Next on the Darren Hit Parade is "Happy Together", by The Turtles. There are a bunch of sixties beat groups that I have never been able to tell apart. Okay, I can separate The Beatles from The Stones, and I have a reasonable handle on The Kinks and The Zombies, but when it comes to the likes of The Turtles, The Troggs, The Small Faces, Herman's Hermits, and a swathe of others, I can't actually put a name, or a face, to any of them. Which is not the same as not liking the music they made. Take "Happy Together": it is simply too joyful, too welcoming, too, um, brilliant, not to strike a chord. And the chorus makes me want to pick flowers and ride bicycles - specifically, an old bicycle, with a basket, and slightly rusted tin mud guards. Maybe yellow, but an old, faded yellow. The sun will, of course, be shining.
"Happy Together" is followed, incongruously, by ZZ Top's "Legs", one of the most ridiculous hit singles. Ever. It starts off like Motorhead, but only for the first few seconds, until the disco backbeat kicks in and you instantly sense that what you are listening to is a money-making exercise. In truth, without the silly beards and souped-up hot rods they would be not much different from, and no more likeable than, Foreigner, except maybe for "rocking" a bit "harder". I always liked the fact that the one without the beard was called Beard, but that's probably just me. Actually, I thought I liked this song more than I do.
And one more, to put a bit more distance between where we are now and the start of this very long list. It's Phil Spector but with a few bricks removed from the wall of sound. It's "Sugar Baby Love", by The Rubettes (a name which I assumed signified that they were a girl group, how wrong I was), a song I never thought I would want to hear again, whereas in fact I would rather listen to this than "Legs" any day. There is something endearing in the earnestness of this song. It is, in its own way, a time capsule, but it is dealing with, and in, feelings that have been felt by teenagers of any place and time. Whatever next? Am I going to discover a long-suppressed love for The Bay City Rollers?
Oh, what the heck, let's also throw in "It's A Heartache", by the female Tom Waits, Bonnie Tyler, a song that was so unavoidable during its heyday that it is hard to listen to it with open ears now. So I won't.
