This song was so under-rated in 1966. It most certainly deserved to be in the top five. I believe that it only made it to #28. I bought it new in the summer of '66.
Agree! Actually peaked at only # 38 on Billboard, although l remember it charting higher on WBZ Boston, the Top 40 station I was listening to in 1966. There's something about songs of childhood memories...thinking also of "Brooklyn Roads" by Neil Diamond (which reached only #58 in 1968.)
IN 2023 the song evokes the same feeling it did in 1966 when I was just 14. Awakened me to a place of consciousness. Childhood behind me the truth adulthood brings both beautiful and sad in front. I've shared it with some much younger than I. It's impact beautifully resonates across generations. Poignant, beautiful, powerful.
I thought I commented on this BEAUTIFUL SONG 4b. But I didn't. And now words are hard 2 find. Yes. Progress Indeed. I see it all around me now Our country side disappearing.
A wonderful song that more people need to be aware of." Each night I sit alone and learn what loneliness meant." That line stays with you. Thanks Verdelle
This song and Joe South's "Don't it Make You Want to Go Home", plus The Brothers Four "Try to Remember" take make back to a place no one in today's world will ever reach now or again.
@@oldwhippersnapper3 Agree also, too much hate in the world and time for people to get the hell over it and move on; too much hate around these days. Peace.
Heard it around that time when I was a 10 year old. No cares in the world, although when I listened to this song I was attentive to the music and melodies. I guess that is all a young mind could do. That that age we were not aware of the way the world was changing. Now days, everyone is a fully fledged expert.
A beautiful, poignant song that I remember from when I was growing up just outside a major city. Hearing it now, it sounds just as beautiful but even sadder as it brings back the same memories
This is a great song! It stirs your emotions when you listen to it. Kudos to the songwriters and Verdelle Smith who sang it beautifully. It's a pity she didn't have more hits, she has a great voice.
06JUN2024 Once more I come back to hear this great song. I'm getting older, 72 next month, but this song is ageless. Why does urban spread have to be onto rich fertile farming soil, one day we will need this sod to grow food; but which is lost forever under housing , Tar and Cement.
@@southaussie5108 Not sure what we will eat in the future, when agricultural land is gone, especially in Australia. We'll have to import it like everything else...
Adriano Celentano composed it and recorded the original version as Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck. The great Francoise Hardy covefed it as La Maison. Caroline Munro and Mel Carter also turned in magnificent versions of it. But Verdelle Smith pretty much nailed it as well as it could be done. Absolute, utter perfection. I wouldn't be without any of those versions.
It's very loved in Sweden as well. During the 1960s and 70s the politicians destroyed an awful lot of old buildings in most Swedish cities and instead erected horrible Soviet-like concrete buildings. The Swedish version is very similar to the Italian original: ruclips.net/video/70k2lHsBMKo/видео.html
Hi Kath , that's why i have a love hate relationship with the Beautiful John Rowles classic " If i only had time , what a beautiful song , if i only had time ! god bless xx
Verdelle I bought on a e.p when it first came out, I was 15 years old, it brings great memories back of the songs of that era, tar and cement I just love & Verdelle Smith . Bring back those great songs ,so we all can remember our old days.take care everyone.
I remember this song from its original release, and the lyrics came true for me. As others have observed, "Tar and Cement'" has a similar theme to Joni Mitchell's '"Big Yellow Taxi." I have seen 1960's Honolulu transformed from a pleasant uncrowded city to a densly-packed, traffic-choked urban center crammed with high rises, and also witnesssed Los Angeles experience a similar fate.The song also reminds me of Cat Steven's "Where Do the Children Play?"
It's just destructive capitalism not progress. Progress can occur without destroying the land to build layer upon layer of filth. Note I'm for Free market capitalism but against mindless and all consuming dog eats dog capitalism.
This song has always been in the top 2 or 3 of my all time favorites. The lyrics define life as it has been deteriorating in quality over the past 6 or 7 decades. They are so full of meaning and emotion. And I loved her voice too. For me, a beautiful and meaningful song.
Composed and first recorded by Adriano Celentano as Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck. Francoise Hardy also did a magnificent job reworking it as La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi. And finally, in mid-1966, Verdelle Smith gave us this bit of absolute, utter, jaw dropping perfection. One of the most extraordinary records ever made, period.
almost a literal word for word translation from Italian to English from Celentano's original. An amazing feat reproducing Celentano's melody yet keeping his music's message ♥️
I bought this record by accident at a record show for almost nothing. Years later, I found it on RUclips and on first listen, I felt I was fated to own it. The simple story of an adult dealing with the trade-off that happens when you grow up too fast gets more pure and powerful with each listen. All Verdelle had to do is sit there and bear witness. And this important and valuable life lesson on record has not left me since.
I was 15 when this was released. I can remember listening to it on the AM car radio. I still get shivers when the horns hit the high notes at the climax.
I've loved this song since the first time I heard it.Beautifully delivered by a beautiful lady, should have been bigger than she was but seemed to vanish after a short career
I was reminded of this song because it was playing at the nursing home where my mum is. I loved this song in the 60s. It was one of the important songs in my life. It still is, and it is also very beautiful. Verdelle Smith, one time but wonderful.
Beautiful song and a huge hit in Australia. I loved it the first time I heard it when growing up in Townsville, Queensland. It took me years to get a CD version and now it's played often. It's a pity she only had one hit as she has a great voice.
One of the most important songs of the 60s, it’s a shame todays songs can’t match the real truth that change has made to us as a race, what we have done to the environment can never be fixed, what a voice Verdelle had, stunning
The truth of that song resonates stronger every day with me, it seems. The higher the density, the less the liveability so far as I'm concerned. That's one reason why I stay in my old house and don't sell out for more tar and cement.
This is a great song A reminder of how we can lose what we loved the most, if we chase what we think are our dreams, and how every thing that we knew, is gone before we know it
The lesson here is, don't take for granted what we have and love. Live in this moment, relish every delicious moment, it will never be repeated. Don't leave things unsaid. Cheers from Michael. Australia.
Such a beautiful song...I had not heard this in many decades but it just came to mind, and I find it right here! It strikes me as a sad song, not upbeat at all like Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi'...although both have the underlying message of the importance of preserving what is left to us of nature and simple things!
The song brings back a lot of memories.I look back at my old neighborhood and see the change and remember the fun we had ,which today's world doesn't have.
I grew up on 5 acres of "bush". It breaks my heart to see the suburban sprawl that it has now become. It is almost like a loss of innocence in a way. There is crime and domestic problems and row upon row of houses and units crammed together in the name of progress.
As everybody has written, this is a brilliant record in every possible way. How it was not a worldwide hit totally astounds me. Poor promotion, perhaps? In 1966 I was in Europe, bumming around for 4 months and can only assume that was when the record was presumably aired in London. I used to hear just about every one played on radio or TV. Never heard this...........Maybe better for the delay until first hearing it in Australia. Now a resident of France! What a recording!
Françoise Hardy had a big hit with a French language version that is sublime, my favorite recording of the song. ruclips.net/video/g1cuQF8sEGA/видео.htmlsi=fVnZHffWHQMmpmFc
@@christopherfranklin4760 One forgotten enviromental rights anthem that is rarely mentioned is Bobby Darin's stirring "Questions" from his 1968 album "Born Walden Robert Cassotto". Written shortly after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, many people were shocked that a pop singer who was 32 years old at the time best known as a former teen idol would sing something so bold. But then, Bobby was always Democratic in his politics.
I remember this song when I was a child of 11-12 and loved the melody but didn’t know the words....it was a very poignant song.....I heard it again for the first time since the 60s on SeriusXM 60s@6 so glad I found it again
In my simple life i thank you Verdelle Smith for this tune as i wouldn't feel what i do now and will continue to do thanks to you? I know you live in NYC and pray you still do and once again thank you for this remarkable loving tune. Peace.
If you can remember what Bangholme looked like 30 years ago (Bangholme is a Melbourne suburb south of Dandenong) and compare that to what it looks like now, then this song reminds you exactly of Bangholme then and now. 30 years ago Bangholme had a rural school surrounded by fields and meadows. Today the same location has a freeway passing through it, and a massive industrial area full of factories. The school closed down in the mid 1990's, and a house got built on the old school site. Acres and acres of tar and cement!
Verdelle Smith simply "nails" every phrase, pause, melancholy low, and soarling emotional high in Roadwarrior3's favorite English version of "TAR AND CEMENT." Roadwarrior3 would really love to see a Video Clip of V.S. "delivering" "TAR AND CEMENT"
This is the first I've heard of this song and I knew most every song of the sixties, except from 66-68. Army. One of the most best songs I ever heard. Should have made #1.
On the 50th anniversary of the release of Tar and Cement, I'd like to salute Ms. Smith, writer/producers Paul Vance and the late Lee Pockriss and Capitol records. They created a minor miracle with this record. Tar and Cement was not a huge hit in the US (but was very big in several cities) in spite of the repeated attempts and re-releases during its lengthy chart run. It was Number One in Australia and big in many more countries. There are at least five Capitol versions starting at 3:13, including one single which was 4:05 label time. The version here makes six, as it contains a guitar intro and slightly different first verse than I have heard before. The most-effective is the 3:32 mono version that is the shortest to contain the "...and I can see it all so clearly now" refrain. The Summer of 1966 was the peak of recorded music. Well over 1,000 records made Billboard that year. (Today, maybe 75 do - which explains a lot...) Tar and Cement was slightly too exotic - or too good - to be one of the biggest. Since then, it has been and will always be midway up in my all time Top Ten. Several more from 1966 are on that list: You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, Bus Stop, Solitary Man (BANG mono version), All Strung Out and Walk Away Renee to be exact. If anyone cares, the others are No Milk Today and A Whiter Shade of Pale from '67, If You're Gone from 2000, and a tenth slot which kind of floats free (usually Friends and Lovers Forever by Nancy Ames). I consider all of these to be perfect records: all the right people with the right ideas and talent in the right place at the same time.
@@laszloslenkai3079 , it's both. The wording indicates that. There was no environmental movement back then, but the defence of the environment definitely existed, believe me.
I had this single when it came out but lost it over the years. All the versions I had heard since had the shortened introduction and I thought I must have just imagined it. This is the first time I've heard the original since I lost the single. I wasn't going senile after all :-)
I remember it coming out in 1966; I was 23 then, now pushing 82 and still totally love it. It's the same sentiments as Big Yellow Taxi - don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone - but IMHO a far superior song that should have done far better than it did. I've been trying on and off for ages to find it on Spotify, but so far no luck.
I remember this beautiful song. I had to move from the Country to the City to work at 18. Am now 72. ❤️🌹
Same same. I'm 73 in Adelaide South Australia and have never forgotten this song.
One of the most poignant songs of the sixties. Brilliant evocative , historic personal lyrics...brilliant...!!!!
60 years later and the songs meaning has come more than true.And we have Russias invasion to go with it.
This song was so under-rated in 1966. It most certainly deserved to be in the top five. I believe that it only made it to #28. I bought it new in the summer of '66.
Agree! Actually peaked at only # 38 on Billboard, although l remember it charting higher on WBZ Boston, the Top 40 station I was listening to in 1966.
There's something about songs of childhood memories...thinking also of "Brooklyn Roads" by Neil Diamond (which reached only #58 in 1968.)
Went to number one in Australia.@@John-oj5vx
I spent pocket fulls of pennies on this album no 1 for me , 66/67
i think because is a cover of an italian song called : il ragazzo della via gluck
IN 2023 the song evokes the same feeling it did in 1966 when I was just 14. Awakened me to a place of consciousness. Childhood behind me the truth adulthood brings both beautiful and sad in front. I've shared it with some much younger than I. It's impact beautifully resonates across generations. Poignant, beautiful, powerful.
I am from Australia and discovered this song about 4years ago
Still addicted
My Mom just loved this song.
We both sang it all the time.
Beautiful Memories
Loved this song as soon as I heard it on the radio. Beautiful lyrics and voice.
WOW !!!!....From Meadows and Lilacs to Tar and Cement......and we call it PROGRESS !!
I thought I commented on this BEAUTIFUL SONG 4b. But I didn't. And now words are hard 2 find. Yes. Progress Indeed. I see it all around me now Our country side disappearing.
How lovely. I wish I could have remained a child.
A wonderful song that more people need to be aware of." Each night I sit alone and learn what loneliness meant." That line stays with you. Thanks Verdelle
A very Special song as it brings back memories of my Dad (1925 -1994), his job was in Civil Engineering.
This song and Joe South's "Don't it Make You Want to Go Home", plus The Brothers Four "Try to Remember" take make back to a place no one in today's world will ever reach now or again.
1967 was when I heard this. love it today. wish I could go back.
Agree Richard - not much that is charming or endearing about life these days.
@@oldwhippersnapper3 Agree also, too much hate in the world and time for people to get the hell over it and move on; too much hate around these days. Peace.
Heard it around that time when I was a 10 year old. No cares in the world, although when I listened to this song I was attentive to the music and melodies. I guess that is all a young mind could do. That that age we were not aware of the way the world was changing. Now days, everyone is a fully fledged expert.
@@oldwhippersnapper3 00000pppp
@@oldwhippersnapper3 0
A beautiful, poignant song that I remember from when I was growing up just outside a major city. Hearing it now, it sounds just as beautiful but even sadder as it brings back the same memories
This is a great song! It stirs your emotions when you listen to it. Kudos to the songwriters and Verdelle Smith who sang it beautifully. It's a pity she didn't have more hits, she has a great voice.
I have tears in my eyes listening to this song.... So true.. So sad... 🇦🇺
Great voice.. Smooth as silk...
She also sang “in my room”. Some thinks it’s a sequel.
Love love love this song. Takes me back to 1960-1970s .... Australia, SA, Poochera pictures of a Friday night. they always played this song.
06JUN2024 Once more I come back to hear this great song. I'm getting older, 72 next month, but this song is ageless. Why does urban spread have to be onto rich fertile farming soil, one day we will need this sod to grow food; but which is lost forever under housing , Tar and Cement.
@@southaussie5108
Not sure what we will eat in the future, when agricultural land is gone, especially in Australia. We'll have to import it like everything else...
I loved this song from the moment I first heard it at age 12. Still do..
Same here...💔
One of my favourite all time songs. All the paddocks where we used to ride our horses are all now 4 lane highways and residential suburbs. Soooo sad 😭
Adriano Celentano composed it and recorded the original version as Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck. The great Francoise Hardy covefed it as La Maison. Caroline Munro and Mel Carter also turned in magnificent versions of it. But Verdelle Smith pretty much nailed it as well as it could be done. Absolute, utter perfection. I wouldn't be without any of those versions.
thanks for the background. Very popular in Australia when it came out
Have always loved this song & the meaning of the story told, it's played a lot on the station I listen to here in Oz
It's very loved in Sweden as well. During the 1960s and 70s the politicians destroyed an awful lot of old buildings in most Swedish cities and instead erected horrible Soviet-like concrete buildings. The Swedish version is very similar to the Italian original: ruclips.net/video/70k2lHsBMKo/видео.html
It's 2022 and those interested know and we we all know the history, all I'm am saying perfect song.
And Irish singer Joe Dolan, his was the first version I heard. Is that Caroline Munro, the actress? I've met her, but didn't know that she sang.
I have loved this song since I was a teenager. So much truth!
Your not wrong there
A beautiful song telling a story ♥️ not like the tripe that is sung today 🤔
Hi Kath , that's why i have a love hate relationship with the Beautiful John Rowles classic " If i only had time , what a beautiful song , if i only had time ! god bless xx
I was 7 ...loll
this song has haunt me for most of my 73 years...so much truth...too late...
Davidea Siebert I’m the same way in my 71 years.
Absolutely beautiful. Listening lockdown March 2021
This was s protest song off an album of protest songs released in the 80 s.I think she was a one hit star back in 60 s.
GET IN LINE '' HAUNT'' ME, I only heard 1 time in my dad barber shop, maybe 1969, and I plan to fine the name of the song and who sang it.
same...
Verdelle I bought on a e.p when it first came out, I was 15 years old, it brings great memories back of the songs of that era, tar and cement I just love & Verdelle Smith . Bring back those great songs ,so we all can remember our old days.take care everyone.
I remember this song from its original release, and the lyrics came true for me. As others have observed, "Tar and Cement'" has a similar theme to Joni Mitchell's '"Big Yellow Taxi." I have seen 1960's Honolulu transformed from a pleasant uncrowded city to a densly-packed, traffic-choked urban center crammed with high rises, and also witnesssed Los Angeles experience a similar fate.The song also reminds me of Cat Steven's "Where Do the Children Play?"
Beautiful song sung by a beautiful woman, brings back so many memories. They call it progress but I'm not so sure about that!
Always liked this song. First time I ever seen what she looked like.
this is the english version of one of the most famous italian song
It's just destructive capitalism not progress. Progress can occur without destroying the land to build layer upon layer of filth. Note I'm for Free market capitalism but against mindless and all consuming dog eats dog capitalism.
im sure, this current garbage is NOT progress
It's too bad we can't have both. Like one foot on each side of a BRIDGE.
Gerry
Heard this two or three times recently on Boom radio and Caroline flashback . Great version and a fantastic voice .
Bloody marvellous song
Still beautiful after all these years
Very relevant now 😢love this song ❤
This song has always been in the top 2 or 3 of my all time favorites. The lyrics define life as it has been deteriorating in quality over the past 6 or 7 decades. They are so full of meaning and emotion. And I loved her voice too. For me, a beautiful and meaningful song.
Composed and first recorded by Adriano Celentano as Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck. Francoise Hardy also did a magnificent job reworking it as La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi. And finally, in mid-1966, Verdelle Smith gave us this bit of absolute, utter, jaw dropping perfection. One of the most extraordinary records ever made, period.
Amen Mike.
I couldn’t agree more. Love this song she also did In My Room
almost a literal word for word translation from Italian to English from Celentano's original. An amazing feat reproducing Celentano's melody yet keeping his music's message ♥️
A classic forever !!
I just turned 63
ALWAYS LOVED THIS .❤
Just heard this song on AM Radio and don't remember it in 66 but fell for it big time now. Thanks for posting it.
❤️ am 📻 has a feel that the FM lacks
I bought this record by accident at a record show for almost nothing. Years later, I found it on RUclips and on first listen, I felt I was fated to own it. The simple story of an adult dealing with the trade-off that happens when you grow up too fast gets more pure and powerful with each listen. All Verdelle had to do is sit there and bear witness. And this important and valuable life lesson on record has not left me since.
one of the memorable one hit wonders of the 60s.
I was 15 when this was released. I can remember listening to it on the AM car radio. I still get shivers when the horns hit the high notes at the climax.
I've loved this song since the first time I heard it.Beautifully delivered by a beautiful lady, should have been bigger than she was but seemed to vanish after a short career
Love everything about this beautiful song. Loved it from the first time I heard it way back in the day
I was reminded of this song because it was playing at the nursing home where my mum is. I loved this song in the 60s. It was one of the important songs in my life. It still is, and it is also very beautiful. Verdelle Smith, one time but wonderful.
My mother, Frances Elizabeth Raaff, loved this song. She died in 1969.
Beautiful song and a huge hit in Australia. I loved it the first time I heard it when growing up in Townsville, Queensland. It took me years to get a CD version and now it's played often. It's a pity she only had one hit as she has a great voice.
One of the most important songs of the 60s, it’s a shame todays songs can’t match the real truth that change has made to us as a race, what we have done to the environment can never be fixed, what a voice Verdelle had, stunning
One of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard in all of my 68yrs.
Your the same age as me,We love the same things!!!
Still love it in 27.05.2024
I first heard it in the 60s absolutely love it, play it regularly & wish for those times !
Loved this song-- going back to my old home still brings back memories of this song. If only we could relive those old days!
The truth of that song resonates stronger every day with me, it seems. The higher the density, the less the liveability so far as I'm concerned. That's one reason why I stay in my old house and don't sell out for more tar and cement.
I remember my dad listening to this song ,as a young girl, I have never forgotten.
Shared this song with my dad way back in the 60's. It became a favorite; and oh so true.
Beautiful voice, but how true the words are. How many meadows are now tar and cement!
This is a great song
A reminder of how we can lose what we loved the most, if we chase what we think are our dreams, and how every thing that we knew, is gone before we know it
Patryck Dowd someone that actually gets it. Contrary to what others posted. This isn’t a song about the environment.
At this Stage of my Life - this Song has become my "Life Theme Song" - it basically covers everything...
LOVE it...
Wow i never knew this version existed
Im sure Adriano was proud
The lesson here is, don't take for granted what we have and love. Live in this moment, relish every delicious moment, it will never be repeated. Don't leave things unsaid. Cheers from Michael. Australia.
Heard this song for the first time on January 11, 2020. Brand new old song I love. Thanks OldiesAppreciater. Cheers!
The very first 45rpm single that I purchased, and still one of my most favorite songs. 😊
Another great record you hardly ever hear on the radio. I have had an original 45 for over 50 years.
Who mentioned Dusty 👀 this is.a superb example of 60s production gets me every single time❤❤❤
Remember this from my childhood---a beautiful ❤️ song .
Such a beautiful song...I had not heard this in many decades but it just came to mind, and I find it right here! It strikes me as a sad song, not upbeat at all like Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi'...although both have the underlying message of the importance of preserving what is left to us of nature and simple things!
The song brings back a lot of memories.I look back at my old neighborhood and see the change and remember the fun we had ,which today's world doesn't have.
I love it. I remember this gorgeous song. Thank you so much for recording it!!!!!!!❤
I love this song and her version is the best one I have ever heard bless her x
this song has true meaning.. i lived in the country , gone to city and went back it was not the same . her voice is fantastic
Beautiful song to this day
Love this song
I grew up on 5 acres of "bush". It breaks my heart to see the suburban sprawl that it has now become. It is almost like a loss of innocence in a way. There is crime and domestic problems and row upon row of houses and units crammed together in the name of progress.
As everybody has written, this is a brilliant record in every possible way. How it was not a worldwide hit totally astounds me. Poor promotion, perhaps? In 1966 I was in Europe, bumming around for 4 months and can only assume that was when the record was presumably aired in London. I used to hear just about every one played on radio or TV. Never heard this...........Maybe better for the delay until first hearing it in Australia. Now a resident of France! What a recording!
It made number 1 in Australia.
It's a italian song called "il ragazzo della via gluck, writer and orinaly singer, is adriano celentato
Françoise Hardy had a big hit with a French language version that is sublime, my favorite recording of the song.
ruclips.net/video/g1cuQF8sEGA/видео.htmlsi=fVnZHffWHQMmpmFc
50 years old and still this song sounds beautiful
Absolutely love this song!! Always have.
a small gift from the 60s. thanks.
Beautiful and very nostalgic...
This song reminds me of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi." Both are about the preservation of important, natural things.
Along that same theme, catch Joe South's Don't it make you want to go home.
@@christopherfranklin4760 One forgotten enviromental rights anthem that is rarely mentioned is Bobby Darin's stirring "Questions" from his 1968 album "Born Walden Robert Cassotto". Written shortly after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, many people were shocked that a pop singer who was 32 years old at the time best known as a former teen idol would sing something so bold. But then, Bobby was always Democratic in his politics.
Absolutely love this song
Pure 60's platinum...thanks for sharing this big hit.
One of many gems played by Wonderful Radio London (Big L) in the mid 60's and only recently rediscovered by me. Fabulous!
Know the feeling... growing up in 70s happy childhood day's😊😘🤑
I remember this song when I was a child of 11-12 and loved the melody but didn’t know the words....it was a very poignant song.....I heard it again for the first time since the 60s on SeriusXM 60s@6 so glad I found it again
A beautiful song from a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice ♥️
Love this beautiful song & so poignant in this day & age
Yes, it's happening now. Where I live, one house is being pulled down and 6 go up in its place. soon there will be no grass.
Still sing this sometimes while sitting alone.
In my simple life i thank you Verdelle Smith for this tune as i wouldn't feel what i do now and will continue to do thanks to you? I know you live in NYC and pray you still do and once again thank you for this remarkable loving tune. Peace.
If you can remember what Bangholme looked like 30 years ago (Bangholme is a Melbourne suburb south of Dandenong) and compare that to what it looks like now, then this song reminds you exactly of Bangholme then and now. 30 years ago Bangholme had a rural school surrounded by fields and meadows. Today the same location has a freeway passing through it, and a massive industrial area full of factories. The school closed down in the mid 1990's, and a house got built on the old school site. Acres and acres of tar and cement!
Heard this song today for the first time since 1968 !! Loved it then, love it now . Haunting
Verdelle Smith simply "nails" every phrase, pause, melancholy low, and soarling emotional high in Roadwarrior3's favorite English version of "TAR AND CEMENT." Roadwarrior3 would really love to see a Video Clip of V.S. "delivering" "TAR AND CEMENT"
I remember listening to this song when I was 14 years old. I wonder if she knew how much more accurate the lyrics would become now.
Early this morning I drove through my old home town, thought of this song..ran home 2 find it on youtube. Feelin emo :(
Beautiful song. Great version!!
Miss you, Patsy. Thanks for giving me this song. Love, Kitty.
This is the first I've heard of this song and I knew most every song of the sixties, except from 66-68. Army. One of the most best songs I ever heard. Should have made #1.
I remember hearing this song playing on my mum’s radio when I was a of toddler 3 or 4. I’m 61 now and it’s stayed with me all these years.
On the 50th anniversary of the release of Tar and Cement, I'd like to salute Ms. Smith, writer/producers Paul Vance and the late Lee Pockriss and Capitol records. They created a minor miracle with this record. Tar and Cement was not a huge hit in the US (but was very big in several cities) in spite of the repeated attempts and re-releases during its lengthy chart run. It was Number One in Australia and big in many more countries.
There are at least five Capitol versions starting at 3:13, including one single which was 4:05 label time. The version here makes six, as it contains a guitar intro and slightly different first verse than I have heard before. The most-effective is the 3:32 mono version that is the shortest to contain the "...and I can see it all so clearly now" refrain.
The Summer of 1966 was the peak of recorded music. Well over 1,000 records made Billboard that year. (Today, maybe 75 do - which explains a lot...) Tar and Cement was slightly too exotic - or too good - to be one of the biggest. Since then, it has been and will always be midway up in my all time Top Ten.
Several more from 1966 are on that list: You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, Bus Stop, Solitary Man (BANG mono version), All Strung Out and Walk Away Renee to be exact. If anyone cares, the others are No Milk Today and A Whiter Shade of Pale from '67, If You're Gone from 2000, and a tenth slot which kind of floats free (usually Friends and Lovers Forever by Nancy Ames).
I consider all of these to be perfect records: all the right people with the right ideas and talent in the right place at the same time.
I find no dispute in anything you've stated Mugwump790, even in your 'Serveral more from 1966'. I was there then too.
ruclips.net/video/Zq5ZkHrN4BA/видео.html
Mmm. I like Waterloo Sunset too.
Haunting song, an anthem for our times
The first environmental song I ever heard, and it resonated so strongly with me. Still so relevant and beautiful.
She misses her past (childhood), not concerned about the environment.
@@laszloslenkai3079 , it's both. The wording indicates that. There was no environmental movement back then, but the defence of the environment definitely existed, believe me.
Hit the Top 40 On 7/9/66, Only made it to No. 38, On the Chart 8 Weeks!
Thank you so much for posting this rare and beautiful version-
I had this single when it came out but lost it over the years. All the versions I had heard since had the shortened introduction and I thought I must have just imagined it.
This is the first time I've heard the original since I lost the single. I wasn't going senile after all :-)
touching - sad - nostalgic - full of lost dreams and regret.
The end of innocence.
A wonderful song.
We all need a world of happy/ stable , popul , popular, population, thank 's. Ms V Verdeel
Fantastic song pretty true to form in my 70's now lots of changes I've witnessed, the man from OZ!
I remember it coming out in 1966; I was 23 then, now pushing 82 and still totally love it. It's the same sentiments as Big Yellow Taxi - don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone - but IMHO a far superior song that should have done far better than it did. I've been trying on and off for ages to find it on Spotify, but so far no luck.
the good old days .... "and I can see it all so clearly even now" .......