Creepy John Thomas] subsequently covered the song. Certainly it was one of the classics that got away.” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) Martin Crookall is entranced by the song, and flabbergasted that the “Great British Record Buying Public” (“you bozos”!) didn’t make it a hit:
The enthusiasm with which it was always greeted, its calm assuredness, the relationship it bore to ‘I can’t let Maggie Go’, which was a bona fide hit, the frequency with which I heard it until it was at least as familiar as any playlisted track: obviously it had been a big hit, Top 5 at the worst. The song’s own internal self-confidence was practically a guarantee of that. Pete Dello’s very English vocals over a slow, near funereal pace, the burden of the song carried by the string quartet that reduced the rest of the band to mere accompanists, except where they were called in to sing the title line. And those lyrics and the sense they gave off, of a certain shyness at the presence this woman, this fabulous creature, who is so far above him, who is enjoying the fruits of a world he cannot enter, filled with people who make him nervous because they emphasise his own inadequacy. They move in separate spheres now, but once they did not, once they were equals, and more than equals: to think that I once took you for my wife. He’s telling a story without facts, presenting a picture in which all he can do is ask, a little nervously, in much buried fear: Do I still figure in your life? Yes, what was once all has now dwindled until it is almost nothing. It may even be nothing at all, now, to her. He hides it behind his passive tone but he still loves her as once she loved him. Does she still feel anything for him, anything at all? He no longer knows who she is well enough to know. He can only ask, and pray that her answer is not the negative he dreads. To hope that there is still some part of her that thinks kindly of him, that remembers when he meant something to her. A song of that magnificence, that sweet melody and such words that spoke to great depths just had to have been a massive hit. Surely people couldn’t have ignored this song? Never forgotten it. So I thought, though not in words, every time I listened to it. So I was truly flabbergasted when I learned it had not been a hit at all. Had not sold. Had not soared. Had not been taken to the hearts of the Great British Record Buying Public. To whom I say, yet again, you bozos.
https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2022/03/10/the-infinite-jukebox-honeybuss-do-i-figure-in-your-life/
Honeybus is one of my favorite bands, with the honey being especially bittersweet given what should have been, what could have been. Jittery White Guy puts it perfectly:
Honeybus had the pop touchstones of the Beatles and the Hollies, while balancing the more sunshiny, twee aspects of the early Bee Gees with some mild touches of post-Sgt. Pepper psychedelia. . . . Their songs were unusually tuneful, some lovely little hooks paired with sweet harmonies, and it’s almost shocking to hear these songs today and realize the band had pretty much zero commercial success (at least here in the US).
https://www.jitterywhiteguymusic.com/2021/02/honeybus-story-1970.html?m=1
Bruce Eder beautifully ponders what made the band so special and what “happened”:
Considering that most have never heard of them, it’s amazing to ponder that they came very close, in the eyes of the critics, to being Decca Records’ answer to the Rubber Soul-era Beatles. The harmonies were there, along with some catchy, hook-laden songs . . . . The pop sensibilities of Honeybus’ main resident composers, Peter Dello and Ray Cane were astonishingly close in quality and content to those of Paul McCartney and the softer sides of John Lennon of that same era. What’s more, the critics loved their records. Yet, somehow, Honeybus never got it right; they never had the right single out at the proper time, and only once in their history did they connect with the public for a major hit, in early 1968. . . .
Dello and Cane . . . were the prime movers behind Honeybus. In 1966, they formed the Yum Yum Band . . . . A collapsed lung put Dello out of action in early 1966, and it was during his recuperation that he began rethinking what the band and his music were about. He developed the notion of a new band that would become a canvas for him to work on as a songwriter — they would avoid the clubs, working almost exclusively in the studio, recreating the sounds that he was hearing in his head. . . . It was a novel strategy, paralleling the approach to music-making by the Beatles in their post-concert period, and all the more daring for the fact that they were a new group . . . . The group was one of the best studio bands of the period, reveling in the perfection that could be achieved . . . .
They were duly signed to England’s Decca Records and assigned to the company’s newly organized Deram label . . . . The critics were quick to praise the band . . . [but their first two singles were commercially] unsuccessful. Then . . . their third release, “I Can’t Let Maggie Go,” [see #6] . . . . . . peaked at number eight. . . . [It] should have made the group, but instead it shattered them. Peter Dello resigned during the single’s chart run. He had been willing to play live on radio appearances and the occasional television or special concert showcase . . . but he couldn’t accept the physical or emotional stresses of performing live on a regular basis, or the idea of touring America . . . . Dello left . . . . [and] Jim Kelly came in on guitar and vocals, while Ray Cane . . . took over most of the songwriting, and Honeybus proceeded to play regular concerts. The group never recovered the momentum they’d lost over “Maggie,” however, despite a string of fine singles . . . . [that] never charted . . . . [T]he group had pretty well decided to call it quits once they finished the[ir] LP . . . . The Honeybus Story . . . was released in late 1969, but without an active group to promote it, the record sank without a trace. . . . [I]t was a beautiful album, with the kind of ornate production and rich melodies that had become increasingly rare with the passing of the psychedelic era . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/honeybus-mn0000259186/biography
Live: Top Gear on 29th October 1967:
Pete Dello:
Joe Cocker:
Dave Berry:
Love Sculpture (April 2, 1968 Peel Session):
Samantha Jones:
Creepy John Thomas:
Ian Matthews:
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