I Am Woman: Paul McCartney: "Another Day"

Now we turn from the eternal to the quotidian; as the 60s comedown continues, the idea of doing small, ordinary songs – songs that hail not revolution but regular life – start to crop up.  It’s only natural that this should happen, as a reaction to the Big Statements of the 60s, to want to scale down a little, to perhaps even admit that despite all the ideals heralded then, life continues on, doggedly, the joys few and far between.  The grimness of the 70s is imminent.

McCartney wrote this song while he was still in The Beatles, one of many that he kept for himself (including “Maybe I’m Amazed”) – and now, a little less than a year after they broke up, Harrison’s had a number one and McCartney nearly gets one, with a song that is about, primarily, sadness.  The narrator looks on with sympathy as she goes to work, drinking coffee to stay alive, her whole life centering around her man, who spends only the night with her; no reason is given, it’s just the way things are.  She cries with loneliness; she wonders why she is alive.  Despite his “dee do do do do dos” and the oddly Latin feel to the song (as if, somehow, “every day” was a bull she has to face in the ring), this is not a happy tune.  It is the midway point between “Lady Madonna” and “Eleanor Rigby” with the added bonus of Linda, his wife, helping out with the song.  How much she contributed I don’t know, but the realism of the song is utterly female – the wet towel, the raincoat, that extra cup of coffee, the existential despair.  Still, the woman of the song lives to face yet another day, overcoming her sadness in one way or another, and it is this day-to-day life that McCartney wants to describe and honor. 

That John Lennon mentioned it specifically in his song “How Do You Sleep?” shows how little Lennon really understood what McCartney was trying to do; the big-eyed visionary with slogans isn’t necessarily going to get a song about Everywoman’s heartaches and regular routines.  Maybe Lennon wanted him to write something more political, more of a protest; but in just showing what a single woman’s life is like, giving her her due, McCartney is being far more subversive than Lennon, his empathy with her crying and angst somehow more touching than any slogans he could have come up with.  McCartney is trying, in his own way, to raise consciousness; to show that there are those out there who may be superficially coping but are alone, going from habit to routine almost as a way of staving off misery itself.  That she keeps going somehow is a victory, a victory many women who hear this song understand intimately. 

Next up:  yet another female take on regular life. 

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?

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?

This Is The End: Englebert Humperdinck: "There Goes My Everything"

There are certain historians of late who have tried to give a different spin on the 60s, on 1967 in particular; these are the sort who will point out the album sales of The Sound of Music were still going strong and that this man, Englebert Humperdinck (a stage name given to him, after the Hansel und Gretel composer) was the true star of the time. All else is hippy-hypey nonsense, so much florid ephemeral noise. The solid majority of folk did not want backwards guitars and baroque orchestration; they wanted a four-square song they could understand, with lyrics that are brief, lovesick and thus romantic. This is true enough; his first hit was on the charts for over a year, and this one stayed around for over six months. He had been working in the club circuit for years, honing his craft as an entertainer (a term he takes seriously) and his management thought that his way forward was to change his name (from the less exotic Jerry Dorsey) and give him some big ballads that would have women and girls a new idol to worship, more or less.

Idol worship is strange; reality shows that try to find one tend to come up trumps a lot of the time as idolatry is really either one of two things: temporary or permanent. It's also another thing: illogical. No Fullers or Cowells can ever really gauge what any given audience will want after a certain point, and the ones that are chosen who succeed tend to do so because they don't agree with their so-called masters. Cliff Richard still has his fans in part because he does what he wants, as does Englebert*. The "too beautiful to suffer" element is also here, of course; idols are adored and glamorized by women who feel they could be the one, if only in their dreams. (In his previous hit he wanted out of a relationship; in this one she's leaving him - how many adult listeners heard these songs as reflections of their own lives?)

And the narrator in this song is a pitiable creature, indeed. He hears her footsteps as she leaves, her last statement as she goes; clearly he has no energy to try to win her back, to plead or beg. That is all done. And so this song seems vast and empty, as if all the air has disappeared from the room. I could be all new age and say that it's not right for someone to be so utterly dependent on someone else (his only possession is her, he now has no reason to live) but again that would be our good friend logic talking. If you have been in the unfortunate situation the narrator is in, you would know better than to judge the absolute extreme he presents, because to him it's real. His heart is broken and there's nothing for him, he can't even speak. He can't move. It is as if a thick black line has been drawn, dividing him from...everything else.

This does seem terribly romantic, this waltzing misery, and yet there is a horrible realism to it, one that stands stoutly next to Procol Harum or Jimi Hendrix (who learned a thing or two about working a crowd from Englebert when he toured with him). The Summer of Love is here, but love is a risky thing that, like idolatry, is either temporary or permanent. Romantics are those in love with love, who maybe even enjoy a good wallow in despair once in a while; and if they can't sing, then they can listen to music that doesn't think they are backwards or old-fashioned, but instead puts them on a kind of eternal plane. (I'm not saying this is a timeless song though: referring to anyone as a 'possession' as if they were a car or house isn't very hip these days, and must have seemed positively Brontesque to some - not all - in '67**. Country songwriter Dallas Frazier wrote it, but then he also wrote "Alley Oop" and "Elvira" amongst many hits, so I can forgive him.)

The realism and romanticism appealed to women, who love him to this day; women who want a handsome man who has a handsome voice and seems to understand that life isn't always pleasant or fair. He may be an idol, but he is grown-up, laid-back, unlike Tom or Cliff or any of the others. 19th century by name, 19th century by nature? 1967 has opened a time warp wherein the past and the future are blending together, or where time has stopped making sense altogether...but then for romantics, Love is eternal...

Next: another bunch of romantics fight The Man plc in the name of Art. Oh yeah!



*Like Tom Jones, Englebert's son is his manager now, since his previous one turned down a chance to appear on a the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach without bothering to ask the singer first, which upset him greatly (as it would any right-thinking person). This gives me an excellent excuse to post this, of course. Maybe next time?

**Two of the musicians on this song - guitarist John McLaughlin and bassist Dave Holland - were a bit tired of playing such traditional music (as well-paying as it was) and not long after this they both joined (at his request) Miles Davis' group; thus they were liberated to play on In A Silent Way, a sublime album every jazz lover should own (if s/he doesn't have it already). They tried their best with this song, goodness knows, but some musicians just aren't cut out for standard country ballads.

Far From Mechanical: Cliff Richard: "Wind Me Up (Let Me Go)"

And now 1965 draws to a close; a tradition begins here as Cliff performs a song I thought at first was from a pantomime (he and The Shadows did Aladdin in '64), but is actually from his show Cliff Richard's Christmas Cheer. Yes, Richard was at this time so big and established that he could host his own show, cementing his 'all-around-entertainer' status. So far, so normal; but what tugs here is something more profound. (Ah, if only I wrote about superficial songs with no meaning - but songs do not become hits without having some import.)

It is the singing toy, the object that becomes real and has feelings because the boy/girl gives it a life. I am not sure how important this is psychologically as a stage, but whenever anything inanimate is given life, a name, a history, it is alive. (Thus the pathos of the song, which Richard handles very well.)

To others it is a thing, but not to the kid who loves it. And here we have the pathos of an unloved toy, a tin soldier, who would rather be alone than belong to someone who didn't care for him. The leap to a man who loves unrequitedly isn't a big one, so the song applies to adults as well as kids, but it's still a bit odd to think of Richard singing this as an adult (he was 25). In a weird parallel to The Who, this is also a song of someone who wants to be left alone, and is in a way more sympathetic as he is admitting to wanting to cry and obviously as a soldier is being nobly brave through his near-tears. This song is not that far off from this one, save that Richard demands to be let go instead of being forgotten about - which is healthier in a way, though I still feel it strange to be writing about a singing toy. But that is where things stand; Richard sings a ballad for Christmas, it's a hit...but the singing tin soldier angle makes me think something different is going to happen soon, beyond this cozy season. Coming up next: a welcome trip to Canada.

Can He Do It?: Gene Pitney: "I'm Gonna Be Strong"

Here is a different type of intensity altogether. In pop there are just a few singers who can start at a certain pitch and then move higher; there are even fewer who can go higher than that, to a place almost no one goes, because it is either physically or emotionally impossible for them to get there. Watching Gene Pitney perform this song is not unlike watching someone perform some great feat, such as crossing the Niagara Falls on a tightrope or climbing a skyscraper bare-handed. Even as you watch him you can't quite believe what you are hearing, even though he is in perfect control the whole time and may well be enjoying himself, just as mastering any art is both a pleasure and a serious matter at the same time.

This puts Pitney in a very special place; he zeroes in on a moment when the decision is made - no matter what happens, I will not show how much I hurt; I just won't - with almost sun's-rays-through-magnifying-glass intensity. His whole concern is in fooling her, but he cannot fool himself, is burning up inside, and she will never know. Unlike Smokey Robinson, he does not cry out for recognition of his disguised hurt; this is almost like backstage pep-talk before the big performance. Are we, the audience, convinced it will happen, that he will be strong enough to part without showing any emotions? Or will he, like Nick Cave*, give in at the last moment? There is no way of knowing, save for the last and most heroic effort in the song, put in by Pitney himself - his leaping "CRY" at the end, going up two ocataves where songwriter Barry Mann just put in a steady high note (Mann didn't believe Pitney could do it, but then he did & that was that). So maybe he does pull it off, but there is no escaping how much torment there is in doing so, the moment she has gone he stands a little stunned perhaps, not bowing or waving, because there is no energy left for even those small gestures. (Such gestures would be inappropriate, anyway.)

Pitney emboldened a whole generation of singers to simply go there - you may suffer in the meantime but there is no choice in the matter - if he can do it, so can you, and the results will be more than worth it. (This is the closest thing to an aria this blog has encountered in some time; I wonder if people threw flowers onstage when he performed.) Marc Almond certainly heard him growing up (he duets with him here), as did, unmistakably, Billy MacKenzie (astonishing all present at the end of this).

Thus '64 draws to a close, proud and exhausted and emotionally drained; but there is one consolation left, and it is not found in isolation.



*Cave is also a big Pitney fan; I can only wonder what he thinks of this, for instance.

All By Myself: The Supremes: "Where Did Our Love Go"

At first it was horrible, but at least she had been able to cry. Now she was blank; a blank, numb figure out in the humid, swampy city dense with foliage and trees dropping ripe fruits. There was a chance, a window, but it was closed now, he gave her the things he was going to give her and then walked away, plain as that. The blankness didn't go away, despite all she could do to distract it, and the city seemed quiet, still, her steps the only thing she could really hear. He said he would call, and now she could wait.

It was all she could do. The voices urged her to look, to keep looking, but there was nothing to really find. The wall-like air was like a mobile prison. Others did things, but all she could hear were her own steps, solitary in the street, in the shops, in the museum; and it wasn't supposed to be this way at all. Everything had been so perfect it had been making her giddy, but now she could only smile wanly. A city full of monuments to greatness sopped up her need to belong, if only temporarily, to something. He said he would call; this promise seemed unlikely but she had to hang on to it, even if she knew he wouldn't. She had no way to write to him, and anyhow, writing was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place; he was away on the weekend and was unreachable. So she sat and looked out the window, her godmother once again apologizing for the heat. But the heat wasn't the problem. What had happened? She could not just sit and mope, but had to go out there and lose herself, before heading back on the train, where her sadness would slowly turn into anger, then defiance. In truth, it already was, and she was determined to enjoy herself, heat or no. But the underlying sadness was slow to go away.



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To an American's eyes, the early 60s UK charts seem rather resistant to Motown; it is as if some unknown force is keeping its relentless hit machine at bay. However with The Supremes the UK finally succumbs and (according to the NME) this nearly got to the top. It is only appropriate it did so well, as the clapping comes right out of the stomping of "Bits and Pieces" - as does the general lyrical misery, though the angry march of the DC5 turns into the desolate clomping cheer of this song, one that The Marvelettes had turned down for sounding too childish; and they warned The Supremes not to take Holland-Dozier-Holland's orders (for they wrote the song) without a fight; thus they made the song simpler and thus more sophisticated. It stands for a failed relationship, to be sure, but it also mourns for something indefinable that has been lost, happiness perhaps, innocence most certainly. Something has been thrown out and the rest of the 60s is merely a process of trying to replace it, if that is possible. Could music itself be the answer?

Holding On For Life: Andy Williams: "Can't Get Used To Losing You"

The plucked strings sound like a man itching, restless, pacing the floor back and forth, willing something to go away that just won't. He can't relax. He can't talk on the phone, not for long. The strings slide and glide in a way that is glassy, as if he is trying to walk on emotional black ice. He loves her, it's over, he still loves her, but it's no use. He could go out and yet she would be there, the pluckings now signifying his eye catching this and that, the steps of his walk, the beats of his heart. There is nothing to do but keep loving, because that at least shows he is alive, not just a bundle of nervous moments.

He has lost her, yet he plays it light. He doesn't, like Darin, look back - this is not a nostalgic song, but one that keeps trying, trying, trying to somehow move forwards. But there is no way out, at least for now (Williams' essential warmth means there will be a way one day). The very slipperiness of the song, its goings back-and-forth are elegant and neat, as if the rawness of the experience are gone, and now it is all routine, helpless, he still suffers but at least he is buoyant, proud in his own way to love and keep loving long after there is any real point to it.

There is a more general loss here, of course; the gradual loss of the early 60s, the Camelot age of the New Frontier. It hasn't gone just yet, of course, but by this time (May) the seemingly-placid world of, say, 1960 is pretty much gone. The last Aldermaston march/founding of the CND in the UK, Dr. King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail - these are just some of the more obvious pointers to the intensity of the sixties, and the corresponding need for songs like this (lyrically and sonically) that acknowledge that things are permanently changing, but put them in the most graceful and hummable context this side of Cole Porter (kudos to Pomus and Shuman)...

...my parents not being the easy-listening types (not that this is easy listening, exactly; the poor man does nothing but hit one void after another), the first time I heard this song it was by The (English) Beat; a version so faithful that Williams himself at first thought it was a remix of his own and not a cover. That it works is due to that semi-ska rhythm that is inherent in the song, but also Dave Wakeling's own soulful voice, one which meets the loneliness here head on and understands. ("Mirror In The Bathroom" is just an extension of this feeling, only there is no love for anyone else; just the self. I can only wonder if Williams has heard it.)