Chart entered : 23 March 1961
Chart peak : 3
Number of hits : 11
Another watershed here ; if we ignore Rusty Regan , Helen was the first hit maker to be born in the post war period.
Britain's original teenaged pop princess was born to working class parents in Bethnal Green in 1946. They were Jewish although Helen later converted to Christianity. She played the banjolele and sang with her brother in his youth club jazz band. Even as a pre-teen she acquired the nickname "Foghorn". By ten she had a role in a school band "Susie and the Hula Hoops ( whose guitarist Marc Feld crops up later in this story ). At 13 she enrolled with Maurice Burnham's School of Modern Pop Singing established after his success in launching Alma Cogan. Helen said in 1962 " I had always wanted to be a singer. I had no desire to slavishly follow Alma's style , but chose the school merely because of Alma's success."
Burman recommended her to Columbia's A & R man John Schroeder who wrote this song specifically for her and was rewarded with an instant smash. This anthem for teenage independence and assertion of early maturity clearly struck a chord and its lyrical thrust is undoubtedly boosted by being delivered by an adult-sounding ( if not yet perfect in execution ) vocal. Martin Slavin's accompaniment is briskly contemporary though I would have liked to hear a little more of the Eddy-esque guitar.
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