Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men (1968)

Would the world of psychedelic music have been complete WITHOUT this song? I can’t imagine it! The nerve of some people calling this “bubblegum psychedelia“ (LOL). Yeah, right up there with The Ohio Express and The Archies! What a horrid thought. The “matchstick men“ as it turns out were intended to be the human figures that populated the art city landscapes painted by L. S. Lowry, not actual matchstick men like “the dancing men“ figures that appear in the Sherlock Holmes story of the same title by Arthur Conan Doyle. Oh well, have my own “matchstick men“ (not really all that matchstick like) playing guitars in this video. And, as the song lyrics go, the singer is also quite preoccupied or obsessed by a certain young lady’s quite lovely face. Managed that one pretty well, I hope. Ultimately, it is all rather sad: “You in the sky you with this guy you make men cry you lie.“ But I didn’t dwell. Why ruin such a sunny, summer psychedelic hit w