The Hottest Hit On The Planet:
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by The Righteous Brothers
You may know this one. It is, after all, the most played song on American radio… OF ALL TIME!!!
You have probably heard “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” so many times that you’ve found yourself pondering the lyrics. Pondering such questions as:
- Why, exactly, is not closing your eyes, when you are kissing Bill Medley’s lips, considered such a sure sign by Bill Medley that you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling for Bill Medley? I always wondered this as a kid.
I mean, sure, closing your eyes when you are kissing someone feels like the most natural thing to do.
After all, a foreign object is right up in your face, and it’s coming progressively closer. Closing your eyes is the most natural default protective mechanism. But, so my childish mind figured, if you close your eyes whilst kissing someone’s lips, wouldn’t the most logical explanation be that you think that they are… ugly? If you were kissing the lips of someone hot, wouldn’t you want to keep your eyes open for the full cinematic experience?
A full cinematic – and audio – experience, much like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” itself! That was my childhood logic back then, and even now, I feel the logic is solid.
Also questions such as – – – – hang on a minute!
- Bill Medley’s lips? You mean his last name is not Righteous? Does this mean that Lurch impersonator Bill Medley and the other guy – the little jokester Bobby Hatfield – were not brothers?!? Yes, that is exactly what it means!
Well, you may then wonder: why did they call themselves that? The story goes that they were playing a show one night, when someone in the crowd shouted out to them, “that was righteous, brothers!”
As the fact that The Righteous Brothers included in their audience members who might use phrases such as “that was righteous, brothers” may indicate: before “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”, The Righteous Brothers had a very different sound.
A sound that sounded Black enough to fool Black radio DJs:
“You should have seen Rocky G’s face drop when he found out they weren’t really Negroes,” one radio manager is said to have reminisced.
Another radio DJ:Philadelphia’s Georgie Woods, previously an R&B consultant for Dick Clark:
A DJ who would stop playing records right in the middle of his set to talk about Martin Luther King, a DJ on WDAS, the station Malcolm X chose for his first interview after coming back from Mecca in late 1964…
… came up with the term “blue-eyed soul” to describe their records, introducing The Righteous Brothers as, “here’s my blue-eyed soul brothers.”
Yet another DJ – Bill Gavin:
…He of The Gavin Report –
… was not a fan of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”. He claimed that “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” was a sign that “blue eyed soul (had) gone too far.” The phrase was clearly catching on. But Bill Gavin was being a tad premature. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” is simply blue-eyed soul taken to its logical conclusion. It makes one wonder how Bill Gavin would react once the 80s rolls around and Simply Red arrived.
Presumedly people were still a little confused when “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” was released.
Presumedly that’s why the video begins with the duo in silhouette, waiting around for the great big “wait-a-minute, they’re white?!?” reveal.
Poor Bobby, then, continues to do some more waiting around. Sitting around, looking bored. Bobby had previously asked Phil Spector, who produced the thing, what he was supposed to do during the song, given that he doesn’t start singing until the bridge.
Phil told him to go the bank.
But you can’t go to the bank in the middle of a Shindig! performance, so Bobby just sits around. And looks bored. It almost looks as though he’s protesting.
Phil Spector was excited that he had signed the Righteous Brothers. They may not have scored much in the way of hits, yet, but they’d had a genre – of sorts – named after them, and they were regulars on the new pop music show Shindig! So the kids knew who they were.
Oh, and they had been a support act for The Beatles! All this added up to buzz. All they needed was the right song,
Meanwhile, Phil Spector was falling out of love with Ronnie from The Ronettes. He was losing that lovin’ feeling for her. Since they got married a few years later I guess they got that lovin’ feeling back. Phil was also still married to his first wife, Annette. They had also lost that lovin’ feeling for each other. When Phil Spector came up with the title “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” which of the two was it about?
Having come up with the title, Phil decided to give Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil a call, to ask them to write the rest of the song. Barry Mann was obviously the guy for the job. A guy with the sensitivity and the tact to tackle such a topic. After all, he was the guy who’d written “Who Put The Bomp?” (“Who Put The Bomp?” is a 7.)
In addition to his personal woes, Phil Spector had pop chart conundrums.
Phil hadn’t produced a Top Ten hit in a year: not since The Ronette’s “Be My Baby.” It was as though the world had lost that lovin’ feeling for Phil Spector productions. It was time to simultaneously double-down on his style and switch his style up. Instead of making “little symphonies for the kids”, Phil’s new Righteous Brothers records were “BIG SYMPHONIES FOR THE (NOW SLIGHTLY OLDER) KIDS.”
Or, as Cash Box put it, “a pulsating beat-ballad cha-cha.”
Such a grown-up showstopping production required a grown-up showstopping voice. And that voice belonged to Bill Medley. Bill’s voice was a grown-man voice. It was a voice that could make a grown-man cry.
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” was a monumental colossus that took eons to construct. The instrumental and the vocals had to be completed separately, which is normal now, but notable them.
It’s possible that the reason the band and the vocals weren’t recorded together is that there wasn’t enough room in the studio.
Phil Spector’s productions may have sounded mammoth, but his studio was tiny.
And his band – mostly the Wrecking Crew – was insanely big: four acoustic guitars, three pianos, three bass guitars… and the most important instrument of all, two 2×3-foot cement-lined echo chambers, two gaping holes in the wall.
The result sounded so ahead of its time that it was promoted as “Tomorrow’s Sound Today.” As though it was a wonder of the modern age. Like Astroturf or Pop-Tarts (both of which were invented around the same time). Which is a weird way to think about a timeless classic like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.”
For all the tricks that Phil Spector threw at “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” there was one that he did not.
Despite what everyone seemed to think at the time, Phil didn’t slow the tape down. That’s simply how Bill Medley’s voice sounded.
And Bill’s voice is the centrepiece of the whole thing. For all of its whizz-bang technological marvell-ocity, the best part of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” might just be when Bill and Bobby cry at each other –“BA-by” “BABY!!!” “BA-by” “BABEEEE!!!!” etc – in a battle to the death over who really is the most righteous brother!
It’s a close call, but I think Bill still wins.
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” is a 10.
Meanwhile, in Eurovision Land…
It’s “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son” by France Gall
And plucky little Luxembourg won Eurovision. For the second time!
Given that this was only the 10th Eurovision, this – 20% – was a pretty good strike rate for Luxembourg, a miniscule country squished between France, Germany and Belgium:
- A country so small that it makes Belgium – itself an objectively tiny little country – look like a vast empire.
- A country so small that it’s named after its capital city (or visa versa), because that’s the only thing that can fit in it.
- A country so small that I’m amazed to report that it does in fact have its own official language, although not all its citizens now how to speak it.
- A country so small that it’s a wonder that it still exists.
But then again, its motto is, “We want to stay what we are.”
There was no way that a country like this could win Eurovision twice, not without some sort of magic potion. Not without a Gall.
Although… should we even consider “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son” as Luxembourg… ish? Pretty much everyone involved in the tune was French.
17-year old France Gall’s name was even ‘France!’
This must have been confusing: “and the winner is… France! I mean Luxembourg! I mean France! I don’t even know what I mean anymore!!!”
And it was written by Serge Gainsbourg, the most French man alive. Serge was already something of a big deal in France, mostly for a song called “La Chanson De Prevert”, which I’m sad to report does not translate into “The Song Of A Pervert”, as much as that would have been the perfect way for Serge to start his hit making career. No, Prevert was a French poet.
Serge was not a fan of “ye-ye” music, a style of French teen-pop, almost exclusively sung by teenage girls, named in reference to the stereotypical sound found in every ‘ye-ye’ tune. Most notably Francoise Hardy, on “La Fille Avec Toi.” The phrase “yeah yeah” was apparently not well known in France at the time, and at least one interviewer had to ask her what it meant.
It’s almost certain then that “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son” is a “ye-ye” song about how silly the author thinks “ye-ye” songs are. “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son” is a pop song that seems to hate pop songs. And pop stars. And pop fans, described as people mindlessly dancing to pop songs. About how the singers of pop songs are too young to understand love, and hence to understand what pop songs are about.
“What’s the point?” France asks “singing silly love songs like that, without knowing anything about boys.”
Some of the lyrics are far heavier than the wind-up toy melody might have you suspect, or the demands of Eurovision require:
“My records are mirrors
In which everyone can see me
I’m everywhere at once
Shattered into a thousand voice fragments”
You can understand why France may have been a little unclear what she was singing about. Why she may not have realized she was singing about how silly both her and her profession was. May not have realized that Serge had written a scathing critique of “ye-ye” music and tricked into singing it, one of the genre’s biggest stars.
For France Gall was already something of “ye-ye” royalty.
She had already scored multiple French hits, most notably “Ne sois pas si bête” or “Don’t Be So Stupid,” and the Serge-penned follow-up “N’écoute pas les idoles” or “Don’t Listen To The Idiots.”
I feel a theme emerging. Then there was her French Number One “Sacre Charlemagne” – written by France’s father – all about the French Emperor from a millennium earlier, who invented school; a totally legitimate reason for France to hate him.
“Who had this crazy idea one day to invent school?
Who had this crazy idea one day to invent school?
It’s this sacred Charlemagne, sacred Charlemagne
This son of Pepin the Short gives us a lot of trouble”
Rebellious, yet educational: I love it!
Since France (Gall) was already one of the biggest stars in France (The 5th Republic Of) what was she doing representing plucky little Luxembourg in Eurovision?
It seems to have something to do with another show on Luxembourg television in which they were trying to find the best television host. France sang “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son”, during the interval.
Since the same television station was responsible for both events, that performance was enough for France to get the job of representing Luxembourg.
So they headed down to Naples, where the contest was being held… and where poor France was boo-ed during rehearsals. It is popularly believed that this was because “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son” was a silly uptempo pop song with something approximating a rock beat, whereas – as strange as it seems now – Eurovision considered itself a serious musical competition, the kind that gave its points to traditional pop balladry, such as that of the actual French entrant: “N’Avoue Jamais” by Guy Mardel.
Ultimately little France (Gall) won, although interestingly, she got most of her points from non-French speaking countries. The only French speaking country to give her any points was Switzerland, and those judges were probably German speakers anyway.
France did not give France any point at all. Maybe they considered her a traitor?
If the audience at the Eurovision rehearsals were harsh, France’s boyfriend at the time was even harsher – “You sang off key! You were terrible!” he shouted at her down the phone, before, according to at least one source – breaking up with her. The gall of the guy!
Almost as bad was Kathy Kirby from the UK, who had thought she was going to win. She marched down into France’s dressing room and slapped her!!! THE GALL!!!
Kathy’s song – “I Belong” – came second, and, well, it doesn’t suck.
Speaking of sucking…
Having made France (Gall) his puppet, Serge did exactly what you would expect Serge to do; he tricked her into singing naughty songs, under the assumption – correct, as it turned out, and thereby confirming “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son”s entire conceit – that she was too young and naïve to realize what she was actually singing about.
“Les Sucettes” is just about sucking on a lollipop right? The lyric “when the barley sugar flavoured with aniseed flows down Annie’s throat, she is in paradise” is certainly not about… ew!!!! Thank God it’s in French!
The UK would finally win Eurovision a couple of years later; pretty much by just ripping off “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son”, turning it into Sandie Shaw’s “Puppet On A String.” (“Puppet On A String” is a 7.)
“Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son” is a 10.
Meanwhile, in Welsh-land…
It’s “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones
That Ed Sullivan performance is from a couple of years later, but the 1965 Ed Sullivan version is in black & white…
Nobody wants a black & white Tom Jones. Tom Jones needs to be in Technicolour!
It’s also feels wrong to listen to Tom Jones and not have a crowd of girls screaming, interrupting proceedings… so here’s this:
Sad for those girls Tom was married. His advisors told him to keep it a secret, but nobody tells Tom Jones what to do.
Except perhaps the BBC.
And here we have the fundamental difference between the British and the French. Whereas the French saw nothing wrong with France Gall singing a duet with Serge Gainsborough about sucking Serge’s lollipop on national television, over in the UK the BBC wouldn’t play “It’s Not Unusual” because Tom Jones was too sexy.
Even though it was the radio, and you couldn’t see Tom’s tight pants on the radio, “It’s Not Unusual” was still too sexy for the BBC.
When informed that he was considered too sexy for the BBC, Tom’s reaction was charmingly modest: “take a look at these sideburns and the curly hair, do you see any sign of the idol a la fringe and velvet pants?”
The women took one look at Tom’s sideburns, and they all said, in unison: “YES PLEASE!”
Since Tom Jones was too sexy for the BBC, “It’s Not Unusual” got its break on pirate radio.
I was not expecting Tom Jones to be the performer that would require me to explain pirate radio, but:
Such was the state of British radio in the 1960s, it required a fleet of radio rebels to start their own semi-illegal stations on passenger ferries and abandoned oil rigs, in order to turn him into a star.
And the reason for the sorry state of British radio, was that the BBC was the only broadcaster there was. They had a monopoly. Starting a rival radio station was illegal. The BBC would continue to have a monopoly on British radio until 1973.
Furthermore, the BBC was a deeply conservative institution, one that – just two decades earlier – had famously refused to play “Deep In The Heart Of Texas” for “the good of the nation”, because it was “too jaunty.”
British kids who wanted to listen to rock’n’roll in the 50s had to resort to listening to Radio Luxembourg across the channel. (Who would have thought that Luxembourg would get mentioned twice today!) But the reception was a bit hit and miss.
And Radio Luxembourg was almost as bad as the BBC, at least from the point of few of independent record companies.
Both Radio Luxembourg and the BBC refused to play anyone if they were not on a major label. So when the manager of soul-jazz organ player Georgie Fame couldn’t get Georgie’s record played on the Beeb – even though he was playing regularly at The Flamingo Club, the hottest jazz club in London – he decided that his only option was to start-up his own radio station, broadcasted from an old Danish passenger ferry anchored in international waters off the coast of Essex. By the end of the year Georgie Fame And His Blue Flames had a Number UK One with “Yeh, Yeh”, a cover of a tune originally recorded by Cuban conga drummer Mongo Santamaría a year earlier and variously titled as “Yeah, Yeh, Yeh”, “Yeah, Yeh” and “Yeah, Yeah” (it’s a 7.)
So, I guess, if Radio Caroline was created to promote Georgie Fame, it’s not unusual that it might also play a lot of Tom Jones.
Tom Jones was born in Wales, so it’s probably unnecessary for me to add that he was the son of a coal miner. Maybe that’s where he got his broad chest from. Tom Jones was not his birth name however, it was Thomas Woodward.
Tom’s manager, Gordon Mills, gave Tom his new stage name to capitalize on the movie adaptation of Henry Fielding’s 18th century novel “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”, the poster for which could very well have been used for Tom Jones himself.
This won an Oscar for Best Picture? Seriously?
Anyway, it seems pretty much the perfect moniker for a strapping lad like Tom.
Gordon also wrote “It’s Not Unusual”, the perfect song for Tom. Surprisingly then, it wasn’t specifically written for him.
“It’s Not Unusual” was initially offered to Sandie Shaw – yes, her again! Sandie Shaw’s just popping up everywhere this week! But Sandie chose “Long Live Love” instead. Even though “Long Live Love” was also a UK Number One, it’s hard not to feel that she made a big mistake. (“Long Live Love” is a 5)
There are some who have described Tom as “blue eyed soul”, but that doesn’t quite feel right. Whatever sort of music it is that Tom does, it’s certainly not soul. Sure, Tom was influenced by Solomon Burke – and yeah, I suppose I can see that – but still…
It’s not really crooning either.
Tom Jones is his own genre; mentally lounge music, with a horny section that hints at soul, but can most accurately be categorized as relentlessly uptempo cheese.
Maybe the answer can be found in a tune Tom would drop a couple of months later: “What’s New Pussycat?”, the theme song of a movie titled What’s New Pussycat?, a movie so screwball it makes Tom Jones look like a masterpiece of arthouse cinema.
“What’s New Pussycat” – the song – was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Tom was understandably excited about the prospect of working with the greatest hit song writers of his generation, but he was rather less excited about the song. Or, in his words: “Christ! What the bloody hell do they want me to sing this for?”
Tom asked Burt this, and Burt explained: “I want the big voice to sing this bloody crazy song”
And there I think we have Tom Jones’ genre: Big-Voice-Singing-Bloody-Crazy-Songs.
That Tom Jones would have a hit one day with a song called “Sex Bomb” was inevitable. The only surprise is that it took so long.
“What’s New Pussycat” is a 6.
“It’s Not Unusual” is a 9.
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I love this column, DJ Professor Dan! By the way, later this week you’ll see “What’s New Pussycat?”, “It’s Not Unusual” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” reappear in a blog I’m doing, and like you I ranked them in roughly the same order from least best to best. But you have much more detail on them than I do, as you’ll see.
https://youtu.be/Mw7Gryt-rcc?si=MIj-Znwfxf2PA-jf
Luxembourg’s Eurovision success is even more impressive when you look at what happened after 1965. They have 5 victories in total and that’s despite not competing from 1993 to 2023. They only returned last year.
None of their victories were performed by a Luxembourger. Four were French and the other was Greek but living in Germany. How’s that for European togetherness?
To add more confusion, one of their French victors later represented France in the contest.
There’s not actually any rules on where the performer is from, though at times there have been rules that the song had to performed in the language of the country represented. Which was more restrictive for some countries than others; multi-lingual Luxembourg and Switzerland still had plenty options to choose from. Hence Celine Dion representing Switzerland in the late 80s.
Basically each country selects the song to represent them. There’s free rein as to how they want to present themselves to the continent but some do self impose restrictions on the performers nationality.
I wonder how a USVision contest would go, with each of the 50 states sending a song. Would Rhode Island pull a Luxembourg and win twice in the first ten years?
It would probably be newbrobully country for the win, ad-nauseum.
With the winning state in the expected demographic.
Sorry. I’m still steaming about the insipid DEI news last week that the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASP stories are being erased from the US Air Force education and training curriculum.
I hate January 2025. At least so far.
You’re right. Forget I mentioned it.
But what a great idea if it were done properly. Not so much a vapid and dumbed-down popularity contest, but a real competition, with an emphasis on quality of craft.
Unlikely. But I can dream, anyway.
Given that Eurovision veers from skilled pop to incomprehensible local tradition to vapid lyrical sentiment to eye catching what the hell am I watching (see below) that emphasis on quality of craft isn’t always top of the agenda.
Then there’s all the political voting of neighbours voting for each other; e.g. the annual Greece and Cyprus love in. Though generally if a song is good, it’ll cur through all that. There have also been attempts to stop the voting shenanigans. It used to be each countries votes were decided 50/50 between public vote and a panel of experts whereas now it’s all public. So unless the public is also all in on being good neighbours it should be fairer.
https://youtu.be/84LBjXaeKk4?feature=shared
Just…sickening. Portugal looks better all the time.
But there was one; the American Song Contest in 2022!
Snoop Dogg and Kelly Clarkson hosted.
Alaska was represented by Jewel.
Connecticut was represented by Michael Bolton
Maryland was represented by Sisqo
Ohio was represented by Macy Gray
Despite all of this, it was complete failure, and has never been attempted again.
And the winner was… drumroll please… Oklahoma!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_diKd6VmRA
I think I’m glad I missed it.
That was…something.
I like “despite all of this….” Second only today to “Speaking of sucking…”
I may have mentioned this before, but I hate the Righteous Brothers and I especially hate Phil Spector’s production on their records.