4 Old-Fashioned Hits From the Otherwise Progressive Musical Year of 1967

When you think about the year 1967 in music, you likely recall the forward-looking albums and songs that came from that era. After all, the Summer of Love and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band both emanated from that year.

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Yet that calendar year also made room for some decidedly old-fashioned songs to do damage on the charts. Here are four that you may or may not remember.

“Somethin’ Stupid” by Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra

Ol’ Blue Eyes actually enjoyed a bit of a chart resurgence in the mid-60s with songs like “Strangers In The Night” and “That’s Life”. Meanwhile, his daughter Nancy epitomized a somewhat cooler stance in the 60s, thanks to her bold collaborations with producer Lee Hazelwood and hits like “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”. In 1966, the husband/wife team of Carson And Gaile first recorded “Somethin’ Stupid”. C. Carson Parks, brother of famed Beach Boys’ collaborator Van Dyke Parks, wrote the song. When Frank Sinatra heard it, he thought it would be a good fit for Nancy. But he was then convinced to do a duet with his daughter, and the song hit No. 1.

“It Must Be Him” by Vikki Carr

Gilbert Becaud was a French composer with a knack for writing songs that eventually were translated into English hits. Examples include “What Now My Love”, “Let It Be Me” and this worldwide hit. Vikki Carr had been knocking around the industry since the early 60s. Before this song, she was perhaps best known for being the first to record The Crystals’ hit “He’s A Rebel”. The song saunters along at a slow pace and features old-fashioned orchestral flourishes, and Carr gives it every bit of desperate drama it deserves. Fans of the film Moonstruck might recognize this as the favorite song of the death-obsessed patriarch.

“Release Me” by Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck’s career was almost kaput in the early 60s after a few unsuccessful singles under a different moniker and a serious illness. However, Gordon Mills, the impresario who launched the career of Tom Jones, gave the singer his new stage name. He also found him a new recording deal. The first song that Humperdinck tackled in his new guise was “Release Me”, which had been bouncing around for about 15 years, usually recorded in country and western style. Humperdinck established his lush balladic vibe with the song. He returned for much more success in that vein in the years to come. This song famously kept The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”/”Penny Lane” out of the top spot in Great Britain.

“My Cup Runneth Over” by Ed Ames

Even as the rock and roll world was dominating pop culture in the mid-60s, this was still an era when musicals, both on Broadway and in cinema, had great sway. As such, folks would have had a little bit of familiarity with “My Cup Runneth Over”. It was written for I Do! I Do, a show that had debuted on Broadway in 1966. Ed Ames had established himself as a well-known television actor on the series Daniel Boone, which was still going strong when he recorded this track. His booming vocals both lend the earnestness of the message an extra bit of authority and fit well with the formal nature of the lyrics. About as far from psychedelic rock as you could get, but still a smash.

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