Last October I ran a series of three posts of tunes with recognisable intros, and returned at the end of November for another set. As I continue on my trawl back through previous themes that deserve another look, I think this is one such: I had so many on my list! So today I’m playing my fifth set of intros – with absolutely no loss in quality from the previous four, though a couple of them might be less familiar to many. I instantly recognise them, though, and that’s what counts for me!

Here’s a good one to start things up:

Sorry about that awful intro – I just couldn’t resist it! The Rolling Stones released Start Me Up as the opening track on their album Tattoo You in August 1981: it peaked at #1 in the US (for nine weeks), Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada, and at #2 in the UK. This track was actually out as a single ten days earlier in August, and reached #1 in Australia, #2 in the US and Canada, and #7 in the UK. It is an incredibly catchy song – one of their best for that – and I love the video, with Mick Jagger doing his best pouting Mick Jagger impression!

When it comes to recognisable intros they don’t come much better than this next one. It surprised me to find that I’ve never played it before but it is always worth hearing, a true piece of classic rock:

Procol Harum released A Whiter Shade Of Pale as their debut single in May 1967, and it reached #1 in the UK in early June, staying there for six weeks. It made #1 in fourteen other countries and with next to no promotion even got to #5 in the US. It is regarded as one of the archetypal tunes of that year’s “Summer of Love” and is one of the most successful singles of all time, selling more than 10m copies worldwide. Annie Lennox covered it in 1995 and got a UK #16 hit with it: in all, it is reckoned to have been covered more than a thousand times. That makes me wonder why people bother: the original is such an iconic song that any cover is going to suffer in comparison.

I said that a couple of these would perhaps be unfamiliar to many, and I’m playing them next. The actual intro on the recorded version of this one is a little longer than in this performance, but this gives me a chance to show you the tv show that, more than any other, introduced me to so much of the music I have loved for sixty years, and to share with you the national treasure that is ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris:

I was a fan of Little Feat, and already had the album Bob mentions at the time of this tv broadcast. The Last Record Album was the band’s fifth: it was released in October 1975 and peaked at #36 in both the US and the UK. Long Distance Love was released as a single but wasn’t a hit anywhere, but that was no matter to me. That laid back intro is so typical of the band and it is a beautiful song, still one of my all time favourites.

Up next is the other unfamiliar one, but it is such a great intro that I had to include it:

Sniff ‘n’ The Tears are a British band, who got together in the late 70s after some of them had played together in other groups. They are the epitome of a one hit wonder: Driver’s Seat was just about their only hit in most places, including the UK, where it made #42, Canada (#17), the US (#15), the Netherlands (#8), and Australia (#13), though a re-release did make #1 in the Netherlands in 1991. This got a lot of airplay at the time, and I was a little surprised that it didn’t do better in our chart. In case you were wondering, when they were thinking of names for the band, lead singer Paul Roberts suggested “The Tears”, but their manager suggested “Sniff ‘n’ the Tears” because Paul had hay fever and sniffed a lot. One of the better stories about a band name, I think!

Back into more mainstream territory for today’s closing tune, and one that was a big hit for one of my favourite bands as I grew up:

The Moody Blues released Question as a single in April 1970, and it reached #2 in the UK, #8 in Canada, #1 in the Netherlands, and #21 in the US. I didn’t buy it – I had all of their albums and waited for their next one to come out. A Question Of Balance arrived in August 1970, reaching #1 in the UK, #2 in Australia, and #3 in both the US and Canada, selling more than a million copies in the US along the way. Like all of their records, I loved it and played it to death! And that intro is, for me, one of the most recognisable that I know. They don’t come much better.

That’s it for this week. I’ll be bringing you another set of tunes next week that didn’t make the original cut, but are still great. I haven’t decided which theme I’ll be using, though – you’ll just have to come back to find out! I’ll see you again in a few days so, until then, have fun 🤩