Dave's Song of the Day
Smile a Little Smile for Me – The Flying Machine
Sunday song of the day: Today’s song was the debut single for a short-lived English band.
In 1966, a band called Pinkerton’s Assorted Colours had a minor hit in the UK. A few years later, the group disbanded. Three key members, however, decided to start a new group and recruited two new musicians to join them. They named the new band The Flying Machine and promptly started recording a record.
They released a self-titled album in 1969, with the first single being
Smile a Little Smile for Me. It proved to be a big hit. The song was a slow ballad with a mournful trumpet carrying the melody. Lyrically, it has the singer consoling a girl named Rosemarie, who has just suffered the breakup of a relationship, with the implication that the singer would like to become her new boyfriend.
The single peaked at #5 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold over a million copies. Despite doing so well in the US, the record did not even make the singles chart in The Flying Machine’s native United Kingdom.
After the success of
Smile a Little Smile for Me, the band released a follow-up single,
Baby Make It Soon, that only made it to #87 on the Hot 100. Later singles didn’t chart at all, and the band broke up in 1971.
Tomorrow: I had three more in the back