PETER AND GORDON – “A World Without Love”
The Beatles fallout continues: Peter here is Paul McCartney’s girlfriend’s brother. Gordon is Peter’s schoolfriend. Public schoolfriend, which makes this record a touchstone of social flux for some – the class system dissolving in the white heat of the popnological revolution.
I find it interesting because it’s a glimpse at a world where the Beatles didn’t make the step up from national to global phenomenon. In this alternate universe the surges of band creativity don’t neccessarily happen, because there’s no immense cultural pressure to see what the Beatles will do next. Instead they ride the wave of British fandom until it breaks, and pursue a profitable sideline and afterlife as a superior pop songwriting team, doling out pleasantly ‘Beatle-esque’ pop songs to the likes of Peter and Gordon who sing them as if Merseybeat never happened. Pop drifts back to its early 60s status quo.
You can hear this potential drift in “A World Without Love”, which is a rather earnest exercise in Everleys-style spooning. In fact the first few seconds, with a lovely echoing bass and a shard of jangle, are by a distance the most interesting. By the time a sedate Hammond organ solo appears you know that the game is pretty much up.
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Tom in Popular • 1,666 views • Share/Save
Doctor Mod says:
This is an early example of a Lennon-McCartney song without Lennon. We all know that a lot of the songs were written by one or the other and not as a joint effort.
Tom observes that “Peter and Gordon . . . sing [it] as if Merseybeat never happened. Pop drifts back to its early 60s status quo.” Perhaps for Brits it did, but in the US we’d never heard anything like it before, and it was actually exciting–organ and all. (Hammond? Sounds more like a Farfisa to me. I could be wrong.)
Still, in retrospect, the suggestion that it might be a throwback (in the overall scheme of things) seems conceivable. But perhaps it’s really a matter of “back to the future.” By 1970, McCartney would be showing just what he could do without Lennon–only the results were rarely up to the standard of “World Without Love.”
I don’t think this song is any worse a song than Can’t Buy Me Love. Whether or not you like the performance is another matter. Personally I think it takes all sorts of approaches to make the early Sixties interesting – if every #1 was Beatles-fronted, compelling performers though they were, I’d be finding this exercise pretty grim.
TOTPWatch: Peter & Gordon performed ‘A World Without Love’ on Top of the Pops for six consecutive weeks!;
25 March 1964. Also in the studio that week were; The Applejacks and The Bachelors, plus two specially prerecorded studio performances from The Beatles. Jimmy Saville was the host.
1 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Millie, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Applejacks and The Bachelors. Alan Freeman was the host.
8 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Millie, The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Four Pennies. Pete Murray was the host.
15 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Gerry & The Pacemakers, Millie and The Migil Five. David Jacobs was the host.
22 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Millie, The Four Pennies, The Mojos and The Searchers. Jimmy saville was the host.
29 April 1964. Also in the studio that week were; Gerry & The Pacemakers, Manfred Mann, The Migil Five, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Rolling Stones and The Searchers. Alan Freeman was the host.
None of these programmes survive.
So it’s farewell, then, to Gordon Waller who died last Friday.
Thanks, Rosie. Gordon Waller features a couple of times in the forthcoming John & Gary Walker autobiog, always glass in hand, clearly the bon viveur of the duo. Peter and Gordon have always seemed peculiarly enigmatic as post-Mersey UK pop stars – can anyone recall either of them as talking heads?
I’d urge anyone with a slight orchestrated pop inclination to search out his Seventh Hour, a Parlophone 45 (b-side) from 68/69, written by Gordon, richly produced, and properly gorgeous.