Driven by it its inclusion in the 1994 film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, this cover by Scottish Pop Rock group, Wet Wet Wet topped the UK Charts for 15 consecutive weeks.  But just as it was about to equal the record of 16 weeks held by Bryan Adams, lead singer Marti Pellow had it be pulled from the stores.  He claimed that everyone had grown bored of “Love is All Around” and that he had overheard people complaining about it.

Certainly one person who never complained was Reginald Maurice Ball, aka Reg Presley, the song’s composer who used the royalties from Wet Wet Wet’s cover to fund research into a subject he was passionate about: crop circles.  He later published his findings in his 2002 book, “Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us.”

Crop circles are those strange formations we’ve all seen featured in Hollywood films, or on some of the wilder cable television channels, that usually appear in the darkness of night, spawning a plethora of explanations ranging from natural phenomena to the paranormal (i.e. messages from extraterrestrials) and old folkloric tales.

Crop circle specialists, known as “Cereologists” discount human involvement, acknowledging that humans have long attempted to discredit the phenomenon, and emphatically point out that crop circles are usually found near ancient megaliths like Stonehenge or other points of archeological interest. This is why many New Age spiritual groups have incorporated them into their belief systems and why they are culture dependent, appearing in Western countries and Japan but never in Muslim societies.

In his book Presley expresses his belief that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial visitors on a number of occasions, and that crop circles are evidence that the world’s governments secretly acknowledge but take great precautions to hide from their citizenries. He also disputes the mainstream scientific community’s claims that crop circles have long been formed with great precision by jokesters…who use a rope that has one end tied to an anchor point, and the other end attached to a board that is used to crush the crops.

“Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us” was an obvious choice for Reg Presley, of course, whose group, the Troggs reached Number 1 on the Billboard Charts (Number 2 in the UK) with the Chip Taylor song, “Wild Thing” in 1966. Followed closely by a Presley penned hit, “With a Girl Like You” it was the following year that he wrote this song that was inspired by the Joy Strings Salvation Army Band song, “Love That’s All Around”

Reaching Number 5 in the UK and Number 7 on the Billboard Chart, the Troggs original may not have reached the heights of its famous Wet Wet Wet cover, but for a brief time in 1967 the world felt “it” in its fingers none-the-less, to the eventual appreciation of conspiracy theorists and music fans everywhere.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Monday 17 September

Love Is All Around

I feel it in my fingers

I feel it in my toes

Love is all around me

And so the feeling grows

 It’s written on the wind

It’s everywhere I go, oh yes, it is

So if you really love me

Come on and let it show, oh

You know, I love you, I always will

My mind’s made up

By the way that I feel

There’s no beginning

There’ll be no end

‘Cause on my love you can depend

I see your face before me

As I lay on my bed

I kinda get to thinking

Of all the things you said, oh yes I did

You gave your promise to me

And I gave mine to you

I need someone beside me

In everything and I do, oh yes I do

 You know, I love you, I always will

My mind’s made up by the

Way that I feel

There’s no beginning

There’ll be no end

‘Cause on my love you can depend

Got to keep it movin’

Ooh, it’s written in the wind

Oh, everywhere I go, yeah, ooh well

So if you really love me, love me, love me

Come on and let it show

Come on and let it show

(Come on and let it)

(Come on and let it)

Come and let it show, baby

(Come on and let it)

 Come on, come on, come on let it show, baby

(Come on and let it)

(Come on and let it)

Come on and let it show

Come on and let it show, baby

Come on and let it show