N is for….”Neville Thumbcatch” by Peter Wyngarde, from his misogyny-chic ‘classic’ When Sex Rears Its Inquisitive Head. I don’t have that LP, just this song I dl’ed from Brian: listening to it I’m in two minds as to whether I want the album. A wry tale of adultery and gardening, “Neville Thumbcatch” has two things going for it: Wyngarde’s timelessly patrician voice and the rococo pop backdrop. That aside, the backing vocals annoy me, the lyrics aren’t funny, and you get the uncomfortable feeling that those pearly patrician tones conceal a deep contempt for the entire enterprise, anyway.
But meanwhile the instrumentation is frilled and elegant, and I could listen to it for ages. This late-60s, highly-ornamented ‘progressive pop’ is something I’m finding fascinating at the moment, probably because of working on a piece about Richard Harris, another actor-turned-pop-star whose two Jimmy Webb-written records are, as Fred Solinger put it, the “last great lost classics of the decade”. Wyngarde’s tasteless frippery seems a kind of ill-favoured relative of Harris’ grandiose masterpieces: if anyone reading this can think of records which mined similar territory, please get in touch.
Granted, the “Sex Leers” album is an acquired taste – though I must admit to being a big fan. Has shades about it of another of my heroes, Vivian Stanshall (of Bonzo Dogs & Sir Henry Rawlinson fame). But on careful listening one detects that strange intense comic-tragic cocktail that is Wyngarde’s life.
The OP might be also interested in the original version of Neville Thumbcatch. It was by a mid-late 60’s act called The Attack – who incidentally also wrote the original “Hi Ho Silver Lining” that Jeff Beck famously covered.