THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,073) Floor — “Little Mr. So and So”
Here’s a bouncy Danish delight from the Floor’s only album (see #640, 792), so McCartneyesque that it would fit perfectly on The Magical Mystery Tour. As that denizen of the original Swingin’ London once said, something is groovy in the state of Denmark! Oregano Rathbone calls it “a perky music hall braces-twanger”. (Oregano Rathbone, https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/first-floor) In American English, would a “braces-twanger” be a song that leads men to twang their suspenders to the beat?
As to the LP, Richie Unterberger tells us that:
Evolving out of the Hitmakers, the Danish band Floor made one pop-psychedelic album in 1967, 1st Floor. . . . [I]ndebted to [the] poppier side of British psychedelia, it’s a diverse record with some strong material, incorporating ornate, classical-influenced arrangements, singalong Brit-pop melodies, and cheerful pop/rock harmonies.
[L]ittle of the material was written by the band. . . . [b]ut it’s nonetheless decent, tuneful material with some attractive vocal harmonies . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-floor-mn0001523382; https://www.allmusic.com/album/1st-floor-mw0001449509
Oregano Rathbone adds:
Dating from 1967, the sole album by The Floor has accrued an erroneous reputation as the Danish Sgt Pepper’s. In truth, it’s little more than a cheery beat group bauble with an à la mode ’67-minute makeover. It’s not without a certain gormless [British slang — characteristic of a stupid person] charm, it’s just that hard psych fanatics and lyrical-substance seekers had best lay their carpets elsewhere. Tellingly, The Floor’s origins rest with unassuming pop grinners The Hitmakers, who plied their polite trade in Denmark from 1960 up until the seismic mid-decade pop cultural shift which precipitated a change of name and line-up. In came ex-Clifters guitarist Mogens Petersen, accompanied by a screed of songs submitted by contemporary Scandinavian songsmiths that, taken in tandem, suggest a fever-dream episode of Mr & Mrs. From the left, there’s album highlight “Trusting Mr Jones”, built upon a marshland of backwards guitar seepage, then The Tremeloes [see #1,193] goofiness of “Hey Mr Flowermann” [see #792], the sawmill strings of the Björn Ulvaeus-penned “Mrs O’Grady”, and a perky music hall braces-twanger in the shape of “Little Mr So And So. If “Damned Little Fool” is more Freddie & The Dreamers than Sam Gopal’s Dream, “Turn It On” is at least a serviceable, combo organ-driven dancefloor-filler. Good for a night on the tiles.
According to a Danish website (courtesy of Google Translate):
[The Hitmakers made their recording] debut in the summer of 1963 with the Beatles[‘] “I Saw Her Standing There”. In 1963-64 [they] toured a lot in Finland with great success . . . . [T]hey were the warm-up band for the Beatles in K.B. Hallen, 4 June 1964. . . . [T]he Hitmakers had to wait for an actual Danish breakthrough until “Stop the Music”, December 65, which was launched in TV’s Klar i Studiet [Ready in the Studio]. [They h]ad great success in 1966 with the parody album Træd an ved makronerne [Step Up to the Macaroons]. In November 1966, the group was on a short tour in England . . . .
In the summer of 1967, the Hitmakers changed their style to a softer flower-power-inspired pop. Expanded in autumn 1967 with and the group changed its name to The Floor. Despite two singles and the very ambitious 1st Floor-LP . . , which had been one of the most expensive Danish rock productions to date, the group did not manage to maintain its previous popularity. . . . Floor disbanded in the summer of 1968…. The Hitmakers were definitely among the top groups of the barbed wire* era . . . .
* Danish Wikipedia notes that “barbed wire music”/”Pigtrådsmusik” “is a Danish expression from the early 1960s. . . . originally a derogatory term for Danish rock music, which referred to the ‘noisy’ guitar sound.” (courtesy of Google Translate, https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigtr%C3%A5dsmusik)
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