Song Of The Day 6/9/2016: Sands – “Mrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator”

Waxing Gibbous – There are varying opinions about how involved the Bee Gees, or more accurately their people, were involved with Sands' recording of "Mrs. Gillespie's Refrigerator." The original version was recorded by the Bee Gees for their Horizontal album, but it didn't make the final cut. Furthermore, as you can see on the Reaction Records label right there, it's billed as "A Robert Stigwood Production." The band, however, claimed that Stigwood -- the Bee Gees' manager -- never showed up for a single session, and it's more accurate to say they produced it. Whoever filled in the time card, it exists.

According to the blog Bite It Deep, the purveyor of which apparently has very good taste, Sands were something of a pet Beatles project. They were signed to a publishing deal with Apple and ill-fated Beatles manager Brian Epstein was preparing them for bigger things. Two weeks before they released this single, Epstein died, as did much of the Sands' momentum. Although I'm certain that was a mitigating factor in the single's lack of success, it's also possible that the record-buying public weren't yet ready, even in 1967, for a love song to a refrigerator. We'd only recently accepted the previously forbidden passion of toasters.