Label: Chapter One
Year of Release: 1968
When you're out and about buying bits of vinyl from the sixties, there are two things you must consider - firstly, if it was a flop and it's got any sort of vague beat, it will be sold as a "mod" record. Sometimes if the dealer is feeling ambitious, they'll label it as a "mod dancer!" And if it at any point, anywhere in the lyrics, it briefly mentions either children's sweets, sunshine, Labradors, looking up to the sky, multi-coloured things, or trees, lo and behold, it's "popsike", no matter how pedestrian the music behind the words. I've yet to encounter a record that mentions multi-coloured Labradors looking up to the sky whilst eating some sweets as some sunshine leaks through the branches of some trees, but I bet that would go for a bomb if it existed. I might even write it myself, get a few copies pressed up on a fake Deram label, artificially age them, then flog 'em on ebay.
The point is - and yes, there is a point - there are only so many desirable sixties obscurities to go around, and you shouldn't always believe what the traders tell you. Take me, for example. I forked out a disproportionate amount of money for this rather scratchy single in the belief that it was a sterling piece of mod pop. It's really not, y'know. It could be that this is a mod artist having a one-off excursion into balladsville, but I suspect it's unlikely.
In fact, there's really not much I can honestly say about this record except that it exists. Jason Cord appeared to hail from Wolverhampton and was active on the gig circuit at the same time as Slade's salad years, but beyond that I can find no information on the man. Both sides of this record show Mr Cord in loverman mode, and there appear to have been hundreds of records released with similar weeping string arrangements throughout the sixties, most of which remain uncompiled. The likes of Bam Caruso and Sanctuary Records have seemed unbothered about the croonier end of the sixties circuit.
Once again, there's nothing objectionable about this single, but nothing particularly memorable either. It whooshes by on a bed of silky strings. The fiver I paid for the damn thing is the only thing that really sticks in my mind, plus the fact that it was apparently produced by David Balfe, who I can only assume isn't the Teardrop Explodes manager and founder of Zoo Records.
