CHRIS FARLOWE - “Out Of Time”
(#220, 30th July 1966)
Farlowe starts “Out Of Time” as conversation but it quickly turns into romp, a cathartic splurge of breakup bile and joyful venom. With most kiss-off songs you can dredge the remains for some spark of former finer feeling, but this performance is a document of a man discovering just how good goodbye can be. There’s not a shred of comfort here, and even the occasional tenderness in the arrangement - like the Spanish guitars - is mocking the trappings of romance. The result is a performance that’s infectiously funny and apallingly cruel. Farlowe attacks the chorus with a different glee every time, launching into it with that huge “Well!”, like it’s an invitation to a singalong, with a bunch of friends on hand to join in twisting the knife. By the end it’s a full-scale party and everyone’s invited except the song’s victim - “Out Of Time” turns into a demonstration, as well as a declaration, of her obsolescence. Farlowe’s so happy he can hardly form the words anymore - heaven only knows how his ex must feel. 9
Site powered by
Vicus Scurra on January 1st, 2006
Welcome back.
Yes, of course, we all agree.
Unfortunately, I keep getting distracted by seeing that 10 against Nancy Sinatra’s name.
Rosie on January 2nd, 2006
Welcome back - I’ve missed you!
Number one on my twelfth birthday, and number one when England won the World Cup. I do like putting these things in context.
A fair assessment and a well-deserved 9. I love this song. I love its exhuberance and its triumph in the face of adversity, and it never fails to raise my spirits when I’m down. It sounds to me as fresh now as it did forty years ago and if I were doing this exercise, which I ain’t, it would be on my shortlist for a 10.
Anonymous on January 2nd, 2006
Doctor Mod said–
Right said, Tom! When I first heard this in 1966, I already had an appreciation for the sardonic–I wanted to break up with someone (even though I’d never been involved with anyone) just so I could express the song’s sentiments to someone. (Yes, yes, I know–I’ve spent years in psychotherapy sorting out such drama-queen impulses.)
While I had no vocabulary to articulate it back then, I instinctively knew those campy baroque strings at the beginning were only faux-romantic–the persistent drumbeat that accompanied them suggests something over-the-top is about to happen. And it does.
The bitter and the sweet are ironically juxtaposed–but so ironically that, as you say, the result is exuberant rather than heartbroken. It is easily the best “kiss-off” song ever. (The second best is Timi Yuro’s “What’s a Matter Baby”–which also has a snarky baroque strings intro.) And it’s not just the song itself–Jagger and Richards did their own version, more or less an I-couldn’t-give-a-flaming-rat’s-ass-in-the-noontime dismissal. Farlowe’s laughingly growly baritone, though, suggests a true pleasure in revenge that suggests she’s getting paid back with interest.
The review made me pull this out from the shelves and listen again. I really must get a cleaner recording than the muddy-sounding Immediate Story anthology CD I now have. But, of course, the murky sound is how I heard it on a transistor radio in the monophonic days of 1966. I suspect that there’s some fine instrumental gestures that don’t come through without digital remastering–but what you hear is certainly enough to merit a 9–or more. A Rolling Stone’s song that improved on the original.
And, oh yes–did I ever get to live out the scenario this song inspired? Yes–it only took thirty-nine years to happen.
Marcello on January 4th, 2006
My not-quite-pristine copy of the single, in its white and black Immediate sleeve (”Happy to be a part of the industry of human happiness” - note how easily “a part” can be taken as “apart”), credits “Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds,” and that’s appropriate given that the late Billy MacKenzie once described the genre of ’60s orch/mod/psychpop melodrama as “Thunderbirds in pop.” “Out Of Time” is also one of the best-sounding singles of ‘66 with its brilliant, brisk (brink?) dynamics - kudos to both producer (an uncredited Mike Leander) and arranger (those telltale tubular bells give the David Whittaker game away) for a record which is as determinedly schizophrenic - or single-minded, depending on whether you side with Wolf or Dworkin - as any number one single could be; indeed the entire performance is a pitched battle between feminine signifiers - the courtly baroque strings, the delicately perfect Spanish guitar meditation which underscores the second verse (both Jimmy Page and Joe Moretti were in attendance at the session, but it’s likely that the Spanish guitar was Moretti’s work) - and happily aggressive masculinity; the shark’s teeth of those unison bass trombones, baritone saxes and cellos and a terrifyingly decisive drum track (courtesy of Andy White, he who played the drums on the single version of “Love Me Do” - and a fantastic performance in itself, e.g. those foursquare two-apiece punctuations which bridge the first chorus and the second verse).
Above all this, Farlowe exults, sneers and perhaps sometimes pleas - those triptychs of “baby baby baby” eerily prefigure Springsteen - but there’s no questioning his triumph in her defeat. A male “I Will Survive” - and sung by a survivor, too; Farlowe was by ‘66 already a battle-scarred veteran of the London R&B circuit who had been around since the days of skiffle (frontman of the John Henry Skiffle Group, no less) and the exultation in his performance is carefully shadowed by a certain weariness.
But then I remember “Under My Thumb” from the same year and remind myself that this is yet another example of the curiously androgynous misogyny in which Jagger and Richards were only too happy to indulge during this period. And furthermore, towards the end of the record, Farlowe seems to lose himself in the wrong way, finally finding satisfaction in a bizarre series of stock R&B vocal memes (”Oh yeah,” “A-HA!,” “All right now,” and strangest of all, “Is everybody ready?”) which suggests that somewhere in the course of the record, he stopped listening to what he was singing.
Joe Moretti on January 26th, 2006
Hello, Yes I seem to remember all that and being on “Out of TIme” with Jimmy page. nice to see someone keeping tabs. Go well……..Joe Moretti.
alan kane on November 5th, 2006
hi
can anyone one get me an address for joe moretti….I think my father is his long lost uncle…