Peter Noone, singer-songwriter of the '60s British Invasion band Herman's Hermits, announced Thursday he will release a song in honor of John Lennon' 75th birthday on Oct. 9. The tune, titled “I Can't Imagine” on the Plowboy Records label, will be available for digital download through iTunes.
“I am pretty spiffed at the way it turned out,” Noone said. “Lennon used to buy me drinks in London after sessions at EMI’s Studios on Abbey Road. He would say, 'They have a two drink minimum and you aren’t 18, so you get two Cokes, Herman, and I’ll get two Bacardis.’ ”
“I Can’t Imagine” was recorded in Nashville in 2012, when Noone was in town to record “Something Old, Something New” for a tribute album honoring the late singer Eddy Arnold. Producer Don Cusic presented the song he had written, which had sat on a shelf since 1980, to Noone, a fellow musician of the British Invasion. Noone jumped at the opportunity to record it. Besides featuring Noone on vocals, the band includes John Hobbs on piano, Andy Reiss and Chris Shruggs on guitar, Byron House on bass, Marco Giovano on drums, and Glen Duncan providing strings and other instrumentation.
The lyrics include the words, “I know there’s a reason why you’re not here, maybe it’s to show us that dreams live on, and the songs are still sung though the singer is gone.” “It took a long time,” said Cusic, “but the time was right.”
Noone's Herman's Hermits had 19 Top 100 hits in the U.S. and 16 in the UK between 1964 and 1968. The hits included two U.S. Number 1's on the Billboard charts, “Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter” and “I'm Henry VII I Am.” A two-disc “50th Anniversary Anthology” of the group's music compiled by Ron Furmanek with rare stereo mixes and deep tracks was released earlier this year.
