Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

1969 : Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles

I can't be certain, but I suspect there are some fine tracks from this year.  And The Beatles have done some very fine tracks indeed.  However, I suspect this track is going to struggle to come close to the top of either category.

I mean, it's a lovely track but it's not a great track, is it?  It's 3:06 of loveliness, but are you going to stream it over and over?  No, I'm not.  Wikipedia tells us that George wrote it at Clapton's house rather than going to a business meeting - which seems like a fine idea to me.  It tells us an awful lot of other stuff about the song as well - I can't claim to have read most of it, but it's fair to say that it did George a lot of favours in upping his status as a songwriter.  It also tells me that it doesn't feature John - he was probably off sulking somewhere. The critics love it with quite a few people of them claiming this is one of the best songs ever written - and it's the most streamed Beatles track in the UK with 53 million downloads with "Let It Be" in second place with a mere  26 million.  I'd have to say I'm still not convinced but it does, however, remind me of this version from 1976 which is very lovely indeed. 

This track is on Abbey Road and wasn't released as a single at the time - but when The Beatles back catalogue became available for downloading in 2010 it charted at #64 and then, obviously, reappeared at #58 in 2012.  Cover versions have charted twice over here - Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel got to #10 in 1976 with a pretty good version and Gary Barlow got to #59 in 2012 with a maybe not quite so good version.  Other cover versions mentioned by Wikipedia are Richie Havens (which got to #16 in the US), Nina Simone, Booker T and The MGs, George Benson, Paul Monday (only a month after the original and well before he "became" Gary Glitter), Peter Tosh and a load of other people I've never heard of.

secondhandsongs.com gives us some "interesting" other options - Womack & Womack, Travis, Nick Cave, Sheryl Crow, Belle & Sebastian, Rumer, Nick Knowles, Jacob Collier, Cliff Richard (of course), Christina Perri and Joss Stone.  And bizarrely, I struggle to imagine that any of them are dreadful - even Nick Knowles!

So, it turns out I'm totally wrong about this not being a popular Beatles track - am I also wrong about there being many better tracks this year?  The top selling track of the year was "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies - I can't imagine too many people stream that these days.  Some slightly more likely candidates are The Scaffold's "Lily The Pink" (not really, but I like it), Des O'Connor's "1-2-3 O'Leary" (definitely not, but it's amusingly cheesy), Dusty Springfield's "Son Of A Preacher Man", Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs Robinson" or "The Boxer", Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" or "Galveston", The Who's "Pinball Wizard", Frank Sinatra's "My Way", Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour", David Bowie's "Space Oddity", Elvis's "Suspicious Minds" and The Temptations "Tracks Of My Tears" (I LOVE this track!).  From the US, we're offered Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" (it's gotta be up there now, surely?), The Beatle's "Get Back", Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" - surprisingly, "Sugar Sugar" was the best selling single over there as well.

I'm happy to give The Beatles a year, but I wouldn't have expected either this year or this track - but it seems like I'm very much in a minority.  Hey ho - these things happen, but I'd have to say there were some very fine other tracks in 1969.

1968 - Another surprising winner
1970 - Some fine facts about a fine track