21 September 1967
Engelbert Humperdinck was in the arts and culture section of my Sunday paper last weekend; apparently he’s doing a record with a fellow Eurovision competitor he met while finishing second-last for the UK in 2012. And yes, you may have forgotten he repped le Royaume-Uni at Eurovision in the 21st century. How come he’s still popping up? Does he have really good management? Or does the comical stage name promise a bit of kitsch he never quite delivers?
‘The Last Waltz’, another of his mystifyingly massive ’60s mega-hits, starts off so closely to the swinging melancholia of Bacharach & David that Humperbert is invading their personal space. I’d never bemoan anyone for photocopying the great ones like this, but such inferior imitative shlock is why Bacharach & David got dismissed as ‘easy listening’ in the first place. Anyway, Engeldinck cracks on; voice like honey but song like schmaltz. The shallow, simpering, condescending sexism of spotting his mark across the dancefloor, “a little girl alone and so shy”, is where my stomach fails me, and from there on it’s downhill into the smug velveteen cabarets of Hell. I’d say the Irish showbands of 1967 got great mileage out of covering this for their slow sets too.
