THE STARGAZERS - “I See The Moon”
(12th March 1954)
They don’t make ‘em like this any more, thank Christ. A 1954 British comedy record: either jokes were still rationed or they hadn’t been invented yet, so standing in we have musical pratfalls, on-purpose bad singing and noxious comedy accents. (”Just like The Darkness/The Libertines/Blur!” you might say and that piss-poor gag would be a thousand times funnier than this track.) Even this comic armoury can’t sustain the record for more than a minute so the Stargazers just do the whole thing again, but louder.
This record is genuinely excruciating. As a thought experiment I was trying to work out some kind of defense for it and the closest I can get is invoking/insulting Spike Jones but it won’t wash. The part where the female vocalist keeps starting her verse at the wrong time is particularly unspeakable but “I See The Moon” is irritating and embarrassing from start to finish. I had to wait until Isabel was out of the house before I dared give it a second play, and if it gets a third in this lifetime it will be a dark dark day. 1
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Mick Norman on July 13th, 2007
Tom: you may find this ‘irritating and embarrassing’ in 2003 but something must have attracted (say) 250,000 people to shell out their hard-earned back in the winter of 1954. For me it is the product of a gentler, more innocent age and I actually find it quite charming. The production’s not bad either.
Much more significantly, the great Dennis Potter saw fit to choreograph this as a backdrop to Colonel Bernwood’s struggle with dementia in ‘Lipstick on your Collar’. But I don’t suppose you’ve much time for Connie Francis either?
Still, we’re all a lot wiser and more sophisticated now, aren’t we?…
Marcello Carlin on July 13th, 2007
The point of LOYC of course being that we’re not.
In 2007 I find it quite endearing.
FT's Tom on July 13th, 2007
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2004/02/connie-francis-carolina-moonstupid-cupid/
I liked Connie Francis lots!
FT's Alan on July 13th, 2007
the sort of comedy committed to record dates really fast. someone reviewing the record 4 or 5 years later may well have felt just as appalled as Tom does 50 years later
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on July 13th, 2007
just think how i fell 150 years later!
Marcello Carlin on July 13th, 2007
Spike Jones, Stan Freberg and Goons to thread (though I note that the Stargazers were kicked off the Goon Show in 1954!).
intothefireuk on November 10th, 2007
If you let the singles chart be your guide then the early 50s seemed a desperate time to be around. Rationing still in force and truly hideous records like this around (another reason to never let the Stargazers cross my path again).
wichita lineman on May 28th, 2008
Knowing the title from Guinness I’d stoopidly always had this filed away as How High The Moon. If only the charts had started in ‘51 - coulda been the first 10!
Quite possibly I’m the only person who’d even think of looking this stuff up, but a copy went on ebay in 2006 for a surprising amount…
http://popsike.com/php/detaildata.php?itemnr=190031242680
Records from this era on 45 are very hard to find (Broken Wings was only on 78). And I’m guessing anyone with a 78 of I See The Moon would, after two or three listens, have broken it over their own head while singing the raspberry solo from the Ying Tong Song.
Jeff M on June 14th, 2008
When this record was released I was just an infant. I remember my old man playing it a lot. My dad was a de-mobbed sailor that escaped WW2 with enough skill to become a pretty capable electronics repair man in civvy street.
This stuff pre-dates all of the material we fondly remember as ‘anarchic’ comedy, like Goons and Python.
I consider myself very lucky to be able to still listen to it. It’s timeless and priceless.
Jeff