No Agony Please, We're British: Vicky Leandros: "Come What May (Apres Toi)"

And now to the winner of 1972's Eurovision, to a song that was sung originally in French as "Avec Toi" but was translated into English as "Come What May."  Leandros was born in Greece but was asked by Luxemburg to represent them at Eurovision in '68 (I have no idea how that would happen, by the way - perhaps it's because she was brought up in Germany?) where she placed a more than respectable fourth place; and so she returns again, with an anthem of love - all the typical tropes are here ("my life changed completely the moment I met you" and "yesterday is very far away" are the main messages of the song, beyond her loyalty and love for her Other).  Yes, this is an unabashed love song, of the kind that automatically gets versions sung in various languages, yet is immediately understandable even if you don't comprehend what she is singing.  The feeling of relief and triumph are here, a kind of stark testifying that might grip the hearts of the Housewives of Valium Court and remind them of their own decisions of the past, ones made with equal conviction and heroic quality.  The French lyrics, however, take the song to a more intimate corner, where she is comparing how she feels when she is with the Other and when she is not; she is singing to let her Other know that she has "les main vides, le coeur sans joie" and the song ends with the ambiguous but hopeful "je pourrai peut-etre/donner de ma tendresse/mais plus rien de mon amour."

All of which is to say that in English this is an utterly straightforward song, clear as can be; but in French (which was the basis of the other versions, I presume) it is more a song of experience and love that is typically Gallic in its sophistication, more heart-grabbing, more the kind of thing that properly translated could be sung by Scott Walker.  I feel as if the English-speaking audience is being cheated here, that a song that is about the many facets of love and loss is being ironed out into a rah-rah blunt statement of near-slavish devotion that is just plain embarrassing once the original lyrics are understood.  I am not sure who re-wrote the song, but s/he did the original version (co-written by Leandros' father, Leo) an injustice.  In French, she sings about living after him as the shadow of her Other's shadow; in English, she seems to give up everything for this man, not once telling him how things will be for her if he leaves her; and so a fine Eurovision winner is more than just lost in translation; it is simplified for an audience that is presumed to be too...something....for such a song to work.  What that something is, is in part what I am working towards here; the answer is not going to be pretty, I'm afraid.

Next up:  back to the 60s via a 70s pin-up. 

Boogie Transfer: Ringo Starr: "Back Off Boogaloo"

It happened one night:  Ringo Starr had Marc Bolan over for dinner - by this time they were friends (who knows when they had met, but Starr like all the ex-Beatles loved T. Rex's music).  Starr was inspired by Bolan's own burbling language at the table - including the word 'boogaloo' - and while about to go to sleep this song came to him.  He managed to record it on tape and then recorded it with George Harrison both producing and playing lead guitar.  Such an event was rare in Starr's life - he isn't a very prolific songwriter - but Bolan's energy and prescence were enough to get Starr to write a song all by himself, one that is a rough shambling boogie, a kind of proclamation. 

Unlike Lennon or McCartney it's hard to figure out what 'message' might be here - besides a general wake-up call to this mysterious figure who has "wallpaper shoes" and who has been pretending to be dead.  Was it a song aimed at McCartney?  The subconscious sometimes says things that can be interpreted any which way, and McCartney may be the target, but it's far more Bolan-influenced than anything else, and a general call to all musicians to get their act together, and realize something new is happening.   

Indeed at this time T.Rex were the biggest band in the UK and by far the most inspiring; David Bowie and Elton John, also friends of his, were to write songs about him as well (Bowie's was "The Prettiest Star" from Aladdin Sane and Elton's was "I'm Gonna Be A Teenage Idol" from Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player both from 1973).  Who knows how many future musicians would see T. Rex in person or on Top of the Pops and instantly want to get onstage with a guitar to do some boogalooing of their own?  This song is just part of the "TRextasy" that existed at this time*.  The boys and the girls were united here as they were divided elsewhere; T.Rex's success would help others to get to glam stardom as well, but none of the groups or individuals who came after were quite like T.Rex.  Those who saw him sensed that this was an apotheosis of rock, this is what it must have been like in the 50s to hear something on the radio and know it was yours, it was new, and that it was righteous.  T.Rex somehow had that elegance and balance down, a sexuality that was both airy and groovy at the same time.  Bolan could give Starr the confidence to write a song, and while Bowie and Elton were already fully-formed personalities of their own, I like to think that they also picked up something from him, as well.  This gift was instantaneous; a fresh breeze blowing all the old 60s dust away.  What would happen next in this raw and charged atmosphere?  Suddenly,it seemed anything could happen, and T.Rex and Marc Bolan in particular are the main reason for that. 

Next up:  Greece is the word.     


*Born To Boogie is a movie by Ringo Starr about T.Rex and features them in concert at Wembley, marking the peak of T.Rex's fame.  Elton John also appears in it, and don't worry dear readers, we will be getting to him soon.    

Guys and Dolls: The New Seekers: "Beg, Steal or Borrow"

And now we are back into The Void; but something else is afoot as well.  When I think of the 70s in a word-association kind of way, I think of one word – glamour.  But I think of another too:  equality*.  Balance.  A sense of things evening out; of the scales finally coming to some sort of rest. 

On the one side there are the glam hordes, and on the other, there’s bands like this – The New Seekers – who are solid family fare, an aural equivalent of a whole wheat sandwich and an apple for your lunch.  They are, indefatigably, good in that healthy way which no doubt helped them at Eurovision, where this song, as it does here, came second.  (I get to the winner in a short while, don’t worry.)  Their coordinated outfits and similar hairstyles (and lengths!) all add to a kind of glamorous uniformity, like so many dolls on display, gleaming and bright and sparkly and happy, buoyantly happy in that way that a band who’ve just had a huge hit earworm single could only be.  Their joy negates any actual desperation in the song, as if they would never have to beg or borrow for anything else in their lives – why should they? – with their floor-length gowns and velvet suits.  I am guessing that against this wall of happiness most other Eurovision contestants didn’t have a chance, and I’m also guessing there was a certain group in Sweden taking close notes on their harmonies – they too had two female and two male singers, and wanted to win Eurovision themselves. 

But back to the idea of balance – there was the glam rockers on one side, the wholesome (and overwhelmingly girl-friendly) families of Partridge and Osmond on the other, with T.Rex there in the middle, appealing to everyone.  I don’t want to make this into some kind of battle between good and evil; between the awesome forces of rock fighting the cheery battalions of pop.  By now anyone truly interested in such battles has stopped buying singles and is buying prog albums instead.  The balance here is one of gender:  nothing more, nothing less.  I know that boys liked the two women in The New Seekers (Lyn Paul and Eve Graham) but I’m talking about other gut-level instincts here; ones that are attracted to the silly otherworldly and loud glam side, or the someone-help-me-pleas of the boys, along with odes to love like this one.  Right now there is something for everyone, the scales balance, and T. Rex keep both sides more than happy.  That this song is in The Void is probably due to its near-win at Eurovision; it’s a nice song, the kind of song (written by Tony Cole, Steve Wolfe and Graeme Hall) that serves its purpose but doesn’t stick like the Coke-ad-rework “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing,” (the hit that was in part why they had such confidence at Eurovision) for instance**.  The UK was unafraid to send current hitmakers to Eurovision at the time; it sent Cliff Richard yet again the next year with the oompah-dumb (in a likable way, but still) “Power To All Our Friends” which resides even further down The Void than this song does… 

Pop was ever thus; but somehow in balancing things, extremes had to be reached, limits tested; the safe middle was exactly where a lot of eager-to-be-thrilled boys didn’t want to be.  I’m going to explore that idea in a while, but first there are a few more songs including two which are also odes in their own way; a celebration of the now and a pause to ponder the past, present and future.

Next up:  the man of the moment.

*The struggle for equality from my American perspective is in the feminist movement; that movement still exists, but crucially as a girl in the 70s it was important that I simply knew that it was there in the first place.  In the UK, as far as I can tell, things were different; I will be getting back to this in a future post.

**North American readers will know that they recorded the main theme to the 70s kid-liberation classic Free To Be… You And Me - a work which sadly remains unheard of in the UK to this day, as far as I can tell. 

Death Is Not The End: Don McLean: "American Pie"

There are some songs which I grew up hearing on the radio in an uncritical way (for the first few years I simply listened to everything I could and soaked it all up like a sponge, without much of an opinion most of the time) that I understood, and others I would learn to understand…and then there’s this song.

I suspect that you, dear readers, either love or loathe this song; that it somehow either makes some grand sense or that it is a load of old whiffle and not worth much examination.  Well, this here blog exists in part to look at these old DJ-favorite warhorse songs, the ones that purport to say something - about not just the singer’s psyche but a whole generation’s psyche – and who knows how much brain time has already been dedicated to figuring out what this song means, over the decades. 

Now, I’m not sure if I have the stamina to go through every single line of the song* but I figure that if Don McLean is trying to tell us something, then it’s worth trying to decode what it is, and maybe root around a little deeper to figure out what is really going on here.  This is a folk song, lest we forget, about rock ‘n ‘ roll; it is about one day, and everything after.

“A long, long time ago-“ Ok, now, hold it there.  A long, long time ago?  Are we going back to some pre-WWI time when jazz was invented?  Hm, what?  1959?  That’s not a long time ago!  That is (from 1972’s terms) just over a decade or so!  Since when is that a long time ago?  Already McLean is messing with our minds, trying to yank listeners out of their own inner chronology.  This is his 1959 he’s talking about; that cold day, the day that the music died. 

Well, Jesus H. Christ on a skateboard, the music died?  Or maybe I should write it as The Music died?  At the time I first heard this, I knew nothing of Buddy Holly, so the rest of the song made little sense, besides the general puzzle of why anyone would have “drove my Chevy to the levee” upon hearing the news**.  Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens died in a plane crash in early February 1959, the day (Rock) Music died.  This much is known, and that is where this song resides – with the “Good ol’ boys” who sit around drinking and pretty much figure that’s it, as far as music is concerned***.  Already we are in the corner of a rather narrow room, so to speak, and then McLean gives us the rest of the story, full of sock hops and pickup trucks, none of which could really help him cope with Holly’s death.  And then…

Then we get a potted history of rock music in the 60s.  It is fairly obvious that this is a song by a Baby Boomer for other Baby Boomers; indeed one of the reasons it did so well in the first place is that it became an anthem for them, was #1 in the US for a month, in fact.  Now, I can’t do much about being from this generation or that; but what I can say is that this song represents to them (or at least a lot of them; I hate to generalize) a certain truth.  An emotional truth, but not really a factual one, but rock ‘n’ roll is long on myth and sentiment and short on facts.  Thus, in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll the piece on Buddy Holly refers to McLean’s song without attribution early on; and there’s a strange denial of events by Greil Marcus, who should really know better, as to what was exciting in music – in his essay on The Beatles, he says that before they arrived “Rock and roll – the radio – felt dull and stupid, a dead end.”  This after writing a piece on girl groups where he says:  “If you were looking for rock and roll between Elvis and The Beatles, girl groups gave you the genuine article.”  Well, which is it?  In truth, there was an awful lot happening between Elvis and The Beatles, and you, dear readers, pretty much already know the roll call:  The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, Sam Cooke, James Brown, the rise and rise of Motown, Phil Spector, surf rock, the Impressions – the list goes on and on, and yet I can still sense Marcus’ tut-tutting of a lot of this.  Holly’s death was a symbolic one for a loss of innocence; he died, guilty of nothing more than wanting to travel warmly, and the rest of the original rock ‘n’ rollers either joined the Army or got into girl trouble, to put it mildly.  The music kept right on coming, as it always does. 

And now, back to the song.  The middle part, as I said before, is something of a history, and when I was in my sponge mode I would always space out a bit here, as I had very few clues as to what he was going on about.  The King and Queen, for instance.  I didn’t grow up in a household where Elvis was talked about at all, so I had no idea he was the King, and I still have no idea who the Queen is.  The Jester is Bob Dylan**** who somehow steals the King’s “thorny crown”, though just how this happened in real life I have yet to figure out.  People have thankfully given up calling anyone the new Dylan, but Dylan was not then the new Elvis – Elvis was Elvis, and that was that.  (That Dylan sings in a voice “that came from you and me” is a bit much; unless he’s saying that his literal voice is more like the public’s than, oh, Bobby Darin’s, for instance.)  Then there’s a trial (?), then Lenin and Marx are thrown in as signifiers and maybe puns as The Beatles show up, and The Byrds somehow get involved in a football game (“the players tried for a forward pass”:  do any of The Byrds look athletic to you?) while Dylan is injured, and The Beatles return with Sgt. Pepper during half-time; they refuse to leave the field so the players can get on with the game, so I guess the game is called off.  The Rolling Stones (in case you were wondering where they were) turn up as the bad guys, making the narrator oh so angry.  “Fire is the Devil’s only friend*****” he says, out of nowhere.  “Satan laughs in delight” as Altamont and so forth (funny how Woodstock, the ur-Baby Boomer event if there ever was one, isn’t mentioned) happen and the decade ends…

…and there is our narrator, asking a girl who sings the blues for happy news (completely unsure about who this might be; Joni Mitchell perhaps?  Laura Nyro?  No clue) and he goes to the “sacred store” where the man who works there says most pathetically that “the music wouldn’t play” as if all the turntables in the world were now possessed by the devil himself and would only work backwards, or something.  Then the “three men” he admires the most – “the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost” also disappear.  At the time I first was getting to know this song, I had utterly no idea what that meant, either in the original or in the tortured metaphors of the song.  Albert Ayler once said that “Trane was the Father, Pharoah is the Son and I am the Holy Ghost”; apparently here it’s Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin.  And thus the music has died all over again, rock and roll is effectively finished, and the folk singer is here to say, I guess, that those awful Rolling Stones and in a way The Beatles did the deed.  They killed it, and the good ol’ boys go down to the levee to perhaps throw themselves in, but it’s dry, so they just get drunk themselves.  A silent rust has set in; the sing-a-long quality of the song – and really, this is a kid’s song gussied up for grown-ups – coerces that death out and out, until all that seems to happen is that “the music” dies repeatedly, whether it is by actual deaths of musicians or the death of certain scenes.  The world is now a cold and quiet place, the narrator implies; and rock and roll is indeed gone.

And yet, and yet.  If I go back to this year for a moment where I can clearly remember things, it is this one:  I am with my aunt Debbie.  She has driven me over to her new place – I can still remember the wicker things in the bathroom – and while we’re in the car the radio is on; the engine is quiet enough and the radio is loud enough so I can hear the song.  It’s “Superfly” by Curtis Mayfield.  I know immediately without question it is a great song (it would take me a whole post here to explain why) and if anyone had told me at that moment that “the music wouldn’t play” I would have looked at them blankly, as if they were crazy.  And when I heard this song for the first time about six years later, it would seem to me that this is someone else’s story; that trying to shoehorn in Christianity into this story was awkward at best and inexplicable at worst; and I knew from my upbringing that there was plenty of good music from the 60s that had nothing to do with rock and roll, so what is the point? 

I suppose McLean was trying to sum up the experiences of a generation, those who were so utterly hopeful in the early 60s and then found themselves “lost in space” as he says (oddly enough, Vietnam isn’t mentioned in the song either – then again, it was still happening).  But the generalization that somehow turns every listener into those “good ol’ boys” even if they’re girls – that “we” are all supposed to remember things “we” learned, all went over my head.  I could tell he didn’t like The Rolling Stones but as they were favorites of my mom, well, what about that?  That both Dylan and Elvis make comebacks at the end of the decade is forgotten – gets in the way of the plotline, I suppose – and for someone who claims “I dig those rhythm and blues” the death of Otis Redding is strangely avoided. 

But back to Mayfield:  “Superfly” was just one song of many that started to appear after the epochal Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On album (crucially “Family Affair” was #1 before “American Pie”), ones where some truths about life were starting to be told.  In the UK some of these songs charted, though a lot of them sold in “specialist” shops, so the sales were not included in the regular charts; you can imagine my puzzlement as I looked for Mayfield’s hit only to draw a blank.  "American Pie" is a melodramatic look back at something; it virtually asks its listeners to wallow in the past.  It is retrograde where Mayfield is singing of the now, and now is where music lives.   

In the UK I suppose “American Pie” is taken as given as a song of Americana; Holly kept having hits in the UK long after the US, and in a way didn’t figuratively “die” here in quite the same way. (The whole British Invasion is based in part on Holly’s music, which I like to think would have pleased and surprised him.)  In a way I am not the audience for this song; I never was, even as a kid.  As a history lesson it is flawed at best; I can never forget while listening that I am not part of the “we” and the communal loss of innocence is not something I can share directly, unless I look towards my own experiences of loss – and as I recall at at least one time, it didn’t touch half my friends the way it touched me.  Mass mourning of musicians still happens, but it’s more fragmented now; harder to put into words, let alone a mix-up of religion and football.  And always I trust the musician directly as opposed to someone singing about them******; one can only wonder what Dylan or The Byrds or indeed The Rolling Stones think of this song, for instance.  (Or The Crickets, for that matter – they kept playing, the music didn’t die for them.)  Lamenting the death of a musician is fine, remembering them is fine, but trying to fit in a potted history is asking too much – like too many different flowers in a bouquet.  The best way to remember is to listen; to pay tribute and play the music and know that it will live on.               

*This isn’t The Explicator, at least not the last time I looked.

**I will get back to this in a bit, don’t worry.

***In the UK these people are Teddy boys; there is no equivalent of them in the US, as such, besides the umbrella term “good ol’ boys” (who generally speaking like country music, anyway).

****As things go, Dylan played piano the day after Holly’s death at the scheduled concert; Bobby Vee filled in for Holly.  Even in that literal sense, “the music” didn’t die; it just got played by different musicians.

*****As my husband’s first wife Laura said out loud upon hearing this:  “Fucking godhead shite!” and quite right, too.

******If you want to hear an album about a musican’s impending death that is lovely and beautiful and heartbreakingly great, it’s J Dilla’s Donuts.  That he is an inspiration to everyone coming out of Detroit is also a fitting tribute, I feel.

One Side vs. the Other: Slade: "Look Wot You Dun"

There are certain times when the transatlantic chasm, so to speak, makes itself known; the other night I was listening to a UK chart countdown show that culminated with Slade, and was looking online at the equivalent American chart – where the top spot was held by Al Green.  That chasm – which I have mentioned already in previous posts – could not be more glaringly clear, though just how to explain it isn’t as easy.  Current events and sociological trends can only take us so far.  There is something of a fundamental difference here, one of aesthetics, not to mention who is buying singles in the first place.  What Al Green was doing was understandable to the US public, admired, and needed.  The warmth and laid-backness and quietly astonishing aura suit a time when so many young people (read:  baby boomers) were falling in love, wanting to stay in love, and so on.  They heard Green and knew instantly that he knew what he was talking about. 

Slade, though, in the US?  Apart from fans like Lester Bangs, they remained a cult band at best, the kind I imagine a young Joan Jett heard hanging out in L.A., the kind other young kids would have heard while waiting for, say, Aerosmith to hit the stage.  Singles were released, but didn’t really get anywhere, and in part that is because the raucous, recorded-in-a-meat-locker last-day-of-school scene (cornered by Alice Cooper anyway) was hobbled by Noddy Holder’s holler of a voice.  Never mind the spelling – what is he singing?  Why does he have to be so loud, why do the band have to be so stompy and strange at the same time?  What’s the big deal here?   

Slade were thus politely ignored in the US, a nation that needed a cuddle far more than a rebellious howl.  That they were the voice of the working class in the UK, from the Midlands, and deliberately spelt words incorrectly to upset those who thought rock ‘n’ roll was about looking up words in dictionaries (as if) didn’t matter much.  If you can’t understand the singer, even in a basic way, the song isn’t going to get very far.  (I have heard more than one Slade album and confess that there are a lot of lyrics I don’t understand, and even when I do understand them, I don’t always get them.)  This song  (an NME #2) is putatively a love song, but notice how menacing it is; how the guitar snarls, the piano pounds, the ooof-ooof borrowed from Mungo Jerry turns from a happy-go-lucky exhale into something a bit darker and complicated.  This is positively intimidating and disturbing to an American ear, and even though the song’s lyrics are decipherable, in this case, the rough chips ‘n’ malt vinegar tone to Holder’s voice sounds (again, to an American ear) unromantic, his gruff amiability and the band’s glam silliness are lost in the mix. Slade were a band best understood live, but who would go see them based on this in the US, when Grand Funk Railroad and Three Dog Night were the party bands of choice? 

Fans like Bangs would have appreciated their no-nonsense qualities and essential rocking-out vibes, but for the most part Slade were home country heroes, on every teenager’s imaginary rebellious jukebox, representing so many things which were against the Establishment, from their clothes onwards.  This was the sheer stomp and attitude that didn’t have to have vulnerability or finesse, because none were needed nor expected.  Rock ‘n’ roll was most definitely alive in the UK, still loud and threatening, still able to represent those who don’t fit in and don’t really need to, let alone want to.  This is like opening a door to a whole world that is the opposite of Green’s; a world where noise rules, where having fun is #1.  It’s far from the peaceable groove that Americans wanted, but in the UK, where things were tough, it was the new thing – Glam.  (And yes, glitter. For those of you wondering if I’m going to; the answer is yes.) And where Slade charmingly intimidate, others will follow*.  Yes, British rock lives, and sticks out its tongue at The Man.  But elsewhere...

 

Next up:  the long time that isn’t actually all that long ago, if it ever was at all.

*Slade were originally called Ambrose Slade and made music that was a bit less scary than this; in some way this scariness/silliness is intrinsically British, unlike, oh, say, KISS (who clearly heard them and other glam bands of the time) were never truly scary the way Slade were, despite all their stagecraft.  Ridiculous and lovable for it in some way, sure; scary, no.

 

 

The Homely Boy: Neil Reid: "Mother of Mine"

Just as there is a gulf between nostalgias between the US and UK, so there are gulfs between the general levels of what could best be called, borrowing from the gardening world, hardy perennials.  These are types of musicians or performers that will always do well, in part because they make the audience feel ‘at home’ and somehow reassured that things may be a bit crazy outside, but here, here is proof that life goes on as it should.  In the US this can be everything from gospel to country to Christian music – the sort of solid and reliable stuff that made (and makes) the nation what it is, the sort of music that little kids are taught to sing at school.  (When I was about eight I learned to sing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” up in Canada, a song that could qualify as all three of the above.)  In the UK this area seems to be represented by choirs and in particular by choirboys, or rather the type of young man who could be accurately summed up by the phrase “aw wee choirboy” – one that has no American equivalent, unless you count the young Michael Jackson doing songs like “Ben.”* He is “aw” because he is cute, “wee” because he is young, and the last word is self-descriptive.

I am not sure why this perennial is one, but it is borne out time and again on music-based reality shows; a young man, cute, sweet, the sort a granny in oh say Arbroath would vote for, wins.  Whether he succeeds after his crowning is another matter (does anyone remember Leon Jackson?), as the “aw wee choirboy” type is not exactly cut out for making club bangers or making landfill indie or pursuing a career in electronica.  He is too pure and exalted in a way to do much else but sing whatever his producers have in mind, depending on how amenable he is.  Songs that uplift and inspire are his, love songs and (going back to the roots of the thing) songs of worship suit him best. 

Neil Reid was the original “aw wee choirboy” of modern times, who came to fame on – you can see him here – tv, and this was his big hit.  Looking uncannily like a young Gordon Brown – with a bit, I can’t help it, of Danny Bonaduce from the Partridge Family as well – he sings in his own accent (Motherwellian, if I can put it that way; so many “aw wee choirboys are from Scotland or the north of England) and wears his little suit (complete with a tie!) and in his smiling little man way grabbed a hold of many hearts.  The appeal of the song is absolute and just the sort of thing you’d expect; a song of thankfulness and a raining of blessings.  I can well imagine that this is a song that would make grown men weep, and I know that it must be played at funeral services to this day, but – you guessed it – as far as radio is concerned now, Neil Reid is for chart shows and nothing else.  Perhaps that’s not because he’s so young (twelve at the time) but that the song (like Connie Francis’ “Mama” which I wrote about here) expresses something that is universal and yet private, really beyond words almost, the bond between generations that even when sung about (as Reid sings) is too powerful and immediate for a song.  So many songs are about loves that could be or once were, but the mother-child bond is one that just is, and it is a mark of the time that such a song could do so well.  He not only had a hit single, but a number one album, a remarkable one, and still the only one so far achieved by someone yet to reach their teens.  I cannot ignore the fact that the man who produced this song and his later album was one Ivor Raymonde, father of Simon, who led the Cocteau Twins and was no doubt aware of the odd purity of Reid's voice, that piercing sharpness and beauty and (am I imagining this?  I know I get a bit farfetched at times) found in Elizabeth Fraser that same kind of voice, more or less...

The perennial figure of the choirboy is also - inevitably in this case - one that can only last for so long.  Reid did what he could until his voice broke; Joe McElderry, the latest choirboy, was lucky enough to be almost out of his teens when he won the X Factor two years ago (and he was also lucky to win yet another tv show musical competition, this time for classical singing).  I doubt if someone Reid's age would even make it to the finals of any show now; he would be deemed too young, and I can well imagine the producers wanting someone who could have a career in music and not finance (as Reid has)**.

This song takes this blog back to the beginnings of pop; it is practically Victorian in a time when things all around it are starting to look anything but.  He made people feel cozy and comforted, and he won the talent show at the time - Opportunity Knocks - easily. This song is a pause, a prayer, before 1972 really gets going - a look backward, to better appreciate the battle that is yet to come.

Next up:  correct spelling not required.

 

*Except it's hard to imagine a choirboy singing a song of love and acceptance to a rat.

**All things considered, Reid did very well; Leon Jackson is still out there making music, but has yet to make a comeback, as such.       

Cheer From The Past: Middle of the Road: "Soley Soley"

I have spent the time away from you, dear readers, pondering the differences between the US and UK with special attention given to musical nostalgia; specifically the cd compilations easily available at supermarkets and why they exist and who those who put them together think (or perhaps hope) might buy them.  Such compilations don't, so far as I know, exist to such an extent in the US or Canada; there the music of the past is left to those who remember it firsthand.  Here, the past - and that's any decade before the 90s at present* - has its time being hashed and rehashed, in ever-more baffling compilations that pick carefully through the past for what I guess they want as the "Oh! I remember that song" effect.  This isn't to say that those in North America don't hanker for the past; but the view is that the music of now is what is vital. (I am more than aware that in the 70s there was a full-on craze for the 50s, but thankfully it didn't last all that long.)   

In the case of "Soley Soley" - a song I've never heard before, until now - it appears on a recent compilation of bubblegum-era pop called Honey Honey, and I am trying and failing to think of an equivalent compilation in US terms.  Nostalgia for the early 70s is, shall we say, not that common.  A nation still at war, a nation just about to hear about this place called the Watergate hotel, is not going to want to look back, having effectively gone through a lot of soul-searching and further crises in the meantime.  I can't say the UK was in such a great state either, as anyone who remembers it knows very well.  Maybe these compilations exist to prove that the past wasn't so bad, but I still think there is something a bit weird about them, even though they do serve a function, and that is to be unofficial bits of history for those who don't remember, or who do but don't have the time to track down the music.  In juxtaposition to the new releases, they seem to say to the browser that you can have the past or present, and isn't the past a more cozy place, even if you didn't enjoy the time itself very much?  That is a dangerous place to be, and it no doubt has some people pacing, Number Six-like, back and forth wondering how they can escape the music.**

But back to Middle of the Road - this was their last big hit, written by Fernando Arbex and lead singer Sally Carr, Arbex being a Spanish songwriter (thus, if it sounds Spanish, that's why); produced by Italian Giacomo Tosti, like their other hits, it got to #2 in the NME and it is as warm and Abbaesque as anyone could wish, the sort of Eurohit that sounds good whether you can understand the lyrics or not; a cup of good cheer that is of its time but deserves better than to be in the Void, remembered only by a compilation.  Middle of the Road didn't like to think of themselves as bubblegum - they were reluctant to record "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"***- but their Mediterranean via Scotland vibe was bubblegum-ready anyway.  Bubblegum as a force was ebbing away slowly at this time, with the warring families - Partridges vs. Osmonds - about to take over what was left of the territory, while a whole new beast, heralded by T.Rex and Slade, is putting on its makeup and costumes.  The good cheer of "Soley Soley" is about to be amplified and speeded up and blasted, ironically, into the future.  That is for later this year; now it is January, and this brings some warmth to what is going to be a frazzling and fractious year, a year when rock fights nostalgia.

Next up:  the original Aw Wee Choirboy.    






* My guess is that the 90s won't become part of this whole cycle until the 20s, at least.

**Number Six eventually puts the speaker in the fridge, an option not open to most people. 

***They apparently were a little tipsy when they recorded it, which is indeed why it sounds like that.  The band continued to be popular in Europe but had no more big hits, as their label apparently took against them being produced outside of the UK; and so while they appeared on Top of the Pops after this, their real business was elsewhere, from Europe to Brazil and beyond.