1958 Conway Twitty: It's Only Make Believe

To be honest, it would have suited my agenda far better had this been the final song of 1959 rather than 1958 because it would have been a neat way to end the decade. So far we've seen the songs at number one move away from the traditional crooners and balladeers toward a younger sound aimed at a younger audience, and as a primer of the fifties, 'It's Only Make Believe' has a little bit of everything that we've encountered so far.

Twitty was a major country star and the influence of his genre is evident in 'It's Only Make Believe's opening strum and shuffle, but when Conway kicks in he's more Elvis than Hank. And while he doesn't have Presley's low notes, he uses his trick of building to the high ones in a heartburst of misery as he realises his love is all one way traffic. This repeats in cycles that climb the ladder to a crescendo before sliding down a snake to begin again before ending on a shout of self pity at the realisation of self delusion at which point Twitty presumably slinks off to cry himself to sleep. Throw in some doo-wop 'do do do do' backing vocals and you have a song that straddles the past and the future in a way that suggests Twitty both wants to have his cake and eat it.

The fact he manages to do just that is testament to the quality of the song and spareness of the writing/arrangement. A self penned song, if 'It's Only Make Believe' wasn't born from experience then Twitty makes a pretty good fist of convincing us that it was. Much of the emotion deriving from the non closure of the song - unlike The Everly Brothers, dreaming of his loved one isn't going to be enough; it's the real deal or nothing. And much of the song's heartache is derived from the fact that that's precisely what he's left with at the close - nothing.

There's always room in every decade for a big, bawling ballad - 'Release Me', 'Without You', 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)' all spring to mind as turning on the emotional tap for a dewy eyed audience to bathe in. But whilst all of these can in part be accused of overwraughtness or self indulgence, at just over two minutes 'It's Only Make Believe' is prizefighter lean and as earthy as groundsoil with no flab evident to distract from what it's trying to say. Number ones are getting better with every release.