THE GIRL I KNEW SOMEWHERE

THE MONKEES
SONGWRITER: MICHAEL NESMITH
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: HEADQUARTERS
LABEL: RCA VICTOR
GENRE: POP ROCK
YEAR: 1967
 
          The Monkees were a rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose line-up consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was conceived in 1965 by television producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the situation comedy series of the same name(described by Dolenz as "a TV show about an imaginary band ... that wanted to be the Beatles... was never successful".). Music credited to the band was released on LP, as well as being included in the show, which aired from 1966 to 1968. The group's popularity would ultimately endure well beyond the television series.
         While the sitcom was a mostly straightforward affair, the music production quickly generated tension and controversy. Music supervisor Don Kirshner was dissatisfied with the actor/musicians' musical abilities, and he limited their involvement during the recording process, instead using a stable of professional songwriters and studio musicians to craft multiple hit albums and singles. Upset with the arrangement and facing public backlash for not playing on the recordings, the band members soon gained full control over the recording process. For two albums, the Monkees mostly performed as a group, but within a year, each member was pursuing his own interests under the Monkees name. By the end of 1968, they were once again a group in name only, the show had been canceled, and their motion picture, Head, had flopped. Tork left the band soon after, followed by Nesmith a year later, and the Monkees officially broke up in 1970.
         A revival of interest in the television show came in 1986, leading to a series of official reunion tours, a television special, and four new full-length records, spanning the next 35 years (though these rarely comprised all four members performing together). With Jones' death in 2012 and Tork's in 2019, Dolenz and Nesmith were left to embark on a farewell tour in 2021, finishing shortly before Nesmith's death at the end of the year.
         Spurred by the success of the show, the Monkees were one of the most successful bands of the 1960s. The band sold more than 75 million records worldwide making them one of the biggest-selling groups of all time with international hits, including "Last Train to Clarksville", "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Pleasant Valley Sunday", and "Daydream Believer", and four chart-topping albums. Newspapers and magazines falsely reported that the Monkees outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined in 1967, a claim that originated from Nesmith in a 1977 interview.
       "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" is a song by the American pop rock band the Monkees, written by Michael Nesmith and first released as the B-side to the "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You" single on Colgems Records on March 8, 1967. It was distributed in support of the group's third álbum Headquarters, and later appeared on the reissued version of the LP. The song was recorded as the Monkees finally achieved the independence that enabled them to freely produce their own material, with the actual band members featured on both vocals and instrumental arrangements.
          "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" peaked at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100, while its A-side "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You" reached #2.
You tell me that you've never been this way before
You tell me things I know that I've heard somewhere
You're standing in the places and you're staring down through faces
That bring to mind traces of a girl, a girl that I knew somewhere
 
I just can't put my finger on what it is
That says to me, watch out, don't believe her
I can't give any reasons girl, my thoughts are bound down in a whirl
I just can't think who in the world was that girl, I know I met her somewhere
 
Someway, somehow this same thing was done
Someone, somewhere did me this same wrong
Well goodbye dear, I just can't take this chance again
My fingers are still burning from the last time
And if your love was not a game, I only have myself to blame
That's as maybe, I can't explain, just ask the girl that I knew somewhere
 
And if your love was not a game, I only have myself to blame
That's as maybe, I can't explain, just ask the girl that I knew somewhere.

 THE PRICE OF LOVE

THE EVERLY BROTHERS
SONGWRITERS: DONALD EVERLY & PHIL EVERLY
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: IN OUR IMAGE
LABEL: WARNER RECORDS
GENRE: COUNTRY ROCK
YEAR: 1966
 
           The Everly Brothers were an American country rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly(February 1, 1937 – August 21, 2021) and Phillip "Phil" Everly(January 19, 1939 – January 3, 2014), the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country and pop, becoming pioneers of country rock.
       The duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio singing along with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s. When the brothers were still in high school, they gained the attention of prominent Nashville musicians like Chet Atkins, who began to promote them for national attention.
        They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit Nº 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit.
          In Our Image is an album by The Everly Brothers, originally released in 1966.
          Several of the songs had appeared on singles in 1965, where their biggest success came in the United Kingdom off the back of "The Price Of Love" (present on this album) and "Love Is Strange" (from Beat & Soul), the former of which ascended to Nº 2 on the UK Charts, but only Nº 104 in America.
          Included on the album also was the flipside for "The Price Of Love", "It Only Costs A Dime", a self-written piece.
          In December of that year, the final single "It's All Over" appeared, in an arrangement containing harpsichord and vocals. In a break from the usual routine, however, this song would feature Phil singing the principle vocal line and Don singing the harmony line a third lower. The song would later be covered by Cliff Richard.
        Revisiting their classic style of singing, they recorded the Sonny Curtis-written "I Used To Love You". Curtis, former member of The Crickets, had previously written another Everly Brothers hit single, "Walk Right Back".
          For the first 45 release of 1966, they visited the songwriting partnership of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, with a rendition of "Glitter And Gold". This arrangement, featuring fuzz guitar and harpsichord, was backed with another Brill Building number, the Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller-written "Lovey Kravezit".
          With hardly enough time to gauge the success of this single "(You Got) The Power of Love" (written by Delaney Bramlett and Joey Cooper), containing Motown influences aplenty and backed with "Leave My Girl Alone", was to hit the stores.
           Filling out the album, "The Doll House Is Empty" (later to become Warner Brothers single 5689 in February 1966), the mainstream-orientated "(Why Am I) Chained To A Memory" (Edward A. Snyder/Richard Ahlert) and "June Is As Cold As December" from Marge Barton.
Wine is sweet and gin is bitter
You drink all you can but you won´t forget her
You talk too much, you laugh too loud
You see her face in every crowd
 
That´s the price of love, the price of love
The debt you pay with tears and pain
The price of love, the price of love
Costs you more when you´re to blame
 
Kiss one girl, you kiss another
You kiss themall but you won´t recover
You´re dancing slow, you´re dancing fast
You´re happy now but that won´t last
 
That´s the price of love, the price of love
The debt you pay with tears and pain
The price of love, the price of love
Costs you more when you´re to blame
 
That´s the price of love, the price of love
The debt you pay with tears and pain
The price of love, the price of love
Costs you more when you´re to blame
 
That´s the price of love, the price of love
The debt you pay with tears and pain
The price of love, the price of love
Costs you more when you´re to blame
 
Wine is sweet and gin is bitter
You drink all you can but you won´t forget her.

LULLABY IN RAGTIME

HARRY NILSSON
SONGWRITER: SYLVIA FINE
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: A LITTLE TOUCH OF SCHMILSSON IN THE NIGHT
LABEL: RCA VICTOR
GENRE: POP-ROCK
YEAR: 1973
 
            Harry Edward Nilsson III(June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), known professionally as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal overdub experiments, returns to the Great American Songbook, and fusions of Caribbean sounds. A tenor with a 3+1⁄2octave range, Nilsson was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours. The craft of his songs and the defiant attitude he projected remain touchstones for later generations of indie rock musicians.
             Born in Brooklyn, Nilsson moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to escape his family's poor financial situation. While working as a computer programmer at a bank, he grew interested in musical composition and close-harmony singing, and was successful in having some of his songs recorded by various artists such as the Monkees. In 1967, he debuted on RCA Victor with the LP Pandemonium Shadow Show, followed by a variety of releases that include a collaboration with Randy Newman(Nilsson Sings Newman, 1970) and the original children's story The Point!(1971). His most commercially successful album, Nilsson Schmilsson (1971), produced the international top 10 singles "Without You" and "Coconut". His other top 10 hit, "Everybody's Talkin'" (1968), was featured prominently in the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. A version of Nilsson's "One", released by Three Dog Night in 1969, also reached the U.S. top 10.
         During a 1968 press conference, the Beatles were asked what their favorite American group was and answered "Nilsson". Sometimes called "the American Beatle", he soon formed close friendships with John Lennon and Ringo Starr. In the 1970s, Nilsson, Lennon and Starr were members of the Hollywood Vampires drinking club, embroiling themselves in a number of widely publicized, alcohol-fueled incidents. They produced one collaborative album, Pussy Cats(1974). After 1977, Nilsson left RCA, and his record output diminished. In response to Lennon's 1980 murder, he took a hiatus from the music industry to campaign for gun control. For the rest of his life, he recorded only sporadically. In 1994, Nilsson died of a heart attack while in the midst of recording what became his last album, Lost and Founnd(2019).
            Nilsson created the first remix album(Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, 1971) and recorded the first mashup song ("You Can't Do That", 1967). He was voted Nº 62 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time", where he was described as "a pioneer of the Los Angeles studio sound, a crucial bridge between the baroque psychedelic pop of the late Sixties and the more personal singer-songwriter era of the Seventies". The RIAA certified Nilsson Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson (1972) as gold records, indicating over 500.000 units sold each. He earned Grammy Awards for two of his recordings; Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male in 1970 for "Everybody's Talkin'" and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male in 1973 for "Without You".
             A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night is a 1973 album of classic 20th-century standards sung by American singer Harry Nilsson. The album was arranged by Frank Sinatra's arranger Gordon Jenkins, and produced by Derek Taylor.
       In 1988, it was reissued as A Touch More Schmilsson in the Night, containing an intro and outro (studio chatter) and six additional songs from the recording sessions. The reissue cover art was based on Frank Sinatra's album cover art from In the Wee Small Hours.
         This album is notable in being a standards album produced a decade before such works started to become popular again. The title is an allusion to Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 4, in which the Chorus refers to Henry's nocturnal visit to his troops as "a little touch of Harry in the night".
Won't you play the music so the cradle can rock
To a lullaby in ragtime
Sleepy hands are creeping to the end of the clock
Play a lullaby in ragtime
You can tell the sandman is on his way
By the way
That they play
As still, as the trill, of a thrush, in a twilight high
 
So you can hear the
Rhythm of the ripples on the side of the boat
 
As you sail away to dreamland
High above the moon you hear a silvery note
As the sandman takes your hand
So rock-a-by my baby
Don't you cry my baby
Sleepy-time is nigh
Won't you rock me to a ragtime lullaby
So rock-a-by my baby
 
Don't you cry my baby
Sleepy-time is nigh
Won't you rock me to a ragtime lullaby.

I'VE BEEN LOSING YOU

A-HA
SONGWRITER: PAL WAAKTAAR
COUNTRY: NORWAY
ALBUM: SCOUNDREL DAYS
LABEL: WARNER RECORDS
GENRE: SYNTH-POP
YEAR: 1986
 
   A-ha(usually stylised as a-ha; Norwegian pronunciation: [ɑˈhɑː]) is a Norwegian synth-pop band formed in Oslo in 1982. Founded by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitars), Magne Furuholmen(keyboards and guitars), and Morten Harket(vocals), the band rose to fame during the mid-1980s.
           A-ha achieved their biggest success with their debut álbum Hunting High and Low in 1985. The album peaked at number one in their native country Norway, number 2 in the UK, and number 15 on the US Billboard album chart; yielded two international number-one singles: "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines on T.V."; and earned the band a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist. In the UK, Hunting High and Low continued its chart success into the following year, becoming one of the best-selling albums of 1986. The band released studio albums in 1986, 1988, and 1990, with single hits including "Hunting High and Low", "The Living Daylights", "Stay on These Roads", and "Crying in the Rain". In 1994, after their fifth studio album, Memorial Beach(1993), failed to achieve the commercial success of their previous albums, the band went on hiatus.
         Following a performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998, A-ha recorded their sixth album, 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, which was another number-one album in Norway and Germany. This album was followed by Lifelines(2002); Analogue (2005), which was certified Silver in the UK; and Foot of the Mountain(2009), which was certified Silver in the UK and reached the top five in many European countries.
         On 15 October 2009, the band announced they would split after the 2010 worldwide Ending on a High Note Tour. Thousands of fans from at least 40 countries on six continents congregated to see A-ha for the last leg of the tour.
          On 4 December 2014, A-ha officially announced its participation at Rock in Rio 2015, which celebrated 30 years for both the band and the event. In 2015, it was announced that A-ha would reunite; their tenth studio album, Cast in Steel, was released on 4 September 2015, and the band toured in support of the album.
       The band has released ten studio albums, several compilations and four live albums. In less than a year, during 2010, the band earned an estimated 500 million Norwegian kroner from concert tickets, merchandise and the release of a greatest hits album, making them one of the 40–50 highest-grossing bands in the world. The band were listed in the Guinness World Records book for having the biggest-paying rock concert attendance; they drew an audience of 198,000 at Maracanã Stadium during the Rock in Rio festival. Their exact sales figures are somewhat controversial; according to their label, Rhino Entertainment, they have sold 55 million records, but other sources assert that they have sold more than 100 million units, albums and singles combined.
          Scoundrel Days is the second studio album by Norwegian new wave band A-ha. It was released on 6 October 1986 by Warner Bros. Records. A remastered edition with additional tracks was released in 2010.
It wasn't the rain that washed away...
Rinsed out the colours of your eyes
Putting the gun down on the bedside table
I must have realized
 
It wasn't the rain
That made no difference
And I could have sworn it wasn't me
Yet I did it all so coldly
Almost slowly
Plain for all to see
 
Oh c'mon please now
Talk to me
Tell me things I could find helpful
How can I stop now
Is there nothing I can do
I have lost my way
I've been losing you
 
I can still hear our screams competing
You're hissing your s's like a snake
Now in the mirror stands
Half a man
I thought no one could break
 
It wasn't the rain
That made no difference
Nervously drumming on:Run away
But I want the guilt to get me
Thoughts to wreck me
Preying on my mind
 
So, please now
Talk to me
Tell me things I could find helpful
For how can I stop now
Is there nothing I can do
I have lost my way
I've been losing you.