"Cheryl's Going Home"

"Cheryl's Going Home" was released at the end of 1965 by a young singer named Bob Lind, but went nowhere. In early 1966 a Miami DJ turned the record over and played the flip side, and soon radio stations all over the country were playing that flip, a song called "Elusive Butterfly" -- which would eventually flutter to #3 on the national charts. "Cheryl's Going Home" is better, but that's the way things go sometimes.



In the the spring of '66 The Cascades ("Rhythm Of The Rain"), valiantly attempting to continue the group harmony tradition in the face of the British Invasion, gave the song a shot:



Adam Faith, still fairly popular in the UK in the age of The Beatles, made the British top 50 with a cover:



In November of that year The Blues Project took a crack at Cheryl, resulting in my favorite version, though it did no better on the US singles charts than the others:



A band called The Rokes cut am Italian-language cover that was apparently very successful in Italy, the only version I know of to become a hit:



But the oddest version of "Cheryl's Going Home" is probably the mid '70s cover by British singer John Otway: