Dedicated: Wizzard: "Rock 'n' Roll Winter (Looney's Tune)"

If there is one thing that I sometimes think music writers tend to discount a bit, it's sentiment.  Sentiment is all over music; strong feelings can be the cause of music (and its cure - having a passion can be exhausting too)...so to find out that a song is for a certain person can make the song more poignant, but I do wonder sometimes what the Other in this case feels.  What is it like to have a song about you be a huge hit?  Is it still for you, or it is suddenly for everyone else who needs it as well?  I guess it depends upon the individual and the song, too*.

This song must have sounded like a big hug at the time, a hug given to Roy Wood's girlfriend of the time, the late Lynsey de Paul.  In their dare-I-say-it-legendary performance on TOTP (the only time a vacuum cleaner has been played like a cello), Roy Wood looks utterly calm and also in love; with his mass of multicolored hair and multicolored face, he appears to be trying his best to hide, to put on a mask, but love cannot be hidden.  The song is addressed to De Paul (who is crying), perhaps because she now has the notorious Don Arden as her manager; who knows.  But this song is huge, complex, rock 'n' roll taken up to some new degree - as big as their previous hit. 

There is something a little intimidating to have all this dedicated to you, I would guess, but the sheer riches on offer (Wood played almost all parts himself) in the wintertime...well it is like Christmas all over again, in part.  The Glam Slam isn't just about flash and trash; it's also about cheer and joy and merriment as well, which in 1974 was otherwise in short supply.  "If your most important things don't go your way" he says to her, then just ignore it, as his "teenage heart" is in love with her, and her music sustains him through the ice and snow; so this song is not just about their relationship but also about the ability of music - their music, all music - to sustain them.  He could dedicate any song to her, he says; though exhausted, too tired to speak, the music does the talking for him.  And so the song gallops through its chorus, then comes up to the end, stopping as a friendly horse would at the door. 

I don't know if de Paul loved this song, or even how long she was with Roy Wood; but I can say that this song (late in being released as, well, Wood wanted it to be just so) could easily be addressed to the general audience as well.  Yes, we know 1974 started badly, even the spring can feel cold, dreadful times are upon us - but the eternal promise of rock 'n' roll is going to keep things afloat.  At this time Wood wasn't really part of ELO anymore**, but Wizzard were still a parallel to them; I would rather listen to this than ELO's concurrent hit "Ma-Ma-Ma-Belle" at any time. 

This song, however, is utterly normal compared to the next one...

Next up:  They came from Los Angeles.   



*It's called "Looney's Tune" as that was de Paul's nickname, given to her by Spike Milligan; it was #2 on the Radio Luxembourg chart.  It was kept off the top by "Waterloo," which is clearly a Wizzard-inspired song. 

**That said I can't help but think he had a hand in Out of the Blue.

   

Burning On: Mud: "Dyna-Mite"

The main virtue of rock 'n' roll is that it's not supposed to be about technical excellence at its heart (though that can be stupefying, goodness knows) but about a kind of knowing-wink look, a sense that maybe what is happening is a little...dangerous. 

Mud aren't dangerous; certainly with this song the woman in question is explosive, but Les Gray's voice doesn't shriek or go camp - it is a plain voice (one from quiet suburban Carsharlton, no less) and poses no threat to any order whatsoever.  And so the woman's impact is tempered, made suggestive somehow, because of Gray's calm. 

This Chinn/Chapman song (rejected by The Sweet for being not quite rocking enough, I guess) sounds a little like Status Quo, a little like Suzi Quatro - when the Glam template was fresh every song was distinctive, but now that it has been worn smooth it has become a genre, as opposed to a movement.  Glam was still big enough to have real force in the charts (this was a #2 on the Radio Luxembourg hit parade) to matter and wasn't going away anytime soon (see the next two entries here) but emotionally it had to be more ooomphy than this (though the music going "on and on and on and on" with the Gray's voice going up and up each time is at least a good try). 

The sophisticated velvet goldmine era of T.Rex has given way to this handclapping/vaguely intimidating ode to a woman who can turn on a whole damn town, not just one man, with her flashing eyes and radiance - so much so that no one knows if she's "wrong or right" as she is so overwhelming.  This is again a woman-as-spectacle song (nowhere in the narration is there any interaction between the narrator and the woman) - she tells you to boogaloo and you do, and that's that.  She comes from nowhere and is beholden to no one.  She is a flash in the sky, but it's too bad the song is durably rock 'n' roll but not much more than that; this song is in The Void, as far as I can tell, for being too neat and tidy about a woman who is anything but.  She's on fire, as Alicia Keys will one day sing, and as Gray gets across backhandedly. 

Next up:  groove on me what?