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This archetypal American high-school teen love song was composed by Gary Geld and lyricist Peter Udell. The duo began their writing partnership in the early sixties and wrote over 100 songs together. One of their first songs was this, which they wrote in 1960 and was a hit for Brian Hyland two years later. Bryan recalls Geld saying the song was "based on, but not totally based on, a Bach finger exercise."

Hyland said in "1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh", "Sealed With A Kiss" was recorded about a year before I did it by [The Four Voices](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=nKGk9qg9A9k), who had a sound like The Brothers Four. It dragged and didn't have any life in it, so it wasn't a hit. I told them we should do it."

Brian Hyland's puppy-love pop virtually defined the sound and sensibility of bubblegum during the pre-Beatles era. In the years after his teen idol stature faded, he enjoyed a creative renaissance, releasing a series of underrated country-inspired efforts and even making a brief return to the pop charts.

Born November 12, 1943, in Brooklyn, NY, Hyland studied guitar and clarinet while singing in his church choir. At 14 he co-founded a harmony group dubbed the Delfis, which cut a demo they shopped to various New York City record labels. Hyland ultimately signed as a solo artist to Kapp Records, and in late 1959 issued his debut single, "Rosemary." For the follow-up, "Four Little Heels (The Clickety Clack Song)," the label paired him with the Brill Building songwriting duo of Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance, and when the single proved a minor hit, Pockriss and Vance set to work on the follow-up. The resulting ["Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge9Ou3-YyqU) topped the Billboard pop charts in the summer of 1960, vaulting the 16-year-old to teen heartthrob status.

After a move to ABC Records, Hyland partnered with the songwriting and production tandem of Gary Geld and Peter Udell for the hits "Let Me Belong to You" and "I'll Never Stop Wanting You." With 1962's "Sealed with a Kiss," a Top Five entry on both sides of the Atlantic, Hyland sealed his reputation as a paragon of youthful innocence and first-kiss romance, perfectly capturing the adolescent zeitgeist in the months leading up to Beatlemania. With 1962's Top 30 hit "Warmed-Over Kisses (Leftover Love)," Hyland introduced elements of country music into his sound, an approach he explored on singles including "I May Not Live to See Tomorrow" and "I'm Afraid to Go Home" and culminating with the 1964 LP Country Meets Folk. While Hyland's music clearly anticipated the folk-rock and country-rock that would blossom in the years to follow, he seemed hopelessly out of touch in contrast to the British Invasion acts now dominating pop radio, and his commercial fortunes rapidly dwindled. Hyland nevertheless forged on, teaming with producer Snuff Garrett and famed session men J.J. Cale and Leon Russell to score a pair of surprise Top 30 hits, "The Joker Went Wild" and "Run, Run, Look and See."

The Soul Survivors first played together in New York under the name The Dedications, founded by member Kenny Jeremiah, who released several singles under this name in 1962 and 1964. They adopted the name Soul Survivors in 1965. They signed to Philadelphia label Crimson Records, who put them in touch with Gamble & Huff. This was the first hit record written and produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, who helped create the Philadelphia Soul sound with songs like ["If You Don't Know Me By Now"](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=nbaSh8i5eyE) and ["TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)"](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=Pfs1y6L3E7k). Gamble and Huff are from Camden, New Jersey, which is just east of Philadelphia, and often took the Schuylkill Expressway, which is the "Expressway To Your Heart." Gamble wrote the lyrics, and he explained to National Public Radio: "I was on my way over to see a young lady, and the expressway was backed up. This is when they just started the expressway in 1967 - I was sitting there for what seemed like hours, so I started beating on the dashboard and singing, 'Expressway to your heart, trying to get to you.' Songs come from your imagination. You have to be quick to capture the moment."

"Expressway to Your Heart" was a #1 hit regionally in Philadelphia and New York in the fall of 1967, and the tune reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 nationally. It has been covered by Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders who recorded a version of the song in 1973, The Blues Brothers released the song as a single in 1981, and Bruce Springsteen sang the song on his 2009 Working on a Dream Tour.

In the 1970s, the group lost its record contract and its manager and eventually disbanded. Charlie Ingui became a landscaper, Richie Ingui became a house painter, Paul Venturini became a restaurateur, and drummer Joe Forgione owned an auto body shop.

[Late Lament](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWAmICTFSok)

Inspired by Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock", Jeff Beck plays both the lead guitar and bass guitar. "Over Under Sideways Down" was ranked number 23 in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.

In a 1994 interview with Mojo, Mitchell said: "I didn't write 'Circle Game' as a children's song, but I'm very pleased to see it go into the culture in that way." While written, and played in concerts, for a few years before she released this song on her "Ladies Of The Canyon" album, it was covered (in 1967) by [Buffy Sainte Marie](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=J3uY3-O09sQ) in a more upbeat version, and more similarly to Joni's version by [Tom Rush](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=xzXyoeKOcx4) in 1968.

This was partly written in response to Neil Young's song about lost innocence "[Sugar Mountain](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=L86gQQBYSc4)," where Young sings, "You can't be 20 on Sugar Mountain." Mitchell's last verse is a rejoinder of sorts, with the 20-year-old facing diminished dreams but still with plenty of hope. The line "The painted ponies go up and down" gave David Clayton-Thomas the idea for the lyric "Ride a painted pony let the spinnin' wheel spin" in the Blood, Sweat & Tears hit "[Spinning Wheel](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=SFEewD4EVwU)."

I can hear the whispering.

Live version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAcDOpd0Lv0

Tommy James went solo after the Shondells disbanded in 1970. It was first released as the B side of "Church Street Soul Revival" in 1970. The song was judged to have some hit potential so they went back in the studio and added horns to the master and re-released it as an A side single in 1971.

In a Songfacts interview with Tommy James, he explained: "'Draggin' The Line' I wrote up at my farm in 1970, and it was with Bob King. My farm was in upstate New York, I had a couple hundred acres. It was a song I probably couldn't have written in the city. We just kind of toyed with it. We wrote it, and it was a very repetitious track, and a very sort of hypnotic track. We had the track before we had the song. We went into the studio and just laid down, I don't know, eight or ten bars of track. We looped it and looped it and looped it, and created the hypnotic rhythm. Bob played bass, Russ Leslie from Neon played drums, and I played guitar. And so we just created loops of tape based on this little riff, and when we had three-plus minutes of it put together we stopped, and then we wrote the song around the track. Second time I had ever done that - first one was "Mony" actually. 'Draggin' the Line' just meant working every day. Nothing really very mysterious about it."

When this song came out in 1966, there was a widespread rumor that it was about getting high on banana skins. The idea was that you scraped the fibers off of a banana skin and cooked them over a low fire. This was supposed to release the hallucinogenic qualities. Of course, it was never true.

In an interview with the June 18, 2011 edition of the NME, Donovan was asked what the song was actually about. He replied: "Quite a few things. Being mellow, laid-back, chilled out. 'They call me Mellow Yellow, I'm the guy who can calm you down.' [John] Lennon and I used to look in the back of newspapers and pull out funny things and they'd end up in songs. So it's about being cool, laid-back, and also the electrical bananas that were appearing on the scene - which were ladies vibrators."

Paul McCartney can be heard as one of the background revellers on this track, but the "quite rightly" whispering answering lines in the chorus is not McCartney but rather Donovan himself.