As promised last time, I’m rounding off this mini-series of three sets of you songs – for now. I have plenty more so they may well return at some point, but I have something different planned for next week. As usual, there is nothing in common between the songs other than that they have you in their title and I like them. Seems fair to me!

But before I begin, a brief PSA. Have you noticed that recently you get a lot of ‘sign in so we can tell you aren’t a bot’ messages when you click to play a video in a blog post? I’ve had quite a few, including on three of today’s when I ran the preview! If I wasn’t signed in to my own blog, where was I? I haven’t yet worked out how you sign in after getting that message anyway – it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s annoying, and I suspect it is a ploy by Google to get us to see more adverts, but it is easily worked round: refresh the page, click ‘watch on YouTube’ and then close that tab down when you’re done and it brings you back here. It’s a PITA but nothing major in the great scheme of things, I guess.

Having got that out of the way, let’s get the music going with one from way back, when I was but a lad:

That performance was, of course, from much later, but Jimmy Cliff first released You Can Get It If You Really Want as a non-album single in July 1970. It was his own song but he didn’t enjoy any chart success with it, as a cover version by Desmond Dekker came out just a few weeks later and made #2 in the UK. I’ve always preferred Jimmy’s own version, though, and think he was robbed. This video is from one of several appearances he has made on the Later With Jools Holland tv show: this one was in 2012, when Jimmy was 68 – and still pretty sprightly! It’s a good one to get us started, I think.

Another vintage one is up next, with a clip recored back in the day:

As the video shows, that was The Lovin’ Spoonful with You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice. This was also originally released as a non-album single in November 1965 in the US, where it peaked at #10. Its UK release followed in January 1966 but it didn’t make our charts. The song was then included on the band’s second album, Daydream, which came out in March 1966 and peaked at #10 in the US and #8 in the UK, largely on the strength of its title track being a big hit, but it was good to see them making a dent in the UK charts. Their first compilation album – The Best Of The Lovin’ Spoonful – was released in March 1967 and also included the track. The album peaked at #3 in both the US and Canada, but wasn’t a UK hit. Here, for some reason I never understood but for which I was very grateful, the album was repackaged and issued on a budget label, at around a third of the price of the ‘proper’ record. I gleefully paid my money – that was an absolute steal!

Today’s next tune is from one of my usual suspects. Regular readers will know that I absolutely adore Mary Chapin Carpenter and her music, so it probably won’t come as a surprise that I’m playing something by her. Off the top of my head I could think of five of her songs with you in the title, so could have played a full set just of those, but I’m just going with this one:

MCC released Why Walk When You Can Fly in October 1994 as the opening track of her fifth album, Stones In The Road. The album got to #10 in the US, #26 in the UK and #29 in Canada, and also topped the Country charts in both the US and Canada. Of course, I bought it as soon as it came out and played it to bits. It is a lovely record, like everything she does: in those days I had a long car commute to work around London’s North Circular Road and it kept me company on many journeys. The track was released as a single in June 1995 but I think by then anyone who wanted it already had the album, as it made only the lower reaches of those US and Canadian Country charts. The clip I played is from a DVD that was released in January 1996 – Live At Wolf Trap – and highlights what a great performer she is. I saw her in concert around ten years ago and that warm, beautiful voice of hers sounds just as good live as it does on records.

I haven’t played this next lot for a while, and had several of theirs I could choose for this theme, too. It was a hard decision, but as this is one of the few that John and Paul allowed George to have on one of their albums, and as it is a song where they were pushing the barriers even more than they had already done, I’m going with this one:

I’m sure you don’t really need me to tell you this, but the Beatles released Within You Without You on their classic album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in May 1967. On first release the album made #1 in the UK, the US,  Canada, Australia, (West) Germany and Norway and charted high just about everywhere else, and was the top selling album of the decade in the UK. It has since been re-released several times and has continued to sell well: it made #3 in the UK in 1987, as well as being the top selling on CD format in the US; #5 in the UK in 2009; and #1 in the UK for the big 2017 enhanced version, which also got to #3 in the US. To date it has sold more than 32m copies worldwide in its various incarnations, including 11m in the US (11x Platinum) and a phenomenal 5.4m in the UK (18x Platinum). As you may have noticed the song was very much influenced by the band’s interest in Eastern cultures, which George in particular took to heart. I’ve always thought him the most spiritual of them, and this was continued throughout his solo career. Anyone who had the vinyl album at the time will know that this opened side two, and came as something of a surprise after you had just listened to Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! at the end of side one: it certainly made my parents sit up and take notice when I first played it!

In my usual totally random way I’m closing today with another tune by someone who has sold records by the truckload. I used to describe her as my ‘guilty pleasure’ but I’ve got rid of the guilt now. Her more recent albums, particularly her folk-based ones, have displayed a real depth to her songwriting. So, of course, having said that, here’s one of her earlier ones. The video is a lot of fun but you may have to crank the volume up:

You Belong With Me was a track on Taylor Swift’s second album, Fearless, which was released in November 2008, and became her breakthrough record: it got to #1 in the US and Canada and reached #5 in the UK. It has gone Diamond in the US with sales of 7.3m and 2x Platinum in the UK for more than 600k. The track was released as a single in April 2009, and got to #2 in the US but only #30 in the UK. It has gone 7x Platinum in the US, having sold more than 7m, and despite its apparently low chart placing in the UK it has sold more than 600k copies here, earning it Platinum status. The album was the first to be re-recorded as a ‘Taylor’s Version’ release after she broke with her original record company: it came out in April 2021 and made #1 in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Sadly, the only video made for this song on re-release is a lyric one, so I’ve gone with the one from 2008. Others seem to like it too, as it has over 1.6bn YouTube views.

And that is it for today. I’ll be back on Thursday with a seasonal offering, so until then stay healthy and happy 😊