THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH – “A Little Time”
“A Little Time” gives us the duet as short story. Dave Hemingway offers some sensitive-dude patter, Briana Corrigan busts it up and shows what’s really been going on. He’s smooth, she’s sharp; she’s sympathetic, he’s not; he’s dumped, she’s happy. It’s a nice idea for a song, but as realised here it’s all too easy, like a badly staged wrestling match where you can’t even cheer as the heel gets his since he was never much of a threat. All the life in the record comes from Corrigan, striding brassily into a self-involved song and giving it a kick-up the arse – even though her verses fizzle into tweeness every time. But Hemingway is a relative cypher. Her confidence rings true, his smarminess seems only there to prove a point.
What we have is more a sketch than a track – a bit of observational comedy, or a scene from a ‘bittersweet’ sitcom. Isn’t it funny how guys say they want a little time….? The music backs that up – discreet punchline flourishes between the lite-pop verses letting on we’re listening to something a bit wry. The problem is, pop song is always multi-layered – you’ve always got the arrangement and the lyrics and the vocal performance reinforcing or trading off against one another. So pop is full of unreliable narrators, conflicted dickheads, people who say one thing and mean another. And while undermining cliches is clever, it’s even more clever if you don’t have to point it out. You can imagine a Beautiful South version of “I’m Not In Love” with Briana Corrigan popping up between verses going “ACTUALLY YOU ARE IN LOVE REALLY!”.
But maybe it’s just that I always hated the Beautiful South. I was hardly alone in that: I can’t think of a band my friends and I despised more. Some of it was snobbery, to be sure: they were the pop choice of the Radio 2 listener, and their neat bundles of song felt inert and self-enclosed, drearily arranged music for bores. An apt sound for the Major Years, we thought, for all that Paul Heaton tried to mix some poison into the weak tea. Was I wrong? Well, I still can’t listen to “Perfect 10″ or “Rotterdam” – and I don’t dare even try “36D”, so spiteful Corrigan quit the group – but with the cushion of hindsight I can see that “A Little Time” is one of their better songs, for all its unsatisfying neatness.
4
a Beautiful South version of “I’m Not In Love” with Brianna Corrigan popping up between verses going “ACTUALLY YOU ARE IN LOVE REALLY!”.
LOLZ
Certain adverts remind me of The Beautiful South. Usually ones where an everyman character does something everyday, possibly involving football, or beer, or a nice cuppa (“ooooh!”), while his Corrigan-esque wife rolls her eyes. Of course this doesn’t explain why people bought their records, but it might explain how songs like A Little Time fitted into so many people’s 90s pop backdrop.
The Beautiful South probably did a musical parody of the Gillette ad.
No, but the FIRST Beautiful South album is fantastic, Tom! Paul Heaton is doing this sort of thing for the first time, the topics are more eccentric and surprising, the tunes are better, and there aren’t any female vocals shoehorned into the thing.
Which is why ‘A Little Time’ was the harbinger of a letdown for my 18-year old self, the point that comes with so many acts you like when you realise that “Oh, so they’re not going to change, then”. The second album isn’t very memorable, more self-consciously wry and has only got one song that I really like, ‘Tonight I Fancy Myself’, about trying to ignore the sound of other people in the next room having sex when attempting to masturbate. Which is a more novel premise than ‘A Little Time’.
Although The Beautiful South didn’t really speak to me much after this point, I was always glad when they re-entered the scene because Paul Heaton is just about my favourite pop interview – always an interesting reflection, rooted in everyday life, but looked at from an odd perspective. A pity that it rarely comes over in the songs.
Good point on their unique perspective (and entertaining interviews). I’d like to think of Paul Heaton’s songs as a 90s version of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s, but they just aren’t even close. Wasn’t Song For Whoever on the first album, Billy? I remember hearing it for the first time and waiting for the punch line. And waiting. Just some kind of twist? Oh, I see.
I’d rather John Shuttleworth had had a string of Top 10 hits. “Eggs and gammon, poor Rhiannon”.
TOTPWatch: The Beautiful South twice performed ‘A Little Time’ on Top Of The Pops;
11 October 1990. Also in the studio that week were; Sisters of Mercy (yes!), The Chimes and Nenah Cherry. Bruno Brookes was the host.
25 October 1990. Also in the studio that week were; Belinda Carlisle and Jason Donovan. Jakki Brambles was the host.
there always seemed to be a touch of bad faith about The Beautiful South’s songs – not being willing to admit their own complicity in the hypocrisies they wanted to condemn. Mick Jagger was far more ambivalent about the perils and attractions of bad behaviour between the sexes.
Light Entertainment Watch: The Beautiful South often turned up on UK TV;
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS: with Martin Scorsese, Cilla Black, Johnny Vegas, The Beautiful South (2004)
LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with Sinéad O’Connor, The Beautiful South (1994)
LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: with The Beautiful South, Metallica, Catatonia, Donovan, Horace Andy (1996)
LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND: The Beautiful South In Concert (1997)
THE O ZONE: with The Beautiful South, INXS, Damage (1997)
T•F•I• FRIDAY: with Will Macdonald, Andrew the Barman, Baby Bird, The Beautiful South, The Bluetones, Martin Clunes, “Vladimir Horowitz”, Ulrika Jonsson, The Longpigs, Cleo Rocos (1996)
V FESTIVAL 2006: with Dave Berry, Hard-Fi, Faithless, Paul Weller, The Dandy Warhols, The Feeling, James Dean Bradfield, Starsailor, The Charlatans, The Beautiful South (2006)
WOGAN: with The Beautiful South, Jo Ann Dearing, Nigel Planer, Patricia Routledge (1989)
WOGAN: with The Beautiful South, Paul Channon, Joanne & Kathy Gillespie, Gayle Hunnicutt, Daniel O’Donnell (1989)
WOGAN: with David Attenborough, The Beautiful South, Leslie Grantham, Don Henderson (1990)
WOGAN: with Elisabeth Glaser, The Beautiful South, Diana Quick, Patrick Malahide, Little & Large (1991)
WOGAN: with Marjorie & Jeremy Paxman, Ruby Wax, Millicent Martin, The Beautiful South (1991)
THE WORD: with Jennifer Beals, The Beautiful South, Kym Mazelle, Christopher Quinten, Shabba Ranks (1990)
Am oddly fond of The Beautiful South, as are a couple other of my born-in-the-early-to-mid-90s friends. This probably coincides with our comfy Radio 2 parents all going out and buying Carry On Up The Charts and it drifting into our cots (aww).
(of course secretly my theory of everything is that all pop criticism could be replaced with the birthday of the criticiser and hardly lose anything)
The song’s new to me… but it doesn’t sound at all like a #1 – no real melodic hook, indifferent vocals, lyrics just OK (on one of pop and country’s big topics; we all know what good regretful and nasty stuff sounds like and this isn’t it). I quite liked the Housemartins, and ALT wouldn’t have made the cut I believe on any of their main albums. Domestic violence vid. played for laughs is pretty horrific:
2 or 3
The Beautiful South were one of those bands I was conflicted about. Heaton’s songs always sparkled lyrically and, as Billy points out, he was one of pop’s more interesting characters. The videos were usually great too. It’s just a pity that musically they were so lacking in bite.
Occasionally they’d come up with a truly brilliant single. Old Red Eyes Is Back and Bell Bottomed Tear being cases in point – both compassionate, well observed human interest pop songs. Then they’d go and spoil it all by releasing smirking crap like 36D.
In my experience the people who The Beautiful South really register the most with are heavy drinkers with little curiosity about music (i.e. they don’t know that ‘Everybody’s Talking’ is a cover version and don’t recognise it as a dissimilar song to the other South hits).
I think it’s the combination of songs about ordinary but careworn lived experience, undemanding melodies, choruses that you can sing along to (the wretched ’36D’ being a very good example) and above all, a tone that’s aiming for wry but comes over as bitter (“Don’t marry her, fuck me”) that chime with people who drink quite a lot most days, and have heartfelt emotional conversations and encounters that they can’t properly remember.
I always find Paul Heatons songs uneasily balanced between self-satisfaction and self-deprecation. Here on his only original number one he stays on the vocalist subs bench. I don’t miss his voice and his presence is discernable anyway in the did-you-see-what-I-did-there-ness of the lyrics. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I hate The Beautiful South, but I’ve grown to hate Song For Whoever that sneery, curdled little almost-a-number-one mocking the types of schlocky ballads that often go to number one themselves. One reason the irony seems sour is because Dave Hemingways sweetly diffident voice actually sounds as though he really longs to sing a heartfelt love song with a pretty melody and if it has a girls name in the title all the better.
The vocals are the best thing about A Little Time with Hemingway counteracted by Brianna Corrigan whose piquant tones the track would become soporific without.
While I don’t hate The Beautiful South I don’t rate them either.
Their music not only found a comfy niche on Radio 2 I can also confirm it can be piped into Poundstretcher* and not sound even slightly aberrant. A Little Time is typical of them in that it sounds too deliberate. The backing is a tasteful ersatz negotiation between country AOR and soul. Another dicothomy of Heatons music is that for all it’s (Northern) Englishness the actual sources tend to be impeccably American.
Oddly enough I found myself reading this post while halfway through listening to Get Happy. I mention this because of the matter of wordplay in pop songs. Elvis Costello is a long-term musical favourite of mine and it struck me that I usually relish how he manipulates words and phrases whereas when Heaton does likewise I just shrug.
For the most part it’s simply a matter that I think Costello is more ingenious about it. He can use wordplay to build an atmosphere
(Watching The Detectives), as a form of word association poetry (New Amsterdam) or as a performance in itself (Pump it Up). He doesn’t always pull it off – I think Pills And Soap for one was a misfire,
but I find his words as compelling as the songs. It might also have to do with his voice. The Costello squawk is not for everyone but it does convey the intensity behind all these clever words. There is no Costello song devoid of neurosis.
With Paul Heaton however the wordplay is as tidy and plodding as the music behind it.
* Poundstretcher in Southport to be specific.
Re 11: I think you’ve nailed it.
If you imagine Nancy & Lee or Johnny & June Carter Cash singing ‘A Little Time’ you realise just how flimsy a song it is.
I was about to post an indignant comment here about how much I like The Beautiful South whilst not being an alcoholic or a Radio Two listener, but having given it further thought there are really only a clutch of Beautiful South songs I think are better than average, and this isn’t one of them (if you’re interested, the singles of theirs I do rate are “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”, “My Book”, “Old Red Eyes Is Back”, “Bell Bottomed Tear”, and “Blackbird on the Wire” – most of these are on “Carry On Up The Charts” which I own along with millions of others, although I picked my copy up cheap from Music and Video Exchange).
Tom underlines the problems with the lyrics of “A Little Time” well – to me, it always sounded like a soap opera scene set to music, which is probably exactly what they were aiming for, but it’s all drama and no feeling (or at least all spite and no tenderness). Corrigan’s voice also grates way more on this single than on most other BS tracks, as she seethes, yelps and spits through the lines to really hammer the point home. I’ve just checked Chartstats and observed that this was a one-week wonder at the top, and I have to say I’m not terribly surprised – it certainly feels like a stop-gap chart-topper from a band with a strong fanbase. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have had their moment in the sun with one of their better singles.
A lot of the comments above also seem to be defining their fanbase quite rigidly, which I think is a mistake. Plenty of studenty Housemartins fans stuck around for at least the first few albums (and beyond), they had a middle-aged audience through Radio Two, and even a certain degree of support from the corner of the market we would probably refer to as “Asda CD buyers” these days. At university I even knew quite a few indie kids who liked them, and I’ve always thought of them as being one of those rare bands who managed to cross over to a wide spectrum of the record buying public, as the bafflingly huge sales of “Carry On Up The Charts” eventually proved. Was there not a story in the NME at the time which revealed that Phonogram were so bemused by the demand for the album that they actually carried out market research to find out how they were shifting so many units, just to note for future reference? Of course, Oasis repeated the “cross over potential” trick to an even greater effect with “Morning Glory” a year later.
The one 90s Beautiful South song that I really respond to is ‘One Last Love Song’ for its mingled sense of finality and resignation, made more expansive by the accordion that gives the song a boozy warmth.
It was the one-off single from ‘Carry On Up The Charts’. I always thought that if Heaton had stopped it there, it would have been one of the best ways for a band to end in pop history.
Yeah the Beautiful South could be a bit Radio 2-bland (which is what they ultimately, seemingly permanently ended up as), or too clever-clever lyrically (I think “Song For Whoever” and “My Book” both failed on this latter point – “Back to bed, back to reality”, indeed. And “36D” was almost unlistenable). Or, sometimes, just unbearably smug, or irritating (“Don’t Marry Her”)
But..when it all fitted together, and when they were hiding that they were trying too hard, they could put together some damn fine music. Which I think they did, on numerous occasions, certainly in the earlier part of their time together as a group. By no means really challenging, avant-garde stuff, but…well, that wasn’t the point, was it?
I think about half the tracks on “Miaow” (1993/94ish) are really fine bits of whatever genre of music you categorise this stuff as… – “Worthless Lie”, “Hidden Jukebox”, “Hooligans Don’t Fall In Love”, “Mini-Correct” and “Poppy” (I think I’ve remembered the titles correctly) – are all…miniature gems, almost. “A double arsenic for Mr Le Pen…”
(I remember listening to that album a lot in my incense-laden, windswept, seaside, room in my first year at university)
And I also join my praise to that of others for “Bell Bottomed Tear”. Which is tender and fragile and a lovely thing.
And “A Little Time” – I think it DOES work as a song, rather than simply an episodic story. I’m still fond of it, and was glad to see it make number 1 at the time.
And in halfway defence of Ms Corrigan, well… Lorraine Macintosh could be far more irritating on Deacon Blue singles around this time than Corrigan was here. Although, right around this time, I think, “Love And Regret” – - how gorgeous – and almost overlooked and then forgotten – a single was that. Kelvingrove Park in the autumn. Ahhh). Corrigan’s vocals almost go in the direction of Kirsty Maccoll at some points….what can be wrong with that?
Good call on One Last Love Song.
“Those bloody great ballads we hated at first
Well I bought them all, now I’m writing worse”
I wish Paul Heaton had been in this self-aware mode more often. I’m sure I love pubs and booze as much as he does, but writing a drunken cynical lyric, demo-ing the song, making the record… there are plenty of opportunities to stop and, umm, think for a minute.
I don’t know the Beautiful South very well (though I remember reading their first big interview in the NME just before ‘song for whoever’ was released, on a coach on Friday 19th May 1989 I think, and thinking gosh, they’ll be lucky to be popular), but I feel a bit of a discrepancy somewhere in it all (in the way critics et al don’t like them? in the way they are considered bland and harmless?) due to the fact that I always associated them with the political Left, perhaps just because I am sure that The Housemartins were strongly associated with the political Left and I find it hard to believe that this successor band would entirely have abandoned such an affiliation.
NOW! watch: The Beautiful South took up the position usually reserved for Queen – disc one, track one – on Now! 18. A motley collection. Who’d have guessed that the track closest to the definitive sound of the next few years would be There She Goes?
1. The Beautiful South : “A Little Time”
2. Steve Miller Band : “The Joker”
3. Elton John : “Sacrifice”
4. Roxette : “It Must Have Been Love”
5. Phil Collins : “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven”
6. Wilson Phillips : “Hold On”
7. Sinéad O’Connor : “Nothing Compares 2 U”
8. (bunny embargoed)
9. Belinda Carlisle : “(We Want) the Same Thing”
10. Status Quo : “Anniversary Waltz (Part One)”
11. INXS : “Suicide Blonde”
12. Public Image Ltd. : “Don’t Ask Me”
13. Talk Talk : “It’s My Life”
14. The La’s : “There She Goes”
15. Tina Turner : “Be Tender With Me Baby”
16. Robert Palmer & UB40 : “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”
#19 Paul Heaton was, and as far as I know remains, a staunch socialist and I’m sure as much of the Beautiful South millions went to good left-wing causes as went to the breweries of Britain. But they weren’t really an act of the Left in the way Billy Bragg was (or even the Housemartins) – and certainly I doubt they had a particularly politicised fanbase. If anything their views show up in the songs they (mostly) DON’T sing – for a band so occasionally dyspeptic and boozy there’s a general lack of saloon bar politics.
#17 But while we’re talking Briana C, and we have the Pinefox here, time to mention Tim Hopkins’ pet theory (gleefully borrowed by me) which is that this single’s big pop legacy is that Belle And Sebastian were inspired by it to stick Monica Queen on “Lazy Line Painter Jane”
Well, I am neither a raging alcoholic nor an avid Radio 2 listener (though I much prefer it to the non-stop drivel that passes for Radio 1 these days), but I am not ashamed to admit that I like quite a lot of their work. “Choke” was the second proper album I ever bought with my own money having left school and started a proper (if extremely low-paid) job and I was impressed with enough to go back and buy their first album.
I can appreciate why they’re such a Marmite band, but for me anyway the mostly ever-present bile canceled out their inherent twee-ness and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all their album up-to-and-including “Quench”. Things begin to change when Paul Heaton became a bit too fond of the hard-stuff – the edge to his lyrics was often lost to be replaced by self-pity and unfortunately this led them to truly become as bland and twee as they were often labelled. “Painting It Red” was where they first started to jump the shark for me – it’s a double album that could do with losing more than half the songs in it. But worse was to come, “Gaze” and everything afterward were mostly tune-free monotony.
I notice a lot of hate for “36D” – I dread to think what any of you thought of “Size”. 36D is not one of their best I admit, but I wouldn’t call it unlistenable. Oh, and I’m pretty sure that “Mini-Correct” from “Miaow” was a driving force behind Briana Corrigan’s decision to leave the band as well as 36D, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that she was very reluctant to sing the female parts in that song.
As for “A Little Time” it’s a good little song, but even I was surprised that it got to No.1 (I think the video may have helped). But if I had to pick a song from Choke it would have to be “Let Love Speak Up Itself” which certainly deserved higher than it’s No.51 placing and probably should have been the second single release instead of the too-clever-by-half “My Book”.
I quite like the idea of a song where a couple interrupt each other, but it seems like an idea which would require some skill and effort to pull off without it being grating – skill and effort which don’t seem to have been in effect here. Can anyone think of a song that’s made it work? Not Fairytale Of New York, they don’t really interrupt each-other there.
Re: #15 – It really does seem like a bit of a stopgap in between two bigger number ones, yes – one of those minority interests that gets a moment in the sunlight because there’s nothing else around.
Re #23: A fantastic interruption – well, contradiction, at least – song;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sISWPzEqHLQ
@22 re “Mini-correct”, that would be the “They say `always use a condom’, I say `always use a whip’” number. Hmmm.
Agreed re “Let Love Speak Up Itself”.
@23, weej. The Gershwins’ Let’s call the whole thing off is the gold standard for that sort of thing. More recently, Magnetic Fields’s Yeah oh yeah perhaps?
Paul Heaton’s got to be the most over-rated lyricist ever “Sad into unsad” is as bad as “They build so quick it makes you sick” Having said that I do like some of their stuff.
Surprised that no one’s mentioned “Liar’s Bar” their unlistenable Tom Waits pastiche which I’d nominate as one of the Top 5 worst singles of all time.
#21: what is the basis for the B&S theory? Is it that Monica Queen sounds like the Beautiful South’s singer?
#17: I have never forgotten ‘Love & Regret’. When was your Kelvingrove scene with it? I find this a wonderful romantic idea.
#27 Yes, “Liar’s Bar” was a daft choice to release as a single. Pastiches generally wear out their welcome pretty quickly so if you’re gonna do one at least make it short, not almost 6 minutes long! I would have released the sublime “Have Fun” instead. Liar’s Bar is the sort of thing you’d put on as the last track on a CD single and hope nobody notices.
One thing I forgot to mention was how Paul Heaton appeared to become morbidly obsessed with his own mortality as his drink problem set in. The word “grave” appears on their later albums a frankly disturbing number of times…
I never really had strong feelings for or against The Beautiful South or “A Little Time” for that matter. They are the alkie’s choice, though aren’t they? Something about their morose, introspective navel-gazing must chime with the bottle-label peelers and those crashing bores you’d avoid at all costs in the pub.
This is closer to Dean Friedman’s Lucky Stars than Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off.
A friend of mine went to see a Dean Friedman show a few years back. Between songs someone called out “Dean! DEAN!!”
Dean looked up, expecting a request.
“Dean! Why hasn’t your career been more successful?”
Embarrassed sniggers and coughs. Dean mulled this over and was about to reply when he hears:
“…because Billy Joel has sold millions of records and his stuff’s quite similar to yours.”
Dean sighed, re-arranged his sheet music, and continued the set.
I always thought of TBS as more of a Virgin Radio band (rightly or wrongly). I therefore developed an irrational dislike of them, which reflects poorly upon me as it wasn’t their fault at all. But I got the impression that they were being played with a certain hateful smugness: ‘see! We offer you challenging and intellectual music that features acoustic guitars and clever lyrics!’
See also, Deep Blue Something.
@31. Thinking more on ‘interrupting’ songs, I guess that raps of various sorts probably do literal interruption best. Louis Jordan’s Open the door Richard (one of the best records ever!) from the ’40s; Eminem and Dre and Snoop constantly jumping in on one another; that reboot of Just be good to me with Lily Allen and Green is all interruption; and, ‘Heh, shut up chick, he’s a friend of mine’ from early Wham (!) are examples that came to my mind. There must have been some full-on couple-fight raps. Maybe we can tempt Lex or someone to fill us in on that?
Over the years, I have read comment after comment that has made me consider a no.1 hit in a new perspective, and to develop an understanding of how others might like the records I don’t, or fail to like the records I do, or think things substantially similar. It’s been enthralling, as people pitch up with incredible insights or personal memories that provided me, as a reader, with seemingly endless reward. What did others think when they heard a track, what do they think now, what were they doing with their lives that made them pass it by, or made it mean so much to them?
And then I read the comments on this. What’s changed? Suddenly it’s worst ever this, most overrated that, I always hate this band because they make me think of other things I have compartmentalised and begun to dislike (eg Radio 2, those who drink, songwriters who think too much). Up until very recently, the comments were like seeing the back of the Mona Lisa’s head, or the other side of the Haywain. I was enlightened at seeing familiar things from a new angle – from a place I thought I would never stand, indeed.
Here, though (and to a lesser extent with “The Joker” two number ones ago), what I read is the casual, thoughtless reinforcement of the most dreary and negative received wisdom. There isn’t a hope of defending this song – and all those above who have tried have dampened down their enthusiasm by accepting the weakness of the other work of those involved. Perhaps that’s their genuine feeling, but especially at #15 there is a sense that people are feeling pressured into calming down because it just would not be acceptable to praise a record which is so uncool by a band which is still less cool.
Surely, that’s the very antithesis of what Popular is about, isn’t it?
Is this the end of the fun in Popular?
…and finally, for what it’s worth, a neatly-sung ballad with no vocal histrionics, an unconventional lyric and a decent tune. High marks.
Re: #34 Part of it, surely, is to do with the kind of record and the kind of band this is – a middlebrow one that is hard to either love or hate. I don’t think that if somebody genuinely had a passion for this record they would be intimidated into toning down their praise, and I for one would like to hear their reasons.
This thread would suggest that it’s not hard to hate!
I like it, as I’ve said; I prefer other South songs (“Song for Whoever”, for instance, which has the decency to be good at what it’s parodying, or “One Last Love Song”, or “Old Red Eyes Is Back”) but “A Little Time” is still good, the male voice’s nervous faux-assurances cut swiftly back to earth by Corrigan (“isn’t it? ISN’T IT?”). The lyrics are gently witty, the backing is sufficient to hold my interest. (I don’t hear Tom’s “punchline flourishes” at all!)
I first heard The Beautiful South at about sevenish, not actually thanks to Carry On… but their later compilation, Solid Bronze. I was having a musical comedy year at the time, from Gilbert & Sullivan to Tom Lehrer, and if they were less political (exception: “The Root of All Evil”, which sounded odd until I realised it was a pro-Euro pop song, at which point it sounded even odder) they nonetheless slotted neatly alongside it. So I have an affection for them, was surprised to learn that they released singles which actually got onto the charts, and was even more surprised to learn the vehemence with which they’ve been discussed. (This, Steve Miller, Depeche Mode: it’s been a crash course in things I didn’t know were uncool, I tell you that.)
Disclaimer: I am not an alcoholic, as far as I know.
Oh, and cheapo video ahoy! That image of the teddy bear with its head on a knife is probably why my parents showed me the song to be honest
#34 As ever, I’m sorry when someone doesn’t like a thread! But I think I played fair by this – two paragraphs trying to figure out why I don’t like the record now, and then one discussing how I’d disliked the band intensely at the time for largely snobbish reasons.
I probably was expecting a bit more defense of them in the comments, but as weej says nobody seems THAT excited about it. Your own comment is a lot more passionate about the apparent dreariness of our anti-South views than about the record itself, which gets a couple of lines at the end! Obviously there are plenty of records – Bombalurina, to name the most recent – where we’re right in line with received wisdom and nobody really minded, so I’m guessing the hot-button issue here is the sense that the commenters think they’re cooler than Beautiful South fans?
(TBH, all the stuff about boozing and cleverness is likelier to be a narcissism of small differences thing than a cooler-than-thou one! But this does seem a good band to talk about whether perceived cool ought to matter.)
#34 – Did my comment genuinely come across as buckling under peer pressure? If so, I’ll just give a bit more context – I thought long and hard about my reply, poised myself to type a huge comment about how great The Beautiful South were, but when it finally came to doing so realised that I was being over-defensive. I like the band and I think Heaton’s lyrics are astonishingly good when he’s on form, but I could count on two hands the number of times I’ve listened to songs of theirs which aren’t “Old Red Eyes Is Back” over the last five years (I don’t need to count using my fingers, actually – Last.fm has saved the day for me by automating the process).
When participating in Internet forums or blogs like “Popular”, I think there’s a tendency to over-react to mild criticism of acts you quite like purely for the sake of provoking further discussion or re-assessment, especially when there are one or two baity comments – but in my case it wouldn’t have been terribly honest. I own two Beautiful South albums, haven’t listened to most of their others, and therefore can’t really call myself a fan. The New Beautiful South also did a gig about a hundred yards from my flat last year, and I didn’t go to see them despite the convenience of it. So instead of going in with all guns blazing defending a number one which I don’t think is one of their stronger efforts, I tried to take the more moderate position.
Just in case my comment about bands with across-the-board appeal seems a bit sneery, by the way, that’s also something I didn’t intend to do. Whilst familiarity can breed distress, I think bands who appeal to a wide cross-section of the record buying public usually display one of two qualities – either they’re producing rather inoffensive and pleasant music which won’t upset the horses, or they’re very able songwriters able to reach a broad audience despite the elements of their sound which non-fans of their genre might otherwise find off-putting. Outkast’s “Hey Ya” (not a number one!) is a good example of the latter, whereas Lighthouse Family’s “Ocean Drive” would probably be an example of the former. I think the best bits of the Beautiful South catalogue break through despite the MOR-ness of their work which might usually alienate the indie kids or the twenty-something Asda buyers who wouldn’t be seen dead with a Gilbert O’Sullivan album – or at least wouldn’t have in the nineties, they might be OK with it now… He seems to have had a slight criticial reappraisal in the last few years.
As a mild fan of “A Little Time” who certainly appreciates the group when they were at their best (as on “Miaow”), but who has really heard very little by them since “Don’t Marry Her”, this thread (and I admit I am surprised as the degree of slating that TBS have come in for) has led to to locate on Spotify all of their singles, so as to familiarise myself with the ones I didn’t know, or only knew in passing, so see just how bad they really were.
Well, my conclusions are (generally) more positive than expected (for all that there is a clear decline in their work from about 1997 onwards). And I had never noticed so many references to booze or boozing in their lyrics. But sure, they are certainly there in plenty.
Of the singles that are new, or semi-new to me, the following had some impact
“This Old Skin” (a bluesy number from their covers album; which they passed off as a cover but which was in fact their own composition) stood out, although it is every bit as much a pastiche as “Liars’ Bar” – complete with weird voice, not to mention pretence that the singer is Black (as for “Liars’ Bar”, I find it curious rather than annoying – but maybe I’ve not heard it enough for it to really grate, as I imagine it could. But heard once in a while, well….it could be very much worse),
I thought “Pretenders to the Throne” was damn good fun – not list when it lists the delights of Hull – something to do with the musical aplomb of its denizens – alongside those of various major and more obviously attractive European cities. (Which leads me to think….is Paul Heaton a latter-day Phil Larkin? He was a grumpy sod with questionable opinions, too)
“The Root of All Evil” was bloody silly, a response to a no less ill-thought-through William Hague speech (as leader of HM Opposition) that didn’t work as a song or tune at all,
and “Just A Few Things That I Ain’t”, while clearly being a bit second-rate, was good fun (and blissfully short), and reminiscent of the no 75 single “Mitch” by Heaton’s solo project Biscuitboy…
So surely time for a reappraisal, chaps?. They’re not that bad, really…
Tom, #38. You are right, I was more focussed on what others had said than the record itself. This was deliberate, however. As I said, I genuinely feel that there isn’t a hope of defending – less still praising – this song. As Flahr says, lately we’ve been taking lessons in what’s uncool.
I will try to move on. I will try to make a case for the song, as I think this would be in the spirit of Popular.
“A Little Time” came out on the same day as “So Hard” by Pet Shop Boys. At the time, it felt incredibly exciting that two bands of Northern songwriters would be successful with songs which thematically were so similar to each other, yet relatively unusual. Pop is all about love and dancing, and there are plenty of other lyrics that deal with the issues of doubt, deceit and the genuine dilemma of wanting to show commitment whilst still wanting freedom. They do not come too easily to mind, though, and I have no recollection of any that do it as well as these two, each with such sly and dry humour. Furthermore, each single had a feeling of being an event; each was a new, strong first-single-from-an-as-yet-unreleased-album.
The two recordings are both full of character, and compete for the listener’s attention by making their points in original, lyrically engaging and very different ways. However, they are not making very different points.
And as much as that applies to the two recordings, it applies to the couple in A Little Time. As a listener gets drawn in, the argument raised by either half is made easier to appreciate by the pettiness of its counterpoint – though it would be a stretch to say they complement each other.
20 years on, I love both records, and I never think of or play one without thinking of the other. And this makes me more than doubly happy. 9.
Re 38: “a narcissism of small differences thing” is my problem exactly. Same with the Housemartins. Even their perceived uncoolness should have me on their side. But I just can’t enjoy their work.
Take their artwork. I admire the consistency, the slightly drab, pub wallpaper quality, the muted thirties colouring, and the simplicity of the font. All good. But when I look at the imagery it’s usually horrible – those faces pinned to the wall!
Or take the video for Let Love Speak Up Itself (and what a clunky title that is). I love a wedding. I love a wedding video. But hang on, what’s with the sociopathic ending? Paul Heaton as best man getting pissed and shouting ‘fuck off’ to some blokes in the toilet before receiving a round of applause. I assume his point is that weddings are an unnecessary public display of something that should be between two people. So you should keep out of it too, mate.
Or take the backing track of the same song, with its fine Walk On By-ish muted brass line. Heaton’s overheated, muppety vocal rubs completely against it.
Of course they’re not hateful. I have to admire their ambition (personal politics + blue eyed soul + Bacharach-esque arrangements + melancholic pub philosophy). They simply don’t have the talent to pull it off.
Re 39: Gilbert O is a comparison I mentioned earlier, it seems appropriate with his northern schtick and slightly embittered everyday lyrics. I think A Little Time – or any of the songs mentioned above – just sounds clumsy after We Will, or Nothing Rhymed, or Alone Again Naturally.
#34 – When we get to the late 1990s there’s going to be a lot of songs that are extremely evocative of my childhood and hold some very happy memories, but I already know that there’s next to no chance of them being highly appraised. I’ll be a tad disappointed if they’re all just glossed over as a manufactured pop production line, as I think there’s some great fun tracks in there. I’ll be here making sure they get at least a bit of praise, even if I am the only one :p
The Beautiful South are one of those bands that I knew of their songs seperately for years, but didn’t realise they were all from the same act. Didn’t think they were quite so unpopular as this thread suggests, as there’s some huge classics they’ve released – Song for Whoever, Rotterdam, Don’t Marry Her and Perfect 10 I still love, and the slightly lesser-remembered ones like Bell Bottomed Tear, Good As Gold and How Long’s A Tear Take To Dry. This one I’ve somewhat overplayed in recent years and so it’s lost its spark for me, but it’s still not too bad.
#42 – Talking of artwork, the 0898 album had some great artwork by David Cutter. The first 13 pictures on the following page are from that album
http://www.davidcutter.com/Illustration-BS.htm
The career of the other Housemartins spinoff act to make number one in 1990 is perhaps a key case in the argument against lyrical entryism in pop, its longevity far outdoing the “bomb to London – delivered from Scotland” that was allegedly Hue and Cry’s “Labour Of Love,” though the Beautiful South were more concerned with the minutiae and facades of interpersonal relationships, and in turn their relationship to music and how we receive, interpret and absorb it. Their 1994 greatest hits collection Carry On Up The Charts can reputedly be found in one out of every four British households (including this author’s) but did any of its millions of listeners not already aware of the songs’ subtexts bother to listen to the words, or read the lyric sheet? The question bears asking since their debut single “Song For Whoever,” an unremittingly violent examination of what might be termed the impotence of cheap music set against a pretty tune and arrangement, soared to number two in the summer of 1989, and subsequent hits looked at such apparently radio-unfriendly topics as wife-beating (“You Keep It All In”) and self-immolation (“I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”) – but thanks to their alternately jaunty and ruminative MoR structure and production they were taken at face value by millions of Simply Red and Dire Straits followers. Despite the remote possibility that the Beautiful South might have been a sort of North Country nineties equivalent of Arthur Lee’s Love – i.e. a bunch of murderous psychopaths politely fulminating against lush musical backdrops – one has to ask whether there was any useful difference in the end. The question marks inherent in the musical designs of “The Red Telephone” or “You Set The Scene” seem decidedly absent.
As with nearly all of their singles, “A Little Time” is an immaculately constructed deconstruction of a love duet, although its parallel male/female dialogues – both of which could have been drawn in thought bubbles, since the song concerns the internalisation of fraudulent love and the moral courage to reject it – strongly reflect “I Know Him So Well.” Dave Hemingway takes the role of the satirically mopey New Man (“I need a little space/Just on my own/I need a little time/To find my freedom”) while Briana Corrigan immediately doubles the vocal tempo as the sardonic Other (“You need a little room for your big head/Don’t you? Don’t you!”) before the otherwise placid song (tasteful late-period Van Morrison piano, drifting Style Council horns) halts for a low, sinister, electronic bass pause as Corrigan considers the death of unlove (“Trust into mistrust,” “Just into unjust”), each time leaving an abyss of silence, almost daring Hemingway to restart his mewling. Eventually Corrigan walks away (“I found a little courage/To call it off”) and the song ends with the two divorced individuals, each utterly in their own world, restating the central motif of “I’ve had a little time.” The Blade Runner bass hovers for some time at the record’s end like a sword, or a hatchet. But most of its consumers took it as a straightforward love duet, a streamlined Nancy and Lee, or even Peters and Lee, thereby reinforcing the notion that for true pop entryism of radical ideas to be achieved, the music has to be as radical as the sentiments, or at least far less sedate and somewhat more ruthless than the Beautiful South’s purposely misleading pleasantries; and even at the other extreme, “Song For Whoever” demolishes the notion of ruthlessly constructed “love songs” but does not suggest a viable alternative, unlike its ancestor, Matching Mole’s “Signed Curtain,” which after three utterly functional verses (“This is the first verse,” “This is the second verse” etc.) shuts down resignedly as Wyatt sings, as only Wyatt can, “It doesn’t hurt…it just means that I lost faith in this song, ‘cos it won’t help me reach you.” That is punctum.
I was never much of a fan of the BS, but loved this single, and “You Keep It All In”, their second hit from the previous year, and I’m surprised nobody has commented on the similarities between the two.
Both are pretty maudlin “interruption” ballad/duets, saved by excellent vocal performances from the female half of the duet. Was it Brianna Corrigan on “Keep” as well? – I think so.
I think it was better that way, as I think Corrigan’s voice worked well in a “dialogue” song, but may have become just a bit too much if it had featured more heavily.
Is a lot of the criticism of the band simply because we are writing now, in 2011, with the benefit? of hindsight and a certain amount of jaded-ness. I suspect opinions of both the song and the band would have been a little kinder twenty years ago.
However, I would like to put it on record that their 2004 cover of “Livin’ Thing” was indeed abysmal.
#45 My feeling is you’re either overestimating the radicalism of the South or underestimating their audience here. From memory the BS were always marketed as being pretty jaundiced (or clear-eyed, take yer pick) about the realities of human relationships. I think they appealed in the same way Coronation Street appeals – a blend of sharpness and cosiness. But the audience are in on the sharpness as well as the cosiness in both cases.
#41 Thanks for going into more detail on the song! And the “So Hard” comparison is very interesting, though I like the way that song leaves you to draw your own conclusions about the fate or otherwise of its lovers.
I agree with most people here, I’ve always hated The Beautiful South – it’s not just their smugness, it’s the smugness about being small-minded and parochial and cynical in the most tedious pub bore way (no insight or original thought about it whatsoever). Their entire ethos seems to be about reflecting people as less than they are, but in a horribly mean, petty way – I bet Paul Heaton would love to fucking think he’s being barbed and venomous, but his jabs are fairly toothless really.
That said thanks to an inspired poll on ILX, “Song For Whoever” always makes me think of Petey Pablo’s “Freek-A-Leek” – “Jennifer, Alison, Philippa, Sue, Deborah, Annabel” vs. “Shameka, Keisha, Tara, Shonda, Sabrina, Crysta, Daronda, Teresa, Felicia, Tenisha, Sha’von, Monica, Monique, Christina, Yolanda”.
@33 Not all with actual interruptions. But some excellent examples of poisonous male/female argument-duets are:
- Nivea & R. Kelly’s “Laundromat” (“Aw girl, quit playin’ – I’m the only thing you got”; “You’re the only thing I got? Well, then I must not have a lot”)
- Sparkle & R. Kelly’s “Be Careful” (“two years ago, promises is all I heard – wait a minute, let me finish”)
- Sway & Stush’s “F Ur X” (“Does my girl tink mi a dunce? Bellin off ya bloodclaat phone when she wants”)
- Jazmine Sullivan & Ne-Yo’s “U Get On My Nerves” (“You should’ve known I was done when I busted your windows”)
- Trick Daddy & Trina’s “Nann Nigga” (“Hold up, who the fuck this nigga think he is? He got me fucked up, I ain’t ashamed of nothin I do”)
- Demon & Lady Fury’s “Gash” (“I don’t give head but / I give headbutts / a punch in the gut for calling me a slut”) (that’s a d/l link cuz it’s not on youtube)
And I guess Dizzee’s “I Luv U” would count too! I can’t believe that girl was never credited. “That boy’s some prick ya know”!
#45, was going to say, I don’t think the fact that “Song for Whoever” got to number two means that it was bought by people who misunderstood it. Or, people called Jessica, Annabel, Phillipa or Sue (did he only go out/lust after convent girls or something?
“Don’t Marry Her” – A song about a songwriter who fears committment and an impending marriage and the future, and is gazing at a poster of some beach lovely taken at sunset in San Francisco.
It’s rare that a hit offers that level of detachment from the real subject of the song.
Others I can think of off the top are “All I wanna do” Sheryl Crow, which is about a guy called William who has just lost his job or been made redundant or just plain retired and in a bar with a girl (the singer) who finds him vaguely amusing but only relates to him as someone else in the room.
Of course, more blatant example is “You’re so vain” where the subject of the song is actually the girl’s relationship with the vain person. and so on..
OK, triv question for whoever (ha)..
Is this the shortest ever number one, or was it the “marijuana make those eyes at me for boy” as Lennon put it once.
Isn’t the Grand Father of all of these interruption songs the quite glorious “Tramp” by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas? I always have a smile on my face when I hear that record.
“I don’t care what you say Otis, you’re still a tramp”
“WWWWWWHHHHAAAAAAATTT?”
Just brilliant. Don’t know whether they actually interrupt each other though – I’d need to listen to it again to be sure.
“Tramp” is an argument but doesn’t feel like interruptions – Marcello is quite right that the double-time female vocals is how “A Little Time” manages to make itself feel ‘interrupt-y’ – when actually it isn’t: each of the participants gets time to make their point and then it’s replied to.
Pop’s foundational interruption (not a duet): “Hold it fellas, that don’t move me. Let’s get real, real gone for a change.”
52: Fair enough – in which case Tramp and A Little Time are probably closer to each other in that respect.
53: That’s a good point.
My Mum had a cassette of Carry On Up The Charts in the car (to replace the Temptations best of that had melted on the dashboard on a hot day). I really rather liked all of the songs on it, but not as much as Simply Red’s Stars. I didn’t know about the Housemartins and I’d never seen a picture or video of the Beautiful South, so for ages I assumed the woman singing looked exactly like her out of Fairground Attraction. I remember singing along to ‘Old Red Eyes Is Back’ in the back of the car on the North Circular – it was on the way to a swimming competition in Edmonton, so I must have been at least twelve. The only one I didn’t sing along to was ’36D’ as it was EMBARRASSING (and the rest of the embarrassing ones went right over my head). After that I thought ‘Rotterdam’ was ok, but ‘Perfect 10′ sucked so much that I blocked out my previous affection for the ‘South until now.
I remember when Carry On Up The Charts came out there was a feature in Select (or it could have been another magazine) where Paul Heaton went through each track and said what he thought of it. Surprisingly he seemed to hate at least 50% of the songs. I recall particular scorn being poured on 36D and Everybody’s Talking. It seemed odd at the time and still does now – he doesn’t like these songs, but he’s already released them once and now he’s putting them out again? What kind of artist is happy with that?
I remember another quote where he said that the success of the album was because they were “everyone’s second-favourite band” – which sounds like an acceptance of mediocrity, Garfunkel & Oates style.
I sort-of remember that, inasmuch as he said if he wasn’t in the band, he’d never ever buy the records.
The usual “I’m more a Tupac fan mesel’” stuff.
I’ve always thought there was a kind of “acting”/”role-playing” aspect to many of their songs – almost a defining feature of the group, in fact. (The `fake cover version’ “This old Skin”, and “Liars’ Bar” are blatant examples of this – but so are “Worthless Lie”, “Mini-Correct”), with the duet arrangement often meaning that scenes are “acted out”, rather than (a la Rod Stewart at his best) narrated. (Well, that clearly applies to A Little Time as well). In that sense I can’t see much point in taking offense at the lyrics -there is a whole layer of artistry and distancing, at least in the earlier albums.
There was a TV feature called (I think) StarQuest or StarQuiz, which consisted of a pop-star or similar being quizzed by a computer or robot in a booth, on trivial “favourite colour/most embarrassing moment” type subjects. The star had a touch-screen and picked topics; we gazed at them as from the POV of the touch-screen. Heaton gave a very funny, very sarcastic, “ironic wrong answer” performance on this, which actally made me warm to him a lot; I assume under-the-radar self-entertaining subversion is a default mode for him, which may heighten hipster* prickliness towards his projects (“Who’s laughing at who here?”)
*Category includes self
Re: #49 – Yes, ‘I Luv You’ is great. Plenty of time to talk about Dizzee later though. I’ll check out those other tracks too.
Also, not couples, but my two favourite tracks from the first The Streets album have two people constantly interrupting each-other.
The reason “that girl was never credited” was because “she” was also Dizzee.
Speaking of which, Positive K’s “I Got A Man” actually IS an interruption rap. Apologies if someone upthread mentioned it first!
there’s a great ike and tina turner interruption duet called (i think) ‘hurt is all you gave me’. it sees tina blasting out furiously indignant wronged woman sentiments only to get cut off each time by ike’s give-a-shit laconic bastardry. my particular favourite bit has tina wailing “i thought i was your baby” to which ike gives an unruffled “yeah you was. at that particular time”
obviously, given the realities of their relationship it’s not necessarily the most comfortable song to enjoy – your actual guilty pleasure i guess.
oddly, the only big beautiful south fan i’ve known spent most of the rest of the time listening to darkside ‘ardkore.
@61 is this true? my mind is blown.
I call shenanigans!
I’ll see yr shenanigans, and I’ll raise you:
http://www.thp-online.com/jeanine/jjbiog.html
Notice, it doesn’t say she performed on the track, just that she appears in the video…
@15 – “Plenty of studenty Housemartins fans stuck around for at least the first few albums (and beyond)” – I am that man. Liked the first two albums, went off them while listening to the third and finding it sounded just so ordinary compared to the other stuff my ears were opening up to at the time (it came out about six months after Screamadelica – my whole musical world had shifted).
I have been humming Old Red Eyes is Back all morning, mind.
61 seems unbelievable, yes – suspect punctum may be confusing memories of Pos K, as reffed by Tom?
Not at all. Dizzee himself told me in an interview some years back that he did the girl’s voice.
Pop stars don’t always tell the truth in interviews (see: The-Dream’s various stories about “Umbrella”). Which seems to have been the case here, because that’s definitely not Dizz.
Not in the video, no…
Not on the track either, it’s obviously a real girl rather than an impression or a manipulated voice.
Yeah dudes, if Dizz is that good at impressions then how come he’s never done any other daft voices?
Actually the pitched-up “child’s voice” on “2 Far” IS Dizz, maybe that’s what he talked about with Punctum?
“Dizzee himself told me in an interview some years back that he did the girl’s voice.”
This definitely sounds like the sort of lie you’d tell to handwave away not having credited someone on your record. “Erm, that’s my mate Dave’s dog, put through autotune. But what do you think of my NEW album?”
Shades of “I tell you, that’s Burt Reynolds” Leonard Rossiter here…
#75, Possibly, but then having the woman who he’s trying to avoid crediting, appear in the video, dot dot dot
The question is, eight years down the line, does it actually matter?
A mere twelve years after the Beautiful South record under discussion, you might be right.
Looking again at the track listing for Carry On Up The Charts, more winners than duds for me (“You Keep It All In”, “Old Red Eyes Is Back”, “Good As Gold” among them). I was never convinced by the dialogue on “A Little Time” though, or its use in the context of the song, as the dialogue is crowbarred into the tune so as to lose its effectiveness. TBS did a good set in the Hillsborough Justice Concert at Anfield to raise money for the justice campaign (“Rotterdam” sounding particularly lovely) but that now seems hypocritical in the light of Heaton writing a foreword for a hooligan memoir (as discussed in the “Caravan of Love” thread).
Beautiful South were on the bill (doing “Don’t Marry Her…”) the only time I’ve ever been to a recording of “Later”. Also on were Metallica, Donovan, Horace Andy (visibly enjoying Metallica) and, making their first major TV appearance, Catatonia. We were close enough to touch their drumkit, and seeing Cerys lounging about casually reading the paper as the minutes to recording ticked by made me warm to the band immediately. Pity they won’t be troubling Popular.
I liked someone’s comment under the YouTube clip saying “Ryan and Janine from EastEnders should cover this”!
Sorry to be so late here (I have been ill), but my favourite argument duet is “The Same Thing It Took To Get Me” by Joe Tex & Mable John. Mable starts, and Joe breaks in with something like “Sit down, settle back and shut up, woman, and listed to this.”