In case you hadn’t noticed, today is 1st April, aka April Fools Day. I have posted selections for this before but as it actually falls on a Tuesday this year it seems too good an opportunity to pass up! All of these have been played before, but that was a while back so I think it’s fair to give them another airing.

No one really knows how or when the tradition of playing tricks on people on this day began, but it has been going for many years. There is a possible reference in one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which date from 1392, though scholars are divided on this. An instance I thought was funny was in 1698, when a number of people were tricked into visiting the Tower of London to see the lions being washed. No doubt their descendants became Brexit voters…

But I’m not playing any tricks today, just some good songs. Like this one:

Fool For Your Loving was first released by Whitesnake as a single in April 1980, the month before it featured as a track on their third album, Ready an’ Willing. The single peaked at #13 in the UK and #59 in the US, while the album got to #6 in the UK and #90 in the US. They were one of the more tuneful hard rock bands of their era, as befits an outfit which included three former members of Deep Purple: David Coverdale, lead vocals and songwriter, Jon Lord on keyboards and Ian Paice on drums. I always rather liked them, and this is one of their best known songs, along with Here I Go Again and Is This Love. The band is still just about going, but hasn’t done much damage to the charts of late. They began a farewell tour in 2022, which had to be curtailed due to illness, and although they have expressed a wish to continue it nothing seems to have happened since then. I guess retirement seems a good option at their age!

As I did when I first played this next one, I’ve been tossing up whether to play you the Frankie Lymon original or maybe the Beach Boys cover, but Joni Mitchell’s version is my favourite. So for me, this is a no brainer, even if the video is a bit out of sync with the vocals! It is still a great cover, though:

As I mentioned, the original of Why Do Fools Fall In Love was recorded by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, who make a brief silent visit in the middle of this video. That was all the way back in 1956, when it reached #6 in the US and got to #1 in the UK. It really is a pop classic, but I just had to go for Joni’s version. This was released on Shadows And Light, a live double album, in October 1980 though it was recorded in September 1979 at the Santa Barbara Bowl. It was far from being Joni’s best seller, reaching only #38 in the US and #63 in the UK, but I thought it was a lot of fun. The wonderful backing vocals in that clip are from The Persuasions, an a cappella group who had formed in Brooklyn in the mid 1960s.

My next selection is from one of my favourite bands. As this was an album track and a B-side single I thought I would have to make do with an audio-only clip, but someone has made one of those dance mash up videos for it, and it is lovely:

Only A Fool Would Say That is a track on the incredibly good debut album by Steely Dan, Can’t Buy A Thrill, which was released in November 1972 and became a firm part of the soundtrack to my three years at uni, which had begun a month previously. This was the closing song on side one, but it is one of those albums on which there isn’t a dud track: all ten are superb. The album reached #17 in the US and #38 in the UK, and is one of the few to have been awarded the ultimate accolade by me: at different times I have bought it on vinyl, cassette and CD, and nowadays listen to it via streaming. This song was the B-side to the March 1973 single release of Reelin’ In The Years, which peaked at #11 in the US but didn’t make the UK chart.

Another of my long time favourites is up next:

As you can see from this clip, he began under the stage name John Cougar, then progressed via John Cougar Mellencamp, before finally settling on his real name, John Mellencamp. I’ve been a fan since the beginning, and have everything he has ever recorded in my collection. American Fool was the title track of his fifth album, which was released in April 1982 and gave him his big breakthrough: it spent nine weeks at #1 in the US and was also his first UK chart entry, at #37. This track wasn’t released as a single – hence the audio only clip –  but two others from the album were massive US hits: Hurts So Good at #2 and Jack And Diane at #1. The latter was also his first UK hit single, reaching #25 – still his highest singles chart placing here.

I’m closing today’s selection of fool songs with a real favourite of mine, which I played most recently in a tribute post to Karl Wallinger last year. This is a great song, which stands the test of time not just musically but politically in its meaning:

World Party released an updated video for Ship of Fools in late 2018, making the song’s political points in a very obvious way. On balance, I still prefer this earlier version, which concentrates more on the band and the song than the political leaders of our age – I’ve seen more than enough of Putin and Trump to last a lifetime! If you’d like to see the newer version you can find it here. World Party was the band started by Karl Wallinger after he left The Waterboys, and named by him after a song he wrote for them. There is a cover of that titular track on World Party’s debut album, Private Revolution, and this one also comes from that album, which was released in March 1987 and reached #56 in the UK and #39 in the US. Ship Of Fools had already been released as a single in January of that year, peaking at #27 in the US and #42 in the UK. The song, and in particular its opening lines, is perhaps even more prophetic and relevant now than 38 years ago.

That’s the music for today, but before I go I should make an apology to Willow and anyone else who saw the notification email for this post yesterday. I promise you it wasn’t intended as an April Fools joke – just my incompetence in choosing the wrong one between the ‘save’ and ‘publish’ buttons! I guess the joke was on me, but at least I managed to stop everything before the unfinished version went live and confused people who might have thought that their week was going faster than expected! But it was a little ironic, in view of today’s theme. I don’t know about American Fool – put me down as a British one!

Now I think of it, perhaps I should support that apology by playing another song – one that I haven’t played before. How about the estimable Chris Rea:

Fool (If You Think It’s Over) was released as a single in March 1978, a month before it was also included on Chris’ debut album, Whatever Happened To Benny Santini. Both the single and album did alright as debuts: the single went to #12 in the US and also made #30 in the UK, albeit it in October 1978 after a re-release, and the album made #49 in the US and went Gold, though it didn’t make the chart here in his homeland. You may well remember him from his big album successes in the mid to late Eighties, such as The Road To Hell, which went to #1 here. I’ve been a fan since he began, and have all of his albums – well worth a listen if you aren’t familiar with his music.

And that definitely is it for today! Enjoy your week, and I hope things are going well for you. I’m just off to count my brain cells – it shouldn’t take long 🤣