Comments on: SLADE - “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me”

By: Chris Brown

Chris Brown — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:06:07 +0000

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!

By: Waldo

Waldo — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:50:11 +0000

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…

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:21:57 +0000

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.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:43:24 +0000

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…)

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:10:51 +0000

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.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:22:57 +0000

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.

By: Waldo

Waldo — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:49:49 +0000

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.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:04:53 +0000

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…

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:32:15 +0000

It got a bit silly when they had to give Leo McKern a shave and haircut before resuscitating him.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:25:39 +0000

What did you think of the final episode though? ;)

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:00:25 +0000

I sometimes used to think that there existed good and bad pretentiousness, but as with the notion of good and bad stress it’s a bit of a chimera. There’s nothing wrong with successful pretentiousness since that is the literal purpose of art (in direct flaunting of the second commandment) but failed pretentiousness is like failed capitalism; its failure leaves an embarrassing stench under the diplomatic carpet.

“Life On Mars?” from that question mark downwards is an example of failed pretentiousness; indeed it is a failed pop single - a two-year-old album track pressed into abrupt 45 action to promote the back catalogue. Bowie’s attempts to do a Hockney/Ballard remix of “American Pie” flounder under the unsupportable weight of all its misfiring lyrical metaphors, the pomp-prog musical backing (complete with Rick Wakeman) which in a parallel world would have been the Moody Blues and Bowie’s own, exceptionally unpleasant yowling vocal.

It’s probably no accident that Bowie’s songs tend to work better when sung and performed by others; “All The Young Dudes,” for instance, has equally preposterous lyrics (Dylan after all these years still had so much to answer for) but Ian Hunter and Mott attack the song with such fervour that you believe them, are swept along with the flow. The fact that Lulu and Kurt could elicit such diverse meanings from “The Man Who Sold The World,” each giving an entirely individualistic reading of the line “I thought you died a long, a long, long time ago” indicates the ruined nobility which a good interpreter can evoke from an initially unpromising song.

The two best versions of “Life On Mars?” on record both treat the song with studied irreverence; Co.Ro’s Euro happy hardcore version - a shock smash hit at Club Poptimism - works for the same reasons as Peter Noone’s “Oh You Pretty Things”; in each instance, the singer clearly hasn’t a clue what Bowie is going on about but does their best anyway - in Co.Ro’s case, the dropped diphthongs and mangled vowels actually help stir the words into the nonsensical bouillabase that they constituted all along. In contrast, Django Bates and Human Chain’s reading from a couple of years ago succeeds by out-arthousing the arthouse man with its Bartokian string quartet reharmonisations, singer Josefine Lindstrand’s equally uncomprehending vocal, trademark Loose Tubes chord changes and saxophonists Iain Ballamy and David Sanborn (! - but then the latter did play on Young Americans) attempting to out-Ornette each other. Its pretentiousness is now so ludicrous yet bold that it succeeds.

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:01:41 +0000

Not a fan then Mr Carlin ? Pretentious ? Yes - that’s the point isn’t it ?

By: Erithian

Erithian — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:03:59 +0000

Oh, get off that fence MC!

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:22:28 +0000

“Life On Mars” is the most overrated pile of turnip tosspotism ever committed in the name of pop - so up itself I can’t even bear to append the question mark to the title as written on the la-bel five points Dignified Don.

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:57:38 +0000

Late to the party on this one and pretty much my thoughts are in line with the concensus. This was & is one of Slades weaker songs and was no doubt at No.1 due to their overwhelming popularity at the time. Noddys vocals are just plain un-appetising when he shreiks out the chorus. Like stilletos down a blackboard. My No.1 of choice at this time would have been the awesome ‘Life On Mars’ Bowie’s oddly late released ‘My Way’ inspired consideration on the eternal fascination with fame & the silver screen. Another artist at the height of his powers but strangely unable to translate that into No.1 singles until much later.

Slade did at least though continue Glam’s domination for a while. Hopefully I’m not giving anything away by saying their reign at the top was ended by a fairly unlikely effort about as un-glam as you can get.

By: Rosie

Rosie — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:08:10 +0000

Tom, can you delete this one please?

By: Rosie

Rosie — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:07:44 +0000

Waldo, yes I meant Ted and the Selsdon wannabes. And I’m not going to be drawn on the second part.

By: Erithian

Erithian — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:07:53 +0000

Count to ten before replying to that one…

By: Waldo

Waldo — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:37:03 +0000

There’s no question that this simply rode in on the coat-tails of the brilliant COFTN and owed its coming straight in at the top largely to advanced orders. I actually think very little of SMPM as a track in itself, although in retropsect the intro was indeed Pistols-inspiring, as Marcello says. Apart from that, I think it goes nowhere fast. Cobbled together from nothing, it seems to me.

Rosie - I assume by “Smug Little Englanders currently running the country”, you were referring to Ted back in the day and not to the actual current administration, who are smug, English-hating Sweaties, of course?

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:51:06 +0000

“Skweeze Me” was actually top for three weeks in Britain, Mike.

By: mike

mike — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:53:39 +0000

Here’s a Fascinating Fact: “My Frend Stan” spent three weeks at #1 in the Republic of Ireland, whereas “Skweeze Me” only managed one week (same as the UK).

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:13:23 +0000

I have never knowingly heard “Myzterious Mizter Jones” even though I own it on the Slade box set. Says a lot dunnit?

From their late period I quite liked their Big Country ripoff “Run Runaway,” albeit mainly for the video which involved Magnus Magnusson, the Dagenham Girl Pipers and Dave Hill playing his plugged-in guitar atop a castle in the middle of a thunderstorm, inter alia.

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:05:32 +0000

1985 Top 50 smash ‘Myzterious Mizter Jones’ was a late attempt to revive the mispelt formula.

Like Dr. Casino, this always sounds muddy to me, like something that’s been taped off the radio. It takes until the free-spirited “Wauuugh! Hauuugh!” of the chorus until I can really enter into the spirit of the thing. But its usual effect upon me is to remind me of other Slade songs that I’d rather be listening to.

By: jeff w

jeff w — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:09:55 +0000

The amusing thing (to me) about those reversed ‘N’s is that when the song got ‘covered’ on one of those Top Of The Pops compilations of chart hits, the record company reproduced them faithfully on the sleeve and the label.

A shame then that the anonymous session musician singing lead couldn’t have reproduced Noddy’s vocals a bit more faithfully.

By: Doctor Casino

Doctor Casino — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:16:07 +0000

On first listen: A few too many trips to the well for this group, I think. But who knows - “Mama” grew on me a great deal in the time after its Popular turn. I dunno, though, this one really feels empty somehow - not spiritually, but aurally. It feels like a demo…there’s a hole in the mix.