I think I've always had a problem with this song. Firstly, I simply don't like the so-called "Nashville" sound. This isn't country music, there's nothing anything like country music in this song. Under Chet Atkins' watch, all the distincitvely "country" factors have been stripped away and replaced with things like xylophones (althought I suspect they may be vibraphones....). That's not to say Atkins was no good, in fact I really enjoy what he did with Jerry Reed in the late '60s.

Secondly, I don't care how sweet and smooth the music is, the song is about a bloke trying to talk a girl into shagging him. He's at the pub, he's had a few, and he's getting a bit toey. As a result, he's trying his best to sweet talk the girl over the phone. I've seen this happen in person plenty of times in person, and it's really quite pathetic and desperate.

As influential as this was in really bringing the "Nashville Sound" to the mainstream, I'm having a lot of trouble enjoying it.

This was the last single released by Johnny Horton while he was still alive. In November 1960, he was killed in a car accident, the other car being driven by a drunk driver. Funnily enough, Horton was convinced that this was exactly how he'd die; In a car accident involving a drunk driver. C'est la vie.

Anyway, on to the song. This is another one I've heard about eleventy billion times, so I'm intimately familiar with it and probably slightly biased in its favour. The song was from the film of the same name (John Wayne in Alaska? Okay....), and as such, the lyrics tell of the events in the film.

The one thing I've always liked about Johnny Horton is the slight edginess in his voice, and his tendency to execute a quick, sharp vocal slide up at the end of lines. In the first verse of this song, he does it on the end of "Seattle", "too" and "Gold", and it just gives his delivery that little bit more. I also like the way the snare drum emphasises the beat in an understated way.

This song certainly isn't a masterpiece, but it's far from being crap.

This song has always made me feel sad. Not quite as sad as Kenny Rogers' Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town, which is, incidentally, one of the most bloody miserable songs I've ever heard, but still sad. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

A couple are going out to dance, and our singer has to beg his date not to go home with anyone else. He's happy to let her strut her stuff and dance around with anyone she likes all night while he presumably stands around and watches, so long as she goes home with him.

I can't be the only one who thinks that's a little sad. Poor guy.

Ben. E King, who would later have an stupidly enormous hit with Stand By Me, carries the lead well, with good backup from the rest of the group, and the understated musical background is perfect for the song. Another well conceived and executed song by Pomus & Shuman.

The transition from an indie label to a major is always one of the most difficult things for a performer to pull off well. Will they retain the same excitement and innovation that excited all the people who hunted down their obscure releases and attended shows at out-of-the-way venues, or will they be subject to the biscuit-cutter treatment of so many before them?

I'd be happy to suggest that Nirvana made a fairly good transition. Sure, they did lighten up a little and acquire some more record polish, but tell me that you didn't either

• jump around the room like a totally mad idiot or


• get chills all over

when you first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I think it'd be fair to suggest that they maintained their artistic integrity throughout their recording career.

Then you have the total opposite of this. His name, sadly, is Elvis. While he put out some absolute crackers in the first years of his RCA contract, such as Don't Be Cruel and All Shook up, it didn't take him very long to start churning out turgid crap to keep the label satisfied. It's great from a Pop perspective, but in terms of artistic integrity, It's Now or Never scores a big fat zero.

I just can't get into this. The Elvis I know and love has the atmospheric, echoey guitar of Mystery Train, the upbeat excitement of Good Rockin' Tonight or Baby Let's Play House. This has enough syrup to keep me sick for days. Having said that, the quality of Elvis' voice is the only thing I can really appreciate about this song. It's matured, and he's a genuinely good singer now.

This is the first time a US hit has tied with a locally recorded competitor. However, I can't help but wonder whether it was Joye's version that was the more popular, and Nelson riding on his bandwagon, as many US based sites don't list this as one of Nelson's singles of note.

Col Joye had been cruising for a while, and this song was another chance to kick back into top gear. It's a fairly standard white-boy "teen idol" tune with a little more pep than say, Tab Hunter, and it came too soon to be influenced by Bryan Hyland, as it can't mention a girl without throwing marriage into the mix.

Although it made number one, this is far from both Joye or Nelson's best. Joye's best was now behind him, and although it wouldn't be his last number one, it would take him some fourteen years to regain the top spot.

Another instrumental, this one's based on a descending chord figure in Bb minor with a guitar lead. However, unlike this year's other instrumental number one, it's not really that catchy. Sure, the lead guitar line is something new for the Australian charts, but it's not "stick in your head" catchy. Well, not my head anyway.

There's no doubting that songs like this were the genesis of the "surf" instrumentals that were to arrive in the near future. I've rated it based on that.

I don't think I've ever heard this song all the way through before, I've just sort of been aware of it. As it turns out, I'm not missing much. It mostly focusses on the modesty of the girl wearing said bikini, and her reluctance to let people see her in it.

Having said that, however, it is the first number one to mention bathing suits, and women's underwear in general. So I guess it's pretty innovative in that way. Four years ago, you could hardly mention a woman in a song without proposing marriage within three lines, now they're wearing tiny little undies.

And from a lively tune about dancing, we go to Jimmie Rodgers singing a hymn. There have been attempts to make it a bit more up-to-date and interesting, but compared to African-American gospel singing, this is as plain and predictable as they come. I honestly think that I preferred Bimbombey.

Then again, it shows that the non-denominational Christian record market was a fairly substantial one. And I don't have anything against the tune, being a Christian myself. But this is...bland, and not particularly awe-inspiring.

Compared to everything else that dominated the charts in the middle of 1960, this is pretty damn lively. With plenty of handclaps in the background, we get fairly heavy beat emphasis, which would certainly be a great encouragement to get people up dancing.

The only real criticism I have of it is that the group really slow down through the song, losing quite a bit of speed, and I'm not sure that it's intentional as it sometimes is. Although, taking into consideration that the group financed this recording for an independent label in Canada themselves, lower production values and a limited budget probably contributed to the fact that they didn't try another take.

Overall, it's pretty good. A one hit wonder with two goes at the top spot. I've rated them as such.

This was Connie Francis' first Australian chart-topper, but I don't think that it was anywhere near her best. It's a fairly clichéd pop tune about going back to the guy who makes her cry all the time, making her the fool.

While the tune is pretty catchy, the song doesn't really grab me most of the way through. However, the last verse isn't so bad. In this reviewer's opinion, she's breaking the fourth wall in a sense, and telling the poor crying girl who bought the record that everything will be okay while things will just go on being crap for herself. It wasn't very common, and it's a real saving grace for a song that I was ready to write off as being pretty pointless.

Listening to this, I don't think that it wouldn't be drawing a very long bow to suggest that Steele's only Australian number one was significantly influenced by Lonnie Donegan's My Old Man's a Dustman. Steele, ever the opportunist, also recorded What a Mouth in front of a live audience.

In an amazingly irritating cockney voice, he sings about a boy with a big mouth, with even more double meanings than Donegan. The song was written by early 1900's music hall star Harry Champion, who was probably best known for writing songs about food. From a modern perspective, there are some lines that are downright filthy, and they probably wouldn't be accepted in a song today without a few raised eyebrows.

After My Old Man's A Dustman, this seems somewhat amateurish. It's not in the slightest bit clever, as Dustman kind of was, and Steele's voice grates on my nerves bigtime.

Having grown up in Australia, I've heard this song more times than I can possibly count. As early as Primary school, possibly earlier, I'd sing along with it. I guess the lyrics were fairly kid-safe (except for the line about "letting abos go loose", which was excised from future recordings), and it's a concept that even a child can laugh at - to tie down a Kangaroo would be a fair accomplishment indeed.

Influenced by Harry Belafonte's Calypso album a few years earlier, Harris' lyrics and melody



are a picture of catchy simplicity. And his instrumental innovation, the Wobbleboard (which was just a sheet of masonite) gave an interesting, and certainly previously unheard of percussive beat. Even though Harris was mostly writing the song for Australian expats in London, where he was most famous, the song took off in Australia, the UK, and in the US three years later. The song, and Harris, are still well known today, and this longevity is something of a sign of its value.

Let's get something straight: I really like Lonnie Donegan. Rock Island Line is a ripper of a song, Gambling Man is great, and Cumberland Gap is an incredibly exciting tune not matched until the punk era. Compared to all of them, My Old Man's A Dustman is amazingly disappointing.

Amazing bias aside, it's really not that bad a tune. It's steeped in the British music hall tradition. Aprropriately, it has been culled from a live performance. This works in the song's favour - the musicians are playing to an audience, and the audience laughs at the end of every verse, providing a guide for the listeners at home.

But...well, the mighty had certainly fallen. Every joke in the song relies on double meanings to be funny, and there's only so much Carry On style humour one can take. And for one more used to the blistering pace of Cumberland Gap , this is really very boring.