“The Horse” is one thing, but “Love (Can Make You Happy)”
might supersede it as the most obscure, and perhaps the most unexpected, of all
Billboard number two singles. Indeed,
before I embarked on this project, I had never heard the song – it made
absolutely no impact in Britain – nor had ever heard of the group who recorded
it. Tracking it down on CD was relatively easy, but the song has to be one of
the most mind-boggling I’ve had to tackle to date.
Mercy, the group, were from Seminole, a suburb of Tampa,
Florida; most, if not all, of them attended Brandon High School. Written by
Jack Sigler Jr at age nineteen, the song had actually been recorded in 1967 –
in the same studio as “Snoopy Versus The Red Baron” (the Charles Fuller Studio
on MacDill Avenue, Tampa, fact fans) – for local independent label Sundi, but
the band found airplay and publicity hard to come by; in addition, Sigler faced
the prospect of being drafted (although this never happened). Eventually, in
the autumn of 1968, he persuaded a local radio station to play the record; a
buzz developed and spread to Miami. In 1969 the song was also used in a
long-forgotten crime movie entitled Fireball
Jungle.
But by then the song had broken big – long after the
original Mercy had split up. Faced with a dilemma, and by 1969 practically
broke, Sigler had no choice but to sign to Warner Brothers (including signing
away the rights to the Mercy name). The song was hurriedly, and inferiorly,
re-recorded, a new Mercy line-up that involved nobody else on the original
record was put together, and no further major hits came.
A familiar story, then, of a local record whose success
spiralled out of control. But what about the record itself? “Love (Can Make You
Happy)” appears on a compilation dedicated to “Sunshine Pop” and the 1967 aura
certainly hangs around the deceptively simple song, which lies somewhere
between The Troggs’ “Love Is All Around” and Laura Nyro’s “Stoned Soul Picnic.”
But the dual lead vocals of Debbie Lewis and Brenda McNish
(both of whom doubled on keyboards) are extraordinary and somewhat disturbing.
They utilise an octave-divided harmonic template which must be the oddest I’ve
heard since “The Mountain’s High”; the higher-pitched singer is prim in an
Anita Bryant sort of way, while the lower voice sounds virtually male. Lena –
who likewise had never heard of either song or group and doesn’t recall hearing
it when growing up in Los Angeles – suggests that this verges on outsider/incredibly
strange music, almost eighties (and beyond) indie in its outlook (and indeed
Belle And Sebastian subsequently sampled it on their own “(My Girl’s Got)
Miraculous Technique” – it’s on The BBC
Sessions). From a middle distance it sounds like The Shaggs going all
flowery-groovy. If it had come out on Bella Union last week everyone would be
calling it a bruised masterpiece. But after the relative futurism of last week’s
songs, this week’s quartet of runners-up (next update on Wednesday) suggest
that 1967 is harder to let go of than might have been thought.
Date Record Made
Number Two: 31 May 1969
Number Of Weeks At
Number Two: 2
Record At Number One: “Get
Back” by The Beatles with Billy Preston
UK Chart Position: None
That "octave-separated" vocal style, the only one that comes to mind was Squeeze, "Take Me I'm Yours"
ReplyDeleteI once had a copy of the Sundi album with the original version by Mercy, which bore a cover picture of three women who I suppose may have not been the women who sang on the hit record at all (and the non-single album tracks may well Hansen sung by someone else altogether)? and who, at the time, I was convinced could be men dressed in women's
ReplyDeleteGreat call on The Mountain's High... I came across both at roughly the same time in 1980, both on cheap comps bought in Beano's, Croydon. Mercy were on a budget Warners comp called, oddly, Rock Classics, other tracks included: Little Richard's 1968 Freedom Blues; the Olympics' original Good Lovin', the Marketts' Out Of Limits, Harpers Bizarre's Feelin' Groovy... twelve tracks with zero in common, but I played it to death. This was my favourite. I was 15, had a massive crush, and it was summer. Hazy, woozy, ethereal and gently suggestive of death (I think of the Heaven song from Eraserhead), as was The Mountain's High. High drama. It's a thrill to read this piece, and "bruised masterpiece" is right.
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