Well, this was a link-up too good to miss, Human League-r Phillip Oakey's Together in Electric Dreams with Giorgio Moroder, and, now, the ones that got away with their own side project. I'm not going to revisit the League backstory two posts in a row, but, take it from me, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh were the two to watch on their escape from that band, being the musical brains to Oakey's brawn. And the B.E.F., for a while, were their only project, the only release coming out of cassette, in 1980. This was Music for Stowaways, the "stowaway" being the original name given Sony's Walkman in the UK, listening to music on the move being then a novelty and in its infancy. Tell me then about mp3 streaming on a telephone, which doubles as a camera, and I'd laugh in your face.
Decline of the West/B.E.F. (Music for Stowaways)
Heaven 17, the band, were initially just part of B.E.F., Glenn Gregory merely one of the circus of singers used for their next record, Music of Quality and Distinction, Volume 1, although, confusingly, H17, the band, had hit the ground running first. Music of Quality and Distinction was an ambitious covers project featuring a mix of singers drawn from disparate backgrounds, tacked to the electronic production techniques Marsh and Ware were also liberally applying to individual recordings by such as Tina Turner and Terence Trent D'Arby. Gregory was a photographer friend who had been involved with an early incarnation of Wang Chung, and had the sort of voice they were looking for, ironically not a million miles removed from that of Phil Oakey. Other participants were 60's popstrel Sandie Shaw, the yet to be disgraced and denounced Gary Glitter and the aforesaid Tina Turner, alongside more contemporaneous names as Billy McKenzie and Paula Yates, the now deceased ex-wife of Bob Geldof, better then known as a TV face on breakfast television.
Perfect Day/B.E.F. feat. Glenn Gregory (MoQaD V1)
The project seemed to be then put aside, as H17 built themselves a sturdy and reliable name. But, following a nine year gap, a second volume appeared, reprising the appearances of Gregory, McKenzie and Turner, and introducing the likes of Green Gartside (Scritti Politti), Mavis Staples and Lalah Hathaway to the team, the latter providing them with a welcome hit single.
Family Affair/B.E.F. feat. Lalah Hathaway (MoQaD V2)
You would think that would have been that, not least as Marsh formally quit working with Ware in 2006, surely signifying the end of both H17 and B.E.F.. However, both projects continued, but given Heaven 17 were also using additional vocalists, notably Billie Godfrey, and performing cover versions, it would sometimes now become difficult to see where one project began and the other ended. This schizophrenia expanded further as a third B.E.F. project slipped out, Volume Three (aka Dark), in 2013, with the likes of Boy George and Kim Wilde entering the fray, each long after their 80s heydays. In 2016 the two projects even toured together, an array of guests plumping out the B.E.F. catalogue ahead of an array of guests plumping out the H17 catalogue. Confused? Here's their website to explain it all again.
God Only Knows/B.E.F. feat. Shingai Soniwa (MoQaD V3)
As of 2020, lockdown has significantly hampered their 40 years anniversary tour, although dates are rescheduled for late in the year, all things equal. I am planning to catch Ware and Gregory as whomsoever/whatsoever they are in December, hoping for some B.E.F. to slip into a nominally H17 celebration.
As should be expected for any band that has been around for that long, Electric Light Orchestra has been through personnel changes. In fact, today's incarnation is officially Jeff Lynne's ELO and the only other original member of the 70's band who particiapted on the 2019 album is keyboardist Richard Tandy. Original members Roy Wood and Bev Bevan appear to still be involved in music one way or another.
ELO seemed like a logical choice for the theme. I mean, how many bands are there with the word <electric> in their names? More than I thought. Electric Prunes, Electric Toilet, Electric Express, Electric Elves and more.
Seems likely that most folk born after about 1990 wouldn't have many reference points for ELO, but throughout the 70 and some of the 80s, ELO was big - coming out with something like 10 top albums. Jeff Lynne is the name you would associate with the band, primarily vocals and guitars.
Wikipedia notes that when Lynne and Roy Wood started out, they aimed to mix rock and classical. The live version of Chuck Berry's <RollOverBeethoven> is a pretty good example: starts off VERY classical & essentially follows Berry's main style and showcases Lynne's abilities.
But most of ELO's hits were more melodic.
Their highest chartings were <Evil Woman>,
<Can't Get It Out of My Head>,
<Strange Magic>
and <Sweet Talkin' Woman> - all from the mid-70s. All "pop melodic" verging on the dominant style of the decade: disco.
That said, they never made it into Rolling Stone magazine's list (and there are folks that pan the list as a result. Maybe so. I mean, they were all over the charts: 27 Top 40 songs in the UK/20 in the US)
I hadn't been following Electric Light Orchestra recently, so it comes as a kind of vindication of my choice for this theme: ELO's 2019 <From Out of Nowhere> posted a top of the charts position at the end of 2019 - something like 35 years after their 1970's heyday. And you thought they were done for?
Lynne of course has done stints both as a sought-after producer and a member of the Travelling Wilburys
Back in 2013, a few months after Jason Molina died at the age of 39, of “alcohol abuse-related organ failure,” I wrote about one of his songs for the “Punctuation” theme. The song, “John Henry Split My Heart,” was credited to Songs:Ohia, from an album called Magnolia Electric Co., and I noted that there’s some dispute over whether or not this album was the last Songs:Ohia album or the first Magnolia Electric Co. album.
Today’s song, though, is from What Comes After The Blues, which is definitely a Magnolia Electric Co. album, and it’s a good one. It’s kind of obligatory to refer to Neil Young when discussing Molina’s music, and it’s definitely there in this one—feedback laden guitars, heartfelt, quavery singing, and dark songwriting demonstrate Molina’s debt to Young. But it’s far from a ripoff, and probably more than an homage, because Molina’s music sounds like Molina.
As I noted in my prior piece, I’m not incredibly familiar with all of his work, but most of the songs that I have heard have grabbed me, and none moreso than “The Dark Don’t Hide It,” which might have been the first Molina song that I ever heard. Although I’m not sure where (but WFUV would be a good guess).
There’s definitely some Neil in the intro, but it also reminds me a bit of the Jayhawks’ “Waiting For The Sun,” and the song is elevated by female harmony vocals from Jennie Benford. The lyrics are clever, but dark, for example:
Now the world was empty on the day they made it But heaven needed a place to throw all the shit Human hearts and pain should never be separate They’d tear themselves apart just trying to fit
Magnolia Electric Co. released only three more albums after What Comes After The Blues, including Sojourner, a box set, which in its full incarnation included three full-length albums, one four-song EP, one documentary movie on DVD, a celestial map and a medallion, enclosed in a wooden box. All of the releases are worth checking out.
Let's not forget the full glory of the title, not least as it is the how and why they happened to be together that underlines this piece. Hearing a snatch on the radio, I rather guess most civilians assume this to be the Human League, so similar it is to the template already riding high the charts. Indeed, wise to that, the record company contrived to include the song on 1988's Greatest Hits collection of that band. But it wasn't, it arising purely from the serendipity of movie producer Steve Barron rejecting Giorgio Moroder's original choice of singer for a tune he had been hired to write.
Electric Dreams was a film made by Barron, earlier better known as the director of innumerable music videos, such as Take On Me/Aha and Money For Nothing/Dire Straits. In truth, that is as much as you need to know about the film, it being somewhat lightweight tosh, with a soundtrack album, Electric Dreams, featuring many of the great and the good of the day. As I look back at this, Jeff Lynne jostling with Culture Club, plus a couple of Moroder instrumentals, it is remarkable how little else has stuck. It is, really, only the Oakey/Moroder collaboration I can recall. Or anyone else recalls. Room for confusion arises in that the duo produced an album called Electric Dreams. The song and several more they cooked hastily together. Again, only the title track has had any real posterity.
Be My Lover Now/Oakey & Moroder
Moroder seems an interesting guy, and certainly lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Whilst his website might describe him as the founder of disco, a claim he seems on shaky ground with, it correctly asserts he was a trailblazer of electronic music, seeing the more popular opportunities in synthesisers , still then more the domain of serious prog-rockers. I had not before appreciated that the song, Son of My Father, taken to the UK chart by band Chicory Tip, was one of his writes. Pretty slim fare, it's true, but it was certainly the first synthesiser led track I can recall on Top of the Pops. As a producer and studio mogul, Moroder pumped out a slew of singles, embracing the twin idioms of disco and electronica. If by attrition alone, some of these had to be hits, with Donna Summer's I Feel Love being his biggest and best known breakthrough. If many of his themes and backing tracks sounded the same, that seemed no bad thing, and he took the launch into film scores. Here, Midnight Express was clearly his high water mark, but the list of his other involvements is immense, from work with David Bowie and Blondie. And Electric Dreams, of course.
The Chase (Midnight Express)/Giorgio Moroder
A couple of decades silence and he was again suddenly the rage, taken up by Daft Punk and celebrated once more, delighting in being able to remind the world of his modest contributions to music.....
Giorgio by Moroder/Daft Punk
Phil, or Phillip, as he now prefers, Oakey, has also made the most of his opportunities. As lead singer for Sheffield electronic noise terrorists, The Human League, beleaguered and embattled by lack of success, he was left high and dry when the musicians in that band left for Heaven 17, alone, with only the name of the band. By some enormous quirk of fate he hired a couple more players, added in two schoolgirls he had seen dancing at a club and they were huge. And rightly so. Dare, courtesy some fabulous songs, strident yet simple synth melodies, Oakey's shaky stentorian voice and the glorious naffness of the girls, leapt into the charts as an album, the singles vying with each other to get higher and higher than the one before. Culminating, inevitably, with the joy of Don't You Want Me, number one forever over the Christmas and New Year of 1981 into 82, buoyed by a never more memorable video. If their pinnacle, it certainly wasn't all they had, that line up managing a decent follow-up ahead of creeping personal differences. Another rebirth, as Jam and Lewis picked up the band and gave them a shake, and provided much of the material, with Human shaking the rafters worldwide. Since then they plod on, Oakey, the girls and whomsoever, surviving on the oldies market and the flurries of hope that each new release provides. I think I would certainly still cross the street to see them live.
Never Let Me Go/The Human League
So, the actual song? Well, as described, Barron suggested Oakey and, seemingly, ten minutes in the studio and it was the first take that was used, achieving a 1984 number 3 hit in the UK, but only featuring in the Billboard Dance Chart, if still a not unhealthy 20. In their (electric) dreams, not.
I suggested this theme a while ago, and when it was finally chosen, my first thought was to write about this song. We chose this theme to get away from things like “Alone” that relate to the “current situation” in which many of us are under various degrees of “stay at home” orders. So, of course, in doing my research of the song, I found out that in some ways it relates exactly to the current situation—even though it was released back in 1979.
Gary Numan’s band, Tubeway Army, was a punk band that had released a couple of singles in 1978 with a fairly standard guitar/bass/drum sound, and featuring Numan’s distinctive vocals. However, when in the studio recording their self-titled debut album, they found a Minimoog synthesizer. As Numan told Rolling Stone:
I remember it clearly. I had been sent to a studio by [my label] Beggars to record my first album. It was going to be a punk album and we were going to play the songs live. But as soon as I walked into the control room, there was a mini Moog. I had never seen one before. I just thought it was the coolest looking thing, just fantastic. Quite, quite small.
Apparently, a company was going to come pick it up but the man said I could try it out until they came to collect it but they never turned up! I had this thing for the whole day and it was the most amazing experience. Very luckily, it had been left on that sound which had become famous: a huge big bottom bass roar. It was just huge. I didn't know how to set it up. All I did was press a key and the room shook! And I just thought, "F--k me! That's the most amazing thing I'd ever heard! The power!' Imagine, if the sound had been something that went ping!, I would've thought, 'This is rubbish' and none of this success would've ever happened to me. So much of this was luck.
The Tubeway Army album mixed the standard punk sound with synthesizer, but by the time they recorded their next album, Replicas, the sound had become mostly synth-based, including “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” As Numan told The Guardian:
All my early songs were about being alone or misunderstood. As a teenager, I'd been sent to a child psychiatrist and put on medication. I had Asperger's and saw the world differently. I immersed myself in sci-fi writers: Philip K Dick, JG Ballard. The lyrics came from short stories I'd written about what London would be like in 30 years. These machines – "friends" – come to the door. They supply services of various kinds, but your neighbours never know what they really are since they look human. The one in the song is a prostitute, hence the inverted commas. It was released in May 1979 and sold a million copies. I had a No 1 single with a song about a robot prostitute and no one knew.
So, here we are, 41 years later, and we are stuck at home, with many, if not all, services, being delivered to our homes, although not by robots. And, at least as far as I know, we don’t have robot prostitutes, but the “current situation” has, by some accounts, led to an explosion in online porn, which is even easier to hide from your neighbors.
Richard Hawley has a dark golden voice, built for solitude, a deep beacon of emotions dug deep from experience. A voice not always made for the cutting edge of modernity, his flair for melody, and for holding the tune perfectly around that melody, harking back to simpler times, at times more reminiscent of the early 1960's, behind the wave of rock'n'roll and ahead of beatlemania. A time where the Bobby's Darin and Vee could hold sway, songs of lovelorn romantics and bashful innocents filling the radio waves.
I Sleep Alone/Cole's Corner (2005)
Sheffield is a city that has always held a rich musical heritage hitting well above it's weight: Joe Cocker, the Human League and Pulp all come/came from there, Hawley one of the group of musicians linked with the latter band, at one time a tour member on guitar, at the behest of old friend Jarvis Cocker. But he had been beavering away long before then, as a member of onetime tipped for the top britpoppers, Longpigs. Combining a career as a band member with his solo work, he had already put out a couple of individual records before Longpigs broke up, each well received if breaking few waves. As the son of local legend, Dave Hawley, huge on the local pub circuit, he looked destined, like his dad, to be only world famous in Sheffield.
Lonely Night/Late Night Final (2001)
But it was when he moved to Mute records that things started to take off. Cole's Corner, issued in 2005, began a momentum, reaching the album chart top 40, hitting a chord with many critics. I Sleep Alone, the featured track for this pice, comes from this recording and is typical thereof. I remember being initially a little wrong-stepped by it, so redolent was it of that era so usually reviled for being of little value. Indeed, it took me back to revisiting some of the songs of the early 60s, the time my parents first invested in a record player, and the pile of singles that came with it and that I still have. But any lingering doubts were totally dispelled by the next one, Lady's Bridge, which took the template to another level, going gold in the process. Together with another "alone" track.
Lady Solitude/Lady's Bridge (2007)
This could have become both cloying and cliche were it all he had to offer. Truelove's Gutter risked that, albeit with a degree of archness to the arrangements, offering some sourness to the earlier sweet. And then, with Standing at the Sky's Edge, a complete volte face, embracing the full force of squalling guitars, a heavy psychedelia. The critics largely went with him for this journey, but naysayers, however complimentary, wondered quite why. (Struggling to find an "alone" track to demonstrate, I am having to invoke the old why did the skeleton go to the party alone story........)
Leave Your Body Behind/Standing at the Sky's Edge (2012)
Perhaps a little cornered as to know quite now how to proceed, his next album Hollow Meadows was a bit of a stop gap, Hawley hindered by health issues, and was little more than ungarnished demos. Thankfully, his latest, last years Further, was both a return to form and to consistency. The vocals were again the rich warming broth, the backing now evoking, slightly, a hint of the Wall of Sound production values of Phil Spector. And of course there is an "alone" track.
Alone/Further (2019)
Are you ever really alone with a Richard Hawley record?
I'm old enough that I remember when this was a hit ("before your mother was born..."?). I for one always assumed it was a Three Dog Night original. Even as I checked to be sure there was copy I could post together with my remarks this week. I noted that there were other versions (perhaps with a slightly different title, but the same lyrics), including one from Harry Nilsson. Cool. I have already had a bit of an uninformed soft spot for Nilsson. I mean "Coconut" and "Everybody's Talkin", c'mon.
To me, about as well-known as Three Dog Night's "Shambala" and "One is the Loneliest Number". I'll use the Nilsson version as an extra for this post.
Fact is, there are many. Versions, that is.
I've said it before: this is where I get off doing this. Most weeks I end up a little wiser than I was.
As you either already knew or have gleaned from my trajectory, in the process of digging (in this case merely scratching the surface) I realized that Three Dog Night didn't write the song.
Fact is, there are many. Versions, that is.The Wiki notes that Al Kooper came out with a version in '69. Musicians on that - his first - include a handful of musicians I have previously brought up here: Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi among others.
As to the premise of the song - the assumption that 1 is lonely - it seems to me that the issue is more a state of mind. 1 is how you meditate. Alone in tune with yourself and with the rest of whatever is out there. 1 is lonely when you feel the need for more than 1, but that is definitely not always the case. "Give me a break", "Leave me alone" ... Nilsson says as much:
Two can be as bad as one
One is the number divided by two
[say what?]
King? So what ever happened to King? Here one moment, huge for a minute and then gone. Can you even remember them? Were they purely eurocentric, UK even? No, not King King, the brilliant bekilted blues juggernaut, channeling more Free than seems even possible, if to tinier audiences still, more's the pity, I mean King, rainbow Doc Martens and cockatiel hair, yes?
Alone Without You
So King were actually around for more than a moment, two years and two albums. Centred around charismatic frontman Paul King, on vocals and never more 80s mullet, they burst out of Coventry on the tail end of the Two Tone ska phenomenon that rose out of this gritty midlands landscapes. This was 1984. Wondering if a ska band calling themselves the Reluctant Stereotypes might be too much of, um, a stereotype, filtered from the title of a song by genre breakthrough leaders, the Specials, some serious rebranding was required. Arguably again lifting an idea from the local scene, the concept of Multi Tone was imagined. Again, so far, so meh, but luckily, the songs were there. Or some were. A brief tenure as the Raw Screens faltered and so, like many a band leader before or since, the realisation that a surname could suffice as a band and brand name dropped, both convenient and aspirational. The look and image was allegedly based on the Child Catcher from children's book and film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, actually not so much a bad idea given the mission statement of the music biz in general: capture the youth and harness their spending power!
Alone Without You was the 4th single, and the first from their second album, so we are ahead of things. So, rewinding a bit, their first album, Steps in Time appeared in 1984 and proved to be a slow burner. The debut single, Love and Pride barely dented the charts in the UK, number 84 with a squib. Follow-ups Soul on My Boots and Won't You Hold My Hand Now didn't even manage the top 100. Love and Pride came out a second time and, courtesy the active promotion of CBS records, this time found its public. Number 2 this time, translating equivalently across Europe, and even causing a slight splash across the pond, their only chart recognition in the US, with a Billboard 55. On that momentum back out came Won't You Hold My Hand Now, now to a UK 24. In truth these were the only outstanding tracks of the debut, the rest being somewhat lumpen fodder, often with lyrics obtusely impenetrable, backed with glossily produced tunelessness. (What, pray, is I Kissed the Spikey Fridge all about?) But they looked good and had the zeitgeist.
Love and Pride
With no time to waste, 1985 saw the second album, Bitter Sweet, a somewhat rushed release. Again the singles were the standouts, although becoming a story of diminishing returns. Alone Without You gained a creditable 8 and hopes were high for the next single. The Taste of Your Tears was and still is a terrific song; a classic slow weepy for the dance floor, peaking at 11. There was a 3rd single but I confess to no memory of it whatsoever. And that was just about that. I am not sure they even ever toured. If they did, it maybe accelerated their demise, as they were no more by mid '86, the entire span of the group being less than two years. Maybe they were just a manufactured contrivance for teen stardom, and yet, no teenager myself, or by any means, they rang some sort of bell in my head and I always wanted them to be better than they were, to be more than four good songs and spray painted footwear, however much bouncy bass is in the mix. I don't think that was what even Paul King had sought, perhaps also why their reign was cut short.
The Taste of Your Tears
Paul King tried the de rigeur solo go it alone route, sinking sufficiently deep as to throw in the towel altogether. I don't think I have ever heard his solo album, or hadn't until this piece. MTV, then the big player in music, videos becoming the only way to break an act, and who had, in all probability, had the most to do with King, the bands, success, became the unlikely get out of jail card for King, the singer. This may be where you remember the name, as, de-mulleted and greying elegantly at the edges, he became one of a new breed, the 'veejay', continuity man for the new age, where he spent the next few years, ahead of then taking the same gig for VH1, the MTV for slightly older children.
I’ve already lost count of how long I’ve been stuck at home—the few times I've gone out to get provisions or walk doesn’t really relieve the feeling of confinement—and it is getting tiresome. Other than the fact that the “current situation” has left us with nothing to look forward to—concerts are canceled, vacations are canceled, reunions are canceled, even our family seders are canceled, and I suspect that my daughter’s trip home this summer will be canceled—the hardest thing to deal with has been the isolation.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m generally an introvert—what I guess is considered a social introvert, meaning that I’m more comfortable in small social settings, enjoy being alone, and can appear to be more extroverted in some situations (my “Reunions Dad” personality), but then require some alone time to recharge. So, in theory, this whole staying home thing is not far from my wheelhouse. (But I’m not a hermit or a hoarder). And, luckily, I have my wife with me, so I’m far from really alone.
But since this whole thing started, as I mentioned in my last piece, I’ve thrown myself into connecting on social media and with my college classmates. We did that large Zoom gathering, and another one yesterday with about 100 people, which included a remarkable coronavirus panel, which I'd argue equaled anything that you can see on cable news. Plus, a yoga demonstration. And as part of the planning process, I’ve been in contact by email, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Slack, and even telephone with classmates (and an actual face-to-face meeting with one who lives around the corner, from a safe distance), and there’s always some personal catching up, even with people that I was never really close with. Even on work calls, with clients, co-counsel and even opposing counsel, there’s often a discussion of “how are you doing?" And like many others, we are using Zoom to have family calls and hang out virtually with friends. Just over two years ago, I wrote a piece on my personal blog called “In Praise of Social Media,” during a period when Facebook and other platforms were being rightly criticized for their flaws. But I saw the value in the connections that I made and maintained online, and if anything, it is more important right now. As someone with my personality type, this sort of social interaction from a distance is really perfect.
Al Green is, of course, one of the all-time greats, and his song “Tired of Being Alone” is, of course, on one of my many COVID-82 playlists. Released in 1971, it reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and # 7 on the Hot Soul Singles Chart, and continues to be popular today. Because it is a great song. Of course, it isn’t about being forced to shelter in place, but about a lost love, because you don’t write great soul songs about being stuck in your house alone, living in sweatpants and bingeing Netflix. Although many musicians finding themselves with time on their hands are writing songs for the “current situation”—let me recommend Dan Bern’s new EP, Quarantine Me if you want to hear some good ones—I doubt that they will ultimately have the lasting appeal of “Tired of Being Alone.” Green also has covered the great Hank Williams song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." So, yeah, he's lonely.
Speaking of musicians stuck at home, how long will it be before there’s a genre of “how hard it is to be at home” songs to rival the many, many “how hard it is to be on the road” songs?
John Hiatt is just terrific, one of the best, if not in sales, certainly in terms of influence and output, up there, in my book, with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. When he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad, well, I haven't encountered that yet. And Bring the Family, the album from which this song comes, is possibly one of his best, positively enhanced by the backing band on hand. Backing band? O, just Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner. And yet it was born out of near desperation, a banknote or so away from ruin. Alone in the Dark, the feature song of this piece, epitomises the tight but loose feel of the disc, and is often overlooked amongst some of the other goodies on board. The lyrics may reflect a differing loneliness and a differing dark from these dangerous days, but the mood sure fits.
Ahead of this time, Hiatt had been a slogging workaday singer-songwriter, starting his career as a pen for hire. When Three Dog Night hit the top 40 with one of his, a recording contract beckoned, although, over the ensuing seven discs, scattered across various labels, more money came from royalties recouped, as the likes of Roseanne Cash and Willie Nelson recorded his songs, than he made from his own originals. Even the mighty Geffen label tried and failed to break him. This was arguably not helped by Hiatt being a drunken cuss who hadn't endeared himself to label bosses. So, newly sober, with a bunch of songs he had lost faith in, straits were indeed dire. Luckily the maverick UK label Demon still believed in him, and could offer a threadbare budget to record them. (The story of Demon makes for interesting reading, established by the earlier team behind Stiff records, Radar and F-Beat.)
Bring the Family, released in 1987, is a joy, from start to finish, the four musicians laying down a lean muscle honed from their collective road and studio experiences, Hiatt's holler a celebrant to his limited range: who needs more notes when you can do this much with these? Plus the songs, ten gems that can crack open a smile just from memory. Even if you don't know them, you know them, and even if you do, even over know them from the myriad cover versions of many, the freshness and vitality of the originals stand head and shoulder over most of those. It is hard to believe the whole project took only four days, Lowe sharing a motel room with Hiatt to keep costs down, Cooder delaying his departure a few hours as the final song was hastily written.
Neither the schedules of the four musicians, nor, then, the budget could allow this line-up any time on the road. True, Hiatt rounded up some likely culprits, including perhaps the only man who could reasonably ever deputise for Cooder, bayou slide master, Sonny Landreth, and they hit the trail. Following in the slipstream of Bring the Family, this crew, the Goners, produced a second deal breaking LP for Hiatt, Slow Turning, only a whisker away from being as good as its predecessor, being merely excellent. Hiatt was on a roll, with these and his next seven records all making substantive waves in the Billboard chart.
But the dream team were not done. In 1992 the diaries of Hiatt, Lowe, Cooder and Keltner finally realigned, and they went back into the studio. This time a band, Little Village, also the name of the sole studio offering, having ditched the earlier, and better, working title of Hiatus, and this time a pooling of resources, rather than just a backing band for Hiatt. The songs were all co-writes between the four, and whilst Hiatt sings the majority, Lowe took lead on two, Cooder on one. Perhaps there was too much hope, but the lightning failed to strike twice, and it was a deeply disappointing set. Nick Lowe later said they were given too much time. The subsequent tour was a little better, live sets testifying to that, allowing a presentation of some Bring the Family favourites, as well as scattering of Cooder's solo repertoire. One could sense a simmer of "sibling" rivalry, maybe some resentment that Hiatt was drawing more focus over Cooder's own sense of entitlement. It all ended, apparently, in tears.
Hiatt remains on the road, as do his former compadres, occasionally sharing a bill with one or another, all now senior statesmen and rightly so. Hiatt's recent work is, in my opinion, still of top quality and can stand close to the height of this period. Give him a go.
Like most of us, I'm working from home these days, and generally am staying at home, except for the occasional trip for food or walk to get some needed exercise. Luckily, I'm stuck at home with my wife, so I have someone to talk to who I happen to love. But, like many of you, I've been looking for ways to connect with friends and family. So, I've been engaging a little more than usual on Facebook, for one thing.
But I've also spent a good part of my downtime trying to foster online engagement among my fellow members of the Princeton Class of 1982. I'm the class secretary, among other things, and so I've been posting information to our class Facebook group and through emails. But most notably, with a few classmates, we've been creating online gatherings. The first one, last Sunday, was keyed to our class' unofficial holiday, "'82 Day," which falls on the 82nd day of the year. The last few '82 Days were celebrated with gatherings of classmates around the country, but this year we moved online through the now ubiquitous Zoom platform.
The event was a huge success, despite a few technical glitches. Nearly 150 classmates participated, and we had a panel discussion about the coronavirus featuring a doctor, a journalist who has been covering the virus for months, and a classmate who wrote his senior thesis on the 1918-19 Influenza epidemic. Other doctors, including one who works at the CDC, also contributed. To keep things light, we also had a Hollywood studio executive discuss things to watch while stuck at home, and a prominent astrophysicist give us pointers on things to look for in the night sky. All of whom are classmates. We're shooting to have similar gatherings every two weeks.
In addition, I discussed a few playlists that I had created to circulate among the class (although I later posted them on Facebook and elsewhere). Keeping the "82" theme, I called them "COVID-82," and they each contain 82 songs. It's pretty clear why most of the songs were put on the list, although a few of them are a little outside the box. And I was focusing really on the titles, not the lyrics. But people seem to like them. Each of them have a bunch of songs that would fit this theme, so rather than try to pick one, I'm just going to share them here.
Up until about 30 years ago, I had a 6-foot-long collection of 33 1/3 RPM LPs purchased between 1967 and 1978. I wasn't listening to them and my better half pushed to have them disappear: they were given away to a local radio station. All except for about 1 foot's worth.
If you know your history, 30 years ago is when the SONY Walkman appeared on the market, and the LP collection was duly re-populated with hundreds of cassettes. Slightly less space consumed, but no less unruly.
The 50 or so that I kept included original copies (well used) of classics like Sgt. Peppers, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, Blind Faith and Clapton's first solo ...
And Dave Mason's first solo album <Alone Together>. Even if I don't actually spin them any longer these days, I would never get rid of Dave Mason's Alone Together. For the music, and for the archaeological value of the copy I have: it's the marbled vinyl version with the hang-on-the-wall cover. Not the "anniversary edition", it appears to be worth a "bit" more than I paid for it at Tower Records in downtown Philly in 1970.
Mason had gone off on his own following his on-agin/off-again stint with Traffic, and all songs on the album were written by him. Apparently part of his frictions with Traffic stem from writing material that he wanted the band to perform/conform. Out on his own, he became free to do his thing his way.
There are critics that weren't altogether impressed ("more potential than realization" and "trivial lyrics"). Over his later career, I wouldn't argue with the trivial lyrics argument, but I have always felt that the album's sequence - from start to end - worked well as a "whole". Even today, there aren't any songs that I would skip over/fast forward to the next in line. That makes it a bit tough to pick the one that best suits our "Alone" theme. Let's try these 3 (selected lyrics that seem to me to highlight <alone>):
Cant Stop Worrying:
Who am I talking to it's just myself
Waitin on You:
Well there's no one that I can believe no, no
It's all because I couldn't see
That the best friend that I have is me
Look At You, Look At Me:
But I'm happy just to be a part of all I see
Actually, I am neither isolating, much, nor even distancing a whole lot, bar maintaining the antisocial 2 metre rule. I am purportedly front line. But not, as yet anyway, the trenches of ICU and the emergency room, touching washed and wiped wood, given my day job is a primary care physician. As yet I am not seeing the sick, as in C-19, not knowingly, anyhow, my role being to keep the show on the road for the rest: the old, those with chronic conditions, those with new acutes of other origin. And the worried. Lots of those, often struggling with how the new societal expectations inflict upon them, upon their loved ones and their livelihoods. We "see" each other on the phone, on-line and by e-mail: it is remarkable how much can be done remotely. Sure, some greater level of risk assessment, a constant coin flipping in the air, but it is, anyway, largely what we do, sift the grey of the majority into the black or white of algorithms often more intuitive than proscribed. Antibody testing for me and my colleagues is promised, the sooner the better.
Warren Zevon has been a frequent cipher on these pages. I see I have already written about him, so this ain't the time to reprise the old terrific songs/nasty guy schtick, but he seems to have songs for the moment, any moment. Splendid Isolation jumps out as one for the now. OK, this wasn't written from any experience thereof, it was more a desire to attain it. How many of us at the moment, I wonder, wished we might have been more careful in our wishes ahead of lock-down? Cos we now have all the time to do do those things put off until we wished we had more time. So, how's the garden looking, those shelves in the kitchen, playing the piano, learning a language? To be fair, I am aware that these are the things many actually are belatedly turning to, whilst many others frantically scour the social media for anything and everything, anything other than to stop and take stock. Maybe that's harsh. My i-phone tells me of a stratospheric rise in my own i-time, but I confess to a little seeping in of ennui. Do I really need to check the news and the updates every other minute? Once or twice a day being arguably enough, say ten times for expediency's sake.
So, back in 1989, Zevon was quite the ticket. The song comes from his eighth album, Transverse City, a big budget endeavour to regain the high ground of his earlier work, as he drifted within turmoils of his recurring personal life crises, booze, drugs and relationships. The supporting cast was stellar: Hot Tuna/Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady, jazz keyboard maestro Chick Corea, Little Feat's Richie Hayward and guitars scattered between Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Neil Young and David Gilmour, fer chrissakes.... On the song itself, only Shakey from the above list appears, on backing vocals, the guitar duties being handled by erstwhile Tom Petty associate and current Fleetwood Mac-er, Mike Campbell, no mean slouch himself. The lyrics are typically the Zevon mix of the erudite and the snarky, referencing both the painter Georgia O'Keefe and Michael Jackson, with sufficient room to ascertain that, yes, he probably would like some time alone and off the treadmill. The album bombed against the expectation invested, Virgin records promptly dropping him from their roster, echoing the dumping of him by Asylum in 1982, following album number six, The Envoy.
Whilst I enjoy the studio version of the song, I confess to a greater love for the live solo version on Learning to Flinch, his twelve string guitar a glorious shimmer, alone on stage seeming a better setting for the song. Indeed, given the decidedly variable content of, frankly, much of his output, some killer and more filler, it is this album too which I return as often as any.
I finally point you to the direction of Enjoy Every Sandwich: the Songs of Warren Zevon, a 2004 tribute album, songs performed by friends and family. The bemusing album title comes from an interview with the already dying Zevon, when, in response to a question asking as to the lessons he was learning about life in death, gave an answer around having not earlier understood the need to enjoy every sandwich. Gulp. Here the song is tackled by Pete Yorn, perhaps unfairly better known for his musical collaborations with Scarlett Johansson, than for his own eminently serviceable fare.
Here's a slew of versions. Sure, I commend them, but, in these trying times, however much solace there is in recorded music, spare a thought for the musicians still trying to eke a livelihood from their muse, performing home concerts on the various platforms. Let's support these artists too. If there hasn't yet been a new version of this song, I guess it can't or won't be long. Go search Bandcamp.
I'm going to stick with the sanity and sense delineation, not least as there is seeming so little about of late. And whilst this song may be about the madness of love, let's just enjoy the tune as we rue the madness of life. And, it's a good song isn't it? So what little seam of Laurel Canyon did it seep from, which L.A. valley, which neighbourhood in the SanFran diaspora about? Answer? None.
Lady Came From the South
Starry Eyed and Laughing were a british band of the 1970s. Yes, the 12 string jangle might seem to be that of the Byrds, and, yes, the name is most certainly lifted from a song by Bob Dylan, but it was in unglamorous Bedford, north west of London that the band first came together. And, whilst their roots were as a covers band playing the music of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Byrds, it could always be argued the signature instrumental timbre they lifted was that of the Searchers, doyens earlier still of the Rickenbacker electric 12 string sound. Unfortunately success never knocked that hard, and they seemed destined to be part of the ranks of second stringers, permanently second on the bill to the bigger hitters of the day.
Chimes of Freedom
First album, the eponymous SE&L, came out in 1974, and was an agreeable anglo-country-rock jaunt, with additional support from BJ Cole on steel to fill further out the sound. A year later and their second disc dropped, Thought Talk, but even with the weight of CBS records behind them, and a punishing US tour, supporting acts as disparate, with audiences ill-suited and prepared, as Weather Report, the J.Geils Band and Toots and the Maytals, they failed to crack much of a market overseas or at home. Limping on as the abbreviated Starry Eyed, abbreviated also to a 3 piece, they eventually disbanded in 1976.
Flames in the Rain
That might well have been that, but it wasn't. Rumbles of appreciation from longterm fans allowed the belated release of live material and of unreleased material and compilations, dripping out over the past 15 years, and all keeping the flame alive. So then, what of Tony Poole, the 12 string maestro of the group? He moved into production and helmed albums by, amongst others, Steeleye Span and The Men They Couldn't Hang, unsurprisingly both also bands I enjoy and have featured in these pages. However, the performing and writing itch was still extant in him, so it was a delight when I began to hear good words about a new trio, Bennett Wilson Poole. Robin Bennett, Danny Wilson (Grand Drive) and Tony Poole. Despite it being forty odd years since he left the stage lights, Poole is again chiming a glorious jangle based sound. Making a lot of happy men feel very old. And feeling alive.
With somewhat prescient lyrics that might very well fit with the madness of now.
If you knew that the original version of this song was released in 1956 by The Chips, then a tip of my fedora to you. Because I suspect that most of us first became aware of this song from its recording and performance by The Blues Brothers, a band fronted by Saturday Night Live performers John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, and featuring some of the best studio musicians around. Their debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues was a chart topping success, and both “Rubber Biscuit” and Sam & Dave cover “Soul Man” were top 100 singles—and their first movie was a huge hit, commercially, if not completely artistically (although, this is still one of my favorite scenes).
Some critics had reservations about the quality of the music—mostly focusing on Belushi, who sang lead on most songs—and whether or not it was a ripoff (or, as we might call it today, “cultural appropriation”). But others pointed out that Ackroyd and Belushi highlighted a number of obscure songs (like “Rubber Biscuit”), revived interest in the genre, and probably got more than a few performers and songwriters unexpected royalty checks or gigs. To quote the Allmusic review of Briefcase,
The guardians of popular music have always been entirely too reverent and humorless, however, and it wasn't long before they were leveling charges of rip-off against the Brothers and complaining that John Belushi couldn't sing as well as Otis Redding. So what?
“Rubber Biscuit” was Ackroyd’s showcase, and featured him on lead vocals. Ackroyd loved blues music and had performed it on and off since his college days, sometimes sitting in with the Downchild Blues Band in Canada, and even played the drums behind Muddy Waters at a show. Here's a video of Ackroyd performing with them at their 50th Anniversary show last year.
The song is filled with nonsense scat singing, interspersed with spoken comments by the singer. Interestingly, much like the song featured in my last Non-Sense post, “Rubber Biscuit,” despite its silliness—and it is silly—has an underlying serious message. It is about poverty and hunger—the spoken part of the lyrics refer to “food” such as a “wish sandwich,” which is “the kind of a sandwich where you have two slices of bread and you wish you had some meat,” or a “ricochet biscuit,” which is “the kind of biscuit that's supposed to bounce off the wall back in your mouth. If it don't bounce back, you go hungry.”
Of course there is nonsense and nonsense. It can vary from, at one extreme, merely that with which you disagree, through entertaining whimsy before finally arriving, quivering and juddering, at the howling at the moon of full blown madness. It is just over fifty years since Roger "Syd" Barrett, onetime face and voice of the then The Pink Floyd, released his first solo record, having been ejected from the band. Having enriched the band with his Edward Lear-like eccentricities of lyrical source material, knicker nickers and the like, this release now gave agonising insight into the perilous state of his psyche.
The reports weren't good. Attendees at his later performances with Pink Floyd would speak of no shows and, worse, shows where he may have been there, but was clearly somewhere miles away at the same time. Drugs, mainly the psychedelics, LSD predominantly, deemed the culprit, either by a de novo tripping of the switch or by bringing earlier to the surface that which lay anyway beneath. I don't suppose we will ever really know, but my view, professional opinion, if you like, as a practising medic, is the latter.
Terrapin/The Madcap Laughs (1969)
I remember well my first exposure to The Madcap Laughs, as the record was entitled. The cover alone was disarming enough, certainly to a 13 year old boy, just beginning a lifelong exploration of music in all its varied hues. In truth, it had been out for a couple of years, so I would have been 15, tipped in that direction by, first, the cheapo Pink Floyd compilation, Nuggets, on the Music for Pleasure label (which also put out similar curiosities by other acts as disparate as the Beach Boys, the Monkees and Donovan), and later by full price immersions in Atom Heart Mother and Meddle. A chum of mine, with preternaturally deep pockets, seemed to able to buy up anything that much cooler and on the fringes than the rest of us. We has also learnt there was a record player in the school music building, and how to get in to it out of hours. He had bought Madcap and the strange Roger Waters/Ron Geesin soundtrack of Music From The Body. The poop song apart on the latter, we agreed it held little appeal. But Madcap was deeply disturbing. None of the songs seemed complete; there seemed often a mismatch between the vocals and the backing, sometimes just with a rambling talking voice taking exit of any earlier structure mid song. And the lyrics? What was this? More a random placement of words than any storyline, words jumbling together based on their sound or upon whatsoever garbled thought processs could conjure up on the hoof, live in the studio. I later, during my psych training, learnt that this freeform word (dis)association, Knight's Move Thinking, can be a symptom of schizophrenia. OK, there were a couple of clearer and more orthodox songs, clamoured towards the end of the second side, dripping with the sense of a necessary medication having taken place. And with some relief, given at an earlier stage, in a segue of live studio tape seemingly just running, you can hear the anguish of a brain frying in real time. Shocking, heady stuff, and deeply disturbing, if likewise compelling. Of course I had to have a copy.
If It's In You/The Madcap Laughs (1969)
Dark Globe/The Madcap Laughs (1969)
"Oh where are you now pussy willow that smiled on this leaf? When I was alone you promised the stone from your heart my head kissed the ground I was half the way down, treading the sand please, please, lift a hand I'm only a person whose armbands beat on his hands, hang tall won't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?
The poppy birds way swing twigs coffee brands around brandish her wand with a feathery tongue my head kissed the ground I was half the way down, treading the sand please, please, please lift the hand I'm only a person with Eskimo chain I tattooed my brain all the way... Won't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?"
I later bought his second LP, the less dramatically presented and titled Barrett. A gentler affair, with structure more firmly moulded upon the songs, even if as a later thought and at a latter time. His old buddy and his band replacement, David Gilmour here responsible for gilding the lily and gelding the mania. Some good songs and a smoother ride, that would later be brought back to mind by the closing scenes of the film version of Ken Kesey's book, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, the sadness of seeing the madness constrained and controlled.
Love Song (Barrett, 1970)
Neither the time or place to reiterate all the later trajectories, all well documented and widely elsewhere. A journey of little sense from nonsense to no sense at all. A tragedy and a majesty combined. The old adage is that genius needs a touch of madness. I don't know about that, and certainly Syd didn't need it, nobody should or would choose psychosis. But we got to get the outcome, and for that I will always be grateful to that legacy being granted us.
Had enough of the doo-doo we're publishing? Well, here's another.
Actually, if I had done my homework well last week, I would have posted a version of the Stones performing <Da Doo Ron Ron>. Here.
I would stand up for the Stones like many Pres D.T. supporters do: well, maybe not even if Mick shot someone on Broadway, but just about through thick and thin. Thin includes their version of <Da Doo Ron Ron>: it's even worse that most of <Between the Buttons>, but then... that was a long time ago.
<Goats Head Soup>, the album that included "Heartbreaker" faced a fair amount of headwind: it came out the year after <Exile on Main Street> - a rather hard feat to beat. That said, it includes some of my favorites (in addition to "Heartbreaker"): Angie, Winter, 100 Years Ago. Not too shabby IMHO.
As for the non-sense aspect:
we could go back to the "doo-doo head" aspect of the lyrics, but that is probably not what Jimmy Miller, the producer had in mind. This seems more like of case of "we need filler lyrics" and <da da>, <doo doo> is what might come to anyone's mind. ie: no meaning/non-sense. Mission accomplished.
Having missed my prompt for other versions of "Da Doo Ron Ron", here's more:
Would it surprise you to find out that Sting believes that this song, with its nonsense title and refrain, is actually a very serious song? Look, we all know that Sting can be very pretentious, but he knows that—even embraces it—and I think that you have to give him credit. And as I’ve mentionedbefore, I have no problem with pretentiousmusic. It’s just that you wouldn’t expect that from a song with that title. But here’s what Sting said about the song in a New Musical Express interview in 1981:
I think my songs are fairly literate - they're not rubbish. 'De Do Do Do', for example, was grossly misunderstood: the lyrics are about banality, about the abuse of words. Almost everyone who reviewed it said, Oh, this is baby talk. They were just listening to the chorus alone, obviously. But they're the same people who would probably never get through the first paragraph of Finnegan's Wake, because that's 'baby talk', too. I know that sounds pretentious, but in that song I was trying to say something which was really quite difficult - that people like politicians, like myself even use words to manipulate people, and that you should be very careful. It's quite a serious song, but because it's by The Police it was just written off as being garbage.
In 1993, in Q, Sting said about the song:
God, I got flak for that one. I always thought it was an articulate song about being inarticulate. The first thing you have to consider is that this was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic. I was intrigued with why songs like that worked. Why 'Da Doo Ron Ron', why 'Doo Wah Diddy Diddy', why 'Be Bop A Lula', why 'Tutti Frutti' worked. I came up with the idea that they worked because they were totally innocent. They weren't trying to tell you anything or distort your vision - it was just a sound. So in the song I try to intellectualise and analyse why that works so effectively which is self-defeating in a way but it was still a massive hit. Some people might think that the man who wrote 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' is a stupid twat but...I'm living here.
And, according to Wikipedia, Joni Mitchell, a
pretty fair songwriter, loved it.
It is hard not to listen to the song, and Sting’s explanation, without thinking of our remarkably inarticulate president, who nevertheless uses his simple (minded) words (and his lies and insults), to manipulate people—somehow getting millions of people to vote for him for a job that he is profoundly unqualified for. And to maintain their blind loyalty despite his consistent lies, corruption and failures. His actions in response to the current coronavirus emergency—for which the Police song “Don’t Stand So Close To Me,” comes to mind, although the subject of the song, about an affair between a school girl and an older man is more fitting for the social lives of Trump and his friends—have been dangerous and incoherent, but hasn’t yet seemed to erode the support of his base.
Sadly, though, in this era or hyperpartisanship, he could stand in front of a podium, say “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” and walk away, and his sycophants would somehow declare it brilliant.
Eventually, though, I’m hoping that another Police song, “Truth Hits Everybody,” becomes appropriate—hopefully, before November 3, 2020.
There are two ways to look at a non-sense song:
(1) it makes no sense to anyone, but that's the whole point of it
(2) it makes no sense to you and me, but it had meaning to thems that wrote it
The story goes that Phil Spector chose the nonsense lyrics "da doo ron ron" because they were "dumb enough" not to interfere with the actual lyrics telling the girl-meets-boy story (and that Sonny Bono was there to give his approval).
Among the various options to the <non-sense> theme, this one seemed particularly appropriate because ... welp ... we need some diversionary non-sense to help us survive these days of gibberish from all corners of the world, and <da doo ron ron> makes as much sense as everything else we are hearing. And because the song just brings bouncing happy feelings whenever I listen to it.
I wonder if I have an element of the Trump "things were better back in those days" virus, or if things really were better back then (just see how many "old" songs are still covered)
The Crystals were no one-hit group; Phil Spector made sure of that. Wikipedia reminds us that they were "one of the defining acts of the girl group era in the first half of the 1960s". Another of their hits you probably know is <Then He Kissed Me>.
Speaking of non-sense, Phil Spector's tactical games flip-flopping the Crystals and the Blossoms is one step short of non-sense and likely would not fly far these days.
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