1964 The Four Pennies: Juliet

As if to show that 1964 wasn't all about the Mersey folk, up pop The Four Pennies with a tune that's a throwback to more formal times. As a song, 'Juliet' is more in keeping with faux grown up Peter and Gordon in tone, but this is a more complete package of sta-prest formality; this girl is put on a sophisticated pedestal that suggests it would take more than a night out at The Cavern to push her buttons. Lionel Morton's repetition of that eponymous name strikes the right balance between wonder and longing, but the heavy handed arrangement clogs any attempt at a ballad and for such a short song it repeats itself to distraction, digging itself into a rut too quickly until the fade out close comes as more of a relief than a cue to ask for more. Harsh, but I probably shouldn't blame the group for any of this - 'Juliet' was originally intended as the B side (with 'Tell Me Girl' as the lead song), but the British public spoke (this didn't chart at all in America) and the disc was duly flipped. As I've said before, there's no accounting for taste.