1961 The Everly Brothers: Ebony Eyes/Walk Right Back

An unintended double A side - 'Ebony Eyes' was the original lead song but listeners in the UK flipped it over and found they liked the other side a whole lot better. It's not difficult to see why; 'Ebony Eyes' is another death ballad in which a serviceman on a weekend's leave has his girlfriend fly in on Flight 1203 so they can get married before he goes back to barracks, but the plane crashes en route and so that's the end of that.

And that's all there is to the song too. It's a more credible tale than 'Tell Laura I Love Her' but it's no less cynical in its sombre and outright mawkish sentimentality. There's a lengthy spoken interlude that's there to ramp up the tear factor ("And then came the announcement over the loudspeaker: 'Would those having relatives or friends on flight number 12-03 please report to the chapel across the street at once'"), but Don's 'ham actor reciting Shakespeare in a village hall production' attempt to wring an extra drop of pathos out of the soldier's plight only succeeds in strangling it dead in its bed. 'Ebony Eyes' is less a song than a lurid Mills and Boon paperback set to music and by god it leaves me cold.

In comparison, 'Walk Right Back' throws open the shutters to let some fresh air into the room, but it's only by comparison. Over on this side, the brothers are happy to lie back and let the swing of the tune carry them in its slipstream, which it might have done had the music managed to muster up some enthusiasm. But it doesn't, and the restraint bogs the vocals until they're wading through treacle, making it too sluggish to really engage with. The stomp of the chorus could have thrown it a lifeline, but even this sabotages its own catchiness with indifference from the brothers who barely change key to milk it. The Honeycombs would shortly re-write the song as 'Have I The Right' and made sure to add all the right bright sparks; compared to that, 'Walk Right Back' is a dead battery.