31 “The Animals Don’t Bring me Down”

The Platonic Form of a rock band is two guitars, bass, and drums. One of the guitar players or bass guitarist would be on vocals. Four members. They certainly weren’t the first to have such a line up, but they’re influence was such that to have a rock band that didn’t at least have this sort of line up was a novelty. 

No, I’m not talking about The Animals here, but rather the group that inspired the first British Invasion – The Crickets. 

These days, you’re more likely to find them labeled as Buddy Holly and The Crickets or just Buddy Holly, but at the time they were The Crickets.* 

What they were was one of the first real teenagers to sing their own songs to other teenagers. We’ll discuss more about them in the future, but I think it’s important to recognize that the British Invasion is really a bunch of bands, knowingly or not, trying to be The Crickets. Heck, why do you think The Beatles are named after an insect with a silly pun?

The British rock scene prior to the bands that we think of when we think of the British Invasion I’ve heard described as a sort of Cargo Cult. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, an example of it is from island’s in the pacific during WW2 in which a military airbase was established and would drop supplies of goods  on the island. After the war, when the supplies stopped coming, the islanders would try to bring them back by imitating the way they saw the military personal behave, such as marching in parades and such. Some even built replica airplanes. There was a disconcert between the actions and the meaning behind the actions. That captures the early British rock scene pretty well. To paraphrase Mark Twain, they knew the words but didn’t know the tune.

The Beatles changed that. Suddenly they knew the words, the tune, and were writing dissertations on it. The Animals were a band signed and packaged to ride the wave of The Beatles popularity. (The Animals, The Beatles, The Crickets…) That this is a great band with a great song, almost giving us one of the earliest punk rock sounds, would be enough for this write up, but there’s more. Who wrote “Don’t Bring Me Down”? Another duo the were major influences on The Beatles, specifically John and Paul –  Carol King and Gerry Goffin. 

Prior to the advent of music recordings, the way that people would be able to have music without going to see a live performance was to buy sheet music. The first big American music superstar was Stephen Foster, who wrote songs such as “My Old Kentucky Home” and “Old Folks at Home (Swanee River).” Tin Pan Alley was an area of NYC where the bulk of musical sheet music publishing was found. With the advent of recorded music, there was a shift away from sheet music to being able to buy records and eventually Tin Pan Alley gave way to song writing factories for music that bands would perform and record. Most were found in the Brill Building, and two of the best in the Brill Building were King and Goffin. And yes, it is that Carol King. 

The amount of hits they wrote is astounding and you have heard them. To name a few: 

The Shirelles “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”

Little Eva “The Locomotion”

The Monkees “Pleasant Valley Sunday”

Aretha Franklin “(You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman”

And of course, The Animals “Don’t Bring Me Down”