THE EQUALS - “Baby Come Back”
(#252, 6th July 1968)
Towards the end of “Baby Come Back” the Equals start making “ch! ch! ch! ch!” noises in the background: it’s a nod to the way several ska tracks use the same sounds to add final momentum to a track, the ska train leaving the platform and pulling away into infinity. Except “Baby Come Back” isn’t quite ska, its rhythm sounds closer to the Motown 4/4, and so the train-noise trick sounds intriguingly off.
It’s a good way of reminding you that this is an excellent pop track that happens to have been made by a mixed-race, mixed-birthplace British-Caribbean band, not a track that should stand or fall on historical importance. You could, like Robin Carmody on his blog, raise an eyebrow at the fact that this track was kicking around for two years before pirate radio made it a hit, and you could also draw attention to the thickest Jamaican accents on a number one so far. But the accents don’t give the performance its determination and force on their own, and the elastic weave and thrust of the Equals’ three guitars isn’t specifically Caribbean either. If you want to link it to the soon-coming reggae boom, it’s at most a quirky sort-of harbinger. In the bubblegum-rich singles environment of 1968, though, it fits right in. 7
Site powered by
FT's Tom on August 20th, 2006
The first paragraph in this review is a good example of me groping desperately after a (very tenuously) musicological explanation for something I can hear quite clearly!
Doctor Casino on August 22nd, 2006
I’m surprised no one else has chimed in on this song, which is absolutely wonderful (although it may run a bit too long without bringing in enough new tricks). Instantly memorable and infectious, with those clear, ringing, just sorta surf-y guitars delivering the goods over and over and over. They also, I think, make the song sound somehow more modern than it is - I wasn’t surprised when I learned it was from 1968, but if you’d told me it was from ten years later I’d have not batted an eye. There’s something almost new-wavey about the whole thing - I could see Stewart Copeland covering this as Klark Kent, if it was a little more snotty.
Doctor Casino on August 23rd, 2006
…or not, I just listened to this again last night and was kind of bored. There really isn’t very much to it. Of course when I first heard it I couldn’t get enough - so I suppose your bubblegum connection is right on target…
FT's Doctor Mod on August 23rd, 2006
No, there isn’t very much to it, but it does have a prodigious amount of energy. It’s an interesting hybrid of a lot of different genres (Caribbean, American, British)–as might well befit the group’s racial/ethnic mix–and yet it’s difficult to discuss because it doesn’t fit neatly into any one particular category.
A harbinger? Probably yes. Harbingers generally fall short of being the “authentic” item. I doubt that this would pass the litmus test for reggae–yet the accent and a few other little hints are there. And these inklings of the “real thing” can act as aural appetizers for what is to come. “Israelites” follows closely in its wake.
Lena on January 14th, 2007
It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it! I like this a lot.
Tom on September 30th, 2007
“I shouldn’t not be not flirting” - is this the only triple negative to get to #1?
Marcello Carlin on October 1st, 2007
Isn’t it “I shouldn’t not be a-flirting”?
reorceesohync on April 12th, 2008
Good Day Members:
Hope To Contribute
==========================================================================================================================================
I Know People :-) See What I Mean:
http://refersoft.com
==========================================================================================================================================