Fleetwood Mac: "The Farmer's Daughter"

5 February 1981

"A cunning choice from their live album."

— Mike Stand

Indeed. What could be better than to promote a live album with a single recorded in a studio?

We like to think that the live experience is authentic and it's an easy delusion to maintain if we so desire. We don't have to examine the stage to see the setlist and name of the city taped to the stage. We can convince ourselves that the between-song banter ("let's play this song...you know, the easy one...even you can play it!"; oh, the hilarity) is impromptu. We can rationalize that the singer getting choked up in an emotional moment was a one-in-a-lifetime thing and there's no way he or she would repeat the trick the next night.In truth, however, these sorts of tricks are easier to spot than the secrets of a scripted wrestling match. And pop stars know it and that's why most live albums are embellished in the studio.

In 1979 Fleetwood Mac chose to follow the insanely successful Rumours with Tusk, a supposedly difficult double album that supposedly turned millions of fans off. It's difficult now to understand why things fell off so spectacularly for them: for all those catchy if somewhat jarring new wavy tracks from Lindsay Buckingham, there are still the contributions of Stevie Nicks and, in particular, Christine McVie which underscore the fact that they hadn't changed all that much at all. (Songs like "Sara", "Storms", "Brown Eyes" and "Never Forget" hold up against anything else they ever did, to say nothing of excellent Buckingham cuts like "I Know I'm Not Wrong" and "Tusk", probably their finest single) It didn't sell anywhere close to its predecessor but factors such as changing tastes and the two disc set being pricey likely contributed at least as much to their commercial decline.

Nevertheless, there was still enough of an audience out there for them to embark on a world tour that was even bigger than two years earlier when they toured Rumours. Playing well over a hundred shows in North America, Europe, Japan and Oceania in just under a year, Fleetwood Mac's setlists leaned heavily on material from both Rumours and Tusk, as well as their 1975 self-titled album which kicked off the group's Buckingham-Nicks golden era. Being so well stocked in quality songwriters, they weren't much inclined towards padding out their repertoire with cover versions. As such, "The Farmer's Daughter", a deep cut on The Beach Boys' 1963 album Surfin' USA, was never performed on the tour, not even in a backstage soundcheck for a selection of family and friends.

On the Live album released at the end of 1980, "The Farmer's Daughter" features a smattering of cheers at the end and the recording is drenched in echo: just what you might expect if they were playing a lighthearted little number for shits and giggles while warming up for a concert in Champaign, Illinois or Valley Center, Kansas (no matter how obscure, there isn't a US city bands won't play even if they'll bypass metros of several million in other countries); in fact, it was recorded during the Tusk sessions, minus the crowd noise and effects. If live albums could be enhanced in the studio, why not cut songs in the studio disguised as live?

Why did they choose to record it all? It's hard to say but Buckingham was a lifelong fan of Brian Wilson while McVie was in the midst of a relationship with Dennis. The Beach Boys spent the early part of the seventies flourishing creatively with albums such as Sunflower, Surf's Up and Holland but their stock had fallen by the time Fleetwood Mac were on the rise. Their increasingly poor run of albums of late didn't harm their status as a popular live act and the two groups were among the most popular concert attractions in pop. More to the point, the original dates back to their early period as a surf rock group and little if any care seems to have gone into their recording of "The Farmer's Daughter". Brian was already a formidable talent in pop but his compositions were rushed and his bandmates weren't capable enough musicians to do his work justice.

Fleetwood Mac's version indicates what might have been, had Brian been able to record it his way and/or had Carl Wilson been allowed to give it a much more of the delicate vocal treatment it deserved. McVie and Nicks purr their way through a gorgeous recording, with just some simple guitar chords to guide them along the way. It's a little more restrained than much of what's on Tusk, as if ver Mac weren't quite sure what they were doing with it, but that's probably advantageous. It wouldn't have fit on the album and it was likely never in consideration but it's surprising that they couldn't have placed it on a B-side. Instead, they threw it on their first live LP, a curio of what you may have missed had you not gone to see them. Turns out, you would've missed it even if you had been there.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joe Dolce's Music Theatre: "Shaddap You Face"

And while we're on the subject of fake live recordings, Joe Dolce made a career out of this unfunny cringe-fest loaded with cod-Italian and lazy stereotypes — and with an "audience" joining in at the end! Mike Stand hates it, Tom Ewing hates it, this humble blogger hates it but who can argue with those millions of listeners who were charmed enough by that they helped make this vile record a global smash all over the world in the early part of 1981. Mercifully, it doesn't get played much anymore which no doubt prompts certain reactionary types to cry that it's yet another sign of how depressingly woke we've all become. I say that the song's offensive and terrible and deserves to be forgotten. Who's to say who's correct?

Madness: "One Step Beyond"

1 November 1979

"Now, let's see...which is the A-side?"

— Steve Bush

Good to be careful, isn't it? Wouldn't want to risk having to once again be dealing with some irate readers, would ya? Steve Bush gave Madness plenty of praise for their debut single but all that seems to be remembered is that fact that he mixed up the A and B sides — which, if you think about it, only tells you how good these Camden lads were, that they were able to put something so good on the flip that it could easily be mistaken for a flagship release (though I suppose the inverse of that is that the intended single was so underwhelming as to be assumed to be just filler for the second side).

As if regretting the decision to relegate "Madness" to the other side of "The Prince", Madness chose a Prince Buster cover for their follow up single. Covering the same artist twice on the bounce straight out of the gate seems risky: for one thing, they were sending out the message that they didn't have a great deal of faith in their own material and, second, and more worryingly, it appeared that they were piggybacking on someone else's work and identity. A good thing, then, that their interpretation of "One Step Beyond" bears only a passing resemblance to the original.

Released in 1964 as the B-side to single "Al Capone" (from which The Specials borrowed liberally for their outstanding hit single "Gangsters"), "One Step Beyond" is a slow moving, methodical number. The sax part is so relaxed that it could have been played by the breathy, swoonsome tenor master Ben Webster. Indeed, the horn solos give it a nice jazzy feel that you won't find on its much more famous cover. (Though I would defend Lee "the guy from Madness" Thompson as a sax player in a pop group, he doesn't come close to what Dennis "Ska" Campbell is able to get out of his woodwind) Wisely figuring that there was no way they'd be able to ape the source material, Madness' version injects plenty of hot ska revival energy which just about makes up for the group's limitations. While there is plenty to like about Prince Buster's recording, there's no question which one gets stuck in my head easier and is "really hard to keep still to".

Producer Alan Winstanley, of the famed Langer and Winstanley production team that worked with The Teardrop Explodes, Dexys Midnight Runners and Elvis Costello & The Attractions in addition to their lengthy association with Madness, has said that "One Step Beyond" was recorded short, with just a minute and ten seconds of running time which they then looped in order to flesh it out to appropriate single length. This is not an unprecedented act of studio trickery. Phil Spector lengthened the George Harrison track "I Me Mine" from its similarly brief original studio take for release on Let It Be (he also added an uncharacteristically subtle string section making it the only Beatles' song he failed to cock up). 12" mixes are all about extending pop songs beyond standard radio play length and the vast majority are bases around stretching out the hooks. Bush listens to "One Step Beyond" and wants more (it "ends about five minutes too soon" he reckons) but it's the sort of wish that was better off not coming true. Yes, there is a desire to keep the party going but the repetitiveness would have become exposed had it gone on for much longer.

"One Step Beyond" gave Madness their first of fourteen Top 10 hits. I suggested in my write up on Bush's review of "Madness" that their debut may have been a tiny disappointment when held up against efforts from The Specials, The Selecter and The Beat from the same year. Their early records weren't there simply to prompt kids into the shops but also to encourage them seek these acts out on tours. You like our single? Just wait till you see our show. (The Specials went so far as to record follow up single "Nite Klub" so as to sound live and then released a live EP at the start of 1980, the chart topping Too Much Too Young) Madness proved up to the challenge with "One Step Beyond" and it quickly became one of their hallmark numbers. Though rocksteady and ska would never quite leave their sound, their days as a full-on 2 Tone act were numbered (they'd already left the label after "The Prince" and were now signed to Stiff, home of spiritual cousins Ian Dury & The Blockheads) and it was time to spread out. Luckily, they already had a track called "My Girl" that just needed some dusting off. They're away.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Yellow Magic Orchestra: "La femme chinoise"

Forget (assuming you were ever aware of) all that hooey about them being the original cyber punks, Yellow Magic Orchestra were (and still are) way too much of an original one-off to be so carelessly described. If I was to make a sweeping characterization of them I'd say they were a forerunner to both the fantastic nineties scene of futuristic Japanese retro pop known as Shibuya-kei and a whole generation of French electro-pop boffins like Air, Daft Punk and Etienne de Crecy but even that smacks of the sort of lazy musicology wherein female singers are cited only as an influence on other female singers. Transcending the novelty synth of its day, "La femme chinoise" is masterful with tricks aplenty and something seemingly brand new to discover with every listen. And I figured I'd be sick of it by now.

Madness: "Madness"

6 September 1979

"The A-side is a cover version of the 1964 cult single, and the B-side is the band's own tribute to Prince Buster."

— Steve Bush

This would be an accurate summation of what's on the A and B sides if it wasn't completely wrong. Steve Bush's error may have been because he was sent a botched promo copy, because his Smash Hits mates purposefully gave him false information or because he made a careless mistake. And, while the purported flip is clearly the superior track, I can kind of understand why might have assumed "Madness" to have been their lead single's flagship song. It's an introduction to a new band where "The Prince" is a call back to a name from the past. Ver kids could have got their rocks out to some jolly rocksteady fun and it's easy to see why it could make a popular concert standout. And who kicks their career off by longing for an old ska veteran to make his return: didn't the members of Madness want to show off what they were capable of?

The late seventies ska revival seemed to come out of nowhere and, if you weren't a Coventry scenester, you would have had good reason for assuming so. Unknown acts became stars overnight as everyone came flying out of the gate. The old Coventry Automatics were now The Special A.K.A. and they debuted with the brilliant "Gangsters", catchy as all hell, something everyone would want to dance to but with a dark heart of aching melancholy in Terry Hall's vocals. Flip the single over and you got "The Selecter", an eponymous number which is almost as wonderful as its better-remembered A-side. Pauline Black's singing is an acquired taste and the group was never quite as "special" as their ska associates but it's a great track in its own right and you'd have every reason to believe they had as much of a future as anyone. The Beat chose to get things started with a cover of Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown" (matched with their own "Ranking Full Stop" as a double A), something of a risk if you consider that Motown/Northern soul fans were still an influential presence at the time and their distaste for a tenth rate rendition of a Miracles classic could have torpedoed the chances of Dave Wakeling, Ranking Roger and the rest. Good thing they did it well and their Kingston-Motor City crossover may have only led to a more widespread acceptance of British ska.

Also recording their first single at this time was a group from Camden Town. Midlands groups could very easily have spurned a bunch of wacky Londoners but Specials leader Jerry Dammers saw something in them, even if he himself couldn't quite quantify it. "I went to see them and they were really basic," he observes, "just like a school band". Indeed, with Suggs being just eighteen, they were barely out of that playing-Cockney Rebel-records-on-full-volume-in-the-sixth-form-common-room-much-to-the-dismay-of-the-school-headmaster phase that we all go through. (Or was that just me, even if I went to high school in Canada, played Beautiful South albums in the school drama room and my teachers were the only ones who didn't tell me to turn them off) Their playing was rudimentary but they did have a couple songs including future hit "My Girl". Dammers signed them up for a one off 2 Tone single.

The result is not something you'll find on a Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Debut Singles list (notably, they also left off "Gangsters" so they may not have been looking at ska when they put it together) but "The Prince" is a tremendous work and a sign of things to come. In isolation, however, it may have seemed like a slight let down next to their 2 Tone compatriots. The Special A.K.A, The Beat and The Selecter had all been pounding out sweaty ska classics live but Madness didn't come from this same world. More closely connected to Ian Dury, they were entertainers and songsmiths. Politics played a part of their sound but there was so much more waiting to come out. Ska remained though more often in spirit than in practice. They weren't to know it at the time but they were set to be the group we would all want to bring back whenever they'd disappear like Prince Buster.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Gary Numan: "Cars"

Taken all the way to the top of the charts then and regarded as a post-punk, synth-pop classic today, it's amazing there aren't more who see through the emptiness of "Cars". "Are 'Friends' Electric?" is still extraordinary and ought to be the one everyone remembers. Sure, Trent Reznor still reckons it's the bees knees (and he's right) but it doesn't get the love of this "disappointing" follow up. Far more purely synthy than its predecessor, "Cars" lacks the ecstatic thrill of the best records of its (or any) time. Gary Numan would admit trying to pen a hit and he certainly succeeded but a musical achievement this ain't.

Madness: "Wings of a Dove"

18 August 1983

"Bags of jollity and, no matter what they throw into the mix, the end result is distinctively Madness."

— Johnny Black

It seems to be an inevitability of pop that good time groups who have a mission to bring joy to the masses will eventually go melancholic — while doing everything they can to try to get around it. The Beatles pulled it off perhaps most successfully due to having songwriters who went through depression at different times. (John Lennon had his bout during his mid-sixities 'Fat Elvis' period, Paul McCartney just as the group was imploding over the course of their final year and George Harrison, well, pretty much the whole rest of the time) Glam rockers Slade suddenly became all reflective and somber with the material produced for their outstanding film Flame and promptly flounced off to the States to try their hand as an American bar band (with even sadder results). ABBA interspersed their more sorrowful numbers strategically among their bouncy party faves before they all got divorced, put out "The Day Before You Came" and decided to call it a day. George Michael had the smarts to release his darker material as solo singles while saving the joyous pop for Wham!

In a sense, Madness were the only group to fully embrace their melancholy. They all went through it together (even though a key member did depart during this period), they didn't suddenly decide to give it all a big rethink, they didn't use it as an excuse to pack it in and they didn't mask it under another name or label (that would come at the end of the eighties). There are a string of maudlin Madness singles which would only grow progressively more downbeat, reaching its apogee with "One Better Day", a heartbreakingly moving piece about homelessness, but carrying on still further as their creative and cultural relevancy began to dissipate.

"Wings of a Dove" catches the nutty ones edging closer towards melancholy, if not quite ready to resign themselves to. While I mentioned above that they would embrace this phase and go with it, there may have been some hesitation early on, possibly coming from record company executives, band management and production staff as much as the band themselves (if not more so). Previous single "Tomorrow's Just Another Day" dials back on the fun and frolics of "Our House" but the tempo is brisk and it's catchy enough not to depart from the formula that had given them a string of Top Ten hits. (A more accurate version of what they may have had in mind is the slower recording they did with Elvis Costello on lead vocals). Johnny Black seems to imply in his rather backhanded complimentary review — "Best of the Bunch though it's definitely not one of their most memorable songs", he concludes — that the augmentation of a steel band and choir only adds to the fun but I suspect that reserves have been called in to give some life to a pretty sad song — or an awfully serious one anyway. (I've heard this latter stage of Madness' career described as their "adult period", a label that isn't entirely inaccurate but one that I've chosen to refrain from using, especially since it's a term often applied to teen pop acts who make a ham-fisted attempt to grow up by producing supposedly edgy R & B)

So, just how is it sorrowful behind the obvious bags of jollity? Well, Suggs sounds more than a little downbeat in his delivery, a marked contrast from his usual winking, naughty schoolboy act. Opening with the lines "Take time for your pleasure / And laugh with love", I get the impression that either he's not entirely convinced by these sentiments himself or it's a brand of wisdom he's imparting inward. The lyrics in general are a departure from their wonderful character stories of troublemakers mucking about at school and ludicrous sexual escapades to an almost religious invocation to make the most out of life, be positive and "sing for the wings of a dove". It's all a bit self-defeating: by trying to convince us to be happy, they only succeed in coming across as sad.

As Black says, though, this is quintessential Madness, thanks largely to a bravura performance from all present. At the same time, it's by-numbers Madness: neither a standout like "One Step Beyond", "Our House" and "One Better Day" but not dragging quality standards down either. Impossible to dislike as ever but with such a high rate of great singles already in their discography (Divine Madness being probably the best greatest hits album of all time after ABBA Gold) maybe it's understandable that yet another great Madness song can be so callously shrugged off.

Full disclosure: this is almost certainly the only SOTF Madness ever received and, thus, likely the only opportunity I'll have to expound upon them in this space. We've already dealt with The Jam, The Human League, ABC, Dexys Midnight Runners, Wham! and Culture Club who were all at forefront of UK pop in the early eighties but the "chasps" that made up Madness may be the most vital of the lot. Their work is timeless in the sense that people of all ages can take to it: it's easy to imagine them being a big favourite of youngsters going to primary school at the peak of Thatcher's Britain while also enjoying a following among university students and dole queue adults — and managed to retain fans who otherwise got older and moved on from other interests. Their prolonged bout of depression may have been a step too far for most punters but it did little to affect their status as as a national treasure.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

UB40: "Red Red Wine"

A supposed favourite of yuppie dinner parties, "Red Red Wine" is easy fodder for scorn among hipsters. It's a sentiment I'd be happy to brush off if not for the fact that it's a song that's not half as lovely as it ought to be. I'd take the vocals seriously if only Ali Campbell didn't sing every damn song the same way — he's even the weak link on their sharp early material such as "Food for Thought" and "One in Ten". There's also the bad precedent this huge hit (a UK number one at the tail end of a very hot summer, edging out "Wings of a Dove") and its fellow numbers on the Labours of Love album set for ver 40: a seemingly endless list of bloodless cover versions (the nadir being an utterly charmless take on The Temptations' "The Way You Do the Things You Do" though there are plenty of other candidates to pick from); had this pleasantly bland single been a one off then it may have been possible to forgive them. And then there's the video: why on earth is Campbell singing about red, red wine while supping on a pint?

Echo & The Bunnymen: "The Back of Love"

27 May 1982

"Mac sounds like he's fed up of loitering in the backwaters of hipness..."
— David Hepworth

Did you know that Echo & The Bunnymen could have been U2? The theory goes that there were two up and coming quartets from opposite sides of the Irish Sea who had built up loyal followings and had similar profiles in the early eighties and one group went in one direction and the other went in another but it could have easily gone the other way. (Ian 'Mac' McCulloch, however, doesn't see it in quite such neutral, non-judgmental terms) I don't have a dog in this fight — if anything, I'm far more likely to give "Bring On the Dancing Horses" a spin than "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" — but I have to say that I don't see it. Obviously this parallel universe scenario wouldn't be exactly the same — it's impossible to picture his nibs uttering the famous/infamous "thank god it's them instead of you" line from "Do They Know It's Christmas" — but even then it's difficult to swallow such indie stalwarts hitting it big around the world when not dissimilar contemporaries The Cure, New Order and The Smiths never quite managed to do so.

Where the Bunnies had ver 2 beat — for the moment at any rate — was on the charts where "The Back of Love" nudged its way into the Top 20 when the best that Bobo, The Hedge, Adam 'Clear Off' Clayton and the other one could do was a modest Top 40 placing a year earlier with "Fire". Their first five cracks at the hit parade provide a blueprint for the eventual rise of alternative music — everyone from The Jesus & Mary Chain to Jane's Addiction can be heard in these records — with an equally forward thinking attitude of 'listeners must come to us, we're not coming to them' (a path, to be sure, U2 weren't keen to follow). 

This is where David Hepworth's comment about "loitering in the backwaters of hipness" comes into play. Mac's once so-indie-it-hurts voice gets passionate on "The Back of Love", putting some real feeling in where there was once nothing but apathetic gloom. Hepworth states that this new found emoting on McCulloch's part "complements the urgent guitars and thundering drums of his colleagues" but I'd argue that they, too, put far more gusto into their performances than ever before — it's not as though Mac was the only one upping his game here. It helps, too, that a too-brief flourish of horns not unlike The Rolling Stones' "Bitch" helps augment a thrilling arrangement.

A breakthrough both in terms of the record's quality and its chart performance, "The Back of Love" was the first of several Top 40 appearances for ver Bunnies. They never had world dominance in them, no, but at least they wouldn't be off self-righteously basking in their own cleverness while deriding their supposedly chief competitor. At least not yet.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Madness: "House of Fun"

Surprisingly the nutty ones' sole chart topper — odder still since it's hardly one of their better remembered hits nowadays — "House of Fun" carries on the jovial, third form naughtiness of "Baggy Trousers" to a stammering ("N-n-n-no, no miss, you misunderstood...") tale of trying to purchase a pack of condoms from the chemist. The lyrics are a bit awkward but perhaps that's in order to emphasise just how nervous every sexually malnourished young man in search of protection can be — a pity they never did a follow up in which the rubbers never end up being used and the expiry date approaches and then passes (I'd like to say that we've all been there but I certainly have!). The brisk sea-side pier ska helps to hammer the point home of a single that would just about bring to a close everything 'mad' about Madness. Melancholy beckons. Tomorrow's just another day.