Mainly One-Hit Wonders

Songs I remember all-too-well

Photo by Kym MacKinnon on Unsplash

I’m trying to be careful here. No one likes a know-it-all, and no one likes someone who claims to know a one-hit wonder but is incredibly wrong about that designation.

I’ll ask forgiveness of the writer who called Van Morrison a one-hit wonder, based on the vastly over-played “Brown-Eyed Girl.” I asked in the comments section of his piece just exactly why he thought Morrison’s singles career began and ended there. To my knowledge, he didn’t respond, and I wish I hadn’t been so snarky. I really do like “Moondance,” by the way.

With that said, I want to now launch into an ongoing reassessment of those songs and bands that offered much promise but lived not to see that promise last past that one hit record. Lord knows, I’ve never had a hit record, so this isn’t shade I’m throwing, though there are definitely shadows.

Actually, some of the songs I remember best are such single band entries into the Pop/Rock/Soul canon of my teen years, roughly 1969–1975. My daughter asked me last week how I could remember so distinctly not only such songs and who sang them, but specifically when I first heard them, both month and year of their release.

“I don’t know sweetie. You could say in those years that I listened to the radio obsessively, that I picked up my favorite station’s Top 30 playlist each week from my local record store and memorized them in order.”

Her already big brown eyes got even moonier and I wonder what her image of thirteen year-old me looks like. Had I failed classes because of my over-attention to the Hit Parade, we both might have found a lesson in this story. My grades, however, never suffered, and I could compose essays on Romeo and Juliet, figure out algebra equations (until we got to two variables, that is), and place all the European and Asian countries on the blank maps our social studies teacher kept insisting we work on.

I don’t remember every hit in those years and who recorded them, but I bet I’d score 90 and above on any quiz you might give me.

The guy who owns my local record store now calls what we have “a sickness.” And yet, I feel just fine as I contemplate the following ten one-hit-wonder songs.

I hope you do, too, as you listen and play along.

My Favorite One-Hit Wonder Songs, Part I

1. “Baby It’s You,” 1969, recorded by Smith, featuring Gayle McCormick on those soaring vocals. The band had at least two albums, and likely released other singles that not even I can name off the top of my head (actually, one was “Take a Look Around”). The song was a Bacharach/David composition, recorded by countless other acts including The Beatles. The Beatles’ version was the song my older daughter and I chose for our father-daughter wedding dance. I love that version, but I love Smith’s more.
2. “Thunder and Lightning,” 1972, recorded by Chi Coltrane. Speaking of big voices, hers, I thought then, would carry through multiple hits. Yet it didn’t. I have her first LP, just as I have Smith’s. I don’t play either anymore, but in those days, I wore them out, perhaps because I was 13–15 and the singers here were drop-dead gorgeous.
3. “The Rapper,” 1970, Jaggerz. Rapping meant something different in 1970 than it did in 1979. Someone in the comments section on the YouTube video suggested that “Not a single song today can come close to this.” I don’t know if any song today wants to get close to this one, but what I can tell you is that in my high school back in ’70, our student government started daily “rap sessions” where any student could sit and talk to their elders or their peers about subjects such as our over-crowded conditions, our racial confusion, or why we had to solve algebra equations with two variables.
4. “Spirit in the Sky,” 1970, Norman Greenbaum. Ok, when you watch this video, don’t freak out on me. Don’t read the comments after the video, either, because talk about bringing somebody down. There’s some radical preachin’ going on, but what no one is talking about is Norman’s background. AI tells us this: “Though an Orthodox Jewish musician, he penned the massive Christian-themed hit after watching country singer Porter Wagoner perform a gospel song on television.” You just can’t stuff like this up.
5. “Keem-O-Sabe,” 1969, The Electric Indian. Whoa now. Did you know that this “studio group” featured Len Barry on vocals and Daryl Hall on background vocals? The song reached #16 on Billboard, and after it fell, we heard nothing from The Lone Ranger’s trusted friend ever again. She’s gone, indeed. I still have the 45, too.
6. “Get it On,” 1971, Chase. Somewhere in an American high school even today, a marching band is learning this song in order to regale fans at halftime or even during the game. At least that’s how I remember it so well. Hearing it today, I’m still amazed that the band never hit with anything else, but then after you “Get It On,” I’m not sure what else there is to do. I disagree with commenter number seven that this features the greatest trumpet solo in human existence. Likely, Harry James, Al Hirt, or Bobby Hackett could offer something to compete.
7. “One Toke Over the Line (Sweet Jesus),” 1971, Brewer & Shipley. This isn’t fair on a number of counts. This classic single reached #10 on Billboard, but the duo also released twelve other singles. I couldn’t name one, can you? Well there was “Brain Damage” in 1975, and though I haven’t heard it, I’ll pretend that it must be a cover of that truly inspirational Pink Floyd song from Dark Side of the Moon. None of their other songs charted, by the way, except “Tarkio,” which reached #30. So maybe “one-hit wonder” isn’t accurate, but it sure feels that way. And speaking of “inspirational”: I’ve written about this song before and this version of the song, performed on the old “Lawrence Welk Show.” Yep, that show: https://youtu.be/t8tdmaEhMHE?si=9DJPIuZoGHPrkDvm. Welk called this song a “modern spiritual.” When asked about that…performance, B&S said, “The Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, named us personally as a subversive to American youth, but at exactly the same time Lawrence Welk performed the crazy thing and introduced it as a gospel song. That shows how absurd it really is. Of course, we got more publicity than we could have paid for.[5][6]” I just can’t let this go.
8. “Do You Know What I Mean?” 1971, Lee Michaels (not his real name). Man, I hate it Lee (or Michael Lee), life and the charts should have treated you better. This is a killer song, hitting #6 on Billboard. Sure, you kept trying, but your next best shot was 1974’s “Hold On To Freedom,” which charted at #104. There were girls I knew in high school who, if they ever got a shot, would have taken Michaels down, if you know what I mean.
9. “Go Back,” 1970, Crabby Appleton. Pioneer Press tells us that “Crabby Appleton is the famous villain from the 1950s animated cartoon segment Tom Terrific, which aired on CBS’s Captain Kangaroo. Created by Gene Deitch at Terrytoons, the character is best known for his self-proclaimed motto: “I’m rotten to the core. I do a bad deed every day, and sometimes three or four!” I loved Tom Terrific, whose dog was Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog. The Mighty Manfred also has a show every weekday at noon on “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” so there. I also love that a band got its inspiration from such a medium, such a character. The song, their debut, was a Top Ten hit. Also, “The band opened for the Doors, Sly and the Family Stone, Three Dog Night, Guess Who, ABBA, and George Carlin. They appeared on American Bandstand, the Real Don Steele Show, Something Else with John Byner, and enjoyed critical success. Both of their albums, Crabby Appleton and Rotten to the Core, received rave reviews in Rolling Stone and Creem magazines.” This, according to Wikipedia. No other single was mentioned in this article.
10. “What a Beautiful Feeling,” 1969, The California Earthquake. Read this if you dare: http://badcatrecords.com/CALIFORNIAearthquake.htm. The song soared to #133 on the Pop charts, and it was NOT on their 1971 LP. In my home area back in ’69, it was the “Pick Hit of the Week” for WSGN-610 AM. My memory says it reached #4 on the Birmingham charts. My memory says I liked it back then. Anyway, they really don’t qualify as a “One -Hit” or a “Wonder,” and yet here they are because back then there they were.

They’ll be more to come, though I’m not sure that, collectively, I can top these.

Thanks to Alex Markham and Rock On for publishing.