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Rating: Or when nothing can stop the music and the passion that drives it. The Small Faces were one of the most beloved yet also unfortunate bands in British musical history. Emerging in a thrilling 1965 with the explosive British Invasion of "Revolver" and "Aftermath", the quintessential mod band faced not only worthy rivals like the Who or the Kinks but also unreasonably austere and reactionary record companies with bloodsucking and ill-prepared managers. Thus developed a career forced to fold in on itself, with a talented group unable to break out of the delightfully R&B sounds of the early, already loved - but spectacularly unpaid - singles. They were forced into exhausting tours due to the higher-ups' conviction that the boys would soon go out of fashion: it's the theory of milking the cow while there’s milk.
In reality, the Small Faces (who took their name from mod slang, which dubbed the most fashionable boy, the "gggiusto", as a "face") could have created much more than a handful of brilliant beat-soul songs, already original but still essentially superficial. No one thought that behind these dandy Italian style-dressed and ambitious-looking fellows there was incredible genius, which only needed time, suitable spaces, consideration, and means to emerge. After leaving, like the Stones, Decca for the more avant-garde and modern Immediate Records of Andrew Loog Oldham, Steve Marriott and company thought they finally had their big break. The authorial mark Marriott/Lane (who were, for the record, respectively guitar/lead vocals and bass/backing vocals), already a guarantee of success and quality, soon became a certainty on the London circuits for the innovative musical research they had begun to develop. The advent of Sergeant Pepper, after all, had influenced the way music was conceived, shifting interest away from mere chart singles to projects (thereafter defined as "concept albums") that unfolded over the course of an entire LP, with an organic and thoughtful succession of tracks forming a unicum, open to more or less ambitious and complex interpretations. The significant fact is that our band, like most artists of the time, not only remained enthusiastic and amazed by the imminent revolution, but immediately got to work to make their voice heard, to win a place among these new emerging sounds. Thus perhaps was born the only concept of the time worthy of this appellation and worthy of being compared to the incomparable Beatles model.
"Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" (1968) became a phenomenon even before it was heard, with its cover reminiscent of the famous tobacco tins (causing quite a few misunderstandings and problems in distribution and shipping), specifically of the Odgen tobacco, the most renowned in the home country. It's a statement of intent; this is an equally exquisite purely British product, and we should just light a match to start the magic. Finally, the sounds evolved into complex and evocative melodies, no longer inspired by the mod drug of choice, amphetamines, but by the then-popular lysergic acid. But as Hendrix or Lennon teach, LSD only serves as an amplifier of sensations, and only the "enlightened" artist can adapt its effects to their own (genius) intuitions. And here there is plenty of juicy substance to taste. The first radical change surely lies in the maturation of the psychedelic component of the songs, which distorts the raw blue-eyed soul into a wonderful acid-pop. We are dazed and fascinated by brief symphonic nuggets that are slowed down, turned down to non-existence, and then restarted, with hard, terribly powerful guitars, blaring bass, a drum full of effects and a whirlwind, without rhythmic stability. It's the joy of finally being able to spread our wings, to say freely what we are. Everything is expressed in a solid showcase of what this group loves. Marriott divides his time between teasing in an unmistakable cockney accent (see the joyful "Lazy Sunday,” an anthem to our more poetically lazy and indolent side) and authentic sonic bombs (like the unleashed "Rollin Over"), where hard rock and soul are amalgamated by a ringing yet delicate voice with craft, fun, and creativity. The melody is never lost sight of, in a cross between Pet Sounds, Solomon Burke and The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Ian McLagan provides celestial or unsettling backdrops with an economical but consistent use of piano, mellotron, hapsichord, achieving a resounding sonic capsule that fills the room with the volumes and distortions of string instruments and exalts the chameleon-like voice.
Strings, horns, flutes, and Wonderland tones lead us to the second part of the album, where the project reaches its peak: the story of "Happiness Stan" is born, a boy full of imagination and life, in search of a much-desired happiness. From here unfolds an epic folk-rock suite narrated by comic narrator Stanley Unwin, as Stan travels through English countryside on a rainbow, meeting fantastic and likable characters like the mythical "Mad John". The rock opera comes to completion, celebrating the Donovan-like power of imagination as much as the mysterious and refined beauty of one's country, one's origins, church bells ringing at sunsets while four boys chuckle together, riding on rusty and noisy bikes. Unfortunately for the boys, the flash of freedom and compositional peak would be brief, as they would be ditched again by Immediate Records a few months later, which, even before declaring bankruptcy, had refused to pay the group the agreed fees for the album, causing Marriott's furious abandonment. And to think that Ogden had remained at the top of the English hit parade for six weeks and was even presented and performed with great success at the live show of the cult TV program "Colour Me Pop"... Despite the internal and practically insoluble disagreements from the fate of the group, this rock gem would be praised for decades, continually gaining adherents and devotees, from the Who of "Tommy", to Paul Weller's neo-mod Jam, up to Blur's "Parklife". The genius lives on and remains immortal. The story of the Small Faces, however, would end soon, with the remaining members hiring Rod Stewart's voice and Ron Wood’s guitar as replacements for the leader, simply renaming themselves "Faces". The music would change, everything would be simplified and standardized, but at least a torrential and well-paid success would arrive, until Stewart soon became a world-level star. But this is another story.
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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Other reviews
By Boop7
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'.
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.
