Hello again, and welcome to episode 110 of a series I never intended to begin! I promised you last week that I would be playing some more eyes songs for you this week, as I had so many to choose from, and I’m being as good as my word. Pete commented last week that he thought he might be able to guess one of this week’s selection, and I wonder if he has? If he was going for Lyin’ Eyes by The Eagles I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint him for two reasons: firstly, I have already played it earlier in the series, and secondly I just couldn’t be arsed to start the usual game of tag with Eagles’ videos being pulled down or unavailable except in the wider reaches of Ulan Bator. Sorry, Pete, and anyone else who was expecting it, but I have chosen a couple of my other ‘usual suspects’ for this week by way of recompense, as well as a couple I expect you won’t know – delving into the English and Scottish folk music library for those!

I’m beginning this week with one that I suspect you never thought I’d play. I’ll admit to not being a huge fan of this one when it came out, but it was a massive hit so no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get it out of my head. And it does fit the bill for the rousing start I like to make:

If you look on YouTube you’ll find that although this is on the Rednex page as being the official video for the song they also have a completely different video, which is also billed as being official. Don’t worry, I’m not going to play them both: once is (more than) enough. Rednex hail from that traditional home of bluegrass music – Sweden – and had a huge hit with Cotton Eye Joe: they released it as a single in August 1994 and it just about swept the board in Europe, topping the charts in the UK (3 weeks), Sweden (8 weeks), Norway (15 weeks), Germany (10 weeks), a further six countries on this continent, and also in New Zealand. It even managed to make a respectable #25 placing in the US, where it sold more than half a million copies. It has sold well over 3m copies worldwide, and that video has amassed more than 181m views and 1.2m ‘likes.’ And I bet you’ll now be humming it all day.

I’m back on more familiar ground now. The video and music are out of sync – I guess they have been welded together – but this is still a fabulous song:

Van Morrison released Brown Eyed Girl as a single in June 1967, and it reached #10 in the US. Van the Man has barely dented the UK singles charts, which I find amazing, and this one didn’t chart in the UK at that time. It did eventually make it in 2007, and achieved its highest ever UK placing of a meagre #60 in 2013 – talk about a sleeper! It was also included on Van’s debut album, Blowin’ Your Mind, which came out in September 1967, making #182 in the US but not appearing in any other albums chart as far as I can tell. When you consider that this has become a pop-rock classic over the years this all seems a little strange to me. I’m not counting this one towards my weekly quota, but as a bonus I knew of this version by a young singer of whom I am a big fan, as I have said before. This is a cover of the song by Caroline Jones:

Stunning, simply stunning, and I love the way they kept in her cry of ‘OK here we go’ at the beginning.

Another singer-songwriter of whom I am a big fan – for more than 50 years – is Richard Thompson. Back in the Seventies he made five albums with his then wife, Linda, and I was lucky enough to see them in concert a couple of times in that period – it felt like they had a season ticket to the UEA Folk Club, and always sold the place out. They played this little piece of whimsy for us and I’ve always loved it – it is on a great album, well worth a listen:

The Hokey Pokey album was released in April 1975, and as usual it did nothing in any chart. It was recorded the previous autumn, and they played this as ‘a song from our new album’ when we saw them, before it was released. Richard is known for his more serious songs but has always shared his sense of humour, and there are several like this in his back catalogue. In case you are wondering, the album’s title track is subtitled (The Ice Cream Song) – it is a name given to that confection in Scotland.

A little bit of nostalgia for you next. This was a big hit when I was about 9 years old and just beginning to take an interest in pop music – not easy in those days, as the only radio station we officially had was the BBC Light Programme, and its contribution was roughly the equivalent of the square root of diddly squat. But then we discovered Radio Luxembourg, which broadcast in English during the evenings, as long as you didn’t mind hearing your music through a wind tunnel. That’s where I first heard this one:

Bobby Vee released The Night Has A Thousand Eyes in December 1962, and it peaked at #3 in early 1963 in both the US and the UK. It was also the title track of an album later in 1963, which got to #102 in the US but didn’t make the UK charts – by then, the Beatles had exploded into our world!

This next one is a thing of beauty:

You Can Close Your Eyes was originally a track on James Taylor’s fantastic album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, which was released in April 1971, but as I expect you know he married Carly Simon in 1972 and they recorded this home video together in 1977. I absolutely love this version, and the duet is just so very special. The album peaked at #2 in the US and #4 in the UK, and is one I often return to: I just about wore out my vinyl copy! The song was the B-side to the single version of You’ve Got A Friend, which was a US #1 and got to #4 in the UK. That clip was shown on the great BBC show Old Grey Whistle Test, and the sign off at the end is by the legend and national treasure ‘Whispering Bob’ Harris, who has introduced me to much of the music I have enjoyed over the past fifty years or so.

I mentioned that there would be another piece of English folk music today. Richard Thompson (see earlier!) was a founder member of Fairport Convention, one of the two bands who helped create the English folk-rock scene. This is the other one:

That was Steeleye Span playing Dark-Eyed Sailor, a song originally recorded for their debut album, Hark The Village Wait, which was released in June 1970. In those days they had two female vocalists – as well as Maddy Prior they also had Gay Woods who, along with her husband Terry, left the band shortly after the album came out, which meant that the original line-up never played live. Gay later rejoined for a spell between 1995 and 2001, which is when this video was made. I’ve always loved this album and this, for me, is one of two stand out epics – the other being Lowlands Of Holland. This is an abbreviated version for live performance: on the record this clocks in at 5’59” while Lowlands beats that by one second. Peter Knight’s fiddle playing on this is exceptional, I think.

For today’s penultimate tune I’m giving you one that has been a long time favourite of mine, ever since it was released in May 1978 as the B-side to the single of Miss You, ahead of the release of the Some Girls album the following month:

Both the single and the album made #1 in the US, but to our shame the single was only #3 here, while the album peaked at #2. A little more loyalty to our compatriots was perhaps needed, but when you consider that the album that kept it off the top was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack you can see what it was up against! This was the first Stones’ album on which Ronnie Wood was officially credited as being a member of the band, and from the look of inordinate pleasure on his face after his pedal steel solo I think he was enjoying himself!

I’m closing my second selection of eyes tunes with one which regular readers may have been expecting. This is another of my usual suspects:

A fantastic 1978 live performance of Doctor My Eyes, which originally featured on Jackson Browne’s eponymous debut album, released in January 1972. For those who think the album is called Saturate Before Using, from the sleeve picture, I can assure you that it isn’t! The album got to #53 in the US but didn’t make the UK chart. This was the first single taken from it, in March of that year, and it became his breakout US hit, reaching #8. Again, though, it wasn’t a hit here in the UK.

That’s all for today and, as ever, I hope you found something among them to enjoy. Many of you kindly read and commented on my post last week on Glastonbury, and I felt I should say that I did try to watch some of it. Macca’s nearly three hour show on Saturday evening, at the age of 80, was amazing and I enjoyed every second of it. I am 68 and can’t stand for that amount of time now, let alone play music at the same time! I also thought Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were great, and I enjoyed seeing the latest incarnation of Crowded House, though I wasn’t sure why one of them seemed to be going for the cross-dressing look. Apart from that, I watched several others and will probably try a few more on the BBC iPlayer while I can – they will be there for a month. I did try some of the newer bands too, but nothing was really to my taste. I think Wet Leg deserve a special mention, though, as they are being hyped to the rafters by the media types who like to show off their state of the art coolness. What did I think of them? Tuneless, shouty, untalented, absolute shite. I guess I won’t be getting a job as a music critic any time soon, having said that. That’s OK, though, as I don’t want a real job anyway.

Have a good week, and I’ll see you again soon 🤘