I wrote about John Carter when choosing his glorious faux Beach Boys record Beach Baby, which was a hit in the US too:
The song was written by John Carter and his wife Jill Shakespeare. Carter had already written Funny How Love Can Be for The Ivy League and Let's Go to San Francisco for The Flowerpot Men.
He had also sung the lead on Winchester Cathedral (in reality recorded by a group of session musicians but credited to The New Vaudeville Band) and backing vocals on The Who's I Can't Explain.
The First Class did not exist any more than The New Vaudeville Band or a number of other groups credited with Carter's hits had, so when Beach Baby made the charts a group had to be assembled to appear on Top of the Pops, (The Bonzos, incidentally, turned down the chance to tour as The New Vaudeville Band.)
Conversations is another John Carter song and full of mellotron goodness - the opening sounds like something off Odessey and Oracle. You can find it on a four-disc set of his work: My World Fell Down: The John Carter Story.
It was originally one piece, but was split over two sides for its unsuccessful release as a single in 1968, so I have included both parts here.
As to who is singing, a comment on a page devoted to the record says:
According to Mike Read's excellent and comprehensive South Coast Beat Scene in the 1960s, the singer was David Denton (real name David McClean) previously with West Sussex group The Deltas.
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