 |
| NOTE: King does not usually look like Mitch McConnell, but... |
“I have been studying the music industry for the last three years and it is one big joke. Anyone can make it if they're clever and can fool a few people.”
Back in 1965, a Englishman named Jonathan King wanted to be a pop star very, very badly, so he wrote a song called, “Everyone's Gone to the Moon.” It’s not a great song, one of those popular music hold-outs in the early(ish) age of rock ‘n’ roll that borrowed from it while still sounding like something your local radio station would play after a Petula Clark hit. Whatever I think of that song, Jonathan King understood how pop stardom worked. Maybe not in the most traditional way – and, as it happened, not without prison time(!) – but King gave one hell of a lot more to popular culture than that one cheesy song…
…if nothing else, you can thank him for the “ooga chaka ooga ooga” in his remake of “Hooked on Feeling.” (Even if his version wasn’t the most popular; paging Blue Swede.)
Born to privilege in 1944, King became obsessed with pop stardom around the time he was working on his A levels. He was already performing with a band, The Bumbles, as well as writing and producing for them. That accounted for King’s first crack at fame, a single titled “Gotta Tell” (which I can't find). That flopped, but it only took his third/fourth attempt to write the hit that made him famous. "Everyone's Gone to the Moon" hit No. 4 on the UK charts behind The Beatles’ “Help!” at No. 1 and, to deepen the foreshadowing introduced above (e.g., “prison time(!)”), King played on Jimmy Savile’s Top of the Pops. Wait for it…
The decision to flag “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” as either King’s third or fourth attempt touches on a curious aspect of King’s career. King had persuaded Decca Records to release a 45 based on another song titled “Green Is the Grass”; when they’d asked him for a B-side, he delivered “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” which immediately became the A-side. “Green Is the Grass” flopped in the end, but the way King released his next hit – e.g., without his name attached to it; he didn’t even perform it – established a template that he’d return to throughout his career. That single was titled “It’s Good News Week,” by Hedgehoppers Anonymous. King continued to release hits under his own name – e.g., “Lazy Bones,” Flirt,” and “Hooked on a Feeling” – but he’d also put out songs under names like The Weathermen (“It’s the Same Old Song” (yes, it's a (bad) cover)), Nemo (“The Sun Has Got His Hat On”), Sakkarin (“Sugar, Sugar”), and St. Cecelia (“Leap Up and Down (Wave Your Knickers in the Air)”). There was a certain logic to it all:
Back in 1965, a Englishman named Jonathan King wanted to be a pop star very, very badly, so he wrote a song called, “Everyone's Gone to the Moon.” It’s not a great song, one of those popular music hold-outs in the early(ish) age of rock ‘n’ roll that borrowed from it while still sounding like something your local radio station would play after a Petula Clark hit. Whatever I think of that song, Jonathan King understood how pop stardom worked. Maybe not in the most traditional way – and, as it happened, not without prison time(!) – but King gave one hell of a lot more to popular culture than that one cheesy song…
…if nothing else, you can thank him for the “ooga chaka ooga ooga” in his remake of “Hooked on Feeling.” (Even if his version wasn’t the most popular; paging Blue Swede.)
Born to privilege in 1944, King became obsessed with pop stardom around the time he was working on his A levels. He was already performing with a band, The Bumbles, as well as writing and producing for them. That accounted for King’s first crack at fame, a single titled “Gotta Tell” (which I can't find). That flopped, but it only took his third/fourth attempt to write the hit that made him famous. "Everyone's Gone to the Moon" hit No. 4 on the UK charts behind The Beatles’ “Help!” at No. 1 and, to deepen the foreshadowing introduced above (e.g., “prison time(!)”), King played on Jimmy Savile’s Top of the Pops. Wait for it…
The decision to flag “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” as either King’s third or fourth attempt touches on a curious aspect of King’s career. King had persuaded Decca Records to release a 45 based on another song titled “Green Is the Grass”; when they’d asked him for a B-side, he delivered “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” which immediately became the A-side. “Green Is the Grass” flopped in the end, but the way King released his next hit – e.g., without his name attached to it; he didn’t even perform it – established a template that he’d return to throughout his career. That single was titled “It’s Good News Week,” by Hedgehoppers Anonymous. King continued to release hits under his own name – e.g., “Lazy Bones,” Flirt,” and “Hooked on a Feeling” – but he’d also put out songs under names like The Weathermen (“It’s the Same Old Song” (yes, it's a (bad) cover)), Nemo (“The Sun Has Got His Hat On”), Sakkarin (“Sugar, Sugar”), and St. Cecelia (“Leap Up and Down (Wave Your Knickers in the Air)”). There was a certain logic to it all:
