Human Beinz – "Nobody But Me" (1968)

No no no no no no no no no

No no no no no no no 
No no no no no no no no no

No no no no no

Nobody can do the shing-a-ling like I do

[NOTE: There is no record I enjoy singing along to more than “Nobody But Me.”  That alone makes it worthy of being chosen for the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  Here’s what I wrote about that record way back in 2011.]

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Very talented people are often envied by less talented people.  I myself have experienced such envy on more than one occasion.

For example, whenever this song comes on the radio, I am able to do something that very others can – namely, sing the very tricky "no-no" parts of this song EXACTLY correctly. 

I'm like a certain baseball player who was such a natural hitter that it was said that if you dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night and started pitching to him, he would immediately start hitting line drives to all fields.

If you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and put on "Nobody But Me," I would duplicate lead singer John "Dick" Belley's performance like we were Siamese twins, putting each and every "no" (there are 30 altogether) in its proper place.  I don't even need to hear the record – I can do it a cappella and on demand.  

Try it sometime.  What the hell – try it right now.  Click on this link, which will take you to the song.  Hit the "start" button and give it a shot.

I'll even give you the sheet music:

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How you'd do?  Pretty bad, huh?  I thought so.

Well, try it one more time – after all, I caught you by surprise, before you had a chance to warm up.  I'm sure you'll do much better the second time . . .

NOT!  You sucked just as badly the second time, didn't you?  (Tell the truth!)

That's the difference between you and me – I nail "Nobody But Me" a hundred times out a hundred, rain or shine.  (Of course, there are other differences between you and me.  For example, you've never created a wildly popular little blog.)

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Click here to listen to the original recorded version of "Nobody But Me" by the Isley Brothers.  It's not bad, but it's certainly not as good as the Human Beinz cover.

That cover is used as the soundtrack to a new Nike TV ad.  It's not the best Nike TV commercial ever (I'll be posting about the very best one sometime in the future) but it's a good one – thanks in large part to the use of "Nobody But Me."  Click here to view that Nike ad.

Martin Scorsese used "Nobody But Me" in The Departed.  Click here to see the scene from The Departed where Leonardo DiCaprio goes medieval on a couple of thugs to the accompaniment of "Nobody But Me."

The first episode of the 7th season of The Office featured a cold open with the cast doing a lip dub to "Nobody But Me."  Click here to watch it.

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The Human Beinz are from Youngstown, Ohio, and originally called themselves the Premiers.  In 1966, they changed their named to the Human Beingz, but their record company mispelled their name on "Nobody But Me."  The song became a top-10 hit, which meant they couldn't really change the spelling then.

Turns out it didn't really matter.  They never had another hit (at least not in the United States – the band was very popular in Japan for some reason), and broke up in 1969.

The Human Beinz in Japan

Click here to listen to Human Beinz recording of "Nobody But Me."

 

Click here to order the song from Amazon.