Vanishing Dreams: The Rolling Stones: "Angie"

It is a bit awkward to write about a song that is about the pain of separation - in this case, separation not from a person (though this is how the song is understood) but from a drug.  Keith Richards wrote this while in a brutal cold turkey treatment from his heroin addiction, the kind of experience that most people, thankfully, will never have to endure - "The whole body just sort of turns itself inside out and rejects itself for three days" as Richards says.  I have to say it's awkward as I am not an addictive personality by nature* and am quite sensitive to "morphine and his brothers" as an anesthesiologist once told me.  That it has to become a break-up song that seems to be saying goodbye to a lot more than one person is a last defence; a way to keep the weakened, sober and rather abject ex-junkie protected in a way, to keep that final awful pain private**.  (Contrast this with Jagger's rather unsympathetic view of addiction in "Mother's Little Helper" wherein the woman seems to be - or so he thinks - vainly trying to keep herself young.)  In this song all seems to be exhausted, over.  It is beautiful and sad and full of longing, and Jagger sings it as if he (how can he not?) knows what it's really about, and in some way I think that is audible.  I have never felt that this was as solid and believable a song as it wants to be, and that is because of the very necessary evasion of what it's actually about. When the rather irritating line about "no money in our coats" (i.e. how sorry can people be for a rich rock star?) comes up I have to remind myself that this is a song about a dead end, a terminus, a loss.

"No loving in our souls" just about describes it; this is a break-up with a drug personified, a woman who is incomparable, and who is weeping, crying over the loss just as the narrator keeps insisting that it's over, they have suffered too much together.  That a song about a woman/drug could be such a big hit (#1 in the US, an NME #2 in the UK) maybe shows that the long comedown from the 60s was now at its bottom; the strings and piano and beauty in this song giving that raw pain something to hang on to, the "ain't it good to be alive" line sung pathetically, as if both know this to be true and yet unbearable at the same time.  They tried; they tried and it just couldn't work, despite the sweetness.  That the narrator has no idea where to go, what to do, when the clouds will disappear, is uncannily like "Rock On" - where do we go from here?  Here at the bottom, where you-know-what is moving in on its little cat feet, making it very hard indeed to know what, if anything, to do.  Confusion abounds; what was once a routine is gone, a habit is gone, and as we know this song did not mark the end of Richards and heroin (he himself still doesn't know why he started it again).  The gorgeous slow country song meanders and stops to ponder itself, only to give up in the end, unable to answer its own questions.  At least with David Essex there was the conviction that the music itself would somehow help, but here there's only a desperate sadness, a goodbye that sounds very reluctant, a song written just as Richards' fingers were able to play the guitar again, just able to make his calm exhaustion into music.  And so an era passes; a generation hooked on a time and place and feeling, an oh incomparable feeling, have their own sad song to remember this by.  It portends a time that is uneasy, where the hidden prevails, and the glamour of evasiveness is hard to catch, but there.   

Next up:  Well, are you ready? 



*Which isn't to say I don't understand how it can be fun to be enthralled to a person/thing and have the whole cycle of euphoria, joy, and then the inevitable comedown as you realize the reality of the situation and indeed have that reality seem at first merely irritating and then ever-present, until the enthrallment is over and it's like the passing of a fever. 

**It is not just the best things that are hard to talk about, but the worst as well.  That heroin can be both to someone is obvious, and indeed it can be both at the same time, an experience that would mess anyone up.

Behold The Colins: The Faces: "Cindy Incidentally"

Lately I have been pondering the term "bloke":  and while there are many varieties of bloke out there, I tend to think of some of them as Colins.  Colins are traditionalists, no matter what tradition it is they are following, and they tend to look with suspicion at any music that isn't traditional (I think they would use the word "authentic".)  If the Housewives of Valium Court long to be swept away in some sort of masculine cry of emotion, the Colins* regard music as something of a large mirror, reflecting and refracting their lives, lives too big for mere singles.  No, the Colins like albums** - they like the odd single here and there enough, but for their tastes and habits the album is the thing; a collection of songs that let him see himself, that are his soundtrack, the melodies and lyrics to his daily life. 

There is nothing wrong with this, of course; a lot of what makes music enthusiasts makes the Colins what they are, save that the Colins tend to stick to very particular areas, sounds, artists.  And they don't really evolve or change, once they are in their mid-20s.  Not all blokes are Colins, but all Colins are blokes and thus we come, dear readers, to this song. 

This is an anthem to change, to moving on, to leaving your dull town for somewhere else; and I can imagine it resonating with a lot of people, way beyond the Colins (who would have waited for the album Ooh La La to come out, being album people and whatnot).  It is hard not to hear it now as a song Rod Stewart is singing to himself, that he has to leave The Faces and indeed the UK; and this was to be the last album he did with them; on his own he was a star and the roughness of The Faces was something he wanted to leave behind***.  (Greil Marcus calls Stewart's albums with the band "let's go get drunk" music, and is willing to accept that far more than Stewart at the time did.)  Long before he did his Great American Songbook stuff, Stewart wanted to immerse himself in that smooth American soul sound, to make music in that tradition.  As much as the Colins love The Faces, they respect Stewart's need to do this - to adhere to tradition - and I suppose this makes Stewart a Colin himself. 

This song, where he tells the girl in question to pack up and move out with him, could be heard (I guess) as his wishing he could take The Faces along for the ride.  But what if it's otherwise?  How mean would it be to write a song about how dull your band is, and have them play on it?  As mean as calling the resulting album a "stinking rotten" one, and then saying that it could have been done better.  There is so much goodwill and bonhomie in the early 70s, but by now it is starting to disintegrate; and Stewart, who no doubt regards himself by now as a "professional" is eagerly anticipating the day when he leaves town, leaves his old once-friends behind and starts his life anew.

That life, according to Marcus, is one in which "he exchanged passion for sentiment, the romance of sex for a tease, a reach for mysteries with tawdry posturing" and thus betrays his talent.  Stewart isn't the only rock star who leaves the UK for the US but his decision to do so seems to me to be one he would have made even he actually liked what he and the The Faces were doing; that he didn't think they could do what he wanted them to just made it easier for him.

But what of the non-Colins who bought this?  Were they just as eager to leave their own dingy corners and head off to places elsewhere?  Anyone would have heard this at the time and felt some sympathy with the urge to go somewhere more exciting; a few though, would stay right at home and try to make excitement for themselves.  Rod Stewart is his own weathervane here, and his fans long for that freedom to move, which some may take up, others, not...the Colins will understand, even if their escape is mostly pub talk and their main dream is owning a shed or two.

Next up:  the Glam Slam continueth.           



*Named after one man who was niggling a point on a nationwide radio show, most likely Radio 2, which is in part a Colin-friendly station.

**The recent BBC tv and radio shows heralding the album were either wrong-headed (re-recording Please Please Me) or mind-boggling (one BBC broadcaster said that disco was the anti-r&b).

***It is interesting to note that the whole pub rock movement kind of takes off once Stewart leaves and The Faces break up; and that whole idea of dismissing a band because it can't play will rebound in a few years as well...

(Don't) Remember Me: McGuinness Flint: “When I’m Dead And Gone”

And so this year ends, with strange logic, in a contemplation of life beyond that of the singer. Symbolically it couldn’t be more clear – something is ending – what I am not sure – which can only mean that something else is around the corner.  That there’s a prominent mandolin here is something of a clue, I guess; this is more of the ‘back to the basics’ movement of cheery folk, the folk who want to live easy and die without giving anyone grief.  This is a song for those who want their funerals to be a celebration, full of good memories and appreciation rather than sorrow and mourning.  The death here is one that the singer knows is coming, perhaps, or maybe he’s already resigned to its inevitability; and he has made peace with it, in a common sense way.  (It is sort of the English folk relation to “And When I Die” by Laura Nyro, only far more laid back.) 

There is a kind of odd selfishness here though – no epitaph?  Really?  Nothing with your name on it, at least?  The singer is modest here, sure, but maybe also a little short-sighted.  What he wants – no gloom, no doom – is almost by definition out of his control.  The ease in his mind – that his woman and daughter will be safe – could only be the ease of someone who maybe doesn’t spend much time with them anyway, or else, wouldn’t they miss him?  This seems to be a song sung by someone who is eager to be unattached to anyone or anything, even any marker saying they existed in the first place.  This kind of selfish humility – the kind that doesn’t want to be remembered, even as they are telling others not to remember them – comes with a kind of pastoral bumpkin sing-a-long that sounds resigned, resolved, maybe even happy. 

That this song may be about Robert Johnson makes some sense; it is a young man’s song, one where there are no strong attachments, to places, people, things; he doesn’t want a marker because he is everywhere and nowhere once he’s dead.  And maybe he’s acted towards others so irresponsibly that they wouldn’t miss him once he was gone after all;  he sold his soul to play like that, what did you expect, a long and happy life?  But I feel this is sentimentalizing Johnson’s life, to claim he was so blithe about how things would be after his death.  His records don’t sound like that; they are full of life and its struggles, to say the least, and profound joys and sorrows.  He doesn’t sound, to me, like a man who wants no epitaph, no remembrance; he wants his own griefs to end, is more like it*.

That McGuinness Flint was a supergroup of sorts is obvious from their name**; that they struggled after this hit also seems with hindsight obvious, with Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle (who wrote this) eventually breaking away in 1971 to have their own success as a duo.  Someone else must have picked up on the mandolin though, but soon enough a group that used to record hippie folk will appear here, because what the charts need is elegant boogie.  And so begins 1971…

*That this should be a hit after “Voodoo Chile” went to #1 shows the difference between the faux-modesty here and the exultant claims of Hendrix, who had every right to sing what he did; and lest we forget, Eric Clapton is in the US with Derek and the Dominoes at this time, exorcising his own demons.  Their music is alive in a way that this song isn’t.

**Tom McGuinness was ex-Manfred Mann; Hughie Flint was one of the many musicians who’d been in John Mayall’s group.  They continued on until 1975, making good music but to less and less interest from the public.

Rock of Ages: The Beatles: "Let It Be"

There can be no surer sign that the 60s were well and truly over than the breakup of The Beatles; if they had been able to continue for even another year, then the 60s would have ended then. But they broke up and continued to break up all through the late 60s, like so many booster rockets that fall away, energy burning up at a terrific rate to get the main thing, the music, launched. The falling apart happened after Brian Epstein’s death and simply accelerated after that, until April 1970, when Paul – who had been carrying the band on his back and yet secretly recording his own album – left, releasing McCartney soon after.

Cue the misery of a million fans, who maybe weren’t ready for such an abrupt ending, even if they could see it coming. (In Apollo 13 one of the astronaut’s daughters has a screaming fit and won’t leave her room when she hears the news; this must have happened in every town in the world.) Post-Sgt. Pepper, the group splintered and effaced themselves and tried to invent indie by simply producing themselves and ended up getting George Martin back after that didn’t really work. Perhaps had he lived they would have rebelled against Epstein too, but as he was gone they had no rudder going into starting and running the Apple corporation, including fashion and publishing, not to mention their rather pointless pouring of money into a new studio when Abbey Road was their natural home. (The Rolling Stones, being the vagabonds they were, had a mobile studio and this worked out much better for them, in that they could rent it to other bands while they were living their complex lives.)

But if the fans were led to believe – by who I’m not sure – that Yoko Ono was to blame for the breakup, this is because they couldn’t or wouldn’t perceive what was actually happening; the group was breaking itself up, and had been together only in name by this time for months. McCartney had kept the ragtag bunch going long after everyone else had lost enthusiasm, making them record “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” pretty much against their wills (McCartney was convinced it could be a big hit, Lennon hated it) and patronizing, without meaning to, Harrison and Starr. McCartney wrote this song while working on The Beatles, inspired by a consoling dream he’d had after another day of bickering in the studio. His late mother, Mary, appeared to him, telling him that things would work themselves out.

It is a simple song, gospel in that is it warm and comforting, the whole song structured towards resolution, as opposed to a call-and-response gospel of reaffirmation of the spirit. It is a song of calmness and hope (“there will be an answer”) of a specific kind as opposed to a mystical experience which leads to an epiphany. It is an optimistic song, as McCartney wants the peace he has found to spread around the world; a bit of 60s idealism that he knows is still there, even when the sun isn’t shining. The world is full of broken-hearted people, he knows; he wants to share his wisdom with them, and while this might (again) seem a little patronizing*, it is a song of a man who needs whispered wisdom himself, and is eager to spread the word, gospel-style.

This was a time when songs of solace and recognition of “times of trouble” were needed, and this song has become a kind of audio “Keep Calm And Carry On” poster of sorts, being sung and covered, without much evidence of the simple and personal nature of the song. It is meant to be sung by one person, not a choir, and yet it was the penultimate song sung at the London Live Aid concert. More bafflingly, it was recorded in 1987 for Ferry Aid, raising funds for those affected by car ferry The Herald of Free Enterprise’s capsizing due to negligence, flooding with water almost as soon as everyone was on board. Nearly 200 died, many others suffered, and yet the response was…to let it be? Let what be? UK tabloid The Sun had given away cheap tickets for the crossing and after the disaster it put together the benefit single…and tried to get McCartney’s direct involvement, but he would not relent, no doubt thinking giving them permission to sample this song was more than enough [correction: he did appear in the video]. That The Sun was all for profit-maximising, negligence-encouraging capitalism, and then sponsored a single that had everyone singing badly and then congratulating themselves at the end is so far away from the original, I wonder if McCartney would have let them cover it, had he known how (besides Kate Bush) everyone yelled the song instead of singing it as a lullaby**. Because that is what it is.

Yes, the comfort here is a direct one, one from one generation to the next, from one who has gone to one still here; the open intimacy of the song is embarrassing to some, I think, who would prefer Harrison’s spiritual insights or Lennon’s political slant. But this was the last single released while they were still (only just) together. (“The Long And Winding Road” was their last US single, a song that deserved much better than the too-sweet icing that Phil Spector used to cover up the fact that it was a demo with comically bad bass-playing by John Lennon***.)

And that, as they say, is that. The 60s were over, whether the fans liked it or not (and hopes remained high in the 70s that they would reform, especially since Lennon, Harrison and Starr regularly appeared on each other’s records). But anyone who saw Let It Be the movie knew things were too strained for there to be another single, never mind a concert or full-blown comeback. The Beatles were like the Nova Police of pop/rock – “We do our work and go” – and from that there is no return, however much it is yearned for, however much people want it or even need it****. The Fab Four went their separate ways, and fans had the music already; Harrison, Lennon, McCartney and Starr were plunging individually into the 70s now, leaving the public with songs that were about hope and consolation, as if to say, here here, it’s not that bad. Things will be all right. Let it be.

(It would be wrong to end main story of The Beatles without noting that the b-side of "Let It Be" is the divinely silly "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" - the kind of silly thing they would do in studio and then finish later, with shifts in mood and tempo, funny and giddy [Brian Jones and Neil Innes each drop in at times, Jones for the saxophone bit at the end], a piece of multicolored 1967 joy that happily balances out the sober and wiser a-side.)


*That Lennon didn’t much like this one either – he thought it was a Catholic song, which it wasn’t – was yet another straw on McCartney’s back.

**”Ferry Cross The Mersey,” recorded as a consolation and commemoration of the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, one where many Liverpool fans suffered and were then slandered by The Sun, gives McCartney room to vent his anger, an anger that had no doubt had been there since Ferry Aid.

***That Lennon had been so against any studio overdubs and then turned around and brought in Spector to cover his own meagre playing was the very last straw for McCartney, who promptly left the band as soon as he heard it, citing it in court as one of the reasons for the breakup.

****This was just announced today, and of course there was Beatlemania in the 70s/80s for anyone who wanted it (I wanted to see it when I was all of eleven, but no luck).

Time To Say Goodbye: Peter, Paul & Mary: "Leavin' On A Jet Plane"

And so we step from swirling drama to plainspoken fact. The 70s are almost upon us and it is time to leave; even if we enjoyed it, it is over and the future is coldly blank, empty, as empty as a departure lounge once a plane has left; as empty as a life feels without that other person to share it.

What genre of music has been there, lurking in the background, the whole decade, ready to step up for this moment of separation and brave steps into the unknown? Why, folk of course.

And what is folk? That is something I have been pondering, and it’s a tougher question than I expected. It’s far easier to say what it isn’t; it’s not multiple costume changes, strobe lights and elaborate sets; it’s not a category on The X Factor/American Idol; it’s not exactly enamored of show business.

Folk music is of the people, for the people and by the people, hence its name. It celebrates and laments ordinary life, life as lived by the person(s) singing it, whether the story being told is personal , historical or observational. The great songwriting teams dutifully pounding away through the 60s at Motown, the Brill Building or elsewhere had not much to do with folk, though they certainly observed it – all the social struggles of the 60s had a voice in folk, indeed folk led the way (I am counting Bob Dylan as folk, for all intents and purposes here). The early 60s folkies got into rock simply as a way to (literally) amplify their message, and once that had been accomplished, reverted back to their folk/roots/country sounds by the end of the decade. Others just kept strumming and didn’t go rock at all, as it simply wasn’t for them; by far the most famous was Peter, Paul & Mary, who had a lovely hit (amongst many) with their self-deprecating “I Dig Rock And Roll Music” which wasn’t rock at all.

This song was recorded in 1967 (written in 1966 at the airport in Toronto by one John Denver*) and released in 1969, perhaps as a fond farewell of sorts to the decade; no doubt they had been performing it - both Peter, Paul & Mary and The Chad Mitchell Trio (Denver standing in for Mitchell). The song is direct and simple in its way, Mary taking the lead and giving the story - she's sad, she wants forgiveness and unity, but has to go, against her will. Anyone who has had to leave someone at an airport - Toronto or otherwise - will know the sad acceptance here, the longing, the necessary brevity...it is a hushed song, an uneasy one, but Peter, Paul & Mary had been around since 1961; before the psychedelic paisley freak-outs, before the go-go boots and paper dresses, before the British Invasion, even. They were the ones who helped to make Bob Dylan famous, and they are here to help say farewell to the decade (this was a #1 in the US, sitting neatly between two other songs of promised reunions, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye**" and "Someday We'll Be Together"). After the agonies of "Ruby" and "Suspicious Minds" - country and rock - comes the actual departure with folk.

All music is folk music as Lester Bangs says, but I've always thought of it as music that is open, direct, perhaps a bit mysterious and poetical at times, but more than anything, immediate and public, earnest and funny at turns. Folk was there to wake people up, protest, empower, encourage and console; it was only right, at the end of a troubled decade, for it to come back and acknowledge the loneliness and longing at the end, when there was no choice (the 70s being that taxi honking its horn) but to leave. The future is calling, the past is gone, perhaps to be resolved in the future. But for now, a kiss and hug, quiet words, and then distance, the plane taking off into nothingness.

Whether people wanted it to end or not, the 60s were gone, but as we will see, that doesn't mean they will be forgotten; far from it. 1967 in particular haunts and reminds, popping up and flashing back when least expected. One time cannot help but grow and progress from the seeds of another, and folk continues on, true to itself, even if it's not getting into the charts as it once did***. What is left? For many, it's the only option left: the blues. Boogie is up next, but it's boogie with a purpose.


* I can only wonder if he had heard Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain" and wanted to write something like it.

** A personal aside: I always find myself crying at the end of this, even though it's not a sad song, really. The fact that it's sung by fans at the end of games kind of makes it a folk song, in that people are singing it for their own purpose (as opposed to team songs, which are kind of like unofficial anthems).

*** That said, Bruce Springsteen's latest album Wrecking Ball is most certainly folk; as he first was an aspiring folk singer himself back in the mid-60s, this is no surprise.

End of An Era: Stevie Wonder: "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday"

For many, the end of the 60s must have been something of a cross between the ending of a particularly good party and the physical uneasiness after getting off a twisting and turning funfair ride - wobbliness and an odd feeling of being slightly above the ground, feet only sort of connecting with it. There was disappointment as well, a haplessness - that so much went wrong, that the warmth and optimism and high hopes instilled by JFK - his death being the first of many blows - were as transitory and disorienting as that ride, a ride that (if you will) included just about everyone who cared about anything in the 60s, from the students in Paris to the antiwar protesters to civil rights activists. You did not have to be involved directly in the 60s to have this unease; the 60s, even for the most mild-mannered of bystanders, was compelling and involving, inspiring and exhausting.

Here Stevie Wonder sings as if it is the decade itself that he is breaking up with; it is as if the time and the people are bound into one, so much so that when he sings, acutely, "I had a dream" you know he is signifying more than just his own dream, but Dr. King's as well; while Wonder might well be singing specifically to his American audience, it's not as if people in the UK didn't pay attention - everyone did, and this song is big enough to include them, and also big enough to realize that there were "games" played that were more destructive than constructive; and that the world "we once knew" has been lost, a world where everything seemed to turn out right, where everything seemed possible.

That is an awful feeling, I think you will agree, dear readers - and this song, while a bit cloying with its use of "yester"s, gets to the point. The decade is gone; hopes have vanished; time has inevitably passed. Did anyone at this time actually look forward to the 1970s? I do wonder about that, but as so often happens, a decade ends and another begins, with not much noticeable difference at first. One person, however, who was looking forward to the next decade was Wonder himself - still a teenager at this point, he had to do things the way Berry Gordy wanted them done; and for that matter, the sing the songs he wanted him to sing. (Compare this pretty ballad with what Norman Whitfield was doing with the Temptations ["I Can't Get Next To You"] at this time, and Wonder comes off as a little old-fashioned, though not as melancholy as Robin Gibb or stoic as The Bee Gees.) For Motown Wonder was the prodigal teenager, but soon he would be old enough to do what he wanted, and his work would change drastically.

But this is a bittersweet farewell, a goodbye baby and amen to a relationship, a time, a tumultuous ride that I expect more than a few were glad to see end, at least chronologically. Souvenirs are packed away, sights and sounds are bid adieu, and crying starts, or stops. That is that, Wonder says, and it's sad. But it's gone, and the puzzle is, as another Motown group sang once, where did our love go?

The Muse Sings: Mary Hopkin: "Goodbye"

While it may seem like time can be evenly split between ten-year chunks we call decades, the actual feel of any given time is oblivious to anything so arbitrary. The early 60s are now a half century in the past, but they must have seemed a long time ago even by 1969 standards; the 60s moved with such force that by its last year it had toppled over, collapsed through its own momentum, and much like a party where anything can happen and so it does, all kinds of good and bad (not to mention previously impossible and horrific) things were bound to happen. Which is to say it was a time of possibility; a time when those who, to quote the Dream Warriors, found meaning in their music addictions were able to start having hit singles and albums of their own, inspired by their own version of the 60s.

In the midst of all this was a voice; a young woman who won Opportunity Knocks and was signed to The Beatles' own Apple records, who became - if only for a brief time - a voice for this turbulent period. "Those Were The Days" is a song of remembrance and things returning, salvaged through the very act of remembering itself. This song, the follow-up, is already ahead of time - saying, literally, goodbye to the strained and somewhat exhausted decade. A voice like this persists; it becomes an emblem to those who need it and feel it, and it can return when you least expect it...to act as a kind of muse? Or to act as a reminder that there was a time when inspiration was not at all hard to find?

This is what I mean by a voice attaching itself to a certain time; or rather a certain voice coming to stand for that time, which was ephemeral and yet vivid, like a brilliantly-colored bird. Hopkin's voice has this quality, maybe because she was young - still in her teens when this was released - and her songs were ones that seemed to be about appreciating well enough where things were but wanting to move on. Whether she appears in "Sound and Vision" deliberately as that musing figure or not I don't know, but the effect is to give "Goodbye" a totemic feel of being a song of leaving and the typical McCartney blitheness hides whatever sadness there is in that; there, she seems to be saying, the 60s are gone and there's no point in being sorry about it; time for new horizons, opportunities, experiences...and in a short few months "Space Oddity" is recorded, and the 70s may not technically begin there, but then again decades do not always start where you might think they do. Hopkin leaves the party just before things start to get strange; Bowie's song is also about escape, though what kind of escape anyone can make from the 60s is a debatable point.

By this time many were lost and looking for a way home; something solid to grasp. But for those who were just getting started, departure was the thing; finding solace and energy in not being like others. Hopkin's voice symbolized this, and hers is one of several songs in this blog for '69 that sum up the whole time. It is deceptively light, but utterly firm in its convictions. The muse comes and goes as she wishes, appears when least expected...

The Knowing: Dean Martin: "Gentle On My Mind"

Sometimes the invisible is just as important as the visible; intangible, tangible. As important as it can be to have an experience of something, it is in some ways even more rewarding to know that that experience is yours and yours alone, softly tucked away somewhere, to rest upon when you need it. It can make a harsh world seem more friendly and bearable, and the rough life smoother, more elegant.

I see a clear path; one away from the city, the town, the village even. It's where he walks and remembers and walks some more, parallel to the railroad track perhaps, nearby some woods where he's found a safe place to sleep...he's away from her and yet she is always there, an interior night light of sorts, a sureness that gives the randomness and, yes, repetitiveness of his life an extra dimension. As he talks/sings he unwinds his tether to her, one that is the most slack imaginable without being undone altogether; neither is one for clinging or even letter-writing.

She and he have a bond; that bond exists not as two irresistible soul mates but almost as two sides of one person, one forever there and content to see him when she can, the other out there in the civilized wilderness, rough and forever on the move. There is no great unrequited longing of romance but instead the sure knowledge that she is there, a quietly profound presence that soothes like medicine and is as solid as the earth itself. He may roam, but he knows there is that one path, that floor he can sleep on...and this gives his freedom a sweetness that takes any sense of deprivation or desperation away.

This is indeed the sweet life without caring; a genial warmth that spreads easily from the singer to the listener, and while Glen Campbell had the biggest hit with John Hartford's song in the US, it was Dean Martin's in the UK, and his laissez-faire style of singing (on his tv show he does it so lazily I can't always make out the words; not sure if Liz Fraser ever heard this or not) suits the words perfectly. The song is carefree, open, wide as the plain I imagine the narrator walks and knows well; and Martin's cheerful embracing of that joy is a pleasure, and you can imagine happily walking along with him, sharing that gurgling soup, if not envying the fact that she is constantly - though not heavily - on his mind. Is he going away from her, going towards her, orbiting her? All are possibilities, but that she and he have that connection is the point, and essentially as long as they are both safe, they are both happy.

This was Dean Martin's last UK hit in his lifetime; it neatly helps to end the decade, to give notice that the early glamorous Mad Men 60s had not entirely disappeared (and how much more secure and at ease this is than Sinatra's persistent hit of the time, "My Way"). It is also damn refreshing to hear a song of love that goes along at its own pace (in a faster tempo than "Honey" - this is the flip side of that in many ways) and is coolly but glowingly happy, instead of miserable and maudlin. Extracting the sweetness in life and teaching the zen of being happy by making others happy - of enjoying the ride, even if he has to hug himself - that is what Martin is doing here, and as it is so many times, it is a stark contrast to the top song, which is one of insecurity, aching and dread. Blessed were those at this time who could live life so easily; whose only needs were a place to eat and store a sleeping bag, catch a passing train and drink the waters of memory.

Loneliness Is Such A Drag: Tom Jones: "I'll Never Fall In Love Again"

Ah, and now to someone this here blogeuse will get to know only too well. Tom Jones was a star by this time, his anguished voice and more saucy demeanor a contrast to the more stolidly romantic Englebert. Jones is forever getting caught up in Drama, being deceived and luring other women into who knows what mischief in turn. Clearly here his girl has gone off with another man (how CAN she?) and he...sniff...knows he's never going to fall...in love...aggaainnnnn....a patently silly thing to sing, obviously, and the cheese that was in the fridge with Carr is plainly right on the table here for all to see.

That he had to drag himself through such songs was the secret misery of Jones' career; he wanted to be on Motown or Stax, he wanted to be the Welsh Solomon Burke, but The Man plc said there was hay to be made singing weepy ballads like this, which was written by...oh look who's here, it's Lonnie Donegan! Yes, this song marks the unexpected return of Donegan, who wrote and recorded this song in '62 and must have been delighted with Jones' hit version. Suddenly another facet of the complex world of music is revealed - Lonnie Donegan, inventor of punk rock, has this as a hit, in the US as well as in the UK. See? There is always an upside in the darkest of times; and late August '67 was the beginning of the last month of pirate radio, with the effective switchover being signalled by this song's great success (#2 for a month) as well as Englebert's next #1 - and there is hardly anything the Light Programme can't play in the Top Ten.

The Housewives of Valium Court are the audience that is being courted here, not the kids. The vivacity of the charts of just a few months ago has been swept away, and in that sweeping away the charts are confusing, the general tone is becoming more and more bleak...it is as if it's the end of an era and everyone knows it, and Jones is just carrying that sorrow, unwittingly, for all who thought that Love could conquer all. It is a bittersweet time, one of "Itchycoo Park," and "The Day I Met Marie" and "Burning of the Midnight Lamp"; wistful songs about how enchantment is either fleeting or already gone. The Summer of Love isn't over just yet, but it certainly hasn't been all that it was cracked up to be - or perhaps it could have happened, had more people been less scared and more adventurous? The Housewives sat back and got gently drunk as Tom sang his song of woe - ah women, he's giving up on them now, for sure...while station after station packed up and brought their ships ashore. What now?

What Is Too Silly To Be Said Must Be Sung: Harry Secombe: "This Is My Song"

What to make of a song that no one wanted to sing? "This Is My Song" was written by Charlie Chaplin to be included in his movie A Countess From Hong Kong, a throwback to the shipboard romance movies of the 30s. He wanted Al Jolson to sing it, but, convinced that Jolson was dead only by being shown his tombstone, he decided he wanted Petula Clark to sing it. She didn't want to sing it in English (she sang it in German, Italian and French first) but she recorded it off-handedly with The Wrecking Crew while in Los Angeles and it was a hit. (She didn't want to sing "My Love" either, for that matter.)

It is hard to know just why Harry Secombe did the song; perhaps because it suited his noble Welsh tenor. The fact that another version was released so soon is itself a throwback to the 50s, when two or three versions of a song would crowd the charts. (Chaplin's "Terry's Theme" from Limelight was #2 in 1953, as you'll recall.) Secombe had trouble keeping a straight face while recording the song (he found the lyrics to be "risible" just as Clark thought them quaint and not for her), breaking out laughing at the line "I care not what the world may say." (No wonder Petula sang it in other languages first; no wonder it went on to be a hit for various European singers.)

It is a measure of how much things had changed in popular culture that two people - not counterculture types but those totally part of the mainstream UK all-around-entertainment world - didn't want to record this song, as it was so hokey. The 60s were supposed to be where the UK public sprang from the sappiness of the 50s, after all - that sweet, cloying string section-with-backing-singers aura had been around long enough, and any vestige of it was...passe. But not to a large segment of the public, who obviously were perfectly happy with a stolid song of love, perhaps as a reminder of a past they cherished, or as an old-fashioned SONG that may be a bit kitschy but has a TUNE they can whistle, just like in the old days.

That Secombe was part of the transition from post-WWII culture - with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan - as part of The Goon Show makes this record more of a straight-faced song from that show than anything else. The show rose out of the group's experiences - awful and absurd - during WWII, helping to bridge that traumatic time so that a fresh start could be made in the 60s, free of any hang-ups or errant nostalgias*. Thus this is something of an oddity - a man of one generation determinedly bringing something back, and two singers of the next generation complying, out of respect if nothing else. The escape from the past that the 60s in part tried to be was beginning to fray, with almost the entire top ten being Light Programme-friendly tunes that challenged nothing and (some would say) were the real 60s - not the far-out experiments and friendly forbears we have seen so far. Have the 60s run out of steam? What on earth comes next?

(*If there is one historical event the UK psyche cannot seem to escape, it's WWII. In some ways it as if everything that has happened since is a mere footnote...and there seems to be a disconnect between the whole 'vintage' style that is popular now and what was happening when said style was not vintage, but current. But I digress.)

In The Same Boat: The Fortunes: "You've Got Your Troubles"

This is an odd shrug of a song, suggesting two men in a bar or party who have both recently been dumped but the one singing has no interest in hearing the other's story, in part because he is too numbly sad to really feel another guy's pain at this time, and anyway his story is much likely the same one. Musically it flows much as the lyrics do, blending sadness and helplessness with the bland knowledge that this happens all the time; Rod Allen's voice is almost pre-rock. It is a smooth song that hints at the coming split of rock and pop, the pop here being cool (but coming off as blase, even cold) while rock was getting hotter and more frenzied all the time. (It was kept off by "Help!" which is the opposite of this song, for instance.)

The real fortune here (if I can put it that way) was for Roger Cook & Roger Greenaway, who wrote this song and thence many others, including one for The Fortunes again - a song I have heard on a dreaded workplace cd compilation* (unlike "You've Got Your Troubles"). The two Rogers went on to fame and renown with songs including "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" and The Fortunes still tour with a typically ever-evolving line-up & with songs like these - amiable, modest, simple - they could just go on forever. That their manager was killed in a pirate radio showdown a year later is about the most 'rock' thing about them, but that is 1966, when anything could happen, as opposed to 1965, when everyone is desperately trying to keep their cool.


*The workplace was dreaded, not the cd. There must be a thousand songs that are partially heard with involuntary shudders every day because of this same situation, and it's never the song's fault. Feel free to mention yours, if you wish.

Turn A Deaf Ear: Cliff Richard and The Shadows: "Don't Talk To Him"

But not all UK pop is as benign as it might seem; in Liverpool, it's amplified nursery rhymes, but down in London...

...a certain paranoia is taking hold. Boyfriend and girlfriend must be apart (why? it's never explained) and he is telling her not to talk to "him." Just who is this man? Why is he so unreliable, so disruptive? Cliff all but says that he is a liar, a rogue, a man who simply cannot be trusted. Cliff's love is true, but "this guy" (strange for an era that liked names that he's not even named) is presumably telling our heroine that if he hears that he, the redoubtable Cliff, is going out with Sue or Jean that she isn't to believe him. So much drama, paranoia, all of it done with The Shadows' ease in the back (they are of course on Cliff's side in this triangle) that we might begin to wonder if Cliff isn't being a little bit unreliable himself - why doesn't he just go to the other guy and tell him off? Why can't he trust his own girl, to whom he is so (so he says) true? This song offers far more questions than it can answer and Cliff almost sings it as if he is singing not to a girl but to a wayward pet. He means well, you can hear that, but this insecurity (perhaps a more accurate word than paranoia) is edged here with condescension, as if this girl cannot be trusted to know truth from falsehood, has no intuition to know what is what. This is, however, the era of songs like "My Boyfriend's Back" wherein the girl who has been the unwanted object of another man's affections presumably scrams before said boyfriend returns to give him a black eye. A girl cannot tell him to get lost, as she is weak; all she can do is just hang up the phone or perhaps go to the bathroom to fix her make-up for a long time.

But the issue of mistrust here then widens into a world where a world leader was just assassinated, the Cold War has already polarized many and paranoia indeed is rampant, and a certain degree of innocence is lost, convictions are strengthened for some and for others they weaken. As for Cliff, when we return to him he will be trusting and even hapless once more, and by then pop and indeed music will have jumped fully into the multicolored flashy era known as the Swinging Sixties. But for now all is still beehives and pastels, twinsets and anxiety. A more innocent era, perhaps, but then again, maybe not.

A Strand of Sand: The Shadows: "Atlantis"

This somehow reminds me of the last weekend before it's too cold to go to the beach; to sit and picnic; to happily just gad about, getting lost and then finding your way. It reminds me of these things because, as big as The Shadows were, the tide (so to speak) was turning against them. They had lost Meehan and Harris (replaced by Brian Bennett and Brian "Licorice" Locking, both from Marty Wilde's band) and thus had also lost some of the energy that made them so popular in the first place. "Atlantis" is a sprightly song that sounds almost ready-made for Winnipeg boys Young and Bachman to practice for hours on end, not to mention many others, but it is also a bit too polite, even as a song about a long-lost probably (how can anyone know?) mythical water kingdom can be.

The whole thing sounds unreal, Marvin's guitar as liquid as can be, the soothing strings a song that doesn't even sound like the 60s, or at least my understanding of the 60s; I don't know if The Shadows were at all envious, say, of the Surfaris (about to have a hit with this) or The Chantays (who had just had a hit as well). It could simply be that the saltwater-in-your-face abandon of The Surfaris or the hang-ten cool of The Chantays were simply beyond the experience of The Shadows; or perhaps it just wasn't their style, or that they were produced by Norrie Paramor, not a man given to adventure as much as George Martin or Joe Meek (how would they have sounded produced by either of these men I leave up to you). The neatness and tidiness that served them well as it could in the late 50s/early 60s was beginning to be beside the point; of course they still had hits after this (and remain popular to this day - witness their successful tour with Cliff a while back). But it is poignant that I get to them when they are still popular but are about to be eclipsed by many groups who were inspired by them, from The Beatles on down. I can only salute them as pioneers, once and future kings of British rock, imitated and copied but never really duplicated.

Homage to the Killer: Cliff Richard and The Shadows: "It'll Be Me"

There is (by this time) something of a tradition building in the UK pop culture of UK artists covering songs by US artists who but for reasons of, oh, extreme notoriety the US artist can't tour the UK, and so hey presto, there's a UK hit from nowhere, seemingly, and thus I only get to mention the last man standing (as of mid-March 2011), aka Jerry Lee Lewis. Yes, nice clean-cut young men do well from a man who does, so to speak, not so well; this looks dubious at first but the song more than stands up as, amazingly, an engaging and warm thumbs-up tribute to the Killer himself. (Lewis had a hit in the charts at this time with the perhaps-not-too-well-thought-out "Sweet Little Sixteen.") Richard and the Shadows sound as if they are digging into a good square meal, Richard in particular getting extra satisfaction by doing his best Lewis impersonation/homage and the song itself is a joy, the man searching for the woman in her sugar bowl, on her fishing hook, on Mars - there is not a hint of desperation or stalkerishness about him, he is just a big friendly guy who wants a certain girl's attention. Considering the hapless passivity of Cliff's last appearance here, it is good to hear him up and happy again (as he almost always is with the Shadows) and giving Lewis his due when the man needed a few friends. (Though I am sure he would have preferred to have the hit himself - it was, however, the b-side to "Great Balls of Fire" so that wasn't to be.)

I should also note that it was - once again, fact fans - Elvis who kept Cliff and the Shadows from getting to number one; also that by the time I get back to Cliff, things in pop will be very different - the scene he plays a part in now, where singers sing and songwriters write and only here and there do they overlap (hello, Brill Building) will not be long for this world; the UK covers of US hits will alas continue, but as the Cuban Missile Crisis begins, another crisis also takes hold - one that crops up on a near solar spots-basis in pop - what happens when the charts get stale? What is the point where things change? They are about to change with the next entry, one that comes from the most unlikely of singers, and it goes on from there.