27/11/2010

Painting and Kissing


As touched upon before, songs about places can go from the macro to the micro, from the whole sweep of an entire country to a small individual spot at ground level, a cafe, a station, a hotel. These can include those songs about a particular street or road. These can be an ode to a famous landmark, as in On Broadway or Hollywood Boulevard, or ETBTG’s teenage yearning to be in Oxford Street. They can romanticise the ordinary , as with Donovan’s Sunny Goodge Street. They can push the unknown and obscure into the spotlight. Without The Beatles’ Penny Lane, who would bother going to see the street near Allerton Road and Smithdown Road in Liverpool? Or Woking’s Stanley Road without Paul Weller’s album of the same name?

It can be, however, that the filter of music and lyrics can cast even the shabbiest of thoroughfares in a new light for the listener. The Holloway Road in North London lies at the start of the A1 that runs up to Scotland. It remains a road that is resolutely ungentrified, one that sits amidst the noise of the traffic and sirens and police vans, the litter, cheap cafes and burger joints, the discount stores. It looks totally unprepossessing. Yet with its cultural diversity - Jamaican, Columbian, Brazilian, Russian, Mexican, Australian, French, Polish, Turkish, British, Swedish, Irish, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Bahraini, Chinese, Congolese, Japanese and Beninese all live here - it has its supporters: here is N7 Heaven. Metropolitan University is here, as is Holloway Prison.

It has also appeared  in pop songs at regular intervals. In fact, as a location it has a special place in pop history. Outside 304 Holloway Road, now a grocery store, is a small plaque to the eccentric record producer Joe Meek: ‘Joe Meek, the Telstar Man, lived, worked and died here’. In the almost forgotten pre-Beatles era of British pop music, Joe Meek was responsible for some of the most memorable and idiosyncratic records of the time, all recorded in his small studio above a leather goods shop on Holloway Road. The most famous was the Tornados’ Telstar, an instrumental intended to invoke the space age but which evokes more than anything a British funfair.Yet the Tornados were the first British group to get to number one in America - and Telstar was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite pop record. But there were a string of other Meek hits between 1961 and 1964, including the trio of hits by sometime actor, John Leyton, ( the ghostly Johnny Remember Me, Wild Wind and the grammatically correct Son, This is She) and Meek’s final big hit, Have I the Right, by the Honeycombs, ‘discovered’ in a pub in the nearby Balls Pond Road.(Have I the Right was marked by a tub- thumping sound from female drummer Honey Lantree, augmented by the other members of the group standing on the wooden stairs leading up to the studio and stamping their feet, the sound captured by microphones attached to the banisters by bicycle clips)

This, alone, was enough to make the Holloway Road a mini-Mecca for lovers of British pop. It has, however, been referenced since in a number of songs. The Kinks sang of “ my baby impaled in Holloway jail.” Marillion also sang of a Holloway Girl. St Etienne set their dreamy Madeleine there (“Down Holloway Road she goes, wasting time”). Koop’s Beyond the Son must be the only record in history to mention the South China seas and the Holloway Road in the same lyrics, with an intriguing reference – “ Saw Mr Brenan in the Holloway Road yesterday, Walked past with a bag of potatoes on his shoulder”. And the song here , Painting and Kissing by Hefner from their 2000 album We Love the City, a suite of songs about London and the lives of people living there.

Hefner were a British indie band that had echoes of Pulp and the Smiths. Against the deadbeat backdrop of Holloway Road and the Wig and Gown - a football pub named after Highbury Magistrate’s Court - the song is an ironic story of an unexpected relationship and self-delusion. Underneath, the music careers away driven by a tinny organ riff and at times seems to be going down a path of its own. On top, vocalist Darren Hayman tries to convince himself that the relationship was better than he sometimes suspects it might have been: “And as her kissing got worse, Oh her paintings improved, but what does that prove? It proves nothing.” The listener, however, is not really sure that he has learnt anything. For once, Holloway Road comes out on top and it is Linda from Holloway Road, with her paintings and Chardonnay, who is the sophisticated one in this relationship. Crikey.

When you come out of the tube station on Holloway Road , there are a lot of ghosts of the past about. From highwayman Dick Turpin; to all the groups of yesterday who lugged their amps and drum kits up the stairs to Meek’s recording studio; to John Lennon and Yoko Ono visiting Michael X at his Black House at No 101.The eyes might see Argos, Chicken Village, Pizza Zone, Holloway Express, The Nag’s Head; but it is not hard to find a bit of music to give a brief glimpse through coloured, if not rose-tinted, glasses.

Link to song

56 comments:

  1. How interesting! I've never been to Holloway Road but will head there to check it out and look for the signs of the past that you describe!

    ReplyDelete
  2. In case anyone else wants them (especially other Americans who might be struggling with the accent and the British vocabulary) here are the lyrics!

    Wonderful column - thank you!

    I'm in love with Linda, I think she understands me.
    She's down in the dumps, she lives on Holloway Road,
    I met her in the Wig and Gown, We couldn't talk with the music so loud
    but I could tell she was intrigued,
    She took me down to her basement, she showed me all of her paintings,
    She sure couldn't paint, but she could kiss.
    East London will never forgive, all my wrong doings but still it's the place where I live,
    North London has a place in her heart, she's far too strong for me that's what I thought at the start,
    I'm not that strong
    After a week or two ,I thought our love was true,
    She was my girlfriend, but I couldn't call her my girlfriend.
    The first time that she came to my house, she bought Chardonnay, now I buy Chardonnay, almost every day.
    And as her kissing got worse, oh her paintings improved, but what does that prove, it proves nothing.
    On March the 23rd she said something so absurd,
    She said 'You love to be in love, but your never really in love.'
    She said 'You love to be in love, but your never really in love.'
    Every single day, I get down and pray, that she'll change her mind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I feel like actually this song is being pretty hostile about London - just like Morrissey, Blur, Elvis Costello all were. And maybe I'm just a Pollyanna type but I prefer the songs that find some beauty in a city - this one seems to be mocking London or the people of London...........

    Love the column though and all the questions it provokes!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think you're wrong, Chris. The band were much more passionate about hating things like Thatcher and the British royal family. Their songs ARE hostile, but about the rich in London (and the London working class who don't fight back). The song does have a sense of humour but I don't think it mocks London or all its people - just the kind of gentrification that Holloway Road seems to have avoided. For another example of their humour, have a listen to 'The Day Thatcher Dies' from the same album.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think also this was a song about how Darren, the songwriter/singer, met his now wife Linda - although that could be urban folklore!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think both Chris and Laura have a point: the song is about the typical love-hate relationship city-dwellers have with their surrounds (including London). There is love AND hate, or affection and disdain, in the approach to London..........

    ReplyDelete
  7. I know you mention Britpop Geoff, but the band seems to more more like a throwback to the 1980s - The Smiths - than the 1990s (Blur and Oasis). Just in their sound. And the fact they sing about Thatcher increases their 1980s vibe maybe.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I feel like We Love The City isn’t Hayman’s masterpiece – that was previous LP The Fidelity Wars. But I do think this band is an underappreciated talent - thanks for writing about them!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I find the singer's nasal whine totally fitting for this kind of song - it matches the imagery of the city (traffic, concrete, everything a bit harsh, a bit unrefined). If there is such a thing as an ungentrified voice, this is it!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Darren Hayman has said that We Love the City was inspired by a love of London. He also said somewhere he wanted the album to sound like Dexys Midnight Runners of the Geno era.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I can see that it's about loving London - and I think even the cynicism that might be in the song is affectionate. Totally fascinating description of Holloway Road Geoff!

    ReplyDelete
  12. The album We Love the City was reissued late last year - I bought it then for the first time. It's a 2 disc version, very much worth getting if you like this song that Geoff wrote about.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nice reading about Hefner after such a long time. First time I heard them was on the John Peel Show on BBC 1 in 1998, when he played "the sad witch" from their album "breaking god´s heart". Fell in love with them instantly and still love them. They did some nice sessions for John Peel's programme.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hayman is a pretty amazing guy. He also made a number of impressive solo albums studying post-war suburbia, created an incredibly underrated LP of electro-wanderings as The French, had a hand in re-popularising the ukulele and still had time to write his fans a postcard from his caravan holidays.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I saw Hayman performing alone with a Ukelele to little over 50 people at the Chameleon above Clinton Cards in Nottingham a couple of months ago. The setting couldn't have been better. The intimacy of the venue lent itself to allow the songs to come to life, lyrics you'd never heard before making sense, making you laugh and putting the genericism of life in England into a neat and tidy musical format. The references to labels and brands are there, whether it be Ben Sherman or Lacoste, the working men and football watching types could find solace in all the sentiments the songs produce. n my opinion this was one of the best live performances charisma wise that i've seen in a long long while, and i'll be making sure that I catch him on every possible occasion from now on.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I don't know, I'm always suspicious of anyone who loves the Beach Boys. Which Darren Hayman does. And his love of the Beach Boys came to the fore in this album. :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. I reviewed the album back in 2000 and still have the press release. It said that the band had moved on from their ‘broken indie-folk sound in favour of a bouncy, urban blue-eyes soul'. Which I think is a really accurate description actually.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hefner must have passed me by. Clearly I will now need to go check them out! Thank you Geoff!

    ReplyDelete
  19. The last time I saw Hefner, they had just released We Love The City and they were brilliant, performing downstairs at Rock City. This column brought back a hundred memories - thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  20. 'Bouncy urban blue-eyes soul' is a pretty good description, Jim - I suppose that is the Dexys Midnight Runners influence mentioned earlier.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Geoff I think you'd like Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern's album Pram Town. It has a lot of fascinating urban paranoia, and blown-up minutiae plus cultural references that are retrospective as well as forward-facing. Harlow, Essex is the town in question throughout the album. And it represents lofty hopes and dreams that eventually becoming dated, old and not as clean as was first intended. His lyrics reference straight motorways, the pristine concrete, the modern civic amenities. Crucially, though, he is quick to satirise. “You’ll wonder how you did without, this is everything we’ve always dreamt about,” he says of the extensive cycle lanes. It’s mostly affectionate though and even when in the song "Leaves On The Line" he decides he finally wants to leave this new town to follow his love, it feels like he has a heavy heart about it. Anyway, I think you'd like it - maybe worth a listen in case you want to write about Harlow!

    ReplyDelete
  22. I think Dexys Midnight Runners is exactly right as a comparison Geoff.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hello Kitten would have to be my favourite Hefner song I think. (Not that I've heard them all by any means).

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thanks for the column Geoff! Personally though I’ve always ranked this as my least favourite out of their four albums. That’s not to say I’ve disliked it; I’ve enjoyed it very much, just not to the extent that I’ve enjoyed their other three albums.

    ReplyDelete
  25. The lyrics by Hefner have always been incredible, managing to be funny whilst at the same time touching, an art that few have mastered, MJ Hibbett tries it but I see him as a wanna be comedian rather than a singer.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I love the Thames-Arty vibe in this song and the whole album, in their observations of modern urban life. The opening lines of this album are “This is London/Not Antarctica/So why can’t the tubes run all night?” – so I do see there might be doubts that they do actually love the city after all. Hayman also always brilliantly sounds like he is the medium for the stream of consciousness of an angst-ridden sixteen year old and this is a dominant feature of this song I think.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Thanks for the reference to Harlow, KB It sounds rather like Hatfield!

    ReplyDelete
  28. I love the working class British vibe in the song - I bet it influenced bands such as British Sea Power or the Broken Family Band.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Loved the column Geoff. Would you ever consider a non English language song? Maybe by a band from one country writing about another country's city? For example, in French there is “Dans les brouillards de Londres” (Thierry Hazard).

    ReplyDelete
  30. As long as I can get a translation thats a good idea. Also it would open the range up sometimes - I am struggling to find an English language song about Finland!

    ReplyDelete
  31. If you can't find a translation you could post the lyrics and ask if any of your readers will translate. I could do the French for example, I bet others could translate other languages. It'd be the least we could all do!!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Two amazing facts - exactly what I love about your brilliant column: the Tornados were the first British group to get to number one in America and Telstar was Margaret Thatcher’s favorite record. I had no idea about either thing!

    ReplyDelete
  33. Here's Have I the Right, by the Honeycombs that Geoff mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORrX-6n4N3M

    Great column Geoff! It set Holloway Road in a new light for me.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Hey Geoff! Loved the column. I live near Holloway Road and often walk by that plaque. It actually reads: "Joe Meek, record producer, "The Telstar Man", 1929 - 1967. Pioneer of sound recording technology. Lived, worked and died here". Here's a photo I took:

    www.flickr.com/photos/35262989@N03/4112651971

    ReplyDelete
  35. For further atmosphere, here is Joe Meek outside 304 Holloway Road

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uHET-kFLjqw/SPWZ0N_48JI/AAAAAAAAAXY/Msku5zG25XE/s1600-h/304_holloway_rd.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  36. Here's the Tornados' Telstar. Hadn't heard about them til this column!
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuA-fqKCiAE

    ReplyDelete
  37. Geoff, you'd enjoy the film Telstar, The Joe Meek Story, which came out last year.

    ReplyDelete
  38. hi there, i was in pirate radio in the 60s. radio sutch. i was a friend of david screaming lord sutch, tony dangerfield, carlo little, etc. i met joe meek for the first time in 1963. joe was a brilliant record producer, but suffered from black dog. thats depresion, the same thing that winston churchill had a problem with. david sutch also had the same problem, thats proberly why him and joe got on so well. joe was producing the first tony dangerfield record, when he ask me to go into the bathroom of his flat in holloway road and beat out a rhythm in the bath with a hammer and an old bucket, you dont believe me but its true. joe had a very unconvential way of producing records, but it worked. just look at how many hits he had. he was a great record producer, and we will never see his like again. regards, from colin dale. p.s. radio sutch is back on air again after 45 years

    ReplyDelete
  39. Dear Geoff

    I thought you might enjoy my portraits of Holloway Road - they communicate a little of what you describe as "a brief glimpse through coloured, if not rose-tinted, glasses."

    warm wishes
    Elsa

    ReplyDelete
  40. Don't forget the 1989 song called ‘Holloway Girl’, sung by Marillion.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Oops, actually, you already mention that one, just reread that paragraph!

    ReplyDelete
  42. This might also fit in a column about songs named after Tube Stations! Along with:

    'Mornington Crescent' - Belle and Sebastion
    'Morden' - Good Shoes
    Victoria - The Kinks)
    Camden Town - Suggs
    King's Cross - Pet Shop Boys.
    'Angel' - Goldie

    ReplyDelete
  43. I had seen your site, Elsa -it's brillianr

    ReplyDelete
  44. Thanks for the comments on a fascinating era in British pop, Colin-I have just had a look at your website

    To add to Terri's list, there is also Sunny Goodge Street, Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty) and possibly Shalamar's Take That to the Bank!

    ReplyDelete
  45. For a truly surreal early video (1963), this is the Tornados and Robot
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78CTDaR-4sw

    Possibly there were magic mushrooms in the wood.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Thanks - it's a labour of love!

    ReplyDelete
  47. Yes of course, Sunny Goodge Street! You wrote about that!

    ReplyDelete
  48. Amazing video you posted Geoff!

    ReplyDelete
  49. I bow to you for posting the Robot video, what a corker! And dancing dolly birds snogging robots as well, what more could you ask for, cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  50. My favourite part is when they are arrested by the cops. For lighting a fire in the woods. They just don't make music videos like this anymore...........

    ReplyDelete
  51. Geoff, I wish we could get you Christmas gifts! Here's something I saw and thought of you.....:)

    www.amazon.com/Jolly-Christmas-Frank-Sinatra/dp/B000VTS8I6

    Or not....:)

    ReplyDelete
  52. Thats a lovely thought Tiffanye- though I am slightly worried that you thought of me when seeing A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra!

    ReplyDelete
  53. Only because whenever I mention him, you're so wonderfully, justifiably firm that you not a huge fan. So it'd be more of a joke gift. Imagine: it's Christmas music AND Frank Sinatra combined on one album - two forms of torture in one!

    ReplyDelete
  54. A grim thought! Though someone should do a compilation of Christmas songs that arent the usual Slade/Wizzard/Bing Crosby stuff. The 2 Christmas songs by Rotary Connection in the last column could be in it..

    ReplyDelete
  55. And don't forget this incredibly strange Christmas song by Bob Dylan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qE6WQmNus - very weird music video!

    ReplyDelete