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allthemusic · 28 days ago

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Week ending: 14th May

Two very averagely named artists this week. Seriously, you had no in-between in the 1950s, it seems. Every artist either had the most ridiculous name ever (hi, Conway Twitty!) or literally had a name that's just, like, your next-door neighbour. And half the time the average ones were stage names. Like, somebody chose "Frankie Vaughan" of all names. It's not the worst stage persona ever. But it's far from the best, either. Oh well. At least our first artist was born with his (excedingly average) name.

I've Waited So Long - Anthony Newley (peaked at Number 3)

Our first song this week, and it starts with a vaguely doo-wop-ish intro, but echoey, like the people singing are stood quite some distance apart from each other. And then into that comes Anthony Newley, launching into what's fundamentally a pretty standard rock and roll ballad, but Anthony has a pretty distinctive style, enunciating each word clearly and emotional, all in a very British accent. In this respect, he's credited as a pretty major influence on David Bowie, and yeah, that absolutely tracks, hearing this.

Like I said, aside from the atypically British voice, this is a pretty standard rock and roll ballad, though, all about how I've waited so long, a lifetime it seems / For someone to step right out of my dreams. Anthony's lonely, you see, though he's also confident that it will all be worth it, once he meets his dream girl: It will be so wonderful / When love comes my way / No more lonely hours / They'll just fade away. It's wistful, a sort of bittersweet note to end on, with this longing, hopeful glimpse of a love that hasn't come along yet, and isn't really guaranteed to come along at all, despite Anthony's apparent certainty.

Interestingly, I've just looked Anthony Newley up a bit, and it turns out he's best known not as a singer, but as a songwriter. In particular, he's responsible for the music from the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film and also the 1964 Goldfinger theme. Plus, he wrote the song Feeling Good (the Nina Simone one). Which is a shocking amount of properly recognisable things - I'm genuinely surprised I hadn't heard of him!

Come Softly To Me - Frankie Vaughan (9)

And then, inevitably, the cover version of last week's Fleetwoods number. It was bound to happen. The original had such a distinctive, catchy vibe, and felt so straightforward and pleasingly intimate - of course other artists would want to put their own spin on it, would want to capture some of that same magic.

Ironically, though, I think the same simplicity that gave the original a lot of its charm also makes it a tricky song to cover - you're either stuck reproducing it one-for-one (both unoriginal and kind of pointless) or you've got to find something to add (difficult to pull off without losing what made the song distinctive). In Frankie's case, he adds a heavier instrumental backing, with a more strummy guitar sound, plus somebody noodling round on what sounds like a cymbal, and on top of that he ups the number of female backing singers from two to three. They're not massive changes, but they make the whole thing feel heavier, and in particular, you've lost a lot of the delicacy that came from the picked guitar backing. Where the original felt laid back and informal, a jam session that just so happened to get recorded, this feels like a much more deliberate performance.

It's still a pleasant enough listen, that said. And I appreciate even more in this version the sheer test of endurance that the song is for its male singer. Seriously, he keeps up a steady stream of dum dum, dum ba dooo dum, ba da-ba dum literally through the whole song, except for when he's singing actual lyrics - there's barely a pause for him to breathe. Just technically, it's impressive, and then to make it sound so carefree and effortless, on top of that? No mean feat!

Yeah, I didn't mind either of these songs, though I also didn't love either of them wildly. I think Anthony's voice, while interesting, is mostly interesting purely for its David Bowie connection. Aside from that, I've Waited So Long is quite a mopey ballad. And Frankie's version of Come Softly to Me is also quite clearly inferior to the original. Still, it's a good enough song, just on its own merits, that even with the changes Frankie's made, I'm finding myself quite enjoying it. So...

Favourite song of the bunch: Come Softly to Me

#uk charts #1959 #anthony newley #frankie vaughan

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radiopopstand · 2 years ago

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Popstand This Weekend!!

With a title of ‘When I’m Sixty Four’, Radio Popstand is on the air this weekend with those multi genre tracks.

But why the title ‘When I’m Sixty Four’, you may be asking? Well, it’s a song written way back in 1967 by Paul McCartney in preparation for Jeffrey’s 64th birthday, which occurs in 2023. Really good of Mr McCartney to write such a song just for me.

My word is Jeffrey really that old? So as a result of this momentous occurrence Radio Popstand will be playing rather a lot of songs from way back in the olden days, the olden days when he was not so old.

But don’t worry there’ll will still be some newer or even brand new tracks, we like to keep up to take here on Popstand, as well as playing the older stuff.

So the oldies come from Lulu and the Luvvers, Neil Diamond, Prefab Sprout, Anthony Newley, The Who, Mike Oldfield, The Rubettes, Cilla Black, Thin Lizzy, LaBelle, The Boomtown Rats, Supertramp, Jimmy Osmond and that’s only a few of those artists from yesteryear.

More up to date artists include Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, KennyHoopla, Dimension, Rita Ora, Disclosure, House of Pain and there are more.

Listen to Radio Popstand today, Saturday, 18:30hrs BST (17:30hrs GMT) and tomorrow, Sunday 08:30hrs BST (07:30hrs GMT) on the Stationhead app, as Jeffrey contemplates the number 64! Don’t forget to link your Spotify or Apple Music premium account to hear the music.

Jeff Wright, 20th May 2023

#Popstand #stationhead #multi genre #spotify #apple music #64 #Paul McCartney

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elvisomar · 4 years ago

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Kenneth Branagh by Alexander Newley

Branagh is pictured as Leontes in The Winter's Tale.

The artist, Sacha Newley, is a well-known and sought-after portraitist, who happens to be the son of Anthony Newley and Dame Joan Collins.

#kenneth branagh #alexander newley #anthony newley #joan collins

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kalluun-patangaroa · 5 years ago

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Waking up to a new morning...

The Observer, Sunday 15 September 2002

Written by Amy Raphael

After the booze, coke, crack and smack, Suede's Brett Anderson is back in the land of the living with renewed optimism and a new album

Brett Anderson grew up hanging around car parks, drinking lukewarm cans of Special Brew and taking acid. Occasionally, he caught the train from Hayward's Heath to Brighton, less than half an hour away, but still a world away. He would buy punk records and, perhaps, a Nagasaki Nightmare patch to sew on to his red ski jacket.

His mother, who died in 1989, was an aspiring artist; his father was mostly unemployed and obsessed with classical music. He wanted his son to be a classical pianist, but Brett had other ideas. Lost in suburban adolescence, he was drawn to the Smiths, to Morrissey's melancholic lyrics, his eccentric persona. He wanted to be a pop star; he would be a pop star. He had no doubt.

Anderson moved to London in the late 1980s, living in a small flat in Notting Hill. He studied architecture at the London School of Economics, but only while he got a band together. Here he met Justine Frischmann and, with old school friend Mat Osman, formed Suede in the early Nineties as an antidote to grunge and anodyne pop.

Anderson borrowed Bowie's Seventies glamour and a little of his Anthony Newley-style vocals. He looked to the Walker Brothers's extravagant, string-laden productions and appropriated Mick Jagger's sexual flamboyance for his stage show. Yet Suede were totally original, unlike anything else at the time. Dressed in secondhand suits and with casually held cigarettes as a prop, Anderson wanted to write pop songs with an edge; sleazy, druggy, urban vignettes which would sit uncomfortably in the saccharine-tinged charts.

Like his lyrics, Anderson was brash, cocky, confident. He talked of being 'a bisexual man who's never had a homosexual experience', realising it was an interesting quote, even if he knew he would probably always lose his heart to the prettiest of girls.

When I first met him, in the spring of 1993, Suede were enjoying their second year of press hysteria, of being endlessly hailed as the best new band in Britain. Fiddling with his Bryan Ferry fringe, Anderson asserted: 'I am a ridiculous fan of Suede. I do sit at home and listen to us. I do enjoy our music.'

He talked about performing 'Metal Mickey', the band's second single, on Top of the Pops. 'When I was growing up, Top of the Pops was the greatest thing, after tea on a Thursday night... brilliant! You get a ridiculous sense of history doing it. It was a milestone in my life; it somehow validated my life, which is pathetic really.'

By rights, Suede should have been not only the best band in Britain but also the biggest. Yet it did not happen that way. During the recording of the second album, the brilliant Dog Man Star, guitarist Bernard Butler walked out. It was as though Johnny Marr had left the Smiths before completing Meat Is Murder. The band could have given up, but they did not; they went on to make Coming Up, which went straight to the top of the album charts. Then, three years ago, disaster struck during the recording of Suede's fourth album, Head Music. Anderson was in trouble: the pale adolescent who had swigged Special Brew in desolate car parks was now a pop star addicted to crack.

Brett Anderson sits in a battered leather Sixties chair in the living-room of his four- storey west London home sipping a mug of black coffee. He has lived here for three or four years, moving into the street just as Peter Mandelson was moving out. The living-room is immaculate: books, CDs and records are neatly stacked on shelves, probably in alphabetical order.

Anderson's 6ft frame is as angular as ever but more toned than before, the detail of his muscles showing through a tight black T-shirt. Gone is the jumble-sale chic of the early Nineties; he now pops into Harvey Nichols.

He appears to have lost none of his self-assurance but, a decade on from his bold entrance into the world of pop, Anderson has mellowed, grown-up. By his own admission, he is still highly strung and admits he is probably as skinny as a 17-year-old at almost 35 because of nervous energy. But he no longer refuses to listen to new bands in case they are better than Suede; he praises the Streets, the Vines and the Flaming Lips.

This healthy, relaxed person who enjoys the odd mug of strong black coffee is a recent incarnation. At some point in the late Nineties, Anderson lost himself. He became part of one his songs and ended up a drug addict.

He talks about his new regime: swimming, eating well, hardly touching alcohol. No drugs. Did he give everything up at once? 'It was kind of gradual... giving up drugs is a strange thing, because you can't just do it straight away. You stop for a bit then it bleeds into your life again. It takes great willpower to stop suddenly.'

He sighs and looks into the distance. 'I got sick of it really. I felt as though I'd outgrown it. It wasn't something I kept wanting to put myself through and I was turning into an absolute tit. Incapable of having a relationship, incapable of going out and behaving like a normal human being. Constantly paranoid...'

The drug odyssey started with cocaine, but soon it was not enough. 'Cocaine is child's play. After a while, it didn't give me enough of a buzz, so I got into crack. I was a crack addict for ages, I was a smack addict for ages...'

Another deep sigh. 'It's part of my past, really. I'm not far enough away to be talking about it. It's only recently I've been able to say the word "crack".'

When Head Music was being recorded, he says he wasn't really there. He would turn up but his mind was not focused. The album went to number one but it was not up to Suede's standards; as Anderson acknowledges, it was 'flashy, bombastic; an extreme version of the band'.

He laughs, happier to talk about the good times. 'Last year, when I decided not to destroy myself any more, I kind of disappeared off to the countryside with a huge amount of books, a guitar and a typewriter... and wondered what the outcome would be.'

He spent six months alone. It was a revelation to discover that he could spend time by himself. 'I think a lot of people are shit scared of being on their own. Me too. From the age of 14 to 30, I jumped from bed to bed in fear of being alone. Being in the cottage in the middle in Surrey, I learned that if one day everything fucks up, I could actually go and live on my own. It's a total option.'

For a long time, Anderson had avoided reading books, worried that his lyric writing would be affected by other people's use of language. Last year, he decided it was time to fill his head with some new information. Although he had been told for years that his imagery was reminiscent of J.G. Ballard, he read the author for the first time in the cottage - and was flattered. He read Ian McEwan's back catalogue and challenging books such as Michel Houellebecq's Atomised.

Despite his self-imposed exile, it still took Anderson a long time to perfect Suede's fifth album, the self-consciously celebratory A New Morning. The band tried to make an 'electronic folk' album by working with producer Tony Hoffer, who had impressed with his work on Beck's Midnight Vultures. However, unable to make an understated album, they eventually called in their old friend Stephen Street, the Smiths producer.

Yet more trouble was ahead. Anderson says Suede have faced many 'big dramas' over the past decade - Frischmann left the band early on to form Elastica and soon after ended her relationship with Anderson, moving in with Britpop's golden boy, Damon Albarn; Bernard Butler walked out with little warning; the drugs took control - but still the band were not prepared for keyboard player Neil Codling's exit. He was forced to leave in the middle of recording A New Morning suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.

Anderson says he was furious when Codling left.'He couldn't help it, I know, but I did feel aggrieved. I felt let down. But more at the universe than at Neil. I tend not to show how I feel about these things in public. It's like when Bernard first left, I was devastated. I felt as though that original line-up was really special. And we will never know what might have been.'

At times, Anderson sounds as though he has had an epiphany in the past year. He smiles. 'Well, you only need to listen to A New Morning to realise that. The title is very much a metaphor. It's a very optimistic record; the first single is called "Positivity", for God's sake. It's a talismanic song for the album. It's a good pop single, but we've haven't gone for a Disney kitsch, happy, clappy, neon thing.'

He looks serious for a moment. 'For me, the album is about the sense that you can only experience real happiness if you've experienced real sadness.'

Has he had therapy? His whole body shakes with a strange, high-pitched laughter. 'No! No! But I am happier now. I feel more comfortable with myself. I feel as though I'm due some happiness. I've just started going out with someone I really like. I've made an album which is intimate and warm. I don't any more have the need to be talked about constantly, that adolescent need for constant pampering...'

A swig of the lukewarm coffee and a wry smile. 'And, best of all, I don't feel like a troubled, paranoid tit any more.'

A New Morning is released on 30 September

#suede #brett anderson #press #interview #the observer #anm #2002

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nahaslow · 2 years ago

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Chocolate factory album cover imagery

CHOCOLATE FACTORY ALBUM COVER IMAGERY MOVIE

the candy man,” also known as “the candy man can,” was written by leslie bricusse and anthony newley for the 1971 film from willy wonka and the chocolate factory. geek music actor singer and composer anthony newley and composer leslie bricusse wrote pure imagination for the 1971 film ~ willy 1971's "willy wonka and the chocolate factory" a funk cover of pure imagination from willy wonka & the chocolate factory, written by leslie bricusse and anthony newley let me know what song i should cover next in the comments.it is a song from the 1971 film willy provided to by symphonic distribution pure imagination (from " willy wonka & the chocolate factory") this beautiful version of the song is from an out of print this video is a rehearsal of an arrangement for trombone and piano of pure imagination. Old Skool Tagalog Reggae Classics Songs 2019 Chocolate Factory ,Tropical Depression, BlakdyakOld Skool Tagalog Reggae Classics Songs 2019 Chocolate Factory ,Tropical Depression, BlakdyakOld. Recording sessions took place mainly at Rockland Studios and Chicago Recording Company in Chicago, Illinois, and the album was primarily written, arranged, and produced by R. music by anthony newley, lyrics by leslie bricusse. Chocolate Factory is the fifth solo album by American recording artist R. An alternative cover edition for this book can be.Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book. vocal gene wilder ~ pure imagination this is one of my favorite songs from willy wonka. Read 79 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. The posts also debuted Fine Line's cover art, which features a fish-eye view of the 25-year-old popstar standing in front of a pink and blue backdrop while striking a major pose in those aforementioned white pants and a fuchsia top cut down to there.įWIW, there's also a gloved hand reaching out to him from the bottom right corner.Leslie Bricusse And Anthony Newley Pure Imagination HdĬomposed by leslie bricusse and anthony newley. Ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty‘s Fogerty’s Factory album, which was issued on CD and digitally in November, gets its vinyl release today.The 12-track collection features mostly of new versions of CCR tunes and Fogerty solo songs that John recorded with his three youngest children sons Shane and Tyler, and daughter Kelsy. The former 1Der revealed on Twitter and Instagram that this new outing will be released on Dec. 4 to announce that his second solo album, called Fine Line, will be coming out before Christmas. He said of the album, I didn’t really feel like recording for eighty per cent of the record.

CHOCOLATE FACTORY ALBUM COVER IMAGERY MOVIE

It was too mechanical and recorded after too many sessions on very little sleep. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory movie clips: BUY THE MOVIE: Don’t miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: CLIP DESCRIPTION:Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) guides the group into a dark tunnel full of strange. To cool the chocolate, the factory had two ice machines that made 4,000 kilos of. Later Prince said that For You didn’t reflect him as a person. Published on the back cover of the magazine D’Ac i d’All, in 1934. OK, so Styles - who dropped his self-titled debut solo album in May 2017 - hit up social media on Nov. Prince’s first album For You was released by Warner in 1978 and got stuck at 163 on Billboard’s Pop Chart. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film) For. 13 seriously cannot get here fast enough. Chocolate Cosmos The cover of the second tankbon volume of Chocolate Cosmos as published by Shueisha. As in, Daddy, I want Harry's 'Fine Line' album, now! Harry Styles is looking a little like a fierce Oompa Loopa in flowy white pants on the cover and fans are digging it. Harry Styles' 'Fine Line' album cover just dropped and it is giving off some major Charlie & The Chocolate Factory vibes. The video’s description offers that the album’s title and first single are coming soon and that the imagery was designed by Francesco Artusato, who metal fans might know as the guitarist of Light the Torch and ex-All. Stop whatever it is you're doing, because this is big, fam. After months of teasing, Fear Factory have finally released another teaser for their upcoming album, this one a video showing off a section of the cover artwork.

#Chocolate factory album cover imagery

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jazzicology · 3 years ago

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How should white jazz navigate Black Lives Matter?

In the US, June 19th is a holiday which has come to be known as ‘Juneteenth’ — it is a commemoration of the end of slavery in 1865. Emancipation did not mean equality and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement last year, and the events that gave rise to it, were a stark reminder of the ongoing inequities and horrific injustice that continues to be experienced by black people in the US and worldwide. Bowden (2002) notes that “Jazz is an American art form – possibly the only one” - and it is an art form where black Americans have led the musical narrative, been the key innovators and inspired generations of jazz musicians worldwide.

9,000 miles away, here in New Zealand, I have spent the past week preparing a set list for a @Jazzicology gig we have been asked to do on July 4th to mark another date in the US calendar - Independence Day - via “A celebration of the great american songbook and the first ladies of jazz”. It has given me cause to reflect on BLM and what its implications are, or should be, for white jazz musicians.

The questions I have been considering seem particularly important for vocalists: our song choices involve both music and words and performance involves taking on the role of the narrator and singing as if from lived experience. Arguably, these same issues do not arise at all, or at least not to the same degree, for instrumentalists, where performing compositions by black artists can only serve as a form of respect and homage. The jazz vocalists who most inspire me – Carmen McCrae, Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, Cassandra Wilson, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone – are all black women. I am drawn to and deeply moved by their singing. Songs of love and loss are common to all cultures and musical genres. But jazz is distinctive in its contribution of songs of discrimination, oppression, slavery – and of the strive for emancipation, quality, power and freedom. Jazz has its roots in the blues and in the tradition of slave songs. Improvisation is central to jazz and Beener (2012) says that jazz ‘models the principles of freedom” and has often documented the ongoing pursuit of emancipation.

Performing songs written for or by black women, as a white privileged woman, feels uncomfortable. Can it be anything other than cultural appropriation? Or can performing these songs serve as a respectful acknowledgement of the experience of black Americans? This is difficult territory. To altogether avoid performing compositions and lyrics highlighting the issues and experiences of black people, in favour of safer territory, is tempting but risks misrepresenting the vocal jazz canon by not performing some of its seminal pieces. But then, can a white woman ever perform such pieces with any degree of authenticity? These issues had already arisen pre-BLM - the 2018 Montreal Jazz Festival in 2018 cancelled ‘SLAV’, a theatre piece that explored slavery and oppression using the medium of black slave songs. Its star was a white singer; four of its six other cast members and the director were also white (Wente 2018).

So how should white jazz vocalists navigate these questions, post-BLM?

There are certain pieces that I have never performed. An example: Strange Fruit – the harrowing song about the lynchings of black people in the South, best known from Billie Holiday’s iconic recording of the piece, but also recorded by others including Nina Simone. I lack the authority of personal or cultural experience to sing it. It just feels wrong to do so - and seemed to me a clear example of appropriating black experience. Yet in exploring further my own reluctance to perform it, I discovered it was composed by Jewish-American teacher teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, originally as a poem published in a teacher’s union newsletter in 1937. It was later set it to music by him and his wife who performed it at Madison Square Garden, before Billie Holiday’s well-known recording of it. So maybe it should not be ruled out – although Annie Lennox was criticised for her recording of it, highlighting the pitfalls even for those whose good intentions match those of Meeropol.

But I recognise that I have not consistent in my approach to these issues, because Work Song, the powerful slave song about working on a chain gang, is a number I have performed. It was composed in 1963 by Nat Adderley (Cannonball Adderley’s younger brother) as an instrumental with lyrics added a year later by jazz musician and black activist Oscar Brown Jr, both black jazz musicians. I recall as a child in the 1960s and 70s seeing a riveting performance of it by Nina Simone and it is one of the songs that made me want to be a jazz singer. But I am clearly no better culturally equipped to sing it than I am Strange Fruit. I now question its inclusion in my set lists: to do so because it is musically appealing, and a crowd pleaser, risks trivialising the experiences of black people which it draws on.

But where to draw the line? There are still other numbers that, once you dig into their provenance, also raise questions for me as a white jazz vocalist. An example is Feeling good, another number recorded (in my view unsurpassably) by Nina Simone. Is there a more powerful ode to freedom and emancipation? Yet it was written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for their musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, and performed in UK concert halls in 1964 before making the transition to Broadway. The Wikipedia description of the role of the song in the musical is a bit odd – a character called simply ‘The Negro’ “…is asked to compete against the show's hero ‘Cocky"; but, as "Cocky" and his master "Sir" argue over the rules of the game, "the Negro" reaches the centre of the stage and "wins", singing the song at his moment of triumph”. Still, none of this bothered Michael Bublè or the many others who have recorded this wonderful song.

Maybe there are no rights or wrongs on these question – perhaps it depends on the motivation of the singer, the personal experiences they bring to their own performance, the context which they provide to that performance for the audience, and maybe even on the nature of the audience. I’ll keep reflecting, and questioning my own choices.

Nance Wilson, Queenstown, New Zealand

Nance Wilson is one half of the new jazz duo, Jazzicology, with Mark Rendall Wilson, and has a long-standing collaboration with UK jazz pianist and composer Sid Thomas.

Sources:

Beener (2012) Five Jazz Songs That Speak Of The Freedom Struggle. NPR Jazz.

Bowden M (2002) Quotable jazz. Sound and Vision.

Russonello (2020) Jazz Has Always Been Protest Music. Can It Meet This Moment? New York Times.

Wente (2018) Should white people sing slave songs? Globe and Mail.

#BLM #jazz #jazzsinger

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dollarday · 7 years ago

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On the musical dialogue between David R. Jones and Noel S. Engel...

This is David Robert Jones.

You know him better as David Bowie.

And this is Noel Scott Engel.

The chances are slim that you know him, but if you happen to do so, you’ll know him as Scott Walker.

No, not the asshole Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the singer-songwriter Scott Walker.

And if you’re aware of both of their music, you’ll know that they’ve engaged in one of the greatest musical call and response games in history.

“Start by placing them across the board from each other: two queen’s bishops, rows of squares ahead of them. One is Noel Scott Engel, born in Ohio in 1943, an American who went to Britain for fame and who stayed there; the other is David Robert Jones, born in Brixton on the day before Engel’s fourth birthday, who scrabbled for fame in Britain and, once he finally got it, left for good. Jones became David Bowie, Engel became Scott Walker. Each was precocious, ambitious, beautiful. They first met around 1966 at a London nightclub, The Scotch of St. James, when Walker was a pop star and Bowie nothing but polite aspiration.”

- Chris O’Leary on Nite Flights, from Pushing Ahead of the Dame

So, if you’re a fan of David Bowie and haven’t taken the time to explore the music of Scott Walker, you really should try to do so. Both of their careers have more or less been a musical back-and-forth, each taking inspiration from the other whilst attempting to improve upon the other’s response.

I should say, I feel overwhelmingly unqualified to talk about it, but I’m going to do so anyway.

From his early compositions on his 1966 album through to his rise as the alien rocker Ziggy Stardust, Bowie had been subtly quoting Scott Walker along with all his other influences.

Here’s Bowie doing a cover of Jacques Brel’s “My Death” during his final Ziggy Stardust concert in 1973.

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The reason why Bowie covered that song, and why he even became aware of Jacques Brel in the first place was because of Scott Walker’s 1967 covers of Jacques Brel’s music.

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And before you say, “Wasn’t Bowie made aware from Brel from the Off-Broadway musical Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris?”, the answer is no. Here’s how Bowie discovered Brel...

“In the mid-60s, I was having an on-again, off-again thing with a wonderful singer-songwriter who had previously been the girlfriend of Scott Walker. Much to my chagrin, Walker’s music played in her apartment night and day. I sadly lost contact with her, but unexpectedly kept a fond and hugely admiring love for Walker’s work. One of the writers he covered on an early album was Jacques Brel. That was enough to take me to the theater to catch the above-named production when it came to London in 1968.”

David Bowie’s Favorite Albums by David Bowie, Vanity Fair, 2003

Link to this: here

Hell, Scott had been covering Brel before the musical Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris even premiered. His first solo album, containing three Brel songs, was released in 1967, one whole year before the musical made it’s Off-Broadway premiere.

As if that wasn’t enough proof of Scott’s influence on Bowie, look no further than Diamond Dogs.

The musical triptych “Sweet Thing - Candidate - Sweet Thing (Reprise)” starts off with Bowie hitting the lowest note in his career, as if he was imitating Scott Walker’s deep voice. And if you think that that’s just a coincidence, pay attention to “Future Legend” the spoken word opening of Diamond Dogs.

Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald

Any day now

The year of the Diamond Dogs

Want to know why “any day now” is the only part of that opening that is sung?

A year before Bowie released Diamond Dogs, Scott Walker released the album Any Day Now and here’s the title track.

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Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

And all that was in the late 60s - early 70s. Bowie rose to fame, taking influences all over from The Stooges and The Velvet Underground to Anthony Newley and Little Richard, as well as Scott Walker.

Bowie’s rise to fame was concurrent to a period of confusion for Scott Walker. His early-70s albums failing to reach the critical acclaim of his early solo work or even his time as part of The Walker Brothers, due to his succumbing to the pressures of his record company.

And as such The Walker Brothers reformed in 1974, all a little older and a little wiser. Their first record since their reformation was something of a flop. Their record company was about to go under and they had enough resources to make one final album.

When you reference someone’s work, you’re not only acknowledging them. You’re also calling out to them, in a way. And that’s what Bowie was doing since his career began, calling out to Scott Walker. But then something unexpected happened.

Scott responded.

Nite Flights would be The Walker Brothers’ final album. Recorded during early 1978, it was meant to be the group going out with a bang, the trio writing all of their songs and incorporating contemporary music into their compositions.

Walker even bought in albums that he had listened to and wanted to be the jumping off point for Nite Flights. He made everyone in the production listen to them.

What were the albums? Well...

Yeah, he made everyone in the studio listen to Bowie.

Now Scott Walker was taking influence from David Bowie. And with a final cry, The Walker Brothers delivered their last album in July 1978.

Bowie’s influence is heard throughout the whole album. So much so, that the title track, “Nite Flights”, sounds like it predicts Bowie’s 1979 album, Lodger.

Scott’s nods to Bowie are more evident in the musical compositions themselves rather than the lyrics, as evidenced from the title track. But there were still a few overtly lyrical references to Bowie.

For instance, the opening track “Shutout” is a violent clap-back to Bowie’s “Blackout”.

But the most prominent response came in the form of “The Electrician”, penned by Scott Walker himself. Whether it’s an intentional response from Walker or not, the song feels like both an assessment and a one-upping of Bowie’s pseudo-imitation of him on “Sweet Thing”.

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Yeah. It’s one hell of a song, eh?

In fact, Bowie thought so too when he was recording Lodger in 1978 and he listened to it for the first time.

As Chris O’Leary from the Bowiesongs blog writes...

“Bowie was stunned. One can’t blame him. Imagine if a great stone face to whom you’ve been making offerings for years suddenly rumbles up a response, in an approximation of your voice.”

And this is just the start of this musical back and forth. There’s also the thematic influences that Bowie had taken from Scott in the 60s, Bowie’s translation of the Brel songs via Scott, and I won’t even get into their late-90s work. Honestly, just read the Bowiesongs article that I linked at the start of this post. It goes into better and clearer depth, than I could ever hope to achieve.

David Bowie and Scott Walker are artists intertwined, each approaching their craft with the same desires, yet following through with different philosophies. One reaching his own avant-garde popularity, the other enjoying his renowned obscurity. Their inspiration game is one of the most underrated and obscure stories in music history. And I must say, that as a fan of both, it produced some damn fine music.

So, to all Bowie fans reading this, please, please take the time to try and explore the music of Scott Walker. Besides having one of the strangest career trajectories in all of pop music, you can hear Scott Walker’s faint whispers in Bowie’s music. And if you listen closely, you can hear a bit of Bowie in some of Walker’s music.

And if you need any more of a reason to listen to Scott Walker, here’s Bowie finally being able to respond to “Nite Flights” in 1993.

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Here’s to you Engel and Jones!

#David Robert Jones #David Bowie #Noel Scott Engel #Scott Walker #the singer-songwriter not the Wisconsin governor #Nite Flights #only one way to fall #I love these two so much #Their music is sublime #And the influence game that they had throughout their careers is beautiful #and more people should at least try and listen to Scott Walker's music #I know hardly anyone is going to see this post #But it needs to be made #Because there are so many Bowie fans on this site #But so so few Scott Walker fans #And while I'm at it #Wisconsin governor Scott Walker can get screwed

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riffsstrides · 6 years ago

Audio

Ashleigh Smith

Sunkissed

Concord, 2016

Ashleigh Smith: vocals; Shelton Summers: piano, Fender Rhodes; Sergio Pamies: piano (9); Joel Cross: guitar; Mark Lettieri: electric guitar (3, 9); Justin Schenk: electric guitar (3, 9); Nigel Rivers: electric bass; Cedric Moore: drums (1, 5); Marcus Jones: drums (2, 4); Matt Young: drums (9); Cleon Edwards: drums; Greg Beck: percussion (1); AJ Flores: percussion: (2-4, 6, 7); Kevin Wyatt: harmonica (1); Jarriel Carter: trumpet (1,7); Jason Davis: saxophone (1, 7); Gaika James: trombone (1, 7); Antone Amalbert: trombone (1, 7); Veronica Gan: 1st violin (4, 9); Emily Aquin: 2nd violin (4, 9); Emily Williams: viola (1, 7); Craig Leffer: cello (1, 7)

Summer 2016 was hot, sticky and not a lot of fun. Many big name Hollywood blockbusters tanked. The presidential election has been a long slog. Television ratings for the Summer Olympics were off and every time you turned on the TV there were plenty of reasons to turn it back off.

Then along came Ashleigh Smith to save the summer with Sunkissed as welcome as coming across brightly sparkling gem in the sand. Blessed with maturity beyond her years, Smith is a singer more than a stylist who caresses and interprets a song rather than hammer the listener with hey-look-at-me vocal gymnastics.

The 27-year-old Dallas-based singer/songwriter effortlessly blends soul, jazz and pop on her debut album. Smith's "Best Friends" is radio-friendly and serves as an nice introduction to what she brings to the party. There's a breezy bossa nova groove to the tune as Smith references her fondness for Stevie Wonder courtesy of Kevin Wyatt's nifty harmonica work.

Smith's skill set includes songwriting as she co-wrote five of the album's 10 compositions. The other half includes covers of The Beatles "Blackbird' and Hall & Oates' 1975 hit, "Sara Smile" and they work best as showpieces for Smith's comfort with lighter fare without really moving the needle as game-changing interpretations.

What does work better for Smith are her own songs like "The World Is Calling," a commentary on contemporary social issues which avoids becoming preachy, the optimistic "Sunkissed" and the sparkling "Into the Blue" which is enhanced in no small part by the four-piece horn section arranged by trumpeter Jarriel Carter. The whole album is brimming with right choices by Smith and producers Chris Dunn and Nigel Rivers and avoids any glaring missteps, but "Into the Blue" is a track that demands repeat listening.

In 2014, Smith won the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition after placing second two years later. She added vocal backup for pop artist Chrisette Michele and covers one of her compositions, "Love Is You" but Smith is equally comfortable with standards as she closes out with Anthony Newley's "Pure Imagination" from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory stripped down to only her multi-tracked vocals and it is a pure delight.

Read the liner notes and the names of the other musicians likely aren't familiar ones. That is not an accident. Smith wanted to avoid "big name" musicians and went with other players she worked with from a jazz camp at the University of North Texas. When a new artist enters the studio the temptation is there to wrap them in a cocoon of hand-picked professional musicians and production. Thankfully, Sunkissed does not succumb to playing it safe and Smith never gets lost in studio gimmicks.

In 2014, an AAJ critic wrote, "For jazz not only to thrive, but survive, it must begin to create its own superstars who can deliver a much-needed shot of adrenaline to the flagging art form, but possess skills in social media and marketing, creating a global brand, and finding new forms beyond record sales, radio play and live gigs in fewer clubs and concert halls to reach the new breed of jazz fans."

Ashleigh Smith announces with Sunkissed the next generation of jazz artists is here for the previous generation to pass the baton on to capable hands. She's not the next Sarah Vaughan. She's the first Ashleigh Smith.

JEFF WINBUSH in All About Jazz

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oldisnewradio · 4 years ago

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Join me now on THE PENTHOUSE @ http://www.thepenthouse.fm

for EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN Radio Show. I’m spinning these great artist now PETER ALLEN, GILBERT PRICE, JOHNNNIE RAY, DORIS DAY, JOHN LEGEND, BARBARA COOK, ROSEMARY CLOONEY &

TONY PASTOR, STEVE LAWRENCE & EYDIE GORME, JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO, MICHAEL FEINSTEIN, ANTHONY NEWLEY, NINA SIMONE, NEW ORLEANS HIGH SOCIETY, JUDY GARLAND, JESSICA MOLASKEY, FRANK SINATRA, MARGARET WHITING, NAT KING COLE, DIANH WASHINGTON, CHET BAKER, MARCUS GOLDHABER, JIMMY McHUGH, JOHN COLTRANE till 11PM. Spread the word!

#EverythingOldIsNewAgainRadioShow Cabaret PopStandards GreatAmericanSongbook Jazz Showtunes

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mrepstein · 8 years ago

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Chapter on Brian Epstein from ‘The Beatles: The Fabulous Story of John, Paul, George and Ringo’ by Robert Burt & Jeremy Pascall [1975]

The Beatle-Maker

On thinking back to the Beatles’ beginnings, or come to that the beginnings of British pop music, a name that inevitably springs to mind is that of Brian Epstein. It was he who was without any doubt the finest manipulator of groups either before, during, or since the rise of the Beatles. His untimely death occurred in August 1967, and in many ways from that point on the Beatles started a slow down-hill slide.

Brian was born on September 19th, 1934, in Rodney Street, Liverpool - an exclusive area well known for its concentration of doctors. The grandson of a Polish immigrant, Brian was the first of two children born to Queenie and Harry Epstein. At the age of four he attended kindergarten, which seems to have been one of the very few, if not only, schools that he ever came to terms with. When the war broke out Liverpool became a prime bombing target because of the docks, and along with hundreds of other children, Brian was evacuated to Southport, a West Coast resort now better known for convalescing. He was sent to Southport College where he carried on, after a fashion, his schooling.

In 1943 the bombing seemed to have stopped, and the Epstein family returned to Childwall, a suburb of Liverpool. Obviously the move meant Brian would have to leave Southport College, and after an interview with the headmaster of Liverpool College he was admitted as a scholar. His stay was not a very long or rewarding one for after a short period he was expelled. Brian once said: “One feature of life which I experienced there and at other schools and even sometimes now, was anti-semitism. Even now it lurks around the corner in some guise or other, and though it doesn’t matter to me any more, it did when I was younger.”

Harry Epstein was wondering whether his son and heir was ever going to find a school which he enjoyed, and the thought of having a totally un-educated son was worrying both him and his wife. Between them they decided, as a result of Brian’s anti-semitic claims, to send him to a Jewish prep school, ‘Beaconsfield’, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Brian stayed at this prep school for the longest period of time that he stayed at any school, and when he was approaching the age of 13 he sat the examinations that would determine whether he would go forward to public school. Needless to say, the outcome was... failure.

To say at this time Harry and Queenie were immensely worried about their son’s future would be a gross understatement. However, they found a private school for their son in Dorset. At this school, if nothing else, he was allowed to express his flair for art, and remembers it as being the only thing that he was remotely good at. Back in Liverpool at this time, Harry Epstein was trying hard to find a good school for Brian before it was too late. His hard work bore fruit, for in the autumn of 1948, just as Brian had turned 14, he was notified that his son was to attend Wrekin College, in Shropshire.

At Wrekin, Brian discovered that he had another talent besides art. He took part in school plays and found that his performances were being praised by the teachers. It must have been the only thing young Epstein was praised for, and before he had the opportunity to sit any examinations he decided he wanted to leave school and become a dress designer. Brian might have wanted to become a dress designer but his parents had other ideas, and on September 10th, 1950, aged very nearly 16, he started his first job as a sales assistant at the family’s local furniture store.

He started work at £5 a week, which really wasn’t a bad wage at that time, and slowly but surely built up some kind of interest in his work. His parents were pleased as this was the first time in his life that he had shown concern for anything. Mr. and Mrs. Epstein were satisfied and happy with their eldest son. Things were on the up and up for Brian.

On December 9th, 1952, as though he hadn’t gone through enough discipline of one sort or another, a buff envelope arrived through the door notifying him that he was to attend a National Service medical. (In those days National Service was compulsory). He passed his medical as an A.1., the only A.1. achievement he had ever received. And so he began his two years’ service as a clerk in the Royal Army Service Corps.

Secure Businessman

Within 10 months of joining the army his nerves became seriously upset. He reported to the barrack doctor, and after a thorough examination he was passed on to a psychiatrist. After four psychiatric opinions they came to the conclusion that Private Epstein was just not fit for military service - and discharged him.

He arrived back in Liverpool prepared to work very hard at the furniture trade. This he did, and seemed to settle into some kind of routine way of life. His parents were happy. For no apparent reason at this time Brian’s old love for acting returned, and he regularly attended the Liverpool Playhouse. He began to meet the actors socially, and started toying with the idea of acting as a profession. With the encouragement of the professionals Brian got himself an audition at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and after reading two pieces, excerpts from ‘Confidential Clerk’ and ‘Macbeth’, he was accepted to begin studies as from the next term. So at 22, although a secure and aspiring businessman, he submitted himself once again to the rigours of community life, and became a student at R.A.D.A. It didn’t take Brian too long to realise that studying just wasn’t his forte, and he went back, once again, to the furniture business - where it now seemed that he was going to spend the rest of his working life.

The Epstein’s store was at this time expanding, and they opened another branch in the city centre. Included in this branch was a record department which Brian took charge of. Anne Shelton opened the store, and from that first day it began to flourish. Although most of the records Brian sold were pop, his real interest lay in classical and his favourite composer was Sibelius.

In 1959 the Epstein’s opened yet another store, this time in the heart of Liverpool’s shopping centre and opened by Anthony Newley. By autumn 1962 Brian’s store, for he was in complete charge of the city centre branch, was running to absolute perfection.

The Beatles

At about 3 o’clock on Saturday October 28th, 1961, a young customer came into the store, dressed in the usual costume of the time - black leather jacket and denim jeans - he said: “There’s a record I want. It’s ‘My Bonnie’, and it was made in Germany. Have you got it?” Brian knew his stock inside out and gave a negative nod: but the old policy of keeping the customer satisfied was now to pay handsome dividends. “Who is it by?” asked Brian. “You won’t have heard of them” said the young customer, “it’s a group called the Beatles...” He learned that they had just returned from Hamburg, Germany, and were currently playing a residency at the local Cavern club.

Curiosity overtook Brian, and he decided to visit this cellar club and find out what it was about this group that made the locals react as they did.

He wasn’t too impressed with what he heard, although he found their personalities magnetic and for this reason he stayed until they completed their set. When they left the stage he was taken to the band room to meet them, but merely for the purpose of asking them about their record. George was the first to speak to him. He shook Brian by the hand and said: “What brings Mr. Epstein here?” They obviously knew of him from the record store. Brian went ahead and explained the situation about the several requests he had had for their record. George called over John, Paul and Pete Best - and said “this man would like to hear our disc”. They played it to him, and on hearing it Brian asked the four young lads to visit his office a few days later. Their first meeting was set for December 3rd, 1961.

Brian, even if he was thinking about it, had as much idea of artist/management as he had about flying to the Moon, but something inside was burning to get these four scruffy kids under his ruling. The four of them arrived at his office as arranged, although Paul was a little late. They passingly discussed the future and contracts and then moved on to other topics of conversation. They drank a lot of coffee and arranged another meeting for the following Wednesday. In between time Brian paid a visit to the family solicitor, Rex Makin, to discuss what an artist/management contract consisted of. On asking him this question and then explaining the reasons for asking it, Makin added dryly, “Oh, yes, another Epstein idea. How long before you lose interest in this one?”

Signed, Sealed And Settled

The second meeting took place as arranged, and with all members sitting in his rather plush office Brian said: “You need a manager, would you like me to do it?” There was a pregnant silence, and then John looked up and said “Yes.” The others all agreed, and John again said: “Right then Brian. Manage us, now. Where’s the contract? I’ll sign it.” Brian had very little idea what a contract looked like, let alone could he produce one. But within a week Makin had drawn one up, and the following Wednesday it was ready for all to sign. John, Paul, George and Pete Best all put their signatures to the contract, and all were counter-signed by witness Alastair Taylor, Brian’s assistant. The only signature that was always conspicuous by it’s absence was that of Brian Epstein.

First Audition

Brian felt that the first task of a manager was to secure for his artists a recording contract. He managed to lure Mike Smith of Decca to the Cavern to see and hear the Beatles at work, and what Mr. Smith heard knocked him out. He went back to Decca and arranged for the four lads to attend an audition at the famous Decca Record Company. The boys plus Brian arrived in London on New Year’s Eve, 1961, and the following morning, with Brian at their sides, went to the recording studio for their first audition.

They played several numbers which were duly recorded, and having completed their task returned to Liverpool to await the voices from the hierarchy of Decca. In March 1962, three long months later, Brian was summoned to the Decca offices to meet Dick Rowe and Beecher Stevens, two important executives. On arrival he was shown into their suite of offices and asked to sit down. Dick Rowe was spokesman: “Not to mince words Mr. Epstein, we don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups of guitarists are on the way out.” Brian tried to hide his immense disappointment and replied: “You must be out of your minds. These boys are going to explode. I am completely confident that one day they will be bigger than Elvis Presley.” Dick Rowe was rather taken aback and, thinking it was Brian that was going out of his mind, said: “The boys won’t go, Mr Epstein. We know these things. You have a good business in Liverpool. Stick to that!”

Thus ended the Decca saga. Brian, however, was determined that someone somewhere was going to like his Beatles. Pye, Philips, Columbia and countless others all rejected Brian’s tapes. ‘There’s nothing there’ they all said in their voices of authority.

As a final resort Brian was going to have an all-or-nothing raid on London. If nothing happened this time he would call it a day. He hadn’t any idea where he was going to take the tapes, but he was determined to secure a contract. Through a string of coincidences Epstein met up with a gentleman named Syd Coleman, who was a music publisher looking for songs. Brian played him the boys’ tapes and Coleman liked what he heard. He would, however, like a gentleman called George Martin to hear them, and would Brian take them along to a company called Parlophone (part of the EMI group) and play them to him? This Brian did, and Martin hearing the tapes and having nothing to lose invited them along for an audition.

A few weeks after the boys had completed their second audition Martin wrote to Epstein and offered him a recording contract. That elusive sheet of parchment was at last reality. The only bad side to the audition was the fact that George Martin didn’t consider Pete Best’s drumming suitable for the band. The other three were also appealing to Brian to ask Ringo Starr, the drummer to join the group. Brian was reluctant, but George Martin’s hint made him realise something must be done, and so one afternoon he broke the bad news to Pete Best. He didn’t want to do it, but he realised it would be best for the Beatles.

On their first actual recording session the boys put down two songs of their own: ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘P.S. I Love You’. On October 4th, 1962 the record was unleashed upon the world, and within a matter of weeks ‘Love Me Do’ had reached the no. 17 position in the British charts. George Martin, who quite honestly was amazed at the progress of this record, realised the need to bring out another single quickly, and almost immediately did another session with the boys. About this time he introduced Brian to an old friend of his, Dick James.

Brian went along to meet Dick James, who at that time occupied a one-roomed office in the Charing Cross Road. Dick asked him to sit down, and takes up the story from there:

“He had with him a rough acetate of a session he had just completed with George Martin. I put it on my record player and I heard this song ‘Please Please Me’, and I just hit the ceiling. He asked what I thought, and I said ‘I think it’s a no. 1.’, I picked up the telephone and called a friend of mine, Philip Jones, who at that time was a light entertainment producer at ABC TV, and he was just starting a new show called Thank Your Lucky Stars. The breaks started to come virtually from that moment.”

The Midas Touch

Brian was suitably impressed, and agreed to let Dick have the publishing to both sides of the forthcoming disc. As it turned out Dick was right and the record did make no. 1.

The song that George Martin wanted to follow ‘Love Me Do’ with was in fact given to him by Dick James. A song written by an up-and-coming writer called Mitch Murray, it was entitled ‘How Do You Do It?’, but the Beatles couldn’t get into the song so they dropped it. Brian had realised the potential of this song though, and asked the only-too-pleased Dick James if he could have it for another Liverpudlian group that he had just signed. Dick agreed, and Gerry and the Pacemakers certainly did do justice to the song and took it right up the charts to the no. 1 spot.

And so the hits went on and on and on. Everything Brian touched turned to gold. He signed Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and they too wallowed in hits. Cilla Black, the Fourmost, the Big Three, the Merseybeats and many others followed. He formed an empire and called it NEMS (North East Music Stores), which he named after his record shop in Liverpool. Brian went on to shape the Beatles in such a way that they were shortly to have no. 1 records with everything that they released. Last but not least, they were to ultimately conquer the world.

Unfortunately, with the success coming at the phenomenal rate Brian was getting it, the pressures began to grow. He started working a 25-hour day, eight days a week. He was careful not to lavish too much attention on any one act, and tried (unsuccessfully) to share his devotions. He was devoted to his artists, and saw more of them than he did of his family. One can’t help feeling though, and if Brian were alive today he would probably clarify this, that the Beatles were his first love - not because they were the most successful, but because they had an affinity that Brian had never experienced before. He gave these four suburban lads the world, and gave us all the Beatles, Nobody could ask a bigger favour of anyone than that.

Sad Death

A few years later, when the Beatles were in Bangor studying meditation under the Maharishi Yogi, Brian was found dead in bed in his Mayfair house. The coroner pronounced the death as accidental, due to the cumulative effect of bromide in a drug known as Carbitol. Brian had been taking this for some time because of the ever increasing pressures, which in turn led to insomnia. The world had lost a man whose foresight was greater than any music personality before or since. The Beatles had lost more than they could have possibly imagined. Brian Epstein was a fifth Beatle. He was as much a part of them as they were of him. Words can’t adequately describe the loss of a man of his stature, but perhaps the last words should come from his long time secretary Joanne Newfield:

“A lot of people seem to forget and they say ‘oh he didn’t do that much’, but if you look at the record since his death it makes you wonder. A lot of people say that the Beatles made Brian Epstein; I don’t think Brian Epstein made the Beatles, but I think he did a great deal more than he is given credit for. A lot of managers could have found a group like them and completely messed them up. It wasn’t just their talent alone, it was their talent plus a very creative person behind them. Maybe business-wise he wasn’t the greatest, but creatively he was a genius.”

#Brian Epstein #The Beatles: The Fabulous Story of John Paul George and Ringo #1975 #70s

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ssfoc · 8 years ago

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Sign of the Times

Harry Styles’s first single, Sign of the Times (SOTT), was released by Erskine Records and distributed by Columbia Records on April 7, 2017.

The songwriters credited: Tyler Johnson, Alex Salibian, Ryan Nasci, Mitch Rowland, Jeff Bhasker, and Harry Styles (x)

It was produced by Jeff Bhasker and engineered by Ryan Nasci (x)

In interviews, Harry has said that the song is “just absolutely what [he wants] to say the most, and it’s [his] favourite song on the album.” It was “the quickest song on the album,” and the kernel of the idea was born when Harry “went down and sat at the piano, kind of, for ten minutes, by myself,” composed the bones of the song. He mentions that he wanted an atmosphere where he could “[feel] really comfortable, in terms of, know, being vulnerable, and just writing exactly what it was that I wanted to say.”

The most clarifying answer in Harry’s interviews so far, has been this bit on Most Requested Live, which I will quote in full, courtesy of @whiteknightonasteed‘s blog (emphases mine):

Harry: Umm…yeah. I think Sigh Of The Times is, y’know, my, kind of….I mean, I’d nev….I’d…like I said, I’d don’t think I’d ever, y’know, say exactly what it’s all about. I think for each person, ah, to kind of take away what they get from something like that is more important, but I think Sign Of The Times is probably the most literal song on the album, um…

MRL: Really…

Harry: Yeah, I think it’s just a view…kind of a lot of things that…go on…and, ah, yeah…

For this blog review, I am using this video to refer to all time references:

youtube

I will use lyrics from here, but I don’t think these lyrics are 100% reflective of what Harry actually sings, and I will explain. Please skip down further for musical analysis.

Out of the gate, many reviewers have compared Harry’s song to David Bowie, especially the Bowie of Hunky Dory (released 17 December 1971, RCA Records) and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (released 16 June 1972, RCA Records). The song has many Bowie influences, not the least from Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, and in particular the single from the album, Lazarus (Bowie’s last). Both songs have similarities in metaphor and poetic reference, similar use of biblical imagery, and pointedly similar musical bones. Both allude to an underlying theme which is not directly stated. I hope, if nothing else, my readers might give Blackstar/ Lazarus a listen, because the album is a powerful work, a great artistic statement. And the music video is astonishing.

I’ve written before that SOTT is the musical equivalent of Harry’s Another Man magazine shoot, and I think what struck me first was the theatricality of the song’s presentation. The Harry Styles who worried that the font of the website was wrong surely meticulously, obsessively supervised every audiovisual aspect of the production of his first single. Therefore I have to assume that whatever is there, is there intentionally.

Theatrical doesn’t mean “fake,” exactly. Theatricality, no matter how alien, is using dramatic personas to demonstrate a Truth that the artist either cannot, or chooses not to state directly. The Harry Styles of Another Man was a break from his One Direction persona, and showed us three different “takes” on Harry, but none of them were exactly the real Harry Styles, either. Even Chelsey Handler’s interview was a masterclass in banter as subterfuge. The real him is elusive-- a long-time target of fans and media and management. But his vague interview answers imply that this is a person who does not want to be exposed. The real Harry Styles, as close as we can understand, is found only in his music.

Bowie was a master of using theatricality to challenge assumptions and to build puzzles for audiences to solve, both is his many shifting personas, and in his music. He had studied mime and dance prior to becoming a musician. In fact, an early influence was British musical theater star, Anthony Newley. Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust makeup, the androgynous album covers, and the glam outfits were all ways to force a shift in audience perspective, to challenge audience assumptions about what rock and roll was “about.” Bowie was so fond of theater that his first hit, Space Oddity, (11 July 1969), featured a fictitious astronaut named Major Tom. In this song, Bowie uses a shift in vocal range (here, an octave leap) to convey a shift in musical drama, a trick that Harry also uses in SOTT.

However, we also know that Harry loves puns, loves telling jokes based on puns, loves it when audiences get his jokes, and loves to hide the truth in plain sight. I’m going to present some thoughts, trying to stay focused on the song, without trying to tie lyrics too firmly to literal life circumstances.

SOTT starts with F major (I) chords on piano. The key of the song quickly becomes nebulous with a d minor seventh chord (vi7), shifting into C major (V), In fact, this three-chord motif recurs throughout the song.

The other interesting thing about the song is that, in my opinion, it has no chorus. It is a song of sustained, repeated verses alternating with a falsetto pre-chorus. Both verse and pre-chorus share the same harmonic motif (I- vi7 - V). The first time I heard the song, I thought it was over-long and repetitive, both in lyrics and in harmony.

But in hindsight, the repetition is intentional. There is no harmonic progression, no chorus, no break from the trap of going back and forth between these three chords, because the meaning of the song is literally that there is no escape from being trapped, again and again trying to break out, again and again promised freedom, again and again lied to, denied.

The song does not follow the typical song structure of a pop song. In poetic terms, I would say that the song has the structure of meditation (with almost an eschatological bent) rather than the structure of lyrical poetry (which seeks, like metaphysics, to confess, explain, expound).

The obvious symbolism here is the biblical allusion to Judgment Day, Resurrection/ ascension, and rebirth. The promotional video for the song started with a piano playing notes from the same three chords, with Harry walking from clouds in darkness toward a door of light, body wet, arms dripping. It ends with Harry’s raising his face with wet hair, seeing out with the eyes of experience. The piano resolves to the home key (F major) much more comfortingly in the promo ad than in the song itself. The cover photo is of a red, darkened sky, of a body in water, of a body risen out of water. These elements: a body submerged in water, rising to greet the light, from a star who has always worn the necklace of a Christian cross, with the new tattoo of an “R” on his arm shown prominently in the video, together allude to turmoil, perhaps death, rebirth, purification. I must emphasize that I do not think it is a religious song, but I think the symbolism is important.

It was difficult to interpret the promo video out of context, but the song fulfills the promise of the allusion.

The song is a dramatic tableau of various characters. We can make the assumption because of the song’s use of pronouns, and the separation of vocal registers between the first verse and the first pre-chorus.

Just stop your crying, it's a sign of the times Welcome to the final show Hope you're wearing your best clothes You can't bribe the door on your way to the sky You look pretty good down here But you ain't really good

The chest voice sings the first verse, and it’s one theatrical persona singing to a second person(s), using the language of theater (or a rock arena), but also metaphorically of death and Judgment Day. It’s the sign of the times, it’s the end of the world, it’s the apocalypse. Hope you’re dressed for the Resurrection, for going to Heaven. There’s only one way up, no way to bend the rules. You can’t bribe your way up. For the people left behind, you’re looking pretty good down there, but you weren’t good enough to come up here, were you?

The key note in the first verse is this one:

You look pretty good down here But you ain't really good

The song has been humming along with the three chords, and suddenly we come to the last note, “good.” It ends on an D, not a part of the C major (V) chord-- a dissonant note. It’s a foreshortened phrase, compared to the other phrases. It’s meant to sound dissonant, to bring attention to this word. You’re not good. You’ll never come up. You’ve been left behind. This occurs once more, later, as we’ll see.

The first pre-chorus is where we hear, for the first time, a doubling of voices in falsetto (cf. Bowie Lady Stardust 1:09).

We never learn, we been here before Why are we always stuck and running from The bullets? The bullets We never learn, we been here before Why are we always stuck and running from Your bullets? The bullets

I personally think this is meant to be a different theatrical persona, given the change in pronoun (from the imperative second person, “you,” to the declarative first person plural, “we”), the change in vocal register, and the change of vocal style. The higher register implies younger people-- vulnerable, innocent, ignorant. They ask questions of innocence: why are there always bullets? Why are they always aimed at us? Why does this happen over and over-- we’ve been here before?

The words “the bullets” scan awkwardly as well. Said out loud, the words should be an iambic foot with a feminine ending (the•búl•let), but instead scan as a dactyl (thé• bul•let) in the song, softening the bullets, making them seem almost like caresses. As we’ll see, this is probably intentional as well. The people making judgment, the hands that should nurture and caress, are delivering bullets instead, with a hypocritical and inhumane mendacity that reassures victims (”It’ll be alright”) even as they are being destroyed, left behind. Harry sings, at 1:14, “Your bullets.” It’s a misprint in the official lyrics (listen to it). It’s pretty clear where the bullets are coming from. All the while, the voices are telling the victims, “You look pretty good” are also the ones shooting the bullets.

Next comes the synth rise and guitar riffs (references to Bowie’s Space Oddity, George Harrison, Brian May) which bring us to the next verse:

Just stop your crying, it's a sign of the times We gotta get away from here We gotta get away from here Just stop your crying, it'll be alright They told me that the end is near We gotta get away from here Just stop your crying, have the time of your life Breaking through the atmosphere And things are pretty good from here Remember everything will be alright We can meet again somewhere Somewhere far away from here

These lyrics show the convergence of the two personas in the verse and pre-chorus. The personas both hear what’s being said to them, and also realize they have to make a plan. Their savior is actually their judge and torturer; no one will deliver them except themselves, by getting away. “They told me that the end is near” is a foretaste of a promise which will be unfulfilled. They will say it over and over. “The end is near.” Just this one time. This is the last time. No more after this. You’ll be alright. Just do it one more time.

But they lie. We’ve been here before. Always dodging bullets. Your bullets.

The whistling wind effect (2:04) suggests flight, as well as “breaking through the atmosphere.” “Breaking through,” of course, is an entertainment industry term: to become a star, a superstar, a mega-star. Even the term “star” implies an escape from what is grounded and ordinary. Another spacey reference is the reverb effect used in “time of your life,” (1:57), reminiscent of Bowie’s effects in Five Years (0:42). And of course, “have the time of your life” is also the mantra of the rock star (with a reverb effect, linking back to other rock musicians, underscoring this connection)-- you’re a rock star. You should be having the time of your life. Stop your crying.

Here I am reminded of Harry’s music video: flying. Breaking through the atmosphere.

(Sorry to insert a picture of earthbound Harry, but I need a little sustenance, too, you know?)

The next verses are repetitive, but as I said above, the repetition underscores the inability to escape. The same three chords repeat, the same lyrics repeat.

Then we finally come to a bridge, that should mark something different The words are different, and the rhythm is different, but harmonically the song is still stuck (F- dmin7 - C).

We don't talk enough, we should open up Before it's all too much Will we ever learn? We've been here before It's just what we know

The bridge is the same as the verse because “It’s just what we know.” And finally, we arrive at realization. The song changes harmonically. In theory, this is the resolution of the harmony to the tonic (home) key, over and over. Here, the music mimics the watery imagery of the album cover. The notes of the melody are on the off beat (opposite the accompanying instruments), and are dragged from one downbeat to the next, like a wave dragging the next wave in, like a body rising slowly out of water.

Stop your crying, baby, it's a sign of the times We gotta get away, we got to get away We got to get away, we got to get away We got to get away We got to, we got to --way We got to, we got to --way We got to, we got to --way

On the bolded away (4:42) above, is when the song starts to reach the highest note, the leading harmony from subdominant (B-flat IV chord) to dominant (C major, V chord) to tonic (F major, I chord). This is the first real resolution (4:46), and the song emphatically repeats it over and over, on the tonic. It’s no accident that the message to act decisively is on the resolution to the home key, repeated again and again. Finally, each note is on the downbeat. No more dragging.

The song is resolving, so it’s no longer stuck... or is it?

The voice ends on a dominant chord (C major, V), which means it’s -- not resolved. The instruments slowly end to the tonic. Finally, in the last two notes, the piano ends on the home, or tonic (F major) key.

What it means to me is that the Hope for a way out is very tiny, very quiet, and, right now, not voiced out loud (at least with human voices). It is not the Resurrection that was promised. It is not salvation. It is not rebirth, but rather experience. Harry’s eyes, at the end of the promotional video, were not the eyes of redemption, but eyes wide open, eyes that have known lies, broken promises, struggle, and the suppression of struggle, but eyes nevertheless open to challenge.

Okay, now for a speculative read on what the lyrics mean, since Harry said himself that it was the most literal of all the songs on the album.

One way of interpreting the Judgment Day metaphor is the separation of the Superstar from everyone else, or, in other words, Solo Harry (I know it’s bitter fandom discourse, but hear me out. I’m going there).

We know this was an album that was fervently anticipated by Columbia Records/ Sony. The fandom could see that the treatment of marketing, PR, writing, recording, production for Harry has been nothing short of obsessively first rate (except for the Spotify glitch). The performances on SNL, Graham Norton, and probably the Late Late Show and others are premium spots reserved for mega-stars.

Of course it’s difficult to know how Harry feels about this, and I’ve seen the fandom tear itself apart on discourse about Solo Harry. I think this song so cleverly lays it out, and in a way that, like his interviews, says nothing, because it names no one and is generally vague. The average music critic cites international unrest, terrorism, the troubles of the day, etc., but remember Harry said the subject of the song is literal, it’s personal, it makes him feel vulnerable.

How does he feel? Let’s see.

“Just stop your crying.” Someone is telling him, and maybe others, not to cry, that it’ll be alright, that pain is inevitably a part of life, a “sign of the times.” Shit happens. It is what it is. Cream rises to the top. It’s not your fault that you’re the cream, Styles. Don’t look back. Don’t look down. Just focus on where you are: things look pretty good from here, right? Have the time of your life. Enjoy it. There’s literally nothing we won’t do to make sure you stay up here. We might even have promised you that all this shit would end soon, that there was something to look forward to. “They told me that the end is near.”

Someone authoritative is reassuring him that things are great above the atmosphere. The people down there (people he’s being separated from) look pretty good--they’re happy, see? Don’t worry about them. They’re not good like you. They ain’t good.

Then maybe the people separated from him say, to reassure him, “Remember, everything will be alright,/ We can meet again somewhere/ Somewhere far away from here.” They try to comfort him tenderly and with love. Don’t feel bad. We’ll be together again.

But he knows reality isn’t so simple. These promises are meant to soothe his fears, but he’s not the innocent kid asking “why the bullets?” anymore. He’s the adult saying, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

(This is one interpretation. I have read interpretations that the song may allude to depression, the death of close friends and family, romantic loss, the struggle with fame, etc., and of course I take nothing away from them. Listeners have the freedom to listen as we wish. That’s the gift of art.)

How does he rescue himself and others? How does he process the complex and sad realities of life?

Musically, of course. The boys of 1D say in tattoos and music what they cannot say out loud.

His song is called The Sign of the Times. Harry Styles has hung out his Sign. The song is the promise that he signed over. It is literally a sign. This is Harry the bittersweet pun-maker at work.

Okay, are you still with me? I have only one last bit to say, and it comes back to David Bowie.

As I said above, both SOTT and Bowie’s last single, Lazarus, share biblical metaphors.

The story of Lazarus is recounted in the New Testament, John 11:1-44. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, two followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to the cave where Lazarus had been entombed for four days in his burial shrouds (his sisters already believed him to be decomposing). His sisters commented that one could only rise from the dead in the Resurrection, but Jesus corrected her that faith brought the glory of God. Jesus then raised him from the dead.

These two songs share a lot of musical bones. (I refer to the Lazarus music video) I didn’t see any specific commentary on it, but I find the following very interesting.

1. Lazarus is in a minor. Throughout the song, the three notes repeated are A, C, D. SOTT is in F major, containing A in the tonic triad chord. The three notes repeated throughout the song are A, C, D. The tempo for Lazarus is 68 bpm. The tempo for SOTT is 60 bpm.

2. Neither song has a chorus. They progress from verses to a a dramatic bridge, and then they end. This is very unusual in pop music song structure.

3. Both are about the subject of real freedom, contrasted with a kind of earthly heaven which the singers ultimately reject.

4. Both songs are about searching for someone whom has been left behind. The Lazarus video implies that we do not have a clear vision of what is of real value in life. As the video opens, Bowie is in bed with his eyes bandaged, and there are metal screws in his eyes. Screwy vision. He searches for someone:

By the time I got to New York I was living like a king There I'd used up all my money I was looking for your ass This way or no way

5. Lazarus ends with David Bowie going into a wardrobe closet, which is also a coffin where death awaits. To be closeted = death.

Here are the full lyrics to Lazarus, which are really remarkable.

Look up here, I'm in heaven I've got scars that can't be seen I've got drama, can't be stolen Everybody knows me now

Look up here, man, I'm in danger I've got nothing left to lose I'm so high it makes my brain whirl Dropped my cell phone down below Ain't that just like me?

By the time I got to New York I was living like a king There I'd used up all my money I was looking for your ass This way or no way You know, I'll be free Just like that bluebird Now, ain't that just like me? Oh, I'll be free Just like that bluebird Oh, I'll be free Ain't that just like me?

I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did. Please feel free to comment or drop by my message box for a chat.

#bloody hell this is taking forever #I am so slow at this #gripe gripe gripe #Sign of the Times #songwriting #Harry Styles songwriting #Harry Styles #Holo #david bowie #lazarus #blackstar

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