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Parlophone
single, 1967 You’re
here at #1 and it should no be a surprise that Grocer Jack is the top of
the heap for us. One thing to get clear is that no money changed hands
and no bully boys visited us in a dark alley. We selected this song all
on our own but we didn’t select it because Mark Wirtz and Keith West
invented Toytown pop. We also didn’t select it because it’s the best
song on the list (there are just too many good songs here) or because it
is one of the most commercially successful tracks on the list. So why
did we pick this track as the best of the best? Simple: it incorporates
all of the best traits of Toytown pop into one song and to us it is the
most successful at doing so. It’s got a great story, it has a
children’s chorus, it’s got a quaint British village for a setting,
it has sadness and hope and it’s got flutes! What is most astonishing
is that while the story is directed at children the music plays like an
adult symphony. Even after you add the Wirtzian bag of tricks (banjos,
bongos and the like) the song assumes its audience, both young and old,
are intelligent listeners and that they can take it all in. And as most
British citizens over the age of 45 know, the song was taken in and is
still remembered by its fans and detractors all these years later. The
biggest compliment to the achievement of Mr. Wirtz and Mr. West is that
it’s never been successfully imitated. There have been plenty of cute
songs in a similar style (some listed in these pages) but no song after
it comes close – except the two last installments of The Teenage
Opera.
"Hey Mark, you're a comedian now, so tell me a joke" "OK Keith, have you heard the one about the weatherman, the train driver and the dead grocer?" "Many times...but you never finish it"
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