OPPOSITES: APPLES/BANANAS

Apples are the opposite of bananas, right? Certainly little in common, what with colour, shape, taste, let alone the skin or the peeling. Yes, I know some folk peel an apple, but with their fingers? I think not, and they are as weird as those that eat a banana, skin on. (Smoking a banana skin I have heard of, it being a sure fire 4th form guarantee of a hit, something only being at a boarding school can have you believe.....) But there are loads of songs about these staples of a fruitarian diet. here's two of the best.

"I like to eat bananas

'Cos they got no bones
I like marijuana
'Cos it gets me stoned"

I bloody love this song. I may have mentioned this before, but I don't care, this being the finest and truest statement about bananas laid down in rock and roll. The sheer truth of it is an epiphany, even something may have never appreciated. The reason bananas are so darn accessible and appreciable is because they have no bones. Who knew? OK, we all knew, but, and here's the rub, who realised? Exactly. Who here can honestly say they had ever considered a banana might have a bone in it? I guess, yes, to be fair, most of their audience were less interested in bananas, keen to move on to the next couplet. Me? I was at said boarding school and that was stuff of fantasy, to be dreamt of and imagined. 

How many songs explore the world of banana? Not so many. Most famous, and ubiquitous, is the Banana Boat Song, aka Day-O, as beloved of Beetlejuice, the signature tune of Harry Belafonte, and enough to give every banana a bad name. A song meeting derision in this woke age, to be parodied in adverts and similar, it has some merit, with it needing sage and seer George Clinton to give the mislaid credibility.

So how come apples get all the good cred, all the good press? Let's not forget what got ate in the Garden of Eden, at a stroke denoting the base nature of man and casting us, conceptually, into the abyss of the everyday. So, let's ask what Damien Dempsey, erstwhile boxer and bruiser, now singer and songwriter of evocatively bruising lyrics has to say:

He's good, innee? Big fan am I, since he first found his voice, a decade or so, probably further, back. And I think the Irish, with their catholic guilt, are entirely within their right to diss the apple more than do us lily-livered protestants. Hell, with extreme free church presbyterianism, the Free Church of Scotland, you probably aren't allowed to eat an apple, or a banana, of a Sabbath day. (Disclaimer: these are the guys that ran, and maybe still do, the Outer Hebrides where my Mother grew up, not that even apples grow in the harsh treeless climes. Or bananas.)

Here the Wainwright (half) sisters get the gist, apples and sex, well, love, paired irrevocably in fruity union. Both daughters of Loudon of that surname, the third, Martha and Lucy sing as delectably as they should, as scions of the McGarrigles and Roches respectively. An album of, largely, lullabies, the underbelly of the subject matter lies just beneath the surface.

Finally, in an effort to link all this disparate nonsense together, who finer than the Cocteau Twins to muddy the water indelibly, throwing yet more fruit into the bowl, as Elizabeth Fraser sings about oranging the apple. Or the other way round. As you do.

Pip pip!

Bananas........

Apples..........

RED, YELLOW or ORANGE: PINK ORANGE RED/COCTEAU TWINS

Well this was a stroke of luck, the two colours I haven't already covered, along with a cheeky pink for future reference, together giving an opportunity to offer a SMM debut to this much admired scottish group, active between 1979 and 1997. Never hugely successful in their lifetime, it is the accolades offered afterwards, by their peers and adherents, that have ramped up their reputation, even if their best known song, was not, strictly speaking, by them at all.

Confused? Song to the Siren, a song originally by Tim Buckley, appeared on a record by This Mortal Coil, more collective than band, the collection being, largely, of acts on nominal bandleader Ivo Watts-Russell's record label, 4AD. And within that was included Cocteau Twins, the performers on the track, and who subsequently included it within their CT repertoire. This Mortal Coil existed over three albums, 1984 - 91, the Cocteaus, as a unit, appearing only on the first, although with later member Simon Raymonde heavily involved with the second, leaving briefly the band he had decided to join, at the first sessions.

So, let's revisit this. Elisabeth Fraser, vocals, and Robin Guthrie, guitars and programming, had, along with John Heggie, on bass, formed in the scottish industrial port of Grangemouth, a dreamy mix of Fraser's ethereal vocal, lyrics largely indiscernible within a hazy swirl of effects pedals, anchored some propulsive baselines. When intelligible, the vocals remained, largely, still unintelligible, often being streams of sound rather than identifiable english. (The featured song here has words based around the latin names of various butterflies, but I guess you had worked that out......) After a trio of well-received records, Heggie left, leaving a gap they chose not to fill for the next record. Simon Raymonde, a multi-instrumentalist, then joined, left and joined again, apropos his This Mortal Coil responsibilities. Pink Orange Red comes from this time. Their closest taste of mainstream success arrived in the 90s, with Heaven or Las Vegas even denting the US chart.

Success is always a wily mistress though, with Guthrie retreating into dependency, casting friction on the band, not least with Fraser, by now his partner and mother of their daughter. With this limiting any build forward from that point, together with the time taken for rehab (his) and therapy (hers), the sound, having clarified and become possibly more commercial, retreated back into distort and shimmer. A further few releases and they were done, both as a band and a couple.

Raymonde and Guthrie have continued to work together, setting up the Bella Union record label, both individually and together, often in production and management of bands signed to the label. Fraser has led a quieter life, but has still cropped up in the occasional high profile collaboration, the best known being with Massive Attack, writing and singing the song below. Having had one abortive attempt at reunion, it seems unlikely the three will perform together again.

Here, below, is the acoustic version of Pink Orange Red. It can be found on their 1985 release, the EP Tiny Dynamine. The richer and more highly produced version at the top of the piece comes from Lullabies to Violaine, a 2005 4CD retrospective.
Acoustic.
Electric.