High Expectations: Wings: "Hi Hi Hi/C Moon"

When I think of Paul McCartney, I tend to remember two things first:  both of them immediate and heartfelt reactions.  One was during the Oscars back in '02 when he was performing the title song of Vanilla Sky and a friend yelled at the tv set, in exasperation, "You used to be a BEATLE!"

The other reaction was from my best friend, Gemma, who was taken by her then boyfriend around 1990 to see McCartney in concert.  Her review was mixed, at best; she didn't (and still doesn't) hate the man per se, but the show went on for so very long, and it was fine when he was doing Beatles songs...but his own...

In the 70s people had the right to expect the same levels of genius from the now ex-Beatles as they did when they were still a group; that they all devolved into their constituent parts is one of those letdowns the 70s were so very, very good at.  Lennon cut his losses, as such, by just stopping altogether in 1975; no one expected much from Ringo and thus he didn't make out all that badly; and George kept going, though more and more of his attention was towards making movies, namely in helping to produce them, than trying to have hit singles.

McCartney though, on evidence, really needed to keep himself busy churning out single after single; he was, according to Dellio and Woods, "a Top Forty automaton, a three-minute warlord in an LP combat zone, a human jukebox run amok."  From what I gather in Fab by Howard Sounes, McCartney is the kind of musician who most definitely needs someone who could talk back to him, or else what he would record would be, to put it kindly, not very good.  A George Martin or Lennon to say "No."  McCartney sadly didn't have this in Wings (Denny Laine?  Linda*?  Anyone else?) and thus he would do songs like this one, a song Sounes calls, frankly, "stupid**."  I can only agree, and note that it only did well in the UK as it was banned for clearly being about drugs.  (It is here as it got to #2 on the Radio Luxembourg chart.)  McCartney had recently had a problem with the law about pot plants found on his Scottish farm; and this rockin' tune man is a "So what, I'm still Paul MF McCartney, suck it" sort of reaction that probably sounded like a good idea at the time***, but has no more impact than pushing over an outhouse while someone's in it and running away.  Our Macca, I can hear his fans say, no one tells him what to do!

That it was a hit shows how many adolescents sympathized with him, wanted to own a sh-sh banned single, and maybe how this mild nyah-nyahing was easier to absorb into pop culture than tougher songs which were sold in the wrong shops.  In McCartney's view, it was another hit, proof (sad proof, I'd say) that the public were perfectly happy with the post-Beatle letdown, or that maybe they didn't think they had that right to genius after all.  If "Hi Hi Hi" is bad, then "C Moon" is the kind of genial inanity that he does very well; a kind of reggae-ish love song that lilts and glides along, the sort of thing I imagine McCartney can do in his sleep, practically.  It was played on the BBC instead of the a-side (which was played on Luxembourg); both of these songs have, as far as I can tell, fallen into The Void, which is rare for McCartney but understandable; his big ballad "My Love" came next, followed by the crazed (and Martin-produced) "Live And Let Die."  Those were both songs I'm sure Gemma heard back in the day, and songs he likely still performs; "Hi Hi Hi" is the kind of song that quietly was shelved once the counterculture 70s were gone, and McCartney had grown up.  A little...

I will return to Wings in the fullness of time, with a song that by them that I actually like, believe it or not.   

Next up:  gossip girl.


*Is it just me or was it somehow mean for Paul to make Linda join the band?  Did he really feel so embattled by the end of The Beatles that he needed his wife to be there in the studio with him? 

**Get you ready for my polygon" is enough to make me say "Block that metaphor!"

***I know I don't need to say it, but once you're on drugs so many, many things do seem like good ideas; seem is the key word here.

(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.

How We Used To Live: Des O'Connor: "One Two Three O'Leary"

And now we return to the NME number twos for a song that was written by Barry Mason and Michael Carr, and performed by all-round entertainer (comedian, singer, tv chat show host) Des O'Connor. That something so utterly and completely sedate could jostle its way to the top amongst The Scaffold, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Love Sculpture just shows how fragmented the pop audience was, and how well a song like this could do.

It is a quiet song, a song about innocence and first love, harpsichord-led and gently going down memory lane, and it has nothing to do with liberation or freedom and everything to do with recalling a different time; a time when they were both young but also when the "wildwood" was theirs and everything seemed magical*.

To some this might seem a bit soppy, and O'Connor himself didn't think much of his singing, but pure, 100% proof nostalgia like this always does well in the holiday season, when thoughts turn to loved ones, and Mary here clearly is loved, even if it is so long ago that the narrator (if pressed - he isn't, here) doesn't know where she is now. Now is just a vantage point to then, and then is what is fixed in the narrator's mind. This song could appeal to anyone, I guess, but it is the generation just before the Housewives of Valium Court that it hits directly - those who remember life before & during WWII, those who suffered through it and take refuge in utterly peaceful and genteel music and find most rock too ugly and loud. (The harpsichord is what makes this a 'modern' sounding song, as baroque meets old guard pop.) As songs about love from this year go, this is thankfully free of death; an oasis of calm, even if it is a cul-de-sac.

From the rock vantage point O'Connor seems out of place; however, I should mention a much more 'hip' song that O'Connor did that he himself could stand: "Dick-A-Dum-Dum" is total London silliness as interpreted by Jim Dale, but shows more signs of life from O'Connor because of its humor. (And yes, whenever I hear 'the Buckingham beat' I think of Fleetwood Mac. I'm predictable that way.)

As '68 closes, we have more girl trouble ahead; beyond that, 1969 looms, the final year, as the 60s turns to look at itself.


*The game played in question is fully described here.

Fantastic!: The Move: "Flowers In The Rain"

Imagine it's the early morning of September 30, 1967. It's 7am; you are just waking up when you hear this.

A whole world - save for rebellious Radio Caroline - has ended. The future - as brought to you by George Martin himself - has begun. Before I get to the main song here, I'm going to pause a bit and remember my own reaction to hearing Martin's piece...I must have first heard it in 2007, when I was haphazardly planning, along with Marcello's help, the music for our wedding. I wanted it to be launched with something dramatic, of my year, but also something warm and cozy. Something to say: a whole new world has been achieved, something that was a mere notion has grown into this - true love and hence, marriage. And I cried when I first heard it, so of course it was the only choice...

The first song played on the station was this one; thunder booms give way to a chirpy song which is about flowers, trees...and escaping the commitments of the world by immersing yourself in nature, even to the point of sleeping outdoors. Lost in fantasy, taking a break to realign priorities - all done to a typical march-beat that sounds anything but dreamy. In the video you can see them in their psychedelic finery, eating apples and reading comic books - there is something deliberately regressive going on here, another facet of the rebellious/childish part of UK 'hippie' music (as opposed to the more confrontational US version).

Or perhaps this nyah-nyah I'm going to watch flowers business is more rebellious than it seems? Perhaps some notions of a greater society will occur as the day passes? It is a huge leap to go from this to the current occupations across the UK - the only thing they have in common is their refusal to go 'indoors' and 'behave' normally. (Well, these ideas have to start somewhere.) But the group's manager promoted the single with a controversial postcard illustrated with a drawing of a naked Harold Wilson (then the Prime Minister) linking him to his secretary. The band were sued and forced to give their royalties from the song to charity, which shows that maybe egging The Man plc on isn't always the best idea. (To this day the group don't make any money from the song, which considering Wilson died in 1995 is kind of unfair.)

This, if you were to believe in omens, was a mixed one at best for Radio 1, and The Move themselves got rid of their manager and were shy to do anything quite so bold promotionally again. This song did give a certain young producer fresh from NYC - Tony Visconti - experience in arranging however (he did the woodwind and strings). And thus we take a step from the mid-60s to the late 60s and the increasing strangeness on one side of pop, just as the other becomes more and more uniform*. This got stuck behind new heartthrobs The Bee Gees' "Massachusetts" - the second record played that morning - and while it found friends in the chart ("Homburg" by Procol Harum, "From The Underworld" by The Herd) it must have seemed something of an understandable disappointment to the group, who (like so many 60s groups of this time) mutated away until The Move had a parallel band, Electric Light Orchestra, as a Wood side project. Psychedelia turned out to be much harder for groups to adapt than you might think - The Who didn't really 'go' psychedelic beyond clothes; The Rolling Stones' late '67 album wasn't...very...good...[though it has its champions]; The Kinks were busy with writing about English life in its strange normalcy.

The genteel oddballness of UK psychedelia is undoubtedly because the UK wasn't involved in Vietnam, and thus the listeners did not have the ugly fact of the war beyond news reports - whereas it was the daily life of every American, because of the draft and so on. (If you didn't know someone who was over there, chances were good you knew someone who did, and draft dodgers were rampant, as well.)

So a song about kipping in the garden and evading the requirements of daily life was all that was required or needed; sooner rather than later, though, the true cost of being on the outside of society was going to make for some astonishing music, music that more than lives up to the golden promise of "Theme One." The village of A Teenage Opera, the disturbing tidiness of "Penny Lane" suddenly come to life on tv, as if its creator was also creating his own psychedelic masterpiece, trying like Wilson, Wirtz or Wood to keep a handle on it, lest it suddenly gets scattered and lost...what, was that the sound of thunder again?


*"King Midas In Reverse" by The Hollies is a good example of this; it was Graham Nash's last stab at making the band more hip, but they - and their producer - weren't interested in getting further out, and so Nash left them the following year for the welcoming hippie world of Laurel Canyon.

Flower Power: Vince Hill: "Edelweiss"

And so we wander from a back garden in Liverpool to...Austria? For a song about a...flower?

See, I told you this was a different kind of year.

The Sound of Music was by far the biggest phenomenon of the mid-60s moviewise; starting as a musical in 1959, it was made into a movie in 1965 and the soundtrack was the album of the time, taking the top spot for months and bobbing up now and again whenever it was a slow week. By early 1967, its songs were already common parlance...except in my house. As I wrote, I grew up in a household more interested in The Doors and Charles Mingus than musicals; unlike virtually everyone else in my generation, I didn't grow up with a copy of this in our record collection, nor did my parents watch it when it was on tv. I first encountered it live in Los Angeles at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (so glamourous - it's where the Oscars were held!) with none other than Florence Henderson, a.k.a. Mrs. Brady, in the lead role. My aunt Debbie took me. I must have thought it was okay, but at eleven I was maybe a bit too young to get this song.

"Edelweiss" comes near the very end of the story; the Von Trapps know they have to flee before the Nazis capture them. You might think that a man about to take his family on a treacherous journey over hill and dale would have other things to sing about, but The Sound of Music is in part a paean to the natural world, a world that is free from man-made things like politics. In the movie it is sung twice - once by the Captain to his children (he has been distant from them, but due to his love for Maria, he has become warm and loving to them again) and then by the whole family at the Salzburg Festival, as an audience sing-a-long. Thus it is a uniting song, a song that exaults the national flower of Austria and a flower that represents family love. Though they had to flee, the Von Trapps sing what is in effect a song of defiance right in the Nazis' faces; what seems to be on the record a gentle tune has a tougher side (Vince Hill's butter-rich voice does it justice, I think; it is supposed to go down easy, in part to mask its defiance).

There is a sadness to this song of course; sadness in that they have to flee the land they love, symbolized by the flower, and then there's the sadness that this was the last song written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; Hammerstein died less than a year after writing this, not long after the musical opened on Broadway. They wrote the song while the show was in rehearsals in Boston, feeling the Captain should have a song at the end, and so convincing was their composition that "Edelweiss" was taken by many to be a native folk song of Austria instead of another Broadway show tune. (Ronald Reagan thought it was the national anthem, and I'm sure he wasn't alone there.)

Now, I know that some - like Pauline Kael - would think the songs from this musical are "sickly, goody-goody*"; in which case I think it's only right to say that having attachments and feelings for a place is part of what makes people, for better or for worse, human. She may have objected to the sentimentality of the songs (even this one), but as the title reminds us, the show is about Music, and the ways music can uplift and transcend even the most horrible of situations, such as forced evacuation of not just your home but your home country.

The humble, small flower is happy and makes its beholder happy; and so a man sees his family, his nation. We know it and they will pull through, finding strength through this humility, this beauty, however square that might seem to some. As Light Programme as this is, there is a bite to it, a reminder that beauty has power, too.



*Presumably she never heard this; this is as close as I got to the musical growing up.

Rock Your Baby: Johnny Preston: "Cradle of Love"

When I saw that I had to write a post about the follow-up to, of all things, "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston, I was not exactly surprised nor thrilled; this is exactly the kind of song that is a big hit, then gets forgotten by and large and is later revived years later by people who remember it in the first place, mainly by rockabilly fans, who were called Teddy Boys in the UK.

Why does this song affect me so? It's not because it's all that sophisticated - the cradle of love is something, however, that is located at first in a tree, which reminds me more than forcibly of a dream I once had...

...a dream where I was in a tree and it was night, still and cool and black, springtime; and I was up in the tree in what seemed to be a bed. I was alone, but I knew I wasn't going to be alone for long, as under the moon (which gave off enough light, without being full) I could see someone determindedly coming towards me, walking along what seemed to be a rather twisting path at times. But mostly I remember being in this bed in the treetop, the very light breeze and sense of something about to happen...

Which means I have to go all Paglia here and say that while this nursery rhyme song seems all trite and cliche and obvious at first, it does hit on some truths that are fundamental, or at least are fundamental if you grow up knowing these rhymes. I may not appreciate the last verse wherein Jack pushes Jill into said cradle of love (but this is 1960, when women were women, men were men and so on) - but the rocking and rocking in the cradle is an essential thing for people their whole lives it seems, and while a cradle in a treetop might seem, well, dangerous, being in love is a huge leap as well, in some cases not just a figurative leap but a literal one. And it is always a leap worth making, as my subconscious mind more than told me in the spring of 2005.

Green Fields Remembered: All-Star Hit Parade: Dickie Valentine, Joan Regan, Winifred Atwell, Dave King, Lita Roza and David Whitfield

First, let me explain my absence from this blog - I have, since writing the latest entry, moved from Toronto to London and have now acclimated myself, as best I can, to the city and the slightly different keyboards & ways of thinking I have encountered. I hope I can write with even more perceptiveness, if I have any, in the future.

To the single!

While out & about I have seen some boxes of Green & Black's chocolate - about six miniature bars all in a row, different but complete versions of chocolate. And that is what this unique - a word I am very deliberate about - single is like. A charity single on a 78 rpm disc, so as to fit six different songs. Yes, it's a charity single, the funds going to help create and preserve green spaces so that children have somewhere to play and run and have fun. A place where the sun shines and you can lay on your back to watch clouds...meanwhile, in a nearby apartment house, six people hear six different songs...

First up is the hitherto unknown to MSBWT Dickie Valentine with "Out of Town"; a song full of longing for the countryside, where the sun is a "yellow duster" and the trees are wearing "blossoms in their hair" - Mother Nature is shiny, yellow and something of a hippie, `though the music itself is jaunty and open as you'd expect it to be - I'll admit I wasn't sure about Mr. Valentine, but this is a warming and welcoming song...

...next is "My September Love" by Joan Regan. Is it soppy? Yes. Does it reek of wistful women in tea shops having epiphanies or at least 'moments' when they look out the window and see someone who looks like 'him'? But of course. Months have passed, maybe years, but HE is forever hers for that month and now it is December, and she walks the streets full of shoppers in her own special world, or maybe just stays at home, gazing into the fire, perpetually remembering. This is a solid song and one that isn't too downbeat...maybe she will meet this man again?...

...next door, a younger woman gets ready to party - looking sharp and fine, as gaily loud as...Winifred Atwell's "Theme From The Threepenny Opera." If you know Winifred you know just how Andrew W.K. she is about playing and pounding out this classic, though everyone, including me, has forgotten her number two from 1953, "Let's Have A Party" (well, I will soon rectify this, as soon as I can actually get hold of it, physically or digitally.) No medley of songs could be complete without Winifred, could it? No! And so side one ends...

...and side two begins with Dave King singing (to Joan Regan, perhaps?) "No Other Love." This is a song of surprising depth and sensuality (again) with the longing being not for green pastures but the Other, the One - will she return is avowals of loyalty? At night he paces his penthouse needing her...yet a few floors down...

...Is Lita Roza, yet another newcomer to the MSBWT world. "A Tear Fell" here isn't so much Pop Art as poor Lita almost sounds as if she is singing this song to herself, while in full ballgown and Aquanet glory, not quite reaching the melodramatic heights of Teresa Brewer. (In apartment terms, if I may, it's a 'model suite' version as opposed to Brewer's fully-furnished disdain and pain)...and now for the big finish, our old friend...

...Dave Whitfield! The king of enunciation is back! Well, who else could it be? It almost doesn't matter 'what' he is singing ("It's Almost Tomorrow" - yes David, if only you knew) as it sounds as if he needs no microphone, like he's all but in Dickie Valentine's green valley already, calling out to his love, passionately serenading her as she herds sheep or picks flowers....

As you can see, this is a group of performers who came together for a common cause and had the good sense to perform a medley instead of finding a song they could all contribute to ~ in their own way, not shoehorned in and cramped as the Hampstead tube elevator at rush hour. And it's fun - six moments of joy, anticipation, longing, regret and hope in just about as many minutes.

One more look at the receding past, before a certain other kind of longing and rude health begins to take over.

Big thanks to Mike Atkinson for finding this for me.