The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe

Going back to being an 8 year old, just really getting into music and listening to the radio and hearing all kinds of music mixing together on the radio. I remember hearing this single from an old band that were having hits before I was born! The Hollies were a band from Manchester who were towards the end of their chart hit career. They had a lot of hit singles here and in America during the 60's as part of the so called ''British invasion'' which happened after the Beatles had hit America.

Graham Nash had left the band to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. The Hollies hits were drying up and they recorded this track written by Albert Hammond & Mike Hazlewood, which was included on Hammonds solo album. The Hollies heard the album decided the track was their kind of track and complete with lush orchestral arrangements, this ballad hit the charts in February 1974 and raced up to number 2 and made the top 10 in America. It would be the last major hit for the band until the mid 80's re- issue of He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother after an advert had used the song and pushed it to number 1!

The song has been covered many times by a number of different artists and has become a standard. In 1992 Radiohead were sued as the chords in their single Creep were very similar to the chords on the Hollies version of The Air That I Breathe so they were sued by the writers of the track and are now listed as co writers on the Radiohead track. Here's the single.