"All I really want to do" b/w "I'll feel a whole lot better" by The Byrds (CBS 1.947)

I don't think I bought this when it came out. It wasn't a big hit in 1965 and I think I bought it in the 1966 winter sale. I was pleasantly surprised by the B-side, which was actually better than "All I really want to do" which seemed to meander a bit. Cher's version was even ballsier. But I discovered Gene Clark with "I'll feel a whole lot better". The intro sounds a bit TOO much like "Needles & pins" by The Searchers, but it's a great song. There would be many cover versions ahead by Tom Petty and The Flamin' Groovies amongst others, but the original is unsurpassed.
Rating: ****

"Yesterday" b/w "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" by The Beatles (Parlophone HHR 138)

This was one of the "Dutch only" singles released by The Beatles. In the USA and Germany "Yesterday" had "Act naturally" on the B-side. I think these two songs, which were subsequent tracks on the non-film side of the "Help!" LP helped create the fable that Paul was the soft one and John the rocker. But for every "Yesterday" there was an "I'm down" and for every "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" there was a "You've got to hide your love away". Both were great songwriters and had every style down pat.
Rating: *****

"As tears go by" b/w "I laugh at you" by 4PK (Fontana YF 278121)

I liked this version of the Rolling Stones hit very much. I think someone gave it tome for my 14th birthday. I later found out the PK stood for Peter Koelewijn, who had been the first Dutch rock & roll star with "Kom van dat dak af" and by 1965 was a record producer. Hearing it back now I can distinguish the rather peculiar pronunciation, but at the time this sounded quite good!
Rating: ** {courtesy mza-garage}

"Till the end of the day" b/w "Where have all the good times gone" by The Kinks (PYE 7N15981)

The Kinks hardly seemed to make singles that were NOT good. I guess only "Everybody's gonna be happy" was a miss, but they were one of my favourite groups. I bought their first album when it came out in the budget Golden Guinea series, but this was their first single I owned. That was partly due to the great B-side, which could have been a hit in its own right. Until 1967 "Where have all the good times gone" was part of the repertoire of just about every "beat group" in my hometown. I didn't seem to date as quickly as other songs did. Still sounds great today.........
Rating: *****

P/w: bomber

Mr. Tambourine Man b/w I knew I'd want you by The Byrds (CBS 1.922)

So Bob Dylan could write good songs, but they could also be executed beautifully. The Byrds sounded like a cross between Dylan and The Beatles, which it later turned out, was exactly what they intended to be. Three folkies, a bluegrass mandoline player and a "beach boy" playing "beat music" inspired by The Beatles, using a Rickenbacker 12-string their lead-singer Jim McGuinn had seen George Harrison use in the film "A hard day's night". Tambourine man Gene Clark seemed a bit out of place in this band, it wasn't until later I found out what he was up to.
Rating: *****

Like a rolling stone Part 1 b/w Like a rolling stone Part 2 by Bob Dylan (CBS 1.952)

Stupidity number???????? I bought this single when it had just been released. That was the version with "Like a rolling stone" cut in two parts and dispersed over two sides of a 7" single. The second pressing came out with the complete song on the A-side and "Gates of Eden" on the flipside. A friend of mine bought that second edition and laughed at me: he had twice as much music for the same money! I later sold or swapped my original, not realizing this Part 1 / Part 2 version would become a collector's item.......
Revolutionary music entering the Top 10 with Mike Bloomfield on guitar and Al Kooper on organ. But where was the cut exactly on the original single?
Rating: *****

Catch a falling star b/w Only friends by Françoise Hardy (Vogue HV 2013)

I actually didn't own this record at the time (1965), it was my sister's. But I bought a copy a few years ago. My sweet Lord: what a woman! Which boy born between 1945 and 1955 didn't at one point dream that Françoise Hardy would fall in love with him? Or jerked off to her pictures? We were ALL in love with her. And then she started singing in English as well, this wonderful "yeh yeh girl". A very charming French accent that worked particularly well on "Only friends" (which I remember being the A-side, but maybe that's because I played it all the time). Alas, she married Jacques Dutronc, the lucky bastard, and left millions of men wondering of what might have been if ONLY they'd been FRIENDS with Françoise.
Rating: ***

Lucille b/w Now decide by The Rivets (Star-Club Records 148 510 STF)

During the summer sale of 1965 I was on holiday abroad and ultimately ended up in a department store in the city of Lörrach in the south of Germany where they had a discount record sale. The Germans were really slow in following trends in those days. I wanted to buy the latest Beatles single "Help!" which had been a number one when I left home, but it hadn't even been released in Germany yet! I went back to the camping with a cheap "live" LP by a group called The Ravers full of covered 1963/1964 hits and a single by German group The Rivets. The latter cost me just one Deutschmark and it contained a nice version of Little Richard's "Lucille" done Everly Brothers style, but more "beat". And it was of course on the Star-Club label, which I associated with The Beatles in their Hamburg-days.
The Ravers later turned out to be a group called The Tonics, who used the pseudonym to record for the cheapo TIP label. Amazingly the LP I bought in 1965 (and which I later bought again for a huge sum in order to digitize it) was released on cd: "Twist mit den Ravers"!
Rating: **

Ticket to ride b/w Yes it is by The Beatles (Parlophone R 5265)

Easter 1965 brought the Easter school report and a new Beatles single. Luckily my marks were just good enough to scrape together enough money to buy "Ticket to ride". This single has probably the ugliest picture sleeve ever to be designed for a Beatles 45. It was a kind of press release with typed text and without a picture of the band. Some fanatics will even claim this was not a "picture sleeve" but an "art sleeve", designed by the art department of the record company without the addition of a picture of the artist(s).
A friend of mine later got the "Help!" album and I was amazed to learn from the credits on the back that the lead guitar in "Ticket" was played by Paul McCartney. I tried to imagine how George Harrison must have felt when this happened. But no doubt George played the song's main riff on his chiming 12-string Rickenbacker.
The flipside was "very close" harmony, my father even claimed it was sung flat. In a 1970s interview George Harrison sang the first line of his part and suddenly the harmonies made a lot more sense to me.
Rating: ****

Love is strange b/w Man with money by The Everly Brothers (Warner Bros WB 5649)

The Everly Brothers were the first to stir my interest in pop music. "Till I kissed you" in 1959 cemented my love for harmony vocals. Although The Beatles never mentioned them as an influence I always thought they were heavily influenced by the Everly's. "Love me do" sounded like a rejected Everly track to me when I first heard it and the Fab Four's "yeah yeah" seemed like a straight cop from "Temptation" to me. The brothers kept making good records, but they also recorded a lot of schmaltz like "Ebony Eyes". In the mid-Sixties they released a trio of fabulous singles: "That'll be the day", "The Price of love" and "Love is strange". I bought the latter, mainly because it had such a great B-side in "Man with money", which later became part of The Who's repertoire. They also released three very good albums around the same time: "Rock 'n Soul", "Beat & Soul" and "Two Yanks In England". But then they came up with "Its all over" and they sounded old hat again.
Rating: ****

No reply b/w Rock And Roll Music by The Beatles (Parlophone HHR 136)

The Americans always "milked" albums for singles and unlike the UK many countries on the European continent copied the American releases. This happened with the single "Eight days a week"/"Baby's in black". Soon after that this one was "released by public demand": the great opener of the latest Beatles album "Beatles for sale". Of course it went straight to #1.
Rating: *****

I want to hold your hand EP (extended play) by The Beatles (Odeon MOE 3746)

I fell in love with The Beatles when I heard "I want to hold your hand" for the first time late 1963. But not having a record player buying records seemed a silly thing to do. In the spring of 1965 the single wasn't available in the shops anymore, but there was this French import EP (7 inch record with four tracks) available. Not strictly speaking a single, but always good value as the price was less than double of that of a single. EP's also always came in wonderful picture sleeves in cardboard covers like mini-albums. This one contained
I want to hold your hand
It won't be long
I wanna be your man
Till there was you
Pity they didn't replace "I wanna be your man" with the original flipside of the single "This boy" as "Man" is one of the weakest Beatles songs (and mainly sung by Ringo, clearly the least of the four vocalists). But "It won't be long" was The Beatles at their best with those almost hysterical "yeah yeah" questions & answers between John (who did the lead vocal) and Paul & George. It remains one of my favourite Beatles songs of all time, so to play it just after "I want to hold your hand" was always a joy. "Till there was you" was a good opportunity to prove to my parents The Beatles could really sing and play.
Rating: *****

Wheels b/w Am I asking too much by The String-a-longs (London HLU 9278)

The easiest way to extend the record collection was to save up for the two yearly discount sales periods. Early 1965 I searched the bargain bins for the first time during the winter sale. I found this instrumental, which had been a hit in 1961 in the version of the Billy Vaughn Orchestra, but it wasn't until years later I found out this was actually the American hit version. I bought it as it was one of the first tunes I learned to play on guitar. The flipside was a vocal tune: a strange mix between Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard. As this record originally came in a company sleeve I had to fabricate a picture sleeve from a later cd release for display purposes. In an era that was dominated by Fender guitars by (mainly) instrumental groups the use of a Gibson Les Paul Special "TV" by one of the guitar players is remarkable. The picture sleeve below is a Dutch re-release with a different B-side.
Rating: ***

It's all over now b/w Good times, bad times by The Rolling Stones (Decca AT 15024)

I never went for the Beatles / Stones battle. For me there was no comparison, so I bought what I liked by both beat groups. Surprisingly my father loved It's all over now, so it was safe to buy this single even if it was a few months old. In those days it was so important to be up-to-date and have the latest hits. Six months ago was old hat. It also had to do with the rapidly changing styles in the 1960's.
I liked this single better than the Stones hit at the time The last time. The flipside had an out-of-tune 12-string acoustic, a trademark of the Stones' early ballads. But they were more about a sound and atmospheric recordings than about musical perfection.
Rating: ****

I feel fine b/w She's a woman by The Beatles (Parlophone R 5200)

So at Christmas 1964 my grandfather sent me some Canadian dollars and I was able to buy the new Beatles single. After the beautiful "A hard day's night" trilogy the picture sleeve was a bit of a let down: a very "old" picture of the band (looks like late 1962) and a hazy one at that. But the music was all the better: from the feedback intro of I feel fine to the rave-up fade-out of She's a woman.
Rating: *****

If I fell b/w And I love her by The Beatles (Parlophone HHR 130)

My first single late 1964: If I fell b/w And I love her by The Beatles. In the USA this coupling was reversed it seems, but it was a close call. Two beautiful ballads, John's If I fell and Paul's And I love her. A good way of sneaking some beat music into the house without complaints from my parents. This was at #1 at the time. It was the third part of a trilogy that small company Stibbe released in identical picture sleeves with different supporting colours: A hard day's night - Things we said today in red, I should have known better - Tell me why in green and If I fell - And I love her in blue. This series of three became collector's items as If I fell was the last Beatles single to be released under the monicker of Parlophone-Stibbe. Big record company Bovema had obtained the distribution rights of EMI records and they put their name on the sleeves of the next releases (I think Bovema bought Stibbe and the old Mr Henk Stibbe, 80 by then, retired).
Rating: *****