EDSS 1029 PA BOTBS booklet 6/1/09 17:38 Page 2 · Music (and lyrics to ‘Honky Tonk Train’ and...

128

The Songs Of PETE ATKIN & CLIVE JAMESEDSS 1029

EDSS 1029 PA BOTBS booklet 6/1/09 17:38 Page 2

2 27

Beware Of The BeautifulStranger Fontana 6309 011, 1970. Re-issued on RCASF 8387 in 1973 in a re-designed sleeve with“Touch Has A Memory” replaced by “BeCareful When They Offer You The Moon”, andwith “Sunrise” as the second song.

Arranged by Pete AtkinStrings arranged by Nick Harrison Produced by Don Paul Engineered by Tom Allom Recorded at Regent Sound A, TottenhamStreet, London W1, on 31st March and 1st & 2nd April 1970 Mixed between 2 pm and 6 pm on 2nd April 1970 “Be Careful When They Offer You TheMoon” and “A Man Who’s Been Around”were recorded at Tin Pan Alley Studio,Denmark Street on 11th August 1970

Credits – British Rail, Arthur Guinness,William Hazlitt, John Keats, Meade LuxLewis, Garcia Lorca, Odham’s JuniorEncyclopaedia, Auguste Renoir, WilliamShakespeare and Duke Ellington (therenever was another).

Hair by Robaire of MayfairPhotographed on location at PuttendenManor, Edenbridge Type design by Sandy Field Designed and photographed by Keef

2

Lyrics – Clive JamesMusic (and lyrics to ‘Honky Tonk Train’ and‘All I Ever Did’) – Pete Atkin

Pete Atkin – vocals, guitars, piano Steve Cook – double bass Tony Marsh – drums Henry Mackenzie – clarinet Russell “Dai” Davies – tuba (Salvation Army Class A No. 4521, motto ‘Blood and fire’)

Project co-ordination – Val Jennings CD package – Jools at Mac Concept CD mastering – Alchemy Ephemera courtesy of the collections of Pete Atkin and Clive JamesCD front cover main photo and strapline photo –Sophie BakerHuge thanks – Pete Atkin, Clive James, SimonPlatz, Steve Birkill, Ronen Guhaand Caroline Cook

For everything (and we mean everything) relating toPete Atkin’s works, visit www.peteatkin.com, butmake sure you’ve got plenty of time to spend! Then of course, you’ll want to visitwww.clivejames.com

Pete Atkin’s albums on the Edsel label: Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger…plus[EDSS 1029] Driving Through Mythical America[EDSS 1030] A King At Nightfall…plus + The Road Of Silk [2 CD] [EDSD 2028] Secret Drinker + Live Libel[2 CD] [EDSD 2029]

Visit www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk for the Edsel catalogue and the many other fine labels that make up the Demon Music Group.

Tracks 1 – 16 licensed by Fly Records. Fly Records is adivision of Onward Music Ltd. p 2009 Onward Music Ltdunder licence to Demon Music Group Ltd. © 2009Onward Music Ltd/Demon Music Group Ltd. Tracks 17 – 24 issued under licence from Pete Atkin. Tracks 17 – 24 p & © 1969 Pete Atkin. Marketed by EdselRecords, a division of the Demon Music Group Ltd,London, W1W 7TL. The Demon Music Group is a 2 entertain company. Manufactured in the EU.


26 3

music publishers, and that led us to EssexMusic, and that led us to …. (see above).

The bass is by our stalwart Footlightschum Steve Cook, who went on to play onBeware Of The Beautiful Stranger, asyou’ll have spotted already, and then towork in far more distinguished company,not least that of the great Mike Westbrook.

In spite of having been recorded in aproper studio, the quality of these tracks isless than terrific, I’m afraid, mostly becausethe original reel-to-reel tapes disappeared along time ago and these copies have beentaken from one of the very few vinyl copies Ican still lay hands on.

CJ: The second cardboard-covered limitededition album The Party’s Moving On wascertainly a technical advance over the first,While The Music Lasts, which, as I recall,was recorded in a college room withblankets hung up for sound control. I alwaysthought of them as the cardboard albums,and since they contain more than a few earlyfumbles by me I’m rather glad they were nevergenerally available. But the people whobought them loved them, and the soaringEbay prices probably reflect the desire ofsuccessful but ageing executives who worethem out over the course of years to getback to a time of happy student poverty.

My wife treasured a set of thecardboard albums and after I, typically,frittered my copies away, I borrowed herset in order to answer a request fromLondon Weekend Television, who duly setup a little TV series called The Party’sMoving On in which Pete and Julie both

performed. LWT never returned the albumsand my wife has reminded me of this fact atleast once a week for almost four decades.She liked me as a struggling young artist,and even today is apt to point out that Petedid a better job of maintaining his initialblazing integrity than I ever did. From thatangle, the cardboard albums aren’t justkeepsakes, they’re an ur-text, the holytablets. They certainly weren’t tainted bythe deadly touch of Mammon. Pete mightbe right that they made more money,weight for weight, than any of the latercommercial albums, but how much is morethan nothing? God, it was fun, though.

17. Have You Got A Biro ICan Borrow? 1.47

18. Touch Has A Memory 1.35

19. Sunrise 2.23

20. The Luck Of The Draw 1.27

21. Girl On The Train 2.45

22. You Can’t Expect To BeRemembered 3.13

23. Laughing Boy 2.20

24. All I Ever Did 0.49

All songs published by Onward Music Ltd,except tracks 1, 2, 10, 11, 18 and 22published by Westminster Music Ltd.

PA: Clive and I wrote these songs in thelate 1960s, but it would be a mistake to tryto find within them traces of the Summer ofLove, mind-expanding drugs, CarnabyStreet, revolution in the air, and what haveyou. For most people at the time – certainlyfor us – most of that was happeningsomewhere else (most especially CarnabyStreet). Except for the one thing that didget through to just about everyone: themusic.

It was in any case a lucky time for me. Iwas a lucky, naive eleven-plus grammar-school boy who found himself waking up ina university that contained morepossibilities than I could have imagined. Itwas lucky too that the most popular musicof the day happened also to be the bestmusic then being made. I was additionallylucky that my college record library waswell stocked with the best of classic jazz,blues, and Tin Pan Alley, and I was fillingmy head up with all of it to the shamefulexclusion of almost everything else. Theclinching bit of good luck was somehow tojoin the Cambridge Footlights and then tohook up with Clive.

The Footlights was a revue club(nowadays I suppose you’d call it a comedyclub) which put on shows for members anda big annual public show at the ArtsTheatre, as well as ad hoc cabarets aroundthe place. It was – and still is – famously atraining ground for many who have gone into show business in one or other of itsforms. The list is long, illustrious, and easyto find. In those days it had the crucial use

of a clubroom, destroyed in a bout of civicvandalism in the seventies – a long, narrow,seedy, threadbare first-floor room with atiny stage at one end and, most importantfor me, a piano. We had access to thisroom pretty much any time we wanted, andit became a workshop, a second home.Actually, it became a first home.

As a teenager I had taught myself toplay piano a bit by picking out tunes –sorry, ‘hits’ – in the right hand and‘strumming’ chords with the left. In college,without a piano handy, I started to playacoustic guitar, but I still felt more at homeon the piano.

I’d sung a few of my own silly songs atFootlights smoking concerts, and one dayClive simply handed me a lyric and said“Hey, sport, do you think you can doanything with this?” I really don’t rememberwhich lyric that was, but we soon startedturning out songs at a fair old rate and used(abused, some might say) our privilegedposition to shoehorn some of them intoFootlights shows. Songs – straight songs,at any rate – weren’t a big part of what theclub usually did, but we had little or noother idea of what we might do with them.

An additional stimulus to writing –specifically to writing songs from a femalepoint of view – was the presence in theclub of both Julie Covington and MaggieHenderson, the singing of either one ofwhom would have been inspiration enough.

Those days – 1967, ’68, ’69 – were sofull of music of so many kinds, with the LPstarting to establish an identity of its own

26 3


4 25

beyond just being a collection of singles,that I truly don’t think we ever gave amoment’s consideration to writing in anyparticular style or idiom. The song was thething. It still is. But we did imagine oursongs being sung famously by successfulsingers, which is partly what led me toorganise some amateurish recordings ofthem and to assemble a couple of privately-pressed LPs. The idea was to sell enoughof them to unwitting friends andacquaintances to cover the costs and usethe rest as demos. It didn’t exactly work,mainly because the music business wasalready changing, and most recordingartists, increasingly aware of the financialbenefit of writing their own songs, wereless and less likely to be looking for newsongs from the likes of us.

Nevertheless, the demo LPs did leadus in late 1969 to the publishers EssexMusic, where David Platz took us on andadvanced me fifty quid so I could at leastspend Christmas in some shoes that didn’tleak (sorry, but that’s true). More than that,he stumped up for some proper studiosessions to record some of the songs. Andthose, amazingly, are the recordings youhave here.

David put me together with theproducer Don Paul, who had been amember of the hitmaking vocal group theViscounts. I still vividly remember thesessions in the little basement studio (thewhole building now long gone) across thestreet from what’s now the entrance toUniversity College Hospital’s A&E

department, just off the Tottenham CourtRoad in London.

Don happened to be a mate of KennyEverett, at that time the most famous andinfluential DJ in the land with his Saturdaymorning show on BBC Radio 1. Donplayed him a couple of the tracks, and hereacted in a way we might have dreamedof. He played them on his show severalweeks running. That was enough toconvince Don and David that they might beable to get a commercial release for them,which they did. Easy when you just say itlike that.

And so I became a recording artist,which hadn’t originally been the idea at all,not even a dream, to be honest. It was onlyafter the album was released on Fontanathat I set about doing the rounds of the folkclubs – there were even more of them thenthan there are comedy clubs now – to try toget a performing career under way.

At that critical point Kenny, man of thebest possible taste and my de factosponsor, notoriously got himself sacked bythe BBC for what was considered in thosedays to be an inexcusable and intolerablejoke, something to do with the Minister ofTransport’s wife having just passed herdriving test. Ah well. Although the albumdidn’t, as they used to say, trouble thecharts, it did pretty well really, perhapspartly because it didn’t sound much likeanything else. It might have done evenbetter, but the trouble was it didn’t soundmuch like anything else.

I could never have guessed, and

I’ve drunk the wines of life to the lees I knew the signs of life when they were trees I’ve seen it all as near as dammitRun the gauntlet and the gamutYou’re looking at a man who’s been around

I’ve hailed the kind, the true and the rareI’ve sailed to find the new like BaudelaireI’ve done the mad thing and the fun thingDone it all except the done thingYou’re smiling at a man who’s been around

So a kid like you is nothing new to meHowever pleased I seem to be to see youHowever keen I seem to be to please youDon’t kid yourself you mean a thing to me

I’ve seen the blazing young hit the topI’ve heard their praises sung and then they

flop I’ve seen the weeping and the laughterNever needed looking after You’re staring at a man who’s beenThrough this before, get what I mean?You’re dealing with a man who’s been around

So a kid like you is nothing new to meHowever pleased I seem to be to see youHowever keen I seem to be to please you Don’t kid yourself you mean a thing to meYou’re dealing with a man who’s been around

I’ve watched a million things come to passI’ve watched a string of kings put out to grassI’ve made the good scene and the bad sceneI’ve even sung the mad sceneYou’re smiling at a man who’s beenThrough the fat times and the leanYou’re dealing with a man who’s been aroundRun the gauntlet and the gamut

Bonus Demos: Recorded at City of London Recording Studio,Osborn Street, London EC1 on 3rd February1969, except ‘Biro’ recorded on 7th August1968. Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: These tracks are all taken from thesecond LP I had had privately pressed fromsome demos we’d made, and which wecalled The Party’s Moving On. There werejust 99 of them, and they had labels printedby state-of-the-art technology andindividually stuck on to the front and backof their white cardboard covers. (If youmade a hundred or more you became liableto Purchase Tax, the predecessor of VAT,which would have made the entireoperation economically unrealistic). Inumbered all the discs and kept a note ofwhich numbered copy each person boughtor was sent, and then I lost the list. Onecopy came up on Ebay a year or two agoand I’m sorry, or perhaps pleased, that Idon’t know whose copy it originally was.Anyway, it fetched what seemed to me anastonishing amount of money, but that’salmost certainly because of the presenceon half the songs of Julie Covington’sbreathtakingly beautiful singing.

I was blissfully unaware at the timethat this recording project would turn out tobe probably my most commercially effectiveever. And indeed I suppose it worked wellenough since it gave us somethingreasonably serious-looking to tout around

4 25


24 5

CJ: The Moon was still a destination inthose days. Nobody ever gave it a moreenchanting mention than Joni Mitchell withher line about “the face of the conqueredMoon”, but I was quite pleased with mycolourless and dusty ball of holes. Therewere plenty of rock stars who handledsuccess well: they were the ones you rarelyread about. But it can’t be denied that, fromthe stories in the press, sudden famelooked fatal. The bodies were already pilingup. We would have quite liked to run therisk, however, so essentially this lyric is anexercise in blatant hypocrisy. Luckily Petelightened it up with the music.

Be careful when they offer you the moonIt gives a cold lightIt was only ever made to light the nightYou can freeze your fingers handling the

moon

Be careful when they offer you the moonIt’s built for dead soulsIt’s a colourless and dusty ball of holesYou can break an ankle dancing on the moon

When you take the moon you kiss the worldgoodbye

For a chance to lord it over lonelinessAnd a quarter-million miles down the skyThey’ll watch you shining more but weighing

less

So be careful when they offer you the moonIt’s only dream stuffIt’s a Tin Pan Alley prop held up by bluffAnd nobody breathes easy on the moonNobody breathes easy on the moonCount to ten when they offer you the moon

16. A Man Who's BeenAround 3.49Recorded at Denmark Street Studios on 11thAugust 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitars, piano,tambourine Brian Odgers – bass guitar Tony Marsh – drums Albert Hall – flugelhorn Russell “Dai” Davies – trombone

PA: The plan was always to put Master ofthe Revels on the B-side of the Be CarefulWhen They Offer You The Moon single, soI took the opportunity of some studio time toput down a ‘proper’ version of this song, whichClive and I fondly believed was eminentlycoverable, as a kind of alternative or antidoteto My Way and the like. We played it to oneof the publisher’s executives, suggestingone particular eminent singer for whom wethought it would be hugely suitable, and theexecutive replied “Yes, I’ll get that to he.”Clive and I looked at each other with thesame sad thought going through our minds.

CJ: That same executive wasunderstandably a bit puzzled by themention of Baudelaire. He had a long facewhich a look of incomprehension took timeto cover, but eventually there was nothingbetween his hairline and his chin that didnot send a signal of polite bafflement. Mindyou, the singer we had in mind wouldprobably have been puzzled too. If I’d hadmy wits about me, I would have substitutedsomething simpler. The fault was mine.

didn’t, that I’d still be singing a lot of thesesongs nearly forty years later. But they dostill seem to work. Listening again now tomy twentysomething self singing them,there’s a lot that I’d do differently, ofcourse. In fact my luck has held out to thepoint where I have indeed been able to dosome of these things differently [onMidnight Voices: the Clive James-PeteAtkin Songbook Volume One (HillsideCDHILL08) 2008], but that’s not in anyway to disown what I did back then. I can’tbut feel affectionately for these recordings– almost as affectionately as I feel foranyone who supported us then andanyone who may remember them now.

CJ: False modesty can be a usefulrhetorical device but Pete has alwayssuffered from genuine modesty, whichsometimes has the effect of minimising thefacts. Some of the songs that got “shoe-horned” into Footlights revues were widelyrecognized in Cambridge as the mostinteresting things in the show, and whenMaggie Henderson sang “If I had My TimeAgain” in one of our revues on theEdinburgh Fringe, Harold Hobson, theeminent critic of the Sunday Times, called itthe highlight of the entire Festival. Pete wasthus recognized, by discerning listeners, asan important songwriter from the jump: afact which, speaking as one who had ashare in his work, I would like, in allmodesty, to have recorded here.

The problem, of course, was abouthow to increase the number of discerning

listeners. The problem might have beensolved more easily if the record companieshad known how to classify what Pete wasup to. In the record stores, Beware Of TheBeautiful Stranger tended to be put in theFolk bin by default. It was the first sign of adilemma that would trouble us for adecade.

Pete Atkin and Clive James,November/December 2008

24 5


6 23

1. The Master Of The Revels 2.36Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, piano Russell Davies – tuba Tony Marsh – drums Henry Mackenzie – clarinet

PA: This was the first track that KennyEverett picked up on. The lyric tells a sadstory, but I thought that a small-scale,slightly seedy, circus-y bravado was theright pose to adopt. I started by playing thetwo-note tuba phrase andthe tune just kind ofarrived over the top of it,bending and twisting itsway towards a showbizzyending.

There wasn’t muchbudget for additionalmusicians, but I thought Icould get good value outof a clarinet, so Don Paulbooked one for me. Itwas just chance that itturned out to be the greatHenry Mackenzie, who,among many otherthings, had been one ofthe clarinet trio on the Beatles’ When I’mSixty Four. The tuba was a genuineSalvation Army model played by our then-and-still old Footlights chum RussellDavies.

CJ: In the times ofElizabeth I, the Master ofthe Revels was more ofan official censor than atheatrical enabler, but histitle sounded like fun tome, so I went with that.It’s also possible todetect the presence ofMerlin and Prospero:mischief-making

magicians. In my own mind, Pete’ssprightly, perky melody exactly expressesthe personality of a professional jokesmithwho might have been a bit of a strain if youmet him in the tavern.

Bonus Tracks: 15. Be Careful When TheyOffer You The Moon 3.02Recorded at Denmark Street Studios on11th August 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitars, piano,tambourine Brian Odgers – bass guitar Tony Marsh – drums Albert Hall – flugelhorn Russell “Dai” Davies – trombone

PA: Perhaps fortunately, we neverwere offered the moon, literally ormetaphorically, so our worldlywisdom was never put to thepractical test, so the song seems tome to have acquired an almostwistful quality in hindsight. I hadalways loved harmony vocals (BuddyHolly, Everly Brothers) and still do,so a lot of my tunes tend to imply asecond complementary melody line.With the Everly Brothers inparticular, it was often hard to workout which voice was the tune andwhich the harmony, and I think thisone turned out to be a genuine two-partmelody.

It was specially recorded – andreleased, what’s more – as a single. I haveno memory at all of where the idea to usebrass on it came from, but I enjoyed writingthe arrangement. It was the first ‘serious’arranging I’d done, apart from the Henry

Mackenzie clarinet, and some rudimentaryattempts for Footlights shows (bluffing allthe way). I’m afraid I remember flatteringmyself that the little answering flugelhornfigure at the end was almost BixBeiderbecke-like, which probably means Istole it. 6 23

Compilation album (1977)


22 7

But I can’t even get the Lone RangerOne last word from the beautiful stranger”

“You live in a dream and the dream is a cage”Said the girl “And the bars nestle closer with

ageYour shadow burned white by invisible fireYou will learn how it rankles to die of desireAs you long for the beautiful stranger”Said the vanishing beautiful stranger

“Here’s a wallet for you and five nicker for me”Said the gypsy “And also here’s something for

freeWatch your step on my foldaway stairs getting

downAnd go slow on the flyover back into townThere’s a slight but considerable dangerGive my love to the beautiful stranger”

14. All I Ever Did 1.06Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: Still the shortest song I’ve ever written,I think. It was the Mamas and the Papaswho inspired me to put it last on the album.They had done something similar with thealmost equally diminutive Once Was ATime I Thought.

CJ: Pete did the words for this one and thefluently neat way they went with the musicwas a wake-up call. From then on I tried toleave more opportunity for the music toprogress through my line-endings. Pete’smusical illustration of “off key” might havebeen instigated by that magic moment in

Cole Porter’s “Every Time We SayGoodbye” when the narrator talks about achange from major to minor and the musicmirrors the words. We were both madabout that song, and indeed about thewhole show-tune heritage. During ourworking career together we have drawn onall kinds of musical traditions, but one wayor another we have always given ourregards to Broadway.

All I ever didWhile you were here Was done for youOr so I saidPerhaps through fearThat nothing lessWould make you stay

All I’d ever done Or ever was Meant something newOr so I thoughtPerhaps becauseThe past seemed nightAnd this seemed day

All I’d ever seen was black and whiteAll I’d ever sung was off-keyAll I’d ever spoken sounded triteAnd then with you I was all the things I

wished to be

All I ever didWhile you were here Was done for youNow through my tears I’m asking whyAll you ever said Was goodbye

Allow me to present myself, my ladiesAnd gentlemen of this exalted ageBefore my creatures take the stageFor I am the Master of the RevelsIn what appertains to mirth I am a sage

I work myself to death for each productionAnd though the world’s great wits are all on

fileI have not been known to smileFor I am the Master of the RevelsAnd mastery demands a certain style

In my office hang the blueprintsOf the first exploding handshakeAnd the charted trajectories of custard piesFor Harlequin ten different kinds of

heartbreakFor Columbine the colour of her eyes

Some other windows darken in the eveningAnd never before morning show a lightBut for me there is no nightFor I am the Master of the RevelsThe caller-up and caster-in of devilsAnd I am here for your instruction and delight

2. Touch Has A Memory 2.41Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals Steve Cook – double bass Nick Harrison – string arrangement

PA: This is a good example of a song thatcame into being title-first. The phrase isfrom John Keats. People have often saidthat in practice smell has a much longerand stronger memory than touch, butsomehow Smell Has A Memory as a title

doesn’t immediately get the songwritingjuices flowing.

Nick Harrison had done thearrangement for Julie Covington’s recordingof The Magic Wasn’t There, the first of oursongs to get a commercial recording (alsoproduced by Don Paul). I had speciallyliked the choppy string writing in theinstrumental bit on Julie’s record. The ideato do this song with just strings (probably anick from the Beatles’ Yesterday, if I’mhonest) seemed a good one at the time,but we later always thought the resultingtrack lacked a bit of rhythmic impetus, andwe replaced it on the 1973 RCA reissue ofthe album with Be Careful When TheyOffer You The Moon. I’ve since had achance to re-record it with a completelydifferent rhythmic approach. Take your pick.

CJ: If Proust had been writing the lyric, itwould have been “Taste Has a Memory”and there would have been somethingabout cakes. Keats died young but heseems to have lived long enough to knowquite a lot about sensuality. The undressingscene in “The Eve of St Agnes” is steamystuff. “Her rich attire creeps rustling to herknees.” I tried to get some of that in.

Touch has a memoryBetter than the other sensesHearing and sight fight freeTouching has no defencesTextures come back to you real as can beTouch has a memory

Fine eyes are wide at nightEyelashes show that nicely

22 7


8 21

Seeing forgets the sightTouch recollects preciselyEyelids are modest yet blink at a kissTouching takes note of this

When in a later dayLittle of the vision lingersMemory slips awayEvery way but through the fingersTextures come back to you real as

can beMaking you feel time doesn’t healAnd touch has a memory

3. Have You Got A Biro I CanBorrow? 1.58Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pmsession, 1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: Another good example of asong that came into being title-first. It was right there in thelanguage and Clive picked it up.It’s one of our very few cloudlesslove songs, as it has turned out,and it contains some of Clive’smost exuberant rhyming.

We always like to say thatthe BBC banned this becauseof the brand name in the title,but it’s not strictly true. But theyprobably would have banned it ifthey’d ever seriously thought of

high heels just by remembering the thing,let alone having composed it and sung it tohis own guitar accompaniment. I, on theother hand, was always available in thegangway after the show just to field anypraise for the lyric that might be offered. Icounted it among my most ambitious featsof sustained construction, althoughwhether it is really a song lyric is still opento question. Some people thought it was anovel.

On the midsummer fairground alive with thesound

And the lights of the Wurlitzer merry-go-roundThe midway was crowded and I was the manWho coughed up a quid in the dark caravanTo the gypsy who warned him of danger“Beware of the beautiful stranger”

“You got that for nothing” I said with a sighAs the queen’s head went up to her critical

eye“The lady in question is known to me nowAnd I’d like to beware but the problem is howDo you think I was born in a manger?I’m in love with the beautiful stranger”

The gypsy (called Lee as all soothsayers are)Bent low to her globular fragment of star“This woman will utterly screw up your lifeShe will tempt you from home, from your

children and wifeShe’s a devil and nothing will change herGet away from the beautiful stranger”

“That ball needs a re-gun” I said, shelling out“The future you see there has all come aboutDoes it show you the girl as she happens to

be

A Venus made flesh in a shell full of sea?Does it show you the shape of my danger?Can you show me the beautiful stranger?

“I don’t run a cinema here, little manBut lean over close and tune in if you canYou breathe on the glass, give a rub with your

sleeveSlip me your wallet, sit tight and believeAnd the powers-that-be will arrange aPre-release of the beautiful stranger”

In the heart of the glass I saw galaxies bornThe eye of the storm and the light of the

dawnAnd then with a click came a form and a faceThat stunned me not only through candour

and graceBut because she was really a strangerA total and beautiful stranger

“Hello there” she said with her hand to herbrow

I’m the one you’ll meet after the one youknow now

There’s no room inside here to show you usall

But behind me the queue stretches rightdown the hall

For the damned there is always a strangerThere is always a beautiful stranger

“That’s your lot” said Miss Lee as she turnedon the light

“These earrings are hell and I’m through forthe night

If they’d put up a booster not far from thispitch

I could screen you your life to the very lasttwitch8 21

playing it. However, Biro is indeed a brandname, and the publishers took theprecaution of getting permission to includeit in the title. The Biro Corporation okayed itwith the proviso that the name shouldalways be spelled with a capital B.Regulars at my gigs will have spotted that Ialways sing it with a capital B.


20 9

I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure forlife is joy

I’m a crying man that everyone calls LaughingBoy

A kid once asked me in late September for ashilling for the guy

And I looked that little operator in herwheeling-dealing eye

And I tossed a bob with deep respect in herold man’s trilby hat

It seems to me that a man like me could dieof things like that



I’ve seen landladies who lost their lovers atthe time of Rupert Brooke

And they pressed the flowers from Sundayrambles and then forgot which book

And I paid the rent thinking ‘Anyway, buddy, atleast you won’t get wet’

And I tried the bed and lay there thinking‘They haven’t got you yet’



I’ve read the labels on a hundred bottles foreyes and lips and hair

And I’ve seen girls breathe on their fingernailsand wiggle them in the air

And I’ve often wondered who the hellremembers as far back as last night

It seems to me that a man like me is the onlyone who might

I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure for

life is joyI’m a crying man that everyone calls Laughing

Boy

13. Beware Of The BeautifulStranger 5.23Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar

PA: I’ve probably sung this more often thanany other song we’ve written, and, unlikesome of them, my approach to it today, intempo and rhythm, is hardly any differentfrom this.

Clive and I were walking back to ourbeds at dawn one summer morning justbefore the end of term as the travelling fairwas leaving Midsummer Common. Therewas a small convoy of fortune-tellers’caravans, each bearing its resident expert’sname, and on every single caravan thefamily name was Lee. So that’s how thatone started.

When Clive first handed me this lyric Iwas worried about how I could write a tunethat would both tell the story and bear somuch repetition. I decided to try to come upwith something which didn’t repeat itselfmelodically within each verse, and whichvaried the timing of the lines. At least, I cansee now that that’s what I did.

CJ: Pete used to finish singing this song,walk off into the wings, and never wonderwhy it took the applause so long to dieaway. It didn’t occur to him that he’d giventhe effect of running a four-minute mile in

where the silence is set ascarefully as the words.

The instruction “Tie thebrush into my hands” issomething the film director JeanRenoir heard his father say, whenthe old man was crippled byarthritis but still couldn’t stoppainting. Have you got a Biro I can borrow?I’d like to write your nameOn the palm of my hand, on the

walls of the hallThe roof of the house, right across

the landSo when the sun comes up

tomorrowIt’ll look to this side of the hard-

bitten planetLike a big yellow button with your

name written on it

Have you got a Biro I can borrow?I’d like to write some linesIn praise of your knee, and the

back of your neckAnd the double-decker bus that

brings you to meSo when the sun comes up

tomorrowIt’ll shine on a world made richer by a sonnetAnd a half-dozen epics as long as the Aeneid

Oh give me a pen and some paperGive me a chisel or a cameraA piano and a box of rubber bandsI need room for choreographyAnd a darkroom for photographyTie the brush into my hands

20 9

CJ: The bit about “the belt of Orion” wasone of my first consciously assembledbravura passages in a lyric. Having learnedsomething of what Pete could do, I wasdeliberately testing his capacity to set astring of syllables on single notes. What Ididn’t expect, however, was that he woulduse space so well, as in the last few lines,


10 19

Have you got a Biro I can borrow?I’d like to write your nameFrom the belt of Orion to the share of the

PloughThe snout of the Bear to the belly of the LionSo when the sun goes down tomorrowThere’ll never be a minuteNot a moment of the night that hasn’t got you

in it

4. Sunrise 2.18Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: Most of our songs tend to start fromthe words – or from some words, at anyrate – but this one definitely started fromthe first bit of the tune, which I wasworrying away at on the Footlights pianoone day when Clive came up and asked“What’s that?”, just like June Allyson in TheGlenn Miller Story. Well, maybe not justlike June Allyson. The lyric arrived later thatsame afternoon, I think.

CJ: I nicked the “unruly sun” from JohnDonne, whose lawyers have not yet been intouch.

For me, this little lyric was a large initialstep, because I took the opportunity, as Iwould never have done in a poem, to makea whole line out of two syllables. Thewriting isn’t very pictorial – it picks up onstandard conversational phrases ratherthan offering images – but I was quitepleased with the horses. Usually I like to

avoid the standard classical tool-box (whatPhilip Larkin called “the myth-kitty”) but Ihad always liked those horses that draggedPhaeton’s chariot up out of the ocean. Theywere a handful, so maybe the narrator isnot quite the cool hand that he pretends tobe.

SunlightA razzle-dazzle kind of glamour in the skyNo moreThan just the glimmer of a star nearby and

bright

I’ve seen it turn the trick a thousand timesAnd send the millions wild with joyWhereas for me it’s just a toyThat flying horses dragged up from the sea

SunriseHow little thought it takes, how little time it

leavesNot longBefore she wakes to dress and then she

leaves your eyes

For very soon the sun will come for herAnd it will carry her from youIt’s seen too many men like youTo care how soon it chooses to arise

SunshineAlready seems as if it’s moving in to staySmilingThe wide and steady smile that says “The day

is mine”

How many clever men have called the sunA fool before today“O unruly sun” they say“For stepping in to take my love away”

The bards of old were bold about their claimsupon posterity

Petrarch, Shakespeare and Ronsard werenever slow to guarantee

Their loved ones’ immortalityThey never said Farewell, they said So long So long lives this and this gives life to theeThey didn’t doubt the power of a rhymeOr the durability of scribbled pagesAnd so they wrote immortal lines to TimeThat gave their love affairs to all the ages

And if eternity were still a good addressAnd if my skill were greater, fears were lessI’d do the same for you, my dearBut since it isn’t and they aren’tI can’t see my way clearTo promising the permanence of all our joy

and sorrowVery far beyond the early evening of

tomorrow

You can’t expect to beRemembered like somebody in a songWhose name fits to a string of quaversOr last for anything like as long

No-one in times to comeWill read your praises written down to stayIn balanced lapidary phrasesNot that they wouldn’t if I knew the way

You’d be thereWith all the ladies of the sonnets, dark and

fairIf only I could work the trickOf giving local habitation to the airBut it just doesn’t seem to click

You’ll never hear from meThat your name will live until the sun is cool

You can’t expect to be rememberedYou wouldn’t catch me being such a fool

12. Laughing Boy 3.31Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums Henry Mackenzie – clarinet

PA: Not the only time where a reference tothe currency is a bit of a giveaway as to theage of a song. (Only slightly more subtly,the landlady would, at the time of writingthis, have to be well into her eleventhdecade at least.) But neither of us isinclined to mess around trying to updatethe lyric. The essence of it seems to holdgood. I still sing it myself, and we often useit as a closer when we take our two-manextravaganza out on the road.

CJ: The landlady really existed. She rentedme her basement bed-sitter in Tufnell ParkRoad, London, in the early 1960s, and shestill had the book with the pressed flowers.She was the one I kept stumbling over inthe dark in my book Falling TowardsEngland.

In all the rooms I’ve hung my hat, in all thetowns I’ve been

It stuns me I’m not dead already from theshambles that I’ve seen

I’ve seen a girl hold back her hair to light acigarette

And things like that a man like me can’t easilyforget

10 19


18 11

CJ: “The clouded ruins of a God” oncebelonged to Hazlitt, and the idea of thesilver coins envying the Moon wassomething I lifted from Federico GarciaLorca, whose poetry briefly convinced methat surrealism might be something I shouldtry. It didn’t suit me, however, and I soonreverted to making straight connections if Icould. But in that brief period of intoxicationI took the lure of the music as an excuse toget weird. The smoke of exotic substanceswas not involved. Not yet, anyway.

Tonight your love is overTomorrow it will all be put awayLike the clouded ruins of a godA pharoah put aside against a rainy dayAnd your silent eyes are cryingThat tomorrow is to be so very soonThe silver coins in your pocket are sighingFor envy of the moon

Tonight the high times finishTomorrow sends you both back to square oneLike a burning moth you kind of wishYou could have settled down into a longer runAnd your silent eyes are cryingThat the daytime has already half begunThe stars outshone in the east are dyingOf envy for the sun

Tonight your love is overTomorrow it will all be as you wereLike a captain broken in the fieldCe n’est pas magnifique, mais c’est la guerreAnd your silent eyes are cryingThat tomorrow is to be so very soonThe silver coins in your pocket are sighingFor envy of the moon

11. You Can’t Expect To BeRemembered 3.19Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: Clive and I had both immersedourselves in the great Ella FitzgeraldSongbooks, where she sings many of theless-well-known verses to the well-knownchoruses of the greatest twentieth centurysongs. These verses were mostly written, inthe context of a musical stage show, as anout-of-tempo scene-setting introduction tothe song itself. We always liked the flexible,conversational nature of them. This wasone of our first attempts in the form. And itwasn’t the last time Clive would cut andpaste a whole chunk of out-of-copyrightShakespeare.

CJ: Quite apart from the songs thatdecorate the plays, the blank verse alonewould be enough to tell us thatShakespeare’s language was intimatelyconnected with music. It’s a subject I findendlessly fascinating, but betterexperienced than talked about. Listen toGielgud performing in “Prospero’s Books”on YouTube (via a short essay by me on thesubject, the clip can be reached throughthe Video Finds/Actors section of mywebsite clivejames.com) and you willrapidly reach the conclusion that he isn’tsaying it: he’s singing it.

SunlightIt’s time to make a move, it’s time to rise and

shineSunriseShaking your shoulder murmurs “Everything

looks fine”And takes your love away

5. Frangipanni Was HerF lower 2.17Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitar, piano Steve Cook – bass

PA: I’ve always liked stories where you’retold everything except the most importantcentral bit of the story, which you have towork out for yourself. A bit like Greektragedy where the action all takes placeoffstage. OK, not that much like Greektragedy. But it is a sad story.

The studio piano had a lever whichlowered little squares of metal between thehammers and the strings to give a honky-tonk effect which I imagined could bethought to sound a bit like a harpsichord.Or not.

CJ: A journalistic staple of the 1960s wasthe story of the well-brought-up young ladyeither going to the bad or cracking upunder the pressure of conformity. It hadalso begun occurring to me that in a lyric I

could use a repetition instead of a rhyme,because Pete would be putting the sameword on different notes. In a poem I hadnever used a repetition, and I still don’ttoday.

Frangipanni was her flowerAnd amethyst her birthday stoneThe fairest blossom of the bowerShe wasn’t born to be aloneAnd now she was terribly alone

A Ford Cortina was the carEleven thirty-five the hourThe squeak of gravel in the driveLeft the damsel in the towerPondering her vanished power

Always, everything had gone so wellHer dolls had been the bestShe was better than the restAlways, everything had gone so wellThe world at her behestHad fed her from the breast

Always, everything had gone so wellShe was married all in whiteTo a lad serenely triteAlways, everything had gone so wellAnd on her wedding nightThings had more or less gone right

By fairest fortune she was kissedFrangipanni was her bloomA silver spoon was in her fistUpon emerging from the wombTonight she wrecked the room

18 11


12 17

6. The Rider To The World ’sEnd 3.36Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums Nick Harrison – string arrangement

PA: I remember specifically asking NickHarrison to go all-out on the Bartok-likediscords in the strings, and hisarrangement is still one of my favouritethings on the record. It really gets the mostout of having two cellos in the quartet.

CJ: Justice demands that I attribute thetitle line to the Australian poet LexBanning. Lex suffered from such a terriblecase of cerebral palsy that he could speakonly with difficulty, but he made everyword count. He was a searing wit. Amaster of linguistic compression, he wrotebeautifully chiselled verses. I first read hispoem “The Rider to the World’s End” in alittle pamphlet of his called Every Man HisOwn Hamlet, back in Sydney in the late1950s, and I never forgot it. Born in 1921,he died in 1966, only a few years after Iarrived in London, but his great spirit isstill with me. I often wonder what hewould have thought of this song, andhope he would have admired the melodyso much that he would have forgiven methe theft.

You simply mustn’t blame yourself – the dayswere perfect

And so were exactly what I was born to spoilFor I am the Rider to the World’s EndBound across the cinder causewayFrom the furnace to the quarryThrough the fields of oil

And I left you with the sign of the Rider to theWorld’s End

It was not the mark of ZorroWritten sharply on your forehead with a bladeJust a way of not turning up tomorrowAnd of phonecalls never made

My time with you seemed readymade to lastfor always

And so was predestined to be over in a flashFor I am the Rider to the World’s EndBound across the fields of oilThrough the broken-bottle forestTo the plains of ash


It was not the ace of diamondsOr the death’s-head of the Phantom on your

jawJust a suddenly-relaxing set of knucklesNever rapped against a door

You were more thoughtful for and fond of methan I was

And so were precisely what I can never trustFor I am the Rider to the World’s EndBound across the plains of ashesTo the molten-metal valleysIn the hills of dust

CJ: As Fragonard is only one of thepainters to remind us, nothing beats theerotic charge of a beautiful womanreading a book. And nothing dates a lyriclike the mention of a sum of money. Inthose days, ten quid from the bank couldget you out of East Anglia. Today it wouldbarely get you to the Cambridge citylimits. Some things never change,however, and for me “Verlaine” and “train”still rhyme. I speak Australian French. Tantpis.

What did I do yesterday? Well I’ll tell you inbrief

Ten quid from the bank and I got out of townwith relief

And slowly but surely my life came to floweragain

Falling head over heels for a beautiful girl onthe train

She was reading a book, taking in every wordthe man wrote

And there in the margin she made theoccasional note

And I couldn’t deduce why she didn’t onceblink with surprise

As fathom by fathom I gradually drowned inher eyes

But she kept on the job of improving hersingle-track brain

Ploughing steadily onward through obsoleteMonsieur Verlaine

While no further than seven-foot-six from herfabulous mouth

Sat the leading young poetic hope of thewhole planet earth

Well apart from the chance of the driveraccepting a cheque

For crashing his loco so I could be brave inthe wreck

To boldly encounter this creature was not inmy power

And so my heart mended and broke in thecourse of an hour

Well at last we pulled in and as straight as athree-sided knife

She got up and walked like a princess awayfrom my life

And unless she remembers the day she wasreading Verlaine

In a second-class coach on her way throughthe fields in the rain

She won’t know it’s her that I sing to againand again

Again and again

10. Tonight Your Love Is Over 3.22Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitars, piano Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: I think this was quite new when Irecorded it. It has no middle eight, and Imust have thought it needed one, so I putan instrumental one in anyway. There’sanother questionable French/English rhymehere – at any rate it’s questionable if likemine your English accent is not old-fashioned posh, or your French accentdoesn’t have a Liverpudlian twang.12 17


16 13

So now apart from some rathersuperfluous detail whichdoubtless will seem to you obvious, hardly worth saying

The story’s over in its basicessentials – the rest is merelyoverlaying

What you can see for yourself quiteeasily although I would just like tomention the thing on the frontthat always comes in handywhen you want to catch cows

9. Girl On The Train 2.54Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pmsession, 31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums Nick Harrison – stringarrangement

PA: This is the other track thatKenny Everett latched on to.Clive says that the events itdescribes (or a version of them –they do seem to recur) occurredon the Cambridge-to-Oxfordtrain, a service that no longerruns, and that the girl was in fact readingLamartine and not Verlaine, a change madefor the sake of the rhyme. Sadly, assomeone pointed out on the MidnightVoices forum at www.peteatkin.com,‘Verlaine’ doesn’t strictly rhyme with ‘train’either.

The three-sided knife also came in forquite a bit of discussion on the same forum.It turns out to be a particularly nasty kind ofstiletto, the blade having a cross-sectionlike a three-pointed star so that it’s lesslikely to be deflected by anything at all onits way to its target, presumably the heart.

7. The Luck Of The Draw 1.26Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: Long playing records offered thedangerous possibility of filling an entire sidewith just one track, but they had oneincidental and slightly paradoxical benefit inalso offering possibility of writing shortsongs, or at any rate shorter than theconventional three-minute single-length. Myattention was caught early on by some ofRodgers and Hart’s smaller songs – SheWas Too Good To Me, Wait Till You SeeHer, Glad To Be Unhappy – and it’s goodnot to have to stretch an idea beyond itsnatural length. We’ve always had a bit of asoft spot for our ‘littlies’.

CJ: Not a single image in this one: just astraight-out complaint. For a poet whoassembles most of his poems out ofpictorial imagery, it’s sometimes a usefulexercise to write a poem that’s allargument. But I can remember putting inthe “bad patch” as I might have snaffled aninteresting pebble from a strange beach,which was indeed the case. It’s Britishslang, not Australian. I was still gettingacclimatised, which for a writer is just asmuch a matter of using his ears as usinghis eyes.

I once always finished aheadI got what I wanted and more

I went on so long without losingI suppose it’s the luck of the draw

I got what I wanted beforeI was used to the runaway winsAnd that makes it hard to put up withWhen at long last the bad patch begins

And it had to be the one that Who didn’t want to know And I wonder if all the others were the same But didn’t show

I once always finished aheadI got what I wanted and moreSo long as I did the choosingI suppose it’s the luck of the draw

8. The Original OriginalHonky Tonk Night TrainBlues 2.20Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, piano Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: I had a phase of being fascinated bythe way the likes of Jon Hendricks, KingPleasure, and Eddie Jefferson, for instance,were writing hip lyrics to improvised jazzsolos, and I foolishly wondered if I might beable to do the same thing for Meade LuxLewis’s Honky Tonk Train Blues. As you’llhear if you check this against the original, Ikind of ran out of (ahem) steam after abouteight bars of what was in any case a fairlyapproximate attempt. But not wanting towaste those eight bars, I filled out the rest

16 13


14 15

14 15

That are surrounded by water in the boiler tilleventually it moves

On down the engine’s aorta out to the funnelwhere the cloud of smoke exudes

And now the hot air in the tubes has madethe water in the boiler turn to steam- hot hot hot

The steam also rises and collects inside thatlarge symbolic dome at the top top top

But if you think that now the steam is just ashot as it is gonna get you’re wrong ‘cause it’s not not not

Because this is where the driver opens up theregulator valve handle

The steam becomes alive again and goesback through the boiler or can

Which I call it only ‘cause I’ve a shortage ofrhymes ending in -an

So having been through the superheatertubes the steam is hotter than ever it was before the heat is more you may be

sure the steam nowPasses on into the piston cylinder and pushes

the piston for-Wards and backwards by means of valves

which reciprocate in alternationAccording to simple mechanical lawThe piston then pushes connecting rods fixed

to the wheelsThat are set on the railsBut that’s not the end of the story ‘cause then

all that steamAs you will have seenIs blown out as exhaust through the funnel

whence it can expireThereby increasing the draught of the fire

of the lyric with steam engineeringknowledge which I did not possess butderived from a cutaway drawing inOdhams’ Modern Encyclopaedia forChildren, and finished the song withmusical ideas nicked from just about everytrain blues there’s ever been. I have beentold condescendingly by some unnervinglyfriendly steam engine enthusiasts that,apart obviously from some lamentableanthropomorphism, the song is surprisinglyaccurate.

CJ: Pete used to pull in the walls of theFootlights clubroom with this one, andwhen people came up to me afterwardsto congratulate me on the intricacy of thelyric I had to tell them that the wordswere his as well. I did so through grittedteeth, so the message might sometimeshave failed in transmission. But honestly,I tried.

I’m the original honky tonk trainI’m the one that you see when you’re

watching a westernThat’s me chugging byOf the ones that you see in the films I’m the

best ‘unI’ll tell you why‘Cause no other loco can ever compareWith the places I’ve been ‘cause I’ve been

everywhereAnd I never once stopped for a moment of

restin’

And if my fire’s burning properly the hot airoughta

Rise and go along a lot of tubes


16 13

So now apart from some rathersuperfluous detail whichdoubtless will seem to you obvious, hardly worth saying

The story’s over in its basicessentials – the rest is merelyoverlaying

What you can see for yourself quiteeasily although I would just like tomention the thing on the frontthat always comes in handywhen you want to catch cows

9. Girl On The Train 2.54Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pmsession, 31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums Nick Harrison – stringarrangement

PA: This is the other track thatKenny Everett latched on to.Clive says that the events itdescribes (or a version of them –they do seem to recur) occurredon the Cambridge-to-Oxfordtrain, a service that no longerruns, and that the girl was in fact readingLamartine and not Verlaine, a change madefor the sake of the rhyme. Sadly, assomeone pointed out on the MidnightVoices forum at www.peteatkin.com,‘Verlaine’ doesn’t strictly rhyme with ‘train’either.

The three-sided knife also came in forquite a bit of discussion on the same forum.It turns out to be a particularly nasty kind ofstiletto, the blade having a cross-sectionlike a three-pointed star so that it’s lesslikely to be deflected by anything at all onits way to its target, presumably the heart.

7. The Luck Of The Draw 1.26Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: Long playing records offered thedangerous possibility of filling an entire sidewith just one track, but they had oneincidental and slightly paradoxical benefit inalso offering possibility of writing shortsongs, or at any rate shorter than theconventional three-minute single-length. Myattention was caught early on by some ofRodgers and Hart’s smaller songs – SheWas Too Good To Me, Wait Till You SeeHer, Glad To Be Unhappy – and it’s goodnot to have to stretch an idea beyond itsnatural length. We’ve always had a bit of asoft spot for our ‘littlies’.

CJ: Not a single image in this one: just astraight-out complaint. For a poet whoassembles most of his poems out ofpictorial imagery, it’s sometimes a usefulexercise to write a poem that’s allargument. But I can remember putting inthe “bad patch” as I might have snaffled aninteresting pebble from a strange beach,which was indeed the case. It’s Britishslang, not Australian. I was still gettingacclimatised, which for a writer is just asmuch a matter of using his ears as usinghis eyes.

I once always finished aheadI got what I wanted and more

I went on so long without losingI suppose it’s the luck of the draw

I got what I wanted beforeI was used to the runaway winsAnd that makes it hard to put up withWhen at long last the bad patch begins

And it had to be the one that Who didn’t want to know And I wonder if all the others were the same But didn’t show

I once always finished aheadI got what I wanted and moreSo long as I did the choosingI suppose it’s the luck of the draw

8. The Original OriginalHonky Tonk Night TrainBlues 2.20Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, piano Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: I had a phase of being fascinated bythe way the likes of Jon Hendricks, KingPleasure, and Eddie Jefferson, for instance,were writing hip lyrics to improvised jazzsolos, and I foolishly wondered if I might beable to do the same thing for Meade LuxLewis’s Honky Tonk Train Blues. As you’llhear if you check this against the original, Ikind of ran out of (ahem) steam after abouteight bars of what was in any case a fairlyapproximate attempt. But not wanting towaste those eight bars, I filled out the rest

16 13


12 17

6. The Rider To The World ’sEnd 3.36Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums Nick Harrison – string arrangement

PA: I remember specifically asking NickHarrison to go all-out on the Bartok-likediscords in the strings, and hisarrangement is still one of my favouritethings on the record. It really gets the mostout of having two cellos in the quartet.

CJ: Justice demands that I attribute thetitle line to the Australian poet LexBanning. Lex suffered from such a terriblecase of cerebral palsy that he could speakonly with difficulty, but he made everyword count. He was a searing wit. Amaster of linguistic compression, he wrotebeautifully chiselled verses. I first read hispoem “The Rider to the World’s End” in alittle pamphlet of his called Every Man HisOwn Hamlet, back in Sydney in the late1950s, and I never forgot it. Born in 1921,he died in 1966, only a few years after Iarrived in London, but his great spirit isstill with me. I often wonder what hewould have thought of this song, andhope he would have admired the melodyso much that he would have forgiven methe theft.

You simply mustn’t blame yourself – the dayswere perfect

And so were exactly what I was born to spoilFor I am the Rider to the World’s EndBound across the cinder causewayFrom the furnace to the quarryThrough the fields of oil


It was not the mark of ZorroWritten sharply on your forehead with a bladeJust a way of not turning up tomorrowAnd of phonecalls never made

My time with you seemed readymade to lastfor always

And so was predestined to be over in a flashFor I am the Rider to the World’s EndBound across the fields of oilThrough the broken-bottle forestTo the plains of ash


It was not the ace of diamondsOr the death’s-head of the Phantom on your

jawJust a suddenly-relaxing set of knucklesNever rapped against a door

You were more thoughtful for and fond of methan I was

And so were precisely what I can never trustFor I am the Rider to the World’s EndBound across the plains of ashesTo the molten-metal valleysIn the hills of dust

CJ: As Fragonard is only one of thepainters to remind us, nothing beats theerotic charge of a beautiful womanreading a book. And nothing dates a lyriclike the mention of a sum of money. Inthose days, ten quid from the bank couldget you out of East Anglia. Today it wouldbarely get you to the Cambridge citylimits. Some things never change,however, and for me “Verlaine” and “train”still rhyme. I speak Australian French. Tantpis.

What did I do yesterday? Well I’ll tell you inbrief

Ten quid from the bank and I got out of townwith relief

And slowly but surely my life came to floweragain

Falling head over heels for a beautiful girl onthe train

She was reading a book, taking in every wordthe man wrote

And there in the margin she made theoccasional note

And I couldn’t deduce why she didn’t onceblink with surprise

As fathom by fathom I gradually drowned inher eyes

But she kept on the job of improving hersingle-track brain

Ploughing steadily onward through obsoleteMonsieur Verlaine

While no further than seven-foot-six from herfabulous mouth

Sat the leading young poetic hope of thewhole planet earth

Well apart from the chance of the driveraccepting a cheque

For crashing his loco so I could be brave inthe wreck

To boldly encounter this creature was not inmy power

And so my heart mended and broke in thecourse of an hour

Well at last we pulled in and as straight as athree-sided knife

She got up and walked like a princess awayfrom my life

And unless she remembers the day she wasreading Verlaine

In a second-class coach on her way throughthe fields in the rain

She won’t know it’s her that I sing to againand again

Again and again

10. Tonight Your Love Is Over 3.22Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitars, piano Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: I think this was quite new when Irecorded it. It has no middle eight, and Imust have thought it needed one, so I putan instrumental one in anyway. There’sanother questionable French/English rhymehere – at any rate it’s questionable if likemine your English accent is not old-fashioned posh, or your French accentdoesn’t have a Liverpudlian twang.12 17


18 11

CJ: “The clouded ruins of a God” oncebelonged to Hazlitt, and the idea of thesilver coins envying the Moon wassomething I lifted from Federico GarciaLorca, whose poetry briefly convinced methat surrealism might be something I shouldtry. It didn’t suit me, however, and I soonreverted to making straight connections if Icould. But in that brief period of intoxicationI took the lure of the music as an excuse toget weird. The smoke of exotic substanceswas not involved. Not yet, anyway.

Tonight your love is overTomorrow it will all be put awayLike the clouded ruins of a godA pharoah put aside against a rainy dayAnd your silent eyes are cryingThat tomorrow is to be so very soonThe silver coins in your pocket are sighingFor envy of the moon

Tonight the high times finishTomorrow sends you both back to square oneLike a burning moth you kind of wishYou could have settled down into a longer runAnd your silent eyes are cryingThat the daytime has already half begunThe stars outshone in the east are dyingOf envy for the sun

Tonight your love is overTomorrow it will all be as you wereLike a captain broken in the fieldCe n’est pas magnifique, mais c’est la guerreAnd your silent eyes are cryingThat tomorrow is to be so very soonThe silver coins in your pocket are sighingFor envy of the moon

11. You Can’t Expect To BeRemembered 3.19Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: Clive and I had both immersedourselves in the great Ella FitzgeraldSongbooks, where she sings many of theless-well-known verses to the well-knownchoruses of the greatest twentieth centurysongs. These verses were mostly written, inthe context of a musical stage show, as anout-of-tempo scene-setting introduction tothe song itself. We always liked the flexible,conversational nature of them. This wasone of our first attempts in the form. And itwasn’t the last time Clive would cut andpaste a whole chunk of out-of-copyrightShakespeare.

CJ: Quite apart from the songs thatdecorate the plays, the blank verse alonewould be enough to tell us thatShakespeare’s language was intimatelyconnected with music. It’s a subject I findendlessly fascinating, but betterexperienced than talked about. Listen toGielgud performing in “Prospero’s Books”on YouTube (via a short essay by me on thesubject, the clip can be reached throughthe Video Finds/Actors section of mywebsite clivejames.com) and you willrapidly reach the conclusion that he isn’tsaying it: he’s singing it.

SunlightIt’s time to make a move, it’s time to rise and

shineSunriseShaking your shoulder murmurs “Everything

looks fine”And takes your love away

5. Frangipanni Was HerF lower 2.17Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitar, piano Steve Cook – bass

PA: I’ve always liked stories where you’retold everything except the most importantcentral bit of the story, which you have towork out for yourself. A bit like Greektragedy where the action all takes placeoffstage. OK, not that much like Greektragedy. But it is a sad story.

The studio piano had a lever whichlowered little squares of metal between thehammers and the strings to give a honky-tonk effect which I imagined could bethought to sound a bit like a harpsichord.Or not.

CJ: A journalistic staple of the 1960s wasthe story of the well-brought-up young ladyeither going to the bad or cracking upunder the pressure of conformity. It hadalso begun occurring to me that in a lyric I

could use a repetition instead of a rhyme,because Pete would be putting the sameword on different notes. In a poem I hadnever used a repetition, and I still don’ttoday.

Frangipanni was her flowerAnd amethyst her birthday stoneThe fairest blossom of the bowerShe wasn’t born to be aloneAnd now she was terribly alone

A Ford Cortina was the carEleven thirty-five the hourThe squeak of gravel in the driveLeft the damsel in the towerPondering her vanished power

Always, everything had gone so wellHer dolls had been the bestShe was better than the restAlways, everything had gone so wellThe world at her behestHad fed her from the breast

Always, everything had gone so wellShe was married all in whiteTo a lad serenely triteAlways, everything had gone so wellAnd on her wedding nightThings had more or less gone right

By fairest fortune she was kissedFrangipanni was her bloomA silver spoon was in her fistUpon emerging from the wombTonight she wrecked the room

18 11


10 19

Have you got a Biro I can borrow?I’d like to write your nameFrom the belt of Orion to the share of the

PloughThe snout of the Bear to the belly of the LionSo when the sun goes down tomorrowThere’ll never be a minuteNot a moment of the night that hasn’t got you

in it

4. Sunrise 2.18Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: Most of our songs tend to start fromthe words – or from some words, at anyrate – but this one definitely started fromthe first bit of the tune, which I wasworrying away at on the Footlights pianoone day when Clive came up and asked“What’s that?”, just like June Allyson in TheGlenn Miller Story. Well, maybe not justlike June Allyson. The lyric arrived later thatsame afternoon, I think.

CJ: I nicked the “unruly sun” from JohnDonne, whose lawyers have not yet been intouch.

For me, this little lyric was a large initialstep, because I took the opportunity, as Iwould never have done in a poem, to makea whole line out of two syllables. Thewriting isn’t very pictorial – it picks up onstandard conversational phrases ratherthan offering images – but I was quitepleased with the horses. Usually I like to

avoid the standard classical tool-box (whatPhilip Larkin called “the myth-kitty”) but Ihad always liked those horses that draggedPhaeton’s chariot up out of the ocean. Theywere a handful, so maybe the narrator isnot quite the cool hand that he pretends tobe.

SunlightA razzle-dazzle kind of glamour in the skyNo moreThan just the glimmer of a star nearby and

bright

I’ve seen it turn the trick a thousand timesAnd send the millions wild with joyWhereas for me it’s just a toyThat flying horses dragged up from the sea

SunriseHow little thought it takes, how little time it

leavesNot longBefore she wakes to dress and then she

leaves your eyes

For very soon the sun will come for herAnd it will carry her from youIt’s seen too many men like youTo care how soon it chooses to arise

SunshineAlready seems as if it’s moving in to staySmilingThe wide and steady smile that says “The day

is mine”

How many clever men have called the sunA fool before today“O unruly sun” they say“For stepping in to take my love away”

The bards of old were bold about their claimsupon posterity

Petrarch, Shakespeare and Ronsard werenever slow to guarantee

Their loved ones’ immortalityThey never said Farewell, they said So long So long lives this and this gives life to theeThey didn’t doubt the power of a rhymeOr the durability of scribbled pagesAnd so they wrote immortal lines to TimeThat gave their love affairs to all the ages

And if eternity were still a good addressAnd if my skill were greater, fears were lessI’d do the same for you, my dearBut since it isn’t and they aren’tI can’t see my way clearTo promising the permanence of all our joy

and sorrowVery far beyond the early evening of

tomorrow

You can’t expect to beRemembered like somebody in a songWhose name fits to a string of quaversOr last for anything like as long

No-one in times to comeWill read your praises written down to stayIn balanced lapidary phrasesNot that they wouldn’t if I knew the way

You’d be thereWith all the ladies of the sonnets, dark and

fairIf only I could work the trickOf giving local habitation to the airBut it just doesn’t seem to click

You’ll never hear from meThat your name will live until the sun is cool

You can’t expect to be rememberedYou wouldn’t catch me being such a fool

12. Laughing Boy 3.31Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums Henry Mackenzie – clarinet

PA: Not the only time where a reference tothe currency is a bit of a giveaway as to theage of a song. (Only slightly more subtly,the landlady would, at the time of writingthis, have to be well into her eleventhdecade at least.) But neither of us isinclined to mess around trying to updatethe lyric. The essence of it seems to holdgood. I still sing it myself, and we often useit as a closer when we take our two-manextravaganza out on the road.

CJ: The landlady really existed. She rentedme her basement bed-sitter in Tufnell ParkRoad, London, in the early 1960s, and shestill had the book with the pressed flowers.She was the one I kept stumbling over inthe dark in my book Falling TowardsEngland.

In all the rooms I’ve hung my hat, in all thetowns I’ve been

It stuns me I’m not dead already from theshambles that I’ve seen

I’ve seen a girl hold back her hair to light acigarette

And things like that a man like me can’t easilyforget

10 19


20 9



A kid once asked me in late September for ashilling for the guy

And I looked that little operator in herwheeling-dealing eye

And I tossed a bob with deep respect in herold man’s trilby hat

It seems to me that a man like me could dieof things like that



I’ve seen landladies who lost their lovers atthe time of Rupert Brooke

And they pressed the flowers from Sundayrambles and then forgot which book

And I paid the rent thinking ‘Anyway, buddy, atleast you won’t get wet’

And I tried the bed and lay there thinking‘They haven’t got you yet’



I’ve read the labels on a hundred bottles foreyes and lips and hair

And I’ve seen girls breathe on their fingernailsand wiggle them in the air

And I’ve often wondered who the hellremembers as far back as last night

It seems to me that a man like me is the onlyone who might

I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure for

life is joyI’m a crying man that everyone calls Laughing

Boy

13. Beware Of The BeautifulStranger 5.23Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar

PA: I’ve probably sung this more often thanany other song we’ve written, and, unlikesome of them, my approach to it today, intempo and rhythm, is hardly any differentfrom this.

Clive and I were walking back to ourbeds at dawn one summer morning justbefore the end of term as the travelling fairwas leaving Midsummer Common. Therewas a small convoy of fortune-tellers’caravans, each bearing its resident expert’sname, and on every single caravan thefamily name was Lee. So that’s how thatone started.

When Clive first handed me this lyric Iwas worried about how I could write a tunethat would both tell the story and bear somuch repetition. I decided to try to come upwith something which didn’t repeat itselfmelodically within each verse, and whichvaried the timing of the lines. At least, I cansee now that that’s what I did.

CJ: Pete used to finish singing this song,walk off into the wings, and never wonderwhy it took the applause so long to dieaway. It didn’t occur to him that he’d giventhe effect of running a four-minute mile in

where the silence is set ascarefully as the words.

The instruction “Tie thebrush into my hands” issomething the film director JeanRenoir heard his father say, whenthe old man was crippled byarthritis but still couldn’t stoppainting. Have you got a Biro I can borrow?I’d like to write your nameOn the palm of my hand, on the

walls of the hallThe roof of the house, right across

the landSo when the sun comes up

tomorrowIt’ll look to this side of the hard-

bitten planetLike a big yellow button with your

name written on it

Have you got a Biro I can borrow?I’d like to write some linesIn praise of your knee, and the

back of your neckAnd the double-decker bus that

brings you to meSo when the sun comes up

tomorrowIt’ll shine on a world made richer by a sonnetAnd a half-dozen epics as long as the Aeneid

Oh give me a pen and some paperGive me a chisel or a cameraA piano and a box of rubber bandsI need room for choreographyAnd a darkroom for photographyTie the brush into my hands

20 9

CJ: The bit about “the belt of Orion” wasone of my first consciously assembledbravura passages in a lyric. Having learnedsomething of what Pete could do, I wasdeliberately testing his capacity to set astring of syllables on single notes. What Ididn’t expect, however, was that he woulduse space so well, as in the last few lines,


8 21

Seeing forgets the sightTouch recollects preciselyEyelids are modest yet blink at a kissTouching takes note of this

When in a later dayLittle of the vision lingersMemory slips awayEvery way but through the fingersTextures come back to you real as

can beMaking you feel time doesn’t healAnd touch has a memory

3. Have You Got A Biro I CanBorrow? 1.58Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pmsession, 1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitar Steve Cook – bass Tony Marsh – drums

PA: Another good example of asong that came into being title-first. It was right there in thelanguage and Clive picked it up.It’s one of our very few cloudlesslove songs, as it has turned out,and it contains some of Clive’smost exuberant rhyming.

We always like to say thatthe BBC banned this becauseof the brand name in the title,but it’s not strictly true. But theyprobably would have banned it ifthey’d ever seriously thought of

high heels just by remembering the thing,let alone having composed it and sung it tohis own guitar accompaniment. I, on theother hand, was always available in thegangway after the show just to field anypraise for the lyric that might be offered. Icounted it among my most ambitious featsof sustained construction, althoughwhether it is really a song lyric is still opento question. Some people thought it was anovel.

On the midsummer fairground alive with thesound

And the lights of the Wurlitzer merry-go-roundThe midway was crowded and I was the manWho coughed up a quid in the dark caravanTo the gypsy who warned him of danger“Beware of the beautiful stranger”

“You got that for nothing” I said with a sighAs the queen’s head went up to her critical

eye“The lady in question is known to me nowAnd I’d like to beware but the problem is howDo you think I was born in a manger?I’m in love with the beautiful stranger”

The gypsy (called Lee as all soothsayers are)Bent low to her globular fragment of star“This woman will utterly screw up your lifeShe will tempt you from home, from your

children and wifeShe’s a devil and nothing will change herGet away from the beautiful stranger”

“That ball needs a re-gun” I said, shelling out“The future you see there has all come aboutDoes it show you the girl as she happens to

be

A Venus made flesh in a shell full of sea?Does it show you the shape of my danger?Can you show me the beautiful stranger?

“I don’t run a cinema here, little manBut lean over close and tune in if you canYou breathe on the glass, give a rub with your

sleeveSlip me your wallet, sit tight and believeAnd the powers-that-be will arrange aPre-release of the beautiful stranger”

In the heart of the glass I saw galaxies bornThe eye of the storm and the light of the

dawnAnd then with a click came a form and a faceThat stunned me not only through candour

and graceBut because she was really a strangerA total and beautiful stranger

“Hello there” she said with her hand to herbrow

I’m the one you’ll meet after the one youknow now

There’s no room inside here to show you usall

But behind me the queue stretches rightdown the hall

For the damned there is always a strangerThere is always a beautiful stranger

“That’s your lot” said Miss Lee as she turnedon the light

“These earrings are hell and I’m through forthe night

If they’d put up a booster not far from thispitch

I could screen you your life to the very lasttwitch8 21

playing it. However, Biro is indeed a brandname, and the publishers took theprecaution of getting permission to includeit in the title. The Biro Corporation okayed itwith the proviso that the name shouldalways be spelled with a capital B.Regulars at my gigs will have spotted that Ialways sing it with a capital B.


22 7

But I can’t even get the Lone RangerOne last word from the beautiful stranger”

“You live in a dream and the dream is a cage”Said the girl “And the bars nestle closer with

ageYour shadow burned white by invisible fireYou will learn how it rankles to die of desireAs you long for the beautiful stranger”Said the vanishing beautiful stranger

“Here’s a wallet for you and five nicker for me”Said the gypsy “And also here’s something for

freeWatch your step on my foldaway stairs getting

downAnd go slow on the flyover back into townThere’s a slight but considerable dangerGive my love to the beautiful stranger”

14. All I Ever Did 1.06Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,2nd April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: Still the shortest song I’ve ever written,I think. It was the Mamas and the Papaswho inspired me to put it last on the album.They had done something similar with thealmost equally diminutive Once Was ATime I Thought.

CJ: Pete did the words for this one and thefluently neat way they went with the musicwas a wake-up call. From then on I tried toleave more opportunity for the music toprogress through my line-endings. Pete’smusical illustration of “off key” might havebeen instigated by that magic moment in

Cole Porter’s “Every Time We SayGoodbye” when the narrator talks about achange from major to minor and the musicmirrors the words. We were both madabout that song, and indeed about thewhole show-tune heritage. During ourworking career together we have drawn onall kinds of musical traditions, but one wayor another we have always given ourregards to Broadway.

All I ever didWhile you were here Was done for youOr so I saidPerhaps through fearThat nothing lessWould make you stay

All I’d ever done Or ever was Meant something newOr so I thoughtPerhaps becauseThe past seemed nightAnd this seemed day

All I’d ever seen was black and whiteAll I’d ever sung was off-keyAll I’d ever spoken sounded triteAnd then with you I was all the things I

wished to be

All I ever didWhile you were here Was done for youNow through my tears I’m asking whyAll you ever said Was goodbye

Allow me to present myself, my ladiesAnd gentlemen of this exalted ageBefore my creatures take the stageFor I am the Master of the RevelsIn what appertains to mirth I am a sage

I work myself to death for each productionAnd though the world’s great wits are all on

fileI have not been known to smileFor I am the Master of the RevelsAnd mastery demands a certain style

In my office hang the blueprintsOf the first exploding handshakeAnd the charted trajectories of custard piesFor Harlequin ten different kinds of

heartbreakFor Columbine the colour of her eyes

Some other windows darken in the eveningAnd never before morning show a lightBut for me there is no nightFor I am the Master of the RevelsThe caller-up and caster-in of devilsAnd I am here for your instruction and delight

2. Touch Has A Memory 2.41Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,31st March 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals Steve Cook – double bass Nick Harrison – string arrangement

PA: This is a good example of a song thatcame into being title-first. The phrase isfrom John Keats. People have often saidthat in practice smell has a much longerand stronger memory than touch, butsomehow Smell Has A Memory as a title

doesn’t immediately get the songwritingjuices flowing.

Nick Harrison had done thearrangement for Julie Covington’s recordingof The Magic Wasn’t There, the first of oursongs to get a commercial recording (alsoproduced by Don Paul). I had speciallyliked the choppy string writing in theinstrumental bit on Julie’s record. The ideato do this song with just strings (probably anick from the Beatles’ Yesterday, if I’mhonest) seemed a good one at the time,but we later always thought the resultingtrack lacked a bit of rhythmic impetus, andwe replaced it on the 1973 RCA reissue ofthe album with Be Careful When TheyOffer You The Moon. I’ve since had achance to re-record it with a completelydifferent rhythmic approach. Take your pick.

CJ: If Proust had been writing the lyric, itwould have been “Taste Has a Memory”and there would have been somethingabout cakes. Keats died young but heseems to have lived long enough to knowquite a lot about sensuality. The undressingscene in “The Eve of St Agnes” is steamystuff. “Her rich attire creeps rustling to herknees.” I tried to get some of that in.

Touch has a memoryBetter than the other sensesHearing and sight fight freeTouching has no defencesTextures come back to you real as can beTouch has a memory

Fine eyes are wide at nightEyelashes show that nicely

22 7


6 23

1. The Master Of The Revels 2.36Recorded during the 10 am – 1 pm session,1st April 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, piano Russell Davies – tuba Tony Marsh – drums Henry Mackenzie – clarinet

PA: This was the first track that KennyEverett picked up on. The lyric tells a sadstory, but I thought that a small-scale,slightly seedy, circus-y bravado was theright pose to adopt. I started by playing thetwo-note tuba phrase andthe tune just kind ofarrived over the top of it,bending and twisting itsway towards a showbizzyending.

There wasn’t muchbudget for additionalmusicians, but I thought Icould get good value outof a clarinet, so Don Paulbooked one for me. Itwas just chance that itturned out to be the greatHenry Mackenzie, who,among many otherthings, had been one ofthe clarinet trio on the Beatles’ When I’mSixty Four. The tuba was a genuineSalvation Army model played by our then-and-still old Footlights chum RussellDavies.

CJ: In the times ofElizabeth I, the Master ofthe Revels was more ofan official censor than atheatrical enabler, but histitle sounded like fun tome, so I went with that.It’s also possible todetect the presence ofMerlin and Prospero:mischief-making

magicians. In my own mind, Pete’ssprightly, perky melody exactly expressesthe personality of a professional jokesmithwho might have been a bit of a strain if youmet him in the tavern.

Bonus Tracks: 15. Be Careful When TheyOffer You The Moon 3.02Recorded at Denmark Street Studios on11th August 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitars, piano,tambourine Brian Odgers – bass guitar Tony Marsh – drums Albert Hall – flugelhorn Russell “Dai” Davies – trombone

PA: Perhaps fortunately, we neverwere offered the moon, literally ormetaphorically, so our worldlywisdom was never put to thepractical test, so the song seems tome to have acquired an almostwistful quality in hindsight. I hadalways loved harmony vocals (BuddyHolly, Everly Brothers) and still do,so a lot of my tunes tend to imply asecond complementary melody line.With the Everly Brothers inparticular, it was often hard to workout which voice was the tune andwhich the harmony, and I think thisone turned out to be a genuine two-partmelody.

It was specially recorded – andreleased, what’s more – as a single. I haveno memory at all of where the idea to usebrass on it came from, but I enjoyed writingthe arrangement. It was the first ‘serious’arranging I’d done, apart from the Henry

Mackenzie clarinet, and some rudimentaryattempts for Footlights shows (bluffing allthe way). I’m afraid I remember flatteringmyself that the little answering flugelhornfigure at the end was almost BixBeiderbecke-like, which probably means Istole it. 6 23

Compilation album (1977)


24 5

CJ: The Moon was still a destination inthose days. Nobody ever gave it a moreenchanting mention than Joni Mitchell withher line about “the face of the conqueredMoon”, but I was quite pleased with mycolourless and dusty ball of holes. Therewere plenty of rock stars who handledsuccess well: they were the ones you rarelyread about. But it can’t be denied that, fromthe stories in the press, sudden famelooked fatal. The bodies were already pilingup. We would have quite liked to run therisk, however, so essentially this lyric is anexercise in blatant hypocrisy. Luckily Petelightened it up with the music.

Be careful when they offer you the moonIt gives a cold lightIt was only ever made to light the nightYou can freeze your fingers handling the

moon

Be careful when they offer you the moonIt’s built for dead soulsIt’s a colourless and dusty ball of holesYou can break an ankle dancing on the moon

When you take the moon you kiss the worldgoodbye

For a chance to lord it over lonelinessAnd a quarter-million miles down the skyThey’ll watch you shining more but weighing

less

So be careful when they offer you the moonIt’s only dream stuffIt’s a Tin Pan Alley prop held up by bluffAnd nobody breathes easy on the moonNobody breathes easy on the moonCount to ten when they offer you the moon

16. A Man Who's BeenAround 3.49Recorded at Denmark Street Studios on 11thAugust 1970 Pete Atkin – vocals, guitars, piano,tambourine Brian Odgers – bass guitar Tony Marsh – drums Albert Hall – flugelhorn Russell “Dai” Davies – trombone

PA: The plan was always to put Master ofthe Revels on the B-side of the Be CarefulWhen They Offer You The Moon single, soI took the opportunity of some studio time toput down a ‘proper’ version of this song, whichClive and I fondly believed was eminentlycoverable, as a kind of alternative or antidoteto My Way and the like. We played it to oneof the publisher’s executives, suggestingone particular eminent singer for whom wethought it would be hugely suitable, and theexecutive replied “Yes, I’ll get that to he.”Clive and I looked at each other with thesame sad thought going through our minds.

CJ: That same executive wasunderstandably a bit puzzled by themention of Baudelaire. He had a long facewhich a look of incomprehension took timeto cover, but eventually there was nothingbetween his hairline and his chin that didnot send a signal of polite bafflement. Mindyou, the singer we had in mind wouldprobably have been puzzled too. If I’d hadmy wits about me, I would have substitutedsomething simpler. The fault was mine.

didn’t, that I’d still be singing a lot of thesesongs nearly forty years later. But they dostill seem to work. Listening again now tomy twentysomething self singing them,there’s a lot that I’d do differently, ofcourse. In fact my luck has held out to thepoint where I have indeed been able to dosome of these things differently [onMidnight Voices: the Clive James-PeteAtkin Songbook Volume One (HillsideCDHILL08) 2008], but that’s not in anyway to disown what I did back then. I can’tbut feel affectionately for these recordings– almost as affectionately as I feel foranyone who supported us then andanyone who may remember them now.

CJ: False modesty can be a usefulrhetorical device but Pete has alwayssuffered from genuine modesty, whichsometimes has the effect of minimising thefacts. Some of the songs that got “shoe-horned” into Footlights revues were widelyrecognized in Cambridge as the mostinteresting things in the show, and whenMaggie Henderson sang “If I had My TimeAgain” in one of our revues on theEdinburgh Fringe, Harold Hobson, theeminent critic of the Sunday Times, called itthe highlight of the entire Festival. Pete wasthus recognized, by discerning listeners, asan important songwriter from the jump: afact which, speaking as one who had ashare in his work, I would like, in allmodesty, to have recorded here.

The problem, of course, was abouthow to increase the number of discerning

listeners. The problem might have beensolved more easily if the record companieshad known how to classify what Pete wasup to. In the record stores, Beware Of TheBeautiful Stranger tended to be put in theFolk bin by default. It was the first sign of adilemma that would trouble us for adecade.

Pete Atkin and Clive James,November/December 2008

24 5


4 25

beyond just being a collection of singles,that I truly don’t think we ever gave amoment’s consideration to writing in anyparticular style or idiom. The song was thething. It still is. But we did imagine oursongs being sung famously by successfulsingers, which is partly what led me toorganise some amateurish recordings ofthem and to assemble a couple of privately-pressed LPs. The idea was to sell enoughof them to unwitting friends andacquaintances to cover the costs and usethe rest as demos. It didn’t exactly work,mainly because the music business wasalready changing, and most recordingartists, increasingly aware of the financialbenefit of writing their own songs, wereless and less likely to be looking for newsongs from the likes of us.

Nevertheless, the demo LPs did leadus in late 1969 to the publishers EssexMusic, where David Platz took us on andadvanced me fifty quid so I could at leastspend Christmas in some shoes that didn’tleak (sorry, but that’s true). More than that,he stumped up for some proper studiosessions to record some of the songs. Andthose, amazingly, are the recordings youhave here.

David put me together with theproducer Don Paul, who had been amember of the hitmaking vocal group theViscounts. I still vividly remember thesessions in the little basement studio (thewhole building now long gone) across thestreet from what’s now the entrance toUniversity College Hospital’s A&E

department, just off the Tottenham CourtRoad in London.

Don happened to be a mate of KennyEverett, at that time the most famous andinfluential DJ in the land with his Saturdaymorning show on BBC Radio 1. Donplayed him a couple of the tracks, and hereacted in a way we might have dreamedof. He played them on his show severalweeks running. That was enough toconvince Don and David that they might beable to get a commercial release for them,which they did. Easy when you just say itlike that.

And so I became a recording artist,which hadn’t originally been the idea at all,not even a dream, to be honest. It was onlyafter the album was released on Fontanathat I set about doing the rounds of the folkclubs – there were even more of them thenthan there are comedy clubs now – to try toget a performing career under way.

At that critical point Kenny, man of thebest possible taste and my de factosponsor, notoriously got himself sacked bythe BBC for what was considered in thosedays to be an inexcusable and intolerablejoke, something to do with the Minister ofTransport’s wife having just passed herdriving test. Ah well. Although the albumdidn’t, as they used to say, trouble thecharts, it did pretty well really, perhapspartly because it didn’t sound much likeanything else. It might have done evenbetter, but the trouble was it didn’t soundmuch like anything else.

I could never have guessed, and

I’ve drunk the wines of life to the lees I knew the signs of life when they were trees I’ve seen it all as near as dammitRun the gauntlet and the gamutYou’re looking at a man who’s been around

I’ve hailed the kind, the true and the rareI’ve sailed to find the new like BaudelaireI’ve done the mad thing and the fun thingDone it all except the done thingYou’re smiling at a man who’s been around

So a kid like you is nothing new to meHowever pleased I seem to be to see youHowever keen I seem to be to please youDon’t kid yourself you mean a thing to me

I’ve seen the blazing young hit the topI’ve heard their praises sung and then they

flop I’ve seen the weeping and the laughterNever needed looking after You’re staring at a man who’s beenThrough this before, get what I mean?You’re dealing with a man who’s been around

So a kid like you is nothing new to meHowever pleased I seem to be to see youHowever keen I seem to be to please you Don’t kid yourself you mean a thing to meYou’re dealing with a man who’s been around

I’ve watched a million things come to passI’ve watched a string of kings put out to grassI’ve made the good scene and the bad sceneI’ve even sung the mad sceneYou’re smiling at a man who’s beenThrough the fat times and the leanYou’re dealing with a man who’s been aroundRun the gauntlet and the gamut

Bonus Demos: Recorded at City of London Recording Studio,Osborn Street, London EC1 on 3rd February1969, except ‘Biro’ recorded on 7th August1968. Pete Atkin – vocal, guitar Steve Cook – bass

PA: These tracks are all taken from thesecond LP I had had privately pressed fromsome demos we’d made, and which wecalled The Party’s Moving On. There werejust 99 of them, and they had labels printedby state-of-the-art technology andindividually stuck on to the front and backof their white cardboard covers. (If youmade a hundred or more you became liableto Purchase Tax, the predecessor of VAT,which would have made the entireoperation economically unrealistic). Inumbered all the discs and kept a note ofwhich numbered copy each person boughtor was sent, and then I lost the list. Onecopy came up on Ebay a year or two agoand I’m sorry, or perhaps pleased, that Idon’t know whose copy it originally was.Anyway, it fetched what seemed to me anastonishing amount of money, but that’salmost certainly because of the presenceon half the songs of Julie Covington’sbreathtakingly beautiful singing.

I was blissfully unaware at the timethat this recording project would turn out tobe probably my most commercially effectiveever. And indeed I suppose it worked wellenough since it gave us somethingreasonably serious-looking to tout around

4 25


26 3

music publishers, and that led us to EssexMusic, and that led us to …. (see above).

The bass is by our stalwart Footlightschum Steve Cook, who went on to play onBeware Of The Beautiful Stranger, asyou’ll have spotted already, and then towork in far more distinguished company,not least that of the great Mike Westbrook.

In spite of having been recorded in aproper studio, the quality of these tracks isless than terrific, I’m afraid, mostly becausethe original reel-to-reel tapes disappeared along time ago and these copies have beentaken from one of the very few vinyl copies Ican still lay hands on.

CJ: The second cardboard-covered limitededition album The Party’s Moving On wascertainly a technical advance over the first,While The Music Lasts, which, as I recall,was recorded in a college room withblankets hung up for sound control. I alwaysthought of them as the cardboard albums,and since they contain more than a few earlyfumbles by me I’m rather glad they were nevergenerally available. But the people whobought them loved them, and the soaringEbay prices probably reflect the desire ofsuccessful but ageing executives who worethem out over the course of years to getback to a time of happy student poverty.

My wife treasured a set of thecardboard albums and after I, typically,frittered my copies away, I borrowed herset in order to answer a request fromLondon Weekend Television, who duly setup a little TV series called The Party’sMoving On in which Pete and Julie both

performed. LWT never returned the albumsand my wife has reminded me of this fact atleast once a week for almost four decades.She liked me as a struggling young artist,and even today is apt to point out that Petedid a better job of maintaining his initialblazing integrity than I ever did. From thatangle, the cardboard albums aren’t justkeepsakes, they’re an ur-text, the holytablets. They certainly weren’t tainted bythe deadly touch of Mammon. Pete mightbe right that they made more money,weight for weight, than any of the latercommercial albums, but how much is morethan nothing? God, it was fun, though.

17. Have You Got A Biro ICan Borrow? 1.47

18. Touch Has A Memory 1.35

19. Sunrise 2.23

20. The Luck Of The Draw 1.27

21. Girl On The Train 2.45

22. You Can’t Expect To BeRemembered 3.13

23. Laughing Boy 2.20

24. All I Ever Did 0.49

All songs published by Onward Music Ltd,except tracks 1, 2, 10, 11, 18 and 22published by Westminster Music Ltd.

PA: Clive and I wrote these songs in thelate 1960s, but it would be a mistake to tryto find within them traces of the Summer ofLove, mind-expanding drugs, CarnabyStreet, revolution in the air, and what haveyou. For most people at the time – certainlyfor us – most of that was happeningsomewhere else (most especially CarnabyStreet). Except for the one thing that didget through to just about everyone: themusic.

It was in any case a lucky time for me. Iwas a lucky, naive eleven-plus grammar-school boy who found himself waking up ina university that contained morepossibilities than I could have imagined. Itwas lucky too that the most popular musicof the day happened also to be the bestmusic then being made. I was additionallylucky that my college record library waswell stocked with the best of classic jazz,blues, and Tin Pan Alley, and I was fillingmy head up with all of it to the shamefulexclusion of almost everything else. Theclinching bit of good luck was somehow tojoin the Cambridge Footlights and then tohook up with Clive.

The Footlights was a revue club(nowadays I suppose you’d call it a comedyclub) which put on shows for members anda big annual public show at the ArtsTheatre, as well as ad hoc cabarets aroundthe place. It was – and still is – famously atraining ground for many who have gone into show business in one or other of itsforms. The list is long, illustrious, and easyto find. In those days it had the crucial use

of a clubroom, destroyed in a bout of civicvandalism in the seventies – a long, narrow,seedy, threadbare first-floor room with atiny stage at one end and, most importantfor me, a piano. We had access to thisroom pretty much any time we wanted, andit became a workshop, a second home.Actually, it became a first home.

As a teenager I had taught myself toplay piano a bit by picking out tunes –sorry, ‘hits’ – in the right hand and‘strumming’ chords with the left. In college,without a piano handy, I started to playacoustic guitar, but I still felt more at homeon the piano.

I’d sung a few of my own silly songs atFootlights smoking concerts, and one dayClive simply handed me a lyric and said“Hey, sport, do you think you can doanything with this?” I really don’t rememberwhich lyric that was, but we soon startedturning out songs at a fair old rate and used(abused, some might say) our privilegedposition to shoehorn some of them intoFootlights shows. Songs – straight songs,at any rate – weren’t a big part of what theclub usually did, but we had little or noother idea of what we might do with them.

An additional stimulus to writing –specifically to writing songs from a femalepoint of view – was the presence in theclub of both Julie Covington and MaggieHenderson, the singing of either one ofwhom would have been inspiration enough.

Those days – 1967, ’68, ’69 – were sofull of music of so many kinds, with the LPstarting to establish an identity of its own

26 3


2 27

Beware Of The BeautifulStranger Fontana 6309 011, 1970. Re-issued on RCASF 8387 in 1973 in a re-designed sleeve with“Touch Has A Memory” replaced by “BeCareful When They Offer You The Moon”, andwith “Sunrise” as the second song.

Arranged by Pete AtkinStrings arranged by Nick Harrison Produced by Don Paul Engineered by Tom Allom Recorded at Regent Sound A, TottenhamStreet, London W1, on 31st March and 1st & 2nd April 1970 Mixed between 2 pm and 6 pm on 2nd April 1970 “Be Careful When They Offer You TheMoon” and “A Man Who’s Been Around”were recorded at Tin Pan Alley Studio,Denmark Street on 11th August 1970

Credits – British Rail, Arthur Guinness,William Hazlitt, John Keats, Meade LuxLewis, Garcia Lorca, Odham’s JuniorEncyclopaedia, Auguste Renoir, WilliamShakespeare and Duke Ellington (therenever was another).

Hair by Robaire of MayfairPhotographed on location at PuttendenManor, Edenbridge Type design by Sandy Field Designed and photographed by Keef

2

Lyrics – Clive JamesMusic (and lyrics to ‘Honky Tonk Train’ and‘All I Ever Did’) – Pete Atkin

Pete Atkin – vocals, guitars, piano Steve Cook – double bass Tony Marsh – drums Henry Mackenzie – clarinet Russell “Dai” Davies – tuba (Salvation Army Class A No. 4521, motto ‘Blood and fire’)

Project co-ordination – Val Jennings CD package – Jools at Mac Concept CD mastering – Alchemy Ephemera courtesy of the collections of Pete Atkin and Clive JamesCD front cover main photo and strapline photo –Sophie BakerHuge thanks – Pete Atkin, Clive James, SimonPlatz, Steve Birkill, Ronen Guhaand Caroline Cook

For everything (and we mean everything) relating toPete Atkin’s works, visit www.peteatkin.com, butmake sure you’ve got plenty of time to spend! Then of course, you’ll want to visitwww.clivejames.com

Pete Atkin’s albums on the Edsel label: Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger…plus[EDSS 1029] Driving Through Mythical America[EDSS 1030] A King At Nightfall…plus + The Road Of Silk [2 CD] [EDSD 2028] Secret Drinker + Live Libel[2 CD] [EDSD 2029]

Visit www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk for the Edsel catalogue and the many other fine labels that make up the Demon Music Group.

Tracks 1 – 16 licensed by Fly Records. Fly Records is adivision of Onward Music Ltd. p 2009 Onward Music Ltdunder licence to Demon Music Group Ltd. © 2009Onward Music Ltd/Demon Music Group Ltd. Tracks 17 – 24 issued under licence from Pete Atkin. Tracks 17 – 24 p & © 1969 Pete Atkin. Marketed by EdselRecords, a division of the Demon Music Group Ltd,London, W1W 7TL. The Demon Music Group is a 2 entertain company. Manufactured in the EU.


128

The Songs Of PETE ATKIN & CLIVE JAMESEDSS 1029


EDSS 1029 PA BOTBS booklet 6/1/09 17:38 Page 2 · Music (and lyrics to ‘Honky Tonk Train’ and...

Documents

Transcript of EDSS 1029 PA BOTBS booklet 6/1/09 17:38 Page 2 · Music (and lyrics to ‘Honky Tonk Train’ and...