The Searchers' 10 best songs, ranked

26 June 2025, 13:46

By Mayer Nissim

As The Searchers wind up their remarkable career, we celebrate their biggest moments.

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The Searchers have threatened to retire a few times in recent years, but this time it looks like it's the real deal.

The pop icons and key British Invasion figures will retire for good after their debut at the Glastonbury Festival in 2025.

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The band have been around pretty much non-stop since way back in 1959, and it was in the 1960s that they scored hit after hit after hit.

Picking out just their ten greatest songs has meant missing off a few classics. We had to lose great tracks like 'Bumble Bee' and 'Goodbye My Love'.

But what we've got left, I'm sure you'll agree, is 10 poptastic moments from one of the era's very best groups.

What Have They Done to the Rain

The Searchers "What Have They Done to the Rain" 1964

American folk singer and activist Malvina Reynolds (who wrote 'Little Boxes' for Pete Seeger) wrote 'What Have They Done to the Rain' as a protest song, warning against the dangers of nuclear testing ("And the grass is gone, the boy disappears/ And rain keeps falling like helpless tears").
Over the years it was performed by The Seekers, Marianne Faithful, Melanie Safka and Joan Baez, but it was The Searchers version from 1964 that was the biggest hit.
The song reached number 13 in the US and number 29 in the US, and was one of the first mainstream pop songs to deal with modern environmental issues.
He's Got No Love

The Searchers - He's Got No Love (1965)

Many of The Searchers hits were cover songs, but 'He's Got No Love was written by the band's Chris Curtis and Mike Pender.
"I played the slide guitar figure and the chord sequence to Chris. He put down the lyrics and we both came up with the group's first self-penned Top 20 hit," said Pender.
It was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and its riff bore a passing resemblance to The Rolling Stones 'The Last Time'.
Someday We're Gonna Love Again

Someday We're Gonna Love Again

Originally recorded by proto-R&B star Barbara Lewis, The Searchers released their version of 'Someday We're Gonna Love Again' as a single in 1964.
The boys gave the song a more Merseybeat vibe than the original without losing any of its sass and swing.
The track got to number 11 in the UK and number 23 in the US.
Goodbye My Love

The Searchers - Goodbye My Love

Originally written and recorded as 'Goodbye My Lover Goodbye' by Robert Mosely, The Searchers took their version all the way to number four in the UK and a respectable 52 in the US.
It's a rare breakup song from the dumper rather than the dumpee ("You've done nothing wrong/ This love can't go on") with a twinge of jealousy the underlying reason ("I can't go on sharing you").
Don't Throw Your Love Away

NEW * Don't Throw Your Love Away - The Searchers {Stereo} Summer 1964

Philadelphia R&B group The Orlons originally recorded 'Don't Throw Your Love Away', which was written by Billy Jakson and Jimmy Wisner.
Their version was buried as the B-side of their number 55 US single 'Bon-Doo-Wah' in 1963, and it was The Searchers who unearthed it and made it a real hit the following year
As well as taking it to number 16 in the US (better than The Orlons mattered), the song went all the way to number 1 in the UK.
Sugar and Spice

The Searchers - Sugar And Spice (1963)

Tony Hatch, he who wrote 'Downtown' for Petula Clark, wrote 'Sugar and Spice' for The Searchers under the name Fred Nightingale.
He had based it on the band's previous hit 'Sweets for My Sweet', which he had produced. It was apparently because of that previous work with the band that he submitted it under a fake name, as he didn't want to put them off working with him in a different capacity,
The lyrics cribbed from both the old gender prescriptive nursery rhyme and Pete Seeger/Lee Hays' 'Kisses Sweeter than Wine'.
It went to number 44 in the US, number 2 in the UK, and was later an American hit for The Cryan' Shames in 1966.
When You Walk in the Room

The Searchers - When you walk in the room - 1964.

It was Jackie DeShannon who wrote and first recorded 'When You Walk in the Room',
Jackie first released it in 1963 as the B-side to 'Till You Say You'll Be Mine', re-releasing it the following year as an A-side.
It wasn't the first Jackie DeShannon song The Searchers would cover (more on the other, shortly), and they turned it into a major UK hit the same year Jackie's version was released, flying all the way up to number 3.
A resonant tale of overwhelming ( and unrequited?) love ("Trumpets sound and I hear thunder boom"), the song has remained properly over the years, with covers by Paul Carrack, Status Quo and ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog.
Love Potion No. 9

NEW * Love Potion Number Nine - The Searchers {Stereo}

The Searchers' biggest hits were often covers of songs by other artists and that was also true of 'Love Potion No. 9'.
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote the cheeky track about the overpowering aphrodisiac that ends in disaster ("But when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine / He broke my little bottle of Love Potion No 9") in 1959.
It was a hit for The Clovers first, and an even bigger one for The Searchers.
Further covers would come from Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Johnny Kongos & the G-Men, Ronnie Dio & The Prophets, The Surfers, The Crystals, The Coasters, Sha Na Na, Neil Diamond, Joe Escobar, The White Stripes and punk duo John Cooper Clarke and Hugh Cornwell, among others.
The song went on to inspire the 1992 romcom of the same name starring Santa Bullock and Tate Donovan.
Sweets for My Sweet

The Searchers - Sweets For My Sweet (1966)

Rock 'n' roll songwriting duo Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman wrote 'Sweets for My Sweet' and it was first recorded by US group The Drifters, featuring Charlie Thomas on lead.
It's worth a quick mention that this hit version featured Cissy "mum of Whitney" Houston, Doris Troy, Dionne Warwick, and Dee Dee Warwick.
On to The Searchers version. It was the group's debut single and turned them Ito an overnight success, going all the way to number one in the UK singles chart (even The Beatles didn't manage that).
No messing about, it was an unashamed love song about the power of a kiss ("Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey / Your first sweet kiss thrilled me so") that has absolutely endured.
In the 1990s, CJ Lewis gave the song an unlikely raga overhaul and took it up the charts once more, peaking at number 3.
Needles and Pins

The Searchers "Needles And Pins" on The Ed Sullivan Show

The Searchers would later record 'When You Walk in the Room', a song written/recorded by Jackie DeShannon, but their very best Jackie cover was 'Needles and Pins'.
DeShannon scored a minor hit with the track, scraping into the US Hot 100 at number 84 in 1963
The song is credited solely to Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono, though Jackie has said that she was present and participating when the song was written.
Whoever was responsible for that first version, it was The Searchers who took the song stratospheric when they recorded it the following year.
The band had actually heard fellow Brit Cliff Bennet performing the song at the Star-Club in Hamburg, and raced to record it and release it before he got the chance.
It was an excellent decision, and the song not only peaked at number 13 in the US, far outperforming Jackie DeShannon's version, but also topped the UK singles chart.
Future covers would come from Cher (the wife of the song's co-writer Sonny Bono), Gene Clark, Petula Clark, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Stevie Nicks and, for their 1978 album Road to Ruin, the Ramones.