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.
Showing posts with label the power of pop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the power of pop. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
If You Want To Defeat Your Enemy: The Strawbs: "Part Of The Union"
There are few, if any, entries here that I sense you, dear readers, are more interested in than this one; though now thoroughly in The Void, it most certainly is remembered and even cherished as a song with extraordinary meaning.
I do remember hearing this, sometime in the fall of '73 perhaps, sitting at my place at the dining table, which meant I was facing the stereo itself. I imagine the CBC were playing it as part of a news report, maybe something about unions in the UK exercising their right to strike. Though I was just six-and-a-half years old, I could sense something a bit odd about the song; I didn't like it.
Of course, had I known that the songwriters were Tories then my gut reaction would have been reinforced*. Until now I had assumed (wrongly) that there were no Tories in the folk movement...but here we are, the once-named Strawberry Hill Boys who had worked with Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman were by 1972 a harder-edged band once Dave Lambert became their lead singer and guitarist. He didn't write this song though: Richard Hudson and John Ford did, with the latter doing the lead singing in this case.
What to make of this song, which makes fun of the power in a union? Why did I frown, if only to my girlhood self, when I heard it back then? The whole 1973-1974 period was one of strike after strike, mining disaster after mining disaster, the effects of the oil crisis, inflation and so on. I wasn't aware of any of this at the time; I think I just noticed the trace of smugness in the singer's voice, the ugly stompy-stompy nature of the melody, the assumption that the (wo)man with the union card was immune to anything and anyone, superior - almost like Superman! - to the interests of Scotland Yard, contemptuous of the factory bosses and factory laws, loyal only to the union, where s/he was always guaranteed higher pay and if something didn't suit the union, why, they'd strike. That's what they'd do. If I could tell this at six-and-a-half, I am pretty sure those old enough to buy this single could tell...that this was a pro-union sounding song that was in fact making fun of them.
Well now.
But a funny thing happened during this time leading up to and including three-day weeks and no tv after 10:30 at night; the unions themselves - the miners I'd guess, but others too - took this song as their own. The miners worked to rule; an election was called and eventually (after a result leading to a hung parliament) the Tory government was replaced by a Labour one in 1974. These were, as some of you readers know, a decisive and divisive times, when the nerve of the unions and their leaders was up against the government's brinkmanship; a literally dark time, and in dark times people need songs to give them energy and purpose. This song - with the bitterest of ironies - became that song for the unions, by which time Hudson and Ford had left the Strawbs to form their own group, Hudson Ford (later they made fun of punks with their band The Monks - enough said). These two thought they could put down a noble and necessary thing - union power - and get away with it; but they didn't. Folk music is music that belongs to the people, after all; and here the people sang the song back to the group, effectively reversing its power and meaning. I wonder if this sort of thing could ever happen again?
Next up: Honey, let's quit this town.
*I am, as you might expect, a Democrat; my parents were, as were theirs...
I do remember hearing this, sometime in the fall of '73 perhaps, sitting at my place at the dining table, which meant I was facing the stereo itself. I imagine the CBC were playing it as part of a news report, maybe something about unions in the UK exercising their right to strike. Though I was just six-and-a-half years old, I could sense something a bit odd about the song; I didn't like it.
Of course, had I known that the songwriters were Tories then my gut reaction would have been reinforced*. Until now I had assumed (wrongly) that there were no Tories in the folk movement...but here we are, the once-named Strawberry Hill Boys who had worked with Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman were by 1972 a harder-edged band once Dave Lambert became their lead singer and guitarist. He didn't write this song though: Richard Hudson and John Ford did, with the latter doing the lead singing in this case.
What to make of this song, which makes fun of the power in a union? Why did I frown, if only to my girlhood self, when I heard it back then? The whole 1973-1974 period was one of strike after strike, mining disaster after mining disaster, the effects of the oil crisis, inflation and so on. I wasn't aware of any of this at the time; I think I just noticed the trace of smugness in the singer's voice, the ugly stompy-stompy nature of the melody, the assumption that the (wo)man with the union card was immune to anything and anyone, superior - almost like Superman! - to the interests of Scotland Yard, contemptuous of the factory bosses and factory laws, loyal only to the union, where s/he was always guaranteed higher pay and if something didn't suit the union, why, they'd strike. That's what they'd do. If I could tell this at six-and-a-half, I am pretty sure those old enough to buy this single could tell...that this was a pro-union sounding song that was in fact making fun of them.
Well now.
But a funny thing happened during this time leading up to and including three-day weeks and no tv after 10:30 at night; the unions themselves - the miners I'd guess, but others too - took this song as their own. The miners worked to rule; an election was called and eventually (after a result leading to a hung parliament) the Tory government was replaced by a Labour one in 1974. These were, as some of you readers know, a decisive and divisive times, when the nerve of the unions and their leaders was up against the government's brinkmanship; a literally dark time, and in dark times people need songs to give them energy and purpose. This song - with the bitterest of ironies - became that song for the unions, by which time Hudson and Ford had left the Strawbs to form their own group, Hudson Ford (later they made fun of punks with their band The Monks - enough said). These two thought they could put down a noble and necessary thing - union power - and get away with it; but they didn't. Folk music is music that belongs to the people, after all; and here the people sang the song back to the group, effectively reversing its power and meaning. I wonder if this sort of thing could ever happen again?
Next up: Honey, let's quit this town.
*I am, as you might expect, a Democrat; my parents were, as were theirs...
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Come Together, All Together: Plastic Ono Band: "Give Peace A Chance"
"You see I'm shy and aggressive, so I have great hopes for what I do with my work and I also have great despair that it's all pointless and it's shit."
John Lennon, 1970.
By 1969 it was clear that The Beatles, as such, were over; that their impact on music had been felt and refracted so many times that they were living in their very own echo chamber of themselves, and everyone wanted out, one way or another. George Harrison did a solo soundtrack album Wonderwall Music in 1968, and from that moment onwards there was a rather loud ticking clock in the room that was hard to ignore. The Beatles as a myth, a legend, a force, was beginning to override the Beatles as four musicians, and one by one they began to snatch their lives back, however they could. As anyone who has been in a similar situation knows, when there are divorces and weddings and family life in general comes more to the fore, previous strong alliances can sometimes falter. Paul and Linda got married in March 1969, as did John and Yoko Ono. That The Beatles started up Apple in '68 also put another spoke in the wheel, so to speak, as business, not music, took up more of their time.
But still, they were The Beatles, and with Billy Preston had the biggest #1 of '69, and what they did still mattered, on vinyl and celluloid. Try as they did to get away from themselves, the public still wanted and needed them, worldwide. They were the effective spokesmen for the revolution, mainly because of John Lennon's "shy and aggressive" attitude, which is summed up with this song perfectly. Is it a folk song? A protest song? Can it be judged against anything else?
John and Yoko had been in Amsterdam, doing their honeymoon bed-in** for peace; they wanted to do it again in the US but were denied entry, and so went to Montreal to continue their protest, and on June 1st a throwaway statement by Lennon had evolved to the point where everyone from Allen Ginsberg to Murray the K to Petula Clark to the Smothers Brothers showing up at room 1742 at La Reine Elizabeth Hotel to sing along, clapping and banging on whatever was available. It is a simple a song as Lennon, who loved simplicity, wrote; he wanted to write a new popular protest song, and so he did*.
It should not be judged a failure ("pointless") because there is still war in the world; peacemakers are best involved in what the British call "the long game" wherein short-term successes (despite Lennon's claim in the song that peace could come tomorrow if it's demanded- alas the warmongers don't stop that suddenly, and the Vietnam War, to name one, went on pointlessly for years) are just that, short-term. Lennon wins here as he is self-deprecating, using sharp irony to say, hey, isn't peace worth at least a chance? Try it out, you might like it! So apart from the stompy-stompy sing-a-long aspect, easy enough for anyone to join in, there is the weird feeling that this is a no-bullshit country song, with "Everybody's talkin' bout (insert famous people, actions, etc.)" definitely NOT being the point; the point is peace, and celebrity and such is so much hooey. (That celebrity arose to be the point in the 70s is one of the worst things about the 70s, really, and Lennon wanted out of that circus.)
It also doesn't hurt that the song is insanely catchy, that it was recorded with borrowed equipment for a near-indie roughness (not produced as such, but recorded by Andre Perry - as if Phil Spector would ever record anything outside of a studio) that suits the song very well. This is a happening, a protest, a new anthem; it was picked up immediately not just in shops but in protests, which was the real success - not commercially (though that always helps) but as a song that the people sung, that became a phrase for the revolution, plain and simple. That is what Lennon wanted, and if it's not sung that much anymore, it's because other media - including the one you're reading - have been taken up as new mediums for protest. (Ono says Lennon would have used Twitter to protest, and I don't doubt her.)
At this time, only John and Yoko could have pulled off a cross-Atlantic pop hit that was a direct protest record; but then it was what could only be expected, and it was meant to be a hit. The Beatles were disintegrating, the band caught up in too many things to keep up (their cool response to Ono being one aspect), but Lennon's solo career effectively starts here, with Live Peace in Toronto 1969 to come (where "Give Peace a Chance" is performed, this time with Eric Clapton helping out).
The 60s were nearly over, man had walked on the moon***, and the epochal month of August, with its highs and lows, was about to happen. The cover of Abbey Road was taken on the 8th, the Manson family murders happened the next two days in Los Angeles, and a week later in upstate New York, Woodstock gathered the tribes together for a much bigger sing-a-long. The center, as some noted, could not hold; but the American turmoil was not felt so strongly in the UK, where The Beatles were about to disappear, Abbey Road being their last album, one they knew would be their last. By now it must have seemed as if the 70s could not come soon enough, but here are John and Yoko in bed, singing for peace, like two escaped birds of paradise resting on an ordinary tree branch, with other birds chiming in for the dawn chorus. It is a song to remember.
*It is credited, as Beatles songs usually were, to Lennon/McCartney, when in fact McCartney had nothing to do with it; the credit seems to be a thank-you to Paul for helping out with "The Ballad of John and Yoko" on short notice.
**I helplessly always think of this by Eugenius when I think of bed-ins. I like to think Lennon would have loved Eugenius.
***I also cannot help but think Lennon would have loved The Onion.
John Lennon, 1970.
By 1969 it was clear that The Beatles, as such, were over; that their impact on music had been felt and refracted so many times that they were living in their very own echo chamber of themselves, and everyone wanted out, one way or another. George Harrison did a solo soundtrack album Wonderwall Music in 1968, and from that moment onwards there was a rather loud ticking clock in the room that was hard to ignore. The Beatles as a myth, a legend, a force, was beginning to override the Beatles as four musicians, and one by one they began to snatch their lives back, however they could. As anyone who has been in a similar situation knows, when there are divorces and weddings and family life in general comes more to the fore, previous strong alliances can sometimes falter. Paul and Linda got married in March 1969, as did John and Yoko Ono. That The Beatles started up Apple in '68 also put another spoke in the wheel, so to speak, as business, not music, took up more of their time.
But still, they were The Beatles, and with Billy Preston had the biggest #1 of '69, and what they did still mattered, on vinyl and celluloid. Try as they did to get away from themselves, the public still wanted and needed them, worldwide. They were the effective spokesmen for the revolution, mainly because of John Lennon's "shy and aggressive" attitude, which is summed up with this song perfectly. Is it a folk song? A protest song? Can it be judged against anything else?
John and Yoko had been in Amsterdam, doing their honeymoon bed-in** for peace; they wanted to do it again in the US but were denied entry, and so went to Montreal to continue their protest, and on June 1st a throwaway statement by Lennon had evolved to the point where everyone from Allen Ginsberg to Murray the K to Petula Clark to the Smothers Brothers showing up at room 1742 at La Reine Elizabeth Hotel to sing along, clapping and banging on whatever was available. It is a simple a song as Lennon, who loved simplicity, wrote; he wanted to write a new popular protest song, and so he did*.
It should not be judged a failure ("pointless") because there is still war in the world; peacemakers are best involved in what the British call "the long game" wherein short-term successes (despite Lennon's claim in the song that peace could come tomorrow if it's demanded- alas the warmongers don't stop that suddenly, and the Vietnam War, to name one, went on pointlessly for years) are just that, short-term. Lennon wins here as he is self-deprecating, using sharp irony to say, hey, isn't peace worth at least a chance? Try it out, you might like it! So apart from the stompy-stompy sing-a-long aspect, easy enough for anyone to join in, there is the weird feeling that this is a no-bullshit country song, with "Everybody's talkin' bout (insert famous people, actions, etc.)" definitely NOT being the point; the point is peace, and celebrity and such is so much hooey. (That celebrity arose to be the point in the 70s is one of the worst things about the 70s, really, and Lennon wanted out of that circus.)
It also doesn't hurt that the song is insanely catchy, that it was recorded with borrowed equipment for a near-indie roughness (not produced as such, but recorded by Andre Perry - as if Phil Spector would ever record anything outside of a studio) that suits the song very well. This is a happening, a protest, a new anthem; it was picked up immediately not just in shops but in protests, which was the real success - not commercially (though that always helps) but as a song that the people sung, that became a phrase for the revolution, plain and simple. That is what Lennon wanted, and if it's not sung that much anymore, it's because other media - including the one you're reading - have been taken up as new mediums for protest. (Ono says Lennon would have used Twitter to protest, and I don't doubt her.)
At this time, only John and Yoko could have pulled off a cross-Atlantic pop hit that was a direct protest record; but then it was what could only be expected, and it was meant to be a hit. The Beatles were disintegrating, the band caught up in too many things to keep up (their cool response to Ono being one aspect), but Lennon's solo career effectively starts here, with Live Peace in Toronto 1969 to come (where "Give Peace a Chance" is performed, this time with Eric Clapton helping out).
The 60s were nearly over, man had walked on the moon***, and the epochal month of August, with its highs and lows, was about to happen. The cover of Abbey Road was taken on the 8th, the Manson family murders happened the next two days in Los Angeles, and a week later in upstate New York, Woodstock gathered the tribes together for a much bigger sing-a-long. The center, as some noted, could not hold; but the American turmoil was not felt so strongly in the UK, where The Beatles were about to disappear, Abbey Road being their last album, one they knew would be their last. By now it must have seemed as if the 70s could not come soon enough, but here are John and Yoko in bed, singing for peace, like two escaped birds of paradise resting on an ordinary tree branch, with other birds chiming in for the dawn chorus. It is a song to remember.
*It is credited, as Beatles songs usually were, to Lennon/McCartney, when in fact McCartney had nothing to do with it; the credit seems to be a thank-you to Paul for helping out with "The Ballad of John and Yoko" on short notice.
**I helplessly always think of this by Eugenius when I think of bed-ins. I like to think Lennon would have loved Eugenius.
***I also cannot help but think Lennon would have loved The Onion.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Man and Wife: Manfred Mann: "Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James"
And so the 60s sit, perched, as it seems from here, to break into two not-so-clean pieces - the one that, raunchy as it is, still wears matching suits (as we have seen) and the more rebellious types who wear whatever they want and have more ambivalent feelings about what 'normal' people do. This song stands clearly on that side, the one that asks, effectively (decades before Lloyd Cole) "Are you ready to be heartbroken?" Not in the dumped way, but in the way that cozy security and regular routines can fetter those free spirits who aren't quite ready for domesticity. Is the woman here, newly engaged, able to see her future? Does she know what awaits her, out there in the new town? There are two possible answers: yes, and no. This song wouldn't have much point if it's the first answer, because then the Manfreds would be patronizing, right?
Or maybe...not. Even those with something of a clue of what is ahead cannot see everything which is to come; but the subtleties of that are more for the introspective 70s, not now. Clearly this is about a girl who is about to see her life change and probably not for the better. "Semi-detached" refers to a kind of house, but you can imagine Mr. James is a lawyer or physician or someone who works in The City and will not have much time for his Gidget-type girl, who will become - so the singer believes - something of a bored drudge, listening to pirate radio* (maybe) to keep whatever is still vital and sparkling from being smothered completely. The 60s were the 60s, but there was still an expectation that women - no matter how wildly they danced or how short their skirts or radical their views - would eventually settle down (both connotations apply here). Is the girl in this jaunty song ready to do this? Can she do it without becoming depressed, numb or just bored? Manfred Mann don't think so, and the next year will see them proved right.
The chart at this time is ablaze with many emotions, from joy to loneliness, desperation to liberation; whimsy, even. That better-have-a-drink-before-I-sing-this schlock was in the mix was fine, too; but the divide is about to become greater as the year comes to a close, though the swinging 60s aren't going to disappear once the church bells start ringing. Those who want to conform and be "square" and those who marry into that life will sit and be - annoyed, bemused or baffled - by those who refuse to join in. Now seems like the last time the two sides will even talk to each other, let alone contemplate marriage.
*Pirate stations only employed men as they were supposed to be substitutes for husbands for any wives listening. I may have mentioned this before, but I still think it's worth noting.
Or maybe...not. Even those with something of a clue of what is ahead cannot see everything which is to come; but the subtleties of that are more for the introspective 70s, not now. Clearly this is about a girl who is about to see her life change and probably not for the better. "Semi-detached" refers to a kind of house, but you can imagine Mr. James is a lawyer or physician or someone who works in The City and will not have much time for his Gidget-type girl, who will become - so the singer believes - something of a bored drudge, listening to pirate radio* (maybe) to keep whatever is still vital and sparkling from being smothered completely. The 60s were the 60s, but there was still an expectation that women - no matter how wildly they danced or how short their skirts or radical their views - would eventually settle down (both connotations apply here). Is the girl in this jaunty song ready to do this? Can she do it without becoming depressed, numb or just bored? Manfred Mann don't think so, and the next year will see them proved right.
The chart at this time is ablaze with many emotions, from joy to loneliness, desperation to liberation; whimsy, even. That better-have-a-drink-before-I-sing-this schlock was in the mix was fine, too; but the divide is about to become greater as the year comes to a close, though the swinging 60s aren't going to disappear once the church bells start ringing. Those who want to conform and be "square" and those who marry into that life will sit and be - annoyed, bemused or baffled - by those who refuse to join in. Now seems like the last time the two sides will even talk to each other, let alone contemplate marriage.
*Pirate stations only employed men as they were supposed to be substitutes for husbands for any wives listening. I may have mentioned this before, but I still think it's worth noting.
Monday, September 19, 2011
You Can't Play That On The BBC part 1: The Who: "I'm a Boy"
Away from the pastoral sweep of The Beach Boys, now, and back to the UK, where something was most definitely happening, though for just now there are only glints of it on the pop charts. That something is the division between pop and rock, easily seen by the differences between album and singles charts. For now they remain more or less the same, but this state will only last for a couple more years, at best. The word 'art' comes back naturally with The Who, lead by the self-consciously audacious Pete Townsend, who wanted more- more than just regular pop songs as provided by everyone else. Other groups did too, of course (the Rolling Stones always being hip to trends, and The Beatles personified restlessness) but Townsend's sincerity makes this song (from an abandoned project about a world of gender-selected babies called "Quads") stand out.
There is no overt menace here, just a refusal (because she wanted another daughter) of a mother to accept that she has a son, which makes Bill into a "headcase" - dying to escape from the world of femininity to one of cricket, mud and bicycles and blood - but who "gets it" if he does. This goes beyond the Stones' dressing up in women's clothing for "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadows" (a different way of defying norms and testing of their audience; the song stalled at #5).
"I'm a Boy" wins out because it seems to be leading the listener into something, something different and interesting, unless you are a light programme devotee and songs about gender differences and incipient madness make you...uncomfortable. The song is full of harmonies (influenced by Pet Sounds, I'd guess) and sung as prettily as possible, as well, by both Townsend and Daltrey. It is nearly weightless (anticipating "I Can See For Miles") and the anger comes out in Moon's drumming as usual, but the two harmonize at the end, lamenting and asserting the boy's point of view, one that can't be denied forever...
...it is a good point to ponder the role of pirate radio at this time, mainly because it would play what the BBC would not - songs such as the ones mentioned here. The pirates - from what I can tell - created the utterly free climate for bands and songwriters to do whatever they wanted, within reason, and then to see just how much they could get away with. Would they have been as daring without the pirates? Just how closely did people then listen to lyrics? Part of pop - or rock, if you will - is to push limits, to say the previously unsayable, to give the outcasts and freaks and geeks a voice - a voice that was needed and at present able to be heard, though by now objections to pirate radio were getting louder and louder, much like the music itself.
Townsend would eventually write longer and longer pieces about confusion and alienation and the search for some kind of resolution; this song is the start towards Tommy and Quadrophenia as well, rock as art (as opposed to art rock, which this blog will reach in time). In the meantime a whole new crop of bands would appear, blowing the minds of some listeners and driving others (more timid ones, perhaps) to the more standard fare of love songs and cheery uptempo toe tappers. Pop is the girl and rock is the boy? If only it were as simple as that; but once the door is open then anything can happen, and the idea that a song has to be anything will be tested during this time, until something breaks.
The promise of this song is that the boy can sing at all (unlike Tommy he's not dumb) and he will go on singing, even to himself. Another singer/songwriter heard this and was perhaps encouraged to write his own song, one that would be too much for even pirate radio. Something was happening, indeed.
There is no overt menace here, just a refusal (because she wanted another daughter) of a mother to accept that she has a son, which makes Bill into a "headcase" - dying to escape from the world of femininity to one of cricket, mud and bicycles and blood - but who "gets it" if he does. This goes beyond the Stones' dressing up in women's clothing for "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadows" (a different way of defying norms and testing of their audience; the song stalled at #5).
"I'm a Boy" wins out because it seems to be leading the listener into something, something different and interesting, unless you are a light programme devotee and songs about gender differences and incipient madness make you...uncomfortable. The song is full of harmonies (influenced by Pet Sounds, I'd guess) and sung as prettily as possible, as well, by both Townsend and Daltrey. It is nearly weightless (anticipating "I Can See For Miles") and the anger comes out in Moon's drumming as usual, but the two harmonize at the end, lamenting and asserting the boy's point of view, one that can't be denied forever...
...it is a good point to ponder the role of pirate radio at this time, mainly because it would play what the BBC would not - songs such as the ones mentioned here. The pirates - from what I can tell - created the utterly free climate for bands and songwriters to do whatever they wanted, within reason, and then to see just how much they could get away with. Would they have been as daring without the pirates? Just how closely did people then listen to lyrics? Part of pop - or rock, if you will - is to push limits, to say the previously unsayable, to give the outcasts and freaks and geeks a voice - a voice that was needed and at present able to be heard, though by now objections to pirate radio were getting louder and louder, much like the music itself.
Townsend would eventually write longer and longer pieces about confusion and alienation and the search for some kind of resolution; this song is the start towards Tommy and Quadrophenia as well, rock as art (as opposed to art rock, which this blog will reach in time). In the meantime a whole new crop of bands would appear, blowing the minds of some listeners and driving others (more timid ones, perhaps) to the more standard fare of love songs and cheery uptempo toe tappers. Pop is the girl and rock is the boy? If only it were as simple as that; but once the door is open then anything can happen, and the idea that a song has to be anything will be tested during this time, until something breaks.
The promise of this song is that the boy can sing at all (unlike Tommy he's not dumb) and he will go on singing, even to himself. Another singer/songwriter heard this and was perhaps encouraged to write his own song, one that would be too much for even pirate radio. Something was happening, indeed.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Chivalrous Shout: The Hollies: "I Can't Let Go"
The men of flashing brilliance are back; no one is ever going to argue that The Hollies were great - they aren't in the Big Four (Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks) in terms of capital-I Importance. But as it happens that may not matter as much as you might think. Just as Baroque pop gets going at this time, so does power pop, which is all about high harmonies, key changes and a cheery determination about love, no matter the odds. In the original this song* is slow and soulful, done by the underrated Evie Sands; there it is a song wherein she almost cannot let go of him physically because she wants him so much, it is as if her soul is stuck to him. (One incongruity of the Sixties is that this rather painful condition is backed by go-go dancers.)
Sands' version properly should have been the hit, but she was dogged by bad luck and in swooped The Hollies to cover it, polishing it up and thus transforming it from a song of visceral attachment to one of bright and shining chivalry. He's tried and tried and has given up and is simply going to wait; it is like an anthem sung in a queue. Allan Clarke sings this smiling, the voices leap and tackle the lyrics as if they were flying fish, and any pain in the song is forgotten in the sheer sonic rush.
When people look back at the Sixties and think merely of turbulence, they should also remember that there was a lot of exuberance and thrills involved too, intense attachments that could simply take people over...and groups which may not have gone way out there (I can't imagine them doing a concept album, for instance) but were steady presences in a time when having a group that was reliable was a relief in itself. Anyone who says The Hollies are their favorite group (or who says they are majorly influenced by them) values power pop, or perhaps makes it themselves, such as Canada's own Sloan (who covered it on their Recorded Live at a Sloan Party! album). Power pop may not have survived in the UK, but it flourished in North America, thus proving that The Hollies were more important than even they thought; and as you might expect I am far from done with them. Indeed by the time I am, they will have helped invent another kind of musical style altogether.
*Written by Chip Taylor; we will get back to him, dear readers, with a very different song quite shortly.
Sands' version properly should have been the hit, but she was dogged by bad luck and in swooped The Hollies to cover it, polishing it up and thus transforming it from a song of visceral attachment to one of bright and shining chivalry. He's tried and tried and has given up and is simply going to wait; it is like an anthem sung in a queue. Allan Clarke sings this smiling, the voices leap and tackle the lyrics as if they were flying fish, and any pain in the song is forgotten in the sheer sonic rush.
When people look back at the Sixties and think merely of turbulence, they should also remember that there was a lot of exuberance and thrills involved too, intense attachments that could simply take people over...and groups which may not have gone way out there (I can't imagine them doing a concept album, for instance) but were steady presences in a time when having a group that was reliable was a relief in itself. Anyone who says The Hollies are their favorite group (or who says they are majorly influenced by them) values power pop, or perhaps makes it themselves, such as Canada's own Sloan (who covered it on their Recorded Live at a Sloan Party! album). Power pop may not have survived in the UK, but it flourished in North America, thus proving that The Hollies were more important than even they thought; and as you might expect I am far from done with them. Indeed by the time I am, they will have helped invent another kind of musical style altogether.
*Written by Chip Taylor; we will get back to him, dear readers, with a very different song quite shortly.
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