marvin gaye

524. ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)’, by Paul Young

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Delving deeper into the decade, we arrive at another synthed-up, peak-eighties sounding hit…

Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home), by Paul Young (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, 17th July – 7th August 1983

First things first, let’s mention the things I like about this record. The bassline, or whatever effect has been applied to it, is very eighties but very cool. It’s bendy, and twangy. It sounds like a beast emerging from the depths… There’s an ominous edge to its funk, that reminds me of something I can’t place.

Then there’s Paul Young’s voice, which is also good. A strong, blue-eyed soul voice, that takes command of this song, and sings it with conviction. For I’m the type of the boy, Who is always on the run… You could argue that he over sings it at times, but it’s fine. He’s listing all the ways he’s a dick to women: he loves and leaves them, he gives them the eye before upping sticks and disappearing… It’s basically ‘Desperado’, sung from Desperado’s POV. I think we’re meant to pity him, to sense a hint of regret, or false bravado, in his voice, but I’m not sure we do. In the video, meanwhile, one of the women he’s dumped returns to shoot him… Or, at least he dreams she does.

Away from the bass, and the voice… I’m already checking the runtime. It’s a bit dull. And the dullness lies, yes, in the production. It’s very polished, perfect for playing in the background at a dinner party, but I’m not getting ‘number one single’. Rather, I’m not getting ‘number one single at any time other than mid-1983’. It’s very of its time. If you love eighties music, you’ll like this. If not, then it’ll drag…

I did wonder if ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’ perhaps followed Young’s bigger hits. I could name ‘Love of the Common People’ and ‘Every Time You Go Away’ ahead of this. It smacks of ‘shadow number one’ (a concept I’ve explained in other posts). But no. This was his breakthrough hit. ‘…Common People’ made #2 as the follow-up to this, and ‘Every Time…’ #4 a couple of years later.

I was also amazed to find that this song dates from as far back as 1962. And that it was originally recorded by one Marvin Gaye. Two more different versions of the same song you will struggle to find. The original’s Motown vibe, while far from being a classic, just sounds better to my ears. I have been programmed from a very young age to prefer the sixties, and seventies, to the eighties… Earlier, when I wondered what this bassline reminded of, perhaps it just reminds me of ‘the mid-1980s’ in general…

The last time I focused so much (nay, complained…) about the ‘sound’ of the time was way back in the pre-rock days, when I despaired of the never-ending parade of overwrought ballads occupying top spot for weeks on end. I’ll try not to focus so much on the fact that the 1980s has a certain sound. It just does. It’s the summer of 1983. Paul Young is #1. Get over it!

Young won’t be chart-topping under his own steam again, but he’ll have hits until the early ‘90s. He is still touring and recording as we speak. His voice will appear at #1 again, though. In fact, next year he will utter one of the most famous lines in British pop history… Until then, then…

Advertisements
Advertisement

Cover Versions of #1s – CCR & The Slits

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Last night I did two cover versions of the same band; tonight it’s two cover versions of the same song! Onwards!

‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’, by Creedence Clearwater Revival – 1970 album track

(Originally a #1 in 1969, by Marvin Gaye)

Before we go any further, I don’t claim that any over version of ‘Grapevine’ is an improvement on one of the most perfect pop songs ever recorded. But these two gave it a right old go… First, Creedence, with an epic eleven minute take on it, from their ‘Cosmo’s Factory’ album. Does any song really need to be eleven minutes long? No, probably not. But the band sound so in-tune, firmly lodged in their groove, that we can indulge them. The first four minutes is the song, what remains is a jam session based around that timeless riff. It was eventually released as a single, in 1973, but couldn’t breach the US Top 40.

‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by The Slits – reached #60 in 1979

Shorter, though not exactly sweeter, post-punk band The Slits give us an oh so sarcastic rendition. When lead singer Ari Up sings I’m just about to lose my mind… you can’t tell if she’s walking away grinning, rolling her eyes, or preparing to launch herself at her dirty, rotten ex. Plus, the bass line here is really cool.

Two final covers up tomorrow!

268. ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

Attention. Attention. We have a stone-cold classic coming right up. Marvin Gaye is here, and he has been hearing things, through the grapevine…

marvin-gaye

I Heard It Through the Grapevine, by Marvin Gaye (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 26th March – 16th April 1969

Has there been a cooler intro so far? A sexy, slinkingly slow build up, with a tickle of cymbal and a subtle riff: doo-do-do-doo… It’s dripping with attitude. And then Gaye’s voice, a husky falsetto. Ooh, I bet you’re wond’rin how I knew, Bout your plans to make me blue…

The singer has heard second-hand that his girlfriend is about to do the dirty on him. I heard it through the grapevine, Not much longer would you be mine… the backing singers chant, like the gossiping whisperers that have brought the news to him. The premise of the song is kind of flawed – surely the gossip would be that she is cheating on him, not that she’s just planning to – but shhh! Who cares? We’re in Greatest Pop Songs of all time territory here.

What I especially like about this song is that we are unsure how the singer really feels about the situation. Is he sad? (I know a man ain’t supposed to cry, But these tears I can’t keep inside…) Or angry? (It took me by surprise, I must say…) Or just disappointed? (You could have told me yourself, That you love someone else…) Or is he all of these things?

‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ is a Motown record, only the 3rd to hit the top of the UK charts, after ‘Baby Love’ and ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, and the last one of the 1960s, the decade synonymous with the label’s sound. But, at the same time, it’s a lot subtler than earlier Motown hits – far less bubble-gum. There’s an edge to it. It’s instant, but it’s also layered. I know I write this fairly often, about other huge hits, but it still rings true… This would have been a hit at any time. It transcends time and place.

MARVIN_GAYE_I+HEARD+IT+THROUGH+THE+GRAPEVINE-346057

Or if you want to distil it down to a simple, one-word description: it’s cool. You want to know what cool sounds like? You put ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’ on. Marvin Gaye had been a recording artist since the start of the sixties, and a big star in the US for years before this became his biggest hit. In the UK, though, he hadn’t been higher than #16. Following this, he would become a routine visitor to the Top 10, throughout the seventies and early eighties, solo or with either of his favoured duetting partners, Diana Ross and Tammi Terrell. It all culminated in his huge ‘Sexual Healing’ comeback in 1982…

Until he was shot, dead, a year later. By his dad. We’ve met some pretty tragic characters in our journey through the charts so far, but this is up there with the worst of them. His father was a disciplinarian, a Christian minister, and yet a cross-dresser, with a very complicated relationship with his artistic, world famous, and possibly gay, son. Marvin stepped in to break up a confrontation between his parents, and was killed by a shot from the gun he had given his father a few months earlier.

Tragic stuff. And also tragic in its own way is the fact that this is Gaye’s one and only chart-topping single. No ‘It Takes Two’, or ‘What’s Goin’ On’, or the aforementioned ‘Sexual Healing’… Just this. But what a chart-topper it is. If you’re only going to do it once, then do it in style. Meanwhile, ‘Marvin Gaye’ will hit #1 many years from now, as the title of a song. Which I just realised answers a question I posed in my post on ‘Lady Madonna’, about #1s which reference chart-topping artists in their titles… Till then, then…