#100 the week of February 24th, 1962
What was #1? “Duke Of Earl” by Gene Chandler, in its second of three weeks at the top of the charts.
“One hit wonder” is a universally understood concept, but the label may not apply universally to any given artist. Often times an artist may be a one hit wonder in one country but an icon in another. The band Nena only ever charted with “99 Luftballons” in the U.S., but back home in Germany, they were one of the most important acts of the 1980s. It’s rarer and a whole lot stranger when you find someone who is virtual nobody in their homeland, but was huge abroad. Such is the bizarre case of Larry Finnegan.
“Dear One” was the only song by the New York born rocker to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. We’re catching it as it debuts on the chart at 100, but it will climb all the way to #11. I’ll get the review out of the way because this song is the least interesting part of Finnegan’s story.
This song is about a man receiving a “Dear John” letter because his girl has met a man who is “tall, dark, and, well, you know how it is,” but it’s so much weirder than that. It’s by no means an ambitious song, but there are many bold choices made that I have to respect it, even when I find it off putting. Take the intro for instance, most songs don’t start with a voice repeatedly intoning the title. This distant female voice is too unsettling to be ethereal, but also too delicate to be creepy. From there, the opening verse led me to believe it would be a country ballad, but then the chorus kicked in and it went full rockabilly.
On the second verse, Finnegan sings the contents of the letter, as a female voice repeats each lyric. Note that the female voice is reciting each line, not singing it like a backing singer would. This on its own isn’t that odd, ABBA* employed a similar spoken word echo on the second verse of “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” What’s unusual about how Finnegan does it is that over the course of the verse, his own vocals are slowly lowered in the mix until it sounds like the female echo is actually the lead vocal. The last minute of the song is pretty straightforward pre-Beatles rock ‘n’ roll with a fun barroom piano solo, and multiple repetitions of the chorus. It makes weird choices, it goes on a bit too long without any new ideas, and yet, it’s catchy, energetic, and Finnegan’s vocals could easily be mistaken for Del Shannon. Sometimes it’s a 3, sometimes it’s an 8, let’s call it a 5.
*Put a pin in this mention of ABBA.
While “Dear One” only got to #11 in the U.S., it was a number one hit in both Australia and Sweden. Finnegan had long been a fan of the Swedes, while in college at Notre Dame, “he developed an interest in the Swedish welfare system (healthcare, disability pension, child allowance etc.) and as early as 1960 was describing Sweden as a leading country in these areas.” Seeing his success in Sweden, Finnegan began touring the country and eventually emigrated across the Atlantic to…Switzerland, which was comparatively more affordable.
Despite Finnegan choosing to live next door, the Swedish population were pretty excited that a genuine American rock and roller was so interested in their country and bought his records as if he was Elvis. He became a major player in the Swedish music industry, even establishing a record label, SvenskAmerican. In addition to his English language repertoire, Finnegan also recorded songs in Swedish and German, as well as wrote American-style pop hits for Swedish, German, Dutch, and Norwegian singers. He eventually returned to the States in 1970 and died of a brain tumor in 1973 at the age of 34.
However, Finnegan’s biggest contribution to the world of pop music is also the most surprising. When Finnegan first toured Sweden, he brough his backing band the Hi-Grades. Among the band members was an English guitarist turned bass player named Mike Watson. Watson married the Sweden-based Dutch pop singer Suzie*, whose first hit single was written and produced by Finnegan. While Watson and Suzie’s marriage didn’t last long, he stuck around in Sweden, gigging with various bands and picking up session work. Along the way, he met young songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, and he’d become a recurring player on ABBA records. His bass can be heard on several major ABBA hits including “The Winner Takes It All,” “SOS,” and “Mamma Mia.”
*For a time, Suzie was so big in Sweden that the Beatles actually opened for her.
5/10