Return to sender Elvis Presley

A beautiful song from a beautiful singer, a 60s song which could have been written about today's mess

What a lovely voice, clear lyrics and a realistic story, what a gem.❤😊

This is just a lovely tune

Verdelle is still out here. She is such a nice lady and quite spiritual. Still singing and sharing the love.

This song brings back great memories 💋💌💋❤❤❤

A song so nice you have to hear it twice. So universal, most everyone has something gone form the past they wish they could get back. And the loss of so many bucolic environs, how that can tug at the heart strings.

Brilliant number by Verdelle❤❤

Beautiful song, stunningly lovely woman. I experienced these lyrics: from when Verdelle sang them, when I was a kid in the 60s, to my middle age, when I've gone back to my small town and very little is left. Lots of songs around on this theme, but "Tar and Cement" is tough and real, a song to carry with you.

This song makes me want to return to my country town in Queensland Australia and when I do, I am never disappointed as it is as I remember, which is fine with me. Some things should never change.

wow i loved it a sixties classic what a brilliant era . mandami un saluto

To the many Verdele fans.....Verdele Smith..The Greatest Hits has at last been released on CD.............YAY !!!!

@vaughntonkin539

4 жыл бұрын

I'm sticking to my vinyl copies

One of the most underated songs of the sixties...she performed this beautifullly...

This was my record of the week on Pirate BBC Essex in 2009. It was so thrilling to re-introduce this long forgotten sixties gem to listeners and to some for the first time. The great Johnnie Walker liked it so much after hearing it again on Pirate BBC Essex, he played it on Radio 2's Breakfast Show. Top song, great production. I love it when the strings come in and then the backing singers. It's in my Top 20 of 60's music

thnx for posting this, not heard it 1968!!!!brings it all back, many thanx,,,,,,

That is one beautiful photo.

this song is so beautiful!being half italian and half american, i feel so happy to hear both the Celentano version (the original) and this one to express the message that modernization is detrimental to nature. and feel the nostalgia of childhood....mi fa piangere!

Aaahh yes !!! Still poignant today - Where has all the flowers gone - long time passing ???

A friend of mine is a 60's music fan like me and found this for me on a old 45. I played it for my older sisters and they cried cuz it reminds us so much of home

This song did make me realize the cost of our species on nature when I heard this in the 1960s. My family had a few acres in the Sierra foothills and my child friend and I used to roam far a wide as boys, just like Huck Finn. I saw the same place 10 years ago and it was really changed with expensive houses in a gated community. Beautiful song, great voice - tears one's heart.

omg I just love this song great voice great lyrics Takes me back years to happy days when my mum was around we loved listening to music together, Thanks for the memories....

I first heard this beautiful song played on the radio while living in Australia in 2002. The reason it was a huge hit in Oz in the 60's was partly due to the hundreds of thousands of Brits who had migrated there. Many of these migrants, while listening to the words of this song, were reminded of the lush natural beauty and wonderful colours they had left behind. Instead, many of them found, to their disappointment, a dry, dusty, and harsh land. A complete contrast to what they had left behind.

1960s childhood memories of seaside Bicheno, America was great, the fears and anxieties of the world were a universe away. Thanks for posting.

Thank you Tor Hundloe for bringing this song to me.

Reminds me of myself, an 18-year-old scared "country girl" who started working in the big city, missing my friends.

i thought i was the only one who remembered this song... i didn't know she was black, either. i had a crush on this real beauty of a girl back in the mid-60s when this song came out and i envisioned verdelle looking like her, because i used to stare at the picture of this girl on my wall every time the song came on the radio in my upstairs room in pownal, vermont. such a great song and great voice, and yes, the song was very underrated i thought--

One of my very favourite songs from the 1960s. I had the 45 but lost it a long time ago- so lovely to hesr it again. Thanks :)

i am italian, and up to now i knew just the italian (original) version, but today i listened to the french one (Francoise Hardy) and this american one... i love the song and each version has something to it, i think the french language makes it more sweet, the music of this american one makes it a bit less tragic, and the italian one is more nostalgic and melanconic... and i have to say it is the best! ;-)

This classic "Tar and Cement" by Verdelle Smith" is the #14 song of 21 songs on an EPIC CD appropriately named "Hard To Find 45's On CD, Volume7: More Sixties Classics" This song was remastered in stereo for the 1st time on this EPIC CD by the legendary Bob Hyde. Verdelle Smith had one other minor hit -- "In My Room" just prior to "Tar and Cement." roadwarrior3 (posted 4-30=2007)

@vaughntonkin539

4 жыл бұрын

Mono vinyl sounds better, music f**ked into stereo not good

lovely version

*probably the song that started me in music born in '54 song came out in 1966 so 12 years old . .. this was a massive hit downunder - mind is blown i thought she was a C/W singer a white woman - but it all fits together now that i hear and see her - amazing songwriting and singing*... beside the point . point ..>> local radio plays stuff now and then... this was offered to so and so..but turned down my jaw hits the ground when i hear who some of these hits were originally offered to and the reasons why they turned them down.

great version.........and so is joe dolan.s

Thank you, jenzarcade, for sharing this song. I think we've done a pretty good job of taring and cementing everything.

Beautiful. I'll take this version, hands down.

This became a huge hit in Sweden 1967, with Anna-Lena Löfgren - "Lyckliga Gatan" and sold good in Norway to.

Hey goget, same here! I'm in Melbourne and this makes me think of where I grew up in Hobart. All around our house, we had acres of meadows and trees overlooking the Derwent River. Today, that ground is bedecked with the most hideous rack-em-up houses, jammed hard up against each other. **Sigh**

@richarddalton8105

6 жыл бұрын

brokenscimitar I was brought up in Hobart. We lived on the Derwent. I agree with your Sentiments.

Never heard it but its so nice. Wonderful voice.

This brilliant song was played on Austar radio the other night. I hadn't heard the song before but thought it would stand strong today. Thanks for posting

all the best verdelle hope your fit and well

I love this song. For those wondering where Verdelle is now, ABC Adelaide did a fantastic interview with her and one of the writers of this song: find it by searching for Verdelle+ABC on your favourite search engine.

Wow! What a great song. I hope that someone can post her other songs, especially "Alone in my room" I hear it's incredible. Thanks for posting this.

She's still recording and wrote a new song in honor of Barack Obama. I managed to get her on my tv show. Check out her song on my channel.

Hi Brokenscimitar, I first was touched by this song growing up in Hobart in the mid 60's. I thought the lyrics were relevant then and more so now. Growing up in Hobart was brilliant. I still call myself a Taswegian eventhough I have lived in north queensland for the last 30 years.

@rodneyobrien1262

Жыл бұрын

Hobart brilliant in the 60's. Totally agree.

Listening to this song makes me cry until I laugh. Reading your comment makes me laugh until I cry. "Soylent Green... is... PEOPLE!!!!!!!" I can imagine where your Bloody Mary gets all its color and vitamins!

Don't miss the opportunity to listen the same song sung by Joe Dolan - a great singer .I am afraid it's not on KZread , for the moment.

Thank you so much for posting this.

Larrypryo is right. There are two versions of the Capitol single and I also have both of them. Truly one of the most perfect records ever made. And if there exists a better juxtaposition of strings and backing vocals on a record, I have yet to hear it! These days, Verdelle Smith lives in New York. She definitely needs to be coaxed out of retirement!!

I had not heard this version till today. I am more familiar with Francoise Hardy's "La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi". Both songs are just stunning. The difference is in the delivery. Both bring something special and unique to the song. Francoise' always makes me sad no matter what. This song makes me teary eyed for my childhood. Except when I went home again everything was exactly the way I left it, just 16 years later.

Who wrote this tear jerker? Verdell sings it with passion. Being beautiful was just a bonus.

Great song,beautifully sung - thanks for the remastered version, it is better than the original.

@vaughntonkin539

4 жыл бұрын

Won't trade my 45 EP for digital, going back to 89 when I discovered CD, sadly my parent's orig copy got sold at yard sale due to my stupidity along with Slim Dusty Trumby EP, it cost me lot more to get them back

This is the beautifull english cover version of Italian singer/composer Adriano Celentano, when in Milan in Italy he lived then, all new houses and towers of concrete material was builded, but this word doesn't fit in his lyrics and melody, so tar and cement it was! SoulmanHarryNL

roadwarrior3 I can't help you there. I don't know what became of Verdelle Smith after achieving some modest fame with "Tar and Cement."

WTF? The Brits left behind depressingly crap weather, run-down council tenements, post-war rationing and poor job prospects. In Oz they got great weather, their own homes, a booming economy and a lifestyle near the coast that they could only dream about. This great song was a hit in many countries.

I know it wasn't a big hit but is there any chance to post 'In My Room', released prior to this one? It was a better song yet I like this one very much too. Verdelle's from St Pete, FLA. Thank you!

Can someone post the Francoise Hardy version? I don't quite agree with Sampea, who says this is better than Verdelle Smith's; both have the 'right' voice for this beautiful melody and terrific lyrics

Are you surprised that it is hot in the tropics? You should get out more. Most of the pop lives in a temperate climate with 4 seasons, and snow on the alps during winter. I guess you didn't get around much. Lush is a quaint term for a wet, bleak, and overcast climate. Strangely, wasn't London having a drought in 2006? No storage dams or reservoirs? I think 1 million UK migrants can't be wrong. I know one family that went back to UK in 75. Returned here in 76 and stayed!

@BluBayou1 download limewire and get it that way ...free

I was shocked while living in Oz to hear of the poor treatment toward migrants in the 50's/60's. Many lived in hostels for a year with up to 50 people and only 1 toilet. Skilled workers couldn't find jobs that paid a decent wage. Did they leave behind "crap weather"? Yes, we get plenty of rain but the result is a lush green countryside. Oz is stinking hot and a severe drought in it's 12th year. The result is only two colours to their landscape; brown and even browner! Where are the lilacs in Oz?

Return to sender Elvis Presley