“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...
All number two hits on the Billboard Hot 100 reviewed.