Six and a half decades, 46 studio albums, 150-plus singles, could we choose just 40 essential Cliff Richard recordings? By Ian Wade
He’s been admired by a huge selection of fellow artists over the years. Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi reckoned Cliff was the Elvis of England, he was a childhood hero to the likes of Status Quo, and even Sting is a fan: “Cliff Richard is one of Britain’s finest singers, technically and emotionally,” he praised. “I’ve been a fan since Living Doll. Long may he sing.” John Lennon opined that “The first English record that was anywhere near anywhere was Move It. Before, there’d been nothing”. George Harrison simply said “No Shadows, no Beatles”.
So it’s a bit of a task, narrowing down 65 years of releases into 40 songs. There are countless singles, EP tracks and B-sides, and that’s without showcasing album tracks or off – discography appearances… but we had a go. Essentially, we went for significant moments and career highs across 65 years. Some massive tracks will have fallen by the wayside, and there’ll be others that you may think should be in there… in truth, we could have done a list for each decade.
The Best Of Cliff Richard
In a bid to represent all shades of the Cliff experience, there are several of his hits with The Shadows, a few from the non-hit wilderness, a handful from his late ’70s and ’80s renaissance, and significant duets such as Olivia Newton-John, Barry Gibb, Phil Everly and Van Morrison. Unfortunately tracks made with Elton John and Janet Jackson didn’t make the final list… neither, sadly, did any of the charity songs tackling subjects like heroin addiction or famine, or released in aid of important charities such as children’s hospitals. The posthumous duet with Elvis didn’t make the cut, and such is the quality of our finalist that even a significant career milestone like The Millennium Prayer must remain bubbling under.
Hopefully this list will act as a guide… a kind of mixtape which you could play to someone who has never heard Cliff, and which would hopefully encourage them to fid out more. And there is SO much more. So hop aboard, and let’s voyage through 65 years of his essential numbers.
Move It
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1958
Still sultry and bluesy today, Cliff and The Shadows’ great early moment was written by Ian Samwell on a bus enroute to the singer’s house in Cheshunt for a rehearsal. What was meant as a dig at squares who considered rock’n’roll a passing fad turned into the first British rock’n’roll single, and the first pop song to be recorded at Abbey Road. However, it wasn’t quite as simple as that: Move It had been lined up to be the B-side to a cover of Bobby Helms’ Schoolboy Crush, until Jack Good heard it and insisted that it become the A-side if Cliff wanted to appear on his show Oh Boy! Cliff took his advice, and was rewarded with a No.2.
Living Doll
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1959
Within no time at all, Cliff had become quite the sensation as a British counterpart to Elvis. The UK had not seen his like before, and an entire audience of youngsters were starting to discover – or in fact invent – their very own pin-up. Written by Lionel Bart for the film Serious Charge, Living Doll became Cliff’s first No.1 single, selling 1.8 million copies. It hit the top again in 1986, when Cliff and the cast of The Young Ones – who had gently sent up the singer throughout, as a running joke – teamed up to make the first Comic Relief single, and sold another 1.5 million. Not bad for a song that Cliff initially refused to record at all.
Travellin’ Light
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1959
Travellin’ Light was Cliff’s second No.1 single of 1959; it was also, technically, his first with the Shadows after his accompanying band’s hasty name-change. It was written by the songwriting duo of Sid Tepper and Roy C Bennett, who’d scored success with novelty and swing-time numbers for Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin and others. The pair hit a real stream of success when rock’n’roll showed up, and they would go on to create no less than 15 Cliff numbers, as well as 43 for Elvis Presley, all associated with the King’s movies. Due to the slightly confusing nature of the charts back then, Cliff’s B-side Dynamite hit No.16 in its own right.
Please Don’t Tease
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1960
While asking the public’s opinion on almost anything these days is fraught with problems, back in 1960 focus groups were very much in their infancy, and Columbia bravely invited a bunch of teens to listen to some unreleased Cliff tunes and to vote on which ones they preferred. Please Don’t Tease came first, and follow-up single Nine Times Out of Ten came second. Written by Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch with his old bandmate Pete Chester of the pre-Drifters band The Five Chesternuts, Please Don’t Tease became Cliff and the band’s third No.1, selling 1,600,000 copies worldwide and even topping the charts in India.
I Love You
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1960
The speedy emergence of rock’n’roll that had hurled the world into chaos and sexual frenzy just a couple of years previously had started to lose its initial shock value, and two of the main contenders – Elvis and Cliff – had already diversified into film and were cannily moving towards becoming more balanced, all-round entertainers. Written by Bruce Welch, I Love You was Cliff’s fourth No.1 and his first – of three across his career – Christmas chart-topper too, ending a run of syrupy or semi-novelty festive hits from the old guard such as Winifred Atwell and Harry Belafonte. It was a charming little number… even if it did sound more than a little like Roger Miller’s King Of The Road.
When The Girl In Your Arms Is The Girl In Your Heart
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1960
Recorded in January 1961 with the Norrie Paramor Orchestra and the Mike Sammes Singers but not released until that October, When The Girl In Your Arms Is The Girl In Your Heart was released ahead of the film The Young Ones. However, over in the US, the song wasn’t put out until the movie emerged, thus costing Cliff a potential hit – especially as Connie Francis heard it when she was visiting the UK and decided to release her own gender-swapped version which hit the Billboard Top 10 that Christmas. Cliff was reportedly not best pleased at this outcome. Still, the song still scored a UK No.3, so that must have been some compensation.
The Young Ones
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1962
With advance orders of over 500,000, The Young Ones was keenly anticipated, and became the first single to enter the charts at No.1 in January and spend the next six weeks there. Another Tepper/Bennett composition, it became the title track to the movie romp – the second most popular film of the year – and the No.1 soundtrack album. Cannily, with an additional string backing, the single version was different to the first release of the album, being swapped on later reissues. It was Cliff’s biggest-selling single of the ’60s, and would resurface as the cast-sung theme to another, much more alternative production – The Young Ones in 1981.
Do You Want To Dance
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1962
This was officially released as the B-side to I’m Lookin’ Out The Window in May 1962, but as had become quite a common occurrence, radio DJs started playing Do You Want To Dance instead. The Bobby Freeman number had been a Billboard top five hit in 1958. It was recorded just before Christmas 1961 at a session that was the first to feature new Shadows drummer Brian Bennett. The departing Tony Meehan began his post-Shadows career as a producer, auditioning a new band for Decca on New Year’s Day, 1962. Decca proclaimed guitar groups were out – and ended up turning down The Beatles. The clots.
Bachelor Boy
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1962
With Columbia hedging their bets with the radio stations, Bachelor Boy was released as the B-side to The Next Time, but both songs were actually promoted equally (even if the concept of a double A-side single wouldn’t be properly acknowledged until three years later in 1965, when The Beatles famously invented the format with Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out). Both songs were taken from the Summer Holiday soundtrack, and – as befitting songs from the biggest movie of the year – each became a No.1 hit in its own right. Bachelor Boy was one of Cliff’s first hits where he gained credit as a co-writer, and he now claims he never expected the title to become prophetic.
Summer Holiday
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1963
Between them, Cliff and The Shadows had the first few months of 1963 all sewn up, with each replacing the other at the top. This title track from the movie zoomed to the peak of the listings and roosted there for three weeks, only to be usurped by The Shadows’ Foot Tapper (the group’s last chart-topper without Cliff). Bruce Welch claimed that he co-wrote the song with Brian Bennett in exactly 20 minutes. Initially Cliff claimed they’d never have released it if it hadn’t been in a film, but when asked in 2013 if he had a favourite to perform, he said “I’ll always have a soft spot for Summer Holiday. It’s a song that survived the decades and really encapsulates a forgotten era”.
It’s All In The Game
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1963
One of the things that kept fans keen was the sheer quantity of non-album Cliff singles. He’d go on to release 45 singles during the ’60s, which – when averaged out to four a year, alongside TV specials and films – suggested quite the workload… and he devoted time to cracking the elusive Billboard charts, too. It’s All In The Game would become his first US Top 40 hit, reaching No.25 in early ’64. The original ’58 version by Tommy Edwards is the only No.1 single in both the US and UK to have been co-written by a US Vice President: the melody was dreamt up in 1911 by Charles G Dawes, who went on to be in office from 1925-’29.
The Minute You’re Gone
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1965
In 1964, in a bid to improve Cliff’s prospects in the US, A&R man Bob Morgan from his US label Epic met up with Norrie Paramor and Cliff with 50 songs of American origin with a plan to whittle them down to an album and record them in New York, Nashville and Chicago to reflect those cities’ differing styles. The Minute You’re Gone was laid down in Nashville in August with session musicians, the Anita Kerr Singers, arranger Stan Applebaum and producer Billy Sherrill. It became his eighth No.1 in the UK in March 1965, his first without The Shadows… but despite the lengths Epic had gone to, the single wasn’t even released in America.
Congratulations
Label: Columbia
Recorded: 1968
By now, it would seem, after a decade at the top, Cliff was settling into the showbiz establishment and relinquishing his chart-topping crown to The Beatles. 1966 and ’67 saw his chart results dip slightly, and some even missed the Top 20. He’d been chosen to represent the UK at that year’s Eurovision, and after performing six options on the Cilla Black show, the public chose Congratulations. Written by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter of Puppet On A String fame, it lost out by one point to Spain’s entry, La La Laby Massiel. No matter, it was already No.1 across Europe, and would go on to knock Massiel off the top spot in her home country.
Jesus
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1972
The 1970s were proving to be a bit dry hits-wise, with Cliff’s last Top 10 entry being No.6 with 1970’s Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha. People may not have been buying the singles in the volume they once were, but millions were still tuning in to his TV show. Cliff had been the first pop star to turn up on the BBC’s Sunday evening Songs Of Praise programme, and had long been making faith-themed albums; however, this Help It Along cut was a live recording from an invite-only concert. Released as a single, it only made No.35, but over the last decades or so has been picked up by various DJs and would feature in many a Heavenly Social set.
Power To All Our Friends
Label: EMI
Recorded: 197
Five years later on from his previous Eurovision escapade, Cliff returned to the contest with a song selected by a postal vote by viewers of a special edition of Cilla Black’s TV show to avenge his defeat at the hands of the Spanish – but on this occasion he ended up in third place. Cliff , it’s said, took so much Valium to calm his nerves that his manager had to wake him before his performance. Despite his eff orts, Luxembourg’s Tu te reconnaîtras sung by Anne-Marie David grabbed the crown. Again, there was some compensation: Power To All Our Friends became his biggest hit in some years, making No.4 in the UK, and topping the charts across Europe as well as in Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Miss You Nights
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1976
It’s hard to believe, but after numerous chart-toppers and smash hits, one of Cliff’s greatest songs – or, at least, the one considered greatest by Radio 2 listeners in 2006, receiving twice as many votes as any other – got no higher than No.15. Nevertheless, so beloved is it that it was specially requested to be re-released on the 1994 compilation The Hit List. It was written by songwriter Dave Townsend in 1974 while pining for his girlfriend; Bruce Welch came across it when looking for new Cliff material, and immediately thought it was perfect. Cliff himself has gone on to say “I think it’s one of the nicest songs I’ve ever made”.
Devil Woman
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1976
Cliff’s renaissance period truly began with the release of Devil Woman. Turning his back on the TV show and reconfiguring himself to be marketed more as a rock artist, he released the album I’m Nearly Famous and garnered positive reviews. This all- important single – written about a jinxed man spooked by a cat with evil eyes and having a right old kerfuffle with a gypsy – was penned by Terry Britten and Christine Holmes, and saw Cliff rewarded with his first Top 10 placing in years. The song managed to soar even higher in the Billboard countdown, climbing to No.6, and has gone on to become one of his biggest-selling singles worldwide.
My Kinda Life
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1977
The Great Cliff Richard Comeback was in full swing with the follow- up album Every Face Tells A Story the following year. While the first single Hey Mr Dream Maker hadn’t exactly managed to set the charts alight, My Kinda Life reached a far more respectable No.15. Originally written by Chris East for the progressive folk band McKendree Spring, Cliff’s country-tinged pop rock version saw him slightly at odds with the snarly three-chord movement. “The punks think they own the pop scene, but they forget they’re just leasing it from us,” he struck back. “What we’ve got going now is the first generation of 40 year-olds who dig rock’n’roll.”
Green Light
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1979
Why Green Light wasn’t a massive hit at the time, rather than floundering no higher than No.57, is surely something that will baffle future historians. Released from the album of the same name, it’s one of Cliff’s finest singles. Don’t believe us? The man himself thinks so too, and the song was his personal non-Top Five hit choice for The Hit List compilation in 1994. Recorded 20 years into his career, Green Light finds Cliff bravely trying on new styles, with a dash of disco and assorted electronics burbling away in the background. Pre-empting Robert Palmer’s entire ‘thing’ and starting with a guitar intro worthy of Britpop band Suede, it is without doubt one of his most underrated singles.
We Don’t Talk Anymore
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1979
After a relatively barren decade with just four Top 10 hits, Cliff pulled it out of the bag in 1979 to cap his comeback with his biggest hit ever. Sandwiched between The Boomtown Rats and Gary Numan, We Don’t Talk Anymore became his tenth No.1 – and his first since Congratulations – and came just ahead of his award of an OBE for services to music. It became a Billboard top-tenner, ended up becoming the third best-selling UK single of 1979, and was also Cliff’s first 12-inch, with an extended version released across Europe. Recorded in just one day, its success saw the song’s writer, Cliff’s regular bassist Alan Tarney, graduate to producer and chief writer over the next few albums.
Carrie
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1980
The new decade saw Cliff continuing his streak of hits – we’ll gloss over the No.46 placing of his previous single Hot Shot – with the release of the brooding, atmospheric composition Carrie in February. Another track taken from Rock’n’roll Juvenile, the tale of a missing woman was written by Alan Tarney and BA Robertson, who had just enjoyed quite a successful 1979 himself as the Bang Bang and Knocked It Off hitmaker as well as co-writing half of Cliff’s album (he would contribute his talents to the next two as well). It was a No.4 smash, and helped Cliff maintain some kind of momentum in the US, reaching No.34.
Dreamin’
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1980
Co-written by Alan Tarney with Leo Sayer (listen to it and you can quite easily imagine Leo singing), Dreamin’ was the first single released from 1980’s I’m No Hero set and actually ended up in the chart at the same time as Leo’s More Than I Can Say. It rose to No.8 in the UK, and No.10 on the Billboard list (where it would become Cliff’s last Top 10 hit). Cliff was a little concerned that the song was pitched too high for his range, but Tarney egged him on, saying it was fantastic and that he should continue in that key. As Leo Sayer wrote in the studio with them, Cliff recorded it one verse at a time – something he has never repeated.
Suddenly
Label: Jet Records
Recorded: 1980
Cliff’s I’m No Hero album campaign was disrupted slightly by the release of this duet with Olivia Newton-John, taken from the movie Xanadu. Suddenly was written and produced by John Farrar, who’d been long acquainted with The Shadows since they were used as session musicians on several of Olivia’s albums, alongside familiar sessioneers like Alan Hawkshaw and Alan Tarney, and Farrar went on to contribute two of the biggest hits – You’re The One That I Want and Hopelessly Devoted To You – to come from the movie Grease. A No.15 hit in the latter part of 1980, it made No.20 on the Billboard charts too.
Wired For Sound
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1981
Songs about telephones or indeed any technology or modern gimmickry tend to date rather badly, but somehow this BA Robertson co-write – a hymn to the joys of being able to groove around listening to your tapes on a Walkman – really hasn’t. Even if the ‘wired’ aspect may soon seem like something from a previous civilisation, its none- more-1981 vibe has endured due to the strength of the song. Cliff filmed the (dare we say iconic?) roller-skating video in and around Milton Keynes, then the post-war fancy new town with concrete cows and all-weather shopping solutions. The song deservedly reached No.4 in October.
Daddy’s Home
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1981
Recorded live at London’s Hammersmith Odeon the previous May as part of a Rock Special BBC TV show to be shown at a later date, Daddy’s Home was originally written by – and had been a hit for – American doo-woppers Shep and the Limelites in 1961. Its second lease of life came in 1973 when it was a hit for Jermaine Jackson with The Jackson 5 backing him (Toots And The Maytals also recorded the song in the same year). Revitalised again eight years later, a live version was added to Wired For Sound. It became the second single a couple of months later, and turned out to be the Christmas No.2 of 1981, kept off the top for four weeks by The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me.
She Means Nothing To Me
Label: Capitol
Recorded: 1983
Since splitting from his brother Don in 1973, effectively ending The Everly Brothers, Phil Everly cut a handful of albums to general disinterest across the rest of the decade. For his 1983 self-titled set, he recorded in London with a crew of musicians including Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie and members of Rockpile. Cliff teamed up with him on two tracks, including this No.9 hit single She Means Nothing To Me, which was written by ex-Love Sculpture member and “most successful Welsh songwriter since Ivor Novello” John David, who also wrote numbers for Status Quo, Alvin Stardust and Shaky.
Ocean Deep
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1984
Cliff’s 1983 album Silver was released to celebrate his 25th anniversary in pop and had already offered up hits in the shape of Never Say Die and Please Don’t Fall In Love, so hopes were high when he released Baby You’re Dynamite with Ocean Deep on the B-side, which had reached No.27. However DJs were playing Ocean Deep instead, so EMI flipped the single and re-pressed it, and it shot in at… well, at No.72. But this is not the end of the song’s story: in 25 out of 26 of the annual ‘Cliff Polls’ that ran between 1984-2009, his fans voted it as their favourite track. It was one of the biggest hits of the decade in the Philippines, too.
She’s So Beautiful
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1985
Dave Clark’s musical Time was perhaps a bit too ahead of its own time back in 1985. With Cliff playing the ‘The Rock Star’ and a hologram of Laurence Olivier as Akash, it can be best described as We Will Rock You meets Dr Who. The soundtrack featured the likes of Freddie Mercury, Dionne Warwick, Julian Lennon and Leo Sayer. Cliff has since admitted that “it wasn’t the greatest musical ever, but the music was terrific”. It was produced by Stevie Wonder, who also played all the instruments, and it’s probably only due to Time’s lack of success that She’s So Beautiful may not get the attention it really should do on oldies stations.
All I Ask Of You
Label: Polydor
Recorded: 1986
From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom Of The Opera, All I Ask Of You is a duet between the soprano heroine Christine Daaé and her beau Raoul the Vicompte de Chagny, originally played on stage by Sarah Brightman and Steve Barton; however, Cliff was drafted in to record the male part for the single version, which became a No.3 hit in October 1986. Puccini’s estate sued Lloyd Webber over similarities of this and another Phantom track, The Music Of The Night, over the melody ‘Quello che tacete’ from Puccini’s 1910 opera La fanciulla del West, which was settled out of court. All I Ask Of You has also been covered by Elaine Paige, Josh Groban, Susan Boyle, Kelly Clarkson – and The Shadows.
Some People
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1987
Some People was written and produced by Alan Tarney, as was all but one track from Cliff’s Always Guaranteed album. Released to coincide with 30 years in showbusiness, the album reunited the pair of them after Tarney had spent some time helping turn A-ha into pop stars by producing Hunting High & Low. A No.3 hit for Cliff in September 1987, it’s one of his finest singles from his renaissance, buoyed by a video that matched the windblown singer with a succession of characters including sailors, gents in top hats and Marilyn Monroes parading around an Escher staircase. There was also, oddly, a scene apparently paying tribute to Sid Vicious’ performance of My Way.
Mistletoe And Wine
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1988
Mistletoe And Wine was originally written for a musical, Scraps, based on The Little Match Girl. Reverting to its original title for a 1976 TV version, it lost some irony and was sung by a bawdy Twiggy. Cliff chanced upon the song in a demo sent to his manager, asked if he could change some of the lyrics (he refused any credit), hung a wreath of tinsel up in the studio, and turned it into his 12th No.1. In an interview with the BBC, composers Leslie Stewart and Keith Strachan apparently eventually learned to embrace Sir Cliff’s version. “I resisted it for a long time but once I heard it on a car radio a few years later, I thought, ‘this is okay’,” agreed Stewart.
The Best Of Me
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1989
Few artists get to release even 50 singles, but here was Cliff on his 100th. Written by David Foster, Jeremy Lubbock and Richard Marx, The Best Of Me was one of six new songs from his upcoming Stronger album. Cliff unveiled the collection to 2000 fans at the London Palladium, and asked them to vote on which song should title the milestone release. The fans actually voted for Stronger Than That, but Cliff had mistakenly revealed it to be an Alan Tarney song, so went with The Best Of Me as a tribute to his followers. A No.2 hit in June, it was kept off the top by Jason Donovan’s syrupy version of Sealed With A Kiss.
I Just Don’t Have The Heart
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1989
The trio of Pete Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman had sewn up the second half of the 1980s, and block-booked the top spot from Dead Or Alive’s You Spin Me Round in 1985 onwards, managing to make Kylie and Jason into household names and giving Bananarama a boost as a bonus. Cliff was canny to hook up with them to connect with ‘the Smash Hits generation’, and first met the trio at the Ivor Novello awards after they’d won for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, telling them, “if you ever come up with another song like that, give me a call”. Within weeks they’d knocked up this tune, earning Cliff a No.3 hit.
Whenever God Shines His Light
Label: Polydor
Recorded: 1989
1989 was proving to be quite busy for our Cliff , what with his anniversary celebrations, some giant gigs at Wembley and his 100th single. Nonetheless, he managed to find time to duet with Van Morrison on Whenever God Shines His Light for Van’s Avalon Sunsetalbum. Released as a single in November for the Christmas market, Cliff and Van appeared together on Top Of The Pops – Van’s first appearance on the programme since 1964 – to aid the single towards a No.20 position. Cliff would in fact end that year in the Christmas pole position as part of Band Aid II’s version of Do They Know It’s Christmas.
Stronger Than That
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1990
The almost-title-track to Cliff’s best-performing album in years, Stronger Than That effectively bookends Cliff’s musical relationship with Alan Tarney with We Don’t Talk Anymore from a decade earlier. It had been 10 years in which Cliff’s star rose to new heights and futureproofed him against all of the 1980s pop contenders, and left him standing at the start of his fifth decade in showbiz as strong as ever. Despite his fans voting for it (see: The Best of Me), Stronger Than That was relegated to being the fourth single off the album, as Cliff’s team weren’t wild about it. It reached No.14 in February with a simple video of a band performance shot against a studio sky with energetic black-clad dancers.
Saviour’s Day
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1990
Christmas No.1 records about Christmas are actually quite thin on the ground, so for an artist to score three consecutive festive-themed chart-toppers in succession (albeit one as part of Band Aid II) is even rarer. Sure, The Beatles did it in the ’60s, and the Spice Girls would do it in the ’90, but their tunes were non-Christmas related. Songwriter Chris Eaton took his composition along to a Christmas party held by Cliff’s publishing company; agreeing that it could be a hit, Cliff recorded it and knocked Ice Ice Baby off to spend the festive week of 1990 at the top, becoming the first act ever to score a No.1 in each decade since the 1950s.
I Still Believe In You
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1992
I Still Believe In You was the first single to be taken from 1993’s The Album, erm, album, and it gave Cliff a No.7 hit when released in November 1992. It was written by David Pomeranz and Dean Pitchford, who between them had been responsible for songs from musicals such as Fame; Pritchard wrote the screenplay and songs for the movie Footloose, and the pair had also generated hits such as Whitney Houston’s All The Man I Need and Cher’s Oscar-nominated duet with Peter Cetera, After All. I Still Believe In Youre-entered the charts again in 2014, reaching No.57, following a fan campaign organised to show support for the singer.
Can’t Keep This Feeling In
Label: EMI
Recorded: 1998
Annoyed at his singles being increasingly sidelined and not getting played on the radio, Cliff resorted to issuing radio stations with Can’t Keep This Feeling In credited to ‘Blacknight’ as a ploy to highlight ageism in pop. It’s a tactic used several times over the years, with Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust issued in a plain sleeve and Stock Aitken Waterman’s Roadblock pressed up on a white label to fool the rare groove set, proving that if the song is good it’ll get play regardless of who is behind it. Cliff’s plan worked, and found himself on the Choice FM and Kiss 100 playlists and back at No.10 for the first time in five years.
I Cannot Give You My Love
Label: Decca
Recorded: 2004
Echoing an episode of some 50 years earlier, when Cliff decamped to various US cities to record American-related content at the request of his label in a bid to boost his career over there, Cliff’s 2004 album Something’s Going On saw him back recording in Nashville, Miami and Franklin, Tennessee for what would become his first album with new label Decca. I Cannot Give You My Love was produced and co-written by Barry and Ashley Gibb, and features Barry on backing vocals in one of his first post-Bee Gees performances since his brother Maurice died a year earlier. “Cliff’s army of fans might find this his best work in years,” mused TheGuardian. The single made No.13.
Thank You For A Lifetime
Label: EMI
Recorded: 2008
Released to mark his 50th anniversary in showbusiness, Thank You For A Lifetime was one of Cliff’s last ‘physical’ singles, issued in heartfelt appreciation to his fans. Sensing that the charts were no longer his primary residence, Cliff decided to stop bothering about chasing positions and airplay to focus on albums and touring instead. It was written by Jez Ashurst as well as Charlie Grant and Pete Woodroffe, who had been behind recent successes for Melanie C, Lee Mead and Simply Red. Thanks to an exclusive deal with Woolworths, the single went to No.3 in September 2008 and was included as a new track on the The 50th Anniversary Album.
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