HEARTS IN HER EYES

Here’s a pop quiz chicken and egg question. Well two actually.
Part one. Whose version of the classic power pop song Hearts In Her Eyes was released first? Was it The Records – whose members Will Birch and John Wicks wrote it – or The Searchers who, with their harmonies and jingle jangle guitar sound, it was clearly written for?
Part two. Which of those two bands had the bigger hit with it?

Well, first out of the traps with the song were The Searchers, one the first wave of Merseybeat bands in the early 60s. Founded as a skiffle group in Liverpool in 1959 by John McNally and Mike Pender, the band took their name from the 1956 John Ford western film The Searchers. and with a penchant for dusting down American songs such as The Drifters’ 1961 hit Sweets For My Sweet, remakes of Jackie De Shannon’s Needles and Pins and When You Walk in the Room, a cover of The Orlons’ Don’t Throw Your Love Away, and a revival of The Clovers’ Love Potion No. 9, they had kept slogging away (and still do!) playing both the expected old hits as well as contemporary songs including Neil Young’s Southern Man.

They were rewarded for their efforts in 1979 when the street cred Sire Records signed them to a multi-record deal. Two albums were released: The Searchers and Play for Today. Both records garnered critical acclaim and featured some original tracks, as well as covers of songs including Alex Chilton’s cult classic September Gurls and John Fogerty’s Almost Saturday Night. But with scant promotion and little if any radio airplay, they did not break into the charts

The albums did, however, revive the group’s career, because concerts from then on alternated classic hits with the newer songs and were well received. Sire released Hearts In Her Eyes, which successfully updated the band’s distinctive 12-string guitars/vocal harmonies sound, and picked up some radio airplay. With more promotion it might even have charted.

According to frontman John McNally, the band was ready to head into the studio to record a third album for Sire when they were informed that, due to label reorganisation, their contract had been dropped.

Likewise The Records version of their own song released later didn’t chart either, making it possibly the most commercial tune ever to have not charted with either of two excellent versions.

Perhaps it sounded too American? Lyrically it certainly borrowed a line or two from across the Atlantic and its bouncy style owed more to the sunshine of America’s West Coast than Britain’s South Coast.

The Records had emerged out of the ashes of the Kursaal Flyers, a pub rock group featuring drummer Will Birch formed in Southend-on-Sea in 1973. They are most famous for their 1976 top 20 single Little Does She Know and were the subject of a BBC documentary following them on tour in 1975.

In 1977, John Wicks joined the band as a rhythm guitarist, and he and Birch quickly started writing songs together, Wicks as composer, Birch as lyricist. The Kursaal Flyers dissolved three months after Wicks joined, but he and Birch continued to write songs together with the hopes of starting a new four-piece group with Birch on drums and Wicks on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Birch soon came up with a name for the formative band: The Records. The new group was heavily influenced both by bands like The Beatles and The Kinks as well as early power pop groups such as Badfinger, Big Star, and The Raspberries. At the time power pop was experiencing a renaissance on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hence getting away with the lotta/gonna lyrics:
“Some girls have a whole lotta
Trouble finding one boy
Others want a lover and some
They just want a fun boy
My girl, she’s smart
She’s never ever
Gonna give give her heart
And she’s wise

She’s got hearts in her eyes
She’s got hearts in her eyes
Like a kid in a toy shop
She can’t stop
She wants all the boys
She’s got hearts in her eyes

Some girls want a boy
To give ’em all the action
Others in a hurry
To find a little satisfaction
This girl, she’s tough
She gets going
When the going gets rough
And she cries

She’s got hearts in her eyes
She’s got hearts in her eyes
Like a kid in a toy shop
She can’t stop
She wants all the boys
She’s got hearts in her eyes

When she’s at a party
She will flit from boy to boy
And she’ll never settle
Til her heart is filled with joy
My girl, she’s smart
She’s never ever
Gonna give her heart
And she’s wise

She’s got hearts in her eyes
She’s got hearts in her eyes
Like a kid in a toy shop
She can’t stop
She wants all the boys
She’s got
She’s got hearts in her eyes
She’s got hearts in her eyes
Like a kid in a toy shop
She can’t stop
She wants all the boys
She’s got hearts in her eyes.”

Despite the catchiness of Hearts In Her Eyes, The Records are best remembered for the minor hit single (it got nowhere in the UK but made the mid 50s in the USA) and cult favourite Starry Eyes which Allmusic called “a near-perfect song that defined British power pop in the ’70s.” But had they heard Hearts?

The Records were hired to back Stiff Records singer Rachel Sweet on the Be Stiff Tour ’78 opening the shows with a set of their own. Birch and Wicks also wrote a song for Sweet’s debut album entitled Pin a Medal On Mary.

Their own debut album peaked on the Billboard American chart at 41. That was the pinnacle of their success.
Birch reverted to tour managing, running Rock Tours, a sightseeing London Bus venture, producing and writing. Wicks relocated to the USA in 1994 and was writing, recording and performing both solo and with a new incarnation of the band up until 2018. He died on October 7, 2018 in Burbank, California.

Hearts In Her Eyes has yet to chart.