WIS lands in 2024 by returning to the format that has served it well for the last 10 months or so. Simply six fine tunes tenuously related to this week. Enjoy!

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Last Train To Clarksville – The Monkees (1967)

On the 30 December, Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones would have been 81 and 78 respectively. Along with Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz (the only one still alive), they were cast as actors for the 60s US TV comedy series The Monkees, which was about a group of dorky teenagers wanting to be in a band. In 1967, the series exploded into the living rooms of 7 year old kids like me and my pal Mike Clark across the road. Like everyone else, we were captivated by the theme song and “Hey, Hey We’re The Monkees” was being sung in every primary school playground. Mike was lucky enough to have been gifted a copy of the album associated with the series and we listened to it endlessly on his Dad’s record player in their front room. Unknown to us at the time, the band’s voices are their only contribution to the LP which was recorded with session players. However, Nesmith gets one writing/production credit for Papa Gene’s Blues while other songs were provided by Gerry Coffin and Carole King (Take a Giant Step) and Bread’s David Gates (Saturday’s Child). But most of the tracks were written by producers Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, including Last Train To Clarksville which I recall as our favourite song and hence is playlisted. When it came on, Mike and I would leap around the room, singing and pretending we were playing that lovely jangly guitar, blissfully unaware that it was created to emulate George Harrison’s riff on Paperback Writer. With ‘drummer’ Dolenz on lead vocal, it was released as a single and got to No 1 in the US but only No 23 in the UK chart. It still sounds great today, apart from that slightly clunky hi-hat beat in the verses. The album cover image is hugely evocative for me and I recall memorising the personal details of the boys on the back cover – it wasn’t difficult as their hair colour and eye colour are all noted as “brown”!

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This Is A Low – Blur (1994)

5.20am on the morning of the 1 January saw the 100th anniversary of the broadcast of the Shipping Forecast by the BBC on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The forecast actually dates back over 150 years when it was developed in response to the loss of 450 lives on a steam clipper in a storm off Anglesey. It has only been on national public radio since there has been such a thing – previously it was issued by telegraph communications. As digital technology inexorably moves communications away from radio frequencies, there is some doubt about the future of the broadcast but, for now, the BBC insists it will continue. Whether mariners actually use it in these digital days is a moot point. However, its opaque advice on conditions in vast strangely named swathes of the seas around the UK, given in measured tones in the lonely hours, means the broadcast itself is something of a British Institution. So how appropriate that Blur, arguably another British Institution, should have made use of the terminology in the forecast to create This Is A Low, the swirling, epic closer to their third album Parklife. Considered by many critics to be the band’s greatest song, its tour of the British Isles arose from Damon Albarn having been given a handkerchief by Alex James that was embroidered with the different shipping areas. From this came lines like: “On the Tyne, Forth and Cromarty/There’s a low in the high Forties”. The chorus then soars with the wind-battered optimism that the radio says it won’t hurt you, while Graeme Coxon provides an appropriately squally, howling guitar solo. The Guardian critic John Harris suggests Blur succeeded in “imbuing Britain with a mystery as potent as any American myth” and who am I to disagree.    

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My Baby Loves Me – Martha & The Vandellas (1966)

With a blog full of guitar music, I was looking for something more soulful to balance the sound this week and discovered that 4 January 1966 was the release date for this hidden gem of a record from the great Martha Reeves. Martha and The Vandellas had US top ten singles in each year from 1964 to 1967 – Heatwave, Dancing In The Street, Nowhere To Run, I’m Ready For Love and Jimmy Mack. All huge records known across the world but the work ethic at Motown Records meant most groups were turning out three or four singles a year. This resulted in great songs like My Baby Loves Me, which ‘only’ made No 22, going off the radar over time and they are rarely heard on the radio. I am here to put that right! Strangely, although released under the Vandellas name, neither Rosalind Ashford-Holmes or Betty Kelly appear on the recording. The background vocals are provided by Motown’s in-house session group The Andantes, assisted with male voices from some group called The Four Tops. As usual, the killer instrumentation is provided by The Funk Brothers. Apparently, Reeves often refers to the track as her favourite of all her recordings despite it only ever getting a single release until ‘greatest hits’ albums came along. I love its mid-tempo swing which gives it a slightly reflective feel. Some great drumming drives the song, as the strings sweep and soar along with the horns. Reeves’ happy tale of being in a great relationship with her man is delivered with her usual power and style, and having those added male voices on the backing vocals really makes it zing. Final fascinating fact. It wasn’t until 1967 that Martha’s surname appeared on the group’s records, apparently to comply with a new Motown policy that had put Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson up front as the ‘featured’ lead singers of The Supremes and The Miracles.    

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Behind The Wall of Sleep – The Smithereens (1986)

The one thing about the festive period just gone by is that it does have a tendency to bugger up your sleep pattern. Over-indulgence in rich food and drink, staying up late, getting up later, having a wee nap in front of the telly – it all leads to more wakeful nights than normal and it takes a while to settle down again. Lying inexplicably wide awake at 3.45am on Wednesday morning, my active mind began musing on songs about not sleeping. There is a wide range of these to choose from – from the Everly Brothers’ Sleepless Nights to Bon Jovi’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead – but my firm favourite is this great song from The Smithereens which I bought as a single back in 1986. The band are from Carteret, New Jersey and are still active today in (almost) their original line-up. They are known for their 60s UK music influences which they built into their power-pop sound. Behind The Wall Of Sleep was the second single from their debut album Especially For You and was an Indie Chart hit in the UK. By third album 11, they were on the point of breaking big in the US – lead single A Girl Like You (no, no that one) made No 38 in the US singles chart. That was as good as it got but they still seem to make a buck or two out of playing their old tunes live and have fun doing cover records of songs by the Beatles and the Who. This track grabs you from the get-go with a short drum-led intro before a great opening couplet: “She had hair like Jeannie Shrimpton back in 1965/She had legs that never ended, I was halfway paralyzed”. Yes, sleep is interrupted in this case by thoughts of an unattainable girl who, we go on to learn, is tall and cool and dresses in black and, what’s more, plays the bass guitar in a band. Completely unattainable then! I love everything about it – the simple chord sequence, the drumming, the single harmony line in the hook chorus, the bends on the guitar solo and its even got a proper ending. See them play it live here on UK TV, all polo necks, black leather and Rickenbacker guitars.

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Mr Soft – Cockney Rebel (1974)

One of the things that really annoys me with these fake radio stations which are run by AI and only play the best-known song by any artist is that you’d think that Stealers Wheel only ever wrote Stuck In The Middle With You. Similarly, the only Cockney Rebel song apparently worth broadcasting is Come Up And See Me, Make Me Smile. Over-familiarity has made me bored by both tunes so I was pleased when a playlist I was listening to this week generated Steve Harley’s second hit single with the band, Mr Soft. I hadn’t heard it in years, a long enough period for me to forget that dreadful chewy mint sweetie advert it was used for in the 80s and actually listen to the song again. The second single from the band’s second LP The Psychomodo, it followed Judy Teen into the UK top ten in July 1974, about six months before Come Up And See Me went to No 1. The band actually split up as it entered the charts so Harley had to throw together some people to perform it on TOTP – this performance apparently has Herbie Flowers and BA Robertson on stage with him. Harley’s writing was aimed at the arty end of glam – more Bowie/Roxy than Slade/Sweet – as a listen to the seven gothic minutes of labyrinthine 1973 debut single Sebastian confirms. I remember being transfixed by its weirdness on the radio in 1973 but it sold nada. Mr Soft was a hit as it’s musically more direct but, behind the bouncing bass, lies some Brechtian camp with those violins and those end of verse offbeat exclamations. And Harley’s mannered vocal delivery absolutely jumped out the radio at me – listen out for “Oh, you’re the most, you’re so unreal/We’d all be dead without your spiel”. Very much of its time but influential enough to have been the name of Guy Garvey’s band before they became Elbow, so well worth a spin again.    

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Mind Your Own Business – Delta 5 (1979)

The inspiration for the last choice of tune this week was an online discussion I was engaged in at the start of this week with a few music nerds (yes, you Dave) where the work of some great post-punk girl bands from the 1979-1981 period was being recalled. There was a lot of love for Delta 5 who emerged from the same late 70s Leeds art-school scene as The Mekons and Gang Of Four. Although Delta 5 had a 3:2 gender split, the band was formed by Julz Sale, Ros Allen and Bethan Peters who wrote from a feminist viewpoint. They were unique in that Allen and Peters both played bass in the group and their funk-punk sound was heavily influenced by Gang Of Four. Rough Trade released three singles, the first of which was Mind Your Own Business which appeared in October 1979. Their second single, Anticipation, came out six months later and amazingly got them a slot on Top Of The Pops! However, it is the debut single that has endured over the years, ending up on a couple of recent TV drama soundtracks. It was even picked up by Apple and used in a commercial about privacy in 2021, sadly the same year that singer Sale died of cancer. It opens with a double bass riff which splits brilliantly as the distinctive vocal track comes in. The out of sequence repeat verse vocals add to the quirkiness, before the guitar break sonically slashes across the mix. The clever drop to just drums and vocal leads us back into the bass riffs before the angular jerky guitar finish in the style of Andy Gill. It was exhilarating stuff for the 19 year old me and I vividly recall the day I was playing it in the house when my Gran was visiting to have her tea with us. ”What cheeky wee voices!” was her decidedly critical opinion. Erm…yes, Gran. 

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Last Word

As the old song goes, “the carnival is over” and, with the baubles and lights packed away for another year, January stretches darkly in front of us all – apart from readers in Australia, of course – hola Adelaide! Although the abandonment of routine saw activity on the website fall slightly in the festive period, informal feedback suggests many of you are enjoying this weekly nonsense. So, on it will rumble into 2024. 

Reports from the leafy suburbs of Glasgow tells me that one reader did a 48 minute run with the Master Playlist on her headphones and only had to skip forward once. High praise indeed! You too can run like the wind, tuned to the link below…

WeekInSoundMaster

AR