As the fine sand runs inexorably through the egg timer glass of 2023, here is another random collection of fine tunes to help you make sense of December. Enjoy!
Star – Stealers Wheel (1973)
The news of the death of renowned Scottish playwright, designer and artist John Byrne on Friday last week came too late for that week’s blog. Born and brought up in my hometown of Paisley, I have always felt a particular affinity for his body of work which was indelibly shaped by his early life in the town. He took his real-life experience working in Stoddart’s carpet factory in Elderslie and wrote the brilliant Slab Boys trilogy. My father’s copy of the first play’s script is one of the few things of his that I still have and treasure – and it is the play I have seen performed most often. Of course, Byrne also created the amazing Bafta-winning 1987 TV series Tutti Frutti where Robbie Coltrane became a star with his performance as Big Danny McGlone, singer with the legendary Majestics. I also very much enjoyed his darker 1990 country-music TV drama Your Cheatin’ Heart where he met future partner Tilda Swinton. I could have used either of those titular songs for the playlist but I’ve decided to go for something reflecting his artwork. By the time he began designing album sleeves for his great pal and fellow Buddie Gerry Rafferty, he had already had his proposed cover for the Beatles White Album rejected, although it was eventually used for a 1980 compilation. He illustrated Rafferty’s work with Billy Connolly as the Humblebums and then with another Buddie, Joe Egan, as Stealers Wheel. I’ve decided to playlist their third single Star from their second LP which was a top thirty hit in 1973. The album was named after Ferguslie Park in Paisley, at the time one of the most deprived housing estates in Europe, with a fearsome reputation. I recall some national radio DJ (in my head it is Tony Blackburn) referencing the album and saying something like “I’ve never been to this particular park but I’m sure it is beautiful”! Not sure where the cow in the illustration came from, though…
Papa Was A Rolling Stone – The Temptations (1972)
This amazing track by The Temptations was No 1 in the US charts this week in December 1972. Clocking in at a couple of seconds under 7 minutes makes it one of the longest chart-topping singles in history. Released on Berry Gordy’s Gordy label (his other imprints at the time were Tamla, Motown, VIP and Soul), it was written by the legendary partnership of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Originally recorded by another Gordy act known as The Undisputed Truth, both versions were cut as 12 minute album recordings which were edited down for single release. The song begins with that pulsating three note bass figure played over a tension-filled hi-hat beat. And then a wah-wah guitar, handclaps, a trumpet and strings (from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, no less) all wind their way into the brilliantly atmospheric intro created by Whitfield as producer. It is nearly two minutes before David Ruffin replacement Denis Edwards arrives with the attention-grabbing opening lines: “It was the third of September/That day I’ll always remember/’Cause that was the day that my daddy died”. All four members of the vocal group contribute to the song, making it a true ensemble piece. They play the role of brothers who never knew their father pleading with their mother to tell them the truth as they had “heard nothing but bad things about him”. As the song winds on, through tales of stealing, drinking and chasing women, all their mother can say in his defence was that “Papa was a rolling stone”. And all the while that incredible instrumentation drives the song onwards with the added bonus of the four-four stomp-clap beat in the chorus. The long outro allows the falsetto voice of Damon Harris to shine and the seven minutes are up before you’ve started breathing again. See them perform it in Soul Train here. Glorious stuff.
Frontier Psychiatrist – The Avalanches (2000)
Last week I playlisted the Rezillos without referring to their outstanding debut single on Edinburgh’s Sensible Records called Can’t Stand My Baby. After the wonderful opening verse (“I can’t stand my baby/It’s a real drag/I think I’m going crazy/I’m gonna go radge”), it has the one-line chorus “This Is Uncool”. Unknown to me until this week, this line was used as the title of a book written in 2003 by music journalist Garry Mulholland where he compiles “The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco” and gives his take on each song. Sadly now out of print, I discovered its existence via the legend that is Twitter’s @Birmingham81 who compiled all the songs into one huge playlist and shared it this week. It commences with the Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK from 1976 and finishes with Stan by Eminen in 2000. In between, the list includes great singles from every conceivable music genre that was producing music over that time. As I went from a snotty 16 year old to the comparative sensibility of being the father of two small children in that 23 year period, it hits the spot for me. I thought I would investigate the tail end of the list and stick a few songs from there on the WIS playlist this week. The first of these is this sample-rammed tune from 2000 by Australian electronic group The Avalanches. I know very little about them but, as a bit of a sucker for clever sampling and a bit of old school scratching, I liked this record very much and recall it charting briefly at the time. As well as that wonderful neighing horse, the internet tells me the prominent orchestral sample is sourced from a recording by the Enoch Light Singers of Bert Kaempfert’s 1968 composition My Way of Life. I can’t tell you what This Is Uncool says about it but Matthew Horton in 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die described it as “busy, daft, composed of countless unconnected parts, yet somehow entirely natural as a whole.” Nick Hornby included it in his Songbook selections as well.
Sexy Boy – Air (1998)
Another tune lifted from This Is Uncool is this single from 1998 by super-hip French electronic duo Air. Hailing from Versailles, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel grew up listening to a wide range of music but, influenced by Eno, Bowie and Kraftwerk, they developed an interest in the darker sound of synthesisers . They began as remixers in the early 90s and progressed to recording their own work, releasing independent singles in France while building their name, which is allegedly an acronym for “amour, imagination, and rêve”. Virgin Records signed them and funded their first LP, the enigmatic Moon Safari, from which Sexy Boy was released as their first major label single. They wrote the music at home in Paris, round the corner from where Daft Punk were developing their musical direction. The critics were falling over themselves to praise the group and their electronic ‘dream pop’ style and I recall the album being all over the music press at the time, reaching several end-of-year ‘best of’ lists. Although I remember the hype, I only have the vaguest recollection of the single which sold enough to peak at No 13 in the UK charts in the spring of 1998. This vagueness is possibly not surprising as at this time we had a two year old and a baby of six months (neither of whom slept) so I don’t have any clear memories of anything in this period of my life! Listening afresh now, Sexy Boy feels very 70s with the Moog synths and the androgynous vocal track sung mostly in French but manipulated by the electronics. It was supported by a charming part-animated sci-fi video shot in New York which features the duo and the monkey toy from the single sleeve along with a VW campervan space-craft! Their career has quietly continued from this explosive start and they still record and perform today.
Ms Jackson – Outkast (2000)
The final track taken from the This Is Uncool book and associated playlist is this breakthrough single for Atlanta hip hop duo Outkast, taken from their fourth album Stankonia. This tune gave Big Boi and Andre 3000 a multi-platinum global hit reaching No2 in the UK charts and No1 in the Billboard Hot 100, picking up a Grammy as well. It needed to be a success – although the frantic, high tempo first single B.O.B (Bombs Over Baghdad) was loved by critics, it …erm… bombed from a sales and airplay point of view. Inspired by Andre’s relationship with R’n’B singer Erykah Badu (and her mother?), Ms Jackson had a more infectious radio-friendly sound with a loping 1980s beat in the singalong chorus which contrasts with the speed of the rapping during the verses. Unlike 99.9% of break-up songs, the post-rationalisation of the relationship collapse is addressed not to the ex-partner but to her mother, while promising to support his child regardless of what happens. Writing in the Guardian, Alexis Petridis incisively noted: “Its brilliance lies in the range of emotions it conveys: it is variously sad, angry and fatalistic; it alternately turns on the charm and sighs in exasperation.” I really liked the scene-setting lyric of “King meets queen then the puppy love thing/Together dream ’bout that crib with the Goodyear swing” (which features in the video). I also love that great drop-out on the play on words around what is “forever”. This record would be the launchpad to the second global hit in 2003 when Hey Ya would become the strangest wedding disco hit since Kevin Rowland took his angst-ridden tale of starry young love and gave Helen O’Hara the violin part on it.
Instant Karma! – John Lennon (1970)
So, we began this week’s blog with the recent death of one John and we’re going to finish it with the more distant death of another John. On 8 December 1980, ex-security guard Mark Chapman shot and killed John Lennon at the door of the Dakota Building in New York where he lived with Yoko Ono. Lennon was only 40 years old at the time and, like JFK last month, despite there being no internet or mobile phones, the news of the violent death of one of the Beatles reverberated around the world. I was 20 when it happened and I have to admit I was still holding on to a little of that trite and frankly disingenuous punk ethos of “no Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones”. The Beatles had split when I was 10 and my exposure to them as I grew into music in the 70s came from the “Red and Blue” albums and their solo work which generally deteriorated as the decade wore on. Lennon had done nothing since 1975 and I recall being deeply unimpressed with his much-heralded return single (Just Like) Starting Over when it appeared in October 1980, suggesting the hype about the new LP Double Fantasy was misplaced. So even though I was shocked by his senseless murder, I was probably a bit taken aback by the global reaction to it. With hindsight and a deeper appreciation of his musical history, I can see now why this took place – although Double Fantasy is still a duff record. So I’ve chosen this track to playlist which was his third single outside the Beatles, but released in that period in early 1970 where the illusion of the group not being irrevocably split was maintained by their management. Such was Lennon’s haste to get away from the band, this solo track was conceived, written, recorded and released within a period of ten days with Phil Spector at the controls. George Harrison plays guitar on the recording as does Let It Be collaborator, Billy Preston and I particularly like Alan White’s drumming. Lennon even appeared on Top Of The Pops to promote it, singing a live vocal track complete with a blindfolded Yoko sat on a stool beside him. Knitting. Hmmmm….
Last Word
Using this slot to note a highlight for me this week that I couldn’t easily work into a song choice. I spent a couple of chilly hours at Pettycur Harbour watching a humpback whale and a sei whale blowing and diving simultaneously as they fed in the Forth Estuary with Arthur’s Seat and Edinburgh Castle as a backdrop. Very cold but very special to see. Must try harder for cetacean tunes…
The master playlist has absorbed these six tracks and is ready for shuffling out some great tunes to help you write those pesky Christmas cards which are sitting there needing posted before its too late.
AR
Week In Sound 
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