Six songs inspired by and very loosely connected to our spring tour of Europe in the campervan. Enjoy!
First Word
The digital nomad returns, kind of. Although parts of this offering were thrown together as we travelled the highways and byways of Europe in the van, this edition of WIS was tidied up and finished the week after we got back to Blighty. Our somewhat mazy round-trip to the Italian Lakes passed through the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland on the way, returning via Austria, Germany and Holland again. I know, I know. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to do it! Please take some consolation in the unseasonably cool and wet weather that we had outside the blistering ten days beside Lakes Maggiore, Como and Garda. But we did at least have the upside of taking shelter in various weinguts and caves, tasting the local produce. Cheers!
I Travel – Simple Minds (1980)
It might seem like an obvious choice, but this is the song that has rattled around my head most over the last few weeks. In this scribe’s humble opinion, this track is the high point of the Minds’ career, coming as they found their post-punk feet; recorded and released after the initial stutter of their debut record but before the slide into overblown stadium rock. Written as they toured their second LP around Europe, I Travel is… erm… driven by a great Derek Forbes bass-line and those amazing sequencers. It suggests to me that Kraftwerk featured frequently on the tour bus cassette deck and that they spent some late-night downtime in German discos. It was the lead single from their terrific third LP Empires and Dance, but failed to chart in the UK on first release and again on re-release in 1982. The 1980 issue was picked up in New York clubs and became a minor hit on the Billboard disco chart, reaching No 80. All I know is it was an instant floor filler in the John Street Union of Strathclyde University, but I somewhat shudder now when I think of how I might have tried to dance to it in October 1980.
My favourite line is “In central Europe, men are marching/Marching on now, marching on now”, conjuring up images of geopolitical tensions past and present. But it was my second favourite line that really hit me as I was sitting having dinner in Switzerland with a group of people assembled by our friend Brigitte, a German-speaking Swiss. Alongside her were a couple of her French Swiss friends, and beside them was a German couple who had recently moved to Switzerland. Then Lynn (Scottish but studied German and gets by in French) and then me, as the total dunce. “Europe has a language problem, talk talk talk, talk talking on” might have been true for Jim Kerr in the late 70s, but right in front of me I watched conversations flow up and down the table, starting in German, then morphing seamlessly into French (sometimes within the same sentence!) and then into English (which everyone spoke) to take me with them. As the wine flowed, it was just awe-inspiring.
A Song For Europe – Roxy Music (1973)
So Eurovision took place when we were on the eponymous continent and completely passed us by, as it usually does. I did see the headline from the newsfeeds from home telling me the UK had come last as usual. But what I didn’t see was any interest in the event whatsoever in Europe. We were in Switzerland at the time and a bit of research tells me they didn’t make the final, so maybe that was why. But more likely the disinterest was due to the persistence of late 70s and early 80s American soft rock, heard across the bars and restaurants of all the countries we visited. It was everywhere! An endless stream of Journey, Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and bloody Toto!! At one point, in a pop-up bar in Lindau on the shores of Lake Konstanz, I was taken aback to hear Eric B & Rakim’s old-skool rap classic Paid In Full (see WIS 18Aug23). However, this was quickly followed by some dodgy German cover of Hotel California, which the bloke behind the bar was so impressed with, he turned up the volume.
I’m sure there was some late-period Roxy mixed in with all this mush but, as everyone knows, they did nothing much worthwhile after their first disbandment in 1976. Which brings me neatly to my second pick. A Song For Europe comes from Stranded, the band’s first post-Eno LP released in late 1973. The track takes its title from the pre-selection competition for what was then called the Eurovision Song Contest, broadcast on TV in the UK in the early 70s. It’s one of the first Roxy tunes with a writing co-credit, where Andy McKay gets a shout beside Brian Ferry – and his virtuoso saxophone part tells you why. It’s a gloriously over-the-top, melancholy-drenched ballad full of empty French cafés and sighing Italian bridges, with the vocal melody counterpointed by Eddie Jobson’s sweeping classical piano part. After nearly four minutes of Ferry’s mournful vibrato reflecting on lost love, Paul Thomson’s thundering drums usher in the climactic outro. McKay’s sax wails and Ferry launches into a couple of verses in Latin (yes, Latin!) before ramping it up further in French: “Tous ces moments/Perdus dans l’enchantement/Qui ne reviendront/Jamais”, he howls. The song then ebbs out with the refrain of “jamais, jamais”, as Ferry walks off whistling into the smoky darkness. Barking but brilliant.
Autobahn – Kraftwerk (1974)
Our approach to travel on long trips like the one we have just completed is to try and see as much of the countries we pass through as possible. Aware of how very fortunate we are to have time on our hands, we try to take the road less travelled and drink in the different sights and sounds of the landscape on less busy roads. However, there are times when you just need to get the miles between reasonably distant locations done as efficiently as possible. And hence you find yourself battling with the scores and scores of long-distance heavy lorries on the autostrada, the autoroute or, in Germany, the autobahn.
Kraftwerk came up above while discussing the Simple Minds track above and it seems only correct that this blog playlists the groundbreaking song that gave the then unknown German electronic pioneers an unlikely hit single in the UK in May 1974. The title track from their fourth album, the single was a heavily edited version of the song from the LP, which at 22:30 took up the whole of the first side! It was composed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider and was the band’s first track to use sung lyrics. Created as a ‘sound painting’ to capture the feel of the band touring their native country, the “Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn” refrain was often misinterpreted as a nod to The Beach Boys’ 1964 single Fun Fun Fun.
I recall the single coming out of my mono radio like something otherworldly being beamed in from outer space to sit in the UK charts beside Showaddywaddy, The Carpenters and Windsor Davies & Don Estelle. I don’t remember if I saw it at the time but the band appeared on the BBC’s technology programme Tomorrow’s World in 1975 performing Autobahn while a voiceover describes their self-made instruments. The link takes you to a hugely evocative clip which finishes with the presenter claiming: “Next year, Kraftwerk hope to eliminate the keyboards altogether and build jackets with electronic lapels that can be played by touch”. The uncharacteristic huge smile that breaks across Schneider’s face at this point in the film suggests the cheeky men-machines had their zungen in der wangen.
Have You Ever Had It Blue? – The Style Council (1986)
So we are parked up beside beautiful Lake Como, right on the edge of the water in a campsite which had a great bar/restaurant and a fairly lively bunch of regulars from local families and youngsters on motorbikes. The sun is shining on the lake and Lynn is flat out enjoying the warmth while I sat in my chair with a cold beer listening to the Mickey Bradley Radio Show on BBC Sounds on my headphones – hey, even in idyllic environments like this, I get bored easily! For some reason I can’t recall, Mickey played this track by the Style Council which was arranged by Canadian jazz pianist Gil Evans for the soundtrack of the movie Absolute Beginners. Just as its cool vibes came on the headphones, a powerboat made its way north up the lake, no doubt heading for the chic town of Bellagio. We had gone up there the day before for a cappuccino (kid) and a walk round to gawp at the amazing villas and the beautiful people. The powerboat had beautiful polished wood decking, and the guy effortlessly steering it through the dead flat calm of Lake Como had paired his stylish shades with a crisp white shirt.
It was a bit of a moment where the “sound and vision” came together in perfect harmony and it had to go on this blog. And yes, I know that the film was based on Colin McInnes’ book about teenage life in late 50s London and that Weller’s lyrics on the song are about watching your life/relationships/society fall apart while feeling powerless to do anything about it. But there is something about Gil Evans’ fantastic arrangement of the horns in the long bossa nova intro that made it perfect for the moment of mid 20th century, Italian cool.
Umleitung – Status Quo (1971)
So the first of two (even?) more obscure choices this week is a track lifted from Dog of Two Head, the 1971 LP by Status Quo. It is the Quo’s second appearance on the blog – back in the first birthday edition WIS 23Feb24, I playlisted the very un-Quo sounding acoustic ballad A Year. I told the tale of how my primary school pal Mike Clark and I had moved on from listening to the Monkees’ first LP in his front room when he saved up his pocket money to buy Piledriver – the 1972 LP with the single Paper Plane on it. Keen for more of those 12-bar chugging riffs, Mike then invested his new decimal coinage in the band’s previous LP, unaware that it was the record where the band were trying to find their sound after transitioning from their late 60s psychedelia towards blues rock. Tracks like Mean Girl and Railroad were what our young ears were expecting but there was some more straightforward blues in there with some intricate extended guitar work-outs.
Opening track Umleitung was one of these but it had more of that 12-bar chug than others and, after all the noodling is done, the outro then lays down the blueprint for what the band was going to do for what seems like an eternity after that. So what’s it doing here, I hear you all shouting. Well, having never had the curiosity at the age of twelve to question what the title meant, I now know that it is German for diversion. I know this as there were many signs proclaiming ‘Umleitung’ in the numerous roadworks we encountered over the last few weeks. Most notable was the road closure at the narrow Brenner Pass in the Alps where Italy meets Austria. One of Europe’s major north-south transport links, the growth in freight and leisure traffic has resulted in a huge debate over air and noise pollution. So much so that on the day we were travelling through the Pass, it was closed for six hours due to planned demonstrations by Austrian environmental campaigners. Although we were told by our campsite that there would be a local umleitung allowing us access, the two armed borderguards were having none of it and sent us on a short umleitung via a car park back south to wait it out, for which privilege we were charged the sum of 1 Euro. Foul language ensued…
Corpus Christi Bay – Phosphorescent (2022)
And finally, a very, very tenuous connection to another obscure song through the major holiday held in several German states with strong Catholic traditions for the feast of Corpus Christi, sixty days after Easter. Completely unaware of it, we were caught out crossing into Bavaria from Austria to find that everything in the lovely town of Lindau by Lake Konstanz was pretty much shut. However, the car parks and streets were mobbed with locals on their day off! It turned out that the whole weekend was a holiday and the town had all sorts of pop-up food and bars and a huge regatta taking place on the lake. So a fine time was had.
Although the track I’ve chosen mentions Corpus Christi in the title, it has nothing to do with the German holiday but is a direct reference to the coastal city in Texas, which has a semi-tropical bay where there is significant oil and gas extraction. I stumbled across this track by Phosphorescent when it was released in 2022 and I was very taken by the distinctive voice of the singer. A little bit of research told me that Phosphorescent was the stage name of American singer-songwriter Matthew Houck. I also found that Corpus Christi Bay was part of Houck’s Full Moon Project, where he planned to release a cover song on the day of every full moon during the year. The project includes songs by Bob Dylan, Nick Lowe and Randy Newman, and this track which was taken from the 1993 album A Bigger Piece of Sky by Texas-based folk singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen. It’s a bittersweet ballad about the tug of the hard-working, hard-partying lifestyle on the rigs and the loneliness it can bring. Great song but nothing whatsoever to do with a religious festival!
Last Word
Sitting here, it seems incredible that on our van trip to France in 2024, I managed to produce a full blog pretty much from scratch every one of the six weeks we were away. This time it took me all six weeks and more to produce one edition. I like to think of it as me adopting a more relaxed approach to life rather than just getting old and lazy, which is more likely to be the truth. Anyway, it’s done now and hopefully it will not be too long before I put fingers to keyboard again.
In the meantime this week’s tunes have been added to the Master Playlist below. À bientôt, mes amis!
AR
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