The Ten Best British Psych 45’s of 1967
The Ten Best British Psych 45’s of 1967
If 1967 was the summer when psychedelia exploded, and London was swinging, then you’d expect the list below to be full of amazing songs and sounds the likes of which had never been heard before.
You’d only be partly right: there are numerous British psych compilations stuffed full of incredible, astounding, and sometimes just plain odd psych singles from the UK, but the thing about most of them is that they weren’t actually released until 1968, or were acetates that never made the shops, or were unissued tapes that didn’t emerge for decades.
There were middle-class kids who just wanted to drift downstream wishing they were in ‘The Wind In The Willows’ or ‘Alice In Wonderland’.
The truth is that for the most part, the real underground music stayed in the clubs and studios for 1967, struggling against a staid UK music business that was dominated by Decca, EMI, and Pye, all of whom were still struggling to keep up with the post-Beatles explosion of the beat boom, let alone something even stranger.
Despite this, there were still bands who either had the profile and record deals to get the new music out or managed to get a foot in the door somehow when the A&R men started scrabbling around for this psychedelic stuff…
UK psych is markedly different from its US counterpart. In the US, acid and the new politics led the nascent musical style in a distinctly folk country and bluegrass direction, taking in traditional music as much as beat groups, R’n’B, and soul. The radical political stance of acid heads found a friend in radical folk. This is short-handing, of course, but in the UK, a Labour government and the idea of swinging London actually made UK culture feel oddly insular. For every Mick Farren and the Deviants railing against the system, there were middle-class kids who just wanted to drift downstream wishing they were in ‘The Wind In The Willows’ or ‘Alice In Wonderland’.
The lyrics also pin down the Brit psych knack of taking the everyday (a street and a park in Liverpool) and making them otherworldly.
Victorian kids’ literature ran a strong thread through British pop, tying together The Beatles and Pink Floyd – the established Lords of British pop, and the underground newcomers most likely to explode. Which they did. And which is why these two start the list, which is in no particular order…
- ‘Penny Lane’/ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ – The Beatles: issued on Parlophone in February ’67 and recorded between December ’66 and January ’67, this did prove they were always first on the block. Partly because they had free rein to get into a studio and get a priority release at this point, partly because they had their fingers and instincts firmly on the pulse. This has all the musical hallmarks of great psych to start the year: an innovative use of sound and arrangement, the building of an interior sound world, and a melody that takes you where you don’t expect. The lyrics also pin down the Brit psych knack of taking the everyday (a street and a park in Liverpool) and making them otherworldly.
2. ‘See Emily Play’/’The Scarecrow’ – Pink Floyd: issued on Columbia in June ’67, recorded a month before, and checked out by the Beatles at Abbey Road, the Floyd’s second single saw the Victorian child heroine of the A-side freaked by the scarecrow of the B-side with Syd Barrett’s skewed-sense of melody, magpie lyrics, and some ethereal and manic-fairground keys from the always-under appreciated Richard Wright that set the tone for the underground clubs and had enough hooks and pop appeal to bring psych to the masses.
3. ‘Paper Sun’/ ‘Giving To You’ – Traffic: issued a month before the Floyd single, released on Island, this was the point at which Steve Winwood left The Spencer Davis Group in his wake and forged forward to uncharted waters, aided by Jim Capaldi’s ability to wring the
The Floyd’s second single saw the Victorian child heroine of the A-side freaked by the scarecrow of the B-side with Syd Barrett’s skewed-sense of melody.
best writing from Winwood, with Dave Mason’s sitar and Chris Wood’s flute bolstering a melody and lyric that spoke of surreal images with hidden meanings.
4. ‘Pink Purple Yellow Red’/ ‘My Gal’ – The Sorrows: I know, most people think of The Sorrows as a freakbeat and mod band, and their label Piccadilly (part of Pye) was primarily a soul and R n’ B label. Yet this 1967 single has always struck me in its rush of distorted guitars and imagistic lyrics as being like the disorientation of a psychedelic crowded blub, with lights and noise amplified and distorted by the hubbub around.
5. ‘Flight From Ashiya’/ ‘Holidaymaker’ – Kaleidoscope: there’s a whole feature around the UK and US bands with this name, especially as both had unique takes on psych sounds. The UK fourpiece was less concerned with world musics and more with reflecting that UK Victorian childhood imagery, with wispy and spidery melodic guitar lines surrounding Peter Daltrey’s fey vocal. Perfect for drifting downstream.
6. ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’/ ‘Lime Street Blues’ – Procul Harum: issued on Deram, part of Decca, this proved what a couple of months, May and June 67, were for kickstarting Brit psych (see above). Its impact perhaps lost by its ubiquitous presence and numerous covers, the impenetrable lyrics, the stately pace, Gary Brooker’s soulman-lost-in-inner-space vocal, and that Bach derived opening (for which Matthew Reid finally received a co-credit and royalties nearly fifty years later) set a template for a number of Brit bands (I’m looking at you Felis Andromeda and Rupert’s People…).
7. ‘Vacuum Cleaner’/ ‘Beeside’ – Tintern Abbey: God, I love Decca and Deram. This and the next three singles are from them, as well as the last one. The Decca ‘throw enough at the wall and some will stick’ ethos did see them get a number of one-single wonders into the studios. Tintern Abbey had off-kilter song construction and melody, great guitar sounds, and an opaque lyrical air courtesy of guitarist/vocalist/writer David McTavish. This was their only single, and there was another demo, but this has been rightly anthologised more often than more prolific names.
8. ‘Miss Pinkerton’/ ‘Brand New World’ – Cuppa T: one of only two singles from this duo (the other being ‘Streatham Hippodrome’/ ‘One man Band’ in ’68), this smacks of cash-in from two beat refugee chancers, yet I love it because its jaunty Music Hall tune and slipping, sliding brass band arrangement somehow fit the aura of ‘yeah, let’s try anything’ that psychedelia opened up to the post-beat soundworld. No, be honest, I’m just justifying loving a novelty psych 45.
9. ‘Michael Angelo’/ ‘Leave Me Here’ – 23rd Turnoff: their only single, although they had previously been beat group The Kirkbys, and singer/songwriter Jimmy Campbell would record several great solo albums and one with the band Rocking Horse without ever getting the acclaim he deserved. This is an acoustic, dreamy drift downstream piece of psych with delicate arrangements and Campbell’s winsome, lost-boy voice given full rein. In contrast, the name is a joke based on the 23rd and last exit on the M6 Motorway being their hometown of Liverpool.
10. ‘Created By Clive’/ ‘Colour Of My Mind’ – The Attack: the A-side is a pop at the manufactured fashion industry of Carnaby Street and a back to basics, be-yourself call. To a marching beat and an arrangement with great tuned percussion, as well. The B-side is a search for the inner self – or something – with Richard Shirman’s vocal cutting through. David O’List of The Nice had been an original member, but John DuCann (of Andromeda/Atomic Rooster repute) was guitarist and co-writer on most non-covers.
Related: 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left
The Top 200 Songs from the Original Psychedelic Era
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1 thought on “The Ten Best British Psych 45’s of 1967”
I’m always ready to have a fight about “top 10 singles” , but I can’t find much to fault with your list.
There was so much good music in 67.
Pity you couldn’t find room for Kites by Simon Dupree & the Big Sound, two of whose members (the Schulmann brothers) went on to form Gentle Giant.