16
Feb 11
CLIFF RICHARD – “Saviour’s Day”
There was a great deal of talk about entryism in the 1980s – it was said of many excellent bands, and Hue And Cry too, that pop hooks would be a Trojan Horse for subversive notions of situationism, socialism and continental philosophy to slip into the charts. But man, all those groups were amateurs next to Sir Cliff! Having established himself in 1988 as a man who could deliver some cosy Yuletide jumper pop, he turns round this year and unloads God on us, close range, both barrels.
This is not actually a Christmas record. It doesn’t mention Christmas once. It is a record about a holiday Cliff Richard has made up called Saviour’s Day in which people do things like praise God and give thanks for the birth of Jesus Christ – between you and me I don’t think it’ll catch on, but Cliff sounds even more enthusiastic about it than he was when he mixed it with booze and snogging two years before. There’s a suggestion that Saviour’s Day isn’t just how Cliff would like Christmas to be but also how it was long ago – there’s something very old-timey about its references to harvest time, long journeys from hills and valleys, raising glasses to the King (even if that’s Jesus again). The folksy rhythms and pipes underline this, though it’s a shame they couldn’t have found slightly more authentic-sounding presets – the whole record has the air of a somewhat cranky demo which Cliff decided to put out himself.
Which is quite an apt feel for it, really. This isn’t a particularly good record – those wretched pipes could sink it alone – but it’s honest and heartfelt in a way that most Christmas records since the 70s aren’t. I am not a Christian and so the religious side of Christmas feels very distant to me, far from the centre of a long co-opted and compromised (and all the more wonderful for that) festival. But even though “Saviour’s Day” sometimes drfts towards finger-wagging, I can feel the joy and sincerity in it – more so than in the sugared pill of “Mistletoe And Wine”, for certain – and I can’t begrudge its showing up here.
4
Especially considering he was at Number One in the last episode and will be in the next one.
Well, let’s wait until there’s a formal announcement and an investigation of and conviction for a crime before we jump to labelling people unobservable sex offenders, eh?
Or not. Because Britain.
Yes. But DLT can’t be seen while his case is being investigated, so this seems to fall into the same halfway house.
Does the embargo apply to performers though? Gary Glitter and Jonathan King have both been featured on these reruns.
I don’t think JKing has been on, his “It only takes a minute” was ‘avoided’ in an edit, but the BBC apologised and lifted his embargo, but he’s not due to be on the show for a good while yet.
Then again, he became a regular ‘slot’ at one point, I suspect the BBC will avoid it due to some copyright reason or other
He was on in the 1978 reruns performing “One For You, One For Me.” Different rules about presenters and performers IIRC.
You are right, and I have just found my review of the show on the Popular ’78 thread. How soon we forget! (Well, I do anyway)
.. Dan Hartman was a member of the Edgar Broughton Band, according to me. What a burke. Edgar Winter Band. Someone edit that in for me? Ah, thanks…
@64 But was that before the post-Savile panic set in at the Beeb?
No, those were from last year.
Cliff’s On The Beach was played on Pick Of The Pops on Saturday. Maybe it was part of their “aggressive newsgathering”: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/18/bbc-cliff-richard-raid-coverage-south-yorkshire
Cliff Richard’s “I Still Believe In You” also currently the #1 track in digital music on Amazon.co.uk
That seems like a campaign by cliff fans, so watch this weekend’s chart I guess.
If you’re going to have a fan campaign to get to #1 it helps to have fans as determined as Cliff does – http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/cliff-richard-fans-bid-to-get-i-still-believe-in-you-to-number-one-in-wake-of-sex-abuse-claim-9675365.html
Currently at 43 in the midweeks. Might make the Top 40, maybe even higher than that (Top 30? Top 20?) but I can’t see this being a song darkening Tom’s door in the fullness of time.
Been thinking a lot about this over the past week, and I have elected to republish all of the CR posts on TPL and keep them up there until or unless anything happens. Then – and only then – will I make a final decision. It’s the only sane course of action right now.
Cliff is still out in the Algarve just now, I think. I’ve seen him come through Customs a few times over the years. I don’t think Plod are getting ready to nick him for anything, which is just as well, since if there are indeed warrants out on him, the procedure is for the Woodentops to escort him through the Red Channel to a waiting Swede. This is in case we have “any Customs interest” in old Webby. That being a no, I would have just waved The Bachelor Boy straight through…although the temptation to start singing “The Minute You’re Gone” would have been painfully strong.
Innocent until proven guilty, natch.
Well, clearly I was wrong. Cliff must have snuck back in. He volunteered his help with Yorkshire Plod inquiries and was interviewed under caution. He was neither arrested nor charged with anything.
He moves in mysterious ways
Only managed # 57 in the end – fans hedging their bets, perhaps.
#78 – Not so mysterious then, Pilgrim, ol’ Cliff came in by private plane for the sole purpose of submitting himself to a friendly chat with Yorky Plod before returning to Portugal the same day by the same method. Perhaps we should have paid heed to his minor hit of 1971.
“When the weather is fine,
And the clouds have gone by,
I go up in the air,
Waving people goodbye,
In my flying machine,
I go up, I go down, I go round and round.”
Yeah, I know…
I’m sorry folks, I know this guy is a national hero and someone every good Englishman aspires to be, but my heart just sinks every time he appears on this site… I think Cliff Richard is an unexceptional everyman who, if he weren’t in the right place at the right time, would be a volunteer Sunday music director for the village chapel. I get that there’s such a thing as a “gift for the banal” but this guy doesn’t hold a flame to Late Macca/Phil Collins/Elton John… he’s been running on the nostalgic exhaust emitted by the over-the-hill for decades and just listening to him while reading this blog is driving me into the left lane, I don’t know how you can refrain from grumbling over in Ground Zero.
Had to get that off my chest.
I agree with you up to a point, but a lot of Cliff’s output from 1976-81 is worth checking out if you don’t know it (and I believe ‘Devil Woman’ went Top 10 in the US) – particularly recommended is 1980’s ‘Carrie’ which a few of us have been enthusing about recently on the Top of the Pops repeats.
Adam, let it go on record that I’m with you here. I find Sir Cliff tedious at times, creepy at others. Hearing his tracks pop up when I borrowed my wife’s ipod hasn’t massively changed my opinion (though Move It is the jam obviously) and his calendars look like something Gavin And Stacey’s Uncle Brin would post on his Facebook page.
To be fair I haven’t heard much of the stuff Lazarus mentions so I should check it out, just wanted to let you know you’re not alone in your bemusement at Cliff’s National Treasure status
Yeah not even Carl Wilson’s Celine Dion book has helped me here, because I get that her fans simply enjoy her voice — which is quite literally one in a billion — so it makes sense that people looking for vocal virtuosity will find her amazing. And many of these seemingly “unexceptional” talents hold the hidden key in their personality: even if it’s someone who rubs me the wrong way, like Tom Jones, I can see why he’s got his swooners. Cliff Richard may fall into the latter category, but his charm may just be so foreign to me that I can’t see why he’s been chosen. I’ll give Lazarus’s recs a go in an exercise of radical empathy, though.
EDIT: I was just thinking about a convo I had yesterday with a Straits Chinese friend who loves WestLife (yeah this blog makes good conversation fodder). It seems that of the whole wealth of emotions music can invoke (and the variety is what makes Western pop great), if you’re going for pleasantness, WestLife may be the best option from a certain angle. Maybe Richard is able to communicate pleasantness in a manner perceived as totally authentic better than most?
I used to live next to the Albert Hall in a filthy attic flat with eight other Imperial students. One day I got chatting to some elderly women who were camped outside the Hall. Turned out they were queueing for Cliff Richard tickets. I kind of wish I’d asked them more about what they see in him. (Although you can’t really do that without being patronising in a Louis Theroux-ish kind of way). I’d imagine they’d been fans since his teen idol days and nostalgia for the buzz they’d felt back then was a big part of it. Clearly they didn’t need to camp overnight to get tickets on the day of sale, they just enjoyed the experience and perhaps the cred it gave Cliff that people would still camp out to buy his tickets.
My wife never seems to big him up or express any interest despite having his music on her ipod (and she’s certainly not someone concerned about being cool where pop culture is concerned!)
Of course, following the live raid debacle the Beeb has performed a total reverse ferret as regards Cliff – Radio 2 play his records frequently and generally treat him with undeserved obsequiousness.
Tom’s 4/10 seems about right to me.