Herman's Hermits: Henry the VIII, I Am

In the words of Monty Python "and now for something completely different"



'Ermin & his bloody 'Ermits

       So the first question almost everyone asks is how did Herman's Hermits get their name?  There are two stories, the official version and the version I like better.  The official story is that Karl Green, the Hermits guitar player, noticed a superficial resemblance between singer Peter Noone and Sherman from the Sherman and Mr. Peabody cartoons that were part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.  They simply dropped the S from Sherman and added "and his (or the) Hermits" because it sounded cool.  Whether or not it sounded cool is a matter of opinion.  The other story, and the one I like best, is that the band was arguing about what to call themselves when Peter Noone's grandfather said "Just call yourself "Ermin and his bloody Ermits and stop all this nonsense at once".  I don't know which story is true but both are absurd and really quite funny.


Peter Noone, part Sherman
part Kennedy, totally cute

       Soon the band, all young teenagers, met with record producer Mickie Most and their name was shortened to Herman's Hermits.  At the time the band was trying to find their way into the R&B market with very little success.  Most recognized that Peter Noone was a handsome young lad and believed the band would have an easier time mining the young female consumer pop market.  In England, at that time, pop music was referred to as "beat" and the young men in the band looked the part more so than R&B/blues acts like the Rolling Stones, or John Mayall's Blues Syndicate.  Also Peter Noone's voice didn't have the gruff and gritty sound that guys like Mick Jagger, and Van Morrison (Them) had, so it really seemed like a good choice.  The idea didn't sit well with the band members and it became a bone of contention that would last until 1971 when the band finally broke up.

You decide...

       In 1963 the band had breakthrough success with the Goffin/King song I'm Into Something Good.  In the video it's interesting to note that bassist Alan Wrigley played his bass left handed similar to Paul McCartney of that other, slightly more famous British band, The Beatles.  The song charted well and portended good things for the bands future.  They didn't have to wait long as their next single Can't You Hear My Heartbeat also received lots of radio airplay.  Soon the band had a string of hits including a nice cover of The Rays doo wop Silhoutte's, and the saccharine Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter.  Even the Hermits found this song to be a bit to sticky sweet for their taste as Noone's cutesy antics in the video illustrates.  He mugs for the camera while also rolling his eyes and seeming a bit embarrassed.

Harry Champion circa 1938

       Eventually they released the song Henry the VIII, I Am, produced as a rockabilly number and sung with a pronounced cockney accent.  In fact the band employed the citified cockney accent to subtly mock the music that was making them famous.  It's helpful to remember that the band wanted to play the blues, and the teeny bopper music, no matter how successful, was subverting the excitement they felt after their first blush of success had faded.  In the 60's rock bands were expected to write, record, and deliver three or four albums per year as well as tour almost continuously to support their records.  This pressure was hard enough on bands that loved their own music, so it's easy to understand how difficult it would be for a band that wasn't exactly in love with their own records.  Still, despite the developing cracks, the band couldn't deny their success so they doggedly kept at it.
      By 1965  the value of covering songs from earlier periods was obvious to anybody that created or listened to music.  Herman's Hermits saw the value in that formula when they had a hit with Sillhoutte's.  So reaching all the way back to 1910 they recorded an updated version of a vaudevillian song written by Fred Murray and R.P. Weston that was made famous by Harry Champion called I'm Henerey The Eighth, I Am.  The song was a bit of comedic silliness when it appeared in 1911 and the Hermits version, while a bit too cute, retains that warm, slightly bawdy sense of humor.  The Hermits version consisted of singing the chorus twice separated by Noone comically calling out "second verse, same as the first!" followed by a decent rockabilly guitar solo followed by singing the chorus one more time and wrapping up with a spelling of H-E-N-R-Y and a dipsy finish.  The song became a  huge hit reaching all the way up to #1 on the US charts. 

At the height of their popularity 

       The subject of the song is the eighth marriage of a woman to a man named Henry.  As it turns out each of her previous seven husbands had all been named Henry.  In perhaps the most revealing part of the song there is a line that states "She wouldn't have a Willie or a Sam".  In 1911 England the word Willie was slang for penis and Sam was slang for taking a dump.  Even in 1911 a continuously constipated woman who wouldn't have sex wasn't much of a catch and that might explain why she had been married seven times before.  Yup, that's really what the song means.
       Later the band would produce  more substantial and mature songs like A Kind Of Hush, the Beatles/Simon and Garfunkle influenced Sunshine Girl and the folk influenced Lady Barbara which, featured two alternating distinct parts working together to create one  nice song .  But before that day they had a string of hits that, in retrospect, were bubbly, humorous, and even a tad subversive, though subtly, of the very genre where they found their highest level of success.

Herman's Hermits

                                        I'm Henry The VIII, I Am