Newby - Minks Moles and Telegraph Poles/ I Feel No Pain

 

Strangely sweet nightmare ballad from folky duo

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1966   

Sometimes you encounter a single that seems to be walking a fine line between novelty parody and a serious attempt at a hit. "Minks Moles and Telegraph Poles" is perhaps one of our most obvious such examples in a long while, with the folk duo Newby - consisting of Pete Newby and Colin Day - cooing Everly Brothers styled harmonies about their nightmares surrounding a failed romance.

Obviously,  a song with this title is never going to be straightforward, and the lyrics contain the aforementioned creatures as well as "badgers bees and chestnut trees/ all these things are you in dreams". Lads, I doubt Freud would have a field day with this one, though you'd need to give him more information about what the creatures were doing in the dreams first. Minks can give a devilish bite, after all, and if that bite involved one electrocuting itself on a telegraph pole while you were stood underneath - well, that's probably still not worth writing a song about, but it's certainly a dangerous scenario worthy of the dream diary. 

This is a decidedly silly two minutes and I suspect the two knew it would be from the moment the record button was pressed in the studio, but its unusual lyrical nature made no impact on the charts; in fact, stock copies are extremely difficult to find these days, suggesting most were returned and destroyed. 

Newby also had a single out before this one entitled "You Can't Grow Peaches On A Cherry Tree", which was also not a big seller. Despite this, the pair were obviously solid performers. The flipside to this effort, "I Feel No Pain", has been compiled elsewhere and is freely available on Spotify and YouTube, and has obtained appreciation over the years.

Pete Newby went on to record for United Artists, releasing the single "Love Babe" in 1975. Sadly, he passed on some time ago, although Phil Day is still alive and well.

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