In the end we decided against it, because the bride and groom were both pop-smart enough to know that any song that begins “What’s the sense in sharing this one and only life, just to find yourself another lost and lonely wife?” would strike the wrong note.

Regards the above discussion I find myself straddling both camps (ooh er missus) being both a musician & an analyser. Most musicians can readily disect a piece of music into it’s constituent parts but most would probably shy away from writing about it or psycho-analysing it’s emotional effect or indeed it’s social impact. That’s what makes a site like this different. Of course how we percieve a particular piece of music does vary depending on our own emotional state which is why at the beginning of popular Tom commented that the marks he gave would vary according to his mood.

Dance music of course is designed with one thing primarily in mind which means generally it stands or falls on that. Bazza’s song certainly stands and has stood proud ever since. The thumping rhythm, vibrant string section & powerful, exhorting vocal bring the song to life and enable it to rise above it’s humble origins. Yes it’s a wedding favourite but I suspect it’s for musical reasons and not just because BW is a larger than life character. I would offer that Candi Staton’s ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ is just as big a floor filler at yer average wedding (in fact the two go together rather well) and I’m pretty sure no one knows or cares what she looks like.

About Barry in general, I find it remarkable how he and arranger Gene Page managed to maintain and develop an unlikely spirit of 1967; the forthright testimonials and whispered confessions of Isaac Hayes suggest a distant relationship to psychedelia (and of course a far less distant one to talking blues and to gospel) but listen to those swirling flutes and harpsichords on early Barry sides like “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Babe” or “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up” - preferably in their full-length album versions - and there are clouds of cotton candy as well as purple silk negligee; in particular, have a listen to the exceptional second side of 1974’s Stone Gon’ album which instrumentally is but a butterfly’s breath away from the Cocteau Twins.

Read any of Tom’s reviews (especially the anthologised “Eleanor Rigby” one) or any of Marcello’s comments (the initial ones at least, before we all start to get silly on the subject), and you don’t have to agree with them but you’ve had your braincells stimulated at least. Same with a book like Ian McDonald’s “Revolution in the Head” – it’s not going to change that electro-chemical reaction you mention, but it’ll help explain WHY that final chord sequence in “I Want To Hold Your Hand” grabbed its audience and had a massive influence on the history of UK and US music.

Anyway, on to Bazza – as I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of this genre at all, but I hope you won’t think I’m being snide when I say the most effective part of this track is the silence. By which I mean the momentary silence after “that’s what you are” and “brand new day” before the drumbeat whips the song back into motion. Other than that I can take it or leave it. There’s an even more effective use of silences within a song coming up in early ’75.

Number 2 Watch – Bazza kept Gary Glitter from getting another number one with “Oh Yes You’re Beautiful”. Not one of Gazza’s finest moments either.

If you have the time to analyse how the heart and lungs works, the intricacies of the respiratory system and the circulation of the blood, you’ve completely missed the point. Any healthy person worth their salt knows that it’s just breathing and a pulse. Analysis doesn’t come into it - only a non-breather would analyse rather than breathe. Sitting on your arse analysing it is a complete waste of time.

Unfortunately, following this logic, I died of emphysema.

Yours posthumously, etc.

The thing is, Dave: for me personally - and I’d never presume to suggest that this should apply to everyone - my enjoyment of music is enhanced by analysing what makes it good/bad/indifferent, and although I can see the danger of spoiling something by dissecting it to bits, I’m somehow not wired that way when it comes to music. (Comedy is another matter, though. I actively avoid trying to work out what makes something funny.)

As a freelance music writer, my job is to think about what makes a piece of music or a live show good/bad/indifferent, and also to build up the sort of specialist factual knowledge that can support my critiques and inform my interviews. Hanging out at sites like these is all part of that process. (God, that’s really badly put. The love of, and interest in, music came way, WAY before the freelancing work. Sheesh, I’m not that careerist…)

(Also, it’s fun to have specialist/expert knowledge of a particular subject, and music happens to be my area.)

Anyhow, with all that said: there are some songs which I won’t touch, and this happens to be one of them. For me, “You’re The First…” is a sheer rush of exultant joy, one of the small handful of songs which always, always, makes me get up and dance if I hear it (more likely than not at a wedding disco), and despite a temporary wobble while it was co-opted by Ally MacBeal, an unassailable Perfect Ten.

B-but that’s what I spend 99% of my arse-sitting time doing!

is it a waste of time for us? well, if you don’t enjoy talking about music then you don’t enjoy it — but if you do, then it’s fun!

the choices a composer or a song-writer makes — why s/he did this rather than that? — are the heart of what s/he does: not so much what inspired them to START in music (which you’re right may well be a rather nebulous and romantic delusion about dealing directly with feeling) but what inspires them to STAY in music, which is the same as anything else rewarding — a job well done

the not-so-fun-to-listen-to dissecting and analysis aspect of music-making is it’s true mostly kept off-stage, on the grounds that it would distract from the one-off excellence of the performance, and it’s true that a lot of performers — comedians are even worse here the musicians — are very supersititious about giving the mechanics away; this is because the feedback loops between brain and body, technique and inspiration, are quite easy to disrupt, and they prefer the mythology of the intuitive gift to dwelling on the extensive work-and-analysis element, which lots of the less-thinking audience are easily alienated by) (i mean, who wants to know ken dodd’s strategies for facing a glasgow as opposed to a cleethorpes crowd? the thing is: i do, because it’s interesting in itself, being very under-discussed, as well as useful… i’m a professional writer and editor, and thinking about what makes what work and what doesn’t is the heart of my art, really; thinking about similar exploration in different not-so-distant disciplines is often a revelation…

your second argument proves my point rather than yours :)

emotions and reason aren’t separate, they’re intimately wrapped up in each other — and sometimes they quarrel and fight for dominance!

it’s true that analysis is harder and much more prone to vapid or meaningless generalisations (”this works because it has soul” = tells you nothing that isn’t circular; the issue is what is the technique or ingredient that SUPPLIES the soul… )

(this applies to “scoring” also: if yr not, then you have to think about what yr doing or saying, or not doing or not saying, that’s going wrong)

(also: the brain comes in sooner than yr saying dave, really — otherwise we wouldn’t be able to recognise a melody sung out of tune… when little kids’ choirs sing hymns, the tune is often VERY wayward, but we can spot what it is and react accordingly —> it’s more like multiple loop feedback, and with plenty of music the deeper feeling comes after deeper brain investment…)

Of course, that hint of reserve - irony, let’s name it - can be a dead hand on British pop, and twenty years later it would become a governing force. But here I think it means a fraction greater openness to feeling, sentiment, and the impossibile extremity of love. It’s true, certainly, that Barry White can’t really keep up with the melody but this adds to the sense that the song is trying to capture the insurmountable joyfulness of love. If some multi-octave divo like Lionel Ritchie were to sing this, I suspect we’d wonder what all the fuss were about. Listen to the way the Walrus of Love almost entirely loses his way in love/the song after 3′30″, it’s delicious and prickly and slightly funny (in that straitened ‘we’ve all been there’ half-laugh).

things i hate about britain/british pop no. 948473033