Happy birthday, Petula Clark!

"Downtown" cost extra.

That really makes me feel old.

I saw her in "Blood Brothers."

She was quite good. But the show was annoying.

We were all, "If she rhymes another goddamn word with 'Marilyn Monroe' I'm outta here!"

Cut Copy Me

Petula wrote some quality songs, and unusually, she wrote the music, rarely the lyrics.

When I was a kid, we lived in Westchester. My father said that when he heard the song "Downtown" the first time, he just caught the end and thought it was an ad for people to come into the city.

Another self penned tune.

[quote]That really makes me feel old.

Petula was 33 when she had breakthrough hit, "Downtown," but was already a showbiz veteran, having started out as a child actress in England. I remember seeing her as teenager in some British movie from the late 1940s.

A French language version of John D. Loudermilk's "Torture."

Another tune from the pen of Petula, this time in a country mood:

She had butt sex with Sean Connery... *snicker*

I Know a Place

Sean Connery boasted about fucking Petula up the ass. What a gentleman.

Did that revelation inspire the Sean Connery character on SNL Jeopardy?

Yeah, that Connery story is all I’m gonna think about when I hear her songs from now on...

"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" from "Finian's Rainbow.

[Quote] Yeah, that Connery story is all I’m gonna think about when I hear her songs from now on...

Which is strange considering you're gay.

^^ You think it's strange that a Gay man would think about butt sex with Sean Connery?

That's strange

No, I think it's strange that someone can't separate anal from Petula's music. Anal is pretty mundane to gay men, even if they don't partake.

I love her cover of of Games People Play.

Don't sleep in the subway, darling, Don't stand in the pouring rain...

[quote]Don't sleep in the subway, darling,

What sort of people did she date?

I always thought "Don't Sleep In the Subway" was about nodding off in a train, but now that I think about it -- isn't a subway in the UK what we call a pedestrian underpass?

I said hi to her in a London store last year. She was lovely and looked great.

Yes, it's about someone stomping off after a fight and sleeping in the underpass rather than return home.

The kind that would also stand in the pouring rain, r22.

Sign of the Times

When I was in the fourth grade, my sister and I spent a couple of happy weeks rollerskating around our linoleum-tiled basement with Petula's "I couldn't Live Without Your Love" blasting from the "hi-fi". We played that tune over and over as we zoomed around our basement "rink". Mom and Dad were vacationing in Florida, which accounted for our freedom. Mom would have put the kibosh on indoor skating (black marks!) but laid-back, jolly Aunt Goldie, who was staying with us, didn't mind at all. Every time I hear "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love" I feel a little jolt of exhilaration and nostalgia for that brief period where rules were suspended and everything seemed possible.

R12 - I LOVE that song and that video is awesome.

Comme une priere - excuse my French it's from Leonard Bernstein's Mass I think. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but her vocals are beautiful

Maybe it’s a bit underrated amidst the rash of overblown musicals of the late 1960’s, but I think “Goodbye Mr Chips” was one of the better ones. Petula had a magnificent pop voice.

Well, it certainly wasn't the embarrassment to O'Toole that La Mancha was.

Well, if we are doing Chips then I would have to go with London is London.

"When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go...downtown."

Pre-Downtown - Pet's version of Lawrence Welk's Calcutta.

Petula had a big hit in France with a cover of Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya."

From 1968, the Petula & Harry Belafonte then-controversial interracial touching.

Love Happy Heart.

I saw her in concert last year and she was fabulous. She started off a bit rough and off-key but she's in her 80s. But she quickly gained traction and was fantastic. She sang songs from her entire career and didn't miss a beat.

She really has an amazing catalogue of songs.

Perhaps Petula's rockiest cut: "Heart."

And here’s the B-side to what R38 just posted- this was actually one of the many songs she wrote under the pseudonym Al Grant. This has a very moving climax-one of my favorites.

I always loved her, she seems like a sweet person.

A nice song from Rogers Cook and Greenaway, "Everything In the Garden."

I adore her cover of The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand. So beautiful, so sensuous.

A few years ago I actually sung “Downtown” with Petula Clark herself (as part of a choir I was in, not as a duet). Not my favourite song but a lovely lady.

r39, where was the concert last year?

It was in Toronto, r46.

"Where Did We Go Wrong," a big hit for Petula in South Africa.

Very cool, r45! I saw her show at a local club just about two years ago when she was doing a small U.S. tour. Her voice wasn't what it was, but she still put on an entertaining show.

I guess my favorite one of her songs is The Cat in the Window.

Here's an enjoyable interview from two years ago.

The dreamy "Conversations in the Wind."

Geh in die Stadt

Bugger Me Backside

Call Me. During the previous recession I was driving a cab in Chicago. My cab was a former rental Grand Marquis with a killer stereo. I made several music for all occasions CDs and this song was on it for the times when I was dropping off a Russian whore at a downtown hotel. Donna Summers “Bad Girls” was for blasting when driving thru a hooker stroll.

[quote]A few years ago I actually sung “Downtown” with Petula Clark herself

Oh, dear.

That reminds me of ONJ and a fan on top of the Great Wall of China. The fan started singing an ONJ song until Olivia told her to stop.

Petula had a slew of hits, but just two hit number one on the charts, Downtown and My Love.

I remember when Karen Carpenter died, Petula was in concert the next night and did a touching version of For All We Know.

Petula at her most romantic

"Save The Last Dance For Me" in French.

My favourite Pet Clark song, Colour My World

Rats! Stinky Pinky ^^^

She’s so old downtown went out of fashion and then it came back in fashion, and now it’s seems to be going back out of fashion...

Club remix of Downtown. If I had the skills and software I’d love to rerun this with the German version.

Saw her in San Francisco in the late 90s in a very cheap bus-und-truck of Sunset Boulevard. Remember how tiny she was on stage. In France, "un pet" means "a fart". Thus: Messieurs et Mesdames: Je vous présente Mademoiselle Pet Clark!

One of my favorite Pet Clark songs.

Loved in the 1960s. Then in later years she adopted that ugly, dry perm/poodle haircut that all the 1960s blonde female singers and actresses seemed to transition to by the '80s.

Lies!

Frizz-Ease!

Nancy would never.

A great mid-Sixties rocker - The Sound of Love

Pet covers Martha and the Vandellas, with a big brassy Tony Hatch orchestration.

I Know A Place from 1965, Pet's follow up to Downtown.

I love Mr. Red Jacket in the background. He's sooooo into it. And when Pet dances with him he goes a little nuts.

Petula on Broadway with the Cassidy brothers in "Blood Brothers"

Petula in the hit 1982 London revival of "The Sound of Music"

The Baroness was played by Honor Blackman, six years Petula's senior.

I really enjoyed her acting in both Finian's Rainbow and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. These were two musicals that came at a time when musicals were falling out of favor, but I think they're both very good and Clark had nice chemistry with both Don Francks and Peter O'Toole.

I love her version of Old Devil Moon in Finian's Rainbow.

Beautiful Sounds, another Pet penned song using her Al Grant pseudonym

Sixteen year old Pet in "Don't Ever Leave Me" (1949)

I was the president of our town Petula Clark Fan Club in 1965. My BF (also a future gayling) and I edited a mimeographed newsletter and tried to sell it. I think I have one copy of it somewhere.

Downtown called to us, as did I Know a Place.

True!

I couldn't live without your love, r78.

Perchance, r78, is your name...Phoebe?

Why would a future gayling with a gay bf be called Phoebe?

As always, we will start with the school song...

[quote]Why would a future gayling with a gay bf be called Phoebe?

"I call myself Phoebe!"

London may be London, but England swings like a pendulum do.

r64, not only a favorite, but a bit of a theme song for me.

R82 I love that scene. Thanks for posting

Her Tony Hatch-produced songs really stand the test of time and I consider them to be as good and important to pop music as Motown, The Beatles and the Dionne Warwick/Hal David/Burt Bacharach recordings.

Hatch's productions are so lush and vibrant.

I wish Hatch had worked with Dusty Springfield as well. Sonically, her recordings would have sounded much better. I think lots of her masters disappeared, though, so what's on CD of her British recordings are way down the line from first generation masters.

Not Pheobe! And my junior high school BF and I were sweetly chaste and un-awaredly in the closet. When I typed BF, I was thinking Best Friend. Sadly, he was an AIDS victim of the middle 1980s. I saw him across the dance floor at the Steps in Philadelphia in the 1970s (it was the big cashmere sweater bar in Philadelphia) and he fled in terror. I was safely in graduate school and he was a senior in college.

the Editor

That's really sad. Did you reconnect after he fled?

Her songs seemed so representative of the time period, mid-1960s. I think I liked "Don't Sleep In The Subway" best. A silly, enjoyable pop tune, like most of her hits were.

Love, This Is My Song (written by Charlie Chaplin)

A Groovy Kind of Pet

What Pet thinks of American Boys

Pet looks so good in this clip of Round Every Corner from Hullabaloo, 1965

"Man will soon be standing on the moon above..." seemed really dated 4 years later.

R90. Yes, but we were never really close. I did talk to his sister, who I knew very well at one time, after his death (Kaposi's in the lungs) who seemed oblivious to his sexual orientation and his illness.

[quote]Sean Connery boasted about fucking Petula up the ass. What a gentleman.

She sure "knew a place," all right!

R97 Here's the Sean Connery story:

A story ran on Popbitch a few years back. This guy reported getting blotto with his mates in the clubhouse of a posh golf club after a morning round. At some point in the afternoon, Connery passed through the bar on his way out to play. One of the guys mates decided to ask Connery the big question :"Sean, whats the best sex you've ever had?" To which Connery told him to "Fuck off!" But on his way back through the clubhouse some hours later, Connery came over, tapped the guy on the shoulder and said "Petula Clark. 1963. Up the arse." And walked off.

Sean never said that he was on top. I like to think of Pet with a strap-on pegging Sean.

Big Love Sale from 1970. Another "Al Grant" composed song - a cross of social commentary and a revival meeting.

R98 Was Petula "Al Grant" when she was pegging Sean Connery?

[quote]I love her version of Old Devil Moon in Finian's Rainbow.

And here it is, R75.

[quote]Was Petula "Al Grant" when she was pegging Sean Connery?

Yes. And Sean was heard to moan "Oh, Mr. Graaaaaant" when insertion began.

Petula Clark - Music (1965)

Pet does Bacharach/David

The In Crowd, 1965

Pet covers Fred Astaire, with a Chinese Cha Cha beat.

In 1971 The Carpenters had a hit with the theme from the movie Lovers and Other Strangers. "When the original song was nominated for an Academy Award, the Carpenters were not allowed to perform it at the ceremony as they had not appeared in a film. At their request, the song was performed by British singer Petula Clark. (Clark would later perform the song in concert on February 6, 1983, in tribute to Karen Carpenter, who had died two days before.)"

Helen Shapiro name checks Petula's version of "Isn't This a Lovely Day" in the interview at the link. Petula doesn't even remember it. Petula Clark is as elegant as one would expect. Helen is self deprecating to a fault. Jackie Trent is as brassy as her singing. And Sandie Shaw has stayed bratty into old age.