47. Sandie Shaw - Hand In Glove (Rough Trade)

 

One week at number one on w/e 28th April 1984

Arthur Crabtree: Hey. I say, is that that bird?

Billy Fisher: What bird?

Arthur Crabtree: There. Getting a lift in that lorry. That bird that wanted you to go to France with her.

Billy Fisher: Do you mean Liz?

Arthur Crabtree: Yes, where's she been this time, then?

Billy Fisher: I don't know. She goes where she feels like. She's crazy. She just enjoys herself.

Billy Liar.

There’s an idealistic, euphoric vision of the sixties I carry around with me in my head (having never lived through it myself) which clashes with the lived reality of others – my parents, for example. My Dad once told me that for him the sixties didn’t result in any real change. He still had the same job and the same lifestyle, and his only minor brush with the era’s glamour was when a friendly post-fame Peter Sarstedt mistakenly walked into the wrong South London boozer. Carnaby Street styles and fame tended not to reach Peckham. They disintegrated on impact with the South Circular Road.

Then there’s the vision I have of the famous people who littered the era, some of which is probably highly accurate (I’ve devoured enough Beatles biographies to at least have a fair idea of what went on) some driven by fantasy. Sandie Shaw, for example. She was fascinating to me because she was from Dagenham, a mere few miles from where I grew up, and my best friend’s mother was mates with her as a child, a fact she always revealed very cautiously and defensively. Of all the famous female British singers in the sixties, Sandie seemed the most local and the most relatable, but also the most flexible and shapeshifting. Who was she? Seemingly, whatever I wanted her to be.

In early promotional photographs, she looks as if she’s won the football pools and is posing for a Littlewoods advertising campaign. She’s pretty and breezy, all delighted smiles, light eyes and freckles. This fits the narrative. She was a Ford factory worker at the Dagenham plant who won second prize in a local talent contest, earning her a slot at a charity event in London where she was spotted by Adam Faith. He put in a word for her with his manager, and as such, Shaw is an early example of the “working class girl unexpectedly lands showbiz opportunity” sixties fairytale. There would be more of those (and then eventually, as the decades drifted forward, less again).

Earning numerous massive hits, including two number ones, her image moved gracefully forward with the sixties. Almost in sympathy with her aspirations (or her manager’s) to be a pan-European star, she recorded hit singles in French, German, Spanish and Italian, and slowly the image changed to that of a glamorous professional, a Saturday teatime ratings puller, a cosmopolitan singer who could be either playful, insouciant or sophisticated when the song or occasion demanded it.

Perhaps inevitably, her continental appeal led to her representing Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1967, resulting in a song she never liked (“Puppet On A String”) being voted as the public’s choice for her to perform. She won, but blamed the subsequent steady decline of her career on the kitsch, tacky image the tune and event gave her (though she was quite happy to sell anniversary souvenir whisky glasses of the victory not long ago, one of which I bought and still happily drink from). “Puppet” is an oompah heavy, knees-up piece of simple pub-friendly, tankards aloft pop dropped into an era of colour and experimentation, closer to The Scaffold than "Strawberry Fields Forever". It worked perfectly in the context of Eurovision and was extremely popular with the British public, who gave her a third number one, but in terms of fashion and the onward movement of popular culture in the late sixties, it couldn’t have seemed more dated; a bubbly bit of Parnes-era pop parachuted into the wrong end of the decade.

Whether it directly caused the decline of her career is a point I’d probably contest. The last few singles leading up to “Puppet” were comparatively weak sellers (the one prior to it, “I Don’t Need Anything”, only just charted at number 50) and I’d actually argue the Eurovision win relaunched her in the UK for a brief period as showbiz royalty, our Queen of Light Entertainment. Despite the temporary lift it gave her, though, it sat awkwardly with who she truly wanted to be, which was pushing the boundaries of pop along with many of her fellow stars.

An album was released in 1969, “Reviewing The Situation”, where she attempted to reposition herself as a progressive artist and correct the public’s view. It’s damn good, and could have been her “Surf’s Up”, but sold naff-all. From that point forward, she would score no further hit singles, living out her showbiz life through occasional appearances on light entertainment shows, performing old standards and even music hall ditties with a slight glimmer of reluctance in her eyes. She attempted to retrain as an actress – something you can easily imagine her succeeding at – but her husband Jeff Banks’ bankruptcy forced her back towards familiar territory to keep the household finances afloat.

The eighties started to be gentler to her. Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh of Human League/ Heaven 17 produced her version of “Anyone Who Had A Heart” in 1982 which failed to chart, but brought her back into the public eye as a credible artist. A none-more-eighties electro-Buddhist single “Wish I Was” followed, and in the background, long-term fans Morrissey and Marr were desperate to earn her attention and get her to cover one of their songs.

There was reluctance on Shaw’s part initially, who seemed untrusting of the group’s slightly unusual angle on the world. This was exacerbated by the tabloid outrage caused by the song “Suffer Little Children” about the Moors Murderers, which nearly caused her to completely withdraw from any associations with them. Eventually, however, she was talked around to the idea of recording with them, and this cover of The Smiths underperforming debut single “Hand In Glove” is the end result.

The first thing that strikes you is how effortlessly Shaw has shapeshifted yet again. The Smiths lyrics weren’t typical of the eighties or any era before them, but she adapts, instantly understanding what to do with her vocals and how to both gel with the strange angles around her and also project her own personality on to them. She barks defiantly, almost in block capitals, “The good life is out there somewhere!” She copies Morrissey’s hollers and howls, but with confidence rather than despair – they seem to suggest “This is who I am” as opposed to “Oh God, so this is who I am”.

46. Depeche Mode - People Are People (Mute)

 

Two weeks at number one from w/e 14th April 1984

Depeche Mode’s first single of 1984 begins with what sounds like an explosion in a crockery cupboard, followed by five swings into a digital punchbag, before looping back again. It feels loud, up-to-the-minute - those samples as brutal as anything Art of Noise were doing that year – then thuds its last, entering into a glistening electronic harp effect, before Gahan sings the big reveal:

“People are People so why should it be/ you and I should get along so aw-fully?”

Oh. You immediately get the impression Martin Gore thought he had created a grand slogan here, one which could proudly open the song, but it’s an unfortunate example of him falling back into his naive teenage ways (despite no longer being a teen). On “See You” he pronounced that “I think that you’ll find people are basically the same”, and “People Are People” returns to this point. Are we not, he seems to ask, fundamentally driven by the same desires, the same emotions, the same need to commune in pleasancy?

As the song unfolds it at least expands on this point a bit more gracefully. If “We’re different colours/ and we’re different creeds/ and different people have different needs” sounds a little bit too close to David Brent for comfort, the sneer of “I’m relying on your common decency/ So far it hasn’t surfaced/ but I’m sure it exists/ it just take a while to travel/ from your head to your fists” is at least a smart putdown, albeit one which probably would cut no ice with the person shouting aggressively in a pub car park.

The song’s strengths lie away from its well-meaning but wide-eyed lyrics. “People Are People” sees Depeche progressing from the gentile industrialisms of “Construction Time Again”, where at certain moments it felt as if they were tinkling on metallic surfaces gracefully, into something harder, more aggressive. The compressed thwacks and crashes are both akin to the harder edges of the emerging industrial scene and strangely dancefloor friendly, and the arrangement packs everything it can into it; vocal breakdowns, Art of Noise styled bass vocal samples, despairing symphonic synth lines and crashing orchestral stabs.

It is, in short, as subtle as a brick in the face but complicated all the same, which is one reason the lyrics can sometimes be ignored or dismissed. If you’re going to place them within the context of an arrangement which is essentially one melodic exclamation mark after another, you can just about get away with viewing society through a panicked, simplistic and over-dramatic lens. Taken by itself, it’s an enjoyable cacophony, an overloaded piece of pop whose only real attempts at subtlety are Martin Gore singing “I can’t understand what makes a man hate another man” like a wounded child in a playground. Even that, it has to be said, isn’t exactly understated. 

Walter Mitty's Little White Lies - Brave New England (Hip Records)

One of my biggest reasons for abandoning my old blog "Left and to the Back" was the fact that focusing on genuine obscurities - singles which hadn't been made available online before in any form - was becoming a tougher and tougher mission. We live in an age where even if Spotify hasn't hoovered up the goodies, some brat on YouTube will inevitably have uploaded something for everyone's pleasure, and even if they've failed, Cherry Red are there in the sidelines waiting for something surprising for their next "150 New Wave Obscurities" box set.

I honestly didn't expect to begin this blog, focusing on indie chart entries which almost all received some airplay and press coverage, and unearth anything which might have been worthy of a place on the old site. There it was in the 1981 Indie Charts, though - "Brave New England", which despite eventually peaking at number 17 and even being reissued by RCA later that year, had left no audio trace behind online.

As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is a fool that repeateth his folly, and inevitably I ended up buying a second hand copy of this purely to satisfy my curiosity about who the group were and what it sounded like, and also to upload it online for the benefit of you good people.

It looks as if Walter Mitty's Little White Lies - henceforth known as WMLWL - were a Liverpool based act with Gary McGuinness on guitar and vocals, Jon Rupert Holt on keyboards, Colin Walker on guitar, Paul Williams on bass, Colin Ventre on drums and Gerry Garland on saxophone. 

"Brave New England" is very much the kind of New Wave single which feels as if it has some "pub rock heritage" about it, being closer in style and feel to Tom Robinson than XTC or Talking Heads. There are no hard angles or unexpected discords; instead, the group deliver a fluent pop/rock song whose cult level sales combined with radio appeal must have made the band catnip to RCA, who swept in to reissue it later on in 1981.

Copies of the RCA single seem even more scarce than the original on the tiny Hip Records, though, and the group weren't given any other chances to record for a major (or indeed any other) label. This is what we've been left with, and while it's not clear to me what promotion it received to manage a mid-placed indie chart position - I can find no signs that the music press reviewed it first time out or John Peel played it, for example - enough people cared to get it there. 

45. Crass - You're Already Dead (Crass)

Two weeks at number one from w/e 31st March 1984

“You’re Already Dead” isn’t Crass’s final single – that would be “Ten Notes On A Summer’s Day”, released in 1986 – but it was the last one to be released while the group were a going concern. They entered 1984 in a state of disarray, burdened by heavy legal costs from the obscene publications court case around their album “Penis Envy”. They were also under the microscope of the tabloid press and the government thanks to their anti-Thatcher single “Mother of a Thousand Dead”, and their creation of a doctored recording faking a conversation between The Iron Lady and Reagan.

It’s impossible to speak on their behalf, but Crass were possibly beginning to feel the downsides of being a scratchy anarcho-collective living off their wits and little other external support. They may have operated successively away from the music business, taking matters into their own hands and surviving, but the more their reputation grew, the more interest they attracted from the mainstream media as well as the music press.

Music journalists in the eighties were, for all their critical savagery and their belief that they could make or break careers, pussycats compared to the tabloid press. They adored rebellion, and most were also niche publications, talking to an audience who understood their language, had sympathies with the idea of rock music being an agency for change, and generally didn’t get too upset about punk groups with hard-hitting viewpoints provided they weren’t fascistic.

Newspapers, on the other hand, were widely read, still thought of punk rock as being a possible threat to society, and loved the idea of singling out smart-arsed angry young men and women for a public flogging. That’s essentially where the Sex Pistols ended up in the late seventies, and in the case of Crass, typewriters in Fleet Street were beginning to become damaged by hacks bashing out feverish stories about these disgusting lawless vagabonds. In a flash of total absurdity, News Of The World were even moved to comment that the title of Crass’s album “Penis Envy” was “too obscene to print”. You hardly need me to highlight the stupidity, hypocrisy and irony in those four words.

It’s tempting to think that experienced warhorses such as Crass were able to roar with laughter, let these situations pass and even enjoy being provocateurs spreading their ideas to the broadest possible audience. I suspect, though, that they quickly found out that readers of tabloid newspapers are strangely unforgiving types, willing to apply pressure to the families of people featured in their stories as well as the individuals themselves. Penny Rimbaud commented in the liner notes for their compilation LP “Best Before 1984”:

“We found ourselves in a strange and frightening arena. We had wanted to make our views public, had wanted to share them with like minded people, but now those views were being analysed by those dark shadows who inhabited the corridors of power… We had gained a form of political power, found a voice, were being treated with a slightly awed respect, but was that really what we wanted? Was that what we had set out to achieve all those years ago?”

On top of that, the group were beginning to disagree with each other about some of their core political principles, including whether or not pacifism was a viable position. Pressure came from within and without, and the central supporting beam could not hold the weight.

“You’re Already Dead” almost seems like an audio souvenir of these contradictions and struggles. If The Jam had “Beat Surrender” as a farewell single where Weller set out his reasons for throwing in the towel – a very straightforward and principled address to The Kids – the very sound of YAD feels like a group falling into pieces in front of you in real time. It starts immediately with a cacophony of out-of-time musicians and screaming and swearing, before slowly finding its order and beginning properly as something akin to a sleepy, creepy anarcho-punk reading of the “Are You Being Served?” theme, as we’re told “Ask no questions, hear no lies/ And you'll be living in the comfort of a fool's paradise.”

44. The Smiths – What Difference Does It Make? (Rough Trade)

9 weeks at number one from w/e 28th January 1984

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, despite their enviable string of hits, have not been given much respect in the UK. Besides belonging to the cohort of groups with bloody silly names which sound gimmicky rather than mysterious, they were fronted by ex-copper Dee; he may have been the first policeman on the scene of the car crash which killed Eddie Cochran, but other than that didn’t really ooze rock and roll. In every single one of his video performances online, he gives the impression of being the steady pop professional, delivering the songs of others with gentle, almost suppressed stage flourishes (he even cracks a whip in “Legend of Xanadu” like he’s trying to flick the residue of some treacle off his hand.)

The songwriters behind the group, Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard, were a different matter. Both were gay men who had worked with Joe Meek and penned songs which occasionally nudged and winked towards homosexual society for anyone paying enough attention. The Honeycombs 1964 flop single “Eyes” is a painful, agonised track about finding love in secret, shadowy places away from society’s gaze, combined with disordered pinging guitars and almost proto-post-punk pattering drum patterns. Meek adored it, the public begged to differ. Then, in 1968, they foisted the ominously titled “Last Night In Soho” on to DDBMT.

In typical fashion, “Last Night In Soho” isn’t explicit, but over a keening, grumbling cello, dramatic church organ flourishes and almost hysterical orchestrations, Dave Dee protests that he thought “I’d find strength to make me go straight”, “I’m just not worthy of you”, and “I’ve never told you of some things I’ve done I’m so ashamed of”. These, however, are coupled with the notion that something else happened in Soho that night which was criminal but not sexual; references are also made to a mysterious “little job” some lads in Soho have offered to Dave Dee, which he should take if he doesn’t want “aggravation” – but anyone waiting for the song’s conclusion to tell them exactly what the protagonist has done would be wasting their time. It is locked up tight as a mystery, a riddle wrapped in a lot of hand-wringing drama, though even in 1968 you have to wonder how anyone could have concluded that perhaps he held up a Post Office. The camp hysteria gives the game away by itself.

I’ve no idea if Morrissey was thinking about “Last Night In Soho” when he penned the lyrics for “What Difference Does It Make”. I somehow doubt it, but given his eclectic tastes in sixties pop, it’s possible. Whatever the facts, it falls back on the same narrative devices, teasing and riddling the listener, just less hysterically. It addresses an unknown other and begins on the line “All men have secrets and here is mine/ so let it be known” before failing to actually reveal the issue to the listener, only telling us the person the song is directed at, whom Morrissey would “leap in front of a flying bullet” for (why was he always so obsessed with sacrifice?) is now disgusted by his revelations. This is seen to be foolish - “Your prejudice won’t keep you warm tonight”, he warns. This feels, shall we say, similar, but there’s a different tone here. There is no begging for forgiveness, no shame; whatever will be will be.

Once again though, some plausible deniability creeps in and the idea is aired that Morrissey’s crime might actually be an arrestable offence by 1984’s standards – “I stole and lied and why?/ Because you asked me to!” The idea that this is just about something darkly illegal is also hinted at by the record’s sleeve, showing actor Terence Stamp cheerily holding up a chloroform patch; the still in question is from the film “The Collector”, in which Stamp’s character stalks and kidnaps an attractive female art student. There’s an alternative lyrical reading here which is altogether nastier than someone simply coming out of the closet, by the standards of any age.