Story of the song: Coming on Strong by Brenda Lee

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Note perfect: the singer performing at the London Palladium in 1964 (Getty)

“The radio’s playin’ some forgotten song/ Brenda Lee’s ‘Coming on Strong’.” When the Dutch rockers Golden Earring namechecked Lee’s tear-jerker in their sweaty 1973 hit “Radar Love”, they brought home a lost classic.

Lee – the original “Little Miss Dynamite”, born Brenda Mae Tarpley in Atlanta, Georgia – began her singing career as a child star in the Fifties, scoring with a bunch of country/rockabilly crossovers, and playing Hamburg with The Beatles. By 1966, she was nudging 22 and running out of juice. She’d already cut the harder-edged “Is it True?” in London, featuring Jimmy Page on guitar. But for what would be her final mainstream hit, she was back on familiar ground.

Wallowing in a bluesy, country twang, “Coming on Strong” smudges the eyeliner at first listen: “I can feel the heartaches/ Comin’ on strong/ I can feel the teardrops/ The pain, and the sorrow/ Ever since you’ve been gone/ They’ve been comin’ on strong”. It was written by “Little” David Wilkins, the larger-than-life Tennessee troubadour, once billed as the biggest man in country music.