Odd Songs #007: Toast And Marmalade For Tea

As I've mentioned before, "Odd Songs" isn't really a very good name for this series - it's more just songs that I like for one reason or another - but I'm sticking with it, mainly because changing it would break the links that are out there in various places on the internet. However, this one truly is a real oddity - and I think the first that I've thus far written about that wasn't actually a hit in the UK charts - so "Odd" is a good fit on this occasion.

So here it is, one of (in my opinion) the best and most unusual examples of psychedelic pop ever recorded; the Australian band Tin Tin's "Toast And Marmalade For Tea":

Aside from it having a unique sound - certainly I've never heard anything else like it - it's got a really interesting backstory and links into the output of a bewildering amount of other artists. There's so much related stuff going on that I don't think I've quite got my head around it all, so this is going to have to be a pretty simplified version of its story. But prior to moving onto that, I'd like to look at the events - and there were a lot of them - leading to its eventual release.

Prior to becoming the band Tin Tin, Steve Groves (the writer of the song) had been in a number of bands in Australia with some mild success. To begin with, he formed The Kinetics in Melbourne in 1965, with a line-up of Groves (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Johnny Vallins (guitar, drums, clarinet), Ken Leroy (bass) and Ian Manzie (drums, piano, banjo). The Kinetics released a couple of singles in Australia, the largest of which was "Excuses", which hit #19 on the local Melbourne charts in 1966, but narrowly missed out on the national Australian charts:

Clearly influenced on the beat groups popular at the time, it's a fun song, but certainly a far cry from the later Tin Tin output. Two further singles followed (again, released only in Australia), but neither achieved even the minor success of "Excuses". Following their third and final single (which reached #29 on the local charts in July 1967, but did little nationally, Vallins left the band and the remaining members changed their name to The Trap, although no recordings were issued under this name and The Trap split in 1968.

This is where Steve Kipner enters the story. He was previously leader of the band Steve And The Board, another Australian band who had a minor pop hit in Australia with "The Giggle-Eyed Goo"). Written by Steve's father Nat Kipner (who also produced) and guitarist Carl Groszman, it was initially released in late 1965 but didn't achieve its success until it was later picked up by Spin Records in 1966; Nat Kipner was a big cheese at Spin Records, which almost certainly had something to do with this. It's another classic (although surprisingly spiky - almost garage-rock like - for its time) piece of beat-band pop:

It was at this point that perhaps the most significant piece of the Tin Tin story comes about. Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb (along with their younger brother Andy and older sister Lesley) had emigrated with their parents from the UK to Brisbane, Australia in 1958 and the three elder brothers had actually formed a band that same year as a three-piece tight harmony group (the BGs; the Bee Gees name not being coined until 1963). Depite sporadic appearances on Australian TV in the early 1960s and regularly releasing singles during the early to mid-sixties, they made little impact on the Australian market. However, Nat Kipner signed them to Spin Records in 1966 (and Steve Kipner subsequently became good friends with the three Gibb Brothers, often singing backing vocals on their recordings). On Spin Records, The Bee Gees had a major hit with the Barry-Gibb penned, Nat Kipner-produced "Spicks And Specks" (#4 on the national Australian charts in 1966, then - when released elsewhere in early 1967 - a #1 in New Zealand, #3 in the Netherlands, #28 in Germany and #56 in Japan). Even at this stage of their career, I think it's very much recognisable as a "Bee Gees tune":

(As an amusing side-note, the Bee Gees were disillusioned with their lack of Australian success and decided to return to the UK, hoping to build a career there. They only learned of the success of "Spicks And Specks" during their return ocean voyage in January 1967, a point by which they were committed to their return to the UK (in late 1966, Hugh Gibb - the brothers' father - had sent demos to Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who subsequently passed them on to his then business partner Robert Stigwood, who was very interested in securing their services). On arriving back in the UK, the brothers auditioned for Stigwood, who secured them a five-year deal with Polydor Records in the UK and Atco in the US, so beginning their first period of worldwide success (Maurice, Robin and Barry having by this time been joined by younger brother Andy, along with Vince Melouney (guitar) and Colin Peterson (drums).

Meanwhile, back in Australia, Steve And The Board had split in May 1967 and Steve Groves and Steve Kipner formed a vocal harmony band, Steve & Stevie, in 1968. Just one single, "Remains To Be Seen", was released later that same year:

Shortly afterwards, the duo reunited with former member of The Kinetics, John Vallins to form the short-lived Rombo's World. If Rombo's World released any output, I can't find it; sorry about that.

Following this, Groves and Kipner relocated to the UK in 1969 to form the band Tin Tin. Maurice Gibb introduced them to Robert Stigwood, who signed them to a one-album deal with Polydor. At this point Groves was taking care of vocals, guitar and percussion, with Kipner playing bass guitar, harpsichord, mellotron, percussion, piano, electric piano, tambourine, as well as singing); they had no official drummer yet, so in addition to their other duties, both Groves and Kipner played drums on their first, Maurice Gibb-produced album (with Gibb also adding some bass, mellotron, harpsichord and organ on about half the tracks). This, their self-titled debut album was eventually released February 1970, but a (non-charting) single, "Only Ladies Play Croquet" was released ahead of the album in May 1969:

Also on the album was the song that this post was supposed to be about (I knew I'd get back to it eventually!), "Toast And Marmalade For Tea". Initially it comprised only nursery rhyme-like verses by Steve Groves, the intention being that he and Kipner would collaborate on a chorus to complete the song, although this never actually came about; the verses were simply repeated throughout with alternating backing and chord changes. A demo, consisting only of guitar, piano and vocals was recorded by Groves and Kipner in June 1969 prior to Maurice Gibb calling them into the studio the following month to re-record a version intended for the album.

The studio in which this version of "Toast And Marmalade For Tea" was recorded did have a drumkit, but it was apparently largely broken, so Steve Kipner created a drum track by manually pushing down on the pedals, as well as supplying vocals and piano. As with their other tracks, Steve Groves also featured as vocalist (completing their trademark harmonies), in addition to playing guitar and using various things found around the studio to add some odd little sound effects here and there. Maurice Gibb - with a broken arm, no less - provided the bass track and Gerry Shury - seemingly a hired hand for this track and a couple of others on the album - was responsible for the orchestral arrangement, thus completing the track.

Of course, that makes it all sound like a fairly straightforward piece of psychedelic pop, which it patently isn't, due entirely to the wobbly piano melody. It's this aspect of the recording that sets the song apart, giving it an entirely unique sound. And the best bit about it is that it was created by accident, due to a studio engineer accidentally leaning on a tape machine, so warping the piano sound as the final recording was being put together.

Although the album was not a success on its initial release, the band obviously had faith in it, releasing "Toast And Marmalade For Tea" as a second single. It got some airplay in the UK, but wasn't a chart hit here; however, it became quite a major single in the summer of 1971, reaching #10 in Australia and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA. At some point prior to this, Geoff Bridgford had been recruited on drums and in May 1971, John Vallins (bass, guitar, vocals) reunited yet again with Groves and Kipner, presumably for touring duties; the unexpected success of the single led to a support slot with the Bee Gees on their 1972 US tour.

A further album, "Astral Taxi", was released by the band in late 1971, from which Tin Tin's only other hit, "Is That The Way", was taken:

Whilst it obviously shares some of its musical DNA with their trademark hit, it didn't make such a big impression, reaching just #59 on the US charts.

Tin Tin eventually disbanded in 1973, but that's far from the end of the story, as unusually for such a minor, long-forgotten band, the major players all went on to greater success:

- Steve Groves returned to Australia as a singer-songwriter - and later leader of The Steve Groves Band - co-writing (with Brian Dawe) "On The Loose (Again)", which won the Australian Popular Song Contest (the Aussie equivalent of Eurovision, I guess) for the popular actor/singer Marty Rhone in 1976. Both the Rhone and Groves versions of the song were hits in Australia simultaneously in early 1977; here's the Steve Groves Band version:

- Steve Kipner went on to co-write several massive hits for other artists, including "Hard Habit To Break" (co-written with John Lewis Parker), a #3 US hit for Chicago in 1984 (#8 UK) and "Physical" (co-written with Terry Shaddick) for Olivia Newton-John (an absolutely massive smash in the US, holding the #1 position for ten weeks in 1981-1982). Much later, as one of EMI's most prominent songwriters, he also co-wrote "Genie In A Bottle" for Christina Aguilera, winning the Ivor Novello award for "International Hit Single Of The Year" in 2000.

- And finally, John Vallins teamed up with Nat Kipner (who, as I'm sure you'll remember was Steve Kipner's dad) to write "Too Much Too Little Too Late" for Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams, a #1 hit in the USA (also #3 in the UK, #2 in New Zealand, #6 in Australia, #9 in Canada) in 1978.

When I embarked upon this post, I thought it would be a nice, easy little curiosity that wouldn't take very long. I've left out a whole host of stuff (most notably the Brian Epstein/Beatles/Robert Stigwood connections, which probably warrant a whole book just to themselves) and it's still taken the best part of an afternoon to (attempt to) get the basic story down straight. And I'm not even sure I've succeeded in doing that!

Usually I end these things with some cover versions, but there don't appear to be many of them out there, but here's one from Stardeath and White Dwarfs which quite nicely captures the spirit of the original:

And - as I'm sure you'll be relieved to read, assuming you've made it this far - that's all I'm going to write about this curious song.

Odd Songs #006: More, More, More

Another in an ongoing series about songs; originally they were going to be obscurities but as this one is very well known both in the UK and US, I think the series can be expanded to include...oh, just about anything really.

[WARNING:  This has turned out to be insanely long, sorry 'bout that]

This one's about Andrea True Connection's "More, More, More" (readers of the c4c forum may wish to tune out now as I did a brief "bit" about it on there), a big UK & US hit in the spring of 1976.  I wasn't going to write about it at all because I thought the story was quite well-known (hackneyed, even) but the full story contains details of which even I - as a pop nerd - was unaware, so let's do it.

Here's Andrea True performing the song on some European music show in 1976 (although it looks as though someone has smeared a heavy layer of Vaseline over the lens; certainly it takes soft-focus to a whole new level):

Andrea Marie Truden (her birth name; Andrea True was just one of her pseudonyms) was born on 26th July 1943 in Memphis, Tennessee, where she attended a Catholic girls' school prior to moving to New York City in an attempt to break into the film industry.  Although she got sporadic minor roles in mainstream films, by the end of the 1960s she had moved into porn films, initially Scandinavian-produced, but later on, she had became something of a fixture of the New York hardcore porn industry. From the late 1960s until the early 1980s she appeared in over 50 porn flicks, mainly under the name Andrea True, but also under different pseudonyms, such as Inger Kissin, Catherine Warren, Singe Low and Andrea Travis.

In 1975, she went to Jamaica to appear in an advert for a real estate company, but due to an attempted (but ultimately unsuccessful) coup against Michael Manley's government, a State of Emergency was declared and the government banned asset transfers out of Jamaica.  This prevented Andrea from taking the earnings from her commercials back to the States with her.

In what now seems a bit of a masterstroke, she called the American record producer Gregg Diamond down to Jamaica, with the plan of recording a song which Diamond would then take back to the US for release, thus bypassing the asset transfer rules in place at the time.

- - -  INTERLUDE  - - -

Gregg Diamond (born 4th May 1949, died 14th March 1999 of gastrointestinal bleeding at the sadly young age of 49) had first come to prominence working on David Bowie's "Young Americans" album the previous year (well, tangentially; his brother Godfrey Diamond contributed to the album, as did a young Luther Vandross and Andy Newmark, Sly & The Family Stone's late-era drummer).  He wrote and released a number of records under the name Gregg Diamond Bionic Boogie, including this one, "Hot Butterfly", featuring a lead vocal from Vandross:

That one wasn't a hit in the UK; his only UK hit was "Cream (Always Rises To The Top" (again with Vandross on lead vocal), which reached #61 in January 1979:

He also wrote and produced an album for George McCrae (of "Rock Your Baby" fame) called "Diamond Days", which whilst not a chart hit, did produce a club hit, "Love In Motion":

- - -  INTERLUDE ENDS  - - -

So, back to Andrea True, who as you will recall, was down in Jamaica in 1975 and had contacted Gregg Diamond to help her make a recording.  So Diamond decamped to Jamaica with a master tape of an instrumental track that he'd earlier recorded in a studio owned by the son of Les Paul (yes, the guitar guy), with himself on percussion and piano, Steve Love on guitar, Jim Gregory on bass and his brother Godfrey on drums.  He had no lyrics for the track at the time; the intention was that he and True would collaborate on these and Andrea would then record her vocal.  So, they wrote the lyrics (apparently within an hour), Andrea laid down her vocal and some overdubs were also recorded by the Mighty Sparrow horn section (who - in a happy coincidence - Gregg had bumped into in the lobby of the hotel in which he was staying).

The recording made, Gregg flew back to the States and commissioned Tom Moulton to remix the track at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studio (having previously made a deal with Buddah Records to release the track).  This remixed recording was initially only released to clubs and discos in late 1975, but proved so popular that it was given a full release by Buddah in early 1976 (under the moniker of Andrea True Connection) and became a hit in pretty much all record-buying territories:  a #4 hit on the US Hot 100 (and the 17th biggest-selling single in the US in 1976), a #5 hit in the UK (hitting its peak in May 1976 and spending 10 weeks in the top 50; it was the 66th biggest-selling UK single of the year).  It was a number one hit in Canada and performed well elsewhere:  #6 in Ireland, #9 in Germany, #11 in Italy, #19 in Australia, #23 in Spain, #25 in New Zealand (and no doubt some other places I've missed).

Before moving on to related matters, I want to concentrate on that lyric in a bit more detail:

Oooh how do you like your love
Oooh how do you like your love
So if you want to know 
How I really feel
Get the cameras rolling
Get the action going
Baby you know
My love for you is real
So take me where you want to
Boy my heart you steal
More more more 
How do you like it how do you like it
More more more 
How do you like it how do you like it
More more more
How do you like it how do you like it
Oooh how do you like your love
Oooh how do you like your love
So if you want to know
How I really feel
Get the cameras rolling
Get the action going
Baby you know
My love…

Now, if that's not written about making a pornographic film - it's not even double-entendre, it's single-entendre! - then I don't know what is.  But I don't think this was particularly remarked upon at the time, even though it must have been known that Andrea True was a porn performer.  Certainly Tom Moulton was unaware of Andrea's film career, although he said he "wondered a bit about the lyric" while remixing the track (his later comment on the track was "it wouldn't have come out so pretty if I had known what it was about").  Once I twigged just what it was about, though, I always found it really funny whenever I heard it played on the radio (it remains something of a radio staple to this day) with the DJ making no comment on its subject matter.

An album (also titled "More, More, More" followed, with further songs featuring "suggestive" lyrics written by Gregg Diamond), but it didn't chart in the UK.  However, a further single taken from this album, "N.Y., You Got Me Dancing", became a US #27 hit in 1977, but didn't chart in the UK:

Andrea - by then jaded with porn movies and wanting to concentrate on her singing career - was teamed up with Michael Zager to produce a follow-up album, "White Witch".  Again, although the album didn't chart in the UK, it did give Andrea a second hit single, "What's Your Name, What's Your Number" (co-written by Zager and Roger Cook; that Roger Cook didn't half have his finger in a lot of pies!), a UK #34 in the spring of 1978:

Incidentally, Zager's best-known and most enduring song, "Let's All Chant" - credited to The Michael Zager Band - was a UK top ten hit at much the same time, reaching #8 that same spring, seen here in a super-extended mix (if not exactly great video quality):

Andrea released a third album, "War Machine" in 1980, but it wasn't a success and later that year had surgery to remove a goitre on her vocal cords, which effectively ended her singing career.  She attempted a return to porn movies, but - cruelly, I think - at nearly 40, was deemed "too old" and gradually faded into obscurity, although she still received royalties from her music.

She (and "More, More, More") did, however, briefly return to the limelight when the Canadian band Len sampled the instrumental break from "More, More, More" to form the basis of their hit, "Steal My Sunshine", a US #9 hit in the summer of 1999 and a #8 hit in the UK in late 1999/early 2000:

Gregg Diamond received a co-writing credit on the song, but sadly died three months before its release.

Want More, More, More?  Here's some cover versions:

Bananarama teamed up with production trio Stock, Aitken & Waterman for a version in 1993 which became a #24 hit:

Rachel Stevens (of S Club 7 fame) also had a major UK hit (#3 in October 2004) with her version of the song:

Inevitably, Dannii Minogue got in on the act too:

Even more inevitably, saucy old Sam Fox had a go, combining it with a cover of Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" and managing to make it sound even more blatantly suggestive than the original:

Here's a version by Valentina (whoever she is/was):

And finally, a version in Spanish (Mas, Mas, Mas) from Andrea herself (sorry I can't find a better version; how the uploader managed to mangle both the audio and the video so badly is beyond me:

And that's just about all I can say about "More, More, More".  I think it was probably quite enough, wasn't it?

Odd Songs #005: Moviestar

Another in a "series" about "odd" songs - ones that stand out for one reason or other, usually because they were little-loved or even ignored at the time, but still get regular play on oldies stations (and yes Radio 2, you're included).  I probably should have done a numbered sequence of them, but didn't think to do so at the time.  I should really get around to doing that.

[Edit @ 22/09/2016:  This is now rectified...I think.]

Anyway, this one's about "Moviestar" (oh yeah, all one word for this one) by the Swedish artist Harpo.  It's incredibly cheesy, but I see that as a good thing:

It only made #24 in the UK charts in April 1976 (although the track itself was recorded the previous year), but I'd be amazingly surprised if you - assuming you live in the UK and listen to radio and all that - hadn't heard it before.  And once heard, never forgotten (that can be taken as either complimentary or not, depending on your tastes).  However, it was his only UK hit.

Harpo (born Jan Harpo Torsten Svensson, on the 5th April 1950 in a suburb of Stockholm) was, however, a big pop star not only in his native Sweden for a brief period; this success also translated to much of the rest of Europe as well as - strangely - Australasia. The song was a number one hit in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and (naturally) Sweden.  It was actually a number one in Sweden twice, first the English version, then again in a Swedish version.  It also made #3 in Australia, #9 in New Zealand and #13 in Ireland.

It's the song I'm interested in though, rather than Harpo himself (although his alarmingly short chart career is quite interesting, spanning only 1973-1976, is in itself quite fascinating).  He's got quite a good Wikipedia page that goes into all that stuff, if you want more background (and who wouldn't!?) then that's the place to go.

Obviously he performed the song, but he also wrote it (from the songwriting credits, this suggests both music and lyrics), although the production and arrangement is credited to one Bengt Palmers. As far as I can tell, Bengt Palmers was (and still is) a big cheese in the Swedish music industry.  I like to think of him as the Simon Cowell of the Swedish version of X-Factor, "Reach For The Stars".

As for "Moviestar", it's got a number of interesting things going for it, not least the lyrics:

You feel like Steve McQueen
When you're driving in your car
And you think you look like James Bond
When you're smoking your cigar
It's so bizarre
You think you are a new kind of James Dean
But the only thing I've ever seen of you
Was a commercial spot on the screen
Movie Star oh Movie Star
You think you are a Movie
Movie Star oh Movie Star
You think you are a Movie
Star
You should belong to the jet-set
Fly your own private Lear jet
But you worked in the grocery store every day
Until you could afford to get away
So you went to Sweden to meet Igmar Bergman
He wasn't there or he just didn't care
I think it's time for you my friend
Just stop pretending that you are a...
(Movie Star oh Movie star) etc.

It's obviously written about a particular person, but I can't work out who.  Then again, my Swedish cultural knowledge is sadly lacking.

Another interesting fact about the track is that one of the backing singers was Anna-Frid Lyngstad (yes, that one out of ABBA). She did the "Moviestar, oh moviestar, oh-oh-oh" bits in the backing.  But considering that ABBA had already won Eurovision in 1974, it does make you wonder what she was doing singing backing vocals (uncredited too) on a track the following year?  Admittedly Harpo was big in Sweden at the time, but even so?  A favour returned maybe?

Anyway, here's some cover versions, which are always interesting (except when they're shite):

Here's a version by Stereo Total from 1995.  It's pretty faithful to the original:

A more electronically-based version by the Scandinavian outfit "And One" from 1996:

And why not this - a Spanish version from Miguel Gallardo:

Interestingly, Miguel didn't do a completely straight version; he retained the melody but seemingly completely rewrote the lyrics and called it "Tu amante o tu enemigo".  My Spanish isn't very good (in fact my understanding of the language is pretty much non-existent) but I don't think he's singing about the same subject as Harpo.

And of course, Sacha Distel had a go at it (retitling it "Baby Star"):

Personally, I think Sacha would give anything a go back then.  Not to imply that he was a hack or anything, he was just into singing, I reckon.

This, though, is my favourite cover (I can't even make a reasonable attempt at the artist name, something like Elakelaiset but with accents all over the shop) but I have figured out what they retitled it for their version - "Humppastara" (whatever that means):

I think it's the shoehorning in of an oompah rhythm that elevates it to a new level.

Bet there's loads more versions out there but - as ever - I can't be bothered to track them all down.  I am, after all, lazy.

However, I've a few more like this up my metaphorical musical sleeve.  Don't say you weren't warned!

Odd Songs #004: You're Moving Out Today

Carole Bayer Sager's only real solo hit single:

"You're moving out today" - number six in the UK charts in 1977.  Got to number one in Australia (and number 30 in New Zealand, although given the population of NZ, that probably didn't take many sales), but curiously didn't dent the US charts.

It's another of those sort-of one-off songs that I find fascinating.  Whilst Carole Bayer Sager was a prolific songwriter for others and produced loads of hits (mainly US-based, but many worldwide (most notably she was co-writer of "Nobody Does It Better" from "The Spy Who Loved Me" and won the Academy Award for "Arthur's Theme" in 1981).  She's played a part in writing successful songs for artists like Lesley Gore, The Monkees, Shirley Bassey, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Dusty Springfield, Leo Sayer, Carly Simon, The Corrs, etc. etc. (actually it would probably be quicker to list the artists she hasn't written for).

Given all that, I always thought it strange that this was her only real solo hit single.  Plenty of albums, but she barely released any singles.  Maybe she didn't like performing?  Odd if so, because I think her performance of this is brilliant; as much acting as singing, perfect timing and all that.

Specifically this one was a co-write with Bruce Roberts and - possibly crucially - Bette Midler.

Musically, I think the song itself is great - a very unusual arrangement, with seemingly random and abrupt changes in tempo and character, all that sort of thing. Even the backing vocals are perfectly pitched; there's question-and-answer stuff, there's conventional harmonies, there's abrupt switches from lead to backing and back and the interpolation of a bit of Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" towards the end is genius; something for everyone!

Although Bayer-Sager typically did the lyrics in her co-written stuff (well you would if your collaborators were people like Marvin Hamlisch and Burt Bacharach, I guess), I've a strong feeling that it might be the Bette Midler connection here that makes things start to fall into place.  It's a very funny lyric.  There's some vaguely risque stuff in there - e.g. "your nasty habits ain't confined to bed/the grocer told me what you do with bread" (surely a barely-concealed reference to the unusual sexual practise of men fucking inanimate objects?) and I wonder whether that was the reason it didn't do much in America?

I could go on and on about this song.   But I'll spare you that for now.

Although if anyone can tell me another song that references "Mozambique" in its lyric (that isn't the Bob Dylan song), I'll be well impressed.

Odd Songs #003: Gonna Get Along Without You Now

The whole of the last post about Patience and Prudence was just a preamble to this, the link being that this song was their other UK "hit" single, "Gonna Get Along Without You Now":

It reached no. 22 in the UK in 1957 (no. 11 in the USA, their second-biggest hit there).  As a not very interesting aside, this makes Patience and Prudence quite unusual in that both their UK singles made the charts but failed to hit the top 20 in the days when there only was a top 30.  That takes some doing (i.e. I can't think of any other examples).

Of course, that wasn't the first version of the song that I heard (being born 14 years after it was a hit probably did for that). The first version I heard is the one that most people know, the Viola Wills disco version:

It was a big hit (number 8 in the UK charts) in 1979 and I think it's testament to the strength of the song that it actually sounds as though it was written as a disco song in the first place.

It wasn't, of course, but nor was it written for Patience and Prudence.  It comes originally from 1951; written by Milton Kellem and apparently the earliest recording is this one from Teresa Brewer, recorded the following year:

So to begin with (assuming this was the original arrangement) it seems like it was written as a swing number and had this been the first version that I heard, I think I'd consider it the definitive one.  It's lyrically quite hard-edged and Ms. Brewer delivers the lines with the appropriate amount of sass.

But this is (again apparently, as it was recorded after the fact) the original arrangement:

Either way, these earlier arrangements that just make the Patience and Prudence version seem even weirder.  Then add this into the mix, a version from 1956 by the Bell Sisters:

But before getting into just quite how weird the Patience and Prudence version is, let's hear some other versions (there's been, to use a technical term, loads of them).  So, in roughly chronological order following P and P's version:

Chet Atkins does a purely instrumental (guitar) version (date unknown I'm afraid):

Skeeter Davis (1964), in a a distinctly more countrified style:

Tracey Dey (1964) giving it the old Wall of Sound treatment:

The Caravelles (around 1964), much closer to Patience & Prudence's arrangement:

The "other" UK hit version, a Latin-influenced version from Trini Lopez (1967):

And then - also in 1967 - came a rocksteady version by Brent Dowe & The Melodians:

And here's a quite splendid Northern Soul version from The Vibrations (I'd guess late 1960s):

Bad Manners, undoubtedly influenced by the Melodians' version, did a ska take on it in the early 1980s:

And finally a couple of contemporary versions; the Lemonheads do a good one (extremely faithful to the original, bizarrely):

Even Zooey Deschanel has had a go, recording a version with M. Ward under their "She & Him" moniker:

And there's a whole load more - it must be one of the most covered songs ever, which is not something I was expecting when I started out on this - Tina Charles, UB40, Soraya Arnelas, Kati Kovacs and a load of others that I can't be bothered to track down right now.  You get the idea.

But back to Patience and Prudence's version.  As with everything else they did, it seems to have this weird production; the words "ethereal", "eerie" and "otherworldly" come up a lot when describing their stuff and I'd not argue with that.  It describes their sound well and never better than on "Gonna Get Along Without You Now".  Everything just comes together to make it one of the weirdest pop records ever.

Perhaps it's not wise to investigate exactly why; something to do with the undoubted weirdness of having two sisters (10 and 11 years old at the time, remember) singing a fuck-you-I-don't-need-you-sneaky-lying-fucker-I-don't-need-no-man lyric, all over what was - for the time - a quite sophisticated orchestral backing.

Is it cognitive dissonance?  Something like that.

Anyway, it's a fucking brilliant song, whoever's singing it.

Patience and Prudence

Popular music in the mid-1950s must have been a curious scene in the UK; the old guard (Frankie Laine, Vera Lynn, Perry Como, Guy Mitchell and their ilk) were still extremely popular, but were gradually being usurped by practitioners of the exciting new rock 'n' roll sound.  Certainly if you look back at a typical sales chart from the period, the mixture seems downright weird (for instance, if you look at a typical UK singles chart from 1956 it broadly appears that there's something of a power-struggle going on between two factions).  On the one hand there's plenty of what was considered "proper music" at the time (i.e. "classic songs" performed in a style pretty much unchanged since the turn of the century):  Doris Day, Slim Whitman, Mel Torme, et al) but also plenty of music from the new noisy rock 'n'  roll breed:  Bill Haley & His Comets, Little Richard, Elvis himself, Carl Perkins, that whole axis.

So one moment it's:

And the next it's:

But then there's loads of other stuff in there.  Orchestras were still popular (Perez Prado, Ronnie Hilton, Mantovani, Billy Vaughn, Mitch Miller etc.).  Winifred Atwell (who I'm planning on writing a whole "thing" on) was unbelievably popular with her various pianos.  Doo-wop groups (Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, Dion & the Belmonts, The Platters and so on) were gaining in popularity (while it might not have been considered quite so "dangerous" as rock 'n' roll at the time, it was probably deemed "degenerate" in some way or other, the 1950s were a very judgmental time when it came down to that sort of thing, after all).  Country singers from the USA were dabbling with the new sounds, incorporating elements of rock 'n' roll and doo-wop into their existing songs. Listening to a chart from the mid-1950s is a very confusing experience for anyone under the age of about 70, I would imagine.

AND while all that was going on, some recording acts got into the charts with records that didn't really fit into any category at all and those ones, of course, are the ones I'm interested in.  But where to begin?

Patience and Prudence (for me) are the obvious place to start, for loads of reasons.  I'm a bit obsessed with them because I think they occupy a unique place in the history of popular music; I was born in 1971, I've been fascinated with music and the music charts since about 1982, but I had never heard of Patience and Prudence until last year.  And that was a complete fluke.  It's like they've been airbrushed from the history of British pop, despite recording (and having the - albeit minor - hits with two very well-known songs.

Patience Ann McIntyre (born 1944) and Prudence Ann McIntyre (born 1945) were sisters who - as far as the UK is concerned - had two minor hits in 1956/1957 and then seemingly disappeared completely.  They have a Wikipedia page here that gives some interesting detail on how it all came about (short version:  their dad (Billy McIntyre) was a bandleader who took them to a recording session, they recorded some stuff, it was quite successful but then he decided he didn't want them in the public eye, so turned down subsequent work on their behalf, they went off and did something else instead).

Anyway, this is the song they're probably best known for.  Back in 1956, it reached no. 4 in the USA (and a comparatively lowly no. 26 in the UK):

It wasn't a new song even then (it was a Billy Rose number from 1926) and had been previously recorded by Irving Kaufman, Gene Austin, Frankie Laine and numerous others.  And it's been covered plenty of times since (by The Honeys, Fiona Apple, the Trash Can Sinatras, Alvin & the Chipmunks, the list goes on).  But this version must have struck a chord somewhere as it's the only version that ever got anywhere near being a hit single.

Patience and Prudence certainly had a unique selling point.  They were teenage sisters, as pure and wholesome as mom's apple pie.  They had lovely voices that blended perfectly.  But I don't think that makes them a novelty band.  They had...something else.  I've listened to about twelve other versions and none of them capture the song quite so well as the McIntyre sisters manage (brilliantly, the version that Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters do in "The Jerk" probably gets closest).  It's something to do with the voices and the production ("ethereal"?, "ghostly"? - it's has an atmosphere all of its own, whatever).

BUT all of this is just preamble to the song I really wanted to write about - Patience and Prudence's other "hit" - which is coming up next.

In the meantime, here's a few of the dynamic duo's other songs:

A Smile And A Ribbon:

Dreamers Bay:

Heavenly Angel:

I think they're all lovely songs and the sisters do them all perfectly.  But none of them can hold a candle to their other "hit", which I'm now about to write about in forensic detail.  Don't say you weren't warned.

Odd Songs #002: Shoes (Johnny & Louise)

I'm trying to find where this post has disappeared to...

...in the meantime I can only link back to this page in a self-recursive loop.

I think I accidentally deleted the original, can't think of anything else.  I know it was there to begin with, but it's not there now...anyway, it was pretty much just about how much I love this song:

And then I had another version from Love Generation:

Actually, I think I'll just leave it that way now; you can get the other Youtube links (plus some more I missed at the time) from the Wikipedia page anyway, so all that's gone is my unique top-of-the-head can't-be-bothered-looking-things-up style and let's face it - that's no loss!

Although I'm not sure I'll ever get to use the phrase "Teutonic Pop Gods" in a sentence again.

Ah well, onward and upward!

Odd Songs #002: Shoes (Johnny & Louise) - Slight Return

In an unexpected move, after my (frankly ill-researched, off-the-top-of-my head) bit on Reparata's Shoes last post, Reparata herself got in touch on Twitter!  The actual real proper Mary O'Brien Reparata!!

She very kindly gave me the Wikipedia link which is much more thorough than the version I gave:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoes_(Reparata_song)

Thanks again, Reparata!

Odd Songs #001: Captain Of Your Ship

[Edit @ 22/09/2016:  This wasn't meant to be a series to begin with, but it's turned into one, so I've slightly altered the title to reflect that.  And by "Odd Songs" I don't really mean that they are odd - although many of them are - it's just a catch-all title for any fabulous songs that I want to write about]


For well over thirty years, I've sort of been obsessed with this song.  I blame those fucking Mullerice adverts from the late 80s (but that's another story).

The first time I was properly aware of it (and its long history) was from Betty Boo's Doin' the Do:

At first listen it seems that the divine Alison Clarkson (Betty Boo was, unsurprisingly, a stage name) just took the "you're going to lose a good thing" bit and interpolated into her song, but the more you hear it, you can pick out other bits of melody from "Captain Of Your Ship"; they don't seem sampled from a particular source, but are definitely in there.

Anyway, Betty was just one of a long line of pop stars directly covering the song, or taking elements from it.  It's a song that - whilst hardly being in "Yesterday" territory - has a lot of cover versions, all the way from 1968 to the present day.  But the interesting thing is that these cover versions vary enormously in how they approach the song.

OK, back to the original, written by Kenny Jones and Ben Yardley, recorded in 1968 by Reparata and the Delrons:

It's an amazing thing, all made up of seemingly unrelated bits of other songs stuck together (this seems to be something of a Kenny Jones trademark, but more on that later) with weird sound effects (foghorns, radar blips, etc.), rapid changes in tempo, almost anything, and yet it all seems to hold together as a song.  Certainly it's a product of its time.  The Reparata version was a top 20 hit in the UK but didn't do much business elsewhere.

However, since then it seems to have taken on a life of its own.  The number of cover versions is bewildering.  Some are relatively straight covers (e.g. the version by Bette Bright & The Illuminations), some totally rework the arrangement (e.g. the Ratpack version) and the rest fall somewhere in between.  If you listened to all the cover versions of this song, the songs based on it and the songs that sample it, it would...er, take quite a long time.  I know of about fifty but I'd be willing to put my life on there being at least that many again.

Maybe one day I'll try to make sense of the whole thing, particularly regarding the role of Kenny Young, who has been involved in so much pop stuff from the last fifty years (and remains active), but that'll have to be another time, because at the moment...

..the version that interests me is this one, by the 1970s band Fox, although assembled at some point in the 1980s (1986 is the best guess that I can find):

The reason I'm interested in this version is because Kenny Jones (the co-writer of the original song) was in the band Fox and I say "assembled" because I'm convinced most of the vocals and instrumentation were recorded when Fox were active (probably sometime in the mid-1970s).  But the Fox version of the song, as released, has such an obvious 1980s influence with all its synth stabs and stuff that it can only have been put together in that decade.

The latest possible point at which this version could have been released is 1986, as it featured on a Fox "greatest hits" album released that year.

Now I can't possibly be the only person that noticed that at 1:12 (and repeatedly elsewhere - the example at 2:31 is probably the most obvious) there's a stabby synth riff that was never in the original song, but still fits.  Thing is, it's the identical riff that forms the entire basis of 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready For This", released in 1991:

It's slowed down a little bit and has a slightly different cadence, but essentially it's the exact same riff.

And it set me to wondering, in today's climate of high-profile music plagiarism lawsuits (think Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke/Pharrell etc.) I wonder if Kenny Jones (and any associates involved in the Fox version) could make anything of this?

FUN FACT:  Noosha Fox is Ben Goldacre's mother.