music

[4] The Staple Singers, ‘I’ll Take You There’

The Staple Singers

“Let’s talk about sex…” Actually, let’s not. Let’s try and leave that for the best part of a decade, if we can. Instead, let’s turn to more spiritual matters with The Staple Singers’ largely lyric-free shout-out to – what? Heaven? Mavis is a great testifier, delivering a message of hope and faith in as few words as possible. Apparently, the Staples’ church booted them out for going all R&B on them – here lifting the bassline from the Harry J Allstars’ ‘The Liquidator’ – but while this may be the devil’s music, it’s the Lord’s prayer.

Now I think this is a pretty cool idea, a dad making records with his daughters. I put the plan to Junior, who shoots it out of the water: “I don’t know how to make records.” Reckon I could give it a whirl, through found-knowledge from reading, I dunno, Revolution In The Head and watching documentaries. I hear you can do it all on new-fangled laptops these days, anyway. While I dream, Junior dances.

[5] Mott The Hoople, ‘All The Young Dudes’

Mott The Hoople

Anyone would think David Bowie was some sort of big noise in 1972, poking his otherworldly beak into all areas of the pop scene, spreading his message of galactic destruction. And of course he was. He was freaking the kids out with his proto-Kiki Dee hairstyle and doomy fantasies of Earth’s imminent demise, from ‘Five Years’ to ‘All The Young Dudes’. Yes, ‘All The Young Dudes’ – it might feel like the coolest record on the block, a rallying call for hip youth, but it’s really more baloney about dudes bearing bad planetary tidings. Downer.

We shouldn’t ignore Mott The Hoople, although let’s face it, they lucked out here with a giveaway that Bowie himself could have taken to No.1. Not No.3. Ian Hunter knows he’s on a winner with a sterling Dame impression and generally the Hoople carry off the swagger with skill, but you’d have to be some dog to muck it up.

Junior thinks she’s heard it before. Maybe she has or maybe, being one of those young dudes, she’s carried the message over from ‘Starman’. Or something. I fail to pursue the matter, because she’s soon breathlessly telling me all about Jurassic Park and Laura Dern putting her hand in some dinosaur poo.

[6] The Carpenters, ‘Goodbye To Love’

The Carpenters

The Guilty Pleasures movement is a flawed model; it requires you to be ashamed to like pop music, to sneer at any artist who favours melody over image or ludicrous image over workaday melody, to disparage anything that doesn’t satisfy the consensus of stifled peers. It’s no pleasure, it’s the tiniest loosening of your credibility belt. To take only furtive enjoyment from the music of ELO, Toto, Hot Chocolate, Wham!, Dolly Parton, Chicago, New Radicals, 10cc, even Take That – purveyors of open, carefree pop or heart-on-sleeve romantic rock patronised by GP playlists and compilations – is to find no joy at all. It only belittles. Hate all that stuff by all means, turn your nose up at Girls Aloud, but for pity’s sake don’t slope off home and play it behind closed doors. Love what you love, abhor what you abhor. Send an SAE for more sermons.

The Carpenters are the perfect candidate for backhanded veneration, with their hook-laden songs, smooth arrangements, celebrations of love, that old brother-sister closeness and cutesy presentation. That’s why I mentioned it. Take them as a novelty and you’re ignoring the power of glorious tunes like ‘Goodbye To Love’ which sounds like the 70s in miniature. Well, there’s no punk here, granted, but the soaring fuzz guitar solo against massed voices certainly points rock in one direction – to Glee, probably; to the elevation of the power ballad to pop-rock’s purest art form. Who’s arguing?

Junior? No, not arguing, even though she thinks that fuzzy solo sounds like a trumpet. She adds her “ahhh” to the heavenly chorus and is intrigued by the possibility of a family band, asking two-year-old sister, “Would you like us to make records together?” “No.”

[7] David Bowie, ‘Starman’

David Bowie

Speaking of Bowie snogging Mick Ronson, here’s Bowie snogging Mick Ronson. To the plotline of a “Starman waiting in the sky,” Junior says, “I’m scared.” The rest of us know she should be boogieing, but instead there’s a look of wide-eyed wonder (I think it’s wonder) as I explain how great Bowie is – or was – and wheel out my best Bard Of Bromley shaky croon.

Contemporary reports suggest this was a last-ditch addition to the Ziggy Stardust album, but it feels older, more organic, closer in intimate pitch to Hunky Dory or The Man Who Sold The World. Perhaps its delicacy is timeless, although – come on – Dave would never be tethered to any point in history. He’s a chronological chameleon, the Dame of Dates, a Time Lawd.

[8] Roxy Music, ‘Virginia Plain’

Roxy Music

They say there was playground uproar when Bowie appeared on Top Of The Pops, singing ‘Starman’ and snogging Mick Ronson. And obviously our nation was cramped with confusion at Boy George a decade later. So how did the public react when presented with preening peacock Bryan Ferry? Without bothering to research it, we can only guess: “Why’s Mike Yarwood doing Prince Charles doing Liberace?”

Obviously they all looked so staggering on TOTP that I’m thinking of dressing like Phil Manzanera right now, but the music was something else too. A runaway stallion of glam wrecks’n’effects, with a tune you can never quite nail because it’s always one second in the future.

Junior rolled the words “Roxy Music” around her tongue, trying them for size, then asked if she could dance. The dance involved a stiff-backed march around the room. You can just see those boys in the military, can’t you?

[9] Bill Withers, ‘Lean On Me’

Bill Withers

As regular readers of Jukebox Junior know, I often find myself wondering, “What would Green Gartside say?” Today, I was listening to ‘Lean On Me’ and noticing how Withers’ vocal melody slavishly follows each note of the verse, and it reminded me of the Scritti Politti brainiac’s criticism of Arcade Fire: “The melodies stick too closely to the chord changes.”* Now, I know this isn’t exactly the same, but, well, what would Green Gartside say, I wonder?

I find those verses tentative, as if Bill’s shy about offering his shoulder. It’s sweet. This could get bogged down in sentimentality, but over all ‘Lean On Me’ feels sincere. It’s anthemic without showiness.

What would Junior say? “10 out of 10. And 10 out of 10 for the Cheerios too.” She’s seen too many Come Dine With Mes.

*From this Guardian piece.

[10] Gladys Knight & The Pips, ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’

Gladys Knight And The Pips

“So, what do you think is good about this song?” “It’s slow.” And I reckon Junior’s found the essence there – Gladys lingers with seductive pain, drawing out every word. She’s never rushed, she cherishes those a cappella high points, teetering over the edge of each verse before being joined by sparse, warm instrumentation; the subtle tinkling of Rhodes piano underscoring her fragility.

Few singers match Knight for emotional heft while she manages to marry cracked and lush tones, forming a stark contrast with Kris Kristofferson’s almost jaunty original. When Kristofferson sings, “It’s sad to be alone,” he’s winking, persuading his paramour with a practised line. When Knight wails it, she invests it with an age of hurt. Right now, I’m happy Junior only hears “slow”.

[11] T. Rex, ‘Metal Guru’

T. Rex

What was No.1 when you were born? And does it say the smallest thing to you about your life? When you found out, presumably many years later, did you warm to the song, did it all make sense? Junior had that godawful Elton meets 2Pac’s corpse mawkfest. Let’s hope she’s never exposed to it again.

We talked about it here, but thankfully any memories were drowned by ‘Metal Guru”s eerie wail and glam vamp, a Wall of Sleazy Sound that seemed to unsettle Junior for a moment. It does disorientate. It’s a technicolour yawn made, er, audio. Although there’s no ‘Get It On’ funky steel to it, its banshee chug just edges out the slinky ‘Children Of The Revolution’ and kooky ‘Telegram Sam’ in the sprint for best T. Rex single of the year.

But I’m biased.

[12] Curtis Mayfield, ‘Superfly’

Curtis Mayfield

You have to hand it to ‘Superfly’: it walks the walk. Few records – even amid the heap of dapper soul from the early 70s – exhibit this sort of swagger, and a still more exclusive number do it while weighed down by a title of such expectation. ‘Superfly’ is superfly. It doesn’t so much start as lean in. Curtis, steel within silk, eases over brass stabs and wakka-wakka guitar, apparently putting in the graft of a Dimitar Berbatov, while we pop our earphones on and pimp-roll through Charing Cross station.

Obviously, Junior thinks Mayfield’s bigging up an insect with awesome powers – but she catches the real sense; the sense that makes swing her hips and put up the customary two thumbs in honour of this cat of the slum.

[13] Faces, ‘Stay With Me’

Faces

There’s never been a satisfactory rule about singles which pop up over the festive period. Look at The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ – No.1 for five weeks over December 1981/January 1982, shifter of a million-plus copies, and where is it in the Official Top 40 Bestselling Singles of 1981? Nowhere. OK, where is it in the Official Top 40 Bestselling Singles of 1982? Er, nowhere. It certainly moved enough units in either year to make an appearance, even if not at the very top, so it must’ve fallen foul of arbitrary cut-off dates.

So here’s our rule in action: ‘Stay With Me’ entered the charts in December 1971, but peaked in January. It goes in the year of its peak. Not that that helps The Human League. Moving on…

Junior likes the guitars, and who wouldn’t? They’re so louche. At about the age of 19, I decided this kind of vagabond rock was the pinnacle of human achievement in the field of cool, and started wearing vintage threads and growing hair and beard like The Black Crowes at almost the exact moment The Black Crowes decided this kind of vagabond rock was the pinnacle of human achievement in the field of cool. Synergy, man.

Today we talked about Rod Stewart’s generosity in keeping his band alive when he was doing nicely enough by himself – but he always was one for gangs – and Junior was pleased to hear that Little Nanny remains his biggest fan. I’m pretty keen on Rod myself. Like Kelly Jones, I’d sacrifice all artistic integrity to have a third of his ruined voice. Anyway, thumb-rating is the theme of this week, and the Faces got two, aloft.