THE COMMODORES - “Three Times A Lady”
Lionel Richie pens a heartfelt tribute to the Celtic triple Goddess - maiden, mother and crone. Well, I assume that’s what it’s about. Before I got into soul music, this is pretty much what I assumed all soul music sounded like: insipid gloop for grown-ups, to be drowsed through in the hope something better might show up. Now, of course, not only do I know that soul is a broader church than I once imagined, I also know that a lot of the stuff that does sound like “Three Times A Lady” is terrific. The great soul ballads deliver a double payload - the comfort that comes from letting a thick wave of sentiment carry you up, and the pleasure of listening more closely to hear the nuance and twist in the singer’s delivery.
“Three Times” also holds these attractions to some degree - Richie is a fine singer and commendably restrained here, and there’s some attractive swells and surges in the arrangement towards the end. But I still can’t enjoy it. Maybe I’ve just heard it too often, maybe I like my balladry more situationally grounded and “Three Times” is too abstract. Maybe I’m just cold-hearted. 3
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FT's Pete Baran on August 6th, 2008
Oh th other thing the Commodores remind me of is, as Mark vaguely mentions above in his Sekrit Life Of Plants shimmy, was sci-fi. Along with The Jacksons early sci-fi videos (Can You Feel It!) there was something about the name The Commodores, mixed with that 3D logo that made it seem ultra futuristic to a small me. There might be a Star Wars character with the rank of Commodore which fooled me, and of course the Commodore computers weren’t far off. Of course there was nothing remotely sci-fi about this song, unless one wants to consider it a paean to a man who has cloned his wife three times.
(Since it isn’t going to bother us, here’s a link to that Jacksons video, which is still a stupendous sight, even if the sound effects drown out the song).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaADnQzdyP8
LondonLee on August 6th, 2008
I have to take issue with Rosie’s comment at #5:
It’s a great pity that Soul had lost its edgy Wilson Pickett* sound by this time, and a generation was growing up thinking this was Soul.
Being a bit of an old soul boy meself I always get annoyed when old white rock types always hold up the sweaty Stax/Atlantic sound as “real” soul and poo-poo the softer sounds of the 70s. This is bland rubbish true, but what about The Delfonics, Harold Melvin, The O’Jay’s, The Moments, The Stylistics, Maze? Just because they were smooth as silk doesn’t mean it ain’t soul. I hate to say it but it’s an awfully Rockist attitude.
And personally I don’t think many people thought this was “soul” anyway.
LondonLee on August 6th, 2008
Oh sorry Tom, forgot where that got in the charts. Back off Bunny, I apologized!
SteveM on August 6th, 2008
I suggest casual/unintentional mentions of ‘future’ #1s just be allowed (unless their chart-topping status is also mentioned) but ignored. This bunny isn’t powered by Energiser and I am afraid the lil bastad will be worn out by the time we get to it’s personal favourite in about 10 songs time.
pink champale on August 6th, 2008
got to say i can’t get along with sweaty stax/atlantic soul either - there’s little that makes my heart sink more than the opening bars of
“mustang sally” or “soul man”. though strangely my favourite motown record is “reach out i’ll be there” which is probably the closest they ever got to grunty “real soul”. anyway, gloopy is the right word for ttal which is a long way from being the the best thing lionel richie has done, let alone being a match for the glories of prime motown.
SteveM on August 6th, 2008
Plenty of other fun in the charts during TTAL’s reign anyway including Cerrone’s ‘Supernature’ running with Moroder’s Italo baton, Hancock’s ‘I Thought It Was You’, Siouxsie’s debut and Jilted John! Lower down I see the marvellously named BILBO with ‘She’s Gonna Win’ falling just short of the 40.
vinylscot on August 6th, 2008
Bilbo were a decent Scottish pop band, formerly known (obviously) as Bilbo Baggins, featuring perennial nearly-man Brian Spence. This was the first Bilbo single, and their only hit, although the previous single, the slightly punky “I Can Feel Mad”, by Bilbo Baggins was far superior, boasting the rather iffy lines :-
I wanna take my sister out
But I haven’t got one,
My mother had to spoil it all
I wish she would adopt one!
mike on August 6th, 2008
Hear! Hear! to LondonLee at #27 for sticking up for smooth Seventies soul. Here are the first great late 1970s soul ballads to pop into my head:
If You’re Not Back In Love By Monday - Millie Jackson
Wishing On A Star - Rose Royce
You Are My Starship - Norman Connors
Love T.K.O - Teddy Pendergrass (bah, this turns out to be from 1980).
DJ Punctum on August 6th, 2008
At Last I Am Free
pink champale on August 6th, 2008
didn’t i blow your mind this time?
SteveM on August 6th, 2008
strawberry letter 23, if that counts
FT's Pete Baran on August 6th, 2008
Oh its just hit me. The Commodores logo looks like the Blake 7 Logo. See:
To a five year old anyway.
wichita lineman on August 6th, 2008
Ha! And Three Times A Lady was as representative of that logo as the Blakes Seven cast singing Mother Of Mine. It’s much more Machine Gun, isn’t it? Futur-synth-shiny-metallic pop.
I can’t imagine Lionel came up with it.
“Can’t we have a rose, instead?” he (probably) simpered.
a logged-out pˆnk s lord whatnot on August 6th, 2008
we need a full comparative semiological archeology (with DATES) of the flying shiny logo
(i straight away thought BOSTON, though it is strictly speaking on a flying object usually — ditto osibisa)
FT's Pete Baran on August 6th, 2008
Off top of head I can think of Van Halen, ELO, Boston, maybe Journey all rocking this kind of shiny flying UFO device.
a logged-out pˆnk s lord whatnot on August 6th, 2008
i was kinda hoping gerry anderson invented it (one more thing for him to be bitter about!) but i guess it comes from 50s sci-fi movies
the key 70s element is the use of airbrush-as-medium to get the metallic feel
DJ Punctum on August 6th, 2008
The whole ethos behind it of course comes from number one secret seventies soulboy causator Sun Ra.
rosie on August 6th, 2008
Marcello @ 16:According to Wikipedia, Richie wrote it to commemorate his love for his wife, mother and daughter, hence the title.
You mean they’re all the same person? Funky!
FT's Pete Baran on August 6th, 2008
I am pretty sure I have read a sci-fi story which has this triple whammy Oedipal twist.
David Belbin on August 6th, 2008
Well, I love my smooth seventies soul, up to and including Hall and Oates, but I’m afraid, DJP, I dug out Just To Be Close To You (”a lost classic and readers should look it up forthwith”) and it’s a big hunk of cheese. As is this, tho’ it does have that slight subtextual feel (”but you’re getting on a bit so I’m about to leave you for the nannie”, that kind of thing). And Mike, Millie Jackson (who I saw twice in the 70’s, an awesome and very dirty live act) is anything but smooth, though I can see why you might put IYNBILBM in that category. Has anyone heard her last album, ‘Not For Church Folk” from 2001? I’m tempted to check it out but it’s pricey…
FT's Alan on August 6th, 2008
“a sci-fi story which has this triple whammy Oedipal twist”
are you thinking of Heinlein’s All You Zombies where the protagonist turns out to be his own father AND MOTHER
got no problem with this song at all. it’s uncomplex and direct, and, if you like gloopy. as if gloopy is a bad thing. more like a 6 from me.
Dan M. on August 7th, 2008
Some favorite soul ballads of late 70s for me…
Reasons by Earth Wind and Fire (preferred the studio to the live version)
Sweet Thing - Rufus and Chaka Kahn -absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful
You’re Still a Young Man, Tower of Power
“Firefly” by some obscure, late version of the Temptations was nice. Not special, I guess…
oh, and there was something great by the Isley Brothers… what was it…? From Fight the Power or the album after that. “Harvest For the World,” maybe, if that counts as ballad.
The Commodores arc was more or less like Kool and the Gang’s, although “Jungle Boogie,” and “Hollywood Swingin’” don’t actually hold up all that well, I’ve found, they’re better than the lite-brite pop they had big hits with later. What was it, “lady’s night?”
The Intl on August 7th, 2008
Awful then - awful now.
Billy Smart on August 7th, 2008
Number 2 watch: A week of ‘It’s Raining’ by Darts
DJ Punctum on August 8th, 2008
Poor old Darts - three times in a row the bridesmaid, never the bride…
Waldo on August 10th, 2008
Dear God! I’m silly enough to take a day off for my annual visit to the Oval Test and Tom goes bananas after having been as mute as Helen Keller for days. Bloody typical!
For me, this was a landmark record. I had left school and having been cruelly prevented from taking my appointed place in higher education by the slight matter of acquiring a talent for failing significant exams, I entered the world of work as a tragic little office boy in the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, where my immediate superior was the absolute spit of Mrs Slocombe from “Are You Being Served?”. She spent all day wandering around with a fag hanging out of her mouth, continually (and I mean CONTINUALLY) humming the refrain from “Peter and the Wolf”. I have cursed Prokofiev ever since. Despite being a pitiful, snivelling, uber-nervous, low-down, amoeba-like, unclubbable, insignificant, entirely dispensable, sad, unwanted, virginal, teenaged piece of flushable shit, my duties actually involved me handling documents of alarmingly high classification, being seconded as I was to an office serving the Assistant Chief of the RAF. This put the fear of Christ in me, quite frankly, and I never understood how it came about that I should have such easy access to Secret and Confidential papers on things like the Tornado F2 and Cruise Missiles at a time when the world was still very twitchy to say the least and I was all of seventeen with the confidence of a dead stoat.
Whilst all this shit this was going on, “Three Times a Lady” was number one and for this reason alone it remains special to me. It was to become the standard slow song played last at discos, providing the opportunity for lads to try to pull the girl they had been eyeing up all evening. It was in addition a nice, sincere and well-constructed love song and stays well clear of the syrupy line, the overstepping of which necessitates a request to Alice to pass the sick bag. This was very much a boy to man record for me, although the Waldo kirsche was to remain intact for another year.
Happy Days!
rosie on August 11th, 2008
On the subject of 1970s cool soul, lets’s hear it for Isaac Hayes, who died yesterday at the depressingly young (I’ve only got 11 years to go to pass him) age of 65.
RIP
DJ Punctum on August 11th, 2008
Right on, and to hell with the Spoiler Bunny - I’m glad that he’ll get his day on Popular because no one deserved it more.
RIP big man.
mike on August 11th, 2008
Nottingham’s ‘Mr Sex’ pays tribute to Isaac Hayes, beautifully.
Erithian on August 12th, 2008
A fantastic piece, Mike - my compliments to Mr Sex!
I recognise the points made upthread about the direction in which this took the Commodores’ and Lionel Richie’s career a few years after the splendidly spicy “Machine Gun”, but taken in isolation this is a lovely piece of work. It makes a virtue of its simplicity, and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do. No unnecessary frills, no excessive yelping, no overdose of slush. Beautifully simple and simply beautiful. A bit like one we’re coming to in three summers’ time which is the artist’s simplest and for me his best. More anon.
FT's Malice Cooper on August 12th, 2008
I know songwriters like to get big hits but this is just awful. Proof that writing music for the masses doesn’t have to be in any way complicated. It also encouraged them to change musically. The band that brought us the fantastic “Machine gun” just matured into dross.
mike on August 12th, 2008
I was quite fond of “Still”, though. Personal reasons.
DJ Punctum on August 12th, 2008
Certainly in terms of songs called “Machine Gun” the Commodores one is almost up there with Peter Brotzmann, Hendrix and Portishead.
Dan M. on August 12th, 2008
“For the record,” the last 3 paragraphs of comment #4 by Marcello (I am getting it right that DJ Punctum = Marcello?) is the type of thing that keeps me coming back to this site, once, twice, three times a day. If I could write about music like THAT, I’d… I’d… well, I’d definitely spend a lot of time writing about music like that!