Sounds on Sunday: 50 of 50/11

WHAT WERE WE listening to 50 years ago? Here’s a short series on the hits of 1969 – two years after the Summer of Love, the year that humans landed on our moon, the last year of the 1960s.

The last month of April 1969 and the whole month of May saw Get Back by the Beatles occupy the top slot of the UK Singles Charts. Don’t look for too much meaning in this one: it is reputed to have arisen out of Paul McCartney having a blues-style jam, and probably more effort was put into the music (especially that very catchy intro) than the words.

One verse that didn’t make it to the final cut is said to have featured the line “too many Pakistanis living in a council flat”: debate has raged ever since as to whether the line was suggested in all sincerity or was in fact a statement condemning overcrowding among non-white tenants. What do you think?

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Sounds on Sunday