| "Terry" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Twinkle | ||||
| A-side | Terry | |||
| B-side | The Boy of My Dreams | |||
| Released | 1964 | |||
| Format | 7" single | |||
| Genre | Pop | |||
| Label | Decca Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Twinkle | |||
| Twinkle singles chronology | ||||
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Terry is a song written and performed by British singer Lynn Ripley, AKA Twinkle. It was her first single, and reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1964, spending fifteen weeks in the charts.[1] The track also reached #5 on the Canadian charts, spending 4 weeks in the top 40 in February 1965.
The song is about the death of a young man named Terry, killed in a motorcycle accident. It was banned by both the BBC, and by ITV's Ready Steady Go! on grounds of taste, but despite (or possibly because of) this, it shot up the charts. It was Twinkle's only top ten hit, although her follow-up, Golden Lights (later covered by The Smiths), reached #21 in the UK.
Claude François released a French version of Terry on his 1965 EP Les Choses De La Maison.[2] In 2010, Anika included a cover of the song on her debut album Anika.[3]
Allmusic described Terry as "magnificent -- Phil Spector meets The Shangri-Las on a rain-slicked English back-road", and said that it "should have set up Twinkle for never-ending fame."[4]