Marie with the laughing eyes,
She tossed her hair and tantalised.
She came, she touched me, then she’d gone
Just like a summer breeze.
Chorus and brass band break
(0:54-1:11)
The SMIP project is proving illuminating in ways I hadn’t expected. Much of the (painstaking, time consuming) work is, of course, going on behind the Ministry’s doors and will come to light in good time or under the 30 year rule (whichever is the sooner).
But, by way of example, re-listening to things I haven’t heard for a while has demonstrated that one’s memory can all too easily play tricks on you. A decade ago, I’d have given you a Chinese burn had you dared to suggest that Good Enough by Dodgy or The Bluetones’ Slight Return were anything other than SMIPfests from start to finish.
They are not.
By Christ, they are not.
Oh, no. (And just trust me on this one: you really don’t want to go there…)
The most unexpected SMIP to date arose from a throwaway remark a few weeks ago by the Minister’s Wife about the trombone being one of the most under-appreciated instruments in rock music.
The Minister’s Wife was – as always – absolutely right. And it set me on a journey through the darker recesses of my iTunes Library to dig out some examples.
The first that sprang to mind was Neil Diamond’s first hit, Solitary Man. I am, unashamedly, a loud and proud Diamond fan. I don’t care what jibes are thrown at the Vegas kitsch cabaret act he has become – although I refer critics of said Diamond incarnation to his last album, 12 Songs (his best in 30 years), to learn precisely what songwriting is all about – but between 1966 and 1973 Neil Diamond wrote some of the best pop and rock songs ever and his range of work (eg his African Trilogy from 1970′s Tap Root Manuscript album) was as diverse as anything lauded to the skies when Paul Simon did it 16 years later.
Some of those songs will feature as SMIPs in due course. Solitary Man has proven versatile and durable enough to have been interpreted by acts as diverse as Chris Isaak, Johnny Cash, pseudo-metalheads HIM and bluegrass revivalists Crooked Fingers in just the past seven years. The original version remains the best, however, with a pair of trombones adding light and shade through the chorus and bridge of one of the darkest lyrics of Diamond’s career.
Then I recalled Together Alone by Crowded House, taken from the 1993 album of the same name. The SMIP in this particular track lies elsewhere (patience, children) but the simple sound of the brass ensemble – particularly in the context of underpinning the rest of this song’s arrangement – is particularly affecting.
Then the Minister’s Wife, in an act of wanton cruelty, forced him to sit through the “third season finale” of the execrable Grey’s Anatomy the other day. Featuring prominently on the show’s soundtrack was Within You from Ray LaMontagne’s second album, Till The Sun Turns Black.
While LaMontagne luckily falls within that sacred category of People Who Could Sing The Phone Book And Make It Sound Gorgeous, a small brass ensemble – alongside a string arrangement Sir George Martin would admire – in this instance enhances an audaciously simple song and trite lyric (“War is not the answer: the answer is within you. Love, love, love.” Repeat to fade.) to create an aural experience that is far from unpleasant.
Finally, however, the trombone/brass band SMIP emerged from no lesser figure than Sir Clifford of Richard (© Smash Hits, 1984) himself.
In 1967 Hank Marvin wrote a simple little song called The Day I Met Marie. Being unable to hold a tune himself, Hank handed it to his mate Cliff, whose producer arranged it to incorporate a prominent brass band.
From an initially inauspicious opening of acoustic guitar, bass and Cliff’s ever-fragile vocal on the first verse (0:08-0.35), first trombone (at 0:28) and then trumpet (from 0:33) gently lift the second verse above the mundane until, at 0:46, a tuba begins to propel singer, musicians and listener inexorably towards the first chorus (at 0:54) and our SMIP.
And yes, the churlish could legitimately claim that a brass ensemble’s presence on a Cliff Richard record three years after he became born again raises too many Salvation Army marching band connotations for comfort, but the bottom line is that the chorus of this song is effortlessly infectious.
The sustained tuba bass notes that end the bridge (1:18-1:29) add a further little frisson of melodrama while Cliff tries to sing convincingly about being kissed by a woman.
It also helps that songs only lasted two minutes back in the Sixties. Because, after a quick third verse (1:31-1:53) and a second, less pulsating and slightly anticlimactic chorus (1:53-2:02), it’s all over.
And we smile.
And we move on.
The very essence – if you will permit me my Paul Morley moment – of simply great pop music.
The record briefly made number ten in September 1967, the great British public once more spectacularly fucking it up by choosing to put Engelbert Humperdinck’s noxious The Last Waltz at number one for about eight months.
Cliff formally split from The Shadows in 1968 before leading the United Kingdom to Eurovision failure with the heinous Congratulations. He would barely make another listenable record until he stumbled upon Miss You Nights and Devil Woman in quick succession in 1976.
Before directing you to YouTube, I would urge you to remember to listen to the song and not, er, watch the “dancing” in this clip of Cliff lip synching The Day I Met Marie in 1967:
To discover what the song sounds like when The Shadows themselves perform it (with Hank gamely singing lead, bless him) and how SMIP status genuinely necessitates a coming together of the right musicians, producer, arranger and performer at the right time and in the right manner, check out this surreal little clip from 1968 Australian TV:
Well fuck me backwards with a broomhandle. First of all no Strollin’ Bones, now Cliff “fucking” Richard. What next? The hidden depths of Demis Rousos?
I was about to jack this whole thing in when I read who was being nominated for a SMIP, but thankfully Mrs Minister (the Prime Minister?) as ever rescues the Minister from losing the plot entirely, for she is indeed right about how under-appreciated the trombone is. It’s probably best to draw a veil over what exactly caused the Prime Minister to consider under-appreciated trombones. Perhaps the Minister should have done likewise.
What is surprising though (and if I may be a little blunt) disappointing is that if you’re going to talk about trombones there was no mention of Fred Wesley, the greatest trombone player of all time. It was his plumbing that backed up not just James Brown, but also Bootsy Collins and Count Basie. Not a bad life in the office.
I could pretend to be incredibly knowledgeable about his life, motivations, early setbacks and moments of great triumph, but that would be to deny the fact I had ripped it all off this website: http://www.funky-stuff.com/wesley/Bio01.htm
1:42 – 1:50 on Gimme Some More is arguably a sublime moment in pop as Fred Wesley performs one of the funkiest and probably simplest solos I’ve ever heard. Simple in that it’s one splendidly long breath he exhales, but what he does that makes it sublime is just slowly, inexorably, but with real control, pulls the tube in, taking his horn from a low duck’s fart through to a sweet wail. And then of course, he breaks and builds a fantastic solo. Once you realise what he’s doing you think, “he surely can’t have the balls to try and pull something so simple off? He only fucking does!” And then you just wonder when his breath is going to run out.
And this:
http://funky16corners.blogspot.com/2005/12/fred-wesley-jbs-doing-it-to-death.html
is a brilliant blog entry about the JB’s “Doing it to Death”.
“There are seven acknowledged wonders of the world. You are about to witness the eighth.”
ps
still can’t work out how to hyperlink things when I’m in comment mode
pps
can we nominate our own SMIP’s or is there a pre-moderation phase? I only offer otherwise I fear we’ll be served up the delights of David Hasselhoff’s pop career next…
It is more complicated to create a hyperlink in comment mode. I usually cheat and write the comment, then go into Edit Comment and put the hyperlink in that way. But if you want to code it you use:
to create a link to the front door of the Ministry and then just change the URL and the name of the page/text accordingly.
Yes, anyone can post a SMIP. I might not agree with it, just like you may not agree with mine, but that’s part of the fun. I’d prefer it if the author would make the case for the SMIP and put it in a bit of context, as I have been trying to do, but there are no hard and fast rules – just as there are no hard and fast rules about what makes a SMIP.
I am unlikely to offer up many funk SMIPs for the simple reason that virtually the only funk album I own is The Essential Sly & The Family Stone: I have very little funk in my music collection.
As for The Hoff, you can sleep easy. (That his music is very popular in Germany says it all.)
But I have always tried very hard to listen to music – if you’ll pardon the George-ism – without prejudice. I don’t care that two or three of my favourite singles of the past few years have been released by the Sugababes any more than I care that two or three of my favourite tracks of all time are by Joy Division. I don’t listen to either because they are trendy or untrendy – I listen to them because I like them.
And I don’t care how many people tell me that Bob Dylan’s a musical genius, I will always maintain that he’s an atonal spanner who has certainly written some decent songs but has always needed someone else to interpret and sing them.
I will passionately argue the merits of some Cliff Richard tracks, a few Barry Manilow tracks, certain Neil Sedaka tracks (that should bring back some memories for you…), a handful of Carpenters tracks and dozens of Neil Diamond tracks. I’m not interested in who wrote or recorded them just as long as they are good.
The first chorus of The Day I Met Marie is a copper-bottomed SMIP in my book and I would say that if it had been recorded by critics’ darlings Scott Walker, Tom Waits, The Blue Nile or Nick Drake.
It just so happens to have been recorded by Cliff Richard. The vast majority of the man’s output is utter shit (and I know because the Minister’s Mother is a fan and his music haunted my childhood), but fair play to him for that little moment of greatness.
Oh, and I think the honourable gentleman will find that Roussos (a favourite of the Minister’s Father) is spelt with a double ‘s’.
Fuck me backwards twice with a broom handle. Between mopsy’s Cliff Richard and popsy’s Demis Roussos, you really were lucky to get out alive.
The Carpenters still brings out the heebeegeebees in me though. It too is a reaction from my childhood.
Mercifully my father would play Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Errol Garner in the car when he drove me to the bus stop. Yet again that man was my saviour.
Okay it’s official. SMIPs are officially the best things around right now. I cannot WAIT to get back and listen to this one.
I have to declare an interest: my sister, between the ages of 7 and 12, was the World’s biggest Cliff Richard fan. Elvis and Buddy Holly were second and third respectively, oh yes. Ergo, I think I may have heard this already, but I can’t remember.
My own temporary nomination for “aren’t brass bands in pop great?” is the glissando befor the chorus of Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil (1987).
And while I’m in the mood: Bob Dylan was a poet. This, to me, makes him a musician. This is because firstly poets always were musicians in the olden days, secondly because his lyrics were intrinsically musical, thirdly because musically, certain of his songs are beautiful on their own – and if other people made them into classics (the Byrds, Clapton, Guns N Roses) this reflects all the better on him.
And sorry, but exactly how sure ARE you that Fred West is the greatest trombonist of all time? How many other of music history’s virtuoso trombonists, across all the ages of music, have you heard/can you name?