30/10/2010

Always The Sun

After the sea, it seems only fitting to consider a similar genre where a song about something universal is taken by the listener to be a backdrop to a very specific memory. In this case, the sun - linked to the sea in countless holiday brochures about Greece, Spain or Italy and sometimes overtly in song, as in The Verve’s The Sun, The Sea. And sometimes linked even further, as in Club 18-30 holiday brochures or by -who else-Serge Gainsburg in his Sea, Sex and Sun recording.

These songs sit apart from those about summer generally, which could fill a book on their own. Songs about summer tend to rely on producing a good - time feel through a range of stock associations, though these can vary according to the national origins of the song in question. Listen to the Beach Boys’ All Summer Long and you think of Californian sunshine, surf boards, glistening teeth and tans. However, Mungo Jerry’s In the Summertime is definitely a hot English summer, one that might include a lot of beer, packets of cheese and onion crisps, wasps and blokes with sideburns so extensive they needed planning permission.

Songs of the sun can be as equally vacuous/good-time ,I suppose, as in The Sun Has Got Its Hat On. However, by and large, they tend to be more lyrically and musically challenging and, like those of the sea, let the associations be made by others. They do not even necessarily conjure up the expected scenes of languid summer days. Pink Floyd took a sci-fi slant of the sun as a planet with Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. Judy Collins took the magical process of Yeats’ poem , The Song of Wandering Aengus, with Golden Apples of the Sun. The Beatles Here Comes the Sun becomes more than just an ode to spring when interpreted by artists like Nina Simone and Richie Havens.

The song here, Always the Sun  - recorded in 1986 by the Stranglers, towards the end of their decade as a chart group - is an example of an occurrence when a view of a place previously unseen suddenly fitted perfectly with the personal mental image created by the music. The Stranglers were always hard to pigeonhole, a punk band that included a hippy- ish keyboard player and a drummer now in his seventies. Seemingly crass songs like Peaches ('Walking on the beaches, looking at the peaches'), sat along others about Trotsky, vikings and extra-terrestrial visitors. Their repertoire also included two evocative and poetically lyrical songs that bathed the listener in the moods of the sun. Their 1982 hit, Golden Brown, was a delicate and dreamy ballad in waltz-time with what sounds like a harpsichord and with lyrics supposedly about heroin but which could have come from a nineteenth century Romantic poem ('Golden brown, texture like sun...Every time just like the last, On her ship tied to the mast, To distant lands, takes both my hands').


Always the Sun had equally obtuse lyrics that at times pour out in such a wordy fashion you wonder how Hugh Cornwell will fit them all in before the line ends .It has a sharper and more powerful sound, with Jean-Jaques Burnel’s diving bass lines, the background swamped in the keyboards and Hugh Cornwell’s melodic guitar break reminiscent of that on Golden Brown. The overall mood, however, is just as evocative. One reviewer described it as like being in a deep ravine and looking upwards towards to the sun.

For me, both this song and Golden Brown for some reason brought an echo of a Van Gogh painting of a French cornfield. One day about 12 years ago, on a family camping holiday in France, I unexpectedly came across the view I had in my mind. Trying to find a go-cart track out in the countryside we stopped for a picnic at the edge of a cornfield. The sky was deep blue, the field stretched away red and yellow, there was the sound of crickets and the sun cast a warm blanket over the landscape. As in a film, Always the Sun came into my mind as the musical accompaniment. For me, at least, a song finding its place.

46 comments:

  1. I like this blog a lot, very interesting.

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  2. I saw them in New York in '88 - they were so great. Thanks Geoff!

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  3. I saw them live recently. Admitted no longer with Hugh but they were still the same band as regards energy and fun. If you get a chance, see them. They are still my all time fave band since I first heard them in 1976.

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  4. Cheers for writing this Geoff. This song always lifts me up.

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  5. I watched The Stranglers at T in the Park this year and to be honest I'd never really heard of them before then. I was just waiting for The View to come on! But they were amazing! It was raining, then they played this and the sun came out! This sounds cheesey but I will always remember that.

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  6. Such a great album, "Dreamtime"

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  7. dont think the stranglers were given enough credit i believe they are underated

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  8. The lyrics, the music, it's all in perfect harmony. I adore this song. Golden Brown is good, but this is pure gold. Thanks Stranglers!

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  9. Excellent song but technically there won't be always the sun. Our sun will burn out in around 5 billion years as it has a finite supply of fuel and will consume the earth and other planets shortly before it completes its last, theatrical hurrah. I just think it's important to make this clear. Also, don't believe what you watch about 9/11.

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  10. "How many times have you been told if you don't ask you don't get it?" That immortal lyric has stuck in my mind until this day.The Stranglers were the first band I ever witnessed live way back in 1985 - total legends, they recorded so many classic tunes,looked fantastic and were just really original,well at least in the late 70's/ 80's era anyways.

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  11. saw them in jersey channel islands in 87, isle of wight in 2008, and a few weeks ago at the weyfest in surry ...brilliant on all 3 times

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  12. very good writing, nice blog.

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  13. perhaps you will enjoy my song "Always the Sun" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Q2ZTku_tA

    thanks for the great column.

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  14. As someone who respects the musical value of the Stranglers but does not worship at their altar, I am quite comfortable admitting that "Always The Sun" is a bit of a fabulous tune.

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  15. I strongly recommend No More Heroes. All the tracks there are just brilliant, full of anger and straight to the point, especially School Mam.

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  16. I really enjoyed your thoughts on The Stranglers. To me they actually seemed like two bands. The post-punk band and the earlier hard rocking pseudo-punk band. Early tunes like “Hanging Around”, “(Get a) Grip (On Yourself)”, “No More Heroes” and “Nice ‘n’ Sleazy” are stand outs. Over half of two albums featured some great stuff. The Raven and La Folie both featured the band in transition with a move away from the harder sound of earlier albums. I was lucky to see them in Cleveland on the Feline tour. I do recall the show was an odd balance of the smoother songs of Feline and La Folie and the more brutal stuff of the earlier albums.

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  17. Just found this blog, what an awesome read!

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  18. Such a great meditation on songs of the sun - never would have imagined it was possible to write about this apart from looking at songs in the mode of The Beach Boys’ All Summer Long. So great!

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  19. Your one-liners make me laugh a lot Geoff:) - "sideburns so extensive they needed planning permission" - here is the bloke you're talking about I think: http://www.sillyjokes.co.uk/images/dress-up/beards/mutton-chops-big.jpg

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  20. Very good! I also had Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry in mind!
    http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ray-dorset.jpg

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  21. I had no idea what this meant - The Sun Has Got Its Hat On - but discovered it is a children's song (I think - or else maybe one of those 1930s British songs that seem like they SHOULD be children's songs even though they weren't).... This seems a pretty classic rendition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDIpkz6DOi8

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  22. WOW! Those are quite simply the best sideburns I have EVER seen, on Ray Dorset. Truly a work of art!

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  23. Thanks for the The Sun Has Got His Hat on link, Marta. I think the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band did a version, and there was also a dire one by Jonathan King

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  24. I loved this idea - "an occurrence when a view of a place previously unseen suddenly fitted perfectly with the personal mental image created by the music". I had to think about it for a time though. I think you mean that there are places we haven't seen, but have a mental image of (from books, films, etc). And then when we hear a song about that place, it fits our mental image, even if it might not fit the place in actuality. It is for this level of music theory/philosophy that I read your blog Geoff! Several critical musicologists have written that music produces place - because it is in a sense embodied. It establishes the sensuous production of place. It can be a cultural map of meaning, locating us in different imaginary geographies at one and the same time, even as it articulates both individual and collective identities.

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  25. Wow, that IS dire - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIwMppB3ZNQ - here is the direness, for all to share in!

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  26. ps - it this how you guys got through the Great Depression then?

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  27. I agree with the reviewer who said that listening to this is like being in a ravine looking up at the sun. This is exactly the image that this song summons for me: http://image1.masterfile.com/getImage/NjAwLTAwMDU4ODgxbi4wMDAwMDAwMA=ACHsLz/600-00058881n.jpg

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  28. Thats a fitting image.
    Yes, you are right,Laura. With this song, the song came first and then later a place suddenly seem to fit it. With Copenhagen, it was the other way round-I saw Copenhagen and heard the song that fitted later.

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  29. More great education in English culture: "a hot English summer, one that might include a lot of beer, packets of cheese and onion crisps, wasps and blokes with sideburns so extensive they needed planning permission." I had to google translate some of this (crisps, blokes, sideburns). Reading the sentence was a bit like watching Billy Elliot again. :) In a good way.

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  30. Here is the Serge Gainsbourg recording that Geoff mentioned - pretty bad stuff! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lsVsg4wyk4

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  31. I love the idea of a song finding its place, as the column concludes! You are lucky that your brain works this way Geoff - that you have a soundtrack ready to go when you visit places. it must be lovely. I have to think very hard 'what song would suit this moment, this place' - it doesn't just come to me. Although now i have your column I keep a playlist of the songs you write about, just in case I visit one of the places - then I can play the song!

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  32. I think though that even though the song came first and then found its place, songs do spring from the surrounding environment - the songwriter inevitably had a place first, then came the song.....

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  33. I don't remember the Depression years but I do remember that during the winter of 1940 my father used to come into my room each morning and wake me up by singing "the sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray" and it was a cheerful start to the day that brought me out onto the cold linoleum of the bedroom floor - during the Blitz.

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  34. I love that you picked the sun to write about. I always thought that cavemen, when they first made music and sang songs, probably tried to illustrate life using sound - and the sun would have been the first thing they wanted to sing about. They gave music to what they felt, to their sensibilities and perceptions and the first thing they probably noticed was the sun. A ball of fire, the light and heat, ultimately representng survival. All songwriters do is acknowledge their surroundings. So in a way I think songs about the sun tap into something archetypal, back to the days when the first and most important thing about human surroundings was the sun.

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  35. I was trying to think of more sun songs - and remembered the Beatles song you mentioned. I think it was followed by more sun/moon songs - New Blue Moon, Here Comes the Moon and eventually "Rising Sun."

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  36. Geoff! Great column this week! Here's a list of songs about the sun, in case you're keeping a master list!!

    1. Sun // Caribou
    2. Sunlight // tUne-YarDs
    3. Love Me 'til the Sun Shines // The Kinks
    4. Mister Sun // Bridget Bardot
    5. The Sun Was High (So Was I) // Best Coast
    6. The Sun is Out // Reading Rainbow
    7. There is No Sun // Jay Reatard
    8. Sripper Sunset // Harlem
    9. On The Sunny Side Of The Street // Les Paul and Mary Ford
    10. In The Sun // She and Him
    11. A Place In The Sun // The Shadows
    12. Til' The Sun Rips // Woods
    13. Morning Sunshine // Jeff Lynne
    14. A Sunshine Fix // Olivia Tremor Control
    15. Touching The Roof of The Sun // Indian Jewelry
    16. Sun // Pocahaunted
    17. Bright Lit Blue Skies // The Rockin' Ramrods
    18. Sun It Rises // Fleet Foxes
    19. The Sun Goes All Around // Thee Oh Sees
    20. Sunny Afternoon // Os Baobas
    21. Sun // The Essex Green
    22. Tahiti Sunrise // The Surfmen
    23. Walking Into the Sun // The Brazda Brothers
    24. Ride Into the Sun (Demo) // The Velvet Underground

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  37. I think New Blue Moon was the Travelling Wilburys, though George Harrison was joint composer-as with the other 2 you mention.
    You are right what you say about a song's origin springing from a place, Kyle-but for the listener it could be either way round

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  38. I kind of love "I Wish it Would Rain" by The Temptations as part of this genre. a song about man who just needs to have a good cry and get the sorrow of losing his woman out of his system. But what is stopping him? The sun. If it were raining, nobody would notice his tears. But it is not raining. His grief can not be hidden. Were he to cry, the world would know. His weakness would be exposed. I wish it would rain. Go away sun. Let the rain fall.

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  39. Yes, you're totally right, I guess I remembered them all together because they are all George Harrison compositions.............

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  40. My little list!

    Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in
    5th Dimension

    Walking on Sunshine
    Katrina and the Waves

    Sunshine of Your Love
    Cream

    Island in the Sun
    Weezer

    Waiting for the Sun
    The Doors

    People of the Sun
    Rage Against the Machine

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  41. Don't forget They Might Be Giants - "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun"

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  42. "Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks is the best song about the sun. The Kinks were masters of irony, and this song, which appeared on Face to Face, is one of their best examples of it. It tells of a rich man who is getting taxed heavily and has to rely on nothing but “this sunny afternoon.”

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  43. I want to also mention:

    Stars of the Lid: Sun Drugs
    From The Ballasted Orchestra

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  44. What a wonderful blog - so fascinating. I'm very glad I came across it! Looking forward to next week's one and meantime I'll be reading the archives!

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  45. I have just been thinkling about KB's comments on the archetypal qualities of the sun and how that affects songs - no-one has mentioned Rolf Harris's Sun Arise!

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  46. Ha ha - noooooooooo! Truly a contender for the WORST SONG EVER!!

    :)

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