Even if Davy Graham had only ever written
and recorded one piece of music, his immortality would be assured, thanks to
“Angi.”This timeless guitar
instrumental is as ubiquitous in folk music as “Smoke on the Water” and
“Stairway to Heaven” are in the world of rock: endlessly copied, but rarely
equalled.I was almost tempted to say
“This simple guitar instrumental” but that would be unfair.Even though every budding folk guitarist must
learn to play at least a basic version of “Angi” almost as a rite of passage, to
perform it with the flair and dexterity Davy brought to the piece is another
matter entirely.
There are at least three different
spellings of the title.Bert Jansch recorded
it as “Angie” on his 1965 self-titled debut LP and his version is arguably even
more well-known and influential than Davy’s original.Bert cleverly added a verse of Nat Adderley’s
“Work Song” to his arrangement, a tune Davy had been performing onstage since his
earliest days.A previously unreleased
1961 version of “Work Song” recorded live in Edinburgh can be found here on Disc One
(see also Disc Eight).
Following the year he spent kicking around the London folk clubs, Paul Simon cemented the tune’s worldwide fame when he recorded it as “Anji” on the 1966 Simon &
Garfunkel album Sounds of Silence. Back home, Stan Webb’s blues boomers Chicken Shack also
called it “Anji” for their perfunctory electric version on the 1969 LP 100
Ton Chicken.
"Angi" started life on the 1963 Topic EP 3/4 AD shared with Alexis Korner and, fittingly, it leads off this magnificent and lovingly compiled box set.Comprising eight CDs, it claims
to feature Davy’s complete 60s recordings.That adds up to an impressive 162 tracks in all, a healthy number of
which are rare and / or previously unreleased.
Another shared EP From A
London Hootenanny gave us “She Moved Through the Fair” and “Mustapha.”Recorded live in 1963, these eastern
flavoured pieces introduced Davy’s famous DADGAD guitar tuning to the folk world
and are just as important as “Angi” in the Graham repertoire. It wasn’t too long before the rock guys began to take notice. Jimmy Page took “She Moved Through
the Fair,” retitled it “White Summer” and made it his solo showcase, first with
the Yardbirds and later with Led Zeppelin where it became part of a live DADGAD
medley with Bert Jansch’s “Blackwaterside” (retitled “Black Mountain Side.”)Naturally, neither Davy nor Bert received
credit for Page’s appropriation (these were arrangements of traditional pieces after all) but
those who knew the truth have been shouting it from the rooftops ever since.
Following five obscure demo tracks funded by comedian Bob Monkhouse (yes, really), Disc One continues with
Davy’s first full album, The Guitar Player. Released in 1963 on Pye records’ budget
imprint Golden Guinea, this instrumental collection features a sometimes-uneasy
mix of folk, blues, jazz and easy listening pop. The Latin-tinged “Don’t Stop the Carnival”
originated on the 1962 Sonny Rollins LP What’s New (four years
before Alan Price made the song a pop hit) while classics “Take Five,” “Cry Me
A River” and “Yellow Bird” are also treated to Graham’s fretboard
wizardry.
But it’s on tracks such as
“How Long, How Long Blues,” “The Ruby and The Pearl,” “Buffalo” and “Blues For
Betty” where things start to get really interesting.Here we find Davy virtually inventing a style of acoustic guitar which, two or three years hence, would become the gold
standard among British folk blues luminaries such as John Renbourn, Wizz Jones,
Bert Jansch and others.
Disc Two contains Davy’s
debut Decca solo album and his most acclaimed work Folk, Blues &
Beyond. Released in January 1965, it established him as a major force
in the folk blues guitar world. While the playing here is truly groundbreaking,
Davy’s vocals, average at best, are an acquired taste. This was a common theme
throughout his career and probably prevented him becoming a bigger star outside
the folk circuit.
Nevertheless, the guitar work is astonishing, especially for 1965.“Leavin’ Blues,” “Rock Me Baby” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do,” while
rooted in the pentatonic scale, veer off into dazzling jazz improvisation using complex augmented, diminished, 9th, 11th and 13th chords and God knows what else.Nobody in the folk world was playing with such confidence and outrageous technique at
the time.
Recorded in 1964 with Shirley
Collins, Folk Roots, New Routes forms Disc Three.Clean living Shirley admits to being somewhat intimidated
by Davy, who would disappear at regular intervals during recording only to
reappear reinvigorated and with a spring in his step. Before long Davy would deliberately choose to become a junkie, just as his jazz heroes had done before him.
The drug scene really wasn’t Shirley's world, yet
the unlikely collaboration was a triumph: her pure traditional folk voice
meshing perfectly with Davy’s virtuosic folk blues guitar, the like of which
had never been heard before.In fact, it
was the first time many of these traditional English folk songs had been
recorded with a guitar backing.It’s all
tremendous stuff, but “Nottamum Town,” “Hares on the Mountain” and “Love Is
Pleasing” are the stand outs, along with two dazzling solo instrumentals from
Davy, “Rif Mountain” and “Blue Monk.”
Disc Four sees Davy drawing
material from many styles for Midnight Man, his 1966 fourth
LP.Here we find songs by the Beatles
(“I’m Looking Thru You”), Herbie Hancock (“Watermelon Man”), Elvis (“Money
Honey”) and Rufus Thomas (“Walkin’ The Dog”) along with the usual helping of
blues standards (“Stormy Monday,” “Fire In My Soul” etc).Only the aforementioned underwhelming vocals prevented
this from being a major work at the time but as always Davy’s guitar
playing saved the day.
Disc Four ends with 10 tracks from
the CD Live at St. Andrews Folk Club, 8th May 1966.This set remained unreleased until 2007 and
unlike some other live material which has been unearthed in recent years, it’s top-quality
stuff.Both the audio quality and Davy’s
performances are excellent. Oddly, the remaining
10 tracks from the St. Andrews CD are spread out over Discs Six and Seven.
On Disc Five we find After
Hours At Hull University 4th February 1967 a 14-track
collection, recorded on a Philips domestic tape recorder by Davy’s lifelong
friend John Pilgrim in his quarters at Hull University.Pilgrim (1933-2020) achieved fame, if not
fortune, as the washboard player with 50s skiffle band The Vipers, before
becoming a journalist, bookseller, jazz and blues expert and many other things
besides.
Given the circumstances the audio quality is pretty good, and this recording finds Davy at his most relaxed, chatting between songs and
delivering material such as “She Moved Through the Fair” (here titled “She
Moved Through the Bizarre,”) “Cocaine,” “Jubilation” and “How Long Blues.”His playing is superb throughout and the
party atmosphere only adds to the enjoyment.It sounds like only a handful of people were present, so this is what it
must have sounded like having Davy play in your front room.
These recordings remained unreleased
until 1997 when they appeared on Rollercoaster Records.I initially thought we’d gained a bonus track
here, until I noticed the original 1997 Rollercoaster CD has a typo on the
sleeve, listing track 13 twice.
1968’s Large As Life And
Twice As Natural arrives on Disc Six.Featuring the stellar line-up of Danny
Thompson (upright bass), Jon Hiseman (drums), Dick Heckstall-Smith (sax) and
Harold McNair (flute) this was the first (and probably only) one of Davy’s major label LPs to be released on both sides of the Atlantic, hinting that some kind of US commercial
success might be in the wind.It was not
to be, however, although a raga-jazz interpretation of Joni Mitchell’s
then-current “Both Sides Now” (released as a single in October 1968) was a bold attempt.
Elsewhere it was business as usual
with material by Lead Belly (“Good Morning Blues,”) Fred McDowell (“Freight
Train Blues”) and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (“Beautiful City”) sitting comfortably
alongside traditional songs “Bruton Town” and “Babe, It Ain’t No Lie.”Davy also contributed some of his finest
original material to date including the instrumentals “Blue Raga” and
“Tristano” (this was also released as the B-side of the "Both Sides Now" single).Overall, this was regarded as
his best album since Folk Blues & Beyond.
The remainder of Disc Six comprises
eight more tracks from Live at St. Andrews Folk Club, continuedfrom Disc Four.
The ever-reliable Danny Thompson returns on Disc Seven for the 1969 LP Hat. This features a strange mix of contemporary
pop material.After a somewhat odd
interpretation of the Sgt Pepper track “Getting Better,” we get a
brace of Paul Simon songs “Homeward Bound” and “I Am a Rock” plus Dylan’s “Down
Along the Cove.”All are enjoyable
enough, but yet again, Davy’s vocals are found wanting.
Much better is the blues material,
especially a pair of Willie Dixon numbers made famous by Muddy Waters: "Hoochie Coochie Man” and “I’m Ready.”The final two tracks from Live at St. Andrews Folk Club are tacked on at the end of this disc.
And so to Disc Eight and
Davy’s final major label albums The Holly Kaleidoscope and Godington
Boundary,both from 1970.Recorded with Holly Gwinn (his wife at the time) on vocals, The
Holly Kaleidoscope was his sixth and last album for Decca. It has the usual high points - “Blues at
Gino’s,” “Sonnymoon For Two,” “Fingerbuster,” “Ramblin’ Sailor” and “Charlie”
are all excellent - but two covers apiece by Paul Simon (“Bridge Over Troubled
Water” and “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall”) and Paul McCartney
(“Blackbird” and “Here, There & Everywhere”) are less successful. Holly appears on just a few tracks, but her
crystalline vocals (sounding not unlike Joan Baez) make all the
difference.
Godington Boundaryoriginallyappeared on the President label, a London-based independent
notable for hits by the Equals and Eddy Grant.This is not one of Davy’s best albums but, as always, the playing
is worth the price of admission alone. He even used an electric guitar here and there on this record. Holly provides vocals on five tracks, including a decent cover of the
Incredible String Band’s “Everything’s Fine Right Now.”
Yet again the stand-out tracks are
the instrumentals, especially “Forty Ton Parachute,” “Round Midnight” and “Work
Song.”This last was written by Nat
Adderley but the sleeve notes mistakenly credits it to his older brother Cannonball Adderley. These were the last records Davy would make before a growing heroin dependency curtailed his career for a number of years. When he returned to low key recording and performing in the mid-70s he had changed his name to Davey Graham and the glory years were well and truly over.
Original vinyl copies of Davy's 60s albums now
change hands for huge money and although all have previously been available on
CD, most are now out of print (and not all are on Spotify), so it’s good to see
them all together in one place at last and with a handful of unreleased bonus
tracks too. Cherry Red have done their usual excellent
packaging and design job with a 28-page booklet and attractive card sleeves in
a chunky CD-sized box. The in-depth and informative sleeve notes
are by David Suff.
Track Listing
DISC ONE
The First Recordings and THE GUITAR PLAYER
1. Angi
2. Davy’s Train Blues
3. ¾ AD
4. Worksong +*
5. Saturday Night Shuffle +*
6. Angi +*
7. God Loves His Children,
Brother +*
8. Hey Bud Blues +*
9. She Moved Through The Fair
10. Mustapha
11. Careless Love
12. Hallelujah, I Love Her So
13. Sunset Eyes
14. Southbound Train
15. Take Five
16. Don’t Stop The Carnival
17. Sermonette
18. Take Five
19. How Long, How Long Blues
20. Sunset Eyes
21. Cry Me A River
22. The Ruby & The Pearl
23. Buffalo
24. Exodus
25. Yellow Bird
26. Blues For Betty
27. Hallelujah, I Love Her So
DISC TWO
FOLK, BLUES & BEYOND
1. Leavin’ Blues
2. Cocaine
3. Sally Free And Easy
4. Black Is The Colour Of My
True Love’s Hair
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Seven Gypsies
7. Ballad Of The Sad Young Men
8. Moanin’
9. Skillet
10. Ain’t Nobody’s Business
What I Do
11. Maajun (A Taste of
Tangier)
12. I Can’t Keep From Cryin’
Sometimes
13. Don’t Think Twice, It’s
Alright
14. My Babe
15. Goin’ Down Slow
16. Better Git It In Your Soul
DISC THREE
FOLK ROOTS, NEW ROUTES
1. Nottamun Town
2. Proud Maisrie
3. The Cherry Tree Carol
4. Blue Monk
5. Hares On The Mountain
6. Reynardine
7. Pretty Saro
8. Rif Mountain
9. Jane, Jane
10. Love Is Pleasin’
11. Boll Weevil, Holler
12. Hori Horo
13. Bad Girl
14. Lord Gregory
15. Grooveyard
16. Dearest Dear
DISC FOUR
MIDNIGHT MAN plus
1. No Preacher Blues
2. The Fakir
3. I’m Looking Thru’ You
4. Hummingbird
5. Watermelon Man
6. Stormy Monday
7. Money Honey
8. Walkin’ The Dog
9. Fire In My Soul
10. Lost Lover Blues
11. Neighbour, Neighbour
12. Jubilation
13. Rags And Old Iron
14. Jelly Roll Baker
15. Jubilation *
16. Travelling Man *
17. Sally Free & Easy *
18. I’m Ready *
19. Work Song *
20. Rock Me *
21. No Preacher Blues *
22. The Preacher *
23. Sweet Home Chicago *
24. The Cat Came Back *
DISC FIVE
AFTER HOURS, Live at Hull
University, 4th February 1967
Watching the 2023 series (or “season” as the Americans prefer) of the HBO
comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm, I was startled to hear creator Larry David
employ that most jarring and unattractive of swearwords “cunt” several times in
succession.Larry was, it seems, getting
frustrated with the sat nav (GPS) system in his expensive new BMW, hence the unseemly
outburst.It’s rare enough to hear an
American drop the C-bomb in anger at the best of times, but even more unusual to find them attempting
to shoehorn the word into a comedy routine.I winced involuntarily at the scene while thinking “Steady on there,
Larry!”
Now, I’m no prude and unless watching TV with my maiden aunt or the
parish priest (an unlikely contingency, I grant you), I generally have no problem with swearing, especially when used comedically.
But this Basil Fawlty-meets-Derek &
Clive style display of expletive fury seemed a crass and unfunny overreaction to what was, after
all, a minor inconvenience. Yet there
it was front and centre in one of the most lauded TV comedy shows of recent times.It gave me pause to reflect just how far we’ve travelled
down the highway of sweary acceptance in recent years.
Swearing in the media - on records and TV in particular - is now so ubiquitous
we hardly notice it.The times certainly have a-changed and, as Larry demonstrated, even the strongest curse words slip by virtually
undetected today.Every modern TV cop drama, talk
show and situation comedy is infused with swearwords galore which were
once seldom, if ever, heard on the small screen.
This is a comparatively new phenomenon, however. Decades ago, clean-up TV zealot and perennial
misery guts Mary Whitehouse may have got her bloomers in a knot over Alf
Garnett’s frequent use of the words “bloody,” or “silly moo” (ie "cow") in the sit com Till Death Us Do Part. But we rarely witnessed any genuine profanity
on British TV in the 60s and 70s.
One of Alf’s favourite insults “Randy Scouse Git” (aimed at his on-screen son-in-law Mike, played by Anthony Booth) so alien to American ears then (and now), was hijacked by Mickey Dolenz for the seemingly random title of a 1967 Monkees single. It was the first track written by Dolenz to be commercially released, reaching #2 in the UK charts.
The idea for the song originated during a party the Beatles threw at the Speakeasy nightclub in London. All the Monkees except Davy Jones were in attendance and the lyrics referenced the Beatles (“The four Kings of EMI,”) Mama Cass Elliot and Dolenz’s future wife, the model and Top of the Pops presenter Samantha Juste.
Perversely, the phrase “Randy Scouse Git” was still deemed rude enough to offend British audiences at the time and the UK arm of RCA records refused to release the 45 unless it had an alternate title. Dolenz took them at their word and in a bizarre turnaround, the record was issued simply as “Alternate Title” in Britain. Even stranger, although “Randy Scouse Git” appeared as a single with either title (or often both) in territories as diverse as Australia, South America and the Philippines (pictured below), it was not issued as a 7” in America, although it did appear with that title on the US version of the Monkees’ album Headquarters. The UK version of the album still listed the track as "Alternate Title." Confused?
While it may have meant very little
to the Americans, in this context “Randy Scouse Git” was fairly
self-explanatory to the Brits: Randy (oversexed), Scouse (Liverpudlian), Git
(worthless person). Harmless enough and borderline TV friendly in the late 60s.
The slang term “git” originated circa 1946 as a southern variant of the
Scottish insult “get,” meaning “illegitimate child” (ie “bastard”) or “brat.”
“Get” is thought to derive from the word “beget.”
“Get” is also preferred over “git” in the north of England and in 1968 John Lennon slipped it into the “White Album” song “I’m So Tired” with the line “And curse Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid get” as a very Lennon-esque rhyme for “cigarette.”
Another Alf Garnett-ism can be found in John’s song title “Yer Blues,” also from the “White Album.” Working class Tory Alf was fond of the possessive adjective “yer” (your) - often used with maximum sarcasm or disdain - e.g “It’s yer darlin’ Harold (Wilson) to blame.” So, since the British Blues Boom was in full flower at the time, Lennon came up with the tongue-in-cheek title “Yer Blues.”
Some of Garnett's expressions became so ubiquitous in 60s/70s Britain that Till Death Us Do Part creator Johnny Speight even had the personalised number plate “MOO 16” on his Rolls-Royce in tribute to Alf's “silly moo” insult. Ironically, Speight's script originally had Garnett calling wife Else a “silly mare”, but Warren Mitchell forgot his lines and ad-libbed “moo” which became one of the show's most memorable phrases.
In 1971 Till Death Us Do Part was reimagined in America as All in the Family starring Carroll O’ Connor as bigoted Archie Bunker and the recently departed Rob Reiner as his wastrel son-in-law “Meathead.” It was hugely successful, running for nine seasons and 205 episodes. By comparison the UK original managed only 54 episodes plus a few specials.
Dandy Nichols, who played Alf Garnett’s long-suffering wife Else in Till Death Us Do Part, appeared, uncredited, as the “neighbour” in the 1965 Beatles' movie Help! As she watches the Fabs enter their communal house, her only line was "Still the same as they was before they was." Not only that, Warren Mitchell himself also had a cameo role in Help! as Abdul the turbaned jewel thief. With delicious irony he appeared in blackface, naturally.
Liverpudlian actor Anthony Booth (1931 - 2017) was married four times and had eight daughters by five women. Following the wedding of his eldest daughter Cherie, he became the real life father-in-law of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. So, perhaps Alf’s jibes were not so far off the mark, after all. But that’s another story.
As for Mary Whitehouse (1910 - 2001) she became a household name in Britain. A hugely polarising figure who attracted praise and hate in equal measure, she was immortalised in the Pink Floyd song “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” from their 1977 album Animals. Written by Roger Waters, the lyrics read, in part:
Hey you, Whitehouse, haha, charade you are
You house-proud town mouse, haha, charade you are
You’re trying to keep our feelings off the street
Writer
Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980), then literary manager of the National Theatre, is
credited with uttering the first four letter expletive heard on British TV when
he said “fuck” during the live BBC late night satirical show BBC3 in
November 1965. To put it in context, Tynan was asked whether he would allow a
play to be presented in which sexual intercourse was represented on the stage. For
the first time a word which had previously been deemed deeply offensive, if not
entirely taboo, was heard in millions of homes across the land.
There was an instant and unprecedented uproar.The BBC switchboard was jammed for days (to be fair the Beeb apparently had only one telephone line at the time), letters of complaint
flooded into the newspapers and for a while Tynan became the most notorious man
in Britain.
Oxbridge graduate and son of the Lord Mayor of Warrington, Tynan may well
have been the first to drop the F-word on live TV, but he came from the educated
upper middle classes and, as everyone knows, posh people really can’t swear
properly.Consequently, it was left to Sex
Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones to become probably the first truly working-class
person to claim the live TV cursing award.
On December 1, 1976, early evening viewers of Thames Television’s Todayshowwere treated tothe Sex Pistols repeatedly swearing and
generally behaving badly during a shambolic live interview with the hapless Bill Grundy.It was riveting TV and a genuine Roman spectacle.Although the programme was broadcast only in
the London area the fallout was immediate and far-reaching.It became national headline news, sending the
tabloids, and seemingly the entire country, into meltdown.
One memorable complaint came from a lorry
driver who claimed to have smashed his TV screen in protest, after which he apparently
sent the bill to Thames TV.True or not, the story became a famous meme, frequently spoofed in the letters page of Britain’s
favourite adult comic and bastion of all things sweary, Viz.
Interestingly, while it was the swearing which caused most of the upset, no one seemed to notice that a member of the Pistols' cheer squad, positioned behind Johnny Rotten in the studio, was openly sporting a Nazi swastika armband. Or if anyone did notice, it went largely unremarked at the time.
The Pistols’ appearance on the Today show immediately
passed into rock legend and for almost 50 years has been discussed nonstop in
books, magazines, films and on TV.Best
of all, in March 2013 the BBC TV comedy programme It’s Kevin lovingly recreated
the incident literally word-for-word and
gesture-for-gesture with all protagonists dressed as, wait for it, members of
the Amish community.It’s genius - watch
it here:
If anyone's counting, there were only seven swearwords unleashed during the Bill Grundy incident (three "fuckings," one "fucker," plus two "shits" and a "bastard.") and yet the MSM acted like the sky had fallen in. Compare this to any of the family friendly Richard Curtis movies from just a few years later. There were more "fucks" heard during the first 10 minutes of, say, Four Weddings and a Funeral than happened during the entirety of the Today show.
The Grundy ruckus happened almost a year before
the Sex Pistols’ only real studio LP Never Mind the Bollocks was
released. The title of that album also caused widespread
consternation, with a Nottingham record store raided by police and the manager
charged with “displaying indecent matter” for showing the LP sleeve in his shop
window. Eventually the case was, if not exactly laughed, then at least
sniggered out of court after defending QC John Mortimer (author of the Rumpole
of the Bailey books and TV series) produced an expert witness who
established that “bollocks” was a perfectly legitimate Old English term
meaning, among other things, “nonsense.”
That was just about the last time I recall anyone getting upset about
what we used to call bad language.Today
such fuss seems inconceivable, especially when, with one vowel change, “fecking
this” and “fecking that” are now heard with tedious repetition on comedy programmes
of Irish origin such as the otherwise excellent Father Ted and the eternally
execrable Mrs Brown’s Boys.
In 1975 Billy Connolly lampooned the Tynan affair in the song “A Four-Letter
Word” on his live album Get
Right Intae Him.Connolly based his satire on the 1952 Roy
Rogers’ song “A Four-Legged Friend” written about Roy’s horse Trigger, thus
continuing the tradition of art imitating life, imitating art, in this case
with a pronounced Scottish accent. Ironically,
although certainly no shrinking violet himself when it came to effing and
jeffing onstage, Connolly did not swear at all on this track. Trivia fans will surely delight in the
knowledge that “A Four-Legged Friend” was the first record the wonderful Richard
Thompson ever owned, on a 78rpm shellac disc, naturally.
Sexual innuendo, smut and vulgarity (if not
outright profanity) had been around in the world of jazz and blues records since the
1920s at least. This spilled over into British popular music too and
a few of George Formby’s songs were banned by the BBC. These
included the euphemism laden “With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock,” “With My
Little Ukulele In My Hand,” and “When I’m Cleaning Windows.”
But when did actual bona fide swear words start to appear in popular music? Back in the mid-60s Frank Zappa sneaked more
than a few surreptitious four-letter zingers onto his early albums (and, via an
assiduous re-issue programme, he continues to do so today from beyond the grave).In fact, just as Frank’s mid-60s
contemporaries The Fugs took their name from a euphemism for “fuck” found in
Norman Mailer’s book The Naked
and the Dead, so the name of Zappa’s
band The Mothers was an abbreviation of America’s favourite curse word
“Motherfuckers” in this context meaning they were excellent musicians. Frank's record label Verve-MGM
was having none of this in 1966, of course, so the band name was amended to the
more palatable and psychedelic-sounding Mothers of Invention, although the last
two words were quietly jettisoned by the early 70s.
In August 1969 Country Joe McDonald delighted the Woodstock generation with an updated
potty-mouthed live version of “The Fish Cheer” (“Gimme an F, gimme a U, gimme a
C, gimme a K - what's that spell?" etc,) while during the same year proto punks the MC5 ran into problems with
their Elektra album Kick Out the
Jams which contained the line
“Kick out the jams motherfuckers.” A major
US record store chain refused to stock the LP and, as the situation escalated,
said store boycotted Elektra’s entire catalogue for good measure.As a result, the MC5 were promptly dropped
from the label.Swear all you like lads,
but business is business seemed to be the moral of the tale.
In 1972 Harry Nilsson encountered similar trouble with the song “You’re
Breaking My Heart” from his album Son
Of Schmilsson.Even though it contained only four examples
of the word “fuck” this was enough to see Boots the Chemist, then a major UK
record retail chain, refuse to stock the LP.In Harry’s defence he was almost certainly drunk at the time, as he was throughout
most of the 70s.
To my mind, the award for the finest display of swearing on a pop record should go to Ian
Dury for the song “Plaistow Patricia” from his 1977 LP New Boots and Panties. Containing five of the juiciest swearwords in the
English language unleashed back-to-back, the opening line of this track is so thoroughly, eye-wateringly rude that even now, almost 50 years later, it will almost certainly never be heard
in full on the radio. Hell, I'm loath to repeat it even here. Predictably, in
Australia and some other far-flung territories, local pressings of the album were emasculated, and “Plaistow Patricia” appeared minus that all-important
introductory opening line.
Vulgarity on record seemed to reach its hedonistic peak (or its
nadir, if you prefer) with Derek & Clive and their albums Come Again (1977) and Ad Nauseum (1978) released on
Virgin records, plus their 1976 LP (Live) on Island. But although they were
certainly bought (and requoted, ahem, ad nauseam) by rock fans, these
were predominately spoken word comedy records which, for our purposes, hardly counts.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.The earliest example of profanity on a UK record I can recall was a much
gentler affair than Dury’s smorgasbord of vulgarity.It came in September 1969 at the end of the interminable
18-minute title track of Al Stewart’s second album Love Chronicles.Even though it featured guest appearances by
rock heavyweights Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones (then still working as session
players), Al’s somewhat fey use of the F-bomb (find it in verse 38 of 40 if you
have the stamina) flew almost unnoticed under the censor’s radar, causing barely
a ripple of discontent at the time.
This
was possibly because Love
Chronicles was bought mainly by
folk music types with a high tolerance for such language.In any case, Stewart probably escaped censure
by employing the expletive in a quasi-romantic context, vouchsafing that “It
grew to be less like fucking and more like making love.”If you say so, Al.Speaking as one of those wannabe bohemian
folkies, how sophisticated we imagined ourselves to be walking around with a
copy of this album under our arm back in the day.
It's worth noting that Love Chronicles narrowly beat Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers album into the shops. The opening track on the Airplane LP "We Can Be Together" was an early adopter of the F-bomb in late 1969, but Al won the swearing race by just a few weeks. However, on August 19 (the day after Woodstock), the Airplane became the first to swear on US national TV when they performed "We Can Be Together" on the Dick Cavett Show complete with the line "Up against the wall motherfuckers."
All of which brings us neatly to John Lennon. He may have been part of the greatest and most beloved band the
world has ever seen, but without the steadying hand of his erstwhile
songwriting partner Paul McCartney reining him in, John’s solo
catalogue has always had a whiff of the curate’s egg about it: superb in parts,
but wayward and misguided elsewhere.
If we ignore the trio of experimental
LPs Lennon made with wife Yoko: Two Virgins, Life with the Lions
and Wedding Album (as all but the most rabid Beatle completists
were perfectly happy to do), plus the ad hocLive Peace In Toronto,
side two of whichfew have ever confessed to playing more than once, chiefly
because it consists of Yoko howling over guitar feedback for 15 straight minutes,
his debut solo album John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band didn’t arrive
until December 1970.This is where we find the track which inspired me to write this piece, “Working Class
Hero.”
A totally solo performance recorded with bare bones production featuring
only John and his acoustic guitar, the tune was loosely borrowed from Dylan’s
“Masters of War,” itself liberated from the traditional English folk song
“Nottamun Town.”But it was the lyrics of
“Working Class Hero” which made the song controversial.For a start it contained not one but two
instances of the word “fucking.”No big
deal now, perhaps, when expletive use in popular music is everywhere, but
unusual for 1970 (see below for the full lyrics).
After all, it was not
something people expected to hear from an ex-Beatle, not even a loose cannon
such as Lennon who had recently frightened the horses by posing bollock naked
with Yoko on the cover of the aforementioned Two Virgins LP. Fun fact: Unlistenable it may have been, but an
original 1968 UK mono pressing of Two Virgins will now cost you in excess of a week’s wages so,
to paraphrase Alan Partridge, who had the last laugh?
Private Eye spoofs Two Virgins 1968
Adding insult to injury, another John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band track “I Found Out” featured the
delightfully Byronesque line “Some of you sitting there with your cock in your
hand.”And to think, this was only seven
years since mop top Lennon had sung “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
The inner sleeve of the album
contained the song lyrics.On UK copies
the offending swearwords were replaced by an asterisk, with a footnote reading
“Omitted at the insistence of E.M.I.” just in case there was any doubt who
Lennon blamed for the censorship.But the full unexpurgated version could be heard by playing the record, in
Britain at least.
This was not true in some other
countries such as Australia where (presumably) the local branch of EMI
physically (not to say outrageously) took a razor blade and snipped the swearing from their copy of
the master tape, causing the two songs to skip half a beat and lose
tempo in places.The censored version
continued to be used down under for more than a decade, meaning those clumsy
edits could be heard as late as 1981 on the Aussie eight LP box set John
Lennon,released after his death.They could easily have requested a new copy of the master tape from EMI in London, but it seems they
simply didn’t think it necessary.It was
only pop music, after all.
I don’t remember “Working Class Hero” causing too much of a stir in the
UK at the time.It may have
ruffled a few feathers, but tucked away on side one, track four of the LP, the
song was ignored by many and out of harm’s way.
Billboard, November 1970
All that changed with Lennon’s
death in late 1980.Whenever a famous
musician shuffles off to Buffalo, their back catalogue, sometimes moribund for
years, invariably springs back to life.People develop an urgent need to hear their music again, creating an
upswing in sales.Book and magazine
tributes are hastily written and the serious newspapers commission reverential
obituaries from esteemed music journalists.Not for nothing is it said that death can often be a good career move.
John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band
Pop stars didn’t come any bigger
than Lennon and following his untimely demise we saw several of his records
jump into the UK charts with almost indecent haste.The recently released Double Fantasy
album and its accompanying singles “(Just Like) Starting Over” and “Woman” all
reached number one, while “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” “I Saw Her Standing
There” (a live duet with Elton John), “Watching the Wheels” and the decade old
“Give Peace A Chance” also crept into the lower reaches of what we once called
the Hit Parade.
None of these records sold as well
or had the same emotional impact as “Imagine,” however.The title track of Lennon’s second solo
album, it was first released as a US single in October 1971 with “It’s So Hard”
(also from Imagine) as the B-Side.This was not the case in the UK.No singles from the album appeared in Britain
until October 1975 when “Imagine” was released on 45 to tie in with Lennon’s
hits compilation Shaved Fish which went on sale the same
month.
More than any other, “Imagine” is
the one song we associate with Lennon’s post-Beatles work, so it was no
surprise to see it rush-released yet again immediately following his
death. Between the original 1975 release and 2007 reissue, the single went on to sell over 2 million copies in the UK alone and consistently makes various “greatest song”
lists around the world.
In early 1981 as the re-released
posthumous “Imagine” single began its climb to the very top of the UK charts, a
curious thing happened.People started
to notice the song lurking like a ticking time bomb on the B-side.That song was “Working Class Hero” a track
possibly unfamiliar to the fair-weather fans who had arrived at Lennon’s solo
catalogue after his death via the radio-friendly Imagine album,
or perhaps his banner-waving singles.And it turned out that some people didn’t particularly like what they
heard.
In retrospect this was undoubtedly
the worst possible choice of song to issue as the B-side of such a huge selling
anthemic single.The kind of people who
buy such things, usually on a nostalgia driven basis, just weren’t ready for it.For a start, unlike the A-side, it didn’t
feature on the hits compilation Shaved Fish (although the sleeve notes on the "Imagine" single kind of implied it did), so that was
odd to begin with.In fact, the only other UK appearance
of the song on record thus far had been on the aforementioned 1970 album John Lennon /
Plastic Ono Band.
Some were moved to express their
displeasure via talkback radio.In the months
following Lennon's shooting there was much debate surrounding US gun control and
“Working Class Hero” was soon dragged into the discussion. Angry callers rang the London news station LBC
to express their shock and dismay, claiming it was “disgraceful” and
“unacceptable” to hear such language on the back of their newly purchased
“Imagine” single, which some claimed to have bought for their children.
Veteran LBC talk show presenter and right-wing blowhard George Gale (1927-1990) was more than happy to indulge this outrage.Known to be fond of a drink, erstwhile
tabloid journalist Gale was the inspiration behind the Private Eye
satirical characters "Lunchtime O'Booze" and "George G. Ale."He was also apparently a supporter of notorious politician Enoch Powell, and among other crackpot notions, he would later call
for the re-criminalisation of homosexuality in the wake of the AIDS
epidemic.So, to reactionary old
George, 53 at the time and probably largely unaware of Lennon’s solo work, the “Working
Class Hero” furore was simply grist to his old school conservative mill.
Some years earlier over in America,
Democrat member of the US House of Representatives, the wonderfully named Harley Orrin Staggers heard
the song played on WGTB, a student-run station based in Georgetown University,
Washington DC and in 1973 lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications
Commission. The manager of the station,
Ken Sleeman, faced a year in prison and a $10,000 fine, but defended his
decision to play the song saying, "The People of Washington DC are
sophisticated enough to accept the occasional four-letter word in context, and
not become sexually aroused, offended, or upset." The charges were subsequently dropped.
Together with George Harrison’s
impressive triple set All Things Must Pass (November 1970) John
Lennon / Plastic Ono Band was arguably the strongest of the Fab Four’s
debut solo records.With its “Don’t
believe in Beatles” refrain on the iconoclastic song “God” attracting the most
attention, Lennon’s post-Beatles’ career probably peaked with this album (along
with the stand-alone singles “Cold Turkey” and “Instant Karma”) then promptly
plateaued with the big-selling follow-up Imagine, from whence it
began a steady but inexorable decline in quality and loss of focus.Following his move to America the law of
diminishing returns soon kicked in, with each new release proving more
disappointing than the one before it.
Those who recently shelled out a
week’s wages or more for the Super Deluxe multi disc Mind Games
box set will not thank me for reminding them that Lennon’s fourth solo outing
sold relatively poorly on release back in late 1973 (a situation not helped by
some ghastly cover artwork) after which sales rapidly tailed off.
Mind Games followed the unloved and politically overcooked Sometime in New York
City double set, an album so problematic in today’s climate that during Yoko Ono’s recent Tate Modern exhibition of her work Music of the Mind (Feb-Sept 2024) the sleeve had to be displayed
face to the wall to hide a song title and lyrics containing the “N” word.
Ultimately, only a week before
John’s death in 1980 Mind Games suffered the indignity of being
re-released on the budget Music for Pleasure label.For such a major artist, this was a sad state
of affairs indeed.Having your records
appear on what was, in all but name, EMI’s graveyard label was always a clear
indication that they had run their course and were no longer marketable at full
price.The following year Mind
Games was joined in the MFP bargain bin by Rock ‘N’ Roll,
a record Lennon had cobbled together (often under duress) with Phil Spector
purely in order to avoid a copyright infringement lawsuit from the publisher
Morris Levy who pointed out (not unreasonably) that John had purloined parts of
Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” for the Abbey Road track “Come
Together.”
Despite the inevitable sales boost
these records received in the wake of John’s death, interest in the Fab Four
(and especially their solo work) had virtually collapsed at this time.In 1980 Capitol Records in America reported
that sales of the Beatles’ catalogue had slumped to an eight-year low.The very day Lennon was killed I spoke to a
young chap in the office where I worked at the time.“Tragic news about John Lennon” I mused,
sadly.He shrugged and said, “I don’t
know too much about the Beatles, mate” before walking off.This from someone who, I estimated, was born
around 1960.
Ringo’s Blast From Your Past
and Ringo albums were also relegated to Music for Pleasure budget
status, as were George’s Dark Horse and The Best Of George
Harrison.Things reached a
pretty pass in 1980 when the Beatles compilation Rock & Roll Music,
originally released as an ill-conceived double set in 1976, was bizarrely
reissued as two individual MFP volumes, where it was joined in 1984 by The
Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl.Those last two titles have since been virtually disowned by all
concerned and, significantly, have never officially appeared on CD, except maybe in Japan, where anything is possible.
As the fabbest of the Fab Four,
Paul escaped demotion to the bargain bin a while longer than the others.But it didn’t last.Toward the end of the 80s even some of
Macca’s slower-selling titles appeared on the cut-price Fame label (an MFP
offshoot) albeit with something close to their original artwork.The final ignominy came in 1984 when even John
Lennon / Plastic Ono Bandwasalso reissued by Fame.
Other than the accidental “Fucking
hell!” he let slip during the recording of “Hey Jude” (find it buried in the
mix at 2:55), Macca never really went in for bad language on record.There was “We haven’t done a bloody thing all
day” on “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey” from the 1971 Ram album, but that was considered charming, rather than offensive(and John had already given us “Stupid bloody
Tuesday” in “I am the Walrus” anyway).Paul did
find himself on the receiving end of BBC bans for the 1972 singles “Give
Ireland Back to the Irish” and “Hi, Hi, Hi” but that was for political content
and misheard smut respectively. In parts of God-fearing America, the Beatles single “The Ballad of John & Yoko” was
also censored with the line “Christ, you know it ain’t easy” edited
for radio play.
A year before Lennon's death
Marianne Faithfull covered “Working Class Hero” on her masterpiece comeback album Broken English. If
anyone was shocked, they probably reserved their outrage for the track which
followed it, “Why’d Ya Do It.” Here was a
song so venomous it made "Working Class Hero" seem like a kids' nursery rhyme.
Today we live in a very different
world and the shock value of swearing on record has all-but evaporated. In recent years we’ve experienced Rage Against the
Machine with their F-bomb loaded “Killing in the Name Of,” the strange world of Cardi B and her "now wash your hands" brand of dirty rap, not to mention Dave
Grohl and his Tourette’s-like use of “Motherfucker” every second word during onstage announcements. And don't even get me started on recent events at Glastonbury. It’s a very long way indeed from 1969
when they beeped out “son of a bitch” on the Johnny Cash single “A Boy Named
Sue.”
As for “Working Class Hero,” it all
came full circle when, in October 2005, a John Lennon double CD compilation was released with that very title.As far as I’m aware, no
one has yet phoned their local radio station to complain.
As soon as you're born they make
you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they
hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared
you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and
sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they are
telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is
something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
