Let us go back to the sixties for a bit. This song was so popular in 1965 that rules of the radio hit parade Houpačka (Swing) had to be changed, because Já budu chodit po špičkách remained number one for a year and a half! It remains popular to this day, and it appears in film soundtracks and is regularly played on the radio.
Petr Novák's life story strikes as one of the rather tragic ones in the history of pop music. In his late teens, he was a big fan of the Beatles, and he and his two friends founded a band. They called themselves simply - "Beatles". Of course, before they made their first recording, they changed their name. In 1965, as "George and Beatovens", they recorded a few songs on a tape recorder and sent them to Jiří Černý, at the time director of the radio hit parade Houpačka. He picked two songs - "Já budu chodit po špičkách" and "Povídej" (Tell Me). The songs became an immediate success. Novák's two friends were drafted, but after their return two years later, the band resumed its track. This was the time of the greatest artistic success for Novák.
Unfortunately, again, the political circumstances came to play. Novák got in trouble right in 1969 when, at the music festival Bratislava Lyre, he declared a minute of silence for
Jan Palach. Due to his popularity, he did not get an official ban to perform, but the regime that frowned upon western-influenced music and his notorious hard-partying and drinking (combined with not eating; at one point, he would have a beer instead of breakfast, and then another instead of lunch) encouraged organizers not to hire him any more. After his lyricist Ivo Plicka emigrated in 1975, Novák was never able to fully resume his once-promising career. After '89, there was a renewed interest in his music, but due to his anorexia, he was getting ill, and he died in 1997 (aged 51) of heart failure and total exhaustion of his organism.
His friends recall him as being incredibly sensitive and kind. This reflects in both his songs and his vocal performance - a high, tender voice with a melancholic, romantic quality. His songs cover a large variety of subjects - from a tender lover putting his girlfriend to sleep, to the confession of a dying clown, but what connects all of them is profound sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and contemplation.
