Here It Comes Again

Here It Comes Again: The Fortunes and the Sound of Mid-Sixties British Pop

The Fortunes were a Birmingham group who arrived at pop fame in 1965, the same year the British Invasion was reaching its broadest penetration of the American market, and "Here It Comes Again" was one of two significant hits they delivered in quick succession that established their reputation as purveyors of a warm, harmonically rich sound that sat somewhere between the jangling optimism of the early Invasion era and the more sophisticated pop craft that would characterize the latter half of the decade.

The group had formed in Birmingham in the early 1960s under various names before settling on the Fortunes. By 1965 the core lineup included vocalists Glen Dale, Rod Allen, and Barry Pritchard, whose three-part vocal blend was the defining characteristic of the group's appeal. Their harmonies were lush without being saccharine, grounded in the kind of close vocal work that British groups had developed partly through exposure to American vocal pop traditions and partly through the competitive pressures of working the club circuit where tight live performance was survival.

"Here It Comes Again" was released in the United Kingdom on the Decca Records label, the same label that had famously passed on the Beatles in 1962 and then spent much of the decade trying to compensate by developing British acts. In the United States the record appeared on the Press Records imprint, which handled distribution of Decca's British material in the American market during this period. The song was written by Les Reed and Barry Mason, a professional songwriting partnership that was becoming increasingly prominent in British pop. Reed in particular was developing a reputation as a skilled melodist who understood how to construct songs for vocal display.

The arrangement of "Here It Comes Again" featured a prominent orchestral component that distinguished it from the guitar-driven sound of many British Invasion contemporaries. Strings framed the entry and return of the chorus, giving the record an expansive, almost cinematic quality. The rhythm section provided a confident beat underneath, but the texture was unambiguously pop rather than rock, situating the Fortunes closer to the Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent corner of British pop than to the rawer end of the spectrum occupied by groups like the Kinks or the Who.

The record climbed the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States it reached the top fifteen of the Billboard Hot 100, a significant showing for a group that was still establishing its American profile. The earlier single "You've Got Your Troubles" had already demonstrated that American radio was receptive to the Fortunes' sound, and "Here It Comes Again" consolidated that receptivity. The two singles together made 1965 the group's most commercially successful year, and the combination of British chart performance and American crossover represented the ideal outcome for any British act of the period.

The production values on "Here It Comes Again" were notably high for their time. The recording was made at a London studio with professional session support, and the mixing reflected the period's increasing attention to the stereo field, though most commercial playback was still mono at the point of release. The vocal blend was placed prominently in the mix, a decision that made commercial sense given that harmony singing was the group's primary selling point.

The mid-1960s pop landscape was crowded with British acts competing for American airplay and sales, and the Fortunes carved out a distinctive niche by emphasizing melodic songwriting and vocal craft at a moment when many of their contemporaries were moving toward experimentation. This positioning served them well in the short term, though it also meant that as pop began shifting toward more complex territory in 1966 and 1967, the group's style felt increasingly at odds with the prevailing direction. Their commercial fortunes fluctuated across the latter half of the decade, but the singles they produced in 1965 remained their high-water mark.

"Here It Comes Again" is remembered today as a well-crafted example of the mid-sixties British pop sound: melodically memorable, harmonically accomplished, and produced with professional polish. It appears regularly on compilations dedicated to the British Invasion's broader sweep, reminding listeners that the movement included a wide range of approaches that extended well beyond the guitar-band model most commonly associated with the era. The Fortunes' contribution to that broader landscape, modest compared to the giants of the period but genuinely distinctive in its own right, is captured well in this single.