During the course of this year I aim to upload a song every day for your consideration as to whether they were good enough and sufficiently commercial to have become UK Top 20 singles. Many different genres will be represented, so if this particular one’s not your preferred style then hopefully it won’t be too long before you find one that is.
For those songs that are interesting enough for you to give them a proper listen, please press “like” if you think it could have been a hit, and “dislike” if you don’t, in the hope that we get enough votes to obtain a balanced overview. Also, if leaving a critical comment please try to take into account the year of original release - most of the songs that I'll be uploading are decades old so it wouldn’t be surprising if some sound dated now.
Today’s choice is Levi Stubbs' Tears by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin from their 1900 album “The Big Idea”. If you are going to record other artist’s songs as well as your own then you need to be very careful with your choices as you risk drawing unfavourable comparison with the original versions. I think this is where Stewart & Gaskin have the edge over others of their ilk as more often than not I’ve enjoyed their renditions more than the originals. This is a perfect example because as soon as I heard it for the first time I began checking who wrote this amazing song, and you could have knocked me down with a feather when I discovered that Billy Bragg’s version pre-dated this one by a full four years.
At the risk of alienating Bragg fans I don’t think there’s any way that his version could have been considered single material, for all that Bragg's lyrics borders on genius here you have to admire Stewart & Gaskin’s ability to convert this dark and obscure Four Tops tribute into something so magical.
Hopefully you’ll drop by again tomorrow for something completely different!
