THE HONEYCOMBS - “Have I The Right?”
(29th August 1964)
In which, if you like, post-punk gets invented eleven years (or maybe two weeks) before punk. Which is to say, when I listen to the instrumental break on this record, bright guitar and sharp keyboard slicing tuneless chunks out of each other, it’s not 1964 I’m hearing. In its way “Have I The Right?” is as odd as “Telstar” (they share Joe Meek as producer) - one foot in a phantom era of steam-powered record production, the other in a future where music and life are a little wider, a bit more free.
But unlike “Telstar”, this is also a mostly-conventional pop stomper, a stab at fitting in with the new Beat Group rules. And in that context its private, primitive sonics are like the strange, slow kid shuffling by himself in a corner of the disco. The singer wants nothing to do with transatlantic cool, in fact ‘cool’ in general isn’t much help when you’re trying this hard to please, so away it goes, replaced with stagey, chewy bravado. The flourishes of yesterday and the splintery sound of tomorrow - all Honey Lantree on drums has to do is tie them together, a barely probable job which of course she aces. 8
Site powered by
Anonymous on May 1st, 2005
Sorry to see that all the old Haloscan comments are gone. I’ll start by repeating what I said weeks ago, before the old comments vanished: This is one incredible, downright BRILLIANT recording. Everything Tom said about it is absolutely spot-on. No one should even dream of omitting “Have I the Right” from any overview of sixties Britpop.
If that weren’t enough, it’s a quintessential expression of the raging, hormonal angst without which pop music simply could not have come into being. Chthonic, as Camille Paglia might say. (Whatever happened to HER? I remember when all US academia lived in fear of her. . . .)
Now, all these marvellous things said, let there be no mistake about the Honeycombs: This truly incredible recording is one of those freak examples of a one-hit wonder band whose one hit was probably the ONLY worthwhile thing they recorded. Half a listen to any Honeycombs anthology reveals an embarrassingly amateurish group that sounded as if it belonged in the fifties rather than the sixties, and was grasping for straws in trying anything remotely “hip”–”remote” is the operative word here–without any particular sense of direction or style. They remind me of nothing quite so much as the sort of provincial dance bands that make their brief and sad appearances in so many New Cinema films of the late 50s and early 60s. In other words, godawful.
Still, I would recommend that everyone interested in the period have a listen to any Honeycombs anthology one can find. From a historical point of view, it serves as an illustration of the sort of music and performance that was probably widespread during the period during which the Beatles and the Stones were in their ascendancy–but that was rarely recorded and subsequently forgotten.
One might also find a few real howls in the lyrics; my own fave is from “Colour Slide”: “I’ve got you on my wall / I’ve got you ten feet tall / I’ve got you on a colour slide.” Ah, the erotic possibilities technology provides! You’ll not often find lyrics like that.
Doctor Mod
Joe Williams on August 31st, 2005
Agreed, brilliant record, especially the moment when they launch into the ‘Come right back…’ of the chorus (a chorus that doesn’t include the title, unusually).
bramble on September 8th, 2006
The Honeycombs weren’t a one-hit wonder band. Thats the Way was a top ten hit and Eyes and Something Better Beginning made the top thirty.Honey Lantree didnt deserve the misogynist comments of the likes of Keith Moon -’Leadfoot Lantree’ - though the drum sound on Have I the Right was given a bit of weight by Joe Meek stomping on bare boards in the bathroom and the rest of the group arrayed down the stairs and stomping on the steps. What finished them was going off on an endless tour of Australasia, Indonesia etc at a time when
they should have been promoting their hits back home. Like the man who took a bet in 1912 to walk round the world pushing a pram, by the time he got home again in 1920 everyone had forgotten about him
FT's Lena on September 4th, 2007
The incredible stomping in the chorus is like Meek trying to knock down the door to the future in all ways.
rosie on July 28th, 2008
A first number one for those tireless songwriting workhorses of 1960s British pop, Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley. Who didn’t get as many number ones as they deserved, perhaps.
DJ Punctum on July 28th, 2008
Authorship disputed by Geoff Goddard who said that it was based on a song he and Meek wrote about a year earlier entitled “One More Chance.” He took Meek to court but lost the case and, embittered, retired from songwriting forever, ending his days working in a school canteen, and Meek’s career pretty much nosedived commercially thereafter.
wichita lineman on July 28th, 2008
They were patchy, but the Honeycombs shouldn’t be dismissed quite so lightly.
Eyes is minimal and chilling - I’ve always assumed Meek recorded a fuller production then stripped it back. Even the lead vocal has such an odd melody it sounds like it should be a harmony. This Too Shall Pass Away is as grandiose as its total, Meek’s death wish on tape (World Of Twist covered it as it was one of singer Tony Ogden’s favourites). That Loving Feeling is a kitchen sink, minor-key job that sounds distorted even on mint original vinyl; do I hear a harmonium?
As with the ever-ridiculed Heinz (eerie Merseybeat You Were There pre-dates The Kinks’ See My Friend with same subject matter, and I’m Not A Bad Guy is FEROCIOUS!), there are gems to be found in the less obscure parts of the RGM catalogue.
DJ Punctum on July 29th, 2008
My nomination for Meek’s death wish in a record is “You’re Holding Me Down” by Edinburgh’s The Buzz which I still think astonishing for 1965, especially the ending which is essentially total noise, Tam White screeching incomprehensibly like Birthday Party-era Nick Cave, the rest of them screeching “GO BACK! GO BACK!” and Meek sounding as though he’s smashing up his studio and his life’s work.