'The Sight of Her Raised My Blood Pressure': The Inspiration for the Hollies' 'Carrie Anne'

‘200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt

Photo byMusic on Vinyl Records

“Carrie Anne” was a 1967 Top 10 hit for British Invasion band the Hollies. The tune was written by bandmates Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Graham Nash. In his autobiography Wild Tales, Nash explains that the song was first titled “Hey Mr. Man.”

“We were rehearsing for a tour at Albert Hall. Marianne Faithfull was on the bill. We’d known her since she was 16, an insanely stunning woman. She was brilliant at image, a pretty good voice.

“The sight of her raised my blood pressure, and gradually ‘Hey Mr. Man’ morphed into ‘Hey, Marianne . . . what’s your game now, can anybody play?’ But we chickened out. We made up a name that we’d never heard before: Carrie Anne.

"Carrie Anne" by the Hollies

“We nailed that track in one session. You can hear the confidence in our voices in the way we pounced on those lyrics. The harmonies surge forward from the opening notes, building right to the crescendo that segues into the verse. It’s a nicely polished performance.

“And then we had the solo played by a steel-drum busker whom [producer] Ron Richards found on the street, that little calliope flourish that winks at the whole affair.”

Despite the popularity of the Hollies’ hits, Nash explained in Acoustic Guitar that coming to America and meeting David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell expanded his musical horizons.

“I was trained in my time with the Hollies to write two-and-a-half-minute songs to play right before the news. We knew how to make hit records; we knew how to create music you couldn’t forget after you heard it twice. But the lyrics were a little juvenile, a little teenager, you know — ‘Riding along on a carousel’ and ‘Hey, Carrie Anne.’

“But when I came to America and started hanging out with David and Stephen and Neil and Joni, my songwriting changed. I realized that if I took the melodic ideas that I’d learned with the Hollies and brought more decent lyrics to those changes, we had a better song.”

Frank Mastropolo is the author of 200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs and 200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs.