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It must have seemed in the late sixties that you couldn't throw a stone at a pile of singles without hitting one with a Beatles connection; in this case, Scaffold's Mike McGear was Paul McCartney's brother (though 'Lily The Pink' is more in keeping with Lennon's music hall influences than anything else 'Beatley'). Based on the folk song 'The Ballad Of Lydia Pinkham', 'Lily The Pink' keeps the main tune and theme of the older song (the real life Pinkham developed and marketed a compound tonic that supposedly cured 'women's problems' in the late nineteenth century), but then populates it with a procession of re-written characters that amount to little more than a production line of in-jokes. There's no reason why the casual listener shouldn't be amused by "Mr Frears", "brother Tony" and "Jennifer Eccles" too, but the biggest hobble here is that, for a knees up Christmas party drinking song, 'Lily The Pink' is remarkably flat and lifeless - four and a half minutes of sixth form Goons with A levels humour that never breaks sweat. No doubt it would raise a chuckle amongst its peers, but it's clearly wary about going too far lest the headmaster disapprove and contact their parents.
On a point of trivia, Jack Bruce plays bass on this, so at least some interest is generated.
I think the first album that ever caught my eye (I loved the cover and I pestered my parents to buy it for me) was 'Big Terror Movie Themes' by Geoff Love and his Orchestra. Love was a British easy listening bandleader who put out a slew of themed albums in the seventies linked around a genre of film and all given the Geoff Love makeover. Thus, 'Big Terror' collected various horror/thriller film music, 'Big War Movie Themes', 'Big Bond Movie Themes' and Big Love Movie Themes' were self explanatory, as was the inevitable 'Big Western Movie Themes' which contained his version of 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly'. Which is where I first heard it. Happy days.*
It was only later that I found out that Love wasn't the first to plough this particular furrow and that his attempt at this piece was at least more than one step removed from the original; Hugo Montenegro was an American bandleader who, in the sixties, produced a similar run of movie theme albums as Love was to (though Montenegro also composed original music for films himself) which led to this surprise 1968 hit based on the theme to the eponymous 1966 spaghetti western. As written by Ennio Morricone, 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly' is a twitchy affair of whistles, flutes and gorilla grunts all separated by spaces and silences, tightly wrapping the tune in a dread of tension that forever threatens to explode into a violence ill suited to easy listening.
And just as Hollywood is forever accused of remaking and 'dumbing down' successful foreign films for a Western audience, Montenegro's take on it polyfills the dangerous cracks and rubs them smooth with a Tex Mex acoustic guitar fill that lightens the mood considerably. Easier on the ear certainly, but it's a move akin to cutting up and re-arranging a Picasso so that the eyes and mouth are all in the 'right' place to appease those who have no truck with Cubism. Morricone wasn't aiming for a pop audience when he wrote it, and whenever I hear his original score I see a shimmering desert landscape with a heat warped figure on a horse transversing the horizon. When I hear Montenegro, I see Colin from accounts in a fancy dress cowboy outfit carrying a cap gun. Vive le difference.
* As for Love, his version is a cover of Montenegro's arrangement, only weaker still. I've also come to appreciate that 'Big Terror's version of the 'Jaws' theme sounds like a fat man farting in an underfilled bath tub too. Ah well.
And to complete a hat trick of Beatley number ones comes this version of track two from 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. I've mentioned elsewhere about how I regard a good cover version as one that sets out to provide more than a simple carbon copy and instead at least tries to make it personal to the artist. As far as that goes, Cocker's take on 'With A Little Help From My Friends' is certainly unique - as played by The Beatles it's a jovial jaunt sung by Ringo Starr who's seeking assurance that he's not just the drummer in the band. Cocker turns it into a monsters of rock, Alice In Chains type dirge that's as serious as famine but which misses the point by furlongs.
When Ringo sings "What would you do if I sang out of tune?" it invokes a smile in the listener, not least because he is singing out of tune. And flat. But it's all ok because the rest of the band chip in to tell him it is - they're all in this together as mates and everybody goes home happy. Cocker stretches the song to twice the original length and huffs and puffs to blow the song over with help from a squally guitar (from Jimmy Page) and soul backing vocals (featuring Rosetta Hightower) that try their damnedest to inject some heavy duty sincerity but only end up making a sows ear out of a silk purse. 'With A Little Help From My Friends' was never something that would readily lend itself to such Jim Steinman in the dirt treatment, and while I'm aware the song has developed a kind of 'classic' or 'iconic' status in certain circles, I have to confess it leaves me cold as ice.
One thing I've noticed as I've travelled along this thing called life is that it's not uncommon for me to change my viewpoint on any given song from like to extreme dislike. Sometimes it goes further - I fond it hard to believe that in the mid eighties I (for a short time anyway), loved Chris deBurgh to distraction. I still have the albums I bought as proof and very now and again I'll take them down from the shelf and ponder in wonder at what the hell I ever saw in any of it. But see in them I did, albeit through an innocence and naivety that gave those songs a kind of meaning which age has since withered and the realisation that I no longer see the world through sixteen year old eyes tends to promote a sad shake of the head before I put them back in their proper place in my racks - unplayed yet undeniable (though you can read more of my deBurgh years here).
Conversely, 'Those Were The Days' is a song familiar from my seventies childhood and conspicuous in that it was something the 'me' of 'then' had little time or appreciation for. The whole 'message' of the song did not resonate with me at all. Even in my late teens I thought that Hopkin, barely older than I was, was far too shrill in telling her tale and just needed to get out more - 'these' were the days as far as I was concerned and would always be thus. In truth it's hard to be nostalgic when you have no past to speak of, but the passing of time has by default righted that particular 'wrong' and now, having experienced many 'taverns' and many dreams, I find 'Those Were The Days' has matured alongside me to the point where my views have taken a U turn.*
Far from shrill, I recognise now that Hopkin interprets the lyric with a wistful prettiness, invoking regret in a way that belies her own eighteen years. When she paints herself as an older 'lonely woman' it's more than characterisation or interpretation - it's entirely believable. And more than that, Hopkin gives the song a universal appeal perhaps not intend by lyricist Gene Raskin who put the English lyric to a Russian folk tune. Raskin's song was time and place specific in that it related to New York's White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, an important venue for the sixties folk scene whose passing the song laments. Hopkin negates such self indulgence by locating the song's heart in the simple passing of youthful joy and idealism but at the same time making it clear in the last verse that happiness is not solely the province of the young.
There's a Beatles connection here that wouldn't have hindered either - the first release on the band's new Apple label and a Paul McCartney production to boot, McCartney in turn is savvy enough to realise that Hopkin's voice is as big a star as the song itself and he gives it the room it needs to stress the open ended daydream on the verses, allowing the vocal to wind down before pushing the song's Russian origins to the fore on the clockwork klezmer dance chorus (which nods to Topol's recording of 'If I Were A Rich Man' from 'Fiddler On The Roof' that reached number nine the previous year) until it's hard not to get caught up and sing along.
If I have any complaint, it's that the five minute song would have been more effective cut down to three, but Hopkin's voice is easy enough on the ear not to irritate and the whole 'point' of the song is encapsulated in that recurring chorus, a sepia toned sadness given colour by the camaraderie of the present. Which means if listened to in the right company then it can't come 'round often enough.
* In a similar vein, I had great difficulties with Pink Floyd's 'Time' - "And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun". "How could anybody let ten years slip away?" I used to think? A fair enough comment when you're barely ten yourself but ah dear reader, my hubris is still biting my arse with a vengeance.
As the years have gone by, I've increasingly found that I have no middle ground with Sir Paul McCartney. Whereas I can feel good, bad or indifferent to the output of just about any other artist, the latter response is absent when considering McCartney's work; simply put, I either like it or I don't. And to continue along this bald statement path, I don't like 'Hey Jude'.
It's not always been that way - growing up, I always enjoyed the all together now football terrace chant of the close. But that was then; nowadays all I hear is that vocal and melody meandering from key to key in search of resolution but never managing to meet itself in a satisfying conclusion. And just when all concerned realise that it's probably never going to, another left field change of pace on the "better, Better, BETTER" puts its arm around the song and leads it into the "la la la" mantra of the outro that buries what's gone before like tarmac over grass.
The tale runs that, not keen on being bested by Richard Harris and 'Macarthur Park' as being the longest single, 'Hey Jude' purposely runs one second longer. But I think there's more to it than petty one-upmanship; 'Hey Jude' needs that 'chorus' to give a loose song about nothing much in particular a memorable send off, a hook to hum that otherwise just wouldn't be there and I think a useful comparator is with T Rex and 'Hot Love', another number one with an extended "la la la" ending.
But in the case of Bolan's song, that coda could have faded ten seconds in with no detriment to the song behind it - 'Hot Love' is a tight composition that can stand by itself. Not so 'Hey Jude' and to do the same here would see the song taking on the mantle of an unfinished demo searching for a reason for its own existence. And in that, 'Hey Jude' points toward the chinless wonders reliant on the reputation of their creator for their kudos that would characterise much of McCartney's eighties output.
Though not apparent on first listen, 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' is another death song in the same 'tradition' as 'Green Green Grass Of Home', this time sung from the point of view of a death row prisoner awaiting the chair and trying to get a last message to his wife (whose lover he murdered, hence his predicament). A contrived scenario for sure and one that demands a certain suspension of belief on the part of the listener to make it work, not least because of the broad brush work that paints it. Yet while I'm generally happy to play ball, 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' lands too far beyond the pale for me to be taken in this time.
Ironically for a band who would later have a hit with a song called 'Tragedy', tragedy itself is something the Bee Gees were never at home with. Heartbreak yes, but 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' is too clumsy in its execution to hit the nerve of empathy/sympathy it's aiming at. Like a surgeon wearing boxing gloves to operate, it crudely hacks out its story via the Gibb's over the top plead "I've just gotta get a message to you, hold on, hold on. One more hour and my life will be through" serving only to rub its blood in your face as the music goes about its own brash and brittle business of creating drama out of nothing. 'I've Gotta Get A Message To You' does its best, but there's a yawning chasm between intent and result that's never going to bridged with an emotional connection no matter how much hard core, hand wrung angst the band pour into it.
"It's automatic when I talk with old friends. The conversation turns to girls we knew when their hair was soft and long and the beach was the place to go" - it seems odd that on 'Do It Again' the Beach Boys were indulging in wistful nostalgia that's all 'was' and 'when' barely two years on from their perfect statement of female desire that gave them those 'Good Vibrations'. But as even the casual fan knows, the late sixties had not been a happy ship for either band or their de-facto leader Brian Wilson as they turned away from the sun and surf that made their fortune into the introspection of 'Pet Sounds' and the grand yet flawed meisterwork that never was 'SMiLE'. "Don't fuck with the formula" warned Mike Love as the hits dried up.
From its title in, 'Do It Again' is a return to roots, a barer boned, surf styled recording that purposely harks to the slow build of 'California Girls' but with a self checking, self reverential lyric from Love that's happy to acknowledge that they'd been away too long. It's a move that falls in step with other major sixties stars who retreated to a more basic path after the comedown of psychedlia, but what was hip in 1963 isn't necessarily so in 1968 and few were calling out for a surf revival. Luckily, Wilson was at hand to lift it above mere retro retread by adding a metallic drum intro that squelches as it clangs and a close of hammering lifted from those 'SMiLE' sessions. Token gestures perhaps, but they succeed in raising 'Do It Again' above the formulaic statement that Love was loathe to fuck with. Its number one status may have proved him right in the short term, but as serviceable as it is, 'Do It Again' is a step backwards from what the band were capable of.
I'm told that a picture paints a thousand words. Watching the 1968 'video' clip of Arthur Brown performing 'Fire' in warpaint and flaming headgear, I'm inclined to agree. Even with the sound off you can see the genesis of the New York Dolls, Kiss, Roy Wood, Alice Cooper and countless other/lesser rock acts who cottoned on to the notion that a strong, visual image can compensate immeasurably for a paucity in the 'good song bag'.
Turn the volume up, and the opening call to arms 'I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE AND I BRING YOU...FIRE' puts me in mind of Black Sabbath, Venom and the legion of corpse painted, church burning black metallers they inspired. Enough to send a small boy hiding behind a cushion in fright anyway, which is where my first glimpse of Mr Brown sent me. But then just when you think Arthur and the band have come to drag us all to hell, Vincent Crane's freakbeat organ fires (sorry) up to give the song wheels and suddenly it all gets a lot more cuddly.
I mentioned above about how Arthur's visual influence has been passed like a baton down the years, but that's not to say that he arrived like a clap of lightning from a clear blue sky. British music hall tradition is laced with acts reliant on mild freakshow overtones to sell their tickets, from George Chirgwin's black face minstrel with the falsetto voice to 'Little Tich' and his 28 inch shoes. But then contemporaneous with Brown, fellow Brit Screaming Lord Sutch was also fond of acting the goat by dressing up to add a grand Guignol appeal to whatever schlock he was peddling. Sutch, however, was the textbook definition of what my Gran would call a 'daft bugger', and scratch below the wild eyed fire demon front he presents and Arthur reveals himself to be fresh from the same gene pool.
Brown plays an effective bogeyman, but appearances are deceptive and 'Fire' is more mainstream than it would have you believe. Built entirely around that organ riff with brass overdubs (no guitars here), 'Fire' is psychedelia neutered by its inherent pop sensibilities. Stripped of Brown's vocal, 'Fire's steady drive seems more suited to soundtrack a car chase scene from some sixties thriller rather than a drug soaked freakout.
Stripped of its theatrics, 'Fire' manages to roll on its own internal rising momentum with sufficient force to keep the cheese at bay, but it's own prim neatness also keeps the excitement lid firmly shut - I don't know how useful the comparator is, but bootleg recordings of the 'Fire/Mrs O'Leary's Cow' elemental suite from Brian Wilson's aborted 1967 'SMiLE' sessions carry with them the wild and whirling unpredictability of a wall of flame to the point that you can imagine the disc itself breaking out in a sweat. By comparison, this 'Fire' simmers on a much lower flame on a Corgi registered gas hob. But that doesn't mean it's not all still great fun. Because it is.
A no nonsense, tubthump blast from the garage, 'Mony Mony' is more familiar to me through Billy Idol's 1987 cover. Yet despite his ever present sneer of lust, James outsings him ten to one with the throat rasping gusto of a proto Kurt Cobain that makes that "Here she comes now sayin' Mony Mony" sound like the most deviant of sexual mores. Should it come as any surprise that he's better? As a rule, the only way Billy Idol can improve on a song is by leaving it well alone, yet his dumb, nu-metal take highlights the weak link in this chain as being The Shondells themselves who play like they were briefed to play it bubblegum.
Lacking the fire of the vocals, the clap happy backing slightly hobbles James's best efforts and damp down his energy; James hollers the "so good, so fine", the band politely look the other way. 'Mony Mony' still thrills, but it lacks the edge of dirt and danger of a 'Louie Louie' or a 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' to be the bona fide teenage, garage grunge anthem it aspires to be.
Along with Max Bygraves and Barry Manilow, Des O'Connor completed the trinity of easy targets beloved to British light entertainment comedians in the seventies and eighties. Their dogma was such that just typing their names causes me to smirk in pre-judgement without them having to so much as open their mouths. Ah but whatever the rights and wrongs of this, I'm not about to launch a re-appraisal of defence of any of them. I'll leave that for someone else. And anyway, in the case of Des and on the evidence of 'I Pretend', I couldn't if I wanted to.
It's the same old story, another lover has gone, but this time rather than try and win her back or hit the bottle in anguished heartbreak, Des is the archetypical polite Englishman, finding spineless virtue in not making a fuss ("Wish I knew exactly what I'd done. If there's someone else I'll set you free now, guess I've lost and he has won") and happy to queue 'till something better comes along as he sits in his chair and pretends she's still there with him. The fire of love does not exactly burn strongly in Mr O'Connor and he sings this with the personality and conviction of the speaking clock, a lo-fat 'ho-hum' of ambivalence suggestive of an innate boringness that could lie at the root of "exactly what" he's done to see her off - i.e. nothing, now or ever. "One day our love must end, till then I'll just pretend"; good luck with that Des, you big loser.
The unwary punter can buy a Platinum records CD from 1997 called 'The British 60's' that's a compilation of the 'best of' The Foundations and The Equals, equally split down the middle with ten songs from both bands.* Why were these two seen as suitable bedfellows I wonder? After all, there's no obvious common link between the music they produced; while The Foundations aped Motown with no small success, The Equals dabbled in the burgeoning reggae genre though neither styles were in any way 'British' enough to warrant that title. Unless the compliers considered that two home-grown, mixed race bands filtering a genre from abroad through very British roots was reason enough for the pairing? Maybe, and if so it's accurate (and imaginative) to a point the premise could provide this review all by itself.
All told, 'Baby Come Back' is a less successful stab at reggae than 'Baby Now That I've Found You' was at Motown. And that's because it keeps more of a toehold in straightforward pop than in its source material so that it's more accurate to regard 'Baby Come Back' as a straightforward pop tune given the odd reggae flourish. There's a light skank to the rhythm (that's emphasised by some "shh shh shh" 'Train To Skaville' vocal percussion at the close) true, and Eddie Grant's Guyana patois is as thick as it's genuine, but it's all overlaid with a typical British beat band beat that's only really interested in getting to the chorus.
This itself builds into itself quite neatly with the "Hey - all right" call and responses, but that doesn't disguise that 'Baby Come Back' is all chorus. Not usually a problem per se (though reggae was never about a good chorus), but in pulling two ways between styles the resulting paralysis and the flatness of the playing keeps 'Baby Come Back' on a continuous plateau that doesn't bear the level of repetition on display here. Good fun that that only just manages to outstay its welcome. Only just mind.
* Not that I'd recommend looking for a copy of this - its bargain basement price on the front derives from the 'song of this music has been re-recorded with as many of the original artists as possible' caveat in small print on the back. Honestly, this kind of carry on should come with a prominent 'ACHTUNG!' and a stencilled image of a grinning skull.
On paper, it looks such a natural step from their previous number one - Jagger, no longer content to just 'Paint It, Black', now wants to take things to a logical conclusion by assuming blackness himself under the persona of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash'. In actual fact, what the stats DON'T reveal is the whole Sgt Pepper aping charade of 1967's 'Their Satanic Majesty's Request' , an album that saw the Stones dabble in cod psychedelia only to come off a poor second best. After such a serious misstep, points had to be proved and on 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' Jagger is in the mood to prove them.
Bill Wyman has since repeatedly claimed to have written, but recieved no credit for, the main riff here, but in truth it's always sounded a sawn off variation of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' to me. And unlike that song, it's not the be all and end all power source of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' - from Brian's chunky acoustic intro, there's a loose and shambolic feel pervading the whole song from Charlie's off the beat drum beat to the droll drawl "it's a gas" backing vocals, a garage band jam barely holding it together yet with Jagger's yowling, ringmaster in a circus of horrors, daring it to fall apart as he recounts with ambivalence ("but it's alright now") the freakshow life endured by Mr Flash.
"I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag, I was schooled with a strap right across my back" - drawls Jagger, none of it true of course but by self mythologising his own character, both he and the band draw a line in the sand that's the equal of Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads - 'Satanic Majesty' was then, but now we're going to show how Satanic we can REALLY be. The later 'Sympathy For The Devil', 'Gimmie Shelter' and Midnight Rambler' would be the culminating explosions of this darker turn of face, but 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' lit the fuse and it fizzes quite superbly.
There's no doubt about it, 'Young Girl' is a troubling song. Not because it's a well crafted piece of soulful power pop with a bear trap of a chorus, but because of the little tale that's wrapped up in that soulful power pop and bear trap chorus; Gary is shocked to discover that the girl he's been seeing wasn't quite as old as he first though and now he's trying to shoo away the jailbait temptation by appealing to her understanding and his own reason.
Ah, but the flesh is weak and the final verse has Gary warning her to "Get out of here, before I have the time to change my mind. 'Cause I'm afraid we'll go too far". Does he keep it in his pants? Who knows, the song fades to a silence that tells no tales (though the title of their 1969 single "This Girl Is A Woman Now" doesn't do them too many favours in the benefit of the doubt stakes......).
If played with a careful hand, there's a certain amount of humour to be drawn from Gary's predicament, but 'Young Girl' isn't played for laughs; the lyric relishes in its too much detail than strictly necessary-ness for that. Lines like "Beneath your perfume and make-up, you're just a baby in disguise" read like text from a sleazy paperback bought from a specialist shop, and when Gary tells us "And now it hurts to know the truth" you can almost see that bulge in his crotch. Oh yes, there's a definite 'Awwwww' of disappointment in his vocal and in his frustration Gary's quick to blame the girl for stoking up his libido; "And though you know that it is wrong to be, alone with me. That come on look is in your eyes" - but it's a defence all too common in Crown Court reporting and it always draws a frown. Shame on you man.
'Young Girl' is too thumpingly upbeat to truly offend, and the lack of leer coupled with its surprising honesty makes it more 'Twinky'* than 'Lolita' and as such far more likeable than it really has any right to be. But on the other hand, it's not the most credible or tasteful song to namecheck when you're asked what was at number one the week you were born. I guess like Gary, I have my own cross to bear too.
* A 1970 Richard Donner film in which Charles Bronson gets seduced by a 16 year old schoolgirl (Susan George) with typically seventies 'it's all just a bit of fun' results.
In his 1979 film 'Manhattan', a suicidal Woody Allen recites a list of the things that make life worth living. Among them is Louis Armstrong's recording of 'Potato Head Blues' (recorded by Louis Armstrong and his 'Hot Seven' in 1927), something that Thomas Ward called "one of the most astonishing accomplishments in all of twentieth century music." And that's really all I'm going to say about the importance of Armstrong in the canon of twentieth century popular music. By the time of 'What A Wonderful World', he'd had long since moved away from such innovation to settle into the role of the grinning light entertainer that most are familiar with.
'What A Wonderful World' is a later recording, providing Armstrong with an Indian summer hit (he died in 1971) that has come to define him in popular consciousness in a way that 'Potato Head Blues' could never hope to. A song that's become so definitively associated with 'Louis Armstrong' so as to make all other versions redundant. Yet in a supreme twist of irony, my ears now actively prefer to hear any other version except this one. It's not the song's fault, and it's not Armstrong's, but the conjoiner of the two set off alarm bells of discomfort that make what's meant to be easy listening decidedly uneasy.
Bob Thiele and George Weiss wrote it as a counterpoint to the political chicanery and racial inequality rife in late sixties America, intending it as an optimistic celebration of a more harmonious world that was within everyone's reach. Yet growing up, I'd always regarded 'What A Wonderful World' as a novelty song sung by a comedy performer playing it for laughs ("An ah zink to ma sell, wha ah wunnerfull wurlllzzzzz"). It's only with age did I come to recognise and appreciate the attempt at sincerity from a man not a born singer in any classic sense.
Yet although such sincere sentiment is fine on paper, Armstrong's grizzled vocal casts him in the role of an aged 'Uncle Tom' figure marvelling at the scope of opportunity this brave new world has to offer now that the white man has kindly removed the yoke. When Armstrong sings "I hear babies crying, I watch them grow, they'll learn much more than I'll never know" I physically wince; rather than gaze in wide eyed wonder I instead ponder the ignorance and bigotry that denied Armstrong's 'character' getting that education themselves. The same ignorance and bigotry that put a bullet into Martin Luther King Jr the very month this sat at number one.
Maybe I'm being too sensitive over this, and maybe I'm reading too much into it - after all, it wouldn't be the first time. Nevertheless, for me Armstrong does subvert the message of 'What A Wonderful World' to the extent that it re-focuses my gaze from the outward world he's viewing to the racial perspective of the person singing it, in this case a perspective that's limited to mere acceptance of the status quo and the hope of a better tomorrow. And in that I despise the way that the song and his humble delivery of it makes a very big man look needlessly small. But on that observation I'll make no further comment save to question, for those worthy of recognition in the eyes of the world, whether it's better to be recognised for the wrong thing than for nothing at all?
Once so ubiquitous, Cliff (and his Shadows) have become strangers to these shores, rare visitors overtaken by trends and styles in both popular culture and popular music that they either could not or would not adapt to. Telling then that it took the everyman appeal of a Eurovision Song Contest entry to generate interest enough to take him back to the top; if there's one thing 'Congratulations' has in spades, it's broad appeal.
After a brief introduction build up with a hint of drama to come, 'Congratulations' soon and permanently settles into a gentle Johnny Cash in carpet slippers boom chicka boom rhythm that exerts just enough force to buoy the main melody with a twinkling eye wink. Cliff himself makes no concessions to his roots in his performance - this is Cliff as light entertainer pure and simple, content to let the song play him with its own faceless anonymity; there's no stamp of personality here, virtually any Brit singer from the class of 1959 could have sung it to no greater or lesser effect.
No harm in that - 'Congratulations' isn't something that lends itself to individualistic interpretation. Like hospital food, it's purely functional and serves its purpose by getting multi-cultural hands clapping at its predictability to the point that its own language is superfluous; does nobody think to question just what is being congratulated here and why? Is Cliff congratulating himself on finding such a lover, or are his mates slapping him on the back in a more polite version of a Sid James 'Phwoaar!!'? And aren't both just a teeny bit patronising? Ah who cares; just like hospital food, 'Congratulations' is too bland and tasteless to be worth the worry. Collect the points and move along.
By 1968, the main instigators of the psychedelic movement had turned their backs on the genre to return home to some more basic roots. Dylan had already released the folk influenced 'John Wesley Harding' (and would shortly go all out country on 'Nashville Skyline'), The Byrds pioneered country rock on 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo'. The Rolling Stones, never comfortable with psychedelia in the first place, produced the raw blues of 'Beggars Banquet' before heading into darker waters still while The Beatles decamped to India to follow the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi before releasing the stripped down double 'The Beatles/The White Album'.
Before that though came 'Lady Madonna', which in itself was a conscious move toward the style of music that inspired the band to pick up guitars in the first place. McCartney is on record as saying he was aiming for a Fats Domino, deep south rolling rhythm in writing it and on that level at least it succeeds. But that's part of the problem I think - 'Lady Madonna' sounds more a studious exercise in songcraft than the sound of a band with anything on its mind. McCartney knew the sound he wanted, but then having nailed it had no set plan on what to do with it. So rather than let it coast on a boogie woogie groove, 'Lady Madonna' gets embellished with the usual fattening studio trickery including the band mimicking a brass section by blowing through their cupped hands (really).
And that's fine as an exercise with something with the throwaway nature of 'Hello, Goodbye', but 'Lady Madonna' comes with a central narrative that presents a curious mix of sympathy and meanness - is McCartney expressing admiration for the put upon the mother juggling life's problems, or is there a snide, Daily Mail put down ("Who finds the money when you pay the rent, did you think that money was heaven sent?") of such feckless lifestyles? In fairness it's probably neither; McCartney is celebrating motherhood in the round and like 'Eleanor Rigby' before it, 'Lady Madonna' is purely song as observation, albeit not observation drawn with sufficient clarity that we know exactly what it is we are looking at. Which, taking on board it's already aping tone, makes it a lazy release with only McCartney's still functioning ear for melody keeping it afloat.
Xanadu, of course, was the capital of Kubla Khan's China, but on this evidence writers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley locate it somewhere near the Mexican border. There's a definite Western air about 'The Legend Of Xanadu' that tips its hat to Elmer Bernstein's theme to 'The Magnificent Seven' while adding some mariachi trumpet blasts, flamenco guitar runs and gunshot whipcracks that are all its own. At heart, it's more death song nonsense about some guy killed in a duel over some gal - but whatever, 'The Legend of Xanadu' is three and a half minutes of lightning in a bottle, a thrill ride of tightly wrapped bundle of hooks, riffs and cod drama that gallops along like a horse on the prairie. Or like the finest pop song. Which is what this is. Fantastic.
Well where to start? 'Cinderella Rockefella' is a song I seem to have been familiar with forever. To my young years, having no idea what these people looked like, I'd always pictured Esther's disembodied ghostly shrill as coming from an aged Bianca Castofiore lookalike (yes, I was a big TinTin fan as a lad) while Abi was a suave, middle aged Dean Martin type in tuxedo and spats. It didn't make the song any more enjoyable, but it did give it an 'adult' context that made sense of why I found it so strange and unyielding. And with that in mind it came as some surprise when I eventually found out they were actually a young couple with film star good looks. Not that this made the song any more enjoyable either - three minutes of yodelled sweet nothings over a variation on the theme from Steptoe and Son is going to need more of a boost than a good looking front end to salvage it. Yes I know it's meant to be humorous and all that, but compared to the genuine warmth emanating from that 'other' couple singing sweet nothings to each other, 'Cinderella Rockefella' is cold and charmless. Esther sings with intensity yet still sounds like a flake while Abi is too smug and self satisfied for anyone's good, creating a mismatch car crash sound of a couple on a blind date going off the rails.
It took a keen ear to hear any pop promise in the rambling bagatelle of Bob Dylan's decidedly lo-fi "Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)" - it should be next to impossible to say that title without smiling, but Dylan seems to manage it just fine and his throwaway song with its throwaway subject matter seemed destined to never leave the cutting room floor. Enter Manfred Mann to provide an unexpected payday with a version akin to The Beatle's own 'Yellow Submarine' - i.e. a larger than life schoolyard sing song. But while former at least had a message of togetherness at it's heart, 'The Mighty Quinn' has nothing beyond a chunky chorus heralding the imminent arrival of Quinn.
What he's coming to deliver we're not told, and the verses don't shine too much light either, being little more than a nonsense stream tapped from Dylan's consciousness ("Everybody's building ships and boats. Some are building monuments, others jotting down notes"). Thankfully it's given a thick protective padding by the band that might be out of proportion to the strength of the song, but it serves to hide its weakness with a rolling swagger that emphasises that satisfying chorus with a neat tease of a pause before it's launched. And an added airy flute motif highlights the playful fact that we're not meant to be taking this too seriously. And I never do, which is why I find it so enjoyable.
The 'key' to 'Everlasting Love' lies in its second line; though to all intents and purposes a celebration of eternal love, it's the half buried "I went away just when you needed me so" that gives the game away, making the song actually a grovelling 'please don't spoil a good thing and take me back' plea to a lover wronged. And that's how it's played out in Robert Knight's Northern Soul favourite original - the celebration is there, but it's couched in a suitably sheepish manner of a misbehaving dog trying to worm its way out of the doghouse after shitting on the floor by wagging its tail hard.
In contrast, The Love Affair cut the song to it's pop bone and flog the chorus hard on a spruced up horn backing and 'gee up' plucked bassline click . But as for that key line, well vocalist Steve Ellis fumbles the ball, converting it into a "I went away, just when you, you need me so" that takes the sting out of the tail to render it more emotionally neutral. That the whole works well enough as power pop is testament to the fact that 'Everlasting Love' has melody hooks to burn, but it's all surface gloss, a one dimensional take on a three dimensional song that can stand by itself, but not in its own company. If you see what I mean.
It doesn't feature in the soundtrack, but 'The Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde' was inspired not so much by actual events, but actual events as depicted in Arthur Penn's Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway 1967 movie 'Bonnie And Clyde'. Peter Callander and Mich Murray had already written a sizeable number of early Merseysound hits, but where songs like 'How Do You Do It?' were direct and to the point, the psuedo tough guy lyrics to this meander on a lazy river of cliché, ("Reach for the sky" sweet-talking Clyde would holler"), forced rhyme ("Bonnie and Clyde began their evil doin', one lazy afternoon") and uneven metre ("Now one brave man-he tried to take 'em alone, they left him lyin' in a pool of blood, and laughed about it all the way home"). The non-ballad, faux speakeasy piano rolls paste on a thirties patina, but Fame's homeboy Yankee drawl makes for a trad in a basket result that's more Barron Knights than robber barons, particularly with a 'wah wah waaaaaaaah' ending more suited to soundtracking a slapstick pratfall than the violent deaths of two murderers. Humorous you say? Well I'd be more inclined to accept the tongue in cheek good humour of it all if there was in fact any humour there to be accepted. All very unappealing.
It must have seemed in the late sixties that you couldn't throw a stone at a pile of singles without hitting one with a Beatles connection; in this case, Scaffold's Mike McGear was Paul McCartney's brother (though 'Lily The Pink' is more in keeping with Lennon's music hall influences than anything else 'Beatley'). Based on the folk song 'The Ballad Of Lydia Pinkham', 'Lily The Pink' keeps the main tune and theme of the older song (the real life Pinkham developed and marketed a compound tonic that supposedly cured 'women's problems' in the late nineteenth century), but then populates it with a procession of re-written characters that amount to little more than a production line of in-jokes. There's no reason why the casual listener shouldn't be amused by "Mr Frears", "brother Tony" and "Jennifer Eccles" too, but the biggest hobble here is that, for a knees up Christmas party drinking song, 'Lily The Pink' is remarkably flat and lifeless - four and a half minutes of sixth form Goons with A levels humour that never breaks sweat. No doubt it would raise a chuckle amongst its peers, but it's clearly wary about going too far lest the headmaster disapprove and contact their parents.
