171) ? and the Mysterians – “96 Tears”

The very elements of garage rock that made it so exciting – the back-to-basics approach, the lack of polish, the accessibility to anyone keen to form a band – also made the groups themselves a bit interchangeable. When competing with thousands of bands with more or less the same lineup playing more or less the same covers, it helped to have a gimmick. All the better if the band could disguise its hometown roots and pass for something more exotic. American acts copping a vaguely Liverpudlian lilt crossed wires with UK bands impersonating Chicago bluesmen. The Kingsmen slurred through a phony Jamaican accent and won international infamy. Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs scored a couple of hits while dressing like extras from The Ten Commandments. But of all the garage rock bands to make it big, if only briefly, few were more mysterious than the Mysterians. They weren’t just claiming to be from another country, but from another planet – which, as Mexican-American topping the mid-’60s pop charts, they sort of were. The group adopted their name from the aliens in a Japanese sci-fi film and corroborated it with the Z-movie UFO sound of their Vox Continental. Their ostentatiously anonymous frontman professed to be a Martian, hid behind dark sunglasses, and went only by the name ? (or “Question Mark”).

The casual weirdness of the group’s one big hit, “96 Tears,” confirms that the ? and the Mysterians’ eccentricity wasn’t (entirely) a gimmick. The record itself was an unexpected hit: a home recording that gained traction in Central Michigan before gradually climbing the national charts. The musicianship and production are, mildly put, rudimentary. The guitars are nearly inaudible apart from the bridge; the drummer just about manages to hit the twos and fours. The one standout is the Vox, alternating every four bars between repetitive eighth-note thirds and calliope-esque swirls. Its bouncy simplicity takes on a sinister cast when paired with Question Mark’s fragmented sneers at the girl who dumped him. Both singer and organ seem a little too happy plotting revenge.

It’s all chest-puffing and spleen-venting until the bridge, when Question Mark suddenly lapses into a reverie and the rest of the band fades into the backdrop. At first, he’s more forceful than he has been yet, his lyrics bursting forth in a jagged rush (“when the sun comes up – I’ll be on top”). Then his voice trails off as his revenge fantasy begins to slip away. He’s no longer just playing cool – now he seems unable to keep up with the beat. He shifts from the future tense to the present as he confesses that his big talk was just a cover for his own heartbreak (“I know now … I’ll just cry”). The rest of the band quickly reverts to the first verse’s nasty cheer, but Question Mark’s too worked up and has admitted too much to go back. He mostly just gasps out variations on “you’re gonna cry 96 tears,” alternating with appeals to “let me hear you cry!” as if prodding the audience to sing along so he’s not by himself. The number 96 may have been picked as a reverse-digit juvenile joke, but Question Mark’s preoccupation with it – mentioned only once in the first verse, but seven more times in the outro – suggests there may be another reason behind fixating on that specific number. Perhaps he’s learned from experience exactly how many teardrops are too many for one heart to carry on. 8

Hit #1 on October 29, 1966; total of 1 week at #1
171 of 1023 #1′s reviewed; 16.72% through the Hot 100

168) The Supremes – “You Can’t Hurry Love”

Motown had started life with the goal of representing the polished and mainstream-friendly face of African-American pop, and was immediately rewarded with a string of blockbuster hits. By the mid-’60s, though, the label’s strict adherence to its sophisticated, conventional pop format began to relax. The chart hits of Stax/Volt and Atlantic proved that racially mixed audiences were open to more concentrated strains of soul, as did Motown’s own success with the likes of the gospel-influenced Four Tops and the funky R&B of Junior Walker & the All Stars. Likewise, rock and roll, which had re-entered the popular consciousness around the same time as Motown via the traditionally-minded, melodic pop of the early British Invasion, was now veering into experimental and bluesier territory, expanding the boundaries of what constituted popular music.

While Motown was understandably hesitant to fiddle with the guaranteed-hit formula of its biggest stars, even The Supremes were eventually geared for an update. “I Hear a Symphony” freed the girls from the repetitive stomp of their previous hits, while the two singles that followed continued playing with the definition of what a Supremes record could sound like: the uncharacteristically moody “My World is Empty Without You,” and “Love is Like an Itching in My Heart,” which set up house in Martha and the Vandellas’ brasher neighborhood. Neither of those songs became number-one hits (though both made the Top 10), so a corrective course was charted to return the girls to their rightful spot on top. Lamont Dozier has said that “You Can’t Hurry Love” began life as a rewrite of “Come See About Me,” and indeed it repeats that record’s melding of worried lyrics with a cheerful, uptempo arrangement. And like “Come See About Me,” Holland-Dozier-Holland sneak in references to a gospel song that would be familiar to much of The Supremes’ black audience – in this case “He’s Right On Time” by Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes. (Sample lyrics: “You can’t hurry God, you just have to wait/ You have to trust Him and give Him time, no matter how long it takes.”). But this time around, the gospel feel isn’t just confined to the lyric sheet. “You Can’t Hurry Love” swings more than any Supremes number-one before it, propelled along by the sprightly bouncing bass and staccato rhythm guitar. “You Can’t Hurry Love,” then, can be thought of as a turning point for The Supremes, transitioning the group from the dainty, airtight pop of their early hits to the more soulful and dramatic sound of their future.

It wasn’t just the Supremes’ sound that was developing, though – the lyrics too were showing signs of maturity. If we think of the Supremes singles as the saga of an on-again, off-again romance where Diana tears herself up over a guy who’s not worth the trouble, “You Can’t Hurry Love” is the point where she begins to step back and reconsider what love is supposed to mean.  She’s learning patience and finding the strength to break off the bad relationship, even though she’s terrified of being single (“How much more can I take/ Before loneliness will cause my heart, heart to break?”). The reassuring maternal figures of Flo and Mary help ease some of Diana’s anxiety and frustration, their backing vocals reenforcing key nuggets of wisdom (“Wait!” “You got to give and take!” “Love don’t come easy!”). The music too is brisk and bouncy – a celebration of the happiness and freedom that await Diana once she stops mooning over her false idea of love. Whether it sticks, though, is another matter. For now, her mother’s advice is “the only thing that keeps me hanging on” – but soon those words will stand for another meaning entirely, and just as desperate. 8

Hit #1 on September 10, 1966; total of 2 weeks at #1
168 of 1022 #1′s reviewed; 16.44% through the Hot 100

167) Donovan – “Sunshine Superman”

Half a year passed between the recording of “Sunshine Superman” and its US release. Another half a year passed before the single came out in Donovan’s native UK. Within those 12 months, the concept of mainstream pop that reflected the psychedelic experience had gone from obscurity to full-blown trend. (The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” often cited as the first psych-rock song, was actually recorded a few weeks after “Superman,” though released first.) But even if legal hassles kept “Sunshine Superman” from being the bolt out the blue that Donovan had hoped for, nevertheless there’s a freshness to the single that keeps it from sounding like psychedelia by rote. The collage of classical Indian instrumentation, Baroque-era harpsichord and electric guitars isn’t merely the product of checking boxes on a psych-rock template. Instead, this impossible soundscape untethers the song from any definable time or place, situating the song somewhere found only in the imagination (with the assistance of certain chemicals, perhaps). This detachment from reality is aided by the shifting bass, continually knocking the record off balance, and by the disguised instrumentation: the conga subbing for a tabla, or, in the song’s greatest hook, the swerving electric guitar sting masquerading as sitar or even siren.

The delayed release of “Sunshine Superman” might have even served to its benefit. Its title made the song as apposite a warm weather number-one as “Summer in the City,” albeit one that presents an idealized acid dream of beaches and sunsets rather than The Lovin’ Spoonful’s noisy, grimy realism. In addition, its mid-1966 release placed it in context with psych-leaning records by bigger, more musically progressive acts like The Beatles and The Byrds. In the US, Donovan had previously only notched a few minor hits with the earnest acoustic folk of “Catch the Wind” and “Universal Soldier.” “Sunshine Superman” singlehandedly raised his American profile and transformed his persona from denim-capped balladeer to fey, benevolent mystic. On top of the eclectic production and rainbow-and-velvet-strewn imagery, Donovan’s jazzy phrasing adds a newfound bit of swagger to his delicate tenor, as befitting the refrain “’cause I made my mind up/ you’re going to be mine” – though Donovan’s inherent gentleness makes it more of a mischievous tease than a Jaggeresque leer. The production by Mickie Most, with whom Donovan would collaborate steadily over the next few years, is brisk and breezy in keeping with the song’s carefree spirit, but grounded enough to avoid either the ponderousness or overt whimsy that would often come to mark psychedelia, particularly as the decade progressed.

A historical note: session musicians Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones met at the recording of this single. The band they would form a few years later, while never troubling this blog directly, would have a huge impact on rock music from the late ’60s onward. While “Sunshine Superman” represented a fresh start for its singer and an inspired example of its burgeoning genre, it also contained the seeds of the future sound that would render both obsolete. 8

Hit #1 on September 3, 1966; total of 1 week at #1
167 of 1021 #1′s reviewed; 16.36% through the Hot 100

166) The Lovin’ Spoonful – “Summer in the City”

The Beach Boys aside, few mid-’60s bands seemed as destined to record a summer standard as The Lovin’ Spoonful, what with the group’s sunny outlook and gentle humor, their country folk/Chuck Berry/jugband-influenced style of  “good time music,” and John Sebastian’s eternally untroubled croon. Hits like “Daydream” and “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” were made for lying in the sunshine, easygoing enough so as not to break a sweat. But the song that would end up soundtracking a million heat wave montages (and become the band’s biggest hit) was one where the Spoonful traded their genial persona for something a little tougher.  “Summer in the City” is the sound of the mercury rising one degree too high, the heat no longer pleasant but oppressive. It takes as its setting the peculiar hell of a Manhattan summer: millions of people packed onto a concrete island, the air foul and tempers short. Even the most affable Greenwich Village hippie is liable to lose his cool.

The intro to “Summer in the City”  builds dread via a trio of warning shots: a pair of long-short organ notes (anticipating the main theme from Jaws, another tale of warm-weather horror), each punctuated by a single snap of snare drum. Sebastian rips into the song like a guy who doesn’t irritate easily but who has finally been pushed over the edge. The band breathlessly courses through the verse, gathering momentum until the line “walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head” bursts forth in a single rush of syllables like a blast of steam from a pressure cooker.

The chorus shifts the setting from summer day to summer night. The introduction of the Autoharp to the song, a familiar presence from many of the Spoonful’s mellower hits, signals a bit of relief accompanying the drop in temperature. Even without the sun beating down, though, the chorus is scarcely less propulsive. The difference is that the band has gone from fleeing the summer heat to pursuing a different, more enjoyable kind of warmth: someone with whom to spend the fleeting hours before the sun’s return. The chase extends into the second verse – “cool cat, lookin’ for a kitty” – but the intensity that read as frustration in the first verse now feels like exhilaration. By the end of the second chorus, the band seems at last content,  Sebastian’s voice softening as he repeats “in the summer, in the city.” This reverie, however, is soon interrupted by reminders of the irritants that will return with the sunlight.  Some of these, like the car horn honks and jackhammer effects, are literal sounds of the summer street. Others are more suggestive: the start-stop traffic rhythm of the guitar/keyboards combo; the sustained organ note, piercing like a sunbeam directly to the eye; the mirage-like haze of the keyboards bathed in reverb. The reprise of the first verse confirms the day’s return, and the song cycles at least twice more between day and night into the fade-out. But the intense heat no longer seems quite as threatening as it used to, now that there’s the night to look forward to.  8

Hit #1 on August 13, 1966; total of 3 weeks at #1
166 of 1020 #1′s reviewed; 16.27% through the Hot 100

162) The Beatles – “Paperback Writer”

The “Paperback Writer” single is one of the odd cases where the flipside of a record proves more influential than the hit. “Rain,” the B-side in question, is credited as a watershed in The Beatles’ transformation into studio experimentalists, though it’s less notable as a song than as a Whitman’s Sampler of tape effects: sped-up lead vocals, slowed-down rhythm track, a fade-out followed by a fade-in and, most strikingly, John Lennon’s voice run backwards in the coda.  In comparison, “Paperback Writer” could easily be overlooked as one more of the band’s riff-driven rockers - “son of ‘Day Tripper,’” as Lennon himself later called it.* But while “Paperback Writer” may have been more immediate and commercial than its flip, it too foreshadows Revolver’s sonic exploration and eclecticism. The song dispenses with the band’s trademark sticky choruses and distinctive chord progressions, instead locking on to a single G7 chord for nearly the entire verse. (Paul McCartney cites Little Richard as inspiration, but it also brings to mind the drone of raga-influenced Revolver tracks “Love You To” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.”) McCartney’s infatuation with Stax and Motown (cf. “Got to Get You Into My Life”**) inspired the boosted sound of his ever-melodic bass guitar; it would remain essentially a co-lead instrument from Revolver on. The distorted guitar riff, pushier and thornier than “Day Tripper”’s groove, points toward psychedelic rock, as does the trippy vocal echo on the harmonies at the end of the verse: a prêt–à–porter take on “Rain”’s avant-gardisms.

The lyrics of “Paperback Writer” also hint at the expanded subject matter The Beatles were beginning to explore. The name-checking of Edward Lear in the verse and “Frère Jacques” in the backing harmonies preview “Yellow Submarine” and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’s fixation with willful nonsense and childlike whimsy. More directly, the song itself is an early example of the type of character vignette McCartney would develop with “Eleanor Rigby” and “For No One,” but with those songs’ pathos swapped for a satirical take on the drive for fame.  The narrator has ambition and self-confidence to spare, assuring his anonymous contact that his thousand-plus-page behemoth will be an instant bestseller and breathlessly pleading for a break.  Whether he’s got the talent is another question. For all his attempts to dress his manuscript up in the trappings of a salable pulp paperback (“it’s a dirty story of a dirty man”), it’s clear that it’s in fact a dense autobiographical roman à clef, penned by a writer whose overearnest proposals to change his novel aren’t exactly proof of artistic integrity. (That he claims it’s based on a novel by Edward Lear, who never actually wrote a novel, seems in keeping with both his eagerness to say the right things and his all-around cluelessness.) While such a depiction of a struggling wannabe could seem mean-spirited coming from a band at the pinnacle of both creativity and fame, the song treats the aspiring novelist with a measure of affection and good humor. He may be naïve but he’s also sincere, and it’s hard not to root for his unlikely novel to be accepted. (Note that the only time the song changes chords is on the phrase “paperback writer,” as if acknowledging that’s the only way out of his rut.) Perhaps The Beatles even recognized something familiar in the story: the tale of a creative young man trying to pack a thousand pages’ worth of ideas and personal expression into a typically disposable, commercial piece of pop culture. 8

*From David Sheff’s All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Of course, it’s worth remembering that Lennon was the primary author of “Day Tripper” while McCartney wrote “Paperback Writer,” and that McCartney won the A-side of both singles.

**In which, incidentally, McCartney reprises the “Paperback Writer” guitar riff.

Hit #1 on June 25, 1966 for 2 weeks; repeaked on July 9, 1966 for 1 week; total of 3 weeks at #1
162 of 1018 #1′s reviewed; 15.91% through the Hot 100

160) Percy Sledge – “When a Man Loves a Woman”

Southern soul had been a commercial force since the beginning of the decade, but its rawer, more groove-focused sound kept it trailing behind Motown’s hit-driven commercial polish. Memphis-based Stax Records netted a handful of big hits at the beginning of the ’60s – Carla Thomas’s Chantels-ish ballad “Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)”; her father Rufus Thomas’s dance novelty “Walking the Dog”; a pair of funky instrumentals by the label’s house band (The Mar-Keys’ “Last Night” and Booker T. & the M.G.’s’ “Green Onions”) – but by 1966, the label still hadn’t produced a breakout artist who could rival The Supremes or Marvin Gaye. Stax’s biggest star, Otis Redding, had yet to reach the Top 20 of the pop charts. Atlantic Records up-and-comer Wilson Pickett, who recorded at Stax, had a bit more luck, hitting #13 in March with “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.).” But the singer who finally gave Southern soul its monster crossover hit was an unknown unaffiliated with the Memphis scene. Percy Sledge worked days as a hospital orderly when he recorded his debut single at Norala Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama. Atlantic quickly picked up the single, and within months “When a Man Loves a Woman” became the label’s first gold record, almost single-handedly establishing the Muscle Shoals region as a capital for soul music.

The churchy organ line that opens the song announces immediately that this is something completely different from any R&B- and soul-flavored pop hit that had come before it. That Farfisa, along with the backing choir vocals, betrays soul’s origins in gospel music, while the twangy guitar could have been ripped from a country song. Sledge’s secular testifying seems freeform and off the cuff, yet carves out a melody as indelible and resilient as any hymn or Tin Pan Alley tune. The song starts out like an ode to devotion: “when a man loves a woman / can’t keep his mind on nothing else / he’ll trade the world for the good thing he’s found.” But for all its romantic slow-dance potential, “When a Man Loves a Woman” is less about love than it is about heartbreak and self-ruin. As the song progresses, the admirable aspects of a relationship begin to warp into their carnival-mirror images. The infatuated man’s imperception of his lover’s flaws reveals itself as fatal blindness; his willingness to sacrifice deteriorates into masochism; his loyalty mutates into codependency. Sledge begins the song in the third person, singing about a generic man and woman, but the pretense of distance drops away in the bridges: “I gave you everything I had,” “I know just how he feels.” The use of “man” and “woman” also universalizes the song, making the relationship between the two feel more like the rule than an unfortunate exception. This is how love always is, Sledge seems to be singing. Even if the woman isn’t worth the pain, the man is doomed to suffer anyway. By the time the slightly out-of-tune horns show up in the final few seconds, they sound as broken as the singer’s spirit.  8

Hit #1 on May 28, 1966; total of 2 weeks at #1
160 of 1016 #1′s reviewed; 15.75% through the Hot 100

159) The Mamas & the Papas – “Monday, Monday”

Like The Byrds, the members of The Mamas & the Papas started out as mid-level folkies who found success blending their native style of music with modern pop. But whereas The Byrds primarily drew from the up-to-the-minute sounds of Bob Dylan and The Beatles, The Mamas & the Papas seemed equally comfortable in the present and the past, aligning themselves with the burgeoning folk-rock scene but also reaching back to 1950s vocal groups (particularly the boy-girl harmonies of The Fleetwoods), the soft orchestral arrangements of easy listening and the dramatic flair of vaudeville. Their purified version of folk-rock filtered out its rough edges and political streak while retaining its immediacy and autumnal beauty. The group’s warm yet crystal-clear harmonies and immaculate folk-classical production set the template for sunshine pop, but many of their best songs seemed more partly cloudy, as if their perpetual optimism had developed as resistance to the undercurrent of melancholy coursing through their music. The tension within the group frequently seeped into their lyrics, giving even their more upbeat songs an air of fragility.

“Monday, Monday” isn’t as bleak as The Mamas & the Papas’ previous single, “California Dreamin’,” but nevertheless it captures a similar uncertainty and ambivalence. Monday is the day for returning to regular life, the pleasures of the weekend reduced to nothing more than memories and perhaps some lingering aftereffects. It marks both an end of something that may or may not have been good, and a fresh start that may or may not be welcome. “Monday, Monday” neatly splits the difference between these conflicting emotions: in the left channel, it’s all uplifting ba-da-da harmonies; in the right, it’s Denny Doherty’s plaintive lead and a rolling harpsichord line. The opening line of each verse alternates between anticipation (“Monday, Monday / so good to me”) and dread (“can’t trust that day”). In turn, the mellow sway of the verses are twice split by a faster, more driven bridge, where the melancholy tips over into outright misery (“but whenever Monday comes / you can find me crying all of the time”). Like the preceding number-one, the intensity of “Monday, Monday” is heightened by a false ending. But whereas the stop in “Good Lovin’” is like a blown fuse, the song’s relentless scramble gone into overdrive, the one in “Monday, Monday” stems from a reluctance to move forward. But time marches on and so does the song, concluding on a note of acceptance if not enthusiasm: “Monday, Monday / it’s here to stay.” Rather than coming to a fully resolved ending, the song fades out in a cycle of harpsichord and harmonies. There will always be more Mondays. 8

Hit #1 on May 7, 1966; total of 3 weeks at #1
159 of 1016 #1′s reviewed; 15.65% through the Hot 100

155) Nancy Sinatra – “These Boots are Made for Walkin’”

It would be neat symmetry to think of “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” as a rebuke to the previous number-one’s questionable sexual politics. But even if there had been a gap between the two records’ releases, you get the sense that “Boots” would’ve been too cool to pay that melodramatic throwback any attention. Whereas the conventional gender attitudes and Four Seasons-esque falsetto leaps of “Lightnin’ Strikes” fit squarely within the mold of early ’60s pop (even as its weirdness elevates it to some other dimension), Nancy Sinatra’s self-assured sexiness and tart, plainspoken vocals epitomized the increasing directness of the latter half of the decade. Even the fact that she was singing about boots – rugged men’s footwear co-opted as ultra-mod women’s fashion, both covering legs and emphasizing their form – felt hip and transgressive.

The tension between the masculine and the feminine recurs throughout Sinatra’s ’60s discography, particularly in her collaborations with songwriter/producer Lee Hazlewood. Their duets emphasize the gender divide by casting them as extreme archetypes: him, the hard-bitten rambler; her, the dewy-eyed siren. (The 1967 single “Some Velvet Morning” even fluctuates between time signatures depending on who’s singing.) On “Boots,” though, Sinatra is left to inhabit both roles by herself. By wedding her girlish purr to Hazlewood’s terse, tough-guy phrasing, Sinatra both confirms and subverts conventional expectations of femininity, turning “Boots” into a cross between a come-on and a threat.

Any hint of danger in the record, however, is mostly defused by its sense of humor, from the childlike vernacular (“truthin’,” “samin’”), to the flamboyantly upbeat horns, to Chuck Berghofer’s heat-warped doublebass slide, at once foreboding and absurd. Even Sinatra’s warning that “one of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you” is delivered with a wink. Is this playfulness meant to assure listeners that her forwardness is just role-playing, that they don’t have to take her seriously? Or is the song tripling back on itself, smuggling in a pro-feminist message in the guise of just kidding? (Sinatra’s wry delivery does suggest she’s telling a joke to someone who’s not getting it, and relishing the thought of how hard the punchline will land once he does.) Perhaps “Boots” and “Lightnin’ Strikes” aren’t so different after all. In an era where traditional gender roles were being questioned, both songs offer ambiguous answers, muddying the waters between what’s intended to be ironic and what’s just camp. 8

Hit #1 on February 26, 1966; total of 1 week at #1
155 of 1016 #1′s reviewed; 15.26% through the Hot 100

154) Lou Christie – “Lightnin’ Strikes”

“Lightnin’ Strikes” is a difficult record to get a handle on. On one hand, it rivals “Leader of the Pack” for sheer melodrama,  courtesy of the song’s shifting multi-part verses, the kitchen-sink production (by ex-Four Seasons arranger Charles Calello) and Lou Christie’s octave-scaling vocals. On the other hand, there’s the lyrics. “Lightnin’ Strikes” is the pop epitome of the double standard, where Christie can plead for “a girl he can trust to the very end” while at in the same breath try to justify his own infidelity through condescension (“you’re old enough to know the makings of a man”) and bathos (“believe it or not, you’re in my heart all the time”). Even given the era’s gender norms and rock’s pervasive misogyny, the shamelessness of a line like “for the time being, baby, live by my rules” is really something else. (Likewise, he’s careful to imply he’ll marry her without ever quite committing to it.)

In fact, the lines Christie smarmily croons in “Lightnin’ Strikes” are so brazen that you have to wonder if they’re meant to be ironic. The song was co-written by Christie with longtime collaborator Twyla Herbert, a self-described mystic and bohemian more than two decades his senior – not a woman all that concerned with conforming to social norms. Further, “Lightnin’ Strikes” seems geared to emphasize an association between sexism and violence. The prechorus, where Christie’s strained voice shouts “I can’t stop myself!” while female backing singers cry “Stop! Stop!,” is notoriously ambiguous. Is our narrator an unrepentant Casanova or something far more sinister?

“Lightnin’ Strikes” even borrows the format of a horror story. Its verses are a burlesque of innocence, thick with tinkling piano, church bells and an idyllic “chapel in the pines.” Even so, there are hints that things aren’t quite as they appear. Christie’s transparent phoniness implies there’s something in his true nature that needs concealing. The crashing piano chords opening each verse suggest distant cracks of thunder, warning of a coming storm. Even the backing vocals are so exaggerated in their sweetness that they verge on grotesque.

Of course, as in any horror story, this perfect world exists only to be shattered. When Christie spots “lips begging to be kissed,” his voice mutates into a shrill keen, completely unrecognizable from the charmer he posed as just seconds earlier. The switch from his teen idol croon to the manic, otherworldly falsetto signifies that he has transformed into some unknown thing incapable of being controlled. His choice of words – “lightning striking me again!” – links him with the violence of a sudden, unpredictable burst of energy that burns hot and leaves destruction in its wake. It also evokes the electrical flash that brought Frankenstein’s monster to life.

Nevertheless, Christie, Herbert and Calello never entirely tip their hand as to the song’s true meaning. Perhaps the record is exactly what it appears to be, no irony or grotesquerie intended. This uncertainty complements the song’s constantly shifting structure: you never can get too comfortable with “Lightnin’ Strikes,” which is precisely what makes it so compelling. There are plenty of terrible records with well-meaning messages. The ambiguous intent of this one only adds to its allure. 8

Hit #1 on February 19, 1966; total of 1 week at #1
154 of 1016 #1′s reviewed; 15.15% through the Hot 100

152) The Beatles – “We Can Work It Out”

Key to the Beatles mythology is the perceived difference of temperament between Lennon and McCartney: Paul as the romantic classicist to John’s sardonic experimentalist, the wide-eyed optimist to his steely-eyed realist, the “it’s getting better” to his “can’t get no worse.” And what clearer illustration of this disparity between the two than “We Can Work It Out,” with Paul chirping “We can work it out! We can work it out!” in the chorus, crosscut with John’s memento mori in the middle eight: “Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.”

But to read “We Can Work It Out” as an attempt at friendly reconciliation misses the point: Paul has no interest in compromise. “Try to see it my way,” he repeats throughout the song, but he never adopts the opposite point of view. “Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?” he snaps, followed by a threat: “Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone.” Even when he tries to appear conciliatory – “only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong” – it’s obvious which camp he thinks he’s in. “Think of what you’re saying,” he seethes, “you can get it wrong and still you think that it’s all right.” Paul’s rigged it so there’s no way his opponent can win: either she concedes, or the relationship’s over.

The real difference between the two Beatles’ contributions to the song, then, is that John makes these threatening undertones explicit. He arranges his segment in a minor key, beginning each line by hammering at the same note over and over (“life-is-ve-ry-short”). In contrast, Paul either doesn’t recognize his own selfishness, or is wily enough to hide it under a jaunty melody. Likewise, John and Paul harmonize on the bridge, their voices sharing equal time and space. Two vocal tracks can be heard on the verses and chorus as well – but they’re both Paul’s.

Even within the middle eight, there’s a battle between time signatures, alternating between 4/4 (“I have always thought … ”) and 3/4 (“ … ask you once again”). John’s harmonium (foreshadowing the band’s use of odd instruments from Revolver on) is reminiscent of the calliope on a carousel, circling endlessly but never going anywhere. When the song returns to the waltz-time harmonium for the last few measures, it hints that the struggle is still unresolved – or that there will be many more arguments to come.

This push-and-pull extended beyond the confines of the record. John’s (and sometimes George’s) insistence on releasing the harder-rocking “Day Tripper” as the band’s next single instead of “We Can Work It Out” led to the two tracks being bundled together as the first-ever designated double A-side. While “Day Tripper” is the better record, featuring one of the band’s mightiest guitar riffs, it only reached #5 in the US. “We Can Work It Out” is no second-rate release, though. It’s a compelling psychological dissection of an irresolvable argument, from the tunnel vision focus to the frustration at hitting an impasse. Just as “Help!” exposed Lennon’s desperation and neediness, “We Can Work It Out” outs the controlling, unsympathetic side of the cute Beatle, whether he intended it or not. 8

Hit #1 on January 8, 1966 for 2 weeks; repeaked on January 29, 1966 for 1 week; total of 3 weeks at #1
152 of 1016 #1′s reviewed; 14.96% through the Hot 100