"Have I the Right?" was the debut single and biggest hit of the English band

the Honeycombs The Honeycombs were an English beat group, founded in 1963 in North London, best known for their chart-topping, million-selling 1964 hit, " Have I the Right?" The band featured Honey Lantree on drums, one of the few high-profile female dr ...

. It was composed by

Ken Howard Kenneth Joseph Howard Jr. (March 28, 1944 – March 23, 2016) was an American actor. He was known for his roles as Thomas Jefferson in ''1776'' (1972) and as high school basketball coach and former Chicago Bulls player Ken Reeves in the televisi ...

and

Alan Blaikley Alan Tudor Blaikley (23 March 1940 – 4 July 2022) was an English songwriter and composer, best known for writing a series of international hits in the 1960s and 1970s in collaboration with Ken Howard, including the UK number one hits " Have ...

, who had made contact with the Honeycombs, a London-based group, then playing under the name of the Sheratons, in the Mildmay Tavern in the Balls Pond Road in

Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

, where they played a date. Howard and Blaikley were impressed by the group's lead vocalist, Dennis D'Ell, and the fact that they had a female drummer, Anne (‘Honey’) Lantree. The group were looking for material to play for an audition with

record producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

Joe Meek Robert George "Joe" Meek (5 April 1929 – 3 February 1967) was an English record producer and songwriter considered one of the most influential sound engineers of all time, being one of the first to develop ideas such as the recording studio a ...

, and they played the songs Howard and Blaikley had just given them. Meek decided to record one of them, "Have I the Right?", there and then. Meek himself provided the B-side, "Please Don’t Pretend Again". Music critic Tom Ewing, writing for ''

Freaky Trigger ''Freaky Trigger'' is an Internet publication and e-zine that focuses on popular culture with topics varying from music to cinema. It was founded by the music critic Tom Ewing in 1999 and features Pete Baran and Mark Sinker as editors. From 2 ...

'', commented that the song "invents"

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

, "which is to say, when I listen to the instrumental break on this record, bright guitar and sharp keyboard slicing tuneless chunks out of each other, it’s not 1964 I’m hearing." It was used as the opening theme for ''

Hold the Sunset ''Hold the Sunset'' is a British television sitcom first broadcast on BBC One on 18 February 2018. When first announced, it had the working title ''Edith''. Premise The plot revolves around two retired neighbours, Phil (Cleese) and Edith (Steadm ...

''.

Recording of the song

Meek used his apartment at 304 Holloway Road,

(north London) as a

recording studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for Sound recording and reproduction, recording and Audio mixing, mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home proje ...

. Three U.K. No.1 hits were produced there: "

Johnny Remember Me "Johnny Remember Me" is a song which became a 1961 UK Singles Chart #1 hit single for John Leyton, backed by The Outlaws. It was producer Joe Meek's first #1 production. Recounting the haunting – real or imagined – of a young man by his d ...

" by

John Leyton John Dudley Leyton (born 17 February 1936) is an English retired actor and singer. Leyton as a singer is best known for his hit song "Johnny Remember Me" (written by Geoff Goddard and produced by Joe Meek), which reached number one in the ...

in 1961, "

Telstar Telstar refers to a series of communications satellites. The first two, Telstar 1 and Telstar 2, were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched atop of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962, successfully relayed the first televisi ...

" by

the Tornados The Tornados were an English instrumental rock group of the 1960s that acted as backing group for many of record producer Joe Meek's productions and also for singer Billy Fury. They enjoyed several chart hits in their own right, including ...

in 1962, and the last of them, "Have I the Right?" in 1964. Conspicuous in "Have I the Right?" is the prominent part of the

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

s that carry the song. Their effect was enhanced by having the members of the group stamp their feet on the wooden stairs to the studio. Meek recorded the sound with five microphones he had fixed to the banisters with bicycle clips. For the finishing touch someone beat a

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...

directly onto a microphone. The recording was somewhat speeded up, reportedly to the disappointment of Dennis D'Ell, who regretted that he could not reproduce this sound on stage.

Personnel

* Denis D'Ell – vocals * Martin Murray – guitar * Alan Ward - guitar * John Lantree – bass guitar * Honey Lantree – drums * Uncredited - tambourine

Chart success

"Have I the Right?" was presented by Meek to several major labels, who turned it down. It was released in June 1964 by

Pye Records PYE or Pye Records is an independent British record label. It was first established in 1955 and played a major role in shaping rock 'n' roll and pop music history. The Pye name was dropped in 1980 due to trademark issues, after which it produced ...

. Louis Benjamin, Pye’s later chairman, rechristened the group The Honeycombs, a pun on the drummer’s name and her job as a hairdresser's assistant. The single’s sales started slowly, but by the end of July the record started to climb in the UK Singles Chart. At the end of August the record reached No. 1. Outside the UK "Have I the Right?" was a big success too. The song became No. 1 in Australia, Canada and Sweden. In the US the record reached No. 5 and in the Netherlands No. 2. "Have I the Right?" sold worldwide about two million copies within a year.

Lawsuit

In July 1965, the British music magazine ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' reported that it had been agreed in the London High Court that "Have I the Right?" was the work of Howard and Blaikley. Composer Geoff Goddard agreed to drop allegations that he, and not they, had written the song. Goddard had been Meek's principal songwriter, but the two had fallen out. He claimed that the song was adapted from his earlier song "Give Me The Chance", but was too shy to testify in court.

German version

The Honeycombs also recorded a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

version of the song: "Hab ich das Recht?" (Deutsche Vogue, DV 14210). Both the English and the German version reached No. 21 in the German charts: the English one in October, the German one in November 1964. The German version was recorded without the group’s stamping their feet on the stairs and without speeding up. One line was left out, so the German version is still shorter than the English one.

Later versions

The song was recorded 13 years later, in 1977, by Scottish

boy band A boy band is a vocal group consisting of young male singers, usually in their Teenage, teenage years or in their twenties at the time of formation. Generally, boy bands perform love songs marketed towards girls and young women. Many boy bands ...

Dead End Kids The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York City who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play '' Dead End'' in 1935. In 1937, producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film. They ...

. Their version peaked at number six in the UK singles chart, and topped the Irish pop charts for two weeks.. It also peaked at number 36 in Australia.

Dead Kennedys Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band that formed in San Francisco, California, in 1978. The band was one of the defining punk bands during its initial eight-year run. Initially consisting of lead guitarist East Bay Ray, bassist Klaus Fl ...

played the song in their concerts in the 1970s. A version is featured on their live album ''

Live at the Deaf Club ''Live at the Deaf Club'' is a live album released by the Dead Kennedys in 2004 and had a limited edition re-release 2013 in the UK on Let Them Eat Vinyl. The actual performance took place at the San Francisco Deaf Club on March 3, 1979. The ...

''.

Off Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

included the song on their 1997 album ''Fallin' In''. The song appears on the 2006 live album ''Rockin' the Paradiso'' by

Chris Spedding Christopher John Spedding (born Peter Robinson, 17 June 1944) is an English guitarist and record producer. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Spedding is best known for his studio session work. By the early 1970s, he had become one of th ...

and Robert Gordon.

Charts

Notes and references

External links

Lyrics and additional information for "Have I the Right?"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Have I The Right 1964 debut singles UK singles chart number-one singles Song recordings produced by Joe Meek Songs written by Ken Howard (composer) Songs written by Alan Blaikley RPM Top Singles number-one singles 1964 songs Pye Records singles