Catch Us If You Can
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"Catch Us If You Can" is a 1965 song from The Dave Clark Five, written by group's drummer Dave Clark and guitarist Lenny Davidson. The song was one of DC5's top hits, reaching number 5 on the UK Singles Chart in the late summer of 1965 and number 4 on the U.S. pop singles chart later that fall.
Starting with no accompaniment other than finger snapping, the hook was instantaneous:
- Here they come again, mmmm-mm-mm
- Catch us if you can, mmmm-mm-mm
- Time to get a move on, mmmm-mm-mm
- We will yell with all of our might!
- [drums kick in]
- Catch us if you can ...
As such, it served as the title song to John Boorman's well-regarded DC5 vehicle and pop scene film Catch Us If You Can (relabelled Having a Wild Weekend in the U.S.) of the same year. The title phrase was seemingly a take-off on the 1959 crime film Catch Me If You Can and similar phrases, with 'me' turned to the group 'us'.
In years since, "Catch Us If You Can" is played near the start of Shrewsbury Town F.C. matches as the footballers run onto the pitch. This has been happening on and off since the 1974-1975 season and "Catch" is thusly seen by home fans as Shrewsbury's de facto theme tune. Was also the theme song for the HMHS Cross Country team when they won the New Jersey State Championship in 1978. In the U.S., "Catch" remains one of the DC5's most played tunes on oldies radio stations. In Australia, the Candid Camera-style television show Catch Us If You Can was named after the song.
Author Emlyn Williams used this song's lyric as an epigraph in Beyond Belief, his book about the serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. "Catch Us If You Can" was a hit song on British radio during part of the time the Moors Murders were being committed.
