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Rating:
During these six months of membership, I had the pleasure of employing my not-so-great musical knowledge. All my reviews have resulted from readings, experiences, and thoughts. The judgments have been somewhat positive, but a bit more negative since 60% of the music I've reviewed is light pop or adolescent.
This time I'll be a bit more limited than usual because the album I'm reviewing received an impeccable judgment and a 5-star review from Ringostarfish. The Small Faces arrive at "Ogdens'" with three years of career and a good number of successful singles where, in my opinion, "All Or Nothing," "Itchycoo Park" (a song dedicated to a London park with veiled references to drugs), and "Tin Soldier" stand out.
When Steve Marriott (guitar and vocals), Ronnie Lane (bass and vocals), Ian MacLagan (preceded by Jimmy Winston) (piano), and Kenney Jones (drums) come together to produce the masterpiece with which they will end their career, they have returned home after a disastrous tour in Australia and New Zealand with the Who, equipped with only music and various ideas for the new album.
But no idea yet for the lyrics. Their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, suggests spending a week on the Thames by renting a boat. The idea is absurd (none of them know how to row) but it works. When one of the nights passes in places suitable for "cooking their food, making a racket, and playing their guitars" one of the four, dazed, sees the half-moon wondering where the other half is; this sparks the idea that will give rise and shape to the b-side of the album. The character Happiness Stan is a young man who, almost falling in love with the moon, becomes depressed when he sees it eaten away by time until the moon returns to its full glory, and Stan regains his happiness.
A wonderful album that starts with an instrumental title track and presents us not only with a masterpiece but also the group's historic song: "Lazy Sunday", written by Steve Marriott about the arguments he had with his neighbors. Great video (magnificent YouTube) and a live performance with an appearance and disappearance effect of the group and a large clock in the background. About "Song Of A Baker" I read an interesting detail: it opposes the Sufi religion (a mystical branch within Islam) to supporters of heavy metal (in the '60s musicians had lots of ideas!).
I discovered who Stanley Unwin is, the narrator's voice that intertwines between tracks: a '60s English comedian who, by distorting English, created his own language called "Unwinese".
Last year I discovered the Small Faces thanks to YouTube, and "Lazy Sunday" was the first song I listened to (then I endured the noises and screams of "Wha'cha gonna do about it" and "Sha la-la-la lee" to "Beat! Beat! Beat!" in Germany from the live performance of '66 and the beauty of the songs mentioned at the beginning, still on YouTube).
I also remembered the forty years of "Ogdens'" by buying it in London and reviewing it this month, the year marking forty years since the group's dissolution (Steve Marriott's return in the '70s with only McLagan and Jones was unsuccessful).
The death of Marriott in '91 due to a fire in his home in Essex and Lane in '97 due to pneumonia (in the '70s he was struck by multiple sclerosis) are the bitter notes in the story of the Small Faces.
But I still enjoy them, renewing my compliments to Ringostarfish and inviting you to read his review.
Boop7
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Rene (04:29)
There she is parading on the quayside
You can find her every night
Ah, waiting for a stevedore from Tyneside -
Why it's Rene, the docker's delight!
Well, if you just got off an oil tanker
And you've got the readies in the bin (Readies = cash and having them 'in the bin' means having money)
Just make your way down to The Crown & Anchor [London pub famous for being a rock music venue through the 60's and 70's)
Ask for Rene (ohh, hello ducks!) and you'll be well in.
She's Rene, the docker's delight, and a ship's in every night
Romping with a stoker from the coast of Kuala Lumpur
Love is like an 'ole in the wall
A line-up in the warehouse no trouble at all
If you can spare the money, you'll have a ball -
She'll have yours (It sounds like 'she'll have your oars out' but it's just the way he sings 'yours-a'
Well, there's a kid of every shape and colour
Safely hid in coal-sheds, double locked (this alludes to black kids by white prostitutes, hidden away)
Where it's been said that Rene is the mother.
I wonder - well, there you go!
She's Rene, the docker's delight, and a ship's in every night
Groping with a stoker from the coast of Kuala Lumpur
05 Song of a Baker (03:14)
Written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Laine.
From 'Ogdens Nut Gone Flake'
There's wheat in the field
And water in the stream
And salt in the mine
And an aching in me.
I can longer stand and wonder
Cos I'm driven by this hunger.
So I'll jug some water, bake some flour,
Store some salt and wait the hour.
When thinking of love,
Love is thinking for me
And the baker will come
And the baker I'll be
I'm depending on my labour,
The texture and the flavour
Hey!
I can no longer stand and wonder
Cos I'm driven by this hunger
So I'll jug some water, bake some flour.
Store some salt and wait the hour.
06 Lazy Sunday (03:04)
A wouldn't it be nice to get on with me neighbours
But they make it very clear
They've got no room for ravers
They stop me from groovin', they bang on me wall
They doing me crust in, it's no good at all - ah
Lazy Sunday afternoon
I've got no mind to worry
I close my eyes and drift away-a
Here we all are sittin' in a rainbow
Gor blimey hello Mrs. Jones
How's old Bert's lumbago? He mustn't grumble
Tweedle dee bite
I'll sing you a song with no words and no tune
Tweedle dee bite
To sing in your party while you souse at the moon - oh yeah
Lazy Sunday afternoon-a - tweedle dee bite - tweedle dee bite - tweedle dee bite
I've got no mind to worry - yeah - I've got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift away-a
Root-de-doo-de-doo, a-root-de-doot-de doy di
A-root-de doot de dum, a-ree-de-dee-de-doo dee - doo doo ....
There's no one to hear me, there's nothing to say
And no one can stop me from feeling this way - yeah
Lazy Sunday afternoon
I've got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift away
Lazy Sunday afternoon
I've got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift a-
Close my mind and drift away
Close my eyes and drift away
08 Happiness Stan (02:37)
"Are you all sitting comftybold two square on your botty? Then I'll begin …"
Once upon a time in a land of greens
Where the sky was silky soft
And full of colored dreams
Deep inside a rainbow
Lived Happiness Stan
In a small Victorian charabanc
Evening will be here quite soon
Stan can sit and watch the moon
Watching as the white light
Slowly makes the night bright
Hours slipping by while time stands still
Think of black and black will think of you
It's coloured Stan in the bruises
Of the darkness that we knew
For black had stolen half the moon away
09 Rollin' Over (02:50)
Rollin’ over
Goodbye sunshine I'm on my way
I'll be long time gone by the break of day
Tell everyone that I'm gonna find it
There ain't nothin' gonna stop me –
Rollin' Over, Rollin' Over
Save all your lovin' till I get home
To the sweetest lovin' sunshine that I've ever known
Tell everyone that I'm gonna find it
There ain't nothin' gonna stop me –
Rollin' Over, Shak-do-way
Rollin' Over, Yeah-yeah-yeah...
10 The Hungry Intruder (02:15)
Here am I
Tiny Fly
May I share your Shepherd's Pie? (English meal, mashed potato & mince
meat)
What is this strange voice I hear?
Here I am
Look This Way
In the landscape on your tray
There's no need to ask a silly question
If I were you I hope you'd do the same
There's no doubt I'd help a hungry fly
To see you in a fix it's really such a shame
I'm so hungry
I could die
And now I'll a living fly
My name is Stan
I'm on a quest
Take your fill,
Take nothing less
I am that
That am I
And now I'll be a living fly
11 The Journey (04:09)
The Journey
If tomorrow was today
It would yesterday
The sun is surely just a thought away
Where visions that men fail
To put to words to tale
And music that they try but cannot (p)lay
You're right it's just a dream, your company so kind
Hold very tightly please and we shall go out.
12 Mad John (02:50)
There was an old man who lived in the greenwood
nobody knew him or what he had done
but mothers would say to their children, "Beware of Mad John."
John would sing with the birds in the morning
laugh with the wind in the cold end of night
but people from behind their curtains, said he's not quite right.
John had it sussed he was living the life of a tramp
yes his bed was the cold and the damp but the sun was his friend
he was free
So here was a wise one who loved all the haters
he loved them so much that their hate turned to fear
and shaking from behind their curtains the loved ones would hear.
13 Happy Days Toy Town (04:19)
Happy Days Toy Town
Life is just a bowl of All-Bran
You wake up every morning and it's there
So live as only you can
It's all about enjoy it 'cos ever since you saw it
There aint no one can take it away.
So life is just a bowl of All-Bran - very true!
What you say has made it very clear
To be sure I'll live as best as I can
But how can I remember to keep it all together
When half the moon is taken away?
Well, I've got the very thing
If you can laugh and sing
Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smiles
Clap twice, lean back, twist for a while
When you're untogether and feeling out of tune
Sing this special song with me, don't worry 'bout the moon
Looks after itself
Steve: Can I have a go?
Ron: Yes
Steve: Yeah?
Ron: Sing now:
Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smile
Clap twice, lean back, twist for a while
Well now you've got the hang of it
There's nothing you can't do with it
If you're very tuned to it you can't go wrong.
All together!
Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smile
Clap twice, lean back, twist for a while
Well now we've got the hang of it
There's nothing we can't do with it
And now we're very into it we can't go wrong!
[Stanley Unwin's nonsense here]
Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smile
Clap twice, lean back, twist for a while
Well now we've got the hang of it
There's nothing we can't do with it
And now we're very into it we can't go wrong!
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