Something In The Air (song)
Encyclopedia
"Something in the Air" is a song recorded by Thunderclap Newman
, a band created by Pete Townshend
for The Who
's former roadie John 'Speedy' Keen who wrote and sang the song, from their only album Hollywood Dream
. It was a UK #1 single for three weeks in July 1969. The song has been used for films, television and adverts, and has been covered by several artists.
, The Who
's guitarist
, was the catalyst behind the formation of the band. The concept was to create a band to perform songs written by former Who roadie and drummer
/singer John 'Speedy' Keen, who had written "Armenia City in the Sky
", the first track on The Who Sell Out
. Townshend recruited eccentric General Post Office
engineer and jazz pianist Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman
(a friend from art college), and 15-year-old Glaswegian Jimmy McCulloch
. Keen played the drums and sang the lead.
rebellion, marrying McCulloch's sweeping acoustic and glowing electric guitars, Keen's powerful drumming and yearning falsetto, and Newman's felicitous piano solo.
in the process. The scale of the song's success surprised everyone and there were no plans to promote Thunderclap Newman with live performances. Eventually a line-up - augmented by Jim Pitman-Avory on bass and McCulloch's elder brother Jack
on drums - played a handful of gigs. Personal records say the band played live only five times, although Keen referred to a two-month tour, playing "everywhere". In the UK, a follow-up single, "Accidents", came out only in May 1970 and charted at No. 44 for a week. An album, Hollywood Dream, peaked in Billboard at No. 163. Thus, the song and the band were forever linked as a one hit wonder. Labelle
recorded an emotional cover of it alongside "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
", for their 1973 album, Pressure Cookin'
.
(1969) and The Strawberry Statement
(1970) (which helped the single reach No. 25 in the United States) and later Kingpin
(1996), Almost Famous
(2000),The Dish
(2000) ,and The Girl Next Door (2004). It also appeared on and was the title of the second disc in the Deluxe Edition of the Easy Rider soundtrack.
"Something in the Air" has been used extensively in television, most notably on an advertisement for British Airways
which featured PJ O'Rourke. The song also appeared in a retro
TV advert
for the Austin Mini in the early 1990s
, featuring 1960s fashion model Twiggy
. More recently, a version of the song was used in the advertisements for the mobile phone service provider TalkTalk
. (A similar advert for TalkTalk shown at the beginning of advert breaks during Big Brother
features the opening bars). It is also used as the 'on hold' music for The Carphone Warehouse, of which Talk Talk is a part. The song was also featured in the pilot episode of the American television show Aliens in America and in the third season episode Bad Earl of My Name Is Earl
. A version of the song recorded by Ocean Colour Scene
was previously used by telephone provider Ionica
. In 2008, this song appeared in a Coca-Cola
commercial in Taiwan
.
in 1969; Labelle
in 1973; Herbie Mann
in 1974;Gamma
in 1980; Fish
in 1991; The Lightning Seeds and Trip Shakespeare
in 1992; Tom Petty
in 1993; Eurythmics
in 1999; the U.K. Subs in 2000; The Superjesus
in 2001; Elbow
and Wellwater Conspiracy
in 2003, Hayley Sanderson
in 2006. and Donald Fagen
with the Dukes of September and Polyphonic Spree live in 2010.
Thunderclap Newman
Thunderclap Newman were a British one-hit wonder band that Pete Townshend of The Who and Kit Lambert had formed circa December 1968 - January 1969 in a bid to showcase the talents of John "Speedy" Keen, Andy "Thunderclap" Newman and Jimmy McCulloch....
, a band created by Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
for The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
's former roadie John 'Speedy' Keen who wrote and sang the song, from their only album Hollywood Dream
Hollywood Dream
Hollywood Dream was a 1970 album by Thunderclap Newman, their first and only album release.-Overview:The album was produced by The Who's guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend, who was also responsible for the band's initial formation...
. It was a UK #1 single for three weeks in July 1969. The song has been used for films, television and adverts, and has been covered by several artists.
Thunderclap Newman
In 1969, Pete TownshendPete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
's guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
, was the catalyst behind the formation of the band. The concept was to create a band to perform songs written by former Who roadie and drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
/singer John 'Speedy' Keen, who had written "Armenia City in the Sky
Armenia City in the Sky
"Armenia City in The Sky" is a song by The Who released on their album The Who Sell Out. It was recorded and mixed at IBC Studios, London on 20 October 1967. Oddly enough, it was not written by a member of The Who, but rather by Pete Townshend's former roommate and chauffeur John Keen. Apparently,...
", the first track on The Who Sell Out
The Who Sell Out
-Track listing:All songs written by Pete Townshend except where noted. The between song jingles apparently have no official titles and are not listed anywhere on the original album packaging, though they are listed in the inner booklet of the 1995 remaster.Side one...
. Townshend recruited eccentric General Post Office
Royal Mail
Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...
engineer and jazz pianist Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman
Thunderclap Newman
Thunderclap Newman were a British one-hit wonder band that Pete Townshend of The Who and Kit Lambert had formed circa December 1968 - January 1969 in a bid to showcase the talents of John "Speedy" Keen, Andy "Thunderclap" Newman and Jimmy McCulloch....
(a friend from art college), and 15-year-old Glaswegian Jimmy McCulloch
Jimmy McCulloch
James 'Jimmy' McCulloch was a Scottish musician and songwriter, born in Dumbarton and raised in Clydebank and Cumbernauld, Scotland, who was best known for playing lead guitar in Paul McCartney's Wings from 1974 to 1977...
. Keen played the drums and sang the lead.
Production
Townshend produced the single, arranged the strings, and played bass under the pseudonym Bijou Drains. Originally titled Revolution but later renamed to avoid confusion with the Beatles' 1968 song of that name, "Something in the Air" captured post-flower powerFlower power
Flower power is a slogan used by the American counterculture movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and non-violence ideology. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in...
rebellion, marrying McCulloch's sweeping acoustic and glowing electric guitars, Keen's powerful drumming and yearning falsetto, and Newman's felicitous piano solo.
Reception
The single reached No. 1 on the UK charts just three weeks after release, holding off Elvis PresleyElvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
in the process. The scale of the song's success surprised everyone and there were no plans to promote Thunderclap Newman with live performances. Eventually a line-up - augmented by Jim Pitman-Avory on bass and McCulloch's elder brother Jack
Jack McCulloch
Jack McCulloch was a Canadian speed skater and ice hockey player. He won several Canadian amateur speed skating championships and one world championship.ex-Sports career:...
on drums - played a handful of gigs. Personal records say the band played live only five times, although Keen referred to a two-month tour, playing "everywhere". In the UK, a follow-up single, "Accidents", came out only in May 1970 and charted at No. 44 for a week. An album, Hollywood Dream, peaked in Billboard at No. 163. Thus, the song and the band were forever linked as a one hit wonder. Labelle
Labelle
Labelle is an American all female singing group who were a popular vocal group of the 1960s and 1970s. The group was formed after the disbanding of two rival girl groups in the Philadelphia/Trenton areas, the Ordettes and the Del-Capris, forming as a new version of the former group, later changing...
recorded an emotional cover of it alongside "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a poem and song by Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, on which he recited the lyrics, accompanied by congas and bongo drums...
", for their 1973 album, Pressure Cookin'
Pressure Cookin'
Pressure Cookin is the third album by American singing trio Labelle. This release was their first and only for RCA Records. The release of the album was critically raved due to the songs that songwriter and member Nona Hendryx composed...
.
Soundtrack
"Something in the Air" appeared on the soundtracks of the several films The Magic ChristianThe Magic Christian (film)
The Magic Christian is a 1969 British comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath and starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, with noteworthy appearances by John Cleese, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough and Roman Polanski. It was loosely adapted from the 1959 comic novel of the same...
(1969) and The Strawberry Statement
The Strawberry Statement (film)
The Strawberry Statement is a 1970 cult film about the counterculture and student revolts of the 1960s, loosely based on the non-fiction book by James Simon Kunen about the Columbia University protests of 1968.-Cast:* Bruce Davison: Simon...
(1970) (which helped the single reach No. 25 in the United States) and later Kingpin
Kingpin (film)
Kingpin is a 1996 slapstick comedy film directed by the Farrelly brothers and starring Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, and Bill Murray...
(1996), Almost Famous
Almost Famous
Almost Famous is a 2000 musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe and telling the fictional story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the fictitious rock band Stillwater , and his efforts to get his first cover story published...
(2000),The Dish
The Dish
The Dish is a 2000 Australian film that tells the story of how the Parkes Observatory was used to relay the live television of man's first steps on the moon, during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969...
(2000) ,and The Girl Next Door (2004). It also appeared on and was the title of the second disc in the Deluxe Edition of the Easy Rider soundtrack.
"Something in the Air" has been used extensively in television, most notably on an advertisement for British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
which featured PJ O'Rourke. The song also appeared in a retro
Retro
Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...
TV advert
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
for the Austin Mini in the early 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
, featuring 1960s fashion model Twiggy
Twiggy
Lesley Lawson née Hornby known as Twiggy is an English model, actress, and singer. In the early-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London with others such as Penelope Tree....
. More recently, a version of the song was used in the advertisements for the mobile phone service provider TalkTalk
TalkTalk
TalkTalk is a pay television, telecommunications and internet service provider company headquartered in London, United Kingdom...
. (A similar advert for TalkTalk shown at the beginning of advert breaks during Big Brother
Big Brother (UK)
Big Brother UK is the British version of the Dutch Big Brother television format, which takes its name from the character in George Orwell's 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four...
features the opening bars). It is also used as the 'on hold' music for The Carphone Warehouse, of which Talk Talk is a part. The song was also featured in the pilot episode of the American television show Aliens in America and in the third season episode Bad Earl of My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl is an American television comedy series created by Greg Garcia that was originally broadcast on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005, to May 14, 2009, in the United States...
. A version of the song recorded by Ocean Colour Scene
Ocean Colour Scene
Ocean Colour Scene are an English Britpop band formed in Moseley, Birmingham in 1989. They have had five Top 10 albums and six Top 10 singles to date.-Early days :...
was previously used by telephone provider Ionica
Ionica (company)
Ionica was a domestic telecoms provider based in Cambridge, UK, between 1995 and 1998.Founded in 1991 Ionica offered an alternative to British Telecom, but technology costs and limiting factors caused the company to cease trading....
. In 2008, this song appeared in a Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
commercial in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
Covers
The song has been covered by a number of artists including: The Mandrake MemorialMandrake Memorial
Mandrake Memorial were an American psych/progressive rock band known for their Baroque sound and unique song-writing.-History:The Mandrake Memorial were formed in late 1967 when producer/promoter Larry Schreiber was asked to put together a house band for Manny Rubin's downtown Philadelphia club,...
in 1969; Labelle
Labelle
Labelle is an American all female singing group who were a popular vocal group of the 1960s and 1970s. The group was formed after the disbanding of two rival girl groups in the Philadelphia/Trenton areas, the Ordettes and the Del-Capris, forming as a new version of the former group, later changing...
in 1973; Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
in 1974;Gamma
Gamma (band)
Gamma was a band formed by guitarist Ronnie Montrose and singer Davey Pattison in San Francisco in 1979. They released four albums: Gamma 1 in 1979, Gamma 2 in 1980, Gamma 3 in 1982 and Gamma 4 in 2000...
in 1980; Fish
Fish (singer)
Derek William Dick, better known as Fish, is a Scottish progressive rock singer, lyricist and occasional actor, best known as the former lead singer of Marillion.-Biography:...
in 1991; The Lightning Seeds and Trip Shakespeare
Trip Shakespeare
Trip Shakespeare was a Minneapolis-based alternative rock band of the late 1980s/early 1990s.-Origins:The band originated when Harvard University English student Matt Wilson teamed up with Elaine Harris , a Harvard grad student in biological anthropology, in the early 1980s...
in 1992; Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
in 1993; Eurythmics
Eurythmics
Eurythmics were a British pop rock duo, formed in 1980, currently disbanded, but known to reunite from time to time. Consisting of members Annie Lennox and David A...
in 1999; the U.K. Subs in 2000; The Superjesus
The Superjesus
The Superjesus were an ARIA award–winning rock band from Adelaide, Australia. They are best known for their singles "Shut My Eyes", "Down Again" and "Gravity".-History:...
in 2001; Elbow
Elbow (band)
Elbow are an English rock band. They have played together since 1990 and recorded five studio albums, the most recent of which is Build a Rocket Boys!, released in March 2011...
and Wellwater Conspiracy
Wellwater Conspiracy
Wellwater Conspiracy was an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1993. The band was created by members of the grunge-era side project Hater. Wellwater Conspiracy featured Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and ex-Monster Magnet guitarist John McBain. The band originally featured...
in 2003, Hayley Sanderson
Hayley Sanderson
Hayley Sanderson is a London-based singer and saxophonist who rose to fame with the release of her debut single Something in the Air. The song was originally a #1 hit in the summer of 1969 for Thunderclap Newman. The song had been chosen by British telecommunications company TalkTalk to advertise...
in 2006. and Donald Fagen
Donald Fagen
Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan ....
with the Dukes of September and Polyphonic Spree live in 2010.
Chart performance (Thunderclap Newman version)
| Chart (1969) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Dutch Singles Chart | 9 |
| UK Singles Chart | 1 |
| US Billboard Hot 100 Chart | 37 |
Chart performance (Tom Petty version)
| Chart (1994) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Album Rock Tracks | 19 |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 26 |
| UK Singles Chart | 53 |