MANHATTAN TRANSFER – “Chanson D’Amour”
Manhattan Transfer smooth out and slick up Art and Dottie Todd’s song to such a degree that it becomes a pastiche of imagined Frenchness – an accordion, bof alors! – as much as a fifties throwback: what’s sacrificed in the process is vigour as well as (perhaps imagined) innocence. This “Chanson” may make for a good WTF-bomb as a chart-topper, but it’s also as soupy as any of the ballads we’ve sat through. Part of the problem is the vocalising, just on the edge of enjoyably preposterous with its chawn-sawn and its joooo tadoor, but not quite making it. But the “rat-a-ra-ta-ra” hook is the Crazy Frog nim-nim of its day, so points given just for brazen persistence.
4
Tom in FT / Popular • Pop • 2,147 views • Share/Save
Here’s Legs and Co giving it some: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sApdgt1aV-s
As with Leo Sayer re “Moonlighting”, “One Man Band” and lots of others, so with this – there are several MT songs I’d rather have seen at number one. This is passable enough, a nice smooth-sounding novelty, but what about the lively “Operator”, the sassy “Don’t Let Go”, the jazzy “On A Little Street in Singapore” or the downright sexy “Walk in Love”? Still, a very welcome presence on the chart for a good few years.
A couple of years ago I was watching Top Of The Pops 2 with my aged parents and this came up. I’d always recommend watching programmes like that with the subtitles, it makes you really consider how what you’re watching functions as a song, no matter how good or bad it is.
We saw their showbizzy razzmatazzy costumes.
We read the words;
Chanson D’Amour!
Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta!
All three of us started to laugh, not quite out of derision, but out of a sense of the genial and well-intentioned ridiculousness of the entire enterprise.
Which made me quite fond of this, without thinking that its good in any way that I could articulate.
Manhattan Transfer are a band that always seemed to be on The Two Ronnies when I was growing up. If it wasn’t them, it would be Barbara Dixon, and you’d have to sit glumly until the dreadful experience was over. The hook is the ‘rat-ta-ta-ta-ta’ and it says something that it is the most enjoyable thing about this single.
It’s hard to hear in this anything of their supposed origins in gay clubs, nor indeed their reputed early passion for jazz. The aura of cocktail-lounge swing-lite makes them the sort of band who, in the disaster movies of the decade, would be playing on a cruise ship before its capsized, standing for prelapserian ordinariness and sumptuous expense. I somehow connect it with Rupert Holmes’s ‘Pina Colada Song’ in the way they both summon up a very particular mid-70s vision of romance and richness and luxury – white tie and tails, champagne in those wide flat glasses, saxophone, the Dunes on the Cape – that only thirty years later seems irretrievably from Another Age. For me, this summons up the frustrating puzzle of childhood, growing up in a world made by a previous generation who feel no need to explain their choices to you. I’d be interested to know why and how this became number 1. I may be tin-eared but I don’t see what the attraction could possibly have been. It didn’t have stars singing it, like ‘Whispering Grass’, or open-hearted good humour like ‘Combine Harvester’, any sense of drama like ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’, or rich enjoyable vocals like ‘When a Child is Born’, just to mention some recent similarly one-off singles.
While I’m not a lyric person, it’s striking that it’s only their being partly in French that disguises the astonishing banality of these lyrics. It’s the effort of middle-brow style to so little end that gives it a soiling feeling of deep stupidity that I can’t find charming or novel. The vulgar whining saxophone that sprawls all over this kills it off utterly.
That all said, the muppets did a delightful version of this, making much of the ra-ta-ta-ta-ta.
I couldn’t get a hold of whether this was meant to be funny at the time, and I’m still not sure. It sounds like they’re smirking throughout (the men, especially, combined sweaty perv sliminess with New York ‘attitude’, a really bad combination), but if so what the heck is meant to be a parody of? Manhattan Transfer don’t have any obvious passion for the songs they cover; On A Little Street In Singapore had an obtrusive wah-wah for extra smirk points.
They got a mention in the legendary Terry And June episode which involved Terry going into a second hand record shop – he’s after a 78 of The Hut Sut Song and is roundly ridiculed by his Man Tran-lovin’ neighbours. I’m with Curly Wurly-chewing Terry on this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kKU1S0lWxo
Dan R, I’m sure they’d have been horrified that someone could mistakenly associate them with the Pina Colada Song, but you’re spot on.
This was the second Art & Dottie Todd cover to reach number one. The first was Broken Wings by the Man Tran of their day, The Stargazers, in 1953.
I rather liked the concept of ManTran at this time, in much the same way as I actually enjoyed much of Bette Midler’s pre-filmstar musical work. It was an obvious pastiche, but an affectionate pastiche, as they appeared to enjoy what they did, and they never veered very far from it.
I’m very much with Erithian on this one, however, I much preferred their version of “Operator” to this; it actually had some artistic merit to it. “Don’t Let Go”, the follow-up to Chanson was also a better song, written by Jesse Stone (a.k.a. Chuck Calhoun), and later covered by Jeff Lynne among others.
This song (Chanson) was just awful, and the ubiquitous hook didn’t help.
Elsewhere in the chart, while this was number one, Elvis entered the top 10 with “Moody Blue”, his last top ten hit before his death, and there were several songs on the chart far more deserving of being #1, even Ray Stevens and his chicken version of “In The Mood”!
Light Entertainment Watch: In addition to appearing on all 7 episodes of the 1979 series of The Two Ronnies, The Manhatten Transfer could also be seen on;
THE BRINSWORTH TRIBUTE SHOW: Featuring Eamon Andrews,Jim Davidson, Lulu, Manhattan Transfer, The Pamela Devis Dancers (1980)
CHRISTMAS SNOWTIME SPECIAL: Featuring Andy Williams, Boney M, Manhattan Transfer, Petula Clark, Sacha Distel, Charles Aznavour, The Three Degrees, Sheila B. Devotion, Ronnie Hazlehurst & His Orchestra (1978)
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST: Featuring Manhattan Transfer (1977)
RUSSELL HARTY: Featuring Diana Dors, Vivian Nicholson, Manhattan Transfer (1977)
WOGAN: Featuring Mel Brooks, Larry Grayson, Manhattan Transfer (1984)
The Christmas Snowtime Special is actually billed as being a “yuletide spectacular”!
The very concept of this had a dish au gratin baked right onto it. An American group specialising in revival songs from way back when and this time going all French on us, complete with accordion and “ra da da da das” Francais. Big risk. Manhatten Transfer had previously scored to a far less spectacular degree with “Tuxedo Junction”, a Gershwin style swing number, which despite being about a club in Alabama, is served up with pastrami on rye – a Manhattan sandwich, no less. That, I liked.
“Chanson d’Armour” should have sunk like a lead balloon but by cracky it didn’t. And it didn’t because quite frankly it was extremely good. It was bound to appeal to the oldies (my impossible Edwardian father loved it), children took to it, if only for the “ra da da da das” and teenagers appreciated the novelty. A very clever and, above all, happy little piece, this, and I could never criticise it, especially as Manhattan Transfer were clearly enjoying themselves immensely, which they had every right to do with their perfectly commendable “Song of Love”.
Not great but there was a lot of this nostalgia in the air right through the 70s – not just the 1930s, but the 50s and 40s all had their moments – a sure sign that the country was in the shit. I think Bryan Ferry covered every one of those stylistic bases in the space of a few years. Not surprisingly ManTran played at Deco shopping palace Biba a lot.
I seem to remember them doing a rather good version of ‘Birdland’
This is the vinyl embodiment of late ’70s Radio 2 – an impossibly glam world I didn’t understand at five years old. The song’s ritzy, sickly, glittering sound is the essence of parties my parents and their friends would dash off to, leaving us with the babysitter and a waft of perfume.
For me, it’s too unreal to like or dislike.
My parents’ friends (well, one couple anyway) had several albums by Sky. That’s the only musical memory I have of them.
i interviewed man tran for the wire! i don’t recall a single thing they said but it wz the most fancy restaurant ever, in high street ken i think
Sorry, I just think of Cannon and Ball whenever I hear this awful record.
I love Manny Tranny and I’d give this more than 4. Seven, perhaps even eight. This said, now that I know the MT canon much than I did in early ’77 (hanging around Mum’s house in Reading that Easter), I agree that this isn’t the best of many possibilities for a number one – but how many acts can we say that of?
At the time I distinctly remember thinking, what the fuck. It was quite unlike anything else that had hit the charts in my memory. It would, perhaps, have seemed retro even at family Sunday dinners in the early sixties with Two Way Family Favourites on the radio. But it haunted that Easter, and eventually became something I looked forward to hearing.
I first got really hooked on Manny Tranny when I was introduced to their wacky vocal rendering of Joe Zawinul’s Birdland. Their Pastiche album is one of my enduring favourites, including a couple of other hits (On a Little Street in Singapore and Walk In Love) and opens with a similar rendering of Woody Herman’s Four Brothers.
I don’t think any of the punk advocates could seriously maintain a charge of taking themselves too seriously. One thing always comes through when you hear them, that this is singing for the sheer joy of singing rather than for commercial gain (though no doubt there was plenty of that). Janis Siegel in particular has always had a separate career as a top-notch jazz singer, with a voice as rich and zappy as a well-made zabaglione, but the group still stay together.
I – and Waldo – are out on a limb here again but I still say, wonderful stuff.
I quite like this! It does bring to mind something Edith out of ‘Allo ‘Allo might sing to scare off Germans.
We’ve already discussed the old school revivalism which hit the charts throughout ’76-7, and I note that Manhattan Transfer had their first UK hit a year earlier with their cover of Glenn Miller’s “Tuxedo Junction.” They came out of a wave of early ’70s camp postmodernist nostalgics which also encompassed Bette Midler and her Harlettes, and the first edition of the Pointer Sisters. Their repertoire was deliberately schizophrenic; wartime ditties like “On A Little Street In Singapore” mixed with straightforward AoR (the quite superb “Walk In Love”), disco (“Twilight Zone”) and even Todd Rundgren (their rather magnificent reading of “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference”). But “Chanson D’Amour” was their biggest British hit, and provides yet more reasoning for the existence of World Music; it sounds like an ancient Charles Trenet smoocher but in fact is a rather cynical pseudo-Continental simulacrum in the mould of “That’s Amore”; the song was written by the decidedly un-French sounding Wayne Shanklin. The lyric is minimal (“Play encore,” “Je t’adore,” and lots of the central hook “Ra-da-da, da-daa!”) and proves the song to be further fodder for Abigail party non-goers; a pretence of sophistication, but sophisticated only when heard in the next room. And the record is camp only in the sense of: is my life long enough to be told that it’s all just a joke?
marcello, does postmodernist as you use it mean “nothing much mattered to them” (which i think would be unfair) or “safer in a world they’re not sure they understand to wear the MASK that nothing much mattered”? (or does it mean “modernism rox ur all gay” :D)
you (well ok i) could *just about* make a case for MT as (inadvertently?) the far distant end of glam, or glam seen from the closest point on the other side of the mirror, maybe — if you draw a line from b.ferrari’s “these foolish things” to the MT songbook; it points up the MT frailty and anxiety (they didn’t know how to extend their technique to embrace “the rock era” — todd notwithstanding) AND ferry’s (he SO wanted a “universal and all-embracing technique”, and when he got it, it was the undoing of him)
something Edith out of ‘Allo ‘Allo might sing to scare off Germans.
Funnily enough, my chief association with this track is of the cast of Hi De Hi repeatedly singing this, possibly at the end of an episode in a small railway station, with much laughter at all the “rat a ta ra ta”s. Resurrection Watch!
“Tuxedo Junction”, “On A Little Street In Singapore”, “Twilight Zone”… I enjoyed all of those for their sophistication, sparkle and wit, but the crass reductionism of “Chanson D’Amour” did nothing for me at all at the time, and it doesn’t do much more for me now. It’s what they’d play to pipe in the Beaujolais Nouveau at a wine bar in Harpenden. It’s comedy berets, strings of onions, stripey jumpers, “hoh-hih-hoh!”, and “oo-er, watch out for the garlic, missus!”
Which admittedly isn’t exactly MT’s fault, but I’d be surprised if they considered “Chanson” one of the jewels in their crown.
The whole cabaret/christopher isherwood angle. On one extend, Manhatten Transfer. On the other, Velvet Underground.
Aha. Please disregard earlier post. Googling reveals my memory to be probably of Are You Being Served?, where the cast (if this time I recall correctly) spoil a version of the song with the “ra ta ra ta ta”s: “The 69th and final episode of Are You Being Served? allowed former 1960s pop star Mike Berry (Mr. Spooner) to showcase his talents as the singing junior salesman is discovered after a performance in the London Department Stores’ annual concert and fame and fortune beckon. Unfortunately, the rest of the staff insist on hitching a ride on this latest shooting star.”
http://home.hiwaay.net/~emilyj/reviewsx4.html
Now that’s a covers album that I would want to hear: Liza Minelli sings The Velvet Underground (arranged like ‘Chanson D’Amour’)
exactly mark, at least SOME of this is about gay subculture very publicly working out how its layers and secret pleasures and resistances work themselves out post-stonewall, when what could be said and done out in the world all went topsyturvy — which is not to say they all fall into an indivisible lump of goodness (or indeed badness), or that there aren’t conflicts and flaws (and generation gaps) within the subculture
(i am just rereadin tons of samuel delany — “the mad man”, erk — so i currently am a bit out of synch with the “swish” end of the continuum; clearly i will need to balance it up with some noël coward when i am done)
“working out how [xxx] works itself out” <— coward himself cd not have been more stylish X\
Crikey, I’ve never even thought of ManTran having anything to do with gay subculture before! I’ve never heard them referenced as such, and I speak as someone who has read a lot of gay fiction / memoir / journalism. Interesting…
Where did Walk In Love (a straight-down-the-middle 10 in my book) get to in the charts? I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if it actually sold more copies altogether than Chanson d’Amour.
But heavens, everything Manny Tranny ever did oozes camp. It is, it’s true, the far opposite end of the gay spectrum from the hot, dark, sweaty dives playing supercharged dance music (I use the phrase in its most general sense) as the aural equivalent of amyl nitrite. In another life I used to patronise a bar in the Fulham Road that was all louche Manhattan piano bar, smooth and silky, the sort of place where Manny Tranny would fit perfectly. And then one night it was all change – nobody was coming in not clad in leather and nails, and the noise emanating from within mitigated the disappointment.
#17:
I could mean (on some days) that they’re affecting the everything SuXoR mask rather than the nothing matters mask to hide basic fear of not understanding/losing grasp/dying (or maybe I’m confusing postmodernists with Radio 2 listeners heheh).
Although I think ex-Bette Midler and the Harlettes musical director Barry Manilow grasped the glam logic far more securely than MT since he is pretty much exactly halfway between Chet Baker and Jobriath.
#26:
“Walk In Love” reached a respectable #12.
Is it possible that, far from being anxious about embracing the rock era, they were happy to stay outside it? Not everybody is a sheep, following the flock, you know!
#22:
I fear that such an undertaking would now have been superseded by the Mike Flowers Pops’ excellent “Velvet Underground Medley.”
embrace was a bit of a rubbishly vague word, rosie (haha that’s why i used it twice obviously!): i don’t mean their anxiety was that they wanted to be part of the rock thing, i mean that their anxiety was (well, may have been) that they didn’t want the music THEY loved to be swept away by the rock thing — which leaves them with the choice of (mostly, except for todd) ignoring it, or bringing their aesthetic to bear on it (as ferry did in a slightly different context): i see the ferry move as the bolder one, the more confident one (but in a way it’s the confidence of callowness)
#21 the ‘are you being served’ episode is my main memory of the song too. following a complex (though perhaps less than seinfeldian) chain of events mrs slocum et al ended up miming to a recording of this that got faster and faster as the song progressed. the rat-ta-ta-ta-ta’s resulted in particular hilarity.
I heard this back in March on Pick of the Pops – for the first time (I only knew Manhattan Transfer from “Birdland” and “Twilight Zone”) and it’s very good for what it is – I don’t know if they are singing it (the song) straight exactly…but they are definitely in on the joke while actually respecting the whole chanson tradition…which reminds me of Scott Walker…(if we are talking spectrums)
And let me repeat vinylscot’s praise for Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” – when the time comes I’m going to praise another of their songs…
(oh, and meanwhile in the US Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen” is #1)
Arguably, of course, Manny Tranny took on rock, or at least Miles Davis-ish jazz with a foot in the rock camp, when they took on Joe Zawinul. It’s worth tracking down their version of Birdland if you haven’t heard it – it may not be Rock’n'Roll but it’s great fun and supremely well-executed.
Of course, it’s natural for a group of people who get their kicks from creating complex harmonies together to steer clear of a musical genre which eschewed that sort of thing in favour of raw simplicity.
ManTran’s “Birdland” was my favourite “Birdland” until Quincy Jones’s all-star version came along. (Dizzy Gillespie AND Big Daddy Kane! Kool Moe Dee AND Sarah Vaughan!)
i totally agree about birdland (tho miles himself at this stage was moving away from complex harmonies towards stockhausen-ornettesque sound-clusters and scribble-lines over endless rock-funk pedal-point)
that’s a good point about rawness — but the steering clear is what i’m getting really: that there’s (harold bloomism alert) an AGON here between craft suppleness as elaboration (which is the MT fancy) and areas the “kid’s” form could reach which the suppleness maybe couldn’t (or anyway these supple-teers FELT it couldn’t, felt it as a territory they couldn’t move about in; tho i think the broader argt of glam is that there was something, a lot in fact, to be explored in the collision)
“art’s for art’s sake” (haha walter paterism alert) is another line within pop we don’t see much of, and when it does emerge, i think it’s quite hard (if it’s not yr favoured art-style) not to respond to as if it’s irony: we touched on this discussin the swingle singers i think
“at this stage” <— meaning c.1970, oops! not 1977 anyway
Quite, since in 1977 Miles was having problems moving anything, poor old soul…
Now, as for Weather Report’s “Birdland” versus 1977’s Actual Most Important/Influential/Punkish Album, viz. Dancing In Your Head…
(also note how Herb Alpert ends up total most punk person of ’77 for getting rid of the Pistols from A&M and signing up Ornette instead…)
1976 most punkish alb =
If only Jaco had joined the Pistols and Sid Weather Report, two lives might have been saved…
Never mind all this nonesense, peeps. I’ve just read some uber-exciting news. Popular icon and eternal sex goddess, Anita “Just Loving You” Harris (mother of Wee Willie) is appearing currently at the Grand Theatre in Blackpool in Wodehouse’s “Carry On, Jeeves” along with Victor “Most People Think I’m Dead” Spineti and Derren “It’s Your Funeral” Nesbitt. During the performance, Anita dances a “show-stopping pearls-swinging Charleston”, much to the gratification of the audience populated heavily by block-booked rows of Waldoesque tragicoes, each donning Harry Palmer-style bins and decked out in buff-coloured mackintoshes with extra deep pockets. It would seem unlikely that any of these “admirers” will be admitted to the cast party afterwards, celebrating La Harris’ 66th birthday.
What an entertainer! What a diva! WHAT A GAL!!!!
But will she need to carry on Jeeves, so to speak?
And will Derren be taking the bows later on?
Not with that ruddy great chain of office hanging round his gregory!!
Laurel Massé here, founding member of Manhattan Transfer. Thank you all for the many compliments for “Walk in Love” and “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference”. I loved singing them both, especially Rundgren’s tune. He is still one of my musical idols.
Many of you have posted wondering why we chose “Chanson d’Amour” I wish I could remember… it may have been that it was so deliciously cocktail-y and a bit over-the-top. We were fearless at times.
ManTran was always my “guilty pleasure”. Friends were puzzled, I’d have to go through the whole “good taste/the right influences/doo wop/be bop” thing. I must admit I preferred when they hung with Jon Hendricks to this type of thing, but still in all, they were always under-valued. They just need another “Vocalese” to be back on top of their game.
But this one, well, I get it, but it was still kinda Mom’s music to me.
Laurel #45 – our pleasure! This isn’t something I ever expected Popular to allow me the opportunity to do, but thank you for some great music and in particular the, erm, bracing effect your voice had on this 16-year-old! (“We walk in silence but we have talking hands…” – mmm, that did it for me.)
Seriously though, thanks for taking the time to post on here, and feel free to share more of your memories of having a UK number one single and anything else this thread evokes. Very best wishes.
Yes, welcome to the asylum, Laurel! I had a funny turn when I saw you there but it’s great to see you here and hear what you have to say,