"My copy is cracked but it plays fine.""So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" (parentheses not being a part of the original since they aren't necessary) was originally an American Top 30 hit for The Byrds back in 1967. Though one of their most recognizable originals it isn't one of the highlights of their brilliant fourth album Younger Than Yesterday. It fills its purpose as an effective opener for the LP but listen to "Have You Seen Her Face", "Everybody's Been Burned" and "My Back Pages" for some true Byrd classics. The song is a cynical jab at the sudden and obviously manufactured rise of The Monkees as well as a rueful look back at their own time at the top and the gradual sputtering out of their commercial prospects. While others could get all high and mighty over reports that the prefab four didn't play on their records, The Byrds could empathize: only Roger McGuinn (along with his trademark 12-string guitar) appear on their breakthrough hit "Mr. Tambourine Man"; the rest of the instrumentation was provided by famed studio group the Wrecking Crew.
"So You Want to Be..." is also a very much a part of sixties pop for its brevity. Clocking in at a just over two minutes, it isn't even the shortest song on the under half-an-hour Younger Than Yesterday. (The David Crosby-penned "Mind Gardens" drags to a lengthy three-and-a-half minutes though that may also be due to the fact that it sucks) With singles getting the shaft over the course of the seventies, songs could get more expansive for longer albums. This worked when it came to artists who put a premium on solos and six minute-plus workouts from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Herbie Hancock and Yes became routine. But it didn't do much for songwriting discipline.
The Byrds splintered into a million offshoots but this song remained powerful for some up to the late seventies. British rock group Charlie took it upon themselves to update it for more complex times. Rather than being done from the perspective a wet behind the ears lad with no concept of musical skill, "Killer Cut" examines how a group with some experience might take that crucial step towards stardom. What you need is to get that "one killer cut" that you can write by "stealing the best bits from those top forty hits". Then, all that is needed is that "radio play" ("all day, all day"). It sort of undermines the simplicity of how to cut it as a brainless pop idol: actually there are lots of steps to take and it only seems easy.
Rather than giving a similar rewrite, Patti Smith chose a straight up cover of "So You Want to Be..." which more deliberately misses the point of the original. The playful cynicism of The Byrds' reading (which Charlie tries to much less effectively mine) is dispensed with in favour of a very sour tone. Smith isn't trying to send up anything, she's bitter about success coming easily to others when she had to struggle at her craft. She could have gone the pop route and could have capitalized on the popularity of her hit single "Because the Night" but she has chosen to go her own way.
Smith's version is double the length of the original. Chris Difford has mixed feelings about the end result, saving his praise for the production work and guitar playing of Todd Rundgren. It's probable he doesn't think much of it as a song and he appears not to be aware of who previously did it ("she never wrote it" being his lone comment on the matter). Being largely unaware of the song's context makes it easy to judge that this is warmed over rockist nonsense. This is not one of Smith's compelling vocals as she wails away like an especially strung out Grace Slick. The playing is repetitive and lacks the subtle magic of McGuinn's guitar, Chris Hillman's bass and the excellent trumpet solo from the late South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela. The song's four short verses are quickly dispensed with but this only gives Smith and her group licence to keep on going.
As with Andy Partridge a fortnight earlier, Difford finishes up with an apology to all those hopefuls he bashed. While the leader of XTC did so because he paid the price during a previous review, Squeeze's guitarist and songwriter realises that the task was "no piece of cake" and that he forgives all the dismissive critics of their previous hit singles "Cool for Cats" and "Up the Junction". When pop stars get all uppity over critics they often rhetorically ask if they've ever written a song or been in a band or played a gig. Apparently, you have to have experience playing pop in order to judge it. Difford now knows that there are two sides to this and that being a writer for a top pop mag may be just as difficult as being written about in a top pop mag.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The 45's: "Couldn't Believe a Word"
"A Stiff product with a suburban lyric," the author of "Up the Junction" dryly observes. Hitting a little too close to your own muse, Diff? "A love song with a twopenny organ sound," he continues. You mean the sort of sound that Steve Nieve played so wonderfully on Elvis Costello's "Radio Radio", that sort of thing? "A monkey on your shoulder and I'll give it three". Yeah, I don't know what those words mean. "But out of what?" Well, you tell us, Chris. I think it's a nice song that really shows how influential Costello was already becoming and ought to have made The 45's a band to look out for. But you do it your way.
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