Ooby (October)

The Big O sang ‘Ooby Dooby’ with a characteristic depth uncharacteristic of that kind of song. Roy Orbison could sing an ‘Oh’ that went from the depths of Texas to awesome falsetto in a few heartbeats, instrumentation fallen away, just Roy alone in lonely spaces. This was a far cry from ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’, Paul McCartney’s jaunty sing-a-long merging rockabilly with English music hall. His greatest recorded ‘Oh’s start at the plunge in ‘Hey Jude’ going through the long coda, where he renders more variations of ‘Oh’ than the old soulsters. It went Number One worldwide through October 1968 and beyond.