Autumn approaches in 2025 and we find ourselves near the tail end of our last year in the ’60s! Let’s hear what September, 1969 sounds like…
Songs of the month
- “A Boy Named Sue” – Johnny Cash
- “Baby I Love You” – Andy Kim
- “Birthday” – Underground Sunshine
- “Commotion” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
- “Crystal Blue Persuasion” – Tommy James And The Shondells
- “Easy To Be Hard” – Three Dog Night
- “Everybody’s Talkin’” – Nilsson
- “Get Together” – Youngbloods
- “Give Peace A Chance” – Plastic Ono Band
- “Green River” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
- “Honky Tonk Women” – Rolling Stones
- “Hot Fun In The Summertime” – Sly And The Family Stone
- “Hurts So Bad” – Lettermen
- “I Can’t Get Next To You” – Temptations
- “I’d Wait A Million Years” – Grass Roots
- “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” – Tom Jones
- “I’m Gonna Make You Mine” – Lou Christie
- “In The Year 2525” – Zager & Evans
- “Jean” – Oliver
- “Keem-O-Sabe” – Electric Indian
- “Laughing” – Guess Who
- “Lay Lady Lay” – Bob Dylan
- “Little Woman” – Bobby Sherman
- “Oh What A Night” – Dells
- “Polk Salad Annie” – Tony Joe White
- “Put A Little Love In Your Heart” – Jackie Deshannon
- “Share Your Love With Me” – Aretha Franklin
- “Soul Deep” – Box Tops
- “Sugar Sugar” – Archies
- “Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley
- “Sweet Caroline” – Neil Diamond
- “That’s The Way Love Is” – Marvin Gaye
- “The Nitty Gritty” – Gladys Knight And The Pips
- “This Girl Is A Woman Now” – Gary Puckett And The Union Gap
- “What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am” – Bill Deal And The Rhondells
- “What’s The Use Of Breaking Up” – Jerry Butler
- “When I Die” – Motherlode
- “Workin’ On A Groovy Thing” – 5Th Dimension
- “You – I” – Rugbys
- “Your Good Thing” – Lou Rawls
[new] = New to the chart this week.
You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.
This month in history
On the 2nd the first automatic teller machine in the United States, called the “Docuteller”, was installed at a branch of the Chemical Bank in Rockville Centre, New York. And so for a period of a few decades we used cards to get cash out of holes in the wall, until we worked out how to just use the cards to pay directly for things. Technology eh!
On the 13th “Scooby-Doo”, was introduced to Saturday morning television as part of a response by the three American TV networks to complaints that cartoons had become too violent, after three years of superhero and adventure shows. Hanna-Barbera co-producer Joseph Barbera told reporters that “Violence will be out of children’s programming this fall,” and explained that “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is a series about a chicken-hearted Great Dane which, along with four high school students, solves tales of the supernatural,” and predicted that the combination of “comedy and music, which we’ve always known to be popular with kids” could be marketed successfully. And indeed it was.
And in more pop-culture classics, on the 26th “The Brady Bunch”, a situation comedy about a “blended family” created by the union of two people with children from previous marriages, was introduced as one of the new television shows on the ABC network in the United States. Syndicated TV columnist Dick Kleiner described it as having “all the elements of trite-and-true television— a bunch of children (cute) and two parents (appealing) and a dog (lovable) and a maid (witty)”. The San Francisco Examiner commented “the six kids and a dog and a cat, and a maid, and absurd slapstick… made the first show a shambles. Verdict: Too blamed precious.” Either way audiences loved it and it become major touchstone for 70s culture which we are soon to experience…
What’d Sadie think?
Two weeks at the top for “Honky Tonk Women” by Rolling Stones before the Archies get two with “Sugar Sugar”.
Loved ’em
- “Everybody’s Talkin’” – Nilsson
- “Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley
Emily notes that Everybody’s Talkin’ by Harry Nilsson is a real favourite of her father, Marty. The original was by Fred Neil from 1966.
It was composed towards the end of his album recording session the end of that year, after he had become anxious to wrap the album so he could return to his home in Miami, Florida. Manager Herb Cohen promised that if Neil wrote and recorded a final track, he could go. “Everybody’s Talkin’”, recorded in one take, was the result.
Harry Nilsson recorded a cover in 1967 and it was eventually released as a single in July 1968, where it managed to reach only No. 13 on the “Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart”. (We take the songs from the top 30 of the main chart each week)
As director John Schlesinger was working on the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, Derek Taylor recommended Nilsson for the soundtrack to Schlesinger. While Nilsson wrote a new song intended for the film’s soundtrack (“I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City”), Schlesinger instead preferred “Everybody’s Talkin’”, and used it as the film’s theme song. Nilsson re-recorded the song with a slightly different arrangement from the Aerial Ballet version, to better adapt to the music lengths required for various sequences in the film.
Liked ’em
- “Commotion” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
- “Hot Fun In The Summertime” – Sly And The Family Stone
- “I’m Gonna Make You Mine” – Lou Christie
- “Jean” – Oliver
- “Little Woman” – Bobby Sherman
- “That’s The Way Love Is” – Marvin Gaye
- “What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am” – Bill Deal And The Rhondells
- “What’s The Use Of Breaking Up” – Jerry Butler
- “When I Die” – Motherlode
- “You – I” – Rugbys
- “Your Good Thing” – Lou Rawls
Leave ’em
- “This Girl Is A Woman Now” – Gary Puckett And The Union Gap
Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.
