It might be mentioned miles earlier on this thread, but this is much more of a Beach Boys homage than an inverted Jailhouse Rock, innit? I can hear that in the lyric but it certainly doesn’t overwhelm the song or render it a pastiche – I’d undock that point! I remember seeing 10CC interviewed on tv at some point in the late 70s and they said the Beach Boys were an influence all four of them agreed on.

I’m not sure why they always get the “poor man’s Steely Dan” thing beyond the occasional over-confident smirk – this and (especially) The Dean And I, both as complex and joyous as Heroes & Villains, sound more like Smile outtakes to my ears (multi-part structure, arcane Americana et cet). Very glad to hear that The Dean And I was a number one in Ireland!

A couple more 10CC gems for non-believers: Channel Swimmer (flip of Life Is A Minestrone, Umbopo (under the pseudonym Doctor Father).

The 10cc of this track is a strange thing. On one side, you have a feeling of novelty, that they are just having fun, not taking the whole thing too seriously, and the entire thing is very tongue-in-cheek.

But then, along comes the “Sergeant Baker and his men….” line, hinting at some really musically talented guys behind behing it. And the perfect production (done by the band themselves already at this time) gives the same impression. So there must be more to 10cc than just a bunch of tongue-in-cheek guys making fun of pre-Beatles pop. And they would of course show us later on (no, not as late as Marcello hints upthread that I would think – their prime was while Godley & Creme were still in the band).

“Rubber Bullets” isn’t my favourite 10cc single, just like “10cc” isn’t my favourite album. But it’s still a great pop song, pointing forwards towards even greater stuff to come from one of the finest pop acts that there ever has been.

As for Jonathan King, time has shown him to be quite creepy indeed. In spite of that, I will always be thankful for the fact that he discovered two of my all-time-favourite bands.

The only thing I can remember from that lamentable series is that at the end of the 1989 one, to soundtrack the fall of the Berlin Wall, they chose that generational anthem “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” by Del Amitri.

Surely somewhere on the Web there’s a listing of what music corresponded to which news item in this excellent series?

Oh, yes – we clearly studied the same Higher English syllabus, though my English teacher was clearly most enamoured of All My Sons, which always took centre stage among the trinity for us.

Years later I wrote an article about Salem, and it all came flooding back. (Also took in Brian Dennehy in DoaS in Boston) while in New England for the research.

But I have a direct link between 10cc and Higher English. The boys were due to play Glasgow Apollo in February 1976, but when we got there the gig was cancelled because one of them had a sore throat. It was rescheduled for April – so that’s where I spent the night before my Higher English…

Re the umpteen levels of meaning discussed above – reminds me of a Peanuts strip I provocatively sellotaped to one of my Eng Lit exercise books at school. Peppermint Patty trying to answer a question in class: “What was the author’s purpose in writing this story? Err – maybe he needed the money?”

I can get through to this page, and to Freakytrigger front page, but not to the latest entry nor to teh Popular front page.

It’d be very harsh to criticise you for this if you didn’t even realise “Waterloo” had been a UK Number 1 – which will make your views all the more intriguing when we get there. And you were making a valid parallel with the record under discussion, after all. So no need to bow out : )

Dennehy certainly is a lot better than that which makes me wonder why he makes so many of these weepies about redundant steel workers who won’t work for no Japanese and his son’s about to drop out of college and his daughter’s got cancer so he yells “SON? I HAVE NO SON!” and goes and rows a boat out into the middle of the lake at midnight and then we get an extended court scene because they’re cheap and give actors the opportunity to act and then they come out on the courthouse steps triumphant to speak to the waiting reporters and cameras and he shakes his fist in the air and then freeze frame/pognant piano music (see also: the later career of Karl Malden).

tolk’s point is that “allegory” tends to function as a critical-authorial stunt to shut down the reader/listener, i think — viz
“this song is about pigs!”
“do you not see it is really about CAPITALISM!?”
“b-but PIGS?”
“ur 1xdupe of the system and i DISDANE u”
etc

haha it is much easier to comment “on this song” when you haven’t heard it for 20 years, as i have not

Thinking about The Crucible, the ease with which its analogy pops out (what you might call the clunkiness of the analogy) is also why it works well as mass entertainment, and PARTICULARLY well in GCSE English groups.

I think your being a bit harsh Marcello on some of the TV movie actors you pick. OK, I’ll give you Frederic Forrest for “Who Will Look After My Children”, and Cheryl Ladd is a given. But I think Denehey and Daly are better than that.

Far be it from me to suppose 10cc were thinking along the same lines as Tolkien, but if the phrase “rubber bullets” was current, and you wanted to make the link to Ulster, I guess they weren’t about to stop you.

BTW, Marcello, that nice analysis of “Waterloo” comes from the guy who hates spoilers!