YouTube: rb.gy/2xe2yn
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We knew the record, we knew the name, but we couldn't pick Lou Christie out of a lineup.
That's how it was back in '66, when the Brits still had a hold on the Top 40, album rock was becoming a thing, but every once in a while something American would sneak into the chart from left field, something that sounded so right, but could have been released before the Beatles as opposed to two years after.
But we were all addicted to the radio. Top 40 ruled. Underground FM was still a year away. And there were anomalies that would confound you now, but were part of the fabric back then. Like Mike Douglas's "The Men in My Little Girl's Life" being number six on the WABC 1/18/66 chart, when "Lightnin' Strikes" broke in at number 19. Unfathomable today, where the niches are so narrow, where tons of very popular music does not only not make it on to terrestrial Top 40, but doesn't break the Spotify Top 50 either. But back in the day, if you were on the chart, you were popular, and everybody knew your song.
#1 that week was "We Can Work It Out," the Beatles' Xmas single which featured "Day Tripper" on the flip side, one of the amazing Beatle two-sided singles, and neither of these numbers were part of "Rubber Soul," which was released on December 5, 1965. What a long strange trip it was from "Beatles '65" the previous year to "In My Life" and "Norwegian Wood."
#2 was Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence," which ruled over the holiday. Not only did people wonder whether Garfunkel was his real name, there was endless debate regarding the meaning of the song, something we no longer have in today's scramble for cash music business.
#3? The Stones' ballad, "As Tears Go By."
#4? The sadly overlooked by today's kids Kinks, with one of their best songs ever, "A Well Respected Man."
#5? Gary Lewis and the Playboys' best song, "She's Just My Style," which Leon Russell had a hand in and sounded like a modern day Beach Boys cut.
And then came that Mike Douglas number.
But there were other anomalies, like the Statler Brothers' "Flowers on the Wall," which everyone loved and sang...
"Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me, I've nothin' to do"
I'm not going to delineate every record on the chart, but I will say that the Supremes and the Marvelettes were on there, as well as one of the best English-sounding American tracks, the Knickerbockers' "Lies" and one other record that fit into the same slot as "Lightnin' Strikes," "Five O'clock World" by the Vogues, which had been completely forgotten until Bowling For Soup did a cover for "The Drew Carey Show" and we realized how f-ing great that number had been. It was there in our memory banks, but "Lightnin' Strikes"? We never forgot that, hell, I was singing it to myself just yesterday, truly!
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"Listen to me baby, you gotta understand"
It was the urgency that got to us. And the record has a great intro, with even horns, but oftentimes the deejay cut that off and got right to the lyrics. But the intensity, it BUILT!
"Listen to me baby, it's hard to settle down
Am I asking too much for you to stick around"
Ah, the need, the desire, the hormones. Believe me, we were hopped up, we felt it.
And then a complete change.
Which was heralded by a veritable twinkle, which set up the unexpected section:
"Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you
Won't you wait, but 'til then"
The feel has completely changed. In the opening verse he's begging for her attention, but now he's got it. He's softened his delivery, he's looking into her eyes.
And then the number gets truly intense, like a teenager unable to control their will.
"When I see lips beggin' to be kissed
(Stop)
I can't stop
(Stop)
I can't stop myself
(Stop, stop)"
Have you got it, he cannot STOP! He's gone from begging to reasoning to PURE EMOTION, which then bubbles over.
"Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again"
He's cast off all self-consciousness, he's raw emotion, he's in the moment, HE JUST CAN'T HOLD BACK! The release is palpable!
The falsetto chorus, angels singing from heaven, are on Lou's side. I mean what woman can deny THIS?
It's a veritable tour-de-force, and then the number breaks down once again, but with an added level of intensity:
"Nature's takin' over my one track mind
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by my rules"
Now he and the background singers are positively testifying, his message is undeniable, how can she not be on his side?
As for "live by my rules"... You may think the sixties were a dark age culturally, but I must say, these words made the listener squirm even back in '66. The man's rules?
"When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time"
Believe me, listeners weren't thinking about settling down, this was a hangover from a previous era, the Beatles didn't sing lyrics like this, and the aforementioned Kinks? They were singing social commentary.
Now the number is completely amped up.
There's a break with a solo, but ultimately those high vocals come in over and over again, talking about lightning strikin' again.
"There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us, around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever, but 'til then"
The record is taken to a level unforeseen, an intensity that squeezes out everything else in the world, the listener is carried away, they're all in.
But it's the outro that seals the deal. Lightning is not only going to strike, not only going to strike again, but AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!
This was the essence of a hit record in the sixties. When it was over, you could not wait to hear it again, which drove you to the record shop to buy it to spin it at home over and over and OVER again until you were finally satiated, worn out, and you were just starting to be hooked by another record and ultimately repeated the process. But not all of those records were all time, but LIGHTNIN' STRIKES IS!
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I can literally remember hearing "Lightnin' Strikes" hanging outside junior high waiting for the bell. Wearing my sweater as I'd agreed with Peter we would do. Although I wore a shirt underneath, he didn't bother, I couldn't do this, the itchiness would get to me.
These records lived everywhere. At the school dance, at the bowling alley, they were part of the fabric.
By the next week, "Lightnin' Strikes" was at number 7, and the week after that, the chart of February 1, 1966, it went all the way to NUMBER ONE! And it stayed there, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, three more weeks, four weeks in a row. And then it started to descend and by March 29th, "Lightnin' Strikes" was off the chart completely. Which meant you rarely heard it on the radio anymore, but you didn't need to, YOU KNEW IT BY HEART!
We all learned about the records at the same time. You couldn't claim to be hip by knowing a song before everybody else did, we all started from the same line. Records did not take a year to break, hell, a year after their success an act could be working a day job. A hit was oftentimes a lark, a one time shot.
But Lou Christie had another hit, "Rhapsody in the Rain," which was great, but not "Lightnin' Strikes." You don't know how you reach the peak, you're inspired, you're channeling an energy that came from parts unknown, you lay it down and you know what you have but good luck trying to climb to the top of the mountain once again.
"Rhapsody in the Rain" had a very memorable chorus, but the dynamics were as not extreme and the verses were not as good as they were in "Lightnin' Strikes." "Rhapsody in the Rain" was fodder for the radio, "Lightnin' Strikes" was LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE!
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So I walked in the door and Felice told me Lou Christie had died, she'd heard it from her sister. I was completely out of the loop, it was news to me, and news period, the death was on Wikipedia but you could not find it searching the Google News. Nor Apple News+. I was living it in real time.
And I'm thinking about those who didn't live through the era. They only know the track as an oldie, with the detritus of years of charts cleaned away so only the true goodies survive. And put against the rest of the songs from that era "Lightnin' Strikes" may not be seen as quite the triumph it was. We were addicted to the radio, every Tuesday night I did my homework to Cousin Brucie doing the weekly countdown. When a record emerged it rode shotgun with our complete life, everybody we knew knew it, in a way today's culture knows almost nothing, when even the average person can't say who won the World Series, but back then...our cultural moments were universal peaks we all shared.
Now I was shocked to see that Lou Christie tried and tried and tried. He never gave up, kept searching for another hit, at times changing with the times, writing song after song after song, oftentimes with his partner Twyla Herbert, who was twenty years older than he was.
Songwriting partner, not romantic partner. That was Francesca Winfield, an English model who he stayed married to, just like in the song, it was forever.
And I knew he'd changed his name. After all, I'd researched him over the years, that's one of the magical elements of the internet, the past comes alive.
And Wikipedia tells me Lou was on "Where the Action Is," but I don't remember that. Then again, other than Paul Rever and the Raiders....that show was on five days a week, much of it was a blur. Then again, I remember rushing home to watch the Yardbirds perform "For Your Love" on the show. So I couldn't pick Lou Christie out of a lineup. But that's not what he was selling. The acts of the late sixties and seventies were selling more than the songs, their identities were enmeshed with the music. As for "Lightnin' Strikes"...it was written to strike on the hit parade, right?
But that does not mean it was not great, just that the song has superseded its singer. And co-writer, the aforementioned Twyla. But Lou was involved with two noted crooks, Morris Levy and Stan Polley, did he end up with any rights, never mind royalties? I hope so. Then again, what do you want, riches or a hit? You think they always come together, but not necessarily. You can be famous and broke, believe me.
But being ensconced in the hearts and minds of an entire generation? That's an achievement nearly beyond comprehension, very few achieve that, and when you do...
You and your record are for all time. Everywhere you go, every time you're introduced, people are stopped in their tracks, they start to testify where they were when they listened to your record, what it meant to them, you're just human, but to listeners, you're a GOD!
AI couldn't write "Lightnin' Strikes." It wasn't a paint by numbers dream. There had to be inspiration and excitement, not only in the composition, but the recording!
Technology was primitive. There were no synthesizers. You could replicate these records at home, if not always their rudimentary reverb and other effects.
Then again, I don't remember any local band playing "Lightnin' Strikes." That'd be like trying to impersonate God. It's untouchable. Baked into the grooves is pure magic. From the piano to the horns to the backup vocals...not pieced together over days, with the vocals comped, but laid down all together, all at once.
Then again, the record was more than Lou. "Lightnin' Strikes" was produced by legendary arranger Charles Callelo, who Al Kooper has testified about to me again and again and again. Then again, Kooper was in bed with and ultimately ripped off by Stan Polley too.
But that's all music business history.
Then again, it was a different business back then, peopled by renegade hypesters, people who could promote and intimidate, and artists with little portfolio but an unbelievable hunger to make it.
Like Lou Christie.
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