Pop Music
The song “Lady Godiva” by Peter and Gordon is a music-hall-style song about a modern-day (well, modern for the 1960s). The song went to #6 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, #16 in the U.K., and #1 in Australia in 1966. Poor Lady Godiva. She’s hoodwinked by a Hollywood director, who turns out to direct porn. The song sold more than one million copies and earned an RIAA gold record.
The story goes that the mayor of Coventry tried to stop local airplay of the song because it insulted the city and the legend. Peter Asher (the Peter of Peter and Gordon) said, “I don’t know if some record company press hack dreamed that one up or if it was real.”
Peter Asher and Gordon Waller formed in the early 1960s. They were school friends at Westminster, one of the top private schools in Britain. Peter and his sister Jane Asher were child actors in the 1950s, notably for appearing as siblings in an episode of the TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood. Jane dated Paul McCartney, and that liaison turned out to be good fortune for Peter and Gordon. Paul gave them the song “World Without Love,” which sky-rocketed to #1 in the U.K. and U.S. in 1964. They had other big hits with “Nobody I Know,” I Don’t Want to See You Again,” “I Go to Pieces,” “True Love Way,” and “To Know You is to Love You,” among others. They broke up in 1968. Gordon went solo, and Peter became head of A&R for Apple Records.
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