Stand and Deliver!

As begun last week, this is the second instalment of the do-it-yourself series of compilation CDs that should rightfully put Matt Preston’s virtually foodless music compilation to shame.

Soup to Nuts: BastardChef Too:

1. Muffin Man - Frank Zappa/Mothers/Captain Beefheart
2. Meat City - John Lennon
3. We Are Hungry Men - David Bowie
4. America Eats Its Young - Funkadelic
5. Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup) - Mick Jagger
6. Cookin’ In The Kitchen Of Love - Ringo Starr
7. Tandoori Chicken - Ronnie Spector
8. Saturday Night Fish Fry - The Coasters
9. The Rhubarb Tart Song - John Cleese
10. Sugar Sugar - The Archies
11. Boiled Beef And Carrots - Lenny Henry
12. Bread and Butter - The Newbeats

(Unfortunately, if you are reading this post on your Apple iDevice, you won’t see the player below; it’s encoded in flash.)

Soup to Nuts: BastardChef Too from standanddeliver on 8tracks.

 

 

1: Muffin Man - Zappa/Beefheart/Mothers

Muffins occupy an interesting place on the food spectrum. Or perhaps two — since on the one hand, they’re that bready substitute you toast for brekky, to have hot with butter and the spread of your choice or with sausage and egg. But then they’re also a kind of cake – sometimes with fruit, so you can kid yourself that you’re having something healthy with your coffee or tea.

Although it takes its name from an innocent nursery rhyme (“do you know the muffin man/Who lives on Drury Lane?”) Frank Zappa brings a different muffin conundrum to the fore:

Girl, you thought it was a man
But it was a muffin.
The cries you heard in the night
Was on account of him stuffin’.

What’s he stuffing, exactly? (Or, as Tom Waits might ask, ‘What’s he building in there?’)

The tack piano that accompanies the mad narrative, reminiscent of the original soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis). But combined with Zappa’s declamatory narrative, it is a b-grade horror movie – about the Muffin Man in question, ensconced in his Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, working on “that prince of foods: the muffin”.

Every chef’s been in a similar situation. And not just chefs: every creative identifies with the archetypal ‘Frankenstein’ scenario of the mad scientist bringing their creation to life. Even Zappa himself – who’d use horror movie nomenclature for his work: follow-up songs and albums may be titled ‘Son of… and ‘Return of the Son of…’ (as in the Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar series). He also named his home studio the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen.

It’s significant that the song graces Bongo Fury, the live album commemorating the mid-’70s tour undertaken with Captain Beefheart. The good Captain – entangled in contractual purgatory at the time – was a childhood friend of Zappa’s and they shared a love of music and cinema. Indeed, early on they sought to collaborate on a b-grade movie their own: Captain Beefheart vs the Grunt People. Beefheart’s dad used to drive a bread van, which the teenage pair would break into in order to steal pineapple buns. Muffins of their time, no doubt.

So – d'ya reckon anyone in the MasterChef utility research kitchen will have a stab at ‘that prince of foods, the muffin’? Who cares. It’s more exciting when the monstrous culinary equivalent of Frankenstein rises from the slab.

Find it: closing the album Bongo Fury as well as the compilation Strictly Commercial: The Best Of Frank Zappa.

 

2: Meat City - John Lennon

There’s clearly a fine art to cooking meat well – but that has nothing to do with this song from John Lennon’s fourth post-Beatles album.

Lennon seems to be a running theme on this volume of BastardChef; in addition to this offering, from his 1973 album Mind Games, you’ll find him twiddling Mick Jagger’s knobs on ‘Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)’ and bashing Ringo Starr’s keys on Lennon’s own ‘Cookin’ (In the Kitchen of Love)’.

The Mind Games album dates from the beginning of Lennon’s ‘lost weekend’, its origins lying in Yoko Ono’s album Feeling the Space. Lennon dug the musicians her assistant May Pang had assembled. Turns out Lennon dug May Pang: by the time he’d written a bunch of songs and was ready to record, he’d split from Yoko, who’d somehow given her blessing on his taking May as his mistress. How did this affect John? Take a look at the album cover: Yoko still looms large over lonely Lennon.

So rather than wholesale butcheries with massive cool rooms featuring acres of fresh flesh on display, it would seem ‘Meat City’ is about Lennon’s visit to the world of singledom: pick-up bars, swingers parties and the massive hotbeds featuring acres of fresh flesh on display.

True to that period of unfocused rage, there are still elements of random political activism left over from previous album Sometime In New York City: that weird interlude that sounds like a synthesised chipmonk speaking alien is in fact Lennon’s own voice, sped up and run backwards, suggesting all pigs ought to be loved very much (my paraphrasing). The version on the flip side of the Mind Games single is a slightly different mix, where the synthesised chipmonk turns out to be saying “check the album” backwards.

Find it: on the album Mind Games.

 

3. We Are Hungry Men - David Bowie

Whomever said, 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach' wasn't lying. All men are hungry men. But none more so than late-’60s David Bowie: hungry for success, and, to look at him – ‘Biafra-thin rabbit-in-the-headlights’ as one cultural commentator described him – literally hungry.

The hunger to make it as a recording artist meant the former David Robert Jones toyed with various styles and genres including cockney music hall, mod beats and whatever category this vision of a future dystopia fits into. The song opens with a Kenneth Williams impression (so it’s not meant to be taken so seriously, clearly), delivering the bleak news of over-population. Then Bowie takes on the role of a young, charismatic, crackpot leader offering more-or-less the same Modest Proposal as Jonathan Swift as a means to overcome the multitude of starving poor.

The early ‘hungry’ – or ‘lean’ period – of Bowie’s work includes a stack of songs that have been repackaged in various compilations over the decades. While the artist has all but disowned his oeuvre from that time, the collection was finally given its rightful release as a deluxe double CD collection, much to fans’ pleasure. Bowie himself cherry picked his favourites and re-recorded them for an album called Toy earlier this century – that still remains officially unavailable.

Find it: in both stereo and mono mixes on the 2-disc David Bowie [Deluxe Edition].Download it here.

 

4: America Eats Its Young - Funkadelic

Following on from the high-camp Bowie song about infantricide, ‘We Are Hungry Men’, comes the darker, down-beat bad acid trip of Funkadelic.

Are they proclaiming, on a metaphoric level, that America has failed its youth? The dark mutterings don’t quite lend themselves to transparent interpretation.

Instead, sit back and enjoy – as best you can – the grunted insinuations and squealed backing vocals as they slowly build to a grinding, faded frenzy. It helps if you imagine it the soundtrack of Matt Preston discovering the fish is still raw, the omlette contains eggshell and the rice hasn’t been fluffed; time to send the dish back, and the chef away in tears.

And if it gets too much, relax: a far more upbeat food-related funk will follow, courtesy of Mick Jagger’s ‘Too Many Cooks’.

Find it: on the album America Eats Its Young . Download it here.

 

5: Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup) - Mick Jagger

If it’s a Rolling Stones song about anything other than getting some nookie, you can bet that it is in fact a metaphor for getting some nookie. This is also the case with almost all of Mick Jagger’s solo oeuvre. ‘Too Many Gooks (Spoil the Soup)’ appears to be a more explicit reading of ‘Cook Cook Blues’. 'Cook Cook Blues' is an ’80s Stones blues jam that took a long time to prepare - finally served as a single flip side in 1989 (and features on BastardChef Volume 1) that uses food as its metaphor. But the funky ‘Too Many Cooks’ was not written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and its recording predates ‘Cook Cook Blues’ by about a decade – even though it took even longer - almost another decade! - to see the light of day. It has a far more interesting pedigree.

The song was produced by John Lennon during his ‘lost weekend’ – some 18 months of separation from Yoko Ono that involved revelry, debauchery and recording with various buddies. The sessions for ‘Too Many Cooks’ must have been quite debauched indeed, since Mick Jagger claims to have had no recollection of them, unaware the song existed until an acetate of it turned up many years later (and, knowing Mick, then taken back into the studio for tweaking, polishing and finishing properly before subsequent release).

If the food-as-sex metaphor is annoying, play this song on and on; what with the strange eroticism on display when you watch Nigella Lawson taste everything she’s preparing, and Matt Preston tasting absolutely anything, the appetite may sicken and so die…

Find it: along with two other previously unreleased tracks, on the Very Best of Mick Jagger compilation.

 

6: Cookin’ (In The Kitchen Of Love) - Ringo Starr

Stepping out first with an unlikely collection of old-time crooner’s standards, Sentimental Journey (“recorded for me mum!”) and then the country album Beaucoups of Blues , by his third album Ringo the erstwhile Beatles drummer had hit upon a system that’s pretty much served him well ever since: treat each album as a party and invite all your mates to rock up with a song (or, in Ringo’s case, ‘easy listening' up with a song).

Hence John Lennon’s contribution for Ringo’s 1976 album, Ringo's Rotogravure : a party song about getting through life, with Lennon himself guesting on piano.

Initially, the ‘cooking in the kitchen of love’ metaphor sounds as though it might reside in the same region as the Stones’ ‘Cook Cook Blues’ or Mick Jagger’s ‘Too Many Cooks’ (and more specifically, whichever Kiss song demands “let me put my log in your fireplace”). But by the second metaphor, "truckin’ down the highway of life” and subsequent philosophical exposition “It’s got to be high, it’s got to be low/’Cause in between we just don’t go” it turns out that there's no hidden message or any depth to these words whatsoever. Lennon saved that stuff - in songs like ‘Imagine’, ‘Instant Karma’ and ‘Power to the People’ - for himself.

Don’t hold it against him. It's been noted that Lennon – and Lennon & McCartney for that matter – were, more often than not, 'dozy lyricists' when tossing off a ditty for Ringo. And besides, by this stage the working class hero was about to go into musical hibernation; he’d spent his ‘lost weekend’ being high and was about to settle into being low for the next half-decade, the sessions for this song proving his last until he started recording Double Fantasy.

And remember: Lennon’s time away from the music industry as househusband and dedicated father would be marked by such domestic activities as baking bread, about which he’d speak at length when he finally came out of retirement. Cooking in the kitchen of love, indeed.

Find it: on Ringo's Rotogravure.

 

7: Tandoori Chicken - Ronnie Spector

After John Lennon handed the hitherto ‘unreleasable’ Get Back tapes over to legendary ‘Wall of Sound’ producer Phil Spector – who refashioned them into Let It Be – both Lennon and George Harrison were keen to have him produce their post-Beatles solo albums.

Sessions for a proposed solo album for Spector’s wife – and former Ronette – Ronnie Spector followed on from George Harrison’s triple album All Things Must Pass. Unfortunately, the album was shelved after only a handful of songs were recorded, the total official result being the 1971 single ‘Try Some Buy Some’.

While that song had been demoed by Harrison for All Things Must Pass and was given the Wall of Sound treatment, the flip side, ‘Tandoori Chicken’ sounds, lyrically, musically and instrumentally, pretty much as thrown together as the dinner arrangement that gave rise to it: Harrison sent Beatles roadie Mal Evans out for some takeaway during the recording sessions. Suddenly it’s a blues based b-side. It’s nice that Harrison’s Indian influences aren’t limited merely to instrumentation.

Find it: on the flip side of the ‘Try Some Buy Some’ 7-inch single; sadly not available on CD right now…

 

8: Saturday Night Fish Fry - The Coasters

The Coasters’ ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’ is another hard-to-get food hit. The original version by the song’s author, Louis Jordan, and his jump blues backing band the Typany Five, is considered by some to be the very first rock’n’roll record. It’s the story of a party that gets out of hand and ends with an arrest.

A ‘fish fry’ is a kind of poor folks fundraiser – the person throwing it will cook and anyone willing to pay for the feed (and, no doubt, sly grog) is welcome. (The song takes place “down in New Orleans”, which, enjoying an excellent fishery until the BP oil spill pretty much killed the Gulf of Mexico, had access to excellent cheap seafood.) If you can help provide the food and drink, or serve it, or present some live entertainment, you get in free. In this song, the protagonist is the singer of the song, telling of a Saturday night fish fry that was so good, it had to be shut down by the cops. Although the protagonist never wants to hear about fish again, listening to it makes you hanker for a piping hot fish burger.

Jordan’s original version was over 5 minutes long, so it had to take up two sides of a 78rpm record. The Coasters’s version lived on the flip side of the single ‘She’s a Yum Yum’, dating from 1966 so part of the material recorded when they were signed to Atco – making it harder to get your hands on.

Find it: at the end of disc 3 of the excellent and exhaustive compilation, There’s a Riot Goin’ On: The Coasters on Atco.

 

9: The Rhubarb Tart Song - John Cleese/At Last The 1948 Show

Some people have never been subjected to the [dis]pleasure of rhubarb, but apparently it’s good for you, which is why it doesn’t taste particularly nice. And it’s used to make dessert-type foods, despite being a bitter vegetable that’s allegedly good for you. This alone makes it the perfect subject of a silly song, and who better to deliver it than John Cleese? The song gives the rhubarb tart a great deal of pomp and majesty, not just by listing great historical personages as fans of the food, but by accompanying the doggeral with one of John Phillip Sousa’s finest marches.

The song dates from 1968 sketch show At Last the 1948 Show , in which Cleese partook with fellow Python-to-be, Graham Chapman, and future The Goodie Tim Brooke-Tayler as well as Marty Feldman, with whom they’d all written for David Frost’s various satirical shows. (Frost in fact produced At Last The 1948 Show and was later slighted that he couldn’t be part of Monty Pythong’s Flying Circus.)

At Last the 1948 Show contains many elements that would go on to be seen as prime Python characteristics. Inded, The Four Yorkshiremen Sketch, so beloved of Python fans, originated in At Last the 1948 Show and the fact that it is still identified as a Python sketch continues to irritate Tim Brooke-Taylor, who co-wrote it.

As opposed to parodying a popular song with a new set of lyrics, ‘The Rhubarb Tart Song’ specifically takes a pre-existing instrumental and marries it to foolish words. This is a motif to which John Cleese would return. The song ‘Oliver Cromwell’, for example, appearing on the 1989 album Monty Python Sings, began as Frederic Chopin’s ‘Polonaise No. 6 Opus S3 in A flat’. The borrowing of a Sousa march also becomes a motif: the Pythons borrowed Sousa’s ‘The Liberty Bell’ to serve, this time wordlessly, as the theme to their television show.

Find it: ‘The Rhubarb Tart Song’ lives on the original album tie-in of sketches and songs from the television program, At Last the 1948 Show.

 

10: Sugar Suger - The Archies

Pure bubblegum pop at its best, ‘Sugar Sugar’ is said to have been offered to the Monkees, who turned it down as being too cheesy just as they were maturing to a point of playing their own instruments on far more mature albums. Although there are rumours of Monkee Davy Jones having sung lead on an instrumental backing recorded by session musicians (as most of the earlier Monkees songs were constructed) and Mike Nesmith punching a hole through a wall in anger at being expected to record the song, nowadays both stories are considered myths. Indeed, it’s more likely the Monkees resisted recording an entirely different song entitled ‘Sugar Man’, but over the years their dummy spit at ‘Sugar Sugar’ has proven the more entertaining anecdote.

Irrespective, Don Kirshner, the producer behind the launch of manufactured band The Monkees was also behind the manufactured band The Archies, which he prefered more since, being cartoon characters, they were far more easy to control than The Monkees. The Archies were never gonna complain that they should be writing their own songs, and playing their own instruments on the recordings. Although the session musos behind The Archies might have wanted to ark up, especially after ‘Sugar Sugar’ proved a massive hit.

Although Ron Dante’s lead vocals melt in the mouth more like fairy floss, they live up to the sweetness promised by the song title. And as any chef worth his weight in… well, weight, really, will tell you: there is no substitute, in the end, for cooking with sugar. When the recipe calls for it, use it; none of that chemical substitute, thank you!

Find it: on the remastered compilation, Absolutely the Best of the Archies. Download it here.

 

11: Boiled Beef and Carrots - Lenny Henry

You most likely won’t remember him as Gareth Blackstock in the BBC show Chef! irrespective of how fitting it would be for our purposes here. And just as likely you don’t remember Lenworth George Henry – or ‘Lenny’, as he’s better known – for his daliance with the music hall standard ‘Boiled Beef And Carrots’.

Fact is, Lenny would also prefer you don’t remember it. But it shouldn’t be so surprising that he had a go with a novelty hit, given his rise to showbiz success began on a telly talent show (New Faces) and included regular appearances on kids show TISWAS. The synthesiser arrangement dates this recording but also adds to its charm.

It’s fitting that Lenny would make the cut of BastardChef given his former Missus, Dawn French, is currently appearing in ads for MasterChef sponsor Coles. Part of me is asking, does she really need the money so badly? Maybe. She couldn’t afford to get her hair cut evenly on both sides. Could it be terms of the divorce? Does Dawn need to pay Lenny off? What’s a Lenworth after all? Maybe he is back to living on boiled beef and carrots…

Find it: alongside far more novelty songs by British comedy and light entertainment types than you’ll ever consume in one sitting, entitled You Are Awful But We Like You.

 

12: Bread and Butter - The Newbeats

If food can be a tool of seduction, it can also be the cause of a break-up, as evidenced in the Newbeats’ hit single of 1964, ‘Bread and Butter’. It sounds like another bubblegum hit with its precise and economic instrumentation, but it predates that movement by a few years. Indeed, in 1964, all pop was bubblegum pop; there was no sophistication to it just yet, so rock’n’roll hadn’t given way to rock. And besides, unlike ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’ and ‘Chewy Chewy’, there’s a lot more going on in ‘Bread and Butter’.

The protagonist is a simple man, given to simple needs, which his “baby” provides perfectly: “bread and butter… toast and jam”. But one day he comes home to the ultimate betrayal: his baby “with some other man”. Not caught in flagrante delicto, as such. Or rather, yes, caught in the very act: if bread and butter and toast and jam are the proof of true love, then “chicken and dumplings” with the other guy is gross infidelity.

Lead vocalist Larry Henley (who would go on to serve as a co-writer of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’) has a voice so thick you’d have to leave it out a while before you could spread it on a piece of bread; brothers Dean and Mark Mathis – if aliens attempted to replicate the Everly Brothers, this’d be them – provide the perfect bed for it.

Find it: on the compilation Bead And Butter: The Very Best of The Newbeats. Download it here.

 

Coming Soon 

BastardChef III: Just Desserts

 

Here's the thing: after the initial success of Masterchef, they got Matt Preston to put his mug on the cover of a compilation CD.

It had a nice title with a pun in it: Music from Another Platter.

It had a varied line-up of artists old and new.

It claimed to be music for cooking and eating.

I think it was a missed opportunity, particularly given that Matt Preston set out as a music journo and ended up a food critic.

I reckon he should have compiled the best collection of songs about food.

But he didn't.

So I've done it for him: what with the premiere of the 2012 season of Masterchef, I present Bastard Chef.

It’s actually a boxed set.

This is the track listing of volume one:

1. Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love In My Tummy - Ohio Express
2. Watermelon Man - Herbie Hancock
3. Vegetables - Beach Boys
4. St Alfonso’s Pancake Breakfast/Father O’Blivion - Frank Zappa/Mothers
5. Cook of the House - Linda McCartney & Wings
6. Crawfish - Elvis Presley
7. Cook Cook Blues - Rolling Stones
8. The Raspberry Song - The Goons
9. Popcorn - Hot Butter
10. Beans & Cornbread - Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five
11. Chewy Chewy - Ohio Express
12. Agita - Nick Apollo Forte aka Lou Canova

If you want, you can listen to the album below. While you read through the track list in better detail. Go on, you know you want to. If you like them very much indeed to the point of wanting to own them, there are links to Amazon. You may prefer to keep your own local music store alive if you still have one; if you don’t, the Amazon purchase will aid the upkeep of this blog, which is nice.

By the way, the cover artwork is by Alex E. Clark. (If you can only see an expanse of white immediately below, check this out on a computer rather than your phone or tablet.)

 

Bastard Chef from standanddeliver on 8tracks.

 

 

1: Yummy Yummy Yummy - Ohio Express

‘Bubble gum’ is a genre of pop that came into being in the late ’60s when the kid brothers and - more importantly - sisters of the swingin’ youth were getting to a record buying age. So it mostly consists of producer- and session-musician driven, sickly sweet ditties designed for tweens and teens buying singles. ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’ is a prime example – but don’t dismiss it. Fundamental truths are often communicated in the simplist aphorisms.

Even if ‘Yummy yummy yummy/I got love in my tummy’ doesn’t resonate with the authority of a quote from Shakespeare or Dylan – the ‘Love, you're such a sweet thing/Good enough to eat thing’ might get us into Rochester territory – often the truest food of love is, in fact, food. And there’s no denying that the love of food is one of the truest loves there is. (Just ask Matt Preston and his fellow judges.)

Find it: on the compilation Yummy Yummy Yummy: Best of the Ohio Express. Download it here.

 

2: Watermelon Man - Herbie Hancock

If there’s one thing you learn from MasterChef, it’s the importance of fresh ingredients and the value of establishing relationships with providores: going to growers markets when you can’t grow your own. Of course, back in the day, they used to come to you – hence the 16-bar blues of ‘Watermelon Man’: inspired, according to composer Herbie Hancock, by the memory of the watermelon man who made his way through the backstreets and alleys of Hancock's neighbourhood in Chicago. He distinctly recalls the rhythm of the wheels on the cobblestones, apparent in the groove of the piece.

Recorded for Hancock's first album, the 1962 Blue Note album Takin’ Off, ‘Watermelon Man’ proved a modest hit before Mongo Santamaria turned it into a massive Latin pop hit the following year. It soon became a jazz standard. Hancock reworked it into an altogether funkier tune for his early ’70s album Headhunters. There is a vocal version that makes obvious use of the unmistakeable ‘watermelon man’ cadence.

Find it: on the remastered Takin’ Off. Download it here.

 

3: Vegetables - The Beach Boys

‘Vegetables’ – not only delicious, but good for you too. The hippies knew it. Hence this paean to the edible parts of plants. Originally intended for Smile, the long, lost Beach Boys masterpiece that was meant to be a follow-up to Pet Sounds. But Smile was shelved with much drama, intrigue and subsequent denials and recriminations, thought never to see the light of day again. Until Brian Wilson released a solo version of it earlier this millennium. And then the original Smile sessions were excavated for a mammoth boxed set that included a reconstruction of the lost masterpiece in 2011.

However, back in the day, when for whatever reason the original was shelved (Wilson’s paranoia, stoked by summer of love chemical refreshments; the rest of the band’s disinterest; the record label balking at the mounting costs of hippies frittering away their money…), the song was salvaged for the less spectacular album that was eventually released:  Smiley Smile.

Apparently the ‘tuned percussion’ of munched vegetables include the chomping talents of Paul McCartney, who happened to pop in to the studio during the Smile sessions.

Find it: On the remastered 2-albums-on-1-CD collection Smiley Smile/Wild Honey. Download it here .

4: St Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast/Father O’Blivion - Frank Zappa/Mothers

In the early-to-mid-’70s Frank Zappa led his most jazzy line-up of the Mothers of Invention. They were (like all of Zappa’s bandmembers) musicially brilliant, irrespective of the silly lyrics they were called upon to underscore – and I say that as someone who digs the silly lyrics!

To give you some idea of how well-rehearsed the band was, it’s been told (by a local muso who hung out with Zappa’s trumpeter, Sal Marquez, on the 1973 Aussie tour) that at any time, Frank could call upon a bandmember, naming a song and a bar. The musician was then expected to hum their corresponding part.

‘St Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast’ and ‘Father O’Blivion’ are two songs that make up the four-song suite that opens the album Apostrophe (’) (it begins with ‘Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’, followed by ‘Nanook Rubs It’). Another track, ’MAH-JUH-RENE’, was recorded, but edited out of the final master before it was released; it may have fitted between ‘St Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast’ and ‘Father O’Blivion’ but it’s hard to ascertain – a live recording from Sydney 1973 puts it after ‘St Alphonso’, but that rendition opens with ‘Father O’Blivion’ before proceeding to ‘Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’ and ‘Nanook Rubs It’.

I’ll leave it up to you to find the deeper meaning; I just love listening to that band play - Ruth Underwood's percussion especially - with Frank up front, singing lead.

Find it: on the CD Apostrophe (’). Not available for download.

 

5: Cook of the House - Linda McCartney and Wings

This song, essentially a low-fi blues jam, was written in Australia during – or perhaps just after – the Wings tour of 1975. It was recorded in early 1976 for the album Wings at the Speed of Sound. The album came out in March, giving the band an album to tour behind when they went back on the road (their ‘Wings over the World’ tour culminated in the US in 1976).

The story goes that Paul and Linda were staying in a house whose kitchen had everything they could possibly need, laid out around them pretty much as described in the song. The white noise of frying oil that opens and closes the song is a nice touch.

Wings at the Speed of Sound has always stood out as a particularly ‘group’ album - with everyone getting a go on lead: Denny Laine sings lead on ‘Note You Never Wrote’ and ‘Time To Hide’; Jimmy McCulloch sings lead on ‘Wino Junko’; Joe English sings lead on ‘Must Do Something About It’.

‘Cook of the House’ was Linda's contribution. It also appeared on the flipside of the 1976 single ‘Silly Love Songs’. And hardcore fans of Linda McCartney will know ‘Cook of the House’ also appears on Wide Prairie, a posthumous compilation widower Paul put together in 1998.

Irrespective of your thoughts on Macca's missus, ‘Cook of the House’ has a certain charm. Matt Preston please note: it is the most cooking of cooking songs.

Find it: on Wings at the Speed of Sound and Wide Prairie. Meanwhile, download it here.

 

6: Crawfish - Elvis Presley

In January 1958 Elvis Presley was able to defer his entry into the United States Army to March of that year, in order to make one of his few critically and commercially successful films: King Creole.

It’s a bout a 19-year-old Danny Fisher whose mother died, and now finds himself having to help support his family after his dad dropped his bundle and the family was forced to moved to the impoverished area of New Orleans. Despite being well-meaning and diligent, Danny finds himself entangled with gangsters and two different women.

The film opens with ‘Crawfish’, a duet with jazz vocalist Kitty White on what sounds like the classic work song – the work song sung, say, by the fishmonger who’d push his icecart through the back alleys of neighbourhoods selling his latest catch. Those days are long gone, not so much because of the lack of pavement-bashing fish mongers, but because BP went and destroyed the fishing industry for good in that part of the world.

Find it: on the King Creole soundtrack.

 

7: Cook Cook Blues - Rolling Stones

As with all of the workhorse blues workouts the Stones are wont to record during album sessions, this is essentially an extended warm-up jam kept for a single flip-side. The lyrics are the customary underdeveloped sketches about sex, the music, an opportunity for the band to stretch out and have fun.

This one was committed to tape between 1982 and 1989 – meaning it could date from the sessions for Undercover (released 1983), Dirty Work (1986) or Steel Wheels (1989). Or perhaps all three, since the Stones still like to pull out an old song and finish it for a new album (or a new deluxe re-release of an old album, as the bonus discs of Exile on Main Streetand Some Girls demonstrate).

‘Cook Cook Blues’ saw the light of day as the flipside of the 1989 single ‘Rock and a Hard Place’ (from Steel Wheels), but features both the original Stones ivory tickler Ian Stewart, who passed away in 1985, and former Allman Brothers Bandmember Chuck Leavell, responsible for much ’80s Stones ivory ticklage, suggesting an early=’80s recording that was possibly polished and edited for late-’80s release.

I love the way it begins mid-song – as though what took place before the fade-up wasn't quite worth keeping. Or, perhaps, there was no initial plan to tape the jam, but it suddenly got good, so the person in charge of pressing ‘record’ suddenly did.

Find it: with difficulty! Completists will locate it on the 45-disc boxed set The Complete Singles (1971-2006), worth it for so many other hard-to-get gems!

 

8: The Raspberry Song - The Goons

In the late-’70s, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe – collectively known as The Goons thanks to their long-running radio program The Goon Show – had a reunion of sorts: they recorded a couple of tracks that were issued as a single, and then compiled on an album called Unchained Melodies. One of those songs was The ‘Raspberry Song’.

 

You know how important it is to health and diet to stick to the seasonal fruits and veges! ‘The Raspberry Song’ is about nothing, if not seasonal fruits. (That is, it’s about nothing!) Thus, just like the raspberry, that trademark sound effect so beloved of Spike Milligan, the song pretty much speaks for itself.

Find it: on the recently remastered and reissued Unchained Melodies: Complete Recordings 1955-1978.

 

9: Popcorn - Hot Butter

Popcorn is everyone’s favourite treat! And – apart from, perhaps, Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs – something that exists only in and of itself. What else can you ‘cook’ or ‘prepare’ with popcorn? Only other forms of candy, apparently. Fittingly, ‘Popcorn’ it’s also everyone's favourite instrumental – you know it, you've always known it, even if you never knew its name.

This legendary piece was originally written and recorded in the late ’60s by Moog maestro Gershon Kingsley for his 1969 album Music to Moog By . Hot Butter, an instrumental covers band who gave everything the Moog treatment, recorded it – along with other hits of the day like ‘Day By Day’ from the Jesus musical Godspell, Neil Diamond’s ‘Song Sung Blue’, the Tornadoes’ ‘Telstar’ and the Shadows’ ‘Apache’ – for their self-titled album in 1972.

It was a worlwide chart-topper, doing amazing business in unlikely countries. It was France’s fastest-selling number one single, for example. It was also number one in Australia for ten weeks. Which is why it seems to be etched into everybody’s psyche in Australia, irrespective of age.

Find it: as the title track on the album Popcorn. Download it here.

 

10: Beans and Corn Bread - Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five

Beans and corn bread sounds like everyman’s food – traditionally ‘poor people food’. The stuff MasterChef celebrates, as long as it has some sophisticated twist, or is plated up nicely. Fittingly, ‘Beans and Cornbread’ was everyman’s music, the distinctive tenor saxophone opening typifying the ‘jump blues’ genre of the 1940s: big bands have given away to smaller, tighter combos that play a faster and more furious groove. It was very popular inded, hence Louis Jordan making a name for himself as ‘The King of the Jukebox’.

‘Beans and Corn Bread’ sounds like there’s a message being imparted about friendship and getting along, but it’s all threat and bluster until they realise they belong together. Seems like there’s not enough substance to read anything into. The song proved a highlight in the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X. And, it turns out, there was a tradition where the Space Shuttle launch crew were fed beans and corn bread following a successful launch.

Find it: on the compilation Best of Louis Jordan. Download it here.

 

11: Chewy Chewy - Ohio Express

Really? Two songs by the same group on this compilation? What was I thinking? But ‘Chewy Chewy’ is the companion piece to ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’. In fact, I’d argue it’s the better song – ‘a mouthful of cute things to say’ is far more erudite than ‘having love’ in one’s ‘tummy’. (The other song that is easy to lump with those is the far superior ‘Bread and Butter’ by the Newbeats – look out for it on a future compilation, I promise.)

Find it: on the compilation Yummy Yummy Yummy: Best of the Ohio Express. Download it here.

 

12: Agita - Nick Apollo Forte, aka Lou Canova

This is where the collection should have begun – the ultimate song for people who are prone to fall madly in love. With food. (Matt, this should have been on your compilation!)

‘Agita’ opens the Woody Allen classic Broadway Danny Rose, about the biggest loser of a showbiz manager there is – the title character, portrayed by Woody himself. How can he make a living when his books include a one-armed juggler, a one-legged tap-dancer, and a ventriloquist with a stutter? His one chance at the big time is the lounge singer Lou Canova – except Lou’s got a thing for extra-marital affairs, and his latest mistress is a gangster moll (played by Mia Farrow).

Lou’s signature song, the theme to the film, is this ballad inspired by over-eating and woman trouble. Both lead to the heartburn known, in Italian dialect, as ‘agita’.

Find it: on the album Legacy, available from Nick Apollo Forte’s homepage. But do yourself a favour: enjoy the song in context, and watch the film Broadway Danny Rose. Best value is the The Woody Allen Collection boxed set.

 

Check Out:

Soup to Nuts: BastardChef Too

**this one’s got some naughty words, so beware**

It’s a strange thing, how, as you get older, you somehow learn to appreciate country music. Proper country music. The outlaw variety, with – as Frank Zappa said in the song ‘Truck Driver Divorce’ – ‘steel guitars crying all over it’… sung by proper country singers like Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash. But pre-American Recordings with Rick Rubin Johnny Cash. Certainly not Shania Twain country.

Shania Twain first appeared on the scene when I was still working in a top 40 chart music store. Or rather, its Classics and Jazz department (ie ‘classical music’ and jazz, but calling it ‘classics’ meant it could be show tunes and middle-of-the-road older stuff as well…)

I couldn’t help but give her a nickname. That’s what we did with all artists. New Kids On The Block were New Kids With No Cocks. Val Doonican was Val Croonagain. The Doors were The Bores (were they ever!) Neil Young, as time went on, lived up to his nickname of Neil Old. The Rolling Stones were the Strolling Bones. Kate Ceberano And Her Jazz Sextet were Kate See-no-bra And Her Tit Sex Jizz. Bob Dylan was Baaaaaaahhhhhhb Dylaaaaaaaahhhhhn (but you had to do his voice when you said it). And Shania Twain was… well, you had to pronounce her first name like an Aussie country bloke saying ‘showing ya', so it was like ‘sho’in ya’. Her name was Sho’inya Twat.

That has no bearing on this news story, reported by The Daily Beast, about Shania Twain shacking up with Frédéric Thiébaud, the pair having consoled each other after Marie-Anne Thiébaud nicked Twain’s hubby, Robert Lange.

It was after one of Emma Driver’s gigs, failing to scarper fast enough – or at all, really – that I got to hear this tall guy in a loud shirt announce himself as Fred Smith. I had no choice but to lean over to Emma and her partner and say, “I wonder how Patti’s going!” because though now sadly deceased, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith was, in addition to being the former guitarist of the MC5, also the husband of Patti Smith.

Fred Smith began with possibly too much cute patter, but it was clearly an attempt to capture the attention of a potentially indifferent audience. For the most part, it worked: Fred had good comic timing and a way with words, so it really wasn’t that much of a surprise to discover, much later, that he had in fact been a national finalist in the 1997 Raw Comedy competition. However, it wasn’t merely the between-song banter that won us over. His songs were also clever and witty.

Fred opened with ‘Imogen Parker’, a song in the traditional r ’n’ b mode (where ‘r ’n’ b’ stands for ‘rhythm and blues’, as it used to, rather than ‘romantic and black’, as it seems to today). It utilised a slight variation of the basic ‘hambone’ beat as made popular by Bo Diddley (hence its other name, ‘the Bo Diddley beat’) and as featured in the Buddy Holly song ‘Not Fade Away’ (recorded by the Rolling Stones, Patti Smith and Holly himself) – that ‘jing ka-jing ka-jing, ka-jingjing’ strum pattern:

I wanna tell you how it’s gonna be
(jing ka-jing ka-jing, ka-jing jing)
You’re gonna give your love to me
I’m gonna love you night and day
(jing ka-jing ka-jing, ka-jing jing)
Love is love and not fade away

‘Imogen Parker’ was a political song that dealt with the state of the Australian political landscape at the time of its writing. Its best verse is about Pauline Hansen:

Well I had a friend called Pauline Hansen –
Big, warm hart like Charlie Manson.
Y’know most redheads I’d take a chance on,
But she just made me wanna keep my pants on.

Fred Smith C 2004

A verse on the former Leader of the Australian Labor Party, the Right Honourable Kym Beazley, saw ‘Beazley’ rhyming with the election that ‘he was gonna win easily’.

In addition to the rollicking songs full of humour and politics, it turned out that Smith was capable of the most touching heartfelt ballads. He prefaced one of them with a story about the Claymore antipersonnel mine, which he described as “a box the size of a shoebox with an arrow and the words ‘point towards the enemy’ on top”. According to Fred, “it is considered prudent to do so since the weapon consists of a quantity of TNT and 500 ballbearings which project forward in a wide radius upon detonation by a hand-held remote control”. Fred had served as a peace monitor in Bougainville and the Solomons, and had likened the experience of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) in Bougainville to that of the American and Australian armies in Vietnam. A favourite trick of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), when coming upon a PNGDF camp, was to turn the Claymores that the PNGDF had set up as protection around to face the other way, and then make enough noise to cause them to be detonated. Ever seeking to see both sides of the dispute, the song Smith subsequently sang was written from the point of view of the wife of a PNGDF soldier.

Another stand-out song was ‘Mr Circle’. Sung entirely in pidgin, it told of the ‘spiralling cycles of hatred’ that tit-for-tat actions lead to. Smith used to sing the song to school children in Bougainville.

By this stage I decided that I had to interview Fred Smith. I could already ‘hear’ how it would be structured: begin with a couple of choice verses of ‘Imogen Parker’, include a bit of his experiences in Bougainville and the Solomons, play a version of ‘Mr Circle’ and have Fred explain the lyrics in English, as he did between each vocal line when he sang it live. He had advertisted the availability of a couple of his CDs while on stage, so I figured I’d buy the ones that had the songs I wanted on them.

Accosting Fred after his set, I proceeded to ask him how Patti was (well, come on, how could I resist) before telling him that I wanted to interview him. He offered to give me copies of his CDs, but I insisted that, as long as he gave me a receipt with which I could claim the expenses, I had to pay – independent artists need to make enough money to remain independent, and artists. One album, Bagarap Empires, consisted of songs inspired and written during his time as a peace monitor in Bougainville and the Solomons. Another, Into My Room, was a collaboration between Smith, Liz Frencham of JigZag and Kevin Nicol of Noiseworks. Fred gave me such a good discount that when he offered me an additional CD, I had to buy it as well. It was a copy of his first album, Soapbox, from 1998. When I saw it, the penny dropped: I already had a copy.

An old and dear friend of mine who works for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had been posted in Port Moresby for a time, and on one of his trips home, had handed me a copy of Soapbox, explaining that Fred Smith was not only someone he had encountered while working in Papua New Guinea, but an independent musician and a good bloke. I, of course, made the ‘did you ask him how Patti was going?’ reference and pretty much ignored the disc after giving it a cursory listen. Despite being hip and knowledgeable, I have a basic distrust of cultural phenomena I haven’t discovered on my own terms. It has been a source of frustration for my friend, who also tried to switch me on to Patti Smith before I was ready to embrace her music. I had his copy of Radio Ethiopia for about a year without paying much attention to it. I came to my senses eventually.

Like all converts, I am now an annoying zealot whose task, along with proselytising, is to piss off all of the quietly faithful who have known the truth from the beginning. Fred Smith is an awesome, under-appreciated talent. One critic has gone so far as to dub him ‘Australia’s answer to Billy Bragg’. He has four CDs to his credit, the most recent, a mini-album entitled Party Pieces, sadly deleted. It contains the song ‘Imogen Parker’, and for that reason alone should be re-pressed. Visit Fred Smith’s website – to check out his tourdates as well as to e-mail him and demand that he sell you, in addition to his three still-available albums, a burnt copy of Party Pieces. Unless he does come to his senses and makes Party Pieces available once again. The new pressing should, in addition to the original, include an updated version of ‘Imogen Parker’ featuring new verses dealing with the likes of Abbott & Costello as well as Latham.

This interview was broadcast Saturday 20 March. Read it or download and listen to this MP3 version.

Music: ‘Imogen Parker’ – Fred Smith

I had a friend called Natasha Despoja
I met her in the parliamentary foyer.
She’s as hard as a Sydney lawyer
That’s Natasha Despoja for ya!
She was the leader of the Democrats
But the Democrats just fight like cats…

I had a friend called Kymberly Beazley.
I remember when he was gonna win easily.
And then there came along the NV Tampa.
And now Kim's not such a happy camper.
Simon Crean, I don't know,
Mate I felt a little sad to see Kym go…

Fred Smith C 2004

Demetrius Romeo: Does the political folk song still have a role in contemporary society, and, if so, what is it?

FRED SMITH: That’s a good question, whether you can change people’s minds with a political song. I don’t know if you can, but I know that young people are susceptible to political songs, and so I think it’s worth doing. You have to say what you feel, don’t you. I don’t think that the mainstream press is doing enough by way of offering alternative ideas and I think there’s a lot to be criticised and a lot to worry about. So I do sing the odd political song.

Demetrius Romeo: After the release of your first album, Soapbox, in 1998, you went to Bougainville and the Solomon Islands as a ‘peace monitor’. What exactly is it that you do for a living?

FRED SMITH: I’ve got a bit of part-time work with the public service in Canberra. As some people might be aware, over the last five years there’s been a peace monitoring group in Bougainville, mainly Australian army but also a handful of public servants, and I went over as one of them. But I took my guitar.

Demetrius Romeo: How did that line of work affect the music that you were making?

FRED SMITH: Well, a big part of my job was to get out into the villages and communicate with people about what was going on in the peace process and how things were changing and how things were moving, and to basically put some encouraging messages forward. It just so happened that I can play guitar and enjoy writing songs; it’s something I do pathologically. So I wrote a whole lot of songs in pidgin that really served that purpose and we ended up having a sort of traveling road show where we’d all pile into a four-wheel drive and get out and set up in a village square or a church or a school yard or an airstrip. I’d play a few songs and talk about peace process issues and developments, and some of the soldiers would do backing vocals.

Music: ‘Bagarap Empires’ – Fred Smith

East Indonesia, Iryan Jaya,
Papua New Guinea, Solomons too:
Beautiful islands, beautiful people
Uncertain future to look forward to.

While the rest of us –

Are we surprised that
Things turn to shit?
That our notions of nationhood
Don't seem to fit?
Will the bagarup empires all rust
In the tropical sun?

Fred Smith C 2004

Demetrius Romeo: There’s an album that came out of your time in Bougainville and the Solomons called Bagarap Empires. What does the title mean?

FRED SMITH: A lot of the stories are from Bougainville and the Solomons and the word ‘bagarap’ in pidgin means ‘when things get buggered up’, which is very much what is and was happening at the time in that part of the world. The whole archipelago is very fragile, as you’re aware. Everything went badly in Bougainville for a few years – after the mine closed down, the civil war there, there was a real disintegration. The Solomons were going in very catastrophic directions up until about six or seven months ago. So, yeah, that’s what it’s about: things getting ‘buggered up’.

Demetrius Romeo: There’s a lovely song on the album called ‘Mr Circle’ that is sung entirely in pidgin. Can you tell me a bit about the song and what the words mean and how it came about?

FRED SMITH: ‘Mr Circle’: yeah, well, as I said, I was getting out into the villages and to schools and singing songs to kids about what was happening in the peace process and I wanted to get a message across about the cycle of violence – how one thing can lead to another. So I’d get up in front of the kids and I’d look the kid in the front in the eye and say,

Okay piccaninny. Sapos yu gat wanpela man bilong viles bilong yu.

Okay, suppose there’s a guy in your village.

Na dispela man i gat bel hat wantaim wanpela man bilong narapela viles.

This bloke, he’s got the shits with a bloke in another village.

Olsem em i go na paitim man bilong arapela viles.

So he goes and hits the man in the other village.

Bai yu lukim long wanem samting i kamap nau: planti man bilong arapela viles i go na paitim man bilong arapela viles bilong yu.

See what comes up now: blokes from the other village come and hit the man from your village.

Olsem yu inap lukim wei we dispela samting i go roun.

So it all goes around.
Then I’d sing this song, ‘Mr Circle’.

Music: ‘Mr Circle’ – Fred Smith, speaking translations after each line

Sun go down, sun go down
Sun go down, sun go down
Mr Circle sing sing taim long sun i go down
Mr Circle sings as the sun goes down.
Olgeta, Wanpela, mi na yu
Everybody, one person: me and you
Papa Deo kolim wantaim bigpela kundu
Papa Deo calls with his big bass drum.

‘Papa Deo’: yeah, pidgin is made up of mainly English, but a bit of German and also Latin. So ‘Papa Deo’ is ‘God’.

Woa wokim bagarap, Woa wokim bagarap
War buggers things up, war buggers things up.
Lukim olsem dispela woa i wokim bagarap
See how the war buggers things up.
Olgeta crai crai, Olgeta crai crai
Everybody cries. Everybody cries.
Olgeta crai crai taim long woa i wokim bagarap
Everyone cries when war buggers things up.

Fred Smith C 2004

Demetrius Romeo: What has been inspiring your music since you’ve returned from Bougainville and the Solomons?

FRED SMITH: Well, I suppose a lot of the writing that I was doing there was relating the stories and things and impressions that I had while I was there. Since then I’ve been writing more personal material and in fact I’ve written a whole lot of songs that work well for a girl’s voice, and I’ve been working with a woman called Liz Frencham, and we did an album called Into My Room, which is more personal, less political, less historical material.

Music: ‘Into My Room’ – Liz Frencham and Fred Smith

Wherever does it end? Wherever did it start?
The mountains and the valleys of the country of my heart –
First the pain and flat terrain and then the undulation;
It's time to send a message to the captain of the station.
Saying ‘Into my room, the sun must shine…’

Fred Smith C 2004

Demetrius Romeo: You’re also working with the percussionist from Noiseworks on that album. How did that relationship between the three of you come about?

FRED SMITH: Basically, I’d written all these songs for a woman to sing and I went looking for the right girl and started working with a girl in Canberra who subsequently fell pregnant ‘Subsequently’, not ‘consequently’. ‘Subsequently’ fell pregnant, and got married. And so I went looking further afield and found Liz Frencham who plays double bass really beautifully and sings with an honesty that affects people, so that’s how that started: I basically buttonholed her.

The drummer, Kevin, was actually managing me at the time, funnily enough, and I was doing this album and I needed a percussionist. He mentioned that he had played in a small Sydney pub band for a while and we said, ‘all right, let’s give it a go’, and we rehearsed, and we did. But as you’re aware from the Noiseworks days, he cracks the drums pretty hard, so we had to give him a bit of warm milk before we went into the studio and rub his head a bit.

Music: ‘Into My Room’ – Liz Frencham and Fred Smith

I will do what I do, you do what you have to.
If we found common ground or accidental laughter,
Such give-and-take may help to break the ice of isolation
It's what we do with loneliness that helps the situation.
Into my room the sun may shine…

Fred Smith C 2004

Demetrius Romeo: Is there a large difference writing about more personal things as opposed to writing about political things?

FRED SMITH: Well, I never set out to write political songs. I tend to write pretty instinctively about whatever’s on my radar screen. There’s an author called Margaret Attwood who said, ‘concentrate on the writing and let the social relevance take care of itself’, and that’s very much my approach: I set out to tell stories and if people come to conclusions about my politics from that, well then so be it. Writing about political things has a bit of a responsibility to get it right and for it to be balanced, because political writing, whether it be in music, prose or in the press, only endures if it is balanced. With writing political stuff, I feel a real responsibility to make it balanced, otherwise it smells.

Music: ‘Into My Room’ – Liz Frencham and Fred Smith

Into my room the sun may shine.
Into my room… the sun may shine.

Fred Smith C 2004