1966 Songs: The Pied Piper

Tweet

Just to show you how deep the British Invasion was in the 60s, I present a song that’s celebrating its 60th birthday this year…that only became a hit after a British act covered it. He also drives my autocorrect crazy Here’s today’s song from 1966. The Pied Piper - Crispian St. Peters NO!!! autocorrect, I do not mean “Christian St. Peter’s.” Robert Peter Smith obviously picked the stage name of Crispian St. Peters because he foresaw autocorrect. St. Peters probably could have had a good career. Unfortunately, he got a bad case of ego, claiming he was a better songwriter than Lennon and McCartney and was going to be “bigger than Presley, more talented than Sammy Davis Jr., sexier than Dave Barry, and more exciting than Tom Jones.” Let’s start with the songwriting claim. His two biggest hits were “You Were on My Mind,” written by Sylvia Tyson, and this one, written by Artie Kornfield and Steve Duboff. Yeah, great songwriting, Crispian. Kornfield and Duboff were an American duet known as The Changin’ Times, and they originally released this as a single in 1965. It flopped, but St. Peters’ version was an international smash hit, topping the charts in Australian, England, Canada, and America. And then…well, Terence Trent D’Arby would have done well to study Crispian St. Peters’ career before he made that assertion that his debut album was “better than Sgt. Pepper.” I understand that you HAVE to have a degree of self-confidence to stand in front of people and sing, but St. Peters let his mouth ruin his chances. He had three nervous breakdowns and battled alcoholism, destroying any career he hoped to have. He died in 2010. But yeah, this is a fun little song. The Pied Piper Written by Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfield Recorded by Crispian St. Peters From Follow Me…, 1966 Don’t be scared to move: