The bees are buzzin' in the tree to make some honey just for me

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts.

03/11/68 : The Jungle Book OST - Various Artists

This is an interesting one because (obviously) your first thought is "oh yes - this is going to be lovely" - "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" are joyous and iconic tracks.  But, my second thought was "errr - what else is there?".  I suspect there will be a couple of tracks that jog my memory, but it will be interesting to see what else they pad the album out with.

Well - as usual, it all depends on which version you listen to.  The original chucks "Trust In Me" (the snake song), "Colonel Hathi's March" (elephants), "That's What Friends Are For" (vultures) and "My Own Home" (the girl - but no-one remembers that) on there - and that's it!  Short but sweet - and they're all fine (or more than fine) but they do lose something without the accompanying visuals.  The '97 version (which I didn't listen to) chucks all sort of nonsense on there which I'm sure no-one bothers listening to - snippets of the score and an interview with the Sherman brothers (the songwriters).

We're at #7 in the charts this week on its 36th week of a 49 week run, having peaked at #5 - and it's managed another 28 weeks on the chart across the years, last being seen in '72.  The top five this week were The Hollies (we'll be saying this for some time yet), The Seekers, Simon & Garfunkel, TSOM and TGTBATU and the highest new entry was Simon & Garfunkel with Wednesday Morning, 3AM - their third album we've mentioned this year, just sneaking in at #40.

Wikipedia has a few interesting stories on the matter - Terry Gilkyson (a long-time Disney collaborator) was originally asked to score the film and produced a few songs which people agreed were in keeping with the spirit of the Kipling material, but a bit too dark for Disney, so the Sherman brothers were called in.  But they did keep one of Terry's song - "The Bare Necessities", which I think we can all agree isn't all that dark!  It also told me that the original plan was to have The Beatles record the vultures song and to have it as a 60s pop song, but their schedule prevented the former and fear of things sounding dated prevented the latter.

"Customers also listened to" the soundtracks from Aladdin, Toy Story (there's a soundtrack?), A Bug's Life and Hocus Pocus - and a million others.   I guess if you like a soundtrack then you REALLY like a soundtrack!  This is one of the better ones though, although I'd struggle to say it stretches to fill a whole album

27/10/68 - Very much of its time
10/11/68 - An odd album

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