I Met A Man Who Wasn't There: Lulu: "The Man Who Sold The World"

Or, the power of Bowie in the age of crisis.  Lulu attended one of Bowie's concerts, he invited her backstage and said he wanted to do a single with her; and so this happened (b-side is "Watch That Man").  Lulu had been through a lot by this time, including her Eurovision hit (a number two, as you'll recall) and an early and rather poignant marriage to Maurice Gibb, which was over by the time this was released.  So she is at something of a loose end - she has by this time also gone and done an album at the new studio Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, New Routes (following dutifully in the footsteps of La Springfield) and another called Melody Fair -  in Europe she was more or less a hit more in Germany than in the UK, where she was the pantomime star in Peter Pan.  Neither of her albums charted, but I can imagine Bowie wishing she would do something a bit more modern, and since at this time Bowie was the thing (Lulu thought he was "ubercool" herself), a cover version was obvious.

But this song?  Nothing about it is obvious.  Lulu herself didn't understand it but sang it anyway with a kind of toughness and raw quality that acts as a natural bridge between Bowie's version and the justifiably definitive one by Nirvana.  In this version, she is staring, masculine, unamused; this creep on the stair is making her nervous, sure, but her "gazely stare" is expectant, defiant, even.  The man (and she is dressed as a man) has sold the world, she laughs and shakes his hand, but then roams...someone died, didn't they?  Did millions die?  Death is part of life, and yet here death seems to become this man, somehow.  Or is this a kind of death-in-life?  "We never lost control" the song says, not ever saying who "we" are.  Lulu's controlled voice brings the song to life in a way that makes it sound as if the man really did sell the world, and now she is looking in the mirror somehow and seeing herself in that figure on the stair; as if a hidden part of herself has confronted her, and her assertions of control are all she has against this uncanny double.

 We die, we live, and yet do we know who we are?  Lulu's flat "Who knows?  Not me" are a solid wall here, and Bowie's saxophone lends it a kind of creepiness that makes this slightly reggaefied cover unnerving, which is presumably what Bowie wanted.  The pauses and echoes of the original are gone, all is centered on Lulu's voice - and does it alter the song, hearing a woman sing it?  Is this a woman meeting her male self, her repressed side?  Or is The Man here really The Man, content to let you think he's your friend, even though you've never really met him before?  There are puzzles within puzzles here, but Lulu was smart enough to let the song stand for itself, and it was a #2 hit on the Radio Luxembourg chart, where the loucheness of the song altogether was indeed welcome and modern.

Lulu is still an underrated singer and it would be most welcome if she could record a new album a la Petula Clark's Lost In You*; from what I could tell from the Commonwealth Games, she is still full of the genial toughness and eagerness to break new ground, even if all they wanted was her to sing "Shout" one more time.

Next up:  the (partial) invention of Radiohead. 

*It would be almost asking her too much to do this, wouldn't it?  And yet, I think it could work....
   

What Can He Do?: Joe Brown: "A Picture of You"

One of the many reasons I am writing this here blog - in case any of you were perhaps wondering - is to educate myself in the history of UK rock and pop, in some cases to find out that music does indeed run in families. (This makes me think that there must be a gene that gives music a boost, at the very least.) Back when I started to really buy music all the time (c. 1988), an album called Stop! came out by one Sam Brown; I bought it, just like I bought a lot of music that year in an attempt to understand and comprehend the world better after my father's death. Her acute pain was mine, just as the anger and energy of other albums gratified and encouraged me. Not that Stop! is all pain, but the title single is played to this day on 'easy-listening' radio stations, despite being anything but an 'easy-listening' song. I knew her father made music, but never had heard of him, until now...

...and again I can't help but think of how close families are in expressing themselves; how Joe's singing must have influenced Sam's, as well as (at least evidenced by this song) a kind of romantic helplessness. Once again there's just a nameless woman, seen and seen but never known, "all of the evening and most of the day" (such precision is a foreshadowing of the Bee Gees) and he is preoccupied by his heart and a photograph he took of her, after which she simply disappears. (The song this most reminds me of is "Photograph" by Def Leppard, oddly enough.) I am beginning to think that boys in 1962 simply & merely looked at at girls and dreamt about them, maybe approached them and maybe...didn't, as the picture began to take over the reality of the situation. He seems sanguine enough about it in the song, helpless like I said, but not upset or angry - how can he be? At least he has the picture, unlike, oh, in this song. (Again, I think of Roland Barthes and the image being more important than the actuality; maybe this picture Brown has of this woman is punctum enough for him.)

In any case, I want to honor both Browns here for making music that is powerful enough to be successful and just odd enough to make that success more than merely 'being in the chart'.

The Glad Eye: Johnny Otis and His Orchestra with Marie Adams: "Ma He's Making Eyes At Me"

When it comes to the senses in lyrics, the eyes have it: though hearing and touching are there too, the ability to see far outstrips them and for good reason; it is the first sense to register another person, the Other, and the one that can be responded to most directly. (That said, if you don't like how the Other smells on a regular basis, I would suggest you find another; chemistry has a lot to say about love via the nostrils.)

When a man looks at a woman in a song and falls for her instantly, that song (if it is good, that is) has a swooping, sweeping quality to it, the singer stunned and amazed and perhaps a bit in disbelief - but mainly there is a gratifying intensity to the whole thing, an OMG this is big and my whole life has changed and even if I try to deny it, it won't go away-ness that leads to...well, whatever comes next. Does the Other even know she is the object? Certainly by the end of the song she does, as his delirious love declaration cannot be ignored - not if he is sincere and eloquent enough. (Recent UK #1 "Number One" by Tinchy Stryder & N-Dubz is a fine example of this kind of song.)

But love isn't just words but gestures - and it starts with the eyes.

"Mama!" the singer cries out, "he's making EYES at me!!" This is responded to (yes) by a bunch of screaming girls - this is the first live #2, after all - and the singer (Marie Adams) goes on to sing such deathless lines as "Mercy! Let his conscience guide him!" and "Ma I'm meeting with resistance/I shall holler for assistance/Ma, he's kissing me!"

Now, no girl in the history of the universe ever actually says such things; they are thought. So what's here? Besides a riotous good time with your standard doo wop provided by the Johnny Otis, there's nothing less than the female interior becoming the near-screamed female experience, shared with lots of young women who are shrieking in recognition and response (though maybe some in the Orchestra are making eyes at them?) No wonder there's a call-and-response from the audience to Ms. Adams; no wonder a song that makes the implicit explicit got to #2 and stayed in the charts for a good while, only stopped by such luminaries as Harry Belafonte, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis from getting to the top spot. I can well imagine those who disapproved of the Everly Brothers' hit tut-tutting this as well; the freedom for a girl to scream in public with joy is rare indeed, and having what they feel being said aloud must have been liberating in a time when girls were not supposed to express themselves in such an explosive way. Screaming girls, I salute you - this song from 1921 has just been launched into the atomic age and thing are, as I said before, accelerating far faster than any censor could imagine.