I'm Telling You Now

Album: The Very Best of Freddie & the Dreamers (1965)
Charted: 2 1
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Songfacts®:

  • "I'm Telling You Now" was written by the hit songwriter Mitch Murray and Dreamers' front-man Freddie Garrity. Mitch Murray wrote hits for a number of British groups during the '60s, most notably Gerry & The Pacemakers, Georgie Fame, and Manfred Mann. This was their only #1 hit on the US charts, although they appeared on the Top 40 in the US a few more times.
  • As you might guess, these lads were from Manchester, England, which puts them off to the side of the "Mersey Beat" and "Brum Beat" music movements of the '60s - however they are still sometimes considered honorary members of both "British Invasion" music waves, since they were in the general vicinity and they shared a songwriter with Gerry & The Pacemakers, after all.
  • The immortal Lester Bangs' essay The British Invasion is included in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, bless 'em: "...Freddie and the Dreamers, who had no masterpiece but a plentitude of talentless idiocy and enough persistence to get four albums and one film soundtrack (accompanying their now-forgotten version of A Hard Day's Night, Seaside Swingers) released in the US, plus various other LPs for which they may or may not have been given full credit and which they shared with other certifiable nonentity bands which may or may not have been even less talented than they were." Nothing stings like a good Lestering.

    More from Lester: "Like Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs of "Wooly Bully" fame, Freddie and the Dreamers represented a triumph of rock as cretinous swill, and as such should be not only respected, but given their place in history." See, and you thought he didn't like them!
  • Freddie and the Dreamers' greatest claim to fame was the unique character of their frontman and his eccentric stage performance. First, you have the dapper little tuxedo and the chunky geek glasses. Now while he sings, he does this crazy, marching, robotic little dance where he flails his arms and legs exactly like he was a puppet on strings controlled by somebody with terrible fine motor skills. This would be punctuated by random leaps and cavorts as if he suddenly decided to try a leaping move, but changed his mind in mid-air. Inevitably one of their hit songs was "Do the Freddie" which went to #18 on the US Hot 100 in '65.

Comments: 5

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn February 24th 1965, Freddie and the Dreamers performed "I'm Telling You Now" on the ABC-TV program 'Shindig!'...
    And eleven days later on March 7th it entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #71 {See next two posts below}...
    R.I.P. Jimmy O'Neill {Shindig's host, 1940 -2013}.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn April 25th 1965, Freddie & the Dreamers performed "I'm Telling You Now" on the CBS-TV program 'The Ed Sullivan Show'...
    Four months earlier the group performed the song on 'Hullabaloo!' (See next post below)...
    On the same 'Sullivan' show they sang "Do The Freddie"; at the time it was in its 2nd week on the Top 100 and on May 30th, 1965 it peaked at #18 (for 1 week).
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn January 26th 1965, Freddie and the Dreamers performed "I'm Telling You Now" on the NBC-TV program 'Hullabaloo!'...
    Two months later on March 7th, 1965 it entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; and on April 4th, 1965 it peaked at #1 (for 2 weeks) and spent 11 weeks on the Top 100...
    Two years earlier in August 1963 it reached #2 in the United Kingdom...
    On the same 'Hullalaloo!' show the Supremes performed "Come See About Me"; and it was their "Stop! In The Name of Love" that "I'm Telling You Now" knocked out of the #1 spot on the Top 100...
    R.I.P. Freddie Garrity (1936 - 2006).
  • David from Nottingham, United KingdomI always felt a bit embarrassed for the Dreamers, having to do that silly dance behind Freddie. To quote his song,"If you gotta make a fool of somebody!"
  • Zabadak from London, EnglandFreddie recently passed away...
see more comments

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