THE FLYING PICKETS – "Only You"

Paradoxically, I find this much colder than the Yazoo version. The Pickets’ harmonies sound as if they have emerged from an industrial cold storage unit, entirely emotionless (as is the video, despite the unintentionally bittersweet sight of a smoky pub haze).

This could be because the record is basically a gag (see how we can make the machines human!) at the expense of a very pretty song – nobody in 2009 would consider making this record because no one these days doubts that electronic music can have a beating heart.

I know what you mean – they could take on Laroux, or someone that they’d consider not quite red-blooded. But it felt/feels like the Pickets were taking on synthesisers en masse: Yazoo weren’t exactly Cybotron. It was a first in that sense – at least, I can’t remember authento doo wop/folkie/blues-rock takes on I Feel Love, Enola Gay or Love Action…

You’re right, they must have liked the song! Same goes for their take on The Marvelettes’ When You’re Young And In Love, which didn’t have any subtext. I didn’t mean to sound totally dismissive, because I quite liked it at the time.

I knew their name before this was a hit; they weren’t the Barron Knights by any means, but I mentally filed them under right-on cabaret. The sort of act who’d play at the Warehouse Theatre in Croydon, maybe with Atilla The Stockbroker or Helen Lederer or a bloody awful mime artist on the bill as well.

This one makes me shudder, and not in a good way.

I like acapella things when they’re field music in a folk or blues way, the dignity of the unadorned voice, etc. But when several singers get together and start going “ba da da um”, unaccompanied singing becomes a fiddly and trying exercise in what I call poncing about, and certainly does a disservice to whatever song is being attempted.

When I was eleven I really disliked this for similar reasons to ‘Happy Talk’ the previous year, in that The Flying Pickets looked an awful lot like the type of children’s entertainers who would raise my hackles, getting us all to join in with a view of the world that I didn’t see myself as a part of. And, indeed, I seemed to be the only child in the class who didn’t like this.

Yes, the human beatbox is another variation on this that I’ve never understood the interest in.

Maybe an acapella version of a synth-based song could work (although I think it would be difficult to avoid it sounding like a novelty record). But this is a very uninspired and cloying interpretation of a pretty gloopy song to begin with.

For ages I had seen this written down on lists of Xmas No 1s and assumed that this was the Platters song of the same name (had heard the song on an advert, didn’t know what the Platters were actually called, knew that Wilson Picket was some old singer dude, and so logically the Flying Pickets must be the ancient 60s band that sang it and this was a re-release like Heard It Through The Grapevine). I was very disappointed when I actually heard this and it was even more boring than [insert name of Xmas No 1 3 years hence]. I don’t like the Yazoo version either – it’s so empty and plodding, like the demo on your first ever Casio keyboard.

Don’t know about a ‘joke’ band. Wasn’t this a case of a record designed to raise money for the miners? A first outing for the synthetic ‘charity’ band of which more anon?

I was looking forward to this, not for itself though it’s pretty and likeable enough, but because It’s the only opportunity I’ll have to talk about Yazoo and the wonderful Alison Moyet, who really should have had a number one and quite possibly this is the song they should have done it with. I’ve never made a secret of my disdain for electronica (it goes hand in hand with my general preference in all areas for the mechanical over the electronic) but Yazoo were one outfit who made it work for me. Not least because of the starkness of the original, where Vince Clarke’s spiky arrangement gave it the right kind of creepiness. I’d still have preferred to hear Alison doing it alone though – one of the few genuine singing voices in pop.

That said, the song is capable of other interpretations, as a good song should, and the Pickets brought that out nicely.

I think Hamilton wrote that in the 50s, as part of the teaser manifesto for the (1956?) ICA Show that called Pop Art into being: and of course his own work, and Peter Blake’s and whoever else’s, immediately complicated the idea themselves — they were bringing pop into the the art gallery (and saying “Hurrah for Us!”)

the 80s was definitely the decade when a detailed and differenitated sense of pop’s own history became “part of pop”: you could be fancy and say this was Hegelian and an inevitable element in any culture’s self-awareness; or you could be cynical and say “The Admen said Retro was Cool”. Either way I think the idea of pop that Hamilton is valorising is actually a bit non-existent: it’s an unattainable ideal that we spoil as soon as we mention or depict it.

rosie@13 – 6 months early for the miners strike, surely? (a pedant writes) .

TOTPWatch: The Flying Pickets performed ‘Only You’ on four consecutive editions of Top Of The Pops;

8 December 1983. Also in the studio that week were; Thompson Twins, Tears For Fears and Howard Jones. Mike Read and Tommy Vance were the hosts.

15 December 1983. Also in the studio that week were; Status Quo, Slade and The Pretenders. Simon Bates and Janice Long were the hosts.

22 December 1983. Also in the studio that week were; Slade, Tears For Fears, Dennis Waterman & George Cole and Howard Jones. John Peel and David Jensen were the hosts.

25 December 1983. Also in the studio that Christmas were; Freeez, Shakin’ Stevens, Eurythmics, Adam Ant, Bucks Fizz, Heaven 17 and UB40. Simon Bates, Janice Long, Mike Smith, Andy Peebles, Adrian John and Gary davies were the hosts.

i once got into furious debate on ilm about whether ferry was correct to use the duchampian term “readymade” for an extant pop-song he was about to cover: my position was yes obviously, this is exactly what duchamp had meant

i imagine the er détournement of the term was probably originally hamilton’s (of course ferry also “covered” the “bride stripped bare”)

re 22 I recommend Michael Bracewell’s ‘Remake/remodel’ which uses Roxy as a lens to examine the effect of the 60s British Art school experience and features interviews with the musicians plus all the associated stylists and designers.

This was one of those UK hits that earned a 30-second snippet in the Countdown world charts round-up but never made an impact in Australia (our Christmas number one was Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long”). I doubt I’d ever seen the video before, because my mental image of the Flying Pickets was completely wrong (big peroxided hair – guess I was thinking of Vince Clarke). But what a video! It’s like a buncha Guy Ritchie geezers singin’ all posh, like. Ahh, for the days when the local rubbity was a good-enough video set.

I quite like the Yazoo version, so I’ll give this marks for the source material. 5 sounds about right.

Sleeve notes: “Pure genius”

mum update. this and joel before it marks a final hurrah for my mum caring about the charts i think.

the FP were doing the rounds on fringe and left wing cabaret sort of things around this time, and my mum saw them live a lot before this point. and i remember an album getting played a lot, and their (mildly comedic – ie not) version of Summertime is stuck in my head. gah.

@JimD #12 — i made the connection with the sideburns dude in that Dr Who story for myself, but never checked it was true. how awful for poor stubby kaye.

Wiki reveals that some of the Pickets had been active in the miners’ strikes of the 70s, and that Brian Hibbard wasn’t the only member to feature in fantasy adventures – David Brett went on to appear in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

I’d heard of them before, although I couldn’t tell you where from, and enjoyed the novelty aspect – there were many worse candidates for the Christmas number one, although I’d agree with contributors above that Yazoo should have got there first and that Alison Moyet is a national treasure.

The song takes me back to finals year in the fourth floor of the east wing of Founders Hall (Billy will know what I’m talking about). After the nightmare neighbours of first year and the life-sapping landlady of second year, finals year saw me in with a great bunch of blokes as neighbours. There’d be a competition to play the coolest music you’d hear as you walked down the corridor, but nobody forced theirs down your throat at high volume, and it was just a good atmosphere. One bloke had an early interactive computer game, and I’d wind down from finals revision by playing The Hobbit in his room until the early hours (and a few years later I was best man at his wedding).

And around Christmas that year there was a fad for singing the intro to “Only You” as you passed people’s doors, making the opening “B” as explosive as possible, i.e. “BBBA-da-da-da, BBBA-da-da-da…” It particularly amused one bloke named Butterworth: I never knew his first name because everybody just called him Lenin, since he was a complete ringer for, well, Lenin. One night he was leaning up against a wall in the hall of residence, pissed out of his head, going “BBBA-da-da-da…” at the top of his voice, and someone peered out of his room to say “Excuse me, could you keep the noise down, I’ve an important exam tomorrow?” Lenin threw a scrunched-up piece of paper in hIs general direction with the immortal words, “SHO ‘AVE I…”

I always thought their shelf life was shortened by the rather conservative (small “c”) choice of “When You’re Young And In Love” as the follow-up. By the time they released the perky and greatly superior “So Close” people seemed to have lost interest.

This was a hit about the miner’s strike, in my opinion, and the version doesn’t warrant revisiting but the song does, one of a handful of fantastic Yazoo songs. A superb, seminal duo, as anyone who saw their reunion tour last year will testify, and this song was their finest moment.

maybe it’s because i was in a succession of choirs as a kid, and actually spent time listening to choir competitions and the like — radio 3 used to broadcast them, esp. from eastern europe — and part of the art was effectiveness of arrangement, given the relative paucity of means (nothing but voice) — but i think everyone’s been quite harsh here: one of the things acapella is “about” is capturing a feel *just using voices*, and i think the FPs’ arrangement achieves machinic coldness pretty effectively (it’s the lead that’s weak)– i don’t even slightly buy that this was a sneery gag at yazoo’s expense, having just taken a peek at the huge range of songs they’ve covered down the years (“smells like teen spirit!”)

NMEWatch: Gavin Martin, 3 December 1983;

“Scrupulously fashioned and very clever accapella arrangement for the Yazoo classic. The textures are smooth as ice, the harmonies crystal clear inspired by The Beach Boys and The Bee Gees, I’d say. The lead vocal’s a bit on the nasal side but perhaps the song’s current chart-slog status will leave the way clear for the group to fire some of the pithy political pellets I’m assured they have in their live act.”

No single of the week was awarded. Also reviewed;

Culture Club – Victims
UB40 – Many Rivers To Cross
Robert Plant – In The Mood
Adam Ant – Strip
Billy Joel – Tell Her About It
Nick Heyward – On A Sunday
Def Leppard – Too Late For Love
Elton John – Cold As Christmas
Status Quo – Marguerita Time

I have to agree with everyone who has said this is not a patch on the Yazoo version. The FPs version just seems too – insincere, showy, surface rather than substance. Alison Moyet, conversely, sang it like she meant it, (wo)man. Her gloriously husky voice, and the minimal – but not too minimal instrumentation suit the song well. The ba-ba-bas here are superfluous and annoying.

#6 – that made me laugh. I’m beginning to think I had a sheltered life (but: council estate, really rather rough state school, in Dagenham, with skinheads, NF types, mods, all that stuff) – never heard anything even remotely like that in the junior school playground, aged 9 as I was in 1984 too. Mind you first time I recall ever being sworn at was in ’84, some rough girl in a playground in one of the three then remaining mining villages in Kent: a group of us had gone down to “offer support” to the striking miners (listen to their brass band and all that – a bit of Yorkshire – or possibly Wales – I can’t remember where the first miners there migrated from – really weird places rather out of place in England’s Garden County), and I was told in no uncertain terms that I was a c— and I should f— off back to the city. Nice. Which is pretty much what the Flying Pickets said implicitly to Yazoo. End of the pier semi-acapella dross, alas.

Surprised given that this was a yuletide number one that seemingly no-one has commented on the fact that the Yazoo version soundtracked the richly satisfying denouement of the Office Christmas Special twenty years later, which ensured I retained some affinity with Ricky Gervais and Martin Freeman until I was absolutely convinced that they were pretty awful people.

This entry is my personal candidate for “most dissonance between tone of the review and final mark”. This so doesn’t sound like a writeup for a mediocre-to-average song. I’ve gotten pretty good over reading this entire blog at recognizing what the mark is even before seeing it, but this entry completely threw me. This sounds more like a light 7 than a 5.