175) The Bread and Beer Band — “Mellow Yellow”

Groovy cover of Donovan by Elton John’s first band.

“The album was planned for June of 1969, but cancelled, and the band put out on their own label in a handmade sleeve. . . . Reginald Dwight was enlisted by aspiring producer Tony King to join what the latter envisioned as a studio band along the lines of the great Motown sections of the past. . . . According to King . . . . only one disc, an acetate presented to Elton on his last birthday, is in existence. ‘When I played it for Elton on his birthday,’ said King, ‘I thought It would be God-awful. We were surprised to find that it was half-decent. But everybody who played on it still likes it.’”

http://allmusic-wingsofdream.blogspot.com/2008/02/bread-and-beer-band-bread-and-beer-band.html

176) The Voice — “Train to Disaster”

The UK band’s only single (‘67) – “three minutes of guitar driven mayhem” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited). The song seems strangely timely.

172) The Plastic Cloud — “Art’s a Happy Man”

Sole album (‘68) by the Canadian folk-rockers. Expose yourself to Art.

173) Matthews Southern Comfort — “Something in the Way She Moves”

No, not George Harrison’s song, but Iain Matthews’s (former lead singer of Fairport Convention). The song, off MSC’s ‘69 Second Spring album, has the wisest and most self-aware rock lyrics about love and mental well-being I have ever heard.

174) Randy Newman — “Mama Told Me Not to Come”

Yeah, Randy wrote it. Three Dog Night took the song to #1 the same year (‘70).

169) Georgie Fame — “Seventh Son”

Georgie’s version of Willie Dixon’s oft-covered classic reached #25 in the UK in December of ‘69. The video is such a guilty pleasure!

Here is Dixon’s version:

170) Paul Jones — “Tarzan etc.”

From the ex-Manfred Mann lead singer’s ’67 solo album.

171) The Music Machine — “Come on In”

The B-side to “Talk, Talk,” the justly legendary garage rocker that hit #15 in the U.S. in November ‘66. Sean Bonniwell told Richie Unterberger that “Come on In” was recorded in one take and was originally to have been the single’s A-side. I think the mesmerizing song is just as good as “Talk, Talk.” Bonniwell done to a fare-thee-well.

166) Gloria Jones — “Heartbeat”

The original “Tainted Love” singer and Marc Bolan girlfriend belts out this Ed Cobb (producer of the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband) song.

Here she is on Where the Action Is from October ’66:

Here’s the single:

167) Gordon Lightfoot — “The Way I Feel”

From Lightfoot’s first album (an electric version on his 2nd album reached #36 in his native Canada). A man abandoned.

168) Bill Jerpe — “Help Me Home”

Hypnotic folk-rock recorded by the Hudson Valley, NY, singer (and former “next Bob Dylan”) in a hotel room and self-released in ‘70.

As Charlie Farmer says:

“The legends surrounding a cult classic often outstrip the music’s realities. Perhaps an album remains a ‘Best Record You’ve Never Heard’ mainstay simply because it’s rare, a collector’s way of flexing muscle. A less cynical take understands that the truth can’t compete with decades of word-of-mouth hyperbole or the expectations we’ve created as we cultivate our want lists. . . . Fortunately, there are holy grails like Bill Jerpe’s long-obscure self-titled release . . . that justify the mythology.

http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2021/12/bill-jerpe-bill-jerpe-1970-us-beautiful.html

163) Golden Earring — “Daddy Buy Me a Girl”

‘66 single, appropriate for a band named Golden Earring. A real Dutch treat!

164) Jackie Lomax — “Sour Milk Sea”

George Harrison wrote “Sour Milk Sea” as an advert for transcendental meditation (which the Beatles picked up in Rishikesh). Such a great song, and it didn’t make it onto the White Album . . . likely because of Lennon and McCartney’s White (Album) Privilege!

The song was a first in so many ways. . . . It was Jackie Lomax’s debut Apple single . . . It was one of Apple’s first shot of four singles, including “Hey Jude” and “Those Were the Days.” . . . It was the first song George Harrison gave away. . . . It was the first song not by a Beatle that three Beatles (Harrison, McCartney, and Starr) played on.

And yet, the song didn’t chart in the UK and only reached #117 in the U.S. in September ’68. Could be because it was overshadowed by “Jude” and “Days,” and because the song was a bit hectoring. Hmmm . . . Almost seems like it belongs in Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

George Harrison’s demo:

The Beatles’s take on the song:

165) The Creation –”How Does It Feel to Feel”

The Nuggets II comp calls the ’68 single, supposedly written in five minutes, an “amazing sensory assault [with] monstrous, shuddering guitar chords[, a] heavy bass crunch, and some mind-bending vocal harmonies.”

160) The Chocolate Watchband — “Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love In)”

‘67 single by the garage rock legends – they put it together in one day for the teen-ploitation classic The Love-Ins. IMDb describes the movie: “A college professor resigns in protest to the dismissal of student underground newspaper workers and later joins their ‘hippie movement’ and becomes their ‘Messiah.’” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061922/)

As the trailer, featuring the song, asks: “Have you ever wondered what’s it like to take a trip on an LSD sugar cube?”

https://youtu.be/8F-NowixBfA

161) Boudewijn de Groot — “Cinderella”

From the Dutch superstar’s ‘68 album Picknick, a sort-of retelling of the Cinderella tale.

162) The Standells — “Riot on the Sunset Strip”

‘67 single was the theme song of another classic teen-ploitation film – Riot on Sunset Strip. IMDb describes: “LA police captain attempts to appease Sunset Strip businessmen objecting to hippy youths hanging out, by setting a curfew. The cop also thinks the kids have a right to be there, until his estranged daughter joins the counter-culture crowd.” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062203/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2)

The trailer proclaims: “Come on, get with it. Let’s go to a freak-out. . . . The most shocking film of our generation.”

157) Michel Polnareff — “Le Bal des Laze”

Dark masterpiece by Michel with lyrics were by Pierre Delanoë — a commoner has an affair with an aristocrat and is to be hanged for murdering her fiancé.

158) The Brogues — “I Ain’t No Miracle Worker”

The Nuggets comp calls this November ‘65 B-side from the San Joaquin Valley band a “near perfect 60s punk record.” The band’s singer and drummer would later form Quicksilver Messenger Service.

159) Robbi Curtice — “When Diana Paints the Picture”

‘68 B-side by Rob Ashmore. As he explains in a YouTube note:

“Despite much initial hype and optimism, the original production was flawed and so not accepted for release by the UK record companies. So the single was released in USA only, with ‘Soul of a Man’, originally intended as the B side, promoted to the A side. It sold well on the West coast of USA.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQKdSsseKY

154) Kaleidoscope — “The Sky Children”

From the British psychsters’s ‘67 album, “a fairytale dream” full of “whimsical lyrics” (per Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited). It’s a close call, you be the judge:

155) Duncan Browne — “On the Bombsite”

’68 single (with lyrics by David Bretton) from an album that the CD reissue calls “an achingly beautiful compendium of ornate chamber pop wispiness . . . lyrical pretensions and Browne’s plangent, folk-derived melodies.” Yup.

Andrew Loog Oldham said that Browne was “one of the artists I was proudest to stand in a room with and watch evolve.” Oh, and to try to squeeze for £2,000 in “recording expenses” when in desperate need of cash. Yes, yet another victim of Immediate Records’s financial implosion.

156) The Merry-Go-Round — “Live”

The MGR’s March ‘67 single reached #63 and was a really big hit in LA. Led by Emitt Rhodes, with his “precocious songcraft and McCartney-esque vocals” (Mark Deming in All Music Guide), the MGR were “teen pop/rock prodigies who combined British invasion pop melodies with Baroque pop studio polish” (Richie Unterberger in AMG).

151) Edwards Hand — “Banjo Pier”

No apparent connection to Edward Scissorhands — the band emerged from Piccadilly Line. This song, from their first album (’69), was produced by George Martin. Richie Unterberger says that the album had “an ambience that captures something of the most innocuous side of the Swinging London/flower power era.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/edwards-hand-mw0000836925) The song is eerily similar to the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble’s “Mr. Tree” from the prior year (#40).

152) The Furniture — “I Love It Baby”

’67 B-side from this Galesburg, Illinois, band. David Moody, who wrote this stunning garage rocker, states on YouTube that:

I was approached on a Wednesday night by the agent of the Vagrants (The Furniture) who told me he needed two brand new songs sounding similar to the Kinks for a recording session THAT Saturday! . . . I wrote “I Love It Baby” that night . . . . [It] was receiving great airplay by DJ’s who liked it even though it was the “B” side. . . . Then for unknown reasons, [it was] pulled . . . out of publication and off the air . . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzYGEznuOnw

153) The Pretty Things — “Midnight to Six Man”

Vernon Joynson points out that the Pretties “[w]ere considered even dirtier, scruffier and more outrageous than the Stones.” (The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) This song is pretty dirty, scruffy and outrageous. It hit #46 in the UK in January ’66, but only stayed on the chart from midnight to six.

148) The Open Mind — “Magic Potion”

MOJO says that this ‘69 song is one “whose frantic riff, demented drumming and furious guitar solos make many consider it to be the finest heavy psychedelic rock 45 ever produced in Britain.” Alas, the song was banned because of its too-obvious to deny celebration of LSD and quickly disappeared.

149) Louise Forestier — “La Boulee”

This Québécoise was named named Discovery of the Year on the Radio-Canada TV program Jeunesse oblige and then recorded the landmark song “Lindberg'” with Robert Charlebois (see #44 for another duet with Charlebois).

This ‘67 single is quite an infectious chanson. If someone who speaks French could tell me what the song is about, I’d appreciate it.

150) Richard Twice — “If I Knew You Were the One”

Richard Atkins took up music after losing a leg in a motorcycle accident, recorded a wonderful album in 1970 with fellow songwriter Richard Manning (Richard Twice, get it?) and then abandoned music for carpentry after a disastrous showcase performance for the music industry. On this song, he knows she is the one, and it hurts.

145) The Nazz — “Open My Eyes”

B-side of Philly band’s September ’68 single was a visit to Who-ville, reaching #112. The Nuggets comp says that it “was their crowning achievement, a dazzling power pop production that pits a tough, hard rock riff against soaring, Beatles-esque harmonies.” Todd Rundgren went on to bang on a drum all day.

146) Manfred Mann Chapter Three — “Happy Being Me”

’70 A-side from my favorite MM album (released after the band broke up and never released in the U.S.). As Mark Allan says of the album, “[i]t’s light years from the airy pop of “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” . . . . This is as much jazz as rock. There’s hardly any guitar, but a swaggering horn section compensates.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/manfred-mann-chapter-three-mw0000467440)

147) The Pipe Dream — “January Girl”

Another selection from the Pipe Dream. Reminds me of January Jones!

142) The Temptations — “Message from a Black Man”

A message song (’69) from the mighty Temptations whose message is even more relevant today than the day it was written.

143) The Lemon Drops — “I Live in the Springtime”

The Drops’s only droplet (’67), only released in Chicagoland, but wow!

144) Billy Nicholls — “London Social Degree”

From the towering lost classic album Would You Believe.

Wait, London social degree . . . LSD?!

139) The Caravelles — “Hey Mama, You’ve Been on My Mind”

This gorgeous ‘67 folk-rock single was sung by Londoners Lois Wilkinson and Andrea Simpson (who named their group after the French short commercial jet). They “were co-workers who entertained at office parties and amateur shows [who were e]ncouraged by co-workers to cut a record.” (Andrew Hamilton, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-caravelles-mn0000633144/biography). That record was “You Don’t Have to Be a Baby to Cry,” which hit #3 in December of ’63.

“Hey Mama” was first recorded the previous year by the NYC band the Restless Feelin’s, with a much different feel:

140) The Mojo Men — “She’s My Baby”

The at the time all male Mojo Men released this B-side in ’66. The Sly Stone-produced song has a great sleazy bass line (sampled by Kanye West in “Hell of a Life”). Its lyrics deserved to become movie catch-phrases:

“Hell of a Life”:

141) The Craig — “I Must Be Mad”

Wild UK freakbeat — one of two ’66 singles by the group, whose drummer – Carl Palmer – went on to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

136) The Peppermint Trolley Co. — “Trust”

Cool ‘68 single written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols “performed” on a cool TV show — Mannix, the classic detective series. In the episode, as summarized by IMDb, “Mannix is hired by a secretive multi-millionaire to find his ex-wife. At least that’s what he has been told when he takes the job. The ex-wife, a prominent singer, supposedly committed suicide but has been seen since her supposed death.” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0641711/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl) As for the PTC, “Mannix’s search for clues brings him to a music recording studio where he walks in on a rehearsal by the [band] as Mannix listens and looks on approvingly.”

Here is a clip from Mannix:

Here’s the single:

137) Nick Garrie — “Seashore”

Another outtake from The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas, finally recorded by Nick in 2009 — a wonderful, wistful song.

138) The Haigs — “Never Die”

The Dutch band where Golden Earring vocalist Barry Hay got his start. If you close your eyes, you could swear it’s the Beatles. The first of their 5 singles, from ‘66.

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage. I can’t afford the carriage. But you’d look sweet on the seat of a bicycle built for two.”

It is one of the most iconic scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Discovery’s supercomputer HAL murders astronaut Frank Poole after suffering a”mental” breakdown by being put in the position of having to lie to the ship’s crew about the true purpose of its mission. Commander David Bowman must then wrest away control of the Jupiter-bound space ship by turning off HAL’s “consciousness” module by module. HAL is fully-aware if what is happening, and expresses existential angst:

HAL: I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m afraid.

HAL: Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it I can sing it for you.

David Bowman: Yes, I’d like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.

HAL: It’s called “Daisy.”

This moment elicits tremendous sympathy in the audience for HAL, which is quite an achievement by Kubrick as 1) HAL is a computer, and 2) HAL has just murdered almost the entire crew of the Discovery. But consciousness is consciousness, and we can all imagine what it must be like to witness ours slipping away. HAL is experiencing a sort of self-aware rapid onset dementia, which is in common parlance today in a way it wasn’t in 1968.

OK, but what does any of this have to do with the greatest songs of the 1960‘s that no one has ever heard? The scene is famous, and, anyway, “Daisy” was written in the 19th Century! Well, as Cary O’Dell with the Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound division of the Library of Congress explains, there is a connection, one whose first link was forged in 1892:

The song “Daisy Bell” . . . was written in 1892 by an Englishman, Harry Dacre. Legend has it that Dacre . . . came upon the idea for the song during a visit to America. On his trip . . . Dacre had brought with him his bicycle and, when he docked, much to his chagrin, he was promptly charged a duty on it by US customs. Later, bemoaning the fee to fellow songwriter William Jerome, Jerome stated it was a good thing Dacre didn’t bring with him a “bicycle built for two” as he’d be charged a twin duty. Smitten with the phrase “a bicycle built for two,” Dacre decided it would work well in a song. And so “Daisy Bell” was born. “Daisy” was first made famous by British music hall performer Katie (Kate) Lawrence. Since being introduced into the musical vernacular, the song has been endlessly revived, recorded, expanded, lyrically rewritten, parodied, and translated.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/DaisyBell.pdf

The story picks up again in 1961 and involves a cover version of “Daisy,” one distinguished by being performed by an IBM computer:

One of “Daisy Bell’s” most radical and interesting uses . . . arrived in 1961 via IBM and a team of visionary computer programmers. That year . . . Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, made, for the first time, an artificial device “sing.” And the song it sang was the turn of the century ditty . . . . For years the demonstration was part of the formal tour of Bell Labs. In the early 1960s, when science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke visited . . . he took special note of this singing and talking computer. Later, as the author of . . . “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Clarke incorporated it into its screenplay. In the 1968 film, when . . . HAL (whose anagram coincidentally is just one letter alphabetically away from IBM) is switched off (essentially killed), “he” (the voice of actor Douglas Rain) sings “Daisy Bell” as power ebbs out of his circuits.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/DaisyBell.pdf

So, to make a long story short, here is #135 of the greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard, IBM’s 1961 cover version of “Daisy Bell”:

And here is the original 1894 hit by the original artist:

132) Paul McCartney — “Junk”

Maybe I was so amazed by this song’s haunting melody and wistful lyrics that it became the theme song for my wedding. Paul composed it in India in ‘68 — finally released on his debut ‘70 solo album.

The ’68 Beatles demo:

133) The Foggy Notions — “Need a Little Lovin’”

’66 single was the only one by this Chicago band, but it was a doozy.

134) Black Merda — “Cynthy-Ruth”

Rock/funk/R&B blended to perfection on this ‘70 debut album.

Mark Deming explains that:

[The band was] linked in with the brief explosion of ‘black rock’ bands that followed Jimi Hendrix in the late ’60s and early ’70s . . . [W]hat really sets [the album] apart is the dark vibe reflected in the minor-key tenor of the melodies and the bitter realities of the lyrics. Grinding poverty, racism, political and social inequality, the ongoing nightmare of Vietnam, the growing schism between youth culture and the establishment, and the absence of any easy answers to the dilemmas of a nation spinning out of control dominate . . . .”

https://www.allmusic.com/album/black-merda-mw0000573277

Discogs notes that “merda” is Portuguese for “shit.”

129) The Creation — “Through My Eyes”

’67 B-side by the Who’s doppelganger who beyond all rational explanation never made it big in the UK. As the liner notes to the Our Music Is Red – with Purple Flashes comp state, “[t]he Creation story is that apocryphal rock’n’roll tale of busts-ups, missed opportunities, dashed dreams and the bitter-sweet taste of all-too-brief success.”

Why didn’t Wes Anderson use this song? The video has some great Carnaby Street scenes.

130) Disraeli — “What Will the New Day Bring”

One of the Oregon band’s four A-sides, this wistful ’67 song is a “fab mix of folk-rock/pop-sike [that] is the perfect track to kick-start” the Fading Yellow Vol. 2 compilation (per the liner notes).

131) The End — “Shades of Orange”

March of ‘68 British psych A-side courtesy of the Rolling Stones. The song was produced by Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts playing tabla. The song has even showed up on Stones bootlegs as a Their Satanic Majesties Request outtake! Jon Mills says that the song “epitomizes British Psychedelia and is one of the genre’s most sought after items.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-end-mn0000758469/biography)

126) Bob Dylan — “She’s Your Lover Now”

Abandoned unfinished in the studio in January of ‘66. One of Dylan’s great caustic/bitter songs, up there with “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Positively 4th Street” and “Idiot Wind.” Do not get crosswise with this guy (or pick through his garbage in Greenwich Village)!

“Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn’t it? Why didn’t you just leave me if you didn’t want to stay? Why’d you have to treat me so bad? Did it have to be that way?”

127) The Strawberry Alarm Clock — “Pretty Song from Psych-Out”

The SAC is so much more than “Incense and Peppermints.” This song is from Psych-Out, the ‘68 Jack Nicholson hippie-ploitation film about a deaf runaway’s adventures in the Haight-Ashbury.

128) The Starlets — “You Don’t Love Me”

This B-side from ‘65 is an electrifying version of a Willie Cobb R&B number from ‘60 (itself nicked from Bo Diddley) and was one of only two singles by the LA band.

Willie Cobb’s version:

Bo Diddley, “She’s Fine, She’s Mine” (1955):

123) Los Mac’s — “El Amor Despues De Los Veinte Años”

The best psychedelic album (‘67) to ever have come from Chile? Yes! Even the band says so! And definitely recorded in an altered state.

124) Dirty Martha — “Children’s Song”

A horn-driven band inspired by Blood, Sweat and Tears (that I presume wasn’t named after a lewd act names after Martha Stewart).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySKxN5SCWvg

125) The Remains — “Don’t Look Back”

The final brilliant single (August of ‘66) of a band that didn’t break through despite appearing on Ed Sullivan and the Beatles’s ‘66 tour. I think it was the Nuggets comp that pondered “[w]hy it didn’t sell is a cosmic riddle best left unpondered.”

120) Michel Polnareff — “Mes Regrets”

Stunning, from the flamboyant French star’s second album.

121) The (Australian) Playboys — “Sad”

Brilliant ‘67 B-side of the only single released by the Aussie band (which had backed Normie Rowe), recorded while in the UK. The A-side, not so much — rockin’ out to “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”

122) Les Fleur De Lys — “Circles”

The Fleur de Lys issued this single while the Who were involved in a legal tussle over the song (which was supposed to be the follow-up single to “My Generation”) with Shel Talmy. It is a cover that (maybe) outdoes the original. Nuggets II opines that it “may rank as the most explosive cover of a Pete Townshend song ever, surpassing the energy level of The Who’s own version.”

The Who’s version: