Norway Picture Sleeve: Philips 320 229 BF
Germany Picture Sleeve: Star-Club 148 570 STF / 320 229 BF
First UK Release: Philips BF 1514 / 320229 BF. Side A
First UK Release: Philips BF 1514 / 320229 BF. Side B
A Another Tear Falls
B Saddest Night In The World
by The Walker Brothers
Released: September 16th, 1966. Label: Philips
Another Tear Falls is the Walker Brothers’ seventh single. An early composition by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it was first recorded by American gospel and jazz artist Gene McDaniels in 1962, who had top 5 hits a year earlier with A Hundred Pounds of Clay and A Tower Of Strength. His version of the song features in the 1962 musical comedy about the trad jazz scene, It’s Trad, Dad!, directed by Richard Lester, who would go on to make A Hard Day’s Night and Help films with The Beatles.
The Walker Brothers’ version continued their run of singles centred on a heartbroken narrator. “And for a while I don’t begin to cry/But just when I think I’m all cried out/Another tear falls,” Walker sings. The single’s B-side, Saddest Night in the World, is written by John Maus. In Germany, this was replaced by Scott Walker composition Saturday’s Child, the second track on the Walker Brothers’ 1966 album, Portrait.
Another Tear Falls reached no. 12 and spent eight weeks in the UK Top 40. It was the last single by the Walker Brothers released in the US.
Credits
A. Another Tear Falls 2:28
Written By Burt Bacharach and Hal David
Arranger Reg Guest
B. Saddest Night In The World 2:13
Written By John Maus
Arranger Reg Guest
Interview
Disc and Music Echo, 8 October 1966
by Penny Valentine
Scott's visions of the future
John, Gary and Scott took their first steps on the British stage as a tour's top of the bill on Saturday at East Ham Granada.
The steps were greeted with the strictest security precautions I've seen on a tour of this kind. President Johnson visiting Vietnam could not have had more bodyguards. One bouncer per row of people and woe betide those who jumped on their seats and threw themselves at the stage (and they did of course).
It proved to be the stamping ground for near riots, fainting girls, crushed usherettes. More proof, if indeed proof were needed, that after the Beatles and Stones it's the Walkers all the way.
We had been promised something different from the Walker Brothers and we got it. A much faster act, with songs running into each other and the only breathing space when Scott said thanks for coming and they'd see everyone when they were next in London (girl passes out directly behind me with a cry of "Oh don' 'e talk LUVERLY").
Improved
And to the opening bars of 'Land Of A Thousand Dances', on they came. Leeds already on stage and picked out, two spotlights ready for John and Scott to leap into. One lilac and one pale blue figure, hands raised against the light, the screams, the stampeding figures, hip swinging into the glare and working hard.
A vastly improved performance from all three from their Orbison tour. Surprise spot and on 'Twinkie Lee' Scott switches with Gary and plays demon on drums, the lighting throwing up his ten foot shadow against the back curtains.
A tee-shirted girl is dragged screaming and weeping up the aisle by two ambulance men and an usherette, and out through the swing doors. Girls are on their seats, in the aisle, being pulled back by attendants. They do their three slow numbers together, 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine', 'I Need You', 'Another Tear Falls'. Sound perfect, balance beautiful.
And then into the swingers 'Tossing and Turning'. John in a frenzy of hair and hips. Gary's drumsticks flashing through the air and Scott executing a mad dance with the backing trumpeter.
Another girl, stiff arms and legs — fainted in the aisle — is torn away by five attendants to miss the last and wildest number. To miss Scott lying on the floor, amid the chaos, happy as the day is long.
The end. Afterwards everyone tired and happy and eating at a special party at London's China Garden restaurant — Scott even taking off his dark glasses in honour of the occasion. Back at the Granada a cheery usherette in orange is saying that one of her friends had been badly crushed by rioting girls in the first house.
"She's all right now though. But if you thought this was bad, you should have seen those girls in the first house!"
The Walker Brothers 1966. Photo: Disc and Music Echo