Roxy Music: "Jealous Guy"

19 February 1981

"Ferry croons through half closed eyes, saxophones serenade breathily and some individual takes it upon himself to whistle for the last half hour."

— David Hepworth

It was at some point in my first year in Korea that I first took in a Noraebang, a Korean singing room. While the friends I was with quickly chose favourite songs, I took my time leafing through several of the large binders they had. I had no interest in the usuals ("Sweet Caroline", "Take Me Home Country Roads") and wanted to choose something clever. At some point I happened upon "Jealous Guy" and was impressed that they had a John Lennon song other than "Imagine". These catalogs listed a karaoke serial number and song title but also the artist. "Snowbird" (yes, I checked) had Anne Murray, "Baby I Love Your Way" had Peter Frampton: the given singers or groups were those most associated with the songs listed. But "Jealous Guy" had Roxy Music down as the artist. Roxy Music???

Now, don't get me wrong, I love me some Roxy, something I have written previously in this space. I often listen to "Virginia Plain" and think that it's the greatest single ever made. The first four albums are absolutely brilliant as is most of the fifth — though for some reason I've never warmed to "Both Ends Burning". They then went on hiatus and were never the same after they returned but they never looked foolish either. I'm not as convinced by Avalon as others are but it's still fine for what it is. I never need to listen to their later stuff but I wouldn't look down upon anyone who wished to do so.

As many probably remember (I don't mind you; I was just three-and-a-half), the shocking murder of John Lennon at the end of 1980 resulted in a flooding of the market. Long term, this meant a gradual re-evaluation of The Beatles to the point where now the grandchildren of their original fans will tell you that they are their favourite group. But in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, it was Lennon's solo material that "benefited". "(Just Like) Starting Over" had actually been heading down the chart at the time of his death but it swiftly rebounded all the way back to the top, giving him a rare solo number one. In North America, it was the singles from the Double Fantasy album that took the lion's share of the chart space but in Britain "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" were both reissued. Then, "Woman", Double Fantasy's second single, came out and Lennon remained at the top. If the British had turned their backs on him over the previous decade since The Beatles' split, they were doing everything they could to make it up to him now.

This glut of Lennon product perhaps explains why tributes weren't over-abundant at first. George Harrison's loving "All Those Years Ago" wouldn't get dropped until the spring, by which point the grief had subsided. It gave the Quiet One a Top 20 hit but an earlier release arguably would've done far better. (Tom Ewing's not-entirely-positive memories of thia time suggest that there was even a bit of a backlash, at least from some corners of the music consumer community) Paul McCartney sang backing vocals on "All Those Years Ago" and wouldn't release his own salute to his old friend, "Here Today" on the Tug of War album, for another year. This left a gap and it was filled by a passable cover of "Jealous Guy" by Roxy Music.

Originally written by Lennon during The Beatles' meditation retreat in Rishikesh, India with the Maharishi in 1968, it was initially known as "Child of Nature". Living in an ashram did him a world of good and it sparked a prolific songwriting period after years of being lost in a sea of drugs. With too many songs already in the can and a similar but slightly superior McCartney number ("Mother Nature's Son") in contention, it was withdrawn from consideration for the so-called White Album. (He would revisit it a few months later during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions; heroin, Yoko Ono's miscarriage and legal troubles all conspired to curtail Lennon's songwriting in 1969, a time when many other older compositions — "Across the Universe", "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", "Polythene Pam", "Mean Mr. Mustard", even the subpar "What's the New Mary Jane?" — were dusted off for potential releases) The melody stayed with him and it would eventually be re-written as "Jealous Guy", one of the high spots on his Imagine album from 1971.

Even at a time when relatively few 45s would end up being taken off albums (at their creative peak, Roxy Music typically had just one), it's surprising that "Jealous Guy" was never a single in Lennon's lifetime. Phil Spector created as many bloated, overproduced numbers as he did masterpieces but there's no arguing with the gorgeous echo he conjured up to accompany Lennon's piano introduction. While the lyrics on "Child of Nature" (or "On the Road to Marrakesh", as it would also be known) never really worked, these are thoughtful and confessional, a clear result of the much more open words on the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album from 1970.

Roxy's cover opens with something that sounds like an effects pedal, a tool The Beatles used a lot of in 1965. There's no attempt to ape Spector's production and they mainly go for making it sound as much like a Roxy Music song as possible. Considering how poor their recent covers of both The Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" were, they don't make such a bad job of it this time 'round, even if it still comes nowhere close to the original. On the one hand, Ferry's vocal delivery is a little too nonchalant but I suppose that it's a better option than getting too melodramatic. As David Hepworth says, the whistling goes on and on and, in general, there's prolonged fadeout — a trick Roxy Music would repeat a year later for "More Than This" — which unnecessarily pushes the recording close to the five minute mark.

As tributes go, the decision to do "Jealous Guy" is curious to say the least. They had "Imagine", "In My Life", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Instant Karma" to choose from but they went with something from Lennon's dark heart. Not one of his songs of scorn like "Sexy Sadie", "How Do You Sleep" or "Steel and Glass" but one in which he atones for his own misdemeanours. Lennon is now seen as a bit of a problematic figure. His penchant for violence meant that many of the women in his life suffered under his fists. While some may wish to have him "cancelled", others would rather avoid having to address this thorny issue. But one person who did address it was Lennon himself. He struggled with his demons and used the medium of his songs to deal with them. He went to his grave having still not resolved all of them but at least he made the effort. When people say that we shouldn't judge similarly problematic types like Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson, it's because they "aren't here to defend themselves". The same goes for Lennon though he left a record of apologetics rather than silence. He may not be able to defend himself but at least we can try to understand.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Duran Duran: "Planet Earth"

"This isn't just dull," Hepworth complains, "it's an old kind of dull". Given how hugely successful Duran Duran would soon become (they're up for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time this year), you have to wonder if Heps was proud that he failed to see anything in them from the get go. The likes of The Human League and Spandau Ballet took their time having hits but the Duranies managed to hit the ground running, no matter what grouchy music reviewers thought. The New Romantics were as much old school glam rock devotees as they were punks and it's the spirit of '72 that gives "Planet Earth" its energy and charm. The "old kind of dull" is now all that skeletal post-punk and new wave that wouldn't go away; this is indeed a retread but one done with enough oomph that it hardly matters. Duran Duran would go on to do much better — as well as a whole lot worse — and this was a fine start to one of the better singles bands of their era.

Roxy Music: "Over You"

15 May 1980

"Stand aside. Here comes a perfectly executed pop record, reeking of class and presenting Roxy Music at their dazzling roxiest."

— Mrs Esmé Sprigg of Hounslow

What I previously said:

The Rox handed in their weakest album at this point but their creative nadir didn't have any effect on the public and, indeed, on critics. As one (possibly pseudonymous) Mrs Esmé Sprigg of Hounslow raved, "Stand aside. Here comes a perfectly executed pop record, reeking of class and presenting Roxy Music at their dazzling roxiest." If by that she means "by numbers and nowhere near "Virginia Plain" or any of their old stuff but probably the best they could do at the time though worryingly evident of a dullness they would never be able to shake" then, yes, I wholeheartedly agree.

This is the two hundredth entry on this blog! Yes, a milestone I am proud to have reached since I had the nagging suspicion that I had no hope of ever getting this far. I feared that I would abandon the project within a year or so; it's now three years and I'm still at it! It's nice to see that the subject of such a significant act and one that was once of importance to me. My Bowie years began to wane at the end of the nineties and Roxy Music seemed like the next logical step. My only regret was that I couldn't first have experienced them as a teenager just so I could have my mind blown by Brian Eno's audacious, ear-piercing VCS3 synth solo, the kind of moment that makes the young and impressionable.

Yet, I decided to try to approach this entry as fresh as possible. I have refrained from listening to any of Roxy Music's classic stuff of late so as to avoid any undue comparisons. This wasn't as tricky a task as it would have been a few years ago. While I still profess a great deal of admiration for the Rox, I've largely moved on from them and can judge their work in a much more critical light. Where I used to view their first four albums as an unbeatable quartet, I now consider all but third release Stranded to be a bit flawed. Each of their self-titled debut, Four Your Pleasure and Country Life start out brilliantly but they falter when flipped over. Siren is the one that fans of both early and latter Roxy tend to agree on but it's only with simpler items like "She Sells" and "Could It Happen to Me?" where it feels like they're up to something worthwhile; "Both Ends Burning" is a favourite of many but to these ears it's unlistenable. The more progessive they tried to be, the less it worked out for them. A curate's egg of an album, Siren would be the last time they even attempted to be challenging.

Roxy Music closed up shop in 1975 and they returned to a music scene that was very different from where they left it. Punk had come and gone, disco had peaked and there was a new generation of artists pushing the creative boundaries. Pop may not necessarily have needed them but fans were more willing than ever to embrace them. They had more hit singles after their hiatus than prior to it and two of their three number one albums came after their comeback.

Their return, however, was slow to get going with the public. "Trash" was the first single released from the Manifesto album and it peaked all the way down at the bottom of the top 40. Subsequent singles "Dance Away" and "Angel Eyes" turned the tide, giving them a pair of top 5 hits on the bounce. They swiftly returned a year later and the novelty of having them back still hadn't warn off. Yet, new album Flesh and Blood contained two cover versions, an early indication that Bryan Ferry was starting to blur the lines between the group he had as a day job and his sideline solo career. (The band had previously been all about originals while Ferry on his own relied heavily on the efforts of others) "In the Midnight Hour" and "Eight Miles High" are outstanding singles by Wilson Pickett and The Byrds respectively but Roxy Music's interpretations of them are both vile, in spite of doing their best to do something new with them. The rest of the album is all right but there's a sense that they came back too quickly with Ferry's well of new material rapidly drying up.

That said, he singles from Flesh and Blood are all very good, if not hitting the heights of "Virginia Plain" and "Mother of Pearl" then at least they moved gracefully into middle age with their dignity. I've previously written about how Ferry had become formulaic following Roxy's demise and it's around this point that he begins coming up with this formula. "Dance Away" had already set a precedent as a composition but he'd yet to get his bandmates on board. A year on and everything has been refined. There's a build up throughout the song as everything comes together; only Andy Mackay's oboe solo, which hints at some of Brian Eno's "treatments" from the group's early days, is daring enough to step outside of Ferry's vision. As 'Mrs. Esme Sprigg of Houslow' says, it then melds into one of Phil Manzanera's patented guitar licks which shifts them more towards the mid-seventies. Ferry's vocal resumes and we're right back in 1980: every Roxy Music period is accounted for without suggesting that they'd rather be in an earlier time. It then concludes over an extended instrumental passage which anticipates the very lengthy fade out on "More Than This" from two years later.

I have long been down on Roxy's final stage and it still isn't my favourite period but they could've done a lot worse than "Over You" (and, to be sure, they did). Sure, their best days were behind them but they still had a contribution to make. If only more bands finished up as strong as a depleted Roxy Music on fumes.

~~~~~

Also of some cop

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: "Messages"

Mrs. Sprigg calls Wirral's finest 'OMITD' which isn't as catchy as 'OMD' but at least she's acknowledging prepositions and articles. Their earlier singles "Electricity" and "Red Flame/White Light" suggested there was promise and "Messages" is where they begin to show it. The Kraftwerk influence is in evidence, as is their debt to post-punk but their individual sound is emerging just as Roxy Music's was fading away. An excellent first hit single though it has since been overshadowed by more introspective numbers like "Enola Gay", "Souvenir" and all those bloody songs of their's about Joan of Arc. It does have something of the early Vince Clark-era Depeche Mode to it but the pop sound of 'OMITD' has its virtues just as "Just Can't Get Enough" has. The first of many classics to make up one of the stronger greatest hits collections of the decade.

B.E.F. presents Sandie Shaw: "Anyone Who Had a Heart"

1 April 1982

"The old Cilla Black number is beautifully delivered by fellow '60s chanteuse Ms Shaw, who's been dragged out of retirement and given a pair of shoes specially for the occasion."
— Dave Rimmer

In a recent episode of Slate's Hit Parade podcast, host Chris Molanphy discussed the 'featuring' credit in pop music, something which has grown increasingly common in recent years. While fascinating, I was expecting him to go into more detail about other forms of artist credits. And/& denotes a certain equality and even provides hope that their collaboration may be more than a one off. 'With' has an imbalance to it, with the headline act having a distinct prominence over the other. 'Featuring', by contrast, gives the guest the upper hand, putting the spotlight on a vocalist — or, in the case of the brilliant "Big Fun" by Inner City featuring Kevin Saunderson, a producer/mixer type — who wouldn't normally be getting such credit.

Those are the most common credits but there are others. One of my favourite singles of the early nineties was "In Yer Face" by 808 State who also enjoyed further Top 10 success with "The Only Rhyme That Bites", credited to M.C. Tunes vs. 808 State. While there were elements to enjoy there — Tunes' shifting between lightning-fast raps and audible pauses to gasp for breath, State's lush, spy-thriller backdrop — I hated the contrived nature of the credit. The collaborating parties weren't in competition against each other and even if there was a considerable amount of tension to merit such a combative description it doesn't mean a thing to me. (Happily, 'vs.' never took off to any great extent, its most prominent placing in "It's Like That" in which Run D.M.C. took on Jason Nivens) Though not strictly speaking a credit per se, albums with titles such as Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson and Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster gave off a mythologising vibe that jazz musicians would show up unannounced at a studio and start playing with whoever happened to be there at the time. And, finally, we come to the billing for the present offering, "Anyone Who Had a Heart" from B.E.F. presents Sandie Shaw. Here sophistication is the name of the game. Good taste brigadiers Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh — formerly of a pre-fame Human League and but by '82 they were heading the British Electric Foundation production team and in charge of Heaven 17 — have used their good graces to coax Ms Shaw back into the spotlight and here she is with a very special performance. The fact that they gave their album the title of Music of Quality and Distinction says all you need to know. 

"Anyone Who Had a Heart" was originally a hit in the mid sixties for Dionne Warwick in North America and Cilla Black in the UK and Europe, an Anglo-American divide which was common at the time for Burt Bachrach and Hal David compositions. Shaw would have a Bachrach-David hit of her own with "Always Something There to Remind Me" (also recorded by Warwick) and here she makes up for never having had the chance to take her own crack at AWHAH. The fact that Warwick and Black were both in their early twenties at the time gives their readings a naivety and vulnerability; being by this point in her mid-thirties, Shaw's is tougher and more defiant, even if she toes ever so closely towards power ballad territory. Dave Rimmer expresses surprise that the Ware-Marsh "electrickery" is so sparse (though I can't hear it at all); perhaps they felt it best to stick with the basics of sixties pop. It shimmers, as all classic Bachrach and David deserves to.

As a potential hit this went absolutely nowhere and the Sandie Shaw revival was still a couple years away. But as cross-generational collaborations go, B.E.F. proved to be ahead of the game. Eighties synth deconstructionists Art of Noise had yet to register and it's easy to imagine Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs using this template as the basis for Saint Etienne a decade later — not to mention all the incessant irony-laced modern pop which produced William Shatner, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones comebacks in cahoots with the glitterati of studio techno alchemy. A lot to answer for then.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Roxy Music: "More Than This"

Bryan Ferry could very well have been singing about his band and signaling to his by-now hefty audience that they were at the road. (Creatively speaking they'd long since passed their prime once they had 1974's Country House in the can but many groups have finished on a far less distinguished note than the Roxies did in '82) Rimmer calls it a weepy and he's not wrong. Judged on its own terms, "More Than This" is gorgeous, floating and dreamy — its only real let down being my own bitterness that it's far more popular than something like "Mother of Pearl". I really ought to get over it.

Introduction: Audibly Edible Items

"The Leggy Blonde One turns in her usual Sweet Little Sixteen vocal," cooed reviewer Cliff White, "the arrangement and production are a treat for the feet." He continues, "the group is cooking on regulo 9", and, just to finish up on a slightly less complimentary note, "the song is not just throwaway junk." Blondie's "Heart of Glass" was huge and everyone — well, at least one critic at any rate — saw it coming. White's Smash Hits review cites it as the one most likely to thrive on the charts but nowhere does he state that it's his personal favourite.

"Going Underground", "Oliver's Army", "Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Ashes to Ashes", "Kids in America", "Geno", "Making Plans for Nigel", "Tainted Love", "Cars", "Video Killed the Radio Star", "Ghostown", "Don't You Want Me": late-seventies/early-eighties British pop is loaded with remarkable singles. Virtually all were massive hits at the time — sorry Nigel, obviously hitting the top of the charts wasn't part of the plans they were making — and they're all well-remembered to this day, even by listeners who weren't around at the time to enjoy them. Some were part of the zeitgeist of Thatcherism and strikes and an all around sense of malaise of the time. And like "Heart of Glass" not one was a Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight.

Of course the SOTF spot didn't exist in these early days of ver Hits so I've had to go over Brian McCloskey's indispensable Smash Hits archive to spot any early examples. Some, like "Heart of Glass" as well as "Going Underground", were highly acclaimed but weren't specifically cited as the best of the bunch. It's only once we get midway through 1981 that the SOTF starts to become a thing and that's where we'll be kicking things off in the next post. For now I could only find seven singles that reviewers picked out as "single of the week" (sic.) or "most essential swap for a quid note this fortnight" or — my personal favourite — "arguably the most audibly edible item on the menu this sitting".

Date	"Artist"	Single
26 July 1979	Glass Torpedoes	"Someone Different"
20 September 1979	The Freeze	In Colour EP
21 February 1980	The Gibson Brothers	"Cuba"
15 May 1980	Roxy Music	"Over You"
4 September 1980	XTC	"Generals & Majors"
18 September 1980	The Teardrop Explodes	"When I Dream"
16 October 1980	XTC	"Towers of London"

Glass Torpedoes: "Someone Different"

The spidery riffs and a hard-plonking beat make this an easy to like if kind of underwhelming first SOTF. The ghostly, expressionless vocals and minimalist atmospherics put it very much in the context of late-seventies new wave. It seems they were very young at the time — the fact that they were on a label known as Teen Beat sort of gives away their age — and, thus, were a promising bunch. Or so it seemed.

The Freeze: In Colour EP

Guest reviewer Andy Partridge of XTC — a rather big part of this maiden blog post I'm happy to report — thumbed his nose at virtually every single on offer in this issue, kind of liked "Video Killed the Radio Star" but still wasn't convinced it could be a hit (then again, he hardly possessed cunning smash single instincts, did he?) and then proceeded to give Scots indie noisesters The Freeze his stamp of approval. I can't see why. Whereas Glass Torpedoes must have seemed like an act that people in the know wanted to keep an eye on, The Freeze are just tired, churning out the same unconvincing punk rock that was already a cliché by this point. Clearly some had yet to move on — and that goes for reviewer and reviewed.

The Gibson Brothers: "Cuba"

At last, a hit! The only selection here without a trace of indie cred, this has elements of the suave, literary side of disco perpetuated by the likes of Chic and Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. The catchy, discophied Latin rhythms also fit in well alongside reggae and ska. If only the vocal wasn't quite so earnest and pleading. Oh well.

Roxy Music: "Over You"

The Rox handed in their weakest album at this point but their creative nadir didn't have any effect on the public and, indeed, on critics. As one (possibly pseudonymous) Mrs Esmé Sprigg of Hounslow raved, "Stand aside. Here comes a perfectly executed pop record, reeking of class and presenting Roxy Music at their dazzling roxiest." If by that she means "by numbers and nowhere near "Virginia Plain" or any of their old stuff but probably the best they could do at the time though worryingly evident of a dullness they would never be able to shake" then, yes, I wholeheartedly agree.

XTC: "Generals & Majors"

Old Farters Parters may not have had great taste in records but he and his chums knew a little about pumping out ace stuff of their own. Seemingly as much attracted to this due to its value-for-money two record set as for its infectious synthesized whistling and all-around jauntiness, it's interesting to note just how much emphasis reviewers placed on B-sides and extra tracks in making their evaluations. It's commendable of them to do so but in the case of "Generals & Majors" they needn't have bothered as it fizzles with energy and is a perfect launch pad for their sublime album Black Sea — and a taster for what a live powerhouse they were supposed to be at the time.

The Teardrop Explodes: "When I Dream"
Reviewer Mark Ellen described this as "bursting its sides with lightness, depth and ingenuity" and it's not difficult to see why. Julian Cope and his old Teardrop mates leave nothing on the table for this, even if it does go on a bit long — although there could be a single edit that I'm not aware of, I used the version that closes the kind-of-dated-but-also-kind-of-timeless Kilimanjaro. A cracker.

XTC: "Towers of London"

UK music critics at the time were crazy about Swindon's XTC — just as North American hacks were similarly gaga for them by the end of the eighties — as this second proto-SOTF in just six weeks indicates (perhaps it was also to make amends for spurning "Making Plans for Nigel" a year earlier). Spinning a yarn over London's growth and the poor, wretched individuals who built it, the song clangs of hammered iron, which hints at what they'd eventually do on their patchy '84 album The Big Express. Clearly XTC were on course to become a preeminent eighties band. What could possibly go wrong?

And there you have it. Seven proto-Singles of the Fortnight to get this thing going. I'll be back next week with something rather less well known than Blondie, although at the same time they probably aren't quite in the realm of the obscure as Glass Torpedoes and The Freeze. They're in that pop music grey area.