TOMMY ROE - “Dizzy”
(#271, 7th June 1969)
I’m not a huge fan of late 60s bubblegum in general - though I respect it as a root for a lot of stuff I do love - and “Dizzy” is a puny specimen at any rate. A rewrite of Roe’s earlier (and cuter) “Sweet Pea” with string arrangements, it tries hard to please but its big problem is the title, which it’s too polite and too slow to match: this isn’t dizzy infatuation, it’s a kindly aunt being gently rotated for a game of blind man’s buff. The sparseness of the arrangement doesn’t help: combined with the stately pace it creates a “My First Pop Song” feel, with every hook and beat nicely telegraphed and spelt out. 4
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Oh No It's Dadaismus on September 17th, 2006
I’m not agreeing with you much here Tom. I love “Dizzy” and HATE “Sweet Pea”!!
FT's rosie on September 17th, 2006
Hey, I liked this! Not 9 or 10 liked but 7 liked!
In the 1980s when the song resurfaced in an inferior version sung by somebody else (I forget who but somebody will remind me) I astonished the children of friends by being able to sing it word-for-word (but not necessarily note-for-note - the bird I sing like is a laryngitic raven). It never occurred to them that it had an earlier incarnation!
Oh No It's Dadaismus on September 17th, 2006
Vic Reeves did it!
My name is Kenny on September 17th, 2006
My dad is a huge fan of Tommy Roe. I don’t really like “Sweet Pea” but it’s by far the pinnacle of this guy’s career, as all of his other ones hurt oh so bad. His voice is so thin, and the key changes so forced.
Doctor Casino on September 17th, 2006
Ha, when I downloaded this I didn’t even realize this was the same chap who did “Sweet Pea,” which I love, or at least, loved when I was a kid. At least that one has a fun organ thing going on, I think. “Dizzy” is more like “Woozy,” I was hoping it would sound like Freddy Cannon and it’s more like the Archies with the wind taken out of their sails. Not a great one.
FT's Doctor Mod on September 17th, 2006
Slighty better than the Archies, I think–that doesn’t say much for it. It’s just one aspect of the general smarminess that overtook US pop at the end of the 60s–when the more interesting music was on LPs and got played on FM radio, where you’d never hear something like this. I suspect there was a lot more of this perpetrated in the US than in the UK, even though you got your share of it.
As to this being “the pinnacle of this guy’s career,” Tommy Roe actually made a credible record, “Sheila,” back around 1963. (It was either a Buddy Holly cover or a Holly knockoff.) Then he vanished until he plunged head-first into the bubblegum vat with “Sweet Pea.” I’d say that “Sheila” was the best thing he ever did, his artistic–if not commercial–pinnacle of his career. At least it proved that he didn’t really have to resort to that nasal whine that permeates his later stuff.
FT's Pete Baran on September 17th, 2006
It’ll be interesting to compare this with the Vic Reeves / Wonderstuff review when that comes up (which I fear may well be bound up in Tom’s indie disco experiences of the early nineties). For what its worth I always thought that Dizzy was a fun song which sounds incredibly weedy in this version - and almost demands the pseudo comedic reading that it get twenty years later.
Top key changes near the end mind, and dancefloor crack?
FT's Tom on September 18th, 2006
Yes, well you might fear, since you are personally to blame for said binding!
(well, partly)
Actually I agree with you re.weediness - this version has made me think more kindly of the Stuffies though I doubt that can override the strong counter-associations I have.
intothefireuk on September 18th, 2006
I seem to recall it as slightly psychedelic - listening now though I agree it just sounds puny alongside Reeves’ muscular ‘common room’ hit.
Marcello Carlin on September 18th, 2006
Roe had three big UK hits in the pre-Beatles ’60s - Sheila, The Folk Singer and Everybody. As with the Sarstedt brothers, he seems to have bided his time and waited for the Beatles to come and go before coming back (I think the Beatles even supported him on one British tour).
Personally I would have greatly preferred Lou Christie’s “I’m Gonna Make You Mine” which is about as great as this brand of pop gets (#2 in the UK that autumn).
Chris Brown on September 18th, 2006
I think I’ve only heard this once. And that was plenty.
Certainly when the other version was out I didn’t know it was a cover, but then I was only 13. Anyway, I shall save that for the appropriate time.
FT's Doctor Mod on September 18th, 2006
I didn’t connect Tommy Roe with “Everybody.” That was actually a pretty good record, probably better than “Sheila.”
A lot of the US pop performers who came back at the end of the 60s had been around for quite a spell, many of them being displaced from their first 7.5 minutes of fame by the British Invasion. So they came back for their remaining 7.5 in the bubblegum fad (a form of artistic death in and of itself) just as the Beatles came to the end of their road, only to vanish once again (thankfully, in most cases) when they’d hit the fifteen minutes Andy Warhol said we would all get. (Nowadays, thanks to reality television, it’s probably down to fifteen seconds of fame.)
It’s rather a sorry matter that bubblegum became America’s way of winning back the charts–but then the Brits created a better brand of bubblegum. More on this when we come to Edison Lighthouse, ere long.
FT's Doctor Mod on September 18th, 2006
As to it being “psychedelic,” it wasn’t really–but if you’d had enough to smoke and spun around the room several times, you might think it was.
blount on September 19th, 2006
lol
FT's wwolfe on September 20th, 2006
I have a soft spot for this one, just as I do for late 1960s American bubblegum in general. The interplay of Hal Blaine’s drums and Joe Osborne’s bass; the very high, chopped guitar played above the drum hook; the string interjections; and Roe’s vocal, with its lazy, understated slur, as if he were slightly under the influence, be it love or something less legal (this vocal effect is why the song had an air of mild psychedelia at the time, I suspect) - the combination adds up to a happy sound for me. Not a 10, but a good, solid 7 on my personal chart.
FT's koganbot on September 22nd, 2006
I don’t think of this as bubblegum, which tended to be more salacious and hysterical. What this feels like is 1966-era pop displaced into 1969 and given an inexplicably mild performance. In the vid he’s dressing like Glen Campbell. (My explanation for the inexplicable is that he’s not going for the teenybopper audience but for the adults who never got comfortable with the ’60s but who still wanted a little rock ‘n’ roll in their pop.)
I know not this Vic Reeves of which you speak, but I know the dark Bonaparte bogeyman babes of Boney M, who are typically half-detached and half-lunatic as they cover this on 1,000 Lightyears.
Oh No It's Dadaismus on September 22nd, 2006
Hmmmmmmm, how to explain Vic Reeves?
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on September 22nd, 2006
reeves and mortimer = the uk penn and teller (except for MAGIC substitute LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT)
(ok i know it doesn’t really work but it’s NOT BAD)
Marcello Carlin on September 22nd, 2006
reeves and mortimer = the uk smothers brothers minus the politics