Song Lyric Sunday: Something In The Air

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While Jim takes a well deserved break visiting relatives SLS is being looked after by Fandango. His post, modestly entitled Substitute Music Teacher, invites us to share a song that was a one hit wonder, and I’ve gone for one which will probably be unfamiliar to anyone outside the UK, and probably to many here too. These are its lyrics:

Call out the instigators
Because there’s something in the air
We got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution’s here

And you know it’s right
And you know that it’s right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Lock up the streets and houses
Because there’s something in the air
We got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution’s here

And you know it’s right
And you know that it’s right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Hand out the arms and ammo
We’re gonna blast our way through here
We got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution’s here

And you know it’s right
And you know that it’s right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: John David Percy Keen

Something In The Air lyrics © Fabulous Music Ltd

And this is the song:

Thunderclap Newman were brought together by Pete Townshend of The Who. They made one album, Hollywood Dream, and released four singles from it. One of those, the rather morbid Accidents, did actually reach our chart in June 1970, but it only got to #46 – as far as I’m concerned, a ‘hit’ is a record that makes the Top Forty, so I’m sticking to my belief that this is a one-hit wonder! This is the only song they are remembered for here, and they didn’t have any chart success elsewhere either. It is unique, I think: do you know of any other hit record which has had a honky tonk piano solo in the middle? I sure don’t! This spent three weeks at #1 here in July 1969 – that was a good year for music for a 15/16 year old like me. It knocked The Beatles’ Ballad Of John And Yoko off the top and held Elvis Presley’s In The Ghetto off it, thus making its mark before The Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women replaced it at the top – without any honky tonk piano solos! The band didn’t last long, though there were a couple of reformed versions featuring the pianist Andy ‘Thunderclap’ Newman. Sadly, he died in 2016. The most well known of the original members was probably Jimmy McCullough, who went on to be a member of Paul McCartney’s Wings – he died in 1979 at the age of 26, from a heroin-induced cardiac arrest. A terrible waste of a young talent, when you consider that he was only 16 when he played guitar on this track (he’s the one in the vest). Pete Townshend didn’t appear on stage with them, but he played bass on their recordings, under the pseudonym of Bijou Drains (no, I’ve no idea, either).

This song sounds like a call to revolution, but it was done in a gentle way. You need to hear it in context: the previous year had seen massive student protests in Paris (May 1968), and the Russian/Warsaw Pact countries’ invasion of the then Czechoslovakia to quell its progress towards democracy (August 1968). The Vietnam War was still in progress, and President Nixon was elected in November 1968: maybe it isn’t so shocking that musicians chose to write songs which invoked the need to make the world a better place, and some things don’t seem to change much, do they? For me, an impressionable 15 years old when it came out, it was simply a great record – very much one of a kind. It isn’t a surprise to me that they couldn’t really follow it up, and that it has gone down in UK pop history as one of the great one hit wonders.

40 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Something In The Air”

  1. Pingback: Hot Days In July | Take It Easy

  2. Pingback: Song Lyric Sunday: Something In The Air – MobsterTiger

  3. I am so glad I made it to this post! Clive – I actually remember this song from younger days and really like it so much
    It was nice to learn a bit more about the social influences that connected to this one hit wonder

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    • I’m so pleased you like this one, Yvette. I’ve been surprised how many from across the pond know it, as Wikipedia gives the impression it wasn’t familiar over there. You’re too young to know of those days, but they were turbulent times and many good protest songs were written back then.

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      • Yes – I don’t know first hand those turbulent days and I can’t believe I knew this song from childhood
        – and hope your day is going well
        Thought of you with the recent Boris news

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      • It’s good that you did – it must have somehow made its mark.

        I’m glad to see Johnson going – when he finally does. The problem is that his party elects a new leader who then becomes de facto Prime Minister. They are all a bunch of corrupt incompetents so things aren’t likely to get any better here.

        Enjoy the rest of your day too 😊

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    • Thanks for reminding me, Pete, I’d forgotten about Tom’s cover. It was a new bonus track on one of his Greatest Hits albums. I’ve just listened to it again and I’m afraid to say it, but I don’t think the great man did this song justice!

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  8. Initially I hated this song, but it did get under my skin after a while… still never have enjoyed the piano solo though, its just off-kilter to my ear- Sorry Mr Newman!
    (And what was with the whimsical pseudonyms of the Sixtes? Townsend as Bijou Drains?Jagger/Richards writing as Nanker Phelge? Macca as Apollo C. Vermouth? )

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    • That piano solo was the song’s USP. I doubt it would have been a hit without it’s novelty value.

      They certainly came up with some weird alter egos back then, didn’t they. There was also L’Angelo Misterioso amongst them. It was a way of getting round playing on records by artists contracted to a different record label from themselves.

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      • Had to look back through the track listings for my posts for that one, Keith! Much to my surprise I haven’t ever played them. I’d have sworn I had though. A band with a tragic history: they were signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records, had several big hits including that one, but their two main members, Pete Ham and Tom Evans, both committed suicide after the band fell apart. Amongst the songs they wrote was Without You, a huge hit for Harry Nilsson. Thanks for reminding me of them – I’ll have to try and work them into a post!

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      • They also produced some of those records too. I have an idea as to how I can work a theme for this. Not this week, but watch this space 😊

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