Song of the Day 12/11: We Five, “You Were on My Mind”
They don’t get much credit for it, but the San Francisco group We Five recorded one of the first folk-rock songs to reach the top of the American charts. In September 1965 “You Were on My Mind” hit No. 1 in Cashbox, which based its rankings on record sales rather than combining sales with airplay as Billboard did. It only made No. 3 in Billboard’s weekly chart yet was the publication’s No. 4 song of the year on the strength of five weeks atop the easy listening chart.
We Five, fronted by singer Beverly Bivens, technically weren’t one-hit wonders because they reached No. 31 with their follow-up, “Let’s Get Together,” later a No. 5 hit for the Youngbloods, but the quintet broke up a couple of years later. Its founder, Michael Stewart, brother of Kingston Trio’s John Stewart, became a Grammy-nominated producer, most notably for Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” album. The group later reformed and carried on without Stewart and Bivens, but sales were meager.
The song was written by Sylvia Tyson of the Canadian folk duo Ian & Sylvia, who included it on their 1964 album “Northern Journey.”
Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles covered the song for the soundtrack of a forgotten 1992 movie, “Fathers and Sons,” and the band later used the tune in concert as a vocal showcase for drummer Debbi Peterson.
Thanks! Haven’t heard that song in forever.
Nice to see Ian and Sylvia highlighted. They were a major part of the ’60s folk revival as performers and, separately or together, as songwriters. Ian wrote “Someday Soon,” best-known from the Judy Collins version. It was the flip side of “You Were on My Mind.” Ian also wrote “Four Strong Winds,” which became a folk standard, and the two recorded the first successful version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain.”