This week Jim is taking his SLS prompt from another blogger I enjoy following, as he tells us in his post Games and Playthings. This is our chance to play songs about toys, as suggested by Barbara from teleportingweena – aka ghostmmnc.
As I did last week I’m going back to the best decade ever for music – the Sixties – and am playing two songs that were released within six weeks of each other in late 1967. I’m not sure how popular tin soldiers are nowadays – I’m guessing they have largely been consigned to the toy cupboard of history – but I loved the set I had when I was little, and as far as I’m concerned that is a good enough reason for choosing my first song this week:
And the lyrics:
Although this is credited to both Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane their writing partnership was like that of Lennon and McCartney – joint credit even if just one of them wrote the song. Tin Soldier was written by Steve Marriott and was originally intended for singer P.P. Arnold, but Steve liked it so much he kept it for the band. It was addressed to his first wife, Jenny Rylance, so I can see why he chose to do that. P.P. Arnold can be heard singing backing vocals on the record and, as in this video, also performed as guest singer at television recordings of the song: a great set of pipes for one so tiny! The Small Faces released the track as a single on 2nd December 1967, and it peaked at #9 in the UK and #73 in the US, though it fared best in the Antipodes, reaching #3 in both Australia and New Zealand. I didn’t buy the single at the time, but I did get the fabulous double compilation album The Autumn Stone when that came out in 1969, and this was one of the tracks on it: there have been many Small Faces collections released but I still think that is the best. This track has been covered by a host of other bands, including Humble Pie, the ‘supergroup’ Steve formed after leaving the rest of the Faces, who then linked up with Rod Stewart.
Another plaything that I really enjoyed when I was a kid was going out to fly my kite – I got a lot of exercise chasing it around! Don’t worry, I’m not going down the Mary Poppins route: I said that there were only six weeks between the releases of today’s two tunes and this was the first, which came out on 27 October 1967:
Simon Dupree and the Big Sound were actually a band that wanted to play soul music. They comprised three brothers – Derek, Phil and Ray Shulman – with Eric Hine on keyboards, Peter O’Flaherty on bass, and drummer Tony Ransley. A then unknown keyboard player by the name of Reginald Dwight was hired to fill in for an ill Eric Hine and he joined them on a 1967 tour in Scotland. They were asked to allow him to stay on, and he was almost recruited as a permanent member. The rest, as they say, is history! Note that not one of the band was actually called Simon Dupree – it was just what they thought sounded good. Kites was first recorded earlier in 1967 by The Rooftop Singers, an American country-folk trio, but their version didn’t make the charts. The song was heard by The Big Sound’s management, who insisted that they record it, and though they didn’t like if they had a contractual obligation: it gave them their only big UK hit, reaching #9. The band later released an anonymous single We Are The Moles under the name of The Moles: it wasn’t a hit but did give rise to some wonderful rumours that it was a previously unreleased Beatles song with Ringo on vocals! They broke up in 1969 and the Shulman brothers then founded the prog rock band Gentle Giant, who I once saw in concert in my uni days – a far cry from this track! Unlike Tin Soldier I did buy this one as a single, and have always liked the haunting quality of the arrangement.
That’s all for today: two very different songs from my teen years, both of which I still enjoy today. I’ll see you again for a special edition of Tuesday Tunes, so until then I hope you have a great time 😊
Take It Easy 