1961 Petula Clark: Sailor

'Sailor' begins not as a shanty but with a wistful clip clop of Clark calling for her man to return home from the sea before erupting from nowhere into a cowpoke, campfire singalong of a chorus that namechecks a roll call of ports most sailors wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to leave. 'Capri', 'Amsterdam', 'Honolulu', 'Siam' - a guy could have a pretty good time in any of those places and Clark's prim delivery isn't exactly a siren call to lure them away. She's never less than game, but this is no 'Downtown' and 'Sailor' has the whiff of a song out of time, like a Japanese soldier on a South Sea island who still doesn't know the war is over and it's no surprise to note that Ann Shelton was back at number ten with her own version. Like Shelton, Petula's roots as a World War Two troops entertainer show through on a song that provides illustration enough as to why she was never quite part of the sixties clique of the Cilla's, Dusty's and Sandy's.