15
Aug 07
SLADE – “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me”
“Cleverness” wasn’t usually something Slade aimed for – though you wouldn’t necessarily call them stupid – but on “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me” even they dip a toe into metatext: “Can’t you learn to spell?” Mostly, though, this is Slade’s warm, sentimental side given rein. The glorious intro promises a full-on monster anthem but this is mostly Noddy’s show, with the band happy to jog along behind while he belts out the chorus and sells you on the reflective (in Slade terms) verses. It’s only towards the end that they wake up, remember they’re a rock band, and turn “Skweeze Me” into the rave-up it wants to be.
6
One Sunday afternoon, many many years ago, in a pub near Vauxhall station, I saw a drag queen lip-synching to the Barbra Streisand version of “Life On Mars”, while on an ecstasy comedown (me, not the drag queen, although You Never Know). It bombed so badly that she threatened to perform it all over again.
Many many years later, in the same pub, on an ecstasy plateau, I danced and sang, lustily, to the *other* Eurodance cover of “Life On Mars”, whose lyrics suddenly struck me as The Most Brilliantly Prescient Commentary On Blair’s Britain That I Had Ever Heard, Oh My God Oh My God.
But the Co.Ro version does take a lot of beating, I do agree – especially the obligatory dinky little Motiv8-style riff that they stick on after the chorus…
Tom – The last episode, yes. As Marcello says, when Leo walked into the House of Lords through the St Stephens entrance having alighted the crazy bus driven by the dwarf, it had finished its orbit of the planet Silly.
Ah no, that was a crazy lorry with bars on the side! I think you may be mixing it up with Hope and Keen’s Crazy Bus.
Marcello – you are obviously in Bowie denial. I can’t let you get away with your misguided dismissal. If a failed pop single can sustain the number 3 position for three weeks then I’d like a few myself. LOM is classic Bowie and indeed classic Ronson, who arranged it. Yes Wakeman played piano but it is one of his better moments (he still plays it at his own gigs). The dense lyric interweaves images and iconic references into a meditation on the vagueries of fame & the media & although it leaves plenty of room for interpretation it doesn’t, to these ears owe anything to American Pie. Bowie, himself provides a magnificent vocal performance reaching notes he never quite could again. It is rare that I prefer an interpretation of an artists songs over the original artist performance and it is testament to the quality of an artists songs that reasonable cover versions can be made at all. Bowie’s version of LOM though has no parallels. However ATYD by Mott is one example (although, of course Bowie sings the chorus) and both Lulu (with Bowie again) & Kurt made very reasonable attempts at TMWSTW – the original, though still stands.
I also quite liked Linda Lewis’ Rock-A-Doodle-Doo at this time especially the middle bit.
I must say that in all these years, it’s never occurred to me to try and pin down what LOM is “about”. It works for me as an impressionistic piece, where the sounds of the words are as key as the fractured images that they conjure up… and taken in that respect, it works beautifully for me. (But then I was brought up on the “nonsense” of Lear and Milligan et al, and Summer 1973 was my Sitwell/Walton Facade phase, so…)
I think Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day” does a much better job with the Lear/Milligan/pop interface, as indeed did Robert Wyatt passim at the time. “LOM”‘s half-baked images are the kind of thing you write in your English ink exercise jotter when you’re fourteen and you’re convinced you’ve written The Waste Land, only you get it back with a D- and “See me” inscribed in red ink.
By failed pop single I of course mean aesthetic failure. Otherwise we’d all give “Tie A Yellow Ribbon” a 10.
Sitwell/Walton(/Lambert) Facade is of course the beginning of rap…
Agree with ITFU about Linda Lewis though. Good record that.
And Linda Lewis was a comely lass, was she not? Hope and Keen! Dear God, those telentless numpties had slipped my mind totally. And, yes, the escape vehicle was indeed a huge crazy lorry with bars. But then I haven’t seen “Fall Out” for about three years. It was the occasion when I showed it along with the preceding “Once Upon a Time” to my girlfriend, who just wanted to know how the series ended. I did try to warn her…
Yowzah! I stop looking for a couple of weeks and suddenly there are hundreds of posts? I knew this one was coming up, so I bought the 45 in a charity shop over the weekend, and I can now make the informed comment: er, it’s just sort of going through the motions a bit isn’t it? Still, at least I got ‘Kill Em At The Hot Club Tonite’.
Oh, and according to Noddy Holder, the first batch of promotional copies of ‘My Friend Stan’ did indeed have a spelling mistake – they were labelled as ‘My Friend Satan’. No wonder it never got to Number One!
As Rosie said; this one’s the runt. It’s a clear attempt to repeat COFTN, but it doesn’t manage it. It’s good, it’s uptempo, their craft just about holds it together, but it’s lacking something. It’s a song that I will happily sing along with on when listening to a greatest hits, but it wouldn’t be one of the songs I bought the greatest hits for.
I seem to have stumbled upon the Popular “Life On Mars?” sub-thread, and would it not be fair for all to observe the splendour of Bowie’s Burroughs-esque songwriting technique here? 1973…little wonder (arf!) that Bowie’s most famous song is re-released as an anthem for a confused generation. A generation that conceals young Blairs and Browns within its’ ranks.
You can make the lyrics mean what you want. You can dismiss the song as pretentious. You can do what you like, but this song off “Hunky Dory” is gonna keep coming back…whether we love or loathe it.
It’s a god-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
And her mummy is yelling “no”
But her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
As she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she’s hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
Cuz she’s lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
If they asked her to focus on
Sailor’s fighting in the dance hall
Oh man
Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man
Wonder if they’ll ever know?
They’re in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
It’s on America’s tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
And that workers are struck for fame
Cuz Lennon’s on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
Cuz I’ve written it ten times or more
It’s about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on
Sailor’s fighting in the dance hall
Oh man
Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man
Wonder if they’ll ever know?
They’re in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
corrections to the above post (I know, the edit window closed before I spotted the error)
“Cuz Lenin’s on sale again”
“From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads”
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nasa_launches_david_bowie_concept
seems appropriate at this juncture ;)
I love the Onion’s pop coverage.
Until recently I always thought if was “Lennon’s on sale again”… some reference to Working Class Hero or something…?
The Mickey Mouse line (and its delivery) and “My mother, my dog, and clowns” (clowns???) are both REALLY STINKY. Marcello, you were right first time – there is good and bad pretentious, and both occur frequently in Bowie’s catalogue.
love ‘life on mars’ but this – “LOM”’s half-baked images are the kind of thing you write in your English ink exercise jotter when you’re fourteen and you’re convinced you’ve written The Waste Land, only you get it back with a D- and “See me” inscribed in red ink.” – is so very otm.
#38 yes the people rolling their eyes at Marina And The Diamonds lyrics should thank their lucky stars really.
Still like “LOM?” as a record mind you.
TPL returns to Slade, and in my opinion their greatest album although it is of course also their “greatest” album.
At last! It’s taken three months to work my way back through the number ones of my lifetime. Thanks to Tom, and all of the comments crew for some fascinating insights.
The song itself? Er, not Slade’s best is it? A 5.
My other half can claim “Cum On Feel The Noize” as her
and she has a habit of pointing out who got the better deal.
Life On Mars would have made an excellent number one, but I can see the dissenting points of view expressed above.
Childhood, Peanuts, “I got a rock”: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/underdog-hotshots-snoopy-vs-red-baron.html Thanks for reading, everyone!
Bowie, Chic, what really matters: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/bridging-gap-david-bowie-life-on-mars.html Thanks so much for reading, everyone!