1967 was a pivotal year in pop music.
The Summer of Love, San Francisco and the hippies made 1967 a unique year.
That’s why pop music cashed in on what could be called the 1967 sound—here are five examples that capture that moment in time when life was a groove.
The first example is ‘Sunshine Girl’ by the one-hit wonders ‘The Parade’. This song had it all– the harmonies, the good vibes and a catchy, quasi-psychedelic space.
They were a group of guys who could see the light on the 60s sound and wrote this classic pop hit for the times. Very few songs can include the words “Feels so groovy” and make it work, but The Parade did. Why? Because it was 1967.
‘Come On Down To My Boat’ was another one hit wonder from 1967. It was done by a legendary band called ‘Every Mother’s Son’, and it was released in April 1967.
This is another solid example of how 60s harmonies meets a 60s beat and cranks out a classic 60s sound. There’s enough in the lyrics to think free love was on the table—just in time for the Summer of Love.
‘The Easybeats’ cranked out another one-hit wonder with ‘Friday On My Mind’ in May 1967. They were an Australian band and became national legends there after their song soared on the international stage.
This was a fast-paced single about being trapped in a nowhere job where the only freedom you had was when you clocked out on Friday. Kids loved the song and hippies embraced its anti-authority direction. It was perfect for 1967.
‘Yellow Balloon’ was the only group who named themselves after the song they wrote and called the album the same name too. It was released in February 1967 and it nailed the sunshine and lollipops attitude of that year.
Radio stations shunned it because of the possible link to drug use, but ‘Yellow Balloon’ was simply a feel-good song built to chart in an era when one-hit wonder, feel-good songs reigned.
The last song came from a band called ‘The Blues Magoos’. They pumped out a one-hit wonder called (We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet’.
This was an organ-driven tune that was dripping with 60s style, and it was the kind of song your parents would hate. That made it a classic when it debuted in February 1967. It didn’t make the band a classic but ‘The Blues Magoos’ made the cut for one-hit wonders from 1967. That’s a good club to join.
1967–the year of the perfect one-hit wonders.
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