3 August 1968
‘Baby Come Back’ by The Equals peaked at number two in Ireland in August 1968. Other well-known singles in that month’s Irish top ten were Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson’, proud Irishwoman Dusty Springfield with ‘I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten’, ‘Fire’ by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, and one of the most remarkable Irish records ever in Richard Harris’s ‘MacArthur Park’. Beating them all to the top of the Irish charts that month, though, was this.
Yes, Des O’Connor is just as much an Irish diaspora star as Dusty, so there was surely some local interest at play. Mostly, though, it tells me that this cabaret ballad is objectively better than those other records. So are its fellow 1968 chart-toppers, like Engelbert and Dickie Rock and ‘Honey’ and the rest. The charts don’t lie. The people have spoken. One final outlash of hipster sneering from me with the score below, and perhaps a quick vent about smarmy light entertainment schmaltz for the elderly, and then I’ll simply face the facts: I have wasted my life, and I know nothing.
The new me starts here. At numbers five and six in the Irish charts this week were two different versions of ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’: “Yummy yummy yummy / I got love in my tummy”. I have won the victory over myself. I love you, ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’. Kick me again, Des.
