FEARGAL SHARKEY – “A Good Heart”
It’s our misfortune to happen upon Feargal Sharkey in the least interesting bit of his three-stage career. We knew him once as a leader of post-punk’s emotional shock troops, putting that quaverous Derry voice into the service of everyday lust and laughter. We know him now as an industry spokesman, a general in a long, attritional fight to shore up recorded music as something people want to – or at least have to – pay for.
In between, this. You can see it as the worst of both worlds, if you like: the teenage tremble that animated The Undertones gone to seed and turned to schtick, with a backing that suggests the music industry at its most unimaginative and businesslike. “A Good Heart” can’t decide what it’s for – is it a torch song, a chugalong bit of pop-funk, or as that wretched guitar break suggests a rocker? So no wonder Sharkey sounds so lost and drab in it. Oh, it’s catchy enough: underneath the arrangement Maria McKee’s song could be a sweet bit of teenpop, or a girl-group throwback. But – like most of Sharkey’s solo career – all it leaves me with is the sense of people marking time, putting out material because they’ve got little better to do.
3
Tom in FT / Popular • Pop • 1,771 views • Share/Save
Speaking of Therapy?, and to continue my string of fundamentally irrelevant links, the ridiculous “Hey There Ophelia” may make my top ten this year.
Here’s a link to That Petrol Emotion which reminds me again why I loved them at the time and makes me more pissed off that they didn’t enjoy greater success.
Now that they have reformed perhaps Manic Pop Thrill will be rereleased.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3KL9IrcxJA
Ugh… this is worse than I remember it as being. Punctum’s right: Dave Stewart’s backing track’s just lame….But the song would be pretty drippy even if, say, Quincy Jones produced it.
Jennifer Rush was frightened but now is ready to learn about the power of love. Fergal Sharky wonders why he’s striking out, says of himself that he’s good-hearted, and then implores everyone to be gentle with him on that basis. Good God. 1984 may have been the year when the UK charts went to war, but in 1985 they turned into a charity ward.
Would be improved by being mashed up with bits of Quint dialogue from _Jaws_:
Y’all know me. Know how I earn a livin’…..
I’m not talkin’ ’bout pleasure boatin’ or day sailin’. I’m talkin’ ’bout workin’ for a livin’. I’m talkin’ ’bout sharkin’!
2 (And Jennifer, I don’t think Fergal has what you’re looking for.)
Yes, worse than I remembered too. Who bought it? In Australia, people my age who were too young and too opposite-end-of-the-earth to remember “Teenage Kicks” (John Peel’s broadcasts didn’t carry that far). When this was your first exposure to Feargal, the high vocals had a certain novelty value. We duly gave “A Good Heart” two weeks at the top in February 1986.
Now, though, it feels like one of the most dated tracks of this year. The energetic concert video is an utter mismatch for its soundtrack; the puttering keyboards and incongruous soul-singer backing sap all the life out of it, and that strangled squawk of guitar doesn’t inject any back in.
I had expected this would be a 4 or 5 for me, but that 3 is looking pretty reasonable.
And a good shark these days is hard to find.
[edit - dang, Rory, you separated my crap punchline from the joke.]
#9 “Slightly racist” is ridiculous in the context of 5 white guys from, legally at least, the same country ! I do agree that “Ways To Be Wicked” is a great song. I remember hearing that on “5-a-side” on the old Radio 5 on the same day as “Cemetery Gates” by The Smiths and thinking what a great music policy they’ve got. Of course it was destroyed by John Birt a few months later and I’ve yet to meet in person or print another fan of the station.
I was surprised that this got to number one though pleased for Feargal.For all the praise, The Undertones’ chart fortunes were relatively modest and as Feargal didn’t write the songs he wouldn’t have been able to retire on the proceeds. Having said that it is a rather flat record.
A good friend’s parents broke up at this time, and he forever associates this song with that unhappy period – domestic rows, accompanied by Feargal’s thin “a good … heart” on a tinny transistor. It’s funny the way he tells it now, but really it’s kind of heartbreaking.
TOTPWatch: Feargal Sharkey thrice performed ‘A Good Heart’ on Top Of The Pops (The Christmas edition we’ll come to in good time);
31 October 1985. Also in the studio that week were; Matt Bianco and King. Janice Long and Simon Bates were the hosts.
14 November 1985. Also in the studio that week were; Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. Gary Davies and Mike Smith were the hosts.
Two rather sparse editions there.
Light entertainment watch: Not many UK TV appearances listed for Feargal;
FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE: with Ben Elton, Joe Bolster, Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry, The Joan Collins Fan Club, Josie Lawrence, Jimmy Mulville, Fergal Sharkey, Voice Of The Beehive, Bob Mills (1988)
JOAN RIVERS: CAN WE TALK?: with Peter Cook, Jacqueline Bisset, Bob Monkhouse, Su Pollard, Fergal Sharkey, Doctor Ruth Westheimer, Shelley Winters (1986)
POP QUIZ: with John Entwistle, Fergal Sharkey, Cheryl Baker, Tony Butler, Dave Dee, Davy Jones (1984)
WOGAN: with Larry Hagman, Mary Martin, Fergal Sharkey, Tracey Ullman, Jean Alexander (1988)
I’m very prone to letting love of some act carry forward to worse or worthless later recordings, so I’d have scored this a bit higher just for the pleasure of hearing that extremely distinctive voice, which had led several records I’d deeply loved, at #1. But really it isn’t any good and 3 is fair enough.
Billy Smart
I think he was also on the Noel Edmonds late late brakfast show (whatever his Saturday teatime extravaganza was back then) too
Billy (again) – yes, you’re right – it was the guy (I think) writing about the girl. A better song, if only because it was a faster track and I think suited his voice better (closer to the good old undertones days than this shoulder-pad ballad)
A bit of a marking-time number one, really – I can’t generate the dislike that ohers upthread seem to do, but I take their points about the production. For me it was far from unwelcome at the top – I didn’t find his voice at all grating (in small doses anyway) and it’s a good choon as well. And to him we owe the line in Only Fools and Horses where Rodney gets Cassandra “a Shergal Farkey LP”. Great in context if not in words on a screen.
I’m afraid where the Undertones are concerned I’m a bit like a Bateman cartoon – “the man who thought “Teenage Kicks” was hugely overrated”. I suppose I can understand what Peel saw in it, Punctum’s “happy innocent boys” and all that, but really there’s not much to the song, nor in “Jimmy Jimmy” either. Much preferred them when they spread their wings and wrote some half-decent lyrics later on. Simplicity isn’t always a virtue!
I’m with Erithian on the subject of the Undertones – hugely overrated are the words I’d use too and although I was never going to be out buying their records thought the later singles were at least an improvement.
Punctum @9: yeah it namechecks the Hunman League but in a pretty pisstaking way ie “they’re the kind of pretentious band that a wanker like Kevin would enjoy – probably didn’t like them not using guitars too” (when to me the Human League had more originality in one song than the Undertones had in a whole career)
it reminds me a bit of Steely Dan namechecking the Eagles in one of their lyrics (also in a derogatory way in this case the annoying neighbours playing them)and the Eagles completely missing the point and thinking they were getting props from them.
I’m a bit surprised by the opprobrium this has attracted. A distinctive voice, singing an urgent and pacy number with some nice touches thrown in – notably the ‘dopplar-effect’ (probably a guitar) right at the beginning – and again a few seconds in. Not an easy song to pigeonhole but none the worse for that – I’m not bothered by a record just because I can’t put it in a given box. I take the point about the production being a little thin, though – it does seem to lack ‘bottom’, rather. But it’s distinctive enough to form part of the musical soundtrack of my life – a feat which some records just don’t accomplish. To me what comes to mind is…the Europa-Center in Berlin, that building with the Mercedes star on top, behind the bombed church. I was a student at an establishment which occupied one of the floors in that building, and when I think about or hear this record I’m right back there. A six from me.
BTW, more or less as some blog-wags predicted a month or so ago, the 5 song trek from ‘I got you babe’ to ‘Good heart’ is the first five song sequence all of whose Tom-scores (which I’ve found generous!) are 4 or lower (the 5-song averages and medians are easily the worst so far too, I’m pretty sure).
The light at the end of the tunnel… is presumably a set of pearly-white chompers.
Oddly enough I was working this out while fighting off a cold this week. The 5-song average is actually the joint worst – the 6-1-2-2-3 run from “Just Like Starting Over” to Joe Dolce also averaged 2.8
(There’s a 5-song 4-or-lower run from Perry Como to Frankie Laine right at the start, too)
In terms of reader scores this is a clear all time 5-song low (unless there’s been VERY generous voting on this or J Rush since Thursday night).
@42 Tom. Nice. Thanks for correcting my quickly eyeballed estimates.
If I had to guess, I’d say that of the *very* fragmented charts in the ’90s and ‘OOs, often anchored by (to my ears, to the extent I heard them at all) apparently musically undistinguished boy-bands are going to score lower in stretches than the ‘dark days’ of 1985. But we’ll see.
@42 Tom. Nice. Thanks for correcting my quickly eyeballed estimates.
If I had to guess, I’d say that some of the *very* fragmented charts in the ’90s and ’00s, often anchored by (to my ears, to the extent I heard them at all) apparently musically undistinguished boy-bands, are going to score lower in stretches than the dark days of 1985. But we’ll see.
Hello All
First poster here, and what a truly awful time to find this site! I made the mistake of going back a few ‘toppers’ and stumbled across the stain on humanity that is ‘I got you babe’ by UBfucking40 ( that is their actual name ).
That shower made me phobic of reggae ( hey, I was only 11, and they were a reggae band, apparently ) for at least 10 years. After discovering that they weren’t reggae at all I was even more gobsmacked to find that they actually had a few good tunes early doors.
But back to Feargal…….this sounded alright to me on my ‘Best of 1985′ double album – bought with my Boots vouchers from Auntie Maureen – but as I say, I was only 11.
The video’s quality – TWO FEMALE DRUMMERS! And where did they rent that hysterical crowd from?
The song? Typical 80s overproduction including a completely unnecessary guitar solo. Not a bad tune really underneath it all and it would be interesting to hear it stripped down and not sung by some floppy-fringed chancer.
Slainte.
Aha! Didn’t know what that meant….
Hi Abe, welcome to Popular!
Can’t vouch for its quality, but songwriter Maria McKee has apparently recorded this herself so that might be a preferable version. (Or it might not.)
There’s a bluegrass-meets-Farfisa live version by Maria McKee on Spotify which is way tougher than Feargal’s version, though it also sounds 80s-size thanks to the thunking drums. I was imagining that a songwriters demo version in the style of Ellie Greenwich or Toni Wine could work, but tougher and emotionally knackered certainly works too.
Either way I think the song is a 6 or 7 and what lets the record down is, as Abe says, the classic mid 80s production. So I’m not sure why this is being singled out for a kicking: the viciously unfunky snare, the heartless guitar solo, and the chick bvs (blame Paul Young?) were all over the unpop pop of the era, and without re-checking (I do love the element of surprise and the feeling of ‘oh, of COURSE that came next’) I’ll guess we’re in for much more of the same over the next 20 or so entries.
You Little Thief – which I liked more at the time – has a truly unlistenable production, by someone (the cultural engineer again?) who associated ‘Motown Sound’ with nothing more than a relentless snare. Another good song (more suited to Feargal than A Good Heart) trashed by sausage fingers on the console.
I think it sounds worse on this (and Midge) because the production’s being put into the service of quite traditional pop songs: perhaps the paradox of 80s production is that the less solid the song the better the record sounds – “Easy Lover”, for instance, is a more haphazard song but a far better piece of pop.
It reminds me – comics alert! – of the Image comics style of the early 90s, all poses and lines everywhere and it looked absolutely ridiculous. And the critics said look, these people can’t tell a basic story – but actually that wasn’t the point: the better the storytelling the more garish and stupid the style looked, whereas when it was all just effect effect effect it had a massive energy charge and sold gazillions.
But surely it’s not *just* a production problem: the song requires the singer to say of him- or herself that he/she’s got a good heart. But, on pain of being a clueless David Brent-type, only someone *else* can say that about you. In my view, then, the core lyric of the song just doesn’t work, perhaps especially with a male singer. [A proviso: the lyric probably can be saved (at least in part) by a singer who's got an established persona as long-suffering or some such thing - country and bluegrass gals like June Carter and Loretta Lynn do seem to have additional freedoms in this regard (and maybe Maria Mckee fits in there).]
Good point. McKee’s delivery, with a definite hint of barfly sarcasm, fits that brief. It could also work as sung by a JAP like Lesley Gore; the line about leaving it too late would sound very Brill Building coming from a prim, slightly frigid and slightly fearful 19-yr old.
Tom, I get your point (though imho Easy Lover’s instrumental hooks would have worked better with an AOR production, and taken a bit slower). I suppose I’m also surprised that people don’t understand how this got to number one when pretty much ALL pop sounded like this at the time, whatever the ’sound’ of the artist – see Strawberry Switchblade’s unlikely leap from Trees & Flowers (cute, woodwinds, tiny little drum box) to Since Yesterday’s big but hollow ’85 production, or Lloyd Cole’s Rattlesnakes (string quartet, Hank Marvin-esque guitars, ’84) and Easy Pieces (DX7, ’85).
From ’85 it felt like drum sounds were only getting bigger and bigger, worser and worser – for me it felt like Jack The Groove finally broke the evil spell, coldly and cleanly (some way off so I’ll hold my tongue).
Bit surprising at the low score for this one, especially following the poor run.
Listened to the acoustic Maria McKee version they have on Last.fm, and am still not convinced there’s actually much of a song here…
I’ve been putting it off, but I thought I should actually listen to this one rather than commenting just from memory. It’s not too bad, really. The lyrics are clunking but the tune’s pleasant enough. Feargal’s vocals are thin, certainly, but his voice is reasonably charming and I believe his performance. I quite like his look in the video too – at the time he seemed like an old man, now he seems more like a kid dressing up for church.
I agree that the production’s abominable though – that keyboard effect throughout (sorry, I don’t know the name for it – phasing? staggering? echo?) plain gives me a headache. It’s one of those effects that seems to take over the entire track, and listening to the bits where Feargal’s not singing makes me feel hungover.
but TWO FEMALE DRUMMERS though…….
it got an extra 2 points ( making 6 ) just for that.
I agree that mid-’80s drum sounds got old… still, none of us would have any complaints if it were ‘Hounds of Love’’s huge drums at the top of the charts, or ‘P-machinery’’s, or, for a modern example, Bat for Lashes’s much-loved ‘What’s a girl to do?’’s. So, I tentatively conclude again that it’s the song that’s the real problem: ‘good heart’ bad, ‘bat lightning heart’ good. (Try to say that ten times quickly!)
“still, none of us would have any complaints if it were ‘Hounds of Love’’s huge drums at the top of the charts”
erm, yes we would. I may as well come out now as a Bush non-believer……
Be gentle on my heretical bones.
@48
Sorry Tom, I never acknowledged your welcome. Cheers for that. i was slightly worried that after the piece by Sir Bob Stanley in the Times that you might have been deluged by newbies and as such I felt a wee bit backwards about coming forwards.
I sniffed about for a while before taking the plunge, but now that me cherries popped, hopefully my tuppenthworth will add a wee bit to the broth.
Why did it have to be 1985 though………………….
Be gentle on my heretical bones.
No problems. No conversions necessary, just weaken my (evidently too strong) original remark to:
*most* of us would have *few* complaints if it were ‘Hounds….
swan
it’s not that it’s “too strong”, it’s just wrong.
be careful abe. I too started here as a Kate Bush infidel but have recently found myself warming to her
we will have you all, yes, we will
*waves arms above head in sinister yet mimsy fashion*
Re 62/63: slightly odd thing, the degree of Kate Bush-love on Popular – I always knew people who were obsessed by her, but also plenty of people (like me) who just didn’t (and still don’t) get it. Intrigued by the seeming Popular near-consensus, I did a very unscientific poll at a party attended by lots of Freaky Trigger-connected folk, and found those there were roughly evenly split between Kate-likers and haters, which seems more likely…
*waves arms more*
I don’t actually mind the production, finding it suitably bombastic for a big tune. It’s all OKAY in my book.
I knew Feargal for a short while, in the missing stage of his career, the stage when he was MD of EXP Records (home of Black Star Liner, erm, and I forget the rest; those Flux Trax compilations too). Me, I was the postroom boy in lengthy pursuit of Feargal’s PA – which was successful in the end, but that’s another tale. Anyway, he regularly came into my cubby hole and ranted at me, which made me think I was in trouble at first, but that turned out to be his standard voice. The guy was a maniac, but a smart one all the same.
I’m surprised no one’s compared this to “You Little Thief,” which is, to my ears, the superior song and production.
Lovely song + great singer = dull record. How often does that happen? Yeah, cheers for that, Dave Stewart out of the Eurythmics.
Maria McKee – who, as David says above, deserves to be remembered for more than this and The Other One – finally got around to recording her own version on her patchy but occasionally excellent Late December album from 2007. (Sadly not on Spotify.) In my opinion, the song is lifted greatly by the introduction of a harpsichord solo. We should have more of them!
The song was written when McKee 18 years old, “hence the very innocent, quixotic lyrics – My expectations may be high, I blame it on my youth – which now I have to sing with a bit of irony. But the lyrics still hold true to me.” (Quote lifted from an interview that I did with her in 2007.)
… and Maria McKee sang my earworm du jour, “If Love Is A Red Dress” from Pulp Fiction.
This song works very well if you substitute “dick” for “heart” wherever it occurs in the lyrics.