Status Quo – "Picture of Matchstick Men" (1968)

You in the sky

You with this guy

You make men cry, you lie

In 2004, the BBC News listed the recording artists with the most hit singles in the UK.

U2 was high on that list, with 40 hit singles.  The Rolling Stones had 51, and Queen 52.

But there was one group that had had even more hit records in the UK – 61, to be exact.  And I guarantee that you couldn’t name that group if your life depended on it.

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Here’s a clue.  The group that held the record for the most hit records in the UK had had only a single hit single in the U.S. – “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” which peaked at #12 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1968.  

That’s right – I’m talking about the Status Quo, which was founded in 1962 by two 13-year-old schoolboys, and which released the most recent of its 33 studio albums only a few years ago.

Not a single one of those albums ever cracked the top 100 in the U.S.  But about two-thirds of them were top ten albums in the UK – including four that made it all the way to #1 and three others that peaked at #2.

It’s not unusual for a recording artist to be much more successful in the UK than in the U.S. – and vice versa.  

But the contrast between the Status Quo’s superstar status across the pond and their almost total lack of success in the U.S. is incomprehensible.

At least, it’s incomprehensible to 2 or 3 lines.  

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Francis Rossi – one of the two mates who founded the Status Quo – once gave this account of the writing of “Pictures of Matchstick Men”:

I wrote it on the bog. I'd gone there, not for the usual reasons . . . but to get away from the wife and mother-in-law.  I used to go into this narrow frizzing toilet and sit there for hours, until they finally went out.  I got three quarters of the song finished in that khazi.  The rest I finished in the lounge.

(For those of you who aren’t familiar with British slang, “bog” and “khaki” are synonyms for “toilet.”)

I found the Status Quo’s first album in the cutout bin at the Grandpa’s discount store in Joplin, Missouri a year or two after “Pictures of Matchstick Men” was released in 1968.  I think I also bought the Shocking Blue’s eponymous U.S. debut album and the Sir Douglas Quintet’s Mendocino LP at the same time – Grandpa’s cutouts were three for a dollar.

I’m not sure I ever listened to the entire Status Quo album – in fact, I may have never listened to anything on that album except for “Pictures of Matchstick Men.”

But that one track was worth every penny of the 33 and one-third cents I paid for that LP.

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Click here to listen to the “Pictures of Matchstick Men” – which is now and forever shall be a member of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  (World without end, amen!)

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.