PETULA CLARK – “This Is My Song”
Of course this isn’t her song (that would be “Downtown”). It’s Charlie Chaplin’s song – the royalties from it helped pay for the final, flop film it starred in – which may explain why it sets its cap so firmly against the sounds of the 1960s. With its slightly awkward phrasing and chintzy light opera arangement it could have fitted into an early Eurovision contest from a decade prior, though it’s too unsophisticated to have actually won. Chaplin’s rhymes and sentiments are mawkish and impersonal, and Petula’s decision to weight every noun so heavily makes her sound like she’s had a course of vocal botox.
1
Doctor Mod says:
Early on in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, there is an incident in which one of the characters switches Abbey Road for the music teacher’s recording of Beethoven, and the class goes wild when “Come Together” blasts out unexpectedly.
But–in my own school, back in 1967, suddenly the intercom system for the whole school came on one day during the middle of the class period. No one spoke, but “This is My Song” blared off and on for about twenty seconds. The school didn’t exactly go wild–this is not a song to inspire teenage rebellion–only nervous giggling followed. I recall thinking that if someone were going to take the risk of creating mayhem, they could have chosen a more exciting song. There was absolutely no explanation for Petula’s interference with our education.
The lesson to be learned was that much in this universe happens for apparently no reason at all–which is probably the best way to think of this insipid but ultimately inoffensive song.
This was a number one?
Funny how your memory screens out the garbage.
Indeed it was a number one. My parents contributed to this I’m afraid.
It stinks, IMHO, in a kind of sub-Rombergian way, but 1 is a little harsh – it doesn’t stink quite as much as Jackie Trent did a year or so earlier.
I think I was probably a bit harsh on it too, it maybe should have got a 2. Oh well – sorry Pet!
It’s better than Engelbert, though.
Engelbert’s WMC dirges at least have tunes; this is all faux-continental fluff, expensive sounding but meaningless, and hard to recall beyond the line that includes the title. It’s inexplicable how this got to number one when none of her Tony Hatch-penned 45s did the same. It also made no.1 in the US. Number 2 watch if I’m not mistaken (don’t have Guinness book to hand but I’m fairly sure) was Harry Secombe’s version!
Pet’s The Little Shoemaker had been happily tapping his clogs in the very first chart, while Al Martino did his own quiet/loud thing at no.1; yes, it’s a much better record than This Is My Song.
Charlie Chaplin did write a couple of hits in the 50s which fell one spot short of Tom’s attention: Nat King Cole’s Smile (the instrumental of which was the theme to Modern Times) and Frank Chacksfield’s Limelight are both gorgeous melodies, both epitomise the post-war swaddling sound, that communal cocoa, and would rate a 7 each from me. This Is My Song is a stone 1.
Was Chaplin the first person to change his first name, to indicate a maturing of the young buck (Charlie) into a serious artiste (Charles, as he was in ’67), and thus setting an example to Ricky Nelson, Rob Newman, and my uncle Mick? Probably.
Listening to this sentimental tosh reminds me of the Letterists who greeted Chaplin’s 1952 visit to Paris by handing him their No More Flat Feet missive: “The footlights have melted the make-up of the supposedly brilliant mime. All we can see now is a lugubrious and mercenary old man. Go home Mister Chaplin.”
Rosie, you really think Where Are You Now stinks as a song? I know Jackie T sounds a little plummy, but I think the song and arrangement are pure Anglo Bacharach with Jackie playing the schoolteacher stood up in the rain, walking back to her West Hampstead bedsit. A real (non-swinging) sixties London song, to file alongside Donovan’s Young Girl Blues, Lorraine Silver’s Happy Faces, The Kinks’ Big Black Smoke and David Bowie’s London Boys.
This Is My Song can be filed alongside Engelbert’s Les Bicyclettes de Belsize and Where Do You Go To My Lovely. A ferry to Boulogne has more je ne sais quoi.
“Thees ees mah sawnng … ” ….. Pet had obviously by this time spent too much time with her French husband!
Worse was to follow a couple of months later, when ex-Goon Harry Secombe all but scored a No 1 hit WITH THE SAME SONG!!
Petula had a far more credible chart success in the USA with ‘Downtown’ – as noted here:
http://nohardchords.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/126-petula-clark-downtown/
TOTPWatch: Petula Clark twice performed This Is My Song on Top Of The Pops;
2 February 1967. Also in the studio that week were; Paul Jones and Chris Farlowe, plus The Go Jo’s interpretation of ‘Sugar Town’. Pete Murray and Samantha Juste were the hosts.
25 December 1967. Also in the studio that Christmas were; Sandie Shaw, The Foundations, Jimi Hendrix, The Tremeloes, The Who and Tom Jones. Jimmy Savile, Alan Freeman and Pete Murray were the hosts.
Neither edition survives.