This is the third time we've featured The Pretty Things here at the best music spot on the web. The first instance was a feature on their song My Time. That post has some of the fewest hits in the history of this website. And by few, let me just say that if you took every person who hit on that post, you still couldn't field two baseball teams. Then we featured The Pretty Things doing Come See Me as part of our "Under The Covers" series. That one did better. Much better. We could field many, many baseball teams with that post. And even have enough people left over to serve hot dogs and popcorn.
Today we're back at it with one of The Pretty Things' lesser known tunes, I Can Never Say. In the United States it was The Flip-Side of two of their obscure singles: the April 1965 release of the radio unfriendly Honey, I Need and the Flip-Side of the July 1965 release of their cover of the Garnet Mimms and Solomon Burke standard, Cry To Me. Both singles were released on Fontana Records. I Can Never Say has a simple, but great shuffle to it as singer Phil May sings with a great raspy restraint. The song never takes off into anything else. Just that simple shuffle with a real understated feel. May's harmonica being the only lead instrument. Nice.
Such an infectious bare bones groove that I never tire of. Love the drumming! Odd writing credit: Adapted by the Pretty Things. They wrote it, then adapted it.
ReplyDeleteDid they write it?
DeleteWell, I like it more than 99.9% of the stuff on Emotions. But if you follow the link to "My Time", then you'll hear the best song from Emotions.
ReplyDeleteLIKE!
ReplyDeleteYeah, me too. I should have included the A-Side of this single. Damn.
Delete