TO WHERE I AM NOW

Have you heard Bob Dylan’s new ‘single’ yet? It’s called Murder Most Foul. It revolves around the assassination of President Kennedy and it’s 17 minutes long. But is it really a single, are there singles anymore? It’s just a song, a new song, the first he’s released since 2012, eight years. Why? Has he had enough of writing songs? This isn’t a complaint, I’m just wondering what happens? Of course a Dylan album every two years with amazing songs and fantastic lyrics would be nice – interestingly between 2012 and his death in 2016, Leonard Cohen did actually release an album every 2 years. Neil Young has released nine albums since 2012, one was recorded in 1976, but I suppose it’s a different attitude to the art. They talk about Dylan’s never-ending tour, maybe that’s it, he’s just always on the road (not now though). All the articles I’ve seen about the new song are focussed on how radio will deal with it. They can’t not play it, but it also doesn’t fit into the format. So, they will play it, but isn’t it the tail wagging the dog that bands have to fit into the formula of radio instead of the radio being the vehicle for the music, whatever it is, however long or short it is, however weird or catchy it is. Of course this is just a fantasy. Radio is about money, advertising dollars, keeping up a listenership and worst of all catering for people who don’t buy music. Don’t worry I don’t deny the general public the pleasures of their daytime radio, it’s just not a medium for everyone, especially if you are not into the mainstream. The common denominator, competition and all that, you can’t expect to hear Trout Mask Replica in-between the morning traffic bulletins, then again how great would that be!

There was this group called Queen, they had a silly opera-like song that was way too long called Bohemian Rhapsody and yet…Music by John Miles, super long, big hit. What about Don McLean’s American Pie. I remember on the 7 inch single it just faded out on Side 1 and faded in again on Side 2. Guns N’ Roses’ November Rain was nearly 9 minutes long. Al Stewart’s Year Of The Cat is 6.41. There’s very long songs that have made it to the bottom of the charts, but all these were big hits. Some songs that were mega hits just never needed editing like Hotel California at 6.31. I wonder who it was sitting around the table at the marketing meeting saying, ‘Do we really need that long, long guitar solo at the end?’. I’m sure it came up. Ha ha. Then there’s the songs that were edited to be singles. There’s some really mad ones like Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, the single is 4.36, the album version is 22.47. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s Blinded By The Light is 7.08 on the album, edited to 3.49 for the single. Some bright spark thought that Iron Butterfly’s In A Gadda Da Vida could be a hit, the album version is 17.04, somehow they edited it for a single version and got it down to 2.54, and against all odds it reached No.30 in the US charts in 1968, no mean feat with the competition around at that time.

Perhaps this has come up because Dare and I were in the studio today working on what could possibly be the Space Summit single. I’m sorry I cannot divulge the title just yet, but if all goes to plan and Nicklas’ Mellotron works out we could have a catchy spacey hit…except it’s 2020 and not 1969. I was listening to a very catchy, young Pop record tonight by a band called Pale Waves and thinking how we just can’t compete, we don’t even want to. We hear it all differently inside our older heads, we can’t do it like them. We can only be successful on our own terms, it’s hard to attract new and younger people. When The Stones put out Black And Blue in 1975 the single was Fool To Cry, I thought that was great when it came out, but it was hardly typical and the reverse happened, the old fans hated it whilst younger people like me liked it (I was 17). The problem lies in the interest or lack of it that a lot of people have when they get older (not anyone that’s reading this of course) and apart from some icons, younger people are generally just not interested in older stuff. And then there’s the Hip Hop phenomenon. I thought Billie Eilish’s album was great and I also noticed that when I was standing at the back of a gig watching Robin Trower everyone had grey hair. The biggest cross section I ever saw at a gig was Nick Cave in Stockholm, young, old, men, women, every type. It’s an amazing trick that he’s pulled off. Sadly most older bands are faced with the nostalgia circuit, never able to recapture a sizeable following for new material, slaves to their glorious history. U2 seem to be an exception, perhaps Morrissey, the audience seems interested in their new material. Why is that? They seem to have convinced the world that their new stuff will be as good as their old stuff and generally it isn’t, is it? But like Morrissey it seems to be more about what they are trying to say, what they are commenting on rather than the songs themselves as if their perception of things resonates with their rather large audience. Hm, these are just random thoughts that are entering into my head as I’m writing.

I went to another place to listen to music tonight, at least to start with. I listened to two albums by Carla Bley and her band, Live At The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco (where I’ve played 2 or 3 times) and then a studio album called Social Studies. It’s probably Jazz and she is actually more than anything else a composer rather than a musician, she plays but it’s about the composition first. Interesting to be a person who mainly composes and only plays as a tool.

After that came a record that Boydy got for me at a rare show by the seventies Folk Rock band Fuchsia (named after the character in Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy). Coloured vinyl, see-through plastic sleeve, limited to two hundred and a surprisingly ‘on it’ record for a band that waited decades to make their second album. (Thanks Boydy.)

Then I completely went somewhere else and listened to Concrete Blonde’s 1990 album Bloodletting. Their most successful record, with Joey, No.2 in Australia, also Top 20 in the US. But it’s the other songs I like, Caroline, Tomorrow Wendy. I don’t know whether it was because of Jim Mankey’s unusual virtuoso guitar playing in such an indie type band, but I followed it with Moroccan Roll (1977) by Jazz Rock crazy giants Brand X, phew! Phil Collins on drums in his pre-Pop exploratory phase.

At this point I wanted to hear a slow guitarist so I played Free At Last (1972). This album has the hit Little Bit Of Love on it. Warm, bluesy influenced Pop by very young men. At this point Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke were 23, Paul Kossof was 22 and Andy Fraser was just 20 and this was their fifth album!

Then I found Nilsson Schmilsson (1971), his seventh album and featuring the No.1 hit Without You, written By Pete Ham and Tom Evans from Badfinger. It stars Klaus Voormann on bass and Jim Keltner on drums. What a song and what a singer Nilsson is. Perhaps after his endorsement and friendship with The Beatles, this was Nilsson’s attitude to playing live: “When did you play last?” – “I didn’t.” – “Where have you played before?” – “I haven’t.” – “When will you be playing next?” – “I don’t.”

Song Of The Day is Cry from Honey Mink Forever, because Chuck Mauk likes it a lot and it’s the closest we ever got to writing a song like Without You, although until this moment I never even considered the thought.

 

Cry

I can wander
Through this lonely place
Like other people do
But I can’t find you
Empty rows
Of memories long gone
That you retain
It’s this that gets you through

No need for lipstick
No need for perfume
No social engagements
For you to resume
No one to see you
Now he has left you
No one remembers you
You were two when they met you

But the days keep on
Making me cry
And the nights go by
I would surely die
I look at my face
And see the lines
Gonna lose my mind
The speed of time
Will I see you
When will I see you again

Here in the silence
Of the frantic busy streets
Nothing left to say
You’re on your own again
You take out your door key
That opens up a place
Where you’ll be alone
Always there but never home

No burst of laughter
No stumbling off kerbs
No searching special shops
For exotic herbs
No candles burning down
From moonlit dinners
No idle chatter left
The loser’s lost her winner

But the days keep on
Making me cry
And the nights go by
I would surely die
I look at my face
And see the lines
Gonna lose my mind
The speed of time
Will I see you
When will I see you again

And you sit on the stairs
And I start to cry
And the years go by
I’ll surely die
And I fall onto my bed
And I can’t get by
Gonna lose my mind
The speed of time
Will take me to you
Will take me to you again

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Honey Mink Forever (2011)