http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-wekAq-s34The jaunty string arrangement is perhaps the key; that and Colin Blunstone's voice, a rare combination of lightly smoked restraint and soaring to whatever part of the stratosphere helium exists more plentifully in. Another in a long-ish line of English choirboys gone off the rails.
The song has a polite charm and, although I don't think there's anything specifically Edwardian about it, in spite the formality of those strings, you kind of get the feeling that this is a song that might be sung by a chap in flannel bags and striped blazer while luckier fellows chink tea cups and promenade their best girl fol-de-rol of a sunday afternoon.
On paper the lyrics look pretty daffy:
"I realise that I've been in your eyes
Some kind of fool..."
To take just the opening two lines... I realise that I've been in your eyes somekind of tortured grammatical inversion, but there's poetic licence for you. Anyway, in the context of the music it sits comfortably, so what the heck. In my experience it rarely pays to look at song lyrics on the page, or scrutinise them for much in the way of profundity of meaning, as in all genres including the most highfalutin, they're really apt to seem a bit drippy out of context. There are however some fine phrases to conjure with, and the odd cracking line that it might pay one to recall at those times when a bon mot would be just the thing you're looking for. Here for instance I rather like, "What I did, stupid fish, I drank the pool." Well, I'm sure we all know that feeling.
The song came from Colin Blunstones' 1971 album "One Year", and was written by Denny Laine. This was Blunstones' debut outing as a solo performer, he'd formerly been singer with 1960s exciting new English beat comb, The Zombies.
No comments:
Post a Comment