Jackie Lee was only 31 when she recorded the sublime theme song to White Horses in 1968, but she was already a musical veteran. Born Jacqueline Flood in Dublin, she had been a child prodigy who graduated to singing with Irish showbands. After moving to London, she launched a solo career and then became the lead vocalist with quartet The Raindrops from 1959 to 1964. The group’s 1962 song There’s No One In The Whole Wide World even caught the attention of the pre-fame Beatles, who covered it in their live set.
Restarting her career as a solo singer, Jackie didn’t achieve the level of fame her talent deserved during the Sixties. Nevertheless, she released several excellent singles, as well as topping the UK charts twice in 1967 as a backing vocalist on Green, Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones and Release Me by Englebert Humperdink. A year earlier, demonstrating her versatility, she had contributed backing vocals to The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s version of Hey Joe.
Jackie was reportedly not keen to record White Horses at first because it was for a children’s show. The BBC had purchased a 13-part, 1965 drama – a collaborative effort between TV companies from Yugoslavia and Germany – about a teenage girl who spends her holidays with white Lippizaner horses at her uncle’s farm. It was customary at the time to dub European shows into English and a new theme tune was also required. When Jackie eventually heard the proposed song, which was written by Michael Carr and Ben Nisbet, she fell in love with it.
A nation of children fell in love with it, too. Performing under the name Jacky, the singer’s vocal is dreamy but also contains a hint of wistfulness. It lands perfectly in that elusive sweet spot between joy and sadness. The song glides like a Lippizaner across a meadow, propelled by its uncomplicated instrumentation and crisp production. With White Horses being repeated almost every summer holiday until 1978, for people of a certain age the show and its theme will be inextricably linked to memories of a more innocent age.
