Just One POLL: The Hollies 1960s Singles

Bus Stop is all kinds of awesome...what a chorus

I love the beautiful 12-string in "Look Through Any Window," the fantastic harmonies, and the Richard Scarry minutiae of everyday life conceit.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_HbxfX4sSsyM/Sfmo_RUpIiI/AAAAAAAACs4/TLXOfYpPrXs/s400/Richard_Scarry_s_What_do_people_do_all_day.jpg

the air that i breathe ...oh, i see

yeah, voting 'look through any window', though they had some amazing singles.

Stop Stop Stop is my favourite. Carrie Anne a close second!

voted "Look through any window" w/ "King Midas" a close second. but my favorite Hollies song is "Long Cool Woman" from 1972.

King Midas!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Long Dark Road is the best, but it is seventies...?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

best poo: bus stop
worst poo: jennifer eccles

my mum, whose name is jennifer, LOATHES jennifer eccles, despite being a massive hollies fan.

that song has no redeeming qualities, i loathe jennifer eccles

Missed the clarification at the top, so I was puzzled by the absence of "Pay You Back with Interest"--that's the only song of there's I really love. "Carrie Anne"'s good, though, "I Can't Let Go" too (didn't even know that one till recently, when I was led to it via Linda Ronstadt's cover).

the hollies' "i can't let go" was itself a cover, fwiw. evie sands did the original.

Yes...I even have that on my hard drive, duh.

i think i can't let go is probs my fave hollies jam, though look through any window and carousel and king midas and too young to be married are all jams

didn't mean to say 'jam' twice there, soz

I've often opined that "Bus Stop" is one of the best, briefest story songs ever. "Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say" and "someday my name and hers are going to be the same" are bits of songwriting genius afaic. Can anyone think of other lyrics in this vein?

"Here's the way that the story ends, well we invited a few close friends"

The first one I thought of was "No Milk Today"; both that and "Bus Stop" were by Graham Gouldman, maybe I need to investigate what all else he was writing back then. I appreciate the short-story-writerly details like the umbrella and the milk bottle in these.

God, my Hollies jag on sunday got my other half playing No Milk Today on youtube, as her mum and dad always played that in the car, and she can't get it out of her head now. She was singing it to the baby yesterday. She hates the song, too!!

... No Milk Today is Herman's Hermits though?

I always think - oh the Hollies they had lots of good songs - but when I listened to a greatest hits today I realized they didn't have as many good songs as I thought. The problem is I just don't like their early stuff (pre-1966) (I don't like that Merseybeat-type sound when anyone does it tbh) and I don't like their 70s stuff. That still leaves quite a lot of good songs though tbf.

Graham Gouldman wrote "No Milk Today" for the Hollies evidently, but I don't think they ever recorded it

According to Nash, Gouldman played it for him & Allen Clarke when they were first introduced, and they wanted it, but Gouldman had already promised the song to "His friend Peter Noone."

... No Milk Today is Herman's Hermits though?

absolutely - but that afternoon the Hollies got my partner rambling about the b-tirer (C-tier?) 60s UK beat groups she was raised on as my mum raised me on the Hollies, and that's how we got there. Did not know that the Hollies had their eye on that track - and I'm glad they never recorded it! They definitely have sketchy taste in material, esp after Nash leaves (always slightly fascinated in those bands who tasted fame in the 60s and then enter choppy waters in the 70s, scoring occasional hits with songs outside their wheelhouse but never really making it happen again) (my parents would always crank Too Young To Be Married in the car, which made me think it was one of the Hollies' A-tier hits, but it's really quite obscure in reality, isn't it?)

Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth always talks about his era of bands carrying "60s damage" that they'd acknowledge later in their careers, once the punk moment passed, and I always think of this "60s damage" kids of our generation carry, from their parents being there at the moment of impact. A really clear memory for me is watching a 1987 Sgt Pepper's doc with my dad, titled It Was 20 Years Ago Today, that sent him in armchair reverie: "Oh Steve, 1967 - the music, the women, the drugs!" I was 11 and not really sure how to respond tbh.