— Fred Dellar
A little girl is growing up in a small town. Everything about her life is normal: she goes to school, plays with her friends, argues with her brothers and sisters and refuses to eat anything with onions in it. She spends her pocket money on sweets and is disappointed that her parents still won't relent and get her a puppy. Then she learns about the abduction of a girl close to her age and her world is turned upside down.
"Child Come Away" is a song about two girls: the one who gets snatched and left for dead and the one who is privy to the unraveling of everything around her. Innocence ends up being yanked away from both. Obviously the former is put through so much more but the lingering affects are left as a burden on the former: not knowing quite what happened (much less how or why), learning little snippets of detail but being denied the full story by parents and a town that doesn't want to discuss it, living in fear that she could be next. Fred Dellar mentions a "town filled with terror" but I suspect there's more to it than that. The community is in denial as to what's been going on — or perhaps it was somehow even complicit in the crime.
"Child Come Away" is a song about two girls: the one who gets snatched and left for dead and the one who is privy to the unraveling of everything around her. Innocence ends up being yanked away from both. Obviously the former is put through so much more but the lingering affects are left as a burden on the former: not knowing quite what happened (much less how or why), learning little snippets of detail but being denied the full story by parents and a town that doesn't want to discuss it, living in fear that she could be next. Fred Dellar mentions a "town filled with terror" but I suspect there's more to it than that. The community is in denial as to what's been going on — or perhaps it was somehow even complicit in the crime.
That the Wilde family was able to come up with this gripping four-minute thriller is absolutely remarkable. Having already trotted out a pair of sorrowful yet superb singles with "Cambodia" and "View from a Bridge", they were well positioned to deliver yet another tragic piece and "Child Come Away" is their zenith. Kim seems to have toned down the vocal frostiness that worked such a treat on her early records but which wasn't appropriate for this type of song, leaving room for a sweetness that captures the childlike wonder and confusion going on. I don't know if I agree with Dellar that the "piccolo-headed arrangement" moves the song into the "realms of folk-rock" but it is effective nonetheless. I have to wonder if it's intended as a Pied Piper-esque tool to symbolise a child being lured away, while other children are being shuffled off to the side and told to go and play and stop asking so many bloody questions.
It's as a piece of writing, however, that "Child Come Away" truly shines. The lack of clarity in the story may seem strange at first but that's precisely the point. What exactly happened to this girl in the sand? What kind of appalling state was she left in that everyone in town — including the judge at the trial — turns away from her now? Has she been cast aside by the community as much as her captor/torturer ("I saw her face in the back of the car / As they were speeding out of this town")? We aren't to know, just as the other young girl in this song isn't to know. And we can look at this situation and gasp the heartlessness of the townsfolk but that's how close-knit communities often deal with these situations. Had it been a bigger hit it could easily have gone on to be used as the theme for the David Tennant-Jodie Whittaker mystery-thriller TV series Broadchurch.
So, all that said, how did it fail to catch on, falling short of the Top 40? Being her third single on the trot dealing with dark subject matter may have turned people off, especially DJs who were content around this time to spin sunny reggae-pop by the likes of Musical Youth, Culture Club and Eddy Grant instead. (Hopefully it did indeed manage to grip audiences during Wilde's tour; I like to think that she still occasionally floors her fans with it at shows to this day. If I ever get the chance to see her I'll holler in delight if she happens to dust this one off) In retrospect, it's a shame it wasn't released as a double A-side with its jauntier — though still appropriately angsty — flip "Just Another Guy": come for the whiplash pop-rock, stay for the searing devastation.
The Wilde trio of Kim, Marty and Ricki had quietly become one of the most formidable ensembles in early eighties' UK pop. Five Top 20 hits and a pair of well-received albums showed that they were onto something. Yet, this remarkable sixth single sputtered. Looking to change things up, they would hit upon a finger-clicking, toe-tapping jazz number that poked fun at Kim's reputation as a bombshell but long term this led her in the direction of uninspired and forgettable dance-pop. She would enjoy a commercial and critical renaissance by decade's end but those brilliant narrative songs had been sacrificed. Too bad that the Wildes didn't keep it going and that the public didn't appreciate them more.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Philip Lynott: "Old Town"
No doubt old school rock 'n' rollers hated the ex-Thin Lizzy leader going by the name of 'Philip' and had this record written off even before giving it a listen. Granted, catchy pub rock in the spirit of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and B.A. Robertson wasn't the most original path Phil Lynott could have taken to revive his fortunes but it's a bouncy effort and his Ferry-esque vocals go down surprisingly well. He even manages to imitate Billy Joel pretty well. An effortless stab at "aiming for a bit of class" as Dellar says which only makes me admire Philip Lynott even more than I already did. No mere boozy Irish rocker, the man could stumble his way into any genre he saw fit. Much missed.
(Click here to see my original review)
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