Some weeks I struggle a bit to find a theme for these posts, as you have no doubt noticed, but other times one just falls into my lap. This is one of those weeks. As I usually do, I was checking my YouTube recommendations the other evening, and I came across a trailer for a new tv series I have been eagerly awaiting. This is that trailer:

If you don’t have Apple TV+ you may well not know of this show, but believe me, you should (see what I did there?). I wrote about this show in July 2021 in A Little Feelgood, explaining why I enjoyed it so much and in particular the way it blends some meaningful thoughts in with the comedy elements. That was on the occasion of the launch of season two, and the trailer above is for the third and final season – it has been a long time coming! At the heart of Ted’s philosophy is a word he displayed on a poster above the team’s dressing room door, and it struck me that it would be a good word for one of these posts. So, this week’s theme is: believe. It didn’t take me long to choose my first tune for this week, either. The backing music to the trailer is by one of my favourite singer-songwriters: Frank Turner. I’m on Frank’s email list and, as if I needed telling, he wrote to us last week to say how proud he was that his song had been chosen for this, and how he was relieved to be able to tell us at long last, as it had been a while since he had been approached for it. This is it in full:

I love that – both the song and the video. Frank has made several videos for his songs which feature groups of people having a lot of fun to his music, and they all evoke that sense of feelgood that I wrote about in that previous post. And we can all use that in our lives, can’t we? I Still Believe was a track on Frank’s fourth album, England Keep My Bones, which was released in June 2011, getting to #12 in the UK and #143 in the US. This was his breakthrough album, after the three previous ones had made the lower reaches of our album charts: his five subsequent records have yielded a #1, two #2s and two #3s. This was a single, peaking at #40 here, which is actually his highest placing to date: he is much more of an albums guy, and is a hardworking live act too. He counts his shows to keep a record, and I think he is up somewhere around the 2,500 mark. He is one of nature’s good guys, does a lot to help others, and deserves all the support he gets. And just in case you were wondering, the young woman pulled from the crowd to play harmonica isn’t a wannabe actress à la Courtney Cox/Bruce Springsteen – she is Frank’s cousin.

Last Sunday I took part in the regular Song Lyric Sunday link, for which the theme was bubblegum pop. This next band is classed as being under that heading, but I wasn’t so sure so I went with something else for it. Anyway, I was saving this to play today:

The Monkees had two strong candidates for today’s theme – Daydream Believer being the other – and it was a hard choice. On balance, this one is just that little bit bouncier so I decided to go with it. As you may well know, I’m A Believer was written by Neil Diamond. It was the closing track of their second album, More Of The Monkees, released in January 1967. Their debut album had been #1 in the US for thirteen weeks when this one came out, instantly knocking their first one off the top and staying there for eighteen weeks. As with their first album, it also reached #1 in the UK. I’m not sure what its total worldwide sales were, but it is ranked as 5 times platinum in the US, and sold more than 5m copies there. This track had been released as a single in November 1966, and reached #1 in the US at the end of December, staying there for eight weeks. It was also #1 in the UK and in just about every other country that Wikipedia lists! It sold over 1m in the US and more than 600k in the UK – a phenomenal achievement in our much smaller market.

I’ve played this next one before, but who’s counting? There have been a number of cover versions of it, notably by Art Garfunkel, but for me none comes even close to the beauty of the original. This is an audio-only clip, but it is an incredible song and doesn’t really need pictures:

As the clip shows, Stevie Wonder included I Believe (When I Fall In Love it Will Be Forever) on his Talking Book album – still my favourite of his. The album was released in October 1972, and reached #3 in the US and #16 in the UK – low placings for what, to me, is a masterpiece. It was actually his fifteenth album, but was what I regard as being the third of his more ‘grown up’ records, following on from Where I’m Coming From and Music Of My Mind. This song wasn’t released as a single, which I’ve always thought was a shame, but it is still a stunningly beautiful piece of music and is one that I play fairly often, even though it is now more than fifty years old. That is the mark of a great song, I believe.

Whilst I’m in reflective mode, how about this one:

I could have played Rod Stewart’s cover of that, but as he has been here a couple of times recently I thought I’d go with Tim Hardin’s original version. Anyway, I think this knocks spots off Rod’s, so I would have chosen it come what may. Reason To Believe was a track on Tim’s debut album, imaginatively titled Tim Hardin 1, which was released in June 1966. Wikipedia doesn’t detail any chart placings for it, which perhaps isn’t surprising for a hitherto unknown folk musician. The cover shot for the album, which appears in the video, was taken by Lisa Law, a well-known photographer at that time, in the garden of her house. Another guest staying there to be photographed was Bob Dylan. Tim Hardin made some lovely records, and as well as this song he also wrote If I Were A Carpenter, which is another to have been covered many times. Sadly, Tim became addicted to heroin, and died aged 39 of an accidental overdose in December 1980 – on the day he was due to have been photographed by Lisa Law for the cover of his comeback album, which was released posthumously in 1981. But his music lives on.

Let’s crank things up a bit now, shall we:

Thin Lizzy released Don’t Believe A Word on their album Johnny The Fox in October 1976. It reached #11 in the UK and #52 in the US. They took the song off it as a single the following month: it got to #12 in the UK and #2 in Ireland, but didn’t make the US charts. There is a sad coincidence here with the previous tune: Phil Lynott, the leader of Thin Lizzy, also succumbed to heroin addiction, and it wrecked his health. He died of pneumonia and heart failure brought on by septicaemia in January 1986, at just 36 years old. Again, we lost a talent far too soon.

This next one is another that I have played before, but as it is a cheery little song I thought it would be welcome:

Do You Believe In Magic was the title track of The Loving’ Spoonful’s debut album, which was released in November 1965 and got to #32 in the US. It had already been a single, in July of that year, peaking at #9 in the US and #3 in Canada. For some reason that I have never understood the band weren’t all that successful over here, and this didn’t make our charts. I must have been in a minority, as I loved them and had a compilation album of theirs with a fabulous collection of their best songs, including this one. No accounting for taste, I guess.

Today’s final tune offers a reverse of that position, as it comes from a band who have been hugely successful over here but whose singles have done the square root of diddly squat in the US, though their albums have fared slightly better. This was their breakout hit:

Just the usual tasteful, understated video from The Darkness. I Believe In A Thing Called Love was the third single taken from their debut album, Permission To Land, which was released in July 2003 and got to #1 in the UK and #36 in the US. Their first five albums did chart in the US, but this was their highest. It is also their best performer here, though their six subsequent albums have given them three in our top ten and three in our top twenty. This track came out as a single in September 2003 and peaked at #2. Like all of their singles it didn’t have any chart impact in the US, though it did get to #9 on their Alternative Airplay listing, which is based on radio plays. It is a good closer to this week’s tunes, too: going out with a blast!

That’s all for this week, and keep your fingers crossed that YouTube recommendations give me another good theme for next week. Just believe in it and it might happen! I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday, and may drop in again in the meantime. Who knows – you might be that (un)lucky. Take care 😊