Playlist: Listen, my friends! ~ April 2014

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In the words of Moby Grape… listen, my friends! Yes, it’s the (hopefully) monthly playlist presented by George’s Journal just for you good people.

There may be one or two classics to be found here dotted in among different tunes you’re unfamiliar with or have never heard before – or, of course, you may’ve heard them all before. All the same, why not sit back, listen away and enjoy…

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CLICK on the song titles to hear them

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Doris Day ~ Que Sera Sera (1956)¹

Herb Alpert And The Tijuana Brass ~ Zorba The Greek (1965)

Traffic ~ 40,000 Headmen (1968)

Hugo Monenegro ~ MacArthur Park (1969)²

Smith ~ Baby It’s You (1969)

Lalo Schifrin ~ Scorpio’s Theme from Dirty Harry (1971)

Anthony Newley ~ Pure Imagination (1971)³

Yvonne Elliman ~ Love Me (1976)

Jeff Wayne featuring Richard Burton ~ The Red Weed (Part 1) from Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds (1978)

Dan Hartman ~ Instant Replay (1978)

The Flying Pickets ~ Only You (1983)⁴ 

The Dream Academy ~ Power To Believe (Instrumental) from Planes, Trains And Automobiles (1987)

Danny John-Jules ~ Theme from Maid Marian And Her Merry Men (1989)

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¹ Fondly recalled by all and sundry as a Doris Day standard this may be, but it actually originated from Hitchcock’s 1956 Hollywood remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, his 1934 thriller in which a man and wife attempt to locate their kidnapped child (as illustrated in this clip). The song rightly won 1956’s Best Original Song Oscar

² Curiously, this composition from Montenegro’s 1969 Good Vibrations album sounds much less like Jimmy Webb’s classic song of the same name (made famous by Richard Harris’s hit 1967 version) than it does Pete Moore’s Asteroid, the Pearl & Dean advertising theme familiar to millions of UK cinemagoers

³ A rare version of the classic tune (sung by Gene Wilder’s protagonist in 1971’s Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory), here peformed by the man whom, along with Leslie Bricusse, composed it; Newley and Bricusse also wrote the lyrics (to John Barry’s music) for Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger (1964)

⁴ This outstanding a-cappella version of the Yazoo song (1982) managed to go more than one better than the original UK #2-hitting original – not only did it make it to #1 in Blighty, but it also did so in time for Crimbo, making it 1983’s Christmas #1; in total, it was at the summit of the charts for five weeks. Christopher Ryan, who would go on to play Rick in anarchic sitcom The Young Ones (1982-84), was an original member of the group but left before they hit the big time.

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