1967 Long John Baldry: Let The Heartaches Begin

From the same pen* as the previous 'Baby Now That I've Found You', 'Let The Heartaches Begin' is a volte face from that song's celebration of finding love to...well, the heartache of losing it. In terms of presentation too, the fixed grin glee is swapped for a string swept, minor key ballad as all six foot seven of Mr Baldry pours a gallon jug of tears over the listener.

Baldry has the voice for the blues lord only knows, but I find his performance on this as insular to the point of impenetrability. "And with each glass of wine I feel a glow, and very soon I know I was a fool to let my baby go" - Baldry is the drunk on the stairs at the party, wallowing in his own self pity just waiting to buttonhole the passing unwary to unload his tale of woe until he's sing speak babbling on the final round of the chorus.

Nobody likes a good wallow in self pity more than me, but this is all one way traffic; Baldry ostensibly wants sympathy, but his downtrodden demeanour suggests he's getting some masochistic pleasure from the act of suffering itself until his cry of "So let the heartaches begin" is less the dread of another lonely night than a warm welcome to an old friend. As a song, 'Let The Heartaches Begin' presents scope for a read between the lines subtext, a back story waiting to be told, but Baldry effectively smothers it with his open wound of a vocal. And I say 'effectively' because it IS effective. On the first verse anyway, but by the time the song ends I kind of wish he'd go away and bother somebody else. Lisa Stansfield maybe.


*Tony Macaulay and John MacLeod. We'll meet Macaulay again as the man behind The New Seekers' 'You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me', David Soul's 'Don't Give Up on Us' and Edison Lighthouse's 'Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)'.