The passing of Syd Barrett sent me back to songs which could only have come out of England, or at least, the British Isles.Barrett was one of the first people to avoid singing in some kind of quasi American mid Atlantic accent - I doubt that it even occurred to him to do so. This affectation was adopted by David Bowie and many others.
Those songs on Piper At The Gates of Dawn (before his mental state got the better of him) are impossibly English, and for me are far more 'psychedelic' than anything on Sgt Pepper (which was being recorded in the studio next door at the same time).
Syd Barrett's earlier songs had a childhood whimsy about them which stopped just short of being irritatingly twee (except maybe for Bike, with the mouse called Gerald, who hasn't got a house but he's a good mouse). It comes out of Lewis Carrol, and (obviously) The Wind In The Willows, and a weird old Arcadian dreaminess which sounds like nothing else in rock.
As he got more and more ill, the songs become increasingly hard to listen to, and I can't take much of the solo albums at all, they are just too deranged and broken.
Anyway, all this set me off on a playlist of quintessentially English tunes, sung by English voices and far removed from the American R&B which kicked things off in the first place. Hence we have the Only Ones, with Peter Perrett singing ever so nicely about heroin again, and Ian Dury, Nick Drake, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, the Kinks, Small Faces, Shack, Bert Jansch, Fairport Convention, Linda Thompson, etc...
more suggestions are welcome!
8 comments:
That is not a bad idea. I need to do some serious pruning in itunes. Now I've gone over 55gb my ipod no longer updates with new stuff, which is thoroughly frustrating.
...No Flanders & Swann? Vivian Stanshall?
I was going for a Viv Stanshell solo tune - either The Cracks Are Showing, or Ginger Geezer, but I settled for a Bonzo Dog tune instead - Tent is just terrific fun...
Soft Cell: Bedsitter
Siouxsie: Hong Kong Garden
Nick Lowe: I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass
good choices all, especially Soft Cell.
I also thought one of the early JHoe Jackson singles, eg Different For Girls.
Should have some Squeeze on there. Cool for Cats and Up the Junction would be too cliched. Maybe Pulling Mussels (from the Shell), or Goodbye Girl. You know how I feel about Boo Hewerdine, but I struggle here. Patience of Angels is a gorgeous song; if we could bottle the version he played at Cambridge, that would work, but I also associate it with Eddi Reader. So it's maybe too Scottish for this list. Similarly, Graceland tips too much of a hat over the Atlantic (it can be downloaded for free from boohewerdine.org). I'd probably go for a track from Anon; a typically beautiful and criminally under-rated album (Mapping the Human Heart is also on a free download). Or maybe even (and now we get obscure) the theme music from the long-deleted soundtrack to Fever Pitch, a superb album in its own right.
pulling muscles from a shell should be there, or perhaps is That Love?
should also have room for Robyn Hitchock or the Soft Boys, but having already chosen syd Barrett, maybe that's redundant.
I keep coming back to this game. I'm surprised that there's no early Genesis in there; Get 'Em Out By Friday (I can't drive down the M11 without humming it to myself) would fit the bill (my copy of Foxtrot is on a tape you made for me; I really should get a new copy).
Would Mike Oldfield be a step too far??
Does the M11 go to Harlow New Town by any chance?
A bit of early Genesis would be most welcome, but personally I think I would go for Watcher of the Skies or Suppers Ready - probably the former for reasons of relative brevity.
Mike Oldfield? Although I remain a proud owner of Tubular Bells, on vinyl, I feel I must draw the line here. Van Der Graaf Generator...now that's another story...
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