This homsepun slice of whisky-soaked wisdom turned tough-guy actor Lee Marvin into the unlikeliest of one-hit wonders when it topped the charts in 1970.

As a child recently introduced to the weekly parade on Top of the Pops in 1970, I was amazed that someone so old (he was 45 but sounded twice that thanks to a lifetime of booze and fags) could possible make a pop record.

Or someone so apparently unable to sing properly: I remember in the playground at school we would compete with one another to get our not-yet-broken boys’ voices to go as deep and low as his… something I still can’t do.

I didn’t know then that Lee Marvin was a screen superstar whose life was as hard-boiled as the characters he usually played. A former Marine who had been wounded in WWII, he was a hard-drinking chain-smoking tough guy both on and off screen.

His roles included Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat, John Ford’s s The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance and Don Siegel’s The Killers. He also played the leader of The Dirty Dozen in Robert Aldrich’s anti-war classic, and in John Boorman’s brilliant noir thriller Point Blank.

Nor did I know that this song was written (by Lerner & Loewe) for the stage musical Paint Your Wagon, and this version – elaborately orchestrated by Nelson Riddle, complete with spooky choir – was recorded for the 1969 film version with Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Curious casting for a musical… which may explain why, despite its superstar cast, it flopped.