“I Go to Sleep” (1966) – The Truth * Written by Ray Davies * Produced by Jeff Cooper * 45: “I Go to Sleep” / “Baby You’ve Got It” * Label: Pye
“I Go to Sleep,” an ode to what Virgil called “the sweetest gift of heaven,” was written by the Kinks’ Ray Davies and is one of his most musically crafty affairs. Its verse melody descends helix-like into a chorus that would suit Henry Mancini’s Experiment in Terror soundtrack, while the middle eight contributes the sort of xenochronic surprise that only skillful songwriters can pull off. The Kinks never recorded it, with just a rough piano demo by Davies surviving. A good number of other artists, though, from Cher to the Applejacks to the Pretenders, made fumbling attempts. The best versions, not surprisingly, were overseen by show band arrangers. Peggy Lee’s may well be the best, with its lush, sleepwalking tiptoe aura conjured up by Sid Feller, the man who produced Ray Charles’s Modern Sounds in Country Music. But a version by the Truth ties for first place and perhaps has the edge for achieving a proper mod rock iteration of the song. The Truth, not to be confused with the ’80s mod revival band, were the British duo Frank Aiello and Steve “Gold” Jameson, an escapee of the pogroms in Ukraine. The arranger was Johnny Harris, who later led the show bands for Tom Jones and Paul Anka and, as his autobiography boasts, had the opportunity to refuse Elvis twice. The Truth, whose work is now collected on the 2015 compilation Who’s Wrong, had a flair for cover versions, also doing the Beatles’ “Girl” and the Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee” more than justice. Jameson, who recorded one solo LP in 1973, is now a Borscht Belt nostalgia comedian going by the name of Sol Bernstein.