1964 The Searchers: Needles And Pins

Written by Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono, 'Needles And Pins' gives definitive voice to The Searcher's Byrds influencing twelve string jangle which in turn adds a sunlight touch of melody that makes the song's bitterness all the more troubling; Tony Jackson's girl has done him wrong to the point he can't bear to look at her anymore without crying and is reduced to grasping at the 'hope' that one day she'll get treated like shit too and know how he feels.

Well that's how the song 'goes' anyway, and with such a display of misanthropy it would be easy to play it up as an angsty rant (for an example of a 'method actor' interpretation look no further than Jackie DeShannon's original version), but both Jackson and The Searchers keep a measured tone to let the verse chorus verse structure topple into themselves like a loop of falling dominoes. Jackson starts out hesitant and descriptive "I saw her today, I saw her face, it was a face I love" and keeps his emotions in check until shifting key at 1:24 by answering his own "Why can't I stand up and tell myself I'm strong?" question with the self analysing "Because I saw her today" that shifts the opening observation to the realisation that 'she' is both the cause of his distress, the source of a weakness and that he hates himself for both.

There's a smart subtlety and confident pop sensibility about 'Needles And Pins' that I adore, a sound encapsulated by Mike Pender's jingle jangle of guitar chords that sets it apart from most everything else in the charts around it and one that makes heartbreak an attractive proposition in the way that 'Don't Fear The Reaper' made suicide sound like a positive life choice. And while as a cover version it doesn't smash the mould of the original the way The Byrds version of Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man' would shortly come to do, the influence of The Searchers and 'Needles And Pins' is all over the latter to the point that I doubt it would have existed without it.