Backing their haunting, sub-gothic cover of Michael Carr’s ‘Man Of Mystery’ (recorded at the stroke of midnight at Abbey Road, just to heighten the effect) came something possibly darker than the Edgar Wallace Mysteries the A-side was used to soundtrack. Written by hitmakers Bill Crompton and Morgan Jones, ‘The Stranger’ evoked a parched and lonesome cowboy surveying a desolate prairie with a look of heightening despair, as he pondered the big existential questions. With its mystical drums and resonant bass blues topped by Hank Marvin’s typically bendy, slightly dry lead lines, it surpassed the previous B-side gold of ‘The Quartermaster’s Store’ (chugging flip of the unbeatable ‘Apache’) and retained its tight-lipped creators slightly unknowable air. A great double-header that helped sustain the Shadows early 60s chart run, although any notion that they the public no longer viewed them as Cliff Richard’s backing group would be put to bed by the incoming Beatles. Within a few years they putting in two panto stints a day together in Aladdin at the London Palladium.