My song choice today is such a great tune, it had to be uploaded sometime.
The Stereophonics version is my favourite, but there's actually quite a lot of history behind this song and it's been covered various times.
According to my research* 'Handbags and Gladrags' was originally written in 1967 by a man called Mike D'abo. When questioned on his inspiration behind it, he explained that it was "Saying to a teenage girl that the key to happiness is not through being trendy. There are deeper values."
Some of the main covers of particular note, are as follows (although I've not mentioned them all);
Chris Farlow was the first person to release a version of the song in 1967.
Then later, in 1969, Rod Stewart recorded a version for his album "An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down". But it was only when released as a single in 1972, that it managed to chart on the 'Billboard's top 100'. A year before that Bill Chase, with his band 'Chase', recorded their version of this popular song.
But It was only in 2001, when the Welsh band Stereophonics released a version of it as a single, that it peaked to number 3 in Ireland. The story goes that the band actually only recorded the song "for a laugh", but when the record company heard it, they saw the potential and commissioned a single.
Of course, many of you might recognise it as being the instrumental for the opening credits of the immensely popular British sit-com "The Office". It's "immensely popular" in my book anyway.
It's such a chilled song, with such beautiful lyrics, that I don't know how anyone could not like it really.
Have a good day!
Molly x
*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handbags_and_Gladrags#/media/File:Handbags_and_Gladrags_Farlowe_single.jpg
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