THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,051) The Onyx — “You’ve Gotta Be with Me”
The first A-side by Cornwall’s Onyx is “immensely catchy” (http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history3.html), “combin[ing] British beat group energy with Beach Boys harmony on a decidedly countercultural call for a perception adjustment”. (Rob Jones, https://thedeletebin.com/2025/10/06/20-great-sixties-psychedelic-pop-gems-you-should-hear-right-now/)
I don’t know about the counterculture part. I thought the song was about a guy trying to impress a girl by telling her about all the hot clubs he could get her into! A website devoted to the band says that “[t]hey were very much a provincial band at this stage, still learning the ropes but thrilled at the exciting opportunities ahead of them, the innocence and excitement of which is perfectly captured in [the] lyrics.” (http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history3.html) To be fair to Rob Jones, though, the lyrics do include “Your mind starts to reel And you feel what you see And you touch what you hear”!
The website tells us the song’s history:
Through [manager] Bob[ Potter’s] contacts the band hooked up with songwriter Guy Fletcher and lyricist Doug Flett who were fresh from working with Wishful Thinking. After catching the band play live the pair were impressed by the[ir] sound . . . , in particular their harmonies and ability to play tight arrangements. Guy’s strength was harmony, so they hit it off well. Guy & Doug decided to work with The Onyx Set on what would become their first single. . . . The Flett/Fletcher penned and produced “You’ve Gotta Be With Me/It’s All Put On” . . . was released in February 1968, with the band now dropping the “Set” off their name. . . . The single proved extremely popular amongst the bands’ local fans selling 250 copies in the first three days around their local stamping ground of Bodmin and Wadebridge. . . . They also had their own fan club . . . . [T]he single received some airplay on the BBC and the band hit the road. Plans to conquer Europe were halted when a planned trip to Holland in the Easter of 1968 was temporarily blocked by the Dutch Labour Exchange, due to [visa] problems . . . . [T]he tour eventually went ahead, with the band afterwards returning to their home turf and playing for their loyal Cornish following. . . . While the . . . 45 was flying off the racks in Cornwall and despite a busy promotional schedule and an airing by Alan Freeman on the Top Of The Pops radio show, the single . . . . failed to dent the charts. . . . While the single didn’t set the chats alight it did give them plenty of publicity, lining them up with a busy gigging schedule. It also brought them to the attention of the BBC and they recorded the first of what would become many sessions for the BBC in late 1968.
PJ gives some more history of the band:
The Onyx were a psychedelic rock band formed in Wadebridge, Cornwall, England in 1965. . . . After winning a battle of the band contest in Cornwall, they went through a number of line-up changes . . . with the new band being christened The Onyx Set, named after an Onyx ring owned by [bassist Mike] Black-Borow. After more changes in the line-up they shortened their name to The Onyx . . . . The band evolved from doing cover versions of popular contemporary beat bands . . . to psychedelia, and in 1967 they . . . record[ed] demos of some of the songs that they had been working on . . . . Another track recorded during these sessions was the quirky progressive pop number ‘Climb That Tree’, which would be covered the following year by She Trinity [see #1,208] on the b-side of their “Hair” single, with the girls using the Onyx backing track for their recording. . . .
https://albumsiwishexisted2.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-onyx-kaleidoscope-of-colours-1967.html
For an exhaustive and entertaining history of the Onyx, see: http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history.html, http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history2.html, http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history3.html, http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history4.html, http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history5.html, http://www.the-onyx.co.uk/history6.html.
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