A Love From Outer Space: Wizzard: "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day"

What makes a great Christmas song?  This is a debatable point, but one of the main points of Christmas (and therefore, of Christmas songs) is a sense of bounty and relief; a sense (especially in the UK, I feel) of abundance*.  Christmas is a time for pure celebration and joy, which gets the straight treatment here; indeed of all the big UK Christmas songs, this NME #2 feels the most American.

The density of Wizzard - straight out of the whole Spector/Beach Boys wall of sound - suggests plenty, to an almost ridiculous degree.  Of all the Glam Slam bands Wizzard were the ones with the most members, the most fun, and the most sincerity, I believe.  Slade's monumental achievement of getting to #1 first week with "Merry Xmas Everybody" was one thing - Noddy's voice waking the dead with good rattling cheer - but Roy Wood is taking everyone back to the early 60s via the early 70s, wishing a moribund we-haven't-had-it-so-good UK not just a happy Christmas for one day but a wish that the love (did I forget to say the best Christmas songs are love songs?  No?) the day represents would be here every day, perpetually.  The snowman brings the snow, all the better for Wood to write his name on the roof so Santa (who comes from the Milky Way - yes, Santa is an alien here) can find him. 

In a way, this makes the song a plea for deliverance from the ordinary into the extraordinary - if Slade are asking you to look to the future, Wizzard are asking that love and abundance be part of everyone's lives, that the bells should ring and ring, that it should be like this every day.  (The absurdity of this is what makes the song British, I feel - he wishes it could be like this, whereas Slade are "well, here it is, Christmas, have fun while you can" Wizzard want this to go on and on, and of course there's a children's choir because who doesn't want Christmas to end as a child**?)  The snow arrives, glowing cheeks light the way, romance is also in the air - this isn't altogether a throwback to a decade previous but a kind of Utopian 70s thing, as an ideal to hold up as the 70s begin to buckle down into The Fog and good cheer is desperately needed. Christmas began as a celebration of the birth of (if I may say so) a revolutionary figure; and something of that has rubbed off here.  So it is no surprise that this is one of the most enduring British Christmas songs and it is apt that Wizzard, that multi-instrumental Glam band that Roy Wood led, are leading the way as Friendly Forebears for New Pop.  This is revolution, kids-choir-and-sleigh-bell style.  

Next up:  the end is nigh...


*In the US there's Thanksgiving, which doesn't exist in the UK, so I feel some of its qualities are celebrated at Christmas, more or less.

**Well, maybe not all kids, but most, methinks. 

Sweet Escape: Neil Diamond: "Cracklin' Rosie"

You might be wondering by now where on earth regular love songs have gotten to in the charts; are they all hiding away?  It has been a strange year, with lovers, when they show up at all, pleading rather than praising, and even “Can’t Help Falling In Love” comes across, the way Williams does it, as a joyous complaint.  (The #1s don’t concern themselves much with love either, besides “Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes]” on the one hand and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on the other*.)  So here we are, alone, looking for fun.  Hmm, what to do?

Console yourself the way Neil Diamond does, with some nice wine, that’s what.  By far the most sparkling (ahem) song in a while, Diamond sings and writes a song full of baba-ba-ba-ba-bas and optimism, the strength and sweetness of the song balanced by his lyrics, which come from…Canada!  Yes, or rather YES as Diamond would sing it.  He visited a tribe there – which one I don’t know, as there are many** – and found that there were more men than women there, so the men without women would sit around and drink Cracklin’ Rosie – have ‘her’ as their date, so to speak.  If there is any pathos in this, it comes early, the "twilight train" part is gruffly sung, his temporary sorrow leading him to a state of near-rebellious joy where the wine is appreciated and celebrated, the “store-bought woman” makes him sing and perhaps brings him to a near-euphoric state – “Play it now!” he sings, as if he is becoming the music itself as he is drinking.  He may not have a woman, but the wine is bringing him inspiration, is his muse; his consolation for being alone.  Diamond goes quiet and sings to the bottle itself, “you got the way to make me happy” as if it was a woman; no wonder it would be easy to mishear this song and think it was actually about one.  Together they are going to “set the world right” and make problems go away; and after this rough year, who can blame him for wanting to escape with some wine? 

To say this is a memorable song is an understatement; Diamond needed a hit and wrote something with so many hooks that it could not help but be a hit everywhere, including being his first real hit – as an artist and performer – in the UK***.  The warmth and realism in the song – the sudden stops and starts in it, the exhortations, are like those of someone who has already been drinking, someone who has been in this position before and doesn’t actually mind it that much.  The guitar hums and plays, the night is long but he is most definitely not alone.  This is a song of relief, joy, community even; things may not be perfect, but upon reflection – and a glass or two – they really aren’t all that bad either.  This is the most wholehearted love song this year, one of satisfaction and need, a kind of reassurance that a lot of people, in tribes or elsewhere, could relate to:  wine as a source of joy and comfort, a kind of companion.  This is, again, an ancient kind of joy, and as long as the drinking doesn’t get out of hand, an honourable one. 

Next up:  the year expires, so to speak.

*Yes, I know Elvis’ “The Wonder of You” should count, but this is him singing to his audience about how much they love him; and Dana’s “All Kinds of Everything” is a Eurovision rehash of “My Favorite Things.” (One I like, by the way.) "In The Summertime" is about looking for a woman, which isn't quite the same thing.   

**My guess is that they are in Ontario, perhaps Six Nations; if they are making the wine themselves then they have to live somewhere grapes can grow, as they do in southern Ontario.  (To this day when I hear the phrase “six nations” I don’t think of rugby, I think of Canada.)

***From Tap Root Manuscript, wherein Diamond does that world music thing before it became hip; the second side is a suite of Africa-inspired songs.  (I should add this is an NME #2.) 

Playing His Ace: Ned Miller: "From A Jack To A King"

After the world-shaking clamor of The Beatles it is heart-warming and surprisingly reassuring to come across this; a song where a man is simply grateful that he took a chance, though as usual there are odd moments. I don't mean that the sentiment is off, because there is a universal emotion here - he proposed, she accepted, he feels like a king. To have this as a card game is what seems odd; as if she was an opponent and not a sweetheart. (Perhaps he had a rival for her that we don't hear about? If they are in love, why should "Lady Luck" have any say in the matter?) But the clearest feeling here is sheer relief; he says he wasn't sure (ah how I remember my anxiety!) and that there was a look in her eye (dubiousness? equal anxiety masked as something else?) and those are now gone, washed clean by her losing/giving in to him (if this is a card game, and his hand defeated hers, so to speak). His success is genuine and heartfelt, though - the song's story is clear enough, and the melody is simplicity itself (Miller wrote it as well as performed it). (For a female version of this, "Your Love Is King" by Sade must be it.) This is as much what folks in Scotland and Northern England were listening to as The Beatles, a constituency that was the same as Jim Reeves (who of course covered this song, as did Elvis). I can imagine a pub, a singalong, a basic story shared, a simple melody echoing around - humble and proud too, a good counter to the excited noises from next door...

(One thing that is endearing about this was that Miller suffered from terrible stage fright, and during the pre-video age this was most awkward for a performer. There will always be those who love to create but hate being in public, and Miller is definitely one of those.)

Lifting Me Higher: Guy Mitchell: "Cloud Lucky Seven"

Let us stop for a moment, dear reader, to look back to 1953. I say this not just because, having gotten our feet wet in the beginning of 1960 (we are currently just in June, about to jump straight into summer) things are starting to look...different around here, but apparently I missed a number two. (According to the big book at home I did, and I always go by it.) It is salutary, however, to pause here and see how far we have come.

And in the Christmas of '53 charts, who but Guy Mitchell is there, warm smiling Guy, extolling the various levels - dare I say chakras? - of love. The whole setting is one of joy (it's never just Guy, he always has a chorus) and a vivid sense of love being one exaltation after another, until cloud seven is reached, where you and your loved one are walking on air (after having passed through the other six (five and six is when "your heart bumps and kicks"; I am guessing that the heart leaps and bounds at seven, but he doesn't say). The communal joy of "When you're in love, when you're in love, when you're in love" is simple, even a bit homespun, but has (like the previous song) a certain unmistakable truth. At first you feel like singing, then you hear bells ringing (and yes, bells do ring when you are in love, and they keep ringing, trust me). The utter strangeness of love - and I mean how it can just happen - is introduced before any of these levels with the heartily sung "There's no way that you can detect it/It can happen when you least expect it." In fact I would argue that just about anything worth experiencing is, paradoxically, undetectable and unpredictable. There is no way of knowing, nod Guy and his pals, and before you know it you and your lad/lass will be near heaven as two people can be.

What a contrast to the growing...sophistication we are seeing already, and the other worldliness of, say, I Hear A New World by Joe Meek, out in May of 1960 as an EP, a work pretty much unthinkable in '53. More leaps and bounds of the heart and technology are to come, dear reader, but I think I have finally done with the 50s...for now...

The Rest Cure: Cyril Stapleton Orchestra with Julie Dawn: "Blue Star (The Medic Theme)"

It's a weeknight, maybe Monday or Tuesday - the family has had dinner, and afterwards, the newfangled invention in the house - the television set - is turned on and warms up. The big show - or one of them, at any rate - is Medic, the first realistic show set in the world of medicine and hospitals, the forerunner of all shows to follow, from St. Elsewhere to Emergency!, ER to House. I've never seen Medic (it ran for only two seasons, 1954-56), but its general tone of calmness is something I can guess from the theme song, which sounds uncannily like the kind of pretty, restful and burbling brook of sound that a person recovering from an illness would like to hear. Led by the piano, a choir of the awed (like so many hospital well-wishers) aah-ahhs along, with the 50s-requisite string section in tow, like a Muzak Mantovani. The touch is light and caring, restful and easy. (Like ideal hospital food, it is nourishing and somewhat bland.) Then the singer comes in, singing words that are just shy of magnetic poetry, lyrics that show her complete lack of worry and loneliness, now that she has the blue star to gaze upon, a symbol as reassuring to her as other symbols are to other people. Things have been bad; they have perhaps been awful. Now that she sees the star, she can rest easy, knowing everything will be all right. A nation of exhausted people, adults all, who endured the war and the aftermath, watch as week after week, the troubled and ill are helped back to wholeness and happiness. The kids can go out to play; the adults stay in, resting and thankful that they have everything they really need – and a television set, too.

(Thanks to David Belbin for sending this to me.)