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From: southwell59
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  • Es una canción que trae recuerdos y transporta a unos años fantásticos.

  • i loved it

  • connor

  • I loved this song. In the days before we could afford TV., I used to sing along to this with my mother. I am 50 years old and she is 76. Thanks for posting it.

  • When i first heard this i was about 12 years old, no perception of PC or the Guardian or the weird people who read it, never thought about the elitist press or upper class. Just enjoyed a great record for what is was. Sad that people now don't see it that way

  • Come to think of it.... I was 1 when this came out... Born to late, just love the 60's

  • What a classic, never fails to bring a lump to my throat... "82 brings many fears"... and now look at the mess the world is in, he must of had a preminition.... . I used to play this all the time when I was a DJ on hospital radio.. a Timeless Classic... Real Music, this will live forever!!!!

  • ik ben nu 65jaar maar als ik dit weer hoor word mijn hart warm van binnen.waar is de tijd gebleven?

  • Ray Mears at 3.18

  • I blame T***o for the demise of Grocer Jack.

  • great voice the old keith west

    great memories of a wonderful time

  • What has happened to those days ?

    Basically I believe The Nanny State,Do Gooders and The PC Brigade generally have been allowed to kill them off.

    Nowadays no one is allowed to do any thing, but when you look at and analyse what passes for Entertainment ?? now,I think we have got our wires crossed somewhere..

    This Video/Track sums up perfectly those carefree days

    Look at the music nowadays...

    Songs about Drugs/Sex/Death etc...

    Who is this song about...GROCER JACK !!

    Says it all...

  • @dw69ful Strange comment. What cant you do that you want to do. Those days you recall the music was performed and written for the most part by drug and drink fuelled sons and daughters of the middle and upper classes with little or no grip on reality.

  • What has happened to todays music, even then light pop music had a story , melody and memorable tune's, i sound like an old fart but its true, music then was interesting. I feel sorry for todays kids that think JayZ, Bieber et all is music.

  • Haven't heard this in ages ;)

  • I was 9 too when this came out. It's a great song and isn't the video just so innocent? What happened to those days?

  • 9 years old just came from the carribean love this song

  • 44 years ago and the music still stands up!

  • GoD! the 60s were REALLY experimental musically, both in theme and structure! THIS WAS A BIG HIT THEN! Wouldn't get listened to now....in fact would it get written today?

  • great song thanks fore putting this on

  • @MorrisManDanceMan. I was in west Germany when this track came out in the 60s, it must have been on every duke box, got fed of hearing in the end but it's always nice to hear it again after so many years. Thanks for sharing.

    AL

  • It gets me. Plus it makes me mourn the England that is vanishing

  • @theonlyantony - Unfortunately I think it's already gone - it slipped away and no one noticed !

  • @bobbyp1957 there are pockets..............but they need repairing

  • 8 years old ..playing with some toys on the table...and listening to this song... It catch me..how young i was..its still catching me now..! Bert...

  • Brings some wonderful merories back..very nice song

  • wonderful song

  • Keith works on the music side of the advertising industry.

  • Probably one of the best pop songs of all time - a beautifully crafted song , wonder what happened to Keith West ??

  • A musical that never was!

  • great song .when music was music.

  • @rostovron still very special

  • I was a 7yr old kid when this came out on the radio growing up in 60's London. It has never, ever left my consciousness (mainly because of the kids chorus)... cool song. Kudos for the upload :)

  • such a great song

  • I've not heard this in years! Great video.

  • Keith West looks like Jeff Beck

  • @atwistoflemming not sure but he looks fit wonder what he looks like now

  • If ever a song epitomises 1967, this was it. I knew all the words back in 1967 and sang it endlessly.

    Hard to think that the young children in the footage are now all in their 50's - I wonder how their lives turned out for them?...

  • I totally agree with everything mr1168726 & freddieseal say the 60's were the best this country has ever or will ever see, this country lead the world in music, fashion, film, comedy everything and we had proper English money as well pounds, shillings and pence. I was 14 in 1967 those were the days, if I could be young again it would HAVE to be back in the 60's, even Roger Miller said England Swings lol, all the best guys

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  • Real flowerpower!Thank you showing!

  • This one will always be a classic, i never get tired of hearing it..

    And what a good year 67 was its when i came along, and now 44 years later and still sounds as good now as it did then..

  • This song always reminds me of my childhood being 9 years old and only beginning to accept that my father had died in March 1966

  • "not like the shite they play today" was what everyone said back in 1960s about this type of song. I also recall the 1960s for the race riots in USA, students demos and strikes in the UK, the run on the £, outside toilets, no central heating, threat of nuclear war... ah those were the days!

  • @overner2001 Ahh, those memories, the world almost coming to an end over Cuba in 1962, 13 years old and I hadn't had my Nat King Cole...

  • Whatever happened to Keith West? His name appears on the cover of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars... (just above Bowie posing in a sparking suit)

  • @overner2001 I believe he's Marketing Director for Burns London electric guitar company now.

  • Hahah, i'm 15 and this song reminds me of car journeys when i was little.. my dad had a 60's hit mix, this was my favourite track, it makes me sad, for some reason the lyrics mean something to me.

  • i'm 52 now and stil love this song. Where is the time -:)

    Greetings from Amsterdam.

  • These types of songs are what made the 1960's generation totally unique.

    The idea of having children voices in a pop song todays would be so cheesey,but in the 1960's you could take a family kind of pop tune,put serious kind of lyrics,kids voices and you have like this one A PURE WORK OF POP ART.

    Music is not just there to reflect fun,and sadness but also a sense of community how people live.This tune is a very fine example of that fact.

  • It used to scare me a bit when i was a very young kid born in 1963. The bit where the kids come in singing is a bit haunting. Check my channel for some sixties stuff.

  • I was 2 when this came out but it was played for the next couple of years on the radio all the time so is there with my very earliest consciousness/memories so what with the fact that little kids are on it its so atmospheric in a slightly melancholically nostagic way for me.

  • @ancientraver19881989

    I can definitely relate to that!

  • Lovely old song

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  • Grocer jack Grocer jack get off your back and get upfront you you lazy c*nt

  • mir läuft einfach die Gänsehaut bei dieser musik,mein lieblingslied als Schuljunge...

    eine wunderbare Zeit,melancholischer geht nicht mehr...!

  • God, the first time i heard this was on Crackerjack when I would have been only eight years old

  • yep im 50 and this always reminds me of being a kid. really was a diffrent world then.

  • Grocer Jack was a paedophile

  • @QueenReigns1 is pointless.

  • Following this classic recording, I eagerly awaited further excerpts from the Teenage Opera, but alas nothing? It appears that this classic excerpt was the final synphony........

  • This epic song always reminds me of "Matthew & Son" by Cat Stevens. Very LS Lowry.

  • ich war 14 jahre und die zeit war schön und dieser song

  • ich liebe diesen song.was für eine grossartige zeit,und ich war dabei.

  • @GerryPeacemaker

    ich auch !! Tolle Erinnerungen...ich war soo jung. :-)

  • This takes me back along way! A great tune!

  • i was 12 when it was released. What a song!!!!

  • I loved this song but never knew what it was called until i saw it on a friends channel today and i'm so pleased to have found it so i can add it to my collection of favourites!

  • I was 8 in 1967. I used to love this and sing "Gwocer Jack" 11

    

  • My 1st ever memory of a song and my all time fave song x

  • Wonder where that house is? -it's kinda spooky.

  • fantastic memories, the 60's, 70's, and early 80's were golden times for music, it all started going downhill with all that pump up the volume shite from mid 80's onwards

  • @rich0040 yes i agree. what a time for REAL music.

  • @rich0040 I couldn't agree more... my sentiments exactly!

  • You say to the younger people today..whats a grocer..HUH..?

  • Fantastic song, fantastic memories....

  • I was the same age as the kids when this was a hit and can still remember singing along not realising how sad the song was at the time. "Marmalade lables" has always stuck in my mind. So nice to see a video for it after all these years but Keith's lilac velvet 'loons - oh no no!

  • this brings back a flood of wonderfully warm and "safe' memories..

  • still catchy after all these years great song 

  • this was played on ed" stewpot "stewart's request show every sunday morning on radio 2 about 1970 when i was about five or six at the time. it holds great memories for me

  • @robinalanson67 Ed "Stewpot" Stewart's Junior Choice I remember it well & yes you're right my friend this was played every week or so it seemed.

  • Absolute classic!!!!!!

  • Songs like this will never be written again. What a great individual period it was. All songs today sound very much the same. Where is the talent? Thank heavens I was there!!

  • Awesome

  • when I was about 5 years old in the end of the sixties i sing this song on and on and on

  • the 60s was so splendidly surreal! This video would be considered inappropriate now. How we've lost our hippie innocence!

  • childhood revisited !! my older brother used to sing this to me !! amazin memories !

  • There was a grocer Jack across from my house and I always thought it was about him (I was 12 at the time)

  • Great  brilliant song!!!!!

  • Shame the opera was never completed

  • Shame the opera was never completed

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  • Briliant!!!!........thanx so much for posting - what great memories - happy days indeed!!!

  • Logging in from New Zealand. This is one of the best 45rpms that I have ever had. I certainly rate this in my top 20 of all time. I never grow tired of hearing it. It's still as fresh as it was all of those years ago. Thanks for the vid!

  • I remember my early days as a child, especially this track - the sole proprietor shops - my grocer was called Mr Taylor and I still remember him to this day, despite now being 53 years of age. This song always reminds me of that type of service; the personal touch. What has happened to the "old school" familiarity and probity of yesteryear? It used to be "please may I have...etc", now apparently gone. Competition has swamped us, but unfortunately, it's here to stay. God Bless Jack.

  • @WADSLEYJACK I'm a fortysomething who grew up in Scotland (now live in NY) and remember the grocer coming round in a van; somehow that's how I imagined Grocer Jack going about his business :) Sweet song; I remember hearing it on the radio when I was a kid. Is Keith still active in the music business? I also laughed when I saw the comments about how he wouldn't get away with this video with the kids in the present day; I was thinking the same thing, which is a shame because it's cute :)

  • i was 7 years old when this was in the charts i remember going to blackpool with mam and dad and my brothers good old days

  • I bought the Teenage Opera cd a while ago. My 8 and 11 year old boys always sing along to Grocer Jack. Then come the inevitable questions, answered with the platitude "You don't know what you've got till it's gone". An answer that really furrows the brows of kids! I then play them My White Bicycle by Tomorrow and that also requires more explanation. Good thing that I was conscious in the sixties.

  • Ok, own up, who else had a shirt like that ?

    (I did lol)

  • i have loved this tune since i was a boy thanks for posting this here x george

  • play this to anyone one who takes you for granted

  • i was 7 when this came out, i remember this more than any other song from the sixties, reminds me of ed stewart show on the radio, he used to play it a lot. A true classic

  • great song

  • I was 5 when this was a hit. Isn't it significant that so many of you were around the same age and have such warm memories of it? It introduced to my young mind the fact that people are not around forever. A few months later my Grandfather died and obviously I never saw him again. I wonder if the 5 year olds of today will be taught one of life's lessons from any new song they hear now.

  • If memory serves we were expecting more songs to complete the story, they never came sadly. This was the year my daughter was born. Very nostalgic. five xxxxx's

  • one of the best one hit wonders ever

  • people are useless.

  • Even david icke likes it

  • 4 people were never young. 

  • i was 6..i can stil lremember hearing it..how music was so much better then..

  • <333

    i love this song

  • this record reminds me so much of my childhood brill times julie

  • i am 75 and still like this song , sentimental or what , ginger

  • the era when songs had meaning not like the shite they play today.

  • @freddieseal great era for songs but you got to open your mind to some great bands of today, try many of horrors by biffy clyro.

  • 1967 , and 17 how lucky to have had music like this in my life ,

  • Always loved this song --Absolutely charming & those cute kids - - This song is a timeless pop master piece and I never get fed up of listening to it.

    As for R& B ???-- i think the term is over used and mis understood by a lot of todays artistes --sorry guys youre just not R&B

  • I used to wonder what happened to Keith West after this hit. Has anyone else ever noticed that on the cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" there is an iluminated sign above where he is standing with the name "Keith West" emblazened upon it? Is it any connection with the singer of this unusual song?

  • Anybody notice that Keith West had somewhat similar facial features as the late Freddie Mercury?  I always loved this song.

  • I love this song. I have a definite picture of the "mothers who'll give Jack Hell" - being more than somewhat overweight, and wearing flowered dresses and nylon headscarves...

  • my first loved song at the age of 3..... still a great song and the children are singing so cute

  • living in America, this song received no airplay / still I found a copy which I have to this day / have a few records like that. the USA is huge and difficuot for many from the island to navigate to success. I LIKE IT

  • we'll never hear songs like this again, wish i had a fuckin time machine, i'd go back to the sixties and not come back, they were much happier times, what the fuck iz todays music all about, its wank like the shit tv like x factor and reality tv, long live the black and white minstrel show and doctor who with tom baker

  • @rich0040

    totally agree!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • @rich0040 Alo Mate, I was 18 when this was released. All my teen years were in the 60s. It WAS a great time, not only for the music, but for everything else, Jobs, Money, safe to walk the streets ( no Morons like 2day), 3 channels on the tv, no brain wrecking video games. People went out and made their own entertainment. Would'nt want to be young these days. Take Care Eh?

  • The charts now and rock music are not healthy for one simple reason.All musical chords,notes etc have all been used up now,so there is nothing new!

  • This is one of the most significant songs of my life..I remember it having a profound effect on me at the time...for many reasons, but I think especially because my life was very difficult then; and this song was somehow very comforting to me.

    :o)

  • Another 60s CLASSIC

  • SublimeDebris is so right! There is absolutely nothing memorable about music around now, not just hip hop. It's all manufactured pop these days - no substance. Songs like this are iconic but the current dross will all be forgotten within 2 years. It's rather sad really.

  • @squizza28 Great!! I thought I was the only one who had these feelings.  I( absolutely loath the idea of the words "Rap" and "Music" being used in the same sentence (or even the same conversation or the same lifetime).

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  • Keith West is just SO handsome!

  • This is like the soundtrack of my childhood, even though I didn't understand the serious theme at the time. I feel sorry for today's kids. What nostalgia can there be in hip-hop?

  • That sounds convincing. I never realized it as such because I still identify myself with the children (who were mostly of my age back then). For me it is one of the all time favourites. Actually 1967 is for me the best year in Rock history. Most of my favourites are from this psychedelic, magic year. I only regret that I was too young to be in Monterrey ;-)

  • does anyone know if hes still alive he must be seventy

  • @kingfisher44 I believe he is. He's still active, producing songs. He's 66.

  • another talent to come from dagenham , hunters hall square is where the hopkins family lived , keith hopkins became keith west

  • I loved this song when I was a younster.

    It would bring tears to a glass eye when the kids start singing!

  • How many songs today have a storyline like this matched with a brilliant musical soundtrack? This will be given due credit twenty years from now when music has died!

  • 1968 was a strange year for pop. Little masterpieces like this - and so many more received lots of airplay.

  • when this was first released I identified with the children that lived in the town;

    sometime in the 90's I identified with the people who lived in the town;

    not long from now I will identify with Grocer Jack!

    Is this the ageing process put to song?

  • @ab4rereleaseCspray 28th July 1967.ageing process??? maybe.but lets enjoy what we havce whilst we have it.Agree???

  • @mensa29 Lovely words of wisdom.... Very well said!

  • @ab4rereleaseCspray

    Very profound - & very true comment.

  • @ab4rereleaseCspray

    It must be...

  • @ab4rereleaseCspray Hang on. If you identified with the kids when this came out, that would make you around 50 now, so you won't be identifying with Grocer Jack until around 2043!

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  • great classic from 1968 i believe oh if only todays music was as good as this .

  • Listening to this again is gutting me TBH

  • This song sacred me when I was a kid. Keith was really handsome :)

  • @fannycraddock99 I sortof know what you mean

  • absolute classic

  • This song freaked me out when I was a kid.

  • wonderful.

  • I like the song very much but can someone explain what the song is about in simple english (i am from holland)? What are the the children singing?

  • @delpotman The song is about an old man named Gocer Jack who delivers food to the people of the village he lives in. The people are angry one day when he does not arrive. They send the children to his home to say "Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack get off your back, get into town don't let us down, oh no, no". The people of the village don't know that he is dead!

  • the musical this song was intended for should be revived and shown in the west end.

  • @Airager

    same applies to me, it was an honour to grow up in the sixties, with such music on the radio!

  • I just love this song. Remember my 14years. In Kobenhagen without my parents, and my first love. Have tears in my eye, when I hear the song. <3 <3

  • always liked this song, but was extremely lucky to ever hear it on the radio here in New Zealand, now, thanks to technology, can hear/see this & other masterpieces from that fantastic era.

  • aahhh my childhood....love the children that sing at the end...sweet

  • Airager - just think yourself lucky - as I do - that the miracles of technology allow us to seek and find so many treasures that would have been lost to us! Paul .

  • @pualbradshaw1 You're right mate, I was made up when I found this. I thought it was just a personal favourite but it seems that this song struck a chord with many people of a similar age (I'm 47) for many different reasons. At the time it was probably treated as something of a novelty record but I love it, it melts me!

  • Airager

    How right you are. Except childhood memory, as I regarded it, I came to the same conclusion as you do. This is simple QUALITY. SINGING and MUSIC, seems to be difficult today.

    But, due to YOUTUBE, I consider it as one of the great inventions like the steam engine, nuclear power, the computer, excel, the web, Youtube makes the collective memory accessible in an easy way.

  • @waldolala1964 Yeah, you are spot on. I'd would never of seen this vid but for youtube. I remember hearing it on the radio as a kid, probably on Junior Choice. I loved it even though I was only about five the first time I heard it!

  • see how princess diana was fucking a muslim im guna fuck your dead mother the same way wat a shit video

  • @KASHMIRI7864LYFE Why you checking it out then? Dickhead.

  • I don't get it, at the funeral the kids are supposed to be dressed in black accordig to the song.

  • AWESOME

  • Spot on, airager! If this video was made today, poor old Keith West would have to have a police check beforehand and there'd probably be some clipboard-carrying government job's worth on set taking notes and filing a report back to the Ministry of Paranoia. And, of course, the video would be the target of a dozen lame comedians on TV panel shows stating the bleedin' obvious. How the hell did we get here?

  • Just bought the .45 of this with picture sleeve. Thanks for posting it.

  • Another song I have always liked. There are too many songs and not enough time left for me.

  • The charts today (August 2010) are healthy, there still good shit going down. I am 59 and a half, I remember this song. It's so bad it's fucking great, lol, simple as that. Listen, cringe, smile, it's a product of it's time and it's lovely. Nothing is better, nothing is worse, it's all good if somebody likes it. Grocer Jack was late with his VAT return so David Cameron sent a hit squad, quite simple really.