A pretty 1965 pop song by Danny Hutton a few years before he got big as a member of Three Dog Night, the group which had a long string of hits beginning in 1969. There's a bit too much of that tinkling thing which I thought wasn't so prominent when I heard it on the radio, but maybe I'm wrong ...

But the best thing about the song in my opinion is the drum track! It's probably one of the L.A. session men, but whoever it is puts on an absolute clinic! Best bits: the one at the end of verse two, before the first bridge, which seems to tie up the song to that point in a nice bow, and the one before the second bridge which reminds me of the drums in Tommy Roe's hit 1962 "Sheila".

"Roses and Rainbows" is the first track on the double-CD Three Dog Night best-of.

In the late 1980s the Connells managed to produce some excellent songs which had an extraordinary amount of tension built into them, and this one is probably the best example (others are "Hats Off" and "1934" from the "Darker Days" LP). I don't know exactly how they did it, maybe it's just the rumbling bass combined with splattering drums and tambourine that gives the whole thing an edgy, anticipatory feel, but I sure as hell like it a lot.

This is a fairly straight-ahead rocker with a well-defined beat, which some have called the Connells' best song. My favourite thing about it is that snaking guitar line which lies in behind the vocals in the first verse, and then starts to repeat an octave higher in the second, but quickly changes direction. Very inventive! It reminds me of the shorter guitar line that leads into the chorus on "Upside Down" from their previous LP "Fun and Games".

This LP seemed to see the band influenced by grunge and moving in a direction featuring a harder guitar sound, but I don't think it was an improvement at all, and I do have most of their CDs ...

Ellen Foley is best known for being the foil to Meat Loaf on "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" (and for a season on the TV show "Night Court"). This track which opens her first LP "Nightout" is a thunderous roar that rivals Phil Spector's wall of sound like little else. It starts quietly enough with piano motifs and an organ backing, but really cranks it up in time for the chorus. Ian Hunter and the late Mick Ronson produced. Repeat after me: bombast is good!