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Here we go again… I always find myself in great difficulty starting to talk about a record that was made when I wasn't even in the future plans of my parents, who hadn't even gotten married yet. They would do that later, at the end of August 1968… which unbeknownst to them, would be the sublimation of the Season of Love… but that's another story, let's get back to us.
The London quartet Ingoes (dedicated since 1964 to wild R&B) caught the attention of Giorgio Gomelsky (producer, among others, of the Yardbirds… !) who decided to sign them to his newly born label, Marmalade. Engaged in a series of brief tours, including one in Paris and its surroundings, the four returned home and after deciding to change their name, seemingly on Gomelsky's “advice,” to Blossom Toes (Flower Clogs… and excuse the psychedelic-hippy vibe) they entered the studio to begin recording what would become one of the absolute masterpieces of English psychedelia.
“We Are Ever So Clean” is the sick fruit of the deviant fantasy of bassist Brian Belshaw and guitarist Brian Goodding, both also engaged in crafting the lyrics of the tracks (a fabulous intertwining of childish litanies in pure Barrett style with the skewed melodies of the best Lennon); while the other guitarist Jim Cregan, even if much more technically gifted, would never manage to free himself from his blues-man setup and let himself slide into the multiform vortex.
The record would see the light in November 1967, slightly delayed after the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and Floyd’s “The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn,” succeeding in capturing some of their best instances (the tape experiments of the first or the extreme constructions of the latter) yet detaching completely from them, going so far as to ferociously sarcastically paint the bourgeois and respectable English society (the Kinks would only a few months later birth their masterpiece “Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society,” taking on similar themes with the dark humor of Monty Python in the background).
The result is colorful and disorienting, as in the liquid psycho-pop “Look At Me, I'm You” and “Telegram Tuesday” or in the splendid prog cry of “The Intrepid Balloonist’s Handbook Vol. 1”… with the soft melodies of “Love Is” or “Mr. Watchmaker” as a counterbalance; all seasoned with freak orchestrations under a deluge of acid rains, sublime in the absolute masterpiece “The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog,” a track steeped in visions of a lucid delirium; a journey comparable only to that of “Alice In Wonderland,” which only fellow citizens and contemporaries Kaleidoscope (UK) would manage, more smoothly, to render equally convincingly, with their splendid “Tangerine Dream”.
Our men, not content, condensed everything into the final “Track For Speedy Freaks (Or Instant LP Digest)” for all those who didn't have the time or desire to embark on listening to the entire work… hallucinatory.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
12 When The Alarm Clock Rings (02:18)
I'm feeling so upset lately, no one understands me
Look at them play halfway - it's easy to explain it so
When the alarm clock rings
You know what that means
When the alarm clock rings
You know what that means
When the alarm clock rings
Time to wake up
It's so cold outside
Why don't you spend the day, love
If you keep this day for yourself
No one will care
When the alarm clock rings
Time to get up
Another day it brings
Time to wake up
A day of nowhere things
Time to get
You'll find you sorted out
Each night you do
And if you feel in doubt
Realize there's no use thinking
you've got to go
There's no use caring
You pulse will know
No use doing things you don't believe,
believe, believe, believe in
Think of things you'll do during
this day of toiling Think of things you'll wear while
your egga are boiling
When the alarm clock rings
Time to wake up
Another day it brings
Time to wake up
It's up to you
Time to wake up
What will you do
Time to wake up
It's up to you
Time to wake up
What will you do
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