THE HOUSEMARTINS – “Caravan Of Love”
Just as Europe’s as close as we’re getting to hair metal, The Housemartins are our nearest brush with 80s indiepop. This isn’t their strident and strummy side, of course: instead it’s a showcase for their deep-rooted brand of socialist Christianity. “Caravan” is to say the least a radical take on Isley-Jasper-Isley’s squelchy 1985 original, turning it into slimmed down Northern gospel and by doing so giving it a sense of place and purpose.
To do this, the band make one small but important change to the song – instead of “the world in which we were born” they sing “the place in which we were born, so neglected and torn apart”. And that, of course, means England, and in the context of 1986 it turns the line into an attack not on sin but on Thatcherism. And that in turn puts a different spin on “Caravan”‘s calls for unity and fraternity. But they don’t stress the point: instead they concentrate on finding the still centre of the song. “They” really means Paul Heaton, with the others used as Flying Pickets style backers – his rough-edged white soul voice has got the right amount of character for this record, stops it becoming too bland.
I would have sneered at its religiosity at the time, but really I disliked it for no more sophisticated reason than boredom. I’m no more God-fearing now but I think it’s aged quite well. I like the record’s serenity and stolidity better than I would a more evangelical or passionate reading. This is a brass band away from the Salvation Army, and I can get behind that culturally even if I can’t spiritually.
5
It was Ernie and Marvin Isley and brother-in-law Chris Jasper that made up Isley, Jasper & Isley. The original version by them charted at #51 Pop and #3 R&B. This cover version never charted in the U.S., and I find it a noble, but ultimately bland rendition. The original wasn’t exactly one for the Isley canon, but it has a little more life than this, so I’ll give the Housemartins a 4 and the Isley’s a 6.
Too low. This is quite moving and pretty unusual, and much better than the original. I like the video too, and hadn’t appreciated that religion was ever part of their thing – I’ve certainly never got that impression from any subsequent stuff, and can’t actually think of any comparable act pushing something similar. The unfashionability of it is rather charming.
I mentioned this on the ‘A Different Corner’ thread with respect to The Smiths’ repeated failure to make the big time, but it’s notable how successful The Housemartins got with what was at heart also basically indie music. It just goes to show what can be achieved with good tunes and, y’know, trying hard to appeal to people and so on.
PS Mark Knopfler’s actually from Glasgow, though I don’t think Glasgow claims him!
What’s your definition of “repeated failure to make the big time?” Each of the Smiths albums got to no. 1 or 2, most of their singles were top 20.
Re 28: As Mike says at 2 the Housemartins were ‘close cousins’ to C86; The Smiths were its godfathers. So a few middling Top 20 hits did feel like they weren’t making the big time.
This bunch on the other hand had a no.3 with Happy Hour and then a no.1. Their success was baffling because they seemed to come from nowhere. They didn’t play the circuit that the Wedding Present, Pastels, Age Of Chance or The June Brides played (who all put the Smiths’ 1986 success in perspective with their non-existent chart profiles).
Paul Heaton’s voice has always had too much of a Muppets-y, back-of-the-throat thing for me to like. I don’t mind COL, but I do think it sounds a little smug, the idea of the cover version being better than the reality.
A capella favourites? I’d plump for Wind by Laura Nyro and Labelle.
Re 29: Well, they weren’t on all those Shop Assistants/Bogshed/Hobgoblins etc bills, but they did do the indie circuit, albeit slightly in parallel. They did do the Peel sessions before they were famous, they did do the Roadmenders/Porterhouse/Pink Toothbrush circuit, finishing with a London gig at the Clarendon. They just got daytime R1 play very quickly, so they were able to leave the indie circuit behind almost before they’d registered on it.
#28: You’ve kind of the answered that yourself. The albums mostly got to #2, not #1, and they didn’t hang around long. They reached #10 with their fourth single and never got any higher. They’re not going to appear on Popular, let alone kick on to the kind of success that Dire Straits or U2 managed. By contrast, ‘Happy Hour’ got to #3 – not the big time itself, but their first single to make an impact and a big step on from anything The Smiths managed. The Smiths only looked big because of indie’s culture of low expectations – which extends as much to quality as to sales figures, I’d argue.
I’d rather not turn this into a Smiths thread, I already feel bad about ruining one of George’s finest moments. The Housemartins are largely uncharted waters for me and I’d be happy enough just to learn more about them.
The Housemartins and the Beautiful South largely passed me by, although one of my mates on the student mag at uni was a fan, so I was at least aware of them. This single didn’t do much in Oz, at Christmas or otherwise, and while its Happy Hoodies video seems harmless enough, I can’t get very excited about it. 4.
#24 – Tom. The Spolier Bunny initially hopped out of the drunken, basket-weaving world of Waldo, I seem to recall. Although there was an early reference from Lena too. As you say, Bunny may be a childish concept but he is a guardian of a good policy, the adherence to which prevents the Popular family from descending into savagery. God bless the little fella!
Whatever your take on the Housemartins’ previous records, this was as much of a curveball as “The Power of Love” was after FGTH’s earlier output, just as surprising and just as effective. Totally lovely record, with the catches in Heaton’s voice conveying emotion without ever sounding gimmicky. Beautiful harmony too, who’d have thought they had it in them? I’ve just YouTubed the Isley/Jasper/Isley original, which I’d never heard before – pleasant enough but doesn’t exactly stand out from the crowd, with a lazy-sounding drum track. This version does a whole lot more with the song.
Anto (#12) mentions football casuals – I know Paul Heaton is a massive football fan and collector, but can anyone confirm that he wrote a foreword to one of those tedious and odious “hoolie-lit” memoirs celebrating the good old days of football violence which are scandalously stocked in all good bookshops? If so I’ll have to revise my opinion of him…
The Spoiler Bunny thing started on this site around Easter (logically enough) in 2008, and yes it was Waldo and Lena who were responsible (see the “Stand By Your Man” and “Whispering Grass” threads for evidence). It took off from there as far as Popular is concerned, but if you google “Spoiler Bunny” you’ll find references all over the web on sites ranging from Harry Potter to Twilight and beyond. Don’t know what the true origin is, but he’s an essential part of the game and more power to his bobtail.
#22,27 yes, i’m pretty sure they weren’t christians. i’d wondered about this for years – on the strength of the video more than the song – and vacillated between thinking they were being sincere (to my vague disappointment) or just taking the piss. but paul heaton was recently on that terrible andrew neil daytime politics show arguing the atheist case against religious schools, which i assume this settles it. (it’s possible he’s just changed his mind I suppose, but as none of them ever seems to have said or done anything else that expressed their Christianity, it doesn’t particularly look like it).
#34 he appeared on the cover of nme in the early nineties sporting bruises that he claimed came from football violence*. so yeah, he probably did.
*the nme line was, i think, that this was evidence of how endearingly unfashionable he was.
are you still talking about the spoiler bunny there? i’m just glad he survived glenn close’s stewpot.
I quite liked Age Of Chance with their big brash beats and their choppy distorted synth/guitar tunes. I could even accept their lycra bicycle gear and their Designers Republic record sleeves.
Even now though, I still find it hard to equate these Leeds funsters as part of the same movement that gave us Bogshed, The June Brides and The Wedding Present. Similarly I tend to ally The Housemartins with The Christians and Fine Young Cannibals rather than lump them with the C86 crowd.
The acapella arrangement probably gave this some novelty value, and helped it get to #1. (It didn’t seem like three years since the Flying Pickets, did it?)
I seem to remember an acapella version of their earlier hit, “Think For A Minute” working far better than the original, and wonder if that could have given them the idea.
The “accapella as novelty” thing actually cropped up when I went to see Buffy Sainte-Marie (wonderful!) in Glasgow last night. Her support was an LA “glee club” type sextet (ropey beat-boxer and five competent, if rather lazy singers) covering the Jackson 5, Bjork, Oasis and Chris Isaak among others. Their smugness at being so clever completely outweighed their apparent (lack of) talent, and I do get rather a similar feeling with this track.
Re 34: Erithian I don’t know if he contributed to any of those books
but I recall an issue of Football weekly Shoot in the early nineties where Paul Heaton and the other members of The Beautiful South posed in Serie A shirts – Inter Milain, Lazio and others and talked about their passion for footy and the Italian game in particular.
If this had a brass band on it I think I’d love it but without that it seems to be neither one thing or the other, sitting in some spot between indie and smooth pop/soul but not having enough of either to have much character of it’s own.
Housemartins and the Wedding Present both had the football thing in common.
I can’t think of a single football-related reference in early 80s pop (bar “My Perfect Cousin”). Football and laddishness, trackies and casuals were probably anathema to the likes of Boy George, Frankie, George Michael, Human League etc
So, c86/the beginnings of the rise of indie pop = the beginnings of football becoming fashionable again, after the murk and violence of the 70-mid 80s?
Reaching a peak of course in 1990 and another indie/Popular moment.
The Face did a feature in the early to mid 80s that sung the praises of football ‘casuals’ as keepers of the mod flame of authentic working class sartorial elegance.
It’s amazing in retrospect how unfashionable football was at that time – low crowds, horrible conditions, dreadful quality. There was even a year where there was no TV coverage of the league at all I think. Check out footage of anything before The Premiership (my personal favourite: the ridiculous Sheffield United v Leeds end-of-season game in 1992) and it’s like a foreign country.
I’ve no idea what brought the wheel back round again. I don’t think it was George Best appearing on a Wedding Present sleeve, but I don’t have any better explanation.
“Football and laddishness, trackies and casuals were probably anathema to the likes of Boy George, Frankie, George Michael, Human League etc” Hurray! Good for them.
“Football and laddishness, trackies and casuals” = 80% of everything wrong about UK indie music of the last 20 years.
45, couldn’t agree more!
Bruisers like Boy George and Phil Oakey would stuff The Farm and Oasis at football anyway. Think I’d leave Marc Almond on the bench though
back on c86, there was also that oft-quoted half man half biscuit track ‘dukla prague away kit’.
So, thinking about it, maybe when Peel faves like wedding present and HMHB started all this football referencing (probably in part because it was relatively obscure/uncool at that point), that helped it on its way.
Peel seemed the epitome of indie cool in 86/87
Acid house was another vector for it, no? Lots of the people crossing over between acid house and indie culture were big into football – wasn’t Boys Own a football fanzine originally? – so that provided an immediate context in which football could be cool to the style press and to indie fans in the couple of years just before Italia 90?
The NME ran a “Football in Pop” special in 89 – I think just before Hillsborough but maybe after – and Andrew Collins put the Billy Smart case quite strongly, with Danny Kelly and others on the other side. The sense of “is this something we should care about” was a live issue definitely.
Those NME football covers in full;
1979: Cyrille Regis
1983: Charlie Nicholas
1988: John Barnes & Craig Johnston
1989: “Football & Rock” (Liverpool-shirted arm playing an inflatable guitar. A really rubbish cover, that.)
1990: John Barnes again, + New Order and Keith Allen
1996: Teddy Sheringham (+ The Lightning Seeds and Baddiel & Skinner)
and there’s a 1990 Gazza Melody Maker cover.
The Andrew Collins article comes from the 1990 World Cup issue.
I’m sure this has been mentioned on a previous thread, but there was also the start of football fanzine culture circa 86 just as there was a Renaissance in pop fanzines. The Absolute Game (named after a Skids lp) and When Saturday Comes (also an Undertones song) led the way, until it seemed every league club had their own fanzine.
I don’t recall the Housemartins in any pop fanzine of the period. Straight to the medium size publications!
Wichita @ 49: My personal favourite being the St Mirren fanzine “Where The Beasties Meet”. I had quite a chuckle to myself when I saw that for the first time. (Hint: St Mirren’s ground is – or was, you never know these days – called Love Street)